In 909, Matilda married Henry (The Fowler) after his first marriage to a woman named Hathburg had been declared invalid. Matilda and Henry had several children: Otto I, who became Emperor of Germany, and Henry, who later became the Duke of Bavaria; St. Bruno, Archbishop of Cologne; Gerberga, who married Louis IV of France; and Hedwig, the mother of Hugh Capet. After Henry succeeded his father as Duke of Saxony, he was chosen to succeed King Conrad of Germany and became King Henry. Matilda was a very devout Christian and her royal status did not change that. She was humble, pious, and very devoted to the poor and afflicted.

In 936, King Henry died. He left everything to Matilda, but his wish was for his eldest son, Otto, to succeed him as King. Matilda, however, preferred their son Henry take the throne. Nonetheless, Otto was elected King. However, three years later, his brother Henry revolted against him to try to win the crown but lost. His mother, Matilda, through her intercession, finally secured the title of Duke of Bavaria for Henry. It wasn’t long after this appointment though, that both boys turned on their mother because they felt that she was squandering their father’s wealth on the poor. Matilda, in humility, relinquished all their father’s inheritance to her two sons and retired to her villa in Westphalia. Later, though, when her sons found themselves in the midst of misfortune they called her back and begged for her forgiveness.

Matilda went on to build many churches, and also founded many monasteries. The most well-known monasteries are at Quedlinburg, Nordhausen, Engern, and Poehiden.

Matilda died at the convent of Sts. Servatius and Dionysius at Quedlinburg on March 14, 968. She is buried there beside her husband, Henry. Matilda is the patron saint of parents of large families.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, Matilda was a good and devout queen mother on earth. We thank you for her example to her children and others but we also thank you for our Queen Mother in heaven, Blessed Virgin Mary. We pray for their intercession that all mothers may seek their example. Amen.

Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice.”

A Marvelous thing is longsuffering; it places the soul as in a quiet harbor, fleeing it from tossings and evil spirits. And this everywhere Christ hath taught us, but especially now, when He is judged, and dragged, and led about. For when He was brought to Annas, He answered with great gentleness, and, to the servant who smote Him, said what had power to bring down all his insolence; thence having gone to Caiaphas, then to Pilate, and having spent the whole night in these scenes, He all through exhibiteth His own mildness; and when they said that He was a malefactor, and were not able to prove it, He stood silent; but when He was questioned concerning the Kingdom, then He spake to Pilate, instructing him, and leading him in to higher matters. But why was it that Pilate made the enquiry not in their presence, but apart, having gone into the judgment hall? He suspected something great respecting Him, and wished, without being troubled by the Jews, to learn all accurately. Then when he said, “What hast thou done?” on this point Jesus made no answer; but concerning that of which Pilate most desired to hear, namely, His Kingdom, He answered, saying, “My Kingdom is not of this world.” That is, “I am indeed a King, yet not such an one as thou suspectest, but far more glorious,” declaring by these words and those which follow, that no evil had been done by Him. For one who saith, “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth,” showeth, that no evil hath been done by Him. Then when He saith, “Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice,” He draweth him on by these means, and persuadeth him to become a listener to the words. “For if,” saith He, “any one is true, and desireth these things, he will certainly hear Me.” — St. John Chrysostom, Homily LXXXIV

All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Notice the word “all;” also the omission of any words prescribing or implying legislation from the bench.  Furthermore, usurping or stealing power by elites bedecked in their black robes is contrary to the principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence.  Three times it mentions usurpation as justification for the American Revolution.

Yet today the basic direction of American society is decided more by courts than by the polarized and paralyzed U.S. Legislative Branch.  As has often been said, “Power abhors a vacuum.”  That a usurping Judiciary pushed into the void should surprise no realistic student of politics.

The role of the Federal courts as a battering ram in the culture war is a well-documented process covering the years 1962/63 to date.  A relatively recent case of judicial activism, took place on the eve of John Roberts’ September 2005 appointment as Chief Justice, [Kelo v. New London, Connecticut (6/23/2005)].  The Kelo decision tore down protections for small land holders against corporate developers.

As outgoing Justice O’Conner argued in her Kelo dissent:

Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms.

