Weekend question 8-1/2-09
At its Values Voter Summit, September 18-20, the Family Research Council is awarding its 1st ever Media Courage Award to Bill O’Reilly, explaining:
Bill O’Reilly has never shied away from denouncing late-term abortions and the handful of doctors who perform them. In the aftermath of George Tiller’s murder, O’Reilly became an easy target for the liberal media who tried to pin some of the blame on Bill, saying he incited the violence by decrying these unnecessary procedures on his show.
Despite the unfair allegations, O’Reilly spoke the truth, bringing new light to a gruesome procedure. On behalf of our co-sponsors and millions of values voters, we want to express our gratitude to a culture warrior who uses his national platform to promote life – no matter what the personal or professional costs.
No surprise, liberals are not happy. Here was News Hounds’ take…
For his rabid hate mongering against the murdered abortion physician… FRC is going to award… O’Reilly with its first ever Media Courage Award.
As we’ve reported many times, O’Reilly spent years attacking and demonizing Dr. George Tiller for the “crime” of performing late-term abortions that were perfectly legal. In the wake of Dr. Tiller’s assassination, many eyes turned to O’Reilly and the role his smear campaign may have played in the killing.
But those good Christians at the FRC think O’Reilly’s crusade – which ended with a brutal death – helped to “promote life.”…
There are some things that leave us speechless.
Do you think FRC should award O’Reilly for his coverage of Tiller, before and after Tiller’s murder, reigniting controversy in the process, or do you think FRC should let the entire Tiller debacle fade from memory?
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.
O’Reilly’s “crusade” is meant to end millions of brutal deaths that leave every one of the victims forever speechless.
The Tiller debacle was only a debacle because Mr. Tiller was a killer. It’s hard (but not impossible) to find sympathy for a man who was killed because he had killed thousands of others. I’m not condoning the crime of Mr. Tiller’s killer; I’m just explaining the debacle of the funeral and mainstream media coverage. The lies are so transparent!
I don’t think we should have too much concern for anything the FRC does.
Of course the FRC should give O’Reilly an award. Controversy is what encourages change.
Hal said, “I don’t think we should have too much concern for anything the FRC does.”
Well, even the best of organizations can sometimes make a mistake or be led down the wrong track. It’s true that the FRC has a fine record, but it’s best to be careful.
The Family Research Council is right to honor O’Reilly. He has taken a lot of unjustifiable criticism for a deed committed by someone a thousand miles away. But no surprise–the lib media never did let factual truth get in the way of a good story.
BTW, interesting piece today on O’Reilly and Obermann in today’s NYT.
I have no idea who Bill O’Reilly is, and I’ve never watched FOX before, but it’s not exactly hate-mongering to call infanticide, well, infanticide. I mean, it’s not intolerant to refuse to tolerate intolerance…
He’s not responsible for George Tiller’s death- the man who killed Tiller is.
That’s like an episode of Law & Order (squee!) where a boy attacks his classmates and says that it’s the media’s fault- or when people blame rap music (as much as I find it flawed) for gang violence.
As much as the media influences, it isn’t exactly pulling the trigger, and from what I gather, O’Reilly (whoever he is) was only giving his opinion. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.
And for crying out loud, we don’t exactly live in a anti-abortion culture. Abortionists have their own celebration day and are treated like kings. Not to say by any means that George Tiller deserved this, not at all, but it’s not as though you turn on the news and see the pro-choice movement being treated unfairly…they’re celebrated more than almost anyone.
But, out of curiosity, what exactly did Bill O’Reilly say?
“Hate-mongering” is having the audacity to tell the truth about abortion, in particular the gruesome late-term ones Tiller bragged about performing. And they weren’t “perfectly legal”, that was established–labeling every mother with some version of an anxiety disorder, comprimised “2nd opinions” and the like enabled him to make a killing, making a killing. He certainly didn’t need O’Reilly to “demonize” him, he managed that all on his own.
Typical liberal tactics are to attack the messenger so viciously that the message gets lost in the mix, and hopefully ignored.
An attempt to blame O’Reilly for Tiller’s death can only backfire because it sets a dangerous precedent for the media as a whole. Can you imagine if we were to hold the liberal media accountable for what is happening to this nation? Moral bankruptcy and now, literal bankruptcy. God help us.
Bill O’Reilly deserves the recognition and congratulations to him.
Congrats to Bill O. for his award for not backing down when everyone else wanted to sugar-coat the life of a man who made a fortune killing living human beings at the start of their short little lives.
