Clueless secularist on pro-life prayers

This photograph from the Omaha World-Herald coverage of the protest outside the Carhart Clinic made me think of Blob Blogging Wingnut's claim about the power of HER prayers.

I said 40 Days for Life was working. I didn't claim my prayers did anything by themselves. But whatever.

The Fetus©™ fetishists pray for clinics to close and for staff members to die.

I think that would be an interesting survey for pro-lifers: Have you ever prayed for an abortionist to die? I've been to numerous pro-life events, and I've never heard that prayer request before. Christians get prayer requests all the time. I can't say I've seen that one around.

Something tells me she's projecting her prejudice onto the masses. Interesting how leftists will denounce people for saying that Muslims are terrorists for the actions of a few. When it's done to pro-lifers, well that's okay. I guess because it's not a race issue, it's all perfectly acceptable. Muslims people are all brown (sic!) therefore accusations against them deserve more scrutiny.

Accusations against white pro-lifers should be accepted without question!

And we definitively think that closing abortion clinics is a good thing. But then, God would agree.

If I were someone who prayed for bad things to happen to people, the way zygote zealots do, I might pray for those pieces of duct tape to remain permanently stuck to the faces of foetishists shown above.

But then, that would make me a religious zealot and I'm not that.

Anyone else thinking of the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican? Thank God I'm not like one of those loathsome little people.

I prefer to focus my prayers on the continuing good health and well-being of family members and friends,

And never her enemies. Too good for that.

not wield that power like a weapon.

Like it's magic. Somebody needs some remedial on Christian prayer.

As well as the prayers themselves.

Unborn Rights and International Law

The Quadrant:

Rita Joseph, a veteran of the UN conference circuit, has written Human Rights and the Unborn Child. This collection of documents and commentary on the instruments of international law relating to the status of the unborn is unique, and will be welcomed—although not by pro-choice groups—as the standard text on the matter. Joseph has gathered a vast array of references to the unborn in the major documents of international law, and carefully collated, analysed and put them into context.

(...)

Abortion advocates, relying on legalism, have continued to argue that the wording “before as well as after birth” is not legally binding, that although the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is a legally binding document that entails obligations for state parties (except the USA, which has not ratified it) the obligations do not extend to children before birth because the rights before birth are only mentioned in the preamble: and “no operative provisions of the CRC refer to the rights of unborn children”.

However, Joseph makes the point that this bizarre reasoning contradicts the foundation principles of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, because the preamble is a statement of the motivation and substantive content of what comes after in the conventions. Then hoisting the legalists on their own petard, she nails the ruse by quoting a better legal authority. Ignoring the preamble contradicts the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969):

1. A treaty shall be interpreted in good faith in accordance with the ordinary meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty in their context and in the light of its object and purpose.

2. The context for the purpose of the interpretation of a treaty shall comprise, in addition to the text, including its preamble ...

Leftists hijack the Bible

Some leftists like to quote back the Bible at Christian conservatives, in a lame attempt to "prove" their hypocrisy.

One tactic of the left is to say that because Jesus wanted us to feed and clothe the poor, then we must vote for a government programs that will feed and clothe the poor.

Notice what Jesus didn't say. He didn't say "get the government to feed and clothe the poor.

He told the disciples to feed and clothe the poor.

The fact of the matter is, citizens pay taxes to the government and for those taxes, they should be able to expect government action that provides equal access to prosperity, equal rights for all, decent health care for all citizens, access to a decent education, and the opportunity to enjoy the basic human necessities such as a home, clothes on their backs, and food in their stomachs.

Note how the switcheroo here. Jesus doesn't talk about government structure. He never said "because citizens pay taxes to the government, they should expect the government to provide equal access to prosperity."

But that doesn't stop leftists from making it into the Gospel truth!

Oh yes, and on that judgment day, the day that the Conservative Right preaches about with such wishful fervor, those who go to church every Sunday and pretend to care about those in need will be judged by their actions outside the walls of the church.

That's right. Christians go out and serve the poor themselves. They don't wait for a government to pass a program.

Jesus also said to judge rightly. Government programs are bandaids. They do not provide prosperity. They are incredibly inefficient at creating wealth. If you want wealth to reach down to the poor, don't expect the government to do it. If government spending solved poverty, we would have solved that problem fifty years ago. Throwing more tax money at poverty is not going to make it any better.

And besides there are few truly poor people in Canada. Their numbers are marginal. By poor, I mean people who have no roof over their heads, not enough clothing and food.

The vast majority of people in this society can at bare minimal survive. This is not the Third World. And most people who can't are unable to because of some serious dysfunction like mental illness or drug abuse. States of poverty tend to be fairly temporary in this country. Few people are chronically indigent. That's the truth.

Guelph: Care of mother versus unborn child at issue

The Liebig family has brought a motion before the courts on behalf of their 8-year-old son, Kevin, born with hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy, or brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation.

He has since been diagnosed with cerebral palsy — the result, his family says, of negligence on the part of three obstetricians and four obstetrical nurses at the birthing unit of Guelph General Hospital.

The Liebigs claim that the mother, Susan, was given too much of the drug oxytocin to speed up labour and then not adequately monitored.

The defendants deny the allegations, which have not been proven in court.

The family’s lawyer, Barbara Legate, says the defendants are claiming to have no duty toward an unborn child.

“I think that’s a jaw-dropping proposition and I bet you that most obstetricians wouldn’t agree,” Legate says.

Interesting case. Since the baby was born alive, his existence as a fetus is recognized.

That's part of the legal fiction in Canada, where the fetus only exists once the baby is born.

If the baby is not born, the fetus does not exist.

What I find stupid about this legal convention is that it has nothing to do with reality. We know that fetuses exist before birth. We know they are distinct from their mothers.

The law should simply acknowledge reality.

The legal fiction of the non-existence of the fetus had a point once upon a time, when women did not always know for certain if they were pregnant or not, or even if their fetus was alive at any given moment.

But this view is antiquated.

With widespread knowledge of pregnancy, a relatively accessible medical system, home pregnancy tests and ultrasound, we can know very early on when a woman is pregnant.

A legal system that does not reflect reality is bound to create a sense of injustice. Justice must rest on truth and facts. If such are lacking, then justice will be lacking.

The greening of the Sahara Desert

Or Why I Never Had Time for the Global Warming Debate

I never really put a lot of energy into this debate. For one thing, there are only so many hours in a day. For another, I knew that whatever happened, we'd deal with it. The climate has been changing for eons. Humankind has lived through warm climates and ice ages.

Were we going to be destroyed by a little thing like more heat? Come on.

We'd just adapt. With global warming, there wouldn't just be losers and there would be winners. It looks like the Sahara region could be a winner (the article ends on a note of uncertainty).

It's not that it's not important. But just not worth the fuss. Really, we're all going to survive and make the best of it. I'm ready to bet on it.

Mark Steyn: Who cares about rights when you can screw around

At some point we will come to see that the developed world’s massive expansion of personal sexual liberty has provided a useful cover for the shrivelling of almost every other kind. Free speech, property rights, economic liberty and the right to self-defence are under continuous assault by Big Government. But who cares when Big Government lets you shag anything that moves and every city in North America hosts a grand parade to celebrate your right to do so? It’s an oddly reductive notion of individual liberty. The noisier grow the novelties of our ever more banal individualism, the more the overall societal aesthetic seems drearily homogenized—like closing time in a karaoke bar with the last sad drunks bellowing off the prompter “I did it My Way!”

