Respect Life – Pillar #3 Information & Education
PILLAR #3: INFORMATION & EDUCATION
Training: Sidewalk Advocates for Life
Learn proven methods to offer assistance to women at the critical decision-point; outside an abortion clinic. This professional training is developed by SIDEWALK ADVOCATES FOR LIFE, a national organization, and is conducted several times a year in the Allentown Diocese.
School Presentations
Generation Life is a Philadelphia-based group that age-appropriate presentations for middle school and high school students. Their college-age presenters connect well with young audiences as they focus on chastity and the dignity of human life. They have presented at Catholic schools throughout the Diocese of Allentown for several years.
Silent No More Awareness
An international organization dedicated to help women and men tell their stories about how abortion has affected their lives. The campaign seeks to expose and heal the secrecy and silence surrounding the emotional and physical pain of abortion.
Silent No More is a project of Priests for Life and Anglicans for Life.
To learn more about sharing your story, please visit www.abortiontestimony.com.
Students For Life of America
Students For Life Recruits, trains and mobilizes the Pro-Life Generation to abolish abortion, using age-appropriate activities and education for students in Middle School, High School and College. Find a chapter in your school or let them help you start your own chapter!
Pro-Life Future, Allentown
A post-graduate branch of Students for Life. Pro-Life Future is a national network of chapters made up of young adults who get together and do pro-life work. Young professionals are still part of the Pro-Life Generation. And Students for Life is still here to empower them to be pro-life leaders, change hearts and minds, and make abortion unthinkable.
End of Life Threats: Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia
This insidious threat preys on the weak and vulnerable; the sick, the elderly and the disabled. The alarming push to make it ‘legal, normal and honorable’ is advancing across the United States.
Did you know…
- Assisted Suicide/Euthanasia is currently legal in in 8 states in the USA and in all of Canada?
- In 2020-21, 15 additional states introduced new bills to legalize assisted suicide?
- In 2020-21, 4 states are trying to EXPAND their euthanasia laws ( i.e. eliminate safeguards)?
- In Pennsylvania, 10 attempts to legalize assisted suicide have been made since 2007?
- In Pennsylvania even now, there are 2 bills pending to legalize Assisted Suicide? (House Bill #1453 and Senate Bill #405)
Don’t be deceived
Euphemistic names, like “Death with Dignity,” “Compassionate Choices”, “End of Life Options” aim to garner support from an uninformed public and label their political opponents as “cruel and unsympathetic.” While the initial push for legalization ensures “safeguards” to prevent abuse, these very safeguards are systematically soon-after labeled “barriers” and the push is made to remove them. Promoters insist it is cruel to “withhold” this option from people in who are “suffering”. The facts are:
a) With today’s medical environment, pain can be eliminated and significantly controlled. Options also exist for a comfortable, dignified and natural death for anyone with a terminal condition.
b) In countries where “assisted suicide” is long-standing, few people who have chosen this “option” have cited “pain” as the reason for their suicide. In Canada in 2020, assisted suicide accounted for 2.5% of all deaths: 87% cited issues that point to fear/depression, (fear of becoming a burden, loss of physical autonomy) and 13% cited loneliness or isolation.
Past experience demonstrates the dangerous reality
In countries and states that have legalized assisted suicide, (Canada, Belgium, Netherlands, Oregon, Washington, California), there is ample evidence of the dangers it presents. The once “compassionate choice for the terminally ill becomes just another “medical procedure.” What is initially billed as “an option” soon becomes “a duty” or “an imperative” for the seriously ill or even the disabled. For example:
- Doctors lose their freedom of conscience and are forced by law to either participate in assisted suicide & euthanasia or lose their license.
- Patients & family members have reported being pressured to accept this as the “most responsible” option for them.
- Patients have reported their insurance company would cover a lethal injection but not the medical therapy they needed.
- A negative medical diagnosis no longer becomes a qualifier. This soon becomes an option for anyone at any time for any reason (including mentally incompetent).
- Lethal doses of drugs can be delivered after a simple teleconference, with no follow-up or supervision. (A “necessity” due to Covid.) State heath organizations do not enforce reporting.
- Minor children (12yrs+) can be euthanized by their own request or that of their parents’. Netherlands has been routinely euthanizing infants/children with disabilities.
Resources; End of Life Issues
Fatal Flaws: Canadian Documentary, as seen on EWTN.
This documentary provides a look at the effects of Euthanasia/Assisted Suicide in societies where is has become entrenched. (Download/rent for $5).
Patient’s Rights Council, Steubenville, OH
A non-profit organization that follows health-care and end-of-life issues closely. Access up-to-date information about state laws and attempts to expand assisted suicide laws. Find resources to protect your rights and those of your loved ones. Stay informed and let your elected officials know your views.
Advanced Directives; Do You Need One?
Learn about types of “Advanced Directives for Medical Decisions”
Get a free Protective Medical Decisions Document (a type of Advance Directive for Health Care) Protect yourself and your family with an updated Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care. Each person over the age of 18 years old should have one. You can obtain information plus a state-specific form to complete.
National Catholic BioEthics Center, Philadelphia, PA
Provides education, guidance, and resources to the Church and society to uphold the dignity of the human person in health care and life sciences. In addition to valuable information on their website, they offer the opportunity to “Talk to an Ethicist” who will clarify Church teaching related to the specifics of your particular healthcare dilemma.