How can he possibly have the gall to tell people what abortion actually is?! 9_9
Honestly, while I respect his tenacity re: abortion, I don’t necessarily think that Bill O’Reilly was being overly courageous *before* Tiller’s death. He was reporting with vehemence and tenacity about something that over half the country agrees with him on. Heck, Tiller was such an extremist that more people seem to like him in death than ever did in life. Now, I’m not saying that we don’t need reporters and commentators who will address such abortionists as Tiller. I’m saying that it’s not a whole lot more courageous what O’Reilly did than it is to blast Scott Roeder.
I feel, however, that when the liberal MSM went on the attack and tried to blame O’Reilly for Tiller’s death, THAT is when Bill O. really exemplified courageous commentating. That is when he really didn’t back down, didn’t make excuses, didn’t apologize, but kept the issue focused on the atrocity of abortion. That’s why I *really* support FRC’s decision. Had O’Reilly backed down after Tiller’s death, it would have invalidated pro-lifers as a group in the eyes of the MSM.
That’s my take, anyway. Any good vehement pro-lifer getting talked about makes me happy, though. XD
“disturbed by what is happening in Kansas”
How do they pull the word hate out of that?
Bill was also disturbed about Tillers death.
.also in kansas.
Bill was covering the same things the state Board of Healing Arts investigate.
1. “Do you think FRC should award O’Reilly for his coverage of Tiller, before and after Tiller’s murder, reigniting controversy in the process?”
Is the Pope more Catholic than pbho?
—————————————————
2. “Do you think FRC should let the entire Tiller debacle fade from memory?”
Should Germans be alowed to forget the holocaust because some Jew hating mass murders and serial killers get their collective panties all in a bunch when they are reminded of the fruit their bigotry produces?
yor bro ken
For his rabid hate mongering against the murdered abortion physician… FRC is going to award… O’Reilly with its first ever Media Courage Award.
as I’ve said before, truth is hate to those who hate truth.
Congratulations to Bill O’Reilly on this well deserved award. If only there were more like him on the MSM.
Wow. Read their comments sections…these people are in a world all their own. Not only do non-religious pro-lifers not exist to these people, but apparently a “woman’s choice” is in great peril and all pro-life women lie about having abortions.
The most frightening thing is, just in the short time I was reading, I came across a post by one guy who apparently has kids, and another who used to be a teacher! These people are sculpting the lives of young people. I’m SO FREAKING GLAD my daughter will be going to school out here in the middle of nowhere. No big city school values for her, thanks. *shudder*
What O’Reilly and all the anti-choicers conveniently fail to mention is that the late term abortions Tiller did were for women who had
serious complications and who might have died or been been seriously and permanently harmed if those pregnancies had not been terminated.
And despite Tiller’s tragic and despicable murder, others will take his place.
Trying to stop abortion is absolutely futile and every government which has made it illegal has caused nothing but death and destruction.
Don’t you pathetic,deluded anti-choicers realize that this is what will happen if the US government ever does this in the future?
When that megalomaniac idiot Nicolae Ceausescu
(chow-shess-coo) made abortion illegal in Romania in the 1960s as well as banning contraceptives, the death rate for women in abortions went up 700 % ! Illegal abortions were still rampant, and many,many helpless unwanted children were born and placed in orphanages where they grew up neglected, malnourished and abused, and never developed normally.
In addition, women of childbearing age were conmstantly monitored by the government for fertility etc,rather like Orwell’s 1984, and those who had miscarriages were also investigated.
Is this the kind of America we want? How will we enforce the law? Are we going to turn this country into a totalitarian police state in the futile attempt to stop abortion?
Come to your senses, anti-choicers.
Why is it more right to kill a baby than to kill you, Robert? I’m not advocating either option. Why was it more right for Mr. Tiller to kill babies than for his killer to kill him?
Also, why do you misrepresent pro-lifers? Nobody’s holding out Ceausescu health care as an option, but Obamacare perhaps comes closest in the brutality and indignity of its approach.
What O’Reilly and all the anti-choicers conveniently fail to mention is that the late term abortions Tiller did were for women who had
serious complications and who might have died or been been seriously and permanently harmed if those pregnancies had not been terminated.
Posted by: Robert Berger at August 2, 2009 10:55 AM
Please give me an example of a 2nd or 3rd trimester maternal illness in which an emergency C-section or induced labor would not have sufficed.
Is this the kind of America we want? How will we enforce the law? Are we going to turn this country into a totalitarian police state in the futile attempt to stop abortion?
Come to your senses, anti-choicers.
Posted by: Robert Berger at August 2, 2009 10:55 AM
Or…we could go back to what the country was PRE-ROE V. WADE
Abortion on demand was not always legal. And, don’t give me that b.s. about “oooohhhh, but illegal abortions were like, SUPER SUPER BAD BACK THEN AND THERE WERE TONS, EVEN!”, because the people FROM YOUR! SIDE! have already come out and said THEY! LIED! about the numbers IN! ROE V. WADE! COURT!
