The girl, who apparently asked Harrison to beat her up because her boyfriend threatened to break up with her if she didn't get rid of the child, was originally sentenced to juvenile detention was released after a judge ruled that she was seeking an abortion and therefore couldn't be criminally liable...

I'm embarrassed for the disruptive students. Rarely does my 22-month-old daughter have tantrums this childish. Bereft of any arguments, they're left to singing "Old McDonald had a Farm" and other songs loudly. The saddest part about this is that they seem proud of their idiotic behavior. Other parts of the video disruption are on YouTube as well. Just type in McGill and Ruba....

It is written by a female abortionist who is extremely direct and the article includes a number of personal stories relating to abortion. She talks about "the personal and psychological aspects" of performing second trimester abortions, the "visual and visceral dimensions of second trimester abortion," the "violence inherent in abortion, especially apparent in the second trimester" and "legitimate ethical and moral issues providers may have with second trimester abortion, as distinct from first trimester abortion."

I would strongly suggest you read the whole thing....

Needless to say, the Senator's wake and Catholic funeral were controversial because of the fact that he did not publicly support Catholic teaching and advocacy on behalf of the unborn. ­­­Given the profound effect of Catholic social teaching on so many of the programs and policies espoused by Senator Kennedy and the millions who benefited from them, there is a tragic sense of lost opportunity in his lack of support for the unborn. To me and many Catholics it was a great disappointment because, had he placed the issue of life at the centerpiece of the Social Gospel where it belongs, he could have multiplied the immensely valuable work he accomplished....

What the siblings shared - in addition to the grace, rare among Kennedys, of a ripe old age and a peaceful death - was a passionate liberalism and an abiding Roman Catholic faith. These 2 commitments were intertwined: Ted Kennedy's tireless efforts on issues like health care, education and immigration were explicitly rooted in Catholic social teaching, and so was his sister's lifelong labor on behalf of the physically and mentally impaired.

What separated them was abortion....

As for other types of abortions, the Capps Amendment leaves it to the secretary of Health and Human Services to decide whether or not they will be covered. It says, "Nothing in this Act shall be construed as preventing the public health insurance option from providing" abortion services that would not be legal for Medicaid coverage......

But this last statement, while technically correct, does not tell the whole story. The health-care reform proposed by House Democrats, if enacted, would in fact mark a significant change in the federal government's role in the financing of abortions.....

U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier's decision Thursday ends a lawsuit that Planned Parenthood MN, ND, SD filed in response to a 2005 informed consent law that required several disclosures to women seeking an abortion....

The problem, of course, is that anyone who has been paying attention knows full well that Obama and his crew are not interested in reducing the number of abortions. How do we know this? We know it because Obama and crew keep telling us that they are not interested in reducing the number of abortions. Sooner or later you would think these moderate and progressive Evangelicals would get the message.

If she says she is pro-life so he thinks abortion is not an option for her, he might decide to keep her from getting pregnant by leaving her for someone more open to abortion, a woman who doesn't insist on his using a condom. That is, the presence in the sexual marketplace of women willing to have an abortion reduces an individual womans bargaining power.

IVF has brought joy to millions of parents. But it has also fueled the hedonism front of the coup de culture. Moreover, because the reproductive industry, feminists, bioethicists, and others in the anything goes crowd resist any reasonable regulation, it has also opened the door to treating nascent human life as mere ore taken from a mine, set the Brave New World project on its trajectory, led to women becoming so many paid brood mares, caused the death, disability, and serious illness of egg donors and sellers, and transformed reproduction into a mercantile transaction in which people believe they have the right not only to a baby, but to the baby - or many babies - they want....

It appears Carhart trusts fewer women than abortionist Warren Hern:

Carhart has a few firm lines; he won't, for example, do elective abortions past 24 weeks, because the fetus is likely viable....

Unrestricted access to abortions paid for by the national government? That's not enough!

So declares Canadian columnist Andre Picard, in the Globe and Mail, who claims women in Quebec "need fewer barriers to abortion, not more" in response to a proposed regulation which would require abortion clinics to meet the same requirements as other non-hospitable facilities which provide surgeries (the horror!)....

The woman, Karen Sypher, is currently charged with lying to the FBI and trying to extort $10 million dollars from Pitino:

About two weeks after meeting Sypher at the restaurant, Pitino told police that she called, told him she was pregnant and that he had to be the father. Pitino told her when they met again that he had five children and she had four, and that he didn't know what he wanted to do, according to the report by Sgt. Andy Abbott, commander of the sex-offense unit....

Afterwards she wanted to die. She cut herself with razor blades all over her body and ended up in a psych ward. The walls were blank but she saw children running all around on the walls and she was in incredible turmoil. When she was released she had tattoos engraved all over her body, some she did herself....

Supporters of H.R. 3200 claim that its end of life counseling provision, section 1233, is merely voluntary for the patient. But a closer look shows that section 1233 includes conditions and financial incentives for physicians and other health care providers that create a setting in which an elderly patient's decision to appropriate this option is likely to be less than voluntary....

The battles on Capitol Hill over Sonia Sotomayor and health care have convinced me that pro-life Americans should take a cue from a popular chick flick. A hit movie newly out on DVD recently proclaims a shocking truth to women who make excuses for the bad behavior of men they date. That fact is: If he lies, cheats and treats you disrespectfully, "he's just not that into you...."

