Pro-life blog buzz 8-14-12
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.
- Big Blue Wave reprints an essay on abortion entitled, “The Cause of Life Can’t be Severed from the Cause of Freedom,” written by WI Rep. Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney’s pick for Republican VP candidate.
Pro-lifers, we need to get busy supporting this ticket.
- Father Frank Pavone discusses the reasons why he believes the Catholic Church’s invitation to President Obama to attend the Al Smith Dinner in October is “not appropriate at this time.”
- Kelly Clinger discusses a recent viral photo (pictured left) of a woman waiting to abort her 20-week twin girls (because she wanted boys) at the Orlando Women’s Center. The photo has received mixed reactions – mostly disbelief and horror that procedures like it are legal and occurring every day here in America. Perhaps this horror is a starting point to help people understand that early abortion is no different – it’s just a matter of size.
- At The Road to Roe, Clarke Forsythe has information on “one of the earliest pieces of evidence in [Justice Blackmun’s] papers that viability was being considered as a gestational marker in defining the abortion right.”
- Michael New shares his thoughts on the legacy of March for Life founder Nellie Gray, who passed away this week at the age of 88.
- The Anti-Abortion Gang points out how ultra-liberal Rachel “I usually love the AP” Maddow is shocked by a mainstream media article which includes quotes from a pro-life leader and fails to keep the usual pro-abortion slant.
- FRC Blog has a must-read post discussing whether religious freedom is necessary for our other freedoms to exist. The attacks on our religious freedoms/conscience rights are front and center with the passing of Obamacare:
Dr. Tom Farr… states the core of his argument eloquently in two essential points: (1) Our duty to God precedes any duty we have to the state, and thus (2) it is the duty of the state to protect this foundational right to religious liberty and the exercise of conscience.
- Moral Outcry explains what cancer and abortion have in common and what you need to know before participating in fundraisers for the American Cancer Society:
The American Cancer Society is not considered a pro-life organization for the following reasons:1. Support for human embryonic stem cell research
2. Grant funding at facilities known prominently for human embryonic stem cell research
3. Grant funding for morally questionable research
4. Grant funding to Planned Parenthood
5. Referrals to Planned Parenthood as a health information/education resource
6. Donations to the Lance Armstrong LiveStrong Global Cancer Campaign
7. Failure to acknowledge the link between previously induced abortion and risk for breast cancer
8. Suggested fertility options including IVF, embryo freezing, egg/sperm donation and surrogacyThe problem with agencies like ACS is that we don’t want to speak out against places helping people with cancer. Cancer is evil. It kills people prematurely.
And so does abortion.
- Kansans for Life shares the good news of pro-life victories in Kansas state primaries:
This continued pattern of electing pro-life legislators is inspired by more than a decade of frustration with the failure to prosecute fraudulent late-term abortions, the Senate resistance to toughening abortion laws, the shameless shredding of evidence of criminal abortion by the Sebelius administration, and the failure of the Senate to throw out the worst state judicial process in the nation, as we watch newly-passed pro-life bills sit in court or head to our extremely liberal state Supreme Court.
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.
Um, why do pro-lifers need to get busy supporting this ticket? Do we honestly believe Romney will work to overturn Roe v Wade during his presidency? That is pretty delusional if anyone realy believes Romney gives a rat’s behind about abortion.Period.
Poro-lifers have been more energized under Obama than any other president.
According to Rebecca Kiessling Ryan supports abortion for cases of rape and incest. Please tell me again how pro-life he is (if this is true. I haven’t ben able to confirm it yet).
I do know Ryan voted for No Child Left Behnd, TARP bailouts, Patriot Act and creation of Dept. of homeland security (which btw has led to pro-lifers being classified as terrorists and harassed). I am not that impressed with Ryan.
I know many argue that we cannot let Obama win even if we have to hold our noses and vote for Romney. I am of the opinion that Roe will never be overturned and things will never change when you keep electing the same kind of politicians over and over and over.
Anyhow, my vote is my own and I will prayerfully consider who I vote for.
“I have issued a quote saying that I don’t think
it’s [Cardinal Dolan inviting the most radically pro-abotion politician in our nations history to give the keynote address at a CATHOLIC charities fundraiser]
appropriate at this time.”
Frank Pavone
Pray tell Mr. Pavone, when would it ever be ‘appropriate’?
Does anyone believe that the folks who show up to hear the obamateur prevaricate are going to open their purses and donate their own money to catholic charities?
