Abortion Topics 4


Infanticide:

Fetus = Baby, therefore Abortion = Fetal homicide.

The Vast Left-Wing Culture of Death.  Here we can clearly see the great lie that springs from those who have chosen evil over good.  The content of a woman's uterus has never been a magic bean.  It has never been a puppy, a kitten, not even a gerbil.  At conception, when the genetic materials from two human beings combine, a third human life is ignited.  That life may burn for only a day or it may burn for 100 years.  Regardless of how long it lasts, it is a human life, nevertheless.

The Evolving Issue of Abortion.  Let us work hard and pray that those who continue to couch the taking of innocent life in terms like "women's health issues" might someday realize that a normal pregnancy is not a disease and that abortion is a voluntary act of infanticide, not a curative treatment.

The "Murder" of a Fetus:  If the California state statutes use the term "murder" to describe the killing of a fetus, then why can't pro-lifers use the same language?

Teen sentenced to life for murder of unborn baby.  A Charleston teenager was sentenced to life without mercy for the killing of an unborn baby in a convenience store shooting last November.  Kelly Juwan Chapman, 16, was also sentenced to another three to 15 years in prison for the attempted murder of the mother.  The ninth-grader accepted a plea deal from prosecutors in May.  It is the first time a person has been convicted and sentenced in the death of a fetus in Kanawha County [WV].

Teen sought in fetus slaying.  A 15-year-old boy who allegedly wanted his estranged girlfriend to get an abortion took matters into his own hands when he stomped and kicked her swollen belly, killing her unborn child by fracturing its skull, officials say.

Cellmate:  Mom said she killed her baby.  She was China Arnold's cellmate and lover, but after Arnold admitted killing her baby in a microwave, Linda Williams wanted out.  "I requested to leave the cell we were in," Williams testified Thursday [1/31/2008] in Arnold's aggravated murder trial.  "I didn't want to be there anymore."

Life sentence upheld for killer of mother, fetus.  The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday [11/21/2007] upheld the life prison sentence of a Dallas man convicted of the capital murder of a woman and her unborn child.  An anti-abortion group said the decision was the first by the court to affirm the constitutionality of a 2003 state law protecting unborn children from murder and assault.

Texas Man Gets Death for Killing Fetus.  A former youth pastor was sentenced to death Wednesday [2/7/2007] for killing a teenager and her fetus in what is believed to be the first such order in Texas, the nation's busiest death penalty state. … A 2003 Texas law amended the definition of the word "individual" to include an "unborn child at every stage of gestation from fertilization until birth."

Planned Parenthood Nurse Admits Infanticide: "It Does Happen".  Yesterday [10/30/2008], Students for Life of America (SFLA) released undercover footage of a nurse at a Title X, federally funded Freehold, New Jersey Planned Parenthood facility describing how an abortion would be performed on a 22 week unborn child. ... In the footage, the Planned Parenthood nurse describes to the pregnant woman that an abortion at such a late stage would entail delivering her son and, after the woman asks if the baby can be born alive, the nurse admits that "it does happen, but it wouldn't be able to survive on its own so eventually the baby does die."

The Evil Logic Of Abortion:  Most people mightn't have thought about it, but it's no surprise that Scott Peterson, whose murdered wife has been national news since she went missing on Christmas Eve, stands charged with two murders.  Laci Peterson was pregnant, a tragic fact that raises the obvious question:  If a man who kills his pregnant wife can be charged with a double murder pursuant to a "fetal homicide" statute, then how can the law permit a doctor and a mother to collude in an abortion?

Scott Peterson Gets Death Penalty in Double Murder of Laci and Conner.  In a case that focused the nation's attention on violence against pregnant women, jurors in the Scott Peterson double murder trial sentenced him to the death penalty for the deaths of his wife Laci and unborn child Conner.  [There were two murder convictions.  The jury says he murdered two people.]

The Murder of the Petersons' Son Raises Right-to-Life Issues.  The murder of Conner Peterson was a key factor in the jury's decision to impose the death penalty on his killer, and the state law that allowed an unborn child to be deemed a murder victim created a serious legal problem for the abortion industry, which thrives on the fiction that unborn babies are not human life and are therefore expendable and cannot be treated as victims.

Mexican man sentenced to three years for killing wife, fetus in drunken crash.  A Mexican construction worker in the country illegally was sentenced today to three years in prison for causing the crash on New Year's Day that killed his pregnant wife and fetus.  Alfonso Martinez, 30, also lost his American driving privileges for life.  He pleaded guilty in May in Franklin County Common Pleas Court to two counts of aggravated vehicular homicide.  [Emphasis added]  And he could be deported to Mexico.

MA woman accused of killing unborn child, daughter.  A pregnant Massachusetts woman accused of killing her 9-year-old daughter and stabbing herself in the stomach to kill her unborn child could be arraigned in her hospital bed on Friday, a district attorney said.  Fang Chi Xue, 38, was treated for self-inflicted stab wounds to the arms and abdomen at Boston Medical Center and is expected to be arraigned on two counts of murder, Norfolk District Attorney William Keating said.  She was 7½ months pregnant.

Police shoot, kill man who savagely beat toddler to death near Turlock.  Sergio Aguilar, 27, parked his gold 2002 Toyota truck on West Bradbury Road near the intersection of South Blaker Road in rural Stanislaus County, then punch, kicked and stomped the small boy to death until a Modesto police officer, dropped on the scene by a helicopter, shot the man dead. ... [A sheriff's department spokesman] said on Sunday that DNA testing may be required to identify the toddler because he was beaten beyond recognition.

Connor Peterson, RIP.  Leave it to the feminists. Why is NOW defending Scott Peterson for the murder of his pre-born son?

The Bobbie Jo Stinnett case:
 From fetus to baby.  This is a horrific crime that, like the Scott Peterson case, opens an uncomfortable window into our culture's tortured reasoning on anything related to unborn life.  During the coverage of the crime, the status of the Bobbie Jo Stinnett's unborn girl steadily changed. … [A] "fetus" — something for which American law and culture has very little respect — was somehow instantly transformed into a "baby" and "infant" — for which we have the highest respect.  By what strange alchemy does that happen?

 Editorial Comment   The details of this story are worth noting:  The mother was strangled.  Killed.  Dead.  Then the baby was cut out of the mother's body and kidnapped.  Before long, the baby was recovered in another state in good condition.  Did that mass of tissue suddenly become a separate person when it was cut out of the dead mother's body?  No, the baby was a separate person already, and had been for several months.

Where are the "pro-choice" activists now?  Had Bobbie Jo Stinnett decided to have an abortion, there is no question that, legally speaking, she would have been entitled to do so.  Of course, Stinnett did no such thing.  She was ruthlessly murdered by Lisa Montgomery, who then stole Stinnett's unborn daughter.  But, gruesomely enough, in this country today, Stinnett, had she desired to, could have excised the baby growing inside her womb herself with the help of a doctor.

Mother sacrificed her life by refusing cancer treatment so her premature baby would live.  Lorraine Allard was told four months into the pregnancy the devastating news that she was in the advanced stages of cancer.  A further blow came when doctors advised her to terminate the foetus, which was 23 weeks old, and start chemotherapy straight away.  Instead, she insisted on waiting long enough to give her unborn son a chance to survive, telling her husband, Martyn:  "If I am going to die, my baby is going to live."

[This item is included here as another illustration that the mother and baby are two separate people.]

Abortion Chic:  A nine-week-old fetus, for the record, has a heartbeat, a closed circulatory system, a respiratory system, eyes, ears and brain function.  She can't go shopping yet, but she can squint, swallow, move her tongue and make a fist.  She is not, in other words, "just a clump of cells."  The problem with petitions and "I Had An Abortion" T-shirts, such as those hawked by Planned Parenthood, is that they trivialize the deeply emotional and spiritual consequences many women suffer.

Don't tear a smiling foetus from the womb.  Advanced scanning means we have a window on the secret life of foetuses.  At 11 weeks we can see them yawn, and even take steps.  At 22 weeks, they begin to open their eyes.  Between 20 and 24 weeks we watch as they seem to cry, smile and frown.  Understandably, these incredible images have influenced the debate on abortion.

When Liberals Shoot Children.  Given the right circumstances, liberal feminists, activist lawyers, and judges who should be impeached for their lack of judgement — will first allow and then defend the cold-blooded shooting of an innocent child.  They did so this week.

Same story:
 Woman Aborts Her Full-Term Baby With a Gun.  Prosecutors say that on the morning she was scheduled to give birth, [Tammy] Skinner drove to an auto dealer's parking lot, took a gun, and shot herself in the belly, killing the fetus in an act of self-abortion.  Skinner was charged with carrying out an illegal abortion.  Is Skinner a criminal?  Today [10/19/2006], a Virginia judge said no.  The charges were dropped, her case dismissed.