And in the end even the sex doesn’t do it. In the Netherlands, the most progressive nation in Europe, the land where whatever’s your bag is cool, where naked women beckon from storefront windows, a certain ennui is palpable. Last week, the ANP news agency released a poll showing that the Dutch now derive more pleasure from going to the bathroom than from sex. It wasn’t a close-run thing: eighty per cent identified a trip to the toilet as the activity “they enjoy the most”—or, as the South African newspaper the Witness put it, “The Bog’s Better Than Bonking.” To modify Eliot, this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a flush.

I also once read that Hugh Hefner had trouble getting off. There is such a thing as sexual saturation. Modesty and purity serve another purpose.

Whistleblowers Come Forward with Accusations of Illegal, Unsafe Conditions at Carhart's Abortion Clinic

Manifesting a disturbing pattern in the management of abortion clinics.

One former employee told of incidents where Carhart falsified the gestational age of viable babies in order to circumvent the law. This account matches information uncovered by Operation Rescue during an undercover investigation at the now-closed Women's Health Care Services in Wichita, Kansas, where Carhart once worked. The worker caught falsifying gestational ages in Kansas now works for Carhart at his Bellevue, Nebraska, abortion clinic.

(...)

The women have given sworn statements about illegal and unsafe activity at Carhart's abortion clinic, which will be turned over to the Attorney General's office and the Nebraska Department of Health, which is investigating Carhart. The women have agreed to cooperate with the investigation.

Here's what I wonder:

How come this never happens in Canada? Why don't former employee of abortion clinics come forward to denounce conditions?

Are the clinics all that sterile and well-run?

Could be. Could be they run a tighter ship in Canada.

But we wouldn't know, would we? Because as far as I know, no one investigates this.

Millions of Canadian women have had abortions in Canada, and no one has complained about conditions?

I wonder.

Tell Cardinal O'Malley Not to Honor Pro-Abortion Kennedy with Public Catholic Funeral-- DO IT NOW!

To respectfully contact Cardinal O'Malley with concerns:

phone: 617 782-2544
email: sdiago@rcab.org

You may also wish to consult:

Composing Effective Communications in Response to LifeSiteNews Reports

Do it now. Not later. Now. Write that email. Just a couple of paragraphs.

Write, even if you're not Catholic. JUST DO IT!

Then forward this request to all your pro-life contacts.

Senator Jacques Demers??? What the hell is Stephen Harper THINKING???

I just can't get over the news of Jacques Demers' appointment to the Senate.

I know he's a nice man and he looks like he has a good heart.

But he's barely literate. One Quebec columnist said that Demers revealed in his biography that he needs to focus to read the paper, and he can hardly write a sentence.

He admitted in an interview on LCN that he has never followed politics and that he had to be told he would get paid for this job.

Is this who we want as a Senator?

Demers acknowledged that Harper was only using his name.

It's a ridiculous, cynical political ploy, and I'm disgusted.

Demers also said that he wanted to use his position to fight poverty. That sounds like he wants to implement a left-wing agenda in the Senate.

If he's going to make this crazy appointment, could he AT LEAST appoint someone who votes the right way?

WHY DO I VOTE CONSERVATIVE?

I'm sure this might please the beer and hockey crowd in Quebec, but I think we should have higher standards. You know-- people who can read and have followed politics.

Here's a thing that bothers me

I came upon this account of a woman's abortion from ImNotSorry.net, which features accounts of women who say they are not sorry about their abortions. She recounts how the doctor who announced that she was pregnant tried to convince her to have the child:

He did realize that it may interfere with my career but he didn't see how having a child at my age would destroy my chances of having a career, unable me from living on my own and being independent, lock me into a relationship I was still unsure about and ruin a life: a child being raised by an unwilling, angry mother.

Why do women who have abortions give themselves the right to envision themselves angry mothers at their children.

What if abortion were impossible? Would they really be as angry as they say, towards that unwanted child? By what right? And if not by right, then why would they say that that was a reason for an abortion?

Children should be embraced. Period. If you want every child to be a wanted child, then just want them. Embrace them. Love them.

Henry Morgentaler..Champion of Women?

I was doing some research when I came across this 1997 article about Catherine Dunphy's biography of Henry Morgentaler:

Close friends acknowledged that his break-ups, one he tired of a woman, "were often abrupt and careless. Many times his liaisons overlapped, making the women feel betrayed as well as abandoned...there was talk that [he] was a chauvinist, insensitive to individual women." But author Dunphy valiantly defends this so-called champion of women's rights. His litany of sexual exploits are his "emotional protection," and he views women as sexual objects because he has an "exuberant, spontaneous, sensual and needing side."

That the doctor is in general a hedonist she makes abundantly clear in a narrative littered with references to his aggressive pursuits of pleasure. He hosts innumerable lavish parties, drops acid and smokes marijuana, visits a sex guru camp and a "feel good" hippie haven, buys luxurious homes, attends a "laughter and play" conference, and takes countless long and expensive holidays around the world. Nevertheless, notwithstanding the fact he was taking a Club Med holiday every six weeks, she insists that "he never became addicted to the finer things [money] could buy."

An abortionist who's a dopehead. What a concept. That would just inspire such confidence in me, if I were in his patient.

This revelation is pretty funny, considering a quote Morgentaler made in the 1960's as he began his crusade to legalize abortion:

Some doctors who've become abortionists, especially in the past, were on the fringes of the medical profession. They were often failures at their profession, sometimes shady characters, alcoholics, sexual perverts, drug addicts. Almost always, their patients suffered-- from lack of emotion support, absence of competent back-up team or medical incompetence. Medical lore has it that some doctors were doing abortion out of compassion, but at the time of my dilemma, I could find none of that kind in Montreal or anywhere else in reasonable travelling distance."

Morgentaler: The Man Who Couldn't Turn Away. by Eleanor Wright Pelrine, p. 29.

UK Nudists Feel Discriminated Against. Waah!

"We have encountered serious difficulties in dealing with both councils and swimming pool management companies. It is near impossible to persuade them to run naturist swimming sessions." They also complain of increased fees for their events, censorship in attempts to advertise naturist events, and the refusal of services, such as FedEx deliveries, to naturist centres.

Oh the humanity! Deprived of nudie swim sessions. The oppression of it all.

Does this not smack of an overweaning sense of self-entitlement?

You are going to deliver that FedEx package to that beach full of naked people or else!

Actually, I'm thinking a lot of men would sign up for that job.

You know what the next step is, right? The right to go to work naked.

Of course. Because the gay lobby and their allies (and useful idiots) forced people to tolerate and finally accept their lifestyle based on a false idea of rights, now every group with a crackpot behaviour will demand that their lifestyle be accepted.

All the normal people will have to act like they like it-- certainly they will be forced to stifle their objections.

Abortionist says pro-lifers hold up photos of what she sees in her work

I came across the blog of woman studying to be an OB\GYN who does abortions (calls herself an "abortioneer"-- How Orwellian).

