Would the magic last?

Three weeks after her infamous June 25, 2013, 11-hour filibuster, climaxing  days of demonstrations by proponents on both sides of the abortion issue, Texas State Senator Wendy Davis was asked that by a reporter at The Texas Observer. She responded to the affirmative:

[M]illennial generation women are coming and speaking to me about how empowered they feel right now. I think if we had made every effort to try and make that happen, we never could have come up with the recipe.

What’s been so beautiful about this is it was organic and real, and therefore incredibly meaningful for these young women. They are owning the way they feel right now, and I expect that it’s the beginning for a new momentum. I really believe that….

I would be surprised to see it go away….

There is a unique energy behind it. I’ve never experienced anything like it in my public service life of 15 years. So I think it will sustain. I honestly think it will grow, because there is an active energy trying to make sure that happens.

Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards, in a July 13, 2013, fundraising email:

P.E.A.C.E. Initiative’s Patricia Castillo, speaking at a July 11, 2013, pro-abortion rally after it became clear the pro-life legislation would be signed into law, as quoted by MySanAntonio.com:

“We need to be heard in Austin every day. We cannot stand for this. I hope they know they’ve woken the sleeping giant of men and women working together to not stand for this.”

Castillo ended by leading the crowd in a chant: “We procreate faster than you legislate!”

Coming from a pro-abortion crowd that chant made no sense, but whatev.

The point is that for the first time in probably 40-45 years, when energy sparked by the women’s liberation movement protests of the late 1960’s-early 1970’s helped legalize abortion, activists were feeling similar energy and clinging to it, hoping it might work in reverse and rekindle that same movement, now aging and dying.

The abortion industry has sponsored two national marches since that time, in 1992 and 2004 (something pro-lifers do every year). But those have never carried with them the lingering sense of nostalgia, an iconic moment, that abortion proponents are describing as the one-year anniversary of the Austin protests approaches.

It’s no wonder Davis pines for the past, since she is losing by 12 points in the polls for governor (up from 11 points in February) against pro-lifer Greg Abbott (who is also leading by 10 points among women).

But mountaintop experiences are just that, highs with plateaus and lows in between. A movement cannot rely on emotion for the long haul. Nevertheless, abortion backers are trying. From Statesman.com, July 17:

Five abortion-rights activist groups announced Tuesday a campaign designed to rekindle the activism surrounding last year’s fight over stricter abortion regulations….

The focus of the new campaign is a website, fightbacktx.com… [which] asks the protesters and like-minded Texans to sign a pledge - and provide contact information - recommitting to the fight against abortion restrictions.

Last summer’s legislative battle “awakened a sleeping giant,” said Heather Busby, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas….

That ”sleeping giant” has obviously gone back to bed; otherwise it wouldn’t need to “rekindle” and “recommit.” More from the Houston Chronicle:

Nearly a year after thousands of abortion-rights activists brought the Texas Legislature to a standstill, a coalition of liberal groups announced a campaign Tuesday to “recapture the energy” of the movement….

The new campaign asks abortion-rights supporters to “dust off their orange,” a reference to the color worn last summer….

But that orange wouldn’t need “dusting off” had it not so quickly been hung and forgotten in the back of a closet.

And so it is that the abortion movement has shown itself to be the hare, with bursts of excitement that peter out, while the pro-life movement is the tortoise.

by Hans Johnson

Actress Mila Kunis, who is expecting a baby with fiance Ashton Kutcher, recently appeared on  Jimmy Kimmel Live! When Jimmy off-handedly said: “My wife and I are pregnant”, Mila then went into a sketch/rant on men appropriating this phrase for themselves. It was all in good tongue-in-cheek fun, but one can see the frustation felt by mothers in dealing with the many side effects of a pregnancy while their significant others must instead play the supporting role.

So, is there a serious point here, or not?

[youtube]http://youtu.be/onDCvHtHSkY[/youtube]

Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.

[HT: LauraLoo]

by Carder

For women like me who have survived failed abortions as children in the womb, progressing to the point in pregnancy with our own children in which we know we were aborted unsuccessfully during our own mother’s pregnancy is a huge milestone, and this week, I am grateful to have done just that.

I am now 31-1/2 weeks pregnant with our second daughter, now putting me past the 31 week mark at which my birthmother was forced to abort me nearly thirty-seven years ago.

~ Abortion survivor Melissa Ohden, LifeNews.com, June 16

I wonder if they’ll hire Satan worshipers to provide background chanting?