If Bill Clinton’s personal behavior while a sitting president made him un-acceptable as an invited speaker, then what kind of religious lip stick is required to make this swine an acceptable sacrifice on the altar of the LORD.
Frank Pavone would be better served by saying nothing than to try and finesse this feat of fatuous flatulence into a floral fragrance.
Behold, it stinketh to high heavens.
I have come across yet two more ABC studies that I have not seen mentioned here or a few other pro-life sites that mention the ABC isssue. The references are below. In “Raza,” with Pakistani women, the results are presented in an untraditional manner, and not clearly labeled, in their Table 2. But I believe the numbers mean: in a case control study, where possible predictors in 244 women with breast cancer were compared with those measures in a group of similar women (similar age, etc.) but who did not have breast cancer, 121 of the 244 breast cancer pts. had reported an abortion history, while only 33 of the 244 controls reported an abortion in their history. This gives a relative risk of 121/244 / 33/244 = .496/.135 = RR of 3.67; if a woman had breast cancer, she was more than three and a half times more likely to have abortion in her history than a similar women without breast cancer.
This study is subject to a bias suggested in this line of research: a woman with breast cancer may be more forthcoming about abortion history since she wants to help identify likely causes, while a woman without breast cancer has no such benefit to be gained by overcoming stigma of reporting. THat reporting bias may be involved, but the magnitude of the risk is much greater than you see with these types of risk reporting biases.
In the Qiu study, in a province in mainland China, the relative risk, in the same format as above, is this: 426/500 / 407/500 = .852/.804 = RR = 1.06.
A woman with breast cancer is 1 point oh six times more likely to have reported at least one abortion compared to the similar group with no breast cancer. The magnitude is much smaller, largely because there are so few women without abortion: 1/5 overall. THe odds ratio for breast cancer assoc with each additional abortion was (Table 2) 1.004, with a confidence interval at 1.001 to 1.005 (p = point oh oh three, so this is a predcitive factor above chance). As you look at the likelihood of abortions in women with vesus without breast cancer, it gets a little bit mor elikely to have abortion reported as you go from zero to one abortion reported, from 1 to 2 abortions reported, and so on. Because the increments /steps are smaller in the actual variable, you have a smaller statistic (1.04, not 3.67). But the narrow confidence interval suggests you are probably on to a real relation, not some proxy indicator (such as abortions being confounded with race or SES) or a fluke chance of data and sampling. In fact, the results are similar in magnitude to the Chen 2011 JAMA article that suggested alcohol might be a risk factor for breast cancer, which got a lot of press (RR around 1.10 to 1.20).
Yes, the powers-that-be have conducted their reviews and have argued away any positive results. Yet in the past 3 years, this makes maybe 6 or 7 studies, from outside US, where the ABC link is detected. In china, they are far more accepting of abortion and do not feel much need fo rprivacy or secrecy – in fact, it has been a major govt agenda item for a few decades. So, there, there is no political move to under-report, downplay, and deny such data. These foreign countries, where abortion has been marketed as a national economic policy, rather than a matter of freedom from oppressive white Christians, the truth will be revealed.
Raza U, Khanam A, Meh-Jabeen, Furqan M, Saleem-ul-Haque. Risk profile for breast carcinoma and tumour histopathology of medical uninsured patients in Pakistan. Journal of Ayub Medical College, Abbottabad : JAMC. 2011 Jan-Mar;23(1):9-14.
Qiu J, Yang R, Rao Y, Du Y, Kalembo FW. Risk factors for breast cancer and expression of insulin-like growth factor-2 (IGF-2) in women with breast cancer in Wuhan City, China. PLoS One. 2012;7(5):e36497. Epub 2012 May 25.
I cannot get over the photo of the woman waiting to abort. Truly heinous and heartbreaking. Really there are no words. Abortion just needs to be illegal. Period. End of story.
The difference between early and late abortion isn’t “just a matter of size.” It’s a matter of development and sentience. Indeed, as the pregnancy progresses, there is the possibility of fetal pain. Abortion may never be something that is good but if it is going to be done, earlier is always better as it becomes increasingly gruesome the longer the pregnancy has gone on.
I have a good friend, Yuri Nesterenko, to whom I talked with about Gianna Jessen. Yuri was surprised that abortion as late as 7 1/2 months in pregnancy could be legal in the US.