Judie takes particular issue with the claims of the PBO website, which states, "Plan B One-Step isn't effective if you're already pregnant, and it won't terminate an existing pregnancy. " The prescribers section of the website states that the pill works in the following ways...

Also of note, 98.1% of women paid for abortion by themselves. Only 1.8% of abortions were paid for by insurance. Makes you wonder where the Alan Guttmacher and the Kaiser Family Foundation got their statistics (87% and 46% respectively) used in the AP article regarding abortion coverage in employer insurance health care plans....

TWS: When do you believe life begins?

REP. RYAN: That answer's above my pay grade. That's for God to determine.

TWS: So you're not saying first trimester, second trimester, conception?

REP. RYAN: I don't know. I mean, that's God. God knows when it begins, and when it ends, and all that other stuff.

More than a third of working mothers want to quit their jobs to look after their children, research suggests....

Instead of the Stupak-Pitts amendment, the committee passed an amendment that is being billed by some Democrats as a "common ground" measure on abortion. The amendment - sponsored by Lois Capps (D-Calif.), whose National Right to Life Committee vote-scorecard is 0 for 74 - would allow the "public option" to provide coverage for elective abortions and would allow federally subsidized private plans to provide abortion coverage as well....

But by now, nearly 6 months in, the bottom line for Barack Obama is clear. After making a few polite noises about finding "common ground" with pro-lifers, his administration has shown zero interest in doing so. Instead, the Obama agenda is to weave government-backed abortion into the fabric of American life and make it a far more integral part of domestic and foreign policy than ever before....

The NIH witnessed this emotional intensity firsthand. The agency received more than 49k comments from the public after issuing a draft of its guidelines in April. About 30k of them - many of which were form letters - debated whether the NIH should be funding embryonic stem cell research at all....

According to the Telegraph, leading the "research" is stem cell biologist Professor Karim Nayernia, whose team has already used the technique in mice...

Under the legislation being worked on by three committees in the House, Americans earning up to 400% of the poverty level - $43k for an individual; $88k for a family of four - would be eligible for government subsidies to help them purchase coverage.

But if the anti-abortion legislators get their way, those subsidies would have a big string attached; they could not be used to purchase a policy that has abortion coverage. For many women, that would mean giving up a benefit they now have under their private insurance policies.

The owner of the clinic, Vickie Mazzorana, is an assistant professor at the University of Nevada Medical Center.

Maggie, a 22-year-old college senior with no intention of bringing a child into the world yet, was going to have an abortion. She told us that she had already made up her mind; she had even determined the time, date and location. A better question might have been, "How are you going to pay for it?"

She answered that one before we had a chance to ask. "We're having a party Friday to raise money," Maggie said. "You guys are obviously invited."

An abortion party. For the price of whatever we were willing to donate, she explained, we could partake of baked goods, beer and dancing. It was going to start at 10 p.m. at Maggie's.

The so-called economic stimulus legislation is funding comparative studies on the effectiveness of health care options, which includes strategies of "over-the-counter access to oral contraceptives or other hormonal methods, expanding access to long-acting methods for young women, [and] providing free contraceptive methods at public clinics, pharmacies or other locations."...

Some pro-life groups, including the Southern Baptist Convention and the US Council of Catholic Bishops, take issue with the unwanted pregnancy prevention action portion of the "common ground" plan primarily because it routes federal tax dollars to contraceptive distribution and comprehensive sex ed....

One ruling prevents the parents of a teen who received an abortion at Planned Parenthood from obtaining PP's medical records. The parents wanted the records to bolster their civil case against PP for failing to notify them....

Women who have had an abortion or miscarriage are more likely to give birth to a premature baby, researchers have found....

MercatorNet: Does it matter very much if the numbers are not accurate? Governments do have to address all aspects of maternal health, including abortion, don't they?

Donna Harrison: Actually, it matters enormously because of the implications for planning national policy. If a country finds that a large percentage of maternal deaths happen from a lack of skilled birth attendants at delivery, and a very small number come from induced abortions, then it becomes clear that funding should be directed to skilled birth attendants and not to abortion agencies....

Obama has eloquently written of what he went through when abandoned by his own father, the price that he paid. Without the selfless involvement of his maternal grandparents, the young Barack Obama would never have had the advantages that made it possible for him someday to become President.

But the point of his essay in Parade--made over and over--is that fathers matter, and that they matter most of all when times are tough.

At the risk of stating the obvious, there are fewer more difficult times than when the father of the baby (often, but by no means always, not married to the mother) learns she is carrying their baby.

Officers allege [Charles] Daniels abused the woman, hitting her in the stomach, putting his hands around her throat and telling her she would never see her children again, an arrest report stated.

Daniels had been dating the 36-year-old Gainesville woman about a week and wanted her to have an abortion because the child wasn't his, the report stated.

I got two abortions to preserve my career. To keep my options open. To keep my aspirations within reach.

I bought into the idea that kids undermine your ability to build an amazing career.

And here I am, with the amazing career.

But also, here I am with two kids. So I know a bit about having kids and a career. And I want to tell you something: You don't need to get an abortion to have a big career. Women who want big careers want them because something deep inside you drives you to change the world, lead a revolution, break new barriers....

