Category — Abortion

Dutch abortion ship sparks controversy in Spain

A Spanish pro-life group said it plans to protest the arrival on Thursday of a Dutch boat that is offering to provide abortions that circumvent Spain’s strict laws.
The boat is due to anchor off the Mediterranean port of Valencia, the Dutch non-profit organisation Women on Waves said on its web site. [snip]
Spain decriminalised abortion in 1985 but only for certain cases: up to 12 weeks of pregnancy after a rape; up to 22 weeks in the case of malformation of the foetus; and at any point if the pregnancy represents a threat to the physical or mental health of the woman.
[snip]
The Women on Waves ship visited Ireland in 2001, Poland in 2003 and Portugal in 2004, sparking protests in each country.

I’ve always wondered why the right became upset over the issue of abortion (except for their moral position). As hard as it might be on their conscience, they should encourage the liberals to increase participation in the activity; it does hasten their extinction.
Another incongruity that exists is the law for which Obama voted, allowing babies that survive abortions to die on a table in a corner.
Yet, we prosecute a teen that births and abandons a newborn to die for manslaughter at the minimum. At least the Illinois Legislature had the good sense not to pass that inhumane bill.
Could you imagine the bark from the libs if we delivered this treatment to Pookie or Fluffy? The ACLU and the Humane Society would have collective strokes.

Nancy Pelosi knows everything about everything.  Her tiff with Catholic bishops over abortion is Exhibit 1.  Even after being corrected by the bishops that Church doctrine teaches life begins at conception, theologian Pelosi refuses to back down.  Today she’s Speaker of the House, tomorrow Pope.

You can argue over what this theologian or that one says all you want, but for my money, Cardinal Eagan makes it understandable for just about anybody:

“We are blessed in the 21st century with crystal-clear photographs and action films of the living realities within their pregnant mothers,” he continued. “No one with the slightest measure of integrity or honor could fail to know what these marvelous beings manifestly, clearly, and obviously are, as they smile and wave into the world outside the womb.”

Anybody who has seen an ultrasound should know that it’s a child and not a choice.  When I saw my daughter through the ultrasound, there was no doubt in my mind that I was looking at a little person and not a lifeless mass of tissue.

How could Barack Obama, a man with children of his own, hear a tale like this:

Stanek is the nurse who found herself cradling this baby in her hands for all of his 45-minute lifetime. He was close to ten inches long and weighed perhaps half a pound. It’s just a guess — no one had weighed or measured him at birth. No happy family had been there to welcome him into the world. No one was trying to save his life now, putting him into an incubator, giving him oxygen or nourishment. He had just been left to die.

Yet oppose a law that would offer treatment to this premature child?

I don’t care if the child was a “botched” abortion or not, basic human decency demands they be treated.  But as an Illinois state senator, Obama effectively killed a bill that would allow treatment claiming the bill threatened Roe v. Wade.  However, a bill with the same language protecting Roe v. Wade while offering rights to the child passed in the US Senate 98-0.

Of course, when confronted with that fact, Obama lied and said the language between the bills differed in protecting Roe v. Wade when in fact they were identical.  But the most damning piece of evidence is Obama’s vote.  He didn’t even have the guts to vote “no”.  The man who wants to lead the free world voted “present”.  Will that be an option for him when the phone rings at 3 AM in the White House too?

Here’s a disturbing comment by Barack Obama regarding the potential abortion of his grandchildren:

Pro-life activists say Sen. Barack Obama’s abysmal record on abortion issues is reflected by his remark that he would not want his daughters to be “punished with a baby” if they were to make a “mistake” as teenagers.

If the pregnancy were the result of a rape, the comment might be defensible. However, this cavalier comment reflects a true lack of human empathy and feeling. How could a man who experienced the miracle of birth firsthand discuss the death of his grandchildren so cavalierly? How could a man who stood in a nursery with all the newborn babies support partial birth abortion?

