From Washington:

May 24, 2012 / 04:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- As concerns over threats to religious liberty continue to mount, a growing Catholic organization aims to help lay men and women take action to protect conscience rights and religious freedom.

Maureen Ferguson, senior policy adviser for the newly launched Catholic Association, said the group serves as both “a voice for Catholics in the public square” and a way to educate Catholics on important issues.

Ferguson told CNA on May 23 that the association is currently focused on the defense of conscience rights, which she believes are currently facing serious threats in America.

Chief among those threats is a federal mandate issued by the Obama administration to force employers to offer health insurance plans that cover contraception, sterilization and abortion-causing drugs, even if doing so violates their consciences.

The mandate has been widely criticized by individuals and groups across the U.S., including bishops from every diocese in the country, who warned that it threatens religious freedom and could force Catholic hospitals, schools and charitable organizations to shut down.

Ferguson cautioned that the mandate will affect all Americans because the Church is the biggest non-government provider of education, health care and social services.

In discussing the mandate, the U.S. bishops “have repeatedly called on lay Catholics to step up to the plate” and work to defend freedom of conscience, she said.

The Catholic Association is trying to respond to bishops’ call by helping the lay faithful to speak out and act in support of religious liberty.

The organization is currently “preparing a campaign” to support the “Fortnight for Freedom” called for by the U.S. bishops from June 21 to July 4 in response to the current threats to religious liberty.

Dioceses across the country will launch initiatives aimed at prayer, education and public action for religious freedom during the fortnight.

Ferguson explained that The Catholic Association will be reaching out through television and internet efforts, as well as a social media campaign, to mobilize Catholics throughout the two-week period.

Go here for the rest of the story.

Reported from Denver (video at link):

May 22, 2012 / 12:59 pm

A Canadian pro-life group is retracing the steps that abortion activists took in the country during the 1970s, but with the goal of repealing local abortion laws.

“We want to take the language for choice and then expose it,” Stephanie Gray, executive director of the Canadian Center for Bio-ethical Reform, told CNA May 16.

The group, which is dedicated to “making abortion unthinkable” by engaging the public in discussions about the reality of abortion, will undertake its most ambitious campaign yet on May 29 with a cross-country educational tour.

The New Abortion Caravan will follow in the footsteps of abortion activists who engaged the public with a nearly identical campaign, called the Abortion Caravan, in the summer of 1970 to gain free abortions on demand and repeal pro-life laws.

By using disturbing imagery, having women to share emotional accounts of their experience with illegal abortion and presenting the act as a fundamental women’s right, the abortion advocates were able to achieve their goal.

The original Abortion Caravan, which visited provinces from Ottawa to Vancouver, significantly contributed to the repeal of anti-abortion laws 18 years later, resulting in free abortions on demand, paid for with Canadian taxes, through all nine months of pregnancy.

Gray is confident that the new tour – which follows the same route and is part of the organization’s larger campaign called End the Killing – will contribute to Canadians overturning abortion laws in the year 2030, precisely 18 years from now.

“We can end the killing and we can end it in our lifetime,” Gray said.

She noted that using similar rhetoric as abortion advocates is key, adding that the New Abortion Caravan hopes to “shift the debate from an abstract notion of choice” to the reality of abortion as “an act of violence which kills a baby.” …

Go here for the rest of the story.

From Ottawa, Canada:

May 15, 2012 / 11:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Canada’s 15th annual National March for Life has broken attendance records by a dramatic margin, due in part to rising youth participation in the country’s pro-life movement.

“It’s been growing every year by thousands. Last year we had 15,000, and this year we had 19,500,” Campaign Life Coalition National Coordinator Mary Ellen Douglas told CNA on May 14.

“It is a significant increase,” she said, noting that the pro-life movement was “constantly growing” in Canada. The May 10 march to Parliament Hill was part of a three-day event in Ottawa, which also included a candlelight vigil, prayer services and Masses, banquets and a youth conference.

Local marches also took place in at least four other provinces, protesting the 1969 legislative act that made abortion legal in Canada as well as the 1988 decision that left the country with no abortion restrictions.

“Over 60 percent of the people who attended the march were under 30,” Douglas said. “It was alive with young people, with lots of enthusiasm, and with other people who are long-term veterans.”

