Facts of Life--
May 31,
2002
The California ProLife council would like to
invite everyone to a debate on what it means to be human! Set
aside Friday evening, June 7, to hear Nigel M. de S. Cameron, Ph.D.
and Peter Singer, Ph.D., the infamous proponent of infanticide, of
Princeton University, debate "What does it mean to be
human?" Sponsored by the Center for Bioethics and Culture,
and co-sponsored by CPLC and other pro-life and pro-family
organizations, including co-organizer, Life Legal Defense Fund, this
is a topic of central importance to many of the medical and bioethical
issues facing contemporary culture.
Date: Friday,
June 7, 2002, 7:00 p.m.
Location: Calvin Simmons Theater
Henry J. Kaiser Auditorium
10th Street, Oakland, CA
Purchase tickets
here: http://www.thecbc.org/exp/conf/singer_debate.asp
$25 in advance, $45 at the door
Long Beach Election Alert-- Election
Tuesday, June 4: California ProLife Council PAC
has endorsed write-in candidate, Norm Ryan for Mayor of Long
Beach.
California Assembly
Rejects Abortion Funding Limits as they give preliminary
approval to the California budget for 2002-2003. Five
pro-life Republican Assemblymen offered amendments on May 30
to attempt to remove or limit the currently unlimited funding
of abortion in California's Medi-Cal program. Assemblyman
Bill Campbell (Villa Park) led the effort, attempting
to limit tax-funded abortions to those necessary to prevent
the death of the mother and for instances where the child was
conceived by rape or incest which was reported to a law
enforcement agency. (Rejected on a tabling motion 48-23, 9 not
voting.) Assemblyman Dennis Hollingsworth (Murrietta)
attempted to require parental consent prior to a Medi-Cal
funded abortion. (Rejected 46-28, 6 not voting) Assemblyman
Jay LaSuer (La Mesa) tried to limit tax-funded
abortions to one per Medi-Cal recipient per year. (Rejected
48-27, 5 not voting) Monrovia Assemblyman Dennis
Mountjoy's amendment would have prohibited the use of
tax funds for the purchase or sale of embryonic or fetal body
parts, as well as for the cloning of human embryos.
(Rejected 46-26, 8 not voting) Assemblyman Phil
Wyman (Tehachapi) tried to deny tax funding for
partial-birth abortions. (Rejected 45-28, 7 not voting.)
These are the unofficial vote tabulations, as a few
members may have changed their votes later. On the
preliminary vote, no Democrats supported the pro-life
amendments, and Republican Keith Richman, M.D., of
Northridge voted to table all 5 amendments.
U.C. San Francisco admits
to use of taxpayer dollars to attempt to clone human
beings for research. Dr. Roger Pederson, the
geneticist who left America in a huff last year from the
University of California San Francisco in order to pursue
destructive embryonic stem cell research at Cambridge in
England, was actually attempting to create human embryos.
He conducted two sets of embryo-cloning experiments, one in
1999 and the other in early 2001, using eggs donated by a
fertility clinic. He intended to allow these cloned
human embryos to grow to a stage where he could harvest their
stem cells, killing them in the process, but he failed to
create "viable human embryos." Pederson's
experiments in cloning-- only the second we are aware of in
America, were fortunately unsuccessful. Pederson used
eggs donated by a fertility clinic.
Pederson and the University
spokesman, Dr. Keith Yamamoto, complained of funding
complications. They were encumbered by the restrictions
on federal funds for this kind of unethical and destructive
human experimentation. They also were not allowed to
co-mingle this research with other studies conducted with
federal funds. So they had to rely on California taxpayer dollars
and money from Geron Corporation, a biotechnology company in
Menlo Park.
Attorney General John
Ashcroft will appeal the U.S. District Court's injunction
against enforcement of the federal Controlled Substances
Act in Oregon. The U.S. Justice Department
argues that dispensing drugs for physician-assisted suicides
does not serve a "legitimate medical purpose" under
the federal Controlled Substances Act. However in April
of this year, Federal District Court Judge Robert Jones
enjoined the federal agency from enforcing the federal
law in Oregon, stating that Oregon voters "have chosen to
resolve the moral, legal and ethical implications of
physician-assisted suicide for themselves."
More than 90 people have died under the Oregon law passed by
voters in 1994 and 1997-- virtually none due to problems
with pain. On May 24, the Justice Department announced
their intention to appeal the District Court's decision to the
San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
[Note: "Death as a Salesman:
What's Wrong with Assisted Suicide" is an excellent,
concise self-education tool on the issue of assisted suicide.
Learn the
tactics of the pro-death movement and strengthen your
knowledge base so that
you can be an effective advocate for life in your sphere of
influence. Can
be used individually or in a group setting.
User-friendly handouts are
available if you want to educate your family and friends.
The video is
25-minutes long and is available for a donation of $15.00.
http://www.californiaprolife.org/resource/salesman.html
]
Crossroads, pro-life
college students walking across America, were stripped of
First Amendment rights as they crossed the Golden Gate
Bridge in San Francisco.
So you thought
anything goes in San Francisco?!! Well, probably
anything but wearing a pro-life T-shirt. These young
people-- mostly from Creighton University in Iowa, were
participating in their annual tradition of walking across
America "to witness to the sanctity and dignity of
all human life from conception to natural death and pray for
an end to all offenses against the human person." As
they were halfway across the Golden Gate Bridge in early
afternoon on May 20, the bridge patrol ordered them to take
off their pro-life T-shirts. Even though they
carried no signs, were not chanting any slogans, and
were walking in the pedestrian walkway, authorities said
they were obstructing traffic and were engaged in political
protest without a permit.
California
ProLife Council (CPLC) is the largest and only statewide
organization in California solely dedicated to pro-life
issues. CPLC is a non-sectarian, non-partisan, non-profit
grassroots organization of pro-life groups and individuals
in California dedicated to protecting and fostering the most
basic value of our society—respect for LIFE itself.
We seek to educate our community in regard to
abortion, euthanasia, and infanticide, to identify and
organize the pro-life population of the state into an
effective force, and to restore respect for human life to
public policy.
