by LauraLoo

What’s more impressive than winning a third-straight Olympic gold medal?  Winning it while five weeks pregnant!  That’s what American beach volleyball champ Kerri Walsh Jennings did during the London Olympics.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8cCAGJ_HF0[/youtube]

Congratulations!

Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.

[HT:  Anne Marie]

Last night while researching my “Pro-life princess bride” post, I had an odd email exchange with blogger Marlene at Royal Musings.

Marlene had some pictures posted of Katie Walker’s wedding I thought I might like to use.

According to Fair Use trademark law I know I can post most photos, even copyrighted, as long as I give proper attribution and follow certain guidelines. I even have an ADF attorney on stand-by who specializes in trademark law, and who intervenes when I get emails ordering me to cease and desist, such as I did for the photos on this post, and this one.

But Marlene was so over-reactionary in the protection of her photos, I thought I would drop her a courtesy request, particularly since she seemed to indicate she would grant permission if only asked. Marlene’s response to my request:

I hope you will understand that I cannot agree to allow my photos to be used on your blog.   Please also do not even put a link as my views differ from yours …

This hit me the wrong way. The only reason Marlene was denying my request to post Katie’s wedding photos was because I, like Katie, oppose murdering preborn children?

I responded by explaining to Marlene that I didn’t really need her permission, but whatever, since she went there, let’s discuss the topic of our differences. “How’s this for a photo?” I snipped, attaching this:

Marlene responded:

[A]s a practicing and devout Lutheran, I do not appreciate your anti-Christian comments.   I have no interest in Katie Walker’s political views. I write about royalty, and have for years.

Your blog is not about royalty.  My photos are about royalty. I would ask you to respect my wishes.

Nowhere in my original email did I use the word abortion or anything else.

The first two photos are the last photos of my beloved Buddy who died at the age of 16 on August 8.  The third photo is of a very cute Buddy.

Have a great day .. I shall pray for you to find Peace

Now I hadn’t mentioned anyone’s Christianity in my response to Marlene, and the subject of cats hadn’t entered into the conversation either. And what could “my views differ from yours” mean if not that her views differed from mine on abortion, so much so that she didn’t want me to even link to her blog?

Animals are fine, but Marlene seemed to be saying 1) she was a good person because she loved animals; 2) her cat was more important than an aborted baby.

I responded:

I have no idea what you are speaking about in regard to “anti-Christian” comments. Furthermore, being Lutheran does not make you a Christ follower. I worked as an RN for a hospital that was affiliated with the ELCA [Evangelical Lutheran Church of America], which I’m guessing is your denomination, and that denomination supported aborting babies alive and letting them die in a hospital soiled utility room with no medical attention whatsoever. Find in your Bible where this is something Jesus would condone.

Marlene wrote back:

I offered you a great option.  I gave you the website of the official wedding photographer, whose photos are a lot better than mine….

How come you do not fight to stop hunger in this country or make sure every child has decent housing.   ASll

If your blog was about chocolate chip cookies, I would not allow the request.  I have sold the photo to three sources.  I am a widow, and I am 2 years older than you.    The only bias is that your blog is not about royalty.  I could care less about your views.  Really.

To paraphrase Mrs. Patrick Campbell, I don’t care what people do as long as they don’t do it in the streets and frighten the horses … and Moliere wrote in the Misanthrope (Tony Harrison translation):  Best leave the sins of others well alone, until you made some headway of your own.”

Or my favorite:  Sin boldly, but love God more Boldly still.

You did not even acknowledge my photos.  I have enclosed more … Buddy was such a cute kitten.  Don’t you think….

http://www.gofundme.com/Buddys-vet-bill

This has nothing whatsoever to do with your views.  No interest in that.   You do not write about royalty.

Why are you so angry?…

Enjoy my photos, and think about how wonderful it is to be loved by pets and to care for pets …. animals are among the greatest of all of God’s gifts.

There is so much wrong with Marlene’s rationalizing brain I don’t know where to begin.

And no, I hadn’t said, “What a cute cat,” but Marlene didn’t acknowledge the photo of the aborted baby  either.

And so I got more pictures of Buddy, along with one of baseball mascots…

In the end, Marlene was right. There were wedding photos out there better than hers.

I met Katie Walker several years ago when she was communications director for American Life League. She moved on in 2011 to the same position at Catholic Charities for the Diocese of Arlington.

Meanwhile, Katie’s personal life took a storybook turn.

In October 2010 Katie attended a lecture at St. Mary Mother of God Church in Washington, D.C., about Blessed Karl of Austria, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary from 1916-18 (known as “Charles I“).

