I will not post new entries this weekend and am putting comments in authentication mode, meaning commenters will have to jump through a hoop to post. Enabling authentication will hopefully discourage drive-bys.

For the weekend, here are a couple thoughtful articles:

"No such thing as a worthless life"

"A note on the future: Deliberately disabling children"

This site is unique in that both pro-lifers and abortion proponents are welcome to exchange thoughts, and they vigorously do, as you'll see when perusing the site.

I am very appreciative that, thanks to you, the traffic to my site has grown by almost 300% just in the past six weeks. The comments have simultaneously exploded off my cyber page.

I think it is good for both sides to engage in debate, and I therefore have borne many harsh thoughts. But from this time forward, I will enforce healthy debate. No name calling, no insults. Remember, the goal is not to win the argument, particularly by ridicule, but to persuade the other person to your way of thinking. I confess I have forgotten that at times.

Thanks to people on all sides of the life spectrum for not just visiting my site but for thinking enough of my posts to comment on them. One interesting, unexpected phenomenon is that not-like-minded people have begun to form relationships. What a pleasant surprise.

Enjoy your family this weekend, if you can! We will! Speaking of, here's a little clip taken recently of Grandson #4:

Population Research Institute Weekly Briefing
30 March 2007
Vol. 9, No. 12

A Note on the Future: Deliberately Disabling Children

By Joseph A. D'Agostino

For a number of years now, a great deal of discussion has taken place among scientists and in the popular media about the genetic engineering ofchildren. Will it soon be possible, for prices widely affordable at least to the upper-middle class, to guarantee that children have a high IQ, or excellent athletic ability, or be over 6 feet tall, or have blond hair and blue eyes? Is it right to commodify children in this way, and have parents choosing options as they do with cars? And wouldn't it be boring to live in a world someday where almost everyone is extremely intelligent and beautiful? Variety, or even the politically correct term "diversity," is the spice of life.

But not everyone wants what seemed to be the three genetic engineering options: refrain and let nature take her course, attempt to repair genetic diseases but otherwise let well enough alone, or select positive qualities in children. There are parents who are deliberately ensuring that their children are born with disabilities, from deafness to dwarfism. A fourth option-inflicting permanent disabling conditions on children-is now being used.

For some years now, some deaf parents have refused to allow their deaf children to receive cochlear implants that would enable them to hear. The devices must often be implanted when children are very young in order to work, so such parents condemn their children to a lifetime of deafness when they could have been able to hear.

Some dwarf couples are even using in-vitro fertilization to create embryos in the lab, then killing the normal ones and implanting the ones with the dwarfness gene to ensure having a dwarf child.

The standard Marxist-Frankfurt School arguments are used to justify such acts by Deaf Life magazine and other radical organizations representing some disabled people. They argue that deaf folks, dwarfs, and others aren't disabled at all, just different. Deaf Life types complain of an "oralist" culture that discriminates against deaf people who use sign language. "Oralism" oppresses the deaf, you see, just as racism, sexism, heterosexism, and other isms ad nauseam oppress others.

In a Jan. 21, 2007 story, the Associated Press reported that, of American clinics it surveyed that perform embryo screening, 3% admit to screening in favor of disabilities. This story contains perhaps the most revealing statement on the question. It was uttered by a dwarf woman angered that anyone would dare suggest that deliberating inflicting permanent suffering on children is bad:

"Cara Reynolds of Collingswood, N.J., who considered embryo screening but now plans to adopt a dwarf baby, is outraged by the criticism. 'You cannot tell me that I cannot have a child who's going to look like me,' Reynolds said. 'It's just unbelievably presumptuous and they're playing God.'"

Funny to think that it's playing God to say it's wrong to use high-tech techniques to choose certain qualities in children rather than letting nature take her course. Isn't intervening to choose a major genetic quality in your child much more like playing God?

First abortion, then fetal and embryonic tissue experimentation, and on the anti-child bandwagon goes. Some kill children because they have disabilities, others choose to inflict suffering that only God could possibly have a right to allow. What hate there is in the world.

I will let others comment upon the dark spiritual impulses that must be behind a parent's decision to do such a thing. But I will ask this: How relativistic can a society become and still be worthy of preserving?

[A very good question that I believe God, Who will not be mocked indefinitely, will soon answer just as He has in the past, per any objective reading of Sacred Scripture. - Gary L. Morella]

Things must change soon. With such degeneration, and such low birthrates in this anti-child age, things must change or we shall perish. I am banking on the former.

Joseph A. D'Agostino is the outgoing Vice President for Communications at PRI.

________
PRI
P.O. Box 1559
Front Royal, Va. 22630
USA
Phone: (540) 622-5240 Fax: (540) 622-2728
Email: colin@pop.org
Media Contact: Colin Mason
(540) 622-5240, ext. 209
Website: www.pop.org
_________
(c) 2007 Population Research Institute. Permission to reprint granted.
Redistribute widely. Credit required.

The second season of Showtime's Masters of Horror series has just been released on DVD and includes an episode by John Carpenter called "Pro-Life."

"Pro-Life" has a plot that is both stereotypical and old ("Rosemary's Baby," anyone?), what one would expect from MSM, particularly Carpenter, who directed the first slasher film of them all, "Halloween." "Pro-Life" is about "a young girl who is raped and impregnated by a demon and wants to have an abortion, but her efforts are halted by her fanatic, gun-toting father and her three brothers," says Wikipedia. You can view trailers here (must click on "Pro-Life"). The ultrasound scene is amusing.

But we live in opposite world. If you knew nothing except a group opposed an industry that made its living aborting babies, from which would you logically expect the violence to erupt during protests?

(See video of pro-abortion violence on page 2.)

And so it is. In actuality, the pro-life movement is the most peaceful social movement in history. On every day of the week there are likely hundreds of peaceful pro-life prayer vigils or protests outside of abortion mills... hundreds of thousands over the years.

People calling themselves pro-life have murdered seven abortion industry workers in the past 34 years, but as AbortionViolence.com reminds us, "[A]ccording to the United States government, more janitors, bartenders, secretaries, hairdressers and cosmetologists have been killed on the job than abortionists."

Meanwhile, Human Life International has documented more than 7000 acts of violence and illegal activities by pro-abortionists, aside from the 50,000,000 babies they have killed. These include::

880 homicides and other killings
86 attempted murders
23 arsons and bombings
787 assaults
1,798 sex crimes (including 169 rapes)
59 kidnappings
420 cases of vandalism
270 drug-related crimes
1,577 medical crimes

And, of course, it all stands to reason. Here is an example of the violence pro-aborts continually mete out. Warning: explicit language.

I was part of a similar incident when a worker at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, IL, tore through our group, ripping signs out of our hands, mine included, and threw them on the slushy street. And I have written just a tad about the sexual abuse abortionists commit.

Mark Crutcher's chilling book, Lime 5, also documents the pro-abortion violence.

Joel Belz of World magazine made an astute point in the March 24/31 issue. In a column about global warming entitled, "Protesting too much," Belz could just as esily inserted the words "abortion propoents" for "global-warming folks" when he said this:

Seems to me the global-warming folks just keep hurting their own case, and weakening their own argument, with two silly tactical mistakes. The first is that they exaggerate their evidence. The second is that they bully their opponents. Both tend to be signals that they aren't as sure of themselves as they'd like you to think they are....

Is your argument a little weak on facts? Well, don't worry. Just exaggerate the facts you've got, and raise your voice a little.

And so have pro-aborts all these years... and their fists... and their weapons...