In other words, the Obama administration already knows where it stands on all those pesky moral issues like human cloning, chimeras, and euthanasia, and just needs a group to provide advice on how to implement its preferred policies.

Whereas the previous councils wrestled with such questions as "What is the nature of human dignity?" the new one will most likely be addressing more practical policy options, such as "How much should we pay women to harvest their eggs for cloning?"

At World magazine's blog, Alisha Harris writes, "The problem I see so far is that finding common ground makes it hard to break new ground or move the debate forward. Civility is vital, but it is also pointless if it suffocates an authentic discussion of the deep tensions still there."

CBN's David Brody writes,"One quick note: on a separate part of their site they blast religious right organizations. It really takes away from their credibility when it comes to seeking common ground. It's a confusing message."...

For the time being, Carhart said he will offer late-term abortions in his Bellevue clinic. He said Nebraska's abortion laws are flexible.

"As long as I get referrals from other doctors that say the fetus is not viable, then it's my intent to take care of those patients," Carhart said.

Carhart isn't saying whether his plans include opening a new facility or offering the abortions at an existing practice. He says such details are "something that doesn't need to be talked about" until everything is in place.

Gupta calls Tiller's murder devastating. "There are two other providers out there, but frankly, right now, they are not wanting to be very public about the services that they offer," she said.

Booker, who performs about 60 abortions a week, said he is careful to follow state law. But, citing medical research, he refuses to comply with the legislative mandate to tell women that abortion increases the risks of breast cancer and infertility. During one counseling session last week, he called them "two things definitely not associated with having an abortion."...

Why couldn't the Post find a pro-life doctor who specializes in helping women who want to carry their children with fetal anomalies to term?

The more I think about it, the more I see how thoughtless Saletan's argument is. For example, take his argument and use it on other movements. Does he think those who resorted to violence (like John Brown) were the only abolitionists who really thought that slaves were persons? Did William Wilberforce not really believe slaves were equal to free men because he didn't kill slave traders?...

I applaud these statements. They affirm the value of life and nonviolence, two principles that should unite us. But they don't square with what these organizations purport to espouse: a strict moral equation between the unborn and the born.

This was not an act of a lone deranged gunman, this is a result of 35 years of relentless and merciless anti -abortion harassment, violence, and intimidation, hate speech, and violent rhetoric and this is the absolutely predictable consequence of that kind of mindless harassment and fanaticism....

The main difference between the American anti-abortion movement and the Taliban is about 8k miles....

They want to know the reasons why some women are aborting children past 24 weeks. Are they true medical reasons or because the children were diagnosed with cleft palate?

"I simply don't know Judge Sotomayor's view on Roe vs. Wade. I will be very concerned if the question is not asked and answered during the Senate hearings," Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said Wednesday. "So far, no one has been able to give us an assurance of her views."...

The tone of the protest shifted when one student egged the exhibit, and another scribbled on the signs advertising it in Red Square.

Mr. President, you say that abortions are never undertaken lightly, and without acute anguish. I wish this were always true; and so do you, apparently. But some abortions - many, actually - are had for many reasons we would find common ground to condemn.

Will you join me, and others, in supporting a ban on abortion had for reasons of sex-selection of a born child? Sadly, many seek abortion not because they do not want a child, but because they do not want a girl. This is horrible, would you not agree? Mr. President, if you are serious about seeking common ground, would you not agree that our nation should ban the abortion choice when used for such an awful, human-gender-based reason?...

"In late April, Mel gathered his children at the family home in Malibu and broke the news that Oksana is pregnant, and he expects them to accept the baby as a new sibling," a family friend told the magazine.

"They are quite upset. Even though Mel assured them the pregnancy was unplanned, they're furious with him and say they're going to take steps to protect their inheritance, which they feel is in jeopardy."

She said one woman from Kern County first called ACCESS when she was 11 weeks pregnant. The woman said her insurance wouldn't cover an abortion and she had tried for weeks to enroll in Medi-Cal, the state's healthcare system for the poor.

"She waited 5 weeks for the Medi-Cal. . . . By that point, she felt it was too late to personally go through with it," Lopez said. "This is a really good example of the barriers that are put in front of women who are trying to make responsible decisions early on."...

But his speech should leave pro-lifers optimistic, because it illustrates the transformation of the abortion debate over the past 15 years. Put simply, defenders of the Roe regime seem incapable of making a case for themselves, and when they reach for the vocabulary of American liberal democracy in an effort to make some kind of argument, they end up closer to the case for their opponents....

One of the protesters at Notre Dame, [our own] Jill Stanek, an anti-abortion blogger who did not support Obama, said the president's speech sounded eerily familiar.

"It was just a regurgitation of things he's said for a long time," Stanek said. "He's so good at expressing your point of view, so people are lulled into thinking he agrees with them, and he doesn't. It's just so typical Barack Obama."...

Douglas W. Kmiec, a constitutional scholar and former Notre Dame professor who was an outspoken critic of abortion when he worked for Presidents Ronald Reagan and the elder George Bush, said he had been advising the White House to use the speech at the university on Sunday to tackle the controversy head on, with the president making the case that "we already have agreement, we both respect life, we both view abortion as a moral tragedy."

72% of women believe it is the most important role as opposed to 60% of men believing the same.

