Catholic Leadership

THE PRESS, Oct. 15 — In a stand that he hopes others will emulate, New Zealand Dr. Joseph Hassan has advised his patients that he will no longer prescribe contraceptives or refer them for sterilization procedures because they violate his Catholic faith, reported the Canterbury daily.

He told his female patients that fertility was a gift and not something to be medicated for like a disease.

Hassan said he might have acted sooner if he had witnessed another doctor do so first, and he hoped that his action will give others “something to think about.”

Catholic National Communications Director Lyndsay Freer said she knew of other Catholic doctors who would follow Hassan.

Awake Again, Naturally

REUTERS, Oct. 6 — Salvatore Crisafulli, 38, awoke from a two-year long coma after having been declared “nearly dead” by doctors who had given up treating him.

Crisafulli's case highlights a decision — made the same day he “woke up” — by the Italian National Bioethics Committee to recommend that the state must make it mandatory that such patients not be starved or dehydrated to death as in the U.S. court-ordered death of Terri Schiavo earlier this year.

Committee President Francesco D'Agostino said, “To feed an unconscious patient through a tube is not a medical act.”

Getting a Response

INDYBAY.ORG, Oct. 13 — Sometimes you can judge the success of a program by the response it ignites from opponents.

That was visible in the website's coverage of the pro-abortion Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights’ announcement that it would hold a rally to “mobilize people to counter the ‘Walk for Life’ that will be held on Jan. 21.”

The coalition, described by the activist website as “one of the Bay Area's oldest” pro-abortion groups, was “recently re-formed to mobilize resistance and raise awareness” in response to the pro-life movement.

The coalition reports that it is suffering under the “negative pressure” that was brought to bear by “5,000 members of the anti-choice community [who] marched in San Francisco streets” last January.

Race No Cure

THE POST AND COURIER, Oct. 19 — The Diocese of Charleston, S.C., and Bishop England High School have broken with the local “Race for the Cure” because the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Research Foundation is a source of funds for Planned Parenthood, a major abortion business.

The Oct. 22 race was expected to start in front of the high school as in past years, but school computers would not to be used to tabulate results as has been the case in the past.

“To support an organization from which moneys would be going eventually to a pro-abortion organization would be inconsistent” with Church teaching, said a diocesan spokesman.