I swear, when are you people going to come up with a new line?! It is SOOOOO TIRED.
Robert! How are you?
Xalisae, what’s your point about “big city school values?” Did the commenters you disagreed with say where they lived, or even in what size city/town? I could give you some heart-warming examples of “big city school values,” if you want.
I hate geographic-identity politics with a passion; I imagine you’d be pretty annoyed if someone linked to an anti-evolution article and said, “Thank god I live in a city, no small-town school values for my kid.”
Mr. Berger,
Whatever you’ve been inhaling, injecting, ingesting, or putting in your colonics you need to cease now.
You are incoherent. You are like Alice in Wonderland or Dorothy in Oz.
Walk slowly and drinks lots of water for about thirty days and then get back to us.
yor bro ken
“The first direct order for euthanasia was issued by [xxx] on September 1, 19[xx], and an organization was setup to execute the program.
Dr. Karl Brandt headed the medical section, and Phillip Bouhler the administrative section. All state institutions were required to report on patients who had been ill five years or more and who were unable to work, by filling out questionnaires giving name, race, marital status, nationality, next of kin, whether regularly visited and by whom, who bore financial responsibility and so forth.
The decision regarding which patients should be killed was made entirely on the basis of this brief information by expert consultants, most of whom were professors of psychiatry in the key universities.
These consultants never saw the patients themselves.
The thoroughness of their scrutiny can be appraised by the work of one
‘expert’,
who between November 14 and December 1, 19xx,
evaluated 2109 questionnaires.
These questionnaires were collected by a “Realm’s Work Committee of Institutions for Cure and Care.”
A parallel organization
devoted exclusively to the killing of children
was known by the similarly euphemistic name of
“Realm’s Committee for Scientific Approach to Severe Illness Due to Heredity and Constitution.”
The “Charitable Transport Company for the Sick”
transported patients to the killing centers,
and
the “Charitable Foundation for Institutional Care”
was in charge of collecting the cost of the killings from the relatives, without, however, informing them what the charges were for; in the death certificates the cause of death was falsified.”
———————————————————
Just a little picture of what ‘universal health care’ and ‘single payer systems’ have devolved into when a humanistic worldview informs the decision makers in the bureaucracy.
You do not need a crystal ball to project what is heading our way.
yor bro ken
Robert Berger, 10:55am
You’ve fallen for the biggest and oldest pile the abortion movement has to offer.
Pregnant women who truly face any kind of health issues need only go to the nearest hospital equipped to handle their needs. There was no need for Tiller who was not even an OB/GYN. Please name for me the medical conditions for which these women had to seek out Tiller.
Others will take Tiller’s place? So far I’ve only heard of Carhart, who presently runs a late term abortion practice out of a former mechanic’s service garage with an outside generator providing electricity.
Also RB, get your facts straight about Ceaucescu.
He was a deranged dictator who’s people were starving and freezing so as to “improve” his country’s economy. He also had it in his twisted mind to mass produce Romanian children, who were for the most part starving and cold. Women whose children were already cold and hungry, were denied all access to birth control and were subjected to forced examinations. Families lived no better than the children they abandoned to orphanages that were hellholes. One woman said she in fact wanted children, but the economic hardships, which included a trip to the black market to get a bottle of milk, and a possible prison sentence resulting from that, made it impossible for her. Just imagine if during the Great Depression President Roosevelt had decreed that every American woman, no matter how desperate her circumstances, must bear at least five children. That gives you some idea of Ceacescu’s Romania.
BTW, Ceaucescu wanted each Romanian woman to have at least 5 children, then she could have all the abortions she wanted.
Also RB, I remember when abortion was illegal in the US and nothing even close to the Romanian situation existed.
Mary,
Howdy. Hope you and yours are doing well.
You’ve given mr. Berger facts, but he prefers ‘once upon a time’ fairy tales where everyone ‘dies’ happily ever after.
He loves to fashion his own un-reality to suit his twisted view of paradise.
He must wear glasses that distort reality like those funky mirrors in a carnival fun house.
yor bro ken
Robert says “What O’Reilly and all the anti-choicers conveniently fail to mention is that the late term abortions Tiller did were for women who had
serious complications and who might have died or been been seriously and permanently harmed if those pregnancies had not been terminated.”
Cite?
Hello to you too Ken,
All is well with me and mine thank you.
Hi Lauren,
Some time ago O’Reilly interviewed someone from NOW. I believe she was a past president. Anyway she tried to argue that the psychiatrist who reviewed Tiller’s records was falsely claiming that women had late term abortions for frivulous reasons. Women do not have abortions for such trivial reasons the woman maintained.