In the clinic she works in, the staff rotate the jobs. She sometimes works in pathology, where they examine aborted fetuses. She writes:

Because I have no limits when it comes to abortion comfort, I get excited when I do path. I've always been the type to watch surgery shows on TV and I loved dissection fetal pigs in college biology. Pathology, to me, is nine parts science, one part humanity. When I get home from a day in path, I sometimes have to get out my old-fashioned paper journal and write about what I saw and learned, since my friends and family, supportive as they are, don't want to hear about it. I'm fascinated by development and abnormalities and by the fact that tissue doesn't really smell bad. As for the humanity part, while I don't see the fetuses as "babies," I see it as an honor that I'm trusted with this most controversial and taboo element of choice. I'm one of the few people in the world who will ever see this fetus. And the clients who know enough or are curious enough to ask, trust me to treat it with respect.

Does anyone see the contradictions here?

She works in OB\GYN, but the fetus is not a "baby" to her.

How would that go over with the average pregnant woman? Hm...

She's excited about being one of the few people in this world who'll ever see this baby.

Does anyone get excited about being the only person who'll see this gall bladder or kidney?

And oh yes. They bury the fetus.

Why do you bury a fetus, if you don't believe it's a human life?

Anti-choicers hold up posters of what I see in pathology. Even though their photos are larger than life, I'm not bothered by them. But I know so many pro-choicers who are, and honestly, this rubs me the wrong way sometimes. On the one hand, I know fierce pro-choice advocates who would never watch open-heart surgery on the Discovery Channel, so why would they really want to see this other aspect of surgery? On the other hand, my stubborn brain wonders why they must yell at the protesters, "That's disgusting! Why would I want to see that!?" Because I'm pretty sure that's exactly what the antis are going for. They're all about discomfort and the wrong kind of "humanity."

We're about discomfort all right.

And the "wrong" kind of humanity? You mean treating all human beings are human is...the wrong kind of humanity?

Yeah, that makes sense.

The right kind of humanity is to treat helpless unborn children as inferior to the mother, and fit to be killed.

Even if you're not as comfortable around fetuses as I am, why advertise that the protesters' techniques might be working, on some level?

Yeah, don't admit the truth or anything.

Abortion isn't always pretty. I'm one of the few (I say that not self-righteously--sometimes, I wonder if I should force myself to be a little bit uncomfortable.) who is able to counsel AND to assist the doctor in the OR. The less glamorous side of choice is not for everyone, but freedom and an amazing clinic staff and empowered clients are beautiful.

Empowered by killing other human beings. Yeah, it's a beautiful thing.

Because the fetus looks like a human being, and because we've all been fetuses, abortion will always be uncomfortable, and the images will always be disturbing-- and not just because surgery is disgusting. It has to do with uncomfortable philosophical and anthropological issues those photos raise.

A commenter writes:

I've always had this same issue with fetus-photo protests. Yes, an abortion probably looks really gross. You know what else does?

CHILDBIRTH.

They don't get it. They really, really don't get it.

Abortion is gross and results in a DEAD child.

Childbirth is gross but results in a LIVE child.

They're really in denial about it, aren't they?

Major under-reporting of abortion numbers in 2006 stats

Statscan came out with its yearly abortion figures. There's a three year gap between the year under study, and the time they are published.

There were over 91 000 abortions in Canada, according to Statscan, but that does not include abortions from clinics in BC, Manitoba, and New Brunswick.

This is getting ridiculous.

We should have accurate abortion numbers in this country. What is so hard about reporting NUMBERS to whoever it is they report to?

Why isn't this legally mandated?

Do people care about reducing abortion numbers or not?

---

UPDATE

I did some number crunching. Assuming there was no major dip or rise in abortion numbers, I guess that we are about 15 000 abortions short in the grand figure.

You don't have to sacrifice yourself to accept men as they are

Interesting article in the Daily Mail today.

I think the gist of it is correct: don't knock men for being men.

Asked if she thinks feminism has destroyed women, the author of The Lives and Loves of a She Devil and Puffball claimed that there are fundamental differences between the sexes.

Exactly. Not all men will be masculine in the same way. But men are hardwired for masculinity. And it's okay. It has its good points. It has its bad points. Just like femininity. Instead of trying to re-engineer men as a whole, live with it.

Does that mean you have to take crap from men? No.

But it means that you have to be willing to accept some flaws from others. No one is perfect. Men don't typically care to go in depth about their feelings, and they always feel the need to fix everything every time you come to them with a problem, but they can be good listeners, and they're very practical in how they show love-- like doing yardwork. The breadwinner role many men instinctively adopt-- especially after the birth of a child-- is a good thing. It's the way they care. (As opposed to irresponsible louts who abandon their children, leaving the mothers to fend for themselves). It's not a repressive thing-- it leaves women free to do what instinctively comes to them when they give birth-- take care of their baby.

When you're annoyed about something your man does, you have to ask: is it worth it? Is it worth it to nag him about the socks on the floor? (Because that's often what men do) And the answer is generally no. It's not worth the energy, mental and physical, to "train" him to do what men instinctively do. You're far better off just learning to tolerate socks on the floor. It takes less energy that way. And he might be compelled to accept your hair in the bathroom sink.

'The thing is, you need to find a man who is cleverer than you, or at least not let him know that you are cleverer than him,' she said.

I don't think women who are smart should try to be anything else than what they are.

But the problem is that feminism has inculcated in some women the idea that it's okay to rub it in that they're smarter than their man and belittle him for it.

If you're going to be an intellectual, that will limit your pool of potential candidates. A lot of men out there want to be smarter than the women they pair up with. It's just nature. The good news is that there are men who are smart themselves and appreciate intelligent ladies. You don't have to pretend with them because they have no ego issues.

Feminists have pushed this idea that if you reject feminism, and support essentialism, it means that you believe in being "submissive" and taking crap from people.

And that's not true at all.

You don't need feminism to stand up for yourself.

You don't need feminism to respond to men with inflated egos.

It's not an ideology thing. You simply behave in an authentic fashion. When I was young, I remember girls thinking that they had to be a certain way to attract men--as in hide who they really were-- or not develop any self at all!

Many feminists act as if the only way to counter typical female ailments like that is to adopt their ideology. As if you just couldn't decide to build yourself up for your own sake, without opposing the patriarchy.

When women say "I'm not a feminist but.." and then say something typically feminist like, feminists take it as a sign that these women are closet feminists who are too timid to come out. Or they don't know that they're feminists yet.

The truth is, they probably came to some of the same conclusion as feminists, without adopting the ideology. It happens. They probably have many decidedly non-feminist, even anti-feminist viewpoints.

You don't need feminism to be authentic. Feminism sees injustice where none exist. They see injustice in things like men leaving their socks on the floor, meaning women do more housework than men (here's a newsflash: women care about it more than men do.)

You can reject the ideology, respect yourself and still accept men (and women!) as they are.

VIDEO: New Documentary "Blood Money" Seeks to Expose the Abortion Business

The Article from Lifesite

An oldie but a goodie from 2002: Pro-life leader chats with Henry Morgentaler

I wish I could have been there. Peter Ryan and Henry Morgentaler have discussion:

"So you're saying that at this stage, it would not be a baby?" said Ryan to Canada's most prominent abortionist.

"Oh no, that there looks like a baby," Morgentaler replied.

Surprised at the response, Ryan pressed further. "You realize that this is of 11 or 12 weeks' gestation?"

Incredulous at the claim, Morgentaler took the model from Ryan's hand. "No," he said. "Give me that."

