Human Life Matters

Brilliant video animation about the miracle of prenatal development

2012-01-25T16:15:00.001-08:00

Today I want to share an animation of prenatal life developing. The brilliant production was developed by Alexander Tsiarus. It's called CONCEPTION TO BIRTH. We get a hint of the miracle behind every child developing in the mother's womb. Please go to http://www.ted.com/talks/alexander_tsiaras_conception_to_birth_visualized.html

Mark Davis Pickup
(Special thanks to TED.com.)

THE WHY OF SUFFERING

2012-01-19T12:11:00.000-08:00

To read Mark Davis Pickup's latest blog on "The Why of Suffering", go to http://markpickup.org

TODAY'S STRUGGLE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

2012-01-17T10:15:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day in America. In honor of the holiday, Mark Davis Pickup wrote an article that appeared in CatholicLane under the title "Today's Struggle for Human Rights". Read it at http://catholiclane.com/todays-struggle-for-human-rights/

SANCTITY OF LIFE WEEK

2012-01-12T09:03:00.000-08:00

http://us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=10e23c87c2283a157b26d067f&id=65053a0a80&e=5e736d5444

America has Sanctity of Life Week. (See the beautiful video link above promoting it.) It coincides with their day of infamy when abortion became legal across the land by a Supreme Court decision known as Roe V. Wade (January 22 1973). Over 50 million preborn children have been aborted since then. Does Canada have a similar week of observance to coincide with our day of infamy? January 28th 1988 when Canada's Supreme Court struck down our feeble abortion law. I remember the image of a coven of feminists hooting and dancing in celebration on the streets of Toronto.

Our preborn children have no legal protection at any point in their 9th month journey to birth. Canadian taxpayers are forced to pay for every abortion. A woman can have an abortion for any reason at all or no reason whatsoever. And she can have as many as she wants at taxpayer expense. Have Canadian religious leaders come together to establish a Sanctity of Life Week in Canada? If not, why not?

PRO-CHOICE VITRIOL

2011-12-30T22:49:00.000-08:00

misogyny n hatred of women.

Unfortunately, the HumanLifeMatters blog has a glitch that does not allow comments to be displayed. That's too bad because I get comments like this from somebody identifying herself as Roxanne May: "Pardon me, but do you have a uterus? No? Then this is none of your damned business. Keep your misogyny off my body." She was referring the the previous post entitled "SAFE LEGAL ABORTIONS ARE A MYTH: THEY MAY BE LEGAL BUT THEY ARE NOT SAFE". I invite you to read it immediately below this posting.

According to Roxanne, having a uterus is only criteria qualifying somebody to comment on the unsanitary and unsafe conditions of abortion clinics. Her rage blinds her reason. Needlessly putting women's lives at risk is every one's business; child abuse is every one's business (and abortion is the worst kind of child abuse). Speaking out against practises that endanger or kill people is part of every citizen's concern who values interdependent community and the greater human family.

Roxanne is parroting an old and tired abortion slogan dating back to the early 1970s. (Catchy slogans can stifle rational debate for years.) Unfortunately for Roxanne, her argument about a uterus being the only credential to speak about abortion does not hold up against reason or rationality. It does not work anymore.

Roxanne says "Keep your misogyny off my body." How does she know I hate women? I have never met her. Was it a hatred of women for me to expose an example of the putrid health conditions of an abortion clinic or refer readers to the Blackmun Wall which has a very long list of women who died as a result of so-called "safe legal abortions"? Au contraire! As a husband, father of a daughter and grandfather of three girls, I am deeply concerned about the welfare of women and children.

Apparently Roxanne did not read the last line of the blog posting below which said, "Society must emerge into a sunlit age where women in crisis pregnancies and their babies are accepted and valued within the larger embrace of a nurturing community."

Day by day, the pro-choice ideology is getting harder to espouse. We know so much about prenatal life. Women scarred by abortion are becoming more vocal against it. The moral poverty of the abortion industry is coming to light with increasing regularity. The injustice of the status quo can not be maintained, unless truth is to be mocked. I will not be quiet as long as the killing of my fellow human beings continues with impunity. Everyone has the right to live. Everyone has the right to good medical care; Everyone has a right to be born and breath the fresh air, to feel the warmth of the sun on their shoulders and reach their full potential.

Abortion is as much of a blight on society as slavery. Abortion and slavery are based on the selfish desires of the powerful gained at the expense of the powerless. Do not confuse selfishness with freedom or liberty.

No Roxanne, I will not be silenced about injustice because of my anatomy any more than I will be silenced about injustice by my disability. I will not be silenced until abortion is but a bitter and shameful memory. I will not be silenced by the likes of Roxanne May or the sting of pro-choice vitriol.

Mark Davis Pickup
(Please read the blog posting below)

SAFE LEGAL ABORTIONS ARE A MYTH: THEY MAY BE LEGAL BUT THEY ARE NOT SAFE

2011-12-30T12:08:00.000-08:00

Do you remember how abortion advocates promoted legal abortion by saying they wanted to stop "back alley" abortions with all the filthy conditions and suffering? Legalizing abortion was supposed to stop dirty, unsafe back alley abortions. Not true.

We know that women are still dying by legal abortions. See http://lifedynamics.com/pro-life_group/pro-choice_women/ for a partial list of women who have died from the legacy of legal abortion. Don't expect the CNN or other liberal media to report that ugly reality.

As far a sanitary facilities see the link below for an example courtesy of our friends at Stephenson Country Right to Life in Illinois. http://prolifecorner.com/node/1076

The New Dark Age of legalized abortion acceptance must end. Society must emerge into a sunlit age where women in crisis pregnancies and their babies are accepted and valued within the larger embrace of a nurturing community.

HLM

FACING OUR OWN CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY--A HOLOCAUST OF UNPRECEDENTED PROPORTIONS.

2011-12-14T12:13:00.000-08:00

An estimated 45-million people died of starvation in Mao Tse-Tung's "Great Leap Forward". At one point Chairman Mao justified this by saying, "It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill."

Joseph Stalin is responsible for the deaths of 20-million people. Adolf Hitler was responsible for the deaths of 46-million people, including 6-million Jews.

At the end of the Second World War, the local population of Weimar near Buchenwald concentration camp were forced by American soldiers to see the atrocities that occurred there. They had to look at the bodies of people who were systematically killed while they went about their daily lives nearby and did not lift a hand to stop it or speak out against the killing. They had to see the horror and evil they tolerated. See http://www.scrapbookpages.com/buchenwald/exhibits.html

Were the citizens of Weimar, and other locations, so different from North American populations?

In North America, over 50 million preborn children have lost their lives by abortion since 1969 in Canada and 1973 in America. So how does North America compare in the denial of life? Aborting of unwanted children goes on daily across North America. It is truly a holocaust of unprecedented proportions. Unborn children are routinely sacrificed on the altar of so-called sexual freedom of their parents. The killing just keeps mounting day in and day out, month after month, year after year.

Our holocaust is abortion. Abortion clinics across North America systematically kill thousands upon thousands of unborn children each day while local citizens happily go about their lives and business, apparently oblivious to the horrors going on nearby in their local abortuaries. Abortion is a crime against humanity too -- a holocaust of unprecedented proportions.

It is hypocritical for Canada and America to point out atrocities, human rights violations or condemn the genocides committed by others when our hands drip with the blood of our own children.

Perhaps our local populations need to see an example of what goes on at these killing centers. (I'm certain there will be howls of protest just like citizens of Weimar protested.) So be it. See
http://abortioninstruments.com/
Video of abortions WARNING! EXTREMELY GRAPHIC AND DISTURBING VIDEO. SHOWS ACTUAL KILLING OF NUMEROUS UNBORN CHILDREN. (The video starts with a 5 second countdown which allows a final chance to exist before the shocking footage begins.)

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES MARKED BY CONFLICTING MESSAGES

2011-11-30T11:30:00.000-08:00

The United Nation’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities will be observed globally on December 3^rd 2011. Canadian advocate for disability inclusion, I applaud UN initiatives to ensure people with disabilities have a voice in their communities and countries as well as inclusion and full equality rights. Although

Canada

has made strides in areas of accessibility, citizens with disabilities are getting mixed messages. This past October the House of Commons gave its unanimous support to a National Suicide Prevention Strategy and now in November the British Columbia Supreme Court is considering a challenge (Carter case) to whether

Canada

’s law against assisted suicide should be overturned for the terminally and chronically ill and disabled.

I am chronically ill with aggressive multiple sclerosis (MS) and is electric wheelchair dependent. The Carter case is meant for people like me!

Let’s understand the message people like me will hear if the BC court rules in favour of the assisted suicide lobby. The healthy population should receive suicide prevention when suicidal. The old, sick and disabled get help committing suicide.

Canada

’s laws must protect people from euthanasia and assisted suicide. I believe that laws and public policy must promote life with dignity for people with disabilities through supports for Canadians with disabilities to reach their full potential as individuals and citizens. Ensuring access to education, transportation, appropriate housing, recreational opportunities and other forms of reasonable accommodation can help full inclusion in society.

Mark Davis Pickup
MPickup@shaw.ca

The eyeless "I" of assisted suicide

2011-11-17T08:34:00.000-08:00

A Canadian court is considering a challenge to the nation's law prohibiting assisted suicide and euthanasia. Consequently the topic are in the news. I received an email from a woman named Paula who doesn't know what to think as the assisted suicide is pulling out all their compassionate sounding euphemisms to promote death. Paula wanted my thoughts. Below is the text of my comments to her:

"Dear Paula - Assisted suicide is not about pain control. Palliative care in the 21st Century has come so far as to be able to eliminate virtually all physical pain. Assisted suicide is about the illusion of personal control even over death.

Death is not a right, Paula, it is an eventuality that will visit us all regardless of what any law may state. It is life that must be protected. All the great human rights documents such as the American Declaration of Independence, the UN's Declaration of Universal Human Rights and even Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms place the Right to Life as the first legal right. Why? Without the Right to Life assured all other rights become arbitrary and uncertain.

A truly progressive and compassionate society is concerned about life with dignity - especially for those who do not have it. Death with dignity is not an event, it is the natural conclusion of having lived with dignity. Dignity is not achieved by witholding water and food or injecting poison into a person's bloodstream when they are at their lowest point. That is not dignity: It is profound abandonment! We have a right to expect the best palliative care and pain management.

Ask yourself how assisted suicide acceptance serves the Common Good? It doesn't. It will put vulnerable people at risk.

The push for assisted suicide is the natural conclusion of personal automony gone amuck.

Gloria Taylor wants assisted suicide for herself which is different from suicide because it obviously requires assistance -- a coarsening of some other person's conscience. The eyeless "I" of assisted suicide does not consider the consequences to others.

Autonomy is diametrically opposed to community. The natural conclusion to unfettered autonomy is the right to even self-destruction. That is what is being considered in the BC Supreme courtroom as I write these words. Acceptance of the autonomy of suicide (assisted or otherwise) is to reject the interconnectedness of community. It proclaims with a final shout and sneer, "I am my own island!"

Canada is not 33 million little islands entire unto ourselves. As the 17th Century poet and divine, John Donne wrote "No man is an island entire unto itself. Every man is a part of the continent, a part of the main. ... any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." Only independence and autonomy -- the eyeless "I" -- sees self and self alone. Interdependence and the interconnectedness of community call for consideration for others -- especially the weakest.

You see, Paula, I do not have a right to ask or demand something that may hurt others. The independence of the individual must only exist within the interdepence of the community. If the desire of the individual threatens the security of whole then individual desires must give way to the greater interest of the community. Otherwise we are only left with 30-million little islands without the whole of a continent, a nation, a community that protects the interests of the weakest against the interests of the powerful.

And so the choice before us is stark, Paula: Independent and autonomy versus interdependence and community. Laws must protect the weakest and that's what Canada's law against assisted suicide does.

Mark Davis Pickup
(nb. For some reason, which I can't explain, this blog does not accept comments. If you have a comment, send it to MPickup@shaw.ca. I will try to post as a blog.)

SHOW PROVIDES BALANCE TO BIASED CANADIAN PRO-ASSISTED SUICIDE BROADCAST

2011-11-10T18:33:00.000-08:00

http://www.contextwithlornadueck.com/

CONTEXT with Lorna Dueck, Pain & Suffering (episode 1109)

On November 13th the above noted program dealing with with assisted suicide will be aired across Canada. (See link above and click on image.) I only appear in third segment.
(For local show times across Canada go to http://www.contextwithlornadueck.com/airtimes-stations . Readers outside Canada see link at the top of this blog posting.)
It should be noted that this program was produced in anticipation of a British Columbia court challenge of Canada's laws against assisted suicide and euthanasia. The legal challenge is expected later in November by the BC Civil Liberties Association. Happily Lorna Dueck provides some balance to counter an appallingly biased program produced by one of Canada's national broadcasters.

In late October the CTV television network aired a pro-assisted suicide program entitled "Let Me Go" on their W5 current affairs show. A complaint was lodged with both W5 producers and the President of CTV News Wendy Freeman not only by me but a number of Canadian advocates for people with disabilities. As of yet no reply has been received. See the show at the link at the bottom of this posting.

The W5 documentary "Let me go" was dishonest from the outset. It was thinly veiled pro-assisted suicide propaganda -- disguised as journalism. It's certainly not the first time for CTV. A few years ago, Paula Todd used (or abused) her position with CTV to push the assisted suicide agenda, shutting down Margaret Somerville and me in favour of assisted suicide advocacy.

The first case in the W5 show featured Kay Carter who went to Switzerland for assisted suicide. Her family is now challenging Canada's laws prohibiting assisted suicide. Kay Carter was a member of the death with dignity movement. (She had an agenda.)

They started off their interview with Victor Malarek by saying everything had to be done secretively. No it didn't. All they had to do was book a flight to Switzerland and go. There are no police at our airports waiting to stop people from travelling abroad. Everything was undercover? That's gross exaggeration and should have been challenged by Mr. Malarek.

Kay Carter had spinal stinosis. There are treatments -- far more than with MS (which I have). Victor Malarek, in true journalistic form (not), just accepted Carter's claims and statements at face value. No challenges. Kay Carter said there is no quality of life in a wheelchair. I've been in an electric wheelchair for years -- much longer than her. I have quality of life.

Carter's agenda seems to have been more important than finding quality of life or proper treatment. She said she wanted to end her life before she became "a nothing but an ironing board and a bed." (?) I don't even know what that means, although I suspect it was meant to be degrading to life with a disability. Her family said she is dying from spinal stinosis. Her son said Kay was afraid of her dying "bit by bit" and Malarek restated it, with the most earnest of expressions, just to drive the point home to viewers. Very dramatic but for one problem: spinal stinosis is not terminal. Malarek must have considered this point because he later acknowledged it in passing.

Malarek asked who raised the idea of assisted suicide when things got unbearable? The real question was what forms of relief, pain management and supports were explored? Kay's daughter said "You can't die with dignity in Canada." That's not true! We have some very fine palliative care in Canada and even in British Columbia where Kay Carter lived. Again Malarek did not challenge this outrageous statement. (It was hard to believe that he's W5's senior reporter.)

Malarek asked how long she would have lived without assisted suicide? Carter's daughter said she could have lived for years. Wait a minute! I thought she was dying "bit by bit". Carter's daughter said Kay would have been bedridden, trapped in a body. How does she know that?! They didn't want treatment; they wanted assisted suicide? The folks at Dignitas asked Kay if assisted suicide was what she wanted. According to the daughter she said "Yes, I want to die with dignity." Since when is dignity bestowed on people with poison?! No one questioned that premise.

It is my experience that people only die with as much dignity as they live with. Dying with dignity not an event, it is a process -- the end result of having lived with dignity. Apparently such an idea did not occur to "senior reporter" Malarek (or if it did he kept it to himself).

