the culture of life

8/14/2019 The Culture of Life

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The Culture of LifeV

The Culture of DeathKings College London

February 27th 2009

Lord Alton of Liverpool: www.davidalton.com


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Evangelium Vitae - 1995

This reality is characterized

by the emergence of a

culture which denies

solidarity and in many

cases takes the form of a

veritable "culture of

death".


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My Right To Choose

Me or I

rather than

You or We

Rights

Not

Responsibilities or Duties

Choice

not

Consequences


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Choice haerisis the modern

heresy

St.Iranaeus of Lyons

In Contra Haerisis

Iranaeus defended

orthodoxy against

Gnosticism with its

belief in

secret knowledge knowledge for the few.


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G.K.Chesterton

To admire mere choice is to refuse to choose Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 1906


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all have a right to life, upon recognition of which every human

community and the political community are founded.

-Pope John Paul II Evangelium Vitae


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1948 Universal Declaration of

Human Rights

Everyone shall have the

right to life and securityof person

1948 UN Declaration of

Human Rights,Article 3


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Brave New World of Eugenics

Eugenics is the science of

improving stockto give the

more suitable races or

strains of blood a better

chance of prevailing speedilyover the less suitable -

Francis Galton

1935: No society should allow the diseased, theracially-negligent, the careless, the feeble-minded, the

very lowest and worst members of the community to

produce innumerable tens of thousands of warped and

inferior infants.

Marie Stopes


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Eugenics Condemned - 1923

"There is no reason in Eugenics, but there is plenty of motive. Its supporters are"There is no reason in Eugenics, but there is plenty of motive. Its supporters are

highly vague about its theory, but they will be painfully practical about its practice.highly vague about its theory, but they will be painfully practical about its practice.

And while I reiterate that many of its more eloquent agents are probably quiteAnd while I reiterate that many of its more eloquent agents are probably quite

innocent instruments, there are some, even among Eugenists, who by this timeinnocent instruments, there are some, even among Eugenists, who by this time

know what they are doing."know what they are doing."


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The Dying Rooms of China


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Chinas One Child Policy

1983 - Coercive PopulationControl in China: One ChildPolicy commenced.

21 Million Sterilisations

18 Million IUDs inserted14 Million abortions in one year

alone

Collaboration with IPPF andUNFPA (United Nations

Population Fund)


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1998: Mrs Gao XiaoDuan:

A baby of nine monthsgestation had poisoninjected into its skulland the child died andwas thrown into a

trash can.

Congressional Hearing.


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2001: Baby born in breach of quotasdrowned in Hubei Province -

Amnesty International

2001: Man tortured to death in Hunan

after refusing to reveal the whereabouts

of his pregnant wife -

Sunday Times

September 21st 2005 120,000 women

coerced some 9 months pregnant

Chen Guangcheng arrested

- The Independent Newspaper



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The Story of Jin Yani

9 months pregnant:

pinned to her

bed by five

officials, injectedwith saline

solution.

Loss of bloodnearly

killed her.

Now in hiding.


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The Story of Chen Guangchen

Chen Guangcheng: - 4 years in prison - it takes a blind man

to see what we fail to see: 120,000 forced abortions and

sterilisations in Shandong Province


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September 2007, Chens wife, Yuan Weijing, assaulted and detained

by 17 officials as she tried to leave for the Philippines to collect a

human rights award for her husband.

Mrs.Yuan said I tell you, the darkness of the society is way

beyond your imagination.

January 14th 2009 denied medical help and in poor health Associated Press


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Chinas Gendercide

117 boys born for every 100 girls

70,000 children stolen annually

Female suicide highest in the world (W.H.O)Weapon against ethnic groups Tibetans

and Uighurs

Social Unrest


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Annual Abortion Rate

42 million abortions annually throughout the world

115,000 every day

600 in Britain every day

7 million over 40 years

In North and South Korea half of all pregnancies end

in abortion

Refugee women returned from China to North Koreaare forcibly aborted

One of President Obamas first acts was to restore US

funding forAbortion.


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The Suffering We Permit

Whereas evidence for conscious pain

perception is indirect, evidence for the

subconscious incorporation of pain into

neurological development and plasticity is

incontrovertible. Scientific data, notreligious or political conviction, should

guide the desperately needed research in

this field. In the meantime, it seems

prudent to avoid pain during gestation.

Professor K,J.S.Anand, one of the worlds

Leading experts on foetal pain.

-Channel 4 Despatches 2008.


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The pain and suffering of the

unborn

Abortions at:

11 weeks,21 weeks and

24 weeks

incontrovertible evidence

of pain Anand


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Dr.Bernard Nathansons Story


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Royal College of Psychiatry

some studies indicateno evidence of harm,

whilst other studies

identify a range of

mental disordersfollowing abortion.

-2008


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Roe v Wade Jane Roes Story

I kept seeing the picture of that tiny,

10-week-old embryo, and I said to

myself, that's a baby! It's as if blinds

just fell off my eyes and I suddenly

understood the truth--that's a baby!"

