Thursday, October 9, 2008

No Reason To Fear Life After Roe or Don’t Fear Life After Roe.

It’s election time and the airwaves are flooded with apocalyptic scenarios of what will happen after Roe is overturned.  What will happen after Roe and can we live with it?  Absolutely.


 


1. First, women are not going to jail.  Abortion advocates are playing into the fear that women will go to jail.  These advocates have posted a video on You Tube of pro-life protestors saying that women will go to jail, but those videographers cannot find a single credible pro-life leader who agrees.  


 


The only people talking seriously about women going to jail are abortion advocates.  They are the ones demanding that we put them in jail when Roe is overturned-and for good reason.  Clark Forsythe says “in nearly all of the reported court cases explicitly addressing the issue of whether a woman was an accomplice to her abortion, it was the abortionist (not the prosecutor) who pushed the courts to treat the woman as an accomplice, for the obvious purpose of undermining the state’s criminal case against the abortionist.”


Many abortionists have performed over 30,000 abortions.  Planned Parenthood’s chain of clinics has performed over 3 million.  The goal is to stop abortion and the best way to accomplish that is to stop those who perform them.  The tradition of pursuing the abortionist will continue after Roe.


2. Abortion will not become illegal everywhere.  Some states have not changed their laws to accommodate Roe.  A few have “trigger laws” that will take effect when Roe is overturned.  When Roe is overturned, state legislatures will once again be able to work out laws on abortion, just as they did before Roe invalidated abortion laws in all 50 states. 


 


3. Abortion will be available for certain exceptions.  Before Roe nullified abortion laws in all 50 states, abortion was available for the life of the mother-so one would live and two not die.  In many states, it was available for rape and incest (one percent of abortions).  Polling shows most Americans favor limiting abortion to these exceptions (see www.nevadalife.org).


 


4. Abortion will continue for other reasons once abortion becomes illegal, but in far fewer numbers.  Legalization led to a 1500 percent increase in abortion.  Making abortion illegal in most instances will dramatically reduce abortion, just as other crimes are greatly reduced by being illegal. In Poland, limiting abortion to rape, incest and the life of the mother has reduced abortions more than 99 percent.


 


5. America's back alleys will not turn into rivers of blood.  In 1960, several years before legalization, Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Mary Calderone noted that almost all illegal abortions were performed by licensed physicians in “good standing.”  Thousands of women are not going to die without Roe.  Dr. Bernard Nathanson, co-founder of NARAL Pro-choice America says he knew that the claim that 5,000-10,000 women died every year due to illegal abortion was “totally false.”  Abortion deaths were going down before legalization due to advances in trauma care and anti-biotics.  The number of deaths due to abortion the year before Roe was 39. 


 


6. When abortion is illegal, not only will one million lives be saved every year, abortion related pathologies such as death, injury, infection, infertility, premature birth, increased alcohol and drug abuse, the increased risk of breast cancer, post abortion syndrome and many other pathologies will likewise be greatly reduced.  Women facing these decisions can be confident that the network of 3000 pregnancy centers will continue to exist long after Roe.


 


Voters should not fear life after Roe. 



Friday, September 5, 2008

Pro-Life Voting Is Working

(This is an article I wrote for a local Christian newspaper, the Christian Times in September.)



Pro-life voters should reject the long discredited claim that abortions have increased under pro-life president George W. Bush. This has been used to argue that voting for a pro-choice candidate with preferred economic policies is just as pro-life or even more pro-life because those policies would lead fewer women to abort.


 


Nonsense-and that argument is absurd.  What if the issue was slavery? What if someone said that the best way to reduce slavery was to vote for a pro-choice slavery advocate because his economic policies would reduce the need for slaves?  Pro-lifers are not content with merely reducing abortion.  We want to end it, not amend it.  Pro-lifers are not going to surrender the rights of a whole class of people (the unborn) just because an abortion candidate’s policies might slightly reduce the level of genocide against them.


 


Pro-life voting is making a huge impact.  The yearly number of abortions has fallen 25 percent in the last 17 years from 1.6 million in 1990 to 1.2 million abortions. There was an eight percent drop during the Bush years from 2001-2006. 1.2 million abortions is alarming, but it is 400,000 fewer per year.  That’s the number of all the people in Reno, Sparks, Carson and Douglas.


 



One of the biggest reasons for the decrease in abortion is pro-life legislation. Political science professor Michael New (link at www.nevadalife.org) says that pro-life legislation, like parental notification, waiting periods, informed consent and others, is a significant, if not the most important, factor in reducing the number of abortions, especially among teens.  When studying the impact of this legislation, he found that among teens, pro-life legislation has reduced abortion by 40 percent!   New also found that when pro-life laws were repealed, abortions went up.


 



The Partial Birth Abortion Prohibition Act has had a huge impact and so will The Unborn Victims of Violence Act.  There’s been a significant change in public attitudes on abortion of about 10 percent toward the pro-life position since the pro-life Republican leadership was elected and made an issue of partial birth abortion.  The public saw what happens during an abortion as the Congress debated it.  The Congressional debate made it relevant to the media and created opportunity for pro-life groups like Nevada LIFE to discuss it publicly.


 



Neither of these bills would have made it out of committee if it was not for the pro-life leadership of the Congress from 1995-2006.  Bill Clinton vetoed The Partial Birth Abortion ban.  Gore and Kerry would have vetoed both.  George W. Bush signed both.


 


These two bills, while not banning any abortions, nevertheless have had a huge impact on public opinion and are laying the foundation for the eventual end of abortion in America.


 


Finally, the Supreme Court is within one vote of overturning Roe and allowing state legislators and Congress to end abortion in America.  The next president will pick two or more justices and the oldest justices on the court are abortion supporters.  Another pro-choice justice will set back years of progress and impact abortion decisions for years to come. 


 


Pro-life voters should not be misled.  Pro-life voting has had a powerful impact on the judiciary, the numbers of abortions and the attitude of the nation.  These pro-life politicians and presidents are laying the foundation for the end of abortion in America.  A vote for a pro-choice president and a pro-choice Congress is a vote for more abortion.  



