Mother Angelica: Two Thumbs Up!

I just started my subscription to your paper three to four weeks ago and I recommend it highly. I would like also to tell all Catholics in this nation that I also just had a box added to my cable TV and I can now get EWTN. It is great. Words can't describe how much it offers. Daily masses two to three times a day, Divine Mercy Novenas, daily rosary. One of the greatest programs is Bob and Penny Lord's “Visionaries, Saints, and Mystics.” And Sister Angelica is a gem — even her sense of humor is a great pick-me-up for a shady world!

Please encourage all Catholics to try to get the station. It is a breath of fresh air.

Evelyn Adam

Kansas City, Kansas

Abortion Survey

I am deeply concerned about the ramifications of the survey question asked and paid for by the pro-life Secretariat of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops which stated: “Should a person be able to take a minor girl across state lines to obtain an abortion without parents’ knowledge?” ("Parents’ Rights ‘Reasserted’ with House Passage of Child Custody Bill,” July 26-Aug 1).

Why is a representative of the Catholic Church even asking whether or not anyone should have the authority to take a minor across state lines to kill a child/grandchild created in the image and likeness of God? Does this question imply that if the parents agree to the slaughter of their grandchild, then the act is permissible?

In Michigan, parents of a 12-year-old incest victim, 29 weeks along in her child's uterine life, were granted permission to take the two human beings across state lines to Kansas so that one of them could be murdered. Is that acceptable to the proponents of the Child Custody Act?

Where is the heroic leadership that heeds neither polls, surveys, nor majority views, but only the moral law that presents an absolute prohibition of any act or action that results in the death of even one of our tiniest brothers or sisters?

Judith Brown

President American Life League, Inc.

NFP Statistics

Your report about the effectiveness of the Creighton Method of natural family planning ("Study Confirms Creighton Method's Reliability in NFP,” August 9-15) quoted Sister Hanna Klaus as noting that informed choice pregnancies are not included in the Creighton Method way of doing NFP statistics and that therefore the user effectiveness rate appears higher than for other NFP methods. This is a significant observation.

One of the five studies included in the five-state analysis was first published in 1985.

Written by Mrs. Joanne Doud, it claimed a very high user-effectiveness — 96.2%. However, the author also provided the raw data for independent analysis. Applying a commonly used standard to the 68 pregnancies that were unplanned according to the intention of the couple, yielded a user-effectiveness rate of 67%; another analysis yields a user-effectiveness rate of 80%; both are a far cry from the figure claimed by the Creighton Method way of doing statistics.

Your article said that Dr. Thomas Hilgers claims that there aren't many people who know how to do NFP effectiveness statistics. It also needs to be said that no one else in the entire NFP movement, to say nothing of the birth control industry, accepts the Creighton Method way of doing statistics. Everyone else thinks that it is important to include what the other statisticians call “imperfect-use” or “informed choice” pregnancies.

Some say that no question should be asked. However, co-author Dr. Joseph Stanford said he was looking forward to discussion of the controversies. The NFP movement is not made more credible to the rest of the world by unquestioning acceptance of questionable statistics.

John Kippley,

Director, Couple to Couple League