Breaking: Obama admin widens abortifacient birth control mandate to college students

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 16, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a move that is likely to reignite the ire of religious leaders, late Friday afternoon the Obama administration announced a proposal that would require universities, including religious universities, to provide contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs to their students, as well as their employees, without a co-pay. This appears to significantly widen the originally-announced HHS mandate, which had only applied to employees.

The White House released the 32-page proposal late Friday afternoon. It outlines three different options to ensure that the health plans for employees and students of religious organizations cover birth control, including abortifacient drugs, and sterilizations, without co-pay.

The proposal, particularly the widening of the mandate to cover students, was met with simultaneous statements of support from members of the abortion lobby.

“Women who buy health insurance from their college or university will have access to affordable birth control, just like women who receive health insurance from their employer,” Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards said in an online press release.

“Covering birth control with no co-pays means college students will not have to choose between paying for tuition and books, or paying for basic health care like birth control.”

Click “like” if you want to end abortion!

“Today the Obama administration took the next step in making sure women get insurance coverage of contraception,” agreed Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America.

“Unfortunately, some politicians and their allies want to take away contraceptive coverage from nurses, janitors, administrative staff, and college instructors,” Keenan said. “They risk losing even more public support if they continue to politicize women’s health through legislative attacks or mean-spirited and disparaging rhetoric on talk radio or in other channels.”

As has happened in the case of announcements from the Obama administration about its birth control mandate in the past, supporters of the mandate issued laudatory statements immediately following the release of the proposal, while opponents were left scrambling trying to make sense of it.

LifeSiteNews.com spoke to a media spokesperson at Alliance Defense Fund, a legal organization that has been leading the charge against the Obama admin’s mandate. The spokesperson explained that ADF attorneys were still sifting through today’s document and weren’t yet prepared to comment.

Sister Mary Ann Walsh, spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said she found it unusual the announcement came as part of a Friday news dump on the eve of St. Patrick’s Day.

“I am surprised that such important information would be announced late Friday of St. Patrick’s Day Weekend and as we prepare for the fourth Sunday of Lent,” she said.

“The bishops will begin analyzing it immediately but now is too soon to know what it actually says. The bishops will consider how the proposal gels with the principles outlined in United for Religious Liberty, the statement that the USCCB Administrative Committee issued March 14.”

Both she and Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association, declined to offer any further statement to media Friday afternoon, saying they needed more time to study the proposal.

Sr. Keehan’s silence stands in sharp contrast to her prior knowledge and endorsement of the president’s February 10 “accommodation.”

The public may comment on this proposal for the next 90 days. To submit a comment, click here. Follow the instructions under the “More Search Options” tab.

Comments may also be sent via snail mail to:

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
Department of Health and Human Services
Attention: CMS-9968-ANPRM
P.O. Box 8016
Baltimore, MD 21244-1850.

Santorum: thank you for the contraception conversation

If a year ago, you told me that Americans would be discussing the pros and cons of  the use of contraception in every major news outlet, I would have questioned your sanity. Before I was old enough to vote, a series of Supreme Court decisions had legalized contraception, and during my single years, contraception became the easiest and cheapest medication available.It was pushed at me from every angle, whether I wanted it or not.  It was considered a must for healthy living, as necessary as your toothpaste or vitamins. The debate was declared officially over.
Now, thanks to Rick Santorum's bold comments in 2006

“I don’t think it works, I think it’s harmful to women, I think it’s harmful to our society, to have a society that says that sex outside of marriage is something that should be encouraged or tolerated, particularly among the young, and I think we’ve seen very, very harmful long term consequences to society,” said Santorum in a 2006 interview

 Santorum did the unthinkable;  he dared to call into question the accepted wisdom of society on contraception, all hell has broken loose. Look at the culture of death, its beside itself with rage over this issue!

 And we are all talking about contraception.On TV, on the radio, in the papers, on the web, and over the back fence.  And, contrary to conventional wisdom, that convention is a gotcha issue, toxic to a presidential campaign, its become a powerful unifying force according to Kathleen Gilbert at Life Site News;

The controversy could be seen as pumping renewed energy into America’s conservative religious identity, and by extension, its most religiously conservative candidate. The latest Pew Research Center poll found Santorum ahead of Romney nationally by two points, 30-28%.
The events are a felicitous twist for the senator who entered the race with a plan to enter territory few politicians are wont to go. Even before the mandate became front-and-center news last month, Santorum had already signaled that he was planning on bringing his views about contraception to the surface.
“One of the things I will talk about that no president has talked about before is I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea,” he said in an October interview.
As Rubin noted in her recent column, Santorum’s heretofore obscure effort has wound up radically successful. “Santorum’s beliefs about contraception have injected Catholic theology into a presidential campaign season that was supposed to be all about the economy,” she wrote.

