Hurrah!
First Gerber Baby With Down Syndrome
Pro-Life
Holy Innocents
A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and great mourning; Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.
Matthew 2:18
Herod’s murder of the Holy Innocents is remembered on this feast day of the Holy Innocents. The video below is a moving depiction of this horrendous crime from the film Jesus of Nazareth.
Herod ordered this massacre in a futile attempt to stop the Light of the World from completing His mission of salvation. In our day Holy Innocents are slaughtered each and every day in an ultimately futile attempt to deny what Christ taught: that we are all brothers and sisters and that we must love God and love one another. Some day this modern Herod emulation that goes by the name of legal abortion will cease, and the feast day of the Holy Innocents is a very good day for us to resolve to work unceasingly to bring that day closer. Continue Reading
US Bishops Signal Resistance to Pope Francis’s Agenda?
Here’s an article in the Wall Street Journal (go to Drudge to get the post without a paywall–look for “US Catholic Leaders Signal Resistance to Pope’s Agenda”.)
Here are some quotes:
“—The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops chose a conservative archbishop for a key post Tuesday, signaling resistance to Pope Francis’s vision for the church among the Catholic hierarchy in the U.S.
Archbishop Joseph Naumann, of Kansas City, was elected chairman of the committee on Pro-Life Activities. In a vote of 96 to 82, he defeated Cardinal Blase Cupich, of Chicago, who is seen as a liberal in the church and a close ally of the pope.
The vote breaks a longstanding tradition of the position being held by a cardinal—an unusual lapse of deference in a highly rank-conscious body—and suggests that Catholic leaders in the U.S. remain largely resistant to the changes Pope Francis is trying to bring to the church.”
…….
” ‘It is clear since 2013 that a majority of them sees the message of Francis’ pontificate, esp. on life and marriage, as not adequate for the Catholic Church in the USA,’ Massimo Faggioli, a theologian at Villanova, said on Twitter after the vote Tuesday.”–Ian Lovett and Francis X. Rocca, Wall Street Journal, 14 Nov, ’17
The vote count was 96 to 82. Cupich is a Cardinal and the position ordinarily goes to a Cardinal, so the closeness of the vote may be due to this break from tradition, rather than reflecting a focus on abortion and euthanasia as pro-life issues. The article indicated that Cupich, a supporter of Pope Francis, would probably want to follow Pope Francis’s lead in bringing in other issues–capital punishment, global warming, etc–and this was rejected by the Bishops.
Is this an encouraging sign? You tell me.
France Attempts to Criminalize the Pro-Life Movement
I am not afraid; I was born to do this.
Saint Joan of Arc
The Socialist government in France, deemed likely to be massacred in the coming elections, are doing what Leftists traditionally do when they are running behind: wave the bloody fetus and bash pro-lifers:
On Thursday, the French National Assembly passed a bill that makes it a crime to post information online that challenges abortion. Pro-life activists who continue to operate online face up to two years in prison and a fine of more than $30,000. The bill is an expansion of a 1993 law that penalized giving out “false information” or physically blocking those seeking abortion from entering clinics. The bill passed by French lawmakers will punish web operators who post material considered “deliberately misleading, intimidating and/or exerting psychological or moral pressure.”
The French legislation follows a controversy that erupted after the French government blocked an advertisement featuring smiling children with Down syndrome because it could dredge up feelings of guilt from woman who decided to abort babies diagnosed with the genetic condition in-utero. About 96 percent of all babies diagnosed with the condition are aborted in France. The two-minute ad featured testimony from Down syndrome children and adults, as well as their parents explaining that they were capable of living full and happy lives. In November a French court upheld the ban, saying the video would “‘disturb the conscience of women who, in accordance with the law, have made personal life choices.’” Continue Reading
Cruz For Life
If pro-lifers want a fighter when it comes to abortion, then Ted Cruz is their candidate:
Cruz was participating in a MSNBC town hall event. During a discussion of abortion, he noted that “virtually none of the network news would show the videos on air”(neither ABC, CBS, nor NBC covered the releases of any of the seven videos released after July 2015). To that, host Chuck Todd claimed “some of it was made up.”
“No it wasn’t,” Cruz shot back, going on to explain, “it is a federal crime – a felony with a 10-year prison term – to sell the body parts of unborn children for profit.” The videos, he continued, “show senior Planned Parenthood officials laughing, sipping Chardonnay, and bargaining, and apparently selling the body parts of unborn children. Listen, even if you’re pro-choice, selling the body parts of unborn children as a commercial endeavor is a horrifying thing.”
The videos reveal a number of officials from Planned Parenthood and StemExpress, a tissue procurement company the abortion giant works with, seemingly discussing multiple federal crimes relating to acquiring and profiting off organs from aborted babies. Despite pro-abortion claims the videos were deceptively edited, two separate forensic analyses (one of which was performed by a Democrat-aligned research firm and commissioned by Planned Parenthood themselves) confirmed the audio of their admissions was not manipulated.
Cruz then called the situation “one of the sad indictments of the Obama Administration.” Continue Reading
Bad Week
Belying the great progress being made at the state level, the pro-life movement had a bad week on the national level.
The GOP leadership pulled a bill banning abortion after 20 weeks, a piece of legislation that has two-one support in polls, because some House members were nervous about the requirement of the rape exception that the rape be reported to the police. (Really? A woman twenty weeks pregnant who claims to be raped hasn’t yet reported the rape to the police?) Bizarre and cowardly. The House did pass a bill banning abortion funding and credits for abortion, with the usual regrettable exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother.
Then we have Catholic prelates attempting to turn the pro-life cause into a giant rally for the welfare state. Frank Walker at Pewsitter has their number:
So which does Cardinal O’Malley want from the March for Life in Washington: ascetic lives of poverty, their tax money, their Democrat votes, or all three? Continue Reading
Progress
Some good news to end the year:
A new survey conducted by Operation Rescue of all abortion facilities in the United States has confirmed that the abortion clinic closure trend continued strongly in 2014. Operation Rescue is the only pro-life organization that maintains a listing of abortion facilities and tracks clinic closures and its extensive research has provided the most accurate accounting of abortion facilities known to exist.
In all, 73 abortion facilities shut down for all or part of the year. The total number of all remaining abortion clinics in the US is currently 739. Surgical abortion facilities account for 551 of that total while the number of medication-only abortion facilities stands at 188.
Out of 60 surgical abortion clinic closures, 47 were permanent. This represents a 23% decline in surgical abortion facilities over the past five years.
Thirteen surgical facilities were allowed to reopen after initially closing, primarily due to court action that enjoined abortion safety laws that had shut down the substandard facilities.
Thirteen facilities that provided only medication abortions account for the remaining closures in 2014. That more than doubles the number of medication abortion facilities that closed in 2013 when six were shuttered.
While the abortion clinic closures did not eclipse the high water mark of 93 total closures in 2013, the 73 closures this year far exceeds the two dozen closures recorded in 2012.
The 2014 figures represent a net decrease of 31 surgical abortion facilities nationwide. even though the number of medication abortion facilities increased by 11 over 2013 numbers, they still remain below the high of 196 facilities in 2012.
“We are continuing to witness the implosion of the abortion cartel in America,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue. “The only things that are preventing total collapse are court injunctions that are blocking several state abortion safety laws from being enforced. Once those laws clear the courts, we expect to see even more dangerous abortion facilities close. This is great news for women and babies because when abortion clinics close, lives are saved.”
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The greatest number of closed facilities took place in Texas as the result of the 2013 abortion law known as HB2. Eleven surgical and three medication-only facilities shut down permanently over the course of 2014.
Closures far outpaced clinic openings. Fifteen facilities either added surgical abortions or opened for the first time. Thirteen clinics, primarily Planned Parenthood centers, added medication abortions to clinics that previously did not provide them. Eight clinics that formerly provided surgical abortions made the decision to halt those procedures, but continue to sell medication abortions.
