Jivin J’s Life Links 5-18-09
by JivinJ
One of the protesters at Notre Dame, [our own] Jill Stanek, an anti-abortion blogger who did not support Obama, said the president’s speech sounded eerily familiar.
“It was just a regurgitation of things he’s said for a long time,” Stanek said. “He’s so good at expressing your point of view, so people are lulled into thinking he agrees with them, and he doesn’t. It’s just so typical Barack Obama.”…
Greg Mueller, a Republican consultant who works with anti-abortion groups, said Obama’s language Sunday doesn’t match a president that he sees as strongly pro-abortion rights.
“He might have called for toning down the rhetoric but his abortion policies are tuned up on steroids,” said Mueller. “Even considering the revocation of the conscience clause puts Catholic hospitals, Evangelical and Catholic pro-life doctors and nurses in a very tough spot career-wise – this is another example of President Obama’s rhetoric not matching his policies.”
“The link between stem and tumor cells in science is a very old one,” says Paul Knoepfler of the University of CA Davis School of Medicine in the current Stem Cell journal. But no one talks about it much, he adds, even though understanding the link remains “an essential bridge to cross along the way” in someday turning embryonic cells into organ transplants.
After all, the most basic test of whether stem cells are truly “pluripotent” or able to turn into any type of tissue in signature embryonic cell fashion, Knoepfler says, is to inject them into a mouse and see if they grow into tumors. “Why would (embryonic stem cells), supposedly normal counterparts to (cancer cells), also have the ability to cause tumors?” he asks. “The simplest but most troublesome answer is that (embryonic stem cells and cancer cells) are in fact, as was originally assumed, quite similar types of cells.”
The article is about as decent as any article you’d expect in Time (also read Michael New‘s thoughts on the article) though unfortunately the picture on the site prominently features two of the handful of pro-choicers who were amid a flood of pro-lifers at the March for Life.
Gibbs writes:
A new Pew poll finds that while a majority of independents said abortion should be legal in most cases as recently as October, just 44% do so now. This may inspire some introspection on the part of political operatives in both parties who attribute the Republicans‘ present frailty to its orthodoxy on social issues. The GOP may have fielded some hapless messengers, but their message, on abortion at least, may be closer to the mainstream than Democrats care to acknowledge.
I think the numbers, inadequate and simplified though they may be, reflect deeper changes — some generational, some legal, some technological. People under 30 are more opposed to abortion than those older, perhaps because their first baby pictures were often taken in utero. I also wonder if younger women are now sure enough of their sexual autonomy and their choices generally, that they don’t view limits on abortion as attacks on their freedom overall. The calculation of rights subtly shifts, and the fetus, as it develops, asserts its claim on the conscience.
[Photo attribution: TheNewsJunkie.com]

When the words ‘pro-life’ are in quotations it makes me think of these words said by someone who would fall in the group of ‘pro-lifers’, “I’m pro-life but I vote yes for stem cell research, the dealth penalty, assisted suicide, abortion only if it endangers the mothers life or abortion if it is in the first trimester; but I would never have an abortion myself so that’s why I’m pro-life.”
Aw yes, I’ve heard this a thousand times and when you try to nicely tell them that their beliefs wouldn’t fall under the pro-life movement they get all bent out of shape. Its funny how people will say their pro-life or pro-‘choice’ (abortion) just to fit into the crowd they want to be in.
There is some truth in the assertion that a lot of people self-classify themselves in an attempt to “fit in” with the peer group they desire to belong to. That’s almost certainly true of those who feel strongly about political parties.
On the other hand, the definition of “pro-life” tells us that being pro-life has nothing to do with the other issues mentioned by AKK, with the possible exception of stem cell research.
pro-life adjective opposed to the belief that a pregnant woman should have the freedom to choose an abortion if she does not want to have a baby
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=63328&dict=CALD
Obama is now facing defeat with Obama care. He is letting the word “cost” creep in the vocabulary. In abortion they re define the words women’s health”. In abortion, to cut costs, his engineers will be able to slash abortion mills providing a volume priceing to $38.88
Remember an abortion can be done by a P.A. Services will be denied and other services will be rationed on waiting lists.
so when he defines women’s health, it will look different than the pro choice feminist saying “it’s my body” No it will be the states body and they will decide what to choose.
I will leave you with a creepy thought. If a women gets breast cancer, why not take it all and why not go ahead and save wait, grief and make it a bi lateral therapeautic mastectomy.