Mother Teresa (1910-1997)

ChelseaAbortion, Contraception, Pro LifeLeave a Comment

Read my post on Path to Holiness: Darkness Within Faith, Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

nullJesus came to bring the good news to the poor. He had told us what that good news is when He said: “My peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you.” He came not to give the peace of the world which is only that we don’t bother each other. He came to give the peace of heart which comes from loving – from doing good to others…

I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself.

And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even His life to love us. So, the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love, that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts.

By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems.

And, by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for nullthe child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion.

Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion…

“Let us bring the child back.” The child is God’s gift to the family. Each child is created in the special image and likeness of God for greater things – to love and to be loved. In this year of the family we must bring the child back to the center of our care and concern. This is the only way that our world can survive because our children are the only hope for the future…

Jesus said. “Anyone who receives a child in my name, receives me.” By adopting a child, these couples receive Jesus but, by aborting a child, a couple refuses to receive Jesus…

In destroying the power of giving life, through contraception, a husband or wife is doing something to self. This turns the attention to self and so it destroys the gift of love in him or her. In loving, the husband and wife must turn the attention to each other as happens in natural family planning, and not to self, as happens in contraception. Once that living love is destroyed by contraception, abortion follows very easily.
~from Mother Teresa’s speech at the National Prayer Breakfast, Feb. 3, 1994

Even More Stem Cell Research News

ChelseaAdult Stem Cell ResearchLeave a Comment

Stem cells derived from human muscle could be used to treat muscle injuries (H/T: Dakota Voice):

Science Daily — In a study using human muscle tissue, scientists in Children’s Stem Cell Research Center – led by Johnny Huard, PhD, and Bruno Péault, PhD – isolated and characterized stem cells taken from blood vessels (known as myoendothelial cells) that are easily isolated using cell-sorting techniques, proliferate rapidly and can be differentiated in the laboratory into muscle, bone and cartilage cells.

These characteristics may make them ideally suited as a potential therapy for muscle injuries and diseases, according to Drs. Huard and Péault.

This story is most exciting. In three to five years scientists could make heart valves and muscles from a patient’s own cells (H/T: Life Ethics):

The idea is to take a patient’s cells, or those from a compatible donor, and persuade them to grow into new heart components that could then be used instead of transplants…

Professor Yacoub, a leading transplant surgeon, said: “Currently people suffering from heart valve disease can be treated with artificial replacement valves – they do the job and save people’s lives but they are far from perfect. Although there has been huge progress in developing mechanical replacements, they still work mechanically and not physiologically – they cannot match the elegant sophisticated functions of living tissues.”

Using stem cells and tissue engineering, bioengineers could repair faulty valves or heart muscle damaged by a heart attack, providing a “like for like” match that would grow and repair in the same way as heart tissue.

A Stem Cell “Miracle”

ChelseaAdult Stem Cell Research, Umbilical Cord Blood1 Comment

On July 4, a six year old girl from Joplin, MO, blind since she was a few months old, received the first of five stem-cell transplants from umbilical cord blood, at a hospital in China. Where once there was nothing, Rylea Barlett now responds to light and can recognize people’s faces. Upon looking at her mother one day she said, “I saw my Mommy. Mommy, you are beautiful.” After the $40,000 treatments her optometrist determined that she now has 20/400 vision. He testifies to this successful treatment:

“Her optic nerves did not work. They would not send light back to the brain. People with optic-nerve hypoplasia never develop vision. This is the first case ever — since the Bible — where someone’s sight has been restored. This is totally uncharted territory. We don’t know what to expect. We don’t know what the end result will be and whether she will have some functional vision. But two months ago she had nothing, and now she can see light. That’s an incredible journey for one small person. It’s a miracle.”

This miracle, brought to you in part by “Adult” Stem Cells. No human embryos were created or destroyed in the making of this miracle.

By the way, the Bartlett’s decision to seek treatment in China was confirmed after talking to a man in Sikeston, MO with a spinal cord injury whose condition was improved after going to the same Chinese program for stem cell treatments. Did I tell you that I LOVE posting these stories?? I do!

Here is a news story about the adorable Rylea prior to her treatments:

Visit Rylea’s website

Have a Safe and Relaxing Labor Day!

ChelseaAbortion, Cloning, Pro LifeLeave a Comment

nullI hope all of you have been enjoying this Labor Day weekend. It has been a nice weekend here. Football season started(!) and my sisters have been home from school. It’s going to be a pretty laid back day in the Zimmerman house. The girls are leaving this afternoon so we’re just going to grill some hamburgers and hot dogs for lunch before they leave. I hope everyone else enjoys this little break as well! The only downfall of this holiday for me is that it means Fall and colder temperatures are on the way.