He believes an early abortion is better than “giving birth to an unwanted child.” However, Yuri has never impregnated a woman as he is the founder of the Antisexual Stronghold. He is an atheist but believes there should be no sexual activity other than that necessary to maintain population. He wants a world of true rationality and sees both sexuality and romantic love as contrary to rationality. He believes people should work to engage each other on an intellectual basis.
Although I don’t share his viewpoint, I also want to see a more intellectually oriented culture. That would inevitably lead to a radical decrease in unplanned pregnancy.
@ Becca
She doesn’t want any more girls. I wonder if her daughters realize the fate they barely missed. Can you imagine your mother with that big belly and telling you she is killing your two little sisters because they are girls and she only wants a boy?
How can anyone blame someone for preferring sons to daughters? As soon as a daughter hits puberty, you must worry that she might get pregnant. “She’s probably pregnant.” “She’s pregnant. She’s been such a disappointment.” Who wants to hassle with that? People want a child whose talents they can nurture not a THING THAT CAN GET PREGNANT.
“Really there are no words.”
I have been holding and observing a new born little girl the last few days . It is difficult for me to dwell on a fellow human being, male or female, who would arbritrarily choose to kill her becasue she/he was not satisfied with the babies gender.
More evidence that humans are capable of stupidity more stupefying than I had previously considered.
There are ’words’ linger in my archival memory that I have not yet been able to delete, but even those vulagarities are insufficient to communicate my revlusion.
Becca,
I was going to suggest some ‘words’, but upon further reflection, you are correct,
There REALLY are no words.
Sydney
Its ROMNEY that supports “exceptions” NOT Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan is a devout Catholic Christian
Its disgusting that late term abortions exist….and usually are used for killing a baby that has a “defect” or is the wrong sex or the mom doesn’t “want to be pregnant” The “doctor” makes up reasons and says they are “health” reasons (which were never defined by DOE!) It amazes me how many people are ignorant of the fact that abortion IS LEGAL ALL NINE MONTHS!
I have a cousin who with his wife are trying to raise the funds to adopt a baby. With ONE MILLION abortions a year, it may be a few more years before they are matched with a newborn! How many couples who struggle with infertility would have been glad to adopt this woman’s baby girls? How many? I bet there would have been at least 100 couples!
How can anyone blame someone for preferring sons to daughters? As soon as a daughter hits puberty, you must worry that she might get pregnant.
For anyone who thinks we live in a post-feminism society, read this again. Good grief, Denise! There’s enough pro-abortion misogyny and pregnancy-shaming going around already without you helping them.
^ I don’t know if Denise was serious or not.
Regarding gender preference of a child: in the U.S., and some other countries, we generally have a preference for a fairly matched set of kids: 1 boy 1 girl, 2 boys 2 girls; at least one of each. This would be very challenging to tease out of birth data, but you could hypothetically do the analysis, and possibly determine whether vital statistics birth data show that to some degree children are aborted due to being the wrong gender, same as with male-preference-motivated aborting of females. That has been documented in the U.S among some Asian-American populations, as it has in many Asian countries.
Yes, people will abort a child simply because it seems to be the wrong gender. And, consider, on top of all that, sometimes the gender test is wrong.
So, there are people out there wanting a boy who kill off the baby because a test falsely says it is a girl, and in reality it was actually a boy.
Denise, I wish you would realize that your extreme fear of pregnancy is not shared by most people.
I was reading the article about the Orlando woman waiting to abort her twin girls and there were some posts saying people should not be judgmental and should try to help women with what they need. Well, this woman apparently didn’t “need” anything but boys. She had to go through labor TWO days to get rid of her daughters and seemed to be pretty nonchalant about it. In other words, she knew what she was doing and it didn’t bother her. Prolifers tend to look as women as innocent victims, but as I said before, the reasoning for many abortions can be summed up in six words: I DON’T WANT TO BE BOTHERED. And that’s what I find sickening and very scary.
And what if this woman conceives girls again? It’s just a horrendous situation.
Lrning says:
August 15, 2012 at 11:13 am
Denise, I wish you would realize that your extreme fear of pregnancy is not shared by most people.
(Denise) Is 1 and 1/2 million abortions per year a myth?
Do babies never get strangled or suffocated at birth or left by the road?
If I hadn’t had this extreme fear of pregnancy, I might well have had an abortion. I never have had an abortion.
SydneyM, I had the same reaction to line about pro-lifers having to get busy supporting this ticket. Both Romney and Ryan have had far too many bad votes to be considered in my book. I don’t think they’re pro-life enough to be an automatic “must” for pro-lifers. I will prayerfully consider who I vote for this election. (Though I would like to see Obama lose if nothing else than for his and his wife’s reeking arrogance).
