"Unwanted" A Story About Choice:



The story of Ryan Bomberger, co-founder of The Radiance Foundation - very uplifting!

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Excerpts from their website at TooManyAborted.com

Abortion is not a me issue. It’s not a you issue. It’s not a personal issue, nor is it just a woman’s issue. It is a human issue. And today, with over 40% of all black pregnancies ending in induced abortion, it is a human crisis.

...

The Radiance Foundation has decried abortion’s impact on our entire society, regardless of race, but this particular campaign attempts to dig deeper and focus on abortion in an historical context with real present-day ramifications. This isn’t black versus white, or a me versus you. It’s the truth versus the lie. The truth is that abortion kills an innocent human life.

...

Today, abortion kills more African-Americans, per year, than heart disease, cancer, respiratory disease, accidents, homicides, suicide, and cancer–combined. Black women have abortions at over 3x the rate of white women. The truth screams loud and clear–we are killing our very future.

The campaign was featured on Fox News:

The eyebrow-raising ads featuring a young black child are an effort by the anti-abortion movement to use race to rally support within the black community. The reaction from black leaders has been mixed, but the "Too Many Aborted" campaign, which so far is unique to only Georgia, is drawing support from other anti-abortion groups across the country.

"It's ingenious," said the Rev. Johnny Hunter, national director of the Life Education and Resource Network, a North Carolina-based anti-abortion group aimed at African-Americans that operates in 27 states. "This campaign is in your face, and nobody can ignore it."

Also from the same article, here's the response from a pro-abortion professor:

"These one-issue approaches that are not about saving the black family or black children, it's just a big distraction," she said. "Many black people don't know who Margaret Sanger is and could care less." (emphasis added)

Is it just me, or does that sound like a repeat of the "people are just too stupid to know or care what we're doing" argument we've come to expect from liberals and so-called "progressives"? I guess I should not be so surprised anymore at how blatantly the libs insult the intelligence of people they supposedly are advocating for. When the facts are crystal clear, undisputed, and not in their favor, I suppose there's not much else for them to say.

Personally, I applaud the Radiance Foundation for their "Endangered Species" campaign. They speak the truth, they have the history and the statistics to back it up, and it is information that all Americans need to hear.

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From Jill Stanek:

"I normally like to preview pro-life movies before publicizing them, but the director of Blood Money has made a special request that makes sense. He wrote me:

If abortion is the front line of the healthcare plan, we need to get people to see the trailer, where Dr. Clowes talks about the giant facilities being built by Planned Parenthood.

[Also], we already have 3 distributors interested in seeing it once it is complete. So if we can show there is an interest in the public seeing it in theaters we will have a stronger case to present to them for doing so."

Here's the trailer:



I knew Planned Parenthood was corrupt and lacking a moral compass of any kind, but I had no idea just how insidious this organization is... please take a moment to watch this and share it with others.

You can also click here to show your support for the film.

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H/T: Jill Stanek

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It's bad enough that many do not consider unborn children to be persons with human rights (and in fact our current law holds that view). But Obama's science czar, John Holdren, believes that children are not "human beings" until many years after birth.

From CNS News, via John Lott:

President Obama’s top science adviser said in a book he co-authored in 1973 that a newborn child "will ultimately develop into a human being" if he or she is properly fed and socialized.

"The fetus, given the opportunity to develop properly before birth, and given the essential early socializing experiences and sufficient nourishing food during the crucial early years after birth, will ultimately develop into a human being." (emphasis added)

When, exactly, does Holdren believe children become "human"?

Another Obama czar, regulatory czar Cass Sunstein, is a big believer in the ideas of Peter Singer. According to David Martosko, that includes the idea that "animals should have some of the same rights as humans, in fact, greater rights than some people." Peter Singer also advocates "making it legal to kill disabled infants up to 28 days after birth as well as older 'non-persons with disabilities.'" Some quotes:

"[K]illing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living."

"No infant - disabled or not - has as strong a claim to life as beings capable of seeing themselves as distinct entities, existing over time."

"Killing a disabled infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Very often it is not wrong at all."