The National Catholic Register contacted Department of State spokeswoman Laura Tischler to see if there was any record of Clinton's trip to Brazilian hospitals. Tischler said, "I am unable to confirm where or when the trip she referred to in her testimony was -- where specifically in Brazil she was visiting or when the trip occurred."

[A] woman, who already had two daughters, requested an amniocentesis in order to allay concerns about possible chromosome abnormalities. At the same time, she also asked to know the foetus's gender....

Among their many aspirations for his presidency, Barack Obama's admirers nurse a persistent hope that he might be able to end the culture wars. And by end, they generally mean win. The real hope is a final victory for cultural liberalism, and social conservatism's permanent eclipse.

These hopes are overstated, but not necessarily irrational. Four months in, the Obama administration does seem to have a plausible strategy for turning the "social issues" to liberalism's advantage. The outline is simple: engage on abortion, and punt on gay rights....

... [M]ost women with problem pregnancies quickly become discouraged and overwhelmed. "People hear these callous, insensitive remarks, things like 'Why do you want to carry a baby like this?' or 'Are you religious or something?'" she says.

"The genetics counselors uniformly will hand out support information that assumes you'll terminate."...

It seems noteworthy that the leading pro-choice voices like NARAL's Nancy Keenan and NOW's Kim Gandy are participants while no one from National Right to Life is participating.

Boie has been sentenced to nearly 10 years in jail after being found guilty of attempting to force his wife to miscarry after putting misoprostol (one of the drugs used in RU-486 abortions) into her food. He was found not guilty of killing his unborn child. It appears the jury couldn't be sure his actions caused the death of the child after his defense attorneys noted his wife's history of smoking and troubled pregnancies in the past....

Crutcher points out that when organizations focus on sparing the lives of other human beings, i.e., falsely convicted prisoners, no one tells them to "butt out unless they are doing something about all of the world's other social ills." He writes...

Women who survive childhood cancer are no more or less likely to opt for an abortion during pregnancy than unaffected women, new research from Denmark suggests.

These findings run counter to those in a recent report from the US in which induced abortions were significantly more common among female cancer survivors than among their female siblings without a cancer history, according to the researchers.

He claims the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform shouldn't be allowed to display these pictures because of "Supreme Court cases on freedom of speech rights" and then fails to cite a single case.

He claims the pictures are from illegal abortions without evidence, and then shows he doesn't seem to know the meaning of the words "hypocritical" or "statistic."...

...[T]he women suffered emotional trauma. One woman was hospitalized twice for complications and then gave birth to a baby who died within three hours, while another had to go through two procedures because the first was bungled....

According to the St. Louis Review...

The "Use of Force for the Protection of the Unborn Act" allows pregnant women legal protection against prosecution for protecting themselves and their unborn children against attackers, including domestic abusers....

Planned Parenthood in Memphis refused to comment on-camera on the tape.

In a statement, a spokeswoman called the allegation "serious."

While the spokeswoman said the accuracy of the tape hasn't been verified, she says PP has taken swift action, and is conducting additional staff training this week.

It's sad when pastors sell out their pro-life beliefs and values to gain what they think is some kind of influence on President Obama. Instead the opposite happens. Instead of changing Obama's views, their views begin to change to match and support Obama's views.

According to OneNewsNow, Warren claimed on CNN's Larry King Live this week...

She said she learned she was pregnant with Trig while she was out of the state at an oil and gas conference.

"There just for a fleeting moment I thought, I knew, nobody knows me here. Nobody would ever know. I thought, wow, it is easy. It could be easy to think maybe of trying to change the circumstances. No one would know. No one would ever know."...

... Johnson told the court the New Year's Eve incident happened because she was trying to cover up an abortion and fool an abusive boyfriend. A relative told her what would happen if she didn't.

"He said, 'She better produce some kind of baby, or I'm going to kill her,' and he had a gun," said Johnson....

"Sexting" is the sharing of sexually explicit pictures and/or messages through texting. Talk-show hosts from Oprah to Tyra Banks have devoted entire shows to the controversial topic....

This makes me wonder what Gore would have done with the stem cell issue if he had run in 2008 and been elected.

I'm not a hard-line anti-abortion campaigner. Given the state of public opinion, the best we can hope for at the moment is a compromise - but unrestricted access up to 24 weeks, paid for by the taxpayer, is not a compromise, it's a law drawn up by an ideologically-driven minority.

Denying the humanity of a 20-week foetus is as unscientific and irrational as denying the beef on your plate is a cow because you can't hear it moo.

We're actually talking about pre-embryos here. Technically speaking, it's not an actual embryo yet...

You're talking about something that's quite different from the "embryos" that you get from an IVF clinic, and very different from the kind that would be developed in a laboratory. Until a fertilized egg is implanted in the uterus my understanding is it's not an embryo. It's a blastocyst, or a pre-embryo.

He also argues for human cloning for research...

She seems to think embryonic stem cells will one day lower the number of people who need organ donations. Unable to find any examples of how embryonic stem cells are ever going to be used to create replacement organs, she turns to adult stem cells for a success story...

... received a "deluge" of as many as 2.25 million red envelopes symbolizing the empty promise of lives snuffed out in abortion....

