the culture of life
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The Culture of LifeV
The Culture of DeathKings College London
February 27th 2009
Lord Alton of Liverpool: www.davidalton.com
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Evangelium Vitae - 1995
This reality is characterized
by the emergence of a
culture which denies
solidarity and in many
cases takes the form of a
veritable "culture of
death".
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My Right To Choose
Me or I
rather than
You or We
Rights
Not
Responsibilities or Duties
Choice
not
Consequences
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Choice haerisis the modern
heresy
St.Iranaeus of Lyons
In Contra Haerisis
Iranaeus defended
orthodoxy against
Gnosticism with its
belief in
secret knowledge knowledge for the few.
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G.K.Chesterton
To admire mere choice is to refuse to choose Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 1906
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all have a right to life, upon recognition of which every human
community and the political community are founded.
-Pope John Paul II Evangelium Vitae
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1948 Universal Declaration of
Human Rights
Everyone shall have the
right to life and securityof person
1948 UN Declaration of
Human Rights,Article 3
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Brave New World of Eugenics
Eugenics is the science of
improving stockto give the
more suitable races or
strains of blood a better
chance of prevailing speedilyover the less suitable -
Francis Galton
1935: No society should allow the diseased, theracially-negligent, the careless, the feeble-minded, the
very lowest and worst members of the community to
produce innumerable tens of thousands of warped and
inferior infants.
Marie Stopes
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Eugenics Condemned - 1923
"There is no reason in Eugenics, but there is plenty of motive. Its supporters are"There is no reason in Eugenics, but there is plenty of motive. Its supporters are
highly vague about its theory, but they will be painfully practical about its practice.highly vague about its theory, but they will be painfully practical about its practice.
And while I reiterate that many of its more eloquent agents are probably quiteAnd while I reiterate that many of its more eloquent agents are probably quite
innocent instruments, there are some, even among Eugenists, who by this timeinnocent instruments, there are some, even among Eugenists, who by this time
know what they are doing."know what they are doing."
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The Dying Rooms of China
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Chinas One Child Policy
1983 - Coercive PopulationControl in China: One ChildPolicy commenced.
21 Million Sterilisations
18 Million IUDs inserted14 Million abortions in one year
alone
Collaboration with IPPF andUNFPA (United Nations
Population Fund)
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Chinas One Child Policy
1998: Mrs Gao XiaoDuan:
A baby of nine monthsgestation had poisoninjected into its skulland the child died andwas thrown into a
trash can.
Congressional Hearing.
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2001: Baby born in breach of quotasdrowned in Hubei Province -
Amnesty International
2001: Man tortured to death in Hunan
after refusing to reveal the whereabouts
of his pregnant wife -
Sunday Times
September 21st 2005 120,000 women
coerced some 9 months pregnant
Chen Guangcheng arrested
- The Independent Newspaper
Chinas One Child Policy
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The Story of Jin Yani
9 months pregnant:
pinned to her
bed by five
officials, injectedwith saline
solution.
Loss of bloodnearly
killed her.
Now in hiding.
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The Story of Chen Guangchen
Chen Guangcheng: - 4 years in prison - it takes a blind man
to see what we fail to see: 120,000 forced abortions and
sterilisations in Shandong Province
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September 2007, Chens wife, Yuan Weijing, assaulted and detained
by 17 officials as she tried to leave for the Philippines to collect a
human rights award for her husband.
Mrs.Yuan said I tell you, the darkness of the society is way
beyond your imagination.
January 14th 2009 denied medical help and in poor health Associated Press
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Chinas Gendercide
117 boys born for every 100 girls
70,000 children stolen annually
Female suicide highest in the world (W.H.O)Weapon against ethnic groups Tibetans
and Uighurs
Social Unrest
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Annual Abortion Rate
42 million abortions annually throughout the world
115,000 every day
600 in Britain every day
7 million over 40 years
In North and South Korea half of all pregnancies end
in abortion
Refugee women returned from China to North Koreaare forcibly aborted
One of President Obamas first acts was to restore US
funding forAbortion.
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The Suffering We Permit
Whereas evidence for conscious pain
perception is indirect, evidence for the
subconscious incorporation of pain into
neurological development and plasticity is
incontrovertible. Scientific data, notreligious or political conviction, should
guide the desperately needed research in
this field. In the meantime, it seems
prudent to avoid pain during gestation.
Professor K,J.S.Anand, one of the worlds
Leading experts on foetal pain.
-Channel 4 Despatches 2008.
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The pain and suffering of the
unborn
Abortions at:
11 weeks,21 weeks and
24 weeks
incontrovertible evidence
of pain Anand
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Dr.Bernard Nathansons Story
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Royal College of Psychiatry
some studies indicateno evidence of harm,
whilst other studies
identify a range of
mental disordersfollowing abortion.
