A rash of horrifying stories worldwide should make everyone questions the myth that legalized abortion is good for women. These stories take us from the heartland of America to Europe, but they share one thing in common – women are being coerced into abortions.
In Kansas, a female inmate became pregnant after she says she was raped by a prison worker. According to a local news station, the prison worker then tried to “force her to take the 'day after pill' to induce an abortion, but it didn't work. In the end, a worker for the Department of Corrections drove her to an abortion clinic to end the pregnancy.”
In London, another woman fell prey to the same tactic, albeit with a happier ending. Edward Erin, a married doctor, attempted multiple times to poison his secretary’s drinks with an abortifacient after she told him she was pregnant and refused an abortion, according to the BBC. Thankfully, Bella Prowse caught on and didn’t drink anything he gave her. She went on to give birth to a healthy baby.
These stories are eerily similar to a story featured on our SuzyB blog last week. The common thread that unites these stories is the men within them. Each tried to force a woman to have an abortion, either surgically or through a drug that causes a miscarriage (yes, intentionally causing a miscarriage IS abortion).
What do these men teach us about the old abortion industry adage that legalized abortion empowers women?
Simply put, they show us that abortion HURTS women and empowers those who seek to control them.
Abortion will never benefit a woman if it can be used to coerce her into doing something or can be inflicted upon her against her wishes. The abortion industry demands “choice” so a woman is not “forced” to become a parent. Yet the very “choice” women make to continue their pregnancies is undermined by abortion.
No woman is forced to be a parent. Through adoption, she can provide her child with a chance at life, while maintaining her independence. But the sad fact is that women ARE forced into abortions every day. How can something that the abortion industry claims is central to a woman’s choice undermine that very thing? It makes no sense.
The danger for women is real. Serrin Foster, of Feminists for Life, notes, "Domestic violence against single pregnant women at the hands of a boyfriend is being reported with greater frequency."
To this end, a woman is not empowered through abortion. Rather she becomes a dispensable object for a man. Her dignity and her own will can be subverted, and not simply through crushed up abortifacient pills.
Coercion exists on many levels and pervades the abortion industry. Imagine if you were a pregnant college student. You have no money, no job, and you’re far from home. If your boyfriend threatens to leave you unless you have an abortion (a sad but commonplace occurrence), is that truly “choice?” If a husband threatens to divorce you, a family to disown you, or a friend to abandon you, it can seem like you don’t have a choice in the world.
The “choice” that the abortion industry promised would solve all of women’s problems has instead created many more. Aside from its devastating mental and physical effects, abortion has given men an incredibly effective tool to escape consequences and to control women.
With stories like these, we know that abortion is no saving grace for women. That very idea is simply…an outrage!
Calls for Abortion in Health Care Reform Reveal Hypocrisy
Of these five things that contribute to a healthy life, guess which one does not belong?
Well no matter which one you guessed, you guessed wrong. According to Stephanie Poggi, executive director of the National Network of Abortion Funds, abortion is a part of health care for women. “Access to abortion is about whether women have the chance to live healthy lives,” she said.
Poggi tossed this curveball into the debate on health care in an article by the AP’s David Crary, published in the Sept. 21 San Francisco Examiner. Poggi laments the fact that the White House and Democrats in Congress have vowed to keep taxpayer funds away from abortion (however far from the truth this really is). If abortion is not explicitly funded, then Poggi sees no benefits to women. "We felt health care reform is supposed to be about expanding care, not expanding inequality,” she said in the article.
Poggi’s reasoning breaks down into two assertions and both are dangerous lies. The first is that abortion constitutes health care and will add to a healthy lifestyle. Even the strongest proponents of abortion hardly admit that abortion is some sort of health benefit. Women who have had abortions do not hide the fact that it is a painful experience – both physically and mentally.
Furthermore, a health benefit by definition makes some sort of improvement, a positive step in one’s well being. It does not leave a woman prone to disastrous health consequences like heavy or persistent bleeding damage to the cervix, scarring of the uterine lining, perforation of the uterus, damage to other organs, and possibly death.
While other surgeries have a list of side effects and involve a certain level of risk, these surgeries still somehow improve life in some capacity. In no other surgery is a life sucked away rather than mended. So if abortion has NO actual health benefits it cannot be considered a means to “live a healthy life.”
Second, Poggi insists that including abortion in health care coverage will ease the inequalities of society. She adds that access to abortion is a matter of helping minorities. “It's about whether poor women and girls and women of color matter as much as other people,” Poggi said.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Abortions spell out nothing but trouble for minorities.
The Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of Planned Parenthood, reports that African American and Hispanic women are disproportionately affected by abortion. African Americans make up just over 13% of the United States population, yet they account for a whopping 37% of abortions! The chilling reality is that an African American woman is much more likely to get an abortion today than a white woman. Why then is the NNAF so concerned with increasing the number of African American women who seek abortion?
If the NNAF is so invested in ensuring that, “poor women and girls and women of color matter as much as other people,” they should begin with the unborn. African American children are killed in a legacy of eugenics dating back to the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger. Children born to poor parents are denied the chance of prove the American Dream is alive and well. These children DO matter as much as other people and should be treated with the same respect as their mothers. Their worth and significance is the same no matter their economic status, their race, and their age.
For Poggi and the NNAF to advocate for the value of all minorities and poor women, while pushing for more money to kill the youngest ones, is hypocrisy of the worst kind.
In fact, that’s an outrage!
Former Abortion Clinic Director: Government Should Not Encourage Pregnancies
August 7, 2009
Frances Kissling has quite the resume. She entered a convent at the age of 19. After deciding it was not for her, she joined the burgeoning women’s movement of the 1970s. It was then that she was asked to direct an abortion clinic in Pelham and she accepted. From there, she went on to serve as the President of Catholics for a Free Choice for 25 years. Needless to say, Kissling has an invested interest in the abortion industry. With this context in mind, her latest piece on Salon.com, on the morality of persuading women to continue their pregnancies, makes for some interesting reading.
Kissling writes, (emphasis my own)
[Congresswoman] DeLauro wants us to "foster an environment that encourages pregnancies to be carried to term." Really? All pregnancies? Why? Is it always or almost always morally superior to bring a child into the world once conceived than to decide that it would be better thatthis potential person, at this time, under these circumstances should not come to be?
If it were only this simple. While a mother has another chance to have a child, the unborn child’s only chance at life is gone. Forever. So while “this time” and “these circumstances” may not be ideal for the mother, they are the only ones the unborn child will ever have. Once the child is killed through abortion, it does not have a chance to wait until better circumstances arrive.
As hard as we try, our world will never be perfect. The imperfection of human nature dictates that no child will ever be born into ideal circumstances. Some children are born into loving families who have been anxiously awaiting their arrival. Other children are born to a single mother living alone in a world of poverty and hunger. The value of both these children is the same. They each have a beautiful “potential,” as even Kissling notes above. Perhaps the impoverished child will grow up to achieve great things and lift her family out of poverty. No cost can be placed on the betterment of our world or the uplifting of the human spirit. Kissling, however, writes that:
The Department of Agriculture estimates each child will cost a lower-income family just under $150,000. Yes, it probably sounds like a bargain for the professional families in New York, San Francisco and Chicago and the high-level government officials in D.C. who will pay that in private school tuition in the first eight years of school for each of their children, but if you make the $28,600 per year that the DOA estimates for a lower-income family, $150,000 for each child is a fortune.
$150,000 is a lot of money. As this college student knows, it seems like an insurmountable figure of money for someone who wonders where next week’s paycheck will come from.
That is why it is vital to support pregnancy care centers and church organizations that help struggling mothers. The work of these compassionate people makes life possible for many families. Their dedication to the well-being of women and children fill a void that is left by the government. While making decisions that affect nearly 400 million Americans, the government cannot meet every need of struggling parents. It is through this gap in aid that private organizations step up. Yet, Kissling argues,
It's outright obscene for a government that does as badly as ours in caring for children to even consider encouraging women to continue pregnancies. Benign neglect would be a less evil alternative.
At one time or another, most of us have faced difficulties, whether financial, physical, or emotionally. Yet, we thrive to make it to the next day, to reach the better days ahead of us. Why not give the unborn child that same chance?
I refuse to ask women to have children they can't care for, or who are likely to have seriously diminished lives, because some opponents of abortion think having children under any circumstances is the only moral option… They need the cold hard facts about all options including how tough raising kids is and how little help they will get if they do choose to become parents.
Kissling, in her own rush to quell the increasingly salient notion that to continue a pregnancy is to give a child life, ignores some of the greatest options of a pregnant woman has. Pregnancy centers can lend a hand in many ways: prenatal and parenting classes, maternity and baby clothing, diapers, baby formula, and friendship. Some even offer housing for women facing an unplanned pregnancy.
But if women are destined to have, “seriously diminished lives,” as Kissling believes, perhaps Kissling should have reconsidered adoption. This loving action provides a child with life, a family with a long-awaited joy, and a mother with a new beginning. The many ways in which an adoption can be set-up serves each and every party involved.
So before Kissling rushes to fill more clinics with women seeking to kill their own children and fill their lives with unnecessary trauma, she should consider that a pregnant woman is not alone in this world and her future is not desolate.
Rep. Lowey (D-NY) Defends Eugenics, Margaret Sanger
July 23, 2009
On Tuesday in the House of Representatives, Congresswoman Nita M. Lowey of New York read an article in defense of Margaret Sanger, eugenicist and founder of Planned Parenthood.
Lowey began by praising Sanger for “her commitment to improving the health and lives of women” and stated that she was “proud to recognize Margaret Sanger for her tireless efforts on behalf of women and for fighting for those unable to fight for themselves.”
The article, entitled “Margaret Sanger - Setting the Record Straight” is by Dr. Ellen Chesler, a lecturer at Hunter College of the City University of New York. Chesler argues that Sanger’s reputation has been “savaged by opponents who deliberately misrepresent the history of birth control and circulate scurrilous, false accusations about her on the Internet.” Chesler excuses Sanger’s most vile comments as being “lifted out of context and tragically misquoted.”
