MARIE STOPES CLINIC MOVES OUT OF PIETERMARITZBURG
Marie Stopes Family Planning Clinic has recently moved out of Pietermaritzburg (PMB).
Two private doctors are planning to make abortion available at a cheaper rate. A spokesman
for CFT PMB, Rev Derrick King, says CFT is planning to do all they can to prevent the
continuation of this service. A nursing sister working at Marie Stopes admitted to Rev
King that the move was due to financial reasons. Protests by CFT successfully led to the
closing down of a previous abortion clinic in PMB, the Nightingale Family Planning clinic
(15 January 1998) and since then a number of protests and demonstrations have been
arranged by CFT outside the Marie Stopes clinic. (CFT PMB, 25 June)
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CLONING (Part 2 of 2 continued from the June/July 2001
newsletter)
Are Embryos Human?
Enter ethics. Human embryonic stem-cell research always entails the killing of very young
embryos - what some scientists prefer to call "pre-embryos." In the typical
research procedure, the stem cells are extracted from a day-old IVF-created embryo before
the master cells have had time to turn into more specifically differentiated types of
cells. The rest of the embryo is then thrown out.
That we need strict ethical guidelines before we can proceed with this kind of research is
proved by the fact that:
1) Last year a group of scientists in Australia announced that they had succeeded in
combining the genetic material of a sheep and a human being.
The resultant embryo was allowed to develop up to 20 days gestation and was then
destroyed.
2) The Time Magazine of some months ago showed the photo of a monkey that glows in the
dark. They managed this by adding genes from a jelly fish which glows in the dark, to the
monkey's genes. The magazine actually featured a photo of the monkey.
3) Another group of scientists, also through the course of last year, announced that they
had successfully combined the genes of a dog, a sheep, a monkey and a human being.
What makes these developments even more worrying is the fact that many of the leading,
mainstream bioethics in the world support this kind of experimentation. Peter Singer, who
is often called the "high priest" of bioethics, and who wrote the section for
the Encyclopedia Britannica on bioethics, believes that a new born baby should not enjoy
the moral status of a human being. He has now changed his mind and believes that a child
up to one year of age should not enjoy the moral status of a human being. He says that
certain animals e.g. apes, monkeys, dogs, pigs, chickens and even prawns are persons.
James Watson, Nobel laureate and founding director of the Human Genome Project: "And
the other thing, because no one has the guts to say it, if we could make better human
beings by knowing how to add genes, why shouldn't we? What's wrong with it? ... Evolution
can be just damn cruel, and to say that we've got a perfect genome and there's some
sanctity to it? I'd just like to know where that idea comes from. It's utter
silliness."
Gregory Pence, professor of philosophy in the Schools of Medicine and Arts/Humanities at
the University of Alabama: "Many people love their retrievers and their sunny
dispositions around children and adults. Could people be chosen in the same way? Would it
be so terrible to allow parents to at least aim for a certain type, in the same way that
great breeders ... try to match a breed of dog to the needs of a family?"
Lee Silver, professor of molecular biology and neuroscience at Princeton University:
"[In the future...] the GenRich -- who account for 10 percent of the American
population -- all carry synthetic genes. ... All aspects of the economy, the media, the
entertainment industry, and the knowledge industry are controlled by members of the
GenRich class ... Naturals work as low-paid service providers or as laborers ...
'[Eventually] the GenRich class and the Natural class will become ... entirely separate
species with no ability to cross-breed, and with as much romantic interest in each other
as a current human would have for a chimpanzee. ... But in all cases, I will argue, the
use of reprogenetic technologies is inevitable ... whether we like it or not, the global
marketplace will reign supreme."
Francis Fukuyama, professor of public policy at the Institute for Public Policy at George
Mason University said: "Biotechnology will be able to accomplish what the radical
ideologies of the past, with their unbelievably crude techniques, were unable to
accomplish: to bring about a new type of human being ... [W]ithin the next couple of
generations ... we will have definitively finished human history because we will have
abolished human beings as such. And then, a new post human history will begin."
Lester Thurow, professor of economics, Sloan School of Management, MIT: Some will hate it,
some will love it, but biotechnology is inevitably leading to a world in which plants,
animals and human beings are going to be partly man-made. ... Suppose parents could add 30
points to their children's IQ. Wouldn't you want to do it? And if you don't, your child
will be the stupidest child in the neighborhood."