-2008
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Roe v Wade Jane Roes Story
I kept seeing the picture of that tiny,
10-week-old embryo, and I said to
myself, that's a baby! It's as if blinds
just fell off my eyes and I suddenly
understood the truth--that's a baby!"
I felt crushed under the truth of this
realization. I had to face up to the awful
reality. Abortion wasn't about "products
of conception." It wasn't about "missed
periods.
It was about children being killed in
their mother's wombs.
All those years I was wrong. Signing
that affidavit, I was wrong.Working in an abortion clinic, I was
wrong. No more of this first trimester,
second trimester, third trimester stuff.
Abortionat any pointwas wrong. It
was so clear. Painfully clear."
Nobel Peace Prize Winner
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Nobel Peace Prize Winner,
Blessed Mother Teresa of
CalcuttaLife is being deliberately
destroyed by war, by violence,by abortion. I have often said,
and am sure of it, that thegreatest destroyer of peace inthe world today is abortion.
Life is the most beautiful gift ofGod. That is why it is so painful
to see what is happening todayin so many places around theworld
-Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta
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Psychological and Physical
Damage to Women
There is also overwhelming evidence that
induced abortion greatly increases the risk
of subsequent miscarriage and premature
delivery Professor Jack Sacrisbrick
Abortion and other pregnancy related risk
factors in female breast cancer Professor JoelBrind and Patrick Carroll,
28 out of 37 word wide studies have independently linked induced abortion
with breast cancer. In 2005 number of breast cancer cases reached
40,591 in the UK (a 3.5% increase)
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The Right To Know
is more important than
The Right to Choose
andabove all is The Right To Life
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The Shifting Line of What Is
Acceptable
"Gradually it was disclosed to methat the line separating goodand evil passes not through
states, not between classes,not between political partieseither, but right through everyhuman heart, and through allhuman hearts. This line shifts.
Inside us, it oscillates."
Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
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Nature Magazine July 2002
Your destiny from day one
Your world was shaped in the first 24hours after conception. Where your head
and feet would sprout, and which side
would form your back and which your
belly, were being defined in the minutes
and hours after sperm and egg united.
Si 1990 t illi
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Since 1990 over two million
human embryos destroyed or
experimented upon in UK;human cloning made legal;
2008 we permitted animal-human
hybrid embryos..
1998: Warnock Committee: human embryo should have special status and respect
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Fraudulent claims and ever more
grotesque demands
Hwang Woo-Suk
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The Scientific Justification for
the 2008 Human Fertilisationand Embryology Act
Dr Lovell-Badge said:
I cannot think of a good experiment to do now but I am sure someone will thinkof a good experiment.
Professor Bobrow said:
We are also not aware of any pressing scientific reasons at the moment forcreating such entities, but who knows what tomorrow might bring?
Professor Smith said:
At the present time we have not been able to identify such a particularreasonto make true hybridsbut that does not mean that they do notalready exist and that there are not people already in the scientificcommunity who would have appropriate grounds or that they would comealong in the future.
- Evidence to the Parliamentary Scrutiny Committee
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Chief Medical Officer Disagrees
Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer, said inhis evidence Parliament, on 6 June 2007,concerning true hybrids:
There was no clear scientific argument as to whyyou would want to do it, and, secondly, a feelingthat this would be a step too far as far as thepublic are concerned.
Nobel Laureate, Sir Martin Evans, who originally discoveredmouse embryonic stem cells said:
The writing is on the wall for stem cell research that depends onusing human embryos.
2009 B iti h F di A i R f
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2009: British Funding Agencies Refuse
Funding for Kings College and
Newcastle Applications for Hybrids
Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, Chief Executive of the MedicalResearch Council, said:
"The MRC must make the best use of taxpayers' moneyand there is no better way to decide what should befunded than to use tried-and-tested peer review systemswhere scientists assess applications on their merits
.Fighting for the right to carry out such research doesnot mean that it should get priority over otherapplications which score higher and hold more promise."
- January 2009
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NatureBiotechnolgyeditorial:
"Meanwhile, forward steps continue to be
made in the field of adult stem cell
therapy."
"One estimate is that there are currently
over 80 therapies and around 300 clinical
trials underway using such cells".
not a single cure or therapy in use anywhere in the world using human embryos
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Professor Shinya Yamanaka
When I saw the embryo, Isuddenly realized
this was after he looked down hismicroscope
there was such a smalldifference between it andmy daughters ... I thought,we cant keep destroying
embryos for our research.There must be anotherway.
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Prophetic Writing of C.S.Lewis
In 1943 C.S Lewis published TheAbolition of Man; in 1945, That HideousStrength...foreseeing what he describedas technological brutalism.
Lord Feverstone, the creator of theNational Institute for CoordinatedExperiments in That Hideous Strength, aMember the House of Lords, says hisaim is: Quite simple and obvious things,at firststerilization of the unfit,liquidation of backward races ...selective breeding.
