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Page 3 of 9

SAN FRANCISCO, November 8, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The University of San Francisco (USF) has announced that on November 23 it plans to honor Sr. Carol Keehan, the president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association, whose support for the abortion-expanding healthcare overhaul was applauded by President Obama and decried by U.S. bishops as “a wound to Catholic unity.”

Keehan’s support for the Obama administration’s top domestic priority, which CHA endorsed even before a first draft was published, was acknowledged by the president and onlookers alike as a key element in the bill’s success.

USF’s office of University Ministry plans to honor Keehan at its “Stand 4 Conference” later this month. According to the University, the conference “recognizes religious and spiritual leaders whose actions symbolize a life of courage, commitment, and advocacy.” She will deliver a talk entitled “Health Care as a Social Justice Issue.”

The USF website reads: “This year we honor Sr. Carol Keehan, DC, President and CEO of the Catholic Health Association … in her letter sent to Congress representing 59,000 Catholic nuns and more than 50 heads of religious congregations and organizations she remarks, ”’health care reform is a faith mandate for life and dignity of all of our people.’”

Sr. Keehan won the support of these religious sisters for the healthcare bill in spite of the fact that the U.S. bishops urged Congress not to approve it, because the bill failed to include sufficient conscience protection provisions and left open the door to government-funded abortions.

Last May, leaders in the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops ”” including Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, Bishop William Murphy and Bishop John Wester ”” issued a statement stating that Keehan’s support for the bill “represented a fundamental disagreement, not just with our staff as some maintain, but with the Bishops themselves. As such it has resulted in confusion and a wound to Catholic unity.”

Cardinal George even said point-blank that Sr. Keehan and her associates were “to blame” for the bill’s success.

The Cardinal Newman Society, a Catholic university watchdog group, is urging USF to rescind the scheduled honor and speaking platform.

“It is unspeakable that the University of San Francisco should choose to honor someone who severely damaged pro-life efforts in this nation and undermined the express will of the U.S. bishops,” said Patrick J. Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society.

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Page 4 of 9

By Kathleen Gilbert

VOORHEES, New Jersey, November 8, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Even after authorities unveiled a New Jersey abortionist’s illegal interstate abortion scheme, several of his locations continue to operate with the help of abortionists sporting considerable criminal and malpractice records, including one who is a convicted sex offender, according to a new report by Operation Rescue.

Several locations of the American Women’s Services (AWS) abortion chain, owned by abortionist Stephen Chase Brigham, are still committing abortions after Brigham was stripped of his last state medical license last month. Brigham came under scrutiny in September when one of his patients suffered an abortion in Elkton, MD that was so badly botched she had to be flown to the Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore. It was then revealed that the patient, like countless others, had been ferried from New Jersey to Maryland mid-abortion in order to evade restrictions on Brigham’s practice of late-term abortions.

New Jersey’s Board of Medical Examiners concluded that Brigham’s scheme amounted to “manipulative and deceptive behavior” designed to “eviscerate the protections that [state] regulations seek to afford to New Jersey patients.”

Now Operation Rescue (OR) is calling on health authorities to investigate all operating AWS branches, where they say Brigham’s shady legacy continues to endanger women.

OR President Troy Newman pointed out that the current setup lures women into obtaining abortions in remote locations even though several branches have closed.

“Even though these clinics remain closed, phone numbers in those locations still ring in to a central office. Women are led to believe that abortion services are available locally, when they are not. Patients are then shuttled to other clinics controlled by Brigham,” said Operation Rescue president Troy Newman. “It is a way to draw in abortion customers from areas they no longer service.”

Newman’s group is also spotlighting the suspicious backgrounds of the abortionists who work at AWS offices. A glance at AWS abortionists’ records show several state licenses revoked, drug violations, and criminal charges such as Medicaid fraud, billing fraud, and obstruction of justice, as reported by Operation Rescue.

One such abortionist, Vikram Hiralal Kaji, was convicted by New Jersey’s medical board in 1993 for sexually touching three patients. He also reportedly had sex with a young patient, a victim of child sex abuse with a history of psychiatric hospitalization. His medical license was revoked in New York on sexual charges. Kaji continues to perform abortions in two New Jersey clinics.

Operation Rescue notes that the clinics continue to operate thanks to the secrecy shrouding the abortionists’ records, in addition to the legal difficulties of shutting down an interstate chain.

“We have a message for the authorities in Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia: For the love of God, please close these abortion clinics!” said Newman. “As relieved as we were by the suspensions and clinic closures, the authorities really need to do more and close AWS down permanently.”

Click here to read Operation Rescue’s report.

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Page 5 of 9

By Kathleen Gilbert

NOTRE DAME, Indiana, November 8, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The University of Notre Dame suffered a significant drop in contributions in the year President Obama received an honor at the school and delivered a commencement speech coaching graduating seniors on how to approach the abortion issue.

A CatholicCulture.org report published last month revealed that contributions to the university fell by more than $120 million in fiscal year July 2008 – June 2009, at $226.7 million, down from $347.2 million in FY 2007-2008. A drop in government funds accounted for only about $2 million lost.

