Register Now to Vote

PRIESTS FOR LIFE, Jan. 6 — Priests for Life has launched its National Christian Voter Registration Sundays project. The Staten Island, N.Y.-based Catholic pro-life group announced the project Jan. 6 along with other Christian organizations. The project's goal is to register voters at parishes across the country.

“The most important issue on which to evaluate a candidate is his or her position on abortion,” said Father Frank Pavone, Priests for Life's national director, “because if a politician cannot respect the life of a little baby, how is he supposed to respect yours?” Upcoming dates for the registration drive are March 7, May 2, July 4 and Sept. 5. For more information visit www.priestsforlife.org.

Minding Maryland

WBAL-TV (Baltimore), Jan. 7 — If the Pro-Life Caucus of the Maryland General Assembly has its way, abortion sites in the state will soon be regulated.

Members of the caucus, which plans to formally organize later this year, intend to introduce the Women's Health Protection Act in the Assembly's upcoming session. The legislation would amend state health codes to require freestanding abortion sites to be licensed and regulated.

The proposal would also require abortionists to report their procedures and any complications from them. Currently doctors are not required to report any information, which pro-life advocates say prevents the public from knowing the dangers of abortion.

Abortion Abstinence

LIFENEWS.COM, Jan. 6 — Health care professionals’ civil right to opt out of performing abortions in Mississippi will be upheld if pending legislation is passed this year.

Pro-Life Mississippi will promote the Healthcare Worker Right of Conscience Act in the upcoming legislative session. Mississippi is one of four states that don't offer protection to employees who refuse to perform procedures on moral grounds.

The group will also back another bill requiring reporting of medical treatments necessitated by abortion procedures.

There were 3,566 abortions performed in Mississippi in 2001, the latest year information is available, LifeNews.com reported. The number of women who had complications is unknown.

A Gain at Georgetown

CHILDREN OF GOD FOR LIFE, Jan. 6 — Georgetown University has ended its use of aborted fetal-cell lines in medical research.

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington contacted the Jesuit-run university in December when he learned from Children of God for Life, an organization that focuses its efforts to combat the use of aborted fetal cells in vaccines, that the cell lines were being used at the school's Medical Research Center.

“I am pleased to tell you,” Cardinal McCarrick said in his letter to Children of God for Life, LifeSite.net news reported, “that Georgetown Medical Center's Tissue Culture Bank is now well aware of the moral problems concerning use of certain cell lines and research involving tissue culture.”