Unfortunately for Dr. Chesler, this negative view of Sanger is rooted not in the Internet but in Sanger’s own books and actions. Sanger was an outspoken Social Darwinist who condemned charity because it supported a certain population that she termed “human waste.” In her 1922 book, Pivot of Civilization, Sanger devoted a full chapter to this viewpoint called “The Cruelty of Charity.” “Organized charity itself,” she wrote, “is a symptom of a malignant social disease… the surest sign that our civilization has bred, is breeding and is perpetuating constantly increasing numbers of defectives, delinquents and dependents. My criticism, therefore, is not directed at the ‘failure’ of philanthropy, but rather at its success.”
Sanger’s solution to her perceived problem? Mass coercive sterilization and segregation. She stated, “…we prefer the policy of immediate sterilization, of making sure that parenthood is absolutely prohibited to the feeble-minded.”* By supporting coercive sterilization, Sanger can hardly be called a liberator who wished for women to have “the ability to plan their pregnancies, and ultimately control their own destiny,” as Rep. Lowey asserts.
Dr. Chesler states that Sanger’s language had “no intended racial, ethnic or class content.” However, according to New York Times journalist Edwin Black, Sanger surrounded herself with some of the eugenics movement’s most outspoken racists and white supremacists, including Lothrop Stoddard and Leon Whitney. Stoddard, author of The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy was invited to join the board of directors of Sanger’s American Birth Control League, a position he retained for years.
Margaret Sanger herself wished for the League and other organizations such the Eugenics Research Association and American Eugenics Society to unite, seeing that the groups had much in common. Leon Whitney, the executive secretary of the American Eugenics Society, reported to colleagues that Sanger “felt very strongly about eugenics and seemed to see the whole problem of birth control as a eugenical problem… Mrs. Sanger took very kindly to the idea [of the merger] and seemed to be as enthusiastic about it was I was.”*
This is the same Leon Whitney who commented on the Nazi gassing of 50,000 to 100,000 of those who were deemed unfit by saying, “While we were pussy-footing around ... the Germans were calling a spade a spade."
Dr. Chesler calls Sanger “actually an unusually advanced thinker on race for her day” and cites examples in which Margaret Sanger opened birth control clinics for rural black women in the south. Dr. Chesler seems to naively attribute these actions to a concern for blacks rather than a desire to control the black population, despite the evidence that Sanger’s views leaned toward the latter. In a letter to Clarence Gamble dated 1939, Sanger said, “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”
Even after her organization changed its name to Planned Parenthood, Sanger still pushed a eugenics agenda. In fact, in reviewing the goals of International Planned Parenthood, Sanger replied to a colleague, “I appreciate that there is a difference of opinion as what a Planned Parenthood Federation should want or aim to do, but I do not see how we could leave out in its aims some of the eugenic principles that are basically sound in constructing a decent civilization.”*
Thanks to the efforts of those such as Margaret Sanger, some 60,000 Americans were coercively sterilized and thousands were barred from marriage or forcibly segregated into “colonies.”
This is the woman whose name appears on the award recently given to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. This is the woman that Representative Lowey praises and recognizes “for her tireless efforts.”
Let Representative Lowey know the truth about Margaret Sanger by contacting her office at 202-225-6506.
*Quotations from War Against the Weak, by Edwin Black
Connecticut Governor Revokes the Right to Choose… an Ultrasound
July 1, 2009
Pro-abortion Governor Jodi Rell of Connecticut signed a bill into law last week that would ban ultrasounds unless ordered by a licensed health care professional and needed for a medical or diagnostic purpose. The bill (HB 5635) is supposedly a response to a rise in boutiques which specialize in “keepsake” ultrasounds.
Gov. Rell explains, “Still, ultrasound is a form of radiated energy – and any such energy has the potential to affect human tissue. As a medical procedure, the risks are worth taking. But when ultrasound is used for other purposes – especially if the procedure is used an excessive number of times or used for an extended periods of time – those risks can no longer be justified.”
Unfortunately for the Governor, the “risks” are non-existent. No studies have found that ultrasounds harm either the mother or her unborn baby. The bill follows a warning the FDA sent out in 2004 concerning ultrasounds. However, according to LifeNews.com, “the director of the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health, physician Dan Schultz, admitted that ultrasound technology has proven to be safe.”
This is outrageous. In 2007, the FDA recommended “keeping cell-phone talk to a minimum” to avoid potential risks. Does this mean that cell phone use should be banned unless absolutely necessary?
Such an overwhelming restriction despite a lack of evidence must have more sinister origins. If the General Assembly of Connecticut and the Governor were truly concerned about the health of the people of Connecticut, they could have banned any number of things that have been proven to be harmful. Abortion itself can have many complications, yet abortion is not restricted. A pregnant woman in Connecticut can have an abortion for any reason she wants, not just for medical reasons. Surely somewhere in the penumbras of the Constitution, the supposed “right to choose” includes the right to choose an ultrasound.
Ultrasounds have been shown to greatly decrease abortion rates for mothers who are unsure of their decision. According to Option Ultrasound, a project of Focus on the Family, “the provision of ultrasound to women at-risk for abortion doubles the potential number of babies saved versus counseling alone.”
It is apparent that the only “risk” of concern to Governor Rell is that mothers will decide to choose life instead of abortion.
Philadelphia Abortion Clinic Honors Tiller with Free Abortions
June 11, 2009
They’ve done it again. If comparing slain late-term abortionist George Tiller to beloved civil-rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. wasn’t enough, the pro-abortion camp has outdone itself in the name of “honoring” Tiller’s “great legacy.”
Townhall’s Jillian Bandes reported earlier this week that The Philadelphia Women’s Center gave away an “unspecified” number of abortions for free on Tuesday, the same day that George Tiller’s family announced that they would be closing his abortion clinic indefinitely.
Bandes reported that an unnamed worker at the clinic said that free abortions had been performed throughout the day, “but that they had stopped giving them away by late afternoon.
“Under normal circumstances, abortions would not be au gratis at the clinic.”
Of course, there has been little mainstream media coverage about this clinic tossing free abortion coupons left and right as though they were sample size candy bars. This publicity stunt by the Philadelphia Women’s Center demonstrates the callousness and insensitivity with which the pro-abortion camp views the women who have decided to have an abortion, and the approximately 1.2 million dead babies which have resulted from those decisions.
Having a “free abortion day” reinforces that pro-abortion groups see the decision to have an abortion as one that can and should be made frivolously: no different than deciding to go out and by a new shampoo because there is a coupon in the weekend paper.
What’s more, the idea that this free opportunity to end life came in the name of “honoring” and remembering of a man who got up day after day to make money off the killing of the most innocent among us, is outrageous.
The insensitivity and back handedness with which these so-called “women’s advocates” treat women, both born and unborn, is appalling.
Media and Abortion Industry Exploit Death of George Tiller
June 5, 2009
Since the death of late-term abortionist George Tiller, the media have given extensive coverage to his work, his life, and the debate surrounding abortion. The Washington Times published an article today that categorizes the media coverage as, at best, skewed.
The article looks at how the media covered the death of Tiller in comparison to the death of Pfc. William Andrew Long.
At first this may seem a strange comparison. After all, who is Pfc. Long? If you watch network news at night, you may not know the name because the news of his death was not covered. Pfc. Long was gunned down outside of a military recruiting center on June 1st. Abdulhakim Muhammad has been arrested as a suspect in Long’s death. Muhammad told police he wanted to kill as many members of the military as possible, because of what he believed the army did to Muslims. Pfc. Long’s death occurred less than 24 hours after George Tiller’s death.
Both murders were tragic. Both murders were politically motivated. Yet only one received national attention.
Watching the news coverage, the media seems quick to jump on the “blame the pro-life movement” bandwagon. Tiller’s killer was an extremist who is the antithesis of what it means to be “pro-life.” The abortion industry, however, and its friends in the media have done little to distinguish extremism from the pro-life movement.
The same cannot be said for Muhammad, the man who killed an American patriot. As Gary Bauer points out in the Washington Times article:
"Big media, which is doing its best to link the killing of George Tiller to the mainstream pro-life movement, is going out of its way to assert that there is no evidence that Abdulhakim Muhammad had any connection to Muslim groups. The few exceptions where there is coverage only prove the rule. For the mainstream media, this is a nonstory,” said Gary Bauer, president of American Values.
Some surmise that Tiller’s murder received more media coverage due to his well-known status before his death. While this is a valid point, the media should remember that Tiller was an incredibly controversial figure. Pfc. Long, on the other hand, was an upstanding citizen who only ever dreamed of serving his country. If the media’s sole motivation was to find a story to drive coverage and a story that interested people, how could they pass over an American hero who was killed by a terrorist living in our midst?
Clearly, the abortion industry sought to exploit the death of George Tiller in an attempt to stem the growing tide of pro-life Americans. With numerous polls recently revealing that more Americans now call themselves pro-life rather than pro-choice, those in the pro-abortion movement saw a chance to demonize the pro-life movement, and they took it. The Washington Times article featured SBA List’s very own:
“The press has a lot vested in labeling the pro-life movement as violent. There's saturation coverage when they get evidence of that." said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List.
The liberal media has been hard at work, making the pro-life movement seem complicit in the death of George Tiller. In fact, Keith Olbermann went so far as to name popular pro-life columnist Jill Stanek, “The worst person in the world.” Why? Because Stanek dared to criticize the two remaining late-term abortionists. Olbermann claimed that Stanek was enabling the next extremist to kill another abortionist.
The abortion industry via the media has exploited the death of a human being for political gain. While we may strongly disagree with the work George Tiller did, we respect that his family is in a time of mourning and that his death should not be used to taint an entire sector of the population
Pro-Choice Gov. Thanks NARAL for Helping the Unborn
May 22, 2009
While hundreds of protestors gathered at Notre Dame last weekend, a dozen protestors took to the streets in Washington state to protest the presence of Catholic Governor Christine Gregoire at a NARAL luncheon. Here is the Seattle Post Intelligencer’s account of the day’s events:
Gov. Chris Gregoire, a Catholic and down-the-line supporter of abortion rights, spoke to a gala retirement luncheon for longtime NARAL Pro-Choice Washington director Karen Cooper.
