c. 1998 Religion News Service
Abortion foes criticize `morning-after’ contraceptive
(RNS) Abortion foes offered harsh criticism for a new”morning-after”contraceptive Thursday (Sept. 3), the day after the Food and Drug Administration said a New Jersey company may begin selling the drugs.
The contraception kits, called PREVEN, include a combination of four pills long known to prevent pregnancy after unprotected sex, and a home pregnancy test. The kits, which can only be obtained with a prescription, will be sold by Gynetics Inc. of Somerville, N.J., and are expected to become available by the end of the month.
The pills are 75 percent effective at preventing pregnancy when taken within three days of sex. Because sperm remains in the uterus for some time, pregnancy can occur days after sex. But the morning-after pills delay or prevent the egg from entering the uterus for fertilization.
However, if an egg is fertilized during that time, the pills apparently alter the uterine lining, making it difficult for the egg to attach itself and develop into an embryo.
The FDA has said this scenario is hard to prove, according to an Associated Press report.
But it’s this scenario that most concerns abortion foes who believe life begins at fertilization.
Helen Alvare, spokeswoman for the U.S. Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, called the drug combination an”abortifacient.””We know that in all cases it works to make the womb hostile,”she said.
The only reason the FDA claims it prevents pregnancy is”because they redefine pregnancy,”she added.”This is all a semantic game, it really reacts only after a new life has begun.” Carrie Gordon, bioethics analyst for Focus on the Family, expressed similar concerns.
The PREVEN kits are”being marketed and labeled as an emergency contraceptive … but there is evidence that this use of drugs can actually prevent a fertilized egg from developing,”she said.”That is not contraception but abortion.” Withholding this information, she added, can”mislead”women into using the kits.”I think it’s being pushed by the abortion lobby without giving women all the information, which is par for the course,”she said.
The American Life League called on all anti-abortion groups to condemn the new drugs.”Any group that fails to condemn the morning-after pill really isn’t pro-life,”said Judie Brown, the group’s president.”… It is very clear that pregnancy begins at fertilization, not an arbitrary point selected by the abortion-minded.”
Jewish criticisms noted in formal response to Vatican Holocaust document
(RNS) An international Jewish formal response to the Vatican’s statement on the Roman Catholic Church’s actions during the Nazis Holocaust is critical of the document’s defense of Pope Pius XII.
The criticism in the nine-page response to be issued by the International Jewish Committee on Inter-religious Consultations (IJCIC) mirrors earlier comments by other Jewish groups. The Vatican document,”We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah (Holocaust),”was issued in March.
However, the IJCIC response constitutes the official Jewish rejoinder to the document. The IJCIC consists of representatives from Judaism’s three main religious movements, plus the World Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, B’nai B’rith and the Israel Interfaith Committee.
The response _ which has yet to be officially released _ praises the Vatican for acknowledging the importance of the Holocaust. The church statement, said the IJCIC,”should render impossible the obscenity of Holocaust denial among Catholics and we see in this one of the major positive aspects of the document.” Nonetheless, reported the Jewish Telegraphic Agency news service, which obtained an advance copy of the IJCIC response, the Vatican was faulted for allegedly minimizing the connection between church doctrine and the anti-Semitism that helped fuel the Holocaust.
The IJCIC also said the Vatican document offered insufficient evidence to back its claim that Pope Pius helped save the lives of”hundreds of thousands”of Jews during the Holocaust. Jewish groups have long maintained the pope and the Vatican did not do enough to help Jews escape from the Nazis.
IJCIC representatives said they did not expect the Vatican to respond to their new statement. Immediately following the Vatican’s release of the document, IJCIC officials met with church officials to directly convey the criticisms they have now put into a formal response.
Christian Coalition seeks additional votes for abortion override
(RNS) The Christian Coalition says it is launching a multimedia campaign to convince three additional senators to vote to override President Clinton’s veto of the late-term procedure opponents call”partial-birth abortion.” Last year, the Senate voted 64-36 to override Clinton’s veto. The vote fell three short of the two-thirds majority required to override.
Randy Tate, executive director of the Christian Coalition, told the Washington Post Wednesday (Sept. 2) that Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., has pledged to hold another override vote on Sept. 18. That vote would come during the coalition’s annual”Road to Victory”convention in Washington, set for Sept. 17-19.
The House of Representatives has already voted to override Clinton on the issue.
Tate said the coalition’s campaign would involve radio ads, the mailing of some 300,000 postcards and automated phone calls asking voters in four states to urge their senators to switch votes and back the override attempt. The senators are considered among the most likely to switch.
The lawmakers involved are Democrats Max Cleland of Georgia, Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut and Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois, as well as Republicans Olympia J. Snowe and Susan Collins, both of Maine.
China reports fewer executions, but still leads the world
(RNS) Last year, China, the world’s most populous nation, reported executing more of its citizens than the rest of the world combined. Still, the 3,000 executions reported in China for 1997 _ more than 8 per day _ represent a 31 percent drop from 1996, human rights monitors said Thursday (Sept. 3).
But Catherine Baver, a China specialist for London-based Amnesty International, said the 1997 execution figure”represents only a fraction”of the real total.”We need more openness on the part of Chinese officials,”she said.”What have they got to hide on this matter?” Baver said state-run media reports, a major source for her group’s estimates, often do not provide accurate counts of executions, the Associated Press reported.
A Supreme People’s Court judge told U.S. businessman John Kamm, who also lobbies the Chinese government on behalf of prisoners, that the drop in executions can be attributed to a new criminal code and sentencing guidelines that went into effect on Oct. 1, 1997.
The code narrowed uses of the death penalty for theft, which accounts for nearly a third of all criminal cases in China, which has more than 1.1 billion people. Only bank robbery and theft of cultural relics now are punishable by death, Kamm said, citing the judge.
Facts on the death penalty in China are hard to come by because the new sentencing guidelines as well as the total number of executions are considered state secrets.
Amnesty International has included the execution figures in a report to be released Saturday (Sept. 5), the day before the arrival in China of Mary Robinson, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights. Her China visit will be the first by a U.N. human rights chief.
Many religious leaders have been critical of Beijing for its denial of religious and political rights to a wide range of its citizens. Conservative Christian activists have been among the most vocal critics.
Quote of the Day: Stained-glass window artist Alika Ron Anderson
(RNS)”I think it’s important for black children sitting in churches all over this country on Sunday morning to look up at windows, look up at images and see themselves and believe that they can ascend to heaven, too.” _ Alika Ron Anderson, quoted in the Aug. 25 Washington Post, on his inclusion of black images in the stained-glass windows he creates for African-American churches.
IR END RNS