Thus, government may now seize private property not just for public use — as in long-accepted eminent domain proceedings — but for private profiteering.  Our judicial oligarchs permit city hall to level your neighborhood or tear down your parish church, in order to make space for condos or a shopping mall or an office building.

The latest windfall for the wealthy concerned the prerogatives of voters as against corporations seeking to influence elections [Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010)].  Issued on January 21st of this year, the edict facilitates the manipulation of elections by curtailing restraints on corporate campaign financing.  Overturning longstanding limits on campaign contributions by transnational and domestic mega-corporations, the Court announced glibly that decades of restriction on big money had “‘muffled the voices that best represent the most significant segments of the economy.’”  Do not worry about public reaction, the Court comforted the moneyed class, for “the appearance of influence or access will not cause the electorate to lose faith in this democracy”  (Citizens United v. FEC, pages 5-6, 38).

Their reassurances notwithstanding, enhanced opportunity for the companies with large political war chests will certainly diminish populist influence in elections — whether progressive populism like some three million donors to the Obama campaign in 2008, or conservative populism like today’s Tea Party movement.  Populist efforts to upgrade morals in our culture on such issues as life, marriage and pornography will also be swamped by a tide of corporate spending.

Although the ethics at stake in this latest case of judicial usurpation were political /economic more than cultural, one of the “Catholic” Justices, Anthony Kennedy, could not refrain from a backhanded swipe at enforcement of morals.  Writing for the neoconservative majority (Citizens United v. FEC, p. 24), Kennedy put earlier efforts to censor pornography [citing US v. Playboy, 529 US 803 (2000)] on a par with censorship of political speech in the mass media when financed by mega-corporations.

This is characteristic of much neoconservative dogma favoring laissez faire capitalism.  After all Playboy, inc. is an American corporation, and the Court is obliged (they say) to put the free market at liberty to do its thing.  Too bad for you, O Christian citizen; because the oligarchy’s overriding ethic is to subject citizen/consumers to the moral sway of unrestrained capitalism with its driving force — the profit motive.

Mind you, the main culprits here are not businessmen themselves, but the big corporations in league with corruptible Federal officials.  As individuals, some CEOs are brave enough to go against the flow of corporate culture, and in such cases they may band together in organizations like Legatus.  With some 4500 Catholic business leaders internationally Legatus’ stated mission is to “study, live and spread the Faith in our business, professional and personal lives.”

It is obtuse and foolish, however, to look to corporate America generally as an ally in advancing the culture of life.  Pope John-Paul II addressed this problem after the fall of Marxism from power after the Revolution of ‘89.  While celebrating the demise of Communism in Europe, he warned also against the perils of capitalism, with its “viruses” like secularism, consumerism, and hedonism.  “Unfortunately,” said he in an understatement, “not everything the West proposes as a theoretical vision or as a concrete lifestyle reflects Gospel values.”

For example, big pharmaceutical cartels reap billions in profits by bilking us, the poor and the middle class, when we get sick.  One of their strategies is to oppose competition from less pricey pharmaceuticals in Canada, Latin America, and overseas.  During 2008, the two biggest American pharmas, Johnson & Johnson and Phizer/Wyeth, earned annual revenues totaling $135 billion.  These two American firms, and others not quite so large, have big bucks galore — enough to blitz Congress with an army of lobbyists advocating the equivalent of tariffs on prescription drugs.

As regards the tide of pornography that engulfs the nation, who has financed and pushed this obscenity upon our culture if not corporate America?  Annual pornography revenues have reached $13 billion / year in America [more than the combined revenues per annum of ABC, CBS, and NBC (2006 statistics)].  To be sure the courts adroitly opened the floodgates.  But it was CEOs like Hugh Heffner, Larry Flint and their followers who created the reeking tsunami.

Another sort of obscenity is the trade that rakes in profits by making other nations’ wars more destructive.  High tech corporations headquartered in the United States do a multi-billion dollar business every year in arms sales, making the USA the leading nation in the international arms trade.  Much of the exportation of American weaponry goes to countries labeled undemocratic by the U.S. State Dept., and often to third world countries.  The military-industrial complex, against which President Eisenhower warned in his farewell address, is now a pervasive and gargantuan reality.

