Healthy Despite Mother's Tumor

ASSOCIATED PRESS, Aug. 19 — A Dominican woman has given birth to a normal baby despite having a 16-pound tumor in her uterus, doctors said.

Isabel Santana, gave birth to a 6.8-pound baby boy. Doctors performed a Caesarean section during the birth and also extracted the benign tumor from her uterus, said Dr. Alcibiades Cruz, director of the Soto Gonzalez Clinic in Santo Domingo.

Doctors detected Santana's tumor three years ago and she had been undergoing treatment since then. Six months ago, doctors confirmed her pregnancy.

“We advised the patient to undergo a therapeutic abortion for her own health, but she refused when confronted with the possibility of never being able to have children,” Cruz said.

“The important thing is that I trusted God and my family because without them I would not have been able to do this,” said Santana.

R.I. Pro-Life Center Opens

PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, Aug. 16 — Prolifers have broken ground for a new crisis-pregnancy center that will sit next to an abortion facility in Providence, R.I.

After celebrating a noon Mass at the Holy Ghost Church, pro-lifers marched a few blocks to the vacant lot where the Mother of Life Center will be built. The ceremony drew about 100 church members and pro-life advocates. In addition to offering free counseling and emotional support, the center will have sonogram equipment, a library of pro-life literature and audio-visual sets and meetings to organize pro-life activities.

The fact that the center is being built within feet of an abortion business called Women's Surgical Services is intentional, said Joanne McOsker, head of Catholics for Life and the project chairperson.

Aussie Stay-at-Home Moms

THE AGE, Aug. 17 — Australian Archbishop George Pell has given his support to a government-funded maternity-leave plan and urged that any payments be extended to stay-at-home parents.

Archbishop Pell said the job of parenting was grossly undervalued, adding that the preference of some parents to give up work while their children were young should be supported, not derided. He cited studies showing that 70% of mothers prefer to provide full-time care to their children at home until they go to school.

Australian Embryo Research

AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATED PRESS, Aug. 21 — Embryos used for stem-cell research would be treated no better than laboratory rats, Cabinet minister Tony Abbott told the Australian Parliament. Abbott spoke during debate on a bill that would allow research on surplus in-vitro fertilization embryos and outlaw human cloning. Urging parliament to either split the bill — to allow a ban on human cloning — or defeat it, Abbot said embryonic stem-cell research would target entities which could not answer back.

He likened the issue to euthanasia, saying deliberately destroying an embryo was akin to giving it a lethal injection.