Sheriff:  Man Wanted 'Hit' on Unborn Baby.  A man tried to hire someone to kill his unborn child after learning his ex-girlfriend was pregnant and about to give birth, Stevens County Sheriff Craig Thayer said Thursday [9/12/2006].

Samuel's Spina Bifida Surgery In Utero:  During a spina bifida corrective procedure at twenty-one weeks in utero, Samuel thrusts his tiny hand out of the surgical opening of his mother's uterus.  As the doctor lifts his hand, Samuel reacts to the touch and squeezes the doctor's finger.  As if testing for strength, the doctor shakes the tiny fist.  Samuel held firm.

New Law Protects Unborn Victims.  Under this law, those who direct violence toward a pregnant woman will answer for the full extent of the harm they have done.

Deadly Trend:  Sociologist Stefan Timmerman has observed that "Humans in every society studied to date are more likely to be murdered on the day they are born than on any other day of their lives."  Timmerman was quoted recently by bioethicist Wesley J. Smith in the online publication To the Source.  Smith rightly claims that while infanticide was commonly accepted in ancient times, only the Jews and the Christians actively opposed it. … So, as Western culture abandons its Christian roots, we ought not to be surprised that infanticide is making a comeback.

Woman in W.Pa. baby mystery charged with homicide.  A woman suspected of cutting open a pregnant woman's uterus and stealing the baby has been charged with homicide, unlawful restraint and kidnapping, police said Sunday [7/20/2008].  Andrea Curry-Demus, 38, of Wilkinsburg, is charged in the death of Kia Johnson, 18, of McKeesport. Curry-Demus is accused of taking the baby boy to a Pittsburgh hospital and claiming it was her own.

Woman Settles Abortion Lawsuit Over Baby's Disposal.  A woman has settled her lawsuit against Los Angeles County involving the disposal of her infant daughter as "bio-waste" after she had an abortion.

The Editor asks...
 How can she believe that the child is something to be disposed of (through abortion), and then be upset that the body wasn't handed over for funeral services?  No sane person can stand on both sides of that fence.


The numbers are surprising.

Most people are unaware of the scope of this problem.

Since April, 114 Children Have Died from H1N1 — but 700,000 Have Died from Abortion.  Swine flu has claimed the lives of at least 114 children in the United States since April, according to the latest data available from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  But an estimated 2,247 to 3,305 babies lose their lives to abortion each day, based on statistics compiled by both the CDC and the Guttmacher Institute, a private research foundation tied to the abortion industry.

Abortion Kills More Black Americans  ...than the seven leading causes of death combined, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 2005, the latest year for which the abortion numbers are available.  Abortion killed at least 203,991 blacks in the 36 states and two cities (New York City and the District of Columbia) that reported abortions by race in 2005, according to the CDC.  During that same year, according to the CDC, a total of 198,385 blacks nationwide died from heart disease, cancer, strokes, accidents, diabetes, homicide, and chronic lower respiratory diseases combined.  These were the seven leading causes of death for black Americans that year.

Piercing the Skull.  The crucial change in American thinking about abortion came not with Roe v. Wade in 1973 but with the pregnancy of Sherri Finkbine in 1962. … Two score and five years later, the carnage from our domestic war has been enormous.  We rightly mourn the 3,400 members of the American military who have died defending us in Iraq over the past four years:  They're human beings.  We largely ignore a number almost 15,000 times greater — close to 50 million killed since Finkbine's child — but that's OK:  They're just fetuses.

Constituency Aborted.  As of 2008 anyone born before 1990 will be old enough to vote.  This also means that anyone unfortunate enough to have their life interrupted by an abortionist before their birth day is old enough to vote also.  I reviewed the CDC's numbers on abortion and found that between 1970 and 1990 22,689,118 fetuses were aborted.  That would have been 22,689,118 voters between the ages of 18 and 38.  I reviewed the demographics of the women who had these abortions considering ages, ethnicity, marital status, and the fact that they exercised their right to end their pregnancy and I think I am safe to estimate that about 80% of these aborted voters would vote Democrat.

Roe v. Wade:  There have been more than 48.5 million abortions in the United States since Roe was decided, according to tallies analyzed by the National Right to Life Coalition.  This staggering figure alone gives reason to pause.

Howard Dean's Abortion Contortions:  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.

Abortion and America's Future:  It was supposed to be big news that the abortion rate has fallen to its lowest level in 30 years.  They did not tell us that an estimated 49 million have died through abortion in America since 1973.  But the damage has been felt in other ways.  The Supreme Court's legalization of abortion has undermined the philosophy of God-given rights that made our progress as a nation possible.

Abortion Myths:  Myth:  Thousands of women died every year from illegal abortion before Roe V. Wade legalized abortion.  Fact:  According to the Center for Disease Control, the exact number is 39 [per year] and 27 more from legal abortions (in states where the procedure was already legal in 1972 before Roe.)

Anniversary Marks Deaths of Millions.  One out of every four children conceived in America will be killed by an abortionist.  In 2003 alone, more children died from abortion than the total number of Americans who died in the Revolutionary War, Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, and Gulf War combined.  Two-thirds of all abortions are performed on single women.  Statistically, the womb has become the most dangerous place in America.

The Cost of Roe at 35:  Depending on how one counts the number of abortions per year since 1973, more than 50 million people who might have been are not.  These were people who, regardless of the circumstances of the women who carried them, had the potential to contribute to the country and to the world.  But now they cannot, because they are not.  Would we be fighting the battle over immigration had we not rid ourselves of a generation of humans who likely would have done the work for which we are now importing illegal aliens?  Actions have consequences.

Abortion Statistics:  "The United States has one of the highest abortion rates among developed countries."

Los Angeles Times Poll:  53% Oppose All Or Most Abortions.  On the day that the infamous Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing unlimited abortion turns 32 years-old, the Los Angeles Times released the results of a new poll showing a majority of Americans oppose all or most abortions.  According to the Times poll, 53 percent said they oppose all or most all abortions while just 43 percent said abortion should always or almost always be illegal.

Abortion:  America's Staggering Hidden Loss.  When most people think of abortion, they picture a frightened young girl in a crisis pregnancy.  The latest research from the Beverly LaHaye Institute, CWA's think tank, indicates that teen abortions are declining and that, increasingly, abortion is becoming birth control.  Women over age 25 are having the largest share of abortions.  The data indicates that the number of women having repeat abortions is increasing (some four or more) and more abortions are being performed on women who have previously had a live birth.

Hearing Women:  Approximately 40 percent of American women under 45 have had at least one abortion.  Twenty-five percent of all pregnancies end in abortion.  Since the legalization of abortion in 1973, over 40 million abortions have taken place.  Yet no comprehensive data exists concerning the impact of abortion on women.  Consider that the federal government has in place mechanisms to track just about every other medical procedure, but it chooses not to follow this one.

Abortion Statistics:  An Effective Eye-Opener. 
Leading Causes of Death in the United States in 1990

Abortion          1,570,000
Heart Disease       980,000
Cancer              510,000
Lung Disease        160,000
Accidents           100,000
Other Causes        460,000
"Other causes" includes, among many other causes of death, murder, suicide, septicemia, congenital abnormalities, AIDS, ulcers, tuberculosis, meningitis, and hepatitis.  Reference:  Statistical Abstract of the United States, quoted here.


Other countries' experiences:

China and Forced Abortions.  Reggie Littlejohn is a petite woman who heads Women's Rights Without Frontiers  Attorney Littlejohn gave up a profitable practice to work for human rights.  Dr. Littlejohn showed how China's brutal policy actually works.  Women in China pregnant with their second or third "unauthorized" child, are rounded up and harassed until they submit to abortion — even in the eighth or ninth month.  Estimates range as high as 50 million a year.

Pro-Choice Human Rights Activists Call Chinese Abortion Practices Torture.  In its 2008 annual report on China, the commission described China's population plan:  "The government requires married couples to obtain a birth permit before they can lawfully bear a child and forces them to use contraception at other times.  Violators of the policy are routinely punished with exorbitant fees, and in some cases, subjected to forced sterilization, forced abortion, arbitrary detention, and torture."

'One-Child' Expert Urges Investigation Before UNFPA Funding Resumes.  An American expert on China's "one-child" population control policy is urging President Obama to delay restoring funding to the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) pending an independent investigation into whether U.S. taxpayers' money will support coerced abortions in China.

You Are Funding Forced Abortions in China.  So am I.  Not only elective abortions.  Forced abortions.  It doesn't matter whether you are pro-life or pro-choice on this issue.  No one can support forced abortion, because it is not a choice.  What do I mean by "forced abortions"?  Here are a couple of examples from the U.S. Department of State China Report, just released on Feb. 25, 2009...

