I'm not sure what happened, but it's all good. I reported last week, based on several Indian news stories like this, that the Bombay High Court had agreed to let a couple abort their 26-week old baby with a heart blockage, repairable with a pacemaker (or "peacemaker," according to the Indian story).

The bottom line must have gotten lost in translation, because the front page story yesterday in The Hindu, India's national newspaper:

The Bombay High Court on Monday rejected the petition filed by Niketa and her husband Haresh Mehta... seeking permission to terminate her pregnancy, now in the 26th week.

The foetus was diagnosed with a complete heart blockage when she was in the 24th week of pregnancy. The couple wanted to abort the child for fear it would suffer for life....

A Bench... said there was "no categorical opinion" from medical experts that "if the child were born ..., it would be seriously handicapped." Moreover, there was no provision in the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971, to end pregnancy after the 20th week. Only in exceptional cases of danger to the health of the pregnant woman could abortion be allowed, said Justice Khandeparkar. In this case, "no exceptional case has been made out."

Furthermore, an Indian hospital has offered to incur all expenses for the baby's care.

In the aftermath mom made some strange comments:

"I am not strong enough to handle this. I have lost my courage. I don't kow who to blame: God, society or the system? But I believe in God. It was God who gave me Haresh, such a good husband, and again it was God who gave me the baby. I don't know what went wrong."

and...

"It's not that I would deliver the baby now only to give it away," was Niketa's response to the news that NGOs [nongovernment organizations] were willing to take care of the baby. "I am not heartless. My child's not a burden. But it is less painful to end it now rather than see your child in front of you."

[HT: LifeNews.com; photo courtesy of Hindu Times]

The 1st test tube baby, Louise Brown, will turn 30 in a week, on July 25. The July 17 issue of Nature takes a look at the next 30 years of IVF:

Already, modern societies are entering an era of personalized genetics....

True... no embryo will have the perfect genetic future. But these techniques could allow parents to create a top-5 wish-list of the characteristics they most want for their child - avoiding, for example, the Parkinson's disease that plagues the family - and choose the embryo most likely to meet those criteria.

Or the parents may focus on non-health-related aspects such as intelligence and ambition....

The magazine asked several researchers to speculate on the next 3 decades.

Davor Solter, developmental biologist at the Institute of Medical Biology, Singapore...

Next I expect... sperm and eggs will be successfully derived from induced pluripotent stem cells....

It means every person regardless of age will be able to have children: newborn children could have children and 100-year olds could have children. It could easily happen in the next 30 years....

Another thing I predict for this brave new world is the use of artificial placentas....

Alan Trounson, director of the CA Institute for Regenerative Medicine :

I think it will be possible... to extend the fertile period for women....There will be concerns raised over whether the fertile period should be extended beyond its natural point. I think people should be given the choice....

We might see... "genetic cassettes" that can be inserted at the embryonic stage to correct particular diseases, such as Huntington's. These might be inducible cassettes that can correct for an abnormality that occurs late in life and switched on at that time....

Susannah Baruch, director of reproductive genetics at the Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University, DC:

There's speculation that people will have designer babies, but I don't think the data are there to support that. The spectre of people wanting the perfect child is based on a false premise. No single gene predicts blondness or thinness or height or whatever the 'perfect baby' looks like....

More likely is that you'll have a set of embryos and you'll know every single thing about every gene in every embryo. For example, 1 embryo will have 3 genes associated with tallness, 2 for weakness, 3 for poor vision and some for disease; and the 2nd embryo will have some other set.....

I think you'll end up with a lot of information available to parents....

Scott Gelfand, director of the Ethics Center at OK State University:

There is some research aiming to increase embryo survival and the likelihood that IVF will work. There are also people who are working on the other end - at the moment babies can only survive from around 22 weeks, but in future fetuses this could be extended to those that are 12 weeks. Someone could join these two advances together and we could have complete ectogenesis [in which the fetus develops outside the body in an artificial uterus]. I find it interesting and scary.

Those who work on artificial-womb technology aren't talking openly about it anymore. My guess is it's a potential lightning rod in our culture.There are some very interesting moral and ethical implications associated with artificial wombs....

If an artificial womb were developed, the government could pass a law that requires people who have a termination of pregnancy to put the fetus into one of these wombs. That's the fear of many pro-choice theorists. There are around 1 million abortions per year in the United States and there would have to be labs throughout the country, but if we put all these in artificial wombs and then put them up for adoption we would have one million more babies. It would be a nightmare. When I talk to some anti-abortionists about that, they really shudder.

Miodrag Stojkovic, stem-cell biologist at the Prince Philip Centre of Investigation, Spain:

Will we see a cloned baby? It could happen any day because of a lack of regulation [in some countries]. To my knowledge people are already trying to do reproductive cloning. Technically it is possible....

The field is developing so fast that some people can't follow what happens and are scared....