Russell Ogden talked about choosing death and setting up a suicide clinic. Alas, he hints at the real issue. Assisted suicide is not about pain control, it's all about control.

The next person was Cam with MS. Malarek said he's confined to a wheelchair. Ah, perspective. I live in my electric wheelchair. It is a tool to aid my life and not confine me -- just like many people use glasses or hearing aids or canes. Cam fears a day when there's so much pain that nothing can be done. Who is advising this poor man? Virtually all pain can be controlled or eliminated. Cam doesn't need assisted suicide, he needs a new doctor.

The next profile was Elizabeth Macdonald who also had MS. She too was obsessed with control. She is quoted elsewhere as saying "Why can I not pre-empt a more horrible fate, by choosing to die on my own terms, in a way and at a time of my own choosing?" Again the issue was control more than pain control. Incidentally, if all she had was morphine as the story infers, she was not well served by her doctor.

The interview with Dr. Jose Periera's was revealing about the program's bias. Dr. Periera's warnings against assisted suicide acceptance were accompanied with ominous sound effects injected by W5 (the first in the documentary). The doctor made a case for palliative care and warned of the dangers to vulnerable people. Such a villain!

Elizabeth Macdonald's husband said Elizabeth would have none of it (palliation). She was too independent for palliative care. (?)

In his concluding remarks ~~propagandist~~ senior reporter Mallory said the BC case will surely go the Supreme Court and reminded octogenarian Lloyd Robertson that the last case the Supremes dealt with was Sue Rodriguez in 1993 and the Supreme Court was split 5-4. With the steady coarsening of public consciences, will that still be the case?

Why didn't W5 name this program "Better Dead Than Disabled" ? (See W5 assisted suicide program at

http://watch.ctv.ca/news/w5/let-me-go/ )

Mark Davis Pickup

PHILADELPHIA'S "HOUSE OF HORRORS" ABORTION CLINIC

2011-11-05T12:38:00.000-07:00

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/abortionist-pleads-guilty-to-murder-after-killing-dozens-of-newborns-at-hou?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=2a7855878a-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines11_04_2011&utm_medium=email
John Jalsevac, "Abortionist pleads guilty to murder after killing dozens of newborns at "House of horrors" clinic"", 4 November 2011, LifeSiteNews.

According to LifeSiteNews, Philadelphia abortionist Steve Massof (picture to right) has "admitted to severing the spinal cords of around 100 living and breathing newborn babies at Philadelphia’s notorious “House of Horrors” abortion clinic, has plead guilty to two counts of third-degree murder." This is just the latest of many horrors to emerge from the abortion industry.

Read the rest of the horrible story unfolding at the City of brotherly love at the link above.

HLM

PERSONHOOD LANGUAGE - 2008-2011, by Dr. Dianne N. Irving

2011-10-29T10:09:00.000-07:00

PERSONHOOD LANGUAGE - 2008-2011

Dianne N. Irving, M.A., Ph.D.

With "personhood" bills and amendments exploding around the world in warp speed, perhaps it is time to step back and carefully examine in general some of the "language" being used in many of them.Although probably designed with all good intentions and genuine concerns, what many people don't realize is that, in dealing with legal "language", the courts are usually required to interpret the "language" in any such bill or regulation that becomes law as "exclusionary". That is, if a law formally defines all bears as "brown", then that law would not apply to any bears that happen to be "black" or "white". Similarly, the use of sloppy, sentimental, "popular", or scientifically erroneous definitions in a bill would accomplish little of what most supporters imagined, but instead would constitute "legal loopholes" that would allow much of which they had thought had been prohibited by the passing of the law or regulation.

And it is not enough to pass a new law or regulation; it is just as important to check out any already existing laws and regulations that use erroneous "language" in their formal definitions that would render the newly passed laws as void when challenged. This includes already existing laws that bear on both the beginning and the end of life issues. Additionally, every term within a legal definition must also be accurately defined in any new law or regulation.

The issue is also not just about legal "language". Once such language becomes popular, or used in conferences, articles, books, sermons, etc., then the average person is essentially being mis-informed about such important life and death decisions that they might become involved in themselves. Such mis-information would then preclude them from forming a "correct conscience", which in turn would constitute a false "starting point" for their own personal ethical decision making and choices.

Examples of "loophole language" in many current "personhood" initiatives includes the following terms and phrases: "fertilization", "conception", "in the womb", "prenatal", "abortion", "cloning", "stages", "pre-embryo", "functions", "species", "zygote", etc. The list is really endless, being constantly expanded and imaginatively recreated as needed. Such efforts have been going on for decades now for sure. But to help advance the current level of awareness and understanding about this global rush of "personhood" initiatives, allow me to briefly explain examples of "language" currently being used that would constitute legal loopholes if such initiatives were to be passed into laws or regulations (see suggested careful "language" below, as well as a short list of articles with extensive scientific references for documentation).

Legal Loophole "Language":

1. The phrase "at fertilization" is ambiguous and scientifically erroneous. "Fertilization" is not a single event, but rather it is a biological process that takes place over time. During the process of fertilization there are various and different points in time that some have argued is when a new sexually reproduced human being begins to exist - e.g., at the beginning of the process, in the middle, or at the end. Thus any "language" used in a law would have to be specific as to when during the process of fertilization a new human being begins to exist. To simply say human beings begin to exist "at fertilization" is to leave the door wide open for interpretations by "experts".

Some proponents of genetic engineering, for example, are arguing that a new human being begins to exist at the end of the process of fertilization, with the formation of the "zygote" - as some textbooks simplified for students unfortunately claim. But that would "justify" the use of the human embryo already existing before the formation of the zygote in destructive and reproductive research. However, according to the Carnegie Stages of Early Human Embryonic Development, a new sexually reproduced human being begins to exist as the "primitive embryo" at the beginning of the process of fertilization, with first contact and penetration of the sperm and oocyte [see Stage 1 of the Carnegie Stages at:
http://nmhm.washingtondc.museum/collections/hdac/stage1.pdf]. As that new human embryo begins to develop, he/she forms an "ootid", and then only after that does the human embryo form a "zygote".
It is also not just the "46" chromosomes and genes that define a human organism, but all the constituents within the cells of the organism - including the single-cell human organism. In fact, some human beings have more or less than "46" chromosomes but they are still human beings who should be equally protected by law. And there are some non-human animals that also have "46" chromosomes in individuals of their species! Further, in many human beings their individual genetic constitution can change or be altered due to inherent errors in crossing-over, or external insults such as radiation or disease.

Note that the Carnegie Stages were instituted in 1942, based on international scientific research since at least the 1880's (Wilhelm His et al)and updated every 2-4 years since then by the international nomenclature on human embryology, consisting of about 20-25 human embryologists from around the world (see more references below). You can't get more objective than that. But beware of false "Carnegie Stages" making the rounds, as well as other related efforts to define "stages" in false scientific terms.

2. Note that in natural normal human reproduction between a man and a woman, fertilization takes place in the woman's fallopian tube - not in her uterus. Therefore the phrases "in the womb" or "prenatal" would refer only to the new living human embryo who has already implanted in the woman's uterus (about 5-7 days post-fertilization); it would not refer to the new living human embryo who is still in the woman's fallopian tube trying to travel toward her uterus to implant. Such language in a law would therefore still allow for the use of abortifacients, embryo flushing, etc.
3. Not all human beings are reproduced or begin to exist by means of "fertilization" (sexual reproduction; fusion of sperm and oocyte). Many human beings begin to exist by means of asexual reproduction - those who are both reproduced asexually in vivo, as well as those who are reproduced asexually in vitro. Human asexual reproduction means a new human embryo is reproduced without the use of sperm and oocyte. For example, one or two of every set of naturally occurring human monozygotic (identical) twins/triplets begin to exist within the woman's body (fallopian tube) up to a week or longer post-fertilization. Repeat: Other than the first twin, the later twin or triplets do not begin to exist at "fertilization" at all, but by means of a different reproductive process, and up to a week or more after fertilization. Those natural identical twinstriplets would not be covered by such legal "language" as "fertilization".
Identical twins/triplets could also begin to exist post-fertilization outside the woman's body (in vitro) in IVF/ART and other laboratories and "infertility" clinics. Indeed, "twinning", one of many kinds of human cloning techniques, is an artificial reproductive technique that is used in some IVF/ART clinics to treat "infertility", especially when the woman has few healthy oocytes left to fertilize. "Twinning" is also used to asexually reproduce new human embryos for purely destructive research purposes. "Twinning" also goes by the names of "embryo multiplicatioon", "embryo splitting", "blastomere separation", "blastocyst splitting", etc.
4. There are many different kinds of asexual reproductive techniques used to reproduce new human embryos without the use of "fertilization", and those new asexually reproduced human embryos can be used for reproductive as well as destructive research purposes. For example, in the scientific literature one can find the use of asexual reproductive techniques such as pronuclei transfer, mitochondrial transfer, DNA-recombinant gene transfer, the use of artificially created genes, chromosomes, nuclei, and many other genetic engineering and cloning techniques. Additionally, although the same "intention" or "purpose" might be involved - i.e., to reproduce a new living human embryo - the biological/biochemical/genetic functions or mechanisms of each of these asexual reproductive techniques are distinct from each other, as well as distinct from the sexual reproductive process of fertilization. Perhaps the language of "fertilization" might protect sexually reproduced human embryos in vitro, but they would not protect any asexually reproduced human embryos in vitro - including "twins" and other human embryos cloned or genetically engineered, for either research or for reproductive purposes.
5. The term "abortion" no longer refers to the intentional killing of unborn human beings who began to exist by means of "fertilization". In fact the term "abortion" must now refer to the intentional killing of both sexually and asexually reproduced human beings. Because some human beings can be, and have been, asexually reproduced artificially in "infertility" clinics, those experimental asexually reproduced human embryos have been implanted into women's uteruses for reproductive purposes. If "abortion" were to refer only to those innocent living human beings who began to exist by means of "fertilization", then the abortion of any and all asexually reproduced human beings would not be covered by that law or regulation.
6. The term "fertilization", like the terms "in the womb" and "prenatal", does not always mean "conception". Many professional medical and scientific societies, as well as many state laws here in the U.S., have already legally defined "conception" as "implantation for decades, thus automatically leaving all human beings still within the woman's fallopian tube legally unprotected. The term "conception" has been formally rejected by human embryologists as well as by the international nomenclature committee on human embryology as "unscientific" and "misleading".

It might also be prudent to note that although the term "conception" might have special religious meaning for many, the religious use of the term is in fact often erroneously understood. For example, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception" does not refer to how the Blessed Virgin Mary was biologically reproduced - whether either sexually or asexually. Rather, it refers to the doctrine that Mary's immaterial soul was created by God without the stain of original sin. That is, Mary's soul was "immaculate", without sin. In fact, if you think about it, "fertilization" was never involved in Mary's case at all.

7. As those who have been following these and related issues are becoming aware, the erroneous "scientific" definitions used as legal loopholes in legislation and regulations concerning the beginning of life issues can also be transferred to issues at the end of life - and have been. This phenomenon appears to be increasing. Thus, the "right to privacy" has been used to try to justify euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. Or, if one is not legally a "person" at the beginning of life (because one is asexually reproduced, one was a "pre-embryo", etc.), then one is likewise not a "person" at the end of life - and therefore euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, organ transplantation, etc., are still "legal" for those unfortunate human beings. In reverse, if one is not a "person" at the end of life because one is "brain dead" (and therefore euthanasia, etc. are legal), then it has been argued that the early developing human embryo is not a "person" until the brain is formed - and thus before that time they can be aborted, killed, used in research, etc.
8. Consequently, many prolife organizations have recognized the importance of using very careful and scientifically accurate "language" in any legal documents and regulations to protect all (not just some) innocent living human beings, and consider the following "language" at least a good effort in order to prevent any legal loopholes. This language would hopefully legally protect all innocent living human beings, both sexually and asexually reproduced, both in vivo and in vitro, at the beginning, middle and end of their lives (at least, until new "legal loopholes" go unnoticed):

Legal Definition of Human "Person" and Human "Personhood"

Person: applies only to all living human beings from the beginning of their biological development as human organisms - regardless of age, race, sex, gender, capacity to function, condition of physical or mental dependency and/or disability, or method of sexual or asexual reproduction used, whether existing in vivo or in vitro.
Personhood: is the legal recognition of a human being's full status as a human person, that applies to all human beings, regardless of age, race, sex, gender, capacity to function, condition of physical or mental dependency and/or disability, or method of sexual or asexual reproduction used, whether existing in vivo or in vitro.

Definitions of "Biological Beginning" in Human Sexual and Asexual Reproduction

"In human sexual reproduction (i.e., the immediate use of human sperm and human oocyte) -- both in vivo (inside the body) and in vitro (outside the body) -- the biological beginning of a new human being/organism occurs when a human sperm makes contact with the protective covering of and fuses with a human oocyte. Examples include normal natural sexual intercourse, and artificial sexual reproduction in IVF/ART research laboratories and infertility clinics."
"In human asexual reproduction (i.e., without the immediate use of human sperm and human oocyte) -- both in vivo (inside the body) and in vitro (outside the body) -- the biological beginning of a new human being/organism occurs when the status of the DNA in a mere human cell or cells is regulated or reversed back to that of a new human being/organism. Examples include naturally occurring human identical (monozygotic) "twinning" within the woman's fallopian tube and/or uterus, and artificial "twinning", pronuclei transfer, somatic cell nuclear transfer, germ line cell nuclear transfer, and other genetic engineering and regenerative medicine research techniques in IVF/ART research laboratories and infertility clinics."

Definitions of Other Terms Used Within The Major Definition:

In vivo: within the body (including the fallopian tube and the uterus).
In vitro: outside the body, e.g., in IVF/ART and other research laboratories and infertility clinics.
Human Being: any human organism, including the single-cell human embryo, who possesses a genome specific for and consistent with an individual member of the human species, regardless of age, race, sex, gender, capacity to function, condition of physical or mental dependency and/or disability, or method of sexual or asexual reproduction used, whether existing in vivo or in vitro.
Human Genome: the total amount of nuclear and extra-nuclear DNA genetic material in a cell that constitutes an organism as an individual member of the human species - including the single-cell human embryo.
Human embryo: all human beings during the first 8 weeks of their biological development, including single-cell human embryos from the beginning of their biological development.
Human fetus: all human beings from the beginning of the fetal period of their biological development (the beginning of 9 weeks) through birth.
Suggested Irving Articles Documenting The Science And "Personhood":

· -- Dr. Dianne N. Irving, M.A., Ph.D. and Dr. C. Ward Kischer, "Scientific Response to Criticism of the California Human Rights Amendment as 'Protecting Fertilized Eggs'" (December 9, 2009), at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_175responsecalifornia.html

· -- Irving, "Human Embryology and Church Teachings" (September 15, 2008), at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/em/em_132embryologychurch1.html; also published in The New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., Supplement 2009, (Detroit: Gayle), pp. 287-312, as "Embryology, Human"; see http://www.gale.cengage.com/NCE/; also at: http://www.personhood.ca/pdfs/embryology_human.pdf

· -- "Scientific and philosophical expertise: An evaluation of the arguments on 'personhood'", Linacre Quarterly February 1993, 60:1:18-46, at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_04person1.html

[Note: this article is a mini-version of my 400-page doctoral dissertation on the personhood of the early human embryo. That dissertation was addressing only sexually reproduced human embryos left over in IVF infertility clinics; it was not addressing asexually reproduced human embryos.]

