March 22 was historic for the pro-life movement. Quoting Huffington Post:

North Dakota became the first state on Friday to pass a fetal personhood amendment, which grants legal personhood rights to embryos from the moment of fertilization. The state House of Representatives voted 57 to 35 to pass the amendment, after the Senate passed the same measure last month.

The measure will now appear on the November 2014 ballot [JLS note: governor did not need to sign], and voters will be able to accept or reject it. If it passes, it will amend North Dakota’s constitution to state that “the inalienable right to life of every human being at any stage of development must be recognized and protected.” The amendment would ban abortion in the state, without exceptions for rape, incest or life of the mother….

There was another first, most encouraging. According to LifeSiteNews.com:

Every major pro-life organization in North Dakota has joined forces to defend and endorse SCR 4009, including North Dakota Family Alliance, North Dakota Right to Life, Concerned Women for America North Dakota, North Dakota Life League, North Dakota Catholic Conference, and Personhood North Dakota.

In the past certain pro-life groups, such as in Colorado, have been unhelpful to personhood initiatives, for instance, as reported by LifeNews.com:

During the 2008 and 2010 amendments, major pro-life groups including Focus on the Family, the state’s Catholic bishops, [NRLC affiliate] Colorado Citizens for Life, National Right to Life, Americans United for Life, Eagle Forum, and others either took a neutral position on the amendment or supported it but did not expend significant time or resources fighting for it because of the potential negative legal ramifications.

Interesting that North Dakota Right to Life is not only an NRLC affiliate but also the home group of NRLC president Carol Tobias, pictured right.

One goal of personhood proponents is to “bait” the U.S. Supreme Court. From USA Today:

“We are intending that it be a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, since (Justice Antonin) Scalia said that the Supreme Court is waiting for states to raise a case,” said the sponsor, Republican state Sen. Margaret Sitte.

This is because, according to WND.com:

Personhood plans declare that an unborn baby is a person from the moment of conception, relying on a statement by Justice Harry Blackmun, who wrote the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade.

“If this suggestion of personhood is established,” Blackmun wrote, “[The abortion] case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the amendment.”

Since 1973 significant medical and scientific advances, such as ultrasound and visualization of human fertilization under a microscope, have been made.

Pro-lifers opposing personhood initiatives say they have counted noses, and the majority of the U.S. Supreme Court is not currently on the side of life.

So, what are your thoughts on all of this? Do you think the time for such an amendment is wrong or right? Do you think this is good or bad strategy?

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 links to an article by Matt Archbold at the National Catholic Register which claims pro-lifers are losing the abortion debate. BBW apparently agrees:
  

  We’ve argued for the humanity of the unborn on the assumption that people accepted the intrinsic worth of a human being. Which they now don’t, because belief in God is waning. There is no way to argue the intrinsic worth of a human being without reference to God. We have a big problem and we need to confront it, pro-lifers.

  Hmm… I wonder what Secular Pro-Life would say in response to that.

• Pro-Life in TN follows the case of 26-year-old Lindsey Lowe (pictured left), who disguised her pregnancy, then smothered her twin boys at birth and hid them in the laundry hamper.

  Lowe was sentenced to life in prison, with two counts of felony first degree murder, two counts of pre-meditated murder, and two counts of aggravated child abuse. The trial took six days with only two hours of deliberation. In summation, the D.A. apparently swayed the jury with these words: “speak for these two little boys who will never speak.”

• Clinic Quotes has a chilling statement made in 2008 by the head of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, Ann Furedi:
  

  We can accept that the embryo is a living thing in the fact that it has a beating heart, that it has its own genetic system within it. It’s clearly human in the sense that it’s not a gerbil, and we can recognize that it is human life… the point is not when does human life begin, but when does it really begin to matter?

• Culture Campaign outlines several articles about why the Catholic Church (and Pope Francis) must take a stand against politicians who profess to be practicing Catholics while supporting abortion.
• Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life discusses the International Day of the Unborn Child, coming up on March 25.
• Live Action has some advice for Rand Paul and other potential 2016 presidential candidates on the life issue: stop with the mixed messages and learn to articulate your message competently.

• Kansans for Life informs prospective donors and volunteers to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society that MSS supports embryo-destructive stem cell research, despite the fact that “there are no MS cures or promising clinical trials using ESC. In fact, adult stem cells are providing actual successful treatments for MS.”

  The MSS Mid America chapter has also “hired Kari Rinker (pictured right), [abortion advocate and former lobbyist for NOW], to be their voice at the state Capitol in Topeka this year[.]”

• Abstinence Clearinghouse posts an article about liberal Iceland’s effort to ban hardcore pornography online, stating it is a danger to women and children, having “very harmful effects on young people and can have a clear link to incidences of violent crime.”
• Accepting Abundance outlines the conflicting research on the morning-after pill, stating it should be rejected in all cases:
  

  So does anyone know how the MAP works? It seems not. That the pro-MAP professionals changed talking points about its mechanism and about pregnancy, thereby circumventing the real question, seems to suggest that they do strongly suspect that the pills interfere with implantation, but will not admit it.