Two events this week spotlighted the truth: People calling themselves "pro-choice" aren't that at all. They are pro-abortion. They are anti-choice. They do all they can to suppress the free speech of pro-lifers.

At a March 27 rally sponsored by liberal feminists in Washington, D.C., to promote the reintroduction of the Equal Rights Amendment, one pro-abort ripped up a sign held by a pro-lifer with the simple message, "Abortion hurts women." See video here:

And members of a pro-life student group at Indiana's Purdue University had to spend the night of March 28 defending their display against pro-abort vandals. According to the student newspaper, The Exponent....

Every year, Students for Life commemorates the loss of unborn babies by setting up a cemetery of crosses. Each cross represents two children lost to abortion each day, said [Curtis] Verner. There were 1,800 crosses standing. they post annually on Purdue's Memorial Mall....

"Last night some girl came by and started pulling up the crosses," said... Verner, a junior in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and president of the organization. "It made for a long night."

Those vandals better watch out. Pro-abort vandals at Northern Kentucky University that included a professor were prosecuted a year ago for similar illegal actions. See photo here.

Many comments to my post yesterday, "Death Angel vs. Terri Schiavo," perpetuated false information, which Terri's brother Bobby dispels in a column today

The most obvious thread between abortion support and euthanasia support is promotion of death. The underlying thread is selfishness, i.e., promotion of convenience.

Over 90% of abortions are for convenience, either as primary or secondary birth control.

Likewise, every euthanasia supporter I read on this blog supports it for convenience. Oh, you attempt to appear altruistic, using yourself as an example. "I wouldn't want to be a burden," you say, actually forced to make this argument to remain consistent with your support of abortion. But you are actually telling your family and friends how you would consider them in similar a situation: inconvenient.

Here is an excerpt from Bobby's column today, which brilliantly describes your hypocrisy. It can be read in its entirety at WND.com....

Much of the problem that exists stems from a blind acceptance of misinformation that has moved us from a firm belief in the sanctity of life to a "quality of life" mindset, which says that some lives are not worth living....

The sad fact is we have become a nation that spends billions trying to find the perfect body, while ignoring the condition of our collective soul; where altruism seems to be a thing of the past, and moral relativism has become a bona fide religion....

My sister's case is a perfect example. Look how the popular media presented Terri's story, abandoning any attempt at objective or ethical reporting in their rush to justify her death. In an effort to dehumanize Terri, they repeatedly reported she was in a coma, brain dead, a "vegetable" and that the autopsy proved she was in a persistent vegetative state, all of which are patently false.

All one has to do is watch the videos of Terri to see how alive she was. If that's not enough, more than 40 medical affidavits stated Terri wasn't in PVS and/or could have been helped with new medical technology.

The media chose to ignore all of this, instead reporting what Terri wasn't able to do and referencing a doctor who took pride in the moniker, "Dr. Humane Death."

They painted a story of a husband's unconditional love as he carried out his wife's "wish" to die, completely ignoring the fact that there was no evidence of this and that Michael essentially abandoned Terri as soon as he began living with his new wife-to-be.

They framed this as a strictly pro-life issue, ignoring the 30 disability groups publicly supporting Terri's life....

Completely unaware of their own hypocrisy, they commended Christopher Reeve's wife, Dana, and rightly so, for her dedication in caring for her husband, while vilifying my parents for wanting to do the same thing for their daughter.

In the same vein, they repeatedly questioned the intent of our legal team while glossing over the fact that Schiavo's attorney, George Felos, admitted in his book to having violent images of bludgeoning his wife to death.

They chastised former Gov. Jeb Bush for doing his job by trying to stop the two-week dehydration death of an innocent disabled woman, but praised him when he placed a moratorium on death row executions after a lethal injection went 15 minutes too long.

They justify the destruction of embryos to produce stem cells (ignoring both the success of adult stem cells and that embryonic cells have produced no cures), reporting that their use will improve the lives of the disabled, and at the same time they work to convince the public that it is OK to kill the very same people they say this research could cure.

And, finally, they paid more respect to and had more compassion for a racehorse than they did my sister.

This Saturday, March 31, will mark the second anniversary of the death by starvation and dehydration of Terri Schiavo. Too bad she wasn't a convicted murderer. She'd still be going through the appeals process.

Yes, had Terri been a convicted murderer, MSM would certainly have taken up her cause as well, like it did the 34-minute execution of convicted killer Angel Diaz . Did I mention Terri's execution took 14 days? Both were in Florida. Compare the coverage:

"[Gov. Jeb Bush's] intervention in the Terri Schiavo fiasco, without even talking to her husband, was unconscionable." ~ Orlando Sentinel, Dec. 28, 2006

"Gov. Jeb Bush was wise to suspend executions and order the review of lethal injection procedures after the bungled execution of a convicted murderer last week." ~ News-press.com, Dec. 19, 2006

That's just one example of the insanity....

Terri's brother, Bobby Schindler, has documented many more.

And why was the media allowed to see the death of Diaz and not the death of Terri? Would they have described her demise as they did Diaz's? The Associated Press appeared to luxuriate in those gory details. In an article entitled, "Doctors: Botched execution likely slow, painful," it said:

Death penalty foes have for years warned of a worst-case scenario in which an inmate being executed by lethal injection could remain conscious, experiencing severe pain as he slowly dies. That day may finally have come.

"It really sounds like [Angel Diaz] was tortured to death," said Jonathan Groner, associate professor of surgery at the Ohio State Medical School.... "My impression is that it would cause an extreme amount of pain."...

"[W]itnesses reported movement of Diaz as long as 24 minutes after the first injection, with him grimacing, blinking, licking his lips, blowing and attempting to mouth words. At one point, about midway through the process, he turned his head toward witnesses....

"[T]urning one's head toward witnesses," interesting word choice.

Last night Rae linked to this short film in the comments section of one of my posts with a little zinger, "Hey Jill, here's a video that might appeal to you. I bet if you were still a nurse and knew you could get away with this you'd do it in a heartbeat."

Well, I watched the video, and aside from getting the point of Rae's jab and finding the film a little freaky, I couldn't tell whether it was pro-life or pro-abortion.

Bethany found some reviews, and they were mixed, too. Some thought the nurses were pro-life and some thought they were abortion clinic nurses. Some thought the mom got what she deserved, and some thought not. What do you think?

Warning: Read comments after watching video. The ending is discussed!

This great story was just sent to me by reader Monica, originally reported Feb. 4 by Florida's KLTV

Jennifer and Taylor White had been married for several years when they decided to add children to their family. A first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. Then last March, Jennifer became pregnant again.

Just as the critical first six weeks approached a blood sample tested positive for spinal bifida. They headed straight to Dallas to a specialist who said that test was negative...but

"He told us, there was no amniotic fluid," says Taylor White. "And this was our first ultra sound of the pregnancy, this was our first time to even see...and there was no amniotic fluid, no kidneys of course because there was no amniotic fluid....

"He told us then," says Jennifer White, "if I were you I would go home and pray, because it really doesn't look good."

The Whites had to another two weeks for final confirmation. 14 days later the news wasn't any better.

"I'm almost certain your baby has no chance of living," Taylor remembering what the specialist said. "In fact he used the word zilch, zilch chance. There is no amniotic fluid, there is not a genetic reason to explain this, it just happens. You can either terminate the pregnancy now or you can go through the pregnancy...and the baby will probably be still born or be born alive and die a couple of hours after being born"...."We decided," said Jennifer, "that we thought that was the best option, was to go ahead and induce early. I mean I would have a normal delivery you know and what understood the outcome would be the same, the baby was not going to make it either way. For me I could not imagine carry this baby for to full term."