"During the next 35 years, the traditional view of the sanctity of human life will collapse under pressure from scientific, technological, and demographic developments. By 2040, it may be that only a rump of hard-core, know-nothing religious fundamentalists will defend the view that every human life, from conception to death, is sacrosanct."

Sources: Princeton University
Practical Ethics, 2nd edition, Cambridge, 1993, pp. 175-217
The Sanctity of Life, Foreign Policy, Sept/Oct 2005

And then there's Ezekiel Emanuel's opinions on the lives of infants and young children, as well as individuals with disabilities, deserving less consideration than those of older children and adults (well, before they become elderly, anyway).

All of these people are entitled to their opinions and have the 1st amendment right to express their beliefs. But I find it disturbing that our President would surround himself with not one but several people who hold such views on the intrinsic value of children.

Then again, our President himself has expressed opinions against the notion of the sanctity of life.

To be fair, I do not doubt his devotion as a father to his own daughters. Certainly he loves them very much and wants only the best for them, as any father would.

And yet during the 2008 presidential campaign, he said that if his daughters made a "mistake," he wouldn't want them, "punished with a baby." He also argued against a bill that would have required medical care be provided to babies who survived botched abortions, claiming that such a law would "burden" doctors and women who had intended to abort their babies. The theme running through both of those statements is that he seems to see children, at least those not "wanted" by their parents for whatever reason, as "burdens" not worth protecting.

Does the president agree with the views of his advisors on the worth of children? I really don't know, and I certainly hope not. But if he doesn't, I can't help but ask - why has he chosen so many advisors with such views? And how might those views come to influence public policy in his administration?

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This is a very well-done video about being a voice for the unborn, by 12-yr-old Anthony Matzke. This video is the 12-and-under winner of Lia's Challenge: Pro-Life video contest.

Please take a moment to watch:



H/T: Mommy

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From CatholicVote.org:



H/T: Mommy

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If Obamacare is implemented, it stands to reason that demand for care will go up while supply of care will go down. On the one hand, I believe that some doctors will choose to leave practice (and students will opt to avoid medical school) rather than work under even more government control than already exists. Aside from that, the government is fixated on "cutting costs" with regard to healthcare despite it's free-spending ways when it comes to everything else.

Such an environment will create a scarcity of care, much like what has already happened in countries with socialized medicine like Canada and Britain, which invariably leads to government rationing of care. Given that, it's worth asking how will care be rationed?

For some insight into that, we can look to the recommendations of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, NIH bioethicist (an ironic title IMO), Rahm Emanuel's brother, and most importantly, Barack Obama's "Special Advisor for Health Policy."

So, what are Dr. Emanuel's views on rationing of care? He recently coauthored an article on the topic, "Principles for allocation of scarce medical interventions," in the Lancet. While the article references specific care like organ transplants, kidney dialysis, and vaccines in the event of a pandemic, it is also clearly meant to apply any time there is a "scarcity" of care (which Obamacare would undoubtedly create).

After considering a number of possible rationing methods that could be used, Dr. Emanuel and his colleagues recommend a combination of criteria which they call the "complete lives system":

"It prioritises younger people who have not yet lived a complete life and will be unlikely to do so without aid. ... also supports modifying the youngest-first principle by prioritising adolescents and young adults over infants (figure)."

While I was disgusted to see the curve take a nose-dive around age 50, I can't say I was surprised, based on Obama's recent statement regarding the elderly, "Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller," (translation, go home and die?). However, I admit I was surprised (and appalled) to see babies and young children also targetted to be denied care. What would this mean for preemies? Would life-saving NICU care be deemed "too expensive" by the bureacrats?

It gets even worse when you see his justification for such discrimination against the "very young."

"Adolescents have received substantial education and parental care, investments that will be wasted without a complete life. Infants, by contrast, have not yet received these investments. Similarly, adolescence brings with it a developed personality capable of forming and valuing long-term plans whose fulfilment requires a complete life. As the legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin argues, 'It is terrible when an infant dies, but worse, most people think, when a three-year-old child dies and worse still when an adolescent does'; this argument is supported by empirical surveys. Importantly, the prioritisation of adolescents and young adults considers the social and personal investment that people are morally entitled to have received at a particular age, rather than accepting the results of an unjust status quo."