O’Reilly asked her how she knew, did she review the medical records? She said yes, in fact she had and that’s how she “knew” the psychiatrist, who would have no reason to lie, lied. How I wish O’Reilly would have responded with:
OHHH? Madame, you are either a colossol liar or you have just admitted to violating federal law.
Which is it?
The teacher commenter was from Salem, OR. So, no, I wasn’t just throwing that out un-researched, and I’m actually from San Pablo, CA myself, so I have an already negative opinion of large cities via experience with them. The typically liberal and agenda-driven teachers therein don’t help the case for cities with me, either.
I wasn’t aware that Salem was considered a particularly big city. I don’t imagine that you would be similarly critical of Sioux Falls, ND; Huntsville, AL, etc, which are by most estimates larger. But anyway.
I find it amusing that you bristle at negative stereotypes of atheists, agnostics, or other non-Christians, and yet you similarly stereotype people based on where they live. I’m a product of education in what would appear to be a “big city” by your standards and I can assure you I never had any clue where my teachers stood on issues like abortion, same-sex unions, or healthcare. Those issues only came up in high school current events classes, and then only because students initiated the conversation. Mr. Alexandra is a public school teacher in a big city — the biggest in the US — and I guarantee you that, although you’d probably consider him liberal, he has no desire to push any agenda on his students. The same goes for every teacher he works with. He’s far more interested in getting them to actually learn the subject so that they can pass his classes, which is enough of a battle. He doesn’t even know where his co-workers stand on most political issues.
IIRC your husband is pro-choice; is he “okay” to trust with children because he’s a small-town pro-choicer as opposed to a big-city pro-choicer? Would he be a different person if his job required him to be in a large city, or if he enjoyed living in a big city for whatever pragmatic reasons there are?
Preferences are fine. They make the world go round! I’m glad that not everyone enjoys city life, because real estate prices are high enough here as it is. But it makes no sense to read moral judgment into arbitrary preferences — to find a preference for small towns somehow an indication of moral fortitude, or to find a preference for large cities some indication of moral flaw. Crappy people live everywhere and great people live everywhere. People don’t fit the generalities it’s so easy to cluster them into. My atheist neighbor is pro-life. My partner’s fundamentalist Baptist mother from rural Kentucky is pro-choice. C’est la vie.
You anti-choicers are still in denial,and that ain’t the river in Egypt.
Women don’t just decide to have late term abortions for the hell of it.
And others WILL take Tiller’s place.
I keep repeating this, but you cannot escape this fact ; women will seek and obtain abortions whether they are legal or not, and if they are too poor, they will try to abort themselves. Just making laws against abortion has never worked and never will.
Nicaragua has recently made all abortions illegal, even to save a woman’s life, and as is inevitable, many women have died. Yet the Vatican congratulated the Nicaraguan government, despite the catastrophic results. They’re totally out of touch with reality.
Robert, are you familiar with Meyerbeer? I just finished working on a production of Les Hugeunots and I’m trying to see it in the next week or two. I’ll have to sit in the sound booth because it’s sold out, but I’m psyched at the idea anyway.
I’m unfamiliar with it because it’s out of favor in current opera repertoires, and I’m not all that great with opera anyway. So I was wondering if you knew anything about it worth mentioning! All I know is that it’s apparently massive — five acts, four hours, seven leads. Dude.
Robert Berger,
OK, then why DO women decide to have late term abortions? Obviously you can’t name any medical reasons so what are the reasons?
Let me tell you this Robert. Men who want to will continue to rape. No law has ever stopped them and no law ever will. So we should legalize rape, correct?
Like I said Carhart is chomping at the bit to take Tiller’s place. I’m sure some car thieves looking for a chop-shop will take that “clinic” off his hands.
Robert, I’d love for you to come up with even one situation in which it would be safer for the mother to sit alone in a hotel room for two days waiting for her cervix to dialate rather than have a 30 minute c-section.
There are absolutely no medical reasons for a woman to have a post viability abortion. She could ALWAYS have an induced delivery or c-section at a hospital.
Ok…this is what I get for generalizing, and I should know better by now. I’M SORRY, ALEXANDRA. :(
M’kay…Salem is the capital of OR, and the second largest city at a population of 147,215. And that’s the SECOND largest city in the state. The state I currently occupy’s capital city is it’s LARGEST city, and has a population of 187,452. The town I currently live in has a population estimated at 1,415. The city I grew up in about 30,000 (and is a little less than 20 miles away from the nation’s 12th largest city, San Francisco, with a population of over 800,000). My perspective is kinda skewed, I admit.
Sorry for generalizing. It’s easy to think of people in a stereotypical way, and something entirely different if you actually know someone in such a condition. I’m sorry I didn’t give consideration to people like your significant other.
” I’m a product of education in what would appear to be a “big city” by your standards and I can assure you I never had any clue where my teachers stood on issues like abortion, same-sex unions, or healthcare.”