That early delivery would have happened at Tyler's Trinity Mother Frances Hospital. But because it was so early in the pregnancy, the hospital's ethics committee said no....

"By that point," remembers Taylor, "our prayer was more, initially, or first reaction was to pray to God to help us make it through it. To comfort us. Shortly after that our mind changed and we said God we know you have the power to change this, and we're putting this in Your hands."

Regular sonograms for the next six months still showed no amniotic fluid. An inducement was scheduled six weeks before the due date. One last sonogram indicated something had changed. The Whites headed straight to their specialist in Dallas.

"His face just dropped," remembers Taylor, "just with amazement said I can't explain it. There is no other explanation than God just performed a miracle. There is a normal amount of amniotic fluid at this point he saw possibly one kidney. He said this is a perfectly healthy baby. There should be..they should have deformities, they should have not developed lungs and none of that was an issue at this point. When God performs a miracle he doesn't do it half way"....

Almost nine months after their ordeal began, little Amelia Faith White was born. A blessing for her parents. And a testimony they say to the power of prayer....

See KLTV's video of baby, parents, and entire amazing story here.

Associated Press, today:

Orosi, CA - The first newborn was discovered swaddled in a blanket on an outdoor bench, an umbilical cord still hanging from his tiny body. Then, at neat 11-month intervals, two more abandoned babies were found in parked pickup trucks in the same neighborhood.

This week, DNA tests established all three babies were almost certainly born to the same mother.

Now, in a heartbreaking mystery that has transfixed this central California farm community of 7,300, investigators are trying to find the mother and figure out what drove her to such desperate lengths....

All three newborns were found within a two-block radius. The first two - a boy and a girl - survived and are now wards of the state. The third baby was found dead of exposure on the cold night of Dec. 3....

On Monday, sheriff's officials announced the DNA results. The first two babies probably had the same father, but Angelita [name given to baby who died] was fathered by a different man....

"This little community is a family. We know pretty much everyone else's business and they know ours," said Eugene Etheridge, principal of Orosi High School. "It's concerning that this could happen again when the most precious thing we have is our children."

Several thoughts.

~ "[T]he most precious thing we have is our children"? Really? Only when born.

~ Had this mother gone to an abortion mill when in labor, there would have been no problem.

~ I wonder how the community would react to finding abandoned aborted babies on park benches or parked pick-up trucks.

~ Some CA hospitals do this same thing. What's the prob?

~ Interesting photo, right, of a sticker being posted in the area.

[Photos courtesy of AP]

Well, sit me down and shut you up. One of the Freakonomics authors agrees with me that giving mothers who place their babies for adoption $500 is a fine idea. He thinks their having to nix abortions first is an unnecessary prequalifier, though. That's ok, great actually. The less vulnerable mothers have to do with those vermin, the better. I also like Levitt's suggestion that mothers confirm they have received prenatal care and not taken drugs....

A Texas State Senator has been ridiculed for his proposal to pay women $500 if they show up at an abortion clinic, elect not to have an abortion, and then give the baby up for adoption.

Honestly, though, is it really such a bad idea? What if he left out the part about visiting an abortion clinic? Does it make sense to subsidize women who were going to give up babies for adoption? I think maybe it does. There are large numbers of parents who want to adopt, and a shortage of mothers willing to put healthy babies up for adoption. There are laws restricting what prospective adoptive parents can pay the birth mother. Providing a subsidy to birth mothers (perhaps conditioned on testing negative for drugs and doing a full set of prenatal hospital visits) sounds like a pretty sensible thing to do.

The part about visiting the abortion clinic is just a waste of time. Any woman who knew she was going to give her child up for adoption would have an incentive to make an appearance at the abortion clinic just to qualify under this guy's law. So why not just scrap that part of it and debate whether we should be subsidizing women who give their babies up for adoption.

I find it amusing that one of the criticisms of the proposed law is as follows:

Heather Paffe, political director of Planned Parenthood of Texas, said Patrick's proposal "ii very cynical and insulting to women and their families."

"It's insulting to think women would make that kind of decision so easily," she said.

It sounds to me like the crux of Heather Paffe's argument is that $500 just isn't a high enough price!

This is interesting in many areas, including the topics of twins, hermaphrodites, and nuances (mistakes?) of conception. An excerpt from a Nature.com article, published March 26, reads:

Researchers have discovered a pair of twins who are identical through their mother's side, but share only half their genes on their father's side.

The 'semi-identical' twins are the result of two sperm cells fusing with a single egg - a previously unreported way for twins to come about, say the team that made the finding. The twins are chimaeras, meaning that their cells are not genetically uniform. Each sperm has contributed genes to each child....

"Their similarity is somewhere between identical and fraternal twins," says geneticist Vivienne Souter, of the Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona. "It makes me wonder whether the current classification of twins is an oversimplification."

Such twins are probably very rare.... [A]n egg fertilized by two sperm develops into a viable embryo....

"There's value in understanding that this can happen, but it's extremely unlikely that we'll ever see another case," says Charles Boklage, an expert on twinning who works at Eastern Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina.

Souter and her colleagues investigated the twins' genetic makeup because one was born with ambiguous genitalia. This twin turned out to be a 'true hermaphrodite', with both ovarian and testicular tissue. The other twin is anatomically male.

Genetic tests revealed that each twin contained some 'female' cells with two X chromosomes, and some 'male' cells with an X and a Y. The proportion of each type varies from tissue to tissue in each twin, the researchers report in Human Genetics1.

The babies, now toddlers, were conceived and born normally, and each twin's growth and mental abilities appear normal....

"The number of these cases is very small, but before they were reported, most people would have said this could never happen," says geneticist David Bonthron of the University of Leeds, UK.

CNN has reported that on her first day back on the campaign trail after disclosing she had bone cancer, Elizabeth Edwards promoted human embryo experimentation. Speaking at a Cleveland fundraiser, she said:

"I think that we're foolhardy to not be engaging in federal funding of stem-cell research in the most aggressive way we possibly can"....

"If people think that you're throwing babies out, dissecting children, to do stem-cell research, I'm not for that," [she] said....

Edwards noted that stem-cell work uses blastocysts containing clumps of 16 or 32 cells that were collected by fertility clinics but are no longer needed and would otherwise be thrown away....

Edwards' statement was wrong on a critical point, that the only human embryos being experimented upon are fertility clinic leftovers....

It was also bizarre of Edwards to say she opposed "dissecting children," although I guess it's a plus.

Those aside, the ironies are profound. In addition to supporting the embryo experimentation, both John and Elizabeth are pro-abortion.

Yet, of all people they should revere the sanctity of life more than most. They lost a son at age 16 in a car accident. Following that, Elizabeth underwent fertility treatments to give birth at the age of 48 and 50.

Now Elizabeth has incurable bone cancer. Bone. Bone is where blood cells are made. Bone marrow is just another term for a certain type of adult stem cells....

Finish reading my column today, "Elizabeth Edwards still lauds culture of death," at WorldNetDaily.com.

[Photo, top right, courtesy of CNN]

As reported by The Morning News March 26, the abortion industry is fighting an Arkansas bill that would force mills to post the above sign. Said Planned Parenthood attorney Bettina Brownstein, "This will have a chilling effect, obviously, on abortion providers, and that will be another ground to challenge this bill, if it becomes law, in a court of law"....