Morgentaler eyed the model for a moment and turned it over in his hand, before handing it back to Ryan without saying anything further. Ryan was again met with silence when he pointed out that abortions are committed at Morgentaler's abortuary past that point of fetal development.

And so concluded one of many remarkable exchanges as Ryan, executive director of New Brunswick Right to Life and president of Campaign Life Coalition New Brunswick, went tete a tete on Oct. 23 with a man regarded by both friend and foe alike as Mr. Abortion in Canada.

As someone who has studied history, and know that two people can have completely different perceptions of the same event or conversation, I really wish I could have Morgentaler's take on this.

Morgentaler appeared pleased about the meeting and was telling people about the encounter. He also sought someone to take a picture of he and Ryan together.

Oh, what I would give to get my hands on that picture.

I would love to have more input on this encounter.

Actually, this is not the first time I've heard of Morgentaler speaking to pro-lifers. I know he's on speaking terms with Jim Hughes of Campaign Life Coalition. I've heard Jim Hughes speak of meeting Morgentaler, and now I have this little tidbit.

I wonder what Morgentaler's reaction is.

It wouldn't surprise me if he had no recollection of these conversations. It's like when you're in high school, and you're the guy with the crush on the cheerleader, and you have a conversation, and you remember every word you had with that girl, but to the girl, it's ho-hum just another day at school, and by next week she forgets she ever spoke to you.

This is just interesting. That's all. I came upon it as a I was doing some research.

---

UPDATE:

I was wondering about Morgentaler's reaction to Peter Ryan's description of the unborn child. It seemed unfathomable to me that Morgentaler was that ignorant of fetal development. The information is available in any obstetric textbook (and on the internet).

I found this quote from Morgentaler on the Human Life International website:

"People who say that the heart starts beating 18 days after conception are crazy. At 10 weeks, the embryo still only weighs one ounce, so how could it have a fully formed heart?"

— Canadian abortionist Henry Morgentaler.[5]

The citation is:

[5] Canadian abortionist Henry Morgentaler, quoted in Lynda Hurst. "Pro-Abortionist: Decision is Woman's, Abortion Doctor Says." The Toronto Star, November 29, 1973, page E1.


That is an astonishing quote.

Fetal MRI's: A future source of information

I came upon this abstract that predicted the use of MRI's to examine the brains of unborn children.

Imaging technology is always a two-edged sword for the unborn child. It leads to a window on his world in the womb, and reveals him to be a human being, but it is also an instrument that leads to his destruction, if he is physically imperfect.

Nonetheless, this development could be very interesting. What if we used MRI's on healthy fetuses to find out what really goes on in their heads? Wouldn't that be interesting?

We could get more input about fetal consciousness, and the fetus' intellectual ability.

We could possible measure the level of pain felt by a fetus.

I am confident that this would only lead to greater respect for the unborn child.

Palliative Care Expert: The Terminally Ill Do Not Get Optimum Pain Control

An article in the Montreal Gazette quotes Dr. Balfour Mount, the founder of Palliative Care services at the Royal Victoria Hospital:

Unfortunately, most of the dying do not get palliative care or have access to optimum pain control, he said.

Palliative experts have become very good at treating pain by switching and combining classes of medication so that most patients remain pain-free and alert.

"So the option for society is how do you make that available," he said.

Although framed as a compassionate concern for the suffering of others, doctors that increase morphine and other analgesics to toxic levels "reveal ignorance and lack of training. Why would you legalize killing somebody to fix a problem? What if it was an in-grown toe nail?"

(...)

People want relief from pain, depression and isolation, and it's a rare situation where nothing can be done, Mount said, including offering palliative sedation when other options have been exhausted.

But that's not the same as euthanasia, he said. "The intent is not to shorten life but to provide quality life."

Among the risks of legislating euthanasia is that safeguards aren't fail-proof, he said, including that the decision respects the patient's wishes.

Mount recalled a patient with advanced cancer who didn't have long to live. His wife asked for help to die.

"They were married 50 years, a great warmth between them. She was sitting by his side and holding hands (with him). She was speaking on his behalf ... 'After two years of battling cancer, Joe has had enough, he's had a wonderful life but he's tired.' "

Mount returned to Joe's room later and suggested that perhaps on some level Joe felt like he was being a burden to his family. "And Joe started to cry, and said, 'That's exactly right.' There had been an unconscious pressure on this man to feel that euthanasia was an answer."

Science vs. Religion: A false debate

Fr. Barron on St. Thomas Aquinas:

What can this thirteenth century Dominican master teach us? First, Thomas Aquinas saw with utter clarity that since all truth comes from God, there can never be, finally, any conflict between the data of the sciences and the facts of revelation. In his own time, there were advocates of the so-called “double truth theory,” which held that the “truths” of philosophy and science were in one category and the “truths” of the faith in another. On this interpretation, one could hold mutually exclusive positions as long as one remained cognizant that the opposing views were in separate departments of the mind.

Well, Thomas saw this as so much nonsense and said so. Apparent conflicts between science and religion (to use our terms) are born of either bad science or bad religion, and they should compel the puzzled thinker to dig deeper and think harder. Following Augustine, Thomas said that if an interpretation of the Bible runs counter to clearly established findings of the sciences, we should move to a more mystical and symbolic reading of the Scriptural passage. How important this is today when forms of fundamentalism have given rise to a terrible rationalist counter-reaction. Biblical literalism—a modernism, alien to the patristic and medieval minds—produces a variety of views repugnant to physics, evolutionary biology, cosmology, etc. And this has led to the sequestration of some religious types and some scientific types into separate and mutually hostile camps. Thomas Aquinas would see how foolish and counter-productive this is for both science and religion. The faith, he claimed, should always go out to meet the culture with confidence, and the culture should see its own deepest aspirations realized in the faith.

CASP Urges Action on Canadian National Suicide Prevention Strategy Before Parliament Considers Legislation on Assisted Suicide

It's simple. If death is the solution for a terminal patient, why not for a non-terminal patient? The non-terminal patient doesn't need the medical community to assist him. In fact, I can see a day when, following along the lines of the abortion argument, the medical system will *help* the healthy person kill themselves for fear that they will botch up the suicide and end up even more in distress than before.

"Most people who die by suicide experience intense feelings of sadness and emotional pain, and feel hopeless about that pain ever diminishing. The many added stressors in peoples' lives may diminish their capacity to cope, lower their resiliency, and increase their vulnerability to thoughts of suicide," Tim Wall, Executive Director of CASP said. "What is especially tragic is that suicide can be prevented with compassion, understanding, and access to appropriate services. In fact, most people who are suffering and at risk for suicide can recover and experience a life that is meaningful, hopeful, and satisfying."

This is equally true of people who are gravely or terminally ill. There will be a lesser effort to prevent their suicide because it will be seen as a solution to their suffering.

The terminally ill patient will not call the suicide hotline, and there will be no expectation that he should. He just end his misery. He should not receive the same help as anyone else experience intense emotional distress.

The true spirit of Christian discipleship

From Pope Benedict's Angelus about this Gospel passage.

Even today, many are 'shocked' by the paradox of the Christian faith. Jesus’ teaching seems too 'hard', too difficult to accept and put into practice. As a result there are those who reject and abandon Christ; those who attempt to 'adapt' his teachings to the fashions of the times distorting its meaning and value. 'Will you also go away?'. This unsettling provocation resounds in our hearts and awaits a response from each one of us. Jesus in fact is not contented by a merely superficial or formal belonging, an initial and enthusiastic adhesion is not enough for Him; on the contrary, we must take part in 'his thinking and his will' throughout our entire life. Following Jesus "fills hearts with joy and the full meaning of existence, but it also brings difficulties and sacrifices because very often it means going against the trend”.