As is my husband, actually. He’s from San Jose, CA (10th largest city in the United States), and he was quite the picture when he and I first started dating. Hadn’t really given much thought to anything political at all, and what he had thought out was (imo) all wrong. He USED to be pro-choice, until he finally was in a position where he was able to see firsthand what “pro-choice” actually meant. Now he is pro-life, and used that as a jumping off point (along with his service in the military) to actually start thinking about these issues. He’s found that his conclusions, though they may diverge from mine in motivation and detail, for the most part align with my original ideals. (but, to a certain degree, mine have drifted a little more towards the center to better align with his, but for the most part, he came my way)
His mother is also a product of the city San Jose, and is quite a bit more liberal in her politics than my husband or I would ever be. It’s just been my experience that it is that much harder to be and stay conservative in big cities.
“Those issues only came up in high school current events classes, and then only because students initiated the conversation.”
And this is where, more than ever, I want a teacher to either agree with me, or keep their mouth shut about it, and since a teacher can’t agree with every single parent, I prefer the latter, although the former is more likely to happen out here than in a “blue state” like CA.
Large cities VS. small towns is actually somewhat of a sore spot in the relationship between my husband and I. He would much rather live in a bustling hub of a city like San Jose. Why, I will never know. But he eventually decided that because of the better economy, lower housing costs, more plentiful jobs, and better environment for our children, we would be moving out here rather than to California, which I am simply ecstatic about, even if he’s less than enthusiastic.
But, you made a good point, and point quite taken. I’m sorry I’ve let my negative opinion of big cities create biases about the people IN those cities.
Robert,
First of all, when an attempt to save a woman’s life results in the loss of the unborn child she’s carrying, it isn’t actually considered an abortion. At its worst, it’s considered induced labor, the loss of the child being an unintended side effect. The life-saving procedures that are necessary for the health and safety of the mother are available at ANY hospital. No need to go see Dr. Tiller or any other abortionist for such a procedure.
Secondly, the only 2 life-threatening conditions I know of are ectopic pregnancies (which are caught on the first ultrasound) and pre-eclampsia, or toxemia (HEELP being a form of toxemia). Pre-eclampsia is relatively common and rarely life-threatening. Usually it is treated by monitoring the pregnancy and inducing the labor early should it become necessary. Often, labor is performed via c-section.
Neither of these life-threatening conditions during pregnancy require abortion, although the loss of the unborn child is an almost-certainty in the case of ectopic pregnancy and a possibility in the case of toxemia.
So inform me, am I missing something? Is there a late-term pregnancy condition of which I am unaware?
Quite honestly, the single best argument I’ve heard for Tiller’s practice is that he was performing abortions on babies that wouldn’t survive outside the womb. Setting aside such cases as Baby Faith Hope, who survived 3 months postpartum with anencephaly, this argument is in and of itself invalid anyway. Those babies Tiller aborted ‘for the sake of the baby’ were frequently babies suffering from such commonplace illnesses as Down’s Syndrome.
I need to find the study I read about in which women seeking abortions were polled and asked if they would be seeking abortions were Roe vs. Wade overturned. The answer was a fairly resounding “no”… less than 25%, if I remember correctly, said they would not… I have to find it and post a link. I will… just let me track it down. I can’t think of what to search for that particular study. I wish I could recall what group did the study!
It should also be noted that according to the Guttmacher institute, 47% of those women seeking abortions have already had an abortion. This number indicates clearly that abortion is being used at least in part as a form of birth control, which is completely unacceptable.
Let me see what I can do to find that study.
X, it’s no problem — it’s a sore spot for me, too, because Mr. Alexandra and I get “comments” EVERY SINGLE DAY when we visit his parents in Kentucky; and now that they have made Thanksgiving in NYC a tradition of theirs, every single day over that week as well. “You’re so polite for ‘someone from New York.'” Really, what an…oddly impolite thing to say, for “someone from a place where they seem to judge politeness on location rather than actions.” haha
“And this is where, more than ever, I want a teacher to either agree with me, or keep their mouth shut about it, and since a teacher can’t agree with every single parent, I prefer the latter, although the former is more likely to happen out here than in a “blue state” like CA.”
I still find this interesting as well; I mean the belief that teachers are more likely to keep their mouths shut in some states than others. I figure there are jerk teachers everywhere but they’re few and far between, fortunately. Mr. Alexandra learned about the War of Northern Aggression, and learned (inexplicably) that Up North it’s illegal to say the pledge of allegiance in schools (wtf??). The only time I can remember being at all aware of a teacher’s politics was in a US history class, when we were talking about Democrats versus Republicans. My teacher asked how many of us knew what our parents were registered as, and maybe half the class raised their hands. He said, “Well, if you think that Republicans are all rich white people, then your parents are registered as Democrats.” He was laughing when he said it but it was the first time I’d ever heard a teacher express anything remotely political. In my current events classes the teachers just moderated, and played devil’s advocate, asking questions that went against whatever the class majority opinion seemed to be, to prompt us to articulate our own points better.
