Pro-life blog buzz 2-14-14
by Susie Allen, host of the blog, Pro-Life in TN, and Kelli
We welcome your suggestions for additions to our Top Blogs (see tab on right side of home page)! Email Susie@jillstanek.com.
- Wesley J. Smith reports on Belgium’s legalization of child euthanasia. Part of the reason it was legalized was because “doctors were already doing it even though it was against the law. This is typical euthanasia metastasizing: Doctors break the guidelines and then the answer is to expand the guidelines rather than punish the doctors.” Should we really then expect any safeguards or restrictions to be obeyed?
- ProLife NZ discusses arguments against abortion from four corners: medical, philosophical, biblical, and legal. A must read.
- At National Review, Alec Torres describes the less-than-free speech granted to a Students for Life group at the University of Alabama:
Bama Students for Life had reserved the display case from January 8 to February 7, but when students walked by on February 6 they found the case empty. They were not informed that the display would be taken down, nor do they know when it vanished.
“You guys were lucky to get it up there as long as you did,” an administrator told President of Bama Students for Life Claire Chretien when she inquired about the missing poster. “If we get a complaint we have to take it down. If it upsets somebody we have to take it down.”
Alliance Defending Freedom is assisting in the group’s appeal. Their display is pictured at left (click to enlarge).
- Pro-Life in TN reports that a judge reduced the fines on an Illinois abortion facility from $36K down to only $77 because the owner claimed she was closing the facility, and that $77 was all she had left in her bank account. Not surprisingly, she was lying. The IL Department of Health found a lengthy list of infractions in the first inspection it conducted in 15 years, including delaying CPR on a patient that subsequently died. The owner reopened under a slight name change using the same website, address, etc. In Illinois, clearly abortion is legal, but not safe for women.
- Stand True advertises pro-life internships and ministry opportunities for students.
- Secular Pro-Life notes that NARAL is apoplectic over President Obama’s nomination of Judge Michael Boggs, a pro-life Democrat, to the federal bench. Ilyse Hogue of NARAL has even gone so far as to say that because of his pro-life views, Boggs is “anti-American”:
According to NARAL, when Boggs was a Georgia state legislator more than a decade ago, he “tried to channel funds to anti-choice crisis pregnancy centers and make a parental consent law even more extreme.” In oldspeak, that means that Boggs 1) supported the creation of a Choose Life license plate, which facilitates pro-life people donating their own money to pro-life causes, and 2) supported a requirement that minor girls be accompanied to the abortion facility by a parent. It’s worth noting that this parent-must-accompany rule is designed to combat sexual abuse.
So the pro-choice lobby is twisting the facts, which is hardly news.
- Suzy B shares SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser’s comments on perinatal hospice made last fall. Families like that of Zion Isaiah Blick, who lived for ten days following birth, deserve support from perinatal hospice groups:
Where a lethal fetal anomaly does exist, patients and their families can and should be offered the compassionate, ethical option of perinatal hospice to support them. Studies have shown that carrying a fatally ill child to term rather than performing a late abortion does not result in increased maternal mortality. On the other hand, it brings comfort to parents who can indeed parent their child as long as time permits. Perinatal hospice also allows families to mourn, the same way in which we would allow families with an adult member for whom treatment has become futile. There are now at least 127 perinatal hospices in the United States.
[SFL display photo via National Review]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
So if you read anything that upsets you at college it has to go away? Is that what college has become? Shouldn’t college be about learning new ideas and hearing opposing viewpoints? Questioning your world vision?
If they have to take things down because one person complains about it, they should also have to put it back up if one person complains about it being put down. That would make about as much sense as what they’re doing.
The child euthanasia thing makes me want to throw up.
A display containing inaccurate information isn’t a good idea at an educational establishment.
“A display containing inaccurate information isn’t a good idea at an educational establishment.”
What was inaccurate about the display?
Since abortion is safer than pregnancy and delivery, to make the claim ‘not safe’ is misleading at the very least.
If they wish to claim ‘not safe’ they should demonstrate in comparison to what. Eating a ham sandwich could be declared ‘not safe’.
Otherwise they may as well start an anti-crossing-the-road group because it’s ‘not safe’.
And who defines ‘rare’?
I also hope the quality of the work they produce for their studies is of a higher standard than some of what we see in the display. Scrawl.
Well, I diverge with other pro-lifers in that I doubt abortion is much more unsafe than any other minor surgical procedure, and I don’t think that’s our strongest argument. But whether or not abortion is safe for the woman, it’s 100% deadly for the unborn child, which is what I think pro-lifers should focus on. Even if literally zero women were ever physically harmed from abortion, it would still be deadly to the baby, and that’s why it should always be opposed.
Well, “rare” is definitely not the abortion rate in the US, since we have a lot more abortions per capita than a lot of other developed countries. There’s certainly an argument to be made that it’s ridiculous to call it “rare” when 1/4 to 1/3 of women of reproductive age will end up having one in the US throughout their lives. We should be looking to other countries and seeing what has brought their abortion rate down (hint: it’s not lack of restrictions, some of the countries with much lower rates have abortion banned after 12 or 16 weeks except for the life of the mother).