Forced to abort.  Many women say they have been pressured into abortions they did not want, according to research conducted by the Elliot Institute, a nonprofit specializing in the effects of abortion on women and families.  For years, the pro-choice movement has circulated horrid tales of back-alley abortions performed before Roe v. Wade legalized abortion on demand in 1973.  Yet the opposite phenomenon, which has occurred across the nation, is even more disturbing.  In a society in which abortion is legal, many women and teens are pressured to abort their child.  So how much choice do American women really have over their reproductive capacities?

Chinese parents fight forced abortions.  Yang Zhongchen, a small-town businessman, wined and dined three government officials for permission to become a father.  But the Peking duck and liquor weren't enough.  One night, a couple of weeks before her date for giving birth, Yang's wife was dragged from her bed in a north China town and taken to a clinic, where, she says, her baby was killed by injection while still inside her.

China trying to force 6-months pregnant woman to abort.  A Muslim Uighur woman who's more than six months pregnant remained under watch in a hospital in China's far northwest Friday [11/14/2008] awaiting a forced abortion by authorities who don't want her to have a third child.  A nurse who's tending to the woman at a hospital in Yining, near China's border with Kazakhstan, said physicians had delayed the abortion because of international queries about her case.

Congresswoman Confident Obama Will Fund UNFPA, Which Supports China's Coercive Abortion Program.  Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) said she is confident that President-elect Barack Obama will reverse the Bush administration's decision six years ago to stop the $40 million in annual funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) because of its support of China's one-child policy — a policy that includes coercive abortion.

Vietnam Abortion Rates Very High, One Woman Dies Every Five Days.  New reports out of Vietnam, where abortion is legal, are showing the number of abortions in the Communist nation is staggeringly high.  In addition, one woman dies form a legal abortion in the Asian nation every five days.

Half of infant deaths in Flanders were euthanasia.  Nearly half the newborn babies who died in Flanders over a recent year-long period were helped to die by their doctors, a new study reported yesterday [4/9/2005].  Pediatricians in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium either discreetly stopped treating the babies or, in 17 cases, illegally killed them with lethal doses of painkillers.

In Australia...
 Loophole allows baby bonus for late abortions.  It was intended to boost the birth rate, but a legal loophole means the $5000 baby bonus can be claimed for late-term abortions.  The loophole arises because abortions after 20 weeks' gestation are recorded by doctors as stillbirths.  Parents of stillborn babies receive the maternity benefit on compassionate grounds.

Australian Abortion Business Objects to Nearby Child Care Center.  In a move that pro-life activists say is clearly "anti-child," an Australian abortion center has objected to the opening of a child care center in its neighborhood.  In a complaint filed with the city of Swan, the abortion center's operators said that the sight and sound of children playing on nearby property might cause emotional strain for women undergoing abortions.

[In other words, if you don't pause to give it serious thought and consideration, ending someone else's life is not really all that bad.]


Philosophical issues, Biblical perspectives, and the slippery slope:

Obama and His Pro-Life Apologists.  President Obama knows that an unborn baby is human.  He knows that the blood shed by the abortionist's knife is human blood, that the bones broken are human bones.  He does not deny that the baby whom nurse Jill Stanek discovered gasping for breath in a soiled linen bin after a failed attempt to end her life by abortion, was a human baby.  Even in opposing the Illinois Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which was designed to assure that such babies were rescued if possible or at least given comfort care while they died, Barack Obama did not deny the humanity of the child.  What he denied, and continues to deny, is the fundamental equality of that child — equality with those of us who are safely born and accepted into the human community.

The Sanctity of Human Life.  The sanctity of human life is first described in the Holy Bible in Genesis 1:27 (NIV):  "So God created man in his own image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."  Scholars note that being created in the image of God (imago Dei) means more than having certain abilities and attributes.  It means that humans are the images of God, regardless of what they can or cannot do.  To bear the image of the Creator is a privilege extended uniquely to humans.  No other "creation" of God can make this claim.

The Right of Conscience in the Age of Obama.  On May 24, [Nurse Catherina Cenzon-]DeCarlo, a nurse at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, was forced to participate in the killing of a 22-week-old unborn child by dismemberment.  As she began her shift that morning, a superior informed her that she needed to assist in the late second-term abortion. ... Though she had repeatedly and in writing made her belief known to hospital administrators since she was hired five years earlier, DeCarlo was told on that day that if she did not participate, she would be charged with "insubordination and patient abandonment."

Kathleen Sebelius: Obama Backs Abortion Conscience-Clause Laws But...  Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said President Barack Obama supports existing federal laws that prevent federally funded health care providers from forcing doctors and pharmacists who morally oppose abortion from either performing the procedure or providing abortion-inducing medication.  But Obama opposes a regulation put into place by the Bush administration that would require those federally funded providers to certify compliance with the law, Sebelius said.

Obama's Conscience Claws.  President Obama has a masterful ability to convince people he is their friend even while he attacks them.  This talent was on display last Thursday July 2, when the President spoke to members of the Catholic press about conscience rights for pro-life doctors.  Obama seems to be persuading even pro-life Catholics that he supports "robust" conscience rights. ... Yet one of Obama's first actions was to repeal basic rules protecting conscience.

When Life Begins:  Your life began, as did the life of every other human being, when the fusion of egg and sperm produced a new, complete, living organism — an embryonic human being.  You were never an ovum or a sperm cell, those were both functionally and genetically parts of other human beings — your parents.  But you were once an embryo, just as you were once an adolescent, a child, an infant, and a fetus.  By an internally directed process, you developed from the embryonic stage into and through the fetal, infant, child, and adolescent stages of development and ultimately into adulthood with your determinateness, unity, and identity fully intact.  You are the same being — the same human being — who once was an embryo.

Docs speak out about abortion.  Canada, which reputedly provides the most open legal access to abortion in the western world, doesn't provide access enough, said an abortion rights group last week.  Many women can't get abortions at all, or are subjected to long delays.  The group's solution:  Require doctors by law to perform abortions whether they like it or not.

A matter of life and death.  In self-defense, most see nothing wrong with taking a life if another person is about to take theirs.  It is only if the killer succeeds that some strange notion kicks in that the killer's life suddenly inherits value and comes under constitutional protection.  Conversely, the unborn child, according to the same court, only has a right to live if the woman carrying it gives it that right.  Should she decide not to give birth, any method, including drug cocktails, is allowed.  It mocks life when anti-death penalty people advocate for the guilty, while caring nothing for the unborn.

America's Culture War:  How does the war over abortion rights and homosexual rights affect society at large in America? … Many men and women who would be responsible for saving the lives of many Americans were never permitted to come into the world.  Therefore, abortion has cost the United States economy billions of dollars.  Fewer workers mean less tax revenue for the U.S. Treasury.  Fewer workers mean less Social Security revenue for the U.S. Treasury.  Fewer workers mean less money spent on food, clothes, and shelter in America which definitely affects the economy negatively.

Partial-Birth Bigotry:  Liberal critics just can't believe that a majority of Americans find this procedure immoral.  Nor can they understand why many think the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade is muddle-headed and misguided for conjuring a woman's right to abortion out of a constitutional guarantee of "due process."

Like a slave, is an unborn child not a brother?  This week, I received an invitation to the opening of a new gallery in the Museum in Docklands, an offshoot of the Museum of London. … I found myself wondering how abortion will be viewed by museum curators, teachers, historians and moralists 200 years from now. As the slavery exhibition shows, something that one generation accepts readily enough is often seen as abhorrent by its descendants — so abhorrent, in fact, that people find it almost impossible to understand how it could have been countenanced in a supposedly civilised society.

The devaluing of human life …   did not end with making abortion legal, and therefore, to some people, moral.  The word "baby" does not appear in Roe v. Wade, let alone the word "killing."  And so, the termination of "lives not worth living" goes on.

Rule backs doctors opposed to abortion.  Federal health officials announced tougher steps yesterday to protect doctors and other health care professionals from being fired or discriminated against for refusing to provide abortions for conscience or religious reasons.  A proposed rule, which is open for public comment for the next 30 days, reads that no one receiving federal funds can discriminate against employees who refuse to undergo training for abortions or provide referrals for abortions.

Abortion Rhymes with Death.  Ramesh Ponnuru, my close friend and colleague at National Review, has written the first serious pro-life book for a general audience in decades.  It is a humane, sustained and, most of all, respectful argument about respecting life, dealing with abortion, eugenics, and euthanasia.

What the Bible Says About the Beginning of Life:  The Bible is far from silent on the topic of the sanctity of human life, especially preborn life in the womb.  This resource provides just a few of the Scripture verses that speak to the value of preborn life created in God's image from the moment of fertilization.

