However, Ireland still does not fully respect the human rights of all people on its own territory and has yet to fully accept, let alone to implement, some of the core UN human rights instruments.
~ Mark Kelly, Director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, condemning the Irish government for once again rejecting UN pressure to legalize abortion, as quoted by InsideIreland.ie, March 15
I wrote yesterday that President Obama’s strategy to attract women voters with his HHS contraceptive mandate isn’t working. Both a New York Times/CBS poll and Bloomberg poll showed a huge drop in support among women for Obama since 2008.
Here’s more bad news. Another NYT/CBS poll, conducted March 7-11, shows 57% of Americans think religious affiliated employers should be allowed to opt out of mandated contraceptive coverage, even if misunderstanding the genesis of the controversy…
Also note 51% of those polled thought any employer should be able to opt out.
Apparently Americans are pro-choice on contraceptive coverage.
There has been a huge opinion shift on this issue in the last month. The numbers have almost reversed. Or perhaps it has to do with the framing of the question. A February 12 NYT/CBS poll showed 61% agreed that “religious employers [should] be required to cover contraception,” while 31% disagreed.
by Kelli
We welcome your suggestions for additions to our Top Blogs (see tab on right side of home page)! Email Susie@jillstanek.com.
The article’s author argues that the quality of life of such individuals, coupled with the monetary resources needed to care for them, should outweigh their right to life.
[O]nly four of 32 surgical abortion facilities in the state are currently licensed….In at least two instances in the last 10 years, the death of Michigan patients from abortion complications were not reported to the state….
Warning: Grossness and vulgarity ahead.
According to Wiki, band Xiu Xiu fits into the “post-punk, art rock, experimental rock, synth pop” genres.
A child of the 60s-70s, I’m open to this kind of music. I even found Deadmau5 ‘s Grammy performance fascinating.
But Xiu Xiu is simply creepy. For instance:
The music video for the song “Dear God, I Hate Myself” received negative attention online in 2010. The video consists of Angela Seo inducing vomiting over the course of the three minute song, culminating with her vomiting on [Jamie] Stewart, who has been eating a chocolate bar during the entire video.
I warned you. My heart breaks at how dark the other side can be.
Against that backdrop it should come as no surprise that one of the songs on Xiu Xiu’s new album is, “I Luv Abortion.” The backdrop, according to vomitee Stewart (pictured right):
A young friend of mine, who had gone through period of cutting herself eventually mailing me the knife which now sits on my recording desk, found herself still a teenager and pregnant. She knew that it was not time for her to be a parent to her future child but she could love him or her when it good for them both. She called this vanished baby “little jizzo”. It was so striking to me that she could have an abortion out of love. The song is also a big F*** YOU to the Right wing in America.
Message received. That aside, I did wonder whether the cutting began before or after the abortion. If I were a betting woman, I’d bet after.
It also surprised me to learn Stewart is 40. I would have guessed 20. Grow up, man.
At any rate, without further adieu, I give you, “I Luv Abortion.” It is truly satanic. You may want to follow along with the lyrics, because you’ll have a hard time understanding otherwise.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zws32OZ8RaM[/youtube]
Actually, aside from the line, “a hyena infected with rabies would give birth to you,” which I don’t quite understand, the lyrics contain many of the reasons the other side cites to abort – “the restrictions is gone… the worries is gone… when the time is right I will love you like I should… there are too many important things I can’t be for yooooou…” What’s the prob?
Well, according to Alyssa at ThinkProgress.org,:
T]he lyrics themselves are not exactly what even the most pro-choice of us would call on-message. I was really struck – and turned off by – the lines: “You are too good for this life / a hyena infected with rabies would give birth to you / there are too many important things i can’t be for yooooou.”
Now, I am all for people being able to control their reproductive health so they don’t get pregnant when they don’t want to be, and for them being able to have abortions or give children up for adoption if they feel they can’t raise children. Kids should be wanted. But comparing girls who do give birth to “a hyena infected with rabies”? That’s ludicrous and disgusting.
I may worry for teenagers who have babies. But the only right thing to hope for them and their children is that they get the support they need so their kids grow up healthy and they can become self-sustaining. Treating them like they’re animals, or pretending you’re superior for getting a medical procedure that is not always easily available, is no way to start that conversation.