And now you’re just ad hominen-ing the poor kids.
it’s 100% deadly for the unborn fetus, which is what I think pro-lifers should focus on – I take your point but in this instance they clearly seem to be addressing womens safety.
Well, “rare” is definitely not the abortion rate in the US, since we have a lot more abortions per capita than a lot of other developed countries. – that just means it’s less rare than in some other countries.
And now you’re just ad hominen-ing the poor kids. – claptrap. I have no idea of the socio-economic status of those who assembled the display. I certainly don’t equate the quality of folks handwriting or information presentation with any sort of ‘status’. That’s what you appear to be doing.
“ I take your point but in this instance they clearly seem to be addressing womens safety.”
Probably, but I’m just stating I disagree with that particular meme. I do think it’s important to bring attention to deaths of mothers who undergo abortions, though. They deserve to be remembered along with the millions of children who have died.
“ that just means it’s less rare than in some other countries.”
I think something that such a large percentage of women end up doing at one point in their lives is reeeaaallllyyyy stretching it if you want to call that “rare”. And comparatively, as I said and you seemed to agree, “rare” doesn’t apply when we consider other developed countries.
“I have no idea of the socio-economic status of those who assembled the display. I certainly don’t equate the quality of folks handwriting or information presentation with any sort of ‘status’. That’s what you appear to be doing.”
I didn’t mean poor as in poverty-stricken or low social class. I meant poor as in “those poor kids tried to bring attention to a social issue close to their heart and got it taken down in a so-called intellectual environment” and I meant ad hominen as in you seem to be focusing on their presentation and think it’s reflective of the message. Does that make more sense? Sorry if I wasn’t clear, I didn’t explain myself well.
Probably, but I’m just stating I disagree with that particular meme. – I always have ;-)
And comparatively, as I said and you seemed to agree – did I? I think it’s time it became “safe, legal and no one elses business”.
I meant poor as in “those poor kids tried to bring attention to a social issue close to their heart and got it taken down in a so-called intellectual environment” – ah, I see. That makes sense.
and I meant ad hominen as in you seem to be focusing on their presentation and think it’s reflective of the message. – no, I don’t think it’s reflective of the message. The message speaks for itself. My other criticism was just in general, as in if they were my students I would expect better quality.
Does that make more sense? Sorry if I wasn’t clear, I didn’t explain myself well. – it was as much my misunderstanding Jack.
What’s Obama thinking nominating a pro-life Democrat? Should we be suspicious or impressed?
@Sydney: When I was in grad school from 2012 to 2013 I saw posters for Obama all over, as well as signs for “Social Workers for Choice” all over the SW building. I wasn’t thrilled by this, but I would never dream of taking them down or ask that they be removed. Part of being an adult is tolerating viewpoints that we disagree with.
“Should we be suspicious or impressed?”
I’m going to go with suspicious. I don’t trust Obama as far as I could throw him, and I’m not a great thrower.
Jack
BAM!!! :)
Not surprisingly, she was lying. The IL Department of Health found a lengthy list of infractions in the first inspection it conducted in 15 years
Speaking of lying, this post contradicts last week’s assertion that abortion clinics in Illinois are “completely unregulated.” I salute the pro-life media’s keen grasp of the cognitive dissonance of its audience.
Thomas R:
Brought forward from the thread: https://www.jillstanek.com/2014/01/uproar-over-ut-student-newspapers-use-of-term-pro-abortion/ which has sadly apparently run out of time.
“:: chuckling… :: Yes, Thomas, on that we are agreed. Indeed – “the choice of legal abortion.” I never have argued otherwise, and in fact, that’s a point of debate, from my side.”
However, that is not what we were talking about. Your thing about Obama really does not matter here – do you now see that? The principle of people not wanting a thing to be illegal, many times, while not choosing it for themselves or being “for it,” per se, stands.
To be clear – you and I were not arguing about “legal abortion.” We were arguing about what has occupied a good bit of this thread – the difference between being pro-choice and being pro-abortion. You said:
TR: So methinks you made up that spiel about non-smokers supporting smokers.
With all due respect, I think this is silly. There are *lots* of non-smokers who do not favor smoking being made illegal. Do you really dispute this?
And do you not see the overall point, here? That supporting one’s right to do something does not mean you support the activity itself.
Thomas R: And again, supporting someone’s choice of “legal” abortion equates to supporting abortion itself. It’s that simple
No it is not. In no way is that true, Thomas, period, yet you are somehow unable to see that. There are a practically unlimited number of things where, while we would not advocate for them being made illegal, we would not choose them for ourselves or support them, per se. Show me somebody who is for abortion even when the pregnant woman or couple involved does not want to end the pregnancy, and then you’ll have somebody who is actually “pro-abortion.” And of course that is not the same as being pro-choice.
Thomas R: Doug and the only issue is that you have taken the position of pro-aborts in terms of wanting to philosophically distance yourself from the act itself by convoluting the ultimate conclusion. I am chuckling about that indeed….
No you’re not – you’re just taking a logically indefensible position, and pretending it’s a good one. Supporting someone’s right to do something does not necessarily mean you support the activity itself. The truth, logic and sense of that is clear.