Washington D.C., Sep 30, 2016 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- As the Hyde Amendment turns 40 years old this week, a new report claims that it may have saved two million lives from abortion since it went into effect. “Two million lives saved is reason to celebrate,” Chuck Donovan, president of the Charlotte Lozier Institute which produced the report, stated. “The Hyde Amendment is popular not just with pro-lifers, but with a majority of Americans – people of diverse backgrounds and beliefs who all agree that forcing taxpayers to fund abortion is wrong.” However, he added, the policy “is under unprecedented assault as its 40th anniversary approaches” and pro-lifers must defend it to see that it continues to save lives. The Hyde Amendment, named after Congressman Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) who sponsored it, passed Congress in 1976 several years after the Supreme Court ruled that a woman had a legal right to an abortion. The policy prohibited taxpayer dollars – namely through federal programs for low-income women like Medicaid – from subsidizing abortions. Current exceptions to the prohibition are for abortions performed in cases of rape, incest, and to save the life of the mother. “As a rider, it is not a permanent law, but it has been passed with bipartisan support in every federal funding bill since 1976,” Genevieve Plaster of the Charlotte Lozier Institute noted in her written testimony to Congress on Sept. 23. To see how many abortions the policy has prevented, the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the research arm of the pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List, compiled over 20 different studies on how limiting abortion subsidies affects the overall number of abortions. The conclusion they came to was that, because of Hyde's prohibition on Medicaid reimbursements of elective abortions, over two million pregnancies are estimated to have instead been carried to term since 1976, and over 60,000 a year. One in nine pregnancies of women on Medicaid would have ended in abortions if not for Hyde, the report claimed. However, the policy has been under fire recently as the Democratic Party platform called for its repeal over the summer. The party’s presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has supported its repeal, but vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine stated publicly that he favored the policy, after the Clinton campaign had said he opposed it. A Clinton spokesperson said that he still supported the candidate’s “agenda” which included repealing the amendment. GOP nominee Donald Trump has spoken out in favor of the Hyde Amendment. According to a recent Knights of Columbus/Marist poll, Americans were not in favor of taxpayer funding of abortion including 63 percent of women and even 44 percent of Democrats and 45 percent of those identifying as “pro-choice.” “The Hyde Amendment and therefore lives are at stake this election. It is so important that Catholic voters understand where the two tickets stand on this issue,” Mallory Quigley, communications director of the pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List, stated on Thursday. The group’s president Marjorie Dannenfelser also heads Trump’s newly-created pro-life coalition. How has Hyde saved lives? For instance, data from around the time the policy went into effect showed that “the birthrate among women on Medicaid increased by an average of about 13 percent,” the report stated. A Guttmacher Institute review of 22 studies found that 19 of the studies had “statistically significant evidence that abortion rates fell after Medicaid funding was reduced,” the report said, noting that in the studies “18-37 percent of pregnancies that would have ended in Medicaid funded abortions were carried to term when funding was no longer available.” In another case in North Carolina, where from 1980 to 1995 the state subsidized abortions through a special fund, the report cited findings that “whenever funds were depleted,” it was then that “there were statistically significant decreases in the abortion rate, and months later, statistically significant increases in the birthrate.” According to three studies cited in the Guttmacher review, over the course of two decades in certain states “(state) Medicaid funding limits reduce state abortion rates anywhere from 1.4 to 3.4 abortions per thousand women of childbearing age.” Using this methodology for every state for every year from 1976 to 2016 the Hyde Amendment is predicted to routinely save over 60,000 lives a year and thus cumulatively has saved 2.13 million lives since 1976. On the 40th anniversary of the amendment, a “Hello Hyde” campaign also seeks to add faces to the effect of the legislation and personalize it. HelloHyde.org tells the stories of those whose mothers “received prenatal/birth care through Medicaid,” with the statement of “Medicaid should cover birth, not death.” Read more

Washington D.C., Sep 30, 2016 / 12:28 am (CNA/EWTN News).- More Americans are siding against the religious freedom of employers when it may conflict with a “nondiscrimination” policy like access to birth control coverage, new Pew Research n... Read more