Actually, the other side exerts a lot of energy messaging teens that crisis pregnancies only result in their being “punished with a baby,” meaning abortion is the superior decision.
SF Rebirth called the song “stomach churning” and belted out “in a truly disgusting retching voice between even more horrifying screams and wails.”
40ozRobot.com wrote the song was “sonically disturbing and absonant, mired in politics Xiu Xiu-style: uncomfortable, blatant, and at times tactless. All the product of Xiu Xiu’s master plan: to unearth and lay naked the human soul and the abhorrence therein.”
It seems to me the problem otherwise open-minded hipsters have with “I Luv Abortion” is the same problem pro-lifers have with it. The song indeed lays naked the abhorrence of abortion, in both word and presentation.
by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat
I love abortion. I don’t accept it. I don’t view it as a necessary evil. I embrace it.
I donate to abortion funds. I write about how important it is to make sure that every woman has access to safe, legal abortion services. I have bumper stickers and buttons and t-shirts proclaiming my support for reproductive freedom. I love abortion.
For the doctor, her faith is “an important part of my life I think it still helps me find balance and determine what actions to take. I do feel like I have a calling for certain things, including the work I do, and that comes from my faith and my beliefs.”
A calling from God to rip innocent human beings limb for limb?
As MSU learned it would be heading to Wichita… to play Northern Iowa in the first round of the NCAA tournament, Johnson learned something, too.
“It wasn’t fatigue,” she said. “That’s when I first found out.”
She found out she was pregnant, and had been pregnant for most of the season, including when she had 16 points and 17 rebounds against Ohio State in February and 24 points and 12 rebounds against Penn State. The pregnancy – former MSU men’s player Delvon Roe was the father – was a shocking surprise.
WaPo also has an interview with a local Planned Parenthood leader about the defunding and PP’s plans to cut corners.
A man who admitted to strangling his pregnant girlfriend, killing her and her 4-month-old fetus, was sentenced Wednesday to 25 years to life in state prison.
Michael LaBrunda pleaded guilty to both first-degree murder for killing 21-year-old Alisha Chapman of Westminster on Oct. 10, 2007, and second-degree murder for killing the fetus, Los Angeles County prosecutors said.
If the effort to limit the contraceptive mandate were truly a frontal assault on women, a majority of them would not be endorsing the offensive. But the ideology of groups like Planned Parenthood and the National Organization for Women (NOW) sometimes ignores inconvenient gender realities.
Those advocates have been distracted from a different and far less figurative war on women — which, as it happens, is helped rather than hindered by one of the “reproductive rights” they champion.
Legal abortion may empower women, but it has also become a powerful method for the mass elimination of females.
Sometimes our employers tend so much to the “business” part of our business, that they forget the heart of it. They forget that without passion, without advocacy, without caring for more than the bottom line (and without having employees who do, to their core, have these qualities), they will have a very cold business. They will lose those who care the most: who are motivated by making a difference in women’s lives. Some of my friends are getting lied to by their bosses: being promised that they would always have a job/not get a paycut/not get laid-off/that they’re too valuable to ever lose; then all of the above happens. And employees who are rude to patients, rude to other employees, who suck the heart out of a clinic stay behind.
The Illinois Department of Public Health sent a strongly worded order to the Women’s Aid Clinic in Lincolnwood by certified mail on March 7. But the clinic’s website on Thursday still was promoting “first trimester abortion services from 6 to 14 weeks of pregnancy with two types of anesthesia.”
In October, the clinic lost its abortion clinic license after it was cited for dusty equipment, lack of a supervising registered nurse and failure to perform CPR on a patient who later died.
Since then, the clinic has remained open, even as its owner told the state the clinic would cease to operate as a licensed pregnancy termination center. It’s unclear whether the clinic still is providing surgical abortions, which could be a violation of state law. A woman answering the phone said the clinic provides only the abortion pill.
The clinic failed to pay a $36,000 fine assessed in October, according to the March 7 letter, which also demands that the clinic return its original license to the state or face a revocation action. The matter will be referred to the Illinois attorney general’s office if the clinic doesn’t pay the fine and cease its “false advertising,” the letter states.