In addition to the remarks delivered by pro-life and religious leaders, 17 members of Parliament also addressed the crowd. Population Research Institute President Steve Mosher, a prominent opponent of China’s one-child policy, gave an address at the Rose Dinner on Thursday evening.

On that same evening, an 800-strong crowd attended the youth banquet with an address by Reformed Presbyterian minister Reverend Patrick J. Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition. A day-long youth conference followed on Friday.

“It’s getting the attention of the media, who are shocked by the numbers,” Douglas observed. “Even though they try to diminish them all the time, they notice. They know that we’re there in force.”

Douglas, a 40-year veteran of the movement, said the timing of this year’s march was “providential,” coinciding with a motion in Parliament by Conservative MP Steven Woodworth.

“This motion is calling on Parliament to bring together science and the law – because the law of Canada says you’re not a human being until you’re fully emerged from the womb.” …

Go here for the rest of the story.

From Rome:

May 13, 2012 / 06:19 pm

Nearly 7,000 pro-life advocates marched from Rome’s Colosseum to St. Peter’s Square on Sunday for the city’s inaugural March for Life.

“We’ve never seen anything like this in Rome, capital of Christianity, city of the Pope, city to which all Catholics in the world look,” march co-organizer Juan Miguel Montes said of the event.

American cardinal Raymond L. Burke led a group of priests in the march. He said it brought back memories for him of “so many marches” in America.

“They serve a very important function,” he told CNA, “first to give a witness in our whole country to the inviolable dignity of human life but second, to awake consciences to what is happening.”

The cardinal was “pleased” that such an event has finally reached Rome.

“I can only imagine that it will grow and increase every year and that it will be an important part in Italy, as it is in America, for the restoration of the respect for the dignity of human life,” he said.

The march was officially the second annual Italian national March for Life. The 2011 event was held in northern city of Desenzano, on Lake Garda.

This year’s initiative officially brought together 150 associations and a colorful mix of all ages and nationalities.

23-year old seminarian Garrett Nelson of the Diocese of Great Falls-Billings, Montana was on hand with a group of peers from Rome’s Pontifical North American College. For him, it was like the March for Life stateside, but with an extra quality.

“It’s been on a more universal level,” said Nelson. “You see the world coming together to defend the dignity of human life and how important that is. It’s really exciting to see the young and the youth movement of the Church growing up and defending the dignity of human life.” …

Go here for the rest of the story.

From Francisan University of Steubenville (HTs to Hot Air and Life News):

Campus Health Insurance Policy

The Obama Administration has mandated that all health insurance plans must cover “women’s health services” including contraception, sterilization, and abortion-causing medications as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Up to this time, Franciscan University has specifically excluded these services and products from its student health insurance policy, and we will not participate in a plan that requires us to violate the consistent teachings of the Catholic Church on the sacredness of human life.

Received from Rick Santorum’s campaign late last week:

Nearly four years ago, on May 13, 2008, Karen and I welcomed our youngest daughter, Isabella, into our family. As with the birth of any child, it was a joyous time, but was also not without its share of heartache as we learned more about Bella’s condition – Trisomy 18 – and the impact it would have on her and on our family for the rest of her life.

The news from doctors was bleak, and the odds were stacked against Bella. Of the 10% of babies with Trisomy 18 who survive birth, 90% won’t make it to their first birthday. Ten days after her birth, we brought Bella home, and doctors prepared us for how she was going to die. Frankly, this made us angry; Karen and I were not going to just let Bella go, we were going to fight to give her the opportunity and the chance to do as well as she could.

We did just that. We celebrated her life every day, and took nothing for granted, rejoicing in every day we had withher.

And since those early, difficult days, an amazing thing has happened: Bella has defied all of the odds. Nearly four years later, Bella is a ray of sunshine at the center of our family’s universe, every day inspiring our family with her joyful spirit.

(Background: Per Dictionary.com, “If the bone marrow or stem cells are taken from a donor, the transplant is referred to as allogeneic.”)

From Tel Aviv, Israel:

Pluristem Therapeutics Ltd. (Nasdaq:PSTI; DAX: PJT: PLTR)has announced that a seven year-old girl suffering from an aplastic bone marrow whose condition was rapidly deteriorating has seen a reversal of her condition. The improvement came due to a significant increase in her red cells, white cells and platelets following the intramuscular injection of Pluristem’s PLacental eXpanded (PLX) cells. Aplastic bone marrow is a disease where the patient has no blood-forming hematopoietic stem cells in the bone marrow.

