This week comedienne  Sarah Silverman called preborn babies “goo” on Real Time with Bill Maher:

“And meanwhile, it’s goo. It’s goo that they’re so worried about.”

Silverman is no stranger to contemptible treatment of the abortion topic (<– and yes, NBC did indeed take a pass on her pilot), sometimes in conjunction with the Christian faith.

But Silverman is part of a celebrity club doing their best to make abortion funny, blasé.

Abortion proponents like Sarah Seltzer of RH Reality Check think is a good thing:

[T]he lack of abortion jokes creates this hyped-up atmosphere of tragedy and controversy around something that is quite common and needs to be discussed more.

Even if Seth McFarlane and the Family Guy team failed miserably to be funny or edgy in their attempts to milk humor from abortion, even if they were crass and sexist, I’d hope the episode would be an opening salvo for more comics, artists and others to talk about this reality in women’s lives that, like all realities, has to contain fodder for humor.

Where Seth MacFarlane failed in his attempt to bring abortion humor to that cartoon, his South Park brand succeeded with the video game Stick of Truth, where the abortion scenes may have been censored elsewhere, but not in the U.S.

And so you’ll read such [<– warning: graphic] comments by gamers intent on completing the abortion as:

• “I can’t do this for the life of me… How do you take out the thing when you dilate him? Just get blood.”
• “No I’ve been stuck on the vacuum for ages it’s just silly now, been trying for a few days.”
• “The guide says, ‘You have three procedures to accomplish to avoid getting shot up by the goons. First, inject the syringe correctly by waiting for the needle to point toward the center of Randy’s groin. Second, spin to dilate. Third, when prompted, move the vacuum from one side to the other until the procedure is complete.'”
• “With the injection, your character will angle the syringe in three different directions (left, center, and right). When the needle is positioned in the center, press down with the left stick to inject whatever it is that you’re injecting.”

This all makes me sick. These people are oblivious to the fact they’re virtually killing a baby.

But isn’t that the point?

Looking back over the past few years, do you think these growing attempts to destigmatize abortion by making it funny is working in any way?

The cause of death reflects the subsequent effects of the cardiopulmonary arrest the decedent suffered during a pregnancy termination procedure.

~ Medical Examiner’s report on Lakisha Wilson (pictured right), age 22, who died on March 28, one week after submitting to a late-term abortion at Preterm, an abortion business in Cleveland, Ohio, via Operation Rescue, May 30

by Kelli

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• Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life says the World Health Assembly recently adopted a plan to “reduce high rates of neonatal mortality in large parts of the world”. Unfortunately, they left out something important:
  

  MCCL GO participated in the online consultation on a draft version of the “Every newborn” plan. [MCCL executive director Scott] Fischbach noted that while preterm birth is the leading cause of newborn mortality (and second leading cause of under-five deaths), the action plan fails to mention a significant risk factor for premature delivery. A wealth of worldwide research has shown that induced abortion substantially increases the risk of preterm birth in subsequent pregnancies.

  “The prevalence of abortion significantly contributes to the problem of neonatal mortality,” Fischbach observed. “The plan to end newborn deaths should have taken into consideration all of the known risk factors.”

• At National Review, Michael New comments on the latest Gallup poll measuring pro-life and pro-choice sentiment.

• At Priests for Life, Fr. Frank Pavone applauds Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin (pictured left) for signing a law that requires abortionists to have admitting privileges at local hospitals and that requires abortion facilities to have emergency medical equipment on site.
• In a letter to the editor of the Detroit News, Citizens for a Pro-life Society director Monica Migliorino Miller addresses the high abortion rate in Detroit, Michigan. She touches on something that can likely be said not just about aborting mothers in Detroit, but everywhere:
  

  Poverty is very real in Detroit, but we also need to honestly consider how non-marital sexual behavior and absentee fathers contribute to poverty — how these elements hold women back from jobs and educational opportunities. And throwing more birth control pills at women will not get at the real source of Detroit’s economic problems or tragic abortion rate either. Heal the family, call men to responsibility and you will do much to bring life back to the Motor City for the born and the innocent unborn.

