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"

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.)

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....

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....

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....

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....

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....

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....

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....

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....

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"....

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....

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....

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!...

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...

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"....

[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....

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....

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....

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....

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....

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."

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....

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]

New Jersey's Star-Ledger broadcast this headline yesterday: "Stem cell research gains ground in Catholic church."

Of course, the ignorant masses, unclear that some stem cell research is morally acceptable and some not but aware of an ongoing ethical debate on the topic, may conclude from that headline - as the liberal mainstream media obviously wishes - the NJ Catholic church is coming around.

Only five paragraphs into the story do we learn the Church supports umbilical cord and placenta stem cell research, which does not involve the killing of human embryos.

Also of interest is the possible dupe of the NJ Catholic church by legislators brandishing money....

It has been a bad month for liberals and their child porn. Lesforlife reported on ProLifeBlogs.com tonight that Sandra Batte, former president of the St. Louis chapter of the Susan G. Komen Foundation, pled guilty Feb. 22 to federal charges of child porn possession. Read more details here.

Unconscionably, SGK donates to Planned Parenthood, the United States' largest abortion provider, and abortion has been linked as a cause of breast cancer.

On Feb. 23, Charles Rust-Tierney, former president of the ACLU of Virginia, was also charged with possessing child pornography.

CBS News posted a column today entitled, "The unlikely antivaccine alliance," detailing the strange bedfellows in the fight against mandating the HPV vaccine: vaccine opponents, social conservatives, anti-corporate groups, anti-big government groups, and most surprisingly, women's groups.

The story quoted me:

The face of the undeserving ill, according to the moral conservatives, belongs to Illinois State Senator Debbie Halvorson, who, as co-sponsor of a bill to require the vaccine in her state, admitted that she herself had HPV and underwent a hysterectomy because of precancerous cells. Pro-abstinence bloggers and columnists see this as permission to grill her regarding her sexual history: "You would think she'd focus on her behavior that caused her to contract that sexually transmitted disease," Jill Stanek wrote in the online Illinois Review. "Halvorson could discuss the number of sex partners she has had in her lifetime and how each one increased the likelihood of contracting HPV...whether it was her husband who passed HPV on to her after sleeping with other women...[or] if Halvorson contracted HPV through rape, she could discuss ways to avoid rape."

It is untrue that social conservatives think HPV victims don't deserve help, but that characterization from MSM is not surprising.

That quote, in context, was taken from a post, "Debbie does...." A "Debbie does, II" followed, detailing Halvorson's involvement with the group Women in Government, which is financially backed by Merck, maker of the HPV vaccine. I also wrote a WorldNetDaily.com column.

Most enlightening is why women's groups like Planned Parenthood's Guttmacher Institute are not on board with this mandate....

The number of comments for this March 7 post reached 330+, and people began having problems entering comments. So I am by this post launching a continuation of that thread. To access the original post and comments, go here.

Read march 7 column, "3rd annual Abortionist of the Year award," at WorldNetDaily.com.

Where was Barack Obama when we needed him? While legislatures around the country have been debating when human life begins and the morality of experimenting on human embryos, who knew liberal luminary Obama would provide the answer Sunday in Selma?  From Obama's speech:

We have too many children in poverty in this country, and everybody should be ashamed, but don't tell me it doesn't have a little to do with the fact that we've got too many daddies not acting like daddies. Don't think that fatherhood ends at conception.

Actually, that last line makes no sense.  But I am reminded of John Belushi in Animal House when he shouted, "Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!" and will just go with it.

Obama was trying to say a man becomes a father at conception, which is fascinating.  You can't be a father to a newly created subhuman or nonhuman. 

Liberal blogger Archpundit dared to contradict Obama by saying... Continue reading "Obama and conception"

According to Kaiser News today:

The "real" reason that "[t]oo many women still die of cervical cancer" is the "lack of access to preventive medical care for low-income women and not the lack of a vaccine," Wall Street Journal columnist and Illinois-based physician Benjamin Brewer writes in an opinion piece.

According to Brewer, the "decision to vaccinate a child" with a human papillomavirus vaccine, such as Merck's HPV vaccine Gardasil, "should be made by the patient, her parents and their doctor" and not states (Brewer, Wall Street Journal, 3/8)....

