THERE is no tragedy that the abortion movement does not seek to turn to its own advantage.

Consider the case of a young girl in Quintana Roo, Mexico, who was raped by her supposed stepfather and impregnated at the tender age of 10. After the girl’s mother belatedly notified the authorities, she is now, at nearly 18 weeks of pregnancy, receiving proper medical care. The offending rapist has since been arrested.

We should all decry the horrific sexual abuse that led to this pregnancy. But the abortion movement, led by radical feminists, wants to go further. They claim that the girl should be given an abortion, even though the Mexican state in which she lives, Quintana Roo, forbids all abortions after 90 days gestation. The underlying problem here, they insist, is that Mexican girls are not properly informed of their “right” to an abortion in case of rape before 90 days gestation, and that they are not allowed to receive one after that point. According to them, Mexico’s abortion laws must be relaxed.

According to CNN, which in its story on this child rape only interviewed abortion advocates (See CNN s coverage of the story):

“This girl is much more than an isolated case,” said Adriana Ortiz-Ortega, a researcher at Mexico’s National Autonomous University who has written two books on abortion in Mexico, “and there is much more influence now from conservative groups that are trying to prevent the legalization of abortion.”…

Child protective services officials in Quintana Roo said in a statement last week that the girl and the fetus were in good health.

But Quintana Roo state legislator Maria Hadad said the girl’s doctors aren’t telling the whole story. She said continuing the pregnancy could cause severe mental and physical health problems for the girl. “It’s not just a high-risk pregnancy. It’s a pregnancy that puts the girl at risk,” Hadad told Mexican broadcaster Channel 10 in Chetumal, Mexico.

This girl has surely been horrifically damaged by what has been done to her, but will subjecting her to an abortion—as Maria Hadad advocates—somehow begin to “repair” this damage? Obviously not, as any person who is truly concerned about the welfare of the girl would conclude. It would only add tragedy to tragedy. And why would Hadad attack the girl’s doctors, going so far as to suggest that they may be involved in a cover up? The reason is that Hadad and others like her are not the least bit concerned about the girl as a person. The victim is only a political tool, whose pain can be commoditized to advocate the legalization of abortion on demand. That there is another tiny person involved does not even enter into their calculations.

The political gamesmanship around this case distracts the public from the underlying problem: the family breakdown and pedophilia that allowed a young girl to not only be raped, but also impregnated by her supposed “step-father.”

According to Christine De Vollmer, president of the Latin American Alliance for the Family, a girl this young was unlikely to become pregnant from a single instance of rape. It is common, De Vollmer said, for “everybody to live in the same little house and sleep in the same bed.  And of course all kinds of things happen there, unfortunately including to children. As the bodies of these little girls are stimulated, they begin to ovulate and become pregnant at some point.” As far as the so-called “stepfather” is concerned, this is often just a man who lives in the home with the mother and her children, “without any serious commitment.”

According to De Vollmer, the legalization of abortion will only serve to further enable child rape, since “the visible consequences (of rape) will be taken away. It would be more objective, engaging, and caring to prevent or correct these very common and dangerous situations of promiscuity to young girls before it’s too late. How can politicians rend their garments over these pregnancies and at the same time turn a blind eye to the sexual abuse that goes on daily in broken homes? If nothing is done to stop the abuse, it can only end in pregnancy.”

Carlos Polo, head of PRI’s Latin American office, noted to CNA that the abortion lobbyists are using such tragedies to advance abortion on demand. These activists are “absolute vultures,” who seize upon such cases for their propaganda value, arguing that only way to save the lives of women and girls in such circumstances is to “legalize so-called ‘therapeutic abortion.’” Polo said to PRI that “they care nothing about the girl herself, and abandon her as soon as they are done using her.”

The proper approach to such tragedies involves a consistent ethic of life. The crime of abortion cannot cancel out the crime of rape, as the radical feminists in effect argue. The rape can never be undone, nor can the girl ever return to her prior innocent state.

Yet the innocent human life inside her womb—however sad the circumstance under which it was conceived—can be preserved and protected, as well as the girl herself.

Only a consistent ethic of life will insist on the right of prepubescent girls not to be sexually abused; at the same time it will trumpet the right of a tiny unborn human to live.

Any other position betrays them both.