The Media Adore Warren Buffett.  Buffett targets people in general, not just a particular group.  In a press release, [Rev. Thomas J.] Euteneuer took aim at almost every aspect of Buffett's agenda, saying that "Warren Buffett's philanthropy aims at killing pre-born children not curing childhood disease, eliminating the poor not poverty, and destroying the developing world not aiding development."  That may seem harsh.  But while [Bill] Gates is dedicated to "global health" issues, he, too, underwrites the pro-abortion agenda.

More women have abortions as it loses stigma.  Women are finding it more acceptable to have an abortion than to drift into an unplanned pregnancy, the head of Britain's leading abortion agency said yesterday.  Ann Furedi, the chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), said one women in five was now childless at the age of 45 and an increasing number were making the choice not to have children at all.  Ms. Furedi said there had been a shift in public opinion about parenthood.  The stigma of abortion had diminished but there was now concern about being a poor parent.

[A mother who has her child exterminated is a poor parent indeed.]

Protecting the lives of others is fundamental to civilization.  It is becoming increasingly expedient to eliminate an unwanted pregnancy, a malformed child, an infant of an undesired sex, a disabled person, the elderly, and others who are nonproductive, inconvenient, and do not vote.  When we no longer have the will to take care of others in peril and need, we will no longer be able to depend on others to care for us when we are similarly afflicted.  History has shown us how easy it is to accelerate the elimination of the inconvenient as the Nazis did starting in 1935.

Pro-life on campus.  What causes people who pride themselves on the compassion of their creed to champion the violent killing of the weakest human beings?  Many reasons have been offered, most with some truth to them.  For the sexual revolution to achieve its goal of sex without consequences, abortion was necessary.  Guilt is another factor; those who have had or encouraged abortions are desperate to justify themselves.

Pro-life laws save lives.  Is such pro-life legislation effective?  Do parental-notification laws, partial-birth abortion bans and informed-consent laws make a difference?  According to a new Heritage Foundation paper, the answer is yes.

I have a (pro-life) dream.  I have a dream that some day, every child will be conceived from an act of true love between parents who love each other, are married to each other, and eagerly welcome him.  I have a dream that every child will spend his childhood with those parents who brought him into being.

Abortion FAQ
I was knit together in my mother's womb, Psalm 139.
 The Abortion-Homosexual Connection.  California Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's appointment of longtime Democrat, lesbian activist and pro-abortion leader Susan Kennedy as his chief of staff is more evidence of The Terminator's disdain for social conservatives.  But the move also illustrates the strong collaboration between homosexual activists and the abortion lobby.

 Excellent:   Abortion discussed on the Ears to Hear web site, where it is seen as "Murder under the deceptive premise of the 'right to choose.'" 

The Abortion Underworld:  The abortion industry is riddled with violence, corruption, and crime and is guilty of committing vile deeds outside as well as inside abortion clinics.

Abortion and the Religious Left:  The liberal churches speak out on abortion, but the conservative ones are silent.  Churches must preach the Gospel before all else.  Because, this is not a physical battle.  This is not even a merely cultural battle.  It is spiritual warfare.  Unless traditional Christians speak up, there will be only one army on the field.

United Methodist Church criticized for pro-abortion alliance.  The United Methodist Church is being criticized for its alliance with a pro-abortion coalition.  The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice has come out against the U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding the ban on partial-birth abortion, calling it a "serious setback."  The pro-abortion group is supported by several mainline Christian denominations, including the United Methodist Church.

Abortion:  Striking at the Root of the Problem.  Consider this quote:  "The purpose of marriage is not to have pleasure and to be idle but to procreate and bring up children, to support a household.  Those who have no love for children are swine, stocks, and logs unworthy of being called men or women; for they despise the blessings of God, the Creator and Author of marriage."  Perhaps you're thinking some deranged medieval Pope must have made that statement.  Hardly!  It was Martin Luther, the Father of the Protestant Reformation who said it.

Entertainer Pat Boone Blames Abortion for Society's "Insensitivity".

Cheating girlfriend hid body of newborn baby in car boot to conceal love affair.  On the night of December 27 last year [Claire] Jones gave birth alone in the bathroom of her mother's home but the baby was stillborn.  She wrapped the body in a carrier bag and some plastic bin bags then drove back to the house she shared with [David] Stoneman, 33.  Jones acted as if nothing had happened and even returned to her job as a marketing manager.

Catholic voters warned on abortion.  Roman Catholic voters and lawmakers must heed church teaching on abortion or risk losing their eternal salvation, U.S. bishops said yesterday [11/14/2007].  "The direct and intentional destruction of innocent human life is always wrong and is not just one issue among many," the bishops stated.  "It must always be opposed."

Doctors worry organ donors not dead.  A federally funded research project has described how surgeons were able to snatch the hearts from severely brain-damaged newborns only seconds after they were disconnected from life-support units and transplant the organs into other diseased infants, but the work is raising alarms from those who say the donors weren't dead yet.

Premature baby 'comes back to life'.  The father, Ali Majdub, told Channel 2 that his wife realized the child was alive after asking to see her dead daughter one last time.  "When we unwrapped the baby to see her, she realized it was moving.  I began screaming and ran with it toward the doctors," he said.  She was then rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit, where doctors are fighting for her life.

The Slippery Slope is Real (and Real Slippery).  Most conservatives I hear from are upset about the inch-by-inch ground we give up on traditional values.  The end result isn't a ball of fire; instead we wake up in a foggy, swampy mess of concessions that really does impact society. … Frankly, we don't need to prove a downward slope.  The left has done it for us.

Nebraska Safe-Haven Law Permits Parents to Abandon Teens.  Nebraska's new safe-haven law allowing parents to abandon unwanted children at hospitals with no questions asked is unique in a significant way:  It goes beyond babies and potentially permits the abandonment of anyone under 19.  While lawmakers may not have intended it, the month-old law raises the possibility that frustrated parents could drop off misbehaving teens or even severely disabled older children with impunity.

Update:
 10 kids abandoned at Nebraska hospitals under state's safe haven law.  Relatives of nine siblings who were abandoned by their father under Nebraska's new safe haven law may be granted custody.  A spokeswoman for the state department Health and Human Services officials said Friday [9/26/2008] that a number of family members have volunteered to take the siblings, ranging in age from 1 to 17.

Nebraska Dad Who Abandoned 9 Children Was Out of Work, 'Overwhelmed'.  An out-of-work widower who abandoned nine of his children at a hospital under Nebraska's new safe haven law said he was overwhelmed without his wife and just "fell apart." ... The unique law allows caregivers to abandon babies and teenagers alike at hospitals without fear of prosecution.  Originally intended to protect infants, it was expanded in a legislative compromise to protect any "child."  Some have interpreted that to mean anyone under 19.

Frustrated parents dump teens at hospitals.  Frustrated parents are dumping their teenagers at Nebraska hospitals — even crossing state lines to do it — and the state Legislature has scheduled a special hearing to try to stem the tide.  Nebraska's "safe haven" law, intended to allow parents to anonymously hand over an infant to a hospital without being prosecuted, isn't working out as planned.

Montana Judge: Man Has Right to Assisted Suicide.  A Montana judge has ruled that doctor-assisted suicides are legal in the state, a decision likely to be appealed as the state argues that the Legislature, not the court, should decide whether terminally ill patients have the right to take their own life. (sic)

The Editor says...
 Why can't judges be content to enforce the law, instead of legislating from the bench and manufacturing new "rights"?  By the way, "their" is plural and "life" is singular.

Guilty consciences.  For social liberals, what is it about abortion that makes some of them consider it a sacrificial rite through which only the killing of an unborn child can truly liberate a woman from the clutches of paternalism? ... If you are a resident in an assisted-living center, you might consider putting an extra lock on the door, because you are next.  By the time our consciences have been reprogrammed, the bureaucrat who decides you have outlived your usefulness will have forgotten how to feel guilty about anything.

Death is on a Roll.  The "death with dignity" and the "self-deliverance" movements fail to see any real meaning in human life.  In their views, life is not so much a gift as a right.  As a right, one's life has little or no meaning other than what one makes of it.  Life is ours to make or to take.  To own or to discard.  To enjoy or to end.  This position finds its roots in a nihilistic perspective where human life ultimately has no significance but rather is something we own while we are here and can choose to embrace, value, discard, or abuse.

Sebelius' Pro-Choice Incoherence:  If developing life is merely protoplasmic rubbish, it has the legal claims of a cyst or a toenail.  But if a politician believes life is sacred, the destruction of more than a million lives a year cannot be merely one issue among many.  [Kathleen] Sebelius and other pro-choice Catholic leaders are disagreeing with their church on a fundamental issue of justice — which is their right.  It is also the right of their church to point out their incoherence.