Humans are getting more and more lazy when it comes to reproduction. Male fertility is declining and parents are deciding to have their first child at 40....

There is plenty we don't understand about embryo-mother communication. I don't think 30 years will be enough to answer those questions.

Zev Rosenwaks, director of the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility, NY:

I see the technology going towards possible eradication of infertility altogether. With nuclear-transfer technology or cell modification, I think we'll be able to generate sperm and eggs for anybody.

I think we've potentially reached the limit of biology in terms of the female's eggs, so artificial gametes might overcome that....

Regine Sitruk-Ware, reproductive endocrinologist and executive director of research and development at the Population Council, NY:

If we look at centres in reproductive sciences funded by the NIH, there are more than 20 on IVF and only a handful on contraceptive research. It's more politically correct to help people get babies than the reverse, but it's important to have a balance.

Many current contraceptive methods have side effects or they're not effective. We can do better. We're hoping it might be possible for men and women to alternate taking contraceptives and that we can develop non-hormonal methods with fewer side effects that are very specific in targeting an enzyme or protein in the reproductive process, such as one that stops the ovum from maturing, or sperm from entering the egg.

[HT: reader Earl G.; photo of Brown courtesy of The Daily Mail

Dick and Rick Hoyt are a father-and-son team from MA who together compete just about continuously in marathon races. And if they're not in a marathon they are in a triathlon - that daunting, almost superhuman, combination of 26.2 miles of running, 112 miles of bicycling, and 2.4 miles of swimming. Together they have climbed mountains, and once trekked 3,735 miles across America.

It's a remarkable record of exertion - all the more so when you consider that Rick can't walk or talk.

For the past 25 years or more Dick, who is 65, has pushed and pulled his son across the country and over hundreds of finish lines. When Dick runs, Rick is in a wheelchair that Dick is pushing. When Dick cycles, Rick is in the seat-pod from his wheelchair, attached to the front of the bike. When Dick swims, Rick is in a small but heavy, firmly stabilized boat being pulled by Dick.

At Rick's birth in 1962 the umbilical cord coiled around his neck and cut off oxygen to his brain. Dick and his wife, Judy, were told that there would be no hope for their child's development.

"It's been a story of exclusion ever since he was born," Dick told me....

Continue reading Team Hoyt's inspiring story at multi'merica.com.

And here's Team Hoyt in action:

[HT: friend Bruce T.; photo courtesy of Team Hoyt]

A group of black pro-life leaders will hold a press conference at the NAACP convention at the Hyatt Regency in Cincinnati July 14 to appeal to the NAACP to join in the call to Congress to defund Planned Parenthood for its documented affinity for killing black preborn children....

The NAACP couldn't have picked a better convention host city to showcase some of Planned Parenthood's offenses.

PP of Southwestern OH in Cincy is currently under 2 criminal investigations for covering up child sex abuse and rape.

In the 1st case PP allegedly failed to get consent from a 14-year old girl's parents to abort her after she was impregnated by her 21-year-old soccer coach.

The 2nd case involves a young victim of incest that PP failed to report even though she gave clear signs she was being sexually abused by her father.

In addition, PP used deceptive tactics similar to Chicago and Denver to slip into a Cincinnati community with 4 high schools by purchasing a building under the name of Auburn Parking LLC. A predominantly African-American high school is just blocks away.

Press conference organizers, some who are NAACP members, will educate the NAACP and public that blacks are disproportionately targeted for abortion.

At least 62% of abortion mills are located in minority neighborhoods.

PP employees in OH, NM, ID, and OK have all been captured on tape willing to accept money earmarked to abort black children. None were fired.

PP is also under criminal and civil investigation in several states aside from OH.

A PP in KS faces 107 felony and misdemeanor counts including falsifying abortion records and performing illegal late-term abortions.

In CA the former VP of Finance for the LA PP has accused CA PP of defrauding taxpayers upwards of $180 million.

A $50 million civil lawsuit has been brought against a PP in DC for a botched abortion on a minor.

By its own record PP gets $336k in tax dollars annually.

No matter if they are pro-life or pro-abortion, legislators have a moral obligation to investigate an organization whose business practices appear racist on one end and illegal on the other.

Black pro-life leaders will call on the NAACP to agree that no organization espousing the practice of targeting minorities should receive taxpayer dollars.

[Photo courtesy of WorldNetDaily.com]

From Mark Steyn, who I've decided I have a crush on, an excerpt from his column, Sexism, not Obama, beat Hillary, May 31:

Sex-selective abortion is a fact of life in India, where the gender ratio has declined to 1,000 boys to 900 girls nationally, and as low as 1,000 boys to 300 girls in some Punjabi cities.

