Pro-Life News -- Digest #611

	Pro-Life Events Around the Country The following is a listing of pro-life events around the country. This list is brought to you by The Pro-Life Infonet and Women and Children First (http://www.prolife.org/wcf) and many events come from mailings to us from pro-life and CPC groups. Feel free to place Women and Children First on your mailing list: WCF, PO Box 104, Chatham, IL 62629. We publish this listing as a service to the organziations/crisis pregnancy centers that are listed and as a service to Pro-Life Infonet readers. This listing is published approximately once a month through the Pro-Life Infonet. If you have events we should list, submit them for consideration to Steven Ertelt at ertelt@prolife.org Events are listed alpha by state and by city within each state: CALIFORNIA * Glendale/Hollywood - The Glendale and Hollywood CPCs will hold a walk for life on March 6th. Call 818-843-0423. CONNECTICUT * Waterbury - Guadalupe Home, a non-profit boarding home for pregnant women, is looking for a woman to minister as Residential Supervisor. If interested please contact Ellen Cavallo at Guadalupe House, 41 John Street, Waterbury, CT 06708 or call 203-597-9050; fax 203-597-9080. FLORIDA * Jacksonville - The Women's Help Center (CPC) has a Work Day on Saturday March 20th. Help them out by calling 904-398-5143. * Tallahassee - The Respect Life Committee of the Catholic Student Union at Florida State University is currently organizing a speaking presentation to be given by Miss Norma McCorvey (the former "Jane Roe") hear on campus in the Ruby Diamond Auditorium on the Tues. evening of March 16, of next month beginning at 7:30pm. For more information, contact Damon at dtc4333@garnet.acns.fsu.edu ILLINOIS * Chicago - Joel Brind, Ph.D., the leading expert on the link between abortion and breast cancer, will lecture on the subject on march 6th from 12-2 pm. Call 847-784-8776 for additional information. * Chicago - Birthright of Chicago will hold their annual Bid for Life Dinner on April 16th. It begins at 6 pm in Oakbrook Terrace, IL. RSVP by March 30th to 773-233-0305. INDIANA * Lafayette area - LifeCare Pregnancy Center welcomes Stephen Arterburn as guest speaker for our spring fundraising banquet on Monday, April 12, at 6:30 pm in the Purdue Memorial Union ballroom. Dinner, music, and client testimonies. Tickets $20.00 each or $150.00 for table of eight. Call 765-743-4488 for tickets. KANSAS * Statewide - Kansans for Life has information on local county Right to Life events in your area. For more information call 1-800-928-5433 or 316-687-5433. Also call Kansans for Life for ticket information for their March 6th Rose dinner in Wichita. KENTUCKY * Henderson - Norma McCorvey, the "Jane Roe" in the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision, will deliver the keynote address at the Marsha's Place Pregnancy Assistance Center banquet in Henderson, Kentucky (across the river from Evansville, IN) on March 4, 1999. Reservations for the event can be made by calling 502-826-9674. MAINE * Portland - April 24: Women Affirming Life Spring Breakfast Forum 10am-noon, Holiday Inn By the Bay, Guest Speaker: Attorney Fran Hogan, President of WAL, special consultant to the Pro-Life Secretariat of the National Catholic Conference of Bishops, member of the Pontifical Academy for Life Cost: $10 FMI 207-883-5083. MARYLAND * Bowie - The Bowie Crofton Pregnancy Center will have a Celebration of Life Benefit Concert on March 6th and a