“As new states laws add safety standards for surgical abortions, we are seeing the beginnings of a new trend. Abortion providers who cannot or will not comply with the higher standards have, in some cases, dropped surgical abortions in favor of medical abortions so they did not have to become licensed,” said Newman. “This allows incompetent abortionists to continue exploiting women for money while evading the need to increase patient safety.”
Some of the more notable abortion facility closures included:
• Outpatient Services for Women, Oklahoma City, OK: This surgical clinic shut down after the arrest on December 9 of clinic owner and operator Naresh Patel on charges of fraud and racketeering after Operation Rescue filed complaints. Patel had been caught selling abortion pills to women who were not pregnant.
• All Women’s Health, Chicago, IL: Clinic owner, abortionist Mandy Gittler, closed this facility after local activists protested there over the death of Tonya Reaves, which was killed by Gittler in 2012 at a Chicago Planned Parenthood clinic.
• Novi Laser and Aesthetic Center, Novi, Michigan: This facility shut down after being evicted from two locations this year. After the last eviction in November, owner Michael Arthur Roth had nowhere to go.
• Aid for Women, aka Central Family Medical, Kansas City, MO: Operation Rescue discovered evidence of multiple abortion abuses and lodged complaints. This facility was best known for suing in court for the right to stop reporting child sex abuse. Under pressure from the medical board and struggling for business, Aid for Women, finally shut down.
• Affiliated Women’s Services, Indianapolis, IN: This facility, associated with the infamous late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart shut down in July due to financial woes and a lack of demand for abortions.
• Femcare, Asheville, NC: Its shut down earlier this year for two dozen serious health and safety violations caused an outcry from abortion supporters since it was thought to be the only facility that could pass new safety standards. It reopened briefly before permanently closing after its abortionist, Lorraine Cummings, announced her retirement and placed the building for sale.
The Chicago Way
The new Archbishop of Chicago has a long history of hostility to the pro-life movement. Brian Williams at One Peter Five notes that he seems much happier with pro-abort politicians:
In a homily this past June, Monsignor Henry Kriegel (pastor at St. Patrick Catholic Church in the Diocese of Erie, Pennsylvania) referenced an evening spent dining with the well connected Catholic blogger Rocco Palma of Whispers in the Loggia. Regarding the impending episcopal appointment in Chicago, Msgr. Kriegel said at the time:
“…(Palma) told us who’s going to be the next archbishop of Chicago; a position which will be filled in September. And if he’s correct, it’s going to be the beginning of a whole new style of episcopal leadership in the American Catholic Church, away from these bombastic, confrontational, counter-cultural bishops to bishops who are much more conciliatory and overflowing, as Francis says, with mercy.
On Sunday’s edition of Face the Nation, recently installed Archbishop Blasé Cupich demonstrated that Chicago is indeed being introduced to a new style of episcopal leadership. This was nowhere more evident than the archbishop’s response to host Norah O’Donnell’s question regarding pro-abortion politicians and the reception of Communion:
O’DONNELL: So, when you say we cannot politicize the communion rail, you would give communion to politicians, for instance, who support abortion rights.
CUPICH: I would not use the Eucharist or as they call it the communion rail as the place to have those discussions or way in which people would be either excluded from the life of the church. The Eucharist is an opportunity of grace and conversion. It’s also a time of forgiveness of sins. So my hope would be that that grace would be instrumental in bringing people to the truth.
In other words, those who persist in mortal sin and public scandal through their continued political support of abortion should still receive the Eucharist. This very topic has been thoroughly addressed by canon lawyer Dr. Edward Peters when discussing the specific case of U.S. Congresswoman and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi:
“Canon 915, as I and others have explained many times, is not about impositions on individual conscience, it’s about public consequences for public behavior. It’s about taking people at their word and acknowledging the character of their actions. It’s about not pretending that people don’t really mean what they repeatedly say and what they repeatedly do.
(…)
“As a canon lawyer, my view is that Nancy Pelosi deserves to be deprived of holy Communion as the just consequence of her public actions; as her fellow Catholic, my view is that Nancy Pelosi deservesto be deprived of holy Communion to bring home to her and to the wider faith community the gravity of her conduct and the need to avoid such conduct altogether or, that failing, at least to repent of it. Quickly.”
Go here to read the rest. Here is the comment of Cupich on his recent meeting with Obama: Continue Reading
Mark Shea, Pro-life and Religion as Politics
Mark Shea has taken his agree-with-me-on-these-issues-or-you-are-not-really-pro-life routine to the pages of the Jesuit rag America:
But weirdly, when the topic is not the unborn, many allegedly pro-life people often forget their wisdom. Result: on many issues ranging from war to torture to refugees to the death penalty, it is extremely common to run into people who are anti-abortion, but not pro-life.
And so self-identified pro-life people, in a solid majority, favored the launch of the Iraq War, despite the fact that it failed to meet a single criterion of Just War teaching, was sternly denounced by Pope John Paul II, warned of by the world’s bishops, and dismissed as folly by then-Cardinal Ratzinger, who famously remarked that the “concept of a ‘preventive war’ does not appear in the Catechism of the Catholic Church” and who warned that it would result in catastrophe—as the destruction of the Chaldean Church, the deaths of at least 100,000 people and the transformation of Iraq into chaos eloquently attests.
..
Relatedly, self-identified pro-life Christians supported, in greater percentages than the general U.S. population, the use of torture against prisoners. Indeed, along with Evangelicals, self-identified pro-life Catholics may constitute the single most enthusiastic supporters of torture in American public life. This is despite the fact that the church describes torture as gravely and intrinsically immoral—exactly the same terms in which she describes abortion.
Similarly, the death penalty is sometimes treated as an issue in which the church’s guidance to inflict the punishment only if absolutely necessary is rejected on the theory that God “commands” rather than reluctantly permits the death penalty. Some even go so far as to declare the church, not merely entitled to an opinion from which they dissent, but actually “wrong” and work to execute as many victims as possible.
Finally, there is the strange spectacle of some Catholics opposing pre-natal help for low income women (thus increasing the likelihood of abortion for poor families who fear they cannot afford another child) and the even stranger spectacle of self-identified pro-life people brandishing guns and screaming for desperately poor refugee children from Central America to be sent back to the extreme dangers of rape, sex slavery and murder.
Continue Reading
Now This Is a Bishop
It is easy to get cynical about Bishops, and then one of them does something like this:
“My approach is about making a change in their hearts,” he said of those they were praying for, mentioned in prayers as the people in the building behind them (Planned Parenthood). “My hope is that the Lord moves them to do the right thing. That they get guidance to choose with their conscience.” Continue Reading
Virtue Is Attractive: The Crossroads Walk
For the past 20 years, some wonderful young college students have been participating in “Crossroads Walk,” dedicating the 3 months of their summer vacation to trek each year across the nation on behalf of life.
The walk started in 1995 when 15 Franciscan University of Steubenville (OH) students took up then-Pope John Paul II’s challenge to you to spread the gospel of life. Those 15 students now number several hundred thousand and their 1 annual walk has grown into 3. Beginning in May and ending in August, participants trek from Seattle, San Francisco, and San Jose-Los Angeles, crossing 36 states before reaching their destination: Washington, DC. Each group covers anywhere from 10k-15k miles. Weekends feature the groups praying, providing counselling in front of abortion clinics, and speaking at local churches.
No doubt about it, Crossroads is a pro-life “civil rights” organization whose members seek to protect the civil right of the “right to life.”
Catch a glimpse of Crossroads Walk 2014:
Except Us
A brilliant piece by Brandon McGinley at The Federalist on the ongoing journalistic malpractice when it comes to abortion. Legal abortion on demand largely exists in this country because the public is shielded by a pro-abort media from the every day grisly reality of the blood trade that kills a million human beings a year in this country.