I  believe that because forty years of contraception on demand has so negatively affected women's health (read Dr Gerard Nadal on how the WHO considers the pill a Class 1 carcinogen) and relationships (the steep decline of marriage and the objectification of women  is directly related to removing procreation from sexual relations) that we as a society are beginning to realize that the Catholic Church was right when she alone remained the only Church to maintain the ban on contraception.Before the Lambeth Conference of 1930 ALL major religious groups banned contraception. And,  disobedient Catholics, as well as our non-Catholic bretheren may be rethinking the wisdom of Humanae Vitae, thanks be to God.
We can thank Obama for the resplendent display of ecumenical unity against the HHS mandate, with the "We are all Catholic" now movement, but without those courageous comments by Santorum setting off a firestorm once they surfaced in an attempt to discredit him as a viable candidate, I doubt this conversation would be taking place.
Catholics, make good use of this evangelical opportunity of a lifetime. Remember it was the Church's stand on contraception which brought us outstanding converts like Dr Scott and Kimberly Hahn. When the Church shows her wisdom boldly,   it is irresistible. People who at first rant and rave, are really listening. And hearts will change if we continue to proclaim the truth that contraception is wrong with clarity and without shame.

Read the entire Life Site Article here. 

Just don't buy her a turkey sandwich!!

As an inner city high school teacher in the minority community, I saw it every week. A teacher taking a student for an abortion.They were lauded as heroes in Long Island high schools. Twice, I was asked  to translate Planned Parenthood's lies into Spanish to help ruin my students' lives or risk losing my job (both times I prayed and was spared this choice, a story for another post)
 Planned Parenthood recruited the best and the brightest of my students to be 'peer counselors' or more plainly, marketers for abortions in the Latina community.The bilingual history teacher had a huge poster of his hero, Margaret Sanger on his classroom wall. I spoke  with the students about the ramifications of abortion and was rewarded with unemployment. Such is the state of affairs in your local public high school. But times are changing, thanks to our Presidents's fatal blunder on the HHS Mandate, these evil deeds are up for discussion again. He thinks we are OK with contraception for minors and contraception paid for by the Catholic Church. He is about to get the shock of his life!

Here's an unsurprising article about a teacher obtaining a Plan B chemical abortion pill for a student. Abortions obtained without the underage girls' parents' knowledge is old news. She is the victim of sexual abuse, Planned Parenthood helps her lie and cover up for her abuser, and its old news. But now, thanks to the HHS mandate controversy, a new audience has arisen to listen to the litany of abuses perpetrated by the merchants of death upon young women.
You are getting a new opportunity to show you care that the pill is defined by the World Health Organization as a carcigogen. That the pill is a leading cause, along with abortion, of the scourge of breast cancer, and organizations like Susan B Komen have NO BUSINESS funding it if they truly care about women's health. Don't believe me, read my microbiologist friend, Dr Gerard Nadal. 
Catholics and their supporters against the HHS Mandate have a teachable moment in that the American public has been lied to since the Pill came out in the sixities. Now the nation is talking about the forbidden subject, and its time to get the facts out there. Learn the facts, speak out boldly America!

Women deserve better than the pill.

What's with the focus on contraception?

Martin Bashir on MSNBC was postulating that Santorum SuperPac funder Foster Friess' reference to contraception means the end of Santorum's campaign. At least his liberal panel, who were salivating at the prospect of taking out Santorum, agreed. Jonathan Alter said, in effect, just give it time, we will make contraception an election-winning issue. These pundits are jumping ahead of the game, according to Ann Coulter who has made the argument that making social issues like contraception prevalent, is Obama's way of giving Santorum the nomination, since he will be easier to beat than Romney in the general election.

I disagree in my piece over at Catholic Lane. 

Obama finally crosses the line with HHS contraception mandate

I felt a curious sense of elation while reading the outpouring of outrage over the HHS mandate that Catholic institutions have one year to offer contraceptive coverage to employees and patients. I was pleasantly surprised to note that outrage has come not only from the expected sources like USCCB Head Cardinal Designate Timothy Dolan    but even some surprising quarters like Cardinal Roger Mahony and EJDionne. who said,

Speaking as a Catholic, I wish the Church would be more open on the contraception question. But speaking as an American liberal who believes that religious pluralism imposes certain obligations on government, I think the Church’s leaders had a right to ask for broader relief from a contraception mandate that would require it to act against its own teachings. The administration should have done more to balance the competing liberty interests here.

One of my favorite quotes on this situation is "Obama has done what the Pope has failed to do, unite US Bishops". Reading this I began to understand my positive feelings toward what is clearly a threat to the First Amendment rights of Catholics. I am pleased to see Catholics of all stripes actually care about the fact that our institutions will be forced to provide contraception/abortifacients for our patients and employees. Read a roundup of reactions to the mandate at MercatorNet article here. 

Like most orthodox Catholics I have become a bit cynical over thedecades of Catholic indifference on the contraception issue. You don't have to go any further than TV/radio host Sean Hannity to see a Catholic passionately justify his flouting of Church teaching.  Here are some of my experiences of how casually the Church's ban on contraception has disregarded.

Twenty years ago, a Catholic nun was running a health fair in my parish on Long Island. I suggested that a couple who teach Natural Family Planning run a booth helping young couples like my new husband and I plan our families with respect for Church teaching. She gave me a disdainful look and reminded me that the parish allowed her to work as a social worker for federal funds, and that precluded her from doing anything "Catholic" like NFP.