Here is some reading for your lazy Labor Day:

  • Nathan Sheets writes about Julia Gorin who was almost aborted in Soviet-era Russia and is now a pro-life advocate.
    Julia’s website
    Julia’s blog

    British MPs want to make it faster and easier for women to get early abortions without a doctor’s approval.

    Some ignorant letters to the editor/editorials    :
    A Columbia MO professor writes in the Columbia Missourian calling supporters of the effort to ban cloning “insurgents” and “anarchists, who oppose everything represented by our state and national governments.” Meanwhile these “anarchists” are proceeding in the same manner to amend the constitution as the group who supported Amendment 2, which he supported.

    A Seattle liberal moves to Chicago and is “overwhelmed by the incredible bureaucracy that exists in Illinois and amazed at how many people here want to control how others live and think.” She continues with some really ridiculous claims (nothing new, of course); the government can’t tell a woman what to do with her body, a fetus isn’t a child, if men got pregnant abortion would be a God-given right etc… But this takes the cake:

    And if the Right wants to save fetuses so they can be born, grow up to be soldiers, and fight and die young in wars created for imagined threats to the U.S., then perhaps they would be more comfortable living in a culture where the church is the state, as in Muslim countries.

    • Have a great day!

    Margaret Sanger’s Dreams Coming True

    ChelseaAbortion, Disabled2 Comments

    christinaayers.jpgIn response to the recent news about a couple who had the misfortune of having the “wrong twin” aborted, the Vatican blamed the “culture of perfection” resembling Nazi eugenics. This most certainly is the case when you consider that the “right twin” scheduled for execution was the one diagnosed with Down Syndrome after an amniocentesis test. This child was subsequently also killed after the mistaken execution of its healthy sibling. The parents are “truly desperate over this terrible mistake” and, according to the mother, “Neither my husband nor I can sleep at night.” Without wishing to cast judgment upon the two, I just wonder if they would have felt the same desperation if only the “unhealthy” twin had been aborted. Since they were reportedly happy about the prospect of having twins in the first place, I imagine they probably also would have also mourned, in some way, the loss of the disabled child. Regardless, the couple obviously believed, as much of our society does, that the life of a child with Down Syndrome is less valuable than that of a “healthy” child and not worthy to be lived.

    This way of thinking, that only certain individuals have life worthy of life and others should not be allowed to be born, was the vision of the early abortion movement. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, wrote extensively on the unworthiness of imbiciles, the handicapped, the poor and other undesirables like the black population, to procreate or be born. When you consider that abortion is the leading cause of death in the African American community, roughly 80-90% of unborn children diagnosed with Down Syndrome are aborted, and doctors and OBGYN’s are pushing for mandatory pre-natal/embryo screening for birth defects, it seems that Margaret Sanger’s dreams might be coming true.

    By Margaret Sanger:
    The Pivot of Civilization

    Read also:
    Life is Worth LIVING
    Lives Not Worth Living
    Lives Not Worth Living Take II

    What’s Wrong with ESCR and Right about ASCR: a Summary

    ChelseaAdult Stem Cell Research, Embryonic Stem Cell Research, Stem Cell ResearchLeave a Comment

    At the conclusion of his article, The Dark Door of Embryonic Stem Cell Research, for the Conservative Voice, Kevin Roeten provides a to-the-point summary of what is wrong with research on human embryos and right about research using adult stem cells:

    ESCR is believed to be a human ‘suffering’ savior, even though it causes tumors, likely immunogenic (rejected after implantation), adds additional weight to the budget deficit, has zero successful attempts, and has is likely of destroying life at its initial stages. ASCR, on the other hand, has successfully treated almost 100 illnesses, is not immunogenic in any case, and is completely ethical in that it never destroys a life. The choice seems like a “no-brainer”. It almost sounds as if emotionalism has trumped those espousing ESCR, and rendered them without any judgmental ability.

    Why I Can’t Support Gov. Blunt

    Chelsea2008 Election, Cloning5 Comments

    Blunt won’t support SCNT ban
    Gov. Matt Blunt said today that he won’t support a new initiative push to ban human cloning – a measure that would also outlaw somatic cell nuclear transfer.

    “I think my position on this issue is well known,” Blunt said. “My position on what sort of scientific research should occur in this state is well-known. And I wouldn’t be in support of the initiative.”

