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- Newsletters -
Apostles for Life News Wishes you a Happy and a Holy Christmas 2005
The people that lived in darkness have seen a great light; on those who lived in a country of shadow dark as death a light has dawned Matthew 4:16
Well! What a year 2005 has been again for Apostles for Life!! We have much to thank God for: We had a wonderful celebration of the Day of the Unborn Child on the feast of the Annunciation And an outdoor candlelight Rosary for the Immaculate Conception. We had a wonderful retreat at Bellingen, thanks to Father Hans Stankiewicz. We had a wonderful tour with Anne Lastman from Coffs Harbour up to Kingscliff. We had a wonderful Family Life International Conference in Melbourne.
The wonders never cease! And these are just the big events. What about all the little events that have occupied us, in the cause of Life. There’ve been regular prayer meetings in several parishes. Many hearts have been touched and lives and souls saved through your prayers and sacrifices. These remain hidden from our eyes, but we know that our prayers work. God knows how!
December is an extra special time for us in the pro-life apostolate. Apart from the Advent Season, we celebrate: The Immaculate Conception of the
Blessed Virgin Mary on 8th,
the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on 12th, The Birth of Jesus on 25th, and The Feast of the Holy Innocents on 28th
All the Joy of the Christmas Season and I hope that all these celebrations will be rich and meaningful for you all!
Maranatha!
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But of course not all words, nor all pictures, tell the truth. This one that shows the poor stork is overworked, but there’s as much mythology in overpopulation claims as there is in the belief that babies are delivered by stork!
Here’s a few facts from Jacqueline R. Kasun, Ph.D that show: (references will be supplied on request.) THERE’S NO FURTHER NEED FOR POPULATION CONTROL • 79 countries with 40% of the world's population now have fertility rates below population-replacement levels. • The annual rate of change in world population fell from 2.04% in 1965-70 to 1.48% in 1990-95; Asia from 2.44 to 1.53; Latin America from 2.75 to 1.70. In Europe the rate fell to 0.16 - that is, to essentially zero - in 1990-95. • World-wide, the number of children the typical woman had during her lifetime (total fertility) fell from 5 in 1950-55 to 2.96 in 1990-95. In more developed regions it fell from 2.77 to 1.68; in less developed regions from more than 6 to 3.3. (2.1 is the number necessary to just "replace" the current generation.) Total fertility in Mexico was 3.1 in 1990-95. In Spain it stood at 1.3 and in Italy it was 1.2. • Official forecasts of future world population size have been steadily falling. In 1992-93 the World Bank predicted world population by the year 2050 would exceed 10 billion. In 1996 the U.N. predicted 9 billion for 2050.
AND…PEOPLE ALREADY HAVE ALL THE BIRTH CONTROL THEY WANT • Surplus condoms and birth control pills fill warehouses in the less developed world and women flee the birth control workers and beg to have their implants and IUD's removed. • U.S. law requires countries receiving American foreign aid to reduce population growth. • Far from meeting an "unmet need" for birth control, foreign-supported family planners in India, Bangladesh, and other countries must pay or force their clients to accept it. • Foreign-supported population control is so unpopular in Bangladesh that riots prevented the prime minister from attending the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994. • Kenyan pediatrician, Dr. Margaret Ogola, disputed the claim of "unmet need" for family planning at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994. She said that foreign aid givers have lavished pills, condoms, and IUD's on hospitals and clinics in Kenya but that simple medicines for common diseases are unavailable. • A UN survey of abortion and birth control policies throughout the world found that high proportions of women were familiar with and were using "traditional" methods of limiting births. • In 1981 the typical Bangladeshi woman was having 7 children during her lifetime; since then the number has fallen to 3.4. • The Secretary of Health in Bangladesh acknowledged that "coercion, blackmail, [and] abuse of payment provisions" were problems in the population control program. • Alarmed by extremely low fertility, S. Korea has slashed its gov’t expenditures on birth control. • With below-replacement fertility, Singapore offers tax rebates to couples with more than 2 children. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Letters “Rescue those being led away to death” Proverbs 24:11
Dear friends, (Edited for length)
Just to let people know that I am out of jail again. Not long after the last report went out I was moved from Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre (AGCC) to a prison farm at Palen Creek (about 1½ hours south of Brisbane). This was a big improvement in my situation as the prison is located in beautiful countryside and is low security with no bars on windows or razor wire fences to spoil the view. As well, prisoners have individual rooms and there was work to do. It did mean though that Liz and the children had a lot longer drive for visits.
I was at the farm for only three days before being sent back to AGCC for a couple of days for my bail application hearing. The judge decided that she would have to read the transcript of the hearing before making a decision so things were adjourned until the transcript became available. I went to the farm for two more weeks and then it was back to court yesterday to find out whether I’d be going free or whether I’d be in until 30th January. The prosecutor said that after reading the transcript the bail application was no longer going to be opposed. That was good to hear! The judge said that the 10 weeks that I had spent in jail prior to being convicted should have been counted by the magistrate as time served and so with the further time since then I had done more than three months. I would be granted bail and without conditions being applied. Pheww! I’ll just have time now to (legally) picket these death-houses before our family takes our long-awaited trip to spend Christmas with Liz’s family in Hobart. No date for the hearing of the appeal has been set yet but we expect it to be in January some time. Once again we’d like to offer some challenging reading over Christmas: two very powerful books about rescues, “Is Rescuing Right?” by Randy Alcorn, and, “Shattering the Darkness” by Joseph Foreman. Let us know and we’ll send you a copy. ($5 each + PP). Always happy to hear from you!