Why the Media, Abortion Advocates and the Left Hate Governor Sarah Palin







 (This is an article I wrote for Nevada LIFE, www.nevadalife.org, yesterday.)
 

Last night's brilliant speech by Pro-life Governor Sarah Palin showed us why she has been so vilified and subjected to some of the ugliest vitriol in the 5 days between last night's speech and her acceptance of pro-life Senator John McCain's call to run for the Vice Presidency of the United States.

Why the pre-speech savaging of Governor Palin? For years the abortion feminists-who have hijacked the woman's movement, have followed and promoted the advice given by National Abortion Rights Action League co founder Larry Lader (a man) to women that a woman's fertility kept her from breaking through the glass ceiling. Abortion was needed for women to advance and to achieve equality with men. In this mindset a woman's fertility and children were obstacles to be overcome.


Just last year Supreme Court Justice and radical feminist and former counsel for the ACLU Ruth Bader Ginsburg made this clear in her dissent to the Supreme Court's ruling upholding the constitutionality of the partial birth abortion ban. Ginsburg argued that women's "ability to realize their full potential, the Court recognized, is intimately connected to 'their ability to control their reproductive lives.' ... Thus, legal challenges ... center on a woman's autonomy to determine her life's course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature." The "Casey Court described the centrality of 'the decision whether to bear ... a child,' to a woman's 'dignity and autonomy,' her 'personhood' and 'destiny,' her 'conception of ... her place in society.'"


Ginsburg was making the leading abortion feminist argument that partial birth abortion and abortion are necessary to fulfill a woman's potential and to achieve or protect her equal standing in society. Without abortion there's no equality and women cannot reach their full potential. Children are obstacles and expendable in the pursuit of these ends. That has to be news to women like Governor Palin.


Abortion advocates say this another way. They argue that abortion is a fundamental right "without which all other rights are meaningless." The exercise and enjoyment of those rights depend on abortion. Incredibly, this argues that a woman's distinctive reproductive nature wars against her and that she must be liberated from her body and her children to become equal with men! She must become like men to be equal with men!


That's been the message for the last 40 years from the abortion feminists. It explains in part if not in full, the abortion feminists' and media's hatred and reflexive opposition to Palin. Governor Palin's life and success repudiates all of that. She didn't need abortion. Her large family and children did not stop her from reaching her potential-not even a Down syndrome child, whom she calls her "perfect child."


The exercise of Palin's incredible gifts were not and are not contingent on destroying her children or being free from commitments. Her fertility has not hindered her and she has not had to become or pretend to be a man to succeed.


That is anathema to the abortion and mainstream media establishments and the nihilists on the left. Her life and success loudly proclaim that 50 million abortions were in no way necessary for women to reach their potential or equality with men. How can they live with themselves for being responsible for so many abortions and being responsible for leading so many women to think abortion was necessary?


We may see a change of tone and strategy from her opponents after last night's speech. But we can still expect more opposition by the very women who say sexism has kept a woman from being president.


 


Attack On Palin's Daughter Shows Profound Difference Between Campaigns








(This is an article I wrote for Nevada LIFE, www.nevadalife.org) earlier this week.)

 

The profound differences between the Obama and McCain campaigns on abortion and what it means in real life are becoming clearer as abortion advocates and the nihilists on the political left stoop to attack Governor Palin's family and make sport of her pregnant 17 year old daughter.

Early this year, Senator Barack Obama said that if one of his daughters became pregnant, he would not punish her with a child-Obama's grandchild. He would have his grandchild aborted. Governor Palin's daughter is pregnant, but the Palin family has embraced their daughter's child in utero. "Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. We're proud of Bristol's decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support."


The Obama campaign believes that certain human beings are expendable and that there is a constitutional right to do so. This shouldn't surprise anyone. In 2003, Illinois State Senator Barack Obama voted a second time against the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. On another occasion he voted present. The bill would have recognized these helpless born alive infants as persons. Obama refused to do so.

Nurse Jill Staneck testified for that bill. Staneck told how she comforted one baby who was born during abortion, but who was left to die in a soiled linen closet. The child had been rejected and aborted by his parents for having Down syndrome. They refused to hold him and the hospital refused to care for him. Obama had every chance to see that children like these were protected and recognized as persons after birth by supporting the bill. But he didn't. He was the only Senator to speak out against the bill. He did it two times.


Governor Palin's fifth child Trig was born in April, 2008. Little Trig Palin has Down syndrome. Governor Palin and her family have embraced Trig's humanity and welcomed him into their home instead of treating Trig as medical waste. She said "we knew through early testing he would face special challenges, and we feel privileged that God would entrust us with this gift and allow us unspeakable joy as he entered our lives." "We have faith that every baby is created for good purpose and has potential to make this world a better place. We are truly blessed."

This too illustrates the fundamental dispositions toward human life of the two campaigns. Palin, a busy executive (governor), wife and mother of 5, still has room in her world to embrace her Down syndrome child and her grandchild in utero. Those children are seen as punishments, expendable and obstacles to be overcome by Obama and his abortion supporters.

We are in a culture war. There will be fighting for many years that will grieve our nation. No issues are more important than the right to life. When anyone is expendable, we all become negotiable. It's a war we have to win for all of us. It is clear where the candidates stand.



McCain Picks Outspoken Pro-Life Woman Governor To Be VP!








(This is an article I wrote for Nevada LIFE, www.nevadalife.org, last week.)

 

Pro-lifers are ecstatic this morning with John McCain's choice to be his Vice-President. If there was any doubt about John McCain's pro-life commitment, his historic selection of outspoken pro-life, pro-family Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate erases them all.

Palin, the 44-year-old governor of Alaska, is strongly pro-life and is a member of Feminists for Life of America. But don't expect self appointed women's leaders to embrace her. She's not their kind of woman. But it's clear that she's a lot more like America's women than the abortion feminists.