· -- Irving, "iPhone APP for the Carnegie Stages, and Natural Monozygotic (Identical) Twins" (Sept. 4 2011), at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_191iPhone.html

· -- Irving, "Reliable URLs for Human Embryology: The Carnegie Stages of Early Human Embryonic Development" (April 20, 2011), at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_186carnegiestages.html

· -- Irving, "Exciting News - Current Up-Dated Internationally Documented Human Embryology Now Online to Public" (February 24, 2011), at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_183currentupdate.html

· -- Irving, "The Carnegie Stages of Early Human Embryonic Development: Chart of all 23 Stages, and Detailed Descriptions of Carnegie Stages 1 - 6" (April 22, 2006), at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_123carnegiestages1.html

· -- Irving, "A One-Act Play: 'Crippled Consciences and the Human Embryo'" (November 17, 2010), at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_178one-act-play1.html; also at: http://www.issues4life.org/pdfs/aoneactplay.pdf

· -- "Irving Response to Mississippi "personhood" initiative" (August 5, 2011), at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_190mississippi.html

· -- Irving, "In the womb" and "conception": Poland's abortion bill, and U.S. federal judge's "science" (June 28, 2011), at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_189polandabortionbill.html

· -- Irving, "Neither, Nor: Bryne's and Willke's Pseudo-Battle Over Human Embryonic Stem Cells" (June 19, 2008), at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_129bryneandwillke.html

· -- Irving, "So You Think That 'Reproductive Cloning' Isn't Done Yet? Guess Again" (July 18, 2008), at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_130reproductivecloning.html

· -- Irving, "American Medical Association's "Narrow Definitions", Legal "Re-definitions" ... and Reproductive Cloning" (October 9, 2009), at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_170ama1.html

· -- Irving, "Analysis of Legislative and Regulatory Chaos in the U.S.: Asexual Human Reproduction and Genetic Engineering" (Oct. 20, 2004), at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_81chaosasexgen1.html

· -- Irving, "Playing God by manipulating man: Facts and frauds of human cloning" (October 4, 2003), presented twice at the Missouri Catholic Conference Annual Assembly Workshop, Jefferson City, MO, at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_22manipulatingman1.html

________________________________________---
Readers with questions about this artice, send an email to: HumanLifeMatters@shaw.ca . They will be forwarded to Dr. Irving for a response or explanation.

READ MARK PICKUP'S LATEST BLOG ON SUFFERING

2011-10-18T10:51:00.000-07:00

"... At last I will see clearly and will understand the Why of suffering." -- taken from my blog posting called I WILL KNOW JUST AS I AM KNOWN. Read the rest at http://markpickup.org

Mark Pickup

BLOG POST ABOUT RECONCILATION

2011-10-12T08:02:00.000-07:00

"It is important to let people close to us know that we love them. So often things go unsaid. ... A sad example of this was the rift between John Lennon and Paul McCartney." -- Taken from Mark Pickup's personal blog post entitled KEEP SHORT ACCOUNTS WITH GOD AND PEOPLE. Read the rest at http://markpickup.org

Illinois abortuary closed indefinitely!

2011-09-30T19:52:00.000-07:00

Rockford Illinois abortion clinic has been closed indefinitely, their licence suspended by the health department. Another killing center shuts down. Hopefully it will happen to more of these horrible places across America and Canada. To read more, cut and paste this link (http://prolifecorner.com/node/921)

I would like to see surprise inspections of abortion clinics occur across every jurisdiction that has these terrible facilities. For the sake of womens' health, hold them to the same stringent standard that hospitals meet. Does anybody still believe legal abortions are safe abortions for women? Take a look at the Blackmun Wall at http://www.lifedynamics.com/Pro-life_Group/Pro-choice_Women/

Canada's unjust justice

2011-09-13T10:32:00.000-07:00

http://prolifecorner.com/node/896

Well, Canada's outrageous version of crime and punishment has brought scandal to my beloved province of Alberta. Copy and paste the above link and read about the appalling legal decision of "Justice" Joanne Veit of Alberta Court of Queen's Bench to let an Alberta mother who strangled her newborn baby walk free. How long will my country allow unjust judges judge?! Shame on us.

Mark Pickup

"THE CHOICE"

2011-09-03T09:11:00.000-07:00

See Mark Pickup\s latest blog "THE CHOICE" at http://markpickup.org

Are abortion clinics really clean and safe?

2011-08-20T10:07:00.000-07:00

Lies and deception are the backbone of abortion advocacy. The realities that science and biology have established about prenatal life -- its beginning and development must be suppressed or denied. It should be noted that much of our knowledge about life in the womb was known long before Roe v Wade or Canada's 1969 abortion law. Abortion facilities must try to keep women as ignorant as possible about what abortion really is. People who dare publicly stand against abortion are regularly vilified, maligned and attacked, by a desperate abortion establishment. (See previous post.)

One infamous abortion clinic in Rockford Illinois (the Northern Illinois Womens Center) is the epitome of this. Copy and paste to your Internet http://prolifecorner.com/node/862 to read comments by a local pro-Life group.

Abortion advocates have long espoused that abortion must be easily available to provide women with "safe, legal abortions". After abortion became legal, unsanitary back alley abortionists simply moved to main street into plain view and now feign respectability.

[In recent years they have tried to shed the unsavoury label of abortionists with its seedy connotations of baby killers and being dangerous to women. Abortionists have begun to refer to themselves as abortion providers to try and present themselves in an altruistic light.]

The NIWC in Rockford illustrates that legalizing abortion is no guarantee of cleanliness or respect for women's health or ensuring they make fully informed decisions. Copy and paste http://www.prolifecorner.com/node/526

If you copy and paste http://www.lifedynamics.com/Pro-life_Group/Pro-choice_Women/ and click on the Blackmun Wall link you will see a litany of women who have died by the supposedly "safe legal abortions" in America since Roe v. Wade.

My wife worked directly across the street from a Canadian abortion clinic. She often saw ambulances pulling up to the facility to rush women from the abortion clinic to a hospital. Safe abortions? Of course this was never reported by the press.

Was/is such consistent silence a wilful act by an abortion friendly press to perpetuate the myth that abortions are safe? The media are always quick to deny bias but the public is left to wonder? The advent of new social media has broken the grip traditional media have now on what is reported and not reported, and how things are presented.

A number of years ago, a timid OBGYN told me quietly that after the only abortion clinic was introduced into the Canadian city where he worked the number of women with perforated uteruses, and other complications from abortions, arriving in hospital emergency wards from the abortion clinic skyrocketed. Again, that was never reported and my timid gynecologist friend would never say such a thing publicly for fear of media criticism. He had a thriving medical practice to protect. Poor man. His spine was so thin you could pass your hand through it -- but his wallet was so thick he sat crooked.

Mark Pickup

The pro-Life cause is winning!

2011-08-19T20:23:00.000-07:00

http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/17673
Chuck Colson, "Abortion Abatement: Keep up the momentum", 18 August 2011, Breakpoint [You will have to copy and paste the link above to read article.]

I want to bring your attention to the good news story above. Pro-Life advocates should take heart that the public is becoming more and more pro-Life. No longer can abortion proponents claim that the majority of people are "pro-choice". For decades Life advocates fought against the grain of public opinion and media bias for abortion. Like trying to change course of a giant ship, the shift of national opinion has been slow, but with persistent commitment to the universal right to life from conception to natural death, dedicated pro-Life people are now seeing the fruits of their labours: Most people do not agree with the current status quo of abortion on demand (and in Canada, taxpayer abortion on demand!).

We are winning the battle of hearts and minds. Don't stop now! Keep up the good fight for full inclusion and protection of every life regardless of its state or stage in the life spectrum. We have science, logic and truth about prenatal life on our side. Abortion advocates must rely on power seized through ideology, sophistry, bigotry and old slogans.

I am reminded of the words of Abraham Lincoln about another great battle for human equality: "We will win more converts each day. We will grow strong by the violence of our adversaries and unless truth be a mockery and justice a hollow lie, we will be in the majority."

Do not grow weary, dear friends in the great pro-Life cause. The struggle to stop the abortion holocaust and give legal recognition and protection to prenatal life is the greatest civil rights issue of the 21st Century and you are winning!

Let "pro-choice" mean informed choice

2011-08-09T09:06:00.000-07:00

Promoters of abortion must rely on deception and outright lies in order to promote their agenda. Life developing in the womb is as human as you or me and in begins at the point when sperm fertilizes egg. This is not a matter of opinion, it is plain biological fact. The humanity of the prenatal child is increasingly difficult to deny as embryology, fetology, the technology such as ultrasound imaging improves. The image to the left is a 3D ultrasound image of an unborn child.

The ethical poverty of the abortion movement is illustrated best by its proponents. The first hint is their language beginning with the phrase "I'm pro-choice" -- yet not saying what is the choice. It is my experience that if you press them to fully identify the choice they are apt to become angry and abusive.

In its bluntest terms, they believe that parents should be able to choose death for their unborn child by means of abortion regardless of how uninformed that decision may be.

In the city of Rockford, Illinois, apparently supporters of abortion do not believe in informed choice. They tried by every means possible to stop a free mobile ultrasound service to be offered to abortion minded women to see their child before going through with abortion. Ultrasound staff provide women with accurate information about prenatal development and resources available to them should they choose to complete her pregnancy. That's providing women with information needed to make informed choices. Apparently that's not the choice "pro-choicer" in Rockford Illinois have in mind.

They abuse, threaten, and behave in the most hateful ways toward Rockford citizens who try to offer women alternatives to abortion. But pictures are better than words. Go to http://prolifecorner.com/node/845 to see the sort of harrassment Rockford's abortion proponents use to stop alternatives being offered to women in crisis pregnancies. They are not "pro-choice" they are "pro-abortion" and anti-alternatives. Notice that one sign by abortion supporter tries to scare women away from the ultrasound van by saying a woman was raped in it. That is a vicious lie.

That link again is http://prolifecorner.com/node/845. You will have to copy and paste the address. (For some reason you can directy link from this blog.)

HLM

Visitors to HLM's blog surpass 28,000

2011-08-05T11:38:00.000-07:00

As of today's date, the HumanLifeMatters' blog has had 28,416 hits. In descending order they come from the United States, Canada, Ukraine, Russia, the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom, China, Poland, Argentina, Australia, Iran and Latvia. If anybody is interested in contributing a column about Life issues or bioethics, send it to Mark Pickup (MPickup@shaw.ca)as a Word file attachment. I can not pay for it, but if published you are assured of a wide readership.

Mark Davis Pickup
(nb: I have sometimes resorted to using my full name because, believe it or not, there are other Mark Pickups)

Abortion and euthanasia acceptance are historical aberrations

2011-08-04T13:24:00.000-07:00

Canada and the United States treat abortion on demand as a right. This is a recent development and an aberration from the course of human history.

The Hippocratic Oath for doctors dating back thousands of years forbade abortion and euthanasia. Since the 1st century, the Catholic Church has unwaveringly maintained the moral evil of procured abortion. (See Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2271.) Ancient and persistent Common Law traditions dating back into the Middle Ages treated abortion as a grave crime. In 1802, England formally made abortion a criminal offense.

In May of 1969, Canada changed course from history, and the wisdom of the Ages, by decriminalizing abortion. Abortion advocates assured the public and politicians that a change in the law would not open the flood gates to abortion on demand. They were wrong. The year abortion was decriminalized there were 268 abortions in Canada. The next year, the number rose by four thousand percent to 11,000 abortions! That was 1970. In 1971 the number of abortions in Canada spiked again to 30,949. In 1972, the numbers rose another 25.7 percent to 38,905 abortions. The numbers just kept rising. Things got so bad that by 1982, there were more abortions than live births in the City of Toronto!

I have talked to physicians who practised medicine during that time. They could not remember any request for abortion ever being denied under Canada’s liberal abortion law passed in 1969. As far as they were concerned the law was so bad it may as well not have existed. In 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down that law.

NO PROTECTION
Today, there is no legal protection for unborn children against abortion. A woman can have an abortion at taxpayers’ expense for any reason at all, or no reason whatever. She can have as many abortions as she wants – no questions asked.

Thousands of unwanted preborn children are sacrificed in Canada each week on the altar of sexual freedom for their parents. Close to 100,000 abortions are performed annually in Canada and the vast majority are not medically required.

Abortion advocates of the 1960s said that easy access to abortion would eliminate child abuse because only wanted children would be born. They were wrong on that point too. Canada has been aborting children all day long for more than forty years and yet the rates of child abuse have skyrocketed! We have the worst of both worlds. The assertions made by proponents of abortion were not based on empirical scientific evidence ― they were based on ideology and social agendas. Abortion does not stop child abuse, abortion is child abuse!

Is it possible that abortion coarsens people’s consciences and cheapens the value they place on children in general? When the ancient taboo against harming one’s young and vulnerable is violated, does it open the door to other forms of abuse? Once that taboo has been breached against killing the most vulnerable of humanity (like a child developing in the womb) does abuse or killing other vulnerable groups such the aged, the sick or the disabled become easier?

If so, then the stage is set for the next phase in an expanding culture of death we are experiencing: Euthanasia.

Granted, last year a Private Member’s Bill in Parliament to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide was soundly defeated. But do not think that the threat of euthanasia is over. Incurably ill people are quietly and discreetly being euthanized in hospitals across the nation. Euthanasia proponents are taking a different approach to bring their agenda to Canada. Courts can impose where democratic votes fail.

The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association has launched a legal challenge with the B.C. Supreme Court against Canada’s laws prohibiting assisted suicide and euthanasia. They are representing the family of Kay Carter who went to Switzerland for an assisted suicide and Kelowna resident Gloria Taylor who suffers from Lou Gehrig’s disease. The latter case is strategic because Taylor is not expected to live long. The B.C. Civil Liberties Association wants her case fast-tracked through the courts. There’s more than one way to achieve what advocates of euthanasia and assisted suicide want. If democracy doesn’t work in their favour, they will try to force the issue through the courts.

One thing you have to give to euthanasia advocates -- they are persistent. Abortion and euthanasia are indeed aberrations from the course of history and we are paying a heavy cost. The cost will get higher and, as always, will be paid with human blood.

Behind the closed doors of abortion clinics

2011-07-27T10:19:00.000-07:00

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/abortionist-admits-babies-sometimes-born-alive-and-left-wiggling-around-in?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=a00105a671-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines07_26_2011&utm_medium=email
Kathleen Gilbert, "Abortionist admits: babies sometimes born alive and 'left wiggling around in the toilet'", LifeSiteNews, 26 June 2011.

We know that abortion clinics are chambers of horrors but occasionally we are given brief glimpses of what goes on in many of these terrible places. The story referenced above is one example. Unfortunately, you can't directly link from this blog. You'll have to cut and paste into the address bar of your internet connection.

HLM

A great pro-Life Citizen honored at 2011 NRL convention

2011-06-28T14:19:00.000-07:00

The life and contribution to Dr. Mildred F. Jefferson was honored by video tribute at the 2011 National Right to Life convention in Jacksonville, Florida. For link to video and comments by Mark Pickup, cut http://markpickup.org and place in your address bar.

Developing and being a Significant Community

2011-06-14T15:35:00.000-07:00

Go to http://markpickup to read the speaking notes from LaRee & Mark Pickup's recent address to an international euthanasia symposium: "Developing and being a Significant Community.

See Latest blog by Mark Pickup to fellow Christians

2011-05-21T11:02:00.000-07:00

To read Mark Pickup's latest blog to Christians see http://markpickup.org

2011 40 DAYS FOR LIFE

2011-05-05T15:18:00.000-07:00

Cut and paste the address below into your Internet search window and see the latest information from America's 2011 leaders of 40 Days for Life.

http://www.40daysforlife.com/momentum

It's a wonderful ministry that is changing hearts and saving lives.

Be Pro-Life

2011-05-02T10:55:00.000-07:00

The Joy of Spring:
Every child deserves to experience life.
Be Pro-Life

Mark Pickup's latest blog

2011-04-27T13:29:00.000-07:00

Read Mark Pickup's latest blog about America's 2011 National Day of Prayer. Go to http://markpickup.org

HLM

2011 National Rght to Life Convention in Jacksonville, Florida

2011-04-18T09:57:00.000-07:00

The 2011 annual convention for U.S. National Right to Life Committee will be held June 23-25,in Jacksonville, Florida. This year's theme is BRINGING AMERICA BACK TO LIFE. Grassroots leaders and experts will share their experience and skills to help you bring America back to the self-evident truth that all humanity is created equal and are endowed with the inalienable Right to life. Plan to attend!