vollyball tournament on May 1. Call 301-262-1330 for details. MASSACHUSETTS * Clinton - Mark your calendars for June 4 '99 and the Kairos House Crisis Pregnancy Center banquet featuring Frederica Mathewes-Green. Call 978-365-9817 for details. MICHIGAN * Detroit - Area churches will have the 10th annual CPC baby shower. Everyone in Detroit and the surrounding area can participate. Call 248-777-9090 to participate. Right to Life of Detroit will also have a special mother's Day Dinner on May 4th in Troy, MI. Call for details. * Kalamazoo - Kalamazoo Right to Life will host a gala event on May 10th. They will also host the annual oratory contest for high school students March 25th. Call 372-8123 for information. * Lansing - Pregnancy Services of Greater Lansing, which offers positive alternatives to abortion, will hold a banquet on Tuesday, March 16, featuring speaker Frederica Mathewes-Green. A regular commentator in the major media, Mathewes-Green's most recent book is Real Choices: Listening to Women, Looking for Alternatives to Abortion. The banquet will take place at 6:30 p.m. at the Sheraton Hotel, located at 925 S. Creyts Road in Lansing. Tickets are only $7.50 per person. To order tickets, call PSGL at (517) 332-0633 or (517) 332-7655. * Livonia - Michigan Nurses for Life will hold their 3rd annual Spring Seminar on Saturday, April 24, 1999 in the Kresge Auditorium at Madonna University in Livonia, Michigan from 8:30am to 1:45pm. The seminar is entitled "Speak More Effectively about Life Issues". The purpose of the seminar is to motivate and equip professional nurses to be effective life issue educators. Lunch and coffee are included in the registration fee. 4.8 continuing credits will be available. Registration for RNs, LPNs and the general public is $30.00; MNFL members, $25.00; students, $15.00. For more information, please call 248-816-8489. NEVADA * Northern Nevada - Fr. Peter West of Priests for Life is coming to northern Nevada March 26-29. On Frida,the 26th,Fr. West will be the guest on KIHM's live call-in show from 7-9 am. Saturday and Sunday, Fr. West will travel to Winnemucca Nevada and speak at all the masses at the local Catholic church, St. Paul's. There will be separate meetings for youth and adults, and a prayer service. For further information call: 775-625-2914. NEW YORK * Albany - Teri Reisser, author of "Help for the Post-Abortion Woman, will be conducting a two-day post-abortion training seminar on May 7-8. Contact: Cindy Lobel (518) 283-3699 * Binghampton/Vestal - The All Woman's Help Center (CPC) has volunteer training on March 4th, a Spring Fling fundraiser April 15th, and their auction/dinner in May. Call 607-757-2675 or 607-723-3540 for details. OHIO * Dayton - Teri Reisser, author of "Help for the Post-Abortion Woman, will be conducting a one-day post-abortion training seminar on Thursday, April 22. Contact: Vivian Koob (937)274-2273 * West Union - The Adams Co, Crisis Pregnancy Center will hold a Walk for Life on April 24th. Call 544-6014. They also have training for counselors and volunteers during March. PENNSYLVANIA * Philadelphia - Alpha Pregnancy Services has hotline training beginning March 4th. Call 215-735-6028. They also will feature Dr. Jean Staker garton, former head of Lutherans for Life and the author of 'Who Broke the Baby,' at their annual banquet on April 16th. Call for details. TEXAS * Austin - Life Care pregnancy Services will have their benefit banquet on March 11th. Call 512-835-2343 for details.
