Life Dynamics has just released excerpts of an emotional interview conducted for this month’s edition of Life Talk.

The interview features Deborah Cardamone, mother of 18-yr-old Marla (senior picture right), who tragically and needlessly died along with her baby during a supposedly “safe and legal” abortion – committed at a hospital, no less.

Abortion is nothing other than horrible.

WARNING: Autopsy images shown…

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

“‘All My Babies’ Mamas’ will be filled with outrageous and authentic over-the-top moments that our young, diverse female audience can tweet and gossip about”….

Oxygen’s one-hour special in development is not meant to be a stereotypical representation of everyday life for any one demographic or cross section of society. It is a look at one unique family and their complicated, intertwined life.

Oxygen Media’s diverse team of creative executives will continue developing the show with this point of view.

~ Statement by Oprah Winfrey’s network Oxygen, justifying it’s upcoming reality TV show “All My Babies’ Mamas”, which features rapper Shawty Lo, his 11 children, and their 10 mothers in Atlanta.

Preview video available at the link.

The Center for Healthy Sex has released its “25 Best and Worst Sex Moments of 2012” [WARNING: vulgar] on Huffington Post.

I didn’t know what to expect when perusing the list, but I know I did not expect “BEST #8: Embryos Created From Two Women, One Man.”

How in the world could this qualify as a “Best Sex Moment”?

Indeed, scientists at Oregon Health & Sciences University announced in October they had created a unique human being using the DNA of three parents, ostensibly to correct gene defects:

The researchers… said they are not using the embryos to produce children, and it is not clear when or even if this technique will be put to use….

In a report published online Wednesday by the journal Nature, Shoukhrat Mitalipov and others at OHSU report transplanting nucleus DNA into 64 unfertilized eggs from healthy donors. After fertilization, 13 eggs showed normal development and went on to form early embryos.

In other words, they created and then killed 64 children. And that’s a “best of 2012” moment?

Here’s The Center for Healthy Sex’s rationale for so liking this deadly human experimentation….

Why this matters: Innovation often precedes generational trends in sexual health. Science and technology find discoveries in the grey areas beyond the black-and-white thinking of fundamental morality, and function like sex therapy in this regard. If a person is attracted to a unique style of consensual sex, there is almost always someone willing to fulfill that need. Similarly, if there is a demand for healthy embryos… then there are scientists and developers willing to fulfill these needs. Regardless of the number of people who might object to such innovation on moral grounds, it only takes one inventor to change the course of history.

Somehow embryonic research is now part of “sexual health,” and is, in fact, compared with kinky sex. And if “fundamental morality” opposes it, all the better, it would seem.

[Photo from Oregon Health & Science University via AP]

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.

• Suzy B announces an upcoming dinner featuring pro-life stalwarts, Rep. Paul Ryan and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, both of Wisconsin, as speakers. Suzy B also invites readers to nominate young women under 30 for a pro-life leadership award. The deadline is January 30th.

• Priests for Life won its lawsuit against the HHS contraception mandate, allowing them exemption from paying for abortion-causing drugs through their health insurance plans. However, they realize the fight is not over:
  

  “We are not expecting the government to come up with regulations that we can accept, but this is still an important first step,” said Father Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life. “We were prepared to violate the mandate on Jan. 1, at great expense to our organization. We are very grateful to the court that we did not have to take that step, and we remain confident that this unjust mandate will be entirely and permanently struck down.”

• Right to Life of Michigan writes that the abortion clinic in Muskegon will not re-open due to violations of the fire code and “overt poor housekeeping… not suitable to continued operation.” The clinic’s abortionist, Robert Alexander, had a “checkered history, including a felony conviction, multiple revocations of his medical license and botched abortions” – offenses which seem to be becoming more common among these “front alley” practitioners.
• Stand True invites March for Life 2013 attendees in D.C. to join them for some pro-life activism opportunities before the March for Life Youth Rally.
• Moral Outcry encourages not only adoption but foster parenting:
  

  One of the personal covenants I’ve made with God is to be willing to be the answer to my own prayer. I believe as a Christian, I not only pray for Life, but I also give myself in the way of being an answer to my prayers for Life!… So for 2013, our… New Year’s Resolution is to be a foster care trained family so we can be a family to a child.