"We are blessed to have had you as our great leader," Gregoire said of Cooper. The governor spoke of "those, candidly, not yet born who will benefit from your leadership."
Wait a minute… a pro-choice governor said to the director of NARAL, “those not yet born… will benefit from your leadership.”
Just which unborn children is Gov. Gregoire talking about? The ones lucky enough to escape abortion? Or the 1.21 million children that will be killed this year, thanks to the advocacy of groups like NARAL?
The idea that “those not yet born” could benefit in any way, shape, or form from the work of NARAL is ridiculous. This is an organization that has no consideration for unborn life whatsoever. Since the governor mentions the unborn, it begs the question - just how does NARAL view the unborn? For an answer, let’s look to none other than Dawn Johnsen, former NARAL lawyer and Obama’s nominee to head the Office of Legal Counsel.
Johnsen wrote in an article, “The Creation of Fetal Rights…” that states should not recognize the unborn child as an, “entity independent from the pregnant woman with interests that are potentially hostile to hers.” Johnsen went on to write that, “Granting rights to fetuses in a manner that conflicts with women’s autonomy reinforces the tradition of disadvantaging women on the basis of their reproductive capability.”
So to sum it all up, NARAL believes, that 1) the unborn deserve no legal recognition, 2) unborn children pose a threat to women, and 3) giving recognition to the unborn sends women back to the Stone Age.
How very interesting…and outrageous.
Why is it that the abortion industry views the rights of women and unborn children as mutually exclusive? The unborn child and mother are inextricably linked during pregnancy. The benefits of pregnancy apply to both. Let’s not forget that carrying a child to term is not just beneficial to the child, but the mother as well. Having a child does not mean that a woman is subject to a “hostile” being out to ruin her every ambition in life.
If NARAL truly prides itself on protecting all women, then it should extend its work to protecting unborn women. After all, NARAL claims in its diversity policy that it does not discriminate based upon “age.” Clearly, this is not true. After all, an unborn girl is just a few weeks younger than an infant.
The unborn will never benefit from a group that seeks to make it easier to kill millions of its generation. Some of those unborn children will be killed. Others may be born, only to grow up face to devastating effects abortion has on women. In any case, NARAL is the farthest thing from a “blessing” to help “those not yet born.”
But it is not just the unborn. It is the whole country that suffers from the work of NARAL. Society benefits from the protection of ALL its citizens. When a nation allows its citizens to kill the youngest and most innocent, the moral fibers that hold us together as a people fall apart.
Swedish Health Officials Condone Gender-Based Abortions
May 12, 2009
Swedish health officials ruled this week that gender-based abortions must be allowed in the first trimester. The ruling followed reports that a Swedish woman sought two abortions after finding out she was pregnant with girls. TheLocal, Sweden’s English newspaper, reported:
[The woman] twice had abortions after finding out the gender of the child. The woman, who already had two daughters, requested an amniocentesis in order to allay concerns about possible chromosome abnormalities. At the same time, she also asked to know the fetus's gender.
The woman’s reasoning behind the abortion concerned Swedish doctors, who then turned to the National Board of Health and Welfare in Sweden. Doctors felt pressured when they knew the woman intended to abort her child based upon the gender and sought guidelines from the Swedish medical body on what to do in such a situation.
Unfortunately, the Swedish board did nothing to protect the unborn and nothing to assist doctors put in an incredibly difficult position. According to the Local:
The board has now responded that such requests [to reveal the gender of the fetus] and thus abortions cannot be refused and that it is not possible to deny a woman an abortion up to the 18th week of pregnancy, even if the fetus's gender is the basis for the request.
Swedish officials, for some strange reason, failed to recall the disastrous effects that sex-selective abortions have had in China. They must not have considered the fact that in China, where gender-based abortions ran rampant during the latter part of the 20th century, there are now 115 men for every 100 women.
These numbers may not seem to be in large disparity, but their implications are frightening. The New England Journal of Medicine writes about the tragic consequences of sex-selection abortions in China:
The shortage of women may have increased mental health problems and socially disruptive behavior among men and has left some men unable to marry and have a family.
The scarcity of females has resulted in kidnapping and trafficking of women for marriage and increased numbers of commercial sex workers, with a potential resultant rise in human immunodeficiency virus infection and other sexually transmitted diseases.
There are fears that these consequences could be a real threat to China's stability in the future.
Now is this in Sweden’s immediate future? Of course not. But does Sweden really want to endorse gender-based abortions when they have proved so dangerous in the past?
The idea that a government would condone a woman choosing to kill her child based upon the child’s gender is disgusting. No human being is given greater value simply because of his or her gender. One would think that the debate over gender equality was over. Women have achieved every legal right men have, thanks to the hard work of women like Susan B. Anthony.
Sweden of all countries should be ashamed for forcing doctors to kill an unborn child based upon gender. Sweden, after all, ranked first in the world on the gender gap index in 2007. This report found that Sweden had the highest percentage of gender equality in both societal constructs and political power.
Sweden has the second highest percentage of women in its parliament at 45 percent. The United States pales in comparison, where less than 17 percent of House and Senate members are women.
So why on earth would a country so dedicated to gender equality approve of gender-based abortions? It harkens back to the underlying reality of abortion: abortion strips all unborn children of any value, regardless of their gender.
When a country supports the legal killing of its most innocent citizens, it should not be surprising that they do not care on what basis it occurs. The government has already abandoned the value and promise of the unborn, so it follows that the same government would completely ignore any additional threats to equality and liberty. Gender equality for the unborn can only begin once they are given the same equality of adults, children, and infants.
Sweden has embarked on a dangerous path. By validating sex-selection as a reason for abortion, they are granting women the right to decide that one human being is more valuable than another. That value, however, can never be granted by another. It is outrageous to think that one person’s worth in this world can be thrown away based upon a trait that an unborn child has absolutely no control over.
U.S. Government Agency Calls Pro-Life Citizens Potential Terrorists
April 17, 2009
The Department of Homeland Security released a new report this week on “rightwing extremism” that calls pro-life citizens potential terrorists. Among many degrading aspects of the report (including an assault on returning war heroes), is the preposterous classification of opposition to abortion as a rallying point for terrorism.
On the second page of the report, a footnote explains which groups are prone to committing terrorist attacks, groups that the report said, “…may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion…” (page 2).
Groups that oppose abortion? This organization exists to support pro-life politicians who oppose the killing of unborn human life. We oppose abortion. Why on earth would Janet Napolitano think that we would ever consider killing another human to promote the cause of life? The sheer bigotry inherent in this report is insulting beyond belief.
For the millions of citizens who oppose abortion, who pray outside clinics or who lovingly counsel women facing unplanned pregnancies, this is a wake-up call. This is an concentrated attempt by pro-abortion activists to paint pro-lifers as violent abortion clinic bombers – a blatantly false characterization. And when our own government stamps the label of potential terrorist on such a broad category – one that encompasses millions of its own citizens – there is something truly wrong going on.
This is a sign that the “common ground” language pervasive on President Obama’s campaign was nothing more than an empty promise and words without meaning. In the first 100 days of his administration, President Obama has filled the White House full with radical pro-abortion activists.
Now, the activists of the abortion industry have become the activists in the government.
That’s not common ground. These ideas represent an extremism that seeks to vilify and condemn the half of the U.S. population that disagrees with the current administration.
Six U.S. senators, including Senators Tom Coburn and Sam Brownback, sent a letter to Napolitano regarding the outrageous report. The letter speaks to the truth about pro-lifers:
The report identifies those individuals who believe in such issues as pro-life legislation…as potential terrorist threats. We can assure you that these beliefs are held by citizens of all races, political affiliations and sex, and should not be listed as a factor in determining potential terrorist threats. A better way to describe them is as citizens exercising their First Amendment Rights.
As the senators alluded to, this report serves as an attack on our freedom of speech. Even civil liberties lawyers have come out attacking this report, according to the Associated Press. The AP reports:
A Homeland Security official says the department's office of civil rights and civil liberties objected to some of the language in the now-contentious right-wing extremism report, but the agency issued it anyway.
Homeland Security spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said the report was issued before officials resolved problems raised by the agency's civil rights division. She said this was a breakdown of the agency's internal process.
The good news is that not everyone in the federal government believes that pro-lifers are potential terrorists. The bad news is the pro-abortion industry has sent its top activists to the White House to plant radical pro-abortion ideologies in government policy.
With your help, we can stop one of Obama’s worst nominees before another radical becomes entrenched in a position of great power. Dawn Johnsen would have the ear of the president as head of the Office of Legal Counsel and her opinions would guide the laws during the next four years. With her track record of hate for pro-life Americans and sensible abortion restrictions, it is foreseeable that her actions would mirror the sentiments of Napolitano. The DHS report could only be the first in a long line of radical pro-abortion policies.
It is almost unthinkable now that some people still claim abortion is not a tragedy. Yet, that is exactly what Bonnie Erbe writes in her new column on April 1. Sadly enough, this is no April Fool’s joke. Erbe provides her reaction to a story about a pregnant mother of three who wanted to keep her fourth child, but felt compelled to have an abortion for financial reasons. Here are some of Erbe’s thoughts:
In the long run, can we agree that this unwed couple's decision not to bring a fourth child into the world when they are having trouble feeding themselves and three children is no tragedy? It's actually a fact-based, rational decision that in the end benefits the three children they already have and society as well.
A tough decision: you bet. An unpleasant process: that, too. But [in 1973, abortion] was not something women whined about publicly on the scale many seem to now. Nor was it covered by the media or promoted by pro-choice politicians in "woe is me" terms.
I is it wrong of the media to become a trumpet for the pro-life message that abortion is always a tragedy? Equally adamantly, yes. It is not always tragic and lots of times, it actually makes good sense.
