Jesus Speaks!

“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits.” Could Jesus be speaking about … those who dictate and interpret what he said, with a view to advancing and aggrandizing themselves? And could followers of false prophets be among those lobbying the Secretary of State for Arkansas to put up a memorial monument that may or may not feature a statue of Jesus, or of someone who looks like Jesus and who could be Jesus, in the Capitol?

The leader of the group, armed with the preserved remains of a fetus that was miscarried in 1993, met with the Secretary of State. She described the monument that her group wants to install; a man holding a baby while talking to a woman. The robe-clad male figure wears sandals.

Now what would Jesus say about a group of fetus-fetishizing lobbyists who want to exploit his avowed love of children and those who are child-like? How about: “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned.”? Or perhaps: “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.”?

But Jesus could be angry, as he was with the merchants using the temple space for their own profit. He might say: “Listen up. You’ve got to stop putting words in my mouth. When I said: Allow the little children, and don’t forbid them to come to me, I didn’t mean embryos and fetuses. Remember that my Father is called a Creator, not an Impregnator. It takes time to create a human being. If a woman does not choose to give life, the decision is hers to make. My own mother was given that choice. Gestation, like creation, is a process. Only God has the right to judge and condemn. And stop with the glurge already!”

This news item was brilliantly blogged here, by GottaLaff. A big thanks to Red Jenny for bringing this to our attention!
Originally posted at Birth Pangs.

Poached Nuts on Research Menu, Hold the Eggs.

Back in July, we wrote about scientific ‘eggheads’ creating embryonic stem cells by using stimulated yet unfertilized ova, in Virgin Eggs Over Easy, Hold The Sperm. Meanwhile, a different group of scientists with something else on the brain have been playing around with mouse testicles. From the CBC story:

Stem cells found in men’s testicles could someday be used to grow organs and tissues needed to fight disease, researchers at the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City have found. … Scientists obtained spermatogonial progenitor stem cells (SPCs), which generate the precursors to sperm and determine fertility, from mouse testicles.

Catholic clergy got hot under the collar about research that used stimulated ova, and made up their own (unscientific) claims that if these eggs grow for the first few days and then stop, according to Church doctrine that may mean that they’re actually “very short-lived human beings”.

So far, there has been complete silence from the Vatican regarding research on testicular cells. This may be explained by the dynamics of another process, uncovered in the course of conducting research on male mice.

… other researchers have shown that adult cells can be reprogrammed to acquire
stem-cell potential. However, this process, called “induced pluripotency”, has
resulted in a generation of multi-potent stem cells that carried an increased
risk of transforming into malignant cells.

Now, does that process not sound familiar …? Isn’t that the perfect metaphor for the vile entity known as the

Magisterium?

Magisterium is a technical ecclesiastical term in Roman Catholic Church referring to the teaching authority of the church. This authority is understood to be embodied in the episcopacy, which is the aggregation of the current bishops of the church, led by the Bishop of Rome (the Pope). According to Catholic doctrine, the Magisterium is able to teach or interpret the truths of the Faith, and it does so infallibly within the Sacred Magisterium. The task of interpreting the Word of God authentically has been entrusted solely to the Magisterium of the Church, that is, to the Pope and to the bishops in communion with him

The Magisterium, a proliferation of malignant cells that fetishizes the fetus and command blind obeisance. Sounds quite right to me.

Originally posted at Birth Pangs.

One Woman a Minute

Pregnancy kills one woman per minute. Unsafe abortion kills one woman every eight minutes. Reproductive Health Reality Check says:

. . .every minute, a woman still dies as a result of pregnancy or childbirth. Ninety-nine percent of these deaths occur in developing countries (primarily in Africa and Asia), and the vast majority of them are preventable. . . .

One in eight of those women dying every minute as a result of pregnancy and childbirth are women dying from unsafe abortions, after all--totaling 68,000 women every year, a figure that hasn't changed in nearly two decades. Nearly half of these deaths occur in Africa, where abortion is largely illegal, and rarely available even under circumstances where it is legal.

We decided to have a look at current news stories from Africa.

First, there's this from Uganda.

Over 1,000 Ugandan women die every year as a result of unsafe abortions and an additional 68,000 suffer serious health complications, according to a recently released report from the Ministry of Health.

"As many as 1,200 unsafe abortions result in death each year. Nearly a quarter (23%) of all abortions result in serious complications," says the report Road map for accelerating the reduction of maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity in Uganda. . . .

Because abortion is illegal in Uganda, and because of the widespread social stigma attached to the practice, many women who experience complications are not seeking or receiving any help. "Roughly one in five of the estimated 297,000 women who have an abortion each year - a total of 65,000 women - suffer complications that require medical care but do not get treatment in a medical facility," says the report.

Now, let's have a look at Nigeria: