Vultures gather for America's new dawn

Barack Obama announced a new dawn for America. It's a dawn that millions of Americans and countless millions around the world may never be born to see - as a direct result of his policies. Check out the following stories - which represent a small sample of the news emerging in recent weeks:

Activists hope Obama acts on abortion rights

Obama selects vocal pro-abortion leader as Communications Director

Condoms trump abstinence in Obama global AIDS policy

Obama Names Pro-Abortion Lawyer, Ex-NARAL Staffer to Judicial Team

Obama picks abortion supporter Daschle to head HHS

Pro-life resistance must be strong as Obama appoints anti-lifers

The vultures are gathering for America's new dawn.

Pro-life analysis of US presidential election reveals need for Church support

Below is a list of articles from pro-life commentators analysing the results of the US presidential election (see my blog of last Thursday about the election). These articles provide useful arguments and data which rebut today's article in The Times by George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which argues that Mr Obama won the election partly because of his strong support for abortion and same-sex marriage. The pro-life commentators' analyses reveal the urgent and essential need for the Catholic Church and other faith communities to throw their full weight behind the pro-life and pro-family movement. The re-election of Mr Obama, the most anti-life and anti-family US president ever, is an historic tragedy, the likes of which will be repeated unless Christians everywhere are converted to believing in and implementing fully the Gospel of Life.

N.B. My inclusion of any article below does not imply endorsement of any of its content.

LifeNews.com:

• Romney Should Have Attacked Obama’s Radical Abortion Record
• Despite Obama Win, Pro-Lifers Win Big at the State, Local Level
• Abandoning Pro-Life Issues Not the GOP Path to Victory
• Exit Polling Data Shows Pro-Lifers Failed to Vote Pro-Life 
• Exit Poll: 21% of Evangelical Voters Supported Barack Obama
• Activists: Romney Should Have Pressed Pro-Life Issues More
• Poll: Evangelical Turnout Increased in 2012 Over 2008
• Despite Attacks on Catholics, They Vote to Re-Elect Obama

LifeSiteNews.com:

• Why Romney lost
• GOP: Competing for the pro-choice 41 percent?

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Don't be fooled: Obama and Clinton are funding forced abortions in China

In a horrifying report in today's Times, Chinese women are said to be angry about China's policy of forced abortion, compulsory sterilisation and infanticide

It's a tragic irony that, reportedly, Chinese women (and possibly The Times) are pinning their hopes on the Obama administration - and specifically on Hillary Clinton, Obama's Secretary of State who's visiting China this week - to stand up for human rights and speak up for women on this issue.

One of Barack Obama's first actions as President was to restore funding to UNFPA (and other organisations promoting abortion overseas), whose involvement in the forced abortion regime in China and elsewhere is all too well documented.

• In 1979, the very year that China introduced its brutal one-child policy, UNFPA signed a "Memorandum of Understanding" with the Chinese government.
• In 1983, the year commonly regarded as the worst year for coercion, UNFPA gave one of its first two Population Awards to the minister-in-charge of China’s State Family Planning Commission. (The other award that year was given to Indira Gandhi, the Indian prime minister, whose government enforced compulsory birth control including sterilisation.)
• In 1985, Rafael Salas, UNFPA’s then executive director, told Premier Zhao Ziyang that "China should feel proud of the achievements made in her family planning program." (reported by The People's Daily, the Communist Party's official newspaper).
• In 1991, UNFPA's then executive director Nafis Sadik said: "China has every reason to feel proud of and pleased with its remarkable achievements made in its family planning policy and control of its population growth.” (Xinhua, 11 April 1991) In 2002 China's State Family Planning Commission gave Nafis Sadik its own Population Award.
• In 1999, UNFPA aided and abetted "ethnic cleansing" by indicted war criminal Slobodan Milosevic by assisting his regime's plan "to limit or forbid the enormous increase of the birthrate in Kosovo".
• In 2001, Thoraya Obaid, the new UNFPA executive director, said that over the past 20 years, China had seen notable achievements made in population control by implementing the family planning policy.
• In 2001, research by the (pro-life) Population Research Institute (PRI) found that UNFPA was complicit in population control against Muslims in the Chinese province of Xinjiang.
• In 2003, UNFPA exploited the aftermath of the war in Iraq to launch a campaign to provide "reproductive health" to Iraqi refugees. ("Reproductive health" is a euphemism which the World Health Organisation (WHO) has defined as including abortion on demand.

In The Times report about Chinese women's growing anger we read:

" ' ... Six days before the due date, 10 strong strangers came to my house, forced me into a truck then took me to a family planning clinic, where the doctor gave me an injection,' she said.

"'The child began struggling in my womb and one of these scum even kicked me in the abdomen. Then the baby came out and they threw it into a rubbish bin. I could even see it was still moving ... '"

The Times report continues:

" ... Clinton annoyed the Chinese regime with a speech at a 1995 women's conference in Beijing in which she said: 'It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have an abortion or sterilised against their will.'

"Now Clinton is predicted to tackle Beijing on a broader range of issues than the economics-focused approach taken by the Bush administration. She has signalled that she will take a firmer stand on human rights ... "

Whatever Hillary Clinton's human rights rhetoric, the only way Chinese women can judge her real intentions is to see whether or not she disassociates herself from Barack Obama's policy spelled out clearly last month in these words: " … I look forward to working with Congress to restore U.S. financial support for the U.N. Population Fund ... "

So I say to the women of China and to The Times - Don't be fooled: As things stand, Obama and Clinton are funding the forced abortion regime in your country.

Obama-Blair agenda "unprecedented form of political-legal terrorism", says priest-expert

Monsignor Michel Schooyans* is one of the Vatican's leading scholars. In a masterly analysis of Barack Obama and Tony Blair, he explains with devestating insight their anti-life/anti-family agenda to undermine both law and religion respectively. His anaylsis gives significant intellectual weight to the warnings of the pro-life/pro-family movement about the Obama-Blair threat (e.g. see my blogs of 8 May and 9 April). He was speaking at the plenary assembly of the pontifical academy of social sciences was held on the theme "Catholic social teaching and human rights."