So while the people in that video cringe at drinking milk from a cloned cow, they probably support therapeutic cloning. Therapeutic cloning is the cloning of human embryos to harvest stem cells that, in theory, will treat every disease under the sun. And scientists all over the world are rushing to make it a reality....

Some clinics saw their patient loads cut in half and closed early each day. These results are due to the efforts of praying pro-lifers....

While Sebelius was not questioned about her extremist abortion policies, concerns have been raised about them and about her $8,000 tax "error" that surfaced last week.

Tax evasion seems to be a common problem among Obama appointees....

But, in the long run, can we not agree that an unwed couple's decision not to bring a forth child into the world when they are having trouble feeding themselves and three children is no tragedy? It's actually a fact-based, rational decision that in the end benefits the three children they already have and society as well....

Single, pregnant and panicked starts off well enough, looking at the complex dynamics that lead smart, well-educated 20-something women to get cavalier about their birth control. But it ends with beating the "more contraceptives education" drum - completely dismissing out of hand the dynamics of relationships....

The President of Notre Dame, Rev. John Jenkins, has offered his own words to put the matter in a more defensible light, and those words have been echoed by members of the faculty. Let me...offer a proposal.

President Jenkins...said that he doesn't condone President Obama's policies, and yet he thinks it important..."to engage in conversation." Press secretary Robert Gibbs noted that the president had met recently with Francis Cardinal George to discuss matters of interest to the Church. And with that background, he said, the president "looks forward to continuing that dialogue in the lead-up to the commencement" at Notre Dame....

THREE women were sexually abused during abortions by an anaesthetist, a jury has heard.

Dr. Narendra Sharma allegedly used the hands of the sedated patients to perform obscene acts on himself in the operating theatre.

He was arrested after medical staff at the Marie Stopes International Clinic in Manchester raised the alarm....

...SB 374 in CA...would make it a crime not to provide patients with information about the legality or availability of abortion and... could also be grounds for stripping the doctor or nurse practitioner of their license to practice. Worse, if the professional has a conscience objection, he or she must still participate in ensuring that the patient receives detailed information about deciding whether or not to have an abortion....

Medicine needs to embrace a brand of professionalism that demands less self-interest, not more. Conscientious objection makes sense with conscription, but it is worrisome when professionals who freely chose their field parse care and withhold information that patients need. As the gatekeepers to medicine, physicians and other health care providers have an obligation to choose specialties that are not moral minefields for them. Qualms about abortion, sterilization, and birth control? Do not practice women's health....

A bill has passed in the OK Senate and is on its way to the floor of the House. It would...

... create the Use of Force for the Protection of the Unborn Act... [and] make it crystal clear that...women can use lethal force to protect the life of their child in those cases [of domestic violence].

National statistics show 240k pregnant women are victims of domestic violence each year, many suffering subsequent miscarriage. Under this legislation, a woman would be legally justified in using fatal force if she believed the attacker to be threatening her unborn child.

Imagine the implications this might have on abortion!...

In the end, the result is moral incoherence. It is an incoherence in which abortion-rights advocates have the most to gain, because it demoralizes those who support the cause of life while removing fears of even the slightest social sanction for those who do not. And it is an incoherence we see all across American Catholic life today....

The daughter told police she gave birth two weeks ago over a toilet. Rainey later said she placed the infant in a bag and dumped the body in the garbage. Rainey said the infant was born dead, but her daughter claimed she saw it breathing.

The first striking feature of fetal organs is that their supply, for all practical purposes, is unlimited....Pregnant women who provide fetal kidneys could do so repeatedly without incurring the medical consequences of adult organ loss....

Obama is suggesting that abortion is a human need, which can be reduced but never eliminated. He is suggesting that we all will "support" (meaning affirm the decisions of) women and families, even if they abort a child. He assumes that we all can unite, as he said in his Roe anniversary comment, "to ensure that our daughters have the same rights and opportunities as our sons," suggesting that abortion is not just a need but also a right.

It's savvy rhetoric precisely because it is so subtle. It quietly isolates pro-life advocates (who now appear extremist) while appealing to those who are tired of the abortion debate (with calls to reduce abortion)....

Wesley Smith is there to shoot her "arguments" down:

This administration promised to be transparent: Instead it is opaque. It promised to heal divisions: Instead it is worsening them. It promised honesty, but its policy arguments are profoundly misleading to the point of mendacity.

The only reason he can get away with it is that the media remains immersed in the tank. If that ever changes, Obama could be in deep political trouble....

This is good news, to be sure. But let's be clear: There is NO "medical ethical quandary" involved in the decade-long dispute over stem cells. There is only the appearance of an ethical quandary, created by people who either don't understand or willfully misrepresent the facts.

We're still waiting for Hallmark to make us a special line of greeting cards, but the very existence of a day honoring abortion providers is a step in the right direction.

What room is there for ethics in President Obama's thinking? He says that he 'understand[s]' the concerns of opponents of this research, but this is the sort of empty and condescending acknowledgment of an opponent's views encouraged by the teachers of conflict resolution, a formulaic expression of the sort that careful listeners will frequently hear from our new president.

Neither the president's speech nor his executive order actually acknowledge what the ethical concerns are. He assures the nation that the research will proceed "responsibly" and that "the perils can be avoided," but from the point of view of opponents of this research, it is his policy itself that leads irresponsibly toward the peril of embryo exploitation and experimentation, toward accepting the destruction of one class of human beings for the benefit of another.

