Jivin J’s Life Links 8-11-11
by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat
- According to the International Business Times, a South Korean documentary television team found evidence suggesting Chinese pharmaceutical companies are using remains of aborted children for stamina pills:
Chinese hospitals and abortion clinics that are connected to the business immediately notify pharmaceutical companies when a baby dies, mostly because of a stillbirth or an abortion.
The companies purchase the baby corpses and store them in some family’s refrigerator to avoid suspicion. The next step in this highly secretive process is putting the corpses in a medical drying microwave and grinding them into pills. The ground baby powder is then put in a capsule, ready to be sold as a stamina enhancer, according to the SBS team.
The source states the team ran tests on the pills and found them to be 99.7% human.
- A San Diego attorney has pleaded guilty to baby selling. From the LA Times:
According to court documents, [reproductive law specialist Theresa] Erickson hired women in San Diego to go to Ukraine to be implanted with embryos created from the sperm and eggs of donors.
Once a woman was in the 2nd trimester of pregnancy, she would return to San Diego and Erickson [pictured left] would “shop” the babies by falsely telling couples that a couple who had intended to adopt the baby had backed out of the deal. The new couple would then be charged between $100,000 and $150,000, according to prosecutors.
- Overheard – does having an abortion give abortion advocates more pro-choice credibility? From the Abortioneers blog:
I’ve never had an abortion. I’ve never even had a pregnancy scare, though that’s probably more because of the lack of opportunity than anything else. Sometimes I start to think that I could have just a teeny bit more Abortioneer cred if I had had an abortion, even though I don’t really believe that there is a hierarchy of pro-choicedness.
- From Britain, we have another story on Narendra Sharma, an abortion clinic consultant accused of several instances of sexual abuse of patients. Surely he does his job because he cares so much about women’s rights.
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.
That baby pill story is just horrifying. It reminds me of that film “Soylent Green” where Charlton Heston cries “soylent green is people!”
Regarding credibility, a writer in “Tikkun” noted that the several of the most prominent women in the movement to criminalize abortion “are childless celibates like Nellie Gray.” It seems at least possible that it is easier to tell other females that they must carry pregnancies to term and give birth if your personal characteristics make it difficult for you to identify with females who have problem pregnancies.
Denise – and what of the millions of women in the movement who have faced problem pregnancies (and abortion!)? Their voices are credible but men, young women, and women who choose not to have sex if they are unprepared for children are not credible when they say the same thing? The truth is the truth, no matter who says it.
Denise, the description you provide of “childless celibates” does not mesh with my experience at all of those in pro-life circles, including the movement’s “leaders”. Fellow workers with me include parents who have disabled children or grandchildren, post-abortive men and women and single mothers (or those who were when they first learned they were pregnant). I would say the exception is the person who does not have someone close to them (friend or family) who was “recommended to be terminated” for social or “quality of life” reasons.
But CT is right about the truth. It remains the truth regardless of the life experience of the person communicating it.
CT says:
August 11, 2011 at 3:22 pm
Denise – and what of the millions of women in the movement who have faced problem pregnancies (and abortion!)? Their voices are credible but men, young women, and women who choose not to have sex if they are unprepared for children are not credible when they say the same thing? The truth is the truth, no matter who says it.
(Denise) I’m not saying that all females in the movement to outlaw abortion are childless celibates. I just wrote that a writer in “Tikkun” observed that childless celibates tend to be prominent in the movement. I also observed that it might make it EASIER to insist other females carry to term and give birth if the personal characteristics you possess make it difficult to see yourself in the position of someone who feels trapped by an unwanted pregnancy. BTW, you seem to lack imagination. People choose not to engage in the activity that leads to pregnancy for a variety of reasons. Some people are asexual. Some people are not sexually interested in the other. Some people may have erotic feelings but lack interest in the particular act that leads to pregnancy.
Denise perhaps I have no imagination or perhaps I just don’t think it matters why people are or are not having sex or what kind of sex they’re having as long as if they do have sex, they don’t kill the children that may result.
And despite what the writer observed I do not observe a similar trend nor do I think empirical study would support the observation. If it’s “easier” for these “celibates” then it would have to be “harder” for the millions of women n the movement who are not celibate. I don’t think they struggle at all with insisting women carry their pregnancies to term when the way one avoids doing so is by killing those children. I know I don’t.
I’m interested to get the abortion proponent’s reaction to the story of the baby pills. It’s not different than eating a placenta right? A little gross, but not immoral. Or is it only immoral if it’s a still born (b/c once born you count) but not immoral if the baby is the result of a late term abortion (never born/doesn’t count)?
Oh, so you mean someone who doesn’t know the pro-life movement, who probably is familiar with us only as a caricature, thinks it discredits us because the people within the movement that they’ve dismissed and generalized about looked to them to be celibate?
HOLY CRAP, I REALLY CARE ABOUT THOSE GUYS’ PERCEPTIONS!!!! WE BETTER GET ON THIS RIGHT AWAY!
XD
xalisae says:
August 12, 2011 at 8:58 am
Oh, so you mean someone who doesn’t know the pro-life movement, who probably is familiar with us only as a caricature, thinks it discredits us because the people within the movement that they’ve dismissed and generalized about looked to them to be celibate?