Credits:

Original article by Colin Mason and Steven W. Mosher for lifesitenews.com last 04/27/10

Human Life International President Rev. Fr. Thomas J. Euteneuer recently released a special edition of “Spirit & Life” of which is dedicated to the group’s founding father Rev. Fr. Paul Marx. Below is a copy of the online version Fr. Euteneuer wrote:

The Passing of the Patriarch of the Pro-Life Movement

SPECIAL EDITION

Abbot John Klassen, OSB of St. John’s Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota, informed me personally Saturday that the venerable founder of Human Life International, Fr. Paul Marx, went to his eternal reward peacefully at 8:10 that morning. According to eyewitness accounts, Father raised his hands as he died and said, “Take me home.” Fittingly, he passed away in the Year for Priests, just short of his 90th birthday. Needless to say, he will be sorely missed!

Fr. Marx founded HLI as the Human Life Center in 1972 as a priestly response to what he saw was the global anti-life onslaught that was beginning to wash over the world with oceans of the blood of innocents. As a strong spiritual father, he could not stand by and watch this evil threaten the lives of God’s precious children and the sacred institution of marriage. He infiltrated a pro-abortion conference in California in 1971 as Dr. Paul Marx (correctly so, as he had a PhD in Sociology) and taped all the proceedings of the abortion-promoters so that he could expose their evil. He did this in the book, The Death Peddlers, which was the first major work of his many writings bringing the profound evil of the abortion industry to the light. Father’s legacy of exposing evil and defending the Church’s teaching about the sanctity of human life, marriage and family remains deeply embedded in the hearts of those who continue pro-life work in his indomitable spirit.

I had the privilege of meeting Fr. Marx for the first time only after he had left HLI. One cannot imagine the difficulty of taking over at HLI and trying to fill the shoes of one whom Pope John II called “the Apostle of Life.” After getting to know him, I have always said that there is only one “Apostle” of Life – the rest of us are just “missionaries” of life. Indeed, Father was in every way a unique and unrepeatable gift to the Church and to the world. Like his namesake, St. Paul of old, he went about the entire known world preaching the Gospel of Christ from the 60s through the 90s and establishing apostolic groups and pro-life organizations of faith to carry on the mission. Father was very much like the sower who went out sowing the good seed of life in 91 nations, personally, and motivating scores of others around the world to do the same. We estimate that Father Marx travelled something on the order of 3 million miles in his 40+ year career of pro-life activism, and ever after that, his spiritual children have done the same. In 2009 alone, HLI missionaries from the USA, and our Regional Coordinators, travelled more than 575,000 mission miles and visited 57 countries in our attempt to live up to Father’s high standard of zeal in spreading the Gospel of Life!

Part of Fr. Marx’s legacy can be counted in such HLI programs as the Magdalene Rescue and Rehabilitation Program, the China Orphanage Program, Seminarians for Life, the Population Research Institute (PRI) and the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-Fam), all founded under HLI’s umbrella in the 90s.

Although the Apostle of Life led a retiring life for the last decade, well taken care of by his religious community in Minnesota, Father never ceased his involvement with pro-life issues or his correspondence to his spiritual children still fighting the battles for life on the front lines of the pro-life movement. How precious it was for me to receive his periodic short letters encouraging me to keep up the fighting spirit in the face of so many new challenges. He was always well-aware of the need for funding too so he usually sent $25 and $50 checks with his encouraging notes! I treasure those letters with all my heart. Dr. Brian Clowes of HLI and Mrs. Magaly Llaguno of our Hispanic Division were among his most intimate friends and stayed in regular contact with him and his needs. Countless more were the HLI missionaries around the world who received Father’s letters and notes of encouragement, some of which we will feature in future publications.

To my knowledge, Father’s last public appearance and speech was at HLI’s 35th anniversary banquet held in his honor in Minneapolis on March 25th of 2007. He spoke passionately to his spiritual children using the very same words that Pope John Paul spoke to him when he met with the Holy Father in the early 80s: “You are doing the most important work on earth!” he repeated with fervor. Indeed we are doing that work – it is his work and the true work of the Church. Because of this one man’s indomitable spirit we will not cease doing that work until we too are called home.

Fr. Paul Marx taught the whole world how to be pro-life. He was literally the Patriarch of the pro-life movement. Now it is our turn to take up the mantle of Fr. Marx’s prophetic spirit and, like Elisha who saw his master go to heaven in a fiery chariot, we must turn and part the Jordan with that mantle and get back into the fray – just as the Apostle of Life would want!