That paragraph is just wrong and abhorrent on so many levels. What parent considers their love and time spent parenting as an "investment"? What parent would consider the loss of a baby less tragic than the loss of an older child? What parent would agree that it is acceptable to let a baby or young child die on the grounds that they haven't "invested" much time in that child yet (or worse, that the state hasn't "invested" in their education yet)? And to say, "this argument is supported by empirical surveys"?! WHO THINKS LIKE THAT?!? It makes me physically ill. No wonder these people don't care to protect the unborn or even newborns. If babies, toddlers, and even children who haven't yet reached adolescence mean so little to them, surely an unborn child would be worth even less in their eyes. I guess that answers my question about preemies...

Here's more:

"A young person with a poor prognosis has had few life-years but lacks the potential to live a complete life. Considering prognosis forestalls the concern that disproportionately large amounts of resources will be directed to young people with poor prognoses."

And who determines prognoses? Something tells me it won't be doctors and families.

"When implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated (figure)."

Attenuated. Good luck with that. How's that "hope and change" working out for ya?

As to potential objections that such a policy discriminates against the elderly, the authors have this to say:

"Treating 65-year-olds differently because of stereotypes or falsehoods would be ageist; treating them differently because they have already had more life-years is not."

Sure, ok. Well, I feel better now. It's not like we'd be discriminating against anyone on the basis of age or anything. :rolls eyes:

On the need to influence public attitudes to accept such a system:

"the complete lives system requires only that citizens see a complete life, however defined, as an important good, and accept that fairness gives those short of a complete life stronger claims to scarce life-saving resources."

In other words, the belief in the sanctity of life in general must go, and be replaced by the notion that a "complete life" is more important than just any life, that some lives are more worthy of saving than others. If you're over 40, just accept that you need to step aside and not expect much care, someone younger has a "stronger claim" to that care. And if your child is not yet 15 or determined to have a lower "prognosis," accept that someone older or healthier has a "stronger claim" to care. Anyone else feeling outraged yet, or is it just me?

But, let's not be too hasty. They're not quite advocating this system be applied to the entire health care system, at least not until we take some other steps first:

"Accepting the complete lives system for health care as a whole would be premature. We must first reduce waste and increase spending."

Huh? I thought we were supposed to be making healthcare more affordable, not increasing spending... won't that just increase the cost to taxpayers under a government-controlled system?

Dr. Emanuel and his colleagues are careful to distance themselves from so-called "objective" methods of discounting the value of life on the basis of disability or "quality of life," but their objection is to the attempt to quantify it. They have no problem with more qualitative methods of taking "instrumental value" into account. The fact that they advocate only resorting to that in the event of an "emergency" might be intended to reassure us, except that our current government is in a constant state of "crisis."

So what do they mean by "instrumental value"?

"Instrumental value allocation prioritises specific individuals to enable or encourage future usefulness. ... Responsibility-based allocation—eg, allocation to people who agree to improve their health and thus use fewer resources—also represents instrumental value allocation."

What exactly does "usefulness" mean? While they claim their system doesn't discriminate on the basis of disability, does anyone reading this really think that such language won't be used to discriminate against those with special needs if some bureacrat decides their "future usefulness" is less than someone else's? And how about anyone deemed "inconvenient" to society? What is the criteria for "usefulness," who decides, and why should it even matter? Can you imagine going to the doctor and being asked questions to determine your "usefulness" to society before being offered any care? The idea is unconscionable, and the sanctity of all life would be meaningless under such a system.

Where have we heard such notions before? I hate to bring up Nazi references but the similarities in thought are there. The Nazis also believed in "life unworthy of life" and saw the elimination of such people as a "healing" process for society as a whole. To be clear, Dr. Emanuel and his colleagues are NOT advocating killing anyone as the Nazis did, but denial of care via rationing would ultimately result in needless loss of life. Most importantly, it would result in loss of life that would not occur under our current system. Emanuel & friends obviously saw the potential for readers to see such parallels because they addressed it:

"Ultimately, the complete lives system does not create 'classes of Untermenschen whose lives and well being are deemed not worth spending money on', but rather empowers us to decide fairly whom to save when genuine scarcity makes saving everyone impossible."

