Kentucky Defines Life

ASSOCIATED PRESS, Feb. 21 — A Kentucky Senate committee approved a bill that effectively would define a life as beginning at the moment of conception and allow criminal wrongful death proceedings for causing the death of an unborn child, reported the Associated Press.

The committee, by a similar vote, approved a bill that places the use of RU-486 under all the legal restrictions relating to abortions.

Preacher Renounces Abortion

AMERICAN LIFE LEAGUE, March 2 — In a Slice of Life column, Judy Brown told “the story of a young black pastor who condemned abortion as a racist tool for reducing the number of black Americans.”

“He argued forcefully that the Roe v. Wade decision was flawed because — just like slavery — it made the right to privacy superior to the right to life.

Brown quoted what he would tell his audiences “with fiery conviction”: “You could not protest the existence of slaves … because that was private and therefore outside your right to be concerned.”

Saying his condemnation of abortion sometimes “had the quality of prophecy” she quoted another question the preacher asked: “What happens to the mind of a person and to the moral fabric of a nation that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience? Wha tkind of person and what kind of society willl we have … if life can be taken so casually?”

The preacher? The now pro-abortion Democratic Party activist Rev. Jesse Jackson. “Just five years after delivering that sermon,” wrote Brown, “the gangrene of abortion politics had poisoned his heart and captured his soul.”

Philippine President on NFP

THE MANILA TIMES, Feb. 16 — The president of the Philippines has emphasized her support for natural family planning as opposed to artificial contraception and abortifacient methods of birth control, reported the Manila Times.

Addressing the Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive Health, Phillipine President Macapagal-Arroyo told delegates from 21 countries that while people should be able to make informed choices, “I am glad & that efforts have already been made to develop a more reliable natural family planning method,” reported the Times.

The president stressed the need to “preserve the religious and cultural values” of the political movement that brought her to power.

Pharmacists' Conscience Clause

ASSOCIATED PRESS, Feb. 22 — A conscience clause to protect pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for abortion drugs advanced toward the Kentucky Senate, reported the Associated Press.

A physician can refuse on moral grounds to perform an abortion. A pharmacist should have an equal right, Sen. Elizabeth Tori, the bill sponsor, said in testimony to the Senate Health and Welfare Committee, reported the Associated Press.

She said the bill was aimed primarily at pharmacists who are employees, not owners, of a pharmacy. They could not be fired or otherwise punished for refusing to fill an abortion prescription if they had stated a conscientious objection.