Examples abound of why it is fallacious to see corporate America as inclined to assist in the restoration of Judeo-Christian standards.  Consider the likes of Ford Motors, Levi Strauss, Pepsi, US Bank, Wells Fargo, IBM, and Motorola.  These and a host of other large firms employ money and boardroom policy for the purpose of mainstreaming same-sex sodomy into the culture.  See, for example, the long list of powerful corporate partners in the national GLBT Chamber of Commerce.  Among the corporations working against traditional marriage in California (Proposition 8 ) were Apple Computers and Google.  Proponents for the GLBT agenda (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender) are not so much small businesses, as politicized mega-corporations.

On the abortion front, Planned Parenthood is itself a billion dollar corporation.  Its funding comes in part from Warren Buffet, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Carnegie Corp. of New York, Chase Manhattan Corp., Hershey Corp., Prudential Insurance, and many such foundations financed by corporate America.

Corporate America frequently brings political power to bear against the interests of churches and religious citizens.  Like arsonists suddenly set at liberty in the Capitol Building, too many corporations are conflagrating what our Christian forefathers and foremothers took generations to build.

If we are to extinguish these fires, we cannot confuse friend with foe.  We the people must disabuse ourselves of the notion that corporate America is a likely ally in the fight against moral decline.  On the contrary, gigantic corporations and multinationals are intrinsically amoral.  Their overriding interest is the bottom line.  The impetus for a cultural upgrade must be sought elsewhere.

“You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the LORD” — Leviticus 19:32 ESV.

In Christopher Buckley’s 2007 novel Boomsday, a charismatic 20-something with a generational ax to grind and an ambitious politician pair up to campaign for government-sanctioned suicide of the “resource hogging” Baby Boomer generation.  The en masse retirement of Boomers threatens to sabotage the financial future of America’s working-age citizens.  Cast in the same take-no-prisoners, satirical vein as his novel-turned-blockbuster hit Thank You For Smoking, Boomsday addresses the very real, very imminent financial and demographic crisis facing America.

Writing for Real Clear Politics in 2007, columnist Robert Samuelson explained why Boomsday strikes such a chord with Boomers and Millennials alike:

Buckley’s comic tale revolves around two truths usually buried in our dreary budget debates.  First, a generational backlash is inevitable.  It may not come as attacks on sunbathing retirees, but the idea that younger workers will meekly bear the huge tax increases needed to pay all boomers’ promised benefits is delusional.  The increases are too steep, and too many boomers — fairly wealthy and healthy — will seem undeserving.

It’s certainly difficult to muster much sympathy for the retirement concerns of the Boomers with visions of “sunbathing retirees” dancing in our heads, but it’s worth considering the broader question of how society’s changing view of the elderly throughout the years has contributed to this Great Divide between generations.

There was a time, believe it or not, when the question of finding someone to support the needs of the elderly in their twilight years of life wasn’t a question at all, but a duty embraced by family and community.  Before the advent of the modern welfare state (and the corresponding shift from an extended family to a nuclear family model as the social norm), it was understood that aging relatives would be cared for by family, often with the support of community associations like churches or civic groups.  The elderly were not viewed as “burdens” or “resource hogs,” but rather as venerated members of the family – depositories of great wisdom to whom the highest respect and honor were owed.  Thus, the extra work required to support these elderly relatives was not considered extraordinary, unjust, or unfair.

Fast forward to the modern day, and it’s clear that our social attitudes about the elderly, even our own family members, has changed dramatically.  As mentioned earlier, various social, cultural, and technological developments over the last century have contributed to the abandonment of the extended family in favor of a focus on the nuclear.  Children rarely find themselves living in the same town as their parents and siblings, and once they start their own families, ties to grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins are limited by time and distance.  In an era of government entitlements, chief of which are Medicare and Social Security, there is no longer an emergent need for family to stick together in order to provide crucial material support for one another in times of need.  Most elderly people today live in their own homes, separated from their loved ones by hundreds of miles.  If Granny slips and falls in her bathtub or her kitchen, chances are it will be the friendly folks at Life Alert — not her own flesh and blood — who will come to her rescue.  One too many accidents, and Granny’s Medicare or Medicaid will pay to place her in a nursing home.