Blessed Karl was beatified in 2004 by Pope John Paul II for “putting his Catholic faith first in making political decisions,” and “being the only one among political leaders to support Benedict XV’s peace efforts” during World War I. Blessed Karl died in exile and poverty at the age of 34.

The lecture Katie attended was given by Blessed Karl’s grandson, His Imperial Royal Highness Archduke Imre of Austria. Katie is said to have a devotion for Blessed Karl’s wife, Queen Zita, an exemplary wife and mother, who is herself undergoing the beatification process.

And the rest, as they say, is history. The couple both 24 at the time, fell in love. And on September 8, 2012, they were married at the church where they met. LifeSiteNews.com has more on the wedding, as does The Washington Post. Here’s a nice photo montage by LSN…

http://www.flickr.com//photos/54145737@N04/sets/72157631582884767/show/

See more photos here.

Katie’s title is now Her Imperial and Royal Highness Archduchess Kathleen of Austria. Katie is beautiful inside and out and will be a treasure to her husband’s family.

As for any official royal role, Austria is now a republic, with a president and chancellor. Imre is the second child and oldest son of Princess Marie-Astrid of Luxembourg and Archduke Carl-Christian of Austria, a member of the imperial family but far from succession to a throne with no reign.

But still!

The couple is honeymooning in India.

[Top photo via hola.com; bottom photo via tageblatt.lu]

She is also vocal about her support for abortion rights after her own experience with unplanned pregnancies. Her first pregnancy with her boyfriend-turned-husband resulted in her daughter, Tracy.

Her second, following her second marriage and divorce to Hollywood director Rob Reiner, resulted in an abortion.

“I’m pro-choice. But I’m glad that there was no choice back then, because I have a wonderful daughter and three grandchildren,” she said.

~ Hollywood director/producer/actress Penny Marshall, pictured above wearing the “L” with Cindy Williams from their Laverne & Shirley days, in an interview with Reuters, September 20

Pregnancy care centers give legs to the pro-life movement, walking the walk.

When abortion proponents accuse us, as they inevitably do, of not caring for children after they are born, we can point to the 4,000 pregnancy care centers across the United States (compared to less than 1,000 abortion clinics).

Pregnancy care centers need all the help we can give them. Here are some new ways to provide them with important tools…

Bella

To date at least 580 babies are known to have been saved from abortion thanks to the acclaimed pro-life movie, Bella.

Now Movie to Movement is making a special offer to help  get this life-saver into every pregnancy care center. For $10, you will get a dvd for yourself, and another copy will be sent FREE to a pcc. Check out details here.

Eggsploitation and Anonymous Fathers Day

The Center for Bioethics and Culture is making the same offer.

Order a copy of either Eggsploitation and/or Anonymous Father’s Day for yourself for $10 each, and CBC will send a copy FREE to your local pcc, church, or library.

Email info@cdc-network.org.

All three of these movies have won major film festival awards and are excellent.

Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer

You don’t have to google long to see that the abortion lobby wants nothing more than to crush information that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer, accusing pregnancy care centers in particular of making this “false claim.”

Now the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer has prepared two powerpoint presentations specifically for pccs:

What NARAL and Planned Parenthood Don’t Tell Women:
Biological Reasons for the Abortion-Breast Cancer Link

Click here to download and view presentation I
Click here to download the related worksheet for presentation I

Why the U.S. National Cancer Institute Isn’t Reliable:
The Tobacco Analogy

Click here to download and view presentation II
Click here to download the related worksheet for presentation II

by Susie Allen, host of the blog, Pro-Life in TN and Kelli

We welcome your suggestions for additions to our Top Blogs (see tab on right side of home page)! Email Susie@jillstanek.com.

• Live Action says a settlement has been reached in the case of an Ohio Planned Parenthood which failed to report the repeated sexual abuse of a minor girl by her own father – even after she reported that he had fathered the child she was aborting.
• Culture Campaign reports the sad news that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists “now recommends that post-pubescent girls be made unable to conceive using IUD or implanted birth control because children do poorly at managing other contraceptives that rely on proper usage.”

• Big Blue Wave links to an interview with Martin Hudá?ek, creator of the sculpture (pictured left) entitled, “The Child Who Was Never Born.”
• Megan of Life Training Institute reinforces the fact that despite what some groups may claim, there really is no middle ground on abortion:
  

  For the sake of clear thinking and decision making, we need to carefully consider the rhetoric and make some important distinctions. What is meant by the term “abortion?” What are the issues that touch the abortion issue? Are there limits out of which we must not step? What is the most human response?