In China, the state-enforced "one child" policy has brought about the most gender-distorted demographic cohort in global history, the so-called guang gun - "bare branches." If you can only have one kid, parents choose to abort girls and wait for a boy, to the point where in the first generation to grow to adulthood under this policy there are 119 boys for every 100 girls. In practice, a "woman's right to choose" turns out to mean the right to choose not to have any women.

And what of the Western world?...

From 2000-05, Indian women in England and Wales gave birth to 114 boys for every 100 girls.

A similar pattern seems to be emerging among Chinese, Korean and Indian communities in America. "The sex of a firstborn child in these families conformed to the natural pattern of 1.05 boys to every girl, a pattern that continued for other children when the firstborn was a boy," wrote Colleen Carroll Campbell, of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and former Bush speechwriter, in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch the other day. "But if the firstborn child was a girl, the likelihood of a boy coming next was considerably higher than normal at 1.17-to-1. After two girls, the probability of a boy's birth rose to a decidedly unnatural 1.51-to-1."

By midcentury, when today's millions of surplus boys will be entering middle age, India and China are expected to account for a combined 50 percent of global GDP. On present trends, they will be the most male-heavy societies that have ever existed.

As I wrote in my book America Alone, unless China's planning on becoming the first gay superpower since Sparta, what's going to happen to all those excess men? As a general rule, large numbers of excitable lads who can't get any action are not a recipe for societal stability. Unless the Japanese have invented amazingly lifelike sex robots by then (think Austin Powers' "fembots"), we're likely to be in a planetwide rape epidemic and a world of globalized, industrial-scale sex slavery.

And what of the Western world?

Canada and Europe are in steep demographic decline and dependent on immigration to sustain their populations. And - as those Anglo-Welsh statistics suggest - many of the available immigrants are already from male-dominated cultures and will eventually be male-dominated numbers-wise, too....

Smaller families may mean just a boy or a girl for liberal Democrats, but in other societies it means just a boy. The Indian writer Gita Aravamudan calls this the "female feticide." Colleen Carroll Campbell writes that abortion, "touted as the key to liberating future generations of women," has become instead "the preferred means of eradicating them." And, while it won't eradicate all of them, Philip Longman, a demographer of impeccably liberal credentials, put the future in a nutshell in the title of his essay: The Return of Patriarchy.

Enlightened progressives take it for granted that social progress is like technological progress - that women's rights are like the internal combustion engine or the jet airplane: once invented they can't be uninvented.

But that's a careless assumption. There was a small, nothing story out of Toronto this week - the York University Federation of Students wants a campuswide ban on any pro-life student clubs. Henceforth, students would be permitted to debate abortion only "within a pro-choice realm," as the vice-president Gilary Massa put it.

Nothing unusual there. A distressing number of student groups are inimical to free speech these days. But then I saw a picture of the gung-ho abortion absolutist: Gilary Massa is a young Muslim woman covered in a hijab.

[Photo of Massa courtesy of revertmuslims.com]

It's all in the attitude. Every life has merit and is worth living. We mourn the loss of this fighter and express appreciation for her loving family. From the Associated Press, May 28:

Memphis, TN - A woman who spent nearly 60 years of her life in an iron lung after being diagnosed with polio as a child died Wednesday after a power failure shut down the machine that kept her breathing, her family said....

Dianne Odell, 61, had been confined to the 7-foot-long machine since she was stricken by polio at 3 years old.

Family members were unable to get an emergency generator working for the iron lung after a power failure knocked out electricity to the Odell family's residence....

"We did everything we could do but we couldn't keep her breathing," said [brother-in-law Will] Beyer, who was called to the home shortly after the power failed. "Dianne had gotten a lot weaker over the past several months and she just didn't have the strength to keep going."

Capt. Jerry Elston of the Madison County Sheriff's Department said emergency crews were called to the scene, but could do little to help.

Odell was afflicted with "bulbo-spinal" polio three years before a polio vaccine was discovered and largely stopped the spread of the crippling childhood disease.

She spent her life in the iron lung, cared for by her parents and other family members. Though confined inside the 750-pound apparatus, Odell managed to get a high school diploma, take college courses and write a children's book.

The iron lung that she used was a cylindrical chamber with a seal at the neck. She lay on her back in the device with only her head exposed, and made eye contact with visitors using an angled mirror above her head. The lung worked by producing positive and negative pressure on the lungs that caused them to expand and contract so that she could breathe.

Iron lungs were first used to sustain life in 1928, and were largely replaced by positive-pressure airway ventilators in the late 1950s. A spinal deformity from the polio made it impossible for Odell to wear a more modern, portable breathing apparatus, so she continued to use the older machine....

Odell was determined to live a full life - she earned a diploma from Jackson High School as a home-bound student and an honorary degree from Freed-Hardeman College. A voice-activated computer allowed her to write a children's book, Less Light, about Blinky, a tiny star who dreams of becoming a wishing star.