I extract below some key points from Mgr Schooyans's anaylsis:

"President Obama can count on support for these programs from Tony Blair and his wife Cherie Booth ... This plan cannot be realized except at the price of the sacrifice of religious freedom, of the imposition of a 'politically correct' interpretation of the Sacred Scriptiures, and of the sabotage of the natural foundations of law ...

"The fresh "convert" [Blair] does not hesitate to explain to the pope not only what he must do, but also what he must believe! ... So now we are back in the time of Hobbes, if not of Cromwell: it is civil power that defines what one must believe ...

"The rights of man as understood in the realist tradition are here put to the sword. Everything is relative ...

"In the case of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, this is also a matter of promoting one and only one religious confession, which a universal, global political power would impose on the entire world ...

"What the analysis of Barack Obama's decisions and Tony Blair's project reveals is that an alliance is coming between two converging intentions, one aimed at subjugating law and the other at subjugating religion ... [W]e are witnessing the emergence of an unprecedented form of political-legal terrorism ...

"[I]t is the Church's duty to appeal to all men and women of good will to unite for the purpose of creating a single front to defend the life of every human being. The first attitude required of all, according to the responsibilities of each one, is conscientious objection, which Obama is trying to circumscribe ... "

In Sandro Magister's report covering Monsignor Schooyan's address he writes: "Michel Schooyans, a Belgian priest, is professor emeritus of the Catholic University of Louvain. He is a leading specialist in anthropology, political philosophy, bioethics, and demographics. He is a member of three pontifical academies: the one for social sciences, the one for life, and the one named after St. Thomas Aquinas. One of his books, published in 2006, is entitled 'Le terrorisme à visage humaine [The human face of terrorism],' and has many points in common with the address he gave at the Vatican last May 1. His latest publication in Italy, printed by Cantagalli in 2008, is entitled 'La profezia di Paolo VI [The prophecy of Paul VI],' and is a vigorous defense of the encyclical 'Humanae Vitae.'"

Please say an extra prayer today that US voters reject Obama

I have written about Senator Obama's extremist anti-life credentials before on this blog (7 July, 27 July, 31 July, 29 August, 30 August, 1 September and 7 October). National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) have produced an easy-to-read guide comparing the stances on abortion of the presidential and vice-presidential candidates. Senator Obama has promised that his first act as president will be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). Michael Moses, a lawyer for the American Catholic bishops, has warned that FOCA would force all Catholic hospitals and medical professionals to provide abortions, with no opt-outs or rights of conscientious objection.

On this last point, one is reminded of legislation and policies introduced by Tony Blair and his government: under his government's Mental Capacity Act, for example, doctors who refuse on clinical or other ethical grounds to implement an advance refusal of treatment face litigation and possibly criminal conviction; and Tony Blair personally endorsed his government's policy of providing schoolchildren under the age of 16 with abortions and birth control drugs and devices without parental knowledge or consent.

A reader reminded me today of an illuminating letter earlier this year in The Independent from Stephen Dorril, Sir Oswald Mosley's biographer, who wrote: "I thought I was being irrational in my total dislike of Barack Obama, but now realise, having read Dominic Lawson's excellent analysis of the Obama cult (26 February), that there are others who are also very wary of a populist politician who seems to be veering towards fascism." He goes on to compare him with Tony Blair. It's worth a read. I wish it could be widely read and understood on the other side of the Atlantic. Please say an extra prayer today that US voters reject Obama - for America's and for all our sakes.

Pray that Barack Obama, Tony & Cherie Blair, change to become ambassadors for the unborn

Breda Laffey, a leading Catholic evangelist from Ireland, has made a call for prayer for Barack Obama, the US President-elect - that he will have a change of heart on abortion and go on to become a great US president. Breda was speaking before Mass at a prayer group last night in north London which Josephine, my wife, and I have been attending these last sixteen years. As a Catholic myself, at a time of unprecedented danger for humanity, I strongly support that call. The threat to countless millions of lives following the outcome of the US presidential election is serious and growing ever constantly, as I have been reporting recently. We must use every effort, intellectual, political, and spiritual, to confront this danger.

I also urge my fellow-Christians and believers in God also to pray for Tony and Cherie Blair - that they too will have a change of heart and join the campaign against legalized abortion.

Last week I described how Tony Blair (pictured) was reinforcing his pro-abortion links. I have frequently mentioned his refusal to repudiate, since his reception into the Catholic Church, the anti-life laws and policies he supported and promoted as prime minister and as a Member of Parliament.

Also last week, I pointed out Cherie Blair's long track-record of supporting anti-life and anti-family causes, when I drew attention once again to the scandalous invitation to Mrs Blair to speak at a conference in the Angelicum, a leading Catholic university in Rome.

From the initial reports of the conference, it seems that at no point in her remarks did Mrs Blair state an opposition to abortion, nor did she explain why she has supported the leading pro-abortion organisations IPPF, FPA UK and Human Rights Watch. Neither did she explain her specific endorsement, on her own website, of the inclusion of reproductive rights in CEDAW (the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women), which the CEDAW committee inteprets to include abortion.

It also seems that a concerted effort may have been made at the conference to caricature critics of Mrs Blair's invitation as being unable to distinguish between abortion and contraception and Mrs Blair's position on them. It should be noted that forms of contraception, by their manufacturers' own admission, can kill newly-conceived human life. The Vatican made the same point last Friday, in their newly published Dignitas Personae.

I fear that the conference may well have been stage-managed so that Mrs Blair did not have to explain her track-record of endorsing pro-abortion organisations, enabling her and others to bubble-wrap her dissent from Catholic teaching. I will be writing to Mrs Blair to put to her the questions which were conspicuously not put to her at today's conference.