At Jesus' question ( "Will you also go away?"), only St. Peter replies: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life and we believe and know that you are the Holy One of God" (John 6 , vv. 68-69).

When Jesus presented his "scandalous" teaching on the Eucharist, the people reacted very negatively. How can you eat his flesh?

But following Christ means trusting in his infinite wisdom and love. If we know Christ to be love itself, then we must follow his teaching and not seek to make it more palatable by distorting or actually ignoring it.

Why is the Blessed Virgin Mary a Queen?

From Archbishop Prendergast's blog:

But why is the Queen of the New Covenant the mother of the King and not the wife of the King, as so many queens have been through the centuries? The answer lies in the biblical institution of queenship in Israel.

Beginning in the time of Solomon, the Davidic monarchs of Judah imitated their Near Eastern neighbors by reserving the office of queenship to the mother of the king. This, in part, was a practical decision in a world where distinguished and wealthy men commonly possessed multiple wives. This meant that the king’s mother was not simply honored in a stately way, but she was a royal court official, an actual government figure who often wielded significant authority in ancient Oriental kingdoms.

Things were no different in Israel. The queen not only wore a crown (Jer 13:18) and had a throne at the right hand of the Davidic king (1 Kgs 2:19), but she was revered by the king himself (1 Kgs 2:19), who was accustomed to fulfill her every request (1 Kgs 2:20). Among other things, this made her a powerful advocate on behalf of the people (1 Kgs 2:13 19).

This background is important when we read the NT, for Mary is the mother of Jesus, the royal Messiah (Matt 1:1 16) who was destined before his birth to sit on David’s throne (Luke 1:32 33; cf. Acts 2:30 36). In other words, it is the Davidic kingship of Jesus that establishes the maternal Queenship of Mary.

Another reason why liberal Catholics bug me

(AP) — NEW YORK - Major Jewish groups and rabbis from the three largest branches of American Judaism said Thursday that their relationship with Roman Catholic leaders is at risk because of a recent U.S. bishops' statement on salvation.

Liberals have been giving people in the other faiths the impression that the Church is not interested in converting others.

I feel bad that many outside our faith have been sold a false bill of goods.

Although interfaith discussion as we know it-- with no intention of conversion-- is fine and necessary, witness-- that is, talking about Jesus to bring people to him-- is still vital for a Catholic.

I realize that this may mean strained relations with Jewish groups. It is regrettable, but I think that Catholics and Jews are going to have a fruitful relationship, it must be honest. Everyone has the right to know where the Church stands. It makes people mad, then let them be mad.

One more concern about ObamaCare

If you want to know where Obamacare could lead, look no further than today's Globe and Mail:

Six months ago, Ana Ilha knew her biological clock was ticking. She just didn't know it was ticking so fast.

But when the Ontario Health Insurance Plan would not cover fertility treatments because of the source of her problems - at 37, her eggs were running out abnormally fast, a condition called a low ovarian reserve - she decided to take action.

She and her husband, University of Ottawa professor Amir Attaran, filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario on Monday. They argue OHIP's policy is discriminatory, since it covers in vitro fertilization only in limited circumstances.

(...)

OHIP paid for IVF in the past, but in a cost-cutting measure in 1994, Ontario withdrew funding except for women whose fallopian tubes are blocked. That applies to about 25 per cent of infertile patients, said Jeff Nisker, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and oncology at the University of Western Ontario.

Okay, I'll make it fair.

Fund no one.

There! No more discrimination.

"Canadians should not be denied having children for the sin of being socio-economically disadvantaged," Dr. Nisker said. "Almost all other developed countries have funded fertility treatments. It's embarrassing."

Nobody is "denying" them children. Their bodies are broken. That's not discrimination. They are not "owed" a child.

Folks, these are MADE UP RIGHTS. You do not NEED a child. You are not OWED a child.

And we so-cons are accused of trying to force women to have fourteen kids.

Surprising admission from the French CBC's Ombudsman: Quebec journalists are all the same

Yesterday, Quebec columnist Richard Martineau wrote a surprising column quoting at length an article written by Radio-Canada's ombudsman Julie Miville-Deschenes in Trente, a magazine for the journalists.

I won't quote the article, but I will translate the quotes that he put in his column (and which is not a continuous text):

The most influential journalistes often belong to the Baby-Boomer Generation. And that great majority of them possess the same ideology. These Quebecois "de souche" overwhelmingly studied social sciences and were active protesters in the nationalist or left-wing movements.

Often, their way of seeing the world consists of the following: biases favourable to unions, anti-americanism, anti-clericalism, etc.

This does prevent these journalists from becoming bourgeois over the years, thanks notably to the collective bargaining agreements that have become more and more generous.In addition, they live in the city and are part of the middle class, or are even well-to-do. It is difficult for them to see coming events such as the rise of the ADQ or the malaise that underlies Herouxville's code of conduct.

On the whole, in the Quebec media, the debate usually is reduced to a confrontation between sovereignists and federalists. And the two options define themselves as being either centre left or left-of-centre. In other words, it's six of one and half a dozen of the other.

There is a debate of ideas that was never able to take place in Quebec, and which jumped in our faces the day Mario Dumont and the right almost won the elections.

The media is biased and journalists all think the same. No kidding.

Martineau tries to balance the picture a bit by naming some right-wing columnists from Quebec, none of whom work for the state-owned media. He seems to be saying that her impressions are probably the result of all the journalists at Radio-Canada being homogenous.

However, I think the diversity in the Quebec press is fairly limited. They're all writers, and there's not a social conservative or a religious believer in the bunch. Plus, none of them are on television.

He's disabled, he wants to die, who cares: let him

Not Dead Yet on the Christian Rossiter case:

No one cares about why an old, ill or disabled person wants to die. Might be too much bother and expense to find out what they really want or need.

From a pro-euthanasia blog:

I have not yet seen ONE PERSON question his treatment, question the way we as a society have failed him – NOT in our lack of provision of a way to quickly bow out, but in our COMPLETE failure to support him in finding out whether maybe, just maybe his life could be worth living.

NOT ONE.

I think maybe we've framed this the wrong way, as pro-lifers.

People want the "right to die".

In reality, they already have it. If someone wants to do himself in, how can we stop him?

What this is about is the medical system's right to kill.

The medical system should not have the right to kill.

That is my objection to the euthanasia debate.

VIDEO: The CCBR Explains Why it Uses the "Truth Truck"

Winning isn't everything. It's the Only Thing

My latest from NoApologies.ca

But they don't do elective late-term abortions...so they say

American Center for Pro-Life Action:

I met a young lady who was 21 weeks pregnant. She had an appointment for a two day procedure at the abortion clinic on the sixth floor of 44 Court Street and stopped by our office on the 12th floor just one half hour prior.

Interesting Piece of Abortion Art

I think that just about says it all.

And if you like it, please link to the artist.

J-Ly whines to the lawyers: rescue me!

Jennifer Lynch, head of the Canadian Human Rights Commission since 2007, told the Canadian Bar Association's annual meeting that opponents of rights bodies have successfully created a "chill" that makes it difficult for anyone to defend those bodies without also becoming a target.