Washington D.C., Sep 29, 2016 / 03:32 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- For the millions of women using hormonal birth control, side effects are nothing new. Headaches, mood swings and weight gain are all commonly reported side effects, not to mention more serious problems such as blood clots and migraines. But a new, long-term Danish study is now showing a strong connection between hormonal contraception and another adverse effect: the risk of depression, particularly among teens. “Use of hormonal contraception, especially among adolescents, was associated with subsequent use of antidepressants and a first diagnosis of depression, suggesting depression as a potential adverse effect of hormonal contraceptive use,” stated a Sept. 28 online publication of the Danish Sex Hormone Register Study. From 2000-2013, more than 1 million women in Denmark were observed for the study, with ages ranging from 15-34. These women came from different backgrounds, with various levels of education and body mass index. They used a range of birth control methods, including IUDs, the pill, patches, and the vaginal ring. Following these subjects, the study tracked the women’s birth control prescriptions, as well as subsequent antidepressant prescriptions or depression diagnoses. Women included in the study had no previous diagnosis of depression and did not have a history of using antidepressants. Over the years, the study ultimately drew a clear connection between the use of hormonal birth control and an increased risk of depression, but not all women reacted in the same way. Although hormonal contraception via devices, like a patch, seemed to have a higher risk than pills, the study overall found that the “use of all types of hormonal contraceptives was positively associated with a subsequent use of antidepressants and a diagnosis of depression.” In addition, 15-19 year-old teens using a birth control device were shown at a higher risk – about three times more likely – of receiving antidepressant medication compared to the older age groups. “Adolescent women who used hormonal contraception experienced higher risks than women in general,” the study noted. The researchers did state that teenage users of progestin-only contraception more frequently use antidepressants compared to non-users, suggesting a connection between depression and synthetic hormones. The Danish researchers speculate that the use of birth control more adversely affects teens because their brains are still in a crucial developmental stage. Synthetic hormones, such as progestin found in birth control, might be causing havoc in the molding of younger bodies, but experts have yet to find out the exact connection. “This finding could be influenced by attrition of susceptibility, but also that adolescent girls are more vulnerable to risk factors for depression,” the study stated. Although it would be hard to definitively state that birth control causes depression, the study did find a strong link between the long-term use of hormonal contraception and the first time use of antidepressants. “Assessment of the association between the duration of use and the risk for first use of antidepressants demonstrated increasing relative risks with length of use,” the study noted. “A total of 133,178 first prescriptions of antidepressants and 23,077 first diagnoses of depression were detected during follow-up,” the study found, adding that this number was not reflective of the depressed individuals who did not receive medication. Moving forward, the study suggested that both women and doctors become aware of these findings and pay particular attention to any mood changes. “Health care professionals should be aware of this relatively hitherto unnoticed adverse effect of hormonal contraception.” Birth control has increasingly come under fire in recent years, as science continues to indicate that the high levels of artificial hormones contained within many forms of contraception have negative consequences. Other recent studies on hormonal birth control have shown that it may be responsible for an increase in breast cancer risk, and that it may change a woman’s biological preference in picking a compatible mate. The Catholic Church teaches that the use of contraception is immoral because it tries to separate the sexual act from its natural possibility of procreation. If a married couple faces a just reason to avoid pregnancy, the Church teaches that they may do so through Natural Family Planning, a process that works with a woman’s natural fertile cycles and abstaining from sexual activity during the times that she is fertile. ......You may also like:  http://t.co/C4Kl30Djpv How art and technology are clearing up 'miscontraceptions' on women’s fertility #NFP pic.twitter.com/TZrlP273b2 — Catholic News Agency (@cnalive) March 6, 2015               Read more

Washington D.C., Sep 29, 2016 / 02:45 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The use of a technique to conceive a “three-parent baby” dodged U.S. law and, critics say, may further alter the relationship between parent and child. “This fertility doctor openly acknowledged that he went to Mexico where `there are no rules’ in order to evade ongoing review processes and existing regulations in the United States,” said Marcy Darnovsky, PhD, executive director of the Berkeley, Calif.-based think tank Center for Genetics and Society. “No researcher or doctor has the right to flout agreed-upon rules and make up their own. This is an irresponsible and unethical act, and sets a dangerous precedent.” U.S. doctors worked in Mexico to avoid U.S. laws that ban the procedures. They performed the treatment on a Jordanian woman to prevent her from passing on a genetic condition to her child. The condition, called Leigh Syndrome, would be fatal to children due to a defect in mitochondria, the cellular structures that generate energy from food. The woman and her husband had suffered four miscarriages. One of the children died eight months after birth and another at six years of age. The doctors took DNA from the mother’s egg and healthy mitochondria from a donor egg to create a new egg to be artificially fertilized. The doctors created five embryos and only one developed normally, BBC News reports. The boy conceived in the technique was born in April and is now five months old. Darnovsky wished the infant and his family well, but noted that the Food and Drug Administration had raised “many cautions” about the risk to children conceived in these techniques and possibly to their own children. “The precedent is very troubling – both in the sense of scientists who should know better `going rogue’ with a risky and experimental procedure, and in the sense that they're doing so using a technique that is technically a form of human germline modification,” Darnovsky said, referring to genetic modification of heritable traits. The doctors’ team leaders include Dr. John Zhang, medical director at the New Hope Fertility Centre in New York City. They will present their findings at a meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine in October. The ethics of the technique drew criticism from Robert P. George, a Princeton law professor who has written on the ethical treatment of the human person in embryo, and Dr. Donald Landry, then-chair of the Department of Medicine at New York Presbyterian Hospital. They sent a Feb. 18, 2014 letter to the Food and Drug Administration objecting to any human trials using the procedure. "The desire to help women suffering from mitochondrial disorders or infertility is admirable and worthy," George and Landry said. “However, the needs of the children being created through novel technologies also must be taken into account.” They said the procedure could lead to birth defects and other disorders. The procedure would take place with a relative lack of regulatory oversight. The procedure using three genetic parents would be "a dramatic alteration of the first and most basic of natural human relationships, with consequences difficult to fathom or predict." The fact that human beings have a single mother and father has been “inseparable from our most fundamental social institutions.” They called for greater moral scrutiny for any actions that would “purposely reconfigure the natural, biological foundation of the family.” George and Landry also objected that the technique would necessarily involve the destruction of human embryos and permit “an unjust and immoral exploitation and instrumentalization of human life.” Read more

Los Angeles, Calif., Sep 29, 2016 / 06:11 am (CNA).- On Sept. 2, Dodger Stadium served as the center of a massive Venn diagram of local Catholics and lifelong fans of the Los Angeles Dodgers, as the ballpark hosted its first-ever “Catholic Night.... Read more