Whew... I feel better now. Well, not exactly. Obamacare will CREATE "genuine scarcity" in many, many areas where it does not exist today, making such decisions more and more "necessary." And in reality, denying or limiting care is no less than a death sentence in many cases.

Lastly:

"To achieve a just allocation of scarce medical interventions, society must embrace the challenge of implementing a coherent multiprinciple framework rather than relying on simple principles or retreating to the status quo."

Interestingly, Obama tends to favor that term "status quo" also, and he uses it in a similarly derisive tone. Heaven forbid we hold onto a system that doesn't require rationing, especially centralized rationing, for the vast majority of care.

We keep hearing about how our current healthcare system is in a state of crisis. It's not. Are there some things that need to be improved? Of course, it's not perfect. But let's not burn down the whole town just to fix a few potholes in the road.

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Obama's so-called "science czar" John Holdren goes beyond environmental extremist notions that "responsible" citizens should limit their family sizes, into the realm of forced abortion and involuntary sterilization.

Here are a few excerpts from a book that Holdren wrote with Paul and Anne Ehrlich. The book is called Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment and although it was written in 1977, Zombietime notes that Holdren has never denounced the things he wrote at that time so it stands to reason that he still holds these beliefs:

"Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society."

Forced abortion?! Whatever happened to a woman's "right to choose"? Whatever happened to "my body, my choice"? Oh... well, as long as it's for the "greater good," right?

"One way to carry out this disapproval might be to insist that all illegitimate babies be put up for adoption — especially those born to minors, who generally are not capable of caring properly for a child alone. ... It would even be possible to require pregnant single women to marry or have abortions, perhaps as an alternative to placement for adoption, depending on the society."

Oh look! So women might be given some choices... have your baby forcibly taken by the government and given to someone else, get married, or we're back to forced abortion. Wow, how thoughtful of the totalitarian regime to offer some choices after all.

Then again, this guy has thought of everything. The whole notion of forced abortion doesn't necessarily have to happen if we have forced sterilization, right?

"The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control. The capsule could be implanted at puberty and might be removable, with official permission, for a limited number of births."

It just gets more and more disturbing. He thinks the government has the right to decide who can and who cannot have children. Anyone who gets pregnant outside of that "approval process" would be subject to having their child forcibly taken from them, or being forced to kill their own child. I can't even begin to tell you how outraged I am by this whole notion. And again, this is the person that president of the United States as appointed as his personal science advisor. As such, he is in a position to make recommendations to the president. And these are his beliefs when it comes to "reproductive health" as the liberals are calling it these days.

But wait, there's more... implanting and removing "sterilization capsules" could be costly and time-consuming. Isn't there a more cost-efficient way to force sterilization on the masses?

"Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems. ... To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock."

No mention of ethical or moral problems here, but extensive discussion on the logistical challenges. I mean, it's one thing to subject an entire population to involuntary sterilization (presumably without their knowledge or consent), but we wouldn't want to have any side-effects to livestock.

In the event that they decide to grant you permission to have children, such "rights" would be limited.

"In today's world, however, the number of children in a family is a matter of profound public concern. The law regulates other highly personal matters. For example, no one may lawfully have more than one spouse at a time. Why should the law not be able to prevent a person from having more than two children?"

Really?! Are you kidding me?! How is it anyone's concern other my husband, myself, and God how many children we bring into our family? Whatever happened to keeping government out of the bedroom?

Apparently anyone who is not on board with such suggestions is a... racist?

"Another related issue that seems to encourage a pronatalist attitude in many people is the question of the differential reproduction of social or ethnic groups. Many people seem to be possessed by fear that their group may be outbred by other groups... Obviously, if everyone tries to outbreed everyone else, the result will be catastrophe for all."

Hmm... now this strikes me as interesting. It would never occur to me to have children on the basis of making sure my "social or ethnic group" isn't "outbred" by another. The fact that it does occur to Holdren is telling. I mean, many of his ilk are already limiting their family size to two or less children for any number of reasons (and although they have absolutely NO right to force such choices on the rest of us they are well within their rights to determine what size family is best for them). But after I read his comments on that topic, I wonder if it is actually he and others who think like him who feel the need to limit the family size of others in order to keep from being "outbred" by others who don't share their ideology. After all, we wouldn't want to let "pronatalist attitudes" (translation: the notion that babies are good) become too common.