• Wesley J. Smith says everyone should be outraged by researchers who claim pedophilia is simply another (acceptable) sexual orientation… and that some children actually “like” being victimized by adults:
  

  Think about it: If the desire for sexual congress with children is just “another orientation” – an odious comparison, in my view – and if some children supposedly “like it” when they voluntarily engage in sex with adults – and indeed, if it doesn’t actually hurt them – how long would the absolute rejection of cross-generation congress last? Not very. It wouldn’t be long until we saw the absolute prohibition on pedophilic sex downgraded to a mere “taboo,” which, as the last fifty years teach us, are made to be broken. NAMBLA [North American Man Boy Love Association] members must be grinning ear-to-ear.

  I call this kind of discussion, “terminal nonjudgmentalism,” because it is designed to move us from viewing pedophilia as absolutely unacceptable, to an issue that is debatable and should be “discussed,” toward the final goal of acceptability.

  No “conversation!” No debate! Having sexual relations with children treats them as mere objects, a good definition of evil. If this view ever enters the mainstream – and that seems closer – we are on the road to cultural death.

• Secular Pro Life examines what they consider the strongest arguments against abortion, put forth by Frank Beckwith and Don Marquis, the latter of which has been “widely viewed by philosophers as containing the single most powerful argument against abortion.”

[HHS graphic via Priests for Life]

by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat

• At National Review, Michael New reports that despite the Rasmussen poll which supposedly showed an increase in pro-choice sentiment following the November election, nothing really changed from their previous April poll:
  

  Rasmussen’s April survey also showed that likely voters were more likely to describe themselves as “pro-choice” rather than” pro-life,” by a 51–40 margin. In short, the “war on women” rhetoric and the statements by Akin and Mourdock only resulted in a three-percentage-point gain in “pro-choice” sentiment — a difference that falls within the poll’s margin of error….

  [Th]e Democrats’ emphasis on abortion and contraception… likely succeeded in increasing turnout among pro-choice voters. It also likely made pro-choice voters more likely to cast their vote based on the abortion issue. However, the results of the Rasmussen survey provide little evidence that this fall’s election cycle substantially shifted public opinion in favor of legal abortion.

• In the UK, the Daily Mail reports that doctors are asking a judge to allow them to abort the child of a mentally impaired women. They claim the woman’s pregnancy combined with her sickle-cell disease is threatening her life.
• A Tennessee woman has been arrested for a DUI-child endangerment. The child being endangered was her unborn child.
  

  Maria Guerra was driving in a car by herself when she crashed on I-240 Sunday morning just south of Walnut Grove. Her blood alcohol content was only half the legal limit, yet, she is charged with DUI-child endangerment with a child under 18 because she told an officer she is four months pregnant.

  Memphis police say Guerra smelled of alcohol, was unsteady on her feet, and had bloodshot eyes.

• A New York Times article on pregnancy centers ends with this:
  

  Amanda Hall met Care Net’s definition of “abortion-vulnerable.” Twenty-five, pregnant with her second child, her husband in jail, she was facing eviction.

  Although uncomfortable about abortion, she checked “undecided,” saying, “I can’t support two kids.”

  Care Net let her stay in a house Ms. McGregor owns, found her a job, negotiated debt payment plans, offered Bible study and other classes. She gave birth in March.

  “Everybody here,” she said, was “like a different family.”

by Hans Johnson

There have been reported cases of surgical scissors left behind with naturally unpleasant consequences. But here’s a case where such an accident had a decidedly good result:

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

From The Sun story about little Maddalena Douse, December 18, 2012:

When she was born six months ago at just 23 weeks she was so tiny docs did not know if they should try to save her.

But when they put her on the scales she weighed 1lb, the minimum weight for a baby to be considered viable — so they fought for her.

Only when she was safely on a ventilator did medics discover the scissors had been accidentally left on the scales and that 8in Maddalena in fact weighed only 382g (13 oz).

Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.

[HT: TheBlaze]

The cover story in the January 14 issue of Time magazine has stirred a lot of conversation on both sides of the abortion aisle.

In particular it has brought to the fore a generational rift within the pro-abortion movement.

The article noted the rift as one of several problems the movement is facing. But in the article’s wake young feminists have apparently felt freed to launch an open revolt.

According to 32-yr-old Erin Matson (pictured above, to the right of feminist icon Gloria Steinem), who has a view from the inside as a recently resigned VP of NOW, the problem is boards of “powerful, older, white, heterosexual” feminists who want to keep the power.

“Suddenly the 27 make the conversation all about them,” wrote Matson on her blog yesterday. “What about me? Am I supposed to go away? Are you saying I’m irrelevant? Wait is this just that you secretly want to grab the power and kick me out of here?”

