Ann Marie Cosgrove

We have approval from Fr. Walsh to sponsor Ann Marie Cosgrove. I've already put together a flier, now all I have to do is put in our request for the space. If anyone would like to volunteer to put up fliers, let me know. Also, we will need to have a contact for the talk. I could give my number at the store if people call between 10 and 5, however, I think it would be good to have one more person answer calls, especially if they are more likely to be around after five. Any takers?

Small Families Out; Big Families In

There is a must read article at the following address about overpopulation:

http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=291

The basic gist of the article is that small families are on the way out because the economy can't handle an ever declining birth rate. Okay, I know, it would be nice if the reason for the turnaround were that people had decided to listen to God but I'll take what I can get.

The author of the article points out that the basic premise of the zero population types (i.e., that having no kids will make you richer) doesn't work out very well on the macro level. You see, people (properly raised, of course) are not merely expenses, they are also generally producers. And they usually produce more than what they need so they have something left over to help take care of those among us who aren't able to take care of themselves any more.

Let's hope we don't see a lot of "Live Unworthy of Life" campaigns started before the new wave of large families get into full swing.

Angela Franks

As you may recall, in one of our previous meetings we discussed the possibility of having a speaker in to discuss the history of Planned Parenthood--in particular--its historic involvement with the eugenics movement. During our meeting I could not remember the name of the author who had written a recent work on this topic. I finally tracked it down and her name is Angela Franks and her book is "Margaret Sanger's Eugenic Legacy: The Control of Female Fertility".

I talked to Angela today and I think she would make an excellent speaker on the topic of Planned Parenthood because she is very academic and she's a stickler for accuracy. For a two-hour talk she would charge $800, plus expenses. She lives in Morgantown and would be flying out of the Pittsburgh airport. She'd need about $200 to take a shuttle between Morgantown and Pittsburgh, airfare (probably around $600) and two nights accomodation because it is a stretch to get back and forth in one day if she is going speaking in the evening, and it's hard to get here in time for an evening talk if she doesn't leave until the morning of the talk (plus, she's pregnant with her third child, so let's give the poor woman a break!)

Angela also could give a talk to our group for an extra $300 to provide information about Planned Parenthood's history and what they are doing at the moment that would be a little more informal. We can discuss this more at our meeting tonight.

The timing on this would probably be best at the end of October because she's finishing off her PhD at the beginning of October, "may" be traveling out of the country in November, and is due to deliver in January of next year.

There are other people who could speak on this topic but I believe that Angela Frank's commitment to accuracy makes her the best choice. If we have someone speak on this topic they have to be completely accurate or we will be doing more harm than good. Angela's reputation is untarnished in this regard.

Let's discuss this more at the meeting!

Church to Publish New Document on Life Issues

The Church is planning to publish a compendium of the Church's positions on life issues soon in which they do what they always do--support life. Unfortunately, some of the more clueless members of the MSM have characterized this upcoming document as an "attack" on abortion rights and other liberal causes. I'd characterize it more as a defense of traditional Church teachings, but hey, that's just me!

Pro-Life Search Engine

If you want to find things on the Internet and help the pro-life cause at the same time, Pat Johnson told me that there is a new search engine powered by Google that does just that. The search engine is http://www.prolifesearch.com/. Thanks to Pat Johnson for that tip and don't forget to use www.prolifesearch.com instead of www.google.com or www.yahoo.com!