Or distribute gift bags full of feces, urine, and used tampons as door prizes?

A party marking the one-year anniversary of Wendy Davis’s filibuster of an omnibus abortion bill in Texas offers so many possibilities.

And that’s exactly what is planned. According to the Corpus Christi Caller Times today:

AUSTIN – Abortion rights advocates and providers, and the governor’s race campaigns of state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, are planning to commemorate the one year anniversary of Davis’ 2013 filibuster against abortion legislation.

The filibuster rocketed Davis to stardom, although the abortion legislation, increasing standards, regulations and restrictions, returned to pass in a special session.

Details to come.

Can’t wait. Yes, on June 25 it will have been one year since Davis’s 11-hour filibuster attempting to block sweeping pro-life legislation that included a ban on abortions after 20 weeks.

Another party idea: little pink tennis shoes for all the babies who should have been murdered but weren’t, because the ban was enacted anyway despite the best efforts of Davis, Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards, and their vulgar, venomous band of feminist thugs.

RH Reality Check is calling for the “orange army” to submit memories of that apparently awesome day.

But it’s pretty sad when all abortion proponents have to reminisce about is a LOSING effort.

Thanks to that law, which also enacted clinic regulations, the number of abortion clinics in Texas has plummeted from 41 in 2010 to 19 now – and headed down to six when the statute takes full effect on September 1.

LifeNews.com makes a good point that while Davis resents the moniker “Abortion Barbie,” given to her by Erick Erickson, “it’s hard to image why she’d be so upset when she now is hosting a fundraiser to celebrate her abortion infamy.” It’s true. Click on the link…

Join me next week in Austin for an anniversary event marking one year since the filibuster last June: http://t.co/CugPqsc5r3

— Wendy Davis (@wendydavis) June 16, 2014

by Hans Johnson

While parents in New York are suing over their child being taken out of school to be given birth control, another district in Oregon is planning to hand out condoms to sixth-graders.

Then there is the mother who attended  a presentation of sex-education topics with her daughter at Bellingham High School in Washington. She wrote in an email to KOMO  News:

I sat there with my mouth open in shock and the final straw was when a joke was told on stage about a teacher, a lawyer and a priest on a plane. The plane was going down and the teacher says we have to save the children. The attorney says ‘F*** the children!’,  and the priest says ‘OOOOH..Do we have time for that???’.

At that point she left “in shock” and “in tears”.

Lastly, at Pine Valley Middle School in California, a class showed a series of graphic photos with crude captions on the subject: “Top Conception Myths”.

Here is a rep9rt from ABC10:

Glenn Beck channeled his outrage at the public school system in his own inimitable style.

Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.

[HT: Laura Loo; TheBlaze]

by Kelli

According to the great and mighty UN, prohibiting abortion is a grave human rights abuse against women and the Vatican better do something about it.

The one and only American on the U.N. Committee Against Torture, Felice Gaer [pictured], went even further by labeling the Church’s position on abortion was [sic] a form of torture….

Imagine that. We live in a world where Muslims kill people for their Christian faith, where school girls are held hostage and forced to convert in Nigeria… in which women are subject to everything from genital mutilation to subservience before Sharia law but the high and mighty of the UN have decided that being anti-abortion trumps all of this!

~ Pastor Larry Peters, reacting to the UN’s recent attack on the Catholic Church’s pro-life position, Pastoral Meanderings, June 15

[HT: Pro-Life in TN, photo via diariochaco.com]

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.

• Abstinence Clearinghouse says Facebook has decided to contribute to the gender identification confusion by providing users with a myriad of choices – far beyond simply “male” or “female” – with which to identify:
  

  In February 2014, Facebook made the startling announcement that they would provide 58 gender choices for their users to choose from. The typical identities such as male or female, heterosexual, gay or lesbian can be found on the list. But there are numerous other obscure options such as “Pangender” and “Two-Spirit.” When this “buffet-style approach” to gender becomes available to Facebook users, it places biology as secondary and allows users to describe themselves by however they “feel like” at the time.

• Bound4Life, Live Action, and Down on the Pharm all react to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s recent announcement that they will not fund abortion. Is this a true change of mind and heart or a deception, and will they suffer blowback from the abortion industry? Bound4Life writes:
  

  This is huge news as the Gates have always been not just “pro-choice” in their philanthropic endeavors, but radical abortion activists. According to Breitbart, “The Gates Foundation has together awarded the International Planned Parenthood Federation, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Planned Parenthood of Western Washington, and other Planned Parenthood affiliates approximately $71 million in grants from prior to 2009 and through 2013.