U.S. News' Bonnie Erbe Argues Abortion is a 'Good Decision' in a Recession.  In her April 1 blog post, Bonnie Erbe, contributing editor to U.S. News and World Report and host of PBS' "To the Contrary," gave that advice to pregnant moms who are wondering how to raise a child on a strained budget.  It wasn't a tasteless April Fool's Day joke.  She's serious.

The End Game of the Left.  Within the world of the far left, individuals have no value.  Only the state matters.  That is why the modern American statist devalues individual achievement and wealth.  If, as in the socialist world of Marx, Engels, and Adolf Hitler, God does not exist and humans have no souls, then the state determines the value of a human life.  This philosophy leads to an ominous conclusion. ... The end game of the left is the abortion and eugenic elimination of the "undesirables", the euthanasia of the old and infirm, and the genocide of those who disagree.  Its objective is the purity of socialist thought.  And it is pure evil.


Notre Dame sells out

In the latest triumph of political correctness over principle, the University of Notre Dame has abandoned the Catholic church's pro-life stance and has invited President Obama to speak and to receive an honorary law degree.

Catholic Notre Dame Will Award Pro-Abortion Obama an Honorary Law Degree.  The University of Notre Dame announced on Friday [3/20/2009] that it will award President Barack Obama an honorary law degree and that Obama will give the principal address at the university's May 17th commencement ceremony.

Tens of Thousands Sign Petition Asking Notre Dame Not to Honor Pro-Abortion Obama.  Many American Catholics, including alumni and students of the University of Notre Dame, are expressing anger and profound disappointment at the school's decision to invite President Obama -- who supports abortion on demand and legalized same-sex unions -- to be the school's commencement speaker and to award him an honorary doctoral degree in law.

The Destruction of Notre Dame.  On Friday, March 20, it was announced that President Obama had accepted an invitation by the president of the University of Notre Dame, Father John Jenkins, to give the commencement address on May 19 and receive an honorary degree.  What fire could not do, Father Jenkins and his Academic Council may succeed in doing -- destroying a major Catholic institution.

Notre Dame students protest as pro-choice President Obama picked to give commencement speech.  Mr. President, go wax eloquent elsewhere.  President Obama's selection as the keynote speaker at Notre Dame's commencement ceremony this spring has sparked a deluge of protest, with critics citing his pro-choice stance and his decision to funnel federal dollars for stem-cell research.

Notre Dame Not Budging on Obama Invite.  Officials at the University of Notre Dame are standing firmly behind their decision to invite President Obama to deliver the university's commencement address, despite strong opposition from some vocal Catholics.

Criticism over Obama invite mounts at Notre Dame.  The University of Notre Dame has a tradition of inviting new presidents to speak at graduation.  But this year's selection of President Barack Obama has been met by a barrage of criticism that has left some students fearing their commencement ceremony will turn into a circus.

Touchdown Obama.  The Catholic Church in America has bred her own destroyers, graduating from doctrinally corrupt catechetical programs, schools and colleges two generations of pro-abortion politicians.  Barack Obama, in his effortless Alinskyite style, has exploited this phenomenon to the hilt, seeking out Catholics such as Joe Biden and Kathleen Sebelius to serve as his agents of destruction.  The controversy this week at Notre Dame is one more snapshot of this self-implosion.

Phoenix Bishop Blasts Notre Dame's President.  Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, Ariz., sent a scorching letter [via email] Wednesday to Fr. John Jenkins, president of Notre Dame University, directly accusing Fr. Jenkins of committing an act of disobedience to the Catholic bishops of the United States by inviting pro-abortion President Barack Obama to deliver Notre DameÕs commencement address and receive an honorary law degree.

Notre Dame:  Sober Up!  Here we have a Catholic archbishop [Charles Chaput] exposing the fact that the emperor has no clothes on, when right down the road we have the most well known Catholic university in the land reaching out to embrace the most pro-abortion president in the history of the United States.  Something is wrong with this picture.  Or perhaps, one should suggest there is something extraordinarily evil about it.

Bishop to Skip Notre Dame Commencement.  The Roman Catholic bishop whose diocese includes the University of Notre Dame says he will boycott President Barack Obama's commencement speech at the Catholic school because Obama's policies on stem cell research and abortion run counter to church teaching.  Bishop John D'Arcy of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend said in a statement Tuesday [3/24/2009] that Obama's recent decision to federally fund embryonic stem cell research "has now placed in public policy ... his long-stated unwillingness to hold human life sacred."

Notre Dame Alumni Opposed to Obama's Speech.  The Observer, Notre Dame's student newspaper, has been hearing from Notre Dame alumni on whether or not Obama should speak at the graduation.  Most alumni agree:  the University has made a mistake.

Row over Obama visit at Notre Dame University.  Conservative Christians are protesting against an invitation to Barack Obama to speak at a Catholic university because of the US President's enthusiasm for policies that go against Catholic belief, such as federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.

American Cardinal joins criticism of Notre Dame.  Cardinal Archbishop of Galveston-Houston Daniel DiNardo became the first Catholic prelate to come out publicly against Notre Dame University inviting President Barack Obama to speak at their commencement.

Cardinal DiNardo of Texas on why Obama should not be honoured by Notre Dame:  [Scroll down]  And how about this for deadly understatement?  "Even given the dignity of Office of the President, this offer [by Notre Dame] is still providing a platform and an award for a public figure who has been candid on his pro-abortion views.  Particularly troubling is the Honorary Law Degree since it recognizes that the person is a 'Teacher', in this case of the Law.  I think that this decision requires charitable but vigorous critique."

Notre Shame or Notre Dame?  Having spent two decades in a denomination that had 1000 people vote every four years to decide whether abortion is moral or immoral, I rejoice to stand now with the Church to hold steady and inviolable the truth that each human life is created in the image of God and therefore has intrinsic value and worth.  Now, Notre Dame has invited President Obama to speak at its graduation ceremonies this year.

Pro-lifers plan protest for Obama's visit to Notre Dame.  The outrage over Notre Dame inviting President Obama as commencement speaker has not abated.  Last week, pro-lifers strongly voiced their anger about a pro-abortion president being invited to speak at a prominent Catholic university, which supposedly upholds church doctrines such as the sanctity of life.  But they also are objecting to the school's plan to give Obama an honorary Doctor of Law degree.  Notre Dame has been flooded with complaints, but university President John Jenkins will not be deterred.

Is Notre Dame Still Catholic?  By inviting Barack Obama to deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree at Notre Dame, the Rev. John Jenkins has polarized the Catholic community nationwide — and raised a question.  What does it mean to be a Catholic university in post-Christian America?  Are there truths about faith and morality that are closed to debate at Notre Dame?  Or is Notre Dame like London's Hyde Park, where all ideas and all advocates get a hearing?

Why Obama Is Losing a Faith:  Some friends who are loyal alumni of Notre Dame are distressed that God's alma mater is hosting a pro-choice president at commencement.  For decades, they argue, Notre Dame has accommodated, legitimated and enabled pro-choice views, compromising its identity as a Catholic institution.  They question the wisdom of the Obama invitation, which they believe adds to that confusion.

Growing Catholic Opposition to Obama's Notre Dame Address.  More Catholic leaders are coming out in opposition to the University of Notre Dame's plans to have President Barack Obama speak at commencement May 17.  Notre Dame's decision to invite Obama has drawn outrage from some Catholics because his stances on abortion and stem cell research are at odds with church teaching.

Cardinal George:  Notre Dame's invitation to President Obama embarrasses Catholic Church.  Cardinal Francis George called the University of Notre Dame's decision to invite President Obama to speak at its commencement an "extreme embarrassment" to Catholics.  "It is clear that Notre Dame didn't understand what it means to be Catholic when they issued this invitation," said George, who made his remarks at a conference Sunday [3/29/2009] hosted by the archdiocese's Respect Life office in Rosemont.

Leader of Order that Runs Notre Dame Tells Obama He's Supporting 'Evil' by Backing Abortion.  Rev. Hugh W. Cleary, C.S.C., the superior general of the Catholic religious order that founded and now sponsors the University of Notre Dame, declared in an "open letter" to President Barack Obama that many good Catholics are scandalized by his pro-abortion policies, which, Cleary said, are "regarded by us as an intrinsic evil."

Notre Dame Must Not Honor Obama With an Honorary Law Degree.  The world is watching. If Catholics don't stand strong on Catholic dogma and equality then certainly no one else will.  This is a remarkable chance to show Catholic commitment to Jesus and His lesson of love to us.  As a Catholic, I beg pro-life graduates at Notre Dame to begin planning the alternative graduation ceremony.  Cancel plans for it only if the university rescinds the honorary law degree or the president rejects the degree.  Both the university and the president can save face if they issue a joint statement foregoing the honorary degree but accepting the invitation to speak.

