Along with frightening news about terrorist attacks and sad news about war, been we've been inundated with bad news from home. Under cover of the war's smoke, politicians from California to Massachusetts have continued to push radical agendas mandating that employers cover contraceptive and abortion services and giving marriage-like benefits to the usually temporary pairings of homosexual partners.

More bad news is sure to come, but for now let's relish a few items of good news on the culture-of-life front.

Assisted suicide. The tragic Oregon law that turned doctors into killers wasn't merely a local matter. It implicated the federal government as well. In order to prescribe deadly doses of controlled medicines, doctors needed the permission of the U.S. Attorney General.

In the last administration, that office was glad to give the green light. Allowing medicines to kill, of course, runs counter to the very purpose the federal government has in regulating medicines to begin with.

Now, Attorney General John Ashcroft has announced that he will return to a policy in line with the civilized world. Hereforth, the feds are against making doctors participants in the false compassion of mercy killings.

In a letter to Drug Enforcement Administration head Asa Hutchinson, the attorney general demanded the suspension or revocation of the drug licenses of doctors who prescribe death. Ashcroft's move effectively invalidates Oregon's assisted-suicide law.

Post-abortion syndrome. Buried deep in the appropriations bill for the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education that recently passed the Senate, Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review found an amendment that recognizes the existence of “post-abortion depression and post-abortion psychosis.”

There's good news and bad news about the amendment. But the bad news isn't as significant as the good.

The good news: The amendment asks the National Institutes of Health to “expand and intensify research and related activities . . . with respect to post-abortion depression and post-abortion psychosis.”

The bad news: It has no teeth. The National Institutes of Health can ignore it without fear (and probably will). But the significant thing is that, if it survives and the president signs the bill, post-abortion syndrome will be recognized for the first time federally.

As Vicky Thorn, the founder of Project Rachel, pointed out in the Register, post-abortion syndrome is becoming too big a problem to ignore. She said abortion's “other victims” will lead the way to the defeat of abortion in America.

That's because these women know something abortion's law-makers — who are, after all, mostly men — choose to ignore. Abortion isn't an empowering “choice” that sets women free. It's a deadly decision, usually made in desperation and at the insistence of a baby's father, that haunts a woman for life.

As more and more of these women rise up against the abusive culture of abortion, the more difficult it will be for pro-abortion activists to ignore all the pain they cause.

Catholics needn't lose heart over the steady drumbeat of bad news. Good things continue to happen for the culture of life. With effort and prayer, even better things could be in store.