Around the web....March 21, 2014

New, Critical Conversation Brewing on Birth-Control Usage in the U.S
...According to pro-life activist and registered nurse Jill Stanek, the Merck lawsuit is just the latest evidence about the harmful effects of contraception usage.

“In 2005, the World Health Organization classified the morning-after pill as a Class 1 carcinogen — as dangerous as cigarette smoke and asbestos,” Stanek said. “With all of the studies showing links between oral contraception and greater chances of glaucoma, heart risk and breast-cancer risk, it's amazing any women use them. And the NuvaRing lawsuit shows how dangerous hormonal contraception is.”

“The American people are belatedly finding out from the mainstream media just how far we've gone off the path of proper care of the bodies of women,” stated Stanek. She said media attention to the issue, as well prominent political attention to issues like the HHS contraception mandate, has created “a perfect storm for greater knowledge by women about why they should use better wisdom and responsibility in their sexual practices.”

Part of the increased media attention is coming from an unlikely source — former talk-show host and Hairspray star Ricki Lake. Lake is involved with a new documentary on the harms of hormonal contraception. Lake and her director, Abby Epstein, say the goal of their documentary is simple: to “wake women up to the unexposed side effects” of contraceptives. According to Lake and Epstein, “in the 50 years since its release, the birth-control pill has become synonymous with women’s liberation and has been thought of as some sort of miracle drug.”...

Vatican Library to digitise archives with Japanese support  The Vatican Library has begun digitising its priceless collection of ancient manuscripts dating from the origins of the Church.

The first stage of the project will cover some 3,000 handwritten documents over the next four years.

The cost - more than $20m (£12m) - will be borne by Japan's NTT Data technology company.

Eventually, the library says it hopes to make available online all its 82,000 manuscripts... image

Abortion Clinic Found Storing Remains of Aborted Baby in Fridge With Medications
Police executed a search warrant on Ulrich G. Klopfer’s Women’s Pavilion abortion clinic in South Bend, Indiana, seizing documents and other property on Wednesday, March 19, 2014.

Police from the St. Joseph County Special Victims Unit participated in the raid. It is unknown exactly what kind of documents or other evidence the search warrant allowed police to take. According to news reports, the police apparently made copies of the seized documents and returned the originals to Klopfer on Thursday.

Klopfer has faced a complicated tangle of legal issues in recent months...

Albert Mohler: Fred Phelps and the Anti-Gospel of Hate—A Necessary Word
Fred Phelps is dead. The fire-and-brimstone preacher, who for many years was pastor of the institution known as Westboro Baptist Church, died late Wednesday in a hospice in Topeka, Kansas. The announcement was made on his church’s website. The wording was simple: “Fred W. Phelps Sr. has gone the way of all flesh.” Thus brings to an end one of most bitters lives in modern history — and one of the most harmful to the Gospel.

Fred Phelps became infamous due to one central fact — he was a world-class hater. He brought great discredit to the Gospel of Christ because his message was undiluted hatred packaged as the beliefs of a church. Even Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center referred to Westboro Baptist Church as “this so-called church.” The damage was due to the fact that his platform for hatred was called a church. That provided the watching and listening world with a ready target and case study for the accusation that Christian conviction on questions of sexual morality is nothing more than disguised hatred for homosexuals. And, like radioactivity, Fred Phelps’ hatred will survive in lasting half-lives of animus.

The media made Fred Phelps into a public image, but they could hardly ignore a prophet of antipathy who showed up with his followers in public demonstrations and took his case for public protest all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court. Phelps and the media needed each other and fed each other. The New York Times described Phelps as “a loathed figure at the fringe of the American religious scene,” but he was not a fringe figure in terms of media attention. I have done my best not to add to his publicity, but as calls from the media in recent days made clear, the time has come for a necessary word...

Hate and How to Overcome It: How Should We Respond to the Tragic Death of Fred Phelps?
Death is always a tragedy. Hate makes it more so.

Today, a man known for hate died. CNN concluded that his infamy was worth a breaking news alert.

But how do we respond? How does this breaking news relate to the gospel's good news?...

Rahm Emmauel: You Know What School Children Need? More Condoms!
Teen pregnancy rates and STD's are so rampant in Chicago that Mayor Rahm Emanuel has decided to put free condoms in the high schools. Perfect! Let's give young hormone crazed teens a false sense of security and a wink and a nod to some profoundly bad decision making...