I am deeply concerned that both Tony Blair and Cherie Blair may be manipulating the Catholic Church at a time in human history when its uncompromising witness on the sanctity of human life is being threatened by governments and politicians - like Barack Obama - with laws which seek to criminalise conscientious objection to destroying human life.

However, today, as the great feast of the birth of Jesus Christ approaches, who like Barack Obama, Tony and Cherie Blair, and the rest of humanity, lived for nine months in His mother's womb, I put all these matters aside. I appeal to you to follow Breda Laffey's lead. Pray for Barack Obama and for Tony and Cherie Blair: that they will have a change of heart - and that they will use their influence in the world to save lives and become powerful ambassadors in the world for the unborn and for the value and inviolability of human life.

With the election of Barack Obama, this is a time of unprecedented danger for humanity. Christians may like to join me in saying one Our Father daily for the US president-elect and for Mr and Mrs Blair. Write to me at johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk to let me know if you will join me in this daily prayer. And please share this message with others.

Hillary Clinton's appointment tops unprecedented pro-abortion line-up

The appointment of Hillary Clinton as US Secretary of State is confirmation that Barack Obama's administration will be the most anti-life in American history. In addition to Mrs Clinton's appointment and other anti-life Obama appointments which I blogged about recently, Mr Obama has appointed:

Susan Rice, who worked in Bill Clinton's anti-life administration, to be a US ambassador to the United Nations

Ellen Moran, executive director of pro-abortion group EMILY's List, to be White House director of communications

Dawn Johnsen, former legal director of pro-abortion group NARAL, to be a member of his Department of Justice Review Team.

It is therefore incredibly appropriate that Pope Benedict's prayer intention for this month is: "That, faced by the growing expansion of the culture of violence and death, the Church may courageously promote the culture of life through all her apostolic and missionary activities."

Courage means, for both Catholic and non-Catholic pro-lifers, not engaging in woolly wishful thinking that fails to oppose Mr Obama's pro-abortion government, naively allayed by his vague election-time promises to find "common ground" with pro-lifers in order to reduce abortions. Supposing Barack Obama supported the killing of, say, Catholic nuns ... Would right-minded citizens feel inclined to accept vague assurances that he would work with opponents of such killings in order to lower their incidence - whilst simultaneously promising to sign into law a draconian measure designed to extend such killings? What is the difference between the humanity and human rights of unborn children and Catholic nuns?

After the infamous Munich agreement in May 1938, Adolf Hitler said that he had no further territorial claims to make in Europe -and then went on to invade and control huge swathes of Europe. Hitler's words at Munich were believed by many wishful thinkers at the time, even though Hitler had set out clearly in Mein Kampf his belief that it was essential for Germany to occupy eastern Europe. Mr Obama has set out clearly his intention to sign the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) as his first deed as president, and to reverse the pro-life gains made under the Bush administration - yet some wishful thinkers, Chamberlain-like, remain in denial.

Many Germans of Hitler's time, and many people across the world, will have loved J.S. Bach's Advent chorale Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (Sleepers, wake, the voice calls us). This Advent, let's rouse all those people we know are sleeping in apathy to awake and respond to Pope Benedict's call to courageously promote the culture of life.

Stunning speech on Obama "the Abortion President"

Chris Smith, the pro-life American congressman, delivered a stunning speech at the National Right to Life annual convention held last week. Do read his important address in full, but below are some key extracts.

• "[Pro-life work is] a selfless expression of love for the disenfranchised and powerless, absolutely based on the core principles of nonviolence and malice towards none—even for those who actually dismember or chemically poison children to death and euphemistically call it choice.
• "[The pro-life cause is] the greatest human rights struggle on earth.
• "The bravest of all in [the pro-life] movement are the post-abortive women who are 'silent no more'. Their voice and message of hope must be heard everywhere and especially by post-abortive girls and women who suffer depression and deep emotional scaring.
• "Mr. Obama has earned the dubious title of the Abortion President. He talks inclusion, but practices exclusion ... [I]n record time has made the White House the wholly owned subsidiary of the abortion lobby ... [H]is administration is aggressively seeking to reverse virtually every modest pro-life law ever enacted or policy promulgated since Roe v. Wade.
• "The Abortion President is the master of the art of misdirection. From his speeches we hear soothing, pretty, mesmerizing words loftily summoning us to common ground—common burial ground that is. Obama’s talk of common ground is a trap—a snare—for the gullible and for the nominally pro-life who have emerged as the newest enablers ... pushing a few non-controversial pro-life positions like the adoption option all the while seeking to nullify authentic abortion reducing policies—the real common ground—including public funding bans, women’s right to know laws and parental notice statutes. Both the pro-abortion Alan Guttmacher Institute and pro-life advocates actually agree that prohibitions on taxpayer funding for abortion significantly reduce the number of abortions ... Clinton tried to sell common ground. Gore used it as well. And now our Abortion President is presenting it to the nation as if he invented it. It’s a trap.
• "As a result of Obama's new policy, pro-abortion organizations are now flush with cash and will continue to get hundreds of millions of dollars annually to push abortion around the world, all of it decoupled from pro-life safeguards ... With little fanfare, the Abortion President has stuffed and is in the process of stuffing the federal bureaucracy from top to bottom with some of the most extreme pro-abortionists on the planet.
• "[A] new, dark chapter in the Global push for unfettered abortion has commenced ... In light of his coordinated attack overseas, we must do a better job of warning nations in Africa and Latin America in Asia and even Europe that the Global War on Abortion is at their doorstep. Then there is the Obama abandonment of women in China ... Despite the fact that the UN Population Fund has actively supported, co-managed, and white-washed the most pervasive crimes against women in human history, President Obama donated $50 million to the UNFPA ... [T]here are the missing girls—about 100 million—victims of sex selection abortions. This gendercide is a direct result of the one child policy ... Population control blames children for bad governance and the misuse and misallocation of resources. If you want to know where that worldview takes us, just look at China.
• "[The] Abortion President reversed President Bush’s ban on taxpayer-funded embryo-destroying stem cell research ... embryonic stem cells that kill the donor, are highly unstable, have a propensity to morph into tumors and are likely to be rejected by the patient unless strong anti-rejection medicines are administered...
• "[Y]ou and I have no other option but to fight. We must be disciplined and alert and wise. And we need to redouble our efforts and recruit new activists here and around the world especially among the young. This is no time for quitters or the faint of heart."