Hadassah Medical Center Bone Marrow Transplantation, Cell Therapy and Transplantation Research Center director Prof. Reuven Or said, “With her body rejecting all possible treatment, and with no other options, we finally turned to Pluristem’s PLX cells, which literally saved her life. The results of this unique case indicate that PLX cells may be effective in treating other diseases that affect the bone marrow.”

The patient has been hospitalized at the Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Center in Jerusalem since August 2011. Her aplastic bone marrow had been refractory to treatment. So she underwent allogeneic stem cell transplantation from a matched unrelated donor. The first transplant was unsuccessful and the patient remained with bone marrow failure. The patient underwent a second allogeneic stem cell transplantation from a second donor. The bone marrow function was very poor and the patient suffered from recurrent infections.

Two months after the patient’s second bone marrow transplant, the child received PLX cells intramuscularly in two doses about one week apart. Some 10 days after the last administration of PLX cells, the patient’s hematological parameters began to significantly increase, an effect that has persisted to date. The patient’s general clinical status has also improved. Subsequent analysis has indicated that the PLX cells worked by stimulating the recovery of the hematopoietic stem cells contained in the second bone marrow transplant that she had received over two months earlier. Finally, after nine months of hospitalization, the child will be discharged from the hospital. …

Go here for the rest of the story

From Austin, Texas:

May 8, 2012 / 10:52 am

The “Call for Help” ad campaign on Black Entertainment Television is letting women in crisis pregnancy situations that there is help available and they are not alone.

Heroic Media CEO Brian Follett said the campaign was “a direct result of the support of individuals and families who believe that women deserve to learn about hopeful alternatives to abortion.”

Thanks to them, he said “people across the United States will see life-affirming messages daily on BET.”

Research by the the non-profit, pro-life ad agency has shown that commercials on the network “ are an effective means of reaching women with compassionate messages and connecting them with life-affirming pregnancy resources,” marketing director Marissa Gabrysch said in a May 7 announcement.

In the advertisement, targeted toward women facing abandonment or other consequences of an unplanned pregnancy, a woman tells viewers: “A baby is a life you created – a baby that will love you, and need you, in return.”

“So this pregnancy wasn’t planned. It’s going to be OK – really,” she says. “There are people that will help you, and services available … You don’t have to do this alone.” …

Go here for the rest of the story.

From Vatican City:

May 4, 2012 / 12:01 pm

Chiara, a young mother from Rome suffering from terminal cancer, deeply touched Pope Benedict with her story of opting to protect her third child by forgoing treatment.

The 28-year-old greeted the Pope at the conclusion of this week’s Wednesday General Audience on May 2, together with her 33-year-old husband Enrico.

The couple lost their two previous children – Maria, who suffered from anencephaly and lived only 30 minutes outside the womb, and David, who died hours after birth as he was born without legs or healthy internal organs.

In the case of their two deceased children, the couple refused abortion despite learning of their severe illnesses through pre-natal screening.

According to the Vatican daily L’Osservatore Romano, the couple greeted Benedict XVI and “were all smiles as they calmly told him the story of their young Christian family, their complete trust in providence and that they take the Gospel seriously, as they s

The original CNN story from three weeks ago (“Argentine ‘miracle’ baby found alive after death declaration”) is here.

Catholic News Agency has an update on Luz Milagros’s condition:

Buenos Aires, Argentina, May 1, 2012 / 04:02 pm (CNA).- Luz Milagros, the baby who was found alive after spending twelve hours in a morgue in Argentina, continues to improve and gain weight although she is still on a respirator.

According to an April 30 report by CNN, Luz now weighs two pounds and is no longer receiving inotropic drugs.

Although her condition is still serious, the progress she has made in recent days has given hope to her mother, Amalia Bouget, the rest of the family and the staff at Perrando Hospital in the province of Chaco.

According to the news agency, Luz’s three siblings are “anxiously awaiting” her at home to accompany her on the final stage of her recovery.

Amalia Bouget gave birth prematurely to Luz at 26 weeks of pregnancy. After being declared stillborn by doctors, the baby spent 12 hours in the freezing cold temperatures of the morgue with no food or clothing, before she was found alive.