Palin is the youngest and first female governor in the state of Alaska. She won election to the gubernatorial seat in 2006 by defeating the incumbent governor and then defeating a former Democratic governor in the general election.


Early this year, Palin gave birth to her fifth child Trig Paxson. Trig has Down syndrome. It's estimated that 80-90 percent of all Down syndrome children are aborted. After Trig was born, Palin said "we knew through early testing he would face special challenges, and we feel privileged that God would entrust us with this gift and allow us unspeakable joy as he entered our lives." 'We have faith that every baby is created for good purpose and has potential to make this world a better place. We are truly blessed." In their eyes, she said, "he's absolutely perfect."


Debbie Joslin, the president of Eagle Forum Alaska told LifeNews.com "I can't help but remember Governor Palin's campaign slogan 'Take a Stand." "Her choice to value life in a very personal way speaks volumes and gives those of us in the pro-life community in Alaska cause to believe that we truly do have a pro-life leader in charge of our state." Joslin also said "when so many in our culture have chosen to devalue the lives of those who face special learning disabilities, Governor Palin shines as a great positive role model." (see Lifenews.com for more pro-life info about Governor Palin and her son Trig.)


Pro-lifers can be confident that the McCain ticket is solidly pro-life. The contrast between the two campaigns couldn't be more stark or more clear. Just two weeks ago, Barack Obama spoke of "caring for the least of these." This came at the same time when Obama was exposed for refusing to support and was instead opposing legislation to protect new born children born during an abortion.

The unborn child is the "least of these," the weakest members of our society. Down syndrome children are the most vulnerable because they are targeted for death by abortion. Palin's embrace of her unborn child mock's Obama's use of these words of Jesus. McCain has picked a woman running mate who truly embraces the weakest and least of our society. Shame on Obama for refusing to stand up for children born during abortion, treating them as medical waste and refusing to admit them as members of our society.


McCain's pick of Palin is historic. It comes on the eve of the 88th anniversary of a woman's right to vote. Governor Palin is successful, telegenic, a governor, has a track record of public service and, is the mother of five children. She is a pro-life feminist in the tradition of Susan B. Anthony and the early feminists. She is a threat to the abortion feminist movement that has hijacked the woman's movement. Expect her to be savaged by the very women who say sexism has kept a woman from being president.


The good news for pro-lifers is that after 35 years of legal abortion, 48 million abortions, and years and hours of hard work, pro-lifers are within one vote of overturning Roe. John McCain's rock solid pro-life record and his choice of outspoken pro-life Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate means we have an excellent chance of seeing pro-life policies continue and Roe being overthrown.



Thursday, August 21, 2008

Pro-lifers WOULD Walk If McCain Changed Pro-life Views

I have never heard of Margaret Hoover, the pro-choice Republican I just saw interviewed by Laura Ingraham on the O'Reilly Factor, but she is absolutely wrong to say that evangelical pro-lifers will not abandon McCain in numbers to impact the election if McCain changed his views on abortion. Many of those pro-life evangelicals and pro-life Catholics who vote republican do so only because of Republican candidate's opposition to abortion and the culture of death.  They hold their noses at other republican policies.  To abandon the pro-life view would be suicidal.  This is one pro-lifer who would sit out the election if McCain changed his pro-life views.  Fortunately he won't. 


Hoover also said abortion wasn't a big issue and that it wasn't in the last couple elections.  She even said if a VP candidate supported partial birth abortion it wouldn't matter.  Ingraham was right, the pro-life issue made a huge impact in 2000 and 2004.  If Bush had not been pro-life, Al Gore or John Kerry would have been president.  It's incompetence that she said it wasn't an important issue.


If the republicans had treated the other part of the base as well as they have treated pro-lifers-the fiscal conservatives, they would be a dominant party.



Saturday, August 2, 2008

No Reason To Clone Around With Human Animal Hybrids

This is an update I wrote for Nevada LIFE on the human animal cloning attempts in Britain two months ago, but forgot to post here.  There's good news for those like me who oppose cloning and embryonic stem cell research.  Scientists have discovered a technique which gives them the same kind of stem cell as they say they need with embryonic stems which does not require cloning or killing embryos.  It allows them to extract our stem cells and revert them back to an embryonic like state.  This may make the whole embryonic stem cell and cloning issue go away.  Meanwhile, adult stem cell research is going ahead full steam.  Here's the update I wrote for Nevada LIFE.



Recent events demonstrate the necessity of a bill submitted to Congress to ban human-animal hybrids.



In April, British lawmakers voted overwhelmingly against legislation to ban scientists from creating human-animal hybrids for embryonic stem cell research. The House of Commons voted 336-176 to defeat a ban on creating human animal hybrids by cloning- that is, using the process the created Dolly the sheep by inserting human DNA into an emptied unfertilized animal egg to create a human-animal hybrid embryo for research.

The Commons also voted against a ban to prevent using sex cells-gametes (sperm and egg) of humans and animals to create "true" hybrids through fertilization by 286 to 223. Scientists will be allowed to create hybrids using human sperm with animal eggs, and animal sperm with human eggs.



These things happen when we encroach on the sanctity of human life. Human life becomes regarded as a commodity or natural resource for certain groups of people to exploit for their benefit.

British researchers and lawmakers argue in part that human animal hybrids are necessary for embryonic stem cell research. Embryonic stem cell research will require cloning and human cloning requires human unfertilized eggs. There's a shortage of human eggs, so animal ones will have to do.



Lawmakers also argued that this is necessary to keep the UK a leader in embryonic stem cell research. Last year I asked a Stanford researcher making this same argument in a lecture at UNR if we should make unethical research on humans legal if leading researchers threatened to leave, were leaving or had left the United States to do unethical research on humans elsewhere. He should have said "of course not."



This is evil stuff. It is monstrous and self evidently so. If researchers are able to create these kinds of animal-human embryos, the 14 day limit that they can be grown to will disappear. There's no principle to stop them from going farther. There are many who would like to modify humanity with non human DNA to increase our capabilities and capacities. There are undoubtedly many who would like to grow human animal hybrid fetuses and birth them for body parts.