I can think of only two reasons for this action, for which I saw no advocacy either in the election or during the first weeks of the Administration: First, vindictiveness against all things "Bush" or policies considered by the Left to be "pro life;" and second, a desire to get the public to see unborn human life as a mere corn crop ripe for the harvest.  So much for taking the politics out of science!

Obama continued, noting that his stem-cell decision was just the starting point for a larger reevaluation of the role scientists will play in his administration: "It is about letting scientists like those here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it's inconvenient - especially when it's inconvenient."...

Horrified, again, that the baby was suffocated in a medical waste bag rather than chopped up in the womb two minutes before being stuffed into a medical waste bag.

KS has one of the most restrictive laws regarding late-term abortions. Yet, it has become, in large part because of Dr. Tiller, the late-term abortion capital of the Midwest. How is this possible? It is possible because our current laws have not been enforced. Each time the KS Legislature has passed statutes in an effort to improve enforcement of late-term abortion restrictions, Governor Sebelius has vetoed these laws.....

In addition to the scientific implications, the work comes at a politically sensitive moment. Scientists are anxiously waiting for President Obama to follow through on his promise to lift restrictions on federal funding for research on human embryonic stem cells. Critics of such a move immediately pointed to the work as the latest evidence that the alternative cells make such research unnecessary.

"Stem cell research that requires destroying embryos is going the way of the Model T," Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said. "No administration that values science and medical progress over politics will want to divert funds now toward that increasingly obsolete and needlessly divisive approach."

Also worth noting...

Taking another step into the abortion debate, the Obama administration today will move to rescind a controversial rule that allows healthcare workers to deny abortion counseling or other family planning services if doing so would violate their moral beliefs, according to administration officials....

The officials said the administration will consider drafting a new rule to clarify what healthcare workers can reasonably refuse to do for their patients....

A mystery is brewing over the appearance of Sen. Sam Brownback's John Hancock on an inflammatory letter questioning the religious bona fides of prominent pro-abortion-rights Catholic Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry.

As for me, I think it is all upsetting, and - yes I will say it - the field increasingly epitomizes a society that thinks we are all entitled to everything we want, regardless of the moral costs in the lives harmed or sacrificed in the obtaining. But wisdom tells us that sometimes we have to live within limits and make do as best we can. That hurts individuals, and we should all be there to empathize and help ease the pain. But it also helps build a healthier society. It is a forgotten lesson that is costing us dearly.

As her performance on Meet the Press prior to last year's Democratic national convention made painfully clear, Pelosi is deeply confused about what her church teaches on the morality of abortion, and why. She may have come to her bizarre views on her own; it's far more likely that she has been un-catechized, so to speak, by Catholic intellectuals and clerics who find Catholic teaching on life issues an embarrassment among their high-minded friends and colleagues of the progressive persuasion.

Whatever the source of her confusion, Pelosi has now been informed, and by a world-class intellectual who happens to be the universal pastor of the Catholic Church, that she is, in fact, confused, and that both her spiritual life and her public service are in jeopardy because of that.

The überright has already succeeded in throwing so many obstacles in the path of women trying to end unwanted pregnancies: 24-hour waiting periods, parental consent laws, and so on. Required ultrasounds are a step too far. "Offered" ultrasounds are insulting, too. In my humble opinion, both are completely unconstitutional.

First off, I don't think Erbe has an opinion which is humble. Secondly, imagine the thought process (or lack thereof) of someone who thinks it is unconstitutional to make abortion providers offer to turn the ultrasound screen towards a woman if she wants to see it. How could that be unconstitutional? Does a woman have a constitutional right to an abortion but no right to see an ultrasound? Do abortionists suddenly have the constitutional right to do whatever they want inside their clinic doors? Erbe continues...

"We're going to be doing something on that soon, I think. The president is considering that right now," Obama adviser David Axelrod said on Fox News Sunday.

My abortion was not painful, but I am wistful about losing the physical sensation of being pregnant. I never realized how a baby could get into a woman's blood - I still feel a connection to that little lima bean.

Chuck Bridges, vice-president of external affairs at Saint Mary's, said the university did let the presentation continue, it just took place at the nearby church instead.

"It's important to clarify . . . that the lecture was not shut down," he said Wednesday.

"When we saw the level of emotional engagement from those on both sides of the discussion, we felt it better that rather than having people face disciplinary action, that we would defuse the situation by allowing a bit of a cooling off and moving it to another location a building away," he said.

"So those who were keenly interested in hearing that side of the discussion, they had that opportunity."

So the answer to incredibly childish, unruly protestors is to give into the handful protesters and move the event off campus instead of removing the protesters or disciplining them?

Craig, accompanied by relatives, surrendered to police Tuesday night, saying she threw her daughter into the lake that afternoon because she didn't want to raise a child and she didn't want her parents to know she had been pregnant, police said....

Craig told investigators the pregnancy resulted from a single incident with a man she doesn't know. At some point recently, she decided to abort her pregnancy but was told it was too advanced. She then investigated putting the baby up for adoption....

After delivering the child at home, Craig gathered two plastic garbage bags and two bath towels and drove with the infant to Kenner's Laketown park, police said. Witnesses there saw a woman walk to the water's edge, throw something into the water, return to the car and drive away. A bag and a bloodied towel were found nearby.