Clearly, Bonnie Erbe does not live in the same country as you and I. Has she ever spoken with a post-abortive woman? The decision to have an abortion, whether the child is wanted or unwanted is never as easy as Erbe makes it sound. One would think after reading her article that you add up the numbers and that is that.
But the idea that abortion is a rational decision ignores one very important fact. There is another human life involved. The decision to have an abortion is not one that can be made simply in terms of dollar signs and economic value. The entire situation changes because the unborn child is a separate person with his own set of rights and his own value. The distinct life that is present completely alters the situation, creating an emotional and moral decision not just an economic one.
This is demonstrated in the emotional turmoil many women face after having an abortion. Knowing that a life was destroyed impacts a woman like nothing else. Post-abortive women are not whining as Erbe puts it. They are equal victims in the tragedy of abortion, duped by the abortion industry into thinking that abortion is an easy and quick solution to the difficulties life sometimes provides.
The testimonies of these brave women are not about whining, but about exposing women to the truth. Abortion hurts women and their pain is a valid one. To ignore the hurt they go through and write it off as a woe is me complex reveals a deep ignorance and naiveté.
The mother does not benefit from abortion and neither does society. How many brilliant thinkers have been killed by abortion? How many future presidents and leaders? We will never know the advances that these lives could have brought to our society because their potential was cut short tragically.
It does not make sense for a woman to go through a procedure that leaves great emotional trauma in her future. Erbe and the abortion industry are only further propagating the lie that abortion is a one-time action with no consequences. While it seems like the rational decision during a crisis pregnancy or during difficult times, it holds much greater implications for the future.
We’ve heard the cries of post-abortive women. We know that the value and beauty of a human life cannot be reduced to financial figures. We know it's not that simple.
The fact that Erbe continues to believe this nonsense, is a tragedy in and of itself.
Abortion Pride Movement?
March 24, 2009
The abortion industry has done an excellent job hiding behind the false pretense of “choice.” They claim choice should be celebrated. Recently, however, abortion advocates have reached a new level of perversion by encouraging women to celebrate their abortions.
Celebrate the tragic killing of an innocent unborn child? That is exactly what Jacob Appel, a professor at New York University and a self-proclaimed bioethicist wants. In an article published March 23, he calls on Americans to take pride in the wholesale murder of our society’s most innocent members -- especially the disabled and the poor! Here are some highlights of his article
The moment is ripe—more than ripe—for an Abortion Pride Movement.
The suffering caused by transforming an unwanted embryo into a living baby, who will either endure debilitating disease or will enter a deeply inhospitable home environment, is not at all a cause for pride. It more is akin to deciding that the world is flat and then boasting of not falling off the edge.
Deciding not to bring a fetus to term, if a woman is unready to parent, or if that fetus is likely to lead a life of great physical suffering, is a courageous and noble moral choice.
In short, women should not merely have the right to end unwanted pregnancies, they should have the right to be proud of having done so. Surely, there is enough suffering in this world already without adding infants with Tay-Sachs disease and Lesch-Nyhan syndrome to the mix.
Women who step up to the ethical plate and have the strength to say, “This is the wrong time,” or “This is the wrong fetus,” should hold their heads high in the streets.
I dream of the day when women are not afraid to walk the streets with pins reading, “I had an abortion and it was the right decision,” and when station wagons bear bumper-stickers announcing, “Thank me for having an abortion when I wasn’t ready to be a parent.”
Wow. Is Appel so delusional that he thinks abortion is just another choice women make? He talks about abortion like it is a routine choice, like choosing to recycle a newspaper instead of throwing it away. He could not be further from the truth. This supposed “bioethicist” completely ignores the awful ramifications that abortion has on a woman, both physically and mentally. Abortion is a devastatingly serious action and one that should not be taken lightly.
The majority of women who seek abortions say they do so because they feel unable (often financially) to care for another child. They do not want an abortion. No woman wants to find herself in that position and wants to make that decision. So why does Appel think women should be happy when they have to go through such a life-altering process?
Furthermore, Appel’s assertion that it is morally upright to kill a child with disabilities or a child who would grow up in poverty is beyond belief. If we ran the world Appel’s way, a good percentage of the U.S. population would never have been born. How many of us have lived with financial difficulties at some point or another? A child who will grow up poor has no less value than a child born to rich parents.
Appel’s article is an insult not only to women, but their children as well. Just think back to the CatholicVote.org ad about President Barack Obama. The president grew up in the very circumstances that Appel describes. Yet, if his mother had killed him in his earliest days, Appel would have applauded her and called her courageous!?
The “This is the wrong fetus” argument reeks of of eugenics and elitism. Because Appel mentions that children with Lesch-Nyhan syndrome should be aborted, let me introduce you to Ernie Burford.
Ernie was born with Lesch-Nyhan syndrome His life is filled with difficulties, yes. But here is what his mother had to say about him: “Every day brings on a new challenge - be it a new injury, doctors, medication, test results, school, equipment - you get the picture. Ernie is simply cherished, adored, spoiled, and loved beyond belief by his parents, grandparents and extended family. He brings much joy, laughter, and many challenges to our lives, but we have simply adjusted over 17 years and look forward to enjoying a long life with him.”
One look at this boy’s beautiful smile has to brighten your day. Now, Mr. Appel, is this amazing person who you want eliminated from our world? Just because someone is not perfect by your standards, does not mean we should encourage his death and celebrate his mother when she chooses to abort him.
That very idea is simply an outrage.
Florida Mother Forces Daughter to Abort, then Throws Baby in Trash
March 20, 2009
Tonuya Rainey is the 38 year-old mother of eight children. She knows firsthand the miracle of life that occurs during pregnancy, which is what makes her actions all the more shocking.
When her 16 year-old daughter became pregnant, Rainey snapped. Her daughter pleaded with her, telling her over and over again that she wanted to keep her baby. This young girl was facing a difficult and uncertain future, yet she embraced her child with love.
Her mother, however, refused to listen. The Florida Sun Sentinel details the horrific chain of events that followed:
Rainey crushed white, round pills and placed them into hot tea she gave her daughter, the [police search] warrant said. The daughter said she couldn't recall how many pills her mother gave her or for how long she took them.
The daughter was at school March 5, when she felt sharp abdominal pain, prompting her mother to pick her up from school early that day, the warrant said.
At home about 3 p.m. the next day, the daughter felt more pain and gave birth to her baby boy as she sat on the toilet.
The daughter took the baby from the toilet and carried him to her bed, where she said she saw him moving his hands, heard him breathing and saw his nostrils moving, the warrant said.
Rainey told her, “The baby is not going to live because he was born too early,” the warrant said.
In a police interview, Rainey said she placed the boy in a bag and dumped the bag in the garbage, which was taken away by the garbage company...
How does one even begin to describe the unadulterated evil inherent in this story? How could this woman kill her grandson, knowing full well he was loved and adored by his mother?
Rainey said she took her daughter to a Miami clinic, where she obtained the pills. The responsibility in this murder lies not only with the mother, but also with the clinic that doled out the abortifacient. The reckless fashion with which abortion clinics conduct themselves is entirely amoral and should be criminal.
This girl was under no medical supervision whatsoever and could have died had something gone wrong. You know something is very wrong with society when a 16 year-old cannot get ibuprofen at school, but can take home a pill that kills her unborn child. However, the clinic did not give the pills to the girl, but to her mother. The abortion clinic clearly didn’ t care about this 16 year-old girl, her health, her well-being or her choiceto keep her child.
This appalling crime has rattled not only average Americans, but also the officials involved in the case. Broward County Judge John Hurley said,
“I've handled murder cases in here. I have handled sex cases. I've handled everything. This is it, this is the pinnacle. I have never been so disturbed.”
Your honor, the people agree.
British Professor Suggests Selling the Organs of Aborted Fetuses
March 17, 2009
Professor Richard Garnder of Oxford University announced recently that he has found the solution to the growing wait-lists for an organ transplant -- selling the organs of aborted babies.
While this solution would bring in more cash to the abortion industry, it would also bankrupt society of its morals.
It is a beautiful thing to donate one’s own organs, but to take someone else’s life in order to harvest their organs is absolutely wrong. While perhaps well-intentioned, it is never justifiable to decide one person’s life is more valuable or more important than other. Unborn children’s lives are just as valuable as a grown adult. As Americans, one of our core principles is just that; all men are created equal.
The mere suggestion that the organs of aborted fetuses should be sold sends a chilling message: humans are only valuable in a physical sense. Should such a horrific market be put into place, it is entirely possible that children would be conceived only to be destroyed. Creating a human being only to sell that child’s body parts is no different than selling meat in a market. No logical person can believe humans and cattle should be treated the same way. The individuality, the personality, and beauty that is human nature is completely ignored here. Humanity is being devalued to the point of non-existence.
Furthermore, such a market for fetal organs would devalue motherhood. Pregnancy is a very special time for both the mother and the unborn child. Women are not simply factories used to mass produce organs. Yet if such a market should come to be, this would be the consequence. Motherhood would become just another process of making money, rather than raising human beings.
We are more than just an assemblage of limbs, and to treat us as anything else is entirely insulting.
NARAL Fights Choose Life License Plates
March 3, 2009
The pro-abortion industry is contradicting itself again.
The pro-choice movement is proving that they do not really care for women, nor do they believe in true freedom of choice. What choice are they fighting now? License plates. Yes, you read that correctly license plates.
The Virginia Legislature recently passed Senate Bill 817, which would give Virginia drivers the option of purchasing a "Choose Life" license plate. The license plate would cost $40 and $15 of that total would go to pregnancy care centers in Virginia.
Of course, NARAL can’t have this. The pro-abortion industry does not believe in the freedom of expression. In an action alert sent out on March 3, 2009, NARAL called on Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine to veto the legislation and stop state funding of more than 70 crisis pregnancy centers in Virginia. They are entirely opposed to giving Virginia drivers the option of funding these centers, yet they want to force every American taxpayer to fund abortions in the United States.