Translation: "Help, they won't stop the attacks! Mwha ha ha, I'm dying here! Puh-leeez tell the bad people to stoooooop."

The speech reeks of desperation.

I don't deliberately try to be mean to people, and I'm not keen on exposing people like Jennifer Lynch to contempt, but the truth of the matter is, if you run an outfit that denies people their God-given right to speak their minds in the name of a state-supported ideology, they will be upset.

There are still lots of people out there who cherish their right to think and say what they like. It's called freedom.

It's not a question of racism. It's a question of being able to think out loud, debate out loud, criticize out loud, and invite discussion of the facts and realities without being stifled by a state agency looking over your shoulder to see if you pass ideological muster.

Sometimes facts and realities are inconvenient to ideologies. They can be *construed* as racist when they're not. They can be called racist for ulterior motives-- such as shutting up people who may have a point.

Perhaps these lawyers will not come to the aid of the HRC precisely because it's a government AGENCY, not a court. The place is run by a bureaucrats. You know, those people with a reputation for being lazy and politically expedient.

The whole system is corrupt. If there's a crime to be prosecuted, let the courts do it. At least that system's fair. If it's inaccessible, then make it accessible-- don't invent a whole separate court system JUST to serve the "vulnerable". Oppressing the elites is just as unfair as oppressing the vulnerable. Remember communism?

---

Blazing Cat Fur has all the blogging reaction to this.

Perhaps you'd might like to blog about it too. And send him your link.

Vermont Mom wants twin fetuses recognized as children

"They’re babies. It just makes no sense to me how anyone can say ’they’re not babies, they’re a fetus,’ " said Blair, 38, who is recovering at the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H. "We need to speak for them. If I can do something for these two I am

Speak up for your dead family members? That's crazy talk.

According to feminists, someone killing your family members should not be a crime, just because they are unborn.

Not fair? Tough luck lady. Your loss is not important enough for the legal system to recognize. No justice for you!

I've noticed a pattern folks. When women and their families lose unborn children to crime, they tend to want to have that loss recognized.

When it happens to them.

Survivors of the Abortion Generation

It was announced today that Daniel Fox, the son of Francis Fox, will be a candidate for the Quebec Liberal Party in the next federal election.

Francis Fox is the former Sollicitor General of Canada who had to resign in 1978 after it was revealed that he forged the signature of his mistress' husband so that she could get an abortion.

It's so strange to read this story, knowing that his half-sibling was killed, the result of a sordid affair.

I recently read the story of someone I knew who told me his mother almost aborted him, but at the last minute decided against it. I was rather blown away by the thought that he might never have existed-- all those years, he would have been non-existent.

You might object: but you would not have been none the wiser.

But the truth is, just because you don't know something doesn't mean reality has not been altered. His person would not have been around to enrich his world. The world would have been poorer without his presence.

More and more of these people will be coming to prominence.

Bizarre twist in the Bill 34 controversy in Quebec: late-term abortionist AUTHOR of restrictive guidelines

Recently, the Quebec National Assembly passed Bill C-34 which puts greater restrictions on private clinics in Quebec. This has had an effect on private abortion clinics, because they would have to each have an operating room for abortions (among other restrictions.)

This led to a huge outcry, because in the face of this new measure, one abortion clinic has decided not to renew its contract with the government to do abortions, and others say they may not be able to meet with the September 30th deadline (with the implication that they might have to stop doing abortion themselves).

Health Minister Yves Bolduc insisted that these measures were necessary and that he got these guidelines from the College of Physicians. No, insisted the College: you don't need an operating room for an abortion.

The feminists and medical groups were up in arms. Gaetan Barrette, the head of the Federation of Specialists, demanded the resignation of Health Minister. The Health Minister decided to meet with the parties involved and find some solution. Politically, this looked like a big loss for the Liberals, and that the Health Minister had lost face, even after he insisted the guidelines would remain.

In a bizarre twist, Jean Guimond, the man who runs the only clinic in Quebec that does late-term abortions, revealed to Radio-Canada that he drew up the Health Minister's guidelines, and that he got those guidelines from the College of Physicians' own documents. He even phoned up the College to get confirmation. He understood that the College wanted abortions to be done in operating rooms.

Dr. Yves Lamontagne, the head of the College of Physicians said that the documents specify that abortions can be performed in a special room OR an operating room. But the report from Radio-Canada explains that the description of the "special room" in effect would make it into an operating room. The cost of renovating a "special room" into an operating room is what may force the Morgentaler Clinic and the Clinique Femina to stop doing abortions (personally, I don't think so, but that's the narrative that is given.)

Jean Guimond himself thinks that these measures are not necessary, but he says it's as if the College just discovered that their policies are too strict.

This is just crazy. So a well-known abortionist draws up the restrictive policy guidelines that could impede access to abortion, using documents from a College of Physicians (which he disagrees with), and when they are applied by the government, the College of Physicians goes ballistic.

I am sure there is more to this story than meets the eye. I just wish I had time to research it. I suspect that the reason the operating room is necessary has to do with 2nd trimester abortions. They are more complicated to perform.

The Morgentaler Clinic Says...

Emotional reactions after an abortion:

Sometimes a woman can experience feelings which seem beyond her control. She may even find herself depressed or angry to the point of crying. These reactions can be normal for the first week or so, but if they last longer or are very disturbing, talking to a counsellor here or getting a referral for post-abortion counselling may be necessary.

But there's no such thing as "post-abortion syndrome."

About those abortion clinics in Quebec

It has been reported that some abortion clinics have threatened to close over the restrictions imposed by Bill 34. Some have said that the clinic l'Alternative has closed down.

I do not believe this is the case.

I do not believe any of them are threatening to close down.

Think about it: Morgentaler and the feminists spent decades fighting for abortion, and they're going to give up over some lousy government regulations?

Morgentaler goes to jail to obtain the right to do abortions, but they're just going to roll over and shut down their clinics?

They're not going to find the money to conform to those regulations?

Come on. Quebec is supposed to be a hotbed of pro-abortion sentiment. You mean they can't raise the money or find the necessary space?

I don't buy it.

I sense that the media is making a bigger deal than it really is.

B.C. Liberals to cut over 6,000 surgeries

But our Canadian public health care system is working just fine.

And abortion services were not cut. Surprise, surprise. The "surgery" people would most like to de-list is still being funded. Tough luck to you neurosurgery patients!

Whatever the Obamacare package says, Americans, you can be certain that the taxpayer will end up paying for abortions. There's no doubt about it.

By the way...

It's been almost 48 hours since I brought up the issue of the rape victim who wanted an abortion at 35 weeks.

Not one left-leaning commenter addressed the question.

What's the matter? Don't you trust women?

When abortion is not the desired solution

Through her tears, she told me so much she had been holding back -- the controlling boyfriend who routinely beats her and her daughter, how much she misses her mom who died a few years ago, that she stopped going to church after her mom died because her boyfriend gets jealous everytime she leaves the apartment.

Trapped. That's the word she used. She didn't want to get an abortion. She couldn't see any other way out.

There's a pro-life billboard that goes: Abortion stops a beating heart.

Sometimes, some yahoo will cross out the word "heart" with spray paint.

But the truth is, abortion DOESN'T stop a beating.

And even if it did, should a woman have to kill her baby to stop a beating?