While promising, the treatment is unlikely to help the vast majority of people infected with HIV, said Dr. Jay Levy, a professor at the University of CA San Francisco, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study. A stem cell transplant is too extreme and too dangerous to be used as a routine treatment, he said.

"About a third of the people die [during such transplants], so it's just too much of a risk," Levy said. To perform a stem cell transplant, doctors intentionally destroy a patient's immune system, leaving the patient vulnerable to infection, and then reintroduce a donor's stem cells (which are from either bone marrow or blood) in an effort to establish a new, healthy immune system.

Levy also said it's unlikely that the transplant truly cured the patient in this study. HIV can infect many other types of cells and may be hiding out in the patient's body to resurface at a later time, he said.

[Photo of Craig courtesy of Nola.com]

"It clearly would have a huge impact on us," said Kathi Di Nicola, media relations director for Planned Parenthood of MN and the Dakotas.

Three doctors who perform abortions for PP in Sioux Falls are from MN and generally leave the Twin Cities the day of the procedure.

You might get an intelligent rehearsal of both sides of an argument in a bar, but if it touches on feminism, Israel or the environment, the last place you'd look for it is on campus.

As if to make the point, the Halifax Chronicle Herald records the reactions of Lesley-Anne Steeleworthy, chairwoman of the board at SMU's women's centre. The lecture topic, she declared, was "anti-choice" and offensive on "a number of levels."Not just Ruba's thoughts you notice, the topic itself. How dare he bring it up?

Spokeswoman Joline Nestor said PP is investigating and hopes to look at the whole video.

"We're not taking it lightly," Nestor said. "It's concerning to see something like this."

Overturning Roe and Casey has never been an easy task, and the election of Barack Obama will make it that much more difficult. Facing a hostile governing majority, pro-lifers can and should talk more about the possibility of compromise: They should explain, more often and more cogently, that if Americans want laws that better reflect their muddled sentiments on abortion, it is pro-choice maximalism, not the pro-life movement, that's really standing in the way....

The university would never order an activist animal rights group that might display pictures of animals bleeding, suffering or dead to turn its pictures inward. Nor would the university censor or threaten antiwar activists for posting pictures of those burnt alive in Hiroshima or Dresden by Allied bombs....

Frustrated advocates adopted an "Oregon-plus-one" strategy, believing that if only a second state legalized assisted suicide, it would put the winds back into their sails. That theory is about to be tested.

It's almost like endorsing Obama makes people dumber. Of course it's not that and every election cycle people of both sides disavow previously firm beliefs and issues simply because they prefer a certain candidate. But this year with Obama it just seems to have exponentially increased....

"I thought of them as potential life, but I don't think of them as children," says Chris Bailey. "They are definitely more than sperm and egg."

After much discussion, the couple decided to donate the embryos to research....

"The spiritual position," said Natalia Karpovich, a leader of the State Duma committee focused on family, women and children, "should be that this is murder and the woman who does this commits a sin. Still, I want to stress it's a woman's choice."

It's a woman's choice to commit murder?

[Photo of baby courtesy of Sunflower Desert]

It appears the Archbishop's warning isn't going unheeded. Proponents of the bill don't seem to fully grasp why doctors who oppose performing abortions don't want to refer women to abortion providers....

The more serious problem for Joe Biden at this point is not the loss of his credibility as a Catholic, but as a person of conscience. When you say on national television that you agree with your Church that abortion is murder, but that you intend to support legislation that keeps abortion fully available, you leave voters wondering why you would support a right to what you consider to be murder....

The logic of the modified pro-choice position reduces to, "I think it's wrong to kill my own children, but I don't think we should stop other people from killing theirs."

Notice that this critique has nothing to do with whether abortion is right or wrong. That's a different question. I am simply pointing out that the modified pro-choice view deals itself a fatal blow. That is Biden's blunder, and the blunder of anyone else advancing such a foolish notion....

Probably... what I intended to say is that, as a Christian, I have a lot of humility about understanding when does the soul enter into.... It's a pretty tough question.

The soul enters into.... what exactly? The living human body, perhaps?

The shocking extremism of that position - giving infanticide the nod over compassion and life - is profoundly embarrassing to him now.

So he has lied about what he did. He has offered various conflicting explanations, ranging from the assertion that he didn't oppose the anti-infanticide legislation (he did), to the assertion that he opposed it because it didn't contain a superfluous clause reaffirming abortion rights (it did), to the assertion that it was unnecessary because IL law already protected the children of botched abortions (it didn't - and even if it arguably did, why oppose a clarification?).

What Obama hasn't offered, however, is the rationalization he vigorously posited during the 2002 IL senate debate....

This party has the temerity to pretend it is inclusive and wants to reduce abortions yet bans any dissent on the issue! It doesn't even want pro-life people in the party - unless they stay in the closet.

According to a report released by The Humane Society in May, 3,656 cloned embryos, 319 egg donors and 214 surrogates were used to produce just five cloned dogs and 11 cloned cats who were able to survive 30 days past birth....

But researchers argue that a shortage of eggs fueled by the payment ban is what's kept them from making the advances that prove their technique's real potential.