(Denise) A legitimate point is being made about the movement to criminalize abortion: it may have an image problem. Moreover, it is quite possible that a person’s stand on this issue is strongly influenced by one’s identification: do you identify with the female who is involuntarily pregnant and views continuing the pregnancy with horror or do you identify with the embryo or fetus that would be expelled from the womb at the cost of life? A female who is asexual or lesbian might be less likely than a heterosexual female to identify with a pregnant female — that seems logical.
Denise
A legitimate point is being made about the movement to criminalize abortion: it may have an image problem
It’s legitimate b/c one random person says it has an image problem? I have never heard this criticism most likely b/c so few could say it with a straight face given that the vast majority of women in this movement, including the leaders are not celibate.
it is quite possible that a person’s stand on this issue is strongly influenced by one’s identification: do you identify with the female who is involuntarily pregnant and views continuing the pregnancy with horror or do you identify with the embryo or fetus that would be expelled from the womb at the cost of life? A female who is asexual or lesbian might be less likely than a heterosexual female to identify with a pregnant female — that seems logical.
Just b/c it seems logical doesn’t mean evidence supports it. Anecdotally, you have 95%+ of the pro-life women on this site who have families, boyfriends, past abortions. These are people who can certainly identify w/ the fear of being unexpectedly pregnant. Yet they have no trouble defending the right of the fetus to live despite sympathy for the mother. They don’t seem to struggle with it.
If you look at some data we have available, it doesn’t support you either. I don’t know what percentage of the population is comprised of lesbians and asexuals but gallup tells us that roughly 2% of women are gay/bisexual so I think we can safely say it’s under 5% of the population even adding in asexual. Gallup’s 2011 poll showed that men and women were equally likely to be pro-life and that there was no difference in the views of women 18-34 or 35 – 54. When you look at the percentage of women who took the extreme views (legal in all circumstances or illegal in all) there was a pretty even split (29% to 24%). When you expand the categories to include legal in all/most or legal in few/none you see that 60% of women identify with the few/non camp. Even assuming a disproportionate representation of gay/bisexual women in the 24% or 60% camp (which is frankly laughable), that’s a LOT of heterosexual, non-celibate, women who have no problem saying they are pro-life despite whatever sympathy they may or may not feel for the mother. These are women who have been/could get pregnant, yet they don’t seem to struggle.
So really Denise. What is your point?
“A legitimate point is being made about the movement to criminalize abortion”
It’s not legitimate to me. Send them my way, Denise. I’m mother to a child who was gestating in a crisis pregnancy that caused me to lose my job, my place to live, put me under pressure by her father to abort, and kept me up weeping almost every night. I am the Pro-Life Movement, and so is my daughter, and anyone who wants to criticize us as being unsympathetic to the very kinds of women WE ARE can be brought up to speed by us. We will help enlighten them.
Criminalizing homicide?!?!
Now there’s a novel idea.
de-odorize the white house: remove b o
duces tecum
Xalisae: I am the Pro-Life Movement, and so is my daughter, and anyone who wants to criticize us as being unsympathetic to the very kinds of women WE ARE can be brought up to speed by us.
Now that is powerful writing. Don’t always agree with all you say, X, but the “real you” is always there, and that’s a beautiful thing.
Thank you, Doug. I appreciate it. I just wish more people would take the message which I try so desperately to thrust in every direction at all times to heart, because it is so very important.
My daughter is the light of my life, and the reason I fight so very fervently with the passionate words that I write. I wish more people would see her as she is and always has been from the second she was conceived: She was a person. She was a human being. She was my child. She deserved to have her life protected by law regardless of what her father or I happened to be going through at the time of her conception. She is all of these things to this day, and always has been from the minute that conception transpired.
Doug,
Make no mistake. Xalisae is the REAL DEAL!!
Xalisae,
You make me so proud. To know you and to stand with you!
Thank you, Carla. But I want you to know that you keep me going. It’s easy to get bogged-down talking to women who seem so cold and full of vengeance, spite, and even seeming disgust for their own children after they’ve aborted. I look at that often and think there’s no hope for these sorts of people. But then I come back here and see you, and realize that there IS hope, once the walls have been breached.
Thank YOU.
One thing I should probably clarify is that I don’t hold celibacy in contempt. For many people, it should be encouraged. I have a close asexual female friend. She doesn’t have any position on whether abortion should be legal or illegal. She says, “That’s for other people to worry about, not me.” She is a virgin in her late 40s. Even if she was raped, she wouldn’t get pregnant as the same condition that renders her asexual also renders her sterile. She has a condition that leaves her hormonally at a pre-puberty level.
An asexual man I know believes abortion should be legal in early pregnancies.
The lesbians I know are divided on the abortion issue with some believing that abortion should be criminalized and others believing that it should be legal.
Xalisae,
I appreciate your words very much.
I get the privilege of walking with women who were once cold and hard and angry and struggling. They step out into the light and embrace their child who died in their abortions. They accept what has happened, they accept help and healing and forgiveness!
FREEDOM!
