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New Educational Tools for a
New School Year
Part Two of
Three
By Joe Landrum
In case some of you missed it
in the July/August issue of NRL News, the
National Right to Life Educational Trust Fund
has a new resource available which teachers and
students will find extremely helpful. A DVD
titled A Baby’s First Months – Infinite
Possibilities takes the viewer through the major
milestones of the development of the unborn
child in just six minutes. A detailed
description and order form can be found on page
4 of that issue, or seen at
http://www.nrlc.org/news/2009/NRL07-08/InfinitePossibilities.html.
The DVD teaches the humanity
of the unborn child without ever getting into
the abortion issue. Thus “ A Baby’s First
Months—Infinite Possibilities” is suitable for
all audiences. The
writer, director and producer of the DVD, Pam
Rucinski, indicated that she “wanted viewers to
lose themselves in the breathtaking moments of
their first days of life.” We believe she
succeeded. ($10 each, no shipping charge.)
The DVD is a perfect companion to
the booklet, a baby’s first months, with
pictures of babies in utero at various stages.
Brief descriptions tell the reader what’s new at
each stage, but the pictures do most of the
talking. These are small booklets, and may be
great additions to high school biology classes
dealing with human development.
Unlike the DVD, these booklets
do briefly discuss the legality of abortion on
one page, noting that even the child at 20 weeks
could be legally aborted. The focus is on the
child, however, and the information is well
footnoted for those who want to delve into a
particular aspect of human development. ($.45
cents each, with quantity discounts.)
Of continuing importance are
the Trust Fund’s fact sheets-- one, two, or
four-page descriptions of a particular topic.
The most recent addition to this line-up is the
very significant study, Does Legalizing
Abortion Protect Women’s Health? In four
pages and full color it deals with the claim
that legalizing abortion in countries where is
it not currently legal would save women’s lives.
This is a joint publication of Minnesota
Citizens Concerned for Life Global Outreach and
the National Right to Life Educational Trust
Fund. The fact sheet
debunks this claim, pointing out that improving
health care in poorer countries would save
lives, not legalizing abortion. Indeed, in
places where health care remains inadequate,
legalizing abortions would increase the number
of women who die or are harmed by abortion, as
legalization would lead to an increase in the
number of women aborting. (More about fact
sheets below.) The
subject of stem cells remains an important
pro-life topic. The Trust Fund offers a
30-minute DVD titled “Stem Cells and Cloning.”
This easy-to-follow introduction to the topic
discusses what stem cells are, the difference
between adult and embryonic stem cells, and the
use of so-called “therapeutic cloning” to obtain
embryonic stem cells.
The presenter, NRLC President
Dr. Wanda Franz, discusses the scientific
interest in stem cell research, successes with
adult stem cells, and the ethical implications
of destroying human embryos for some potential
future benefit to others. In contrast to adult
stem cell research, embryonic stem cell research
requires killing human embryos, whether those
embryos were originally created to bring a child
to birth or were created solely for research.
This can be a perfect introduction to this
subject in biology classes, or in government
classes dealing with current events. ($10 -- no
extra shipping!) Another
excellent resource is Angela Franks’ Margaret
Sanger’s Eugenic Legacy. This is best suited
for college or advanced high school students.
This scholarly book delves into the eugenic
philosophy behind the rhetoric that guided
Planned Parenthood’s founder, and still guides
many advocates of abortion, embryonic stem cell
research, euthanasia and assisted suicide. ($15)
On the subject of abortion
complications, the second edition of Women’s
Health After Abortion: The Medical and
Psychological Evidence is available on the
web page of the De Veber Institute, which
published this edition in 2003. See
http://www.deveber.org/publications2.html.
This book summarizes the results of a number of
studies that have demonstrated the detrimental
health effects of abortion, effects such as
increased risk of breast cancer, infertility,
substance abuse, and even suicide. This can
really help the pro-lifer answer the
oft-repeated but ridiculous claim that abortion
is safer for the mother than childbirth.
One overlooked resource
students, librarians and educators might wish to
consider is the Research Bulletin of the
Association for Interdisciplinary Research in
Values and Social Change. The Bulletin provides
information from top researchers in their fields
on the medical, psychological and sociological
aspects of abortion. Several issues are
available on line at
http://www.abortionresearch.us, with more to
come.
The most recent issue, titled
Mothers Living in Poverty: How Uninvolved and
Unreliable Men in their Lives May Drive them to
Abortion and How Abortion Increases Risk for
Adverse Outcomes, deals with one of the factors
involved in the decision to abort, and how
counselors and health care professionals might
better respond to the needs of mothers. Past
issues deal with the effects of abortion on the
family, the link between abortion and breast
cancer, the increase in self-destructive
behaviors following abortion, and the perinatal
hospice option for children in the womb who
cannot survive. The range of topics makes this
an excellent resource for a number of classroom
discussions or essay assignments. A complete
list of titles is available. (Membership in the
Association: $25 annually. Single copies of back
issues: $1) We mentioned
fact sheets at the beginning of this article. We
have available four fact sheets that deal with
various aspects of Planned Parenthood, the
largest abortion provider in the United States.
They include PPFA’s political activities, their
involvement in abortion, their finances, and
recent activities involved in restructuring,
clinic mergers, etc.
Other topics include:
Arguments Made for Abortion…And Some Answers;
Abortion’s Physical Complications; Abortion’s
Psycho-Social Consequences; Teens and Abortion:
Why Parents Should Know; Abortion Statistics and
Trends; The Pain of the Unborn; Deaths From
RU486; Supreme Court Decisions; and Abortion’s
Impact on Minorities. These are great
introductions to different aspects of abortion,
and can really help jump start the class
discussion. All these are available on our web
page, at
http://www.nrlc.org/factsheets/index.html.
Single copies of each are free, and you are free
to make copies or download from our web page.
Also on our web page you can find
more than a decade’s worth of NRL News at
http://www.nrlc.org/news/index.html; the
on-line version of Abortion: Some Medical Facts
at
http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/index.html; our
new Communications Blog at
http://nrlcomm.wordpress.com/; information
about our Essay Contests (one for grades 7-9,
one for grades 10-12) at
http://www.nrlc.org/essaycontest/index.html;
or the basics of the development of the unborn
child at
http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/facts/fetaldevelopment.html.
Search around - you’ll find plenty more.
If your are interested in
obtaining any of the above materials, or for
information on quantity discounts, contact the
Trust Fund at
education@nrlc.org; (202) 626-8829; or write
to 512 10th St. NW, Washington, DC 20004. Unless
otherwise noted, add $3.95 shipping for orders
under $20, or 20% for orders of $20 and over.
Joe Landrum is
Administrative Assistant for Public Information
for the National Right to Life Educational Trust
Fund.
Part Three
Part One |