On top of the fact that our society has shifted the “burden” of eldercare from the family to the state, our culture has also changed the way we think about old age.  With each passing decade America has become more and more obsessed with youth and more and more terrified of death.  We spend billions of dollars a year on products and procedures guaranteed to roll back the clock, often at the expense of other health issues and often with the help of a credit card.  It’s no surprise, then, that we are less inclined to want to care for our aging relatives, who would otherwise remind us daily that no amount of money spent in pursuit of a youthful appearance can prevent the inevitable:  In the end, no one gets out alive.

America’s obsession with youth has another ugly consequence: an increasingly utilitarian attitude about life in general.  We have come to define the net worth of individuals solely in economic terms: What do we produce?  What can we afford to consume?  Do our assets exceed our liabilities?  Unfortunately, the costs — both financial and personal — of caring for an elderly relative don’t contribute much to the bottom line.  It’s a burden we have become unwilling to bear.

But bear the burden we will, whether we like it or not.  Without a robust family-centered culture to care for America’s elderly, the State will continue to expand its role in this arena.  And as the worker-to-retiree ratio continues to shrink, Uncle Sam will be forced to take more of our money to finance the rising costs of health care and other benefits for the elderly in America.  There’s no shortage of blame to go around for this situation, and as America continues to become a mass-geriatric society its doubtful that we can avoid the coming crisis that is “boomsday.”

The only remaining hope is that we as a society can learn from our mistakes, move away from our radical individualistic, self-centered mindset, and rediscover the great blessings — and great responsibilities — of true family.

While the most remarkable element of this parable is Jesus’ depiction of the Father, I want to start with the two sons. They have a way of representing us all. Most of us find ourselves like one or the other at different points in our lives. The younger son struggles with being immature on several levels and wanting to find meaning in the pleasures of life. The second struggles with pride, thinking that he is better than the younger son and that he has it harder than the younger.

The younger son is quite brash. He basically slaps his father in the face. He asks for half of the father’s inheritance before the father has passed away. Then, he squanders that inheritance on a life of dissipation, foolishly pursuing pleasure without concern for others. He ends up broke and tending the pigs on a farm which, for a Jew, symbolized that he had reached the depths of despair and humiliation. When he has literally nowhere to turn, he decides to go home to his father and ask for a place among the hired hands.

The older son, on the other hand, has a hardened heart. He seems jealous of his father’s affection for the younger son. He can’t understand why the return of the prodigal is so important to the father when he himself has been so responsible over the years. He can’t bring himself to celebrate his brother’s return. He even gets angry with the father for being so quick to take the profligate son back into his home.

The power and the beauty of the parable lie in Jesus’ depiction of the father. The father starts by giving half of his inheritance to a young son long before his death, an unheard of act of generosity. While the son was still a long way off, the father catches sight of him, giving us the sense that the father was constantly looking down the road, anxiously waiting to glimpse his son in the distance. This father would not rest until he has his son back by his side. Furthermore, the father is “filled with compassion” upon his arrival, not anger or contempt. Then, the father runs to his son, embraces him and kisses him. The robe, ring and sandals were clear symbols for the Jew that the young man was being reinstated as a son in the family because what he had done earned the punishment of being cast out of the family and permanently banned.

What do you think was dearest to the father’s heart, his estate or his son, his reputation or his son, his frustration or his son?

This is certainly the family of which I want to be a member. This is the father I want to call my own. This is the house where I want to spend eternity.

We are invited by this great parable to ask ourselves some questions this Lent. Which brother do I resemble these days? Am I being young and immature with my use of the Father’s gifts? Am I in pleasure-seeking mode? Am I thinking that the world revolves around me? Am I convinced that life is all about good times? Am I aware of the needs of those around me? Am I forgetful of where my gifts come from and that I have been given them to use in the service of others?

Am I like the older, hardened son? Do I regularly look down on others with disdain? Am I frustrated because I try so hard and others do not? Am I proud of my progress on the journey of life? Do I constantly compare myself with others? Do I have a difficult time when others receive the attention of friends, family members or colleagues at work?