I was not stunned, I had seen the same phenomenon as a social worker at Catholic Charities in the eighties. When a church or social service agency accepts government funds it accepts government control. The difference is, up until now the encroachments have been gradual and voluntarily accepted by the faithful themselves. After all, how many Catholics entered that health fair seeking Natural Family Planning?

When my husband and I took the diocesan course in preparation for marriage, half the couples were using NFP because too many years of contraceptives had left them sterile. Few were doing it in obedience to Humanae Vitae. In fact, NFP training should have been part of our Pre-Cana program, but the couple running the program admitted they used the pill and it "worked for them".I didn't bother reporting this to the pastor of the parish, I knew I would be met with a shrug.

A great majority of Catholics have disregarded Church teaching on contraception, in fact the Sisters of Mercy who taught me at the all girls high school I attended, instructed us on how to use it and where to obtain it, warning us not to let our parents see our notebooks. My mother did, and was horrified.

Contraception has been widely accepted in the Catholic community for nearly half a century. So why the fuss over the HHS mandate that Catholic institutions provide contraception for its employees?  Perhaps we as a Church thought it was our dirty little secret. We convinced ourselves that no one outside knew how few Catholics actually obeyed this Church teaching to have the marital act be perpetually open to life. Except the research arm of Planned Parenthood, the Guttmacher Institute who reported last spring in the Huffington Post that 98% of Catholic women have used contraceptives. They have been dispensing contraceptives to Catholics for decades.Shame on us! So now we are outraged to be forced to do what we have been volunteering to do for half a century.

Elizabeth Scalia explains.

With the administration’s decision, the covert culture of death has finally made a truly overt move against the culture of life. 

PP Director Cecile Richards with Obama

 Obama just had the arrogance to think we wouldn't care if he was open about it. After all, when Rick Santorum explained how contraception led us to the legalization of abortion, Catholics yawned while the media attacked him. So Obama assumed, carefully advised by liberal Catholics friendly to his administration who helped him get Obamacare approved, that just one more push and he'd have Catholics on the ropes. No one cares about contraception, then we can use this mandate to force abortion down the line.

After all, it worked for Bill Baird an abortion clinic owner whose case in the Supreme Court made it legal for unmarried couples to obtain contraception, creating a gold mine for abortionists like himself.
Here's a little history of Bill Baird's activism from the website "The Pro-Choice League". Note how birth control leads to abortion.

Some facts about Pro Choice League's founder Bill Baird:March 22 is the anniversary of Baird v. Eisenstadt, his 1972 U.S. Supreme Court case that legalized birth control for all Americans (replacing the 1965 decision for married couples only).  Baird v. Eisenstadt was a landmark case that became the bedrock of countless privacy cases such as Roe v. Wade and the gay rights victory Lawrence v. Texas (2003).  1964  - Baird established the nation's first aboveground abortion referral and birth control clinic (Well before abortion was legal facing a potential 10-year jail term). 1965 - Baird led the first demonstration ever outside of St. Patrick's Cathedral against the Church's stance against birth control for all citizens not only Catholics. 1965 - Established the nation's first birth control and abortion club on a college campus (Hofstra University - NY) 1965 & 1966 Challenged anti-birth control statutes in New York and then New Jersey for which he was arrested and jailed. 1967 - established the nation's first "abortion slush fund" to help students pay for illegal abortions. 1967 Baird led another march against the Catholic Church saying "... no religion has a right to impose its dogma on others."

Note how his activism lead to the legalization of all kinds of perversion from abortion to homosexuality. When Catholics disregarded Humanae Vitae in the sixties, they gave Bill Baird, Planned Parenthood, their ally,  Barack Obama the abortion president, the opening they needed to slowly and covertly undermine the Church's influence on the culture.
 Until Humanae Vitae in 1967, Catholics were holding the line on morality, keeping sexuality largely inside marriage, but our hedonism and love of government money provided the opening for the intolerable situation we find ourselves in today, where our Catholic institutions will have to pay for contraceptives and abortificients. Its time to shut the barn door, but the horse has already escaped.

Senator Marco Rubio

Rick and Bella Santorum

I am grateful for the opportunity to see my Church unite behind this issue and hope it becomes a teachable moment on how our own sinfulness created this weakness which Obama so wickedly exploited. I bet he and his staff are shocked at the amount of outrage they created, and are hoping it dies down in time for the election.

Thanks to Senator Marco Rubio, son of Cuban refugees and no stranger to creeping religious oppression, for introducing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 2012. 
Rick Santorum and Marco Rubio have shown the moral courage which the Kennedys  and the Cuomos lacked when abortion was overtaking our formerly moral culture. They along with bishops like Robert Tobin of Rhode Island, Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia,  and Fabian Bruskewitz of Nebraska have long held such Catholic politicians' feet to the fire on life issues. Now the Johnnny-come-latelies are at long last realizing where ignoring the Church's teaching on contraception has led. May this moment be one of conversion of all hearts on this issue, and bond us together into a force for authentic moral reform in this nation. This is what can save America from total implosion.

The condom conumdrum is a moot point

Dr Gerard Nadal is not an armchair theologian like some of my commenters on the previous post. He is a microbiologist, and sticks to his area of expertise; HIV transmission. According to the good doctor, condoms are not enough to prevent the spread of HIV:

So the truth of the matter is that condoms have a much, much, higher failure rate than 15% during typical use. In dealing with the transmissibility of HIV, this is catastrophic.

