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UNITED STATES
Abortion pill approved
FDA allows distribution of RU-486
The US Food and Drug Administration approved the abortion drug RU-486 at the end of September for use in the country, seven years after President Bill Clinton ordered the agency to review the drug.
Pro-abortion activists trumpeted the decision as a victory for pro-abortionists. “As we celebrate this victory, we must remain vigilant,” National Abortion and Reproductive Rights League (NARAL) president Kate Michelman said in a statement. “We must ensure that our next president supports making this important reproductive health option available to American women,” she said. “We must also return the [US] House [of Representatives] to the hands of a leadership that will work to expand women’s reproductive health options, not curtail them.”
Of the two mainstream political candidates, Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic candidate, supports abortion on demand, while Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the Republican, does not. Bush’s father, former president George Bush, had banned the drug during his term of office.
The drug will be marketed in the US by Danco Laboratories under the name Mifeprex. One of the key results of the approval is that the drug can now be administered by doctors from their offices until the seventh week of pregnancy rather than requiring a visit to an abortionist.
National Right to Life (NRTL) suggested that there were political motives behind the FDA action. The group said that four months after the FDA “recognized the substantial risks” of the abortion pill, “the FDA has dropped most of these protections for women’s health. What has changed, other than a four-month campaign of political pressure by the abortion industry and its allies?”
“It’s not only unprecedented for the FDA to approve a drug with no therapeutic effects, but it’s unethical as well,” said Teresa Wagner of the Family Research Council.
The American Life League (ALL) called for Congressional hearings. “The US Congress must resolve to conduct oversight hearings at once so that the FDA is held accountable for this raw, inhumane decision that will destroy babies and maim women. We will not cease our efforts until personhood is restored to all Americans, and until women are protected from sadistic Big Abortion,” the group said.
Two congressmen went even further when they introduced legislation that would restrict the circumstances under which the abortion pill could be administered by doctors. Rep. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, and Sen. Tim Hutchinson, R-Arkansas, said the move came in response to the FDA “caving in” to pro-abortion groups. “Congress now has the unenviable task of correcting the FDA’s mistake,” Coburn said.
Under the FDA rules for prescribing the drug, doctors must be able to pinpoint the date of conception, rule out mothers with ectopic or tubal pregnancy, and be prepared to take surgical steps to complete the abortion of the child or stop the bleeding in the case of problems. Mothers must also sign a form agreeing to the necessary three doctor visits. Under the proposal from Coburn and Hutchinson, the prescribing physician would be required to be legally empowered and trained to perform an abortion, properly trained in the drug’s administration, and have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.
Abortion advocates immediately labeled the regulations as too restrictive. Kate Michelman said the legislation would “in effect negate the ability of doctors to prescribe this option for women.” While Coburn said he hoped the bill would receive a House vote in the waning days of the current session, Hutchinson said he expected to have a hearing and then pursue the issue next year.
Meanwhile, the pro-life group Human Life International revealed that the US patent holders for RU-486, the non-profit Population Council, have contracted with a Chinese pharmaceutical company to produce the drug for distribution in the US. Pro-life groups reacted with outrage to the news that the pill will be manufactured in China, which has a strict one-child per family policy and engages in forced abortions.
“The Clinton Administration has teamed up with the world’s most infamous baby-killer—Communist China —to produce the abortion chemical, RU-486,” said Judie Brown, president of ALL. “No wonder the FDA tried to keep secret the source of these baby-destroying chemicals.”
Danco contracted with a Chinese pharmaceutical company to manufacture the drug after US and European manufacturers refused to touch the controversial abortifacient. “Now that the FDA has approved the abortion pill in the US, our cooperation with our US partner to export the drug can be launched smoothly,” said an official at the Shanghai Hua Lian Pharmaceutical Co.’s Import & Export.
Rep. Christopher Smith, R-New Jersey, an ardent Catholic pro-lifer, denounced the arrangement with China, a country he has accused of committing crimes against humanity for requiring abortions as a population control measure. “The company that produces baby poison for enforced abortion in China will now be producing it for American women,” said Smith. “The Chinese government will make money on the killing of unborn children in America. . . . This is an outrage.”
Father Habiger said the deal “means that Communist China has invested in the death of pre-born children in the United States of America.” He also noted that the name of the Chinese manufacturer of Mifeprex was announced on October 10, the day after President Clinton signed a new law setting up permanent normal trade relations with China, which he claimed would help build “a safer, more integrated world.”