This is also unnecessary. Non-embryonic stem cell research is working very well and scientists now have stem cells with the alleged powers of embryonic stem cells which do not require human cloning or embryo killing. And scientists, the biotech industry and their cadre of bioethicists for hire should know better. It's unthinkable to do unethical research when all other alternatives have been exhausted. The more than 70 cures, treatments and benefits, the more than 1000 human trials using adult stem cells, the stem cell sources in amniotic fluid, umbilical cord blood and the new technique which reprograms cells back to an embryonic like state is proof that we have NOT even begun to exhaust the alternatives and that we should not be going forward with speculative research which has not come close to living up to its hype, and which tampers with human life!



And more non-embryonic results will keep pouring in. This week the journal Cell Stem Cell said that scientists have "use d drugs to help turn brain cells from an adult back into embryo like stem cells" without destroying human embryos. This week we also learned that by using this new stem cell reprogramming technique- supported by President Bush when the Congress refused to go along-researchers at John Hopkins University "have established a human cell-based system for studying sickle cell anemia by reprogramming somatic (body) cells to an embryonic stem cell like state." Wesley Smith notes that "This is precisely the kind of experiment for which we were told that cloning was required."

What do the results mean? It means that there's no need to clone, kill more human embryos or create human animal hybrids for stem cell research to succeed. It also means that the Bush stem cell policy and pro-life objections are vindicated. Our resistance forced researchers to look elsewhere, to areas that have actually produced success.



To stop this monstrous activity from occurring or going forward in the United States, pro-life Congressman Chris Smith has introduced the Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act of 2008, HR 5910 "to prohibit human-animal hybrids." Click here to read the details of the act. Those details tell us what is at stake and what ugly plans some scientists have in mind. It would prohibit human animal hybrids and provide punishments of not more than 10 years in prison and/or a fine of which ever is greater, $1 million, or 2 times the gain from this activity.



This is alarming, but not alarmism because many in the scientific and bioethical communities have objected to the restraints of this bill for years.



The bill is in committee. It's not clear if it will make it out of committee, but we'll be monitoring its progress. The pace of scientific discoveries using alternatives to embryonic stem cell research and cloning may silence this research before it gets far off the ground. That's the good news and hopefully the news that will end these threats to humanity.



Roe Shocked Nation Like CA Court's Gay Marriage Decision

Just two months ago, Americans got a taste of how shocking the Roe v. Wade decision was 35 years ago when the California Supreme Court struck down California's law defining marriage as between one man and one woman that was passed, even in California, with overwhelming support.



That act of raw judicial power in California was similar to the way the United State's Supreme Court struck down abortion laws in all 50 states in its notorious Roe v. Wade decision.



Abortion advocates have spread the myth that the Court was just following popular opinion and public sentiment when it handed down Roe. Nothing could be further from the truth.



Pro-life senior statesman Dr. John Wilke MD, notes that there was a flurry of legislative activity regarding abortion in state legislatures before and while Roe was being heard and ahead of Roe's decision in January, 1973. There were huge elections over abortion in 1972 in places like New York. If the Court was expecting to follow public opinion, they would have awakened in shock the day after those elections.



Wilke says that in April of 1972 New York legislators overturned New York's permissive abortion law. But it was vetoed by Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller. In the November elections, so many abortion supporting New York legislators were thrown out of office in New York-ground zero of the abortion movement-that the legislature had the votes to override Rockefeller's veto.



Wilke also says that after Colorado and California legalized abortion in 1967, 17 states had laws permitting abortion. Only four states had liberal abortion laws, twelve had laws generally restricting abortion to rape, incest, life of the mother and severe fetal deformities of the unborn. Florida was forced by court order to permit abortion. Thirty-three other state legislatures debated abortion, but rejected it. Referendums in Michigan and N. Dakota were defeated.

The tide was turning against abortion, not toward it, when the court stepped in. (Abortion, Questions and Answers, Love Them Both, Revised, pp. 33-35)



It's easy to see how shocking Roe was in 1973. It was as shocking as yesterday's decision which over turned an initiative voted on by Californians only eight years earlier, just as Roe invalidated abortion laws across America passed by their elected officials



That's why the 2008 presidential election is so critical to our cause and other causes. The courts are out of control and are anti- life and anti-family. The next president will pack the lower courts and make nominations to vacancies in the Supreme Court. With the two oldest justices being fervent abortion supporters, the next president will impact another generation of abortion in America.



Pro-lifers have clear choices for President in 2008. Senator Barrack Obama supports abortion on demand. He is supported by the leading abortion organizations and even opposed the Born Alive Infants Protection Act when he was an Illinois state legislator. Not even NARAL Pro Choice America was willing to oppose that. But Obama did. Obama has promised to appoint justices who will uphold abortion.



Senator John McCain is pro-life, has a consistent pro-life voting record on abortion and has promised to appoint justices like Justices Thomas, Scalia, Roberts and Alito.

The stakes are high and getting higher with each election. We are one justice away from the overturn or severe limitation of Roe. Or we are one president away from another series of bad judicial appointments and decades more of waking up to more shocking Supreme Court decisions.







Why So Many Christians Vote Pro-Life

Here's an article that I submitted to a local Christian Newspaper with slight changes.  It's to address the effort to water down the importance of the pro-life Christian vote.



Years of polling show that Christians are decidedly pro-life and that their pro-life convictions have a powerful impact on elections.

That impact explains the continuing efforts to water down the importance of abortion to make it just one issue among many for Christians. If abortion becomes just one issue among others, it makes it easier to support candidates who are not pro-life but agree with pro-life Christians on other important issues.

There are many pressing issues Christians are concerned about, but it's not hard to understand why abortion is the leading, if not single, issue for so many.



Why are so many Christians pro-life?