• Wesley J. Smith reveals the latest pro-death move of the assisted suicide/euthanasia crowd: starvation. He writes:
  

  First, it was removing feeding tubes from the cognitively disabled, slow killing excused as removing medical treatment. Do it to a dog and go to jail. Do it to Terri Schiavo and it’s merely “medical ethics.”

  Now, euthanasia types push VSED, e.g. voluntary stop eating and drinking. Not only that, they want nursing homes and hospitals to be forced to starve dementia patients to death who willingly eat….

  A lawsuit was filed to force a nursing home in Canada to starve a dementia patient to death. That lost and is on appeal.

• Pro-life Action League asks whether or not the issue of abortion in society will ever be “settled” like so certain other human rights issues have been.
• Secular Pro-Life encourages pro-lifers to join the “You are not alone” campaign in support of post-abortive women.
• Pro-Life Wisconsin and Right to Life of Michigan both share a video from the ABC show, Extreme Weight Loss, in which competitor Charita admits her abortion regret to her parents (who had no idea she had an abortion):

[Photo via ok.gov]

On May 22 I wrote about then-eight months pregnant Dr. Meriam Ibrahim, who is facing death by hanging in a Sudanese prison because she refuses to renounce her Christian faith for Islam.

Ibrahim has been further sentenced to receive 100 lashes for marrying a Christian man, Daniel Wani (wedding photo right). Wani is a naturalized American citizen.

The couple’s 20-month-old son Martin is imprisoned with his mother.

On May 27, Ibrahim gave birth early to daughter Maya while still shackled, reportedly. I can’t imagine. Here are the first photos released…

While it is possible the Obama administration has been working behind the scenes to secure the release of Ibrahim and her newborn baby and toddler, there is no outward display of outrage. As Shadow.ForeignPolicy.com noted:

We could speculate that the Obama administration’s reluctance to more forcefully rebuke heinous acts like this have allowed this kind of barbarity to survive and grow, but that is an argument for another day….

So far, the Obama administration has done too little diplomatically while leaving it to NGOs like the American Center for Law and Justice and Amnesty International to do the heavy lifting. A cause like Ibrahim’s should be trumpeted regularly; Obama should make it his cause by noting the nationality of her husband and child. He should excoriate the persecutors in clear and forceful terms. But even more than that, the president should affirm that those who commit these atrocities will never have the friendship of the United States. They might hold seats at the U.N. and on its Human Rights Council, but they cannot be trusted to keep faith with the Declaration’s principles, and that we will seek to thwart them until they reform. This stance would embolden our staunchest allies and shame into action our reluctant allies.

There is no room in the world for people who torture and kill women. We have come a long way toward stamping out the Dark Age brutality that was once the hallmark of state power, but that work is still far from done. The case of Meriam Ibrahim is exactly the kind of injustice that the Obama administration should stand against and prove that it is as committed as ever to that mission.

Feminists would also seem like natural defenders of Ibrahim, particularly since the ACLU, along with pro-abortion groups NARAL and Planned Parenthood, have championed opposition to the shackling of pregnant mothers in U.S. prisons.

But a Google search of all three groups, plus the National Organization for Women, shows no results for “Meriam Ibrahim.”

Why the reticence on the part of feminists to use their bully pulpit to draw attention to the plight of Ibrahim and her children? I can think of no other explanation than the groups are averse to Christianity. Were Ibrahim a Muslim shackled in a U.S. jail, I’m sure we would hear them roar.

Fortunately, the Family Research Council and Congressman Trent Franks have taken up Meriam’s cause.

FRC has launched a petition drive at WhiteHouse.gov, and if 100,000 sign it, Obama will be forced to issue a response. The petition notes that “a 2008 U.N. document reported as having an infant mortality rate of one per day in the summer” in Ibrahim’s prison, pictured right.

Congressman Franks has introduced H. R. 601, calling for Ibrahim’s release. Go here to send an email to your representative urging him or her to support this resolution.

[Photos of Ibrahim, her children, and the Khartoum prison all via The Daily Mail]

by Kelli

From the Huffington Post comes the background on this video:

Artist Hikaru Cho uses her body painting expertise to create incredible realistic effects which make it appear her models’ skin is peeled back, in an effort to highlight rights and empowerment….