Sigh. As if all this isn't bad enough, Holdren doesn't just want the U.S. government making these decisions for us. He wants an international "planetary regime" to be in charge.

"The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries' shares within their regional limits."

This man is frightening beyond words, and what he proposes is no less than a brutal totalitarian regime that has absolutely no place in a country that has for 200+ years been the beacon of freedom and liberty to the world. The fact that he has the president's ear and the ability to push for such policies is all the more cause for alarm.

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A few months ago, I came across this article:

Couples who have more than two children are being “irresponsible” by creating an unbearable burden on the environment, the government’s green adviser has warned.

Jonathon Porritt, who chairs the government’s Sustainable Development Commission, says curbing population growth through contraception and abortion must be at the heart of policies to fight global warming.

.....

Porritt, who has two children, intends to persuade environmental pressure groups to make population a focus of campaigning.

...

Porritt, a former chairman of the Green party, says the government must improve family planning, even if it means shifting money from curing illness to increasing contraception and abortion.

Gee, do you think it's a coincidence that the number of "permissable" children according to this guy just happens to be the same number of children that he has?

This was the first time I had really thought about the connection between the global warming alarmists and the pro-abortion crowd, but upon reading this it made sense. If the far-left crazies think that abortion is necessary to "save the planet" then of course they will do everything they can to make abortion seem "acceptable" in mainstream society. After all, how can one encourage everyone to do something that they find repulsive? You do it in stages. First you try to convince everyone that abortion is perfectly ok. Then you have a socially "acceptable" solution to offer when you start telling people they need to limit their family size, to whatever the so-called "experts" say it should be.

Then abortion becomes not just ok, but it's for the "greater good." After all, anyone who doesn't choose to limit their family size is being "irresponsible" and selfish.

It's reprehensible. It would be easy enough to write this guy off as a quack but in fact he chairs the UK Sustainable Development Commission. As such he is in a position of some influence obviously in England, but to some extent here in the United States as well given our own government's (the liberals anyway) love affair with everything European and desire to follow them even if it means following them off a cliff.

Although Mr. Porritt keeps his suggestions in the realm of voluntary limitation of family size, it doesn't take a genius to see that others might continue the slide down that slippery slope and suggest forcing the matter, all in the name of the common good. It's not unprecedented. Consider China's "one child" limit - enforced in part through forced abortions. Again, easier to accomplish if society has been adequately convinced that abortion is acceptable.

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I want to preface this by saying I do not in any way, shape, or form condone murder of any kind. The man who killed Dr. Tiller (and in a church, no less - was I the only one surprised to learn that Tiller actually attended church? seems a bit incongruous but I'm getting off-track here...) was wrong to do so. As Mel pointed out, he deprived Tiller of the chance to change.

Having said that, I came across this and I think it captures well the absurdity of the position that many who are pro-abortion take.




I might point out though, that for all the hand-wringing on the left over late-term abortion doctors being 'at risk,' the fact remains that it is far, far more dangerous to be an unborn child in America than it is to be an abortion doctor. Approximately 10 million times as dangerous, based on the fact that in the last 36 years, 49 million babies have been killed by abortion, compared with 5 abortion doctors killed in that same timeframe.

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Found this at Gabi's World, it's from her speech from her speech at a Right to Life banquet in Evansville, Indiana on April 16th, 2009.

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H/T: Jill Stanek

As Jill Stanek put it, the comparison found on Voices Carry is indeed "profound:"

It occurred to me to juxtapose these two pictures from earlier today at Notre Shame University.



While the millstone of Notre Dame is placed around President Obortion's neck and 12k at Notre Dame stand giving a thunderous ovation, all heaven stood to honor an 80-year-old priest as he received heaven's high honor for peacefully taking a stand for life and the plight of the unborn...