NARAL Pro-Choice America does not stop there. They don’t just want to limit the choice of license plates. The ir goal is to limit women’s options. If they truly stood for choice, then they would have no problem with pregnancy care centers. These centers provide another choice for women who want to continue their pregnancies.
The only choice NARAL and the abortion industry believe in is abortion. That is why they have taken up their latest campaign to smear the image of pregnancy care centers. In its action alert, NARAL made several claims about pregnancy care centers.
The most outrageous of its claims, however, is that pregnancy care centers lie to women. In fact, the pro-abortion organization even went so far as to mock the Choose Life license plate with a creation of their own a license plate that says, Choose Lies.
NARAL claims, In an effort to scare women away from considering abortion, some CPCs provide false propaganda about the "consequences" of abortion - including false claims that abortion causes breast cancer, sterility, and psychological damage.
False propaganda? That statement is an insult and a stab in the back to the millions of post-abortive women in this country who are still suffering from their abortions. How can NARAL ignore the women each year at the March for Life holding signs saying, I regret my abortion? Each abortion stops a beating heart and breaks another. To ignore the emotional trauma these women are still going through proves that NARAL and the abortion industry are not truly concerned about women.
The citizens of Virginia deserve to choose whatever license plate they want. But more importantly, women deserve to know ALL their options, something pregnancy care centers actually provide.
Pro-Life Pastor Could Go to Jail
February 17, 2009
Rev. Walter B. Hoye II did not harass any women. He did not threaten any clinic workers. All he did was stand outside an abortion clinic in Oakland, holding a sign that says, "Jesus loves you and your baby. Let us help you." Yet the California District Court found him guilty of harassment and unlawful approach.
Hoye's sentencing is scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 19, where he faces up to two years in prison and a $4,000 fine. He is being charged under the "bubble-zone" law in Oakland, Calif. The law requires sidewalk counselors to stay 8ft. away from people coming into an abortion clinic and the clinic doors.
Hoye introduced a series of videos , taken by a friend from across the street, as evidence. The videos clearly show him peacefully walking up and down the sidewalk. No harassment, no hysterics.
"Evidence showed that as Hoye stood outside the clinic with his 'Jesus loves you' poster, rather than approaching or harassing women seeking to enter the facility, Hoye was hounded by clinic employees in orange jackets called 'escorts.' The escorts followed Hoye's quiet march along the sidewalk with large blank cards to block the view of his 'Jesus loves you' poster.
Court proceedings further discredited clinic employee testimony when hidden camera footage showed their accusations to be highly suspect. The escorts in the case even admitted that Hoye neither threatened nor physically intimidated them."
Despite the evidence, the court found Hoye guilty. Life Legal Defense Foundation , the group representing Hoye, plans to appeal the case. The LLDF is also leading a suit brought by Hoye that challenges the "bubble-zone" law as unconstitutional.
Here is what is so ridiculous: It's not that the court found Hoye guilty despite evidence to the contrary. Rather it is the fact that Hoye can be charged under this law at all. The abortion industry claims to stand for freedom and Constitutional rights. These bubble-zone laws, however, are crushing our First Amendment right to free speech. And unlike abortion, the right to free speech is a right actually written into the Constitution. The freedom of speech should not disappear within 8 ft. of an abortion clinic.
The abortion industry constantly proclaims they believe in the freedom to choose, but their bubble-zone laws even defy this idea. Why is the abortion industry so afraid to let sidewalk counselors talk to women? If they were truly "pro-choice" they would let women seek out and hear all their options, including the option of keeping their children. Rev. Hoye was not yelling at women and scaring them – he was offering love and a helping hand.
The abortion industry is not interested in what is best for women or in "choice." They are simply interested in the next hundred dollars they will make by taking one life and injuring another.
UPDATE: On Feb. 19, Rev. Hoye was sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined $1,130. He was also ordered to permanently stay away from the clinic. Hoye and the Life Legal Defense Foundation plan to appeal.
Shocking Video Game Encourages Abortion
February 13, 2009
Please be advised: this article addresses a video game with graphic content that may be offensive to some readers. It really is outrageous!
The exploitation of women and abortion have long been linked. Alice Paul, the author of the original Equal Rights Amendment called abortion , "The ultimate exploitation of women."
Doubt this is still true in today's world? Take one look at a new video game called "Rapelay."
This disgusting and dispicable game directs players to hunt down women and children and rape them. And if these women become pregnant the game tells players to force them to have abortions. The Belfast Telegraph revealed the shocking details of the game in an exlusive report :
"One review [of Rapelay] said: "If she does become pregnant you're supposed to force her to get an abortion, otherwise she gets more and more visibly pregnant each time you have sex... If you allow the child to be born then the woman will throw you in front of a train!'"
Essentially, kill the unborn child or the game ends. The Telegraph also reported the game was available for sale on Amazon.com. Due to outrage in the British Parliament and all over the United Kingdom, Amazon has since removed the game from its website.
How is a "game" like this possible still? Clearly, the creators of this sickening video game view women as disposable items to be abused and then discarded. It is incredibly telling that the number one tool available to the virtual rapist is abortion. Through abortion, the rapist ensures that he faces no consequences for his actions. Even today, thousands of women are coerced into abortions each year for this same reason.
While the pro-choice movement paints abortion as something to empower women, it is anything but empowering. For many it means forced abortions and continued expoitation.
Florida Abortion Clinic Throws Living Baby Out with Trash
February 6, 2009
“This is one of the most horrendous stories that I have ever read.”
This was the reaction of Dr. Manny Alvarez, a health correpsondant for Fox News. He, like millions of Americans, are disgusted by the killing of a living baby in Florida.
According to the Associated Press,when 18-year-old Sycloria Williams went into the abortion clinic, she was already 23 weeks pregnant. Dr. Pierre Jean-Jacque Renelique agreed to perform the late-term abortion. He gave Williams medicine to dialate her cervix and told her to come back to the clinic the next day. She did, but Renelique never showed up. The AP details what happened next
“According to Williams and the Florida Department of Health, she went into labor and delivered a live baby girl.
What Williams and the Health Department say happened next has shocked people on both sides of the abortion debate: One of the clinic's owners, who has no medical license, cut the infant's umbilical cord. Williams says the woman placed the baby in a plastic biohazard bag and threw it out.
Police recovered the decomposing remains in a cardboard box a week later after getting anonymous tips.”
An autopsy of the baby’s body showed oxygen in her lungs. She was breathing when a clinic worker with no medical license threw the baby out with the garbage. This 23 week-old baby, later named Shanice, was robbed at a chance for life. Other babies born prematurely at that same age have survived. The Boston Globe wrote extensively on Amillia Sonja Taylor, who survived after being born at only 20 weeks.
This is an act so horrendous, even the pro-abortion groups are astonished. Joanne Sterner, the local branch president of the National Organization for Women said, “It really disturbed me…I know that there are clinics out there like this. And I hope that we can keep (women) from going to these types of clinics.”
What exactly is the type of clinic Sterner was referring to? The kind where women are routinely put in harms way by abortionists feigning to be doctors. Take a look at the chief abortionist, Renelique. The AP reports that he has paid out five different medical malpractice suits in the last 10 years. Thankfully, as the Christian Post reports, the Florida Board of Medicine has now revoked his medical license, citing him for “medical malpractice, delegating responsibility to unlicensed personnel, and failing to keep an accurate medical record.”
This story has upset pro-life Americans, pro-choice Americans, and anyone with a heart. But how can there be such an uproar over this act of infanticide when seconds before she was born, the killing of this innocent baby girl would have been considered legal?
This is the truly sick aspect of this story: If Shanice had been killed inside her mother’s womb, her death would have been 100% legal. How is that possible? How can a few seconds and a few inches grant a baby humanity? If it is a living human being that was killed in that Florida clinic, then it is clearly a living human being that is killed in every abortion clinic across America.
It is time the American people and the government accept what they have long ignored – abortion takes an innocent life.
NBC Rejects Pro-Life Commercial for Super Bowl
January 30, 2009
NBC is refusing to show a pro-life ad. Should we be surprised? No. But that does not make their actions any less ridiculous.
The ad, titled "Imagine Spot 1," was produced by CatholicVote.org, a subsidiary of Fidelis. It contains no graphic images, no politically divisive statements, no didactic rhetoric. Rather the ad shows an ultrasound image of a living, moving, growing baby in the womb. The ad describes the life the unborn child will face and the many hardships in it. The end, however, focuses on an incredibly the amazing potential life contains. The words "This child will become the first African-American president," accompany a picture of our nation's 44th president, Barack Obama.
Now where is the controversial message in that? Why is a commercial that celebrates the election of President Obama and the difficult circumstances he overcame deemed offensive to the executives at NBC? According to One News Now, the ad was rejected because it contained, "political advocacy or issues."
The Washington Times spoke with Brian Burch, the president of Fidelis, the organization that funded the ad.
"I was told the ad was approved and then there were a number of attorneys working on it. Then I was told they [NBC] didn't want to run political or advocacy ads."
"They were willing to air an ad by PETA if they would simply tone down the sexual suggestiveness. Our ad is far less provocative, and hardly controversial by comparison."
Because PETA refused to edit out the explicit material in question, their ad will not run. NBC, however, had no qualms about PETA's political and advocacy messages. The network would allow PETA to run an ad clearly advocating a certain life-style, but not allow CatholicVote.org to run an ad that celebrates life.
The ad has already reached thousands of viewers, many on Inauguration Day when it ran on Black Entertainment Television. The national attention surrounding the TV spot grew as thousands more flocked to YouTube to watch it. As of today, over 880,000 people have watched the ad online. Clearly the rest of the nation sees what NBC refuses to see this ad brings a message of hope and promise to a nation facing difficult times.
Instead of running this positive ad, NBC errs on the side of "non-controversial" commercials featuring scantilly-clad women who use sex to sell products. As if parents of young children around the world won't find that upsetting in the least. Instead of learning the value and dignity of each human life, this year's Super Bowl ads (like those in years past) will feature the degradation of the human body and the value we each hold as individuals.