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Obama's speech to Congress contains "political hoax" on abortion

Yesterday, I warned visitors to my blog not to be fooled by President Obama's upcoming speech (last night) on health care reform. Just as I predicted, he sought to mislead Congress and US citizens by claiming "no federal dollars will be used to fund abortion".

Significantly, in his speech, Obama failed to promise to support language that explicitly prohibits the use of taxpayers' money for abortion.

Mary Harned, of Americans United for Life (AUL), says: "No matter how President Obama and Congress change the structure of the health care reform proposals ... any legislation that provides government funding for health care must contain explicit language that excludes abortion. Abortion is not health care; however, based on how courts have interpreted Medicaid, we know that courts will interpret any legislation relating to government-funded health care as requiring abortion coverage unless there is an explicit prohibition (like Hyde)."

AUL, the first national pro-life organization in America, explains here how Barack Obama's health care proposals mandate abortion funding.

And Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), provides a useful commentary on the abortion myths in Obama's speech last night which you can find here. Johnson says: "The claim that a federal agency would be spending private funds on abortion, not federal funds, is absurd on its face, a political hoax".

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US health care bill highlights danger of bargaining over babies' lives

President Barack Obama has signed into law the health care bill passed by the US Congress. As feared, the new law provides massive funding for abortion. The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) has described the law as "the most abortion-expansive piece of legislation ever" before Congress. At the last moment, Congressman Bart Stupak (pictured with President Obama) and other Democrat politicians who claim to be pro-life made a deal with Mr Obama. Mr Obama offered to sign an presidential executive order, allegedly excluding funding for abortion from the bill, if these Democrat politicians would agree to vote for the bill. The deal enabled the bill to pass.

All the main pro-life groups plus the Catholic bishops' conference have rejected the executive order as worthless. Pro-life groups have stripped Stupak of endorsements and prospective honours. Many pro-life groups feel betrayed, considering that they supported Mr Stupak last year when he was successful in having an earlier version of the bill changed with what they regarded as a worthwhile amendment. Some pro-life groups had warned, though, that the amendment was a half-measure which couldn't make the bill ethically acceptable. They feared that the amendment would actually help, not hinder, the passing of an law with many anti-life evils.

The lesson for the UK from the US health care bill is clear. The Church, and pro-life groups, must:

• oppose, from the very start and throughout its progress, any legislation in which there is a distinct possibility of any individual's right to life being undermined
  
• not be cowed from speaking out against bargaining over babies' lives, out of a misplaced fear of divisiveness or disloyalty.

Sadly, Catholic bishops' conferences and many pro-lifers in the UK and Ireland did not see the prudence of this approach during the:

• Irish abortion referendum (2002)
  
• passage of the Mental Capacity Act (2005)
  
• debate on abortion during the passage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act (2008)
  
• passage so far of the Children, Schools and Families bill.

All too predictably, this weekend's Tablet greets the health care bill with an editorial headlined "America affirms right to life" and a feature article headlined "Victory for dignity". Both the editorial and feature article are replete with gross misrepresentations. For example, the editorial claims that Mr Obama "buil[t] into his scheme cast-iron guarantees to meet" pro-life objections, yet the main pro-life groups have explained in great detail that Mr Obama's guarantees are worthless deceits. The feature article claims that the bill "received widespread support from a host of pro-life leaders", when in fact Democrats for Life was the only pro-life group to support the bill. The feature article omits mention of the many pro-abortion and other anti-life elements in the bill, and makes specific claims (e.g. on community health centres) which pro-life experts have already debunked. 

Such obfuscation is spread and replicated elsewhere in the Catholic media, by bishops' conferences and their agencies, and by Catholic parliamentarians. Sorting out this problem is a Herculean task akin to cleaning out the Augean stables. We cannot, however, shirk from this task, for the sake of the unborn and the vulnerable born.

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New President Most Pro-Abortion in US History

I wrote on Wednesday that the Barack Obama's election to become, later this year, US President, represents an incalculable setback for humanity.

Life Issues Institute,* one of the leading pro-life educational bodies in the US, has issued a statement which powerfully puts into perspective the significance of Senator Barack Obama's election. I reproduce here in full:

New President Most Pro-Abortion in Nation's History

"Voters have made this election a first for America by electing the most pro-abortion president in the history of our nation. Senator Barack Obama will assume the power of the presidency, defined as the most powerful position in the world.

"During his political career, Barack Obama has consistently voted against innocent preborn children. He has repeatedly voted to deny basic medical care to babies who survive late-term abortions, and voted against efforts to end the gruesome partial-birth abortion procedure. As a candidate for president, Senator Obama had pledged to sign the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) which would override any and all restrictions on abortion throughout nine months of pregnancy. It would also force taxpayers to fund abortion-on-demand.

"Of equal concern is Senator Obama’s pledge to appoint only judges who support Roe v. Wade, which could effectively impose the death penalty on future generations of America’s innocent unborn children.

"In addition, pro-abortion Democrats retained control of the US Senate and House of Representatives. Undoubtedly, American citizens can expect a radical pro-abortion agenda from its newly elected leaders.

"Bradley Mattes, Executive Director of Life Issues Institute, said, “With federal legislation no longer an option for a minimum of two years, pro-life education is absolutely central and critical to our future efforts of ending abortion. The key to countering this devastating political loss is to change the hearts and minds of Americans on abortion and related life issues. That can only be done through effective pro-life education.”