That little jail tag around the neck of this bound man of God is a high honor in the kingdom of God. If you are wondering about my phrase - "the millstone of Notre Dame" - I'd remind you that Jesus spoke of placing something around the neck of those who keep children from LIFE.

I am not Catholic but I am a Christian and have a great respect for people who devote their lives to doing God's work, whatever their particular faith. I am deeply saddened to see this priest treated like a common criminal. I believe the official charge was "trespassing." How can a priest be "trespassing" on the campus of a Catholic university? Isn't that a place he should expect to be welcomed? It is sad to see a university that I have long respected as a religious institution treat one of their own this way and turn their backs on God's innocent children in honoring a man who holds those children in such contempt.

Obama said during the campaign that he wouldn't want his daughters "punished with a baby" if they made a "mistake." Since when are babies considered "punishment"? And why would he be so quick to "punish" his own grandchildren with a death sentence for the "mistake" of their mother (and father)?

All babies are children of God, and all are innocent no matter the circumstances of their conception.

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My dad sent this to me and I wanted to share it here. The speaker is theologian John Piper. More about this at HotAir.



Excerpt:

"No, Mr. President. Killing our children is killing our children no matter how many times you say it is a private family matter. You may say it is a private family matter over and over and over and still, they are dead."

So true. Can you imagine someone saying that child abuse is a private family matter? That there should be no laws protecting children from abuse? I often hear people say things like, "Well, of course I believe abortion is wrong and I would never have one, but who am I to tell someone else who doesn't believe that that they can't have an abortion?"

Again, insert "child abuse" and you will see just how absurd such a position is.

"Of course I believe child abuse is wrong and I would never hurt my child, but who am I to tell someone else who doesn't believe that that they can't abuse their children?"

Utterly absurd, no? And yet isn't killing one's own child the most extreme form of child abuse?

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Recently Obama spoke yet again about empathy. He speaks often regarding the importance of science.

While I have to disagree with him on the role of empathy in the U.S. Supreme Court, clearly empathy for our fellow human beings is important. So too, is scientific inquiry, which coupled with faith and spirituality is a part of the search for truth and understanding of God's creation.

Why then, do liberals (including Obama) disregard science and show not even the slightest empathy when it comes to unborn children?

While faith has told us for centuries that life begins at conception, science now confirms that truth. Science has given us the ability to look inside the womb and witness the miracle of life in its early stages. We can see the heart beating as early as 22 days after conception. We can see a baby responding to its environment and behaving in the womb much like he or she will after birth. There is no disputing this when we have the ability to see it with our own eyes. Birth is simply a change in location, from inside to outside, nothing more.

Dr. Fritz Baumgartner eloquently described the beginning of life from a scientific perspective,

There is no more pivotal moment in the subsequent growth and development of a human being than when 23 chromosomes of the father join with 23 chromosomes of the mother to form a unique, 46-chromosomed individual, with a gender, who had previously simply not existed.

Here is a glimpse of what science has shown us:





How can anyone seeing this, however skeptical they may have been, deny the innate humanity of unborn children?

How can anyone who dares to speak of empathy, who has no problem empathizing with murderers, tyrants, and terrorists, show zero empathy with regard to innocent children?

I came across this article "A Question of Empathy: How science is rehsaping the abortion debate" recently, which included some interesting analogies:

What struck him was that so few could identify with the condition of slaves they had never met – and who were so different in so many ways – until the first accounts of what they endured were published, and the first line-drawings of slave ships began to circulate. And all of a sudden there was a wave of empathy which over time eroded the notion that Africans were not like us and therefore not entitled to human treatment.

Similarly,

no dog has yet articulated the subjective emotional response of being bashed on the nose by a wooden spoon; no dog has yet described, in an interview, what it is like to have an injection at the vet’s. But it’s rather nice to think we live in a society where most people give the dog a cuddle when it’s whimpering, rather than simply kick it on the grounds that no one has verified that the whimpers indicate a "subjective emotional response."

I certainly hope that the inside look at pregnancy afforded by science will spur those inclined to dismiss unborn children as "not persons" to look more closely at their assumptions, to look at the unborn child with eyes of empathy rather than disdain.