Suprising? No. But nonetheless it is upsetting to see the anti-Life bias of the networks once again rear its ugly head. Even if NBC does not want the world to see this ad, it cannot stop the firestorm of interest spreading across the nation.
Now it is time for you to decide what you think. Watch the ad here and see what NBC and the pro-abortion media is keeping from you.
Abortion Advocates Convinced All Catholic Voters are Pro-Abortion
November 19, 2008
Abortion is now consistent with Catholic moral teaching? That’s what some would have you believe. Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards argues that since the majority of Catholics voted for Barack Obama, more and more Catholics have changed with the times and abortion is not the red-flag issue it once was. Richards cites exit polling data, which found 54 percent of Catholics in support of Barack Obama, as evidence that more and more Catholics are breaking away from the Catholic Church’s strict, unconditional opposition to abortion.
While these exit polls are troubling, one cannot doubt the Catholic Church’s unwavering opposition to abortion. In September 2007, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, a lengthy statement urging Catholics to vote in accord with a well-formed conscience. In this release, the bishops distinguish between intrinsic evils and other moral evils. Intrinsically evil acts are those which are evil by their very nature:
There are some things we must never do, as individuals or as a society, because they are always incompatible with the love of God and neighbor. Such actions are so deeply flawed that they are always opposed to the authentic good of persons. These are called "intrinsically evil" actions.
Abortion, according to the bishops, is the prime example of an intrinsically evil act, an act that can never be supported by a Catholic. Therefore, to vote for a candidate who is a notorious supporter of abortion, especially when the opposing candidate is staunchly pro-life, would be to condone, if not directly support, an intrinsically evil action, and thereby a direct violation of Catholic moral teaching.
There is the common argument that there are proportionate reasons to vote for a pro-abortion candidate; for instance, he will provide healthcare for all, reduce poverty, and end wars. However, according to the Catholic Church, there is only one legitimate reason to vote for a candidate who supports an intrinsically evil action; that is, if the opposing candidate also supports an intrinsically evil action. However, in this past presidential election, there was no such proportionate reason.
Why then did the majority of Catholics vote for Obama? Why did the majority of Catholics support one of the most notoriously pro-abortion presidential candidates our country has ever seen? They voted on issues that hit closest to home: most notably, the troubled economy. It is a gross misrepresentation of the Catholic electorate to say that, simply because they voted for Obama, they are now pro-abortion. In fact, recent polling by the Knights of Columbus shows that the overwhelming majority of Americans (Catholics included) “favor significant restrictions on abortion.”
For the Catholic Church, the protection of the innocent, the safeguarding of their right to life is paramount. In Christifideles Laici, the late pope John Paul II explained the supremacy of the right to life above all other issues:
Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights--for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture--is false and illusory of the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defend with maximum determination. (Christifideles Laici, no. 38)
How can we expect our government to provide an environment that encourages economic prosperity, national security, and personal well-being when it denies the most innocent among us the fundamental right to life?
Biden's Stem Cell Lies
September 9, 2008
Why do anti-life mouths continue to spew lies about stem cell research? Joe Biden has come out with a zinger today:
“I hear all this talk about how the Republicans are going to work in dealing with parents who have both the joy, because there's joy to it as well, the joy and the difficulty of raising a child who has a developmental disability, who were born with a birth defect. Well guess what folks? If you care about it, why don't you support stem cell research?”
Republicans who oppose the destruction of nascent human life are against killing embryos. There is no proof of a single person opposed to stem cell research; what they are opposed to is the destruction of human embryos. I am not mincing words, as pro-cloners and embryo-destroyers are apt to do. Stem cell research comes in many forms using adult stem cells, umbilical cord blood stem cells, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), embryonic stem cells, among others. It’s the embryonic type that causes problems for the ethically-minded: not adult, not cord blood, not iPSCs. But maybe that is all a little to technical for Senator Biden to wrap his head around.
What those who oppose embryonic stem cell research are for are real cures to the tune of treating 73 conditions. Not a single patient has been helped from embryo-destructive stem cell research – and that includes lab mice who have enjoyed the development of tumors, the attack of their own immune system, and death. Is Joe Biden proposing we inflict that kind of pain and suffering on humans at the expense of other human lives? I am not going put words in his mouth. Maybe he just wants more research on human life to continue until it is safe for bigger human patients to use their spare parts. It will however always remain lethal to the embryos.
Additionally the Senator’s inference that one’s stance on helping children with special needs is somehow negated by a respect for human life is preposterous. As SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelsersaid today, “Compassion can never be built upon callous disregard for human life.”
Sparking Senator Biden’s comments, Governor Sarah Palin, who has a four-month-old with Down syndrome, in her address to the Republican National Convention stated last week:
“…children with special needs inspire a special love. To the families of special-needs children all across this country, I have a message: for years, you sought to make America a more welcoming place for your sons and daughters. I pledge to you that if we are elected, you will have a friend and advocate in the White House.”
Governor Palin’s support for the disabled community stems from her own experience. To question her commitment because she also respects human life is as ridiculous as it sounds.
The media has started an anti-life frenzy over Governor Sarah Palin’s maternity records reporting that she had an amniocentesis. The prenatal test requires sticking a needle into the uterus through the abdominal wall and removing some amniotic fluid. The fluid would contain some of the child’s cells and therefore can be tested for genetic abnormalities, like an extra 21st chromosome leading to a Down Syndrome diagnosis. They argue the only reason to have this test is if you are considering abortion.
The pro-aborts are declaring that Palin’s pro-life credentials are called into question because she got this test. The results were conclusive that her son, Trig, would have Down Syndrome. And they argue that she must have in the very least considered abortion because she had the test in the first place. If she had the “choice” then she should at least have the courtesy of giving other women the “choice” to abort their disabled (or not) child. This is absolutely preposterous.
Palin even explained toPeople Magazine about her amniocentesis, “I was grateful to have all those months to prepare. I can't imagine the moms that are surprised at the end. I think they have it a lot harder.” We live in a time of great medical and technological advances. The way people use those advances is completely up to them and their doctor. Drawing conclusions based on your own bias is unfair and uncalled for, particularly if you are supposed to be the objective media (guffaw here).
Palin lives in a small town in Alaska. I may be wrong, but I have a feeling the local hospital in Wasilla does not necessarily have a very advanced neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Heck I live in Washington, DC and the hospital where I delivered my first born didn’t have a NICU. Maybe she got the test to know if she needed to deliver the baby in a hospital that could provide the advanced care needed when delivering a child with special needs. The delivery of a child with special needs in Alaska probably takes greater planning than in the lower 48.
Sarah Palin is the best thing to happen to families with children who have special needs. Claiming that her pro-life credentials are called into question by a medical test is disgusting. It’s obvious the pro-abortion forces are afraid of her. They have nothing else on her but to make stuff up. Hope will prevail on November 4th, for both the born and the unborn.
Pelosi Relies on Roe, not Religion
August 25, 2008
Yesterday morning, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) appeared on Meet the Press with Tom Brokaw. Discussing a variety of topics, he hit her with some pretty tough questions about her stance on abortion rights and how they don’t mix with her religion: Catholicism.
When asked when life begins, she claimed she studied this issue “for a long time… We don’t know.” She spoke of Roe v. Wade declaring three trimesters with distinct definitions, and that the question of when life begins “shouldn’t have an impact on a woman’s right to choose.” Mr. Brokaw then brought up the fact that the Catholic Church says life begins at the moment of conception. Speaker Pelosi went on to say that this was “an issue of controversy” and spoke of free will. (Incidentally, she spoke of contraception as a way of reducing abortions. Along with abortion, the Catholic Church is against contraception, a fact that Mrs. Pelosi most likely knows but also ignores.) Read the transcript here.
Apparently, Speaker Pelosi looks to Roe v. Wade rather than her religious beliefs to tell her when life begins. She admits not knowing when life begins; and rather than erring on the side of life – because in her worldview life COULD begin at conception since she doesn’t really know – she’d rather risk a life being killed.
Equivocations of pro-abortion politicians are all the same. What it boils down to is politics and special interests running their show rather than backbone, integrity and personal beliefs. It’s the same old song and dance, but it doesn’t make it any less outrageous.
Coercive Abortions Should Not Incite Debate
July 18, 2008
Not known for being pro-life, but known for trying to uncover stories of human rights violations, National Public Radio did a story on China’s one-child policy. The news story is heart wrenching because of the testimonies of two women forced to have abortions. Just short of being dragged kicking and screaming (although they were threatened to be if they didn’t cooperate), these women were forced to undergo unwanted abortions.
The first story is of a Christian woman, a pastor’s wife, who was seven months pregnant with her second son. Since they live in an urban area, only one child is allowed. She was injected three times directly into her abdomen and the baby was born dead a day later. The other woman was a nineteen year old, too young to be allowed to marry. She was nine months pregnant, ready to deliver any day, and was forced to have an abortion because she was not married.
These stories are not uncommon in China. Even more outrageous is that this past Wednesday, Congresswoman Nita Lowey (D-NY) put forth a proposal that would fund programs such as these with U.S. taxpayer dollars. She wants to give our money to the UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund). The President has already come out against funding UNFPA because of their involvement in coercive abortions in China. If you are pro-abortion, that’s bad enough. But to use our money to pay for forced abortions where they drag an unwilling woman into a hospital and kill her baby against her will – yes, this has to do with abortion, but it is also a grievous human rights violation to which no one should turn a blind eye.
Tell your Members of Congress how you feel by going here.
Save the Baby Humans
July 1, 2008
Spain has plans to move forward with the Great Ape Project (GAP). This program declares that great apes, including apes, chimpanzees, orangutans and bonobos, should have the same rights granted to human beings – rights like life and freedom from torture.