Jesus uses this parable to paint a picture of our heavenly Father whose mercy is deeper than the oceans and endures forever. With a Father like that, how can we ever be afraid to come home? How can we not be moved to look over our lives, see where we have gone astray, and come back to Him with humble and contrite hearts?

In the immediate future, Stevens is more likely to go. He’s served since 1975, turns 90 in April, and is said to be visibly slowed. The best indication of his intentions may be that he’s hired only one clerk for next year. That’s the number allowed to retired justices, whereas active justices get four.

Ginsburg, 77, is less likely to step down right now. Although she’s been treated twice for cancer, she apparently enjoys her work and is in no hurry to quit. One scenario  has her staying through the court’s current term and the one after it, then stepping down well before the 2012 presidential election to make sure that it’s Obama, not somebody else, who proposes her successor.

If Obama does get to make new picks for the Supreme Court, it goes without saying that he will select liberals. It’s a bit soon to be absolutely certain, yet already it seems reasonably clear, that his 2009 choice, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, falls in that category. We should know more about that before the present term ends in June.

Sotomayor replaced David Souter—a liberal for a liberal, it appears. If new Obama nominees replace Stevens and Ginsburg, that will be liberals replacing liberals again. The obvious effect of these changes will be that the president has made the court younger than it was when he came to office but, up to that point at least, not accomplished ideological change.

To be sure, words like “liberal” and “conservative” often prove not to be comfortable fits for labeling Supreme Court justices. Bearing that in mind, it’s nonetheless not unfair to say that, as presently constituted, the court breaks down 4-4-1—four conservatives, four liberals, and one swing vote.

The conservatives are Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito. The liberals are Stevens, Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and, apparently, Sotomayor. The swing voter is Anthony Kennedy. It is a remarkable and unprecedented fact that six of these—Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Sotomayor, and Kennedy—are Catholics. But, as their voting records suggest, religion has no visible bearing on how they decide cases.

The ideological makeup of the Supreme Court does, however, have a very strong bearing on the way it’s likely to deal with social issues like abortion and same-sex marriage. As matters now stand, the four liberals are solid votes in favor of legalized abortion and the four conservatives are no less solidly in favor of at least some restrictions on the practice. The justices have not been tested on same-sex marriage but would probably split the same way on that question.

This leaves Kennedy. He’s a supporter of the 1973 abortion decision, Roe v. Wade, but in 2007 wrote the majority opinion upholding the federal ban on partial-birth abortion. As for same-sex marriage, in 2003 he wrote the court’s opinion striking down state anti-sodomy laws yet at the same time made the improbable assertion that the ruling wasn’t relevant to the marriage question.

Like the flowing river of ancient Greek philosophy, the Supreme Court is always the same and always changing. Keep your eye out for what floats by next.

The term “person” applies to all living human organisms from the beginning of their biological development, regardless of the means by which they were procreated, method of reproduction, age, race, sex, gender, physical well-being, function, or condition of physical or mental dependency and/or disability.

Further, harkening back to the struggle over slavery in the nineteenth century, the CHRA web site quotes the illustrious Joshua R. Giddings, who commented on the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution regarding the fact that human personhood is absolute:

Our fathers, recognizing God as the author of human life, proclaimed it a “self evident truth” that every human being holds from the Creator an inalienable right to live … If this right be denied, no other can be acknowledged. If there be exceptions to this central, this universal proposition, that all men, without respect to complexion or condition, hold from the Creator the right to live, who shall determine what portion of the community shall be slain? And who shall perpetrate the murders?

What is perhaps most stunning however is not that Giddings was focused on protecting every single individual, but that he made his statement based on the facts about the founding fathers of this nation and their perspective on the Creator and moral absolutes.

Rev. Edward J. Melvin, C.M., in analyzing the problematic nature of a secularist Supreme Court, has written, “The Founders placed belief in God and acceptance of natural moral law (derived from reason and corroborated in Judeo-Christian revelation) as the foundation of the American system.”

In fact, Melvin quotes George Washington himself:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports … In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness—these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens … And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

It is this very point that makes the case for the current struggle to achieve protection for the least in our midst by constitutionally clarifying through human personhood amendments the identity and the rights of the preborn. There is no question that the fact of human personhood is grounded in those very principles that Washington so brilliantly enunciated, that our founding fathers so artfully included in the United States Constitution and which Giddings reiterated during the 14th Amendment debates.