Brewer writes that Gardasil will not stop the need for annual Pap tests, adding that the "real usefulness" of the vaccine is its protection against genital warts.

Cervical cancer thus has become a "rare disease" in the U.S. in part because "newer versions of the [Pap] test have cut down on false positives and improved cancer screening," Brewer writes, adding, "There are not millions of women in the U.S. that we're going to save with a mass vaccination program. The developing world is another story."

He concludes, "[A]s a personal choice, spending $360 of disposable income on a vaccine is one thing. Mandating a vaccine with limited clinical usefulness at taxpayers' expense ... is another."

Yesterday I discussed how the "clergy" loophole in parental notification legislation would allow hired abortion industry "clergy" to bless abortions or any liberal "clergy" member, or actually anyone at all who took five minutes to be ordained online.

Today, I have another suggestion. Abortion mills could call Homer Simpson!

Readers may recall that in 2005 Homer was himself ordained  online after learning he could get $200 for marrying people.  This is about the going rate I imagine "clergy" hired by Planned Parenthood get for blessing abortions.

Following are audios of Homer performing the same duties as would some members of the liberal "clergy" who have no problem advising minor girls to abort:

Download homer_marries_sibs.mp3

Download homer_marries_julio_and_thad.mp3

Hat tip: Reader Edgar

It is a trick of pro-abortion legslators to gut parental notification laws by including clergy and other family members as those allowed to give permission for minor girls' abortions.

In IL it is state Rep. John Fritchey behind this scam. This week on the news program Public Affairs, Fritchey mocked conservatives and diligent parents when he said:

I find it intellectually interesting that a number of the folks on the right who are quick to talk about the importance of church involvement in your family are now saying we don't trust a clergy member to give independent advice on this.

Pro-aborts know "clergy" can range from being against sex, drugs and rock-n-roll to practicing homosexual sex, promoting drugs to enhance religious experiences and playing Black Sabbath.  Pro-aborts legislators know the U.S.'s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, employs "clergy" as well as sponsors a "pro-choice clergy network." 

Pro-aborts know anyone can be "ordained" a clergy member in five minutes, even Fritchey, if he wants to be the one blessing a young girl's abortion. 

These people are ludicrous to endorse clergy over parents to make medical decisions for children.  Will they next sponsor bills allowing clergy to give permission for other underage surgeries, tattoos, body piercings, and aspirin in school?

I'm so excited! The National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers is just three days away - Saturday, March 10!

We will not likely get to celebrate this unholiest of unholy days with the actual dirty deed doers themselves, since I anticipate their inspirational work ethic will compel them to labor (pardon the pun) on coincidentally the most profitable day of their week.

But we can certainly show our support through the sincerest form of flattery, imitation, except... hmm... there's not much to imitate that won't get us thrown in prison. Well, at least we can wear red!

And, of course, we can all laud together the Third Annual Abortionist of the Year!

Before I name that person, I must confess it was difficult to dredge up nominees for this year's prize, because we lost an alarming number of shop choppers to arrest or license revocation during the past 12 months.

Oh dear, and we were already scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Take abortionist Reffat Kamel Abofreka of Virginia, for instance, who would have made a spectacular nominee had he not....

Continue reading my WorldNetDaily.com column today, "3rd annual Abortionist of the Year award."

**Due to the extended number of comments to this post, I am closing this thread and launching a new post. Please go here to comment on this topic. Thanks.

Sunday's Chicago Tribune included a front page, above- and below-the-fold article on the "booming" human egg "donation" business. 

Women are being paid $5k-$13k and up to $100k for 15-20 eggs and are using the money to pay off loans and credit cards and put down payments on properties.  So the word "donor" is incorrect.

In the last eight years, the number of infertile couples purchasing human eggs has tripled, to the point where "some agencies find they have more donors than recipients," according to the article, which raised a red flag to me among many.

Legislators across the country (CA, IL, and NJ, for example) are introducing bills mandating taxpayer funded human embryo experimentation that include flagrantly deceptive language appearing to prohibit human cloning while they actually authorize it. (From the bills: "somatic cell nuclear transfer"; Google that term.) 

The rationale for escr so often given is to put human embryos to good use who would otherwise be discarded by IVF clinics.  Truth be told, only 2.8% of embryos are actually available for experimentation, but nonetheless, the day will come when legislators come clean about cloning, and they will use the same rationale to morally condone it that they now use for embryo experimentation.