Hundreds protest Notre Dame honor for Obama.  Hundreds of anti-abortion advocates protested Sunday [4/5/2009] on the University of Notre Dame campus against the school's decision to award an honorary degree to President Barack Obama.  Speakers at the rally outside the school's Main Building called for the honorary degree to be withdrawn because Obama's actions on abortion regulations and stem cell research do not agree with Roman Catholic teachings.

More Than 250,000 Sign Petition Protesting Notre Dame's Invitation to Obama.  More than a quarter-million people have signed a petition sponsored by the Cardinal Newman Society calling on Notre Dame to withdraw its invitation to President Obama to speak at the May 17 commencement.

The Catholic identity crisis.  Many Catholics are angry that the University of Notre Dame, a private Catholic institution with a 90% Christian enrollment and a crucifix in every classroom, has asked President Obama to speak at its coming commencement.  Francis Cardinal George, archbishop of Chicago, called the invitation an "extreme embarrassment" to Catholics, who consider right-to-life issues among the most fundamental to their faith.

10 Holy Cross priests object to Obama invitation.  Ten priests from the order that founded the University of Notre Dame say the school risks its "true soul" and could distance itself from the Roman Catholic church by inviting President Barack Obama to campus next month.

Obama at Notre Dame.  By inviting Barack Obama to deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree at Notre Dame, the Rev. John Jenkins has polarized the Catholic community nationwide — and raised a question.  What does it mean to be a Catholic university in post-Christian America?

Notre Dame president defends Obama invitation.  The University of Notre Dame's selection of President Barack Obama as its commencement speaker follows the "letter and spirit" of a statement passed by U.S. bishops in 2004 and cited frequently by critics as a reason Obama should not have been invited, the school's president says.

Obama's 'Notre Shame' PR disaster could cost him millions of Catholic votes.  "Notre Shame", as it has become known, is turning into one of the biggest PR disasters of Barack Obama's presidency and is quickly eroding his fragile support among American Catholics.  Every day for the past month, it seems, another Catholic bishop has attacked the decision by Notre Dame University to invite the rabidly pro-choice Obama to give its commencement address and receive an honorary degree.

Notre Dame Alumni Launch Effort to Withhold Donations Over Obama Invitation.  A group of Notre Dame alumni angry over the university's decision to feature President Obama as this year's commencement speaker is set to launch an online effort urging the school's financial backers to withhold donations until the university president is ousted.  The group's website calls for current university president Rev. John Jenkins be replaced with "someone who will uphold fundamental Catholic moral principles."

Notre Dame Alumni Protest with Dollars.  A new front has opened in the battle over the commencement appearance by President Barack Obama at the University of Notre Dame.  This one involves money.  Groups protesting the event are turning to alumni, hoping that dollars will speak louder than petitions, which have failed to budge the university to rescind the invitation.

Notre Dame President Is Focal Point for Conservative Outrage Over Obama Speech.  Reporting on the new campaign by some Notre Dame alumni to withhold donations from the university over President Obama's forthcoming commencement appearance there, I spoke yesterday with Anthony Rea, a Michigan-based Notre Dame benefactor who has joined the effort.  A developer and architect who has sent three children to Notre Dame, Rea says he has given more than $100,000 to the school.

ND President 'Tremendously Proud' To Honor Obama.  Fr. John Jenkins, president of the University of Notre Dame, boasted this week of how proud the school is to host President Barack Obama at its commencement exercises this May.  Fr. Jenkins, who caused a firestorm of criticism for the school when he agreed to give Mr. Obama an honorary doctorate of law, called the president's visit a "tremendous event" for the nation's most prestigious Catholic school.

Mary Ann Glendon Refuses Notre Dame's Laetare Medal.  Mary Ann Glendon, the Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard University, former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican and member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences is a Pro-Life Champion.  She enjoys global respect for her intelligence, eloquence and distinguished record of public service.

Ex-Vatican Ambassador Declines Medal At Notre Dame Commencement, Citing Obama.  Former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican Mary Ann Glendon won't accept the school's Laetare Medal at commencement next month because of its decision to have President Barack Obama speak to graduates.  Glendon also says in a letter to Notre Dame's president that giving Obama an honorary degree violates the U.S. bishops' 2004 statement that Roman Catholic institutions shouldn't honor people whose actions conflict with the church's moral principles.

Morning Shows, NYT, USA Today Ignore Mary Ann Glendon/Notre Dame Development.  Imagine that former Vice President Dick Cheney was set to be honored next month at a Catholic university's commencement ceremony and news came down that another person to be honored at the same ceremony with a different award declined the honor, stating that she felt it inappropriate for the university to honor a man who believes in and furthered the use of torture by condoning waterboarding of enemy combatants.  The press, it's safe to say, would have a field day.  But that's not the case with the news of Mary Ann Glendon...

Glendon turns down Notre Dame's Laetare Medal because of Obama invite.  Mary Ann Glendon, who was scheduled to receive the Laetare Medal at the University of Notre Dame commencement ceremony May 17, won't be attending and will turn down the honor because the university invited President Barack Obama to speak to the graduates.

Notre Dame Critics Tally $8.2 Million in Denied University Donations Over Obama.  The effort of some Notre Dame alumni to discourage donors from supporting the university because of its commencement invitation to Barack Obama is bearing some fruit.

Glendon declines Notre Dame award.  Harvard Law professor Mary Ann Glendon, one of the most prominent Catholic conservative intellectuals in the United States, announced yesterday that she would refuse a prestigious award from the University of Notre Dame rather than appear on the same platform on which President Obama is being awarded an honorary degree.  Glendon's unexpected announcement, just 20 days before Notre Dame's commencement, stoked a raging controversy over the decision by the Catholic university to honor a president who supports abortion rights and has taken several steps during his first 100 days to widen access to abortion services and to ease restrictions on embryonic stem cell research.

Notre Dame won't give top honor amid Obama protest.  The University of Notre Dame has decided against awarding its top honor at commencement this year after its intended recipient turned it down over the school's decision to have President Barack Obama speak to graduates.

Norma McCorvey attacks Notre Dame decision to honour pro-abortion Obama.  The woman whose pregnancy provoked the Roe v Wade court case that legalised abortion in the United States in 1973 has condemned the decision by Notre Dame University to invite the fiercely pro-abortion Barack Obama to deliver its commencement address on May 17.  Norma McCorvey — the "Jane Roe" of Roe v Wade — is now a Catholic pro-life campaigner.

Barack Obama's Notre Dame visit provokes huge Catholic backlash, PR disaster.  Barack Obama's ill-fated decision to speak at the commencement ceremony of the Catholic University of Notre Dame on May 17 and to accept an honorary degree, despite his aggressively pro-abortion activities, has turned into a nasty car-crash for the White House.  The Catholic and broader Christian backlash against this outrage has built up a head of steam beyond anything the cack-handed university administration could have anticipated.

St. Louis Catholics to take part in Obama protests at Notre Dame.  Dozens of St. Louis Catholics will travel in a convoy of buses, cars and vans to South Bend, Ind. on May 16 to take part in campus protests against University of Notre Dame officials' decision to award President Barack Obama — who supports abortion rights — with an honorary degree.

Defending Mary Ann Glendon.  The open letter from Professor Mary Ann Glendon to Fr. John Jenkins declining a Laetare Medal from the University of Notre Dame almost shimmers with clarity of thought, but some of the people unimpressed by her principled refusal to serve as a token for two presidents now accuse Glendon of hypocrisy.  In the letter, Glendon explains why she has a problem with Notre Dame awarding an honorary degree to President Obama.

Alan Keyes Arrested While Protesting University of Notre Dame's Obama Invitation.  Conservative political activist and former presidential candidate Dr. Alan Keyes was arrested on Friday [5/8/2009] along with 21 other pro-lifers while protesting the University of Notre Dame's decision to give President Obama an honorary law degree despite his support for abortion.

Why Is Obama Going to Notre Dame? To Divide and Conquer American Catholics.  Many are questioning why officials at the University of Notre Dame are inviting the most pro-abortion president in our history to receive an honorary doctorate of laws.  Doesn't this make a mockery of Notre Dame's historic role as the premier Catholic university in America?  Doesn't this create a scandal for the Catholic faithful as well as for the larger community of Americans who are not Catholic?

Critics Decry Wording of Notre Dame's Honorary Degree for Obama.  [Scroll down]  The honorary doctor of laws degree reads:  "A community organizer who honed his advocacy for the poor, the marginalized and the worker in the streets of Chicago, he now organizes a larger community, bringing to the world a renewed American dedication to diplomacy and dialogue with all nations and religions committed to human rights and the global common good.  Through his willingness to engage with those who disagree with him and encourage people of faith to bring their beliefs to the public debate, he is inspiring this nation to heal its divisions of religion, culture, race and politics in the audacious hope for a brighter tomorrow."