This idea has been promulgated by Peter Singer, a Princeton philosophy professor who touts utilitarianism as the way ethics and morality should be decided. Utilitarianism’s basic tenets state that the moral worth of an action can be determined by how much overall pleasure can be acquired for the greatest population. One of the outrageous parts of all this is that Peter Singer also advocates abortion and infanticide for all human beings who are diagnosed with disabilities, mental and/or physical.
Why should the GAP only include primates? Why stop there? If this question does not scare you, it should. Somewhere along the way, our society has lost the idea that humans are special. Human exceptionalism denotes an understanding that humans have a different role in the world than any other animal. As you can imagine, Peter Singer is considered the father of the animal rights movement. Animal rights as a movement is not about treating animals as humans, it’s about stripping humanity from humans and squashing us down to the level of all other animals.
We are the earth’s stewards and must live accordingly. We mustn’t torture another species just for fun. But we also must realize that we are above the other species regarding our will and ability to choose right from wrong. Not acknowledging this part of our nature lands us in the relativistic mire of, “I would never choose abortion but I am not going to force my views on someone else.”
Abortion is wrong. And humans are special, regardless of our abilities or disabilities. Losing sight of our exceptionalism leads to granting HUMAN rights to apes, then on down the line. We can’t even agree on a right to life for ourselves – how, then, can we extend it to other species?
Obama boasts of his 100% pro-abortion rating with the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) and Planned Parenthood. He also has a 0% rating from National Right to Life.
An Outrage from May 2nd documented Obama’s vote against a bill in the Illinois state legislature to ban a version of infanticide through the Born Alive Infants Protection Act.
Obama is a co-sponsor of the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), a bill that would make partial birth abortion perfectly legal again. He spoke out against the ban saying it would further “…restrict a woman’s right to choose, and that the conservative Supreme Court justices will look for other opportunities to erode Roe v. Wade, which is established federal law and a matter of equal rights for women.”
He voted against parental notification and voted against state health insurance for unborn children.
If that is not pro-abortion, I’d hate to see what is.
Thanks to National Right to Life for their fact sheets.
Outrage in the Senate Over Stalled Judicial Confirmation Process
June 9, 2008
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) brought Senate activity to a standstill last week with an impassioned plea for judicial nominees to be given an up or down vote this week. McConnell intended to draw attention to Majority Leader Harry Reid’s failure to confirm three appeals court nominees before Memorial Day.
Dedicated pro-Life Senators joined him to defend the confirmation of solid judicial nominees. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) explained last week, “It has become increasingly clear that the majority party…is attempting to run out the clock in hopes of a Democratic president appointing hard left, judicial activists in 2009. We will not let this happen.” In other words, pro-abortion Senators are happy to shirk their duties to confirm President Bush’s nominees as long as the prospect of a President Obama (and his expected decidedly pro-abortion nominees) is on the horizon.
Senator McConnel commented on the slow pace of confirmations: “At the beginning of this Congress, the Majority said it would meet or exceed the average of 17 circuit court nominees that have been confirmed in prior Congresses; yet it has only confirmed eight circuit court judges thus far. More disturbing, the Chairman of the Committee recently threatened to shut down the confirmation process completely, an action that would break yet another historical precendent.”
President George W. Bush has also been fed up with the delays in the Senate, saying in his weekly radio address last Sunday, “Congress needs to confirm the good men and women who have been nominated to important government positions. There are now more than 350 nominations pending before the Senate. These include highly qualified people I have nominated to fill vacancies on the Federal bench... This confirmation backlog makes it harder for government to meet its responsibilities – and the United States Senate needs to give every nominee an up-or-down vote as soon as possible.”
Delays in the judicial confirmation process deprive our judicial system of our best and brightest legal minds. Frequently, excellent judges remove their names from consideration due to the extreme delays inherent in the process. Yet, judges who will not legislate from the bench and will decide cases through facts and proper context will always be in need. Senators who serve as obstructionists are doing their country a great disservice. In the fight for Life, we need to unify our supporters who realize that Roe v. Wade is not only poor judicial review but also morally wrong.
In the upcoming Presidential election we must remember to ask ourselves if we want a President who will appoint judges that will skew the law according to their own personal bias or a President that will appoint judges that will review cases cautiously and fairly. And just as important, we will need Senators who will fulfill their duty to provide timely consideration for solid judicial nominees.
Obscene Profits Spare a little outrage for Planned Parenthood.
By Michelle Malkin
We've been telling you of all the money the government dumps into Planned Parenthood for some time now. Michelle Malkin writes a fantastic piece about this topic for National Review. Citing other big money issues like the baseball steroids scandal and the oil industry, Malkin calls the presidential candidates and Congress to task. Which should be the greater priority: These issues or billions of tax dollars dumped in to this organization that has participated in the murder of a generation of Americans?
I learned greater gruesome detail this week of Barack Obama’s radically pro-abortion convictions. I had written in an earlier post (4/9/08) of Obama throwing out a bill that would have provided emergency medical care for babies surviving an abortion when he was the chairman of the Health and Human Services Committee of the Illinois State Senate. Well now let me tell you the whole story.
There is an abortion procedure called induced-labor abortion, or more euphemistically dubbed mid-trimester labor induction. This procedure is often done in a hospital setting, not an abortion clinic; and it is done not by typical abortionists, but by a simple order written by a doctor that a nurse or resident follows. A pill, an ulcer drug called Cytotec or Misoprostol is given to the pregnant woman at specific hourly intervals until an abortion is induced. This is done normally around 16 to 28 weeks gestation. Being 16 weeks pregnant myself, hearing all of this brought tears to my eyes. The woman “gives birth” to a dead baby – but approximately ten to twenty percent of these babies are actually born alive.
Jill Stanek, a registered nurse turned activist, told me this information. She decided to do something about this after rocking a 21 week gestation baby who was born alive after one of these abortions in the hospital where she worked. The baby died in her arms after 45 minutes.
In 2001, Jill took up her cause in the Illinois State Legislature where she first encountered Barack Obama. The Born Alive Infants Protection Act would require hospitals to provide care for infants who were born alive after an abortion. Barack Obama voted AGAINST this humane and commonsense legislation in committee, then voted “present” instead of for or against once it was brought before the Illinois State Senate. That was 2001. The following year he voted against it on the senate floor and the third time, he threw it out of committee (as mentioned above). In 2005, with Obama no longer serving at the state level, the bill passed.
How could someone be against this legislation? A tiny little human being, still breathing with a beating heart, is left to die, and you don’t want to do anything about it? If that is not outrageous, I don’t know what is.
In 2002, the Born Alive Infants Protection Act was passed on the federal level, but there were no penalties involved in the bill. Jill Stanek and her allies are trying to change that so the law will actually have a chance to make a difference in the lives of these vulnerable children and their families.
Shock and Awe at Yale
April 17, 2008
By Maura Butler
I must put a warning at the beginning of this report. This is a very disturbing story, certainly outrageous, but heart wrenching and evil. It is not for the faint of heart and even as I type, I feel sick and sad.
This is one of the most disturbing articles I have ever read. An art student at Yale University has done the unthinkable over and over again for her senior art project. This young woman needs prayers. Over the course of several months, she was artificially inseminated as many times as medically possible; then she took abortifacient drugs – medication to induce an abortion early in pregnancy. She video taped herself going through the miscarriages and saved the blood, fluid and tissue expelled from her body for her art project. She has used the remains as a medium for her art.
I don’t know whether to scream or cry. To think of all those innocent lives on display like that, like some twisted postmodern statement; it’s almost inconceivable. But this girl conceived it. And to further the outrage, she had to have the project approved by her advisor.
What damage she has done to her body and her mind. How negligent of her advisor to encourage this young mind to go forward with these horrors. My first thought was of the innocent lives lost and exploited. But I had to stop for a moment and consider what this young woman went through, her multiple abortions, as if they were a statement. Her body, mind and soul will be forever scarred and I hope and pray that when her day of reckoning comes, love and forgiveness surround her.
This is not art. It is death through indifference. Please continue your personal fight for Life so both personal and public catastrophes like this one can be a thing of the past. Change hearts and minds. It is the only way.
Amendment: Thankfully the actions in this story were a hoax.
Setting Obama’s Record Straight
April 09, 2008
By Maura Butler
Last week, self-proclaimed pro-life Democrat Senator Bob Casey, Jr. of Pennsylvania endorsed Senator Barack Obama for president. Obama has been canvassing the state of Pennsylvania trying to drum up votes against Hillary Clinton, who is leading the polls there. The problem with this endorsement is that Obama has radical views on abortion and has voted on opposite sides of this issue than Casey almost every time a Life bill is up for a vote. The Associated Press reported Casey’s endorsement might help Obama with pro-life voters and Catholic voters, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were Obama.
When Casey campaigned against pro-life hero Senator Rick Santorum, he campaigned on a pro-life platform but stated and restated that it wasn’t his most important issue. He voted right on stem cells and some other abortion bills, but Casey has found himself on the wrong side of funding for abortion and family planning services. In September of last year, Casey voted to overturn the pro-life Mexico City Policy – a policy that states private overseas organizations that "perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning" are not eligible to receive funds under the U.S. foreign aid program for "population assistance”. Casey doesn’t believe in abortion, but he’ll fund it. Thankfully, President Bush has promised to veto the bill if the pro-abortion language isn’t removed.
Barack Obama was not in town for that vote, but rest assured he would have voted for it. He is so radically pro-abortion that when he was chairman of the Health and Human Services Committee of the Illinois Senate, he threw out a bill that would provide emergency medical care for babies surviving an abortion.
In his recent Pennsylvania tour, Obama spoke of a baby as a punishment for a young girl’s mistake of getting pregnant. Speaking about his daughters, he said, “I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby.” The remarks may have been off-the-cuff, but it gives great insight on his position on Life.
Casey’s endorsement may help Obama with Pennsylvania voters, but not with pro-life voters. We know better. We’re too smart for that.