In a 2001 interview... she said she wanted to show children, especially those with physical disabilities, that they should never give up.

"It's amazing what you can accomplish if you see someone do the same thing," she said.

To the consternation of campus liberals, Portland State Students for Life in OR - spearheaded by our own commenter Nathan Sheets - last year displayed the poster above (click to enlarge) to commemorate the African-American community's aborted dead during Black History Month.

The comments stirred by my post yesterday, "Planned Parenthood takes bucks to abort blacks," resulted in an interesting find.

Pro-abort FetusFascist linked to a Centers for Disease Control stat she thought scored a point for her side....

African Americans are the second fastest-growing demographic in the US. Where is this genocide?

Our resident statistician, moderator Valerie, responded by first thanking FF for locating a table for which she had been searching for weeks. She then used FF's link to refute:

If you compare from 1960 to today you will see the genocide.

[JLS note: "rate" is number of births per 1,000 women.]

1960 black birth rate is 38.9
1965 black birth rate is 32.9
1970 black birth rate is 26.5
1975 black birth rate is 19.5
1980 black birth rate is 19.7

I think you get the point here. Today the black birth rate is 15.7.

This is called the decline of a race.

Now when we add the rate of black abortion, which is 28 [number of abortions per 1,000 women], you got your genocide. [For CDC corroboration see bottom of table #9.]

Genocide anyone? The birth rate is lower than the abortion rate for blacks.

One other thing.

In 1990 the U.S. Census Bureau ranked Blacks as the largest minority in the US. Hispanics were 2nd.

In 2000 the U.S. Census ranked Blacks as 2nd largest minority.

Hispanics barely edged them out by .2%.

The sun is setting on Black Power, thanks to Abortion Power.

In response to my Down trodding post, about the controversy stirred earlier this week when University of North Carolina professor Albert Harris told his embryology class that babies with Down syndrome should be aborted, documentary film maker Bonnie Burt emailed him an offer:

I have recently completed a film about a couple, both born with Down syndrome... [and] would like to offer your university a free screening of.... Strong Love....

Please let me know if you are interested in previewing this film. I think it will help along the discussion that Professor Harris started. It might be of interest to your students.

Synopsis of the movie, from its website:

Strong Love is the story of world-class weight lifter Jon Shapiro and his childhood sweetheart Holly James, both of whom were born with Down syndrome. This documentary follows the couple over the course of three years, starting with their decision to get married. Their challenges, their triumphs, and their complex, sometimes surprising relationships with family and friends are at the heart of this inspiring film.

Bonnie has just posted an excerpt from Strong Love on YouTube. I just watched it a second time and cried a second time. I pity people who view those with Down syndrome as a liability on this earth rather than a much needed ambassadors of pure and unconditional love.

I'm thrilled this incident created flak and made the news, indicating more sensitivity to the issue of eugenic abortions. From the Associated Press, today:

Comments by a University of North Carolina professor about Down syndrome has angered several students in his class.

Albert Harris told his embryology class on Monday he thinks fetuses with Down syndrome should be aborted. He says he's made the comment many times before.

But senior Lara Frame of Charlotte said the classroom was no place for Harris to express his opinion. Frame's brother has Down syndrome and she said Harris' comments made her physically ill....

Several students in the class said they didn't think the professor's comments were inappropriate.

Harris said he wouldn't follow his own moral position. His wife, then 34, was pregnant with their third child when she suffered major bleeding. Doctors told the couple to prepare for the worst. He said if the child had been born with Down syndrome, he and his wife would have cherished it.

Sounds like major back-peddling to me. Harris thinks Down's babies should be hunted down and aborted, yet he wouldn't?

Email Professor Harris your thoughts on his eugenic beliefs at akharris@bio.unc.edu.

[HT: moderator Valerie]

By: Mary Kay Hastings

I found this quote and thought it was rather interesting, considering the posts that we have put up over the last week and a half.

Not only have I continued to follow your work with loving admiration and expect ever greater results from your beneficence, I have also known of Nehru's statesmanlike interest in birth-control, and now I behold you and him and Lady Rama Rau working together -- a triple Hercules -- for the deliverance of a land long-cursed with excess of population. I cannot imagine anything more blessed happening on earth. As you teach, mankind has, through ignorance, often destroyed the sweet joy of childhood. Now a tide of enlightenment, slow but sure, shall lift its healing waves from one end of the world to the other until every child has a chance to be well born, well fed and fairly started in life -- and that is woman's natural work as the creator of the human race. Affectionately I salute you, Margaret Sanger, as the prophet and the woman Prometheus of humanity's highest physical and mental welfare....

We had a mother and father fighting over "putting their daughter down like a dog" because she couldn't feed herself,a husband shooting his wife to put her out of his misery, a mother aborting her child because it had down's syndrome and was "contaminating" her body, 66 babies born alive in England where they attempted, but failed, to abort them for things as horrifying as *gasp* cleft palettes and clubbed feet, ending with a mother who tried to abort her baby at 24 weeks because it was blind.