    This is why I am not looking forward to 2008 on a State as well as a National level. Next year Gov. Matt Blunt, a Republican, will be running against Atty. General Jay Nixon, a pro-choice Democrat. While Blunt may be anti-abortion, he is not wholly pro-life. Regarding somatic cell nuclear transfer, the process by which, when using a human egg and somatic cell, a human being is cloned, Gov. Blunt has allowed himself to be convinced that what is created is not “human.” blunt1.jpgI tried to figure this out in a meeting with him in 2005 regarding a cloning ban that was in the Senate. He explained that he believed that God’s plan for the creation of human life involved the union of a sperm and egg. While he agreed with me that a new “life” would be created through SCNT, he disagreed that that life would be human since no sperm would be involved in the creation process. When I asked him to explain, then, what kind of organism was actually created he said more or less, “we don’t know what it is, but it’s not human, is therefore not unethical and should not be banned.”

    For a relatively intelligent man, this is an illogical and unintelligent conclusion. When using a human egg and somatic cell, SCNT creates a living organism which is genetically and biologically human, indistinguishable from one created through normal sexual reproduction. Any way you slice it, that’s human life, plain and simple. During his gubernatorial campaign he promised pro-lifers that he would support any ban on human cloning in the state. Since becoming governor he has been romanced by Missouri’s biotech industry and opposed now three measures to ban cloning, along with supporting an effort to protect human cloning in the MO Constitution and appropriating state funds to the bio industry (see, The Muddled 2007 Legislative Session, paragraph 3).

    He may be better than the current alternative regarding abortion, but human cloning has become perhaps the most pressing pro-life issue of our time and on that he has failed miserably, so I’m holding out for someone better. If that someone doesn’t come I’m not quite sure what I’ll do. As I said, I’m not looking forward to 2008.

    My letters to Blunt in 2005:
    Letter 1
    Letter 2

    Temporary Success for PP in MO

    ChelseaAbortionLeave a Comment

    Today a federal judge agreed to temporarily block the passage of Missouri’s new law regulating abortions that was supposed to go in effect Tuesday. Now there will be a Sept. 10 hearing to determine whether or not to permanently block the law.

    Planned Parenthood claims that this new law, which raises to a status of an ambulatory surgical center any establishment performing or inducing any second or third trimester abortions or five or more first trimester abortions per month, would infringe on women’s abortion rights. This because PP would either have to permanently cease performing abortions, or temporarily close it’s doors while expensive renovations are made to their two abortion facilities. According the the AP story both of Missouri’s PP “clinics hadn’t been regulated for years.” I guess for PP less than safe conditions for women seeking abortions are better than no abortions at all.

    Let The Games Begin

    Chelsea2008 Election, Cloning, Politics3 Comments

    I am now trained to gather signatures for the initiative petition to ban human cloning in Missouri. If any of you are fellow Missourians (or know some) and are interested in helping out by gathering signatures in your own church or area email me, or contact Missouri Right to Life or Cures Without Cloning for information. There are a number of people ready to train petitioners all over the state so we’re ready as soon as the ballot language is approved – we’ve got roughly 30 to 60 days before that happens.

    We’re fired up and ready to fight this important battle to preserve the sanctity of human life in our state!

    Back Home in MO

    ChelseaAbortion, Cloning, PoliticsLeave a Comment

    I made it home safely after a most excellent visit to SW Florida and boy has the Show-Me State been busy in my absence!

    I was able to report the other day about the announcement of a state constitutional amendment for the 2008 ballot which would prohibit human cloning in the state. With headlines like, Group wants to outlaw form of stem cell research, Anti-cloning group launches effort to overturn Missouri amendment, New Mo. group targets stem-cell work, Cell transfer procedure is targeted, and New proposal seeks to ban certain embryonic stem-cell research by the ever-so-bias news media, you wouldn’t know that this initiative is only about cloning and has nothing to do with embryonic stem cell research. However, it really is a quite simply, a very straightforward cloning ban which also prohibits state funding for research on cloned embryos. David Freddoso wrote a great article on this for National Review Online.

    Also, as expected, Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit challenging the state law passed earlier this year regulating abortion clinics, requiring them to meet numerous building, staffing and health standards. This is a pretty standard thing for PP to do. But what I found most interesting was that the director of the health department, which is a defendant in the case, sent a letter to our attorney general, who would typically defend the agency, saying:

    “As you have been an outspoken supporter of abortion on demand and a political ally of Planned Parenthood who has accepted campaign contributions from this abortion provider, I did not believe I could trust you to defend me and my department vigorously…[the new law is] very pro-life while you are radically pro-abortion.”

    The health department was represented by attorneys for the Alliance Defense Fund at the trial on Thursday. The judge is expected to rule on Monday.

    Ahh! It’s good to be back!