And that lack of reflection doesn’t just apply to the unborn child. A close friend’s girlfriend had an abortion in high school. He struggles to cope with the guilt and often wonders what his child would have been like. Having children later on in life depended those feelings as well. I suspect the women involved struggle with similar feelings of remorse. Maybe Reverend Wright should have focused on this issue in his sermons and Obama mentoring sessions instead of lining his own pockets by fanning racial tensions a la Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton?

There’s something seriously wrong with the moral compass of a man with such a laissez-faire attitude toward his children and grandchildren.

Putting the X’es in the proper boxes is all that is left to do, after all this is NHS. Wasn’t there “free” condoms, birth control pills and whatever else? All that free stuff that one is suppose to receive with national health care wasn’t available. Oh yeah, it’s unlawful to pay for it outside the system too.

Here in America, she’d be properly counseled to tell him to shove it. And no, don’t worry about your parents or school if you are under age.

Artist hanged herself after aborting her twins

An artist killed herself after aborting her twins when she was eight weeks pregnant, leaving a note saying: “I should never have had an abortion. I see now I would have been a good mum.”

Emma Beck was found hanging at her home in Helston, Cornwall, on Feb 1 2007. She was declared dead early the following day - her 31st birthday.

Her suicide note read: “I told everyone I didn’t want to do it, even at the hospital. I was frightened, now it is too late. I died when my babies died. I want to be with my babies: they need me, no-one else does.” [snip]

“She was only going ahead with the abortion because her boyfriend did not want the twins.

“I believe this is what led Emma to take her own life - she could not live with what she had done.”

The doctor said: “I discussed Emma’s situation with her, and wrote on the form, ‘Unsupported, lives alone, ex-partner aware’.

Isn’t that a warm desk side manner exhibited!

“It is normal practice to give a woman the number for telephone counselling when a counsellor is not available.

“I am satisfied that everything was done to make sure that Emma consented to the operation.

She added: “We have since appointed more counsellors so there is more holiday cover.” [snip]

Right! We closed the door after the horse went for a stroll.

“She was pleased when she became pregnant, but Ben reacted badly to the news.”

What does he have to say about it. She should have told him to bugger off! After all, it is the woman’s right to choose.

Recording a verdict of suicide, Dr Carlyon said: “It is clear that a termination can have a profound effect on a woman’s life. [snip]

Now that is a bit of awareness on Dr. Carlyon’s part.

And I had such high hopes for the Sexual Revolution

As everyone already knows, King Middle School in Portland, Maine will add birth control pills and contraceptive patches to their arsenal of weapons against the rampant fertility of the ill-bred classes who send their children to that school. Since 2000, the school has been offering condoms, but the statistics don’t show that prophylaxis of this kind has helped…although it’s hard to tell.

You see, Portland’s Middle Schools “reported” 17 pregnancies in the last four years, “not counting miscarriages or terminated pregnancies that weren’t reported to the school nurse”, according to the AP release to CNN.Com/Health for October 18, 2007. This the most interesting “fact” of all. They’re factoring into a decision to distribute contraceptives, events that they can’t count. The point in Portland, is that the assumed intervention of latex isn’t vigorous enough to prevent these…people…from conception, after which they fail to report their miscarriages and abortions. Only a liberal can think this way and expect to be believed.

King Middle School has a health center, and according to the AP, “Five of the 134 students who visited King’s Health Center during the 2006-2007 school year reported having sexual intercourse, said Amanda Rowe, lead nurse in Portland’s student health centers”. Horrifying, isn’t it?

I could have found the same number of transgressors in the thirty students in my 1962 “Marriage and the Family” class, the one taught by the unmarried magpie who joined the Communist Party in 1947. The sensible-shod, tweed and Oxford cloth comradette with the 16MM fun films. What’s changed from Miss Red Peril to Nurse Rowe?

Okay, time for the squeaky doors, clanking chains and distant screams, as we quote Oliver Wendell Holmes in Buck v. Bell, the celebrated compulsory sterilization case. Is there a difference? Holmes said “It is better for all the world, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind….three generations of imbeciles is enough”.