"You need to have enough eggs to make this thing work, and when you have enough eggs it does work," said Dr. Sam Wood, chief executive of La Jolla-based Stemagen Corp....

But, because TakeCareDownThere is a taxpayer-funded site that targets children, I believe it is important to have an idea of just what Planned Parenthood is promoting. The site's pro-promiscuity agenda is truly degrading to human beings in general and children in particular. It presents the pedophile's dream of an omnisexual kiddie "cuddle puddle" as though such activities were normative teen behavior.

Dr. Kato, who at first said he did not do abortions and referred The Herald to other "doctors," later admitted to offering the service, saying it would cost R600 for someone who was 5 months pregnant.

He promised the procedure was safe and quick.

"They call it safe abortion. You won't feel any pain and you won't see any blood."...

[JLS note: I'm so glad Denny and JivinJ spotted this. I received an email about this radio show but couldn't locate the source. Tony Campolo is a Democrat evangelical pastor. On this show he proposed a tax-and-spend strategy to reduce abortion by up to 50%, he thought. My email friend reported: "The moderator made a brilliant comparison. He asked if this strategy was similar to someone leading a group of white supremecists to reduce the number of lynchings of the slaves. Campolo became enraged at this. Truth hurts."]...

Times Online concludes that the nurse, Ann Downer, "was cautioned but allowed to continue practising."

Just imagine if this institution used its voice and resources to ensure that, beside all those Planned Parenthood clinics located in our minority neighborhoods, African-American women could find another kind of place. A place not unlike Good Counsel - where a scared young pregnant woman could carry her baby to term, complete her education, train for a new job, and be treated with the love and respect that a mother needs and deserves.

Read more about the Cincinnati NAACP protest here.

In a speech before Planned Parenthood last year, Barack Obama said that he was well-equipped to defend a right to abortion because "I put Roe at the center of my lesson plan on reproductive freedom when I taught Constitutional law." But during the past week, Obama has proven to be woefully ignorant of abortion law, or he has been deceiving voters about the legality of abortion, as well as his own position on the issue.

Think about the women you know who have suffered from breast cancer. Would the world be a better place if they never had existed?

Second, some claim that the embryo in his or her first week of development is too small, immature, or undeveloped to be considered a "human life." Yet the human embryo, from conception onward, is as much a living member of the human species as any of us. As a matter of biological fact, this new living organism has the full complement of human genes and is actively expressing those genes to live and develop in a way that is unique to human beings, setting the essential foundation for further development....

Miss Percival said: "Deciding to terminate at eight weeks was just utterly horrible but I couldn't cope with the anguish of losing another baby.

"I couldn't believe it when the doctor said I was still pregnant, this was the baby I thought I'd terminated.....

"He may need an operation but as only one of his kidneys is affected he can survive. I still struggle to believe just what he has fought through. Now he's here I wouldn't change it for the world."...

This policy does not apply to religious organizations," said Massa. "It only applies to groups whose sole purpose is to spew anti-choice rhetoric on our campus."...

On October 2 the girl was twice subjected to [a] saline infusion abortion procedure. A third and similar attempt was made the following day.All proved unsuccessful. Later the second day Dr. Edelin performed a hysterotomy and surgically aborted the child. It was during the hysterotomy that Dr. Edelin was alleged to have detached the placenta from the uterine wall and then held the child inside its mother for at least three minutes...

According to NRL News, "The prosecution charged that the infant was viable at the time the abortion was performed and that it was the action of Dr. Edelin of holding the child inside its mother's womb after detaching the placenta which caused it to suffocate. (One witness for the prosecution said that holding the baby inside the mother for three minutes "would be equivalent to cutting the air hose on a salvage diver.")

"Manslaughter is the issue, not abortion, criminal manslaughter," the prosecution said.

She weighed 1lb 4.7oz and was given just a 10 to 15% chance of survival then had to endure three operations, including two on the brain.

But she is now 9 months old and a healthy 14lbs, and has been allowed out of hospital for the first time.

The center will be a highly visible symbol of the region's commitment to stem cell research, and a place where the taxpayers footing the bill can see what progress their money has fueled, said Dr. Edward Holmes, the consortium's president and formerly head of UCSD's medical school.

If I was a CA taxpayer, I'd be thinking: We were promised cures but all we got for our $6 billion dollars was a bunch of fancy buildings....

Once her husband got the news, he told her: "We shouldn't be asking, 'Why us?' We should be saying, 'Well, why not us?'"....

"I'm looking at him right now, and I see perfection," Palin said. "Yeah, he has an extra chromosome. I keep thinking, in our world, what is normal and what is perfect?"

During the trial, the court heard how Sandhu rubbed the girl's breast with gel during an illegal medical procedure in an office at the hospital last June, telling her she needed an abortion after falsely informing her she was pregnant....

A great number of people, both those who support and those who oppose abortion, have been offended by the notion of Shvarts' project. By ignoring, censoring or banning images such as Schvarts', we elevate abortion to pure theory while divorcing it from its practice.

The photos, videos and blood of Schvarts' claimed project are needed to construct opinions about abortion, fertility, art and free speech at their most extreme limits. Rejecting reality for the sake of comfort leads us to ignorance (three cheers for the Ivy League, Yale). So, pro-lifers, pro-choicers and anyone not yet aligned: If you can't handle the image, confront the issue behind it....