	Post-Abortion Speaker Featured at Catholic Churches in Oregon Source: Portland Oregonian, March 1 Portland -- Standing at the altar in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary with child, next to a purple-robed priest solemnly looking on, Liane Wolters confessed to what no woman had publicly admitted in a Portland Roman Catholic church before: She had an abortion. Her highly personal story, told during Masses Saturday and Sunday, signaled an areawide push for a Catholic psto-abortion outreach called Project Rachel that has spread to 130 dioceses across the country. The project is uniquely Catholic, emphasizing healing and forgiveness for women suffering post-abortion regret and trauma. It's similar to widespread Protestant efforts with similar goals. The programs have their critics, mostly abortion advocates who deny the existence of post-abortion trauma despite much research revealing it. It was in this broader context that Wolters walked to the pulpit at St. Rose of Lima church, in Northeast Portland, during Sunday Mass. The fact that a lay person would address the congregation at all during this sacred time was unusual. That role usually is reserved for priests. But that Wolters would tell of her abortion, considered a sin so severe that it's technically grounds for excommunication, was extraordinary. Doug Alles, director of social services for Catholic Charities in the Portland archdiocese said he thinks the public admission was a first in the archdiocese. Wolters, who has told her story more than 20 times in the Seattle archdiocese, where she lives, said she is certain her Portland testimony was unprecedented because of the layers of permission that were necessary, all the way up to the archbishop. She told a rapt audience that she was raised "in a strong, pro-life Catholic family, went to Catholic schools and worked in a Catholic convent," always attending Mass at least once a week. Yet 24 years ago, at age 19, she had a relationship with an older businessman and became pregnant. "Everything was smooth for a few weeks until he gradually stopped talking about marriage and started talking about abortion," Wolters said. Wolters said she had an abortion and "was never the same again." Three years later she had a second abortion, again under pressure from a man she was having a relationship with. "I withdrew from him and more into myself, refusing to deal with either abortion," Wolters said. "I was totally numb. I never smiled nor could I have fun. I simply did not know how." Wolters eventually married and had three children but said she was unable to hug her children or tell them she loved them. "For years I had a strong urge to cut myself while cooking, and when I did, I passed them off as accidents," she said. "I had to fight with myself to control my car because I wanted to crash into the side of the freeway wall." These were, she said, "the classic symptoms of self-abuse stemming from an abortion experience." She said she repeatedly confessed her sin to a priest through the sacrament of penance but "left feeling as empty as before I went in." She joined a Protestant support group called "Heart to Heart," and learned that "I was not crazy, that others had experienced the same feelings and behaviors as I did." Still, she longed to connect with fellow Catholics who had similar experiences. Eventually, through Project Rachel she found the self-forgiveness she was looking for. Project Rachel was founded in 1984 by Vicki Thorn, a Milwaukee woman who tells of studies saying Catholic women are just as likely to have abortions as non-Catholics. American bishops, acutely aware of the problem, embraced Project Rachel, named after an Old Testament woman who wept inconsolably about the loss of her children. Pope John Paul II gave it his blessing. Thorn set up a national hot line (800-593-2273) and says she has trained as many as 10,000 priests and lay counselors with techniques to meet the needs of women, and sometimes men, suffering after abortions. In an interview, Thorn said those techniques include "naming the child, working through a memorial to the child and writing a letter to the baby." The trauma often takes 10 years or more to surface, Thorn said, with some women coming to grips with it when they become grandmothers. For others, she said, the trauma is triggered by infant baptisms, a miscarriage, a movie that discusses prenatal development or the realization that the unborn child they conceived would be a teen-ager if not aborted. At the Mass, Wolters told of a 12-week confidential program offered through her archdiocese in Seattle and "healing retreats" that led to her psychological and spiritual restoration, as well as new bonding with her three children. In the Portland archdiocese, Project Rachel has been quietly in existence since 1994 but is being promoted for the first time this year, with an Oregon hot line (800-249-8074), a small army of counselors and an April 16-18 retreat. Wolters' story during the weekend Masses was part of the advertising. She told the congregation to "never judge a woman who has had an abortion" because "this decision was probably not made on her own," but came with pressure from a boyfriend, husband, parents, or abortion facility staff. Still, she said "abortion is never the right choice," and that she probably wouldn't have had one if she had heard a Catholic woman tell her story of abortion long ago. When told of the Catholic ministry, Sandi Hansen, the Oregon affiliate of the national Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, called it hypocritical. "This person is not bad. She shouldn't feel the need for confession. She's not a sinful person." Hansen intimated that women who have had abortions should feel no remorse. Yet, Lynne Bissonnette, a Portland psychiatrist, said, "I have taken care of a number of women who have had an abortion and who have regretted it and had depression afterwards." After her Sunday testimony, a handful of churchgoers told Wolters of their own pain after abortions. Wolters said her experience, and the experience of hundreds she has counseled, tells her that studies denying the severity of post-abortion trauma are politically motivated "baloney." The Rev. Richard Huneger, pastor at St. Rose of Lima, agreed and said he sees no inconsistency when the same Catholic church that condemns abortion offers a helping hand of restoration to those who have chosen it. "If someone kills a child in the womb, they should feel guilty about it," said Huneger, adding that few have been publicly excommunicated and that none who seek restoration will be. "They've done something contrary to God's will. That's the proper reaction to objective evil, just as someone who is acting in a racist way should feel guilty. "But we also recommend that where evil has been perpetuated there can be regret, sorrow, forgiveness and a future. This is the whole message of the Gospel, that the future can be different."