IF you really love someone; you abstain. Period.

Will anyone hear his rational point of view amidst the cacaphony of voices unleased by the Holy Father's comments? Pope Benedict was not recommending condoms, he was merely saying any act towards protecting another is moving towards morality, it shows an awakening of the moral sensibility. No one said it overrides the immoratliy of homosexual acts, or contraceptive acts.
It was meant to make a hypothetical point, which is importnt to understand particularly if condoms are as ineffective as Dr Nadal maintains.
Read  his entire post here.

Bill Donohue on the Condom Controversy

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the pope's recent remarks on condoms:

Pope Benedict XVI acknowledges that condoms may make sense in preventing the transmission of disease, and he immediately sets off a firestorm. But he never said condoms are an acceptable means of birth control, nor did he say that they are the answer to HIV/AIDS. Indeed, he said he opposed the widespread use of condoms because that "implies the banalization of sexuality." He also criticized the "fixation" on condoms as a means of combating AIDS.

While what the Holy Father said is newsworthy, it was not revolutionary. Even with regards to the birth control pill, theCatholic Church has allowed for exceptions. In his 1968 encyclical, Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI said, "the Church does not consider at all illicit the use of those therapeutic means necessary to cure bodily diseases, even if a foreseeable impediment to procreation should result there from—provided such impediment is not directly intended for any motive whatsoever." Moreover, the Church accepts the use of hormonal contraception to treat endometriosis.

We have been asked by the media what the Catholic League's position is on this issue. This misunderstands our role: we don't have a position on any Church teaching—we simply accept their wisdom and defend the right of the Church to have its voice heard with respect in the public square. We therefore stand proudly behind the pope's comments on condoms. (emphasis mine; I love the way he states this; its not his or any layman or clergy's role to have a 'position' on the pope's statements on morality. We are to obey and defend the wisdom of Peter). 

Clearing up the Condom Controversy

It  took me by surprise this Saturday, seeing that Fox News reporting that the Holy Father had approved the use of condoms for prostitutes. I was flabbergasted, and went online to see rumors flying thick on social networks. It was a topic for discussion among adults at the Sunday Church gatherings, and I was refusing to comment,  waiting till one came which I felt was helpful.So, if you are just hearing this 'news' relax, it as a leak of a book length interview called, Light of the World,  to be released tomorrow from Ignatius Press. Pope Benedict spoke with a German reporter, and like his Regensberg talk which stirred so much controversy when it was taken out of context,  shows how little the mainstream press understands the heart of the Church.
The quotes are were leaked by L'Osservatore Romano.

"There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality."

The interviewer asked the Pontiff, "Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?"

The Holy Father replied, "She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality." (emphasis mine)

Dr Janet Smith, professor at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, and bioethics expert,  provides not only context and accurate quotes of the Holy Father's words but a useful analogy;

An analogy: If someone was going to rob a bank and was determined to use a gun, it would better for that person to use a gun that had no bullets in it. It would reduce the likelihood of fatal injuries. But it is not the task of the Church to instruct potential bank robbers how to rob banks more safely and certainly not the task of the Church to support programs of providing potential bank robbers with guns that could not use bullets.

Nonetheless, the intent of a bank robber to rob a bank in a way that is safer for the employees and customers of the bank may indicate an element of moral responsibility that could be a step towards eventual understanding of the immorality of bank robbing.

I see this as saying. "Holy Mother Church has always stated that homosexual acts, (which are surely what the Holy meant to reference when he said 'male prostitute') are intrinsically evil. A mortal sin. Although using a condom is not contracepting in homosexual acts which are not procreative by their nature, the fact that the prostitute is showing concern for his sexual partner's health is a step in the right direction towards morality.No one is saying that using condoms is suddenly a moral act. Of course, we hope and pray that the man repents and lives a faithful chaste life.That is our focus to guide the faithful. "

Pope John Paul in Familiaris Consortio spoke of incremental steps toward moral behavior:

 What is needed is a continuous, permanent conversion which, while requiring an interior detachment from every evil and an adherence to good in its fullness, is brought about concretely in steps which lead us ever forward.(emphasis mine)

 In other words, it would be worse if a male prostitute would engage is homosexual acts knowing he could be giving HIV to his client. Showing a little concern  is better than none, but it does not make the act itself morally acceptable, nor does it make condom use in other cases acceptable.The reports that condoms are OK'ed by the Pope show a lack of understanding of Church teaching. In a society where even Catholics do not understand the reasons behind the Church's prohibition of contraception, it is not a suprise that reporters would make the same mistake pursuing what seemed like a big news story.

Read the entire article here. 

The Pill is poison for women

This article by expert Dr Janet Smith details the destructive history of the Pill. Nothing has done more to destroy women's happiness, health and esteem in only fifty years. The Pill not only causes cancer, changes women's bodies, and damages the environment, it destroys lives.

As a result of our sexually out-of-control culture, we have an abysmally unhappy and wounded populace. Certainly the men and women in and out of sexual relationships, carrying and sharing incurable sexually transmitted infections, suffering heartbreak and desolation, and enduring abortions are dreadfully wounded by their sexual behavior.