These were all stories about people with handicaps. And the family members they tried to kill.

How many people is too many? What criteria is required to get a "pass" and be allowed to be born? Who is "worthy"? Who is not? Who gets to decide?

Reminds me of a Christmas song I used to know about a doll that was dropped, broken and in for repair:

Are my ears on straight?
Is my nose in place?
Do I have a cute expression on my face?
Are my blue eyes bright?
Do I look alright?
To be taken home Christmas day.

Perhaps we should make the contents of a womens' uterus take a test before allowing them to be born. You know, questions like, Are you now or have you ever been deaf? Are you now or are you planning on becoming bi-polar? Do you have all ten toes and do your feet point the right way? Can you carry a tune?

". . . Margaret Sanger, as the prophet and the woman Prometheus of humanity's highest physical and mental welfare."

The person quoted above seems to have felt very strongly that only the highest of physical and mental standards should be met when "gestating fetuses".

Who is it that uttered these words of adulation for a woman that believes, "We are failing to segregate morons who are increasing and multiplying . . . a dead weight of human waste . . .an ever-increasing spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all.”?

None other than, former fetus, Helen Keller.

Even though she was a deaf blind woman who was a role model for millions, Helen Keller supported euthanasia of babies with severe disabilities.

Abortion-Survivor Finds a Home: John XXIII Community Welcomes Baby Girl

Rome, February 8, Zenit.org: A 15-month-old girl whose parents tried to abort her because she is blind, but survived the procedure, has been adopted by a John XXIII Community household in Rome.

The community announced in a Feb. 2 press conference that the baby was diagnosed with an eye condition that blinded her, and her parents opted for abortion. But the pregnancy was already in the 22nd week, and the baby was born alive. Doctors, following Italian law, thus tried to save her and succeeded....

She weighed only 562 grams (1.2 pounds) and had to have a heart operation when she was ten days old. She had a brain hemorrhage, various infections and respiratory problems.

Her birth parents chose to give her up for adoption.

Now she is 15 months old and weighs 13 pounds; she has been with her new family for eight months.

The mother of the community calls her a splendid child and says she is full of life. Though she was expected to be in the "vegetative state" after her experience, her new family affirms that she sucks her thumb, laughs and interacts with those who come to visit her.

Her desire to live is contagious, her new mother said, and everyone who meets her wants to return to see her again.

During the press conference, other mothers shared stories about the pressure to abort and the decision to carry to term children prenatally diagnosed with an infirmity.

The John XXIII Community also announced that it is preparing a legislative proposal on the protection of life and maternity, "to give the pregnant woman the possibility of finding protection and reporting those who propose to kill their children, or induce them to abort with blackmail or deceit."

HatTip: Jasper

by Bethany Kerr

I never am more disgusted than when I read an article like this.

Katherine Mobey, 38, explains in great detail her eugenic reasoning behind her decision to kill her first child, who through no fault of his/her own, was imperfect, having Down's Syndrome, and exomphalos, which can much of the time be corrected with surgery.

From You Magazine:

Neil and I had been married less than a year when, in 2001, I discovered I was expecting. We were so ecstatic, we immediately went out and bought three more tests - just to be sure. The routine 12-week scan gave us the first sight of our baby and all appeared to be well.

Katherine explains about the day she found that the baby may have Down's Syndrome:

As I walked on to the street, I was physically sick. It had been such a shattering experience. Driving home, I realized my relationship with my baby had changed. Every pregnant woman wants the little person growing inside her to be perfect - but my dreams had turned into a fearful vision.

....We didn't know what its life expectancy would be or what medical treatment it would need, but we did know that we would not be able to cope with a severely disabled child.

Going ahead with the pregnancy wasn't even up for discussion. Neil stayed strong and made all the necessary arrangements.

She explains how the abortion procedure went:

The first step was to take drugs that block the pregnancy hormones and stop the baby's heart beating. I was booked to return a couple of days later for the abortion itself.

I couldn't see what was going on around me, but I was aware of healthy babies being born nearby. A pessary was inserted to bring on contractions and I was moved into a delivery room.

Mum sat on one side of me, knitting, Neil rubbed my feet and I had gas and air and some pethidine to ease the pain. I was told the labour would take up to 16 hours; in the event, it was only six. The midwife had asked me at the outset whether I would want to see the baby< when it was born.

My reaction had been, "Oh God, no."

I know a lot of people name and cuddle their baby.

But I couldn't do it -hold the dead and deformed being that had been inside me. I never even found out the sex, although I have always thought of it as a girl. In the years since, I have struggled hugely with the way I rejected my baby. I know it was a dreadfully unmotherly thing to do.

Well, no kidding. What was her first clue?

