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Contents © 1999
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

November 1999 LITTLE NOTES

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AS IF THIS WEREN'T ENOUGH to warm hearts of Catholic pro-lifers, the diocese of San Diego on Saturday, October 30, sponsored a Respect Life Mass at Our Lady of Grace (El Cajon), procession to Family Planning Associates (San Diego's leading abortion provider since 1969), and prayer on sidewalk outside Family Planning.

AND THE DIOCESE, again under leadership of Kent Peters, is making solid effort to gather signatures for the Parental Notification Initiative. This initiative, which will require parents be notified in case of a minor seeking an abortion, needs one million signatures by early January. The diocese of San Diego has committed itself to bringing in 100,000 of that one million (this compared with commitments by diocese of Orange for 150,000; San Bernadino, 100,000; San Jose, 20,000; Fresno, 100,000; Monterey, 30,000; San Francisco, 75,000; Stockton, 30,000; Los Angeles (with nearly 1/2 of state's Catholics) is "having dificulty" (according to insider memo) making "commitments.") A petition for the Parental Notification Initiative has been inserted in this issue of News Notes.

SHROUD OF TURIN. Holy Angels Byzantine Catholic Church is sponsoring a bus trip to visit the Turin Shroud Center in Huntington Beach on Thursday, November 11. The center houses rooms with six life-size positive and negative transparencies of the Shroud, video room and library. Presentations will be given on history and science of Shroud. $20. Contact Dan McPherson, 858-453-3950.

WOMEN TOGETHER, a "collaborative effort" of Catholic Charities, Episcopal Community Services, and the YWCA, is a fundraiser November 17 at Harbor Island Marriott for battered women. Problem is that the event headliner is columnist Anna Quindlen, promoter of battering -- and killing of -- unborn babies. The same press packet describing Catholic beneficiaries -- House of Rachel, Rachel's Women's Center -- informs us that Quindlen sits on "Planned Parenthood Federation of America Board of Advocates and the Board of NARAL [National Abortion Rights League] Foundation." Public advocates of abortion listed as the fundraiser's "special guests": State Senator Dede Alpert, Assemblywoman Susan Davis, Assemblywoman Denise Ducheny, and San Diego City Councilwoman Christine Kehoe. Register complaints with Sister Raymonda Duvall, head of Catholic Charities, 619-231-2828. (Duvall is listed on the Women Together 1999 Committee.)

PRO-LIFERS PICKETED State College area homes of abortionists Robert Santella and Donald Byrnes on Saturday, September 25. Flyers were passed out which read, "Dr. Santella (Byrnes) comes to our neighborhood to conduct his grisly business of killing pre-born babies. Today we come to your neighborhood to tell the truth about what he does for a living." Santella works on as-needed basis for Family Planning Associates. Byrnes aborts babies one day a week at Planned Parenthood in Mission Valley. According to picketers, Byrnes has lived on Yerba Santa in College Area for only a few months. Pro-lifers learned in a previous picketing that he had told his former neighbors that he was a "weight-loss specialist."

NO PLACE TO HIDE. Pickets of abortionists George Kung and Bruce Tarzy on Saturday, November 13, 9:30 a.m. to 12 noon to be conducted by California Life Coalition. Meet at Rancho Bernardo Village Mall, corner of Rancho Bernardo Rd. and Pomerado Rd. Information, 619-562-3519.

BABY PARTS FOR SALE. Writing in the July issue of the Life Issues Institute's Connector magazine, Dr. John Willke, admitted, "After fighting abortion for 30 years I thought I had seen and heard it all, but not so." Like many other pro-lifers, Willke had previously believed that the abortion industry's ferocious opposition to outlawing just one abortion procedure (partial birth) arose solely from the fear that this would eventually lead to a total abortion ban. He was disabused of this notion by Life Dynamics Incorporated's first edition of its new Life Talk monthly pro-life video series, released in May. In this video Life Dynamics president Mark Crutcher interviews an informant given the pseudonym Kelly, an employee of a firm which procures and sells fetal tissue. In his article, "Baby Parts for Sale," Willke relates the revelations made by Kelly to Crutcher regarding practices within the abortion industry.