The California Human Rights Amendment proponents are doing nothing less than carrying on with the agenda George Washington and his peers put in place for this nation and her laws. This is why so many individuals and organizations of national repute have joined Pastor Hoye and his colleagues in this effort.

Dr. Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; leaders of BlackGenocide.org; the Family Research Council; Frederick Douglass Foundation; Theology of the Body Institute and others endorse CHRA.

These leaders and organizations represent the majority position of Americans. This is why they are lining up to endorse an initiative that is currently reigniting the pro-life movement. By focusing on the human rights and civil rights of every human person, these efforts embrace a different way of looking at abortion and other threats against human beings’ lives.

That’s the message of the personhood movement and the California Human Rights Amendment lead by black pastor and civil rights icon, Walter Hoye.

Hoye knows what is at stake and writes in an essay entitled “The Unarmed Truth”:

When accepting the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10th, 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “I believe that ‘unarmed truth’ and ‘unconditional love’ will have the final word in reality. This is why “right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil “triumphant.”

Today, the “unarmed truth” is that the preborn child is a person not property.

I believe personhood is God-given and not government-granted. It is not offered to the elite and denied to the “least of these.”

I believe personhood, addresses the most important RIGHT of all … the RIGHT to LIVE, without which all other rights are meaningless.

I believe personhood is RIGHT.

The “unconditional love” for the preborn child in my heart, is rooted in the love Christ has for all. While the current conditions may have “temporarily defeated” the personhood of the preborn child I believe the “righteousness of personhood” is stronger than the “evil of prenatal murder” and will ultimately prove triumphant.

I believe personhood is the final word in reality of the pro-life movement.

Hoye is joined by such California luminaries as Dr. Jim Garlow, Proposition 8 leader and founding director of the California Pastors Rapid Response Team. In his endorsement of CHRA, Garlow said,

Is it not amazing that we are forced, in our so-called advanced society, to defend the notion of personhood? Is it not shocking that supposedly bright people will not protect the most innocent and helpless person, the one in the womb? Have we not learned from slavery how to properly define a person? Have we learned nothing from Hitler’s Reich regarding the definition of personhood?

Not only that, but the president of the Family Research Council, Tony Perkins, stated in his endorsement: “Other states should draw inspiration from the commitment and perseverance of those behind the California Human Rights Amendment. This is not about party affiliation or ideology. This is about recognizing the sanctity of human life and citizens’ obligation to enact laws to protect it.”

Likewise, Fr. Thomas Euteneuer, president of Human Life International, applauded the California initiative: “Let’s start healing this national shame by affirming the personhood of every human being – in law – and start living as if we meant it.”

“Even as Dred Scott was considered less than fully human, such is the case for the preborn babies in the womb,” said Dr. Alveda King in her endorsement of the CHRA.

Dr. Clenard Childress of BlackGenocide.org pointed out that human personhood is the crux of the nation’s struggle against racism. “Our prayer is that personhood would be restored to its proper place in the minds, hearts and legislation of America,” Childress said.

Other endorsers of the CHRA include La Verne Tolbert, PhD, former Planned Parenthood board member, Georgia; Rebecca Kiessling, family law attorney, Michigan; Kurt Ramspott, founder, Guys For Life, Inc.; Dana Cody, president and executive director, Life Legal Defense Foundation; Kristen L. Chestnut, RN, JD, member, board of directors, California Nurses for Ethical Standards; Dean Nelson, executive director, Network of Politically Active Christians and vice chairman, Frederick Douglass Foundation; Jennifer Roback Morse, PhD, founder and president, The Ruth Institute; David Bereit, national director, 40 Days for Life and the California Republican Assembly.

It is a blessing for American Life League to be part of this remarkable drive that is moving throughout the state of California like a whirlwind. All who have endorsed this project are of the same mind: PERSONHOOD NOW!

To learn more, to get involved or, if you reside elsewhere, to donate to CHRA, please visit http://www.californiahumanrights.com/content/get-involved.

The time is now, the cause is just.