	Ex-Radio Host Guilty of Slander in Accusing Bob Dole of Abortion Source: Feb 27 associated Press/St. Louis Post Dispatch KANSAS CITY -- A former radio talk show host slandered a woman when he said she had an abortion after being impregnated by former Sen. Bob Dole in the early 1970s, a judge has ruled. In a ruling Thursday, Jackson County Circuit Judge John O'Malley set damages at $1 million. The former talk show host, Steve Glorioso, did not contest the case during the one-day trial on condition that any judgment be collected only from his insurance. Glorioso had a talk show on radio station KMBZ-AM when he made the remark in 1996 about Phyllis Wells Smith of Overland Park, Kan. Glorioso said on the air that Dole had arranged for Wells Smith to get an abortion at the University of Kansas Medical Center. Testifying Thursday, Wells Smith said she never had an abortion. She said she suffered embarrassment and mental problems after Glorioso's remarks on the air. he remarks also inaccurately caused some to doubt the pro-life stance of Senator Dole during the 1996 presidential campaign. Dole gave a deposition in the case in April. In it, Dole, the 1996 Republican presidential nominee, was asked if Wells Smith became pregnant during their acknowledged relationship, if he had arranged an abortion for her, or if he ever arranged an abortion for anyone. Dole replied, "Absolutely not."
	Oregon: New Doctors Group Criticizes Oregon Assisted Suicide Law WASHINGTON -- A new group opposed to assisted suicide criticized Oregon's report on the Death With Dignity Act, saying on last Thursday that the study's conclusions are unfounded. Americans for Integrity in Palliative Care questioned the finding that people who died under Oregon's landmark law received adequate pain relief because more than two-thirds of them were enrolled in a hospice. While arguing that high levels of enrollment don't necessarily guarantee adequate care, the group also targeted the report for saying no person who chose suicide expressed a concern about the financial impact of their illness. The group said that just because patients didn't convey cost concerns to their doctors doesn't mean that the patients weren't worried about their pocket books. "There are conclusions here that are based on a lack of information," said Dr. Herbert Hendin, a professor at New York Medical College and a member of the group. "That's the big mistake in the report." Dr. Arthur Eugene Chin, who helped prepare the report for the Oregon Health Division, said the critics "bring up some very interesting points." He said it's true there were better sources for information about level of care and financial issues. But he said study authors didn't pursue that course because of privacy concerns. The group critical of the report lists former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop among the nine doctors and two lawyers who founded it late last year. It formed in part to call for federal legislation similar to bills proposed last year by pro-life Sen. Don Nickles (R-OK) and pro-life Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL) which would have derailed Oregon's assisted suicide law. The bills would have would have barred doctors from prescribing narcotics and other federally controlled drugs to help patients commit suicide. The presence of the new group could be an indication of the high stakes of the federal fight over the Oregon law this year. Nickles has promised to bring back his bill this Congress. People handed out information on the new group in a hallway at the National Press Club, where Dr. Katrina Hedberg, another author of the Oregon report, was giving a briefing on the report's findings last Thursday. Hendin and Dr. N. Gregory Hamilton, a clinical associate professor at Oregon Health Sciences University, later held a telephone conference call to criticize the Oregon report.

This page is reformatted and published by Christ's Faithful People from the News Letters of Steven Ertelt of Pro-Life InfoNet.