  In fuzzy language, the manufacturers conclude that prevention of implantation is not proven as a mechanism, but they cannot prove that it is not a mechanism even though other MAPs and uses of these drugs in different dosages are known to work by preventing implantation. They seem to think it is unreasonable to have to prove the negative, but that is a standard required of any other medication if the lives in question are valued by society.

  Remember, professionals who promote the MAP have are not concerned with protecting embryonic human life; their motivation lies elsewhere.

by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat

• Delaware Online is covering Delaware Right to Life’s call for an investigation into a Delaware Planned Parenthood abortion clinic where 3 patients have been taken away by ambulance in the last month. The article also mentions the assault on Rae Stabosz:
  

  Delaware Right to Life officials are calling for an investigation and eventual closing of the Planned Parenthood operation on Shipley Street, saying members of their group have witnessed three patients being taken by ambulance from the clinic in just over a month’s time.

  A fourth woman, who had returned to the clinic after complications from an abortion five days earlier, was accompanied to the emergency room by an anti-abortion sidewalk counselor, said Nicole Collins, president of Delaware Right to Life. That counselor told group officials that part of the fetus had been left inside the woman’s uterus, Collins said.

• In Philadelphia, Stu Bykofsky writes about the Gosnell trial:
  

  A full day of testimony by anesthesiologist Andrew Herlich, an expert witness, revolved around [Karnamaya] Mongar, who was not present in court Thursday, the trial’s fourth day.

  She was not present because she died in 2009 within 24 hours of an abortion in Gosnell’s “house of horrors,” a/k/a Women’s Medical Center in West Philadelphia.

  That the woman, who was 41, is dead is indisputable, allegedly Gosnell’s sole adult victim. Amid the stomach-turning accusations of snipping babies’ necks and spines in and out of the womb, and collecting their feet like monarch butterflies, the death of the tiny immigrant from Bhutan is almost lost in the shuffle. But not quite.

• John Sexton wonders aloud about the national media’s decision to largely avoid covering the Kermit Gosnell trial:
  

  I could not agree more with your observations about the media’s interest in Kermit Gosnell.

  Imagine for a moment that the man on trial had killed an abortion provider. Somehow I think the major media would find time to mention his trial. But a man who is arguably the worst serial killer in U.S. history, who operated a clinic that is straight out a horror film with freezers full of body parts, a man who actually groomed his subordinates to kill, a man who smiled after he was arrested and believed he would be cleared to return to his important work–amazingly that’s of no interest.

  And it’s not just the media that’s taking a pass. President Obama has made a habit of offering words of comfort when tragedy occurs, especially tragedy that involves children. He traveled to Tucson and spoke movingly of the 9 year old girl who was killed by Jared Loughner. He had great compassion for the young victims of Adam Lanza and promised to work to change the laws that, he claimed, allowed those killings to take place.

  So where is Obama on the 7 infants killed in Philly (really it’s many, many times that number)? Why are there no teachable moments this time? Why no national dialogue about the grim reality of late term abortion?

• At MTV’s web site, rapper Mack Maine discusses his new video for the song, “Celebrate,” a collaboration with Lil’ Wayne and Talib Kweli. Maine mentions one lyric which discusses how he was almost aborted:
  

  “My mom was about to abort me. She was about to have an abortion. She was lying on the table and she changed her life at that moment,” Mack said open and honestly.

  Moments before the procedure, the rapper’s mother had a routine consult and immediately changed her mind, choosing to give birth to her son. “She changed her life that day, she got saved and became a Christian,” he said.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTR79sUPduE[/youtube]

[Obama photo via Breitbart]

by LauraLoo

From In the Market with Janet Parshall…

Some experts have worried that overpopulation is a growing environmental threat. The facts reveal something very different.

Jonathan V. Last, author of What to Expect When No One’s Expecting, is an American journalist and senior writer at The Weekly Standard.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mXfB97mcgE[/youtube]

Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.

We should be teaching these children what is important to learn so they can get jobs….

I don’t know what jobs they plan on getting if they’re having seminars on oral sex and bondage. I don’t see how that will help someone in their professional career – unless they plan on becoming a porn star….

They’ve been trying to say it’s about safety and birth control…. These kids are supposed to be some of the smartest kids out there – and they don’t know where to buy condoms?…

The university always cries poor-mouth, that they don’t have any money and yet they seem to have plenty of money to do this kind of stuff….

They say it’s all about diversity….

Well, perversity does not make diversity just because it’s at the university.