1. The Unborn Is Our Neighbor. Ultrasound and
intra-uterine photography leave no doubt what the unborn is. The unborn is one of us- a someone, not a something; a unique, complete, tiny human who fully shares our humanity. The unborn's self-evident humanity makes him our neighbor, and Christians are fulfilling the great commandment when they love their unborn neighbors as themselves. When they advocate for their protection, they are fulfilling the Golden Rule.



2. Abortion arguments are offensive because they make the right to life and the value of human beings conditional upon the possession or exercise of certain characteristics. Humans who do not immediately possess these arbitrary criteria are regarded as human non persons and expendable.

But Christians are told that humans have a nature. They are created in God's image. Our status as bearers of God's infinite nature is not conditional; it is not earned, and it is not achieved. It is inherent and belongs to us from the moment of our conception.

Abortion arguments are offensive because the arbitrariness of those arguments undermines universal human rights. Which characteristics determine who has rights and value and who does not? To what degree must we possess these unfair and arbitrary measures? And who gets to decide what these characteristics are and the degree to which we must possess them? God is God, we are not.

Christians are also opposed to the arbitrary abortion arguments because the Bible warns them against partiality and favoritism.



3. Christians have a special love for and obligation to the weak. The Bible is filled with exhortations to help, love and provide protections for the weak.

The unborn is the weakest member of our society. And just as Christians are moved to help the weak, the unborn's exceptional helplessness moves them to protect her with greater urgency. The unborn's weakness doesn't make her expendable. It requires special love and protection. Jesus says that Christians are loving and serving Him when they love and serve the weakest among them. When Christians love and defend the unborn, they believe they are loving and serving Jesus.



4. Christians are moved by the deep wounds and alienation that burden women and men who have participated in abortion. Christians are moved to help women in crisis and see women and men be healed and released from the pains that come from abortion. That's why there are over 3000 Crisis Pregnancy Centers with post abortion ministries run in large part by Christians.



5. Abortion has a wide and destructive impact on America. Christians are keenly aware that when any humans become expendable, the rest of us become negotiable. Abortion has not only taken 50 million innocent lives and wounded millions of women and men, it has led to a coarsening and disregard for human life.

These are just some reasons why many Christians are so pro-life and why abortion is their fundamental political voting issue and not just one issue among many.



Post script. This does not intend or pretend to speak for all Christians, define Christian beliefs on abortion or question the faith of Christians who support abortion or vote for those who do. That's why the words "so many" are used. Nor does it mean that every pro-lifer is or has to be a Christian. Many of these principles are self-evident and being a Christian is not necessary to hold them. The above addresses the attempt to water down the Christian pro-life vote and explains why so many Christians vote pro-life.



Wednesday, July 16, 2008

President Bush Denies Funding For Coercive Abortion. Reid Opposed Bush Action In 2007.

Lifenews.com reports that "President Bush has again refused to direct taxpayer funds to a United Nations agency accused of promoting abortion and backing the one-child forced-abortion policy in China. Bush revoked funding for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) for the seventh consecutive year. The White House is withholding almost $40 million in funding from the UN agency because the State Department has determined that it has violated the Kemp-Kasten amendment of 1985." 



Lifenews.com notes that Kemp-Kasten is a "pro-life law that ensures no public funds can go to groups that promote forced abortions overseas."  Bush has has denied $235 million in taxpayer funds to the UNFPA since 2001.



How bad is the One Child Policy in China supported by UNFPA?" The libertarian Cato Institute’s Stephen Moore says, “this program will go down in history as one of the greatest abuses of human rights in the 20th century.”  That program receives funding from the UN Population Fund. 



And where is "pro-life" Harry Reid on this?  On September 6, 2007 “pro-life” Senator Harry Reid voted against an amendment attached to the 2008 State/ Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill (H.R. 2764) “To prohibit funding of organizations that support coercive abortion” -programs like China’s inhumane One Child Policy funded by the UN Population Fund. The amendment says, “…none of the funds made available in this Act nor any unobligated balances from prior appropriations may be made available to any organization or program which, as determined by the President, supports, or participates in the management of, a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”



You can't call yourself pro-life and vote against amendments "to prohibit funding of organizations that support coercive abortion."  The same goes for "pro-lifers" who oppose the Mexico City policy to stop funding to groups promoting and performing abortions in other countries.



By the way, how can you call yourself pro-choice and say you believe in reproductive rights if you support funding to programs which practice coercive abortion? 



Good for President Bush.



Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Targeting & Discriminating Against Pro-life Doctors

There's an abortionist shortage in the United States and I suspect in the UK too.  There's been roughly a 40 percent decline in the number of doctors willing to do abortions since the early 90S.  The aging fleet of abortion providers are not being replaced.  So abortion advocates are targeting pro-life doctors to compel them into doing abortions. 



One way to do this is through medical associations which in the United States and Britain are targeting pro-life doctors.  More on the AMA later, but here's a snippet from Life News.com (Pro-Life News Report 07/01/08 #4356."



British Pro-Life Doctors Threatened by British Medical Association Motion
London, England (LifeNews.com) --
After medical associations in the United States caused headaches for pro-life doctors by potentially approving a policy requiring abortion referrals for accreditation, now pro-life physicians in England are concerned. Dr. Evan Harris, the pro-abortion MP and member of the British Medical Association Medical Ethics Committee, has tabled a motion for the BMA's forthcoming Annual General Meeting July 7-10. According to the leading British pro-life group SPUC, the Society for the Protection of the Unborn, Harris's motion would marginalize doctors with a conscientious objection to abortion, specifically by effectively barring them from seeing patients with unplanned pregnancies.



Is Having an Unplanned Birth Worse for Teens Than Abortion?

Is Having an Unplanned Birth Worse for Teens Than Abortion? That's the Question The Elliot Institute answers in their recent email newsletter (Elliot Institute News Vol. 7, No. 10 06/28/08), half of which is reproduced below in the wake of the news that girls in an East Coast High School had made a pact to get pregnant .