This is not a pie in the sky ideal. The majority of the American population have become pro-Life after years when most were not.

NATIONAL SIN

For more than 38 years Roe v. Wade polluted the land with the innocent blood of more than 45 million unborn children sacrificed on the altar of sexual freedom for their parents. Roe v. Wade is an abomination that must be repealed and swept away as a national sin. It was America's deviation from its great founding principles to flirt with the logic of darkness.

RETURNING TO SELF-EVIDENT TRUTH:
The inalienable Right to life

The greatness of America is returning. I can feel it in the air like a fresh spring breeze after a long winter. The changing of public opinion has not come in a thunder-clap of revelation, rather a breeze whispering to the conscience of the nation: All have a right to live, to breath the air, and reach their full potential.

A bright new day is coming. Yes, a fresh breeze is beginning to blow across the American landscape. I have such love and respect for America: I trust she will repent of the sin of abortion and return to her former greatness. Granted, there will be some people who will refuse to heed the still small voice in the breeze, but I believe most Americans will.

And if the United States of America rejects abortion, and the emerging blemish of euthanasia, and embraces the protection and care of all human life, I believe God will bless America anew.

Plan to attend the 2011 National Right to Life Convention in Jacksonville, Florida, June 23-25 to equip yourself to "Bring America Back to Life." Go to the National Right to Life Committee website and register today.

HLM
Email: HumanLifeMatters@shaw.ca

Canadian leaders debate and the elephant in the room

2011-04-13T13:55:00.000-07:00

Last night (April 12th)the leaders of Canada's four major parties participated in a debate -- leading up to the Canadian general election on May 2nd 2011. Selected questions from Canadians were answered. The one question that was not addressed was about Canada's holocaust of abortion. Prenatal life has no legal protection at any point throughout any point of pregnancy. Any woman in Canada can have an abortion for any reason at all or no reason whatsoever. She can have as many abortions as she wants and every one will be paid for by taxpayers through Canada's universal healthcare system.

My wife was the Executive Director of the Alberta Pro-Life Association from 2008-2010. Her office was directly across the street from an abortion clinic in the provincial Capital city of Edmonton. Cars lined the streets for blocks around the abortuary. The abortion business is a licence to print money: They do a booming business!

It's the same way in cities across the country. Unwanted preborn children are dying every day by the thousands, but it's unworthy of the leaders' debate. They will argue about the economy and the environment but not the value of all human life or why we refuse to recognize the humanity of prenatal life.

No politician will advocate protection of every human life, only some human life. If a Party wants to form the government, they think they can not speak out against the abortion holocaust. They fear losing their limosines, the perks, and exhorbitant salaries and generous pensions. They would rather the holocaust continue than disturb the blood soaked status quo of abortion on demand.

Mark

Kettles calling pots black

2011-03-08T09:14:00.000-08:00

Students of history look at the medieval tortures or and wonder how people could be so cruel and barbaric. Does it occur to them that future generation will look back in disbelief at our barbarity at this time in history? Forty-five millions unborn children killed so their parents could have unrestrained sex without children. Chronically and terminally ill people starved and slowly dehydrated to death, or euthanized in other ways. What kind of people are we to pass judgement of others?!

The Miracle of Life

2011-03-01T15:20:00.000-08:00

HYPER PIXELS MEDIA has made a wonderful and moving production showing prenatal development. Combining amazing ultrasound images and photographs and other visuals, viewers are able to see a baby developing in the womb. The producers made it suitable for church sermon illustration for pastors who plan to speak about the Sanctity of Human Life. I recommend that every church get this beautifully produced video entitled "The Miracle of Life" to add to their library.

For more information and to view a trailer go to - http://www.hyperpixelsmedia.com/sermon-illustration-video/the-miracle-of-life?gclid=CNGP35e4rqcCFeR65QodVxr8Cg

Unfortunately you will have to copy and paste into your internet search. When you get to the web site look of the lower right of the page to where it says bestsellers and choose Miracle of Life.

HLM

Anti-Catholic bigotry raises its ugly head (again)

2011-03-01T14:55:00.000-08:00

Read Mark Pickup's latest blog "Anti-Catholic bigotry raises its ugly head (again)" at http://markpickup.org

Historic vote to cut Planned Parenthood from federal funding

2011-02-19T15:27:00.000-08:00

On February 18th 2011, the United States House of Representatives took the courageous decision to cut off federal funds from Planned Parentood Federation of America (PPFA)and 102 of their state affiliates. The vote was not even close at 240-185. This was an important step to returning America to embracing the inalienable Right to Life laid down in its foundational Declaration of Independence. As you probably know, Planned Parenthood is America's largest abortion organization and is responsible for millions of the deaths of America's children by abortion. In 2008 alone, 324,008 unborn children met their deaths at Planned Parenthood abortuaries. It truly is an odious organization. I look forward to day when the last Planned Parenthood facility is permanently closed and America repudiates the holocaust that has occurred on its soil for more than 38 years -- with legal sanction of the Supreme Court as well as federal funding.

After the historic vote in the House of Representatives, National Right to Life Committee representative, Jessica Rodgers, stated "This landmark vote demonstrates that most House members now recognize Planned Parenthood is a hyper-political, under-regulated, out-of-control mega-marketer of abortion as a method of birth control."

It is important that this historic and right decision by the House of Represenatives is not reversed in the inevitable wave of pressure from Planned Parenthood that is sure to follow. Planned Parenthood, and their affiliates are bloated with years at the public trough and will not give up their dependency on government funding easily.

I encourage Americans people of good will to express their support to the 240 Members of Congress who voted to cut PP's funding and throw out of Congress next election the 185 Members who opposed cutting funding. Replace them with politicians who value and protect every human life.

I pray this historic vote will be the first major step for America to begin a new day of enlightenment and turn away from the darkness of abortion. The abortion holocaust that took 45-million lives needs to end with a national repentence of the shameful chapter in American history. Perhaps the United States will provide an example for other nations (like my country of Canada)to stop aborting their unwanted children, and move into new enlightened era where abortion is unthinkable, mothers and babies are supported within the human community, and life and inclusion is enjoyed by all.

Mark Pickup
North American advocate for
Life and disability issues
Canada

2011-02-10T08:47:00.000-08:00

See Mark Pickup's latest blog entry "Christ is with is in loneliness, isolation" at http://markpickup.org

HumanLifeMatters blog surpasses 15,000 global visitors

2011-02-09T15:20:00.000-08:00

The HumanLifeMatters blog has had more than 15,000 visitor hits. The largest number come from the United States with more than 5,200 visitors, followed-up by Canada with more than 2,000 visits. Other visitors come from the Netherlands, Russia, Germany, China, the Ukraine and United Kingdom, Latvia and Japan.

The story behind the Precious Feet pin

2011-01-26T10:17:00.000-08:00

Have you ever wondered about the story behind the precious feet lapel pin? Well, courtesy of Oregon Right to Life here is the story of how it came to be, in an interview with its originator Dr. Russell Sacco who took the photograph that inspired the pin. Copy this link onto your computer's Internet address bar. http:www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTVr9gvGg74
More that 18-million precious feet have been produced.

God's love found in ordinary life

2011-01-24T15:38:00.000-08:00

"I have discovered more meaning to my life in what is quiet and simple than what is loud and complex." Taken from Mark Pickup's latest blog entitled "God's love found in ordinary life." Read the entire blog at http://markpickup.org
HLM

Thoughts about morality and human rights

2011-01-11T21:07:00.000-08:00

Read Mark Pickup's latest blog with some independent thoughts about morality and human rights. Go to http://markpickup.org

Christian sentenced to hang in Pakistanfor blasphemy

2010-12-08T11:39:00.000-08:00

Read Mark Pickups latest blog "Christian sentenced to death in Pakistan for blasphemy". Go to http://markpickup.org

HLM

Heart-ignorance of God

2010-12-04T11:34:00.000-08:00

Read Mark Pickup's last blog "Heart ignorance of God" at http://markpickup.org

Longing for perfect love

2010-11-29T14:39:00.000-08:00

Read Mark Pickup's latest blog, "Longing for perfect love."

Go to http://markpickup.org
The above link may not work. You may have to manually input the blog address.

Pregnancy Counselling Centres are mainstreet Christianity at its best!

2010-11-19T12:38:00.000-08:00

http://www.facinglife.tv/episode/season_5/episode_3/episode_503.html

My friend Brad Mattes of the Life Issues Institute in Cincinnati sent me a note about Bethany Steele. Twenty-four years ago her mother found herself in a crisis pregancy. She seriously considered abortion. But through the help of a Christian crisis pregnancy center, she continued her pregnancy and placed her baby for adoption. John and Elaine Steele adopted baby Bethany into their wonderful, loving family.

When she was eighteen, Bethany wanted to meet her birth-mother. The link above chronicles that story.

Christian Pregnancy Counselling Centers can be found in cities across North America.

I co-founded one in the city of Edmonton in 1984. It is called the Pregnancy Care Centre (see their web-site at http://www.pregnancycarecentre.ca/Home/tabid/63/Default.aspx). Each year, over 1,800 women in crisis pregnacies pass through the Pregnancy Care Centre. They have discovered life-affirming alternatives and turned away from abortion. Thousands of children are alive today through the work of this agency -- and others like it. Post-abortive women have received counselling and spiritual healing. Pregnancy Care Centres are mainstreet, shoe-leather Christianity at it's best.

Churches are the backbone of support, not only financially but through providing volunteer support, outreach, and prayer.

Support Pregnancy Counselling Centres in your area.

Mark Pickup

Tribute to Dr. Mildred Jefferson (1926-2010)

2010-10-18T21:34:00.000-07:00

Read Mark Pickup's tribute to the great American Pro-Life activist, Dr. Mildred F. Jefferson. Go to http://markpickup.org

HLM

Being pro-Life means more than opposing abortion

2010-10-07T13:59:00.000-07:00

Being pro-Life is so much more than being anti-abortion. Being truly pro-Life pro-Life means being concerned for every human life at every stage, stage and eventuality -- especially in the face of increasingly aggressive cultural forces tat say otherwise. It not only means opposing the destruction of all human life but also providing constructive alternatives that uphold human life.

Critics of the pro-Life movement often accuse pro-lifers of only being concerned about saving unborn babies. This is not true, and I think the accusers know it -- or they are woefully uninformed about the pro-Life movement.

For years I've worked with pro-Life groups across North America; I have encountered
an extensive network of programs and services offering life-affirming alternatives to women in crisis pregnancies. Pro-Life activists work in partnership with local crisis pregnancy centres and churches to provide support and inclusion for women and their babies.

Many crisis pregnancy centres offer crucial life skills training to young mothers, employment assistance in concert with existing community resources, or help women to get educational upgrading and/or further education. Other groups work with adoption agencies if women in crisis pregnancies wish to take this option.

Many pro-Life groups have established counselling services for post-abortive women.

These are essential pro-Life responses in a era when abortion on demand is widely accepted.

But things must not end there and they have not.

The pro-Life movement has evolved over the decades from solely trying to stop abortion to actively working to check the acceptance of euthanasia and assisted suicide. This is necessary because, with the passage of time, western society has hardened its attitudes toward vulnerable, inconvenient or unwanted human life.

The thought of assisting the suicides of defeated people has gone from being unthinkable to acceptable to legislatively supported in places like Oregon and Washington state. Advocates of euthanasia and assisted suicide are vociferously lobbying in other jurisdictions for laws that allow killing of terminally and chronically ill people.

Even without legislation, euthanasia and infanticide of incurably ill and profoundly disabled newborns and adults are being quietly practised in hospitals across North America. It's often a subtle practice cloaked in nuances of health care decision making and cryptic medical terminology designed to convince families and caregivers to allow people with terminal or chronic illnesses or serious disabilities to be euthanized.

What is the usual method of killing? Withholding nutrition (food) and hydration (water). Sadly, in certain bioethical and medical circles, imperfect or inconvenient human life has become as cheap as grass clippings.

Many pro-Life groups are quickly expanding their work to respond to this new assault against vulnerable humanity. They must shift gears to become proactive and encourage community based strategies to educate people about caring for loved ones who acquire disabilities of diseases.

This may involve promoting or establishing community faith-based hospices, special supports for parents expecting a disabled child or befriending families where early onset of dementia has been diagnosed in a parent or spouse. New pro-Life responses should involve development or coordination of respite services for primary caregivers of profoundly disabled people.*

[Sometimes a proper response to such families may be as simple and practical as help with yard work, providing transportation to and from medical appointments, or helping them research where to access services and advocacy when needed.]

Society's aversion to disability and the myth that death is preferable to disability must be challenged at every turn. It must be challenged because it is a lie.

The pro-Life movement must promote a new cultural paradigm that sees people with disabilities as indispensable to community life. We must get the message out that people with disabilities have unique gifts to bring to the table of human experience. Even those who are comatose or unresponsive unknowingly call their caregivers and community to a higher standard of love.

Mark Pickup
____________________________
*My wife's experience with abortion, post-abortion grief and living for 26-plus years with my degenerative multiple sclerosis, as well as helping aged family members with end of life care has equipped her with a heart and understanding for appropriate and well-rounded community pro-Life responses. This blog entry is largely based upon her insights.

MS "liberation" treatment raises a red flag

2010-09-30T17:51:00.000-07:00

See Mark Pickup's latest blog about MS "Liberation treatment" at http://markpickup.org

2010-08-23T11:56:00.000-07:00

Listen to Mark Pickup's 30 minute address about Christian suffering delivered to Canada's Catholic Organization on Life and Family. Go to http://markpickup.org

HLM

2010-08-15T22:22:00.000-07:00

See Mark Pickup's latest blog "One woman's pro-Life message for a time such as this".

Go to http://markpickup.org

HLM

Squandering what our soldiers won

2010-07-23T19:32:00.000-07:00

Read Mark Pickup's latest blog "Squandering what our soldiers won" at http://markpickup.or

HLM

Shame on the MS Society

2010-07-10T10:57:00.000-07:00

Read Mark Pickup's latest blog "Shame on the MS Society" at http://markpickup.org

2010-06-17T19:37:00.000-07:00

Read Mark Pickup's latest post "The safety of Catholic hospitals". Go to http://markpickup.org

A beautiful commercial showing prenatal development

2010-06-03T08:40:00.000-07:00

Apple iPad and Pampers have combined to produce the most beautiful life-affirming commercial. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulV5LDwdn8Y&feature=player_embedded

Lovingly produced for expectant parents, it shows prenatal development in its proper context: The youngest members of the Human Family. Unfortunately I fear that when abortion advocates see it they will become enraged and lobby these companies to drop the advertisement. In order for the so-called pro-Choice position to prevail, they must keep the culture ignorant about what the choice is really about. It's losing position.

With the advent of 3&4D ultrasound that vividly shows photograph-like images of the unborn child, and the proliferation of new communications, the "Pro-Choice movement" has been reduced to worn out slogans, shouting down all opposition and character assassination. Science and logic are on the pro-Life side.

I still believe that if people are give real information about prenatal life, they will turn away from abortion to solve a social problem. A great and terrible day will come in the not so distant future when North American culture will awaken to what we have done to more than 40-million preborn children. National consciences will be pierced by the blood of those children. Those people whose consciences have not been completely seared will ask "What have we done!" -- and the abortion ideologues will scurry for dark places to hide.

I believe our culture will turn to people who have stood up for the sanctity, dignity and equality of all human life in search for a way back. Individual and national repentance can still lead to a revival of the ancient western moral code, and the previous Christian civilization we have largely rejected.

Perhaps we are not yet beyond the Almighty's forgiveness.