Ultimately, he will create: A new type ofman.
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The Coming Peril
genetic screening-out on grounds of IQ,
sexuality, behavioural traits or disability will
be demanded by consumers, insurers, State
planners and politicians. This is the comingperil in all its deadliness - where the
mystery of life is replaced by a commodified
view of life where the human embryo is
treated as just another accessory to becreated, bartered, frozen, experimented upon
and destroyed.
- a fall from grace
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Life Begins At Conception But It
Doesnt End At Birth
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Deus Caritas Est
Abject poverty is an offence against
human dignity
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The conditions being suffered by such alarge number of people are such as to offendthe dignity of human beings and, as aconsequence, to compromise the authentic
and harmonious progress of the worldcommunity..The Church cannot and must not remain onthe sidelines in the fight for justice.The
promotion of justice through efforts to bringabout openness of mind and will to thedemands of the common good is somethingwhich concerns the Church deeply.
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The Culture of Death in Africa
Africas World War One
Congo: 4 million dead in
15 years
Sudan and Darfur: 2.5
million dead
Rwanda: 1 million dead
Uganda: 1 million dead
Congo: 300,000 child
soldiers
Rio Brazil Our Lady of Candelaria 8
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Rio, Brazil, Our Lady of Candelaria 8
boys shot dead some as young as 11 -
as they slept outside.
800 illi li b l
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800 million live below any
rational definition of human
decency
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1,000 people die each day, victims of
small arms
95% of the Kalashnikov rifles
used in these conflicts come
from outside Africa
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Culture of Death Extends To The
Elderly
Right To Die Becomes A Duty To Die
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Dont Waste Our Resources
If youre demented, youre wasting peoples
livesyour familys livesand youre
wasting the resources of the NHS.
- Baroness Warnock, The Times,
October 10th 2008
BMA and Royal Colleges Oppose
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BMA and Royal Colleges Oppose
Changes To The LawOregon case of MichaelFreeland:
this man was not in painbecause his pain was nottreatable; he was in painbecause nobody bothered.
This was just one caseamong many.
Dr.Gregory Hamilton
D t h L L d T I l t
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Dutch Laws Lead To Involuntary
Euthanasia
3,000 deaths every yearthrough euthanasia.
It began with voluntary
euthanasia.Today, around one in four are
involuntary, that is,
without the consent of thepatient.
A t d h i t th
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Autonomy and choice not the
only issues at stake
Dying is not only a personal orindividual affair. The death of a
person affects the lives of others,
often in ways and to an extent
which cannot be foreseen.
We believe that the issue of
euthanasia is one in which the
interest of the individual cannot beseparated from the interest of
society as a whole. House of
Lords Select Committee
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Evangelium Vitae
To claim the right toabortion, infanticide andeuthanasia, and torecognise that right in
law, means to attribute tohuman freedom aperverse and evilsignificance: that ofabsolute power over
others and againstothers. This is the deathof true freedom.
P t Alt ti A C lt
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Promote Alternatives A Culture
of Life
Samuel and Zachary ArmasSaving life at 21 weeks gestation
Hospices and palliative careSaving life in the womb
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Not anti-abortion, anti-science,
anti-euthanasia.positively pro
life, promoting humane
alternatives.
The person
who saves a
single life
saves theworld
D W i f l
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Dont Wait for someone else to
actdont wait until you are
perfect
A man would do nothing
if he waited until he coulddo it so well that no one
could find fault.
There is a unique task allotted to each one of us.
The challenge is to discover what the task is.
Cardinal John Henry Newman
F th b t th t b
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From the womb to the tomb
choose lifeWe must be positively pro-life, from the womb to the
tomb, for the mother and the child, for the sick andthe dying, for good medicine, ethical science, justlaws. This is a daunting challenge but our worlddesperately needs to rediscover the beauty andmystery of life and to uphold a culture of life in placeof our contemporary culture of death.
In the struggle between the prevailing culture of death
and the culture of life in which we believe there canbe no neutrals; and we cannot opt for a quiet life.
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Peoplewho do nothing
The world is a dangerous place to
live, not because of the people who
are evil,
but because of the people who don't
do anything about it.
- Albert Einstein
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St. Maximilian Kolbe
No one in the world can changeTruth. What we can and should do
is
to seek Truth and serve it when we
have found it. The real conflict is
within. Beyond armies ofoccupation
and the hecatombs of the
extermination camps, two
irreconcilable enemies lie in the
depths of every soul. And of what
use are the victories on thebattlefield if we are
defeated in our innermost personal
selves?
The Psalmists reflection on the
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The Psalmists reflection on the
beauty and mystery of lifeFor you created my innermost being;You knit me together in my Mothers womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully
and wonderfully made;
Your works are wonderful;
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from youWhen I was made in the secret Place.
When I was woven together in the
depths of the earth,
Your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
Before one of them came to be.
Psalm 139 13-16.