Chastity in Calgary

THE GLOBE AND MAIL, May 28 — A Christian pro-life group has been welcomed into Calgary public schools to lecture about sex education — without parents being notified — leading to a bitter running battle with a local mothers' group, reported The Globe and Mail.

The Calgary Pregnancy Care Center promotes abstinence and advises that it has counseling services available to pregnant girls.

The Calgary Board of Education has tacitly allowed the group to continue presenting guest lectures when invited by teachers, drawing up a policy this winter that leaves it to school principals to decide whether an outside group should be kept out of the classroom.

When some parents have learned that the center will be giving a lecture, they immediately seek to bar the group.

“We've told the board of trustees that if … we have to do their job, which is making sure the curriculum is being taught properly — we will,” said Teri Posyniak, a member of Mad Moms Against Bad Sex Ed, which has a core of 10 members.

Neonates, Not Fetuses

CHRISTIAN BROADCASTING NETWORK — The federal government is preparing to re-define newborn babies as “neonates” until they are considered medically viable. A “neonate” is defined as a baby under four weeks of age, reported the Christian Broadcasting Network.

A Health and Human Services rule first written in 1975, and broadened by the Clinton administration, defined such newborns as “fetuses.” After a two-month review by the Bush White House, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson announced the term “fetus” should only apply to unborn babies.

John Cusey of the House pro-life caucus described the word “neonate” as a “term of respect,” reported CBN.

Many on Capitol Hill had feared the government was blurring the definition of the beginning of life by not granting newborn babies personhood, thus paving the way for legal infanticide.

Court Denies Abortion

ASSOCIATED PRESS, May 24 — The Alabama Court of Civil Appeals, split 3–2, denied an abortion for a 17-year-old who hadn't talked to anyone about the consequences of an abortion.

Montgomery attorney Julian McPhillips called it “a real victory for the parents of minor children who are pregnant.”

Alabama's parental consent law requires a female under 18 to get a parent's permission to have an abortion unless she obtains a judicial waiver. State law allows a judge to deny the abortion if the girl is immature and not well informed or if the abortion would not be in her best interests, reported the Associated Press.

The girl was a high school senior who was eight weeks pregnant.