Sure. Holmes was talking about mental impairment, the absence of reflective powers and moral discrimination; the inability to control sexual urges and the social cost of these shortcomings. BUT, of the estimated 60,000 forced sterilizations that followed Buck v. Bell, how many of them were done for bureaucratic expediency? I guess, thousands, many thousands. Where does the presumed compassion of the Portland School Committee (which approved the drug distributions), end, and the practicality of Holmes begin?

I’m not taking a position on this issue. It needs to be discussed, and liberals, particularly, need to come clean on the consequences of this aspect of their amorphous liberation philosophies. Tragedy, ugliness and moral mazes so lush you never find your way out.

Secessionists meeting in Tennessee

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. - In an unlikely marriage of desire to secede from the United States, two advocacy groups from opposite political traditions — New England and the South — are sitting down to talk.

Tired of foreign wars and what they consider right-wing courts, the Middlebury Institute wants liberal states like Vermont to be able to secede peacefully. [snip]

Has anybody information on where all these “right-wing courts are? Secondly, Just how far bent to the left could the Middlebury Institute want in a court. How about a Star Chamber to clear up non-PC utterances and what, expunge rampant hate crime?

Flag of the Second Vermont Republic

Motto: “Vermont, we have maple syrup and omelets.”

If allowed to go their own way, New Englanders “probably would allow abortion and have gun control,” Hill said, while Southerners “would probably crack down on illegal immigration harder than it is being now.”

The U.S. Constitution does not explicitly prohibit secession, but few people think it is politically viable.

Vermont, one of the nation’s most liberal states, has become a hotbed for liberal secessionists, a fringe movement that gained new traction because of the Iraq war, rising oil prices and the formation of several pro-secession groups.

After secession, Vermont’s GNP will exceed only North Korea’s manufacturing excesses. As of now they cannot keep college grads here and business expansion will consist of Macramé and candle shoppes festooned with gingerbread gewgaws.

To these characters, running a business consists of running it into the ground. Then the elite will request the UN to send them rice and automatic weapons.

Thomas Naylor, the founder of one of those groups, the Second Vermont Republic, said the friendly relationship with the League of the South doesn’t mean everyone shares all the same beliefs. [snip]

The first North American Separatist Convention was held last fall in Vermont, which, unlike most Southern states, supports civil unions. Voters there elected a socialist to the U.S. Senate. [snip]

Yeah, between that embarrassment and the other bozo in the senate, a new state motto is needed. Perhaps, “Vermont, we’re all dysfunctional here.”

One more time in the barrel.

Clinton on health care

WASHINGTON - Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday that a mandate requiring every American to purchase health insurance was the only way to achieve universal health care but she rejected the notion of punitive measures to force individuals into the health care system. (emphasis added)

“At this point, we don’t have anything punitive that we have proposed,” the presidential candidate said…could envision a day when “you have to show proof to your employer that you’re insured as a part of the job interview… [snip]

Clinton unveiled her health care plan Monday in Iowa, promising to bring coverage to every American by building on the current employer-based system and using tax credits to make insurance more affordable. [snip]

Clinton unveils details of plan

Clinton unveiled her plan as Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said President Bush wants to achieve universal health care before he leaves office. [snip]

“He’d like to see the larger debate begin,” Leavitt said. “The very best opportunity we have may well be in the next 15 months.” [snip]

The plan, like others, is short on details that would be worked out in Congress. For instance, Clinton does not say how she would enforce the mandate that individuals buy insurance. (emphasis added)

This is only a mandate, not government coercion. If you were a true Prog, you would know the difference.

The best part of the plan is that everyone be required to buy their own coverage,… except for those who can’t. For these individuals, the government will give tax credits to the needy, those that don’t work, those that won’t work, those on welfare, the halt, the lame and eventually every illegal thinking of hopping the fence, since above all, Socialists Progressives are compassionate if nothing else. Besides, it isn’t their money!

