On July 18 the City of Detroit filed “for the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history,” quoting Fox. Political cartoonists had something to say about this avoidable tragedy. Vote for your fav in the poll at the bottom of the post!
by Glenn McCoy at Townhall.com…
by Gary Varvel at Townhall.com…
by Steve Breen at Townhall.com…
by Michael Ramirez at Townhall.com…
by Ken Catalino at Townhall.com…
Get married. Have sons and daughters. Find wives for your sons. Give your daughters to be married. Then they too can have sons and daughters. Increase your numbers there. Do not let the number of your people get smaller.
~ Jeremiah 29:6, New International Reader’s Version
by Hans Johnson
A video by Sam Christopher Cornwell, who writes on Vimeo:
Meet our son Indigo who was born on the 9th July 2012. From that day my wife and I videoed Indigo at least once a day, every day up to a year old. For his first birthday we’ve spent some time putting together a video of his entire first year. He doesn’t quite appreciate it yet, but we hope that in a few years he will.
Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.
[HT: TheBlaze]
New York Times pro-life columnist Ross Douthat pitched an interesting idea this week:
WHAT happens to a modern society when abortion is restricted? This question is at the heart of the debate over Texas’s new abortion law, which bans abortions after 20 weeks and issues health regulations that could thin the ranks of state abortion clinics, making even first-trimester abortions harder to obtain….
One possible answer is that Texas will make a forced march into squalor, misery and patriarchal oppression. Women’s lives will be endangered, their health threatened, their economic opportunities substantially foreclosed….
To prove that case, you would need to look at how abortion restrictions play out in a wealthy, liberal and egalitarian society. Here two examples are instructive: Europe in general and Ireland in particular.
In the first case, many European countries already have versions of Texas’s late-term abortion ban on the books. France, Germany and Italy all ban abortions after the first trimester, and impose waiting periods as well.
Notably, these nations tend to have lower abortion rates than the United States, and none of them are exactly reactionary dystopias in the style of Margaret Atwood’s “Handmaid’s Tale.” So the European experience suggests that at least some abortion restrictions are compatible with equality and female advancement.
Then there is the specific case of Ireland, which has maintained a near-absolute abortion ban throughout its history….
So if liberal fears about the Texas legislation’s impact are correct, one would expect the Irish ban to have produced obvious, disastrous side effects. At the very least, one would expect Ireland to lag in female mortality, health and economic advancement….
Ireland’s maternal health outcomes have long looked much better than those of its neighbors, and even a recent report that produced a higher estimate for maternal mortality still placed the country well within the European norm.
Meanwhile, international rankings offer few indications that Ireland’s abortion laws are holding Irish women back. The country ranks first for gender parity in health care in a recent European Union index. It was in the middle of the pack in The Economist’s recent “glass-ceiling index” for working women. It came in fifth out of 135 countries in the World Economic Forum’s “Global Gender Gap” report. (The United States was 22nd.)
Now it’s also true that Ireland, like most of Europe, is to the left of Texas on many economic issues. All the abortion restrictions described above coexist with universal health care, which Rick Perry’s state conspicuously lacks.
So perhaps, it might be argued, abortion can be safely limited only when the government does more to cover women’s costs in other ways — in which case Texas might still be flirting with disaster.
But note that this is a better argument for liberalism than for abortion.
It suggests, for instance, that liberal donors and activists should be spending more time rallying against Perry’s refusal to take federal Medicaid financing than around Wendy Davis’s famous filibuster.
It implies that the quest to “turn Texas blue” should make economic policy rather than late-term abortion its defining issue.
And it raises the possibility that a pro-life liberalism — that once-commonplace, now-mythical persuasion — would actually have a stronger argument to make than the one Texas’s critics are making now.
What do you think? Should pro-lifers, who are typically fiscal conservatives, embrace economic liberalism?
[Rob] Port said this was the wrong way of spreading the anti-abortion message. He wrote a blog, “Dear Pro-Lifers: Can You Stop Being a Bunch of Weirdos?” on July 21: “Whatever group is out there trying to promote the pro-life message by handing out squish alien babies, stop. You’re doing more harm than good.”
Dina Butcher, a North Dakota resident who defines herself as a longtime pro-choice Republican, also blasted the group’s decision to distribute the toys in an op-ed in the Grand Forks Herald.
“Judging by the shaped plastic ‘fetuses’ that they threw to children watching the parade at the North Dakota State Fair,” she wrote, the anti-abortion activists “have definitely reached an all-time low in bad taste.”