Read the entire story at Our Sunday Visitor.

Obama's plan to make Americans dependent on government

The Vortex is right, and people from Rush Limbagh to Rick Santorum are saying it; the Obama Administration wants total control over us by helping us surrender to our baser nature.
Sin enslaves, and then when society is in ruins (not far away) then we need government to clean up the mess. There goes our freedom.

Why Humanae Vitae was right

Jenn Giroux says that Humanae Vitae was right, after spending 24 years as a nurse and watching women suffer the consequences of contraception.
Read the entire column on Renew America.

When it really costs us to be Catholic: Belmont Abbey College

The President of Belmont Abbey College has done a fantastic job of recovering the college's Catholic identity. Enter in the anti-Catholic bigots, who have decreed that Belmont Abbey must cover something the Catholic Church has forbidden in it's employee health care plan.
Birth control.
Would a Muslim or Jewish University be forced to serve pork?
No, however, its always open season on authentically Catholic institutions.
Take heart, Belmont Abbey, it means you are serving God well when the devil takes an interest in you.
Here's a column in the Wall Street Journal by Patrick Reilly of the Cardinal Newman Society. The EEOC ruled that contraceptives were mandated by a law covering pregnancy discrimination. Say what?! Reilly explains.
"The difference, however, between the EEOC's guidance and the North Carolina law is that the latter exempts religious employers such as a Catholic college, whereas the commission fails to consider that the tenets of a faith may preclude an institution from offering such benefits.
And that's the rub: Increasingly it is clear to Catholics and other religious groups that without very clear exemptions for religious employers—and conscience protections for individual doctors, nurses, pharmacists—federal health-care laws and guidelines could severely restrict religious freedom in the U.S."

Obama's pro-life legislation missed the point

It's the old "if you want this, you'll have to vote for that" routine. Hope and change my foot.
The White House wants to force contraception and comprehensive sex ed on us in exchange for financial support of pregnant women. To the world it sounds good; contraception and sex ed prevent pregnancy, right? WRONG!Dr Janet Smith professor at Detroit Seminary settled this question decisively with her famous talk, "Contraception Why Not?"
"Has it(contraception) made for fewer unwanted pregnancies? The statistics on this are wild. In 1960, some 6% of white babies were born out of wedlock. Six percent. In 1992, 22% of white babies were born out of wedlock. Almost a four-fold increase, and it's rapidly rising. Rapidly rising. In 1960, some 22%, same figure, 22% of black babies were born out of wedlock. Anybody know the percentage now? Sixty-eight percent. Sixty-eight percent of black babies are born out of wedlock. That took thirty years. I don't think it will take thirty years for the 22% of whites to go up to 68 if we follow down the same path we are currently following. Now, here's my connection: First of all, the world tells us that if we have more and better contraceptives we can solve these problems. There will be fewer unwanted pregnancies. But the point was, in 1960, there were almost no contraceptives available, especially to teenagers. You had to know some tacky gas station somewhere and have a few quarters and that's about the best you could do. But any teenager now can get contraceptives from the guidance counselor, in fact, from some welcome-to-school kits in some schools. We live in a culture in which condoms can be handed out in schools and Bibles can't. And I think that tells you everything you need to know about our society. So, it seems to me that clearly, more and better contraceptives aren't going to help. Teenagers have incredible access to them. But teenagers are just as good at using contraceptives as they are at making their beds and doing their homework and doing their chores, at about the same degree of reliability.
I used to help with a pregnancy help center in South Bend. We would talk with these young girls and we'd ask them, "Did you use a contraceptive", and they would say, "No, no. I wanted to buy a Prince album this month and I had to use my money for that", or, "I didn't like the side effects so I stopped", or, "We broke up and I thought we weren't going to see each other again but he came around again." And they get pregnant and they're surprised. And, of course, we have a million and a half abortions a year. And how did these happen? Fifty percent of women who go to abortion clinics tell us that they're there because of contraceptive failure. Fifty percent. Eighty percent tell us that they are contraceptively experienced, that they know about it and they've used it before, but, again, for one reason or another, they've stopped.
But the real point, in my mind, is that contraceptives have launched people on a lifestyle that makes for sex outside of marriage -- makes for sex in which babies and bonding are not welcome likelihoods. And when pregnancies occur, disaster strikes. People now say, when they're having sex outside of marriage and they get pregnant, what do they say? They use this wonderful phrase, "I got pregnant by accident." And I always was mystified by this phrase and I would say, "Tell me, how did that happen again?" I know I'm rather naive but I caught on to this some time ago and I know you can't get pregnant by accident. You can get hit by a car by accident, fall off a cliff by accident, but you can't get pregnant by accident. It actually means something's gone right with an act of sexual intercourse, not that something's gone wrong. But because people are using contraceptives, they get pregnant and they're surprised. "My gosh! We got pregnant! We didn't have that in mind. That wasn't part of this picture. So, we have to do something about it. What'll we have to do? We have to trot down to the abortion clinic."
Now, I'll give you the highest authority of our land, the Supreme Court says so. There's an article out there, which I wrote on the table you can have for free. It's called, "The Connection between Contraception and Abortion" and I cite Planned Parenthood v. Casey. In that decision (this is not quite verbatim but it's close) it says that "in several important respects, the decision to use contraceptives is the same as the decision to abort." Or the decision to have an abortion is the same as the decision to contracept. And it goes on to explain. It says that, "For two decades, couples have based their intimate relationships on the availability of abortion should contraceptives fail." For two decades, couples have based their intimate relationships on the availability of abortion should contraceptives fail. Now in this whole Supreme Court decision, which is on abortion, there is not one mention of the humanity of the unborn child, not one mention of whether the fetus was a person or not. It's not even dismissed as a question. It's not even considered. But it does say we must have abortions because we have contraceptives. It's a necessity. For two decades, couples have counted on it should their contraceptives fail. The Supreme Court says so.
Now, again, I think in the 60's, it was not a stupid expectation that contraceptives would make for better marriages, fewer unwanted pregnancies, fewer abortions, but I think the cultural evidence today shows absolutely the contrary. And it's very hard for us to see because again, our culture, our president, his cabinet tell us that more and better contraceptives and more and greater access to abortion is absolutely necessary in this society, it's a good thing. (This was Bill Clinton, but you can easily apply it to Obama).


