by Susie Allen, host of the blog, Pro-Life in TN, and Kelli

• Culture Campaign comments on self-professed Satanist name “Mary” who claims the Missouri waiting period is preventing her from exercising her religious belief “that her body is subject to her will alone.” (I wonder how they square this with other laws in society which restrict individual rights.) Of course, Mary and the Satanists have the full support of abortion advocates. A fund has been established so “Mary” can have an abortion ASAP at the only remaining abortion clinic in MO, Planned Parenthood of St. Louis – which is not exactly known for it’s great track record on safety.
• 40 Days for Life just celebrated its second event in Nigeria in the past two years.

• Clinic Quotes has a bizarre, twisted quote from Christiane Northrup, a former abortionist, who apparently believes abortion should remain legal because the mother-child bond is sacred. What?
  

  The bond between mother and child is the most intimate bond in human experience. In this most primary of human relationships, love, welcome, and receptivity should be present in abundance. Forcing a woman to bear and raise a child against her will is therefore an act of violence. It constricts and degrades the mother – child bond and sows the seeds of hatred rather than love. … Life is too valuable to inhibit its full blossoming and potential by forcing a woman to bear it against her will.

  Is banning abortion an act of violence, or is abortion itself the act of violence?

• At Live Action News, Amanda Read discusses the past winners of Life Film Fest’s Capra Award and how they honored life:
  

  Capra was the youngest of seven children in an Italian immigrant family, and is remembered for crafting the simple richness of everyday life onto the silver screen in such films as “It’s A Wonderful Life,” “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,” and “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”

  The beauty of Capra’s filmmaking is the power of the parable, as seen in the compelling illustration that no one’s life is an accident.

• Josh Brahm talks about his experience of touring this exhibit (pictured right) in Portland, Oregon. Although, as Brahm points out, some may be “triggered” by the exhibit (perhaps due to their belief that any scientific display of preborn humans is somehow anti-women’s rights), showing the development of the preborn child is scientifically valid:
  

  The exhibit was created by Dr. Gunther von Hagens, the person behind the controversial “Body Worlds” exhibit. He uses a plastination technique to preserve animal and human bodies and sets up exhibits in an effort to educate people about anatomy in a way that books can’t. The exhibit is controversial because in the case of the human bodies, these were real people who arguably should have been buried. My staff and I have unresolved concerns about that aspect of it.

  In the case of the prenatal development exhibit at OMSI, they only have babies who were miscarried and then preserved, presumably with the parents’ permission….

  It became harder for me to step into the shoes of a pro-choice person and defend abortion rights later in the exhibit though. Around the point where the baby in front of us was nine weeks old, it became clearer than anything that this is a little human, not an unorganized mass of developing tissue.

  As I was staring at a child who was about 20 weeks old my brother Tim came up to me to ask me what I was feeling. I paused, and then responded that I felt “intensely sad about abortion.” I asked him what he was feeling, and he replied, “As I looked at the younger embryos, I felt really sad, but the older they get, the more I feel angry.”

  I reminded Tim that abortions at 20-weeks or later don’t happen nearly as often as first-trimester abortions before asking, “What specifically are you angry about?” Tim thought about it, and responded, “I’m angry that 20-week abortions are defended so often. I’m angry that our society is even having to debate whether or not to pass a bill that would ban abortions at this stage.”

[Photo of OR display by Eric Shierman via Josh Brahm; Northrup photo via pinterest.com]