Yes, I agree the sign would have a chilling effect on the cozy relationship between abortionists, child predators, and abusive boyfriends. Testified one woman:

"When they asked if I wanted counseling, the question was directed to me, but my boyfriend answered 'No,' and they immediately dismissed me. They did not care what I wanted or what I felt," she said....

[She] said she had a hysterectomy three years later and will never bear a child.

There was also the interesting complaint by one pharmacist that "the bill might be interpreted to apply to pharmacies that dispense morning-after pills or intrauterine devices."

That pharmacist, Percy Malone, is not coincidentally a Democrat state senator who frequently does the abortion lobby's bidding.

Nevertheless, the only conclusion to reach upon reading that statement is that MAPs and IUDs cause abortions.

The bill did not pass in committee, but its author thinks it will after she makes a couple changes.

On March 24 the Interested American blog linked back to National Review Online's list of the 50 greatest conservative rock songs of all time, published last May.

I was unaware of the list and found it quite interesting and full of surprises. I agree with NRO that it would make a great iPod playlist.

On the list were 10 songs within the pro-life scope....

5. "Wouldn't It Be Nice," by The Beach Boys. Pro-abstinence and pro-marriage: "Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray it might come true / Baby then there wouldn't be a single thing we couldn't do / We could be married / And then we'd be happy."

[Many kids only know this song from the movie, "50 First Dates." The following is a sweet rendition made for Zack by Rachel.]

8. "Bodies," by The Sex Pistols. Violent and vulgar, but also a searing anti-abortion anthem by the quintessential punk band: "It's not an animal / It's an abortion."

23. "Brick," by Ben Folds Five. Written from the perspective of a man who takes his young girlfriend to an abortion clinic, this song describes the emotional scars of "reproductive freedom": "Now she's feeling more alone / Than she ever has before. . . . As weeks went by / It showed that she was not fine."

28. "Janie's Got a Gun," by Aerosmith. How the right to bear arms can protect women from sexual predators: "What did her daddy do? / It's Janie's last I.O.U. / She had to take him down easy / And put a bullet in his brain / She said 'cause nobody believes me / The man was such a sleaze / He ain't never gonna be the same."

[I know you read the title and wanted to hear the song. Here 'tis!]

30. "You Can't Be Too Strong," by Graham Parker. Although it's not explicitly pro-life, this tune describes the horror of abortion with bracing honesty: "Did they tear it out with talons of steel, and give you a shot so that you wouldn't feel?"

32. "Keep Your Hands to Yourself," by The Georgia Satellites. An outstanding vocal performance, with lyrics that affirm old-time sexual mores: "She said no huggy, no kissy until I get a wedding vow."

40. "Wake Up Little Susie," by The Everly Brothers. A smash hit in 1957, back when high-school social pressures were rather different from what they have become: "We fell asleep, our goose is cooked, our reputation is shot."

41. "The Icicle Melts," by The Cranberries. A pro-life tune sung by Irish warbler Dolores O'Riordan: "I don't know what's happening to people today / When a child, he was taken away . . . 'Cause nine months is too long."

44. "Two Sisters," by The Kinks. Why the "drudgery of being wed" is more rewarding than bohemian life.

49. "Abortion," by Kid Rock. A plaintive song sung by a man who confronts his unborn child's abortion: "I know your brothers and your sister and your mother too / Man I wish you could see them too."

TX Republican state Sen. Dan Patrick has introduced legislation to give an abortion-minded mother $500 to place her baby for adoption rather than abort. Complaints from the abortion industry are interesting, considering they would be perfectly happy to accept the same $500 from the government to abort. According to Associated Content:

Heather Paffe, political director of Planned Parenthood of Texas, said Patrick's proposal "is very cynical and insulting to women and their families. It's insulting to think women would make that kind of decision so easily," she said.

But it's not insulting and doesn't make the decision any easier to be given the same $500 to abort?

Also according to Associated Content:

Fran Hagerty, of the Women's Health and Family Planning Association of Texas, said the bill is "the stuff family nightmares are made of." She called the proposed bill "insulting" to both women and "great charitable organizations" that find adoptive parents and take care of birth mothers....

And abortion is not the stuff family nightmares are made of? And why would it be "insulting" to get financial help for adoption?

Would Haggerty be "insulted" to take $$ from the state for abortions? Actually, no. The first priority of her organization is:

Seeking increased funding for family planning services for low income women and teens.

Also prominent on Haggerty's site is the fact her organization is a 501(c)3 - nonprofit charitable - which Planned Parenthood is as well.

What hypocrites.

The New Jersey Health Department allowed the infamous Metropolitian Medical Associates abortion mill to reopen March 23, after it removed all the rusty crochet hooks from its operating rooms.

The one-month closure also afforded employees time to move OR equipment, which the mill's brisk pace had heretofore disallowed, to clean the quarter-inch of dark red "dirt and debris" from beneath them.

[Helpful instructions for removing biohazardous waste courtesy of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services]

And finally they could check off sorting surgical instruments from light bulbs in open bins next to the copy machine from their to-do list!...

But egads, after a one-month closure the mill is almost 1,000 abortions behind schedule! The money crunch may force a cut-back of superior staff. Oh, wait, that was never a problem, which would answer the rhetorical questions NorthJersey.com's columnist Mike Kelly asked yesterday:

How is it possible that no one on the inside at Metropolitan complained about conditions there? Why didn't doctors and nurses speak up before inspectors arrived? Didn't they see anything wrong?

Shame on Kelly for assuming staff knew how to dial the phone - obvious intelligence bias.

Kelly also had it in for politicians:

Even conservative Republicans, who might want to use this opportunity to criticize abortion, have been mum. As for Bergen County's vaunted Democratic machine - are Democrats afraid to speak about filth in an abortion clinic because they don't want to be labeled anti-abortion?

The silence again raises a question about Bergen's Democrats: What do they really stand for besides power grabbing?

Kelly was kidding, right? It's not called the Party of Death for its influential embalming lobby.

Concluded Kelly:

The problems at Metropolitan Medical go far beyond abortion. This is a story about how we care for vulnerable people, in this case pregnant women.

And babies.

Love the title KaiserNetwork.org, a group that supports abortion, gave its blurb this morning about pregnancy care centers reaching out to black women in urban areas: "NPR program features discussion on antiabortion groups targeting blacks in urban communities."

"Targeting"? Let's get this straight. PRCs want to save black children and educate and support their mothers, and this is "targeting"?

Meanwhile, according to Alan Guttmacher, Planned Parenthood's research unit...

Most abortion providers (95%) are also located in metropolitan areas, increasing access to abortion there.

So, duh, also according to Guttmacher...

Black and Hispanic women have higher abortion rates than non-Hispanic white women do.... Over time, women having abortions have become increasingly likely to be poor, nonwhite and unmarried, and to already have one or more children.

The Kaiser story repeated the word "targeting" in relation to PRCs, while remaining tight-lipped about the true culprits, clearly engaged in black genocide:

The Los Angeles Times last week examined antiabortion groups that are targeting urban communities that they have "long considered hostile turf" to draw more blacks to support their advocacy. According to CDC statistics, blacks account for 13% of the population in the U.S., and black women make up 37% of women who undergo abortions.

[Photo, courtesy of LATimes, is of a Texas mother who decided not to abort after being counseled at a PRC.]

From CCTV.com, today:

BEIJING - Scientists have created the world's first human-sheep chimera - which has the body of a sheep and half-human organs, according to news report Monday.