Stressing the importance for governments to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, government delegations and UN officials have lamented the lack of progress on MDG 5, to improve maternal health. At the opening of the conference, Deputy Secretary-General Rachel Mayanja stated that there has been “limited progress on reproductive health” and that “maternal mortality remains unacceptably high.” Mayanja emphasized that “almost all these deaths could be prevented.”

In the soon-to-finish two week meeting, member states are battling over a resolution on maternal mortality introduced by the United States. Since its introduction last week, the European Union has been trying to amend the resolution to include “sexual and reproductive health and rights.” Negotiations are expected to last to the end of the conference on Friday afternoon.

Seeking to influence negotiations, dueling brochures on maternal mortality have been circulated in the UN halls during CSW, which highlight the different approaches to reducing maternal mortality. The US-based National Right to Life Committee brochure focuses on skilled birth attendants and access to good basic health care as the most effective means of reducing maternal deaths.  National Right to Life asserts that the “maternal mortality argument for allowing abortion fails entirely—legal abortion only leads to more abortions and, as a result, more abortion-related complications for women.” In sum, “better medical care, not abortion, is the solution to the problem of maternal deaths in the developing world.”

Conversely, an almost identical-looking brochure produced by abortion advocate Ipas claims that “safe, legal and voluntary” abortion will eliminate “unsafe abortion” and “ensure fewer maternal deaths and better reproductive health, especially for women in developing countries.”

According to Ipas, “Legally permitting safe abortion and making abortion services widely accessible, in accordance with guidance from the World Health Organization, has a significant positive impact on women’s health and rights in countries with high rates of unsafe abortion and restrictive laws.”

The World Health Organization’s statistics reveal that the countries with the most restrictions on abortion also have the lowest maternal mortality figures.

The issue of maternal mortality is expected to remain at the top of the development agenda this year with three upcoming international conferences – NGO-organized Women Deliver 2 in June, the UN Annual Ministerial Meeting scheduled in July and a High Level Review of the MDGs scheduled for next fall after the opening of the General Assembly.

Newsweek’s Sarah Kliff proclaimed: “One hundred thousand people have watched Angie Jackson’s abortion. Late last month, Jackson posted a video of herself to YouTube, recorded after she took RU-486, a medication used to end pregnancies.” Kliff asked only “why shame remains” about the act of killing one’s baby. Jackson was honored for her courage in “demystifying” and “destigmatizing” the procedure: “We need 10,000 more of her,” proclaimed Peg Johnston, chair of something called the Abortion Care Network. This desire for 10,000 more unashamed abortions is what “pro-choice” is all about.

Overall, this was just another classic tale from the “news” magazine that lamented 20 years ago that “Sadly, many home [abortion] remedies could damage a fetus instead of kill it.” What about the pro-life side?

Newsweek devoted just one sentence to Silent No More, a website where women tell a different abortion story, and now speak publicly of their shame and regret. But women are increasingly coming forward everywhere, just like the original “Jane Roe,” Norma McCorvey, publicly admitting the horror of their actions, genuinely penitent – and genuinely forgiven. But their stories aren’t deemed “newsworthy.”

CNN interviewed Angie Jackson on the morning of March 8, and they were explicit in rejecting any notion that Jackson deserved a rebuttal. Anchor Kyra Phillips declared after the interview that “as you can imagine, we received a lot of response about even doing this story because abortion is such a controversial issue, and we really didn’t want to get into a debate about abortion, but rather, look at what people are doing now, using social networking.”

That’s a unique concept: abortion is so controversial that we feel it’s best to only let one side talk, the side that’s taking a child’s life on camera.

CNN claims these days that they are the sober and neutral center between MSNBC and Fox News, but there was nothing neutral about their sympathy for Angie Jackson. Phillips rushed to proclaim that the most savage part of Jackson’s abortion was the pro-lifer comments.

“These are really harsh,” the anchor warned. “But people wrote in and said – they called you all kinds of names, from being a whore to someone who just couldn’t keep her legs closed. They called you a baby killer. I mean, it’s even hard for me to say these things because some of those- the e-mails and the responses were so brutal.”

As brutal as an abortion? Worse than that, Phillips never acknowledged that pro-lifers most certainly filled Twitter (and the heavens) with their hopes and prayers for her. CNN cannot deny those e-mails were there.