[Note: stay tuned for a brand new HLI program in honor of Fr. Marx that will be coming at the end of the month - you won't want to miss it!]

Sincerely,

Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer
President, Human Life International

Click this link, http://www.hli.org/index.php/component/content/830?task=view to see more of HLI’s tribute to a staunch father of the pro-life movement

LOVELY is a six-year old girl but she is as tiny as a one year-old baby. Her mother pushes her around in a small wheel chair as she cannot walk nor sit by herself in a regular chair. She was born with no hands and feet—just stubs at the end of her extremities. Her eyes are just slits and you can hardly see her eyeball, and she cannot open her mouth wide enough for a spoon to enter. So she has been sipping her food (blended rice and vegetables) ever since she was an infant and that is why she is so tiny and malnourished. To top it all, she cannot talk because she cannot open her mouth. Her mother says she was only two months pregnant when she had severe infections. She was given massive doses of antibiotics which could have resulted in the multiple disabilities of Lovely.

Lovely was scheduled to leave for Australia last December for surgery—beginning with her mouth, and on to the other defective parts of her body. It has taken almost a year since arrangements began for her to travel, with so many medical check-ups, searching for a hospital that will perform the surgeries, and a foster family that would host her and her mom for several months. All these were possible because of the services of Philippine Airlines Foundation. Lovely and her mom stayed in Welcome House, a crisis shelter for girls and women run by the Good Shepherd Sisters until they were able to leave for Sydney. The host family of Lovely in Australia kept us updated. Although the medical assessment was that Lovely could not be operated on till she reached 14 years old, when she would stop growing, so as not to have her undergo repeat surgeries as she was growing, she was given a lot of other medical attention and advices on how to develop her, feed her so she does not become malnourished, and how to avoid infections. Lovely and her mom returned to the Philippines (to Welcome House) last January, looking healthier and there was certainly a glow in her eyes.

Lovely is not the first child that PAL Foundation has helped to secure such services. Menchu Aguino Sarmiento, the Executive Director since 1999, has assisted dozens of children to have a second chance in life because of her persistence and generosity.

The PAL Foundation was established in 1992, in the aftermath of the Mt. Pinatubo disaster. It received an annual grant of PhP1,000,000 from Philippine Airlines, which it used to give small cash grants for selected projects such as providing water pumps in one barrio in Quezon Province, for micro-finance, and community development.

The PAL Medical Travel and Cargo Grants program benefit charity patients and support medical mission teams. In the past, there had been a ceiling of P100,000 on the worth of tickets or cargo the Foundation could give to a surgical mission team. But the Board realized that the value of the surgeries for impoverished Filipinos in remote areas justified sponsoring entire surgical teams with discounts or free excess baggage for their equipment and supplies. The more complex individual patients are given grants to go to Manila or even abroad should they be so fortunate as to have been accepted for free care elsewhere. In corresponding with the other charities abroad which were giving free care to Filipino children, Menchu developed a network, so that the PAL Foundation has been facilitating the referral and acceptance of patients to Mending Kids International and certain Rotary International Gift of Life programs. She helps these foreign charities evaluate whether a child should go there with a parent or whether the child can just get care here.

But most of the PAL Medical Travel Grantees (especially the adults) go to Manila hospitals. It is hard to get Filipino families in Manila interested in hosting these indigents. Fortunately though, Welcome House in Paco and the Queen of Peace Transient Patient Home in Quezon City shelter the patients though they must still pay for their food and other needs. The number of charity patients of all ages varies in any given year. They are proud to say that they have assisted several conjoint twins (Siamese twins) undergo surgery in the US for separation.

The PAL Foundation has also been giving free cargo for relief goods. Donations run into millions during relief efforts for Typhoons Reming, Frank and Ondoy, as they transported literally tons of relief goods both within the Philippines and coming from abroad. Even during normal times, they give free transport for DSWD goods and even for the Office of Civil Defense when the Air Force C-130 is unavailable. The PAL Foundation is registered with the DSWD as a disaster response and crisis intervention welfare organization.

We, Good Shepherd Sisters assigned to Welcome House pray daily that Lovely and her mom will be able to travel soon so that she can receive the much-needed surgeries and have the chance to sing and dance and play like other children her age. God bless PAL Foundation for the hope they give to our people.