MP

Cardinal Virtues & the Pursuit of Perfection

2010-05-29T15:10:00.000-07:00

Read guest blog entry by Fr. Wellington Santana "Cardinal Virtues & The Pursuit of Perfection" at http://markPickup.org

My Internal Sin

2010-05-20T10:37:00.000-07:00

Read Mark Pickup's latest blog "My Internal Sin" at http://markpickup.org

Pro-Life conferences

2010-05-04T14:34:00.000-07:00

This weekend, May 8th, Alberta Pro-Life Association is having their conference at King's University-College (9125-50 Street)in Edmonton Alberta. My wife LaRee and I will make a presentation "Love Lost; Love Regained" in which we will chronicle and reflect on our experience, as a couple, with abortion and degenerative multiple sclerosis. Canadian national TV host, author and newspaper columnist, Michael Coren will deliver the keynote address to the conference banquet on being a pro-Life journalist.

People can register for the full conference $60., the banquet only $45. Accommodations are available at King's University College or hotels in the southeast of Edmonton. You can register online at www.albertaprolife.com or by long distance call toll free 1-877-880-5433. Edmonton area registrations can be made by calling (780) 421-7747. For more information about Alberta Pro-Life convention, go to http://www.albertaprolife.com/

HLM

American readers note that LaRee and Mark Pickup will give the keynote address to the 2010 U.S. National Right to Life Prayer Breakfast in Pittsburgh on June 25th. For more information or to register for this years U.S. national Right to Life conference, go to their website at http://stoptheabortionagenda.com/convention/)

The Language Police

2010-04-16T09:13:00.000-07:00

Read Mark Pickup's latest blog "The Language Police" at http://markpickup.org

Today is the tomorrow I feared yesterday

2010-04-09T11:35:00.000-07:00

Since becoming a grandparent I have been annoying friends with pictures of my grandchildren. In fact, at one point I sent so many photos by email to my friend Bob Schindler (father of Terri Schiavo) the sheer volume crashed his computer! After apologizing profusely, I decided to take the hint and scale back on my grandfatherly email boasting.

Yes, being a grandparent is proving to be one of the best and happiest phases of my life and that brings me to the point of this short blog.

I have had an aggressive form of multiple sclerosis for 26 years. In the early years
after being diagnosed, I was often affected by a series of terrifying roller coaster rides of MS attacks. I would go to bed at night not knowing what function I would wake up with or without. It was horrible! At times it was only the very real presence of Christ in my life and the love of my family that sustained me.

If I had despaired of life, and if assisted suicide had been available (like in Oregon and Washington state), and if I had taken that option, ... look what I would have missed! My five grandchildren bring me unspeakable joy and happiness.

My annoying people with emailed pictures of my grandchildren is really just another way for me to say I am able to celebrate life in all its stages, phases and eventualities despite a disease that is slowly destroying me. My disease and electric wheelchair can not take away my joy.

Euthanasia and assisted suicide acceptance is often fuelled by fear of the future. But today is the tomorrow I feared yesterday. My todays are filled with the only thing that ultimately matters in life: love.

Euthanasia not only kills people it kills the potential to love and be loved.

MP

2010-04-07T07:01:00.000-07:00

http://stoptheabortionagenda.com/convention/

We All Matter

2010-03-28T17:18:00.000-07:00

Read Mark Pickup's lastest blog "We All Matter" at http://markpickup.org

Baby Isaiah James May (October 24, 2009-March 11th 2010)

2010-03-12T19:24:00.000-08:00

On March 11th, baby Isaiah James May died in the arms of his parents, Isaac and Rebecka May, at Edmonton's Stollery Children's Hospital. He was surrounded by aunts, uncles and grandparents.

You may remember that baby Isaiah was born October 24th 2009 in a small Alberta town after a difficult 40 hour labour. His brain was oxygen deprived because his umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck. Baby Isaiah was air lifted to the Stollery hospital in Edmonton. He was ventilator dependent throughout his short life and never emerged from a coma. You can read more details in previous blog entries.

The hospital told told Isaac and Rebecka their baby was brain dead. It must have been a terrible shock. At one point, the Mays were notified by official letter on hospital letterhead that baby Isaiah would be removed from his ventilator on January 20th 2010. The Mays wanted to give Isaiah 90 more days to see if he would improve but the hospital wouldn't budge. The Mays went to court to try and get the three months for Isaiah.

Isaac and Rebecka sought an independent second, third and fourth medical opinions of baby Isaiah's prognosis. They overturn every stone of possibility to give their baby a chance. It was only when Isaiah's hopeless situation became clearly evident with independent medical input kindly presented to them, did they finally agree to let Isaiah's respirator be turned off.

As I write this blog, Rebecka and Isaac are at their home planning baby Isaiah's funeral. Please lift up this beautiful and courageous couple in prayer.

Good night baby Isaiah, good night.

Mark Pickup

Mark Pickup's latest blog

2010-02-27T19:52:00.000-08:00

Read the latest blog by Mark Pickup about the seminar "SEARCHING FOR MEANING IN SUFFERING: A Christian perspective" at http://markpickup.org

The tyranny of Canada's socialized healthcare

2010-02-23T08:09:00.000-08:00

Danny Williams (60) is a self-made man. He was a multi-millionaire long before becoming Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada. Williams loves Newfoundland. He only takes a salary of one dollar a year as Premier. Under William's leadership, Newfoundland has transformed from a a depressed have-not province to an emerging place of promise -- thanks, in part, to well placed off-shore oil and gas. He has compassion and toughness in defending the rights of Newfoundland.

Last year Williams developed heart disease. He decided to seek heart surgery in the U.S. at his own expense (leaving the the provincial loonie he's paid annually in his pocket.*)

Friends of Medicare, the liberal Canadian media, and other defenders of Canada's universal healthcare system were outraged that Danny Williams did not patiently wait for his turn to have surgery in Canada. With the usual shrill indignation of Canada's socialist elites, they said Williams had some explaining to do when he got back to Canada! No he didn't.

I did not think he had any explaining to do whatsoever. Surely a man can spend his own money the way he wants! How are his decisions about his money anybody's business but his own?

Recuperating at his Florida condominium, Danny Williams was interviewed by Canadian media. "I was warned by my staff that this could be an issue," Williams said. "But this is my heart. It's my health and it's my choice." In short, Danny Williams thumbed his nose at his socialist critics. Good for you Mr. Williams, good for you.

The very media and government elites who tout "choice" when it comes to abortion decry a man's "choice" when it comes to his own life.

UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE IN AMERICA
I can imagine if Obamacare becomes law, Obama would eventually appoint a Czar to oversee it and gradually strip away the private option to ensure there are no queue jumpers, no two tier healthcare -- one for the rich and another for ordinary people.

In the end, Americans could find themselves with a tyranny of socialized medicine -- just like Canada. Beware of the path Barack Obama and the Democrats take America!Does America really want Canadian style healthcare with its crippling debt by government mismanagement resulting in long lines waiting for necessary surgery, hospital bed closures and cutbacks in diagnostic imaging. Yet abortion on demand is funded -- unscrutinized and no questions asked -- regardless of whether taxpayers object? Think long and hard my dear American friends. Think long and hard.

Think of Danny Williams and imagine a place where a man's own money is up for public debate.

Mark Pickup

*The Canadian dollar coin bears the image of a loon. It's known as the loonie.

A reasonable request for Baby Isaiah -- and his parents

2010-02-17T07:37:00.000-08:00

The case of baby Isaiah will be heard again today in an Edmonton (Canada) courtroom. As you may know, Baby Isaiah May was born October 24th 2009 after a difficult 40 hour labour. His umbilical cord was wrapped around his throat cutting off oxygen to his brain. He was born brain-damaged and has been in a coma and respirator dependent since then. Doctors in charge of his care want to remove the respirator while his parents want 90 days more to see if their baby will improve. They sought a court injunction to keep the respirator in place.

Justice Michelle Crighton has asked for the testimony of two medical specialty perspectives: An independent neonatologist and a independent pediatric neurologist.

Regardless of Baby Isaiah's prospects, I pray that Justice Crighton will do the compassionate thing and grant the 90 day window for Baby Isaiah to be on the respirator. Not only will it give an opportunity for him to improve, but it will give a needed opportunity for his young parents to prepare themselves for either a special needs baby or prepare for his death.

Baby Isaiah is not the only person requiring care. Ninety days is necessary, reasonable and compassionate for all parties involved. I hope Justice Crighton understands this and grants the 90 day repreive the May family has requested and need.

Mark Pickup
HLM

Trusting God

2010-02-09T15:17:00.000-08:00

Below is the second part of LaRee Pickup's presentation (see previous entry for part one).

We needed a house that would allow Mark to move about without a struggle, a home that would take us far into this disease – and further if necessary. Where the MS would take us, we did not know. We had to trust God.

My prayer was two-sided. I always had a deep longing for permanence, a place to call home. As a child I was moved from pillar to post (37 times throughout Canada). Every year I attended a new school; I didn’t want my children living like gypsies. There was nothing I wanted more than a stable HOME, a permanent address and an apple tree in the back yard. The Lord knew this had been my deepest wish.

And so, in 1987, God answered a need and a wish. He provided us with a wheelchair accessible home in Beaumont, Alberta, just down the hill from the Catholic church. During difficult times of MS attacks Mark seemed to find solace sitting near the apple tree and looking up the hill at the old church and listening to the sound of its bell. It seemed to draw his heart closer to God.

Our home has become a meeting place for family occasions.

Every August we gather in the backyard to pick apples from the tree. What a special blessing God has given to me! All I needed to do was trust Him. God enveloped me with His love in such a way that I don’t need a Superman husband. (I must admit though, when I hear a noise in the night, I send Mark in his electric wheelchair whirring into the darkness swinging a cane to protect us from the bogeyman.) What more could I ask for?

I am convinced that the Lord has allowed the MS to continue so that we grow spiritually and learn to depend upon him completely.

Do you want to know something else? I think we’re going to have a bumper-crop of apples this year.

I am convinced that love is the only thing that really matters.

LaRee

The pain of watching a loved-one degenerate

2010-02-07T13:11:00.000-08:00

Recently my wife LaRee were in the Canadian province of Manitoba to deliver an address about suffering. I delivered the perspective of someone with a degenerative, incurable disease. She gave the perspective of a loved-one watching the degeneration occur. Below is part of her address. More will follow in the coming days:

_______________________________

"IT'S EASIER TO BE THAN TO WATCH"

Mark lives with the real symptoms of aggressive, degenerative multiple sclerosis, which have their limits. I am left to witness it all, ― and imagine. Imagination has no limits. That is why I believe it is easier to be than to watch.

Despite countless trials love has prevailed. But love is like the two sides of a precious coin. The two sides of love are this: It is life’s greatest ecstasy but also the cause of life’s greatest agonies and anguish.

The 19th Century writer, Victor Hugo said, “To love or to have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life. To love is a consummation.” -- And so it is.

Yet as a wife, mother and now a grandmother, I want more, and I ask further.

I want to protect those I love from pain, emotional hurts, disappointments, and even life, as it ends, — but I cannot. So often I sat at the bedside of suffering loved-ones and prayed, “Lord give me their pain” – as though there is some quota of suffering to be filled which I can bargain over with God. There is not.

Romantic love begins with a glance and a hello and ends in tears of goodbye at life’s conclusion and separation – or it should. Life begins with the agony of childbirth but is quickly forgotten by the power of love. Such is the love for a mother for her children.

When Mark and I married, he was so healthy and active. For the first eleven years of marriage he was a super-achiever not only in his career but with family life. After being diagnosed with MS, his career stalled and he was often too sick to participate in family activities. Our children were 7 and 5 when Mark was diagnosed with MS. They had difficulty understanding why their Dad could not play and be active like he used to be.

At the time that Mark was diagnosed, I didn’t even know what MS was. I had no idea of the impact it would have on our future. And so I began to research the medical literature and even visited a few auxiliary hospitals to see if I could pick out the people with MS. I noticed the canes, the crutches, the wheelchairs and scooters, the van contraptions and curb cuts. Multiple sclerosis meant disability! I looked into the faces of loved-ones of patients with MS and wondered if I could face the heart-break and hurt.

My initial reaction was anger. It was irrational but my immediate response was anger. How could Mark do this to me? How dare he get sick!

He was supposed to be the strong one. I was the weak one. “Damn you!” I thought. If one of us was to get sick, it should be me. I could cope better with disease. Mark was the one with the most energy. I could accept this much more easily if I was the sick one. I could just slink away from the world, it would be okay. I was angry, sad, and bitter but most of all,... I was afraid.

I wanted to correct the fate God allowed by trying to convince Him he made a mistake. Mark could raise the children, remarry, and go on with life.
“I can’t do this!” I cried. “I cannot sit back and watch this Lord.” I pleaded with God to give me the MS.

Mark’s faith was stronger than mine, his personality stronger than mine, his body was stronger, his upbringing stronger. His ability to make a living was better than mine. Couldn’t God see that?! I was so angry with Mark and GOD! I felt cornered and so let down.

Mark’s MS started changing him. I began to gauge the distance between benches in shopping malls when we went shopping in case he needed to sit with exhaustion. I started fearing places with crowds. He might get impatient and I would see that look of frustration on his face.

Then one afternoon I looked on in horror as my husband began to crawl up the stairs in our bi-level house so he could go to the bathroom. I realized our life had changed and I had to make some decisions. The first decision I had to make was whether I was prepared to stay in the marriage.

Many times Satan told me that there was an easier way out. “You’re still young. The kids would get over it,” He whispered over my shoulder. “You can start over like many other women after divorce.” The temptation continued: “You can get help from other family members. They will understand.” Even people at my work asked why I was staying with Mark. (?)

It did not take long to realize I needed to get serious with God and ask for his hand if I was going to jump on the wild MS rollercoaster ride. My first prayer was to ask for a wheelchair accessible home so we could begin our new life TOGETHER: God, Mark and me.

Children viewed as punishment corrupts human hearts

2010-01-30T19:35:00.000-08:00

In 1994, Mother Teresa was quoted by the Wall Street Journal as saying:

"America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father's role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts -- a child -- as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered dominion over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters." [My emphasis added.]

Fourteen years later, confirming Mother Teresa's assertion that abortion fosters anti-child hostility, Barack Obama said "If [my daughters] make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby." A mentality that views inconvenient babies as punishment is common in 21st Century North America. It is a form of internal violence that can corrupt the human heart at a most primal level.

No baby should be ever be viewed as punishment or unworthy of love, nurture, or burdonsome -- regardless of the the circumstances revolving around how or when they were conceived. Every life should be viewed as a gift and valuable.

If North America is as enlightened as they believe, then surely we have room for every child, not just those who are convenient.

Which view of children do you want? Mother Teresa's inclusive value of all children or Barack Obama's selective value given to only some children?

Both Mother Teresa and Barack Obama received Nobel Peace Prizes. Mother Teresa received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 after more than 30 years working with the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta. Obama received his Nobel Peace Prize in October 2009, after a mere 9 months in the White House for his vast accomplishments, doing, -- well, er, not much. Who deserved the Nobel Prize more: Mother Teresa or B.O.?

The greatest defender of peace is the person who defends the weakest, the most vulnerable, the unwanted, the speechless, the defenseless -- always and everywhere.

Children as punishment ... what a despicable attitude.

Mark Pickup
HLM

Show your support for Baby Isaiah and his parents!

2010-01-28T11:14:00.000-08:00

See - http://www.edmontonjournal.com/health/Baby+Isaiah+stays+life+support/2490599/story.html
"Baby Isaiah stays on life support for now", Edmonton Journal, 27 January 2010.

