News

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Dear Friends of Life

I trust you have all had a blessed Christmas period.

I did and in a most unexpected manner.

Yes, there were the traditional joys of meeting friends and sharing meals.

In addition, as the New Year began, I received an unexpected phone call.

The caller was someone I knew well. He and his wife are faithful prayer warriors, active during our twice annual 40 Days for Life prayer vigils for the end of abortion. So faithful are they that they have been part of every single vigil we have organized since we first began them in Montreal, back in the spring of 2009 – an amazing eight campaigns!

On this day, another topic was on his mind. He was wondering whether I was free and willing to spend the afternoon with him laying down a primer coat in a couple of bedrooms of an apartment recently leased to an expectant mother.

Some background knowledge may be helpful at this point. The couple’s involvement during this past fall’s 40-day vigil took a most unexpected turn. They befriended a young woman anxious about her pregnancy. Under much parental pressure to abort her 19 week old child, she had gone to the Morgentaler facility, across the street from where we were praying. Fortunately, she left without aborting the child and came to speak to us and ever since we have been accompanying her.

The latest form of this support was the painting exercise.

I gladly accepted the invitation and despite my aching muscles on the following day, I have no regrets for having accepted the invitation. In fact, I feel blessed.

Subsequently, I learned that the final coats were done that same evening and the following day. Further that the following Saturday, mother, father and child moved into a newly painted 4 ½, leaving their outgrown bachelor apartment behind.

So, as many of us were celebrating the arrival of the Christ child, I was privileged to spend some time helping an expected mother.

We are committed to help women who face untimely pregnancies and choose life for their babies.

Unfortunately, not all of our encounters with pregnant women end so well. In my previous newsletter I had asked for prayers for another expected mother. Despite our best efforts to help, this young woman decided to abort her child.

Such incidents are all too typical of Quebec society where there are over 30 000 abortions yearly. And these figures do not take into account the children lost to abortifacients such as the morning-after pill.

What can be done? Prayer and Politics.

As our twice-yearly prayer vigil for the end of abortion has continued to garner strength, Further, we have expanded upon this by providing a daily presence outside abortions mills.

Since the beginning of January 2012, I have gone to spend at least an hour each day near a local abortion mill in silent contemplative prayer. Often alone, sometimes accompanied by a few faithful, I act in faith that my prayers will be heard and change will come.

One sign that change is happening is the increase in number of post-abortive people joining me in prayer. Jean-Olivier experienced the abortion of his child this past fall. Despite his wishes to have the child, the mother believed otherwise and aborted. Since then, he has joined me at the vigil location.

Have a blessed New Year,

Brian A. Jenkins

Outreach Coordinator

Quebec Life Coalition

P. S. Our own prayer warrior, Maria, is pregnant and all is going well, though she is suffering from much nausea. Please keep mother and child in your prayers.

Lauren Enriquez has written a revealing blog, splicing together candid quotes from abortionists concerning the work they do.

I reproduce a few below, while the full story - linked here, contains many more along with their references.

• “They [the women] are never allowed to look at the ultrasound because we knew that if they so much as heard the heart beat, they wouldn’t want to have an abortion.” Dr. Randall, former abortionist. Quoted in "Pro-Choice 1990: Skeletons in the Closet" by David Kuperlain and Mark Masters in Oct. “New Dimensions” magazine.
• “Even now I feel a little peculiar about it, because as a physician I was trained to conserve life, and here I am destroying it.” Dr. Benjamin Kalish, abortionist.
• “Sorrow, quite apart from the sense of shame, is exhibited in some way by virtually every woman for whom I performed an abortion, and that’s 20,000 as of 1995. The sorrow is revealed by the fact that most women cry at some point during the experience… The grieving process may last from several days to several years… Grief is sometimes delayed… The grief may lie sublimated and dormant for years.”  Dr. Susan Poppema, abortionist. (Poppema, S. & Henderson, M. (1996) Why I Am an abortion doctor. New York: Prometheus Books)

In today's Montreal Gazette, columnist Janet Bagnall writes a pretty good commentary on the plight of women. Her inspiration is drawn from the current political landscape in India, yet she touches upon issues related to aboriginal women here in Canada.

Her column would have been great had she not left out the high-number of sex-selective abortions there occuring. Children are being aborted at a high rate in India solely because they are girls.

As soon as public figures like Ms. Bagnall step out of the cloak of silence concerning this atrocity will women begin to receive the respect they deserve and their children the lives that is their right.

 Wonderful, touching video.

"The Dennehy's decide to give the gift of 'family' to nine children from around the world."

 The following video clip makes a compelling argument for carrying through with a pregnancy resulting from rape.

Given by a young woman - Pam Stenzel, who was so conceived, she rhetorically asks why she should be condemned to death for the crime of my father?"

http://www.youtube.com/embed/nNMY1p64lwo

 Fuller coverage may be found here.

Bryan Kemper writes a pretty good commentary linking the tragic event in Newtown, Connecticut of this past Friday to the carnage occuring daily at abortion mills.

He writes: "I am not merely trying to show them (horrific events in history) as the same thing (as abortion), I am trying show the horrifying fact that we don’t see them as the same thing."

He writes with feeling, grieving as much the lost of lives in Newtown, CT, to the loss of "the other thousands of innocent human persons killed on the same day that so few people are crying for."

The remaining of the commentary adroitly defends charges leveled against him for begin opportunistic.

Dr. Guy Turcotte was released earlier this week from prison week after having served 46 months for killing his two children - a five year-old and a three year-old. The sentence was light as he was found by a jury to be not criminally responsible for his actions. The following editorial by Mr. Rénald Veilleux (Gatineau, Qc) is a good reflection on this incident and the general moral climate in the province of Quebec.

Yes, it is sad and disturbing to think that Dr. Guy Turcotte could do such a thing toward his children. Such insensitivity, such violence against his own children. He must have been seriously blinded either by madness or rage or both?

A similar conclusion applies unfortunately to how many other people or parents who do away with the lives of innocent victims, of their own children.

Where are we as a society? Have we lost our bearings, our basic and moral values for the respect for all human life?

I can not help but draw a parallel with the life of the unborn child and the fate that we reserve for it all too often. Yet, here, few people are indignant, are outraged.

Some of us who are scandalized at the behavior of Dr Guy Turcotte do not hesitate to end the life of the unborn for various reasons. It was not planned... it's going to bother us, endebt us etc. ..... and these reasons to eliminate are numerous and easy particularly as they are supported by the majority and funded through our taxes.

Our governments lack the money to help the poorest in our society, but they have the money to fund abortions.

Is it any wonder that our society is on the road to bankruptcy?

Between 2000 and 2009, 491 babies dies after they were born alive following an abortion.

The following story has garnered much attention in the media since it first hit. 

Here's a creative way to express the horror of abortion that is occuring in Canada. The National Post's graphic notes over 93 000 abortions for 2009, noting that this figure is an underestimate.

Your prayers are urgently requested for one of our precious children.

This afternoon I received a call from a faithful prayer warrior, telling me that in one of the Montreal area hospitals, this toddler was removed from water and nutrition last week at the request mother and father.

Death may be imminent. According to Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coaltion, for the given circumstances, a child typically lives between four and seven days.

We pray that Our Heavenly be merciful to this little one and that she may be accompanied on her final journey home to meet Him.

Post-Script (Dec13)

I'm saddened to inform you that the little girl died late this Monday past. May she rest in peace.

Also, we continue to keep her grieving parents in our thoughts and prayers as well as the attending physicians in this ward. May the latter continue to work so as to safeguard the previous gift of life in all of their patients.