"Mr. Mattes added, “Pro-life education is the foundation on which we must build future political and legislative victories to protect unborn babies. We will not give up and we will not waiver in our resolve and determination to end this modern-day holocaust of abortion.”

*The President of Life Issues Institue is Dr Jack Willke, the legendary "Father" of the US pro-life movement. Please pray for his wife Barbara who's not well. Jack and Barbara have travelled the world for decades spreading the pr0-life message and their many books have been published in dozens of languages.

Obama-Clinton's worldwide abortion propaganda unit

The US House of Representatives is due to vote this week on the establishment of an Office of Global Women’s Issues within the US State Department. The office will be responsible for coordinating efforts “relating to gender integration and women’s empowerment in United States foreign policy.” The head of the new office is Melanne Verveer (pictured), former chief of staff to Hillary Clinton, and reported to be pro-abortion Catholic. With Barack Obama as President and Mrs Clinton as Secretary of State, we can expect this new office to engage in a worldwide campaign to make abortion on demand a universal human right.

This is yet more evidence that, for Obama and Clinton, a pro-abortion position is not just something to be expected of a Democratic party administration. They now appear to be making the promotion of a so-called right to abortion among the highest priorities of US domestic and foreign policy, something the mainstream media has generally failed to report. The courageous opposition, however, of thousands of people, including scores of bishops, to Notre Dame university honouring Obama turned the world's spotlight on Obama's anti-life reputation. That is why at Notre Dame Obama felt it necessary to try to spin convincingly about common ground. All the more reason why we must debunk his spin and warn the world about the abortion-centred new world order he is working to create.

Stem cell scientist prays that Obama has "crisis of conscience" on federally-funded execution of human embryos

SPUC's news summary service (for which you can sign up here) reported Friday's news that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US has approved a test of the treatment of spinal injuries in around 10 people with paraplegia using human embryo cells.

The company concerned, the Geron Corporation, wants to do a similar test with diabetics. President Obama is expected to lift President Bush's ban on federal funding for research on new human embryo lines.

James L. Sherley, M.D., Ph.D.(pictured), a leading stem cell scientist, senior scientist at Boston Biomedical Research Institute, who has travelled the world pointing out the inefficacy of embryonic stem cell research to his scientific colleagues, has written to me with the following comment:

“Executives of the Geron Corporation in the U.S. must be quite pleased with the news media tizzy inspired by their Obama-timed announcement of a first clinical trial with human embryonic stem cells. Such clamour excites, builds anticipation, and favors optimism over realism, even when the caveats are well known to the approving U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and reporters.

“In fact, the price of Geron's stock has been climing consistently during the month of December, had a sudden pick up in rate during this week, and surged today on the heels of news reports of the approval of their clinical trial. The problem with some Americans is that they will often abandon even our most fundamental principles, if they see an opportunity for personal gain.

“In the case of Geron's approval, reporters are clumsily obscuring the important principle that is being dismissed by Geron and the FDA. Reporters are mechanically penning reassurances from Geron that they are working appropriately with the FDA to evaluate whether Geron's cells will injure patients. Geron's approved phase I trial will evaluate whether spinal injury patients, who volunteer for the trial, experience undue harm after injection of human embryonic stem cells.

“Of course, the whole trial is a complete ruse, since a greater harm already occurred with the deaths caused by making the embryonic stem cells. President Obama's delay in keeping his promise that he would immediately order federally-funded execution of nascent human beings for research could mean that he now experiences a crisis of conscience. I certainly pray that he will.

“After all, how can one lead on a promise of unity and respect for the American principle of the inalienable right to life, but at the same time promote the death of people just because they are younger? Geron's trial may be legal because of a current exception in U.S. law that permits elective killing of persons who are younger than the stage of birth, but it is certainly not right in any sense of the word.”

You may like to join Dr Sherley in prayer by joining the daily prayer campaign for Barack Obama, and Tony and Cherie Blair, that they will have a change of heart - and that they will use their influence in the world to save lives and become powerful ambassadors in the world for the unborn and for the value and inviolability of human life.

"President Blair" of Europe and President Obama - the pro-abortionists' dream team

"Tony Blair is poised to become the first President of Europe after it was confirmed that French leader Nicolas Sarkozy is determined to help him win the post", the Daily Mail reported last week.

And about this time last month the Guardian carried an interview with Tony Blair in which he suggested he wanted to be European President.

It might seem a distant prospect ... but if Blair became President of Europe during Obama's presidency of the US, it would be the pro-abortionists' dream team.

Tony Blair, the UK’s former Prime Minister is one of the world’s leading architects of the culture of death. Since being received into the Catholic Church he has refused to repudiate the anti-life laws and policies he steadfastly pursued throughout his political career. Indeed he's reportedly determined to continue his anti-life, anti-family agenda.

As for Obama - just check his record on the US National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) website "A closer look at Senator Obama's position on abortion" And last month, in one of his first Presidential actions, he signed an order "that will put hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into the hands of organizations that aggressively promote abortion as a population-control tool in the developing world" according to NRLC.

Obama's executive order to abort the world's poor represents a policy pursued relentlessly by Tony Blair's government and is a policy with which he remains closely associated through the Faiths Act Fellowship, an initiative of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, on which I blogged recently. It's also a policy closely associated with Tony Blair's wife Cherie Blair, also a Catholic, who endorses the work of CEDAW committee (as well as other radical pro-abortion groups) - and specifically its work on "reproductive rights". The CEDAW committee is notorious among pro-lifers for using the CEDAW convention to bully countries into allowing abortion, even though the convention doesn't mention abortion.

Earlier this week, I reported on LifeSite's interview with Archbishop Burke who said: "There's not a question that a Catholic who publicly, and after admonition, supports pro-abortion legislation is not to receive Holy Communion and is not to be given Holy Communion". I made the point that it would be good to obtain further advice from the archbishop as to what ordinary Catholics can do to assist their priests and bishops in doing "their duty", as he puts it, in this regard. With Tony Blair's interest in the European presidency reportedly powerfully backed by Nicolas Sarkozy, the French leader, that advice is now more urgently needed.