~ Tennessee State Sen. Stacey Campfield (pictured), reacting to the news that the University of Tennessee would hold a “Sex Week” in April, complete with seminars on “getting laid” and workshops on oral sex, to the tune of over $18,000, as quoted by Todd Starnes, Fox News Radio, March 20

The U of T has since pulled funding, forcing the “student-led event… to find $11,145 in additional funding. The university will continue to let the group use $6,700 in student fees.”

More from NY Daily News.

[HT: LauraLoo; photo via KnoxNews.com, BusinessClarksville.com]

As Kelli spotlighted in today’s Quote of the Day by Mark Steyn (also noted by Matthew Balan at Newsbusters), the mainstream media has for the most part gone missing in reporting the murder trial of late-term Pennsylvania abortionist Kermit Gosnell.

Gosnell, his wife Pearl, and eight employees stand accused of murdering seven newborn abortion survivors and one mother.

Not only has MSM gone missing, when it does report on this horrendous story, it often gets important details wrong or makes inexplicable gaffes.

For instance, journalist MaryClaire Dale reported in a March 20 Associated Press story:

[Employee Adrienne Moton] once had to kill a baby delivered in a toilet, cutting its neck with scissors, she said. Asked if she knew that was wrong, she said, “At first I didn’t.”

Abortions are typically performed in utero.

“Abortions are typically performed in utero”? Where else are they committed? While it is true fallopian tubes are the other site a preborn baby may be killed due to an ectopic pregnancy, this was certainly not the context here. Nor does anyone ever parse a generalized conversation abortion to that specificity.

The context here was that a baby was murdered ex utero – outside the uterus, after delivery. And apparently in certain scenarios this is acceptable, according to Ms. Dale?

Perhaps Ms. Dale believes, as does Barack Obama, that abortion survivors may be legally killed in accordance with a mother’s wishes to terminate her pregnancy.

Speaking of the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, reporter Joseph Slobodzian of the Philadelphia Inquirer failed when reporting:

After the federal government banned the rare, so-called “live-birth” abortion procedure in 2007, late-term abortion providers like Gosnell switched to Digoxin, a heart drug, to kill the fetus in the womb. The remains are then removed from the woman.

Although I appreciate that Slobodzian called them “remains,” rather than “pregnancy” or “contents of the uterus,” it was the “partial-birth” abortion ban that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2007.  The Born Alive Act was signed into law in 2002.

At least the AP and other news outlets are getting better at calling abortion survivors babies rather than fetuses.

[HT: Wendy Wright, Chicken Man]

by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat

• A mother writes to Dear Abby, wondering why she has taken her daughter’s abortion so hard:
  

  Abby, I have taken this really hard. I have cried every day since she had the abortion, and I’m torturing myself thinking this is my fault because I went against everything I believe in when I supported her in her decision.

• The Global Times has an article about sex-selection abortion in China and a group who illegally performed ultrasounds to identify the gender of the child:
  

  “Pregnant women would call them according to the number on the name card. The gang members would tell these women to meet them at a specific time and place. Then, they would dispatch a minivan to pick them up, drive them to remote areas in the countryside, and carry out the ultrasound tests or abortions,” Zhang Rongmin, a local judge who took charge of the case, told the Global Times.

  The business was lucrative, Zhang said. It cost around 60,000 yuan to buy the vehicles and ultrasound machines, but the gang charged 800 to 1,200 yuan for a gender test and 3,800 yuan for an induced abortion.

• Yesterday, the Kermit Gosnell trial discussed why the abortionist saved dozens of feet (pictured left) from some of the children he killed:
  

  “Do you think there is any medical reason to save the foot of a baby?” Assistant District Attorney Edward Cameron asked.

  “In my practice, we would have no reason to save the foot, and I’ve never seen that done,” replied Daniel H. Conway, a physician and neonatologist at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children.

  Questioned by Gosnell attorney Jack McMahon, Conway acknowledged that the creases on the bottom of the foot are one factor sometimes used to determine the age of a stillborn or premature baby.

  But Conway maintained he had never heard of physicians or researchers preserving and saving severed fetal feet.

• A man in India has been arrested along with his mother for allegedly forcing his wife to have an abortion:
  

  Sangrur resident Jyoti had complained to the police against her husband Naresh Bansal and other family members for forcing her to abort the 8 weeks old foetus at a private clinic. Sangrur DSP Gurmeet Singh Dhindsa said “Jyoti on Wednesday had complained to the police that her husband wanted to get rid of the child and forced to go in for the abortion. Working on her complaint the police has booked Naresh Bansal and his mother [for]… causing miscarriage without woman’s consent…. DSP said the
  role of private clinic is also being investigated.

[Photo via ProLifeAction.org]

by LauraLoo

This short video, professionally produced, powerfully equates euthanasia with abortion. This is especially timely, with the future possibilities of Obamacare.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYAK6sGHXtw[/youtube]

Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.

[HT: Brian Gibson, Pro-Life Action Ministries]