As you read in my last blog (see below), Canadian parents Isaac and Rebecka May of Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, are in the throes of a life and death battle for their three month old baby Isaiah James. He was born oxygen deprived and is ventilator dependent. Doctors at the Stollery Children's Hospital in the provincial Capital city of Edmonton want to turn off Baby Isaiah's respirator which will result in his death. Rebecka and Isaac want 90 days more to see what progress Isaiah will make. Let's be clear, they are willing to accept the terrible prospect no parent wants to face. They simply want to exhaust all possibilities their baby might be able to live. And so they went to court to get an injunction to allow Baby Isaiah 90 more days. That's not asking too much; if they must live for the rest of their lives having lost Baby Isaiah, let them have the consolation that every avenue and chance -- however remote -- was given to their little one.

Yesterday, Court of Queen's Bench judge Michelle Chrighton asked for more expert medical opinions about Baby Isaiah's case and gave the May's lawyer until February 19th to find a pediatric neurologist to lend an opinion about Isaiah along with an indepenent neonatologist Dr. Richard Taylor.

Rebecka and Isaac established a Facebook page for Baby Isaiah called "Prayers for Isaiah". More than 25 thousand people of good will have become members offering their prayers and encouragement to the Mays. I encourage readers of this blog to do the same (and invite their friends to send notes of encouragement). Offer moral support to this courage young couple fighting for their baby Isaiah James May. Let's double that number and show the Mays that 50,000 of their closest friends stand in solidarity with them!

Regardless of how things turn out, I want people of good will everywhere to send a short note to the Mays and let them know the world stands with them in their struggle. If Isaac and Rebecka must face the death of their baby boy, we stand with them in their grief. If Baby Isaiah is to live, we stand with this family in their joy regardless of any special needs he may have. Where there is life, there is hope.

You can also send a short letter or card of support to: Rebecka and Isaac Mays, c/o Ronald McDonald House, 7726-107 Street, Northwest, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6E 4K3.

Alert all your friends, and thank you.

Mark Pickup

The case of Baby Isaiah, and what you can do.

2010-01-23T08:17:00.000-08:00

Baby Isaiah James May was born on October 24th 2009 after a 40 hour labour. His umbilical cord was wrapped around his throat, depriving his brain of oxygen. Baby Isaiah was air-lifted to the Stollery Children's Hospital in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Baby Isaiah was put on a ventilator and his treating physician declared him brain dead. A letter was sent to to his parents telling them baby Isaiah's respirator would be turned off at 2:00 pm on January 20th 2010. This would result in Isaiah's dead by suffocation. His parents, Rebecka and Isaac May, were stunned. They decided to fight the medical decision and hired a lawyer to get an injunction to stop the action by the Stollery Children's' Hospital and give their baby 90 more days to see if he will improve. It's good.

A LITTLE FIGHTER

Apparently nobody told baby Isaiah he's brain dead. The little fighter is making progress -- albeit painfully slow -- but each day he does something new. He has gained weight, he responds to pain, he moves his limbs, responds to pain, occasionally takes a breath over the respirator. His mom Rebecka says she sees new things in her baby every day. Despite this, the hospital is intend on removing baby Isaiah's respirator. Rebecka and Isaac May sent their lawyer to court to press their case for another 3 months.

The judge stopped the hospital from removing Isaiah's respirator and gave the parents' lawyer until January 27th to find alternate expert opinion to counter the treating physician's opinion that further treatment is futile.

I sent out an appeal across North America for names of another neonatologist to counter the view that Isaiah's position is hopeless. Names started coming in and I forwarded them to the family's lawyer. She will provide the medical records of Isaiah along with video of him, and ask for their assessments.

NORTH AMERICA WATCHING

The case of baby Isaiah is gathering attention from around North America. I was contacted by a New York radio talk show, as well as other media from across North America. Then American Life League President Judie Brown decided to feature the case of Baby Isaiah in her commentary on Monday, January 25th. Her commentaries have an international following; she is a member of the Pontifical Council on Life and Family.

If the Alberta court sides with the Edmonton hospital's stated intent to kill baby Isaiah, North America will be watching. Good. There has been too much infanticide and euthanasia happening quietly in hospitals across North America. It's time the hush stops! We need to protect disabled and vulnerable people not kill them. If the court sides with killing baby Isaiah, and against his loving parents, it will be time to ask ourselves: What kind of people have we become!?

Rebecka and Isaac May are asking for 90 days to see if Isaiah makes progress. Is that asking too much?! Some people have brought up the expense as reason not to grant a 90 day reprieve for Isaiah. After all, they say, "Alberta's Health Care system is in financial trouble." That's a selective financial concern. We pay for thousands of abortions each year, no questions asked. A woman can have an abortion for any reason what so ever, or no reason at all. She doesn't even need a doctor's referral. Just call up the abortion clinic and make an appointment. She can have as many abortions as she wants. It's all covered at taxpayers' expense. Millions upon millions of taxpayers' dollars are spent each year for abortion on demand! Don't tell me we can't afford to care for a sick baby boy by the name of Isaiah James May.

Medicine and health care are supposed to be life affirming not life denying. Remember, history ultimately judges societies based upon how they treated their weakest and most vulnerable people.

THREE THINGS YOU CAN DO FOR BABY ISAIAH

I ask readers of this blog to contact the Stollery Children's Hospital to let them know you expect that world class facility to do the right thing and give baby Isaiah May 90 more days to improve before removing his respirator. That's not asking too much of the hospital. Call the hospital at (780)342-8080. Email the treating physician Dr. Ernest Phillipos at ernest.phillipos@albertahealthservices.ca Ask him to give baby Isaiah 90 more days on a respirator as his parents requested. Copy your email to Alberta's health minister at health.minister@gov.ab.ca

Thank you.

Mark Pickup

Also see baby Isaiah's facebook. Go to Facebook and type "prayers for Isaiah". For more background see http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/familyhealth/article/753685--parents-fight-to-keep-newborn-on-life-support

Three pillars of truth for secular minds

2010-01-14T18:56:00.000-08:00

Many people within the great pro-Life cause have wondered how they can win over or attract people with non-religious, secular mindsets. After all, the pro-Life movement is largely peopled with Christians. It's a tough prospect but not impossible for those secularists who are open-minded.

In as far as I can determine, the pro-Life position must be presented to the secularist on the basis of three pillars of truth which they can accept(in as much as they will accept the idea of Objective truth):

The secularist must be persuaded on the premise of universal human rights and fostering human inclusion. In order for rights to be universal they must include all human life or they are not universal, but selective. This is the first pillar of truth to present to the secularist. Use the slogan "All human rights for all humans". Secularists love slogans, it gives the impression they've thought an issue throught and have cleverly boiled it down to a few words.

We must establish very early the biological fact that life reproduced sexually begins at conception. This is not opinion or metaphysical contention ― it is plain experimental evidence. This is a critical point for people to understand. It is the second pillar of truth for the secularist. Use the slogan "Human rights begin when human life begins."

At this point the secularist is apt object and say, “Surely you’re not asking that an embryo should have the same rights as a baby or a women!?” Well, yes, that’s what we are proposing. Anything less is sophistry and bigotry.

This concept is foreign to modern sensibilities. Remember, it’s been over 40 years of abortion on demand in Canada and 37 years since Roe v Wade in America. The philosophy of “Choice” is deeply ingrained into the public mindset as the highest of ideals. Life advocates must patiently present the ethical shift toward always choosing life under every circumstance and place ... as though it is a new and revolutionary moral paradigm shift. And to many secular ears and hearts, the idea of always choose life is a new paradigm. Remember, many secularists do not view every life as valuable or worthy of living.

The choice of always choosing life must be presented on a foundation of love and inclusion. Life advocates must speak in terms of universal human rights, within the human family, community, inclusion, acceptance of disability and extreme age as enriching our collective human experience not detracting from it.

We can appeal to great human rights documents such as the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, The American Declaration of Independence and Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They all place the Right to Life first, and rightly so. Without the Right to Life guaranteed, all other rights become arbitrary and uncertain. This is the third pillar of truth we present to the secularist.

The inherent problem with appealing to secularists about Life issues is that there is no consensus of objective truth to which we can appeal. A secularist may agree on one or even two of the pillars of truth but when the third is presented they are apt to see they are being asked to place truth over agenda and abandon previous held views. They may have a caricature of "pro-Lifers" as shrill and unreasonably rigid. Their thinking is not linear or logical. Their conclusions are often driven by appealing agendas or unstable feelings.

Remember these are people whose truth is relative, vague and situational. The secularist is motivated by self-interest and personal autonomy more than the Common Good.

It is into this environment that we re-introduce love as the highest ideal rather than "Choice". We re-introduce other-centered love that always gives life and lives life. Life advocates must lovingly promote the giving and living of life in all its eventualities and all its circumstances. To do this is to celebrate love. To take away or deny life – whether it be one moment after conception or the senile old person in a nursing home, or the anguished sufferer of a terminal or chronic disease, is the antithesis of love.

Life advocates must present this extravagant and expensive love as a new ethos and the bedrock for a Culture of life and inclusion for everyone to enjoy from conception to natural death.

Mark Pickup

This song is for you, far away

2010-01-10T18:59:00.000-08:00

Read Mark Pickup's latest blog "This song is for you, far away" see http://markpickup.org

An Internal Voice: A Forever Moment

2009-12-30T18:39:00.000-08:00

Read Mark Pickup's latest blog "An Internal Voice: A Forever Moment" at http://markpickup.org

2009-12-21T09:43:00.000-08:00

Read Mark Pickup's latest blog "Taking care of our bodies" at http://markpickup.org

HLM

Jesus is the reason for Christmas Season

2009-11-30T12:06:00.000-08:00

Read Mark Pickup's latest blog "Jesus is the reason for the Christmas Season" at http://markpickup.org

HLM

A case study

2009-11-12T20:37:00.000-08:00

I was recently cleaning out old files from my filing cabinet and came across the following. I don't remember where it came from or the source. MP

Dr. Paul Ruskin of Baltimore (MD) is a geriatric psychiatrist. He presented the following case to a group of nursing students:

"The patient I will discuss is a white female. She neither speaks or comprehends the spoken word. Sometimes she babbles incoherently for hours on end. She is disoriented as to person, place and time. She shows disregard for her physical appearance and has to be assisted in her own care. She must be fed and bathed by others. She is incontinent and has to be changed and bathed. Her sleep pattern is erratic. She awakens in the middle of the night and her screaming awakens others. Most of the time she seems friendly and happy. However, several times a day she becomes agitated without any apparent cause and screams loudly until someone comes to comfort her."

Dr. Ruskin asked the nursing students their feelings about caring for such a patient. He heard words like "hopeless," "depressed," and "frustrated." He told the nurses he cared for this patient and thought they would enjoy it too. Then Dr. Ruskin passed around a photograph of his six month-old daughter. After the laughter subsided he asked why it is so much more difficult to care for a 90 year old female with the same symptoms than for a 6 month old female.

2009-11-11T12:13:00.000-08:00

Read Mark Pickup's latest blog "A GRANDPARENT'S ROLE" AT HTTP://MARKPICKUP.ORG

SEARCHING FOR THE MEANING OF SUFFERING: A Christian Perpective

2009-11-09T15:47:00.000-08:00

To read Mark Pickup's latest post SEARCHING FOR THE MEANING OF SUFFERING: A Christian Perspective, go to http://markpickup.org

25th Anniversary for a Pregnancy Care Centre!

2009-10-28T12:59:00.000-07:00

This column is boastful on my part. I confess my infernal Pride and will confess this sin after I post my blog.

My wife and I recently attended the 25th anniversary of Edmonton’s Pregnancy Care Centre. It was a moving experience for me because I co-founded this Christian pro-Life ministry to women in crisis pregnancies.* All evening I was close to tears to see what they have accomplished throughout two and a half decades. A few years after the ministry was established, back in the 1980s, I was forced to leave because my health was deteriorating due to multiple sclerosis.

Today, the Pregnancy Care Centre serves more than 1,800 women a year. Since its beginning, the Centre has helped an estimated 20,000 women!

At one point during the anniversary banquet a woman and her 15 year old daughter introduced themselves to my wife and me. The mother was helped by the Pregnancy Care Centre in 1993 when she was in a crisis pregnancy. She chose to give birth to her baby rather than abort her. Apparently at the banquet the mother pointed me out to her daughter as the person who co-founded the ministry. Her daughter wanted to thank me.

After their introductions and explanations were completed, I nearly wept. If it hadn’t been for the Pregnancy Care Centre the young girl standing in front of me might have been aborted. This occurred years after I was forced by poor health to step down from the ministry's Board.

There are very rare occasions in a person’s life when they realize that they made a life or death difference in the lives of others. It was one of those occasions for me and I am indebted to that mother and her daughter for letting me know that.

The day after the banquet, my wife decided it was time to clean our home’s basement of its clutter. She brought box after box of my papers upstairs for me to go through and throw away. All day long and into the night I sat in front of the backyard fire-pit burning papers, thinking about the millions of Canadian children whose mothers did not choose life for their babies. At one point in the paper purging process I came across my files pertaining to the establishment of the organization that eventually became the Pregnancy Care Centre. I had not seen them in years and found some speaking notes for an address I delivered to an evangelical church in 1984. I was asking them to get involved with the fledging ministry. This is part of what I said:

“We stand at edge of a precipice of a great and terrible day. Abortion is a package deal: Euthanasia and infanticide are the other parts of the deadly package. It is a slow walk from the abortion chamber to the nursery and the nursing home. The same arguments can be used for killing the severely disabled adult as the unwanted child in the womb: The life in question would be a burden on their family; the life in question is not even wanted by anyone; the quality of life for the individual in question will not be good.”

I continued: “Brothers and sisters in Christ, we cannot just sit back while this silent holocaust of abortion continues, and worsens, as it surely will. We must understand and believe in the sanctity of all human life ─ born or preborn, sick or well. We are all made in the image of God.”

Thinking I was on a roll, I concluded with these words: “Do you not see that the hour is dark? Do you not sense that Almighty God is grieved at the insult of abortion? I tell you this: Abortion is a denial of the God’s sovereignty. It is tantamount to telling the Giver of life that He doesn’t know what He’s doing. Abortion throws the gift of life back in God’s face unwanted, unopened, stamped Return to Sender.”

Christians did support the ministry not only with their financial gifts but
personal volunteerism. Many churches supported the Pregnancy Care Centre within their yearly budgets, and continue to do so.

The Centre expanded into public education, school programs about abstinence and prenatal development, post-abortion counselling, pregnancy care and support, mentoring, life-skills training and educational supports that enable young mothers to complete their education. At the Pregnancy Care Centre the operative word is love: love for people that is rooted in love for God. It’s shoe-leather Christianity at its best. Check out their website at http://www.pregnancycarecentre.ca/ .

The slow trains of infanticide and euthanasia have arrived. Disabled newborns are routinely killed in hospitals across North America. Neonatologists refer to the child they are about to kill as a ‘neonate’ in an apparent attempt to distance the baby from its humanity. Euthanasia is legal in Oregon and the state of Washington and other jurisdiction in Europe. Canada’s Parliament has been asked to consider a euthanasia bill under the guise of “death with dignity.” Much of the public has erroneously bought into accepting that euthanasia and assisted suicide are merciful.

Christians once again face a stark reality: We have entered a great and terrible day where vulnerable human life is now at risk outside the womb. We must again respond with love and compassion yet refusing to acquiesce to those who want help taking their own lives or the lives of sick or dying loved-ones. Let us take a cue from the Pregnancy Care Centre and reach out in life affirming Christian ministry to vulnerable populations at the other end of the life spectrum.

Mark Pickup

*The parent organization for Edmonton's Pregnacy Care Centre is the charitable Outreach For Life. It was based upon the U.S. based Christian Action Council, now called CareNet.