What if we had a latter-day Upton Sinclair willing to expose our abortion regime, rather than the incurious mandarins who pathetically claim his mantle? What would he find when he opens the door to the dungeon?
He would find systematic slaughter, but of children rather than hogs. In Delaware, Planned Parenthood nurses reported “meat market-style assembly line abortions.” The conveyor of pregnant women moved so quickly that bloody discharge remained on the exam table. We know about this only because courageous nurses came forward; one can only imagine how many other abortion facilities still operate in such putrid conditions.
He would find callous disregard for human dignity, as children are treated in life and death more like livestock than persons. Former Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson (again, a whistleblower rather than a journalist) reports that the organization had abortion quotas it expected its centers to fulfill, because abortion is the most lucrative part of the Planned Parenthood business model. And only a few weeks ago we learned from The B.C. Catholic newspaper of the Archdiocese of Vancouver that children aborted in British Columbia were being incinerated as fuel in Oregon.
And he would find that the squeals of hogs have a human analogue, as well:
[Sherry West] hated working in the room where Gosnell performed abortions—never more than the night a staffer asked for help with a problem at Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Society clinic in West Philadelphia. “There was this clear glass pan, and I saw it, and I thought, ‘What do you expect me to do?’” West testified Monday at Gosnell’s murder trial. “It wasn’t fully developed,” West told the Common Pleas Court jury, referring to the 18- to 24-inch-long newborn in the pan. It didn’t have eyes or a mouth but it was like screeching, making this noise. It was weird. It sounded like a little alien.” Questioned by Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore, West, 53, said she did not know what happened to the “specimen”—the term she said she used because “it was easier to deal with mentally.” “It really freaked me out, and I said call Dr. Gosnell, and I went back out front,” West added.
And when Dr. Gosnell arrived, we can safely assume, with a snip the screeching fell silent.
And the silence persists. The voiceless remain so, except for that terrible shriek of primordial fear. They have no champion to make them heard. Continue Reading
Thomas S. Vander Woude: A Name That Deserves to Be Remembered
Thomas S. Vander Woude who died in 2008 is part of my personal pantheon of heroes:
Another of Thomas S. Vander Woude’s sons, Tom Vander Woude, pastor at Queen of Apostles Catholic Church in Alexandria, gave the homily. In it, he likened his father to Saint Joseph, a man who patiently and quietly supported his family, did odd jobs for those in need and was content to worship God and not seek the limelight, Tom Vander Woude said. Continue Reading
Vandalism, Battery and Robbery, Along With Being a Red Fascist
Hattip to Eugene Volokh at the Volokh Conspiracy. A follow up to Foxfier’s post, go here to read it, about the Feminazi professor who assaulted a teenage pro-lifer and stole her sign. The following is a report of the investing police officer as he interviewed the professor. Imagine that he is speaking in Jack Webb’s Joe Friday, Just the Facts Ma’am, monotone:
I asked Miller-Young if she felt anything wrong had happened this afternoon. Miller-Young said that she did not know enough about the limits of free speech to answer my question. Miller-Young went on to say that she was not sure what an acceptable and legal response to hate speech would be. Miller-Young said that she was willing to pay for the cost of the sign but would “hate it.”
I explained to Miller-Young that the victims in this case felt that a crime had occurred. I told Miller-Young that I appreciated the fact that she felt traumatized by the imagery but that her response constituted a violation of law. Furthermore, I told Miller-Young that I was worried about the example she had set for her undergraduate students.
Miller-Young said that her students “were wanting her to take” the sign away. Miller-Young argued that she set a good example for her students. Miller-Young likened her behavior to that of a “conscientious objector.” Miller-Young said that she did not feel that what she had done was criminal. However, she acknowledged that the sign did not belong to her.
I asked Miller-Young what crimes she felt the pro-life group had violated. Miller-Young replied that their coming to campus and showing “graphic imagery” was insensitive to the community. I clarified the difference between University policy and law to Miller-Young and asked her again what law had been violated. Miller-Young said that she believed the pro-life group may have violated University policy. Miller-Young said that her actions today were in defense of her students and her own safety.
Miller-Young said that she felt that this issue was not criminal and expressed a desire to find a resolution outside of the legal system. Miller-Young continued and stated that she had the “moral” right to act in the way she did.
I asked Miller-Young if she could have behaved differently in this instance. There was a long pause. “I’ve said that I think I did the right thing. But I acknowledge that I probably should not have taken their poster.” Miller-Young also said that she wished that the anti-abortion group had taken down the images when they demanded them to.
Miller-Young also suggested that the group had violated her rights. I asked Miller-Young what right the group had violated. Miller-Young responded, “My personal right to go to work and not be in harm.”
Miller-Young elaborated that one of the reasons she had felt so alarmed by this imagery is because she is about to have the test for Down Syndrome. Miller-Young said. “I work here, why do they get to intervene in that?”
I explained to Miller-Young that vandalism, battery and robbery had occurred. I also told Miller-Young that individuals involved in this case desired prosecution.
I later booked the torn sign into evidence at UCPD. I also uploaded the audio files of my interviews into digital evidence.
I request that a copy of my report, along with all related supplemental reports, be forwarded to the District Attorney’s Office for review. Continue Reading
Pro-aborts and the Race Card
The above video is from the Alabama Right to Life website.
In a vain attempt to stop the passage of pro-life legislation in Alabama, Democrat Representative Alvin Holmes, a truly charming individual who earlier this year referred to Justice Clarence Thomas as an Uncle Tom, drew the race card, the first resort of pro-aborts and the Democrat party:
“If you asked the people in here now to raise their hands, of those who are against abortion, 99% of all of the white people in here gonna raise their hand that they are against abortion,” Holmes said Tuesday according to a recording of some of the debate on al.com. “On the other hand, 99% of the whites that are sitting in here now, if they daughter got pregnant by a black man, they gonna make their daughter have an abortion. They ain’t gonna let her have the baby. You know, the truth sometimes hurts … They’re not gonna let that happen. You know that and I know that. You will never admit it.”
During his speech, Holmes asks one white woman, it’s unclear who, if she’d allow her daughter to have a mixed-race baby.
“Yes, I would,” the woman replies.
“Well, I need to commend you then,” Holmes says. “There’s not one in 100,000 that would do that.”
Go here to read the rest. Of course abortion is the dream come true for the Klan, the traditional terrorist wing of the Democrat party in the South. In adjacent Mississippi, for example, we have these statistics:
Whites in Mississippi outnumber blacks by a ratio of 1.6-to-1. Despite that difference, the data show that black abortions comprised, on average, 72% of the total over the last 16 years. Continue Reading
Bishop of Buffalo Responds to Governor Cuomo’s Anti-Life Rant
Bishop Richard J. Malone responds to Governor Andrew Cuomo telling pro-lifers to get out of New York. Read Cuomo’s rant here. One wonders when Governor Cuomo, in the grand tradition of the Democrat party, will begin to refer to pro-lifers as “outside agitators”. Continue Reading
The Best Pro-Life Video Ever!
The video is at the bottom of this post.
The best television commercial ever was done by Coca-Cola (of Argentina I believe). How appropriate that their beverage is called Coca-Cola Life!
To view the video click on “Continue reading →”
Walking the Walk
It is often easy to become cynical about all politicians, but occasionally you do find those who are the real thing:
Then, in July, Beutler said Abigail was doing well two weeks following her birth.
Abigail will need a kidney transplant in the year ahead, but her parents and doctors consider the child a miracle. Continue Reading
Bravo Pope Francis!