Now the Tokyo-based student has been commissioned by Amnesty International to prepare new designs for its My Body My Rights campaign, which emphasizes sexual and reproductive rights….

Cho – a Chinese-born artist who studies visual communication and design in Japan – has… illustrated the right to contraception and sexual health by depicting a strip of pills embedded in an arm, and the right to choose a partner by painting a face to show what appears to be two men kissing.

In one she depicts the right to choose when you have children with a keyhole in a model’s stomach and in another she highlights the right to live without sexual violence by showing a face emerging from a cracked shell, representing the emotional scars.

Cho said: “I hope my art can help young people across the world start a conversation about those rights.”

In the past several months, LifeNews has noted an apparent shift in Amnesty International’s worldwide mission. In December of last year, J.C. von Krempach wrote that while the organization still “uses the imagery of its earlier days” of helping political prisoners, their focus has changed:

It has given up its initial focus on prisoners of conscience; instead it is now promoting a so-called “holistic” view of human rights that squares well with the controversial social agenda of the UN and its specialized agencies. The cornerstone of this new agenda are so-called “sexual and reproductive rights”, which in the UN newspeak is a code word for promoting abortion, artificial conception, homosexuality, homosexual “parenting”, etc.

In other words, Amnesty is now part of the abortionist/homosexualist lobby, and occasional campaigns in favour of political prisoners only serve the purpose of polishing the organization’s nimbus.

Your thoughts?

[youtube]http://youtu.be/ZU9Bs-UjaGM[/youtube]

Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.

[HT: Jill]

by Carder

This isn’t the first time that Parker has drawn connections between his Christian faith and his work as an abortion provider.

Last year, in an interview with the Center for American Progress, Parker explained that he knew he had to start providing abortions because “it became this conviction of compassion in a spiritual sense of the deepest level of love that you can have for another person, that you can have compassion for their suffering and you can act to relieve it.”

~ “Christian” abortionist Dr. Willie J. Parker, on why his faith led him to commit abortions, Think Progress, May 27

You certainly have to give Alabama’s abortion industry credit for chutzpah.

At this moment a trial is underway to determine the fate of a 2013 law requiring Alabama abortionists to have admitting privileges at local hospitals.

Two of Alabama’s five abortion clinics sued to block the law, claiming it would put them out of business.

It is certainly becoming clearer why the clinics are confident no hospital would want to touch their abortionists with anything other than a cauterizer.

I wrote last week that a brief filed by the Alabama Attorney General and Alabama Department of Health revealed that one of the abortionists who kills children in Alabama is currently being sued for malpractice for misdiagnosing a patient, and another is being prosecuted by the federal government for Medicaid fraud.

Today, Operation Rescue revealed that yet another Alabama abortionist, Raymond Lopez, pictured above right, just completed a sentence of 23 consecutive weekends in jail, between November 2013 and April 2014, for a “domestic relations” violation.

Operation Rescue noted Lopez’s extensive rap sheet: “Since 1996, Lopez has been the subject of 14 court cases, including two criminal cases filed in 1998 and 2008.”

Lopez works at the Alabama Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives, which has its own laundry list of violations.

In addition, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the state, Planned Parenthood of Birmingham, has been closed since December after an RN was caught selling “abortion inducing drugs” in the parking lot.

If this were a Perry Mason show, people would say the story line is too far fetched.

But it’s all real, very real.

Operation Rescue put together a nice video showing all of Lopez’s weekend  mug shots…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLTfppOyXcw[/youtube]

by Hans Johnson

18 years ago, an anonymous 911 call alerted first responders that a newborn baby had been abandoned in a Champaign, Illinois graveyard. Charlie Heflin, a lieutenant in the fire department, was monitoring the radio scanner, which reported no success in locating the infant. On a hunch, he searched a different cemetery, where the sound of whimpering finally led him to Skyler James, who was covered with blood and leaves under a pine tree in the extreme cold with her umbilical cord still attached. Five days later, she was adopted by parents Bonnie and Greg, and that was the last Heflin saw or heard of her.

Then, three weeks before Skyler’s high school graduation, her mother found Heflin and arranged for him to be the surprise guest of honor at the celebration.

The report from WFIE in Evanston, Indiana:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/TUQe-ORCdhY[/youtube]

Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.

[HT: Kelli]