St. Augustine

2009-10-23T12:33:00.000-07:00

"Breathe in me, Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may be holy. Act in me, Holy Spirit, that my work too may be holy. Draw my heart, Holy Spirit, tat I may love only what is holy. Strengthen me, Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy. Guard me, Holy Spirit, that I may always be holy." -- St. Augustine

The Christians: Their First Two Thousand Years

2009-10-20T08:56:00.000-07:00

To see blog entry about the book series The Christians: Their first two thousand years. Go to http://markpickup.org

HLM

New York Times and abortion photography

2009-10-14T11:51:00.000-07:00

Well, well, well, -- the New York Times actually posted on its blog photographs of bodies of aborted children. A charter member of the liberal establishment peeked out from behind the "blob of tissue" myth so tenaciously held by abortion ideologues. See http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/behind-19/?scp=2&sq=damien%20cave&st=cse

For a brief moment the NYT apparently gave a passing nod to the holocaust of abortion as the slaughter of the youngest members of the human family. They could not, however, bring themselves refer to the unborn child as any more than a "fetus". Abortion must stop or North America will face judgement of the Almighty.

Mark Pickup

LaRee & Mark Pickup to give keynote address to US National Right to Life Prayer Breakfast

2009-10-05T10:35:00.000-07:00

LaRee and Mark Pickup will give the keynote address to the 2010 US National Right to Life Prayer Breakfast in Pittsburgh, PA. They will share their life experiences that have closely followed the major Life issues of our time.

CRISIS PREGNANCY

As teenagers, LaRee became pregnant with Mark’s baby. They chose abortion and grieved that terrible decision for decades. Their case was a classic abortion scenario repeated millions of times each year across North America. They present the perspectives of both a woman and a man involved in an abortion. This presentation confirms that post-abortion trauma and grief does exist and can last for decades.

But their experience with critical Life issues of our time does not just involve abortion and post-abortion grief.

DISABILITY

In 1984, Mark was diagnosed with aggressive multiple sclerosis. He went from being a healthy and athletic thirty year old man to being triplegic and wheelchair dependent. (Only his left
arm is unaffected by disease.) Throughout their grief journey, they confronted fundamental issues revolving around the profound sorrow and grief that often comes with acquired catastrophic disability ― and can draw people to question the value and purpose of life.

LaRee and Mark will explore reasons why people choose assisted suicide and family dynamics that contribute to such a terrible decision or deciding to euthanize a terminally/chronically ill loved one.

They will illustrate parallels between a mindset that sanctions abortion at the beginning of life and the acceptance of euthanasia consciousness at the other end of life.

LaRee and Mark will conclude with a challenge and plan to counter the prevailing culture of death.

To find out more about the 2010 National Right to Life Conference in Pittsburgh June 24-26, and the Prayer Breakfast contact the National Right to Life Office in Washington, DC., at:
Tel:(202) 626-8800, or by email at NRLC@nrlc.org Also see: http://stoptheabortionagenda.com/convention/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/nrlc2010-1pg-091009.pdf

HLM

Truth or Comfort

2009-10-01T09:03:00.000-07:00

"Seekers of truth may eventually find comfort but seekers of comfort will not find truth." -- taken from Mark Pickup's personal blog for 01 October 2009 entitled Truth or Comfort.

Read the rest at http://markpickup.org

HLM

2009-09-13T16:09:00.000-07:00

Prolific writer and bio-ethical thinker Wesley J. Smith commented on Mark Pickup's tribute to Bob Schindler at http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/09/12/mark-pickups-moving-tribute-to-terri-schiavos-dad-bob-schindler/

2009-09-12T19:12:00.000-07:00

Read Mark Pickup's latest blog called "Bob Schindler: a Pro-Life hero", at http://markpickup.org

Canada and euthanasia/assisted suicide

2009-08-13T07:54:00.000-07:00

The euthanasia/assisted suicide debate is heating up again in anticipation of the autumn session of Canada’s Parliament. Quebec MP Francine Lalonde’s latest Private Member’s Bill (C-384) to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide awaits debate.

The Executive Director of Canada’s Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, Alex Schadenberg, has analysed this dangerous Bill. C-384 does not limit assisted suicide to the terminally ill. Sick individuals can refuse appropriate treatments and still have an assisted suicide. The bill requires a medical practitioner to inform the person of all alternatives to euthanasia/assisted suicide but no requirement to try effective treatments. C-384 would allow the killing of people suffering from depression or other mental conditions. People receiving an assisted suicide only need to appear lucid not actually be lucid.

This is not the first time a euthanasia/assisted suicide bill has been presented to Parliament. All the previous bills have been unsuccessful. But things seem different now; the public seems more open to euthanasia. National Post newspaper columnist Barbara Kay recently wrote: “Have you noticed that the subject of euthanasia/assisted suicide is picking up momentum – that it is, so to speak, taking on a life of its own?” She went on to suggest that legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide can easily create an environment hostile to incurably ill people who choose to live. In a society that offers a cheap and easy solution to suffering, people who choose to live rather than be euthanized may become relegated to the sidelines. They would be viewed as causing unnecessary burdens the state or caregivers. Ms. Kay has a good point.

If a family chooses to seek life with dignity for an incurably ill loved one instead of death with dignity, ... well, that’s their choice. Why should the state pay for it?

Such callousness is not so far-fetched. People have actually asked my wife why she would choose to stay with a man who has an incurable, degenerative disease and is unable to work. “Leave him,” they advised. “You can find someone else,” they said. When my wife talked about old fashioned, illogical and sentimental ideas like marital love and commitment to solemn vows, the baffled questioners turned cold as though to say “You’re crazy!”

THE "RIGHT" TO ASSISTED SUICIDE

The right to assisted suicide implies a right to be alienated from life. The person seeking assisted suicide asks for help from the society from which he wishes to be alienated. His final adieu is the middle finger salute to the Common Good. His personal autonomy trumps the greater interests of the community. His final action coarsens and hardens others.

There will always be suicidal people, but a civilized society does not acquiesce to the darkness of the abyss by participating in anyone’s suicide. By definition civilized people have rejected barbarism of killing their weak and sick. They alleviate suffering rather than eliminate the sufferer.

The word compassion has its origin in the Latin word ‘compati’ meaning to “suffer with.” That is what compassionate people do. They come along-side those who are suffering or dying and journey with them. True compassion requires us to invest ourselves in suffering people. As Christians, we must be willing to enter their world and suffer with them, just like Jesus would do. Christ is our example. We are called to show Christ-like love to those who are in pain; and they will learn that we refuse to abandon them ─ even if they abandon themselves. We willingly identify with their pain and offer to cover them with a blanket of love ― even if the sufferer rejects it.

CHEAP COMPASSION

Euthanasia is cheap compassion. It requires so little of us. Euthanasia is a form of murder masquerading as mercy. It reduces people to their lowest and basest natures. Euthanasia is a grave crime against proper morality, against our collective humanity, and is contrary natural law that has existed from the beginning.

Catholic teaching is unequivocal in its condemnation of euthanasia. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (2276-2279). It says euthanasia is “morally unacceptable”; it constitutes a murder that is “gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due the living God,”.

Knowing when to discontinue medical procedure that is burdensome to a dying patient and disproportionate to the expected outcome can be acceptable, as long as one is not trying to cause death. When death is thought to be imminent, ordinary care must not be stopped or interrupted. The Catechism says, “The use of painkillers to alleviate suffering of the dying, even at the risk of shortening their days, can be morally in conformity with human dignity IF DEATH IS NOT WILLED AS EITHER AN END OR A MEANS, but only foreseen and tolerated as inevitable.” (My emphasis added.)

It’s a matter of motive and intent.

Euthanasia is not a legitimate part of palliative care. It has no place in a civilized society.

Mark Pickup

Crime against humanity in Ashraf, Iraq

2009-08-04T09:21:00.000-07:00

I was sent the following email from international human rights activist and retired Canadian MP, David Kilgour. David is a trusted pro-Life ally who has a long history working for the sanctity, dignity and equality of all human life. He is my friend.

The text of David Kilgour's message asks us to see a youtube video chronicling the murder of Amir Kheiri in Iraq. David writes:

"What happened at Ashraf in Iraq to the clearly unarmed Amir Kheiri on July 28th--as shown on the youtube below-- is so outrageous that the more persons around the world who can see it the more likely are governments to stop the violence at Ashraf quickly. If you agree, let's all try to get it to as many opinion leaders and others as possible."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEnts5u8lyA

Please spread this youtube video to everyone you know. Crimes against humanity must be brought into the glaring light of public view, whether they be in Iraq, China, or the abortion clinics of North America.

Mark Pickup
Founder
HumanLifeMatters

2009-07-23T13:43:00.000-07:00

Read Mark Pickup's latest blog, God's presence can become "very real and quite continual" at http://markpickup.org

Canada's pro-abortion stance destroys love, peace

2009-07-18T09:02:00.000-07:00

The celebrations were spectacular!

It was Canada’s birthday. The day ended with wonderful crescendos of fireworks across the nation. Crowds cheered from coast to coast to coast. The enthusiastic applause could not drown out the reality that a segment of the population has been systematically and arbitrarily excluded from Canada’s human family. There was a haunting silence in the nurseries of millions of unborn children whose births were betrayed throughout forty years of abortion. Their silence bore stark and damning witness to almighty God against our culture that has, in large measure, forsaken the sanctity of human life.

MOTHER TERESA

Mother Teresa said, "It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish." And so it is. Canada is a wealthy nation yet we have sown our own poverty by accepting abortion as a legitimate human choice. It is not: Abortion is always a wrong choice because it denies life. Abortion is anti-child. It is the greatest violence because it kills one’s own offspring, denying love, and opens a great black gate of selfishness. Abortion is anti-life: It attacks life at its most vulnerable and dependent state. Abortion embraces the end of all things because it stops the beginning of all things for the life it kills.

In 1994, Mother Teresa went to Washington, DC, to deliver an address to the United States National Prayer Breakfast. The audience included US President Bill Clinton, many senators and Members of Congress. She used Christ’s words for the title of her speech: “Whatever You Did Unto the Least of These, You Did Unto Me.” Mother Teresa said this about national acceptance of 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.” She said that abortion brings people to great spiritual and moral blindness. The same is true of Canada. That is why I could not join in the applause for Canada’s 142nd birthday. There was something terribly wrong in the beloved land of my birth by betraying the births of others.

NATIONAL HYPOCRISY

How can we decry violence in our streets when we know thousands of our own innocent children are being slaughtered each week by deliberate decisions of their parents? This was the question raised by Mother Teresa in that historic speech in 1994. America has yet to answer her question: By extension Canada should answer it too because abortion confronts us as a point of national hypocrisy. We celebrate our peace-loving national identity but allow abortion on demand.

Canada does not recognize the humanity or protect unwanted prenatal life ― those who need care and protection most. The slaughter of innocents by abortion has become a nationally protected institution paid for with tax dollars. This makes you and me unwilling accomplices to the greatest destroyer love and peace.

Mother Teresa’s Washington speech can be accessed on the internet at http://www.luisprada.com/Protected/mother_teresa_on_abortion.htm . I invite all people to read her words. I wish Mother Teresa had also delivered it in Canada. It’s truths about family, love for neighbours, and Life equally apply to us. If her words spoke truth (and they did) they all truth seekers must heed what she said. If abortion really is the greatest destroyer of love and peace, then all peaceful countries must remove abortion from their national landscapes and encourage life affirming solutions for women facing crises pregnancies.

Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity say to women facing unwanted pregnancies, “Please don’t destroy the child; we will take the child. ... Come, we will take care of you, we will get a home for your child.” And so they do ― and so should we as followers of Jesus Christ.

There are thousands of couples who are unable to have children. They want to adopt and complete their families. There is no such thing as an unwanted child!

Many people in Canada say we are a “pro-choice” country. Canada funds a hundred thousand abortions a year, costing millions of dollars, but does not equally fund alternatives to abortions. Until the choice of life is equality weighted and supported as the choice of death for the children of crisis pregnancies, we are more accurately described as a pro-abortion nation. Follow the money trail. It speaks louder than rhetoric and reveals the heart and priorities of our nation.

If, as Mother Teresa said, abortion causes moral blindness then we are in desperate straits. Recession may increase financial poverty but hearts that are closed to God’s love and life are the poorest of all, for their poverty is spiritual and their internal blindness complete.

True patriots of the 21st Century will work to eradicate abortion from Canada’s social fabric and make it an unthinkable way to solve the social problem of unwanted pregnancy. Love and peace will find a home in people’s hearts. That is where true love and peace can be found.

Mark Pickup
HLM

(This article also appeared in the 20 July 2009 edition of Canada's Western Catholic Reporter under the same title.)

Pro-active population control and Roe v. Wade

2009-07-09T11:19:00.000-07:00

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=103457
WorldNetDaily, 8 July 2009, "Ginsburg: I thought Roe was to rid undesirables: Justice discusses 'growth in populations we don't want to many of."

"Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion." -- Justice Ruth Ginsburg in interview with New York Times Magazine apparently to be published this weekend. (see http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/magazine/12ginsburg-t.html)

Justice Ginsburg revealed that she thought abortion in America would have the effect of weeding out less desirable people from society. It made me think of the Nazi vision of creating a superior race which would be achieved, in part, by exterminating undesirable or inferior populations (minderwertigen) from the volk.

Mark Pickup

Intimidation and violence of the liberal left

2009-07-07T20:16:00.000-07:00

Tiller, Terror and TV Tilt, American Life League
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzYIQxmjVUE

In the weeks after the George Tiller murder, so much of the mainstream media tried to blanket all the pro-Life community as terrorists. In truth the murderer of George Tiller was the work of a deranged loner unconnected with any legitimate pro-Life organization. Intimidation and violence toward pro-Life advocates by the liberal left is common.

Please view the American Life League's production Tiller, Terror and TV Tilt at the Youtube link above. Very enlightening.

Mark Pickup

Pain and the path to spiritual healing

2009-07-03T20:53:00.000-07:00

"Only in surrender do we become pliable in the hands of God. He is the potter, we are the clay. Only in surrender to the will of God can we discover the reason for which we were created." taken from Mark Pickup's blog entry for 3 July 2009 under the title Pain and the path to spiritual healing.

Read the rest at http://markpickup.org

All life is sacred

2009-06-13T20:31:00.000-07:00

On May 31st, America’s most notorious late-term abortionist was murdered. Dr. George Tiller of Wichita, Kansas, performed second and third trimester abortions and even performed the horrible partial birth abortion procedure. Partial birth abortion is done by inducing labour prematurely in the mother and the baby is partially delivered breech but stopped with its head still in the birth canal. The abortionist kills the child in a way that is too grisly to mention to civilized readers. The abortionist then completes the delivery of the dead baby.

The man charged with George Tiller’s murder is Scott Roeder (51). At the time of writing this column very little is known about him, other than he was associated with an obscure anti-government militia group known as the Freeman movement. He also has a history of mental illness.

Pro-Life advocates across North America (including me) were quick to condemn the murder of George Tiller, although mainstream media have been trying hard to connect the pro-Life movement to the crime. They are not right.

I have been active with the pro-Life movement in Canada and the United States for more than twenty-five years. I’ve spoken to innumerable conferences and prolife gatherings and met countless pro-Life advocates. Not one advocated violence.

By definition, those who kill or advocate violence are not pro-Life. The shedding of blood, or promoting it, draws the clearest line of delineation and definition about who is pro-Life and who is not.

ALL LIFE IS SACRED

Being truly pro-Life involves holding the sanctity and dignity of all human life as something dear and worth cherishing ― even the life of a mass murderer like late-term abortionist George Tiller. We deplore what he did and work in non-violent ways to stop people like him. We reach out with love and support to mothers considering abortion. Our humanity demands it.

As a Christian, I mourn the death of George Tiller just as I mourn the thousands of children he killed. He (and they) were part of the human community. Our common bond is the image of God stamped indelibly upon us all. From conception on we are part of Mankind. The Seventeenth Century poet John Donne said, “Any Man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind."