There are times when I am very proud indeed to be a Catholic and this is one of them:
‘I told him that I would not have an abortion and told him to get out of my life.’ Continue Reading
IRS Scandal: The Harassment of Pro-Lifers Continues
Incredible. Even after the exposure of the IRS targeting pro-life groups, go here to read about it, the IRS is continuing to target pro-life groups:
August 1, 2013 – Chicago) Today, the Thomas More Society has submitted an updated second memorandum to Congressman Aaron Schock (IL-18) of the House Committee on Ways and Means, detailing additional evidence of continued IRS targeting of pro-life organizations. Despite claims by the Obama Administration that the harassment has ceased, the Society produced over 230 pages of documentation showing that the federal government is still interrogating pro-life groups beyond the scope of its legal authority, infringing upon these organizations’ First Amendment rights of assembly, free speech, and religious liberty.
“Despite claims to the contrary, the IRS continues to target and harass pro-life and conservative charities, illegally questioning their religious activities and withholding their tax exemptions,” said Peter Breen vice president and senior counsel of the Thomas More Society. “We have now produced irrefutable evidence of six clients whose First Amendment rights were trampled upon by the IRS because of their position upholding the sanctity of life. Even after public disclosure of this wrongdoing, the Obama Administration’s IRS has refused to cease its illegal activity. We will continue to aid Congress in its investigation until those responsible are brought to justice and the IRS is made to respect every American’s constitutional rights.”
Since the Thomas More Society disclosed evidence in May showing IRS harassment of three pro-life groups, the Society has been contacted by numerous additional organizations seeking legal counsel related to IRS issues. Three of these entities, Cherish Life Ministries, LIFE Group, and Emerald Coast Coalition for Life are highlighted in today’s memorandum as having experienced illegal targeting by the IRS.
The memo details the recent experience of several pro-life organizations applying for 501(c)(3) charitable recognition and reveals blatant bias on the part of the IRS agents assigned to process those applications. Repeatedly these pro-life groups were harassed with questions about time spent in prayer at abortion facilities and told that they must educate and advocate on abortion from both sides of the issue. Two groups were also falsely denied their tax exemption status by IRS agent Mrs. R. Medley who claimed they didn’t qualify under section 501(c)(3) of the IRS Code. All three groups’ tax exemptions were delayed 13-16 months with IRS supervisors, including Lois Lerner, singling out their applications for further review by an “exemption organization specialist.” While Thomas More Society attorneys have intervened and secured relief for two of these three organizations, one organization – Emerald Coast Coalition for Life – still remains in limbo. Continue Reading
Texas, Satan and Gosnell
Well, after all the sturm und drang of the Wendy Davis filibuster, Davis of course being the pro-abort Democrat Texas State Senator elected into office with the help of Ralph McCloud, director of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, pro-aborts saluting their dishonorary leader, Satan, and pro-abort thugs having confiscated from them bricks, feces and urine that they intended to throw at Texas state legislators, the bill banning almost all abortions after 20 weeks has passed:
Go here to Ed Morrissey at Hot Air to read the rest. Ed makes an interesting prediction: Continue Reading
A Tale of Three Choices
On July 7 the New York Times had what is doubtless their 666th pro-abort piece this year, an op ed by a woman celebrating her mother’s abortion. (So long as it wasn’t you being tossed out like so much garbage, right honey?) If you enjoy irony, go here to read it.
Katy French, an epidimeologist has written a grand response:
Merfish’s mom married her dad shortly after her abortion. They finished college and went on to have better-timed children and, presumably, successful lives. My mom later met a dashing grad student at that commuter college. They married, graduated, had two daughters, successful careers, and are now approaching a secure retirement. Choosing life, no matter how inconvenient, doesn’t have to end anyone’s chance at the American Dream. Continue Reading
How Can You Tell When a Pro-life Ad is Effective?
When it is rejected by what is laughingly called the mainstream media.
The newspapers took issue with the image of the baby.
“It seems as though it is okay to talk about the issue in general, but when you actually put a face to the discussion, then it becomes controversial,” Young said. Continue Reading
IRS Scandal: Pro-life Groups Were Targets
On any enemies list compiled by the Obama administration, no doubt pro-lifers would be near the top. Illinois Review reveals today that pro-life groups were targeted by the IRS:
Were pro-life groups also a target of the staunchly pro-abortion Obama Administration?
But again two years later, Thomas More Society issued a letter to the IRS on behalf of a group called Christian Voices for Life. The IRS made repeated requests for information about the viewpoint and content of the group’s communications, prayer vigils, and other activities, violating the group’s First Amendment rights. Continue Reading
Abortion Survivor
Hattip to Pat Archbold at Creative Minority Report. Congressman Marlin Stutzman (R. IN) recalls how he came very close to being an abortion statistic:
On a cold December night in 1975, a 17-year-old girl sobbed on the bedroom floor of a neighbor’s house. Her own home had just burned to the ground, destroying everything she had. But that wasn’t the only weight she carried that night. She had just discovered that she was a few weeks pregnant with her first child. In the dark, alone and terrified, she decided to find a way to Kalamazoo, Mich., 40 miles away, to “take care of her situation.”
That young girl was my mother, and if she had gone to Kalamazoo that night, you wouldn’t be reading this today. I would have been aborted.
Recently, after speaking on the House floor about the horrors of Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s abortion clinic in Philadelphia, I began wondering if my mother had ever thought about ending her unplanned pregnancy. My parents never gave any indication that it was ever a consideration, but was it?
I gave her a call. When she answered, I talked to her about my speech on the House floor and then asked gently, “Mom, did you ever think about .” There was a tense pause, and then, through tears she said, “Marlin, I’m so sorry!” As we cried together, I was no longer a congressman, but a son understanding for the first time the heartache and struggles my mom had gone through before I was born. As we talked about her fear of driving 40 miles alone, I had to think, “What if a ‘Gosnell‘ clinic was only four miles away instead of 40?”
She asked if I could forgive her. I answered, “Yes, with all my heart.” I said that I couldn’t imagine how scared she must have been, and how thankful I was for her and Dad’s strength to do the right thing and protect my life. It could have ended so differently. At home with my wife and two children that night, my heart ached at the thought that all of this might never have been. Continue Reading
Kirsten Powers and the Still Small Voices
11 And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake:
12 And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.
13 And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?
1 Kings 19: 11-13
One of the ironies of the Gosnell case is that a liberal Democrat, Kirsten Powers, is largely responsible for shaming the Mainstream Media into covering the Gosnell case. A supporter of abortion, who now believes that life begins at conception, she wrote a fiery series of columns in which she called out the media for their obvious bias in refusing to cover the Gosnell murder trial for fear of jeopardizing the right to abortion. Yesterday she called for banning late term abortions:
But Gosnell’s clinic was not illegal. It was a licensed medical facility. The state of his clinic was well known: there were repeated complaints to government officials and even the local Planned Parenthood. He wasn’t operating under the radar but in plain sight, and he received referrals from abortion clinics up and down the East Coast. Gosnell performed plenty of abortions within the 24-week limit in Pennsylvania and worked part time for a National Abortion Federation–accredited clinic in Delaware.
The woman Gosnell is on trial for allegedly killing, Karnamaya Mongar, perished during a legal abortion while she was 19 weeks pregnant. Gosnell was not forced to operate in the dark because of anti–abortion rights regulations. It’s the opposite: he was able to flourish—pulling in $1.8 million a year—because multiple abortion rights administrations decided that to inspect his clinic might mean limiting access to abortion. It’s all in the grand jury report, if you don’t believe me.
One of the bodies discovered in the raid of the clinic was of a 22-week-old baby with a surgical incision on the back of her neck, which penetrated the first and second vertebrae. The only thing that would make her death illegal would be if Gosnell failed to finish her off in her mother’s womb.
Does that statement make you uncomfortable? Good.