Sometimes I suspect that supporters of legal abortion don't think things through.

This is what crisis pregnancy centres do. They get the help that women really want.

Interesting study...the relationship between the legal drinking age and birth outcome

An abstract from the Journal of Health Economics:

We also report evidence that the MLDA laws alter the composition of births that occur. In states with lenient drinking laws, young black mothers are less likely to report paternal information on the birth certificate, particularly in states with restrictive abortion policies. The evidence suggests that lenient drinking laws generate poor birth outcomes in part because they increase the number of unplanned pregnancies.

Personally, I think alcohol abuse is one of the leading causes of abortion. It doesn't matter how much contraception you give to kids, if they're drunk they won't use it.

Trust Women on Abortion...No Matter What?

JivinJ brings up an interesting issue related to that famous Esquire article about Dr. Warren Hern and that famous feminist slogan on abortion:

Trust Women.

Dr. Hern reported that a rape victim came to him requesting an abortion at 35 weeks.

He said that he did not want to risk his medical license in order to perform that abortion.

But what if he lived in Canada, where there are no legal restrictions on abortion?

Should he have performed the abortion?

Should a rape victim have the right to have her thirty-five week-old fetus killed?

Like Brenda Drummond, the rape victim have might decided to stick a pellet gun in her vagina and kill her baby.

If the rape victim suffered injury or death in the process, wouldn't Warren Hern, and society in general, be at fault for not allowing her access to that abortion?

Isn't what "Trust Women" is all about: leaving the final decision ultimately to the mother, regardless of the consequences?

Things to make you go hmmm.....

IMAGE: Unborn Baby's Two-Finger Salute

It's just cute, that's all.

The feminists criticize our description of abortion, but never set us straight

I'm reading this feminist critique of Crisis Pregnancy Centres, and the information they transmit about abortion.

Meet the Abortionists is a video of former doctors, nurses, and clerical staff from U.S. clinics who say they have found God and now must reveal the "truth." This is the one you hear about. Horror stories, truly unbelievable, complete with visuals of buckets of dead babies. How do you fight such horrific emotional manipulation? Can the truth wipe away these images? This kind of manipulation is a very powerful recruiting tactic—the shock of what you’re seeing stops the mind from thinking clearly.

Manipulation, or truth telling?

How come people who support legal abortion, the feminists, never want to reveal the truth about the operation?

If the ex-abortionists are lying, then prove it.

They never do. You are always expected to believe a feminist based on her word.

Second and third-trimester abortions are described in horrific detail, inferring that the doctors who perform these procedures must be heartless monsters. The CPC manual displays extreme prejudice and deception in their descriptions.

Okay, then. Describe second- and third-trimester procedures. Show the photos. Give the details.

They never give the details, do they? They won't talk about what happens to the fetus, or show what happens.

Why Some Women Don't Talk About Their Abortions

Continuing a recent theme on this blog. From David MacDonald:

She decribed the excruciating pain of having her feet put in stirrups and seeing the 10 inch instrument forced up into her uterus, and being in such searing agony that they strapped down her wrists and had two nurses hold down her torso as the doctor ripped her baby from her womb.

Afterwards she wanted to die. She cut herself with razor blades all over her body and ended up in a psych ward. The walls were blank but she saw children running all around on the walls and she was in incredible turmoil. When she was released she had tattoos engraved all over her body, some she did herself. She lifted up the front of her shirt and showed us a tattoo over her uterus of a thorn thicket. She said it represented her now inhospitable uterus. She said “It’s a big lie what this world says, it’s a real baby, and I will never be able to replace my lost baby, and I may not be able to have kids anymore because of complications.” She continued “I don’t know how to get over it.”

Besides the fact that abortion kills an unborn child, abortion is often a crappy operation. Sure, lots of abortions go off without a hitch (as far as the woman is concerned). But if any other surgical operation did as much damage to the body and mind as abortion, there would be an outcry and demands of government investigations and regulations into these procedures.

But, because it's abortion, no one says anything. Don't want to tell women "what to do." Although the State tells women what to do on any number of subjects. Selective government intervention, as it were.

Development and Peace and its pro-life pretensions

Berlynn, a poster at Bread n Roses, is alarmed about the Peruvian Bishops' attempt to get Development and Peace to stop funding pro-abortion groups in Peru.

Says feminist Berlynn:

It's looking like the Peruvian Catholic bosses are trying to control the Canadian Catholic Organizaton of Peace and Development. I've worked with CCODP folks and they are fantastic social justice workers. Many are pro-choice! This is appalling!!!

Now, everyone knows that the people in Development and Peace are less than supportive of fetal rights.

When a feminist is upset about the possibility of CCODP being defunded, and defends the group by saying that some of its members are pro-choice, you have to know that something's awry.

CCODP's claim to being pro-life is reflective of the BS culture in the Church. To cover up the truth about what goes on in the chancery, the seminary, and other church institutions; to equivocate and use rhetorical subtleties; to never speak the truth plainly.

And anyone who does speak plainly, and speaks in the way that Rome speaks, they are labelled as some sort of extremist, as if the pope and the Magisterium really supports them.

If this indeed is a "defamation" campaign, all CCODP has to do is state that it believes in fetal rights, and act like any pro-life organization would-- meaning, stop supporting pro-abort feminists.

We know the truth. The money that goes to the "projects" helps sustain groups who use the rest of their budget to preach against fetal rights.

CCODP members are either supportive of feminists, or they're useful idiots.

The bishops use their power to demand obedience to them, but they forget that obedience to them is contigent on obedience to the universal magisterium.

I'm all for taking this to the Vatican. I know what the verdict would be. The bishops want this to stop here. I'm certain they know what the verdict would be, too.

You can't compel obedience when what you say contradicts the Magisterium.

VIDEO:Our Time To Die? A satirical look at assisted suicide...

Warning: It's a little hard to watch in some places. You even see a depiction of a woman dying.

Going Too Far with Assisted Suicide?

Time Magazine:

We allow for the removal of feeding tubes, the withdrawal of respirators, the replacement of aggressive treatment with palliative care; these can all be wise and merciful choices. But each step forward gets a little more slippery. Is there some point, visible in the cloudy moral distance, where the right to die becomes a duty to die? We don't need to set Grandma adrift on her ice floe; the pressures would be subtle, wrapped in the language of reason and romance — the bereaved widower who sees no reason to try to start over, the quadriplegic rugby player whose memories paralyze his hopes, the chronically ill mother who wants to set her children free. Already in Oregon, one-third of those who chose assisted suicide last year cited the burden on their families and caregivers as a reason. A study in the Netherlands found that one in four doctors said they had killed patients without an explicit request--including one doctor who believed that a dying Dutch nun was prevented from requesting euthanasia because of her religion, so he felt the just and merciful thing to do was to decide for her.

But we have nothing to fear, people. Everyone in the medical system is above board. Human nature is perfectible, and NO ONE will EVER make anyone feel like they have to die, and the terminally ill will not draw the lesson that they are not wanted.

Nothing to see here.

H/T: Not Dead Yet

Good News! Montreal Clinic to Stop Doing Abortions

Forty Days for Life does its work.

Quebec's new Law 34 requires clinics to have an operating room to do abortions. The Clinique l'Alternative considers this change too onerous and will not renew its contract with the government to do abortions.