In fact, cloning researchers are already complaining about a shortage of human eggs, and they readily admit they go to IVF clinics for them.  (Read NPR, JournalLive, and BioEd, for examples.)

Because of this, I found it remarkable that the lengthy Tribune article did not once mention the increasing demands by researchers for human eggs.

From the Washington Times:

Lawmakers looking to force preteen girls to take Gardasil, a new vaccine against a virus that causes cervical cancer, are targeting the wrong age group, cancer data shows.

Middle-school girls inoculated with the breakthrough vaccine will be no older than 18 when they pass Gardasil's five-year window of proven effectiveness -- more than a decade before the typical cancer patient contracts the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV).

Infectious disease specialists and cancer pathologists say the incubation period for HPV becoming cancer is 10 to 15 years -- meaning the average cervical cancer patient, who is 47, contracted the virus in her 30s and would not be protected by Gardasil taken as a teen.

On Feb. 28, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington asked the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to investigate "an ongoing and misleading ad campaign currently running on WMATA vehicles, and run by 'The Second Look Project,' which is sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops."

Just what are the ads? The two spotlighted by CREW were these:

See ads in full view here.

The USCCB corroborated the facts behind the ads on its website:

While some news media and polls still say the Court legalized abortion only in the first three months, in fact it made abortion legal through all nine months of pregnancy, effectively striking down the abortion laws of all 50 states.

In Roe v. Wade, the Court ruled that abortion may not be prohibited or restricted in the first trimester (first three months). In the second trimester abortion must still be allowed, and may be regulated only to serve the mother's health. Even after "viability," when the child is developed enough to survive outside the womb, abortion must still be allowed if needed to preseve the mother's "health." Roe's companion case, Doe v. Bolton, defined maternal "health" to include "all factors - physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age - relevant to the well-being of the patient.

Thus abortion must be allowed, even in the ninth month, if a woman would be upset about continuing her pregnancy. James McMahon, M.D. has cited "youth" or "depression" among his reasons for performing late-term partial-birth abortions. Martin Haskell, M.D. has said most of the partial-birth abortions he performed up to about 25 weeks were "elective." George Tiller, M.D. has done elective abortions thorugh 25 weeks and "fetal indication" abortions (to kill handicapped chidlren) through 38 weeks.

See more USCCB posters on page 2.

Penny Pullen, author of the weekly Life Advocacy Briefing, teaches pro-life terminology. From her I learned to say:

As part of her Briefing today, Penny gave a short lesson on proper terminology by which to frame the human embryo experimentation debate:

IOWA's LEGISLATURE HAS SENT TO THE GOVERNOR a bill endorsing sacrifice of embryonic humans for utilitarian experimentation. The bill, which is likely to be signed by Gov. Chet Culver (D), would replace Iowa's human cloning ban and would authorize experimental cloning by another name.

We at Life Advocacy have not been privy to the Iowa-specific debate or political changes which precipitated this about-face, but, observing the terminology used by much of the pro-life movement nationally, we regretfully predict that the fight over embryo killing is likely to be lost wherever it emerges.

We cannot fathom why most advocates for Life speak about this issue in the same terms as are used by the amoral biotech lobby and its fellow travelers in the mainstream media. Calling this issue "embryonic stem cell research" is the equivalent of calling the abortion issue "choice," yet this obfuscatory terminology is used consistently by those same pro-life leaders who wring their hands over the seeming inability of the public to distinguish between "adult stem cells" and "embryonic stem cells."

Could the confusion result from the fundamental fact that the ethical problem is not the pursuit of research on stem cells but with the killing of embryonic human beings in the process?

Try consistently using the term "experimentation" instead of "research" and the expression "killing (or sacrificing or vivisecting or dissecting) embryonic humans" instead of "embryonic stem cells," and see the difference in the perception of those hearing the debate. Using precise, morally expressive terminology cuts through the scientific fog, identifies the issue for what it is, and brings the public into a proper understanding of what is at stake. Is this really so hard?

New York's Expectant Mother Care Frontline Pregnancy Centers, headed by pro-life hero Chris Slattery, launched a new weapon this week on the war against abortion. On Feb. 27 EMC, which has 15 pregnancy care centers in NYC, began sending an RV mobile pregnancy center to park on streets in front of NY abortion mills.