Caught Stealing - Being Given Our Money isn't Enough
March 18, 2008
By Maura Butler
It’s not enough that Planned Parenthood is given millions in hard-earned tax-payer dollars. The LA Times recently reported that Planned Parenthood of California is under investigation for over-billing the state government for birth control pills. When one of their internal auditors brought this to their attention, they fired him, ignored the report, and kept right on collecting that extra gravy.
They took advantage of a federal program for health centers where they can buy drugs at a reduced price and file for reimbursement under special rules. They billed for more than they paid and now they are being sued.
It’s bad enough that we have to pay for what goes on at those clinics – but it’s even worse when they steal from us to continue their sordid anti-life practices. Stealing from the government is stealing from taxpayers, most who are morally opposed to what Planned Parenthood does.
Racism Alive and Well at Planned Parenthood
March 04, 2008
By Maura Butler
A sophomore studying at UCLA recently released shocking recordings uncovering continued racism at Planned Parenthoods around the country. Pro-life student Lila Rose hired an actor to call the development offices of various Planned Parenthood sites and ask that the potential donation be only used to abort black babies. The responses were shocking. Not a single person with whom the actor spoke said no. In fact, one woman said the request was “understandable” and that she was “excited” to process it.
Understandable? No, in fact, it is incomprehensible! To single out a specific sub-sect of our society based on a judgment call regarding their skin color for the purpose of murdering their offspring is horrifying. But that’s just what Margaret Sanger had in mind when she began Planned Parenthood. In various writings Sanger references her “Negro Project” which was a plan to reduce the number of black children through abortion, sterilization and birth control. She was a firm believer in eugenics, the idea that through proper breeding humans could eliminate undesirables from society.
Ideas have consequences. One of the consequences of eugenics is today’s abortion industry. Planned Parenthood sets up shop in largely minority communities under the mask of helping poor women. Whole classes of people are being wiped out because they are disabled with Down Syndrome or Cystic Fibrosis. Ask an adult with DS or CF if they think their life is worth living and I bet you can guess the answer.
In my heart, I believe most people who are pro-abortion would find this story shocking. They detest racism just as much as you and me. So if we can get at their hearts through this story, then maybe we’ll have a better chance at changing their minds about abortion as well. To take action against more funding for Planned Parenthood, click here.
Aborting Children with Down Syndrome
February 25, 2008
By Maura Butler
Have you ever met a child with Down Syndrome (DS)? If you have, he or she likely touched your heart. Kids and adults with DS are just about the most loving and loveable people on the planet. They don’t care what you look like or how much money you make. If you have a smile for them, and even if you don’t, rest assured they have one for you.
University of North Carolina biology professor Albert Harris believes women are under moral obligation to abort their children if given a DS diagnosis. However, at the end of the article, Professor Harris said that he wouldn’t want his own child to be aborted regardless of a DS diagnosis or not. In other words, he wouldn’t follow his own moral position – that just doesn’t make sense.
Unfortunately, the majority of prenatal testing is done so that if parents don’t like the results, they can choose to have an abortion. Herein lies the slippery slope. People abort a boy because they want girl, a girl because they want a boy, they get a false positive of some developmental disability and decide they don’t want a child with problems. Here’s a hint: all children have problems; some are just more obvious than others. As genetic testing gets more advanced, more affordable and easier, there will come a time when parents can choose to abort their child who has blue eyes or a lower IQ or lesser athletic ability.
Some people don’t like the slippery slope argument. But it’s a good one because it showcases our flawed human nature. Give an inch and we’ll take a yard. Harris and many like him think DS is a reason to abort. In January, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released a statement recommending all women, not just those 35 and over, be offered DS screening. They don’t say this, but the only reason to screen is to make a decision whether to abort or not – leaning toward abortion. Data show 90 percent of unborn children with DS diagnoses are aborted.
Parents of children with DS are getting more involved the fight to educate pregnant women who are given a DS diagnosis. They are concerned for many reasons. They love their kids and want to dispel some of the fear that comes with the diagnosis. And they want their kids to know other kids with DS. With the population only at about 350,000, people with DS are becoming more and more scarce, and this is mainly due to abortion. Less people with DS also means less funds for research and institutional support.
It is a sad state of affairs in America when an entire class of people is being systematically wiped out because of an extra 21st chromosome – something completely out of their control.
Outdated Nebraska Cloning Bill
February 11, 2008
By Maura Butler
Back in November, Japanese scientists lead by Professor Shinya Yamanaka declared they had created embryonic-like stem cells by reprogramming adult human skin cells (iPS cells – induced pluripotent stem cells). This news was lauded by scientist all over the world and rendered cloning obsolete. Even Ian Wilmut, the scientist who cloned Dolly the sheep, tossed his grant to pursue cloning in favor of this new and exciting technique, which also turns out to be completely ethical. So why then are Nebraska lawmakers advancing a bill to fund human cloning in their state?
LB606 is a bill being reviewed by the Nebraska state legislature that would ban one type of cloning but legalize and pay for (with tax-payer dollars of course) another type of cloning. Those of us who follow these issues carefully know that back in November 2006, Missourians voted on a constitutional amendment on the same sort of semantics. Reproductive cloning – make a human clone and implant it into a woman’s uterus so that it gestates like a normal embryo into a fetus and beyond – is viewed as the stuff of horror science fiction to most of us. But therapeutic cloning – creating a human clone to destroy it for its stem cells in the hopes of finding a cure for something and treating patients – is lauded as noble… even though a human life is destroyed to get there.
Almost all scientists agree actual therapies from therapeutic cloning are decades away. But my point of this recent study where skin cells from an adult were reprogrammed making iPS cells is that now cloning does not have to happen anymore. The adult from whom the skin cells are taken can be treated with his or her own stem cells – not the stem cells of his or her genetic twin, i.e. clone. This is exciting stuff. And it works. So why pursue the other extremely controversial research?
My guess is fame and fortune. But the pursuit of cloning for fame has already shown fruitless. On January 17th, 2008 Stemagen announced it had successfully cloned the first properly documented human being. No one cared. Did you hear about it? I try to keep abreast of this stuff and I didn’t even hear about it until three weeks later. Thanks to the Yamanaka discovery, it wasn’t news.
A Murderous Blessing
February 05, 2008
By Maura Butler
On the day tens of thousands of citizens were marching for our most vulnerable and weak sisters and brothers, religious leaders of three different denominations were “blessing” the Mohawk Hudson Planned Parenthood abortion mill in Schenectady, New York. The Albany Times Union reported this commemoration took place on January 22nd, the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.
And what exactly are they commemorating? In their eyes, it is the day when women were liberated from the chains of actually having to be mothers. This 18,000 square foot clinic complete with surgical wing, was “blessed” by ones who call themselves people of God, members of the clergy – people who should be bringing souls to God, not encouraging the death of a woman’s child by a murderous abortionist.
Reverend Larry Phillips declared the clinic “sacred ground where women are treated with dignity, supported in their role as moral decision-makers… sacred ground where the violent voices of hatred and oppression are quelled.” In part, the dignity of women lies in the very fact that they can be mothers, givers of life. Persuading them to have someone tear their children from their bodies committing a most violent act to both woman and child is one of the greatest oppressions of women in all history.
If you are a person of faith, be sure to read the second page of this article to read the theologically problematic words of the Reverend Bill Levering.
Isn’t it interesting that the other side of this debate has long since demanded religion to be expelled from the debate. I’m not sure what they wanted to accomplish by having religious leaders confer a blessing on their buildings of death and destruction. Certainly it was more of a statement, an effect rather than a real desire for blessings from the Almighty. If it is the latter, maybe in time the Lord will change their hearts and minds. Let’s continue to pray for that.
Thanks to The Weekly Standard February 4th 2008 issue and Anthony Sacramone of First Things for the lighter side.
Words, Words, Words
January 24, 2008 By Maura Butler
Forgive me for my writer’s block. It took the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade to shake me back into being outraged again. Marching with the tens of thousands of pro-life soldiers on Tuesday uplifted my spirit to continue fighting the good fight. Unfortunately the anniversary often reignites the other side too.
We used to be anti-abortion and they used to be pro-abortion. But over time as the horrors of abortion were uncovered and advances in technology revealed these tiny human beings with their beating hearts, abortion became a dirty word. They switched to pro-choice, and we became pro-life. As time passed and technology progressed, being pro-life came to incorporate more than being anti-abortion. But the jargon lives on.
As pro-life activists chip away at Roe little by little with commonsense restrictions like parental notification and bans on late term abortion, reactionaries on the other side throw phrases around that, on their own, sound innocent – phrases like “childbearing choices” and “women’s health”. The other side’s activists talk the talk about wanting abortion to be “safe, legal and rare” but in reality, they are no less pro-abortion than they used to be – and I mean PRO-abortion, desiring more abortions.1
Let me give you an example. In a recent article written on January 22nd, the author discusses the impending presidential election as it relates to abortion. Bringing in pop culture, she rejects the notion that abortion is a dirty word.
“The movie "Juno" brings us a pregnant teen who gives her child up for adoption, while the tabloids offer up Jamie Lynn Spears, Britney's 16-year-old real life and really pregnant sister who opts for single motherhood. There's also "Knocked Up," about a woman with an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy. After its strong box office run the movie is near the top of DVD rentals, with nary a mention of abortion except as a verboten subject, a less than savory choice that the pregnant protagonists wouldn't deign to consider.”
Is adoption and its promotion really that bad of an option? Ask an adopted kid what she thinks. If the author is really "pro-choice" shouldn't she be indifferent to the choice made? Abortion and adoption are just choices, right?
This article also throws phrases around like “women’s rights” and “human rights”, wanting abortion to be detached from privacy and become a basic right. Most pro-lifers would argue for human rights on behalf of the unborn human, and declare that women deserve better than abortion.
Words can be useful tools, but they can also shadow real meaning and sugar-coat otherwise horrible things. I think both sides need to be careful about rhetoric. But no amount of manipulation and poetry can hide the devastating affects of abortion on women, relationships, families and most of all, the children themselves.
1 I refer here to activists, because I think the average pro-choice American is more misguided than bloodthirsty.