(I heart Xalisae and Carla! :) )
Okay, sorry… back to the topic at hand!
Hearts to you, Paladin! :)
She says, “That’s for other people to worry about, not me.”
My fiance thought the same way before we met. He had never given the idea any thought and frankly he didn’t know anything about it because he didn’t bother learning anything about it because he thought it was a woman’s issue, not his.
Sexuality and activity has nothing to do with this. It’s your educational level about the subject that really matters. Once someone knows enough to see that this is not just an issue for sexually active women because abortion kills a HUMAN BEING, which we all are, and that this is a grave human rights violation that involves EVERYONE, the veil can be lifted and this fact becomes easy to see. “Pro-Choice” propaganda and obfuscation has been highly successful over the years, but it’s time for us to break out the truth.
(I hearts Paladin, also!)
xalisae says:
August 13, 2011 at 1:31 pm
She says, “That’s for other people to worry about, not me.” My fiance thought the same way before we met. He had never given the idea any thought and frankly he didn’t know anything about it because he didn’t bother learning anything about it because he thought it was a woman’s issue, not his.
(Denise) My friend is both asexual and sterile. She has been somewhat intimidated when she has said something about raising children or the like by people saying things like, “How would you know? You don’t have any kids.” Thus, she just doesn’t get into issues related to sexuality or family life. She’ll never have either and people throw that in her face when she seems to, in their opinion, intrude in those areas.
<<Sexuality and activity has nothing to do with this. It’s your educational level about the subject that really matters. Once someone knows enough to see that this is not just an issue for sexually active women because abortion kills a HUMAN BEING, which we all are, and that this is a grave human rights violation that involves EVERYONE, the veil can be lifted and this fact becomes easy to see. “Pro-Choice” propaganda and obfuscation has been highly successful over the years, but it’s time for us to break out the truth.>>
(Denise) It does relate to sexuality. I remember being a teenaged girl and hearing my mother say, “So-and-so is pregnant. Her foster mother wishes she’d never taken her in. She’s been such a disappointment.” I also recall her seeing a newspaper headline and saying, “Help for pregnant girls? Tell ’em not to screw around!” The message I got was that female children disappoint and trigger anger because they get pregnant. As a result, I was a “good girl” and retreated to my room and a fantasy world.
The reason the abortion issue is complex is that the embryo or fetus cannot — at the present time — be transplanted into a willing womb or into an artificial womb. It may be good to support research on these possibilities but they are in the future. Carrying to term and giving birth imposes enormous costs. The fact that females have committed suicide and gone to back alley butchers when they couldn’t get abortions show that those costs are often unbearable (no pun intended). Yes, I know you believe that the ordeal may be legally imposed and I respect that position.
I’m sorry your friend has been mistreated in such a way. Everyone has a right to speak out on human rights issues, even if they are not capable of producing more humans. It is by virtue of them being a human being that it is relevant to them. It’d be pretty stupid to say that a menopausal childless woman cannot speak out against child abuse, for instance, because oh, well, she can’t possibly know how hard it is to manage children and raise a family, so if she sees her next door neighbor beating his children out in the front yard, she’d best just keep her mouth shut about it, because it doesn’t affect HER.
The sexuality discussion you bring up is secondary (at least) to the legality of abortion. Theft is wrong. Noticing that it’s primarily those from low-income areas that steal and wanting to do something to help make people from areas like that less likely to turn to crime is great, but at the end of the day, stealing is still wrong and that issue should be dealt with and criminalized.
xalisae says:
August 13, 2011 at 6:09 pm
The sexuality discussion you bring up is secondary (at least) to the legality of abortion.
(Denise) It seems to me that the entire question of problem pregnancies is a horror central to growing up female. The girl my mother mentioned who had gotten pregnant was unattractive and shy. In all likelihood, her desires for affection and attention were used to extract sexual favors. She probably got pregnant as a result of sexual exploitation.
I didn’t get pregnant. In high school, I spent my free time in my room where I watched TV, read, and listened to rock songs on the radio. People remarked on what a “good girl” I was and how I stayed home a lot. I stayed home because I didn’t want to get pregnant. When I finally DID get a boyfriend in college, I had a special advantage because all that time alone gave me time to think about ways to express certain desires that did not result in pregnancy. Educating young females about alternatives might be a major step toward diminishing problem pregnancies.
Now you are conflating the injustices of abortion and sexual exploitation. It is true that sometimes the latter uses the former as a tool, but I’ve talked to plenty of venomous pro-abortion women who were married, well-off, or in a stable enough place themselves to take care of their children when they became pregnant who just didn’t care to do so. These women are not being sexually exploited. They know fully well what they are doing and do so anyway.
xalisae says:
August 14, 2011 at 1:42 pm
Now you are conflating the injustices of abortion and sexual exploitation. It is true that sometimes the latter uses the former as a tool
(Denise) Abortion isn’t necessarily a “tool” of sexual exploitation. Rather, sexual exploitation is a major reason for problem pregnancies that often end in abortion, a baby given up for adoption, or a child raised by an impoverished single mother.
Make no mistake. Xalisae is the REAL DEAL!!
Carla; never doubted it. Same for you.