I used to believe that tripe too, until I was set straight by the director of a Crisis Pregancy Center who had the same experiences of Dr Smith. Conservatives have too, and they're not falling for the old trick. They won't accept contraceptives and sex ed which sells sex, since that's what caused the problem in the first place. The article in US News says,
"But more conservative religious groups working with the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships say they would be forced to oppose such a plan—even though they support the abortion reduction part—because they oppose federal dollars for contraception and comprehensive sex education. This camp, which includes such formidable organizations as the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops and the Southern Baptist Convention, is pressuring the White House to decouple the two parts of the plan into separate bills. One bill would focus entirely on preventing unwanted pregnancy, while the other would focus on supporting pregnant women."


Read the entire article in US News and World Report.
HT Spirit Daily

Dr Carpentier explains how to cure common problems without the pill

The Pill Kills Women from American Life League on Vimeo.

Protest the Pill Day

http://www.thepillkills.com/The Pill Kills

So many women are willing to risk their own health to contracept or to follow doctors' orders to 'cure' feminine ills with the contraceptive pill. I know. As a teen, I had ovarian cysts and was on the pill. I was miserable for months, stopped it and was healed by a nun who prayed over me at a healing Mass. I never needed this awful medecine and niether do you.

Napro technology has ways to avoid pregnancy, regulate your cycle, fix your raging hormones, overcome PMS and the ravages of menopause with natural hormones, not the synthetic poisons of the Pill.

The Pill increases death due to stroke and cancer, so is the cure really worth the risk?

Read more about the Pill at American Life League's website Protest the Pill.

Billionaires meet to decide the future of humanity

What do Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Mayor Bloomberg, Ted Turner, George Soros and Oprah Winfrey have in common?
Money. Lots of money.
Power, insane power, some of it hidden.
A messiah complex. They want to save the Third World.
I am not judging their intentions, I know how the misery of the poor affects me, I pray for them every night, and do my share to help my in-law in El Salvador escape poverty. I DO fault them for two things; they see the Church as an obstacle. No other institution has done more for the poor in the entire history of the world than the Catholic Church. This explains the second reason I am opposed to this powerful group who met in Manhattan on May 5 in a top secret meeting; they see abortion and birth control as the answer to the problems of the poor. They are ignorant of the way the poor view children; as their greatest treasure. Why not give them medecine, schools and micro loans to help them escape the miserable conditions in which they live?
Give the poor of the Third World the dignity to decide how they will be helped.
"Taking their cue from Gates," reports the Sunday Times, "they agreed that overpopulation was a priority." However, this could rattle "some Third World politicians" who are old-fashioned enough to think that "contraception and female education weaken traditional values".
Is it only Third World politicians who think that contraception weakens traditional values? How about the rest of us?
Isn’t fertility a personal decision? (not in China it isn't!)As population expert Steven Mosher asks, "What happens when governments, often in response to pressure from abroad, attempt to directly regulate the fertility of their people? Both humans rights and primary health care, it turns out, tend to suffer setbacks. Urging governments to interfere in the intimate decisions of couples concerning childbearing does not encourage limited government and the rule of law, but their opposite, an intrusive bureaucracy and human rights abuses. Nor does concentrating scarce health care resources on fertility reduction programs lead to improvements in the general state of health of a population."
As Mosher argues in his important book, Population Control: Real Costs, Illusory Benefits,, "For over half century, the population controllers have perpetrated a gigantic, costly and inhumane fraud upon the human race, defrauding the people of the developing world of their progeny and the people of the developed world of their pocketbooks."
Of course fat cat elites will suffer nothing from such programs, just the poor and voiceless. But never mind, it is for the good of humanity. "

As Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze says, "When extra guest arrive for dinner, we don't shoot them, we simply cook more rice."




Read the entire story on MercatorNet.

The legacy of the Culture of Death: the Death of a Culture

Let me be clear; since the Lambeth Conference in 1930 when the Anglican Church was the first denomination to approve birth control, Christian populations have been in decline. Muslim families are growing eight times faster. Soon Europe will be made of Muslim states, and the US won't be far behind. Disobedience to God's laws always has consequences, but in this case, our children will be paying the price for their grandparents and parents sin.