The Editor says...
 I disagree completely.  When did President (or Senator) Obama ever "engage with those who disagree with him"?  What has Obama ever done to "inspir[e] this nation to heal its divisions"?

Booing Notre Dame.  President Obama is speaking and receiving an honorary degree at the University of Notre Dame's graduation ceremony on Sunday.  The university has been moving to the left for years but had managed not to isolate its conservative Midwestern alumni and the Catholic Church's hierarchy.  That luck has run out for the Irish.

Keyes, priest arrested at Notre Dame protest.  Former Republican presidential hopeful Alan Keyes, a Roman Catholic priest and 19 others were arrested Friday [5/15/2009] after marching onto the University of Notre Dame campus to protest President Barack Obama's planned commencement speech.

Moral relativism and Obama at Notre Dame.  In a letter to the 2009 graduating class of Notre Dame, Father John Jenkins, the university's president, explains why he is "proud" to have President Barack Obama speak and be honored at his university.  Let's put aside momentarily the appropriateness of a Catholic university honoring a man who aggressively supports legal abortion, including partial birth abortion, and has supported a procedure that permits the destruction of a living child after birth.  Someone who says that the question regarding the rights of the unborn is "above my pay grade."

Ignoring 2,000 years of faith for a commencement 'get'.  I'm perplexed by Notre Dame's eagerness to squander some fragment of its essence — while pretending that's not what's at stake.  And for what?  A day of bragging rights?

Thoughtful voice all but lost in Obama-Notre Dame drama.  The one person who has spoken most clearly in all of this has become a footnote:  Mary Ann Glendon, a law professor at Harvard University and a former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.  Perhaps Glendon has become a media footnote because what she said wasn't nuanced enough for the scribes.  Yet rather than dance nimbly, the 70-year-old Glendon did something the best Catholic teachers do.  She stood firm.  And she engaged in absolute clarity.

Obama Honor Puts Notre Dame's Catholic Standing at Risk.  Catholics and critics debate the lasting effect of President Obama's 2009 commencement address and the university's awarding of an honorary law degree.

How Notre Dame Drifted Away from the Catholic Church:  Today [5/27/2009], to the disgust and apparent surprise of many Catholic bishops and laity, the University of Notre Dame, once the pride of Catholic intellectual life in America, will behave in a very un-Catholic way by honoring, as commencement speaker and honorary degree recipient, POTUS Barack Obama, one of America's most extreme advocates of abortion.

What were Notre Dame officials thinking?  According to Washington Post reporter Michael Fletcher, more than 87,000 people have signed an online petition calling for Notre Dame officials to "uninvite" Obama.  Last week, Alan Keyes was arrested with other demonstrators protesting Obama's commencement speech on the grounds of the university.

The Score -- Notre Dame = 0, Team Obama = 2012.  On Sunday in South Bend, Team Obama had its way with the Fighting Irish.  While Notre Dame officials argued for months that the decision to invite President Obama to give the 2009 commencement speech and offer him an honorary law degree had nothing to do with his "unacceptable" stance on abortion and the killing of human embryos for research purposes, President Obama shrewdly and shamelessly proved that for him, the occasion had everything to do with these issues.

Barack Obama preaches the gospel of abortion at Notre Shame.  Yesterday, at the formerly Catholic University of Notre Dame, this snake-oil salesman carried the gospel of abortion into what should have been the most hostile territory on the face of the earth but which, thanks to the great apostasy known as the Second Vatican Council and the self-interest of Democrat-supporting pseudo-Catholics, was a favourable environment.  To the rapturous applause of those who put establishment endorsement before the most basic human decencies, Obama preached his message of consensual infanticide.

Obama's Methodist Language at Notre Dame.  Did President Obama borrow language from a United Methodist Church TV ad during his address yesterday at Notre Dame?

Obama at Notre Dame:  President Obama and his fuzzy logic would have a hard time making it out of my freshman-level Composition and Research courses with a passing grade.  Though well known for his power of pathos when reading those teleprompter speeches, in Sunday's commencement address Obama's use of logos (the soundness of an argument) and ethos (credibility or reliability of the speaker) left much to be desired.

Barack Obama preaches the gospel of abortion at Notre Shame.  Sometimes something so gruesome is perpetrated in public life that the sick bag is an inadequate repository for one's involuntary reaction.  Such has been the focus on abortion since Obama courted this controversy that American opinion has finally experienced a revulsion.  For the first time since Gallup began to survey attitudes on abortion in the United States in 1995, a majority of respondents now identify themselves as pro-life.

The News That Didn't Happen.  When the president of the United States spoke at Notre Dame the other Sunday, he didn't so much speak about abortion as around it. ... There's no way to disagree with a stand not taken.  And yet what he said seemed to strike a chord.  Never underestimate the power of the platitudinous.

Notre Dame Pacifier?  President Obama came to the campus of Notre Dame armed with all his usual arrogance.  Despite his radical abortion record — which includes championing a policy in Illinois wherein aborted babies who manage to survive are tossed aside, to die — he posed as the national moderator of "common ground."

The Elephant in the Room:  The new pro-life majority.  The pro-choice cause has sunk to a low point in public-opinion polls.  Clinton, Obama, and Notre Dame inadvertently helped make it so.

Obama Legitimizes Killing of Unborn Babies in Speech at Notre Dame's Graduation.  After receiving an honorary doctorate in law at the University of Notre Dame's graduation ceremony yesterday [5/17/2009], President Barack Obama delivered a speech to the school's graduating seniors that sought to legitimize his position in favor of the legal killing of unborn children.

Respect or Revulsion?  In his much ballyhooed commencement address at Notre Dame, President Barack Obama urged protagonists in the abortion debate to respect the opinions of those whose views differ from their own.  Should abortion opponents respect the views of those who advocate abortion on demand?  Absolutely not!

O So Above IT All.  Put Barack Obama in front of a TelePrompTer and one thing is certain — he'll make himself appear the most reasonable person in the room.  Rhetorically, he is in the middle of any debate, perpetually surrounded by finger-pointing extremists who can't get over their reflexive combativeness and ideological fixations to acknowledge his surpassing thoughtfulness and grace.  This is how Obama, whose position on abortion is indistinguishable from NARAL's, can speechify on abortion at Notre Dame and come away sounding like a pitch-perfect centrist.

Apostacy and Anti-Christ at Notre Dame.  This has become a matter of much controversy, because Obama's vision holds for absolutely no restriction on abortion in any circumstance — something completely at odds with Catholic teaching on the subject, which the Church defines as murder in every fashion.  Despite considerable pressure and angry objections on the part of the Faithful, the University intends to expectorate in the face of the Papacy and the Cannon of Church Law, honoring a man whose views can be described as open to serial murder and butchery.

An Obama I can't believe in, yet.  President Obama's Notre Dame speech on abortion was applauded by the mainstream media, quoting his call for more "open hearts, open minds, fair-minded words."  But except for the pro-life, and some conservative forums, there was no mention of Obama's omission of his own documented, chilling record on abortion that proves what he also said on that Sunday:  "No matter how much we want to fudge it ... the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable."

Why Catholics (Stupidly) Support Obama:  [Scroll down slowly]  Obama's faux hip style would likely appeal to those who go for today's kumbaya forms of worship, such as the holding of hands during the "Lord's Prayer" in many masses.  Or the priest I heard in Holley, New York, who had come off the altar and into the aisle to talk in a confidential, folksy manner to the congregation who looked like they had just stopped into mass between their other activities that required no more sartorial effort than stepping into a pair of jeans. ... In many homilies, the themes of "social justice" and multiculturalism echo the lessons of the classroom.  Rare is the Sunday when a priest does not caution his parishioners about the evils of "prejudice" — directed of course only at the white people who make up the overwhelming majority of the congregation.

The message at N.D.: "Obama = Abortion".  The Pro-Life Action League and Citizens for a Pro-Life Society rallied hundreds of faithful pro-lifers from the Chicago and Michigan areas to join in a massive protest of President Barack Obama's commencement address at the University of Notre Dame on May 17.  Four full bus-loads — well over 200 volunteers — from Chicago were joined by hundreds of others who drove on their own, as well as three busses of volunteers from Citizens for a Pro-Life Society in Michigan.


Semantics, euphemism and verbal chicanery:

'Another Rooks' rant' on abortion.  Like fleas on a hound, this bristling antagonism surrounding abortion is stuck in deep.  So much so that upon learning of U.S District Judge Karen Schreier's Thursday [8/20/2009] ruling that women seeking abortions must be told "that the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being" respected local obstetrician, Dr. Marv Buehner, was quoted in the Journal's Sunday edition as saying "Including separate to me is ludicrous ... In no way is an embryo or fetus separate from its mother."  Really?

