by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat

• Jonathan Kay on forced abortions in China:
  

  Canadians in particular might want to pay close attention. Here at home, liberals are hyper-sensitive to the passage of any abortion law, on the exaggerated fear that the prohibition of, say, third- or second-trimester abortions might set us down a slippery slope to a world in which abortion is outlawed completely, at any point in gestation. On such slippery-slope logic do we remain the only developed nation in the world where it is entirely legal to abort a fetus at any stage of development and viability, for any reason whatsoever — or no reason at all.

  The Linyi example shows us that the slippery-slope argument works the other way, too: Once abortion becomes widely available, commonly practiced, and state-sanctioned, citizens and government officials become jaded to the human reality of birth and procreation. Instead, the fetus is seen as an inanimate prop of social policy, to be terminated according to whim and expedience.

  Even a blind man could see that this is an evil path.

• A pro-choice candidate in Connecticut has gotten in trouble with NARAL for highlighting the absurdity of his own “personally pro-life, politically pro-choice” position by calling abortion “repugnant”:
  

  Andrew Roraback [pictured left] was invited to a Connecticut NARAL event Sunday, but language he used during a 5th District Republican debate may have gotten him uninvited.

  Roraback has said, and repeated during a Monday debate, that while he finds abortion “personally repugnant,” he remains pro-choice, and does not believe that the government should make that choice for women….

  “I’ve been standing up for a woman’s right to choose for 18 years and I will continue to do so as a member of congress,” Roraback said in response. “The fact that the procedure and what it entails is something that I would never wish to be a party to doesn’t diminish my conviction.”

• There are differing accounts of how the U.S. and China came to an agreement on Chen Guangcheng being moved from the U.S. Embassy:
  

  On Wednesday, after six days holed up inside the American embassy, he emerged and was taken to a nearby hospital. U.S. officials said they had extracted from the Chinese government a promise that Chen would reunite with his family and be allowed to start a new life in a university town.

  Hours later, however, a shaken Chen told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from his hospital room that U.S. officials told him the Chinese authorities would have sent his family back to his home province if he remained inside the embassy….

  Chen, 40, said he never asked to leave China or for asylum in the U.S. and said American officials reassured him they would accompany him out of the embassy. At the hospital, Chen was reunited with his wife, his daughter and a son he hasn’t seen in at least two years. But after they got to his room in Chaoyang Hospital, he said no U.S. officials stayed behind and that the family is now scared and wants to leave the country.

  “The embassy told me that they would have someone accompany me the whole time,” he said. “But today when I got to the ward, I found that there was not a single embassy official here, and so I was very unsatisfied. I felt they did not tell me the truth on this issue.”

[Photo via newstimes.com]

by LauraLoo

Meg Meeker, M.D., visited Family Life to discuss her newest book The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers.  Monday’s topic focused on peer pressure and motherhood, Tuesday’s topic focused on eliminating competition and today’s topic focuses on enjoying the simple life.

A wealth of information to use and to share with other moms!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NpXnnjuVX0[/youtube]

Email LauraLoo with your Lunch Break suggestions.

[HT: WMBI, Chicago]

Read my previous post on Chinese pro-life dissident Chen Guangcheng’s escape to the U.S. Embassy, where he has reportedly been holed up since April 22.

According to the Los Angeles Times this morning, an agreement has been reached between the U.S. and China that Guangcheng and his family, pictured below, will remain in his home country, as is his wish, with assurances they “can live a normal life,” including relocation to a “safe environment” and ability to attend university.

Now come harrowing details from Reggie Littlejohn of Women’s Rights without Frontiers, explaining exactly  how this blind man under house arrest made his way to freedom.

According to LAT, Guangcheng’s accomplice, He Peirong, mentioned in Littlejohn’s report and pictured right, is still missing, as is Chen’s nephew, Chen Kegui. Reading Littlejohn’s account, I’m struck by the obvious heroism of these people, trying to stop forced sterilizations and abortions. It is a sobering gut check. How much are we willing to sacrifice to stop abortions in America?

He Peirong is a petite woman with a spine of steel.  I know her because she spearheaded the movement to free Chen Guangcheng inside China, while I have played a similar role in the U.S. and Europe.  That’s where the similarity ends.  I have advocated for Chen in complete safety.  Peirong, however, has been beaten and detained repeatedly for this extremely dangerous undertaking.  Now, she is detained again, for rescuing Chen.