"Prevention First Act" wolf in sheep's clothing

Statement of Culture of Life Foundation on Senate Bill 21
"Prevention First Act" introduced by Senator Harry Reid.
"The Act is based on the false premise that contraception prevents abortion. The more contraception is available, the more abortions occur because contraception is the gateway to abortion." States Dr. William E. May, Senior Fellow of the Culture of Life Foundation.
On January 6, 2009 Senator Harry Reid introduced the Prevention First Act (S. 21), which claims to be aimed at reducing unintended pregnancies and abortion. The Act is based on the false premise that contraception prevents abortion. The more contraception is available, the more abortions occur because contraception is the gateway to abortion.
First of all, many so-called contraceptives do not prevent conception but rather "work" by preventing a newly generated human baby from implanting in his or her mother's womb. This is true of the way IUDs operate, it is one way that the "Pill" works, and it is the sole purpose of RU 486.
As Janet Smith has pointed out, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a Supreme Court decision that confirmed Roe v. Wade clearly demonstrated that contraception is the gateway to abortion. It stated, "in some critical respects abortion is of the same character as the decision to use contraception . . . . for two decades of economic and social developments, people have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail." Bluntly put, the Court says that we need abortion so that we can continue our contraceptive lifestyles (see http://www.goodmorals.org/smith4.htm).
Most abortions occur because men and women do not want to have a baby but nonetheless have sexual intercourse, the kind of bodily behavior that can generate human life, but they seek to prevent the child's coming to be by contracepting, counting on abortion as a way to prevent the child's birth if contraception fails.
Contraception facilitates premarital sex and has led to an alarming increase of sexually transmitted diseases. "Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) remain a major public health challenge in the United States. CDC estimates that approximately 19 million new infections occur each year- almost half of them among young people 15 to 24 years of age. In addition to the burden on youth, women are also severely affected.Biological factors place women at greater risk than men for the severe health consequences of STDs. The two most commonly reported infectious diseases in America - chlamydia and gonorrhea - pose a particular risk to the health of women, as both can result in infertility if left untreated. Together, these diseases were reported in almost 1.5 million Americans in 2007, but the majority of cases continue to go undiagnosed....The national rate of reported chlamydia in 2007 was 370.2 cases per 100,000 population, an increase of 7.5 percent from 2006(344.3). Women, especially young and minority women, are hit hardest by chlamydia...Chlamydia is common among all races and ethnic groups; however, African-American, American Indian /Alaska Native, and Hispanic women are disproportionately affected. CDC: Trends in Reportable STDs in the U.S. in 2007 (January 2009).
Advocates of contraception/abortion, like Senator Reid, think that "no unwanted child ought ever be born" and contraception and abortion are the best tools to prevent this tragedy. The truth is that "no person, born or unborn, ought to be unwanted but loved," and the way to achieve this goal is to be chaste prior to and after marriage. Marital chastity does not require complete abstinence. There is a time to embrace and a time not to embrace. If there is a serious reason to avoid causing a pregnancy, chaste spouses abstain from the marital act when pregnancy will likely follow and engage in it when the wife is not fertile. A procreative intent is not necessary for the act to be virtuous and holy.

William E. May, Senior Fellow
Jennifer Kimball
Culture of Life Foundation
jennifer@culture-of-life.org
(202) 289-2500