Here comes one of the most disturbing statements (to me) from Katherine's story:

Afterwards --and I know this will sound bizarre-- we were elated. Mum and Neil were saying, 'Well done,' and relief flooded over me. For Mum, it had meant losing a grandchild, but she was totally supportive of our decision -- her priority throughout was me.

So far, we have Katherine, her mother, who knits contentedly, her husband rubbing Katherine's feet, while Katherine's lies in envy of others with "healthy babies", all while she is in the process of paying someone to tortuously murder her own baby.

Not only this, but once the deed is done, all of them congratulate themselves on a job "well done". Sickening!

Here are the emotions that Katherine says she had to deal with after killing her child who was not perfect:

There were ... conflicting emotions that I had to deal with.

First, the guilt at having rejected my baby was foremost and overwhelming. Second, I was battling with a massive sense of failure - I am the third of four children, my elder brother and sister each had two healthy children, and my younger sister Pippa had just announced she was pregnant.
....
My third irrational but very real feeling was that my body had been contaminated by having a sickly child in my womb

Of all the despicable things that a mother can say about her own child, this tops them all. The baby "contaminated" her, because he was not "normal".

Oh but never fear! Katherine is able to find great comfort in the fact that her body was able to "decontaminate" itself from the gruesome ugliness that apparently is a Down's Syndrome child, when she delivers a "perfect" baby girl later on.

.... I was pushing and pushing to try for another baby, and after eight months, I fell pregnant with our daughter, Honor.

The pregnancy was fine, and tests showed nothing untoward, but that didn't stop me having panic attacks. My life was consumed by the baby "project".

When Honor was born, I couldn't quite believe my 'contaminated' body had produced a healthy baby.

....'I no longer feel like a failure. Having my daughter proved to me that my body isn't contaminated'....

I no longer feel a failure. I'm proud that I have such a lovely family.

Awww, how touching!

But the guilt, I realise now, I will have for ever. I pass Down's children on the street and think, 'I killed mine.'

I know they can be wonderfully loving. There is no escaping the reality of what I did, or the way I mentally rejected my baby. The hospital took photos, but I have never seen them, and it feels too late to go back there now.

*Cough* ...Mentally rejected? Mentally? *Cough*

Abortion can never be described as an easy option. I still cry as though mine were yesterday.

Why is that? Just a moment ago you were saying how pleased you were with the job "well done!", and how it was such a moment of relief for you! Why would that make you cry?

And yet I remain certain that, for us, it was the right decision.

What other "right decision" does one cry and obsess about every day and night? Really.

by Mary Kay Hastings

Brent Rooney makes the case that since no studies were ever done of abortions on animals, performing them on people is a clear cut case of "human experimentation." Coincidentally, these "experiments" are being done primarily on black and Hispanic women:

"Suction" abortion (VAA, Vacuum Aspiration Abortion) performed on Black American women and Hispanic-American women is EXPERIMENTAL UNPROVEN surgery, since there are zero published animal studies demonstrating safety from risks of future premature births, mammary (breast) cancer, etc.

On 16 January 2008, Dr. Sharon Camp, President of the research arm of Planned Parenthood (AGI, Alan Guttmacher Institute) admitted in an email to me that AGI could find no published animal 'suction' abortion study.

It is an ethical scandal that "suction" abortions were performed on humans before safety
validation via published animal studies.

Margaret Sanger would be proud. Reading on:

In 2004 Black American Women had 38.2% of all U.S. abortions, according to CDC (Centers for Disease Control) data.

Since Black Women only represent about 13% of the U.S. female population, 38.2% means that Black American Women had 4.1 times the IA (Induced Abortion) rate as the non-black U.S.
population in 2004.

According to a 2007 study of Missouri women, Blacks have 3.7 times the risk of extremely pre-term birth (under 28.0 weeks' gestation).

So where's the harm?

These findings are backed by what Rooney calls "the Polish anti-experiment":

When Poland passed extreme restrictions to IA (induced abortion) access into law in 1989, government officials did not know that they were conducting an "anti-experiment."

Opponents to the new law predicted dire results for women's health. Between 1989 and 1993, Poland's IA rate per 1000 births plummeted by 98%. Between 1995 and 1997, dramatic trends occurred (according to United Nations data):

25.0% decline in infant mortality

This Polish "miracle" was documented in the Winter issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons via the Rooney/Johnston letter.

posted at 4:00 PM | Comments (17)

February 6, 2008
Cleft palette/club foot = death penalty

by Steven Ertelt

From LifeNews.com, February 4:

A report from Britain shows that 66 babies were born alive on one year alone after abortions done with public money under the nation's health care system

The British National Health Service says women were given drugs to soften their cervix and had labor induced to birth the child so prematurely that there is no way to provide enough care for the child to live.

After birth, the babies received no medical care or attention, the report indicated....