News that the university planned to honor Obama at their commencement had broken in March 2009. The announcement sparked an unprecedented shockwave of criticism from Catholics across America, including from 80 active U.S. bishops and over 350,000 signers of a Cardinal Newman Society petition.

Catholic Culture notes that the recession that shook the global economy starting in December 2007, and ending in June 2009, also coincided with the drop in donations. However, according to David Difranco, head of the ReplaceJenkins.com website, the economy alone does not account for the steep losses suffered by Notre Dame. ReplaceJenkins.com spearheaded a campaign last year to withhold donations from the school in protest over the Obama scandal.

DiFranco pointed to data collected by the Center for Aid to Education showing that donations to private research universities fell by just 9.7% in 2009. Contributions to Notre Dame, also a research institution, fell by the much larger 34.7% in that year. Donations to all colleges and universities over the same period fell just 11.9%.

“Certainly 2009 was a horrendous year for colleges in terms of deflated contributions,” DiFranco told LifeSiteNews.com, “but Notre Dame’s loss is staggering, placing the University as an outlier among those who lost.” Meanwhile, he noted, Purdue University, another research university in Indiana, saw an increase in contributions by 6.3% in the same period.

LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) was unable to obtain comment from the university for this story. A Notre Dame spokesman last month said that the school would no longer speak to LSN, but would not disclose a reason.

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Page 6 of 9

By Peter J. Smith

WASHINGTON, D.C., November 8, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) ”“ The new commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps has signaled his opposition to any repeal of the law that bans open homosexuals from military service, saying that he is concerned about harm to the corps’ combat effectiveness.

Gen. James Amos told reporters in San Diego that the repeal of the 1993 law against homosexuals serving in the military and the Pentagon’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy would have harmful effects on U.S. Marines in this wartime footing.

“There is nothing more intimate than combat,” Amos said. “In the infantry, we are talking about young men laying out sleeping alongside one another and sharing death and fear and the loss of their brothers.

“There’s risk involved,” Amos said about repeal of DADT. “I’m trying to determine how to measure that risk. This is not a social thing. This is combat effectiveness.”

Amos is following in the footsteps of his predecessor Gen. James Conway. Conway, along with U.S. Army Chief Gen. George Casey and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz, told Senators back in February that he feared a repeal under the current wartime circumstances would disturb a military already suffering from the heavy strain of fighting two overseas wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

However, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, both political appointees of President Barack Obama, have already expressed support for the ideology behind overturning the current law.

Gates formed the Pentagon’s Comprehensive Review Working Group (CRWG) back in March to “consider how best to implement a repeal” of the 1993 law (10 U.S.C 654) ”“ indicating that any consideration of retaining the law was out of the question.

The CRWG’s findings are set to be released in a December report, when Congress is in the lame duck session. The U.S. Senate will likely vote again on the $726 billion Defense Authorization Bill (FY 2011), which includes amendments overturning bans on homosexual service and abortion on military bases. So far, the bill has been held up by a GOP filibuster led by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

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Page 7 of 9

By Patrick B. Craine

LONDON, Ontario, November 8, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A leading American advocate for same-sex “marriage” and homosexual adoption last month called on a gathering at a Catholic university in Ontario to “build the bridges of inclusion” for homosexuals within the Church, making it clear that the Church’s teachings are themselves an affront to this “inclusion.”

“The somewhat charitable act of simply reminding gay and lesbian people that they are children of God is not the same as working to achieve justice and inclusion for them,” said Jody Huckaby, executive director of PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), in an address October 21 at King’s University-College, a Catholic institution based at the University of Western in London. “As children of God, they and we all deserve better.”

Huckaby, who was raised Catholic and attended Catholic colleges, appealed to the Church’s insistence on the dignity of every person and the duty to serve the disadvantaged. He called for the Church to make the fight for homosexual rights a key component of its social justice work, on the same level as the fight against racism, sexism, and poverty.

PFLAG is an international homosexualist advocacy group, with over 500 chapters in a dozen countries, that serves as a leading proponent of same-sex “marriage” and homosexual adoption. It also opposes abstinence-only education. In his role with PFLAG, Huckaby has been a vocal opponent of the Church and has condemned Pope Benedict XVI as “vilifying GLBT people.”

In his talk at King’s, Huckaby quoted the Church’s teachings on homosexuality extensively, particularly the Catechism of the Catholic Church and various letters from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) while he was head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Discussing the Church’s call for homosexuals to practice chastity, Huckaby said that while the Church prohibits unjust discrimination, “the bottom line remains that for gay and lesbian people the only way to live in grace within the Catholic Church is to live celibately and with this as their cross to bear.”

“In fact, for those who choose not to be celibate, they are sinful and somehow playing a role in the discrimination that they receive,” he continued. “Almost to the point that it seems that they might deserve what happens.”

After reading one section of the catechism he stated, “So this time around, we were taught that gay and lesbian people are intrinsically disordered, and that their actions – which one may argue, in this case, are indivisible from the person – are not to be approved.”