In order to afford the tax credits, taxing the rich at 75% rate covers that cost. The rich are classified as anyone making over $33,000 for a household of 8. (That’s too many kids anyway, since abortion is required covered under this non-compulsory healthcare)

Singles’ tax rate will be set at $10,000 except for any illegal; they get the tax credit.

A lot of people naturally assume the Democratic Party has the biggest, most ideologically diverse tent. However, an analysis of the parties’ 1^st tier presidential candidates implies otherwise. The Democratic candidates lean so far left they’re practically horizontal. Hillary Clinton’s main governmental “accomplishment” is a failed attempt to socialize our medical system. Barack Obama thinks 5 year olds need sex education. And John Edwards wants to expand the nanny state because he thinks we all live in broken down trailers with a car on cinder blocks in the front yard.

On the other hand, the Republican presidential field is dominated by squishy moderates trying to convince the party faithful they’re conservatives. Rudy Giuliani is a social liberal who supported making New York a “sanctuary city”. Mitt Romney is trying to explain his abortion flip-flop and ran as a centrist in MA. John McCain takes great pleasure in annoying the party’s base on issues like immigration and campaign finance reform.

I’d wager that a socially conservative Democrat could not achieve the front runner status that a socially liberal Giuliani has in the Republican race. Could a Democrat ever be pro-life? Democrats talk about diversity, but they’re all died in the wool liberals.

Helen Thomas laments the recent rightward tilt at the Supreme Court. Swami Thomas foresees a parade of horribles that will result from this “mean” Court. It didn’t hold up equal protection under the law; it reinstituted segregation. It didn’t stop “partial birth abortion”; it struck at the heart of Roe vs. Wade. It didn’t restore discipline to schools; it put serious constraints on free speech. But has someone who refers to President Bush as a “conservative” considered the issues or really paid attention?

Just like she missed the bruising battles between President Bush and conservatives, her analysis misses the mark here. Thomas bemoans the dismantling of the “humane society” leftist jurists produced, but she offers very little in actual legal analysis. For example, is “diversity” so compelling that we should suspend equal protection? The 5-4 majority didn’t find that answer as self-explanatory as Helen does.

[Read more →]

It’s Not Enough to Be ‘Wanted’

Illegitimacy has risen despite–indeed, because of–legal abortion.

BY JOHN R. LOTT JR.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

The abortion debate usually centers on the morality of the act itself. But liberalizing abortion rules from 1969 to 1973 ignited vast social changes in America. With the perennial political debate over abortion again consuming the presidential campaign and the Supreme Court, it might be time to evaluate what Roe v. Wade has meant in practical terms.

One often misunderstood fact: Legal abortions just didn’t start with Roe, or even with the five states that liberalized abortion laws in 1969 and 1970. Prior to Roe, women could have abortions when their lives or health were endangered. Doctors in some states, such as Kansas, had very liberal interpretations of what constituted danger to health. Nevertheless, Roe did substantially increase abortions, more than doubling the rate per live birth in the five years from 1972 to 1977. But many other changes occurred at the same time:

1. A sharp increase in pre-marital sex.
2. A sharp rise in out-of-wedlock births.
3. A drop in the number of children placed for adoption.
4. A decline in marriages that occur after the woman is pregnant.

Some of this might seem contradictory. Why would both the number of abortions and of out-of-wedlock births go up? If there were more illegitimate births, why were fewer children available for adoption?

