One small Step for Planned...in Fitchburg

There is an abortion procedure that requires no surgery and is done on unborn children up to the 7 to 9 weeks of pregnancy.  It is usually called a “medical” abortion or sometimes misnamed a “chemical’ abortion by some because 2 pills in a span of days are used to kill the unborn baby.

 

The most well-known version of this medical abortion is known as RU-486.  It is administered as 2 pills.  The first pill mifepristone starves the baby of nourishment, and completes the abortion in 65 to 85% of cases.   The second pill misoprostol is administered 2 days later in order to expel the baby. 

 

The use of the medical abortion is on the upswing, and the number of Planned Parenthood “medical clinics” doing medical abortion along with family planning is also on the upswing.  Currently, Planned Parenthood has not placed any medical abortion clinics in Massachusetts.  Throughout the country, Planned Parenthood has migrated family planning clinics to medical abortion clinics.  Obviously, this migration would be easy for Planned Parenthood to do.  A clinic with 3 new exam rooms and $100,000 of renovations would be a perfect candidate.  The medical abortion is not a “safe” abortion.  There is much bleeding, frequent emergency room visits and several deaths have been recorded.  Recently, a woman live-blogged her RU-486 abortion.

 

The “medical abortion” RU-486 is not to be confused with the emergency contraception (“morning after” pill).   Morning after pills, or "emergency contraception," are essentially very high, multiple dosages of birth control pills taken within 72 hours of unprotected intercourse.  There has been some experimentation using RU-486 in extremely low doses as a morning after pill.  The high dosage birth control pill is truly the morning after pill.

Silence

MR PRESIDENT WILL YOU AND YOUR FAMILY GIVE UP YOUR CURRENT HEALTH CARE PROGRAM
AND JOIN THE NEW 'UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE PROGRAM' THAT THE REST OF US WILL BE On?"


....

Greater Fitchburg for Life update

Greater Fitchburg for Life will not be attempting rent the Main St. office space out from under Planned Parenthood, but instead will be focusing on the education aspects of sidewalk counseling. Picketing is educational. Passing out material is educational. Counseling is educational. Bearing witness is educational. Writing letters to the editor is educational. Having a blog is educational. Attending city council meetings is educational, for me at least! Therefore what resources we have will be carefully and efficiently ordered towards all such activities as are educational. This is what we are comfortable doing and feel called to do.

This week they experienced a little pressure from the landlords. They complained about GFL standing in front of the Nails shop and the Tax Prep location, which they were not doing. Also for the duration of the picketing they are occasionally harassed and insulted by people who do not share their joyful vision of the worth of each human life. It is necessary that cool heads prevail. We may not return anger for anger. We may not engage on the level of brute confrontation. It is a confrontation, but we are to meet anger and the despair that it proceeds from with love. Jesus said 'Love your enemies'. This is the gospel and this is the stronger weapon. How many of the people who engage us in anger could be turned for the good if we dissolved their hurt with love. I have the good fortune to well know a young lady who counsels women who have had abortions. She is courageous. She has taught me this. I think it is what is required of us. If you are engaged by the heckler and you feel like giving him a piece of your mind, please refer him to your leader for the day.  

AbortionCare

The Senate version of the Health Care bill does not contain the only language preventing the Government from funding abortions, the Stupak amendment.  Denver’s Archbishop Chaput has released his own column saying today: “Groups, trade associations and publications describing themselves as “Catholic” or “pro-life” that endorse the Senate version – whatever their intentions – are doing a serious disservice to the nation and to the Church…” 

Stand with Stupak!

You Tax Dollars at work

House Minority Leader  Lawrence F. Cafero Jr.. , R-Norwalk, pictured standing, far  right, speaks while colleagues Rep. Barbara Lambert,  D-Milford and Rep. Jack F. Hennessy, D-Bridgeport, play solitaire Monday night as the Massachusetts House convened to vote on a  new budget. (AP)

The guy sitting in the row in front of these two....  he's on Facebook, and the guy behind Hennessy is checking out the baseball scores.

These are the folks that couldn't get the budget out by Oct. 1.

Greater Fitchburg for Life

Greater Fitchburg for Life has a Blog where you can follow all the latest in the struggle to keep Planned Parenthood out of Fitchburg.