CNN also showed some of Jackson’s horrific YouTube video, where she admitted that her baby had the “potential” for life, “but it [it!] was more likely to kill me, and you’re not going to shame me….I do not feel sorry that I saved my life. I do not feel sorry that I stayed here for myself, for my boyfriend, for my kid that I’ve already got.”

CNN didn’t define that sentiment – or lack of it – as “really harsh.” CNN never told their viewers that Jackson’s nom de plume on Twitter is “Anti-Theist Angie.” Nor did CNN consider the “brutal” contents of Jackson’s Twitter page to be worth commentary. Here are some examples of statements Jackson “retweeted” as worthy comments about Jesus after she popped up on CNN:

“Who would Jesus do? He’d totally do Anti-Theist Angie just to prove a point to those who sully his/her name.”

And: “Where would Jesus donate? To science-based education, and better abortion techniques!”

And: “Jesus hates the little women, all the women of the world.”

To their credit, when ABC’s “World News” hyped this story on February 28, they at least allowed conservative Cathy Ruse of the Family Research Council to declare “Your heart breaks for this woman. And I hope that it doesn’t encourage, I hope that what she’s doing won’t encourage others to take this path.” ABC’s online story also allowed a few paragraphs of pro-life argument.

ABC weekend anchor Dan Harris noted Jackson was an “outspoken atheist,” and quoted her saying “I hope everybody on YouTube has a great and godless day. Peace.”

Jackson said she was four weeks pregnant when she aborted her child. The technology now exists to see just about every human feature – eyes, hands, feet, even the human nipple – on a “fetus” one inch in size, and only two weeks older. Peace.

Actually, we know quite a bit about assisted suicide—it’s those who insist otherwise that need instruction.

While the movie hasn’t aired or even been viewed by critics, we can infer its perspective on Kevorkian from the comments made by its stars, Al Pacino and Susan Sarandon.

According to Pacino, viewers “don’t know this guy.” Kevorkian “is more than meets the eye…[the film is] a portrait of a zealot. I don’t think we see that often.”

Kevorkian’s “zealotry” also appealed to Sarandon, who said that people who dedicate themselves to a cause at the expense of anything else in their lives “are really fascinating people.”

For his part, Kevorkian is said to be “enthused about helping with the film.” His lawyer thinks the film won’t be “scathing and critical.”

I guess not. I certainly doubt that three Oscar-winners—Pacino, Sarandon, and director Barry Levinson—have come together to make a film that won’t be at least a little sympathetic to its subject.

What viewers will probably see is a story about a man whose excesses hurt an otherwise noble cause and led to his downfall at the hand of religious zealots.

Of course, there’s nothing noble or “compassionate” about physician-assisted suicide—and you don’t have to be religious to believe that.

No one would call the British magazine Spiked religious or even traditionalist. Yet, it recently ran two pieces about why assisted-suicide should remain illegal. In one of them Kevin Yuill of the University of the Sunderlands makes clear what many assisted-suicide advocates try to obscure: The ultimate goal isn’t to alleviate suffering, but to enshrine in law “the right of any person to end their life.”

This “right,” according to Yuill, threatens the “assumption that human life is valuable.”

He calls suicide a “deeply anti-social act” that destroys “possibilities”—not just, obviously, for the individuals themselves, but for others too. Yuill insists that it’s this social harm and not what he terms “outmoded religious beliefs” that lies behind the “taboo against suicide.”

In the other piece, editor Mick Hume adds that the “right to die” is the result of a “loss of faith—not in God, but in humanity.” Hume decries the lack of belief in “the human capacity to transcend the limitations of our lives.” In this “demoralized” setting, the wish for a “good death” replaces “the aspiration for a better life.”

What Hume and Yuill miss completely is the connection between Christian ideas and the beliefs whose passing they lament. What Hume calls “faith in humanity” is inseparable from the idea of our being created in the image of God. What Yuill calls “possibilities” is derived from Christian ideas about hope.

But that’s OK. When it comes to assisted suicide, the next big so-called rights campaign that the left will wage, we Christians welcome good, prudential arguments. So that even non-believers can come to understand the “aspiration for a better life.”