Pro-Life Year in Review: Successes and Disappointments

Despite the great triumphs made this year, there were many disappointments. Pro-lifers around the world have been given an opportunity to see there is tremendous work ahead in 2003. Here are some highlights:

&#8226 Embryonic Stem Cell research was approved in Germany, Australia, India and Belgium.

&#8226 The International Criminal Court went into effect as of July 1, 2002.

&#8226 U.S. stats showed that some 170,000 embryos are killed every year in fertility treatments.

&#8226 Assisted Reproductive societies announced the birth of the one millionth child through in vitro fertilization.

&#8226 Belgium legalized euthanasia.

&#8226 Nepal and Switzerland legalized abortion after pressure from the United Nations.

&#8226 Reports of cloned human beings about to be born were prominent. Meanwhile countries debated stem cell legislation which would not ban human cloning but allow it, but not allow the child created through the cloning process to be born alive.

&#8226 The U.S. Supreme Court heard the case which charged pro-lifers under racketeering laws, but no decision was rendered.

&#8226 James Charles Kopp shocked the pro-life movement by admitting to the shooting of abortionist Barnett Slepian. Even after his arrest while on the run in France, many pro-lifers assumed he was innocent.

&#8226 The Anglican Church got close to splitting over the issue of blessing of homosexual unions with a renegade Canadian Bishop Michael Ingham leading the pack and actually performing the blessings.

&#8226 Canada avoided caving in to a Ontario court ruling allowing homosexual “marriage” with the provincial justice minister filing an appeal on the last day allowable. The government is currently surveying Canadian opinion on the matter.

&#8226 More attention has been given to the fact that certain vaccines are made with the use of aborted baby tissue.

&#8226 This year the state of California went crazy with pro-abortion legislation, the most outrageous being a law to forbid any future law in the state to curb abortion.

&#8226 Canada ratified the Optional Protocol on the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, thus women can complain to the U.N. when their 'rights' under the convention are contravened. According to the U.N. committee those rights include abortion.

&#8226 Canadian Catholic education was challenged by Marc Hall, a homosexual student who won a court injunction forcing the school to allow him to bring his homosexual 'boyfriend' to the prom as his date. The court case in the matter is still to be heard.

&#8226 A second study which involved implanting tissue from aborted babies into Parkinson's patients' brains has found that it can cause irreversible damage to over 10% of recipients causing incontrollable jerking movements.

(Compiled from updates courtesy of LifeSite News.)

Concluding the year with the tremendous wins in the US Congressional elections, the Pro-Life movement has much to celebrate. Here is a sampling of some of the greatest victories and successes of 2002:

World Youth Day: Miraculously awesome, changing the hearts of even the most extreme pro-abortion media

President George W. Bush, with the hard work of pro-life groups both in the U.S. and internationally:

&#8226 withdrew any notion of U.S. support for the International Criminal Court;

&#8226 appointed pro-life U.S. representatives to United Nations conferences. This thwarted the pro-abortion agenda at the conference on human cloning where the U.S. insisted on a total cloning ban;

&#8226 defunded the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) for their collusion with China's forced abortion regime;

&#8226 signed into law the born-alive infant protection act and gave a great pro-life speech while signing;

&#8226 supported the Ohio Partial Birth Abortion Ban legislation;

&#8226 attempted to halt the Oregon physician assisted suicide practice;

&#8226 gave outstanding pro-life speeches to the March for Life, at the declaration of Sanctity of Life Day;

&#8226 gave the “unborn child” health coverage thus giving the fetus recognition as a child in legislation; and

&#8226 nominated pro-lifers to the higher courts

Catholic Church:

&#8226 The bishops of the United States spoke out more and more forcefully on the sanctity of life and especially the responsibility of Catholics to vote pro-life during elections;

&#8226 Cardinal Aloysius Ambrozic of Canada did not attend the Red Mass dinner keynoted by pro-abortion former Prime Minister Joe Clark. But at the Red Mass, the Cardinal &#0151 with Clark sitting in the front pew &#0151 targeted “people who are pro-abortion” saying he did not know how they could believe the unborn don't feel pain when “life is gouged” out of them;

&#8226 The Vatican delivered their strongest-ever statements against the United Nations' pushing of abortion. In addition, the Pope has used every available opportunity to plead for the right to life and against destructive research on embryonic humans. Pope John Paul II also brought to an end the involvement of certain German bishops with abortion counseling which compromised the church since the counseling certificates could be used to obtain abortions;

&#8226 The head of the Catholic Church in Peru, Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani, called his priests to enforce the excommunication of all pro-abortion politicians, telling his priests those politicians were to be refused Holy Communion; and

&#8226 Despite a media onslaught, Calgary Bishop Fred Henry supported the actions of his courageous priest Fr. John Maes who refused to allow the marriage in his church of a Planned Parenthood worker

Internationally:

&#8226 The province of Quebec in Canada banned research on embryonic humans;

&#8226 Peru declared March 25, Day of the Unborn Child;

&#8226 Uganda's incredible success in fighting HIV/AIDS based on abstinence before and fidelity during marriage has been recognized as the most successful attack on the deadly disease on the continent;

&#8226 The courts in the Philippines, Argentina and Chile all ruled that the morning after pill was illegal in their countries since it is an abortifacient; and

&#8226 The United Nations and various international bodies have begun to recognize the problem of population decline and the accompanying aging crisis

Science and Medicine:

&#8226 Study after study confirmed beyond the shadow of a doubt that adult stem cell research is superior in every way to embryonic stem cell research;

&#8226 A New Orleans nurse won a court case after being threatened with termination for refusing to hand out the abortifacient morning after pill; and

&#8226 The College of Physicians and Surgeons in the Canadian province of New Brunswick has affirmed that doctors have the right to refuse to administer or refer for abortions

Courts:

&#8226 The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the appeal of euthanasia activist Jack Kevorkian who asked for a retrial;

&#8226 The Canadian Supreme Court refused to quash the 10-year sentence of Robert Latimer who euthanized his disabled daughter;

&#8226 The UK courts sided with a pro-lifer who challenged the human embryo authority which permitted fertility clinics to use pre-genetic diagnosis to screen and select embryos in order to treat older siblings with their umbilical cord blood; and

&#8226 The U.S. Supreme Court has put an end to the bickering over pro-life license plates &#0151 allowing them

Media and Entertainment:

&#8226 Life Dynamics, the same group which exposed the aborted baby parts market, orchestrated a successful sting operation on Planned Parenthood across the United States demonstrating that the pro-abortion group commonly fails to report sexual abuse of minors and knowingly conceals evidence;

&#8226 Hollywood stars Jennifer O'Neil, Patricia Heaton and former supermodel Kathy Ireland all went public with forceful pro-life defenses in the media; and

&#8226 Five of eight Catholic U.S. universities whose websites contained references to Planned Parenthood, removed the offensive materials after a story caused faithful Catholics to admonish the institutions