I felt crushed under the truth of this

realization. I had to face up to the awful

reality. Abortion wasn't about "products

of conception." It wasn't about "missed

periods.

It was about children being killed in

their mother's wombs.

All those years I was wrong. Signing

that affidavit, I was wrong.Working in an abortion clinic, I was

wrong. No more of this first trimester,

second trimester, third trimester stuff.

Abortionat any pointwas wrong. It

was so clear. Painfully clear."

Nobel Peace Prize Winner


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Nobel Peace Prize Winner,

Blessed Mother Teresa of

CalcuttaLife is being deliberately

destroyed by war, by violence,by abortion. I have often said,

and am sure of it, that thegreatest destroyer of peace inthe world today is abortion.

Life is the most beautiful gift ofGod. That is why it is so painful

to see what is happening todayin so many places around theworld

-Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta


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Psychological and Physical

Damage to Women

There is also overwhelming evidence that

induced abortion greatly increases the risk

of subsequent miscarriage and premature

delivery Professor Jack Sacrisbrick

Abortion and other pregnancy related risk

factors in female breast cancer Professor JoelBrind and Patrick Carroll,

28 out of 37 word wide studies have independently linked induced abortion

with breast cancer. In 2005 number of breast cancer cases reached

40,591 in the UK (a 3.5% increase)


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The Right To Know

is more important than

The Right to Choose

andabove all is The Right To Life


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The Shifting Line of What Is

Acceptable

"Gradually it was disclosed to methat the line separating goodand evil passes not through

states, not between classes,not between political partieseither, but right through everyhuman heart, and through allhuman hearts. This line shifts.

Inside us, it oscillates."

Alexander Solzhenitsyn.


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Nature Magazine July 2002

Your destiny from day one

Your world was shaped in the first 24hours after conception. Where your head

and feet would sprout, and which side

would form your back and which your

belly, were being defined in the minutes

and hours after sperm and egg united.

Si 1990 t illi


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Since 1990 over two million

human embryos destroyed or

experimented upon in UK;human cloning made legal;

2008 we permitted animal-human

hybrid embryos..

1998: Warnock Committee: human embryo should have special status and respect


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Fraudulent claims and ever more

grotesque demands

Hwang Woo-Suk


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The Scientific Justification for

the 2008 Human Fertilisationand Embryology Act

Dr Lovell-Badge said:

I cannot think of a good experiment to do now but I am sure someone will thinkof a good experiment.

Professor Bobrow said:

We are also not aware of any pressing scientific reasons at the moment forcreating such entities, but who knows what tomorrow might bring?

Professor Smith said:

At the present time we have not been able to identify such a particularreasonto make true hybridsbut that does not mean that they do notalready exist and that there are not people already in the scientificcommunity who would have appropriate grounds or that they would comealong in the future.

- Evidence to the Parliamentary Scrutiny Committee


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Chief Medical Officer Disagrees

Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer, said inhis evidence Parliament, on 6 June 2007,concerning true hybrids:

There was no clear scientific argument as to whyyou would want to do it, and, secondly, a feelingthat this would be a step too far as far as thepublic are concerned.

Nobel Laureate, Sir Martin Evans, who originally discoveredmouse embryonic stem cells said:

The writing is on the wall for stem cell research that depends onusing human embryos.

2009 B iti h F di A i R f


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2009: British Funding Agencies Refuse

Funding for Kings College and

Newcastle Applications for Hybrids

Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, Chief Executive of the MedicalResearch Council, said:

"The MRC must make the best use of taxpayers' moneyand there is no better way to decide what should befunded than to use tried-and-tested peer review systemswhere scientists assess applications on their merits

.Fighting for the right to carry out such research doesnot mean that it should get priority over otherapplications which score higher and hold more promise."

- January 2009


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NatureBiotechnolgyeditorial:

"Meanwhile, forward steps continue to be

made in the field of adult stem cell

therapy."

"One estimate is that there are currently

over 80 therapies and around 300 clinical

trials underway using such cells".

not a single cure or therapy in use anywhere in the world using human embryos


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Professor Shinya Yamanaka

When I saw the embryo, Isuddenly realized

this was after he looked down hismicroscope

there was such a smalldifference between it andmy daughters ... I thought,we cant keep destroying

embryos for our research.There must be anotherway.


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Prophetic Writing of C.S.Lewis

In 1943 C.S Lewis published TheAbolition of Man; in 1945, That HideousStrength...foreseeing what he describedas technological brutalism.

Lord Feverstone, the creator of theNational Institute for CoordinatedExperiments in That Hideous Strength, aMember the House of Lords, says hisaim is: Quite simple and obvious things,at firststerilization of the unfit,liquidation of backward races ...selective breeding.

Ultimately, he will create: A new type ofman.


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The Coming Peril

genetic screening-out on grounds of IQ,

sexuality, behavioural traits or disability will

be demanded by consumers, insurers, State

planners and politicians. This is the comingperil in all its deadliness - where the

mystery of life is replaced by a commodified

view of life where the human embryo is

treated as just another accessory to becreated, bartered, frozen, experimented upon

and destroyed.