My speech to the Dialogue of Civilizations conference in Rhodes

This week I am attending the Rhodes Forum, where I have been invited to address the ninth annual session of the Rhodes Forum: "Dialogue of Civilizations". Below is the full text of my address at the roundtable on population and the family. The roundtable was attended by the Rhodes Forum's founding president Vladamir Yakunin, who was appointed president of Russian Railways by the Government of the Russian Federation in June2005.  The roundtable was moderated by Natalya Yakunina, the wife of Mr Yakunin, who is chairman of Russia's Sanctity of Motherhood programme. I said:

Madam chairman, ladies and gentlemen,

21st century families are deeply affected and damaged by powerful political forces promoting population control, both in developing and in developed countries.

Firstly, there is an unequivocal determination on the part of the world’s most powerful politicians and UN officials to promote access to abortion on demand in every country of the world. Let me begin with President Obama. In a speech on October 12th 2009, Wellington Webb, appointed by Barack Obama as special adviser to the US mission to the United Nations, confirmed that the Obama administration will be promoting legalised abortion throughout the world, targeting adolescents in a worldwide abortion drive.

Hillary Clinton, Obama's appointee as US Secretary of State, had already made it clear that when her government speaks of reproductive health, it's a term which includes access to abortion. In April, 2009, Hilary Clinton told Congressman Chris Smith at a hearing of the US Congress Foreign Affairs Committee "We happen to think that family planning is an important part of women's health and reproductive health includes access to abortion ... ”

Secondly, there’s an unequivocal determination on the part of the world’s most powerful politicians and UN officials to destroy conscientious objection on abortion and on other right to life issues.

Obama’s and Clinton’s pro-abortion allies at the United Nations have been in top gear. In September 2010 at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Ban Ki Moon the UN Secretary General, and Navanethem Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, launched a report “on discrimination against women, in law and practice, and how the issue is addressed throughout the United Nations human rights system”. In that report they called for the policing of nations worldwide to “address the refusal of physicians to perform legal abortions”.

In the meantime, the anti-life lobby intensified its campaign in the European institutions.

A report on conscientious objection in medicine was debated last October in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe consists of elected representatives from the legislatures of the 47 member-states of the Council of Europe. (Please note that the council is entirely separate from the European Union, a body which includes 27 European nations.) The report’s focus was conscientious objection to abortion, contraception, IVF and euthanasia in "medical" care [my quotation marks]. If the report had been passed, Council of Europe member-states, that’s 47 European nations, would have been put under pressure effectively to abolish in law and practice conscientious objection within medicine.

Thankfully, instead of a pro-abortion victory, the tables were turned, and there was an important pro-life victory instead. Prior to the Council of Europe debate the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children in the UK sent detailed briefings to pro-life supporters and to religious leaders in the 47 nations of the Council of Europe. We urged them to lobby their political representatives to vote against this deadly report opposing conscientious objection. The outcome of the debate was radically opposite to the outcome anticipated by the pro-abortion lobby. The pro-abortion report was entitled: “Women’s access to lawful medical care: the problem of unregulated use of conscientious objection,” By way of contrast, the final resolution on the report was headed “The right to conscientious objection in lawful medical care”. The resolution is not perfect but it represents a huge setback for our opponents. It also presents a major new challenge to the pro-life movement in Europe and, perhaps, worldwide.

Thirdly, there is an unequivocal determination to promote homosexuality and other sexual orientation models worldwide probably with a view to bringing forward a resolution at the international level – either at the Human Rights Council or at the UN general Assembly in New York – recognising same-sex marriage.

In June this year, a resolution on sexual orientation and gender identity was presented at the Human Rights Council by South Africa – a resolution organized with the assistance of the United States and the European Union. In a carefully planned strategy, the South African Mission held a meeting on June 9th under the completely misleading heading “The imperative need to respect the established procedures and practices of the United Nations General Assembly in the elaboration on new norms and standards and their subsequent integration into existing international human rights law”.

The result of this meeting was the tabling of a resolution the following day June 10th on "Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity”. The resolution was passed on a vote in the Human Rights Council by 23 votes to 19 with three abstentions. This resolution was targeted at the Human Rights Council because western countries, in favour of expanding human rights to include sexual orientation and gender identity, currently enjoy a majority there.

Last month a similar resolution on sexual orientation and gender identity was agreed by political parties at the European Parliament.

These resolutions on sexual orientation, promoted by some western governments and powerful NGOs, are concentrating on the issue of discrimination and violence. In this way, sexual orientation issues are being placed on the international political agenda.

No one takes issue with the unacceptability of violence committed against persons. However, resolutions against violence will be used as a platform, for future actions. This is just the beginning, as progress has now been made in establishing the issue within the UN framework. This was a first step and it now seems probable to SPUC’s UN lobbyists that there will be a resolution in the coming months – either at the Human Rights Council in Geneva or at the General Assembly in New York – seeking to recognize same sex marriage.

Why is the issue of homosexuality important specifically for the pro-life movement? The late Pope John Paul II, the great pro-life champion, taught in no. 97 of his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae that it is an illusion to think that we can build a true culture of human life if we do not offer adolescents and young adults an authentic education in sexuality, and in love, and the whole of life according to their true meaning and in their close interconnection.

This brings me to my fourth point. There is an unequivocal determination on the part of the world’s most powerful politicians and UN officials to destroy parental rights over their children’s education and formation.