Pro-life groups also noted that the original French developer of RU-486, Rousell-Uclaf, has as its parent company the German firm Hoescht AG, which manufactured the poison gas Zyklon B used in Nazi concentration camps when the company was named IG Farben. Twelve IG Farben executives were convicted of crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg trials.
“RU-486 was manufactured for the purpose of killing children. This new abortion pill being prepared for sale in the United States comes with its particular deadly history of mass extermination from former Nazi Germany and Communist China,” concluded Father Habiger. “In fact, the manufacturing label for the United States should read: ‘With greetings from Communist China and former Nazi Germany.’”
Boy Scouts under attack
Supporters rally against critics of organization
A homosexual activist group has said that it plans to lobby school districts across the country to stop their affiliation with the Boy Scouts of America because of its policy banning homosexuals.
The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network said at its annual conference that the goal is to end the “unique and special access” the Boy Scouts have in schools. “The Boy Scouts can present in someone’s homeroom, they can get the school lists of students, they can have posters in the halls,” said M.K. Cullen, the group’s public policy director. “It’s a very unique, special access that most other clubs do not enjoy, and at the same time they are a discriminatory club.”
The US Supreme Court ruled in June that the Boy Scouts’ policy banning homosexual scout leaders is constitutional. Since then, homosexual groups have been working to undermine support for the organization at all levels of society, from schools, to governments, to corporations.
“We recognize the right of people to disagree with us and disagree with our positions. We simply ask those people to have tolerance of our values and our beliefs even though they differ from theirs,” said Gregg Shields, national spokesman for the Boy Scouts of America. Local Boy Scout troops merely ask for the same access to schools other charitable organizations receive, Shields said.
A few school districts already have severed relationships with the Scouts because of the ban on gays. A New York City school board voted last week to bar its 42 schools from sponsoring troops. And education officials in Davis, California, told the Boy Scouts last year that they could no longer send notes home with students or use bulletin boards to recruit members.
However, the campaign against the Scouts took an unexpected turn with a backlash in support of the Scouts from parents, business leaders, and conservative groups who have organized a counter-campaign.
In Tempe, Arizona, the city council rejected an attempt to prevent city workers’ donations to the United Way from going to the Scouts after dozens of residents objected. The city’s openly gay mayor, Neil Guiliano, is now the subject of a recall campaign because of his support for the idea.
In Florida, conservatives have vowed to remove members of the Fort Lauderdale City Commission who cancelled a grant to the local Scout organization. “This time they’ve gone too far, and it’s going to hurt them,” said Janet Folger of the Center for Reclaiming America. “We’re going to be looking to remedy this assault through the electoral process.”
In Kentucky, numerous donors to the United Way of the Bluegrass threatened to stop contributions if the charity cut off its funding to the Boy Scouts. The United Way decided to continue supporting the Scouts. In Eugene, Oregon, a school district’s ban on Boy Scout recruiting at schools was lifted following complaints. The superintendent and school board chairman apologized for not seeking opinions from the public before the ban was imposed. In Indiana, a conservative organization is raising $17,000 to help the Boy Scouts’ Hoosier Trails Council offset the loss of funding from the United Way of Monroe County.
Other efforts to punish the Scouts for their stance continue across the country, but the group said they don’t believe it has affected recruiting or donations. BSA spokesman Shields said recent start-of-school recruitment drives went well, and he described overall support for the Scouts as solid.
Planned Parenthood misuses funds
US taxpayer funds used for abortion
The International Planned Parenthood Federation admitted at the beginning of October it violated US law and used US taxpayer funds to perform abortions in India and Uganda.
IPPF receives about $5 million for international “family planning” programs from the federal government each year, and spent about $700,000 on the abortion programs in India and Uganda where abortion is illegal except to save the life of the mother. In response, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms, R-North Carolina, sent a letter to President Clinton demanding he reconsider his support of taxpayer-funded foreign abortions.
According to the US government’s current “Mexico City” policy, US funds cannot be given to groups that perform or promote abortions overseas. In the current budget, all groups receiving the population control funding had to certify that they would comply with the policy. A pool of $15 million, out of a total budget of $372 million, was set aside for groups that refused to “certify” yet still promised not to use US money for abortion.
According to a recent report from the Congressional Research Service, as of mid-August, 488 groups had “certified” they would not use American money for abortion. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the agency responsible for US population control policies and the funding agency for overseas groups, said another 250 groups are expected to “certify.”