The sheep have 15 percent human cells and 85 percent animal cells and their evolution brings the prospect of animal organs being transplanted into humans one step closer....

But the development is likely to revive criticisms about scientists playing God, with the possibility of silent viruses, which are harmless in animals, being introduced into the human race.

Animal rights activists fear that if the cells get mixed together, they could end up with cellular fusion, creating a hybrid which would have the features and characteristics of both man and sheep....

Does this mean animal rights activists will have to become pro-life activists?

[Photo courtesy of CCTV.]

I'm monitoring comments and will jump in if/when I can, but I won't post anything new this weekend. Grandsons #1 and #2 are visiting.

I read a verse this morning and thought of some of you:

Stand at the crossroads and look.
Ask which paths are the old, reliable paths.
Ask which way leads to blessings.
Live that way, and find rest for your souls.
~ Jeremiah 6:16

Have a great weekend, everyone.

"For too long, the stem cell debate has been distorted by those who advocate exclusively for research in which human embryos are destroyed. They insist that any attempt to find ways to advance stem-cell science without harming nascent life - and, thereby, to serve both science and ethics at once - is misguided."

~ Georgia state Sen. David Shafer, as quoted in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, March 19

Also, a new document available on pdf, "75 new reasons to reconsider the alleged need for stem cell research that destroys human embryos," lists advances in adult stem cell research and other alternatives to embryonic stem cell research between June 2006 and February 2007.

[Hat tip: Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity]

On Wired today, Steven Edwards broadens the discussion of genetically altering preborn gays, if that theory holds true, to genetically altering anyone for any reason.

He linked to an article describing a March 20 meeting at Harvard of some of the world's leading liberal and conservative bioethicists. This group formed "unaccustomed alliances" to agree biotechnology should be used only to treat disease and not enhance people, such as to raise IQs:

Michael Sandel... head of the Program in Ethics and Public Policy at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute... not[ed] that "we choose our friends, and we choose our spouses, at least partially on the basis of traits we find attractive. But it's an important part of parenting that we don't choose our children"....

Unconditional love of children, and their unpredictability, are important facts of life, Sandel said. The author of an about-to-be-released book titled "The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering," said that the "qualities of children are unpredictable, and here's a domain of chance where the fact that the domain is governed by chance is morally important."

But even if limiting preborn biotechnology to treatment of diseases or handicaps, which diseases or handicaps would qualify?

And this question does not just apply to preborns. Some scientists support using technology not only to repair deficits like hearing, sight, or motor loss but also to enhance hearing, sight, and motor function - to hear what others can't hear (whispers 100 ft. away), see what others can't see (through clothes), throw a ball farther than can now be thrown, etc.

[Hat tip: Fran]

From a March 20 op ed in thebatt.com, student voice of Texas A&M:

I love abortion. For starters, it promotes economic development.... [T]he abortion rate among women living below the federal poverty level is more than four times that of women 300 percent above it. So as long as the trend keeps up, we will have fewer and fewer poor people and more and more rich people....

I love abortion. It is the pinnacle expression of female liberty.... For years women could not vote. Now, however, they can pronounce their rights and freedoms louder than ever before. They can abort.

I love abortion.... Black women are almost four times as likely as white women to have an abortion, and Hispanic women are 2.5 times as likely. So as long as the trend keeps up, I should be able to maintain my superior status in the world [as a white] without even having to fight for it.

Abortion makes the United States healthy, wealthy, wise and white. It is a magnificent demonstration of constitutional liberation... helping Americans be all they can be.

From the New York Times, March 21:

More than five million Americans have Alzheimer's disease, a 10 percent increase from the last official tally five years ago, and a number expected to more than triple by 2050, absent a cure, as the 85-and-over population soars and the baby boomers move into their late 60s and 70s.

From the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, March 2007:

In April 2006, officials with the Health Resources and Services Administration released projections that the nation's nursing shortage would grow to more than one million nurses by the year 2020.... [A]ll 50 states will experience a shortage of nurses to varying degrees by the year 2015.... [There is currently] a national RN vacancy rate of 8.5% [in hospitals].

Three points.

1. Thanks, abortion.

2. Sick, aging baby boomers should be categorized: Those who have advocated abortion the past 34 years should roll their wheelchairs to the back of the line.

3.What goes around comes around. Aging abortion proponents should not be surprised to hear surviving young family members say they cannot afford to care for them, they have no room for them, or this is just not a good time.

[Photo from the 1973 sci fi movie, Soylent Green]

Whoops. From the Associated Press, today:

A New York couple is suing a fertility clinic that mistakenly used another man's sperm to artificially inseminate the woman's eggs. The couple is white and Hispanic....

A couple can proceed with a lawsuit against a fertility clinic they filed after the wife gave birth to a daughter whose skin they thought was too dark to be their child, a judge has ruled....

Three DNA tests... confirmed [the husband] was not the baby's biological father....

That's bad enough, but the question should also be asked whether the child should remain in that home. The AP article continues:

The couple says that they have been forced to raise a child who is "not even the same race, nationality, color & as they are," the judge said in the ruling....

They say that "while we love Baby Jessica as our own, we are reminded of this terrible mistake each and every time we look at her; it is simply impossible to ignore," the judge's decision said.

And finally, just how many of these guys are there in the world?

The couple's lawyer, Howard J. Stern, did not immediately return a telephone call for comment.

Wired pursued the homosexual community's response to points raised in my column yesterday:

Eschewing the eugenics question, Stanek seems more interested in another question posed by Mohler.

How can [feminists and political liberals who support a woman's right to choose] now complain if women decide to abort fetuses identified as homosexual?

Out of curiosity, I called the Equality Forum to ask their take on aborting a baby because he or she is gay. Communications officer Christopher Scoville said that the Equality Forum would not support the decision to abort a baby just because they're gay, anymore than they would support aborting a baby because they are left handed....

When asked if the Equality Forum had an official position on abortions of babies with congenital defects, Scoville demured, leaving that question to bioethicists. He said that the Equality Forum is a civil rights organization and therefore the question is "not in our purview."

It will be interesting to see how various religious denominations weigh in. Some will suggest, as Mohler did, that altering a baby's sexual orientation is a way to protect a child from sin. Others will argue that this is nothing more than eugenics and should be forbidden.

One thing's certain: If such a prenatal test is found and women start aborting babies for being gay, pro-choice organizations supporting gay rights cannot argue against a woman's right to abort a gay fetus. If they do, other groups will fight for the same protections for their members and the right to choose will be so limited that it might as well not exist.

Wired also quoted an earlier EF press release:

Fetal invasion to alter sexual orientation is reminiscent of the Nazis. It reflects a theocratic and Taliban-like plan that should frighten all Americans.

"Fetal invasion"? How quickly gays are being converted on the sanctity of life.

I'm sorry to report the Associated Press's liberal bias is progressing to schizophrenia. Its slanted story today against Justice For All's graphic exhibit on a college campus was preceded by this shocking headline: "Pro-life exhibit sparks discussion at Auburn."

What, "Pro-life"?

Or perhaps the AP was attempting to tease, because after raising hopes it dashed all fairness to the rocks.

Unless I told you, you would never know exactly what it was about JFA's display that made pro-aborts mad, other than its dimensions, a "20-by-30-foot tri-fold." But the AP certainly let you know pro-aborts were mad. The only photo accompanying the story was of them:

And the only quoted response to the display was by them:

After seeing the exhibit, seniors Shannon Symuleski and Lauren Bahr made signs and T-shirts supporting a woman's right to abortion and joined abortion advocates on the lawn Tuesday.