What we need to learn from the Gosnell case is that late-term abortion is infanticide. Legal infanticide. That so many people in the media seem untroubled by the idea that 12 inches in one direction is a “private medical decision” and 12 inches in the other direction causes people to react in horror, should be troubling. Indeed, Gosnell’s defense attorney Jack J. McMahon has relied on the argument that Gosnell killed the babies prior to delivering them, therefore he is not guilty of murder. His exact words were: “Every one of those babies died in utero.”
Gosnell is accused of aborting infants past the 24-week limit in Pennsylvania. But those same deaths – if done in utero – would have been perfectly legal in many states with sometimes abused health exceptions, which can include the elastic category of “mental distress.” Continue Reading
Margaret Colin: Profile in Courage
Hattip to Matt Achbold at Creative Minority Report. Margaret Colin is the honorary chairwoman of Feminists for Life. An accomplished actress, she has also been outspokenly pro-life. I can think of no occupation, other than abortionist, where the pro-aborts are more dominant that in the entertainment industry. It takes considerable courage to buck that trend, and I salute Ms. Colin. She is the daughter of a New York City cop, so perhaps courage runs in the family.
Who is the Terrorist?
The second video in Live Action’s expose on late term abortions. Go here to view the first video. Here is the Live Action press release:
1) Babies are purposely suffocated or otherwise cruelly killed to ensure their deaths.
Um, I cut the umbilical cord first, wait for the baby to expire, and then we do it that way.
2) The ability of babies to survive at later stages of pregnancy is greatly misrepresented.
– in your pregnancy, it’s too early to survive, usually. It will expire shortly after birth.
He also goes on to relate false statistics:
Maybe a 20-30% chance of survival? What about the findings of this Swedish study, back in 2009:
This review of 33 different studies on survival rates of premature infants found that “the survival of infants born at 23, and mostly at 24 and 25 weeks of GA is significant in the majority of studies.” Rates vary from study to study, and yet, the conclusion is that a significant number of babies at these stages do indeed survive – quite different from the picture that Santangelo was painting. Continue Reading
Kermit Gosnell and the Abortion Industry
Abortion, all abortion, is violence and violence is an impermissible alternative in a world of reason.
Dr. Bernard Nathanson, Eclipse of Reason
One of the myths of the murder trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell is that he is not representative of the abortion industry. In regard to the manner in which Gosnell performed late term abortions, and his indifference to state laws restricting late term abortions, Gosnell is typical. Lila Rose and her intrepid band at Live Action are helping establish this fact with their patented undercover videos. From their press release: Continue Reading
Galloping Historical Illiteracy
Remember Laura Curry, the Adjunct Professor, who went berserk at a pro-life display at the University of Buffalo? Go here to read all about it. Six of her colleagues, two professors of history, one associate professor of history, one assistant professor of history, one American studies assistant prof, and one assistant professor of “global gender studies”, decided to write in to the student newspaper, The Spectrum, to demonstrate that they too could make public asses of themselves. Herewith is the letter and my fisk:
Dear Spectrum:
We are writing to condemn the message of the anti-abortion protest that took place outside the Commons this week.
Yes, we certainly wouldn’t want to give anyone the impression that a modern university is a place where opposing viewpoints are welcomed and debated.
In particular, we are disturbed by the equation of those who support women’s reproductive rights with those who lynched thousands of African American men and women in the 19th and 20th centuries.
It is an unfair comparison. Between 1882-1968 approximately 3,446 blacks, along with 1,297 whites, were lynched in this country. That is less than a morning’s work in the abortion clinics of this country.
We do not condemn the protest itself; in fact, we believe that the right to peaceably assemble is one of the foundational rights of American citizenship.
I am sure there is a “but” coming.
However, as historians, we feel it is imperative to speak out against this crass, uninformed and dangerous misuse of history.
Yep, I am certain it is the purity of History, and not voices raised against your right to slay your offspring, that has your knickers in a twirl.
From the end of the Civil War through the mid-20th century, white lynch mobs throughout the United States, although mostly in the South, deliberately and with extraordinary malice, terrorized and murdered African Americans under the pretense of “protecting” white womanhood from the supposed threat of rape by black men.
Actually, lynch mobs had various motivations. In regard to blacks, one of the chief motivations immediately after the Civil War was to ensure that black Republicans did not vote, lynch mobs often acting as the terrorist arm of the Democrat Party, the party of abortion today. The Republicans in Congress and in the White House made attempt after attempt to pass federal legislation against lynching, some 200 bills being introduced between 1882 to 1968. Each time the legislation was blocked by Southern Democrats in the Senate.
Of course, this mock chivalry was just a ruse. Lynchers could not imagine a world in which a white woman might choose to love a black man, and no doubt some of those lynched were guilty only of crossing the South’s prohibition against consensual interracial sex.
Lynchings involving accusations of rape were almost always based upon a white woman making the charge of rape. Of course that is an inconvenient fact for the professors, so they don’t mention that.
Others were simply guilty of owning their own land or trying to make a way for their families. Regardless, all of them paid the price for the white South’s brutal effort to control not only black bodies but white female ones, as well.
Oh give me a break. The idea that white females making accusations of rape were merely pawns in the hands of male lynch mobs is feminist clap trap and has virtually no basis in the historical record.
The inability to see women as capable of making decisions about their own sexuality. The use of violent, inaccurate, and misleading imagery. The pretense of protection. Anti-abortion protesters appear to have a lot in common with those who supported lynching.
Only if one views history as through a glass, darkly, combined with a bad case of feminist stigmatism. Pro-lifers of course wish to stop the slaughter of black babies just as they wish to stop the slaughter of all babies. No doubt the professors would view the main problem with Kermit Gosnell as being, not that he slaughtered hundreds, maybe thousands, of nearly full term black babies, but that his case threatens the sacred rite of abortion.
We applaud vigorous, thoughtful debate and protest.
Sure you do, so long as the debate and protest agrees with you.
It is the lifeblood of democracy. However, this kind of political action requires much deliberation, which unfortunately was missing from yesterday’s anti-abortion protest.
I would certainly hope that anyone undertaking political action engages in much more deliberation than you put into this letter.
If students wish to learn more about the history of racial and sexual violence, including lynching, we welcome them to take any of our classes.
Thanks for closing on a humorous note.
Sincerely,
Susan Cahn, Professor of History
Carole Emberton, Assistant Professor of History
Theresa Runstedtler, Assistant Professor of American Studies
Lakisha Simmons, Assistant Professor of Global Gender Studies
Victoria Wolcott, Professor of History
Jason Young, Associate Professor of History Continue Reading
Dead Baby Uber Alles
The above video of a Worse Than Murder, Inc, a\k\a Planned Parenthood rep blithely indicating that a baby surviving an abortion should not receive medical care if the mother and the abortionist do not wish the child to receive medical care has received considerable play.
Again, Snow replied, “That decision should be between the patient and the health care provider.” Continue Reading
It Takes A Lot of Verbiage to Justify Murder
Would that all pro-aborts were as forthright as the abortionist in the above video. Instead, most of them hide behind an endless torrent of evasions and euphemisms to conceal a very simple truth: abortion is the killing of the innocent. Alison Taylor, first Anglican Bishopess in Australia, is typical in her lame defense of an unspeakable crime. Unfortunately for her, her effort receives a fisking to remember from Christopher Johnson at Midwest Conservative Journal, a non-Catholic who has taken up the cudgels so often in defense of the Church that I have designated him Defender of the Faith:
Alison Taylor, the new Anglican Bishop of Queensland and the first female Anglican bishop in Australia, riffs on abortion:
The Bible speaks of a world which God has created and which he loves beyond measure, in which all life is to be embraced as a gift from Him. However, it is a world which is fallen, and which longs for the full redemption in Jesus Christ which is to come. Sin and suffering abound in a human condition of great complexity, and at times immensely difficult decisions need to be made.