Anyway I’m not at all offended by people not liking cities! I love so many different places; I actually get anxiety about the fact that it’s basically impossible for me to live in as many places as I love so dearly. I want to live in: Charleston, SC; Portland, OR; Osaka, Japan; Busan, Korea; Geneva, Switzerland; someplace oldey-timey in Vermont; Nice, France (not just for the Marc Chagall museum, which was in some ways the highlight of my adolescence; even now I sometimes walk to Lincoln Center just to see the gigantic paintings at the Opera House, and I sit there for an hour some nights just looking — love him); Barcelona, Spain; Austin, TX; the coast of Maine; someplace flat in the Midwest; and I never ever want to leave NYC. I’ve never been to Arkansas but I’d probably love it there, as well. Too many lives for just one person. Pity.
But yeah I love it here — my city, my working-class neighborhood, even my crappy apartment. When my neighbor cooks, she makes extra portions and gives us some; we try to return the gesture but she’s a much better cook than either of us are. Game nights with the couple downstairs twice a month or so; a children’s garden that I walk past every morning on the way to the subway; old men sitting on folding chairs on the sidewalk all day, talking loudly to each other over mugs of coffee no matter how hot the weather is. Love it all.
Robert Berger,
I’m still waiting for a response, and others have asked the same question. So I’ll repeat it:
Can you please give me an example of a 2nd or 3rd trimester maternal illness in which an emergency C-section or induced labor would not have sufficed?
You claim that we’re in denial, yet so far you’ve ignored our requests for evidence that reflects your assertions.
Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots was premeiered in Paris in the 1830s and was a big hit,and was popular until the early 19th century,when Meyerbeer’s operas fell out of favor.
It’s a spectacular tale of the 16th century conflict in France between the Catholic nobles and the French protestants, or Huguenots, and includes the infamous St Bartholonmew’s day massacre of the Huguenots.
It’s full of intrigue and romance, and the doomed love between the daughter of a Huguenot bigwig and a young Cathoic nobleman .
In the early 19th century, it was a popular showpiece for some of the greatest singers of the day,and though I haven’t seen any live performances, I know the opera from the Decca recording with Joan Sutherland as the French queen , which is probably hard to find now ,and a more recent live recording from a festival in the south of France on the Erato label.
The religious conflicts in the opera between the Huguenots and the Catholics make it quite relevant today.
I can’t provide you with statistics offhand, but just go to pro-choice websites and you will find ample documentation of what I’m talking about.
And incidentally, Tiller’s methods of abortion,according to what I recently read in the New York Times, were not grisly and brutal at all.
His method was to stop the heartbeat of the fetus with an injection, which killed it painlessly, and then to induce labor .
Doesn’t sound too barbaric to me, but quite humane.
Robert, no pro-choice websites have these statistics because they don’t exist.
By tiller’s own admission 3/4 of his late term patients were teenagers who had hid their pregnancies until they became obvious and now wanted abortions.
He claimed about 1 abortion a year that was performed for some health reason for the mother. Of course, the mothe could have gone to the hospital and delivered her baby alive…but who needs details.
Christiana at http://realchoice.blogspot.com has all the statistics that Tiller gave to the health department on her site.
Robert, if all Tiller was doing was killing the baby and inducing labor (supposedly for the mother’s health),why in the world would he need to kill the baby first?
Why not deliver and give it the best chance for health?
My son was delivered via emergency c-section at 31 weeks. They would have delivered him much earlier if we would have developed an infection at an earlier time. Pre-term deliveres are quite normal. There’s no need to kill the baby first.
Mods- I have a comment held in limbo.
Gladly do I take it out of spam, Lauren.
Thanks, Bobby!
Robert,
Sigh.
http://www.dr-tiller.com/dreaded-complication.htm
Baby Sarah was shot in the head with the needle and not the heart by Tiller.
Humane. Yeah, right.
One more link just for good measure.
http://prolifeaction.org/providers/tivis.htm
A medical secretary that used to work for Tiller. She describes the screaming, crying and blood everywhere in the basement where all of the HUMANE deliveries took place.
Robert Berger,
So…at this point, is it safe for me to assume that you don’t know of any 2nd or 3rd trimester maternal illnesses that require an abortion, as opposed to an emergency C-section or induced labor?
You mentioned in your latest comment that after the lethal injection into the heart of the baby, Dr. Tiller than induced labor. Can you provide information as to why stopping the baby’s heartbeat prior to induced labor was necessary in treating the mother’s illness?
