"Facts of Life" Email: April 24, 2003

Facts of Life

April 24, 2003

The effort to recall Governor Gray Davis is well underway.  You can do your part to help recall the most pro-abortion governor California has ever had by downloading petitions at www.californiaprolife.org from a PDF format.  Pay careful attention to instructions that you will download with the petition.  Signatories must be registered voters and petitions must be separated by counties.  Start new petitions for voters from different counties.  Witness the petitions properly and promptly send them in to the address in the instructions.   

The tragic case of Connor Peterson, an unborn victim of violence, apparently murdered along with his mother Laci last Christmas Eve, shines some light on the status of California law and the hypocrisy of NOW and other radical feminists.  Their bodies washed up on beaches near where Connor’s father Scott claims he went fishing on that day, and he has been charged with their murders.   In 1970, after another horrific case involving the murder of an unborn child while in her mother’s womb (Keeler v. the Superior Court of Amador County), the California Legislature acted quickly to allow a cause of action for the murder of such unborn victims of homicide.  http://www.fresnobee.com/local/v-print/story/6605661p-7544991c.html  Simply adding the words “or a fetus” to the homicide statute (and an exemption for legal abortions), Penal Code Section 187 has since then declared that “[m]urder is the unlawful killing of a human being, or a fetus, with malice aforethought.”  Clear enough, one would think, however lower courts for many years required that proof of viability of the unborn child be presented—even though the California Legislature had rejected such amendments when they adopted this statute.  Finally, in the 1994 case of People v. Davis, the California Supreme Court narrowly read the language of 187 to apply to an unborn child who “has progressed beyond the embryonic stage of seven to eight weeks.”  Other cases have clarified that the death penalty can be applied when there is a murder of a mother and her unborn child, because the necessary “special circumstance” of a double homicide is present.  http://www.recordnet.com/articlelink/042303/news/articles/042303-gn-2.php# and http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/5687741.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp     It has not yet been decided by the Stanislaus County District Attorney whether or not it will be asked for in the Peterson case.  (California ProLife Council does not take a position on the death penalty.)  And the usual hypocrisy of the National Organization of Women and other radical feminists hangs in the air, as their usual excuse of “choice” is discarded to expose their true position—that an unborn child must have no recognition in the law—wanted or unwanted.  http://www.nationalreview.com/skonig/skonig042303.asp  

Senator Deborah Ortiz (D-Sacramento) brought her three stem cell research bills to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee on April 23^rd.  All three passed with unanimous Republican opposition and with the support of the Democrats.  The three bills are:  SB 322, which establishes the Human Stem Cell Review Council to establish guidelines for this research within the Department of Health Services; SB 771, which will establishes and administer an anonymous registry of embryos available for destructive stem cell research within the Department of Health Services, the first state-sanctioned virtual embryo plantation; and SB 778, which creates the Biomedical Research and Development Act of 2003, which would authorize the issuance of bonds for biomedical research with the affirmative vote of the people.  They will go on to the Senate Appropriations Committee, then to the Senate floor, so you should contact your state Senator to ask him to oppose these anti-life measures.  For contact information for your state senator, go to http://www.sen.ca.gov/~newsen/senators/senators.htp

Senator Jim Battin (R-La Quinta) valiantly defended his bill to ban all human cloning in the California Senate Health and Human Services Committee on April 23^rd.  SB 133 is modeled after the federal legislation, which has three times passed the U. S. House of Representatives with overwhelming bi-partisan votes, and awaits a vote in the U. S. Senate.  The California panel rejected SB 133, however, by a vote of 3-7, with Democrats voting no (Senators Wes Chesbro, Martha Escutia, Liz Figueroa, Sheila Kuehl, Deborah Ortiz, Gloria Romero and John Vasconcellos) and Republicans voting yes (Senators Sam Aanestad, Roy Ashburn and Jim Battin).  SB 133 is needed because the current California moratorium (renewed last year with SB 1230) does NOT ban the cloning of human embryos.  It merely creates a Professional Code offense for attempting to sustain the life of a human embryo by implanting him or her in the womb.  In other words, while it bans so-called “reproductive” cloning (requiring the embryo to die), it allows so-called “therapeutic” cloning for research and destruction.  Senator Battin brought the same bill to correct this anti-life policy to the California Senate last year.  Please thank him for carrying this important pro-life measure.  Jim.Battin@sen.ca.gov.

Baby teeth are revealed as the newest discovery of a source for stem cells.   Songfao Shi, a pediatric dentist at the National Institutes of Health, who is also a stem cell researcher, was already aware of stem cells available in the pulp of adult teeth, but when his 6-year-old daughter lost her first tooth it occurred to him that there could be important differences in the baby teeth because of their physical immaturity.  He was right.  They not only were capable of becoming a wide range of cells, but they also could trigger bone formation in mice.  They also found that the cells multiply two to three times faster than stem cells from adult bone marrow and adult teeth.  See the article at http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993643

In a story published April 10 by the BBC, it was reported that Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) voted to end allowing scientists to do research on stem cells taken from human embryos.  Although MEPs will have to vote again before it actually takes effect and a majority of the member states will also have to approve, this could signal the end of this deadly human experimentation in Europe.  It also marked the third time in as many years that they have signaled their rejection of human cloning for experimental purposes.  The United Kingdom has had very permissive policies on embryo research and human cloning.  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2932421.stm

California ProLife Council (CPLC) (www.californiaprolife.org.) is the largest 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 team, and to restore respect for human life to public policy.  California ProLife Council is the California affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee, Inc. (www.nrlc.org).