(Giving credit where it's due, to my knowledge this concept originated with Angela Michaels, another pro-life hero who, as an RN and sidewalk counselor at the inaptly named Hope Clinic abortion mill in Granite City, Illinois, began employing this strategy years ago.)

Well, here is the headline the New York Daily News used Feb. 28 to relay this news: "Abort-foe RV gives sonograms, but critics say it 'hurts women'."

I read the article to see how pro-aborts could possible maintain ultrasounds showing photos of what women are about to abort would hurt them. Here is the total and complete explanation of the headline:

"This is going to hurt women," said a clinic administrator.

That's it. What terrible journalism. But there's more:

Three women visited the RV, although they said they already had decided to continue their pregnancies.

The only example the writer, Jordan Lite, gave for that statement proved it false:

Jenny, 24, said she chose not to get her scheduled abortion before being approached by a sidewalk activist from Expectant Mother Care Frontline Pregnancy Centers. The ultrasound "helped because I was still undecided. I didn't feel pressure," she said.

Lite continued his biased story with this dig:

EMC, which has 15 offices in the metro area, has been investigated by state officials in the past for unauthorized medical practices and deceptive advertising.

The rest of the story Lite didn't report is the short-lived investigation was launched in early 2002 and folded after just two months by then-NY Attorney General Elliott Spitzer (now guv), after it became impossible to spin himself from looking like anything but a creep.

NYC acounts for 10% of all abortions nationwide - 100,000 annually. Chris and his group operate in the belly of the beast. Kudos to them.

[Cartoon courtesy of Shelley the Republican.]

Yesterday the Illinois Senate Human Services Committee voted 6-4 along party lines (Democrats for, Republicans against) for mandated HPV vaccines of all 11- and 12-year-old girls. The bill now goes before the full Senate. Here was the most interesting exchange of the hearing.

Question from unnamed state senator:

It is often said that although breast cancer is not hereditary, if there is a history of it in the family you are more likely to get it. Is that similar to cervical cancer also?

Answer from proponent, L. Stewart Massad, Associate Professor, Division of Gynecologic Oncology, at SIU in Springfield:

Not to the same degree. There's some minor link, but it's more that people who live from underprivileged backgrounds, people who smoke, people who have multiple partners, those characteristics tend to run in families....

One of the best scenes in the Godfather movie trilogy was in "Godfather II," when Kay Corleone (Diane Keaton) told her husband Michael (Al Pacino) she was taking their two children and leaving him. The dialogue:

Michael: Do you expect me to let you take my children from me?.... Don't you know that's an impossibility, that that could never happen, that I'd use all my power to keep something like that from ever happening?.... I know you blame me for losing the baby. Yes. I know what that meant to you. Kay. I swear I'll make it up to you.... I'll change. And you'll forget about this miscarriage, and we'll have another child, and we'll go on, you and I, we'll go on.

Kay: Oh - oh, Michael, Michael, you are blind. It wasn't a miscarriage. It was an abortion, an abortion, Michael! Just like our marriage is an abortion, something that's unholy and evil. I didn't want your son, Michael! I wouldn't bring another one of your sons into this world! It was an abortion, Michael. It was a son, a son, and I had it killed, because this must all end. I know now that it's over. I knew it then. There would be no way, Michael, no way you could ever forgive me, not with this Sicilian thing that's been going on for 2,000 years....

SLAP.

Michael: You won't take my family!

And she doesn't.

That spontaneous slap was the reaction of a real man who a woman had just told she aborted his baby. Compare that to the modern day cowardly male response, "It's your choice. Whatever you decide, I'll support you." Or worse, his threat to abandon her if she does not abort.

It was this fierce devotion to family that strangely endeared us to the Corleone men despite their otherwise heinous behavior.

In fact, Mafiosos aside, the Italian culture has always evoked thoughts of large, loving families.

No longer. Legalized abortion has poisoned Italy.

According to several foreign or Christian news reports like this one in SperoNews.com:

A 13-year-old girl is in the psychiatric unit of an Italian hospital after a forced abortion....

Continue reading my WorldNetDaily.com column today, "Italian abortion mafia."