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FACING LIFE ISSUES IN LOVE AND TRUTH
by Babette Francis, December 2010
The following is the abridged text
of a talk given by Babette Francis at the Call to Holiness Conference
in Brisbane on 9 October, chaired by Fr Greg Jordan, SJ.
A distinguishing feature of the pontificate of Pope Benedict
XVI has been his emphasis on reason and truth: in his Regensberg lecture
(2006) and his encyclical Caritas in Veritate (2009), the Pope reiterates
that love must be combined with truth.
The importance of truth can be highlighted in regard to four life issues:
embryo experimentation, the value of ultrasound in preventing abortions,
the increased risk of breast cancer caused by abortion, and statistics
on maternal mortality.
Embryos
Truth is often absent from journalists’ reports on medical successes
with stem cells. We read of improvements or cures, but the report leaves
unsaid that these have been achieved with adult stem cells, not embryonic
ones.
Recent good news is that a faster and more efficient way of deriving
stem cells from skin cells has been discovered by scientists in Boston
who say their discovery will revolutionise an already-booming field
of medical advances through adult stem cells.
Research on embryonic stem cells, which kills the tiny human beings
from which they are derived, have produced no cures or treatments, and
have led to tumors risking even more injury to patients. Adult stem
cells, on the other hand, already boast scores of successes in curing
or
improving conditions including spinal cord injury, juvenile diabetes,
lupus, multiple sclerosis, lung and heart diseases, and eye damage.
Ultrasound
Another “truthful” technology is ultrasound for it has proven
the baby in the womb, whose identity the death peddlers tried to obscure
by labelling it a “fetus”, is actually a small baby and not
a clump of cells. Ultrasound provides a window to the truth, for we
can see the baby moving its limbs and sucking its thumb. This is why
abortion activists are so opposed to women considering abortion seeing
their babies on ultrasound.
During a recent 40 Days for Life campaign in Arkansas, the team reported
that three babies were spared from abortion. One counselor had a simple
message for women entering the facility: “Ask to see the ultrasound!”
One young couple the counsellor talked to walked out of the facility
with smiles, their ultrasound photo in hand, and accepted information
about a pro-life pregnancy centre.
Abortion and breast cancer
There are over 30 studies worldwide dating back to 1957 showing the
increased risk of breast cancer caused by abortion. In pregnancy there
is a rapid rise in estrogen which causes breast cells to multiply. When
cells are rapidly dividing and increasing, they are unstable and vulnerable
to cancer. Breast cells do not stabilise until 32 weeks of pregnancy.
If the pregnancy is terminated before 32 weeks, by abortion or a car
accident, the woman is left with more vulnerable cells in her breasts.
In the past 18 months there have been five new studies confirming the
link between abortion and breast cancer: from Turkey, China, USA, Sri
Lanka and Iran. Endeavour Forum has written to the Cancer Council of
Australia and the Cancer Council of Victoria, asking why women are not
informed. Peter Kavanagh, MLC (DLP), directed this question in the Victorian
Parliament to the Health Minister, as did Rev Fred Nile, MLC, in the
NSW Parliament. None of us has had a reply.
The National Cancer Institute USA continues to be intransigent, despite
one of their own researchers admitting the link. One could speculate
that the motivation is to preserve the status of abortion as a safe
procedure.
Maternal mortality
Feminists have tried to conceal the truth in their claim — vigorously
promoted at UN conferences — that maternal deaths were caused by
laws that made abortion illegal, and have
tried to inflate numbers of maternal deaths worldwide, to support their
argument that legalising abortion would save women’s lives. Ann
Starrs, “Family Care International” (an abortion advocacy
group), told scientists at a symposium on maternal and child health
hosted by Washington University’s Institute for Health Matters
and Evaluation and the British Medical Journal to “lock all the
academics in a black box and have them come out with a consensus set
of numbers” — or conceal the fact that there is disagreement
between their numbers and those of abortion activists. These groups
were quoting figures of “over 500,000 annual maternal deaths”,
while the figure was 342,000, with 62,000 of these from HIV/AIDS.
The scientists at the symposium refused to back the feminist/UN agencies’
claim that contraception and abortion improved maternal health. Hans
Rosling, professor at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, said Sri Lanka’s
decline in maternal mortality was because of asphalt roads and other
infrastructure. (Abortion is restricted in Sri Lanka).
Indeed, maternal mortality is lowest in countries with restrictive abortion
laws such as Poland and Ireland (which has the lowest maternal mortality
in the world). Maternal mortality is higher in countries where abortion
is legal, for example, in Chile maternal mortality rose when
abortion laws were liberalised, and fell when abortion was restricted.
What pregnant women need is access to prenatal care, and the availability
of blood transfusions and antibiotics — not abortions.
Pope Benedict reminds us in Caritas et Veritate of what Paul VI clearly
enunciated: that social questions have become worldwide, and “the
indispensable importance of the Gospel for building a society according
to freedom and justice” in a civilisation animated by love.
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