Our president is an extremist on this issue, having actively fought against protections for infants born alive after a botched abortion, a bill that even NARAL did not oppose. Last time I checked, even the pro-abortion crowd at least considers a baby "alive" after birth. Letting a helpless child die from neglect is no different than physically murdering that child, and yet that is exactly where our president stands.

He and many others lecture us about torture, extending the meaning to essentially anything that could possibly be construed as making someone uncomfortable. No caterpillars, no loud music, nothing but juice and cookies (unless of course, terrorists find juice and cookies offensive in which case those would be considered "torture" as well).

Dr. Conaty gives us a disturbing view of real torture. Torture that as he puts it, Obama believes in. The events required to perform an abortion, and especially a late term partial-birth abortion, can be described no other way. There is no mercy, no acknowledgement that an unborn baby is just as capable of feeling pain as one who is born (as early as 8 weeks, as documented scientifically). In fact science shows that premature babies experience pain, even more acutely than their full-term counterparts as their nervous systems have not yet developed the ability to dampen pain sensations (as a mother of two preemies, I can attest to this). There is nothing even approaching empathy from Obama and those who agree with him on this issue.

One cannot claim the moral "high ground" of being empathatic to your fellow human beings while condoning the brutal killing of the most vulnerable human beings. One cannot claim to respect science while conveniently ignoring the results of scientific study when they don't agree with one's preconceptions.

~~~~~~~~
Reagan once said, "I've noticed that everyone that is pro-abortion has already been born." Indeed.

"All those who supported slavery were free, and all those who support abortion were born... that's the way oppression works." ~Unknown

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It looks like Obama has managed to reverse himself again, only this time in a good way if you're opposed to federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

You may recall that on Monday, Obama signed an order to lift the ban on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. Although he made it sound like embryonic stem cell research itself had previously been banned, it hadn't. It simply required private funding since federal funding was restricted. He also neglected to mention that in the years since the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research was put into place, promising advances have been made in the area of adult stem cell research, which does not require the destruction of human embryos.

Two days later, he signed the $410 billion omnibus porkfest, complete with 8,000 earmarks. Yes, after he campaigned on "no earmarks". But don't worry, he's going to make sure they do something about earmarks next year.

Apparently, he didn't bother to read it (anyone surprised?), because the omnibus budget bill included a provision that bans federal funding of any "research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death." Which basically undoes what he did on Monday, does it not?

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One of the arguments that is often made by pro-abortion folks is that they personally find abortion wrong, but that we can't legislate that moral belief for others.

Really? I disagree. In the words of our new president - Yes, we can!

We lesiglate morality all the time, why should this be any different? After all, murder is against the law, and a murderer who claims that they personally don't find killing another human being morally wrong will not find leniency due to their personal beliefs. When it comes to issues of life and death, we most certainly do "legislate morality." And it doesn't stop there, we have laws against physically harming another person (assault, rape, kidnapping, etc.), and our laws even allow for compensation in the case of "mental anguish," in which physical harm doesn't even need to be present.


In other words, we have a whole range of laws around what we have deemed to be acceptable and unacceptable behavior toward other human beings, and these are based on socially-accepted moral standards and do not vary according to the moral standards of the individual in question.

But, if we overlook the fact that we're talking about another human being here, what about the individual rights of the woman?

The pro-abortion argument claims that this is all about a woman's right to control her own body. As a woman (and a person in general), I'm in favor of being able to make decisions about my body and my health without government intervention. But again, our government has a number of laws that infringe on that already. We have laws against substance abuse, with a whole range of drugs that one can be arrested for using. State laws have varying degrees of legal requirements regarding vaccinations, so the government is not only legislating what you can't do with regard to your own health, but what you must do with regard to your own health. I've heard recent reports that some states are even considering laws regarding what kinds of food their citizens can eat (primarily targeted at fast food). We can certainly expect more of that if "universal healthcare" becomes a reality.

I'm not saying I agree or disagree with any of these laws. My point is that these laws exist. So, if it's fair game for the law to establish that one cannot harm another human being, and it's fair game for the law to determine what an individual may and may not do to their own bodies, how then can anyone make the argument that we couldn't possibly outlaw abortion just because some people (and who knows how many that actually is) don't believe it to be wrong. That argument just doesn't hold water.