In their work at the Human Rights Council, lobbyists working for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children often meet country delegates from developing nations who are preparing reports for United Nations compliance committees. The Committee on the Rights of the Child is the UN’s compliance committee for the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

For example, there is nothing in the Convention on the Rights of the Child that can reasonably be construed as approving abortion or access to abortion for children under the age of consent without their parents’ knowledge or agreement. However, this does not stop the Compliance Committee from making recommendations promoting access to abortion for children under the age of consent without parents’ knowledge or consent. For example, a child’s “right to health” is protected under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. According to the UN Compliance Committee on the Convention a child’s right to health must include access to sexual and reproductive information, including on family planning and contraceptives, the dangers of early pregnancy, the prevention of HIV/AIDS and the prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). In addition, States parties should ensure that they have access to appropriate information, regardless of their marital status ... and regardless of whether their parents or guardians consent.

We can be sure that Pope Benedict’s message on the 1st January this year is anathema to such powerful UN committees. He said: “Parents must be always free to transmit to their children, responsibly and without constraints, their heritage of faith, values and culture.” Unfortunately, Pope Benedict’s strong statement is not universally supported by church officials – and the weakness of Church officials in many parts of the world is completely disastrous for unborn children, for parents and for their families.

Tragically, in Britain, induced abortion and birth control drugs and devices are provided to children at school, including Catholic schools, under the age of 16 without parental knowledge or consent. This is happening with the co-operation of the Catholic authorities - my fifth point.

Britain is witnessing the fulfilment of the prophetic message of Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI's historic encyclical which celebrated its 40th anniversary two years ago. Speaking about the inseparable connection between the unitive and procreative aspects of sexual intercourse he wrote: 'Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone.' When Pope Paul VI wrote these words, he was referring to governments imposing birth control practices on whole societies. His words apply tragically, with terrifying consequences for our families, to Catholic bishops in England and Wales, who co-operate with the British government policy of imposing birth control practices on families like mine.

The failure of Catholic bishops, not only in Britain but in very many parts of the world, to teach their flocks on matters relating to the fundamental right to life was directly responsible for great confusion and, consequently, for the failure of the overwhelming majority of Catholics, both clerical and lay, to provide truly effective resistance to the greatest legalized slaughter of human beings in the history of the world. Countless millions of unborn children were being killed each year and the policy of very many Catholic bishops was contributing hugely to this deplorable situation.

Unless the pro-life movement worldwide and all citizens of good will speak up loud and clear and make this deplorable situation absolutely clear to Christian pastors – the decline into the destruction of unborn children, the destruction of parents’ rights and responsibilities and the destruction of the health and moral welfare of young people will be completed with terrifying speed.

I call upon delegates here in Rhodes and citizens of good will worldwide to heed the words of Archbishop Hilarion Afleyev, President of the Moscow Patricarchate's Department for External Church Relations: "The Christin is called to profess his faith boldly, out of love of God and of his truth, and for the salvation of his soul, for eternal life".

Such religious and moral leadership is urgently needed for the family to survive its catastrophic destruction through the efforts and the will of powerful politicians and UN officials and the through the betrayal of families by religious leaders who have either lost their faith in God or their love for humanity.

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Obama follows IPPF orders

President Obama's health budget proposals include abolishing funding for abstinence-only programmes. According to Reuters, these programmes have received about US$1.3 billion in federal funds since the late 1990s. Mr Obama's move is straight from the agenda set for him before his inauguration in “Advancing Reproductive Rights and Health in a New Administration,” a memorandum signed by 60 or so pro-abortion organisations, including International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), the biggest promoter of abortion in the world. The memorandum called for abstinence-only programmes to be de-funded (whilst bankrolling the abortion industry and population control agencies.)

The Obama administration and its anti-life mentors claim that abstinence promotion only works when done in conjunction with the promotion of contraception - what they called comprehensive sex education (CSE). The Abstinence Clearinghouse, an American organisation, links to a document by the Institute for Research & Evaluation, Utah, which provides evidence against this claim. The Institute found the following:

"1. Comprehensive sex education purports to promote both abstinence and condom use, yet we see no evidence that school-based CSE programs are effective at improving both of these outcomes.
2. School-based CSE programs have shown no evidence of effectiveness at decreasing teen pregnancy or STDs, or increasing consistent condom use.
3. Only a few school-based CSE programs have increased any type of condom use (e.g., at first or last intercourse) for a significant period of time.
4. Four school-based abstinence programs have produced broad-based and sustained increases in the percentage of youth who remain sexually abstinent."

In other words, Obama-style sex education is a failure, even in its own terms. This conclusion squares with the work of Professor David Paton, chair of industrial economics at Nottingham University Business School. Unfortunately you probably won't hear the truth about abstinence through mainstream media outlets such as Reuters - though you will on this blog!

Obama régime is deferential to China

Just at the time when the US State Department reports that China's human rights abuses are worsening, citing

"repression last year in Tibet and Xinjiang, restricting dissent and religious freedom"

Barack Obama's brave new world has shown where its priorities lie - and they are not with the victims of repression.

Hillary Clinton, Obama's secretary of state, says:

“We have to continue to press them, but our pressing on those issues can’t interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate-change crisis and the security crises. We have to have a dialogue that leads to an understanding and co-operation on each of those.”

US Congressman Chris Smith (right) puts it well when he says that Hillary Clinton's comments are

“a shocking display of pandering”

and that the Obama administration

“has chosen to peddle U.S. debt to the largest dictatorship in the world over combating torture, forced abortion, forced labor, religious persecution, human sex trafficking, gendercide, and genocide” according to EWTN news.

“Secretary Clinton said concern for the protection of human rights of the Chinese people can’t ‘interfere’ with the economic crisis, climate change, and security – as if human rights were somehow disconnected and irrelevant to those issues,” Congressman Chris Smith said.

Congressman Smith reminds us that, when Colin Powell (a supporter of abortion) was Secretary of State, the US State Department verified the pro-life Population Research Institute’s allegations that the UNFPA was cooperating with coercive abortion programme in China.

“UNFPA's support of, and involvement in, China's population-planning activities allows the Chinese government to implement more effectively its program of coercive abortion,” Powell said in a July 21, 2002 letter to Congress.