Abortion and Orwell:  "War Is Peace."  "Freedom is Slavery."  "Ignorance is Strength."  These slogans are spoken in Newspeak, the fictional language of George Orwell's twisted utopia in 1984.  By removing meaning from words and increasing state control over speech-and thought-Newspeak is designed to manipulate those who hear it.  In California, Newspeak is now spoken fluently by those who seek to advance a political agenda in healthcare by avoiding scrutiny.

PBS' Frontline "The Last Abortion Clinic" — Information or Effort to Energize Pro-abortion Base?  It was clear the battle over the future of the lone abortion clinic still operating in Mississippi was not the documentary's primary agenda.  "The Last Abortion Clinic" appeared to be more of a call to action by pro-abortionists on a national level.  The program featured dire predictions concerning the loss of so-called women's reproductive rights and held up Mississippi as an example of things to come across the nation.

Use and Abuse of Euphemism:  Whatever you think of the practice of partial-birth abortion, surely no one can truly be pleased with the media convention of describing it as "a certain abortion procedure" or "a controversial abortion method." … Even the practice of referring to it on the second, third, or fourth mention as "what opponents call 'partial birth' abortion" is questionable.  What do supporters call it?

Words of Choice:  Abortion advocates are squeamish about this.  They never say that abortion "kills."  They prefer roundabout expressions like "terminate a pregnancy," though a live birth also terminates a pregnancy.  And they never call the child a "child"; they call it a "fetus," as if to give the impression that modern medical science has discovered that it's something other than what we all know it is.

Fork replaces donkey as Democratic Party symbol.  It's good to be reminded that the sole item on the Democrats' agenda is abortion.  According to Dianne Feinstein, Roe v. Wade is critically important because "women all over America have come to depend on it."  At its most majestic, this precious right that women "have come to depend on" is the right to have sex with men they don't want to have children with.

Abortion Stops a Bleeding Heart.  The Democrats are trying to "reframe" their message to make people think they believe abortion is wrong.  I think this is going to be a hard sell if they plan to continue ferociously defending abortion-on-demand right up until the moment the baby's head is through the birth canal.

Rush Limbaugh: Abortions kill liberal causes.  Radio host also says homosexuals would be pro-life if a "gay" gene were proved.

Super-duper prevarication.  How many times does someone have to repeat a falsehood before it becomes true?  The answer, of course, is that no matter how many times someone repeats a falsehood, it never becomes true.  This principle holds even for the U.S. Supreme Court.  A majority of the court, for example, could declare that gold is lead.  But that wouldn't make it true.

Medical Experts Testify Partial-Birth Abortion Is Never Medically Necessary.  The American Center for Law and Justice, which specializes in constitutional law and pro-life litigation, said today the Department of Justice, which is defending the national ban on partial-birth abortion in three trials nationwide, presented sound and convincing testimony this week in New York concluding that partial-birth abortion is never medically necessary, the procedure itself is unsafe, and that the partially-born child experiences pain during the life-ending procedure.

Clinton Rule Attempted to Alter Definitions of "Fetus" and "Child":  The regulation, which was cleared by the Clinton administration on January 17, but then postponed by the Bush administration, states that a newborn is still considered a "fetus" until it is determined the baby will live by "independently maintaining a heartbeat and respiration."  Only when this determination is made is the baby considered a "child," according to the rule.

Partial-Birth Abortion — You Can Look It Up in the Medical Dictionary!  You have probably heard pro-abortion spokespersons claim that "partial-birth abortion" is a "political" term that is "not found in medical dictionaries."  This claim is diversionary, since "partial-birth abortion" is a legal term of art that is defined by Congress in the bill itself.  However, the claim is also untrue.

Informed choice and abortion:  "Choice" presupposes access to information so that people know what it is they are choosing.  We have truth-in-labeling and lending laws that require food manufacturers and financial institutions to disclose the contents of what they are selling (be it food or a loan).  Laws also require auto dealers to put informational stickers on the cars they sell.  But in still too many instances, a woman can get an abortion with fewer informational requirements than for any other surgical procedure.

Latin 101 - "Fetus" means "Offspring," not "Tissue":  on September 28, 2002 Amy Goldstein of the Washington Post announced "Starting in November, 'unborn children' will qualify for government health benefits under a new rule that the Bush administration announced yesterday."  Unborn children is in quotation marks because, in the lexicon of the lunatic left, while a woman carrying a "fetus" is properly called a mother, it is not politically correct to say that the "fetus" she is carrying is an unborn baby.

A Little Too Much Reality TV.  In a documentary titled "My Foetus," England's Channel 4 showed a London doctor using the "vacuum pump" method on a woman who was four weeks pregnant — then placing the aborted fetus on a Petri dish.

When 'Freedom' And 'Choice' Are Neither:  The doublespeak coming from Washington these days has Orwell twirling in his grave. ... Today's political climate is the closest we've come to Orwell's vision of 1984.  We've had the old doublespeak standby of "choice" in abortion around for decades.  Of course the only one making the choice is the women involved, the father and baby don't get a choice, they get an outcome.


The right to protest:

Root of nation's economic crisis is moral crisis:  A travesty of justice has occurred in Oakland, California.  But realities surrounding this local issue point to how the economic crisis in our nation is symptomatic of and flows from a deeper fundamental moral crisis.  A black pastor awaits sentencing, which could amount to two years in prison and $4,000 in fines, for standing outside an inner city abortion clinic holding a sign saying "Jesus Loves You & Your Baby, Let Us Help You," and offering pro-life literature.  Walter Hoye, founder and chairman of the Issues4Life Foundation, was found guilty of "unlawful approach" under the "Access to Reproductive Health Care Facilities Ordinance" enacted in Oakland in 2008.

Pro-Lifers Praise Ruling Allowing Statement on Abortion.  South Dakota may enforce a law that requires doctors to provide pregnant women with a written statement saying, "the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being," a federal appeals court ruled last Friday [6/27/2008].  In Planned Parenthood v. Rounds, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit voted 7-4 to strike down a 2005 preliminary injunction issued by the U.S. District Court for South Dakota.

First Amendment Rights for Abortion Protestors?  On December 22nd a 69-year-old pro-life activist who was standing atop his automobile and protesting in front of the Hillcrest Abortion Clinic in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was physically attacked by an abortion supporter and thrown to the ground with enough force to knock him unconscious.  Doctors even worried for a time that the elderly man might perish from the attack.  Over a week after the attack, there aren't any accounts of the attack in the mainstream media.  As I searched for the story, I found only two Internet hits for it.  Why the silence from the MSM?  Can you imagine the MSM swarm that would have occurred if it had been a pro-lifer who attacked an abortion supporter?  The cacophony would have been deafening if a pro-lifer had been the one to get violent.

Suit filed after cops confiscate motor home:  A California man has filed suit in U.S. district court in Detroit after police from Royal Oak, Mich., confiscated his motor home because it allegedly bore "obscene" pro-life messages.

Neither King nor abortion foes are racketeers.  The Supreme Court's unanimous 8–0 decision this week rejecting claims by the National Organization for Women that demonstrations at abortion clinics are extortion and therefore punishable under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act was an important vote for freedom and free speech.

Pro life?  Beware of the "permit process".  Silencing pro-life speech is unconstitutional, but that hasn't stopped many public officials from doing so.  While the result is always inexcusable, the methods used are often quite creative.  Take Raleigh, North Carolina, where officials excuse their censorship by blaming the "permit process." … "The government can't require citizens to request permission before they exercise their First Amendment rights," said ADF Senior Counsel Nate Kellum.  "The policy used by Raleigh officials to silence pro-life speech is clearly unconstitutional."

False Witnesses?  The U.S. Supreme Court is set to review the most sweeping legal judgment against pro-life activists in history.  But painstakingly compiled new evidence shows that pro-abortion witnesses in the case may have lied.

Justices Express Concern For Free Speech In Pro-Life RICO Case.  The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday in a case that bars pro-life activists from protesting outside abortion clinics, and although free speech was not a question for the court to consider, several justices expressed concern about the impact the case could have on all forms of demonstration.

Minister Risks Jail Time To Read Scripture In Front Of Abortion Clinic:  The Rev. Patrick Mahoney said he plans to violate a 1998 federal court injunction that requires abortion protesters to stay at least 20 feet away from the entrances to abortion clinics.

Missouri House opposes federal abortion proposal.  The Missouri House is urging President Barack Obama and Congress to oppose any federal efforts to pre-empt some state abortion laws.  Federal legislation filed in the past, called the Freedom of Choice Act, could overrule many state-level restrictions on access to abortion.  The Missouri House approved 116-40 on Wednesday [2/11/2009] a nonbinding resolution opposing that.  The measure states that Missouri regulations at risk could include bans on certain late-term abortions and mandatory parental consent for minors.

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