"We found it offensive and thought something should be said," Symuleski said.

Here is one of the panels that was so offensive:

Sorry about the small photo. I'm not savvy enough to figure out how to convert pdf to jpg. (Thanks in advance to anyone who can tell me how.)

The entire exhibit can be viewed here: http://jfaweb.org/exhibit.html

The Onion has written a satirical piece on how abortion could be written into a t.v. sitcom. The fictitious CBS show is Same Difference, and in an upcoming episode:

... star Kirsten Sumner's character, Trish O'Connell, the sharp-tongued but beautiful wife of portly Chicago bread-truck driver Greg O'Connell, played by Carl Hubbard, will reveal to her husband she was pregnant and had an abortion without his knowledge. Trish's revelation comprises the secondary, or "B," story of the episode, in which Greg eats a meatball sandwich against his wife's wishes.

The abortion story line had to be written into the show, said fictitious producers, because in real life Sumner had a late term abortion after the show had already acknowledged her pregnancy....

"It would've been insulting to our viewers if we never addressed the fact that Kirsten is so obviously post-abortion," executive producer Aaron Karsch said. "We did consider shooting around the abortion and using lighting tricks and strategically placed plants to cover up her uterus. But everyone would have been able to tell anyhow, so we figured we might as well use it to the show's advantage."

Yes, abortion can be funny:

"It wasn't easy, but in the end, we got some very solid material out of it - the plotline stayed true to the O'Connells' relationship while still being entertaining," said co- executive producer Larry Krespie, adding that, thanks to the show's resourceful writing staff, Sumner's evacuated womb may be "the best thing that ever happened to Same Difference"....

"Kirsten did some brilliant acting," said Krespie, who called Sumner's portrayal of a woman who had recently had an abortion "spot-on." "Our show does a lot of quiet, observational humor, and I think anyone who's had an abortion would be hard-pressed not to relate to, and get a chuckle out of, Trish's situation."

Continued Krespie: "Kirsten really got into the mind of her character, even in the physical-comedy scenes, like when she was trying to avoid Greg and get out of the house to get the abortion. And later in the packed abortion clinic, when she mistakes the number 81 she received from the receptionist for 18, and finds out she has to wait much longer for her abortion. But it all leads to a nice, poignant ending when both characters realize they should have been honest with each other all along—Trish with her pregnancy, and Greg with his sandwich."

Witty piece. And I think Hollywood, which so strongly supports abortion, should indeed explore its humorous side.

For some time now, gays have attributed their sexual behavior to genetics. They attempt to bolster their point by strangely lamenting, "Why would anyone choose this life?" Said Rosie O'Donnell, for instance:

I don't think you choose whether or not you are gay. Who would choose it? It's a very difficult life.... I think life is easier if you're straight.... [I]f I could pick, would I rather have my children have to go through the struggles of being gay in America or being heterosexual? I would say heterosexual.

Really?

The Associated Press reported March 14 on the rising "furor" over an article by Rev. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, for "suggesting that a biological basis for homosexuality may be proven, and that prenatal treatment to reverse gay orientation would be biblically justified," according to the AP....

I am more interested in this quandary Mohler presented, which the AP overlooked:

Feminists and political liberals have argued for decades now that a woman should have an unrestricted right to an abortion, for any cause or for no stated cause at all. How can they now complain if women decide to abort fetuses identified as homosexual? This question involves both abortion and gay rights – the perfect moral storm of our times....

Liberals are also taking notice of the potential for homosexual feticide....

Read my column today, "Abort gay babies?" at WorldNetDaily.com.

Right to Life of Michigan has just placed one of its pro-life ads on You Tube.

The ad, entitled, "Weak," aptly describes the pro-life movement's mission, "to provide a voice for people at their weakest moments...when they are preparing to die and preparing to be born," states RTLMI's press release. "Weak" has aired on MI television for seven years.

I received the following note and photos this morning. They are self-explanatory.

Dear Jill,

The reason I'm emailing is because a little over two weeks ago I experienced a miscarriage. It was very difficult to deal with, as I was so excited about having a fourth child and had no idea anything was wrong until the day I had the routine ultrasound, and the doctors told me that the baby had died in my womb. :-( I had to wait a week to miscarry the baby, and it was so difficult.

Once the baby came, I took several pictures of the baby, who was around six weeks old when he or she died. These pictures were first taken for myself, so that I would never forget what my baby looked like....

But I want to share the pictures with you, because you may be able to do something with them to help the pro-life cause. I feel if the loss of my baby can do anything to help save the life of even one baby, my baby will not have died in vain. Do you think there is any way you can use them for the pro-life cause? I trust your judgement and know that whatever you choose to do with them will be respectful to my baby's life.

I realize there are many textbook images, but somehow I think a picture taken by a "regular" woman - up close and personal pictures - might be more helpful than other pictures and help people realize the reality of those images... that they're not fake... because even though I was extremely pro-life before I saw my baby and had already seen hundreds of pictures of fetuses in the womb, seeing this real baby in front of my eyes really was incredibly amazing. How complex they are!

Bethany
View my blog (usually updated daily): http://bethany.preciousinfants.com
View my pencil drawings and wall murals: http://www.sketchesbybethany.net

P.S. My baby died due to a brain abnormality. So you will notice that the head does look a little strange at the top, and that is the reason why. Aren't the little fingers and toes beautiful?

I read that a movie released March 9 called The Ultimate Gift has been dissed by MSM reviewers because it contains an anti-abortion message. So my daughter (home from college on spring break) and I went to see it this afternoon.

Plot: "When his wealthy grandfather dies, trust fund baby Jason Stevens anticipates a big inheritance. Instead, his grandfather has devised a crash course on life: 12 tasks (or "gifts") designed to challenge Jason in improbable ways, sending him on a journey of self-discovery and forcing him to determine what is most important in life: money or happiness." ~ Fox Family Films

Trailer:

Stars: James Garner, Brian Dennehy, Lee Meriwether, and young Abigail Breslin (who made this movie before attaining fame in Little Miss Sunshine); Washington Post: "well-acted by a first rate cast."

The movie contains one pro-life line: After a single mom and love interest tells Jason she got pregnant in college, she says, "Emily... she's the best decision I ever made."

That's it. For that The Ultimate Gift earned these complaints by reviewers....

"[T]here's an anti-abortion message jammed into one scene with all the subtlety of an avalanche. Just in case you miss it, it's repeated in the credits too. Some gift, eh?" ~ Chicago Tribune

"[T]he movie's messages - pro-poverty, anti-abortion - are methodically hammered home." ~ New York Times

"Apart from one not-so-subtle anti-abortion message and that the characters take time for religious worship, the film's values are fairly well encoded into the story, such that it feels less like a sermon and more like a film with a good, if somewhat sappy, heart." ~ Los Angeles Times

See Rotten Tomatoes for other mixed reviews, including some that are very positive.

We gave the movie 2.75 stars out of 4. It would have been a very good movie except for a short detour that had our hero captured by Equadorian drug lords.

But I can't believe one pro-life line - eight words - so repulsed some members of MSM that they spent several times more words complaining about it.

This quote from a March 15 Associated Press story on the ignorance about the sexually transmitted disease human papillomavirus (HPV) would be funny if it weren't so sad. Such pitiful, lost kids....

That was the case for one 24-year-old woman in San Francisco, who recently learned she has one of the high-risk types of HPV....