As I write this, I read that the Democrat majority in the House of Representatives is blocking debate of Mr Smith's pro-life amendments to President Obama's economic package. Mr Smith's proposals would stop government money from going overseas to pay for abortion (including forced abortion) and forced sterilisation.

Obamania spreads to Nobel Prize committee

Barack Obama has today been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The official citation for the award says:

"The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen...co-operation between peoples ... Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama...given its people hope for a better future."

This is the same Barack Obama, one of whose first actions as president was to sign an order to abort the world's poor, putting

"hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into the hands of organizations that aggressively promote abortion as a population-control tool in the developing world"

according to the US National Right to Life Committee (NRLC). As Dr Stephen Karanja, the head of the Kenyan Catholic Doctors Association, said about the result of the US election:

“They have no business electing a person who is going to destroy our countries. And that is what they have done. This is something that a lot of people don’t realise, that what these Americans do affects innocent people thousands and thousands of miles away.”

The late Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, a far worthier recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, said in her acceptance speech:

"[T]he greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion...Because if a mother can kill her own child - what is left for me to kill you and you kill me - there is nothing between."

I am sorely tempted to believe that if she was alive today, Mother Teresa would return her Nobel Prize at today's award to Barack Obama, 'The Abortion President'.

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Right response to pro-abortion policies is strong condemnation and resistance

Who could possibly take issue with The Tablet's editorial this weekend and its appreciative reference to Obama's speech at Notre Dame University calling for "respectful mutual comprehension" in relation to his anti-life policies?

I do.

The Tablet* writes:

Archbishop Nichols' words [at his installation sermon at Westminster Cathedral] might be construed as calling for the Catholic Church to be given a fair hearing, whereas Mr Obama was implicitly addressing his critics within the Catholic Church in America who condemn him as pro-abortion (and therefore condemn Notre Dame for honouring him). But Archbishop Nichols goes on to say: 'In these matters we ourselves in the Churches have so much to learn and do.' This sounds more like an appeal to his fellow Catholics to consider how they themselves engage in public controversy, in which case he is implicitly reinfor­cing Mr Obama's plea for respectful mutual comprehension."

I completely disagree with The Tablet. The right response to Barack Obama and his unprecedented execution of pro-abortion policies since being elected President is strong condemnation and peaceful resistance. As Father Frank Pavone (pictured), the national director of the US's Priests for Life puts it: "We have to stop trivialising abortion". Speaking about the students protesting against Notre Dame's honouring of Obama, Fr Frank writes:

"Everyone can imagine people they would protest speaking at a commencement: an avowed racist, anti-Semite, or advocate of terrorism. So the failure to object to one who is unwilling to call for an end to abortion is the failure to see that abortion is as bad or worse than those other evils. We have to stop trivializing abortion.

"Moreover, the university gave the President an honorary law degree. Law exists to protect human rights; but this president has admitted that he doesn’t know when a child receives human rights. How can he defend human rights when he doesn’t know who has them? ...

" ... Now dialogue with our opponents on this issue is something we at Priests for Life specialize in. I maintain friendships with abortion advocates and practicing abortionists. The clarity of our own convictions never means we despise, demonize, or shut out other people. And yes, we are willing to collaborate with others in morally legitimate ways to reduce the numbers of abortions.

"But the President’s remarks had a glaring omission. While willing to dialogue and to promote adoption, he gave no indication of any willingness to protect the children in the womb. And that’s the crux of the issue. In his remarks, he referred to the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that outlawed segregation. Certainly, his call for open minds does not include openness to reconsider the segregation issue. There’s a right answer to it, period.

"So it is with the protection of the unborn."

The latter part of 20th century history shows again and again that the appropriate response to fundamental human rights abuses on the part of the State is organized peaceful resistance on the part of citizens - and strong condemnation on the part of the Church, as Pope John Paul II reminded us in Evangelium Vitae:

"The Second Vatican Council, in a passage which retains all its relevance today, forcefully condemned a number of crimes and attacks against human life. Thirty years later, taking up the words of the Council and with the same forcefulness I repeat that condemnation in the name of the whole Church, certain that I am interpreting the genuine sentiment of every upright conscience: 'Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or wilful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where people are treated as mere instruments of gain rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others like them are infamies indeed. They poison human society, and they do more harm to those who practise them than to those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are a supreme dishonour to the Creator'." (EV, 3)

*The Tablet describes itself as an international Catholic weekly but, editorially, it opposes Church teaching on fundamental issues relating to the sanctity of human life.

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Pro-life, pro-family commentators react to Obama's re-election

Top story:

Pro-life, pro-family commentators react to Obama's re-election
Pro-life and pro-family commentators have reacted to the re-election of anti-life and anti-family Barack Obama as US president. Abby Johnson, the former Planned Parenthood centre manager now pro-life figure, said: “Time to get involved in the prolife grassroots movement." [LifeSiteNews.com, 6 November] Dale O'Leary, an expert on the homosexual agenda, wrote: "We must protect ourselves and our families by strengthening our own institutions. We must create an alternative culture, one which will resist the culture of death." [Dale O'Leary, 7 November] Michael Matt, editor of The Remnant Catholic newspaper, wrote: "Barack Obama is not the problem, by the way. We are!  Abortion is ... Obama has been reelected because America, like any nation, will always get the leaders she richly deserves." [The Remnant, 7 November]

Other stories:

Abortion

• 3000 pro-life marchers demand Irish Prime Minister uphold unborn rights [LifeSiteNews.com, 5 November]

Embryology

• £12 million initiative announced to fund research into reprogrammed stem cells [Wellcome Trust, 6 November]

Sexual ethics

• Radical statist agenda behind Ireland ‘Children’s Rights’ referendum: former MEP Dana Scallon [LifeSiteNews.com, 6 November]

General

• Bishop Hopes preaches the Gospel of Life in Westminster Cathedral [John Smeaton, 6 November]
• Plymouth - SPUC Pro-Life Universities Tour [SPUC youth blog, 5 November]

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