According to the Evening Standard newspaper, the babies in these abortions mostly involved unborn children who suffered from severe physical or mental disabilities, some of which may have been life-threatening.

However, the newspaper said the report showed some of the babies had very minor issues such as a club foot or cleft palate that could easily be repaired with surgery after birth.

Half of the babies survived for an hour or more and one infant breathed without medical help for ten hours before dying.

After nurse Jill Stanek discovered staff at a Chicago hospital left babies to die after such live birth abortions, Congress passed and President Bush signed a bill to ensure that any infant who survives an abortion must be given appropriate medical care.

[HT: Mary Kay Hastings]

posted at 3:05 PM | Comments (45)

August 30, 2007
Today's abortion Nazis and their selective breeding

I linked to this story last week. Didn't know the details. And the Vatican is absolutely right. If you don't think so, explain.

From the Herald Sun, today:

A botched abortion of a fetus instead of its Down syndrome twin has prompted the Vatican to compare abortion to the Nazis' selective breeding practices....

Italy was embroiled in a bitter ethical dispute yesterday after it emerged that a surgeon had accidentally terminated the wrong fetus while trying to abort its Down syndrome twin.

The operation on a 38-year-old woman 18 weeks into her pregnancy was performed at the San Paolo hospital in Milan in June but has only just come to light.

The fetus who had Down syndrome was also subsequently aborted.

Weighing into the controversy, the Vatican said aborting a Down syndrome child was the result of a culture of perfection resembling Nazi eugenics....

The gynaecologist who performed the Milan abortion, said the woman, who has not been named, requested the abortion after an amniocentesis test.

The doctor, Prof Anna Maria Marconi, said her conscience was clear.

She said the identical fetuses had moved in the womb between the last scan and the operation.

Hospital authorities backed Prof Marconi, calling the botched abortion a "misfortune".

The mother, who has a small son, said that her life had been ruined.

She told Corriere della Sera: "Neither my husband nor I can sleep at night."...

Her husband said they were truly desperate over the terrible mistake and were consulting lawyers....

The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said: "No one has the right to suppress another life and take the place of God for any motive whatever."

The newspaper said selective abortion amounted to eugenics that stemmed from a culture of perfection....

The mistaken abortion was the latest error to prompt debate about the standards of Italy's hospitals as well as its abortion law.

In March, a fetus aborted in the 22nd week of pregnancy at a Florence hospital because of suspected deformities was found to be physically sound.

Circa 1938, this poster reads: "60,000 Reichsmarks is what this person suffering from hereditary defects costs the community during his lifetime. Fellow German, that is your money, too," according to Wikipedia.

It promoted the Nazi T4 program, first a voluntary then forced euthanasia program targeting the mentally and physically disabled. The gas chambers at Tiergartenstrasse 4, the villa in Berlin where this eugenics program was carried out, became models for the Jewish death camps.

Death camps. Pro-aborts hate it when we call abortion mills death camps.

posted at 8:54 AM | Comments (114)

May 16, 2007
Natural death: "anti-choice propaganda"

Last week you'll recall I excerpted a story from Tribune Newspapers about a mother who completed the pregnancy of her anencephalic baby and was able to spend 35 minutes with him after delivery until he died.

It was a touching story that received several comments, including one from an aunt of the baby and two from other mothers who delivered anencephalic babies.

Well, it turns out the story was planted as part of an anti-abortion conspiracy plot to bolster support for the Partial Birth Abortion Ban, as this May 11 letter to the editor revealed....

VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

Published May 11, 2007

Anti-choice leaning

This is in response to "35 minutes to live, feel love; Jessica and Dave Weatherford knew Zeke's time on Earth would be mere moments; His birth would be filled with warmth and caring" (News, May 3). I feel great sympathy for the Weatherfords and what they went through with the recent birth and death of their baby, but the Tribune's decision to print their story on Page 3 was pure anti-choice propaganda. It was not even news.

The events described in the story occurred on March 6, almost two months ago, and the writer did not even bother to tell us that until the 23rd paragraph.

Coming just two weeks after the Supreme Court's decision in the partial-birth abortion ban case, publishing this story clearly shows the Tribune's bias against the choice to terminate a pregnancy.

Daniel Jordan, Evanston

Just so you know.

BTW, one of the papers in the Tribune group is the Los Angeles Times.

posted at 6:52 PM | Comments (16)

May 15, 2007
Solo leg salsa

This amazing video, new up on YouTube, has nothing to do with our topic either, except to celebrate physical diversity.

[Hat tip: Andrew]

posted at 8:53 AM | Comments (5)

May 10, 2007
99 balloons

Eliot Hartman Mooney
July 20, 2006 - October 27, 2006

"God gives. God takes. God's name be ever blessed."
~ Job 1:21

Matt and Ginny Mooney's blog is here.