Inquiring pro-lifers would like some actual facts, please.
RB, That is a cop-out. Why should we have to go to the pro-choice websites and do the research for you? The burden of proof is on you, my friend, to provide facts/statistics to back your assertion or retract it. Again we will ask you, please provide statistical proof for the number of abortions Tiller preformed for the a life-threatening
pregnancy condition. And what life-threatening pregnancy conditions warrant terminating the pregnancy in an outpatient ambulatory surgical clinic over a 3 day period vs. close monitering and swift induction and birth or a c-section in a hospital setting? Numerous times we have asked you to provide proof for your assertions and you continue to avoid and dodge our questions.
And incidentally, Tiller’s methods of abortion,according to what I recently read in the New York Times, were not grisly and brutal at all.
His method was to stop the heartbeat of the fetus with an injection, which killed it painlessly, and then to induce labor .
Doesn’t sound too barbaric to me, but quite humane.
***************************
Yes, because injections in the heart followed by cardiac arrest are likely soooo pain-free. Care to volunteer?
I mean, obviously, you wouldn’t be yanked apart afterward, so perhaps you could be revived and then tell us how humane and pain-free it all was for you.
Unfortunately for pro-aborts, Robert, science tells us that premature babies feel pain to a higher degree than full-term babies. Which means that these near full-term children do experience pain. However, they aren’t able to be revived afterward to rate their pain on a scale of 1-10. Geeze. I mean, is it just wishful thinking on your part that cardiac arrest for these human beings is a walk in the park??
Um, Kel? Robert believes it’s a fetus not a human being. :P
Mr. Berger we are still waiting. One of my closest friends an excellent CNM (Certified Nurse Midwife) and another friend a board certified OB/GYN who have both delivered babies for over 20 years have NEVER had to intentionally kill unborn babies to save the lives of mothers. They have treated women with every medical complication, have had to induce labors or resort to C-sections where rarely the baby is not able to survive, but they do not take the baby’s life intentionally.
Wonder if Obama gets his nationalized healthcare through the way he wants it, will he try to force them to perform abortions, since they believe in the sanctity of life?
“First of all, when an attempt to save a woman’s life results in the loss of the unborn child she’s carrying, it isn’t actually considered an abortion. At its worst, it’s considered induced labor, the loss of the child being an unintended side effect. The life-saving procedures that are necessary for the health and safety of the mother are available at ANY hospital. No need to go see Dr. Tiller or any other abortionist for such a procedure.”
“Secondly, the only 2 life-threatening conditions I know of are ectopic pregnancies (which are caught on the first ultrasound) and pre-eclampsia, or toxemia (HEELP being a form of toxemia). Pre-eclampsia is relatively common and rarely life-threatening. Usually it is treated by monitoring the pregnancy and inducing the labor early should it become necessary. Often, labor is performed via c-section.”
“Neither of these life-threatening conditions during pregnancy require abortion, although the loss of the unborn child is an almost-certainty in the case of ectopic pregnancy and a possibility in the case of toxemia.”
“So inform me, am I missing something? Is there a late-term pregnancy condition of which I am unaware?”
MaryRose @ 7:03,
It’s no wonder Robert B. believes abortion must be legal ( Roe v.Wade) to save a women’s life. Pro-choice sites spread misinformation all the time.
This, from Planned Parenthood’s Q&A section on abortion, is almost laughable. Note the mention of conservative “Bill O’Reilly” for extra measure.
Q. “A friend told me that Bill O’Reilly said on his radio show that abortion is never needed to save a woman’s life. Is that true? Is abortion ever really necessary to save a woman’s life?”
A. “Yes. There are a variety of health conditions in which abortion may become critical to protect a woman’s life. There is, for example, a form of pregnancy-related high blood pressure that can be life threatening. The medical term for it is preeclampsia. It occurs in seven percent of pregnant women. If it is untreated or doesn’t respond to treatment, it can lead to convulsions, failure of various organ systems, coma, or death. Abortion may be the only way to save the woman’s life.”
“Certain other conditions, such as severe diabetes, heart disease, or trauma from car accidents, may also require abortion to save a woman’s life. Termination of pregnancy is also essential to save the life of a woman with an ectopic (tubal) pregnancy.”
Wrong, wrong, wrong, Planned Parenthood.
They’d have us believe that abortion cures just about everything that ails a woman. Reminds me of snake-oil and the salesmen of old.
Janet. It’s absurd. Yes, some conditions require “termination of pregnancy.” That doesn’t mean that you need to have a dead baby. My pregnancy was terminated at 31 weeks. My son is now 4.
I’d love for them to explain a medical condition that requires the baby be killed prior to delivery. I have a feeling I’ll be waiting for quite some time!