And quite frankly, I find the argument that this is about women's freedom to choose to be disingenuous at best. If there is one ugly truth revealed by the 2008 election it is that those who are pro-abortion do not support women's "choice" unless it is the choice they would have made. The level of hatred directed at Sarah Palin simply for her "choice" to give birth to her son with Down Syndrome is proof of that.

What's ironic is that many of these same people are wholeheartedly devoted to what they call "human rights." What about the most basic of human rights, the right to live? America holds dear the God-given, inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There is no qualifier for size or location, no requirement that one have attained a particular weight or gestational age, or be located outside of a womb, in order to be granted the right to live.

Make no mistake, a child inside the womb is a child, a human being. They may be small, but even from the earliest weeks of pregnancy they have a beating heart, they react to their environment, and they even have personalities that one can recognize after they are born. There is nothing magical about 9 months gestation. As a mother of preemies, I can assure you my children born prematurely were no less alive, no less deserving of basic human rights, than a child born full-term. And they were no less so before delivery than after. Children have been born much earlier than mine were and survived, even as early as 21 weeks. Never underestimate the human spirit and the will to live, if only given a chance.

I think that those who fight for abortion "rights" would have us become numb to the reality of what abortion really means, to both the child and the mother. I'm hoping that those who may be casual observers thinking "well, I wouldn't but if someone else wants to I guess that's ok," will stop to think about the implications of that line of thinking. I'm hoping that those who truly believe that abortion is wrong but don't feel justified in asking others to believe that, will find the courage to stand up for what they believe is right.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for freedom and individual liberty and I don't think that we need laws to govern every little aspect of our lives. By and large, we should all be free to live our lives and make decisions based on our own understanding of what is right and wrong, and accept that our notions of right and wrong may be different that someone else's.

However, this goes well beyond personal decision-making. When it comes to matters of life and death, the moral relativity argument is on shaky ground at the edge of a very slippery slope. Once we decide as a society that literally anything goes, no matter who gets hurt (or loses their life), we lose a piece of our humanity. And with every innocent life lost, society as a whole loses forever a lifetime of potential that person would have contributed, and the ripple effect of every person that individual would have touched in life.

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Read more here: 12-yr-old Stuns Pro-Choice Advocates

HT: Domestic Divapalooza

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I love this ad, what a powerful and positive message.

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Just when I thought I might be a little overly paranoid about what happens when the government has too much control over the healthcare system, I saw this on the news this morning. It's been played over and over throughout the day, and this evening I saw that this has actually been removed from the stimulus bill. That's great, but I think it's still worth looking closer at this in the context of the implications of socialized medicine (aka universal healthcare).


Here's the video clip:

Transcript:
STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?

PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?

PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.

This is really disturbing to me. It sounds great on paper to talk about everyone having "free" healthcare, but the reality is that it would be a disaster not only from a medical care standpoint, but just from the perspective of allowing the government increasing levels of control over our lives.

Over the years we as a country have often complained about the risks of having insurance companies making decisions about what kind of medical care their customers can have access to. Now imagine a government bureaucrat with that power. Scary thought, IMO.

Aside from the usual worries about what it would mean for waiting times to receive treatment, quality of care, and accessibility vs. rationing of care, as a mother of special needs children, I am particularly concerned about what the implications of socialized medicine would be for those with special needs.

Once the entire country depends on the government for medical coverage, how long will it be before the government starts discriminating against those with disabilities with regard to decisions on medical care because the cost is deemed "too high"?

Worse still, if the Speaker of the House can sit there and say with a straight face that family planning equates to reducing cost and is therefore a good thing for the government to be focused on, then how long before someone in the government decides to start forcing "family planning" on American citizens?

It may sound crazy, but it already happens in other countries. China enforces a "one-child" law, and in Belgium, the government can and has forced the killing of children with disabilities up to one year old in their efforts to "build a better society." In our own country, children who are found during pregnancy to have disabilities are routinely aborted.

Is it really such a stretch to fear that, if given control over and responsibility for the healthcare of all Americans, the government may one day decide that they have a right to make life and death decisions in the name of the "greater good"?

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