Phillymiss, that disturbs me too. How on earth can she be so non-chalant about it? Not because she doesn’t have the resources, but because she wants a boy. how tragic.
Liz, I always dreamed of having twins and I would have gladly taken those babies, even though I’m an older single woman.
Denise,
I’m sorry you had parents who raised you as “A THING THAT CAN GET PREGNANT!” instead of a human being who was their daughter. Most people don’t have such psychologically-abusive parents. Please try harder to understand that.
xalisae says:
August 15, 2012 at 1:50 pm
Denise,I’m sorry you had parents who raised you as “A THING THAT CAN GET PREGNANT!” instead of a human being who was their daughter. Most people don’t have such psychologically-abusive parents. Please try harder to understand that.
(Denise) The fear inculcated into me meant that I have never had an abortion.
Something like 43% of American women have had abortions. Others have placed babies for adoption or neglected or mistreated babies.
denise, do you really think parents have that sort of attitude about girls? My parents didn’t! If a parent really has that sort of attitude, I’d ask what is in their drinking water.
Paul Ryan has a 100% rating from National Right to Life…how is that “not pro life” enough?
LizFromNebraska says:
August 15, 2012 at 7:03 pm
denise, do you really think parents have that sort of attitude about girls? My parents didn’t! If a parent really has that sort of attitude, I’d ask what is in their drinking water.
(Denise) When I was a teenager, all I ever seemed to hear about girls was “so-and-so is pregnant.” When I read Dear Abby or Ann Landers, teen girls were inevitably “in trouble.” When people asked my mom is there was “something wrong” with me, she would tell me this and add “Of course, if she was more like other girls, she might get-a-boyfriend-and-get-pregnant.” I read a book about high school girls and saw how one painfully shy girl was coaxed out of her shell. She “got a boyfriend and got pregnant.”
As a result, I hid myself from the world — and my eggs from sperm. I watched TV, listened to the radio, and to a large extend lived in TV stories.
However, I’ve never had an abortion.
People think the reason I want teen girls to at least have the opportunity to be on contraception is because I want them engaging in partnered heterosexuality. I don’t. In my 20s, I went on the Pill but remained a virgin…. What I want is to see getting pregnant taken off the table so girls can concentrate on things other than guarding their eggs.
” How can anyone blame someone for preferring sons to daughters? As soon as a daughter hits puberty, you must worry that she might get pregnant.”
DENISE!! You make me so sad. I’m serious, every time you say stuff like this, every time you talk about how your parents talked about you, how you were basically self isolated because you were so terrified of getting pregnant, I feel so bad for you. You deserved parents who had honest conversations with you about sex and self control, who encouraged you to make platonic friendships and find activities you enjoy. That would have kept you as safe from pregnancy as cloistering you in your room like it is some kind of really depressing convent.
The rest of us dont think of our daughters like your parents apparently thought of you. Girls are so much more than their capability to conceive at puberty, and I am so sorry that you weren’t treated like were more than that when you were young.
@ JackBorsch and others: More about my background and the development of my disorder is found at http://mensnewsdaily.com/2007/03/11/my-mother’s-befouled-breasts-and-me
As adults we have to understand that we no longer have the luxury to sit out any election. Romney is not perfect, but it is our responsibility to elect pro-life legislatures to send pro-life legislation to Romney to sign. That is the reality. He will sign these bills, and if he doesn’t we have to try again. Yes, it is hard work, but it is the hand we have been dealt and we have to make it work for us. We can be thankful we at least have this opportunity. If we don’t do everything we can then shame on us. For many of us we will perhaps the rest of our lives working to restore a respect for life in our culture.
Denise,
As the daughter of a hoarder, I give you my sincere thanks for showing me how screwed-up I could’ve ended up. Yet another reason to consider myself lucky in life. Thank you.
Denise, I admire your desire to increase the number of wanted pregnancies and to reduce suffering.
However, Denise, isn’t your desire for wanting to eliminate unplanned pregnancy the same as asking women to guard their eggs? Couldn’t young women just as easily misinterpret your intentions/message?
We’re going to have to face up to the fact that the pro-life cause will need a decent economy to spring out of. People are already blind to the overwhelming evidence in front of them. They’ll need the “shiny object” of their financial concerns put to the side before they look at the carnage in front of them.