from Bishop Anthony Fisher last month:

Such suffering women need to know that they are not alone, not mad. They need the healing and hope that can only come after confronting the truth of abortion. Could this latest film help?
Some years ago I was part of another Channel 4 programme, a panel discussion about the new genetics. I was asked what I thought about prenatal tests which were fast becoming ‘search and destroy’ techniques against the handicapped. Before I could answer, another panellist – who was a notorious embryo experimenter – accused me of thinking all abortion is a sin.

"Of course it’s a sin," piped up a third panellist, Germain Greer. As someone who’d been through the abortion mill and subsequent infertility, she spoke with some authority and passion. She even dared to use the politically incorrect word ‘sin’. Every abortion, she thought, is a sin and women know it in their heart of hearts.

Our society is now so habituated to aborting its young that it has little else to offer women with unplanned pregnancies. We have become so callused by an annual abortion count of 75,000 to 100,000 that we close our eyes to the unborn children destroyed and the women left wounded. And our medical profession has been so corrupted by three decades of this practice that many women find themselves on a treadmill to termination as soon as they enter the consulting room.

When I was at school almost 30 years ago a prayer we learnt by heart was "May human life be defended and protected from its first beginnings". For some the impact of a human life in utero is just too difficult. Abortion remains a plague on society in all countries.

this is making news in Australia:{via Catholic Telecommunications}

Catholic women "more likely" to have abortion

Sydney's Catholic women are far more likely than women of other religions to have an abortion, according to figures published in today's Sydney Morning Herald.

The paper says the statistics were provided by Sydney's main abortion provider, Australian Birth Control Services.

Almost half of the clinic's 6000 patients last year identified their religion and of this group almost 40% said they were Catholic. A further 23% identified themselves as "Christian", while fewer than 5% said they were Protestant. Seven% were Muslim and 5% were Buddhist.

An analysis of women who have had more than one abortion at the clinic since it opened in the late 1980s found that Catholics account for almost 45% of those who identified their religion.

Clinic medical director Dr Geoffrey Brodie speculated that the figure may be even higher because Catholics may be more reluctant than other patients to divulge their religion.

But ethicist and director of the Melbourne-based John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family Dr Warwick Neville said he would not have expected the number of Catholic women to be so high.

"The church's consistent teaching is that abortion in any circumstance is gravely wrong. [But] the church can never impose its teaching and nor does it seek to police it," he says.

"Where and how people are able to take [the church's teaching] on board and apply it to their lives, the church has no control over.

"But someone who says, 'look, I'm just going to go for an abortion', no one in the church either has any control over that or any understanding as to why they would do that."

SOURCE
A Catholic conundrum (Sydney Morning Herald 6/8/04 - requires payment)

LINKS
Economics as reason for abortion (Sydney Morning Herald 6/8/04)
Australian Birth Control Services
Abortion is science's grim story (Sydney Morning Herald 5/8/04)
Abortions cloaked in secrecy (The West Australian 4/8/04)
Public shift on abortion: Abbott (The Australian 2/8/04)
An abortion deception (The Age 3/8/04)
Abortion clinic fears pre-poll political assault (Sydney Morning Herald 6/8/04)
Why is my church so silent on abortion? (The Age 5/8/04)
Compass: My Foetus (The Age 5/8/04)


I note that over 40% of the Australian Population is Catholic, so the statistics make some sense; especially seeing that less than 18% of all Catholics attend Mass on Sunday, and have little moral understanding or willingness to follow the eternal proscription on abortion. Note the Compass story above earlier related news items: Reality TV going too far
and Abortion doco welcomed by right-to-lifer

BE ALERT NOT ALARMED, HAS THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION SHAKEN THE TREE OR JUST BEEN POLITICALLY EXPEDIENT IN RAISING THE FEAR FACTOR?
from skynews: TERROR INTEL 'OUTDATED'

The intelligence that led to yesterday's US terror alert was up to four years old, it has been reported. Intelligence officers told the New York Times and the Washington Post there was "no concrete evidence" of a terrorist plot or proof that terror surveillance operations were still being carried out.

US financial institutions were put on alert after the Bush administration raised the terror alarm to 'high'. Emails on an arrested al Qaeda suspect's computer gave details of attacks on America's financial institutions - and also mentioned London. But intelligence officers said much of the information may have been collected before the September 11 attacks.

"There is nothing right now that we're hearing that is new," one intelligence officer told the Washington Post.

Spare a thought for all those whose fear level went through the ceiling over the past couple days. Those with mental disorders, the emotionally sensitive, those who were directly impacted by 911...

The yellow crazy ant has been found in NSW. This is an amazing event to actually make the news in this time of escalating oil prices due to terror fears. Meanwhile the Vatican has recognised women in the workplace. Another useful interview here, the uk independent published this.