As to the first puzzle, part of the answer lies in attitudes to premarital sex. [snip]

In the United States from the early 1970s, when abortion was liberalized, through the late 1980s, there was a tremendous increase in the rate of out-of-wedlock births, rising from an average of 5% of all births in 1965-69 to more than 16% two decades later (1985-1989). For blacks, the numbers soared from 35% to 62%. While not all of this rise can be attributed to liberalized abortion rules, it was nevertheless a key contributing factor. [snip]

The evidence shows that the greater availability of abortion largely ended “shotgun” marriages…[snip]

The mothers often end up raising the child on their own. Even as abortion has led to more out-of-wedlock births, it has also dramatically reduced adoptions of children born in America by two-parent families. [snip] After Roe, women who turned down an abortion were also the type who wanted to keep the child. [snip]

With work and other demands on their time, single parents, no matter how “wanted” their child may be, tend to devote less attention to their children than do married couples; after all, it’s difficult for one person to spend as much time with a child as two people can.

From the beginning of the abortion debate, those favoring abortion have pointed to the social costs of “unwanted” children who simply won’t get the attention of “wanted” ones. [snip]

Unintended consequences are the companion of all legislation. Forethought mitigates but never eliminates the unexpected “gotcha.”

At the risk of looking like I’m picking on my friend DJ Drummond, I’m going to respond to another of his posts. Who does he blame for Republican’s minority status?

You did that. Yes, you. So did I. The cast is made up of folks who either caused the fights and derailed the discussion, or they stood by and let it happen.

You have the causality backwards. The problem is those discussions weren’t happening. The more conservative elements in the party held their tongues for the better part of 5 years. We felt it was our patriotic duty to support a wartime president. Conservatives bit their tongues so hard they were practically bleeding when President Bush let Ted Kennedy rewrite the education laws and government was spiraling out of control.

All those years of frustration hit the boiling point when the president nominated Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court. He promised us justices in the Scalia and Thomas mold, but nominated an unknown and apparently unqualified (he fired her from the White House) personal lawyer to sit on our nations highest court.

The president wasn’t and isn’t implementing a conservative agenda and the Miers’ nomination really brought that fact home for a lot of people. Democrats might be happy to have Democrats in office, but conservatives are a lot smarter than that. They demand results. Results this president simply hasn’t delivered, so exactly how long are we suppose to keep hoping that it changes?

So, here we are. Republicans are the minority party…

Do they deserve to be in the majority? It’s really hard to make that case given what they did when they were entrusted with power. Conservatives tore a hole out of their head to run Dick Gephardt and Tom Daschle out of town. They gave the president both Houses of Congress and fought off the traditional loses in off election years. We gave them an opportunity that they proceeded to squander. What more can we do?

the public does not trust anyone in office because pretty much all the character attacks left marks, some of the best-qualified people are staying out or leaving the work because of how anyone gets treated, who seriously tries to tackle the hard jobs, and the tone of debate on issues has gotten so foul that no discussion ever lasts even an hour before personal attacks begin.

Like Lindsey Graham calling us bigots? Or the president saying people who opposed the bill didn’t want to do what was right for America? And let’s face it; much of the criticism is justified. The president hasn’t taken any meaningful steps to secure the border and it’s been over 5 years since 9/11, so all of the sudden were all suppose to fall in line when he says he’s serious about border security?

[Read more →]

Freedom is Slavery

In his essay yesterday, “Resisting 21st Century Communism”, Fjordman examined the emergence of transnational politically correct Multiculturalism, and the parallels between this noxious ideology and Communism, and its origins in 20th-century socialism.

In the comments, Ypp left a series of thesis/antithesis pairs that highlight the fundamental contradictions inherent in Multiculturalism and political correctness.

I’ve reworded and reorganized them a bit, but the list below is still Ypp’s handiwork.

The Ten Antitheses of Political Correctness

1. Materialism is not about matter, but about suppressing ideas.
2. Communism is not about common wealth, but about depriving people of any personal possessions.
3. Socialism is not about society, but about depriving people of the means of production.
4. Human rights are not personal rights, but collective obligations.
5. Tolerance is not about mutual respect, but about the prohibition of opinions.
6. Multiculturalism is not about cultures, but about the repudiation of nationhood.
7. Energy policy is not about the distribution of energy, but about cutting off energy supplies.
8. Health care is not about health, but about control of our consumption.
9. Family planning is not about families, but about abortions.
10. Self-loathing is not about repentance, but about depriving others of their moral foundation.