22 Rigby St, Annerley, 4103, Ph/fax 3892 5349 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dear Angela, …I really enjoyed the retreat. I was amazed at the work you are all doing for these precious little souls. You are all very courageous people and God will reward you for it! I didn’t realize the effect that abortion has on the mothers of these babies. Being a mother myself I should have thought of it but it is a side of life people ignored for decades. …Things have been pretty quiet at Mt Tabor since Coby retired – she is certainly being missed. God bless you and your Apostles in your great work. God love you and Our Lady protect you. Betty, Bellingen ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dear Angela, Thank you very much for the leaflet
on praying for the Holy Souls. Isn’t it a wonderful idea?
I also want to thank you for your dedication & hard work preparing & sending The Apostles for Life (News). It’s not an easy thing to do. I do look forward to having it come in the post – it is always full of news. Yours sincerely, Rose Fogarty, Numinbah ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Self-Sacrificing Love versus Cohabitation Recently ‘Mary’ asked me about my family. I had mentioned in passing that I am 59 years old. ‘How old were you when you had your children?’ she asked. ‘I had my first at 36, my second at 37 and my last at 40’, I answered. ‘Then there’s hope for me yet,’ ‘Mary’ supposed. ‘Yes of course there’s hope,’ I reassured her. ‘Cause lately I find myself getting clucky’ she ventured. Now ‘Mary’ has a small child of about 3, whom she has mentioned from time to time, but she is separated from the child’s father. I wondered out loud if ‘Mary’ might be planning to have another child who would be without the benefit of a full-time father. ‘Oh no! I wouldn’t do that,’ she said reassuringly. Then I asked her about the father of her child. ‘Oh, he’s a wonderful father!’ ‘Were you married to him?’ I asked. ‘No’, was the reply. ‘Well, why don’t you marry him?’ I inquired of her. ‘Oh, he’s much too hard to live with!’ ‘Mary’ told me. ‘Why do you say that? What is it about him that makes it so difficult?’ I probed. ‘Oh, he is always complaining that the world is such a terrible place and is in such a mess,’ she explained. ‘So he’s a realist, and probably a pessimist? He’s right you know.’ Then I told her that my husband too was also inclined to be like that. ‘I suppose that it gets you down to hear that when you don’t really want to hear it?’ She confirmed that my guess was true, but insisted that he really was a good person and a wonderful father to their child. Later I thought about how often people nowadays lack the ability to live with reality using much energy to block out what they cannot in the long run. I thought: here is yet another father separated from his child and his child is not getting the full benefit of a loving father. I had the impression that ‘Mary’ wants the security of a stable relationship and no doubt was struggling to provide for the needs of her child. Bringing up a child is not something that is meant to be done by one parent, but by two parents united in love for each other - in the married state. Our society acts as though the one-parent “family” is a normal state of being, but I believe ‘Mary’ knows in her heart that it is not. We are all hard to live with once the “honeymoon” is over. Some of us are hard to live with even on the “honeymoon”. Co-habitation without the benefit of the graces we get from the Sacrament of Marriage has an extremely high failure rate. Even for those who marry in Church there is a high chance of marital failure unless that marriage is built solidly on Jesus the rock. When Nadir and I were discussing marriage, he asked me, ‘Are you prepared to base our marriage on the person of Jesus?” My answer was ‘Yes’, and 24 years later He is still the cement that holds us together. Without that ‘cement’ we would probably not still be together. A marriage can not survive unless there is self-sacrificing love, and we cannot sacrifice ourselves for the sake of another without the grace that comes to us through God’s own sacrifice that He made on our behalf, and unless we have Him for our strength. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This excellent website gives most of what you would ever need to know. Here is part 6 of their adverse events and side effects page. For the complete article: http://www.ru486facts.org/index.cfm?page=sideeffects 6. Emotional and psychological reactions The former chairman of Roussel-Uclaf (the French company which developed RU-486), Edouard Sakiz told the French newspaper Le Monde: "As abortifacient procedures go, RU-486 is not at all easy to use. ... True, no anaesthetic is required. But a woman who wants to end her pregnancy has to 'live' with her abortion for at least a week using this technique. It's an appalling psychological ordeal." (Interview, "Drug firm defends marketing strategy on abortion pill," Guardian Weekly (U.K.), August 19, 1989.) Catherine Euvrard, formerly a spokeswoman for Roussel-Uclaf who now holds the same job for the new French manufacturer of RU-486, Exelgyn, has said: "When [women] take a pill, they have the feeling they are truly responsible for the abortion. ... [There can be more] psychological pain." (F. Vrazo, "In Europe, 'Abortion Pill' Has Not Met Expectations," Philadelphia Inquirer, August 25, 1996) "During this critical two-week period [between 49 and 63 days] the tiny embryo in an amorphous sac begins to look very much like a baby, with a discernible head and limbs. ... Nurse Frenpzel remembers a day ... when she ... saw six surgical dishes with six embryos in them by the sink. 'It was upsetting,' she said. 'It was like looking at a little row of people. The women too were shocked when they looked at what they had expelled." (Louise Levathes, Hippocrates, February 1995) "You have to be very confident to choose this method. It may be physically more natural, but psychologically it hits you much harder. You preside over the killing of a baby, completely unblinkingly. For women who are confused or vulnerable, and of course, so many are in this position, it is really terrible." (“One Woman's Experience," London Evening Standard, December 4, 1993.) One woman in U.S. trials was hospitalized for depression after attempting suicide. (Lisa Rarick, M.D., of the FDA's Reviewing Division, testimony before the Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee, Hearing Transcript FDA, July 19, 1996)
Please write to your local member, to Prime Minister Howard and to Health Minister Abbott at Parliament House, Canberra
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amartello@apostlesforlifesite.org
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DON’T
YOU JUST LOVE THIS PICTURE? 
Sincerely, Graham
Preston (In For Life Nov 2005) 
URGENT ACTION REQUIRED
on RU 486 