But first, here are some Teen Abortion Facts from their site Abortion is The Unchoice



  • Teens are 6 times more likely to attempt suicide if they have had an abortion in the last six months than are teens who have not had an abortion.



  • Teens who abort are up to 4 times more likely to commit suicide than adults who abort, and a history of abortion is likely to be associated with adolescent suicidal thinking.



  • Teens who abort are more likely to develop psychological problems, and are nearly three times more likely to be admitted to mental health hospitals than teens in general.



  • Teens who abort are twice as likely as their peers to abuse alcohol, marijuana, or cocaine.



  • Teens are more likely to abort because of pressure from there parents or partner, more likely to report being misinformed in pre-abortion counseling, and more likely to have greater difficulty coping after abortion. Source: Teen Abortion Risks Fact Sheet



Now to their Article, "Is Having An Unplanned Birth Worse For Teens than Abortion?"





With the recent news of a rash of pregnancies among girls at a high school in Massachusetts, it seems everyone is agreeing that teen pregnancy is a problem. But are teens who abort better off than teens who carry an "unwanted" pregnancy to term?







Not according to a study published in  the Journal of Youth and Adolescence. The study found that adolescent girls who abort unintended pregnancies are five times more likely to seek subsequent help for psychological and emotional problems compared to their peers who carry "unwanted" pregnancies to term.1





Dr. Priscilla Coleman, a research psychologist at Bowling Green State University, also found that adolescents who had abortions were over three times more likely to report subsequent trouble sleeping and nine times more likely to report subsequent marijuana use.





The results were compiled after examining 17 other control variables, like prior mental health history and family factors, that might also influence subsequent mental health.





The data was drawn from a federally-funded longitudinal study of adolescents from throughout the U.S. who participated in two series of interviews in 1995 and 1996. About 76 percent of girls who had abortions and 80 percent of girls who gave birth were between the ages of 15 and 19 during the survey, with the remainder being younger.





This study is particularly important because it examines pregnancy "wantedness," in addition to a large number of other control variables.





"Over the last several years, numerous studies have conclusively linked higher rates of mental illness and behavioral problems associated with abortion compared to childbirth. But abortion advocates have generally dismissed these findings, insisting that while women who abort may fare worse than women who give birth to planned children, they may fare better than the important subgroup of women who carry unintended pregnancies to term. Coleman's study addresses this argument and shows that the facts don’t support abortion advocates’ speculations.





Higher Risk Factors for Teens



According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion statistics throughout the U.S., about a quarter of the abortions that take place each year are performed on girls younger than 20.





"Previous studies have found that younger abortion patients may be more likely to experience difficulties coping after abortion compared to older women. One reason behind this may be that teens are more likely to be pressured into unwanted abortions or to undergo abortions later in pregnancy, which carry a greater risk of physical and psychological complications.





"A 2004 Medical Science Monitor study of women who had abortions found that 64 percent of American women reported that they felt pressured into abortion.2 Coleman said that for teens, the pressure probably comes from the fact that they are more likely to be perceived as unready to be parents and that abortion is often seen by those around them as the best solution.





"When women feel forced into abortion by others or by life circumstances, negative post-abortion outcomes become more common," she wrote.





"Adolescents are generally much less prepared to assume the responsibility of parenthood and are [therefore] the recipients of pressure to abort."





Coleman pointed out that, while having a child as a teen may be problematic, "the risks of terminating seem to be even more pronounced."





Other studies comparing outcomes for abortion versus delivery of unintended pregnancies have found higher rates of clinical depression, anxiety, and substance abuse among women who abort, while studies that did not look only at unplanned pregnancies also found that women who aborted are at increased risk for suicidal behavior, psychiatric problems, symptoms of post-traumatic stress, and sleep disorders, which are often linked to trauma.





While previous studies have often been criticized for methodological shortcomings, studies that have come out in the last several years have been designed to address those problems and have gone through vigorous scrutiny from peer-review panels before publication.





"The scientific evidence is now strong and compelling," Coleman stated. "Abortion poses more risks to women than giving birth."





While there has been a long-standing assumption that such problems are related to mental health problems that existed before abortion, a large-scale study conducted in New Zealand last year found that this wasn’t the case.3





The standard theory has been that women who have problems coping after abortion were probably already mentally unstable and therefore more likely to be even worse off if they continued the pregnancy.





The researchers in New Zealand thought that their study would confirm this theory, so they specifically controlled for pre-existing mental health problems. What they found, however, was that women who were mentally stable before abortion were still more likely to experience mental health problems after abortion.



New Test To Target More Down Syndrome Baby Humans. Targeting Others Targets Us.

A new non invasive test has been developed in Britain to test for Down Syndrome in unborn children that is easier than the invasive amnio centisis testing.  The test is reported to have 90 percent accuracy.  The test is meant to ID Down Syndrome children and target them for destruction.  It's suggested that 80 percent of Down Syndrome Children are destroyed by abortion already.  We are wiping out Down Syndrome by wiping out people with Down Syndrome.



This will only add to the targeting of down syndrome children for destruction and add to the mentality that we deserve certain kind of children and only a certain kind of child will do.  It also fuels the mindset that certain humans have life not worthy of life and that it would be better to do them and society a favor by killing them ahead of time.  The companion thought/justification is that the lives of the handicapped or in this instance, the person with Down Syndrome is that life is a burden to themselves.  That is, their existence is so pathetic that their existence is harmful to the person with Down Syndrome and other disabilities.



With that mindset deeply ingrained in our culture, we should not be surprised when people evaluate us by our characteristics either.  If we can demean and target the Down Syndrome child for death because he or she does not meet our expectations, others can do the same to us.  Once anyone becomes expendable, we all become negotiable.  We can't target others without becoming targets ourselves.



Here's the story from today's briefing from Life News.