Whenever they start by improving something, they finish by depriving people of it.

Next time you are tempted to use the “correct” word, think about what you are doing to your freedom.

Hear the pow’r of God’s word; join de First Church of the Last Chance. Get some of that ole time religion.

2008 Democrats play God’s politics
After baring their souls in a live television confessional, top Democratic White House hopefuls have put Republicans on notice that religious voters are up for grabs. [snip]

But this year’s crop of candidates served notice Monday they will not make the same mistake, in a nation which wears its religion on its sleeve, and have learned to speak the language of the Church.

In their mulit-culti world, they are consorting with the one religion they hold at arm’s length. In near times, they’ve operated a lion’s den for savaging all of that faith. Now it is pussycats on parade, don’t mind the teeth.

Clinton spoke openly about how her faith sustained her during the public anguish of her husband’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. “I am not sure I would have gotten through it without my faith,” she said, in the forum hosted by the Soujourners organization and CNN.

“I have been tested in ways that are both publicly known and those that are not so well known, or not known at all,” Clinton said. “I am very grateful that I had a grounding in faith that gave me the courage and the strength to do what I thought was right. Regardless of what the world thought, and that’s all one can expect or hope for.”

Reportedly, her former pastor, Saul Alinsky is spinning rapidly in his grave.

Edwards said religion helped him rebuild his life after teenaged son Wade perished in a freak car crash in 1996 and is a comfort as his wife battles incurable cancer.

“I strayed away from the Lord for a period of time … my faith came roaring back during some crises that my family was faced with.” “When Elizabeth and I lost our son, we were non-functional for a period of time, it was the Lord that got me through that.”

God speaking to me through my builder said, “Erect here a monument to your anointing and reside within during your time of purification.” So it came to pass, the edifice was raised.

Obama, vying to be America’s first black president, came across with the air of a preacher, as he detailed how social policy was grounded in the his faith.

“I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper, … we are connected as a people,” Obama said.

“I’ve got a stake in other people. And I’ve got a set of responsibilities towards others, not just towards myself.” [snip]

“Oh-tey,” thundered Obama, “let us go to the river and wash away your infidel sins.” His wife declined, saying her burkah was by Dior and not waterproof.

This remarkable speaking in unknown tongues, by this many backsliders and gainsayers is a conversion of heathens heretofore not witnessed by God.

But the fledgling “religious left” movement must battle the conservative Christian establishment, which boasts television stations, newswires and a direct line to the Republican White House.

Since most Democrats don’t favor banning abortion, they must also finesse an issue which is a priority to many religious voters, particularly conservatives. [snip]

This puts that old soap, The Guiding Light, to shame for suspense.

Next camp meeting is the laying on of hands by the now sanctified Donk candidates.

I don’t agree with Rudolph Giuliani’s views on abortion, but you have to give him some credit for facing it head-on. Most candidates would have ducked the issue hoping it’d go away. Although I appreciate his honesty, his reasoning is convoluted and raises more concerns for me than his actual position:

“One, I believe abortion is wrong,” he said, adding he would counsel a pregnant woman to keep the child and put him or her up for adoption rather than abort.

And secondly, he said abortion supporters, especially women, are “equally moral, equally decent, and equally religious” and fervent in their beliefs as abortion foes, yet have come to a different conclusion.

“So therefore,” Giuliani said, “I would grant to women the right to make that choice.”

But how can that be if you believe that abortion is wrong? This is analogous to saying I believe the Nazis were wrong when they killed millions of Jewish people, but they fervently believed they were right so we’ll give them a pass this time. Bin Laden believed he was right when he killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11, but we know he was wrong.

This just isn’t an issue where you can say everyone is equally good and right. Your a Yankees fan or a Red Sox fan, not both. The idea that Giuliani is a subjective moralist bothers me a lot more than his support for pro-choice policies.