Group Think

On Thursday, the Massachusetts Senate votes on a bill containing draconian language that would criminalize criticism of homosexuality published on Web sites and other media with fines of up to a thousand dollars and imprisonment. The bill would write following into the Massachusetts General Laws:

"Whoever publishes any false material whether written, printed, electronic, televised, or broadcast with intent to maliciously promote hatred of any group of persons in the commonwealth because of race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, or disability shall be guilty of libel and shall be punished by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or both."

Does this mean I cannot point out that animals do not have anal sex because no animal would put up with it?  It goes against their nature.

Call Senate President Therese Murray: 617-722-1500 
(Leave a message if you have to.)

Email: Therese.Murray@state.ma.us

Tell her: Do NOT pass S2283 on Thursday. DO NOT attempt to criminalize our right of free speech on pro-family values.

Fitchburg Update

The Prayer protesters continue their vigil work at 391 Main St. in Fitchburg, seeking to convince the landlords to refuse Planned Parenthood Federal blood money.

During last weeks Fitchburg City council meeting, Council Kevin Starr made the following remarks about Pro-Lifers, "I will not tolerate those morals being pushed on me and these members of the Council...there's no place for those he hoped that people would "keep their personal beliefs to themselves."  Later in the week Starr maintained that some of the pro-life advocates were "narrow-minded."

The Rev. Thomas Hughes, pastor of New Creation Community Church on Water Street, wants Ward 4 City Councilor Kevin Starr to apologize for what Hughes called "inappropriate" and "disrespectful" remarks about pro-life advocates who opposed Planned Parenthood's proposal to open on Main Street.

Meanwhile in Worcester 40 Days for Life saved at least 2 kids locally and over 171 Nationally. 

Suffering - God longs for the likes of me

William Stuntz is a professor at Harvard Law School who has suffered for 11 years from chronic back pain, and in 2008 was found to have numerous tumors that have since metastasized and spread through his body.  He is 52, and won't live another full year.  He spoke with Patheos' Timothy Dalrymple in his office Feb. 2.

This article asks Prof. Stuntz directly the questions that acutely face him because of his condition, but in reality should be addressed to all of us. I would only add that in this equation about suffering, two points cannot be overlooked; 1) Suffering entered the world because the world has rejected God through sin, i.e. the world is broke, profoundly so, and this brokenness extends to us and our damaged and deformed nature. 2) there was never any reason, nor excuse for this original sin (harmatia - falling short), that is Adam & Eve only had one Commandment - and did not keep it though they knew better  3) suffering is redemptive, and therefore the only real way to make any sense out of the world, out of our existence.

Lead question: Have you ever, in Christian circles, been blamed for your fate?  Have you ever been told that your pain or your cancer would go away if you prayed with faith?


Final question:
Do you have any favorite quotations or favorite scriptures, when it comes to death?
Yes, a passage in the fourteenth chapter of Job.  The passage as a whole is not hopeful.  Job is uncertain what will happen to him when he dies.  In the end, he says that he will return to dust and there will be nothing after death.
In the midst of the passage, however, before he turns to despair, he has a moment of hope.  It's a brief moment, just a couple of verses in the midst of an extended passage.  Yet he says, "You will call and I will answer.  You will long for the creature your hands have made" (Job 14:15). 
I find those lines very powerful.  The concept that God longs for the likes of me is so unspeakably sweet.  I almost cannot bear to say them aloud.  They are achingly sweet for me to hear.
There are many passages I love, but that one in particular has grabbed hold of me.  Job's hope, it turns out, is more realistic than his despair.
 

40 Days

Forty Days for Life continues, at Planned Parenthood Abortion Clinic at 472 Pleasant St. in Worcester, MA.  Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning are busy abortion times.

The good people to the North are also fighting the proposed Planned Parenthood feeder clinic on Main St. in Fitchburg, MA.  They are there every weekday 3:30-5PM and Saturdays noon-1PM.  That is them in the picture.

They are under the spiritual care of Rev. Thien Nguyen, Pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish in Fitchburg and Rev. Ed Chalmers of St. Bernard's Parish in Fitchburg

Please sign the petition

In 1993, after extensive public debate, Congress adopted and President Clinton signed a law (Public Law 103-160) which declared that "The presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability."

Nothing has changed since that time regarding the needs of the military or the nature of human sexuality that would justify any change in that conclusion. Therefore we, the undersigned, strongly urge you to oppose any legislative efforts to repeal, or administrative efforts to evade, the military personnel eligibility provisions of that law.

Do not let our military be used to advance a radical sexual agenda.
Please sign the petition against repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell

Face

by Joe Castillo