“All of the credible research indicates that being gay is not a choice, nor can one successfully change his or her sexual orientation from gay to straight,” said Huckaby. “Therefore, no one should be made to feel that they have been forsaken by God because of one part of who they are.”

He condemned the Church’s vocal stand against “the battle for marriage equality,” citing various letters and campaigns from the U.S. Bishops’ Conference and various U.S. dioceses. Further, he praised certain groups that have already been “building bridges of inclusion” within the Church, in his view, such as Dignity, the New Ways Ministry, and the newly-formed Catholics for Equality.

Huckaby was introduced by Fr. Michael Bechard, the college’s chaplain. King’s principal, Dr. David Sylvester, defended the address when questioned by LifeSiteNews early last month.

Critics, however, argued that the college was giving in to “false compassion.” Regina Griggs, executive director of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX), warned that PFLAG is not concerned with “acceptance” so much as “get[ting] the Church to approve same-sex relationships within the Church.”

“We should focus on providing support for these people, letting them know that God loves them, and we their families unconditionally love them,” she said. “Perhaps offer hope rather than attempting to subvert the Church, science, medicine.”
Contact Information:
Most Rev. Ronald P. Fabbro, C.S.B.
Diocese of London
1070 Waterloo Street
London, Ontario, N6A 3Y2
Phone: 519-433-0658
E-mail: Complete the form here.
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Ontario Catholic College Accused of “False Compassion” in Hosting Homosexual Activist
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/oct/10100602.html

Study: Homosexuality Linked with Childhood Trauma
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jul/10072701.html

Why Isn’t Homosexuality Considered A Disorder On The Basis Of Its Medical Consequences?
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/nov/061130a.html

Expert Research Finds Homosexuality More Dangerous Than Smoking
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/apr/07040309.html

Bishop Olmsted: ‘Love Authentically’ by Acknowledging Disorder of Homosexuality
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/aug/10081104.html

“Homosexuality Is Not Hardwired,” Concludes Head of The Human Genome Project
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/mar/07032003.html

If Gay Brother Research is Correct It Shows Homosexuality is Abnormal
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jun/06063003.html

The Psychological Profession and Homosexuality: Lunatics Running the Asylum?
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/aug/09081407.html

Homosexuality a Psychological Disorder: Pentagon Document
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jun/06062008.html

The Mother of the Homosexual Movement – Evelyn Hooker PhD
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/jul/07071603.html

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Page 8 of 9

By Wanda Skowronska

MELBOURNE, AU, November 8, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Police have raided an abortion mill in Melbourne Australia linked to an anaesthetist alleged to have infected patients with hepatitis C. Anaesthetist Dr. James Latham Peters was suspended in February after numerous woman were found to have been infected with hepatitis C after being treated by Peters in a suburban Melbourne abortion facility.

In the period between 2006 and 2009, the ABC reports that 58 women at the abortion centre have tested positive to hepatitis C and that of these, 35 cases have been linked back to Peters, who is himself infected with the disease.

Executive director of Australia’s Family Life International Scott McKendry responded to the news of the raid, saying, “Are we surprised when doctors who participate in abortion lose all vestiges of ethical medical practice? These medical practitioners are no longer healing but rather harming and this inversion is bound to lead to such disturbing instances of abuse as this.”

Other clinics and private homes were subsequently raided. Victoria’s chief health officer, Dr. John Carnie, stated that screening of patients would be widened to include another 1100 people seen at three other clinics at which Dr. Peters worked.
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Abortion Clinic Anesthetist Accused of Infecting 12 Women with Hepatitis C
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/apr/10041205.html

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Page 9 of 9

By John Jalsevac

November 8, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Throughout his presidency George W. Bush was unapologetically pro-life, but a strange anecdote found in his about-to-be-released autobiography, Decision Points, has provided new insight into the genesis of his views on the issue.

In a recent interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer about the forthcoming book, Bush explained that when he was a teenager his mother, Barbara Bush, suffered a difficult miscarriage.

Barbara obtained the miscarried fetus, and put it in a jar in order to bring it in to the hospital. However, first she showed her teenage son his deceased sibling.

“I never expected to see the remains of the foetus, which she had saved in a jar to bring to the hospital.” He added: “There was a human life, a little brother or sister.”

“There’s no question that affected me, a philosophy that we should respect life.”

According to the New York Post, however, Bush told Lauer that “the purpose of the story wasn’t to try show the evolution of a pro-life point of view.”

“It was really to show how my mom and I developed a relationship.”

Ironically, Barbara herself appears not to have been quite as affected by the incident as her son: her views on abortion have been less clear.

In 1992, during her husband’s presidential run, she famously argued that abortion should be left out of the Republican Party’s platform: “The personal things should be left out of, in my opinion, platforms and conventions.”

Meanwhile, Mrs. Bush was coy about where her personal views fell on the issue. “I’m not being outspoken or pro or con abortion,” she said. “I’m saying abortion should not be in there, either pro or con.”

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