The leadership of each country sets priorities and determines policies. Sadly, the leadership in China has established a clear agenda promoting a Culture of Death, resulting in fewer births, more abortions, and an abundance of men. While John Kerry’s positions are certainly not as extreme as China’s one-child policy, he also promotes a Culture of Death: he supports abortion, embryonic stem cell research (ESCR), and even research cloning. As Pro-Life citizens, we are obligated not only to vote, but to vote for Pro-Life candidates. President George W. Bush has supported Life throughout his presidency and has vowed to continue to do so. For Pro-Life Americans, the choice is clear.
Please read this issue of the Pro-Life Update carefully to understand some of the challenges we now face and how you--an educated Pro-Lifer--can help advance the Culture of Life. Please share this information with your family, friends and church congregations. Make copies. Spread the news. Kerry and Embryonic Stem Cell Research (ESCR)
John Kerry stands in favor of embryonic stem cell research: He even co-sponsored a bill supporting the creation of human embryos in order to destroy them and use the stem cells for research (“therapeutic” or research cloning). One week later, Kerry’s policy director, Sarah Bianchi, stated that Kerry “absolutely [does] not” favor creating embryos for research.
While drastically changing his opinion on therapeutic/research cloning, Kerry has reaffirmed his commitment to ESCR in a recent radio address: “At this very moment, some of the most pioneering cures and treatments are right at our fingertips, but because of the stem cell ban, they remain beyond our reach." In response to this statement, even the media could not remain silent:
The lobby for embryonic stem cell funding is deeply dishonest. It involves a 'ban' that isn't a ban, a claim of cures 'right on our fingertips' (John Kerry) that falsely implies an early cure for Alzheimer's, and a discounting of promising stem cell research that doesn't involve the creation and destruction of embryos (cells from umbilical cords and adult bone marrow and teeth). Kerry and the Democrats have a case to make. They just don't want to make it honestly. (Columnist John Leo)
With the salesmanship of a faith healer, Kerry dangled promises no responsible scientist would countenance. (Slate columnist William Saletan)
John Kerry's assertions about stem cell research are so obviously untrue and so easily refuted that he must on some level actually believe them--as only an ideologue can. (Eric Cohen, writing in The Weekly Standard)
John Kerry is confused (most likely willfully so) about the promises of embryonic stem cell research. He not only ignores the ethical problems involved when destroying young human life, but he also disregards the success of adult stem cell research (as opposed to the false “promise” of ESCR). Sadly, John Kerry is promoting a Culture of Death.
In August, U.S. District Judge Richard C. Casey declared the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional in the second such ruling in three months. His decision was dictated by a 5 to 4 Supreme Court ruling in 2000, which held that Roe v. Wade protects partial-birth abortion. He said that he could not rule in favor of the PBA Ban Act because the ban did not allow for an exception to protect the health of the mother. However, he clearly is disturbed by this procedure, as is evident in his write-up:
The Court finds that testimony at trial and before Congress establishes that D&X [the term used in lieu of partial-birth abortion] is a gruesome, brutal, barbaric, and uncivilized medical procedure. Dr. Anand’s testimony [Dr. Anand is a world-renowned authority on pain in the unborn and newborns], which went unrebutted by Plaintiffs, is credible evidence that D&X abortions subject fetuses to severe pain. Notwithstanding this evidence, some of Plaintiffs’ experts testified that fetal pain does not concern them, and that some do not convey to their patients that their fetuses may undergo severe pain during a D&X. Additionally, some of Plaintiffs’s experts do not make full disclosure to women about what D&X entails.
Judge Casey also wrote that experts called by Department of Justice lawyers “reasonably and effectively” refuted the claim that partial-birth abortion has “safety advantage over other second-trimester abortion techniques.”
President Bush signed the PBA Ban Act back in November 2003. Whether or not this gruesome procedure will continue in the United States will likely be decided by the Supreme Court. According to National Right to Life Legislative Director, Douglas Johnson, “Future appointments to the Supreme Court will determine whether it remains legal to mostly deliver living premature infants and painfully puncture their skulls. President Bush is determined to ban partial-birth abortion, but John Kerry voted against the ban and has vowed that he will appoint only justices who agree with him."
China’s One-Child Policy
Amidst a culture that allows only one child per family and strongly favors male heirs, China is now realizing the severe problem that they have created. According to a 2000 census, there are now about 117 boys for each 100 girls in China: they have created a nation of bachelors. (In ordinary populations, the ratio is 104 boys to 100 girls.) A Christian Science Monitor (CSM) article stated that social scientists believe that as many as 15% of Chinese men will not have wives.
Because of a concern that the Chinese population will outnumber their resources, China has long prohibited families from having more than one child. They have enforced this policy through coercion, forced abortion, and infanticide. With the prospect of just one child, most families hope for a boy to carry on their family name; girls are therefore seen as “undesirable”. Many families obtain illegal ultrasounds to determine the gender of their unborn child (ultrasound for non-medical purposes has been illegal in China for 10 years). Often, if that child is female, she will be aborted.
As Americans, we are rightly appalled that citizens could be coerced either not to have children or to abort their unborn children. Unfortunately, this population crisis is not only a problem in China: CSM observed that "skewed sex ratios are also appearing elsewhere in Asia, particularly India, where the ratio in the state of Punjab is 126 to 100." There is even a "tilt" towards male birth in the Caucasus and parts of Latin America and Eastern Europe.
The Pro-Life movement still has much work to ensure that all people throughout the world are welcomed into Life and respected.