Stories on Luz are also at the UK Daily Mail and CBS News.

At Volokh (HT Instapundit) Ilya Somin explains:

May Day began as a holiday for socialists and labor union activists, not just communists. But over time, the date was taken over by the Soviet Union and other communist regimes and used as a propaganda tool to prop up their regimes. I suggest that we instead use it as a day to commemorate those regimes’ millions of victims. The authoritative Black Book of Communism estimates the total at 80 to 100 million dead, greater than that caused by all other twentieth century tyrannies combined. We appropriately have a Holocaust Memorial Day. It is equally appropriate to commemorate the victims of the twentieth century’s other great totalitarian tyranny. And May Day is the most fitting day to do so. I suggest that May Day be turned into Victims of Communism Day …

Agreed.

The number of victims of communism are greater than those of the Holocaust (11 million – 17 million) — in two countries:

• China — 70 million (see below)
• Soviet Union — 20 million

And there is, in a sense, far more denial, at least in the Western world (Islamists thus excluded), at work with communism than there has ever been with Nazi Germany. It takes the form of the academics’ tired assertion that “Well, communism hasn’t ever really been tried,” or “the people who ran it didn’t do it right.”

Horse manure. Communism “properly” applied (and it has been applied in virtually “pure” from numerous times, with uniformly disastrous results) will always have to deal with the problem of those who won’t go along with the inevitable totalitarian regime which must accompany any attempt to universally impose communism. Mass imprisonment, “reeducation” camps, and mass murder are inevitable, unavoidable by-products. In the Internet era, you see it in eliminationist rhetoric found in blog posts, tweets, and Facebook comments. Enough of them to matter don’t want those with whom they disagree defeated intellectually; they want them humiliated, stalked, and threatened — and if that doesn’t work, they want them dead.

Bill Ayers fully expected that if his Weather Underground group ever took over the country they would have to kill off 25 million Americans who would resist their rule.

Communism’s record of mass murder is also to an extent accepted as necessary evils by leftist elites. If you doubt, see this post from 2005, wherein I ripped Nick Kristof at the New York Times for his Mao excuse-making (“Mao’s legacy is not all bad”) in his response to a groundbreaking book. That book, “Mao: The Untold Story,” demonstrated that the Chinese communist regime’s death toll was far greater than originally thought:

Mao was responsible for the deaths of well over 70 million Chinese in peacetime, and he was bent on dominating the world. As China is today emerging as an economic and military power, the world can never regard it as a benign force unless Beijing rejects Mao and all his legacies.

… Mao caused the greatest famine in history by exporting food to Russia to buy nuclear and arms industries: 38 million people were starved and slave-driven to death in 1958-61. Mao knew exactly what was happening, saying: “half of China may well have to die.”

From Life News:

4/30/12 9:53 AM

After months of pro-life protests and opposition, PepsiCo has indicated it will no longer contract with biotech firm Senomyx Inc., which uses cells from a baby killed in an abortion to conduct flavor testing.

The second largest beverage company in the world contracted with the firm in a $30 million deal in August 2010 and once Debi Vinnedge of the pro-life group Children of God for Life uncovered the connection, numerous pro-life groups, including LifeNews, joined together to promote a boycott of Pepsi until it ends the Senomyx contract.

Vinnedge informed LifeNews today of Pepsi’s decision and hailed it as a major breakthrough and achievement by thousands of concerned consumers who have been writing and boycotting PepsiCo beverages since last May.

In a letter to her group, PepsiCo’s VP of Global Public Policy, Paul Boykas stated that “Senomyx will not use HEK cells or any other tissues or cell lines derived from human embryos or fetuses for research performed on behalf of PepsiCo.”

“We took the matter very seriously,” stated Mr. Boykas. “We have an official Statement on Responsible Research and we intend to live by that policy.”

That policy precludes any research by PepsiCo — or third parties they fund — from using human tissue or cell lines derived from embryos or babies who are victimized by abortions.

Vinnedge told LifeNews the PepsiCo decision means an immediate end to the boycott that began in May 2011– welcome news to both PepsiCo and their customers who have abstained from their favorite beverages in protest.

“We are absolutely thrilled with PepsiCo’s decision. They have listened to their customers and have made both a wise and profound statement of corporate integrity that deserves the utmost respect, admiration and support of the public.” …

Go here for the full story.