"I was scared, sad, disappointed and definitely ashamed. It seemed unfair that I should have it when I've had relatively few partners," says the young woman, who's been sexually active for eight years and had four monogamous sexual partners, including her current boyfriend of two years.

Monogamy used to mean, "the state or custom of being married to one person at a time." It now apparently means to have "relatively few partners," one at a time.

Hence, someone like the aforementioned can ignorantly claim it "unfair" that she has contracted HPV while also claiming to her ignorant, new, unmarried sex partner she is monogamous while bringing HPV to bed with them along with whatever else she has contracted from skin-to-skin sexual contact and exchange of blood and body fluids with three other men.

Several states have laws mandating that abortionists offer mothers planning to abort the option of viewing ultrasounds of their babies. South Carolina legislators are considering legislation that would require abortionists to review ultrasounds with mothers about to abort. Or, as ABC News said, this law "would force women seeking abortions to view an ultrasound image of their fetus."

The abortion industry's side:

"This is just trying to bring politics between a woman and her doctor with an ultrasound that has no medical relevance whatsoever. It is nothing more than a barrier to health care, and it is completely not medically necessary in any way." ~ Christopher Hollis, SC Planned Parenthood.

The pro-life side:

"Our goal is that the women will have the latest, most up-to-date information possible. We want to show them that it's not just a blob of tissue, the baby has its own heartbeat, we want to give humanity to the living baby." ~ Tracie Carter, National Right to Life.

Focus on the Family statistics show 84% of mothers decide against abortion after seeing an ultrasound of their baby, according to LifeNews.com.

So it appears knowing the truth about their babies turns mothers away from abortion. It also appears the pro-abortion side would prefer women remain ignorant - barefoot and barren. There is no other medical procedure where informed consent is fought.

This is a 4D ultrasound of a 12-week-old preborn baby. This is the age most abortions are committed.

The Associated Press reported March 14 on the rising "furor" over an article by Rev. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, for "suggesting that a biological basis for homosexuality may be proven, and that prenatal treatment to reverse gay orientation would be biblically justified," according to the AP.

Both liberals and conservatives are upset. Liberals are angry Mohler would suggest correcting a homosexual predisposition, which infers it is a disorder. Some conservatives are angry Mohler would suggest there is a homosexual predisposition at all.

I am more interested in this part of Mohler's original article, which, of course, the AP ignored:

Feminists and political liberals have argued for decades now that a woman should have an unrestricted right to an abortion, for any cause or for no stated cause at all. How can they now complain if women decide to abort fetuses identified as homosexual? This question involves both abortion and gay rights -- the perfect moral storm of our times.

Mohler quoted Tyler Gray from the pro-homosexual magazine Radar....

Conservatives opposed to both abortion and homosexuality will have to ask themselves whether the public shame of having a gay child outweighs the private sin of terminating a pregnancy.... Pro-choice activists won't be spared either. Will liberal moms who love their hairdressers be as tolerant when faced with the prospect of raising a little stylist of their own? And exactly how pro-choice will liberal abortion-rights activists be when thousands of potential parents are choosing to filter homosexuality right out of the gene pool?

Legislation has indeed been introduced that would prohibit abortions of homsexually-disposed babies, if a gay gene were ever found, as I blogged on in 2005.

This is a dilemma for pro-lifers and pro-aborts alike. How many times have we heard homosexuals defending the predisposition theory lament, "Who would choose the heartaches of this lifestyle?" Interesting concept, choice.

[Hat tip: Reader Mary Kay; photos courtesy of Radar magazine]

The Sacramento Bee reported yesterday that California Democrat Assemblyman Ed Hernandez withdrew his HPV vaccine mandate bill from a health committee hearing "after lawmakers on both sides of the aisle expressed doubts."  He says he will reintroduce it later.

The bill's original sponsor, Democrat Sally Lieber, dropped it after her family was discovered to own Merck stock. Merck is one of two pharmaceutical companies making the vaccine.

Speaking of whiffs of corruption, it appears about the only legislators remaining in support of the mandate are coincidentally also members of Women in Government, a group Merck has admitted it channeled $$ through to promote it. GlaxoSmithKline, the other pharmaceutical making the vaccine, also gave $$ to WiG.

Even Planned Parenthood's Guttmacher Institute isn't crazy about it.  CBS reported Sunday that women's groups. anti-corporate groups, anti-big government groups, vaccine opponents, social conservatives, and parents' rights groups have all lined up on the other side.

Meanwhile, WiG, Merck, and GSK have all refused to tell me - or anyone - how much $$ Merck /GSK actually gave WiG to promote legislation forcing HPV vaccinations.

... forceps encrusted in "brownish blood-like residues," rusty crochet hooks used to remove IUDs, and a quarter-inch of dark red "dirt and debris" under an exam table...

These sound like items one would have found in an infamous back alley abortion mill abortion proponents flaunt as reasons to keep abortion legal, don't they?

No, New Jersey health officials found those less than a month ago at the now-closed - but thank goodness, legal! - Englewood Center for Women abortion mill.

Read more findings in a Mar. 14 article in the Bergen Record.

The mill's response? "There's no doubt that we're being held to a strict standard, a tougher standard than any other facility that we know of," said Frank Capece, attorney for the mill, according to the Record.

The mill, which committed 10,000 abortions a year, plans to "reopen swiftly." How many of you "pro-choicers" would send a sister or friend there?

And stop with the coathanger chatter, btw.

[Photo of mill courtesy of the Record.]

Frederick N. Dyer, Ph.D., is the author of the 2005 book, The Physicians' Crusade Against Abortion.

In his thought-provoking commentary today, published exclusively at www.jillstanek.com, Dr. Frederick writes, "It is almost a certainty if your roots go back to the 19th century that you would not exist if it had not been for the laws that protected children from death in the womb."

Are you alive because of the laws against abortion?

by Frederick N. Dyer, Ph.D.

Almost everyone believes that abortions increased after Roe v. Wade ended the state laws against abortion. What is more, there are data that support this view. The Guttmacher Institute reported that abortions gradually rose from 898,600 in 1974, the first full year following legalization, to 1,497,700 in 1979. After 1979, the number stabilized for several years at around 1,570,000.

The gradual increase from 1974 through 1979 suggests that the laws continued to have an effect for 6 years after their nullification. This could have occurred because women still felt that abortions were illegal or because physicians continued their prior habit of persuading women to continue unwanted pregnancies.

It was largely such physician persuasion that reduced the rate of abortion from 1860 when the first of the stringent antiabortion laws was passed until (at least) 1973 when all of the state laws were overturned.

What is more, physicians, particularly Horatio Robinson Storer (1830-1922), were instrumental in passage of the stringent state laws against abortion. A mid-19th Century epidemic of induced abortion, particularly among married Protestant women, was the stimulus for these laws. Dr. Storer persuaded the American Medical Association to tackle the issue and his 1859 AMA Report on Criminal Abortion and the appeals he drafted to state and territorial legislatures led to stringent laws being passed in almost all states by 1880.

The implication of the fact that abortions increased after the laws were rescinded is that the laws against abortion saved lives while they were in effect. There are at least four generations between 1860 and the present, and if only five percent of babies born were saved from an abortion death as a result of the laws against abortion and the physician persuasion that the laws bolstered, there is an excellent chance that one or more of your ancestors survived pregnancy because of these laws.