Like whether or not Allie actually meant what she just said.
What the Bible does not teach, and which has never been a part of Christian doctrine – contrary to the assertion in this month’s TMA letter – is that ‘all human life has absolute moral value’. The latter view is unbiblical because it would be untenable for Christians in situations where complex moral choices must be made, in diverse circumstances ranging from military defence and self-defence to the sometimes conflicting rights of mother and unborn child.
Let’s see. National defense. Protecting yourself from someone who wants to physically harm you. Fileting the kid because you don’t want to have to take a pay cut right now. Morally, they’re all pretty much the same. And on the ludicrously small chance that you missed Allie’s lame “theology,” she repeats it here.
Nowhere in the Bible is a foetus accorded the full moral status of a human person. On the contrary, in the sole biblical text on induced abortion, Exodus 21.22-23, an abortion caused by injury to a pregnant woman is regarded seriously but considerably less than murder. Other than what might be inferred from this text, the Bible is silent on the issue of the moral status to be accorded to foetal death, as it is on the question of when an embryo might be said to have a soul that survives death. These two issues, which preoccupy the abortion debate today, could probably not even have been conceptualised by writers living in the Biblical era.
I think it was Andy Warhol who once said, “In the future, everybody will be an Anglican bishop for fifteen minutes.” It’s not like you have to know any actual Christian theology or anything, like Catholics, Orthodox and serious Protestants do, or be versed in some kind of Christian tradition.
Just memorize a few handy cliches that are useful for just about any occasion and you’re in like Bishop Flynn. Allie uses two here. The Scripture writers, who were mere men who had absolutely no assistance whatsoever in writing down the Word of the Living God but it wouldn’t have mattered if they had since they were all blithering idiots who couldn’t find their heads with both hands.
Then there’s the ever-popular “The Bible never said anything about _________” argument, probably the most useful Anglican dodge of all. If, of course, you overlook the uncomfortable fact that the Bible also doesn’t teach that racism, sexism, “homophobia” and voting against Barack Obama are sins. But did Allie happen to mention what absolute morons the Scripture writers were?
The Bible was written millennia before an adequate understanding of human reproduction was possible, let alone the possibilities of IVF, embryonic stem cell research or prenatal foetal tests, and the difficult moral dilemmas involved in each of them. In summary, an absolutist antiabortion stance simply cannot lay claim to Biblical warrant.
So what say Allie bottom-lines it for you? It’s a human being when and if I want it to be and NOT BEFORE, bitches. Continue Reading
Akin Comeback?
The Democrats thought they had a silver bullet with Todd Akins’ “legitimate rape” comment in explaining why he does not support a rape exception in regard to abortion. Akin was inarticulately attempting to distinguish forcible rape from statutory rape where consent is given. He also, once again inarticulately, was attempting to state something that I believe is true: women under stress are less likely to conceive than women who aren’t. Never mind. Akin became a cause celebre for a few weeks and seemed to be the poster child for the Democrat’s War on Women Meme. He was left as road kill by the Republicans. Vastly underfunded in comparison to his opponent, he stayed in the race, fought it out and has battled back to a statistical dead heat. With Romney poised to win Missouri by double digits next Tuesday, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him take the Senate seat from the highly unpopular Claire McCaskill.
Compare and Contrast, or Reason Number One Why I Am A Republican
The Democrat platform on abortion:
The President and the Democratic Party believe that women have a right to control their reproductive choices. Democrats support access to affordable family planning services, and President Obama and Democrats will continue to stand up to Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood health centers. The Affordable Care Act ensures that women have access to contraception in their health insurance plans, and the President has respected the principle of religious liberty. Democrats support evidence-based and age-appropriate sex education.
The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her pregnancy, including a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay. We oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right. Abortion is an intensely personal decision between a woman, her family, her doctor, and her clergy; there is no place for politicians or government to get in the way. We also recognize that health care and education help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and thereby also reduce the need for abortions. We strongly and unequivocally support a woman’s decision to have a child by providing affordable health care and ensuring the availability of and access to programs that help women during pregnancy and after the birth of a child, including caring adoption programs.
President Obama and the Democratic Party are committed to supporting family planning around the globe to help women care for their families, support their communities, and lead their countries to be healthier and more productive. That’s why, in his first month in office, President Obama overturned the “global gag rule,” a ban on federal funds to foreign family planning organizations that provided information about, counseling on, or offered abortions. And that is why the administration has supported lifesaving family planning health information and services.
The Republican party platform on abortion: Continue Reading
Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth
Pro-lifers in the past two years have made immense gains as CBS ruefully noted yesterday:
In the past two years alone, 32 states have adopted some form of abortion restriction.
Restrictions include bans on abortions at 20 weeks; 24- to 72-hour waiting periods; and a requirement to inform women of suicide risks if they seek an abortion. Continue Reading
This is Why I Call Pro-Aborts, Pro-Aborts
I never use the term “pro-choice” but always use the term “pro-abort” to designate those who are perfectly fine with the unborn having no legal protection from contract killing in the womb. Here is an example of why I do so:
Melissa Clouthier, a conservative blogger, attended the panel and reported on how one member urged attendees to applaud women who had killed their unborn children in abortions:
In an act of public bullying, one of the three speakers, Darcy Burner of Washington (the others being Elizabeth Warren and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii), asked women who had had an abortion to stand up in front of other attendees. It was difficult to estimate the number of women as they were sprinkled through out the audience. They stood alone while Burner admonished the attendees to hold their applause.
Then Burner asked the others seated in the audience to stand and give these women a standing ovation. The audience complied enthusiastically. I sat during this spectacle.
Burner said,”If you are a woman in this room, and statistically this is true of about 1/3 of the women in this room, if you’re a woman in this room who has had an abortion and is willing to come out about it, please stand up.”
She continued, “Now, if you are willing to stand with every woman who is willing to come out about having had an abortion, please stand up.” Nearly everyone stood.
Burner said, ”This is how we change the stories in people’s past. We need to make it okay for women to come out about the choices they make.”
The left will say that they’re not pro-abortion, they’re pro-choice or they’re pro-women. It was clear, though, that abortion itself was elevated as something good and something to be celebrated. The speaker and the audience was honoring women who had an abortion as though the action was an objectively good thing. Continue Reading
The Party of Gendercide and the Words of Abraham Lincoln
Live Action today released a second video showing that Planned Parenthood, an organization that I have designated Worse Than Murder, Inc, has no problem with sex selection abortions. Go here to read my post on the first gendercide video released by Live Action. Today the House failed to muster the two-thirds vote necessary to pass the Prenatal Non-Discrimination Act which would have banned this unspeakable evil. The Obama administration opposed the bill. Obama has never found any form of abortion he opposes and Planned Parenthood has his complete allegiance. In the House 276 Republicans voted in favor of the bill, 7 against. Democrats voted 161 in favor of gendercide and 20 against.
The core of the Democrat party today is abortion. The vote on gendercide demonstrates just how extreme this allegiance is. As in the days of slavery, the Democrat party champions the notion that we can, in good conscience, ignore the rights of portions of the human race, and that the unborn, like the slaves of old, are mere property and may be destroyed at the mother’s will and whim. The words of Lincoln should be our battle cry against this old evil in a new form: Continue Reading
Question: If they trust women, why don’t they trust mothers?
SHOCKER: Teens need their mothers. Mothers can help their daughters. Even in crisis.
There’s an article forthcoming in the journal Economic Inquiry by Professors of Economics, Joseph Sabia and Daniel Rees, that shows parental notification or consent laws are associated with a 15 to 25 percent reduction in suicides committed by 15- through 17-year-old women. The researchers analyzed National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health data collected from 1987 to 2003 and found results that are consistent with the hypothesis that laws requiring parental involvement increase the “expected cost of having unprotected sex,” and, consequently, protect the well-being of young females. (Hey, they’re economists.)