[Hat tip: Dawn Patrol via Br. Francis]

posted at 4:13 PM | Comments (112)

May 9, 2007
Down's and out

Aborting babies with Down syndrome is a topic close to me, since, as most of you know, holding one such live aborted baby propelled me into the pro-live movement eight years ago.

The New York Times reported today on a movement to curtail the huge percentage - 90% - of mothers aborting babies with DS. I'm glad about that, though, of course, the NYT had to apply a liberal slant.

Blogger Sherry W. at Intentional Disciples did a great job of dissecting the article....

The new push for universal testing for Down syndrome is having an entirely predictable outcome: 90% of parents choose to abort.

The result: there are only about 350,000 individuals with Down syndrome in the country today, less institutional support, less research, and a lonelier world. As one father put it: "How much more hostile will the environment be if there are fewer people with Down syndrome?"

The parents of Down syndrome children are organizing and fighting back:

They are offering expecting parents a chance to meeting their children and hearing their experiences before they make a decision.

The Times calls them "parent evangelists". Indeed.

The Times carefully portrays a large number of these parent advocates as "pro choice" and not religiously motivated, because, you know, not being religiously neutral on this subject would be bad. It is very poignant to hear one mom described her motivation as possibly "selfish."

Others admit freely to a selfish motive for their new activism. "If all these people terminate babies with Down syndrome, there won't be programs, there won't be acceptance or tolerance," said Tracy Brown, 37, of Seattle, whose 2-year-old son, Maxford, has the condition. "I want opportunities for my son. I don't know if that's right or wrong, but I do."

But love for their children has enabled these carefully neutral parents to grasp one essential thing: "Some see themselves as society's first line of defense against a use of genetic technology that can border on eugenics. 'For me, it's just faces disappearing,' said Nancy Iannone, of Turnersville, N.J., mother to four daughters, including one with Down syndrome."

George Will calls it "a search and destroy mission". (Will is father of an adult Down sydrome man named Jon. Jon was born in 1972, the year before Roe v. Wade).

This is a work that pro life advocates should get behind in a heart-beat.

I would add that while doctors in the NYT article protested there is no arm-twisting of expectant parents to abort handicapped babies, I constantly hear the opposite. Insurance companies favor aborting these kids, too, since doing so cuts their costs.

The NYT has two compelling videos accompanying this story here and here.

Quote from story to consider:

But as prenatal tests become available for a range of other perceived genetic imperfections, they may also be heralding a broader cultural skirmish over where to draw the line between preventing disability and accepting human diversity.

[Hat tip: Kathy O.]

posted at 1:24 PM | Comments (304)

April 2, 2007
Run didn't run to abortion

The third season of MTV's reality show Run's House, which begins April 9, will feature a poignant episode.

Rev. Run Simmons, 42, was a founding member and lead vocalist of the '80s rap group Run-DMC and is now a preacher. He and his wife of 12 years, Justine, 43, are parents to five children, ages 10-23. The oldest three are from Run's first marriage.

The cliffhanger ending of season two was Rev. Run's announcement Justine was pregnant. What viewers will learn in season three is the baby, born September 26, 2006, and named Victoria Anne, died two hours after she was born.

They will also learn Run and Justine were told midway through her pregnancy the baby had a birth defect, omphalocele, which causes abdominal organs to grow outside the body. The Simmons opted not to abort....

Read their story in People.

Having become involved in the pro-life movement by learning the hospital where I worked as a nurse aborted handicapped babies, I am particularly touched by this sort of story.

I have spoken with mothers who aborted handicapped babies. They did it to alleviate a few months of their own suffering, so they thought, or to alleviate their own baby's suffereing, so they thought. They now are living a lifetime of hell with the knowledge they killed their own handicapped child.

On the other hand, I have never met a mother who regretted carrying her handicapped baby to term, whether that baby lived a few minutes or became a lifelong member of the family. Everybody who cares for such people are better for it.

To condone killing preborn handicapped babies is to simply condone killing imperfect people.

Between seasons two and three, Rev. Run told AOL News how he understood his show's purpose" "It's my nature to want to be a dad. It's fun to me. I don't know if it comes this easy to everybody, but it's deeply embedded into me by God. I think that my ministry as far as what I'm doing now - my television show is a family show. I think that's what I'm here for - to be an example in many ways, an instrument for God. He created me as an instrument and as long as I yield, He'll blow His breath through me and I'll be the flute."

Rev. Run and Justine have demonstrated they are the greatest of parents by loving a child many would consider unlovable, inconvenient, or too painful. What a great example to the MTV generation.

[Family photo courtesy of AOL. Hat tip: Daena]

posted at 9:39 AM | Comments (75)

March 29, 2007
If only she had aborted

Associated Press, today:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Several thoughts.

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

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

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

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

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

[Photos courtesy of AP]

posted at 6:30 AM | Comments (26)