IPPF has repaid $700,000 in US grants that went for abortion and abortion advocacy. This comes in the face of a congressional audit spearheaded by the Helms Committee. Senate Foreign Relations Committee spokesman Marc Thiessen told the Washington Times, “There have been serious concerns for many years about IPPF and its affiliates using USAID funds for abortion-related activities, and there is now proof that IPPF violated their own agreement with the US government.”
Thiessen also charged that “current family planning restrictions are little more than administrative window dressing.” Another congressional staff member said, “IPPF did not stop at merely denouncing our laws, it has broken them too.” He also said IPPF could be disciplined by USAID for misusing US funds.
When questioned about the violation, IPPF defiantly called abortion a basic “human right” and blamed auditors from the US General Accounting Office for making “us believe we were not in a position to sign” the provision of the Mexico City Policy.
Mark DeYoung, director of World Life League, said, “The time has come to cut all US taxpayer dollars from Planned Parenthood.”
“IPPF receives millions of dollars to kill the preborn children of poor women of color throughout the developing world,” DeYoung said. “If most Americans knew about the genocidal underpinnings of IPPF, they would shudder to think that their tax dollars have supported it.”
Diocese changes adoration rules
Regular exposition banned
The Diocese of St. Petersburg has issued new guidelines that, on September 1, ended the practice of perpetual exposition of the Blessed Sacrament in parishes, and only allows worship of the Eucharist reserved in tabernacles.
The guidelines, “Concerning Eucharistic Adoration, Exposition, and Benediction,” survey Church history on the theology of the Eucharist, noting that the current practice of worshiping the exposed Sacrament arose only in the 13th century. That contradicts other historians and theologians who trace the practice back to the sixth century in Spain. The guidelines, which were sent to priests of the diocese in a June 12 letter from Bishop Robert Lynch, also claim that the focus on the Real Presence in the Eucharist overshadows the presence of Christ in the minister, the Word proclaimed, other sacraments, and the participation of the faithful.
The directive says that exposition of the Blessed Sacrament should take place within a fixed period of time in a liturgical service such as Benediction, or for a period of one or more days annually.
For parishes that wish to inaugurate adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, the document says they should “reflect on . . . their commitment of time and money to social services.” Among other reflections, they should ask, “Are they as respectful and reverent toward Christ’s presence in the gathered Body, the Church, as they are to the presence of Christ in the Sacrament? . . . Does the eucharistic bread look like bread? . . . Do the eucharistic ministers reflect the parish, i.e., inclusive of age, ethnicity, and gender?”
Guidelines on pro-abortion politicians
Bishop bans speakers who favor abortion
Bishop James McHugh of Rockville Centre, Long Island, New York, has sent a letter to all the priests in his diocese laying out a policy banning pro-abortion politicians from the premises of Catholic institutions in the diocese.
In his September 21 letter, the bishop writes that “The policy...means that no pro-abortion public official or candidate is to be invited to address Catholic agencies or organizations, school or parish groups, even if he/she does not intend to express their pro-abortion views.” The bishop explains, “The reason for this is that it would be foolish and counterproductive to provide a platform to those who favor or support a public policy of abortion on demand or of euthanasia or assisted suicide. It would also be extremely misleading to provide such persons a platform to promote their views, even on other issues, lest they claim that the Church somehow implicitly tolerates their rejection of Church teaching on pro-life issues.”
The directive, which was to “take effect immediately” was not limited to politicians. It noted that “those who are pro-abortion or claim to be personally opposed to abortion but unwilling to integrate their moral principles with civic responsibilities are not to be given leadership positions in the diocese parish or other church agencies or organizations, nor to exercise any liturgical ministry.” He states further, “Parishes and other diocesan agencies or organizations should not bestow public honors or privileges of any type on such persons.” The directive also bans abortion supporters from speaking at graduation ceremonies, celebrated lectures, and from sitting as honorary chairmen of events such as fundraisers.
At the outset of the letter, Bishop McHugh reminds his priests, “We are not just private citizens but representatives of the Catholic Church.” Although he says, “There is to be no mention, for or against, any candidate for public office from the pulpit,” he urges priests to “call attention to the culture of death,” including “the contradiction of claiming to be a faithful Catholic while rejecting the teaching of the Church.”
The letter resulted in the cancellation of 19 candidates’ forums that had been set up by Catholic Charities.
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