How did Chen escape?  The Chinese Communist Party clamped down on him as hard as it could.  His house was surrounded by 66 guards working in three shifts – 22 guards every eight hours.  His village was sealed off by yet more guards.  His phone, computer and television were confiscated.  He was completely shut off from the outside world.  Plus he was sick and injured from all the beatings.

According to Peirong, Chen spent months on his back, pretending to be near death, so that his guards would relax their vigilance.  Then on April 22, with exquisite timing, he scaled a wall and ran for his life, taking several wrong turns and falling into a river because of his blindness.  Peirong drove 20 hours to meet Chen and fooled the village guards into letting her in.  She disguised herself as a courier.  Then she drove Chen another eight hours – still wet from his fall in the river – to safety in Beijing.  Their plan was so masterfully executed that the authorities did not realize Chen was gone for four days.

Once authorities discovered that Chen was missing, the reprisals began.  The Chinese Communist Party violently detained Chen’s older brother and nephew, and his wife, children and mother are at risk as well

As news of Chen’s escape was breaking, I skyped with Peirong on and off all Thursday night from Dublin, where I had testified about Chen at the Irish Parliament.  Peirong was alone and worried – about Chen and his family, and about her own safety.  Peirong knew that the price of securing Chen’s freedom might be her own.

At about 5:00 a.m. Dublin time, I skyped Peirong one last time and she did not answer. She had been detained, and no one has heard from her since.   We don’t know if Peirong is being tortured or whether her detention will last days, months or years.

In pressing for Chen’s freedom, let us also press for the freedom of his rescuer, He Peirong, a hero in her own right.   She stood up for Chen during his time of greatest need.  The least we can do is stand by her as she pays a terrible price for her courage.

[Middle photo via LAT; bottom photo via Women’s Rights without Frontiers]

Click to enlarge…

Finally, I’m admittedly not a big fan of abortion (at least not as a tool of simple reproductive convenience – at least I’m glad my mother decided not to abort me), so I am trying to find ways to make this picture OK in my mind.

But let’s be clear: THIS PICTURE IS DISTURBING.

~ Dr. Boyce Watkins criticizing the “picture of a group of teen moms proudly sporting their baby bumps on Facebook,” News One, April 28

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.

• 40 Days for Life celebrates the cumulative results of this year’s campaign. 8 abortion workers left their jobs, 3 abortion clinics closed, and at least 883 babies were saved this year alone, bringing the total to nearly 6,000 saved since the movement began less than 5 years ago.
• Big Blue Wave reports that Pepsi has decided to no longer contract with Senomyx to use aborted human fetal kidney cells in its flavor enhancer testing.

• At Live Action, Lucy LeFever hammers on pro-choice hypocrisy with regard to informed consent laws. One woman is campaigning to provide iPods with music to women who undergo required ultrasound procedures before abortion so they can drown out the sound of their preborn children’s heartbeats:
  

  This recent action, as well as the entire debate over ultrasound laws, has blatantly highlighted the pro-choice movement’s obsession with drowning out truth. Rather than providing women with honest medical information, pro-choice advocates opt to conceal the facts. They wish to silence massacre with melody, blood with ballads, slaughter with song….

  Women should know what they’re getting when they walk into a crisis pregnancy center, abortion advocates cry. But when it comes to a life-altering medical procedure, the calls for clear information disappear and are even condemned when they come from the other side. It seems as though the values of truth and honest information matter only when they are encouraging abortion.

• Fletcher Armstrong shares Center for Bio-Ethical Reform director Gregg Cunningham’s BBC radio interview. Cunningham had originally been booked for a second program, but British Pregnancy Advisory Service abortion providers scheduled for the debate bowed out, resulting in its cancellation. Cunningham concludes pro-lifers must make their case in the public square, thanks to media suppression.
• Abolitionist Society of OK has been posting its own non-graphic posters on the University of Oklahoma campus. Not surprisingly, they are usually removed within a day. Add this to the growing list of college campuses hostile to pro-life speech.
• After Abortion reposts an archived article recognizing how painful the celebration of Mother’s Day can be for post-abortive women.

• Down on the Pharm, though happy about the escape of blind forced abortion opponent Chen Guangcheng (pictured right), has concerns about the possible reaction of the Obama administration:
  

  The saddest difficulty is that he is unlikely to receive any aid or protection from the most pro abortion, U.S. government in history. Neither Obama nor Planned Parenthood oppose[s] forced abortion in China, or sex selective abortions enough to oppose either practice.

• Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life laments that the MN Medical Association “is going out of its way to oppose commonsense safety requirements… to protect an unfettered abortion industry.” The group opposes the requirement that abortion facilities be licensed as other ambulatory surgical treatment centers and that a physician be physically present when administering the RU-486 abortion pill. In the past they have also opposed informed consent requirements.
• Kansans for Life says that despite Kansas’ pro-choice media’s complaints about money being spent “on litigation to uphold pro-life laws enacted in 2011,” the real problem is that pro-choice attorneys are overbilling the taxpayers:
  

  At issue is a “windfall” for clinic attorneys – according to the State – including over $78,000 for ineligible legal work as well as using indefensible attorney rates of $400 per hour. All but one of the clinics’ attorneys lack ANY experience in this type of litigation, yet they charged nearly double what attorneys experienced in this specialty would charge – $225 per hour.

  State attorneys (including the office of Attorney General Derek Schmidt) demonstrated how the court is being wrongly asked to pay for over-billing at over-inflated rates, including 53.6 billable hours in one day and 22 hours to write a basic motion.

• Culture Campaign shares the reactions to Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant’s view on Democrats’ “one mission in life.” Abortion:

[Photos via guardian.co.uk, advocatenvooradvocaten.nl]

by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat

• Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton (predictably) vetoed another pro-life bill:
  

  Gov. Mark Dayton on Monday, April 30, vetoed bills requiring doctors to be present when abortion-inducing drugs are administered and creating a health care compact.

  The governor said he vetoed the abortion bill because it’s another attempt to place a regulatory burden on certain health procedures, existing options are safe and it intrudes on federal medicine and medical safety practices.

• The State of Alabama has shot down abortion clinic owner Diane Derzis’ laughable attempt to stay on as de facto owner:
  

  Lease documents submitted to the state in support of Ochata Management’s application indicated that the clinic’s current operator, Diane Derzis, would serve as landlord to the applicant, and would be paid the difference between the clinic’s overhead and income each month in lieu of rent. That arrangement would clearly violate the terms of the consent decree, Dr. W.T. Geary Jr., director of the Bureau of Health Provider Standards, wrote in a letter rejecting the application.

  “It is clear that this arrangement would allow Ms. Derzis to remain involved in the center’s financial affairs and to be entitled to all the profits from the continued operation of the center; it does not allow for the proposed new operator to independently operate the center,” Geary wrote.

• Judge Lee Yeakel (pictured left) has stayed a Texas law which would have prevented the funding of Planned Parenthood:
  

  U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel in Austin ruled there is sufficient evidence that a law banning Planned Parenthood from the state’s Women’s Health Program is unconstitutional. He imposed an injunction against enforcing it until he can hear full arguments. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott appealed Judge Yeakel’s decision to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, asking that it remove the injunction.

  Judge Jerry Smith then stayed Yeakel’s ruling so Texas won’t have to fund Planned Parenthood at this point:
  

  The ruling… reversed a lower court ruling Monday in favor of the family planning organization. The decision on Tuesday means the state is free for now to enforce a new rule banning Planned Parenthood from the Women’s Health Program, Texas officials said.

• South Carolina authorities are waiting on autopsy results to determine what additional charges to file against Aris Nichols after he stabbed his pregnant girlfriend in the neck:
  

  Brittney Jordan, 21, was several months pregnant when she was stabbed in the neck, police say.

  Aris Nichols, 39, is being held without bond in the Chester County jail on a single count of criminal domestic violence of a high and aggravated nature. Chester Police Chief Andre Williams said more charges are expected in the death of the unborn child….

  The unborn child, a boy, was named Tavaris Jordan, according to an obituary in Monday’s Herald. A graveside service is planned for today.

[Photo via utexas.edu]

by LauraLoo

Parents creatively let their daughter in on the secret – that she’s going to be a big sister.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQXTMPsOee0[/youtube]

Email LauraLoo with your Lunch Break suggestions.

[HT: Monte H]

You know something about that in Virginia; the kinds of nonsense that’s been going on…

When you have folks who are talking about not just constraining women’s reproductive health, but questioning things like contraception as part of our preventive care.

~ President Barack Obama, commenting at a “fundraiser jointly headlined with former President Bill Clinton at the home of Terry McAuliffe, … former chairman of the Democratic National Committee,” as quoted by The Washington Post, April 30

[Photo via The Blaze]