In a statement to ABC News, Samantha Gordon, director of public affairs for NARAL Pro-Choice America, wrote, “Watching the anti-choice movement attempt to engage the public by using extreme and unsettling tactics is nothing new.”
~ Reaction to Minot Right to Life and North Dakota Right to Life distributing 12-wk-old preborn baby models at the state fair, as quoted by KMBZ, July 25. See a bizarre ABC report on the “stunt” at link.
by Kevin Burke, LSW (reposted with permission from Men Regret Lost Fatherhood)
My plea to Mr. Redick as a fellow sinner and brother in the Lord:
If the legal documents are accurate and since the event is now public, admit you participated in the death of this unborn child with a degree of coercion given the circumstances. Forget the public denials – embrace the painful but liberating grace of humility!
The mother experienced symptoms of post abortion trauma after the procedure. Publicly apologize to Lopez, pray she find healing of her loss and embrace the forgiveness and mercy of the Lord.
I encourage you to attend a healing program because whether you know it or not, your participation in this abortion has also hurt you deeply, emotionally and spiritually as a man. Don’t be afraid and have hope. You can recover from this injury to your manhood and fatherhood and develop a spiritual relationship with this child lost to abortion. Even if you are not the father, you can spiritually adopt this child and embrace the one that you abandoned to death.
As Jesus said, “Behold, I make all things New!” (Revelation 21:1)
With healing you can become the best man and father you can be – with God’s help. Use this as an opportunity to reject the abortion culture of death, and call other men to healing.
The media’s agenda is often to sensationalize and humiliate celebrities with the emphasis on scandal and gossip. Take the high road Mr. Redick, and bring healing and resurrection out of this very painful situation.
Your brother in Christ,
Kevin
Kevin Burke is a licensed social worker, Co-Founder of Rachel’s Vineyard Ministries and a Pastoral Associate of Priests For Life. He is a graduate of The Bryn Mawr Graduate School of Social Work. Kevin’s presentations address the effects of abortion on men, couples and families and effective post abortion ministry for Clergy and Counselors.
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.
Welcome to the feminist paradise, where the ideal is for women to model themselves not just on men, but on the worst men….[The Feminine Mystique author Betty] Friedan and her many acolytes were pushing on an open door.
But they pushed in the wrong direction. Not satisfied with encouraging women to pursue careers and correcting legal barriers to women’s equality, feminists sought nothing less than the obliteration of family life and traditional sexual mores. The “double standard” in matters of sex, they taught, favored men. The solution was promiscuity for everyone (enabled by unrestricted abortion).
It was a foolish and self-defeating wrong turn.
A ban would take direct aim at Southwestern Women’s Options (abortionists Shelley Sella, Susan Robinson and Carmen Landau pictured left), infamous for regularly performing late-term abortions.
Slipped in as part of Bill 122, an act purportedly about public sector financial accountability, the change to Section 65 effectively rendered provincial abortion data after 2010 untouchable to the general public.
… [T]he knowledge that their parents will be involved with an abortion decision provides teen girls with a strong disincentive to engage in unprotected sexual activity. Indeed, there is a body of research on the positive public health effects associated with the presence of parental involvement laws.
A 2003 study in the Journal of Health Economics… found that parental involvement laws reduce the pregnancy rate of 15 to 17 year olds by 4 to 9 percent… [and another] study… shows that parental involvement laws reduce the gonorrhea rate anywhere from 12 to 20 percent for females under 20…. [T]he enactment of parental involvement law is associated with an 11 to 21 percent reduction in the number of 15 to 17 year old females who commit suicide.
[Photos via LifeNews.com and mlive.com]
by LauraLoo
Given the recent heated battle in Texas over late-term abortion, Dan Joseph at the Media Research Center decided to see just how far those who support abortion would go when legalizing the procedure. Dan went to a college campus and asked students to sign a petition, with the goal being to show their support for legalizing 4th trimester abortion.
For those of you who failed biology, babies are born at the END of the 3rd trimester. For those of you who didn’t, watch this:
[youtube]http://youtu.be/4v8–9R0I2Q[/youtube]
“Currently fourth trimester abortions are illegal in all 50 states,” he told students before asking them to sign his petition.
Most student responses varied from “okay” to“cool.”
One concerned student asked if the procedure would “cause harm to the child.”
“Well, the child wouldn’t be there anymore,” responded Joseph. “It’s abortion.”
That student then signed the petition.
Joseph said that after one hour he was able to garner 14 signatures.
“That is a lot for the summer because there aren’t as many people on campus,” he said in the video.
Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.
[HT: Matille, CRC Public Relations & The Drudge Report]
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.
