First I bring my best wishes from the Pro-Life-organization KALEB, from our chairwoman Ursula Toapern, from the members of our managing committee and the membership of KALEB. The first Pro-Life-organization of East-Germany, KALEB, is now ten years old. We thank our God for ten years work for life!

Please let me mention some of the main tasks for German and European Pro-Life-movements.

First some preliminary remarks:

· It is the characteristic situation in Europe: The high number of abortion and low number of children, especially in western European countries.

· There are about five million of abortions yearly in Europe.

· In Germany 250 000 unborn babies were killed every year. This means – one school class per hour.

Late-term Abortion

A special terrible problem in Germany is the late-term-abortion. According to the German abortion law from 1995 is it allowed to kill unborn handicapped children until birth.

The Foundation Ja zum Leben therefore established the campaign Tim lebt. You can see it in www.Tim-lebt.de. Tim, an unborn handicapped boy (Down syndrome) of 25 weeks, has survived his own abortion and was left behind ten hours by doctors. This happened in summer 1997. Experts suppose that in Germany more than 1000 cases of late-term-abortion of children are realized in the year. These children are already viable out of the mother’s womb.

The legislature was inactive until now. German Christian Democratic members of the Parliament will introduce a bill in the next weeks to stop these dreadful late-term-abortions. Please pray for the success of this project!

Pre-implantation Diagnosis

In Germany there are efforts to permit the so-called diagnosis of “Pre-implantation”. This is the procreation for testing unburn children in the “test-tube” to avoid the implantation of handicapped children in the mothers womb. You’ll know that in England, Sweden and other countries this selective method is admitted. In Germany this method is forbidden by the “law of embryo protection,” now the Health-Ministry of Germany prepared a so called “reproduction-medicine law,” mainly with the intention to undermine the high standard of the embryo protection.

We see here a great menace, we see the repetition of our disastrous history: The extermination of – so called – “unworth life” of human beings. There is also an urgent European problem! We must absolutely prevent this inhuman development!

“Abortion pill” RU 486

The problem of the abortion pill Mifegyne (RU 486). At the beginning of last year the production firm Exelgyn, Paris, applied for the licence of Mifegyne in several European countries, so in Germany, too. In this period we called the European Pro-Life-movements for protests and prayer vigils – in Brussels (European Parliamant), Paris (Exelgyn) and on the National licence authorities. This common campaign couldn’t realize, sorry, but some members of Pro-Life-movements have written us that they pray.

We couldn’t prevent the licence of Mifegyne. In Berlin we carried out 11 prayer actions. Today Mifegyne is licenced in about 9 countries.

From January to July, 99, we had eight prayer and protest vigils on the distribution company in Barleben near Magdeburg.

In October of this year, we are informed that the marketing firm Femagen, will stop the distribution at the end of this year. The reason: The compensation for the gynaecologysts is too low, they have alleged no merit on the killing unborn babies by Mifegyne. In France, for example, thirty percent of all abortions are realised by Mifegyne, in Germany, only 3%. The distribution firm had losses of 1,5 millions D-Marks. Now the German press reports that Exelgyn found another German distribution-firm.

Nevertheless: We won’t stop praying and doing protest campaigns. Mifegyne must be forbidden, it must be banned internationally as a chemical weapon!

European Union Charter of Basic Rights

On December 8 this year, in Nizza, France, the representatives of European Union will decide the “Charter of basic rights” for the European Union. It is an important ducument: important for our, and following generations in Europe. This charter now has at least two fundamental faults:

Forbidden in the charter is reproductive cloning, only. That would mean – therapeutic cloning is allowed! This would be a fatal decision! According the opinion of experts – therapeutic cloning allowed also reproductive cloning, therefore the “creation” of identical duplicates of human beings.

Therapeutic cloning demands the killing of embryos. This fact opposes Article 2 (1) of the charter; according to this article every person has the right to live. Therefore is it necessary to forbidden the total cloning of human being!

Further: In a few articles of the charter we find the word: “Person”, instead of “human being”.

For example: Every person has the right to live (article 2,1). That is dangerious, because such philosophers like Peter Singer from Australia make a difference in the right to live between “human being” and “Person.” According this theory, persons only have a restricted right to live compared to the human being. This matter must be changed.

We regret that God, as creator of all of life, is not mentioned in the charter – with even one word! You may see on it the spirit of this charter. Now it is urgently necessary that European people and Pro-Life-movements write letters to the national governments petitioning them to change the charter mentioned. The bill of charter in the present form is unacceptable.

Bio-Patent Law

The problem “bio patent law” is a topical European problem! Patents of human embryos and “mix-creatures” between human beings and animals must be strong forbidden! These concerned also the breeding of “mix-creatures”. Some weeks ago, the European Patent Office in Munich (EPA) has approved a patent for mix-creature of a human being and a mouse (Pat.No.EP 380646). The purpose of this “patent” is obviously the breeding of organs for transplantation. It is scandalous, that the European patent guidelines do not exclude patents for human embryos.

Conclusion

These examples may lead us to the realization how necessary is the global and European cooperation between the Pro-Life-movements. I’m very thankful for this conference and look forward to the 2nd European Prolife-Forum in Paris next year.

In trust of God – let us go on to prayer and work for life!

God Bless you all.

Walter Schrader

KALEB e.V.

Sehrbelliner Strasse 99

10119 Berlin, Germany

phone +49 30 4405-8866

fax +49 30 4405-8867

e-mail info@kaleb.de

internet www.kaleb.de