New Prenatal Test for Down’s Syndrome Concerns Pro-Life Advocates
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) --
A new, non-invasive prenatal test for Down's syndrome is reportedly being developed in England and Hong Kong on a blood-test that claims 90 percent accuracy. The media is praising the new procedure as risk free and saying it will detect in the mother’s bloodstream a Down syndrome pregnancy. This simple blood test would replace the current “risky” method of inserting a needle into the mother’s womb to extract amniotic fluid near the fetus, a procedure that takes place sometime after the 14th week of pregnancy and sometimes results in miscarriage. But Alison Davis of the No Less Human group that is a part of the British Society for the Protection of Unborn Children responded to the news. “"The new non-invasive test for Down's syndrome will inevitably mean more pre-natal testing, leading to more abortions of babies with the condition. Describing this as a 'breakthrough' is offensive to people who live with Down's syndrome, and to all who recognize the equal right to life of disabled people,” she said. Of the new tests, Davis said “no comment is made on the equal tragedy of the deliberate seeking out and destruction of babies with the syndrome, because this is the whole aim of pre-natal testing. It is certainly no 'breakthrough' for people living with disabilities."



Monday, June 23, 2008

Public Funding Increases Abortion

I've heard abortion supporters say over and over again that taxpayer funding of abortion doesn't increase abortion.  Baloney.  Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean made the same claim recently to the press.



Here's John McCormack's account of it in a short excerpt from his Weekly Standard Article, "Howard Dean's Abortion Contortions, The DNC chairman gets his facts wrong." 06/12/2008



YESTERDAY MORNING AT the Christian Science Monitor breakfast meeting, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean was asked whether the Democratic platform on abortion should be amended. That will be up to Barack Obama and his delegates, Dean said, adding that the Democratic party believes "individuals have a right to make up their own minds in personal matters ... but this party also believes that we ought to significantly reduce the number of abortions in this country."



Given the latter, I asked how he could square Barack Obama's and the Democratic party's support for public funding for abortion--which studies show significantly increases the abortion rate.



Dean responded: "Total nonsense. It's total nonsense that public funding" increases the abortion rate.



Well, according to the Guttmacher Institute, that's not total nonsense.

A 1994-1995 AGI survey of abortion patients found that in states where Medicaid pays for abortions, women covered by Medicaid have an abortion rate 3.9 times that of women who are not covered, while in states that do not permit Medicaid funding for abortions, Medicaid recipients are only 1.6 times as likely as nonrecipients to have abortions.

A more recent study by Dr. Michael New of the University of Alabama found: "State laws restricting the use of Medicaid funds in paying for abortions reduced the abortion rate by 29.66" abortions per 1,000 women of childbearing age.



After I pointed out the Guttmacher research on taxpayer funding and the abortion rate, Dean said: "If the Guttmacher Institute has said it would, I'm not going to argue with the Guttmacher Institute, but I can tell you as the governor of one of the four states which provides public funding, I find that hard to believe because our rate is not higher than the rate of corresponding states nearby."



Wrong again. Howard Dean became Vermont's governor in 1991. In 1992, Vermont's abortion rate was 67 percent higher than New Hampshire's, in 1994 it was 55 percent higher, and in 1996 it was 100 percent higher.



Click here to read the rest of McCormack's article.



Mark Crutcher of Life Dynamics in Denton, TX has noted for years that abortion is what he calls  a marginal decision. That is, if you make access to abortion a little more difficult, like raising prices, the number of abortions go down.  It doesn't take much to keep many of them from having an abortion.  Women are not willing to crawl over broken glass to have one.  This is explains why taxpayer funding would increase abortion.  Like any subsidized activity or commodity, subsidizing brings more of it.



British Teenager Becomes 14th Woman to Die From Dangerous Abortion Drug

From LifeNews.com



London, England (LifeNews.com) -- A new report indicates a teenager died just one week after having a legal abortion -- providing more evidence that legal abortions are not safe for women. Manon Jones, an 18-year-old student from Caernarfon, Gwynedd experienced heavy bleeding after the abortion and eventually died.



After the abortion, Jones felt light-headed over subsequent days and began experiencing abnormal bleeding. She then became what is believed to be the fourteenth woman to have died after using the dangerous abortion drug (RU 486).



She admitted herself to Southmead Hospital in Bristol in June 2005 following the abortion but doctors were unable to save her. Four days later, Jones was dead.



Click here to read the rest of the story at LifeNews.com.



This is another RU 486 abortion drug tragedy.  It's well known that pressure was put on the FDA in America to approve it faster than normal.  It never received the testing it should have received.  Even Reno abortionist Damon Stutes thinks it's not safe.  Maybe that's because he makes more doing surgical abortions, but others think the same.  Don't expect any call to reexamine or recall the drug from abortion advocates.  I once did an interview for Channel 8 in Reno when the drug was approved.  The Planned Parenthood spokeswoman said it was a joyous occasion.  This gal and the others are casualties of abortion.  Certain women are deemed expendable for the cause.



Friday, May 2, 2008

What Happened To Hot Air About Embryonic Stem Cells?

Last summer, embryonic stem cell advocates railed against President Bush for vetoing a bill that would have allowed more destruction of human embryos for embryonic stem cell research at taxpayer expense. It was a winning issue and local activists were quick to jump in. There was plenty of hot air.



Bob Fulkerson of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada said that President Bush, "with the stroke of a pen, struck away the hopes and dreams" of cures for chronic illnesses. Fulkerson also said "It's a shame (Bush) is kow-towing to a very small group instead of doing what's best for the American people suffering from chronic ailments." Mylan Hawkins, executive director of the Nevada Diabetes Association said, "We are deeply saddened that once again the hope for so many Americans who suffer with incurable conditions has been shattered." Planned Parenthood's Allison Gauldin said that thinking that adult stem cells are superior is naive.



Shattering hope? Naïve? Tell that to diabetics in Brazil, Kaitlyn McNamara who received a new bladder constructed from her own stem cells and others.



Harry Reid couldn't help himself either. Nevadans, you know what I mean. Reid accused the president of "putting politics ahead of safe, responsible science." He said the veto was a "most un- American thing by turning his back on science." Bush was "putting the politics of his narrow ideology ahead of saving lives," had decided that curing diseases "was not as important as catering to his right-wing base," vetoed the bill "with the health and hope of millions of Americans hanging in the balance," and said "our best scientists continue to work with one hand tied behind their back."