• Live Action says even though people like Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane would like to turn sex-selective abortion into a joke, the public isn’t laughing:
  

  Although Planned Parenthood may take a blase attitude to all of this, most Americans do not. Polls show that an overwhelming majority of the public is opposed to gendercide, with a significant portion also concerned about fetal suffering. You can add your voice to that number by signing Live Action’s petition calling for Planned Parenthood to be stripped of the half a billion in federal funding that it receives. Girls already face plenty of challenges; a federally subsidized death shouldn’t be one of them.

• Euthanasia Prevention Coalition says the best way to prevent elder abuse (which is on the rise) is to say no to legalized assisted suicide in New Jersey.
• The Leading Edge has 10 pressing questions for New Zealand’s Green Party about their “rushed and badly crafted” proposed abortion policy:
  

  It seems that the Greens have had to do a spot of damage control since Friday’s announcement that the introduction of a new extreme abortion law in New Zealand is going to be one of their key priorities for the upcoming general election.

• Clinic Quotes posts a reader’s amazing testimony of aborting a child with Down syndrome (to spare the entire family the burden of caring for the child) only to end up in preterm labor during her subsequent pregnancy, in which she gave birth to a child with special needs. The reader says she has learned something important since the birth of her son:
  

  But what I have learned in the 5 years since he was born amazes me more. I have learned that I do have the strength to raise this child. That yes, the drs. appts. and therapies which at the beginning seemed all encompassing, fade into the past as he grows older. I have seen my daughter grow beautifully into a compassionate and loving person. The experience of having a brother with special needs has exposed her to something that I always said I would teach my children. That different isn’t bad… that what makes a person beautiful isn’t what you can see with your eyes.

• Coming Home has some strong words for President Obama regarding the deaths of children in school shootings:
  

  WHY are these shootings taking place, and WHY now? We have tighter restrictions on gun purchase and ownership than in any time in America. There is a seeming proportionality between restrictions and violence, but even that cannot explain the motives….

  Obama is too myopically focused on the gun to see the coarsening to life that he himself has championed his whole adult life. He fails to see the 57 million babies torn apart in abortion….

  He fails to see an African American community decimated by 15 million missing members from abortion…. But blaming Obama is as myopic as the president’s vision.

  We have brought all of this upon ourselves. We live in a constitutional republic: limited powers to government with elected officials. We have been too narcissistic and hedonistic to care about the destruction wrought by these men and women who come from us, and are a reflection of us. We have lived lives, as a people, that are out of control and have raised children in a coarsened and calloused environment of our own making….

  The only difference between the victims of Columbine, Sandy Hook, the other school shootings, and the 57 million butchered babies is that these children in school were wanted children.

[Photos via brogzinho.wordpress.com and mdbeau.blogspot.com]

I have blogged several times about pitiful sore loser Steve Driehaus, the supposed pro-life Ohio Democrat congressman who voted for abortion inclusive Obamacare.

When Susan B. Anthony List planned to expose Driehaus for his vote in a billboard ad (above) during the 2010 election cycle, he filed a complaint with the Ohio Election Commission accusing SBA List of false advertising, and OEC blocked the ad from being erected.

After Driehaus lost his election to pro-life stalwart Steve Chabot, he followed up with a federal complaint of defamation, blaming SBA List for his loss. That lawsuit was dismissed in January 2013, but Driehaus appealed the next month, and no further action on that appeal has been made.

(As an aside Democrats for Life’s Kristen Day burned bridges against the pro-life community when she revealed and twisted private conversations and emails in order to file affidavits on Driehaus’s behalf. Day is now persona non grata.)

Meanwhile, SBA List filed a federal lawsuit against the State of Ohio, challenging the constitutionality of the false-claims law that triggered the trouble to begin with, stating at issue was the First Amendment right of free speech.

While a district court and then the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals both dismissed SBA List’s lawsuit, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously today that SBA List has standing and reversed the lower court decisions.

SBA List is challenging the Ohio statute on grounds that it empowers a state agency to determine what constitutes true or false political speech.

Hopefully, we will see the State of Ohio wave the white flag before dragging this ordeal out further.

Congratulations to SBA List!