- a fall from grace


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Life Begins At Conception But It

Doesnt End At Birth


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Deus Caritas Est

Abject poverty is an offence against

human dignity


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The conditions being suffered by such alarge number of people are such as to offendthe dignity of human beings and, as aconsequence, to compromise the authentic

and harmonious progress of the worldcommunity..The Church cannot and must not remain onthe sidelines in the fight for justice.The

promotion of justice through efforts to bringabout openness of mind and will to thedemands of the common good is somethingwhich concerns the Church deeply.


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The Culture of Death in Africa

Africas World War One

Congo: 4 million dead in

15 years

Sudan and Darfur: 2.5

million dead

Rwanda: 1 million dead

Uganda: 1 million dead

Congo: 300,000 child

soldiers

Rio Brazil Our Lady of Candelaria 8


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Rio, Brazil, Our Lady of Candelaria 8

boys shot dead some as young as 11 -

as they slept outside.

800 illi li b l


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800 million live below any

rational definition of human

decency
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1770692&id=660263932


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1,000 people die each day, victims of

small arms

95% of the Kalashnikov rifles

used in these conflicts come

from outside Africa
http://cppaonline.org/2001poy/images/11bwa29.JPG


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Culture of Death Extends To The

Elderly

Right To Die Becomes A Duty To Die


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Dont Waste Our Resources

If youre demented, youre wasting peoples

livesyour familys livesand youre

wasting the resources of the NHS.

- Baroness Warnock, The Times,

October 10th 2008

BMA and Royal Colleges Oppose


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BMA and Royal Colleges Oppose

Changes To The LawOregon case of MichaelFreeland:

this man was not in painbecause his pain was nottreatable; he was in painbecause nobody bothered.

This was just one caseamong many.

Dr.Gregory Hamilton

D t h L L d T I l t


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Dutch Laws Lead To Involuntary

Euthanasia

3,000 deaths every yearthrough euthanasia.

It began with voluntary

euthanasia.Today, around one in four are

involuntary, that is,

without the consent of thepatient.

A t d h i t th
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=www.bama.co.uk/images/Netherlands%2520flag.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.bama.co.uk/useful.htm&h=351&w=497&prev=/images%3Fq%3DNetherlands%2BFlag%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DG


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Autonomy and choice not the

only issues at stake

Dying is not only a personal orindividual affair. The death of a

person affects the lives of others,

often in ways and to an extent

which cannot be foreseen.

We believe that the issue of

euthanasia is one in which the

interest of the individual cannot beseparated from the interest of

society as a whole. House of

Lords Select Committee


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Evangelium Vitae

To claim the right toabortion, infanticide andeuthanasia, and torecognise that right in

law, means to attribute tohuman freedom aperverse and evilsignificance: that ofabsolute power over

others and againstothers. This is the deathof true freedom.

P t Alt ti A C lt


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Promote Alternatives A Culture

of Life

Samuel and Zachary ArmasSaving life at 21 weeks gestation

Hospices and palliative careSaving life in the womb


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Not anti-abortion, anti-science,

anti-euthanasia.positively pro

life, promoting humane

alternatives.

The person

who saves a

single life

saves theworld

D W i f l


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Dont Wait for someone else to

actdont wait until you are

perfect

A man would do nothing

if he waited until he coulddo it so well that no one

could find fault.

There is a unique task allotted to each one of us.

The challenge is to discover what the task is.

Cardinal John Henry Newman

F th b t th t b


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From the womb to the tomb

choose lifeWe must be positively pro-life, from the womb to the

tomb, for the mother and the child, for the sick andthe dying, for good medicine, ethical science, justlaws. This is a daunting challenge but our worlddesperately needs to rediscover the beauty andmystery of life and to uphold a culture of life in placeof our contemporary culture of death.

In the struggle between the prevailing culture of death

and the culture of life in which we believe there canbe no neutrals; and we cannot opt for a quiet life.


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Peoplewho do nothing

The world is a dangerous place to

live, not because of the people who

are evil,

but because of the people who don't

do anything about it.

- Albert Einstein


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St. Maximilian Kolbe

No one in the world can changeTruth. What we can and should do

is

to seek Truth and serve it when we

have found it. The real conflict is

within. Beyond armies ofoccupation

and the hecatombs of the

extermination camps, two

irreconcilable enemies lie in the

depths of every soul. And of what

use are the victories on thebattlefield if we are

defeated in our innermost personal

selves?

The Psalmists reflection on the


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The Psalmists reflection on the

beauty and mystery of lifeFor you created my innermost being;You knit me together in my Mothers womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully

and wonderfully made;

Your works are wonderful;

I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from youWhen I was made in the secret Place.

When I was woven together in the

depths of the earth,

Your eyes saw my unformed body.

All the days ordained for me

were written in your book

Before one of them came to be.

Psalm 139 13-16.

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