"What we did was to have a contract with an abortion clinic that would allow us to go there on certain days," she explained. "We would get a generated list each day to tell us what tissue researchers, pharmaceutical companies and universities were looking for .... We were looking for eyes, livers, brains, thymuses [lymphoid tissue], cardiac blood, cord blood, blood from the liver, even blood from the limbs." Victims were up to and over 30 weeks gestation, and only an estimated 2 percent of the late-term aborted babies had abnormalities. "95 percent of the time, she [the mother] was just there to get rid of the baby," Kelly disclosed. She saw about 30 to 40 babies of approximately 30 weeks gestation per week. "We would sell the tissue to private contractors. They in turn would sell to other universities and researchers. There was a high demand every week to buy such fetal tissue. It was shipped by UPS, FedEx, Airborne, and sometimes by special couriers." According to Kelly, these carriers were only aware that they were transporting human cells.

According to the October 11 Alberta Report Online Newsmagazine, which reported on the same interview, Kelly was working at a Planned Parenthood clinic which used partial-birth abortion for later pregnancies. This procedure allows the abortionist to deliver an intact fetal body from which organs can be obtained. "Mark Crutcher is now convinced that the research demand for intact late-term fetal organs is the hidden truth behind the partial-birth abortion controversy," the Alberta Report stated. Former abortionist Eric Harrah agrees, as reported in the Alberta Report: "This is the only type of abortion procedure that doesn't cost them [abortionists] to get rid of the dead baby. They actually make money." Kelly said that "sometimes, the fetus appeared to be dead, but when you'd open up the chest cavity you'd see the heart beating."

Kelly, who still works for this company, decided to share her eyewitness account with a pro-life organization after she saw a doctor drown a set of twins born alive at six months' gestation. Partial-birth abortion is a three-day procedure in which laminaria (seaweed cervix dilators) must be inserted into women beforehand. Sometimes the laminaria fall out, causing the mother to go into labor and deliver a live baby. "The doctor would either break the neck or take a pair of tongs and basically beat the fetus until it was dead," she explained. The Alberta Report states that Kelly reported three to four live births in a typical two-week period, in addition to the incident with the twins. Harrah told Life Dynamics that live births are the abortion industry's "dirty little secret." According to the Willke article, Kelly witnessed women who changed their minds being coerced into aborting by being told that it was too late to back out and being administered an incapacitating sedative. She said she observed lesbian clinic employees making degrading remarks about patients' genitalia and male and female employees later asking former patients for dates. A free copy of the "Kelly interview" may be obtained from Life Issues Institute, 1721 W. Galbraith Rd., Cincinnati, OH 45239 / 513-729-3600 / www.lifeissues.org / lifeissues@aol.com The May 1999 Life Talk video featuring this interview may be obtained from Life Dynamics Inc., P.O. Box 2226, Denton, TX 76202/940-380-8800 / www.ldi.org.

LOCAL PLANNED PARENTHOOD'S P-R DEPARTMENT, with the support of board member Jinx Ecke. convinced Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham to tour Planned Parenthood clinic in Escondido. Joining Ecke on the tour were Republicans for Choice leader Darlee Crockett and local Republican activist Ann Patton.

In PP words: "The Congressman, who has a decidedly anti-choice voting record, was so moved by what he saw at the clinic that he vowed to bring his new views on family planning to the House Floor. And he kept his word. The following excerpt from his speech was captured on C-SPAN on October 10 [1998].

"'I am pro-life, and I am not here to convince people for pro-life or pro-choice, but I had a very interesting perception of family planning units. That perception was wrong, and I speak as a pro-life member.

"'I went to a family planning center in San Diego and I saw women's health care [and] where we should at least come together on family planning. I saw women that in some cases would not receive health care in any other areas. They received mammograms and pap smears. They received doctor's evaluations and many were indigent people coming across the border. It is going to save a lot of people's lives, and prevent a lot of people from being exposed to cancer.

"'I think another area we need to come together is in the support of family planning methods which prevent unwanted pregnancies. Federal dollars are not used for abortion by family planning. It is all private. At least we ought to be able to come together on those issues that are for women's health care and those issues that help eliminate unwanted pregnancies. I say that again as a pro-life member.'"

Cunningham contact information: 2238 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20515-0551. Phone 202-225-5452. Fax: 202-225-2558. Or 613 West Valley Parkway, Suite 320, Escondido, CA 92025. Phone 760-737-8438. Fax 760-737-9132. Email: randy.cunningham@mail.house.gov

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