Madrid, Spain, Mar 1, 2010 / 06:58 pm (CNA/Europa Press).- The secretary general of the Bishops’ Conference of Spain, Auxiliary Bishop Juan Antonio Martinez Camino, is calling for the country’s new law on abortion to “be abolished as soon as possible.”

The Spanish Senate voted last Wednesday to pass the Socialist government’s new law on abortion. The decision will allow women over the age of 16 to obtain the procedure up until the 14th week of pregnancy.

The auxiliary bishop, who is from Madrid, remarked that the Church “welcomes” and “will support” any mobilization in support of life and against this law, such as the marches planned for March 7 in Madrid and Bilbao. (more…)

Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines HQ

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has called for a ban on condom advertisements in public places, in print, and broadcast media, saying these commercials “weaken the moral fiber” of the youth.

The “multi-million dollar condom business… heavily targets the adolescent market, at the expense of morality and family life,” the CBCP said in a statement posted on its website on Wednesday.

The announcement came after the Department of Health distributed condoms last month.

“Condom advertisements should be banned on television, radio, movies, newspapers, magazines, and public places, as they desensitize the youth’s delicate conscience and weaken their moral fiber as future parents,” CBCP president Bishop Nereo Odchimar said in the same statement. (more…)

Language that has been used in support of a Bill to legalize euthanasia has almost always been worded so as to appear most humane.  Words such as “compassion”, “autonomy”, “dignity”, and expressions like “medical assistance in dying” or “medically recommended course of treatment” often pad the arguments and, unfortunately, deceive the unwary.  Consider the expression: “medical assistance in dying”, or “medically recommended course of treatment”.  The word “medical” comes from the Latin medicor, which means “to heal”.  To make someone die, by lethal injection for example, is not medical at all, despite it being administered by a medical doctor, but is radically anti-medical.  There are many linguistic traps like these, which is why we should become familiar with some of the basic principles of Catholic Life Ethics to help us see through some of the arguments of those who belong to the culture of death. (more…)

Since the birth of the first “test tube baby” in 1978, more than three million children have been born with the help of reproductive technology. Most of them are healthy. But as a group they’re at a higher risk for low birth weight, which is associated with obesity, hypertension and type 2 diabetes later in life.

Carmen Sapienza, a geneticist at Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia, is studying two groups of children—one comprising those conceived naturally, the other made up of children conceived via assisted reproductive technology—to identify epigenetic (changes in gene expression caused by molecular mechanisms other than mutations in the DNA sequence itself) differences among them. He is particularly interested in a chromosomal modification called “DNA methylation,” research he presented February 22 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “We found that 5 to 10 percent of these chromosome modifications were different in children born through assisted reproduction, and this altered the expression of nearby genes,” Sapienza says. Several of the genes whose expression differed between the two groups have been implicated in chronic metabolic disorders, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. (more…)

Eugene, OR (LifeNews.com) — A Planned Parenthood affiliate in southwestern Oregon will begin selling the dangerous abortion drug to women that has already claimed the lives of more than 13 women worldwide and injured thousands more. Planned Parenthood of Southwest Oregon will sell the mifepristone drug to women starting next month.

A study last year found 20 percent of women using the abortion drug face medical complications.

Planned Parenthood CEO Cynthia Pappas informed media outlets the abortion business will sell the abortion drug to women whose pregnancies are not yet at the ninth week.

Pappas said the coming retirement of more abortion practitioners makes it so Planned Parenthood needs to look more closely at increasing access to the dangerous abortion drug. She also indicated the decision makes abortion more available to rural women. (more…)

Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s license was temporarily suspended this week after investigators found blood on the floor, fetus parts in jars and a recovery area consisting of recliners.

Gosnell, 69, is named in nearly four dozen lawsuits going back 20 years. Ten are malpractice suits, including one by the family of a young woman who died after a March 2000 abortion at his West Philadelphia clinic.

Semika Shirelle Shaw called the office the day after her abortion because she was bleeding badly but wasn’t told to get checked there or at a hospital, according to court documents. The lawsuit alleged that Shaw, a 22-year-old mother of two, died two days later of a perforated uterus and sepsis. (more…)

WASHINGTON, DC, February 22, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new health care bill proposed by President Obama Monday threatens to expand abortion even more drastically than the health care bills stymied in Congress over the past several months, says the National Right to Life Committee.

The White House is threatening to ram the proposal through the Senate on a 51-vote majority using a tactic known as budget reconciliation.  The process circumvents the need for a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority by placing the health care overhaul under the heading of a “budget” bill.

“Any member of Congress who votes for the final legislation proposed by President Obama will be voting for direct federal funding of elective abortion through Community Health Centers, and also an array of other pro-abortion federal subsidies and mandates,” said NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson in a statement Monday. (more…)

The "Shop of Horrors". The West Philadelphia abortion center Women's Medical Society run by Kermit Gosnell.

Philadelphia, PA (LifeNews.com) — Officials investigating an abortion business in Philadelphia after a woman died from a botched legal abortion last November have made a grisly discovery. They found dozens of apparently late-term unborn children who were killed in abortions as long as 30 years ago.

The “Shop of Horrors” case involves the West Philadelphia abortion center Women’s Medical Society run by Kermit Gosnell.

Authorities were prompted to investigate Women’s Medical Society after an abortion patient died last November. Massive amounts of drugs found in the victim’s system led authorities to suspect Gosnell was illegally prescribing pain-killers.

Officials also suspected the woman died from the botched abortion in part because she had been treated by unlicensed personnel.

The State Board of Medicine says Gosnell had the unlicensed staff member vaginal exams and administer the drugs Demerol, Promethazine and Diazepam. He was eventually fined $1,000 for the violations. (more…)

New Findings on “PVS” Underscores Importance for Terri’s Day Mass

Contact: Margaret Sciarrino, Priests for Life, 718-980-4400 ext. 251; Bobby Schindler, Terri’s Foundation, 727-490-7603

NEW YORK, Feb. 23 /Christian Newswire/ — Terri’s Foundation and Priests for Life are happy to announce that Ave Maria University will once again host “The National Mass for Terri’s Day” at the Ave Maria Oratory at Ave Maria University, located near Naples, Florida.

Father Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, and Father Thomas Euteneuer, President of Human Life International, will be joined by many other priests and faithful for the Mass at 5 PM on Wednesday, March 31.

Priests for Life and Terri’s Foundation established the “International Day of Prayer and Remembrance for Terri Schindler Schiavo, and All of Our Vulnerable Brothers and Sisters” (“Terri’s Day”) two years ago. (more…)

Aukland, New Zealand, Feb 21, 2010 / 06:09 pm (CNA).- Pro-life doctors have gone to court to challenge new medical guidelines that require doctors to advise patients who have doubts about continuing a pregnancy that abortion is one of their options.

One of the doctors challenging the guidelines is believed to be Mary English, who is a General Practitioner from Wellington and the wife of Deputy Prime Minister Bill English. According to The New Zealand Herald, Dr. English is a Catholic whose opposition to abortion is widely known. She and her husband have six children.

The doctors filed an application in the country’s High Court concerning the New Zealand Medical Council guidelines, which are titled “Beliefs and Medical Practice.” (more…)