To be sure, there is a generational tug-of-war in almost every walk of life.

The difference here is the “legacy” pro-abortion movement, as Matson called it, fought for the freedom to murder all these young up-and-comers before they were born. So the older feminists bring built-in selfishness to the table. (Although their protégés don’t lag too far behind.)

This fact must also bring some level of distrust on the part of young feminists, even if subconscious. (And youthful abortion pushers will run into the same problem if their movement survives long enough.)

I’m not blind to the fact there are older leaders in the pro-life movement who have trouble passing the baton. But in general I see love, pride, and encouragement toward our young people. After all, they’re why we are here.  We covet their participation and leadership. In addition to zeal, young people bring insights, talents, and gifts to the battle we don’t possess, such as built-in intuition about social media. Many of our young people forge new trails, such as Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America, Lila Rose of Live Action and Ryan Bomberger of The Radiance Foundation (pictured below in order, left to right).

Basically, the pro-life movement carries none of the generational baggage the pro-abortion movement carries. We have built-in trust between the generations, and pro-aborts have built-in suspicion.

I see a split of their ranks coming. Why? According to Steph Herold, pictured right, in a harshly worded piece at RH Reality Check yesterday:

Organizations like NARAL, NOW, and the Feminist Majority Foundation (not to mention Planned Parenthood) prioritize the needs of white, middle class, straight, cis-women, and work within the Democratic party politics system to achieve their goals. It’s not just young activists who reject the messaging, strategy, and focus of these legacy organizations. Anyone who is interested in working for the rights of people who don’t fit into those identity categories must find other homes for their social justice work….

It may be true that, as Pickert claims, the pro-choice movement is “more fragmented than it’s ever been,” but this is not because young people are clamoring to overthrow the boomers who are running failing organizations. We are fragmented because we have different visions for the future of our movement. Pickert chastises young activists for abandoning “those feminist institutions that have traditionally been the headquarters for voter mobilization campaigns, fundraising, and lobbying, the lifeblood of any political movement.”

And therein lies the problem. We don’t see our movement as just a political movement. We see it as a movement for culture change and social justice. We do not want to participate only in lobbying and voter mobilization. We want to be involved in organizations that create dynamic, lasting, empowering change that lift up the experiences of those with the least power. We don’t want to be involved in organizations that have pursued the same strategies for decades that lead us to the dismal place we are today. We want a bold, pro-active vision for a future of our own creation. And we aren’t getting that from NARAL, Planned Parenthood, the Feminist Majority Foundation, or NOW.

So we’re creating it for ourselves. If anything is strengthening the pro-choice and reproductive justice movements, it’s the people, regardless of age, who are working outside the traditional power structures and are pushing us to be unabashedly inclusive, radical, and unashamed.

Ouch. The problem for Steph and her throng is their thesis of wanting to “lift up the experiences of those with the least power” doesn’t track. You can’t launch – never mind achieve – that lofty goal on the premise of murdering babies.

… Planned Parenthood has spent the last few years vigorously campaigning for less medical oversight on abortion drugs….

When they say “limit[ing] access to abortion drugs,” they mean “requiring basic medical safeguards.” This is pro-choicers’ current cause célèbre: they demand less involvement by trained physicians. Less oversight by the FDA. Fewer requirements to ensure the woman’s health and well-being.

Pro-choicers do not want women to have an ultrasound to confirm gestational age, even though 16 to 23% of women who took RU-486 beyond the FDA-recommended 7 weeks required a D and C because of heavy bleeding or incomplete abortion. 612 women were hospitalized after using the drug, 339 needed a blood transfusion, and 256 suffered infections. And fourteen women died. According to the FDA report, eight of the dead women had been administered RU-486 in a manner unapproved by the FDA….

If Planned Parenthood and other radical pro-choice groups have their way, DIY abortions will rise — not because abortions will become harder to get, but because they will become easier. [Jennie Linn] McCormack’s story will become commonplace. Desperate women with no support, who feel like they have no other choice, will be taking drugs that they don’t understand. There will be no one to help them. No one will be required to support them. No one will check after their emotional health. No one will follow up to make sure the woman isn’t hemorrhaging, or suffering sepsis. No one will be there to see after the disposal of the tiny body.

That’s the only part of this story that embarrasses pro-choicers: [McCormack] didn’t do a better job of hiding the body. Every other detail played out exactly according to what they demand for all women.

~ Simcha Fisher, National Catholic Register, January 4

[HT: Kelsey H.]