Being pro-Life is more than decrying the shedding of innocent (or guilty) blood. It also entails working to create a cultural climate that is welcoming to the unwanted, the unloved, the deranged and the derelect.

.Being pro-Life means extending Christ-like love to the woman in crisis pregnancy and her baby. Being pro-Life means tenderly guiding post-abortive women toward Christ’s forgiveness and healing. Pro-Life advocates have the high and sacred honour of being Christ’s emissaries to hurting people. Whether they accept our overtures on Christ’s behalf is not within our power. Our task is point the way toward life and love, not death and despair. We align ourselves with Christ’s way. Having done this, we remember that not everyone accepted Christ’s way when he himself offered it.

The love and mercy that occupied Jesus’ heart brought healing to the sick, returned sanity to the deranged and forgiveness to the adulteress woman, but never did it include killing as an answer to life’s problems.

Peter drew a sword and cut off a man’s ear in defence of the personification of all that is sacred and good. Jesus rebuked his violence and healed the man’s ear. Men need ears to hear the Good News and renounce their inner violence. Interior violence precedes all outer violence to which Jesus relies, “Stop, no more of this.”

The assault on the sanctity and dignity of human life is the great struggle of the 21st Century. It is the spiritual battle for the hearts, minds and souls of humanity; it is manifested in the physical world by violence against the weakest and most vulnerable, the defeated, and the unloved in our midst. It is evil because it is the antithesis of Christ’s love.

Abortion, embryonic stem cell research, assisted suicide and euthanasia are all expressions of this evil. How you and I respond to it will help define our humanity and may even help to save the humanity of other people. The stark choice of the 21st Century is this: barbarity or beauty. Our individual choices about life will contribute to one or the other.

It is a daunting prospect, I know. But we have not been left without resources. We can take solace knowing that in Jesus Christ is life and the light of Mankind (John 1.4-5). We have the Word of God to assure us, the teachings of the Church and the Holy Spirit to guide us. Jesus told us he would not leave us orphans. He told us, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Mark Pickup

(This blog also appears in Canada's Western Catholic Reporter for the week of 15 June
2007, under the title "Pro-Life supporters never adevocate murder of anyone."
See http://www.wcr.ab.ca/columns/markpickup/2009/markpickup061509.shtml )

A Judeo Christian history?

2009-06-09T19:10:00.000-07:00

See http://markpickup.org for blog "A Judeo-Christian history?

HLM

Reflections about Babyboomers on D-day anniversary

2009-06-08T22:56:00.000-07:00

Read Mark Pickup's latest blog Throwing pearls before swine at http://markpickup.org

One night on the Michael Coren Show

2009-05-30T09:25:00.000-07:00

The Michael Coren Show on Canada's CTS television network airs three times a week across the nation. It's a panel talk show covering various subjects ranging from current affairs to religion. I like the Michael Coren show: It's a guarantee of lively debate with a slightly intellectual but not snooty quality.

The casual viewer can not tell whether Coreh is right or left on the political spectrum. Michael Coren has both left and right, liberal and conservative representation on his panels. He's demanding but fair with his guests and demands fair and thoughtful responses and is quick to challenge pat answers, slogans or Newspeak. For example, last evening his conservative guest was columnist and author Clare Hoy. The liberal guest was Marianne Meed Ward. The token representation from western Canada was broadcaster Rob Brackenridge.

One story they covered was out of Swaziland. Member of Parliament, Timothy Myeni, for a solution to the AIDS epidemic in his country: compulsory HIV testing of the population. HIV-positive people with receive a tattoo on their buttocks.

Marianne Meed Ward objected to the idea. At one point she used the phrase "sex trade
workers." Michael Coren interrupted her liberal diatribe with something to this effect:

MC: "You mean whores?"
MMW: "Yes."
MC: "Why do to try to dignify prostitution? Dignify the person but but the activity."

Well done Michael.

My view of the Swaziland proposal is one of support for the MP's idea. Desperate measures are sometimes required for desperate times. HIV has made these are desperate times for Swaziland (and other African countries). It's a reasonable requirement to save a population threatened by the AIDS epidemic. If the choice is privacy versus public health of life threatening disease, I side with public health. My only concern was placing a tattoo on the buttocks of an HIV-positive individual may not give a prospective sexual partner enough warning. A tattoo should be placed discreetly in view such as the palm of the hand or in the scalp.

Mr. Coren then changed the topic to the recent assisted suicide in the state of Washington of a woman suffering from pancreatic cancer. Predictably, Marianne Meed tried to defend assisted suicide with the outdated argument of dying people living in a drug induced stupor from pain medications. Obviously she had not done adequate research or she did the research and did not like what she found. It doesn't play well for euthanasia supporters.

After the show ended, I sent Email to Michael Coren saying that
Marianne Meed Ward made a weak case for assisted suicide in musing that pain management causes confusion. Not necessary.

If pain medications are properly administered by medical professionals with current and up-to-date understanding of pain management medications and techniques -- complete pain relief can be achieved without the loss of lucidity or confusion to the patient.

Ward (and Rob Brackenridge) tried to reverse the argument for assisted suicide by asserting the state does not have a right to force people to live. (?) Talk about confusion! Ward and Brackenridge did not even have medication to blame!

The point is this: The state must never support suicide or assisting suicide. Legalized assisted suicide, such as in the states of Oregon and Washington, are striking deviations from Anglo-American historical legal traditions and law. I spoke about this in my previous blog. For more than 7 hundred years common law has discouraged or punished assisting suicide.

Because Canada no longer punishes people who attempt suicide is not an an endorsement of it. It simply acknowledges that prosecution an inappropriate response to a suicidal person. They need psychologically help not prison. Ward alluded to the argument of a disabled person who can not kill themselves. So what! If Canada does not support suicide, why would they support assisted suicide.

I said to Michael Coren in my email: "I have suffered from aggressive multiple sclerosis for more than 25 years. My condition has degenerated significantly since you interviewed me in 1995. I am now triplegic and in a full electric wheelchair. My brain and CNS are riddled with lesions; only my left arm remains unaffected by MS."

"I do not need a community or society that assists me in my suicide. I need a society that holds up my value even when I cease to believe in it. And I have an obligation to the Common Good not to seek assistance or support of my suicide. For me to ask that society or other people to assist me in my suicide would be to support the notion that there is such a thing as a life unworthy to be lived. The ramifications of accepting that notion would have a detrimental effect on others with disabilities, the incurably ill, those who have sunk beneath the waves of depression or circumstances, ... and posterity."

I told Mr. Coren that it is better to live in my state of degenerative disease and disability that to compromise my own humanity (or my responsibility to humanity) for the sake of my personal relief.

Contrary to the popular slogan it's NOT all about me. Autonomy is a myth.

Mark Pickup

Alberta's 2009 March for Life

2009-05-11T09:59:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday (May 7th) the second annual March for Life was held in Alberta's Capital city of Edmonton. It was supported by all Alberta's Catholic bishops, and attended by clergy from Eastern Orthodox and Ukrainian Catholic denominations. Sadly representation from evangelical denominations were conspicuous in their absence. Still, hundreds of people from throughout the province showed up at the steps of the provincial legislature to hear speakers of which I was one. My speaking notes are at the end of this post for information of readers.

The crowd marched through the streets of downtown Edmonton. It stretched three and a half blocks long, four and five marchers deep, and required police escort as traffic and the hustle of commerce was disrupted while we snaked through the streets with placards and banners declaring the sanctity, dignity and equality of all human life. Bystanders watched respectfully from the sidelines at the striking witness for Life before their eyes.

It was interesting but expected to note that Edmonton's major daily newspaper, The Edmonton Journal,did not report the event at all. According to their censorship of ideas the event did not occur. It was reminiscent of another pro-Life march that occurred in the city of Toronto in 1984. Twenty-five thousand people (police estimate of crowd size) silently march past the Morgentaler abortuary. Participants said it was eery to hear feet walking in silent protest of the killing of innocents occurring inside that terrible place. The silence was complete: The Globe and Mail, the CBC and other media did not report it. It was as though the massive protest of citizenry didn't happen. Shhh!

(Yet if a dozen abortion advocates, homosexuals or transvestites hold a demonstration and its news for days.)

When the marchers arrived back at the steps of the provincial legislature, I delivered the following short address:

We have entered a moral storm that’s breaking the ancient western moral code that governed the moral ethos of generations. Although people may have occasionally failed to behave the way they instinctively knew to be right, there was a consensus that the most vulnerable and weak of society must be protected.

For centuries, abortion was considered a serious crime. The Hippocratic Oath for doctors dating back thousands of years forbade abortion (and euthanasia). The Catholic Church has maintained the moral evil of abortion since the 1st Century. Ancient and persistent Common Law traditions dating back into the Middle Ages treated abortion as a “grave crime.” In 1802, England codified in to law what had been considered a criminal offence by custom, and made abortion a criminal act. What I am trying to illustrate to you is that considering abortion on demand as a right (as Canada and the US do) is a recent development and an aberration from the course of human history.

As I speak these words to you there are preborn children being slaughtered not more than 10 blocks away from us. These children are being killed because they are unwanted or inconvenient to their parents. All across Canada abortion can be obtained for any reason at all, or no reason whatsoever.

Now Canada is about to consider decriminalizing assisted suicide. It has already been embraced by Oregon, Washington state, Holland and elsewhere. This, too, is a deviation from centuries of Common law that discouraged, prohibited or punished assisting in the suicide of a person. Civilized and compassion societies did not kill their weakest or those who had sunk beneath the waves of circumstance.

Canada has abandoned its Christian roots. It has abandoned the ideal that there is something sacred to human life. The nation of my birth has coarsened to the point that I can scarcely recognize it. I feel like an alien in my own country. Public opinion polls consistently reveal that 70 % of Canadians agree with euthanizing (or helping the suicides) of the terminally or chronically ill people and the severely handicapped (people like me). That means that 7 out of 10 of my fellow Canadian citizens I pass on the street agree with helping me to kill myself if I despair of my situation. Apparently they believe it’s my freedom to choose.

But choices made from the perspective of abandonment, depression or desperation are not free at all. Do not talk to me about the freedom to choose unless all my choices are equally weighted and people have access to good supportive services and feel included within a tender embrace of community. There is no freedom of choice for the incurably ill person who feels the cold winds of abandonment or sees the world from beneath the dark veil of depression. There is no freedom to choose for a desperate woman is crisis pregnancy who is being pressured to have an abortion.

If Canadians really are “pro-choice”, why is only one choice so heavily funded? I propose a balanced approach. Provide equal funding for women who choose life for their babies. Provide funding to homes for unwed mothers where they can finish their education and receive prenatal care and life skills training. Provide funding for community and faith based partnerships with government for shepherding homes where women in crisis pregnancies can be mentored and establish or re-establish community connections. Give women positive choices not just negative choices.

Ensure modern techniques of palliation, pain management are strengthen in medical schools. Create government and community based hospice options where the dying and incurably sick are loved and included within their communities.

Until the choices for desperate people have equal attention, the idea of the freedom to choose is a hollow lie.

You are a critical minority who still believe in the sanctity, dignity and equality of all human life. Stand firm in the present Dark Age. Make your witness matter for a culture of life in a prevail culture of death. Do not tire or flag. Do not succumb to intimidation. You can turn the tide! I believe this with all my heart. I have to, the alternative is unthinkable.

Mark Pickup

2009-04-30T22:15:00.000-07:00

To read Mark's latest blog about children and afternoon naps, go to http://markpickup.org

I have a dream too

2009-04-23T17:47:00.000-07:00

I have spoken across North America for the sanctity, dignity and equality of every human life and against abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide. There are so many people who have faithfully served the cause of Life issues for decades. Their names and faces are familiar to me. It’s hard not to notice the greying of the pro-Life movement.

A HOLY CAUSE

Year after year, these people work to defend vulnerable human life at every state and stage, from conception to natural death. Defending the right to life is a holy cause: A holy cause they think they are losing. Yes, Pro-Life stalwarts are greying and I wonder who will stand up for life when they retire or are gone?

COURAGEOUS, GODLY PEOPLE

If the pro-Life stalwarts like Linda Gibbons were prepared to endure harassment, mockery and even years in jail because she witnessed for the right to life of every unborn child, who will dare to take her place? The culture coarsens by the day, yet I take heart to meet young people who want to live for a purpose.
Abortion on demand is now the way of the land after centuries when it was considered barbaric and criminal. Previous generations understood that killing defenceless and innocent human beings was a wrong, not a right. Abortion was and still is anathema to God and all decent people.

New pro-Life activists will be unusually strong in character and determined in purpose. The ground they inherit is polluted with the blood of millions of children who never saw the light of day because they were inconvenient or unwanted. Euthanasia and assisted suicide is creeping into the public consciousness of North America.

Holy causes are rarely popular or easy. Read the book of Jeremiah. Consider the life and death of John the Baptist, Stephen and countless Christian martyrs throughout the ages. Think of the newer struggle for the idea of inalienable human rights and self-evident truth that all men are created equal by their Creator, ... then consider the fate of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Junior who worked so tirelessly for human equality regardless of skin colour.

STRUGGLE OF THE 21ST CENTURY!

I have a dream too. I dream that one day every human life will be valued and protected for no other reason than it exists. The Right to Life is the great and holy cause of the twenty-first century.

We are faced with daunting struggle for the sanctity, dignity and equality of all human life. Universal human rights begin when human life begins. This is a self-evident truth. Human life produced sexually begins at conception. This is a biological fact. Therefore, universal human rights must begin at conception -- that’s what makes them universal ― they apply to everyone. Anything else is bigotry and sophistry.

This is the uncompromising message a new generation of pro-Life activists must take to their communities, their nation and to the world. Take heart, things are not as dire as they may appear.

Those courageous young people who take up the struggle for every life’s right to exist, will know that truth is on their side.

Abraham Lincoln said, “We will win more converts each day. We will
grow strong by the violence and the injustice of our adversaries and unless truth be a mockery and justice a hollow lie, we will be in the majority.” The great man was right and his words apply to the pro-Life cause. The general public is slowly turning around and becoming more pro-Life.

A recent poll commissioned by the Knights of Columbus revealed that 84 percent of Americans agree that abortion should be significantly restricted. The poll surveyed 1,733 people across the nation (less than half of respondents were Roman Catholic). In Canada, a 2007 Life Canada/Environics poll documented that 60 percent of Canadians think abortion should be significantly restricted. This is a dramatic turn from the 1970s.

A new generation of pro-Life activist can rely upon the continued support and partnership of the Catholic Church. The Church has always been against abortion since the first Century. This fact has never changed and is unchangeable (see Catechism of the Catholic Church, Nos. 2271-2275.)

WE WILL SUCCEED

I happen to believe that a next generation of pro-Life activists will eventually enjoy success that eluded the older generation which includes people like me. Little by little, bit by bit, the victory to make abortion unthinkable has been slow, but I believe it is within sight.

Those who take up the pro-Life mantle for the 21st Century must temper their activism with love for women in crisis pregnancy.

My wife, LaRee, knows that activism must be motivated by love, to be effective. She is the provincial director of the Alberta Pro-Life Association (Canada). LaRee believes in positive pro-Life action that welcomes women in crisis pregnancies and their unborn babies into our communities.

LaRee has often said to me that abortion is evidence that society has failed women. She believes that if women receive life-affirming answers to crisis pregnancies, and if their unborn children are truly accepted as persons, most women will turn away from abortion. Each day LaRee works toward that goal. She may not see the day when abortion is morally and culturally unthinkable, but those who follow her may.

Mark Pickup

This article also appeared in the 27 April 2009 edition of Canada's Western Catholic Reporter under the title "New Pro-Life activists will carry the sword of truth". (See http://www.wcr.ab.ca/columns/markpickup/2009/markpickup042709.shtml)

Christian advocates make love a verb

2009-04-10T20:16:00.000-07:00

Read Mark Pickup's latest blog "Christian advocates make love a verb" at http:markpickup.org