Here’s the reasoning, taken from this paper by the same authors.
- Researchers have already found, using state-level data from 1981 through 1998, that parental involvement laws reduced teen gonorrhea rates 12 to 20 percent among teen females. (Klick and Strattman, 2008)
- Other recent studies provide evidence that female adolescents who become sexually active at an early age are more likely to suffer from the symptoms of depression. (Hallfors et al. 2004; Sabia and Rees 2008)
- Research has shown that multiple sex partners increased the likelihood of substance abuse. (Howard et al. 2004)
- It is also been found that adolescent females who had multiple sex partners were 10 times more likely to develop the symptoms of major depression than those who remained abstinent. (Hallfors et al. 2005)
- There was no evidence of a similar relationship between male multiple partners and adolescent depression. (Hallfors et al. 2005)
So the hypothesis is: If parental involvement laws discourage minors from risky lifestyles that affect their physical health, then they would promote emotional health of teenage females as well. Analyzing suicide rates will give an indication since there have been many studies that link depression and suicide. The national suicide data was analyzed and that’s exactly what they found – a supporting correlation. Parental involvement laws correlate with fewer suicides. Further in support, there was no evidence of a similar relationship among male adolescents, and no correlation between parental involvement laws and suicide for older women because, well, neither group would be affected by those laws.
Makes sense, right? You’re probably thinking, “Did we need to pass those laws, wait and see what happened, and then count suicides?” No, we didn’t, and there’d be at least some justice if the people opposing those laws would take notice.
You’d think someone who really cares about women would be able to take an objective view of this data and consider it as an appeal to our collective conscience. You’d think someone who parrots, “Trust Women!” would be consistent enough to also trust mothers who are raising teens. When the state comes between teens and their parents, it just follows that the adolescents will not be as close to their parents as they ought to be.
This only affirms what we already know. Parents of teen girls can be trusted – should be trusted for the psychological benefit of a daughter in crisis. The abortion advocate community doesn’t seem as concerned about young women, though, as they are about politics and agendas. They instead say that people just want to make it harder for teens to have abortions, and that teens have a “fear of abuse” from unrelenting parents. Oh, and they’ll say something about how correlation doesn’t equal causation, revealing that they either are ignorant of analytical methods or, even worse, knowledgeable of them but dishonest when the results don’t fit their predetermined conclusions. Some will even say that teen women should be trusted to make their own decisions even when the decision for these desperate young women is to end their own lives. Of course, we all know why Planned Parenthood doesn’t want the parents involved. Ac$e$$ to abortion.
So I have a little hypothesis of my own. I predict (but would love to be proven wrong) that not a single abortion advocate will come forward and honestly reassess parental consent laws even though there is no body of data to support their premise. Could they admit that maybe, just maybe, the default condition is not that most parents of teens are abusive. Imagine!
If they trust women, why can’t they trust mothers and fathers? Where does this automatic distrust of parents come from anyway? Perhaps there’s a cost associated with believing that a mother has the right to kill her own child in the womb, and that cost is faith in people to love their children unconditionally at any point in life, even during difficult times.
H/T: Michael J. New at National Review
Image: Microsoft Powerpoint
Live Action Shows US The Real War on Women
Hattip to Ed Morrissey at Hot Air. The intrepid Lila Rose and her colleagues at Live Action expose the real war on women waged by Planned Parenthood, I have designated that organization as Worse Than Murder Inc., in regard to sex selection abortions:
Six studies in the past four years indicate that there are thousands of “missing girls” in the U.S., many from sex-selective abortion. The U.K., India, Australia, and other countries ban sex-selective abortion, but the U.S., save for three states, does not. On Wednesday, Congress will debate the Prenatal Non-Discrimination Act (PRENDA), which would ban sex-selective abortions nationally. Continue Reading
Pro-Aborts at Record Low
Pro-lifers at my alma mater, the University of Illinois, explain why they are pro-life in the above video. They are on the cutting edge of a cultural shift on abortion that is magnificent to behold. The Gallup poll on abortion released today illustrates this.
The 41% of Americans who now identify themselves as “pro-choice” is down from 47% last July and is one percentage point below the previous record low in Gallup trends, recorded in May 2009. Fifty percent now call themselves “pro-life,” one point shy of the record high, also from May 2009. Continue Reading
Cutting Off Planned Parenthood IS About “Ideology”
Just recently, Arizona joined Kansas, North Carolina, and Texas in cutting off all funding to Planned Parenthood. For Governor Brewer, it is a simple matter of “common sense”, respecting the repeated desire of the majority of Americans to be exempt from funding abortion with their tax dollars. For pro-life advocates, it is about scoring another direct hit against the largest symbol of “abortion rights” in the United States. Here is how Planned Parenthood sees it, however:
“Many in the legislature will never know what it’s like to feel a lump in their breast and have to worry about the cost of a doctor’s visit,” said Bryan Howard, president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood Arizona.
“This is the reality with which many Arizona women are faced, at the hands of a legislature determined to reduce access to prevention care while pursuing its ideological political agenda,” he said.
Why should those of us who are pro-life deny it? We are pursuing an ideological political agenda, as of course are they. Our ideology, if you really want to call it that (and I typically don’t), is that every human being has a right to life from the moment of conception until the moment of death. Some of us differ on whether or not, or under what circumstances, a human life may be justly taken, but we all agree that the killing of innocent children inside or outside of the womb is a grave moral evil and cannot be tolerated by a just and humane society. This is an “ideological political agenda” worth pursuing, and I’m not ashamed to say so. Without respect for human life, society will degenerate into something more cruel and callous than the jungle.
Surprise: Anti-Catholic Bigot Heads Pro-Abort Organization
Anti-Catholic bigot, homosexual activist and Episcopalian minister Harry Knox is back in the news. Long time readers of this blog will recall that President Obama appointed Knox to his Advisory Council on Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships back in 2009. Go here to read a post on that appointment.
Knox has recently become the head of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. He has a post on the Huffington Post explaining why religious people should support the slaying of children in the womb, a post which proves, once again the truth of Socrates’ adage that an unexamined life is a tragedy. Christopher Johnson, a non-Catholic former Episcopalian, and a man who has taken up the cudgels so frequently in defense of the Church that I have designated him Defender of the Faith, gives one of the arguments of Mr. Knox a proper response:
A homosexual Episcopal minister named Harry Knox is set to become Führer und Reichskanzler of the national organization of Einsatzgruppen America the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and while explaining why “religious” people should be celebrating abortion rather than mourning it, wrote one of the five or six stupidest statements I’ve read this year:
The harsh and condemning judgments of some religious leaders are troubling. They suggest that abortion is morally wrong, while ignoring the fact that miscarriages and unwanted pregnancies are common. They deny that God is present in these times
Let’s take that one out for a spin, shall we?
(1) The harsh and condemning judgments about dropping a nuclear bomb on Tehran are troubling. They suggest that the complete annihilation of Iran’s largest city and every single man, woman and child in it is morally wrong while ignoring the fact that hurricanes and tsunamis regularly destroy cities and kill innocent people. They deny that God is present in these times
(2) The harsh and condemning judgments about setting off that bomb in a crowded city are troubling. They suggest that terrorism is morally wrong while ignoring the fact that volcanoes regularly explode, killing thousands of people all over the world. They deny that God is present in these times.
(3) Your harsh and condemning judgments about me boinking your wife are troubling. They suggest that adultery is morally wrong while ignoring the fact that more men and women have sex outside of so-called “wedlock” than in it. They deny that God is present in these times. Continue Reading
Baby as Parasite
Over at the Huffington Post a diarist blogging under the name Sasharusa helps explain why babies in utero are treated like so much disposable garbage by so many people in our society:
This is Giardia lamblia. It is an intestinal parasite that is very common and is a pain in the ass to rid of.