[Photo via mlive.com; Image via examiner.com]
by LauraLoo
Surpassing sales of one million units combined, the musical phenomenon that is Celtic Thunder have just been hailed as BILLBOARD’s Top World Music Artist, along with Top World Music Imprint and Top World Album of 2011 for their disc, Heritage.
Celtic Thunder now rings in 2012 with a new CD and DVD concert special, VOYAGE – just in time for St. Patrick’s Day.
The concert special will be broadcast across the country on Public Television stations during the March 2012 pledge period. Both the new CD and DVD became available February 28th.
Celtic Thunder VOYAGE continues to pay homage to the musical culture of Ireland, while exploring the musical journey each soloist has undertaken since the beginning of Celtic Thunder four years ago. The ensemble includes Keith Harkin, Ryan Kelly, Neil Byrne, George Donaldson and Emmet Cahill. They welcome 13-year-old Daniel Furlong to the fold as a guest artist on this recording.
Here’s a sneak peek of their musical talent. If you like Celtic/Irish music, I highly recommend buying the CD and/or DVD.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJScrN183Io[/youtube]
Email LauraLoo with your Lunch Break suggestions.
[HT: WTTW Channel 11, Chicago]
I’ve been burned out. And I realize that sadly, where I work, there are lots of unhappy people who probably are just waiting to get out.
Maybe they want to find a replacement before they quit. I’m looking for a new gig. I’m loyal to abortion work, but I’m no longer loyal to my clinic.
Hard to be loyal around those who aren’t loyal to you or who you can’t really respect.
~ About a Girl complaining about the negative aspects of working in an abortion clinic, The Abortioneers, March 15
[WARNING: Language Content]
Spin can become so engrained people accept it without thinking.
The media promotes the liberal mantra that Republicans to their doom are focusing on “social issues,” ignoring the fact that right under their noses President Obama, the Democrats, and liberal feminists are pushing a new social issue – contraceptive access – in an unabashed attempt to woo women, and they’re the ones losing. There could be any number of reasons why the strategy isn’t working, but the fact is it isn’t working.
Two new polls are very encouraging, both conducted by the mainstream media.
A New York Times/CBS poll, conducted March 3-11, shows a huge overall drop in support for Obama, but particularly among women…
The truth about “who started it” is tucked away in this encouraging Politico story reporting on the Bloomberg poll, conducted March 8-11:
Despite a significant outreach effort to female voters and Democratic accusations of a GOP ‘war on women,’ a new Bloomberg poll shows Obama losing ground among women from his 2008 vote share.
In a head-to-head matchup with Mitt Romney, women voters back Obama 49% to 45% – but this is 7 points lower than Obama’s 2008 female vote share. Obama captured 56% of the female vote in 2008, according to exit polls. And the birth control debate does not seem to have done huge or lasting damage to the Republican party’s brand among women. The survey finds that 49% of female voters view the Democratic party favorably, while 44% view the Republican party favorably….
With a renewed focus on birth control, women’s health and reproductive rights, Democrats believe they have found a winning issue designed to both attract moderate voters and energize liberal activists. But the Bloomberg poll is evidence that, while many women voters back Democratic positions on women’s health and reproductive freedom, it’s simply not an important enough issue to sway their vote in a shaky economy.
So the Bloomberg headline about its poll is total, false spin…
Here’s the poll question…
There is no blame assigned to that question. Fingers should not be pointed at Republicans. It was Obama and his HHS contraception mandate that started all this. In actuality, those polled are rejecting the liberal push, even as the media and liberals try to claim just the opposite.
Liberals are trying to make hay of the answers to this Bloomberg question…
About it Bloomberg reported:
Americans overwhelmingly regard the debate over President Barack Obama’s policy on employer-provided contraceptive coverage as a matter of women’s health, not religious freedom, rejecting Republicans’ rationale for opposing the rule.
But Americans aren’t “rejecting” anything. They just misunderstand. As importantly, even though they misunderstand, they still aren’t being won over. Obama is getting not getting the points he hoped for and desperately needs.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
