Respect Life Ministry
For the past ten years, the Respect Life Office has provided leadership on the most basic issue of life, that is, the right to be born into God's creation. Now we will be expanding that leadership to the other issues that our Church is concerned with and dedicated to: ending all threats to life, including the abolition of the death penalty, euthanasia and assisted suicide; bringing forth the common good through assuring justice and charity in all aspects of daily life; supporting family life and confronting the constantly emerging threats to life such as embryonic stem cell research.
Project Rachel
Project Rachel is a one-on-one outreach of the Office, offering healing and support to women dealing with the aftermath of having had an abortion. Clients call a toll-free number for anonymous, confidential and respectful support, listening and assistance.
Click on these topics for information on the issues
Abortion
- Only 1% of abortions are performed because of rape or incest.
- 1% of abortions are performed because of the mother's health problems.
- 3% of abortions are performed because of fetal abnormalities.
- 95% of abortions are performed as a means of birth control or to end an unplanned pregnancy.
- Half of all abortions are performed on women who chose to use abortion as their only means of birth control.
- 43% of women who have abortions will have two or more.
- Every fourth baby conceived dies from abortion in this country.
That's 1.4 million every year. 4000 deaths every day - more than were killed in the September 11th tragedies. 1 baby is killed every 22 seconds.
There are better choices!
The average abortion takes 5 to 10 minutes. The average wait for a couple wanting to adopt a child is 2 to 10 years.
Make your choice count!
For information on adoption, visit Catholic Social Services
Click here for more information on other Pro-Life issues.
Post-Abortion Healing Services
Project Rachel: Let the Healing Begin
I used to think I was the only one.
So full of pain and guilt,
…over that choice I made so many years ago;
…over the abortion I had when I was young.
But now I know I'm not the only one.
There are lots of us out there
…who are haunted by the past;
…who are hiding the truth and are hurting so bad.
But, you know what?
There is a way to deal with that choice and to heal that pain.
Project Rachel can help the healing begin.
All you have to do is decide.
For more information please see the following
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End of Life Issues
In May 2001, the Illinois Bishops issued a pastoral letter called Facing the End of Life. In it, the Bishops asked all Catholics and people of good will to reexamine our perceptions of death and dying from the perspective of our faith, not of that of our society. Considering our lives in light of the truth that we are made to spend eternal life with God should lead us to prepare for our death by living a good life, seeking the sacraments as we face illness, and turning to the Lord for support and meaning in the struggles of a life-threatening illness.
Specifically, the pastoral letter reiterates:
- Assisted suicide and euthanasia are clearly rejected, but also rejected is the view that every possible means to preserve life must be used when the individual is clearly dying.
- We Americans do not like to hear about limits or any sort of dependency. The death of the body is not always a defeat; what is most difficult for many to face is that our lives are, ultimately, not in our control.
- Health care practitioners have a personal responsibility to improve pain and symptom control and must refrain from aggressive and inappropriate life-sustaining therapy that will only prolong the dying process. Catholic health care will not participate in assisted suicide or euthanasia; neither will it condone substandard pain management nor a refusal to accept natural death as part of life.
- Even improved pain and symptom control cannot relieve all the grief and emotional anguish that come when we and those we love face the end of life.
- To say that pain has value in that we can recognize our human struggles are shared by Christ is not to say that we preach the glorification of pain. Those who say otherwise are spreading nonsense and perverted caricatures of Catholics.
- Speak with your physician and make prudent advance directives that will help guide your care in case you become too ill to participate in decision-making.
The Bishops of Illinois invite all people of good will to work together to care for the dying with the dignity and respect they deserve.
For more information, please email the Diocesan Pro-life Office, visit the Ministry to the Sick & Aged web site or contact your parish priest.
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Stem Cell Research
Stem cell research promises great good and is a worthy scientific priority as long as it is pursued ethically. Obtaining stem cells from people without harming them can be ethical. The question is whether to fund embryonic stem cell research, which requires destroying embryos in order to obtain the stem cells. The prospect should cause us all to consider the implications of furthering medical science at such a cost.
What are embryonic stem cells?
Each of us began life as an embryo. The early embryo (fertilized egg) is almost entirely made up of stem cells, which researchers want to extract for experiments in repairing and regenerating human tissues and organs. However, harvesting embryonic stems cells (usually obtained from so-called "spare embryos" created in fertility clinics) always involves the destruction of the human embryo. Laudable intentions do not justify immoral means.
Won't the embryos be discarded anyway? Why not use their cells for improving the life of another person?
Because human embryos are just that --human-- it is never ethical to sacrifice one class of human beings to benefit another. Clearly, no government should requisition innocent human beings for deadly experiments on the grounds that they are "unwanted." It is immoral to cause their death by harvesting their stem cells.
In addition, to say that these embryos will be discarded and have no potential for life is untrue; they are living, developing human beings. In some cases these embryos are "adopted" by infertile couples. Their death will be certain only if federal funding for harvesting is approved.
So, is stem cell research itself unethical and immoral?
No! Many avenues of stem cell research that do not involve the use of embryonic cells exist. Techniques exist to stimulate growth and specialization of cells found in adult tissues, in bone marrow and in umbilical cord blood.
So, harvesting stem cells from human embryos isn't even necessary to the research?!
That's correct. Recent scientific breakthroughs have demonstrated that the destruction of embryos may indeed not be at all necessary to achieve the benefits promised by stem cell research. Actually, stem cells extracted from human embryos have never been used successfully to treat any disease in humans.
What's the worst that could happen?
We probably can't even imagine the worst, but history offers examples of what happens when groups of humans are treated as mere objects for others' use and destruction. Slavery, Nazi medical experiments and China's policy of harvesting and selling organs from prisoners should serve as reminders of the consequences of doing evil in the name of science.
The Bottom Line
Are these little human embryos-tiny as they are-people or property? Are we going to create a class of human lab rats just for research, experimentation, harvesting and destruction, or are we going to view them as life? There is no room for compromise on this issue!
For more information
- Email: Diocesan Pro-life Office or your local parish priest
- Website: Do No Harm: The Coalition of Americans for Research Ethics www.stemcellresearch.org is a national coalition of researchers, health care professionals, bioethicists, legal professionals, and others dedicated to the promotion of scientific research and health care which does no harm to human life.
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