  Philosopher Christopher Kaczor defines abortion this way: “Properly speaking, abortion is the intentional killing of a human fetus.”

  His terms are carefully chosen and scientifically accurate. Working with this definition, either abortion is morally permissible, or it is not.

• FRC Blog comments on the impact same sex divorce has on the children brought into the arrangement via “adoption, artificial reproductive technology, or one partner’s previous heterosexual relationship. When the relationship breaks up, who has a claim to the child: biological parent, donor or surrogate, or adoptive same-sex partner? What about the same-sex partner who never adopted the child because the other biological parent would not release his or her rights – or the partner’s new boyfriend or girlfriend, who is helping raise the child?”

• Ethika Politika takes exception to bumper sticker slogans (like the one at right) which assert that politics and religion should remain separate:
  

  The two main (assumed) premises of the bumper sticker don’t stand up to scrutiny. First, if religion stayed out of government, then political life would rarely, if ever, actually lead to violence. It doesn’t take an extensive study of history for more than 30 seconds to realize that this attitude is simply not the case: government and ideology can do quite a fine job on their own compeling [sic] the state to act in a violent manner towards the world. The second is that the mixture of religion and politics leads to people burning at the stake. Or at the least, nothing good comes of that. Ponder that on Martin Luther King, Jr. day.

• Stacey of Accepting Abundance writes about “life after 40,” sharing the news that she is expecting another child. Her philosophy? “If I can still have babies… then I can still have babies.”

• David Bereit of 40 Days for Life comments on the disruption and subsequent protests that occurred at his speaking engagement in Australia:
  

  While I was a bit surprised by the sudden barrage, I was saddened more than anything else. As I looked at the anger and hatred in the eyes of these young people, I realized that some of them had probably experienced the pain of abortion in their own lives.

by Hans Johnson

Here is a compilation of some of President Obama’s broken promises, including many on Obamacare:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWVL7TptQ24[/youtube]

Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.

[HT: Kelli]

On September 21 the Huffington Post published results of a new survey on contraceptive use. The most provocative find:

5. The pill is the most popular form of contraception. About 15 percent of women reported using the pill in the last 30 days, compared to 8 percent who said they used a male condom.

Note the spin. “The most popular for of contraception” is used only 15% of the time.

Another interesting find:

4. Forty-three percent of women who had been pregnant previously, had experienced at least one unintended pregnancy. Of those 43 percent, 50 percent said that their unintended pregnancies had occurred as the result of failed birth control (i.e. a ripped condom or not taking their birth control pill regularly).

In other words, contraceptives used in real time (not theory) have a 50% failure rate.

Aside from the fact the female public doesn’t like the Pill, and aside from the fact contraceptives have a dismal success rate, feminists and the abortion industry are currently pushing for pandemic distribution of free hormonal contraceptives because, they say,  it’s what women want and need to prevent unintended pregnancy.

Neither liberals nor the mainstream media nor the government stop to analyze the reality that contraceptives fail the hype. Instead we get this:

Bear in mind, the morning-after pill contains 2-10 times the dosage of female hormones as the birth control pill, and there are no long-term studies on the harm to adolescent girls, particularly with repeated use.

Liberals are all-organic, all-green, and anti-Big Pharma – except when it comes to hormonal contraception, in which case they turn a blind eye.

This is because the alternative to pushing contraceptives on the public is unthinkable, for three reasons:

1. The Pill was the cornerstone is the 1960s sexual revolution, and the hippies are now in charge of the country.
2. The Pill is lucrative, as is the back-up plan, abortion.
3. The only foolproof way to prevent pregnancy and STDs is by maintaining abstinence until marriage and then being faithful, a message that would be to admit Christian prudes were right and would also stop the gravy train.

Step back. In plain English hormonal contraceptives (which include the Pill, shots, and implants) contain artificial steroids taken on a daily basis over the course of decades that chemically alter a woman’s normal monthly menstrual cycle by overriding messages sent by the hypothalamus and pituitary gland, both located in the brain.

Does that sound healthy? We now know it’s not. Hormonal contraceptives increase a woman’s risk of fibroid tumors, ovarian cysts, heart attacks, strokes, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, infertility, liver tumors, yeast infections, and more; and they decrease her bone density and libido, and more. (And a new study shows the Pill increases the risk of staph infections, aside from the fact it offers no protection against STDs.)

Will we ever learn? It’s possible. It just depends on whether or not we’re sailing on the Contraceptive Titanic.