This is best illustrated by discussing the other 95 percent of children from that first generation. By chance, those children who were not such unwanted pregnancy survivors would marry each other at the rate of .95 times .95 that equals .9025. This means 90.25 percent of the next generation would not have had unwanted pregnancy survivors as parents. But it also means that 9.75 percent of that generation would have had one or both parents who were "physicians' crusade survivors."

Similarly, the .9025 proportion without "crusade survivor" parents would marry each other by chance at the rate of .9025 times .9025, which, when rounded, equals .8145. This means that 81.45 percent of the next generation would not have had one or more "crusade survivors" for a grandparent, but 18.55 percent would.

Similar calculations show that in the next generation, 33.67 percent of children would have had one or more "crusade survivors" as a great-grandparent, and 44 percent of the next generation (approximately our current generation) would have one or more "crusade survivors" as a great-great-grandparent.

However, the laws had their baby-saving effect not only on that initial generation but on each succeeding generation as well. It is almost a certainty if your roots go back to the 19th century that you would not exist if it had not been for the laws that protected children from death in the womb.

I am not claiming that your own mother might have made a different decision about your birth if you had been born before January 1973, although that is certainly possible. However, at least one of your maternal ancestors probably decided to continue an unwanted pregnancy because of her own concerns about abortion's illegality, or, has been well documented, because her physician persuaded her to do so.

Dr. Horatio Robinsin Storer deserves massive credit for the efforts that saved millions of babies from abortion. Most grew up, married, and became the ancestors of almost everyone alive in the U.S. today.
_______________

Frederick N. Dyer is the author of the 2005 book, The Physicians' Crusade Against Abortion, and the 1999 biography, Champion of Women and the Unborn: Horatio Robinson Storer, M.D. Both books are available from Amazon.

My column this week will only be available on my website....

You would never know Sean Hannity is a pro-life Catholic by his interview March 9 with Fr. Thomas Euteneuer, president of Human Life International.

Euteneuer is a highly respected leader in the pro-life movement and a priest. He appeared on Fox's Hannity and Colmes by invitation to challenge Hannity on his unorthodox support of contraception. Euteneuer said he previously wrote Hannity in 2004 an unanswered request to meet.

Euteneuer was prompted to publicly denounce Hannity's departure from Catholic (and sola scriptura as well, I believe) teaching after listening to Hannity's March 2 radio show when Hannity glibly apologized for accidentally eating meat on a Lenten Friday.

Euteneuer responded in a newsletter...

If apologies are the order of the day, then the repentance I would like to hear out of Sean Hannity's mouth is for his shameless - even scandalous - promotion of birth control. Yes, I have heard him personally say, "I have no problem with birth control. It's a good thing." (Another bit of profound theological reasoning.)....

The moral of the story is that Catholic men and women in the media need to be truly Catholic or at least stop being hypocrites.

... which is what prompted the call to appear on Hannity and Colmes.

If you haven't watched the video, you should.

I was appalled not just by the disrespect Hannity showed Euteneuer but also by the same cheap shots he dispensed toward Catholic leaders as would a liberal. After all that, Hannity bizarrely challenged Euteneuer to a credentials duel....

Hannity began by invoking, "Judge not lest you be judged," certainly the best known and most abused verse in the Bible, solely flaunted by those being called to account. Any year now I expect "Matthew 7:1" signs to replace "John 3:16" signs behind football goalposts.

In context this verse means not to judge hypocritically or self-righteously. In actuality, the Bible cautions us to judge carefully between good and bad people and things.

I'm sure Hannity does this all the time. When his daughter begins dating, for instance, Hannity will certainly "judge" poorly the boy knocking at his door dressed in Goth with a nose ring and pupils the size of pinheads.

Hannity then hit below the belt: "Maybe you ought to spend a little more time that our Church covered up one of the worst sex scandals and I wasn't involved in it. And the fact that public people after that are willing to still be Catholic is something you should be applauding. Considering the levels of corruption at the highest levels of the Church was frankly embarrassing to every person."

I could not provide a clearer or meaner example of the psychological defense mechanism called deflection - when someone mentions something that embarrasses another person, and that person redirects the conversation to someone else as bad or worse.

In other words, Hannity was saying the Catholic Church has no moral standing because amongst its leaders have been found sinners, for which it has repented, by the way. Hannity's rule would silence every Christian church since Jesus ascended.

Does Hannity really want his Church to reward those who stuck with it during a nasty time by going silent on sin? Apparently so, at least Hannity's sin.

Then Hannity switched gears as if to say he knew as much or more on the topic than Euteneuer anyway: "Do you know that I went to a seminary? Do you know that I studied Latin? Do you know that I studied theology?"

I'll tell you something. I never went to seminary, I never studied Latin, and I'm not even a Catholic. But I have studied Catholic doctrine on contraception, and I get what the Catholic Church is saying about it and its connection to abortion. And I have to wonder how Hannity spent his time in seminary.

Hannity finally pulled a combo "everybody's-doing-it/lesser-of-two-evils" line from the liberal playbook: "Understanding there are self control issues for all in society, understanding that people don't share the Catholic faith... would you not rather they use birth control than abortion, sir?"

Euteneuer pointed out 60% of aborting mothers are using contraception. Had he been given time, I'm sure he would have also said some methods of contraception actually cause abortions.

There was more to the conversation, but Hannity's closing salient question was, "Why don't you work on real important issues instead of superfluous issues?"

In simplest terms, contraception means "anti-conception." The contraception mentality is merely the embryonic form of the abortion mentality.

This is not a superfluous issue.

Rush Limbaugh also had something to say about former U.S. Sen. (and Democrat) Zell Miller's recent comments that 45+ millions dead from abortion are causing military shortages, the Social Security crisis, and illegal immigration:

I would only have one small nitpick with former Senator Zeller [sic] over this: How many of these 45 million children who have been aborted would be Democrats, would be the offspring of Democrats? And as such, how many of them would have jobs? As such, how many of them would even think of joining the military?

I know they're some Republican liberal babes in there that [have] gone out and had abortions, too, but the vast majority of them are liberals. This way if you look at the demographics of the future, you could say liberals are aborting themselves out of the majority if current trends hold. Everybody knows that's who's having the majority of these things.

Hear audio here.

The Associated Press reported yesterday about the group Exhale's new line of post-abortion e-cards.

(Exhale sponsors a free talk-line to post-abortive women affirming their decision. It was created due to the "lack of non-judgmental services available.")

See four other cards on page 2.

I'm not Catholic and was still incensed by Sean Hannity's treatment of a highly respected pro-life leader - who is also a priest - as well as Hannity's low blows and talking points, which could have just as easily been spouted by a secular liberal.

See video on page 2.

I'm surprised by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's surprise....

It hasn't gotten widespread play yet, but former U.S. Sen. Zell Miller made a little news this week in Macon when he declared that abortion has contributed to the military's manpower shortage, the Social Security crisis, and the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States.

"How could this great land of plenty produce too few people in the last 30 years? Here is the brutal truth that no one dares to mention: We're too few because too many of our babies have been killed," Miller said.

"Over 45 million since Roe v. Wade in 1973. If those 45 million children had lived, today they would be defending our country, they would be filling our jobs, they would be paying into Social Security," the former Georgia governor said. "Still, we watch as 3,700 babies are killed every single day in America. It is unbelievable that a nation under God would allow this."

If you doubt us, check out the video at the Macon Telegraph's web site. The comments were made at a Tuesday night fund-raiser for a local anti-abortion counseling center.

[Hat tip: Phil Magnan of Biblical Family Advocates]