Gregory Stock, Director of UCLA's Program on Medicine, Technology and Society: [O]nce
people begin to reshape themselves through biological manipulation, the definition of
human begins to drift. ... Altering even a small number of the key genes regulating human
growth might change human beings into something quite different. ... But asking whether
such changes are 'wise' or 'desirable' misses the essential point that they are largely
not a matter of choice; they are the unavoidable product of ... technological advance...'
Any person basing his opinion on the scientific facts concerning the development of the
unborn child must however admit that life starts at conception. It is however never
permissible to take a human being's life, even an embryonic life, to cure a disease.
Right now, most South Africans don't seem to have thought much about the ethical
implications of the new genetic technology. Some of these things are very complicated, and
South Africans have confused the technical ability to do them with the right to say
whether it should or shouldn't be done. But South Africa needs to wake up. This is not
something for scientists.
(By Dr. Albu van Eeden)
DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT –
Through the centuries believing women from all nations have been called to pray.
Jeremiah, the prophet of old, also called upon the women during the spiritual state of
emergency of his nation.
Jeremiah 9:20-21
"Yet hear the word of the LORD, O ye women… and teach your daughters wailing,
and every one her neighbor lamentation. For death is come up into our windows, … to
cut off the children from without, and the young men from the streets."
We too live in a spiritual state of emergency today. Sin and death is wiping out our
children and young people. We can emphasize the words of Jeremiah and add the words of
Peter Marshall:
"The world has enough women who know how to be smart.
It needs women who are willing to be simple (enough to pray).
The world has enough women who know how to be brilliant.
It needs some who will be brave (enough to pray).
The world has enough women who are popular.
It needs more who are pure (enough to pray).
We need women, and men, too, who would rather be morally right than socially
correct."
PROTEST AGAINST PROSTITUTION AT ‘THE
CABINS’, ELANDSLAAGTE
Members of Christians for Truth together with other concerned Ladysmith residents, held
a protest outside The Cabins on the evenings of 18 and 19 May 2001.
CFT said in a press release:
The aim of the protest is to draw attention to the following:
* The sex trade is objectionable to the vast majority of Ladysmith residents.
* "Entertainment for men" is simply a euphemism for prostitution.
* Prostitution is still illegal in South Africa. This law must continue to be enforced in
Ladysmith.
* Prostitution is a form of women abuse. The practice of prostitution is a practice of
sexual objectification of women.
* Prostitution is fundamentally anti-family and is the cause of many marriages breaking
up.
Places like The Cabins must be declared illegal by the Ladysmith Town Council.
The Cabins is detrimental to the public health, safety, morals and general welfare of the
citizens of Ladysmith and surrounding districts, and should be closed down by the
authorities.
FINAL STUBBORNNESS - REFLECTIONS ON TIMOTHY MCVEIGH
In Luke 23: 39 we read: "Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed Him,
saying: `If you are the Christ save Yourself and us."
So close to salvation, just a few feet away from the dying Saviour who was carrying the
sins of the world, yet so far. The one criminal hardened his heart to the last. He tried
to show that he still had a will of his own and was not afraid to die. He was not asking
for mercy and salvation when he called on Christ to save them, but was mocking the Lord,
together with the crowd.
This is the comparison which comes to mind as I considered the tragic story of Timothy
McVeigh who also remained defiant till death overpowered him on 11 June 2001.
Consider the following reports:
* Remaining silent and showing no emotion, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was
executed Monday morning. McVeigh died by lethal injection at the Federal Penitentiary in
Terre Haute, Indiana. McVeigh was executed for the April 19, 1995, attack in Oklahoma City
that killed 168 people and wounded hundreds more. The bombing was the deadliest terrorism
act ever on U.S. soil. McVeigh's death was the first federal execution since 1963. The
33-year-old Gulf War veteran did not say a word in the final minutes before his execution.
Media witnesses said McVeigh lifted his head and looked at them and then looked at the
ceiling. He died with his eyes open. (CNN)
* Larry Whicher, the brother of a bombing victim, said McVeigh looked into the camera with
a cold, blank stare in the moments before he died. "He had a look of defiance and
that if he could, he would do it all over again," Mr Whicher said. "I do not
think he gave himself to the Lord. I do not think he repented and personally I think he is
in hell," he added. (CNN)
* Timothy's last statement was a handwritten copy of the poem Invictus: Invictus is the
Latin word for unconquerable and was written in 1875 by William Ernest Henley.
Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as a Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul...
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
* McVeigh is also reported to have said he does not believe in an after-life but if there
is one he says he will "improvise, adapt and overcome. If I'm going to hell I'm gonna
have a lot of company" (Natal Witness, 11 June 2001).
* The following is the text of President George W. Bush's statement Monday after the
execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh: "This morning the United States of
America carried out the severest sentence for the gravest of crimes. The victims of the
Oklahoma City bombing have been given not vengeance, but justice. And one young man met
the fate he chose for himself six years ago." (It is clear that President Bush makes
solemn reference to the McVeigh's last words, "I am the master of my fate".)
* Dr Charles Colson wrote (8 June 2001): "There's no more difficult issue for many
Americans than capital punishment. For most of my life, I opposed it. I thought the death
penalty was wrong because it was too easy to make a mistake and execute an innocent
person. Well, several years ago I visited death row in Menard, Illinois, and met John
Wayne Gacy, who was convicted in 1978 for the grisly murders of at least thirty people,
whom he'd buried beneath the crawl space of his Chicago home.
The first thing that shocked me was how ordinary Gacy looked, like a school teacher or a
businessman. The second thing was his utter defiance: He was demanding his rights, still
insisting on his innocence, even though the evidence that convicted him was overwhelming.
I came away wondering if there weren't some cases where the only remedy that could produce
justice was execution, and this sent me back to C.S. Lewis's classic essay, "The
Humanitarian Theory of Punishment."
For years, modern psychology has argued that the criminal is not guilty of crime; he's
just sick, and in need of therapy. Lewis argued, however, that this view strips man of his
dignity: It says we're not free moral agents, responsible for our actions, but rather
patients to be manipulated for the good of society.
Lewis wrote, "To be punished, however severely, because we have deserved it, because
we 'ought to have known better,' is to be treated as a human person made in God's
image." I realized that this went right to the heart of a central precept of
Judeo-Christian belief. The Scriptures teach that people are responsible for their own
behaviour. The object of justice is not to rehabilitate or create some new person, like
scientists in a Viennese laboratory, but rather to balance the scales of justice. And
sometimes the only way to do that is to give the offender his just desserts: capital
punishment. I changed my views on the issue.
So, I have no difficulty whatsoever with the state carrying out its sentence in the
McVeigh case. McVeigh committed a horrendous crime. He might have been misguided in his
understanding of the social order, but there's absolutely no excuse for taking the lives
of innocent people in such a senseless act of terrorism.
Just desserts, in some extreme cases, demand extreme punishment. And if there's ever a
case where it was deserved, it's the Timothy McVeigh case.
Now, the state has no more serious obligation than to wield the sword to preserve order.
It's a solemn occasion: 168 people died, and countless lives have been shattered. We ought
not to be celebrating, or viewing political posturing or commercialism as we have seen in
Terre Haute. We ought to be saddened that sin has led us to this point.
So as this sentence is carried out, remember that the execution of Timothy McVeigh isn't
about therapy, or retribution, or getting even.
It's about justice and preserving the dignity of man."
It would seem, from all accounts, that Timothy McVeigh deliberately chose to harden his
heart right to the end like the blaspheming thief on the cross. There is, praise God, the
complete opposite of this final hardness - the other thief. The second criminal was also
hanging besides Jesus and was as guilty as his colleague. Somehow, by God's grace, he
realised his guilt, disassociated with his friend's blasphemy, and begged Jesus for mercy.
And indeed, he found last minute grace.
Make a deliberate choice today. Choose Jesus Christ and let Him be the Captain of your
life.
"Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as in the
rebellion." (Heb 3:15)
Prayer: O Lord, be thou the Master of my fate; the Captain of my soul.
(By K.E. Olsen)
FORTHCOMING EVENTS:
* 9 August - National Women's Day. (For KZN a peaceful march is planned in
Pietermaritzburg. For more information contact Derrick King: 033-387-2209)
* 31 August - 2 September - CFT Annual General Meeting (PLEASE NOTE THE CHANGE OF DATES!!)
* 1 October - International Life Chain Day (For KZN 7 October)
* 4-6 October - NAL Conference. For information contact: (031) 903-7359 or see: www.nal.org.za