But all of the sudden, the rage of embryonic stem cell research has gone silent



Why? In November scientis ts discovered a way to create the same kind of stem cells as embryonic ones without the need to clone or kill human embryos. They are the functional equivalent of embryonic stem cells. President Bush believed in this science and funded it by executive order when Congress refused. It's the ho ttest thing in stem cell research.

It's cheaper, easier, more efficient and destroys the rationale for cloning or embryo killing. Dolly the Sheep cloner Ian Wilmut says the inventor deserves a Nobel Prize and that the discovery is equivalent to discovering the double-helix structure of DNA. That explains why stem cell researchers are moving away from embryonic stem cell research and politicians are suddenly quiet about it.



While there are still issues to be worked out to make them safe, last week scientists announced that not only have they been able to grow the three types of cell layers from these new stem cells, they have been able to turn them into heart cells.



Non embryonic stem cell research is motoring along quite well too. There are over 70 benefits and over 1000 human trials using non-embryonic stem cells. That number is getting higher and even JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, is noticing. In February a study in JAMA noted improvement for patients with autoimmune and cardiac diseases using non-embryonic stem cell research. Last year some diabeti cs went off insulin for long periods after treatment with their stem cells and last month wounded soldiers' shattered bones were repaired using their own (adult) stem cells.



And after almost $2 billion in funding, there are still no human benefits or human trials using embryonic stem cells. The NIH budget appears to be flattening or even receding. That will make it more difficult for embryonic stem cell researchers to get more funding for their research when it has produced meager results and other scientific enterprises are competing for the same pie.



There is still danger ahead as researchers in Britain are creating human-animal hybrid clones. A bill has been put into the Congress to prevent that in America. More on that soon.



Embryonic stem cell research and human cloning are not going away immediately, but right now, the wind has gone out of its sails as other types of stem cell research are sailing past it. That's good news for all of us. This could be the beginning of a big win for humanity.



Another Vague Abortion Poll Overstates Support For Roe

Another vague poll that says Americans oppose overturning Roe v. Wade displays the breadth of the misunderstanding of Roe more than support for the policies laid down in Roe





A recent poll by Knowledge Networks, Yahoo and the AP asked: "In 1973 the Roe vs. Wade decision established a woman's constitutional right to an abortion. Would you like to see the Supreme Court overturn its Roe vs. Wade decision, or would you like to see Roe vs. Wade remain in force?" 66 percent of Americans oppose overturning Roe v. Wade. 32 percent support overturning it and 2 percent don't know. This is to be expected.



This poll is vauge and useless because most people are not aware of the scope of Roe and that Roe v. Wade and its companion case Doe v. Bolton, make abortion legal throughout pregnancy. Before viability (end of second "trimester," six months in Roe) no reason is needed for an abortion. After viability abortion can be prohibited by the states, except for the "health of the mother". The meaning of the phrase, "health of the mother" explains why pro-lifers say that abortion is legal until birth.



Doe v. Bolton defines the health of the mother this way, "the medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors - physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age - relevant to the wellbeing of the patient. All these factors may relate to health."



This means that as long as a woman can find a doctor who in his are her opinion says that the woman's wellbeing may be disturbed by any of these criteria, the abortion can be done after viability for almost any reason. That's why the notorious abortionist George Tiller (AKA Tiller the Killer) has been able to abort unborn children for years when the child presents no risk to the mother's physical health, well beyond viability.



Studen ts For Life of America recorded Tiller saying he's aborted on the day before the mother's due date. This is the policy of Roe v. Wade and the policy of Planned Parenthood, not the majority of Americans.



When given accurate information about Roe and its scope, a majority adopts one of the three pro-life positions (abortion for rape, incest, life of the mother; life of the mother; no exceptions) and oppose over 95 percent of the abortions. See our article Pro-Life Views Are Mainstream at the Nevada LIFE website to view these polls.



The good news is that Americans have become more and more pro-life and our cause is making a huge impact. Our efforts to humanize the unborn and the impact of abortion on aborting women, have turned the tide in our direction.



Abortion providers like Planned Parenthood will always try to portray us as anti-science, anti-technology and anti-women. The truth is that when we are debating abortion advocates, the last thing they want to talk about is science, the impact on women or allow us to use technologies like inter uterine photography, ultrasound or pictures of abortions. NARAL Pro-choice America has even called ultra-sound a weapon. That comment speaks volumes about the mind set of the abortion movement.



Abortion advocates are not helped by their "anti-choice" tactics of trying to deny women informed consent-including ultra sounds, attempts to force personnel, facilities and insurers to participate in abortion, efforts to deny parents the right to know; nor are they helped trying to deny states the right to have abortion clinics meet the same requirements as other outpatient facilities and its refusal to report suspicions of statutory rape.



In the end, it's Planned Parenthood and abortion advocates who are the anti- technology Luddites who would impose abortion and who would keep women and parents from the truth. No wonder they keep hiding behind these vague push polls.





Thursday, April 24, 2008

Friends In High Places Protecting Planned Parenthood?

LifeNews.com is reporting that "A Kansas district attorney has filed a brief in relation to an investigation he's conducting into a Planned Parenthood that allegedly did illegal late-term abortions, falsified medical records and violated other state laws.



"Johnson County District Attorney Phil Kline says he needs abortion reports the state has about the abortion business to prove Planned Parenthood broke the law."



But, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment will not turn over the reports Kline needs.  What else is new?  I don't like to compliment Planned Parenthood, but they have made friends in high places to protect them.  Planned Parenthood always says they are afraid privacy will be compromised if records are turned over.  This is a ruse.  They know that no names will be disclosed.  They've used the same argument to quash investigations about whether they have failed to report suspicions of statutory rape or broken parental notification laws.



Read the rest of the story at LifeNews.com.