Planned Parenthood has a downloadable Q&A on abortion that they call a podcast. They describe aspiration abortion as a very long Pap smear with some cramping at the end. (They forget to mention the baby.)
More winning quotes from PP:
“It’s normal to have grief after abortion because this happened to you.”
Wait, this is a choice. It’s not comparable to a car accident or an impacted wisdom tooth over which she has no control..
“Abortion is a strong honorable decision. It’s an honor to help these women.”
You mean the opposite, right PP? An honorable medical professional would never kill terminate a baby because it was “unwanted”. Does this mean the woman with the MOST abortions deserves an award?
We are waiting, Robert.
Posted by: Robert Berger at August 3, 2009 9:34 AM
“His [Tiller’s] method was to stop the heartbeat of the fetus with an injection, which killed it painlessly, and then to induce labor .
Doesn’t sound too barbaric to me, but quite humane.”
———————————————————–
mr. Berger
(Are you related to Sandy ‘burglar’ Berger who unlike most men has probems keeping things out of his pants?)
Minor surgery is a procedure performed on someone else. Major sugery is the same procedure performed on you.
I really believe you ought to volunteer, sans anesthesia or pain killer, to have a hypodermic needle plunged into your beating heart, never mind injecting anything, and allow the event to be videotaped so we can all view your candid reaction and then you can tell us how ‘painless’ the procedure was.
yor bro ken
mr. Berger,
Good luck finding a reputable physician to accomodate you.
I am sure you can find an abortionist who will comply with your request for a nominal fee, payable in advance in cash and after signing a release of liability form.
yor bro ken
Robert Berger? Are you going to respond? I don’t think we’re asking too much to request that you back up your assertions with sources.
“And incidentally, Tiller’s methods of abortion,according to what I recently read in the New York Times, were not grisly and brutal at all.
His method was to stop the heartbeat of the fetus with an injection, which killed it painlessly, and then to induce labor .
Doesn’t sound too barbaric to me, but quite humane.”
-Robert Berger
Really, Mr. Berger? Causing a heart attack in a baby sounds humane to you? Is this the sort of humane death you’d like? Are you aware it is common for abortionists using this procedure to double-check after some time because it isn’t uncommon for the LETHAL injection to miss the baby’s heart?
If this death were considered humane in adults, it would be a common form of assisted suicide, no? I guess dying of cardiac arrest isn’t considered appealing, though.
Please, if you’re going to try to peddle your secondhand information, go somewhere where they don’t know what they’re talking about. Unfortunately for you, pro-lifers are becoming increasingly informed and involved nowadays. You’ll have a harder time finding fools to believe you than you might have years ago.
Janet,
It’s really just fancy wording from Planned Parenthood. Effectively, what they’re saying is, “If the hospital doesn’t do its job, or if the pregnancy complications become too much for the safety of the woman’s life, the baby might die”… but they’re phrasing the death of the child as an abortion.
Which it isn’t, unless the mother chooses (of her OWN VOLITION) to go to an abortionist. Because, again, there isn’t a hospital I’ve ever heard of or run across that wouldn’t save the life of the mother.
As for the business about the mother experiencing grief, are they admitting now that abortion is traumatic? Are they going to start providing post-abortive counseling services? Nah, that would be admitting that there was more to it than a simple, harmless procedure, wouldn’t it?
How can anyone attach the word honorable to the word abortion? Even PP, NARAL, and NOW’s favorite guy, BHO, has stated that abortion is a ‘difficult decision’ and has expressed a ‘desire’ to see the ‘need’ for abortion ‘reduced’…
Obviously, I’m a bit biased in this matter. I can’t see how we could possibly argue an honest need for abortion. It’s either good or it’s bad, and if BHO is admitting it’s bad, he should also be working to minimize it, not to pass FOCA in an underhanded way through the healthcare bill.
I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you who responded to Robert’s comment. It is so wonderful to see so many refute his proabortion fallacies, even though we keep reading them over and over and over…We can all agree and work together. The truth will be heard.
Robert, you are the cheese. The cheese stands alone.
Please remember an acquaintance of mine (“J”) in your prayers. She is about 6 months pregnant and has been hospitalized for the last three weeks for excessive bleeding. To make things worse, she was out-of-state when it happened and can’t be moved, so she is very far from her husband and family. Thanks.
Janet,
Adding “J” to my prayers. Just finished a short intercession for her. Best wishes!
Praying Janet.
I’m sorry about your friend, Janet. I will keep her in my thoughts.
The cheese doesn’t stand alone! Any cheese who feels alone please raise your hand and we can stand alone together. That song always made me sad when I was a kid.
I don’t even eat cheese, in most circumstances, but I will stand with the cheese anyway. :P
MaryRose, Carla, and Alexandra,
Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.