I know, I know, it doesn’t look like a precious little baby. I know. It looks scary, and gross, and looks like it will bite your head off. But we’re not talking about looks. Who knows, maybe aliens think we’re ugly as f–k but this parasite would be labeled Miss Universe in their culture? Who knows! Anyway, I am sorry for plastering this as the very first thing in my diary. Consider this just like those exploited photos of miscarried late term fetuses that Anti- Choicers parade around.
Anyways, back to the whole fetus= parasite thing. That is how I see them. I don’t see them as cute and cuddly. I see them as terrifying and scary. I see pregnancy the same way. Continue Reading
Obama’s Justice Department Agrees to Pay $120,000.00 To Pro-Life Protestor Over Frivolous Prosecution
Hattip to Tina Korbe at Hot Air. The complete contempt that the Obama administration has for the civil liberties of Americans was exemplified in its prosecution of pro-life protestor Mary Pine.
The Justice Department has dropped an appeal in Holder v. Pine against pro-life sidewalk counselor Mary “Susan” Pine, who is represented by the civil rights firm Liberty Counsel. The DOJ has agreed to pay $120,000 for this frivolous lawsuit which, as the evidence indicated, was intended to intimidate Ms. Pine and send a shot over the bow of pro-lifers around the country.
Mr. Holder unsuccessfully sought thousands of dollars in fines against Ms. Pine, as well as a permanent injunction banning her from counseling women on the public sidewalk outside the Presidential Women’s Center (PWC) abortion mill (or any other “reproductive services” clinic).
After 18 months of litigation, the DOJ’s case was thrown out of federal court, and the department was chastised in a scathing ruling by U.S. District Judge Kenneth Ryskamp for filing a case with no evidence.
Judge Ryskamp wrote that Holder’s complete failure to present any evidence of wrongdoing, coupled with the DOJ’s cozy relationship with PWC and their apparent joint decision to destroy video surveillance footage of the alleged “obstruction,” caused the court to suspect a conspiracy at the highest levels of the Obama administration. “The Court is at a loss as to why the Government chose to prosecute this particular case in the first place,” wrote Judge Ryskamp. “The Court can only wonder whether this action was the product of a concerted effort between the Government and PWC, which began well before the date of the incident at issue, to quell Ms. Pine’s activities rather than to vindicate the rights of those allegedly aggrieved by Ms. Pine’s conduct.” Continue Reading
Andrew Breitbart Addresses Students for Life
At C-PAC on January 10, 2012 Andrew Breitbart, who died today, explains how he became pro-life. Brietbart always understood that the struggle over the culture was more important that the political battles, although they were very important. Adopted as an infant, and the father of four kids, Breitbart understood how the pro-abort dominance of the arts and entertainment helps sustain the pro-abort cause. Something for us all to remember and to work to change.
Ross Douthat’s Readers Prove his Point
I can easily imagine from their comments how much it galls the typical readers of the New York Times to read opinion pieces by Ross Douthat. Today he explains to his reader the extreme media bias on the issue of abortion.
Conservative complaints about media bias are sometimes overdrawn. But on the abortion issue, the press’s prejudices are often absolute, its biases blatant and its blinders impenetrable. In many newsrooms and television studios across the country, Planned Parenthood is regarded as the equivalent of, well, the Komen foundation: an apolitical, high-minded and humanitarian institution whose work no rational person — and certainly no self-respecting woman — could possibly question or oppose.
Go here to read the rest. To pro-lifers this is very old news. It is hysterically funny however to read the comments to his piece: Continue Reading
Marco Rubio Gives Passionate Pro-life Speech
This is an issue that, especially for those that enter the public arena and refuse to leave our faith behind, speaks to more than just our politics. It speaks to what we want to do with the opportunity we have been given in our life, to serve and to glorify our Creator.
Marco Rubio
Video of Senator Marco Rubio (R. Fla.) delivering the keynote address on February 1, 2012 at the Susan B. Anthony List Fifth Gala for Life. If Rubio isn’t the Republican vice-president nominee this year, despite his disclaiming of any interest in the office, the GOP leadership is crazy. He is eloquent, youthful and a brilliant defender of life. His nomination will seal up Florida, gain the Republicans a larger share of the Hispanic vote than they have ever garnered before in a Presidential race and bring enthusiasm and hope to the ranks of social conservative voters.
Tying this speech in with his sponsorship of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 2012 this week, Rubio is clearly signaling that if he is placed on the ticket he intends to champion issues near and dear to the hearts of Catholics. Obama decides to use the Church as a punching bag in order to appease his leftist base. Rubio counters with a defense of the Church and Life to draw a stark contrast. Obama will soon have his Yamamoto moment:
Bias? What Bias?
The bias of most of the main stream media is well known, but a current example by CBS is beyond parody:
Over the years, pro-life activists have come to accept that the media isn’t interested in their annual March for Life in Washington D.C. protesting abortion, even though it routinely attracts hundreds of thousands of people. But this year’s photo slideshow hosted on a local Washington CBS website has activists scratching their heads in disbelief.
Currently the March for Life slideshow of seven photos features protesters who actually support abortion; none of the photos actually feature pro-life marchers. Continue Reading
A Baby by any Other Name
Hattip to Pat Archbold at Creative Minority Report for the video gently lampooning the twisted language employed by pro-aborts to attempt to deny the humanity of the unborn.
George Orwell, who literally wrote the book on how totalitarian regimes use language to serve evil ends, would have loved the video. Although an agnostic and an opponent of the Catholic Church, Orwell was also not only an enemy of the dishonest use of euphemisms, but also an ardent foe of abortion. This section of his novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936) indicates how deeply he hated abortion: Continue Reading
Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth
In a sensitive area such as this, involving as it does issues over which reasonable men may easily and heatedly differ, I cannot accept the Court’s exercise of its clear power of choice by interposing a constitutional barrier to state efforts to protect human life and by investing mothers and doctors with the constitutionally protected right to extinguish it.
Justice Byron White-Dissent in Roe v. Wade (January 22, 1973)
SAY not the struggle naught availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been they remain.
If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke conceal’d,
Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.
For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.
And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light;
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!
But westward, look, the land is bright
Arthur Hugh Clough
Peter Kreeft Calls a Spade a Bloody Shovel
We live in a low, dishonest age where blatant evil is protected with euphemisms. I take heart whenever anyone stands up against this meretricious trend. I therefore applaud Dr. Peter Kreeft, Boston College Philosophy Professor and a Catholic convert, for his remarks at a speech sponsored by the Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin on the subject of whether a Catholic can be a liberal. He minced no words when the subject of abortion and the Kennedy clan came up:
During the Q&A, an audience member brought up the Kennedy political dynasty and how a group of leading theologians and Catholic college professors had met with Kennedy family members in the mid-1960s and came up with a way for Catholic politicians to support a pro-abortion rights platform with clear consciences.
Kreeft said these Catholic advisers “told the Kennedys how they could get away with murder.” Kreeft then made one of his boldest comments of the evening, suggesting the theologians who first convinced Democratic politicians they could support abortion rights and remain Catholic did more damage to the Catholic Church than pedophile priests.
“These were wicked people. These were dishonest people. These were people who, frankly, loved power more than they loved God,” Kreeft said. “Sorry, that’s just the way it is. In fact, I’d say these were even worse than the child molesters — though the immediate damage they did was not as obvious — because they did it deliberately, it wasn’t a sin of weakness. Sins of power are worse than sins of weakness. Cold, calculating sins — that’s straight from the devil.”
A few minutes later, the talk over, the crowd gave him a standing ovation.