Patrick Madrid on Demographic Winter

Sorry, Speaker Pelosi, the facts are NOT on your side. Babies are GOOD for the economy.
Patrick Madrid, on his new blog, describes in vivid detail how the population is in a state of catastrophic decline, having seen the presentation on Demographic Winter.
Celebrated columnist and pro-family leader Don Feder gave a jaw-dropping presentation on the coming 'Demographic Winter' at the Rose Dinner which closes the official March for Life festivities every year. Speaking to hundreds of attendees, Feder suggested that the demographic problem of worldwide declining birthrates "could result in the greatest crisis humanity will confront in this century" as "all over the world, children are disappearing." "In the Western world, birthrates are falling and populations are aging," said Feder. "The consequences for your children and grandchildren could well be catastrophic."
This was also documented by Pat Buchanan in his terrifying book, "The Death of the West", in which he predicts that Europe will be completely Muslim in half a century. Such are the fruits of the Culuture of Death. How many times have our Popes tried to warn us about this? From Pope Paul's prophetic Humanae Vitae to Pope John Paul II's Evangelium Vitae, to Pope Benedict, who addresses this topic frequently we have been instructed to be open to life and stop contracepting. Yet materialism has hardened our hearts. Like my former neighbor, who proudly told me that she was 'done' after one child, since she and her husband had decided to buy a sailboat instead of having a little brother or sister for their lonely son. James used to peek through the pickets of the fence which divided us, at my two daughters playing together in our yard. He had the big boat, all right, but he still envied us.
Once I brought Christina, who was then a toddler to visit Congressman Tim Bishop (D-NY) a pro-abortion Catholic, who was having a town meeting in fabulously wealthy Westhampton. Dozens of retired denizens of Wall Street were lamenting loudly their fears that their Social Security checks might be reduced. (Whatever do they do with such a paltry sum; pay dues at the Country Club?)
Christina and I were waiting for an opening in the clamour to address Rep Bishop's refusal to vote for the ban on Partial-Birth Abortion. Soon, Christina, for whom pulling to a stand was a new accomplishment interrupted the noise with her unexpected giggling. Heads turned to glare at her for interrupting, and I jumped at the opportunity to address the Congressman, "Congressman Bishop, I seem to be disrupting your meeting; let me get a word in, and I'll be happy to leave". I strode, Christina in arms to the front of the room, and asked the crowd if she had a life worth living. I pointed out that her disability is the main reason barbaric practices like Partial-Birth abortion are used. An angry man in the crowd told me to "Shut up and sit down". Since the Congressman looked relieved to get rid of us, I did leave, shooting over my shoulder, "I am a teacher, and the classroom I look out at every day is 1/3 emptier because of abortion. If you are worrying about the future of Social Security, remember that you killed one third of the young workforce which would have been paying into the SS system.".
Jaws dropped, as I turned on my heel and walked out. No one living their selfish lives running after the good life, thinks they are part of the bigger picture. But, like it or not, they are. Each choice we make effects the entire world.
I would have like to be like my friend Mary Ellen, giving birth to my eighth child, but due to multiple miscarriages, I have only three girls. We have to thank unselfish women like Mary Ellen for the wealth of children they have given to this world.
Once, a swelter ting hot summer day at the Bronx Zoo was interrupted by a violent thunderstorm, which cleared out the place. When the brief storm subsided, only three families where there besides mine. All three had more than eight children. All three were deeply religious. They were Hasidic Jews, Muslims from Pakistan, and my friends, an Italian American deeply Catholic family of ten. A thought entered my head, "These people are the future of the world". The secularists are contracepting themselves out of existence.
God will not be mocked. His first command, given to Adam and Eve was "be fruitful and multiply". He has never revoked this. We just stopped listening.

220 Million for contraception in 'bail-out' package

UPDATE: Breaking News!!!
The provision for contraception has been removed!!
NBC News confirms that the president called Henry Waxman, the chairman of the committee that inserted the contraception provision into the stimulus during the mark up last week, to ask him to remove the measure from the bill, according to a Democratic leadership source.
In short, the idea has simply become too controversial. Speaker Nancy Pelosi's defense of the program over the weekend, where she indicated that it would be a money saver, was not well received.
So that provision is out.
Nice work, friends of life! We created a controversy that forced Obama to break his promise to his SIECUS and Planned Parenthood friends. They were lobbying at the Rayburn Builiding on Jan 22 with the March for Life people. I warned them not to count us out! Whoohoo!
Read more here.

from the Family Research Council
Exactly what kind of stimulus did Speaker Nancy Pelosi have in mind?
That's a question more Americans are asking now that details are trickling in about the controversial $825 billion "economic recovery" package. As it stands, more than 10 percent of the proposal--$87 billion--would allow states to expand their "family planning" services through Medicaid. The country's recession is crippling families, and the Democrats' solution is spending billions of dollars on contraception? On yesterday's "This Week" program on ABC, George Stephanopoulos pressed Speaker Pelosi for an explanation. STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost... The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health... [is] to help the states meet their financial needs... [O]ne of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government. (mother of five says this-my comment)
STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies

PELOSI: No apologies. No. We have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.In other words, children are a burden to the economy, and Pelosi believes it's the government's responsibility to eliminate them. More than anything, her comments underscore the shortsightedness of these liberal policies. All reports indicate that the global family is on the decline. Although America's birth rate isn't plunging like that of European countries, it has slowed.
The reason we don't find ourselves in a "demographic winter" is largely because of the fertility rates of our immigrants, many of whom come from cultures that value life. Overall, the U.S. is hovering at its replacement level, which is hardly enough to finance the Baby Boomers' retirement. If Pelosi and her Congress continue to deemphasize the family, America will travel even farther down the deadly path of our European friends. In the meantime, Congress continues to spend outside of its means, proving that the nation will need more children--not less--to help pay the bills for Social Security, Medicaid, and other government entitlements that Democrats hope to expand.
Obviously, there's a practical danger in suggesting that babies are problems or "punishments" (as President Obama called them) instead of blessings that build bridges to the future. For a realistic look at real economic recovery, we encourage you to read FRC's just released tax policy proposal, now available online at www.frc.org.
Read the Life Site News article on this outrage below.
George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "This Week" asked Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a self-avowed Catholic: "Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?"
Pelosi responded: "Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government."
"So no apologies for that?" asked Stephanopoulos.
"No apologies. No," Pelosi responded.
"We have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy."
Now that Nancy Pelosi has had her five children, she is going to hand out contraceptives to the rest of us, the great unwashed who teach our children that family life is a blessing, not an economic risk. It's starting to sound like eugenics have already entered into Obama's "New Deal".
Catholic League President Bill Donohue criticized Pelosi’s statement, saying: “Now we have Pelosi arguing that the way to balance the budget is not by cutting expenditures, but by cutting kids. We have reached a new low when high-ranking public office holders in the federal government cast children as the enemy. But at least it explains their enthusiasm for abortion-on-demand.”