The abortion clinics are negotiating with the government to make modifications favorable to their trade. But even if these negotiations are successful, the clinic will not come back on its decision.

The clinic does about 1000 abortions a year. Three doctors and four nurses were fired.

While many of these abortions will probably be done in other clinics in the city, no doubt that some will be saved because of the delay.

Quebec barely has a pro-life movement. It shows the power of prayer, that even if things look desperate, God can perform miracles.

Let's pray that God does the same for the rest of Canada!

Dear Baby Boomers...

Twenty-year-old Rebekah Hebbert writes:

Dear Baby Boomers:

(...)

Thanks for giving us a world where morality is relative, murder is okay, marriage is a joke, divorce is expected, self-control is replaced with force, love is everything but it doesn’t exist; where self-fulfilment is the greatest good but we don’t know what fulfilment means; where politics is dirty, taxes are sky-high, the economy is crashing and gangs are roaming further.

I know I’m only twenty, but I think I am old enough to see that something has to change and we don’t have very much time. I know the experts told you that the youth wanted all this, but did we really? Or did we just trust that you had all the answers? Now you’ve made hell while trying to create utopia. You wanted free love and free money but we pay the price. You said you were doing it for us, but you did it for yourselves.

This is should be viral, really.

Rebekkah Hebbert blogs here.

More of that Abortion PR Make-Over

Antonia Zerbisias linked to the anonymous abortionist's account of why he practices his gruesome trade.

All in an attempt to denounce the stigma surrounding it.

In an update, she posted a musical video by Bif Naked called "Chotee", which is about Bif's own abortion. Antonia's point is to get women to talk about their abortions and end the stigma.

And what does Bif Naked repeat throughout the song?

I hope you can forgive me
my baby chotee, forgive me

What a ringing endorsement of abortion. A song re-living the pain and regret of having to terminate one's unborn child.

It does not matter how feminists try to spin it, abortion kills.




The fact that it kills a human being will always bring with it stigma, pain and regret. There's no PR in the world that will ever erase these images from people's minds. There is no spin that will ever cover up the blood and the destruction.

I don't think people who support legal abortion will ever end the stigma. To end the sitgma, they would have to get to the root of the stigma. To do that, they would have to confront some fairly gruesome notions (i.e. abortion kills a human being), that, if they admit, puts a chink in the abortion ideology.

But the more they gloss over the facts, the more they appear to be in denial, and the less successful they will be in giving abortion an image makeover.

Unless they can convince people that killing the unborn is a good thing and that the unborn have no value, they will have no success. They won the battle for legal abortion by remaining mum on the moral status of the fetus, by uniting with people who were less than perfectly pro-choice. But it's this silence over the fetus that's weakening their attempts to re-cast abortion. If they want to remove the stigma, they would have to tell the world that the fetus does not have moral value. They would have to reject their "neutral" position. The message would have to be: the fetus has no value, and it's not so bad to kill him.

But they're not going to go there. It would offend too many, even women who've had abortions.

No matter how many women talk about their abortions, the stigma will still remain. Even women who've had abortions think abortion is bad.

Esquire features Abortionist Warren Hern

A goldmine of details.

Of new abortionists he says:

Sometimes the young ones ask to come in for an afternoon so they can learn to make a little money while their careers get started — they think it's as simple as changing a tire.

In other words, they're in and out.


Get a load of his wife, a Latina who worked as an abortionist in Barcelona:

When I was aborting in Spain, I finished the abortion to a young woman, first trimester. When I finish this procedure, she sit on the table, see me to my face, say, Oh, doctor, you are really nice, you are such angel, how do you kill babies? I say, I'm sorry, I don't kill any baby. I aspirate gestational sac. You kill your baby.

Some bedside manner, eh?

Are there some abortions Hern won't do?

This woman you refused to treat, what was her reason?

She was raped. I'm very sympathetic, but I can't risk my medical license for someone who just didn't get around to doing anything about it. I've done some cases over thirty-six weeks, but very few.

For what cause?

For some catastrophic problems.

Like what?

Oh, anencephaly or lack of kidneys, you know. Lack of a brain.

The antiabortionists say that in those cases, the woman should just give birth naturally and let God take the baby.

The sharp tone comes back. Having a delivery is not a benign procedure. When you are trying to keep the baby alive, that increases the risk for the woman. And Reagan put in a bunch of rules about requiring to keep babies alive no matter how hopeless it is. You have people going to Europe to get away from that.

You mean the hospital requires them to save the baby?

The hospital requires full resuscitation measures, no matter what.

Also, his seaweed procedure is very slow and gentle on the cervix. The tissue dehydrates, the collagen starts to pull apart, the uterus gets softer. If you do a forceful dilation, you're going to tear the cervix. All around, his way is safer.

Safer for the mom?

Not for the mom, he snaps, for the woman. Till she's had a baby, she's not a mom.

I think a lot of women might object to that last statement.

And how does he feel about the procedure itself?

In passing, the abortionist says you can never get used to this. Next time he gives you a minute, you ask him to elaborate.

You can't, he says. I think we're hardwired, biologically, to protect small, vulnerable creatures, especially babies. The fetuses may not be babies, but some of them are pretty close.

There are so many good passages. I don't want to spoil it for you. Go read it.

Cash for Clunkers...Pro-Death Version

H/T: Moonbattery

Also: RightGirl

The man behind the alleged honour killings to profit from no-fault car insurance policy

As columnist Richard Martineau explains, when Quebeckers are involved in a a car accident, the public car insurance agency (the SAAQ) gives an indemnity to the next of kin.

Even if they're convicted of the deaths!

Not a joke! (Although it is.)

That's "no-fault" car insurance.

I guess crime does pay in the end.

Challenging Liberalism

This is why I like to read Oz Conservative:

It's no use, therefore, simply supporting conservatism or conservative parties as they are. If we're serious about challenging liberalism, the first thing we have to do is to return to a clear point of distinction between conservatism and liberalism.

In other words, we have to answer this question: what political beliefs would make someone a principled conservative rather than just another member of the liberal orthodoxy?

I'd suggest the following. First, a principled conservative would want people to be free as they are really constituted, namely as men and women, as members of distinct communities and traditions, and as moral beings. He would not accept the liberal idea that we are made free through a radical autonomy in which we self-create who we are.

As they say, go read the rest. Good stuff.

I would contend that if conservatives want to be conservatives, they have to create their own community, their own academia, their own culture.

Without it, conservatives are a bunch of atomized individuals with no influence, no matter how many of them there are.

CAP Leader Resigns: Joins Christian Heritage Party

OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Aug. 4, 2009) - The Leader of the Canadian Action Party of Canada, Dr. Andrew Moulden, has resigned that position in order to give his full support to the Christian Heritage Party of Canada.

He just recently saw the light and went from a socially liberal to a socially conservative party, huh?

Nice academic credentials. What about his so-con valuess?

Hmmmmm.....

Amnesty International Rep Won't Answer a Question About Torture

In a telephone interview with LifeSiteNews, Gilmore stood by the claims in her report, and affirmed that she regards the Nicaraguan law a form of "torture" against women.

Asked if it is torture to pull an infant's head off of its body, and its arms and legs out of its sockets, which happens during a standard aspiration abortion, Gilmore refused to answer the question.

Look, either you believe a fetus is a human being or you don't. If you don't think he's a human being, if you don't think abortion is a form of torture, then say so.

What this is about is legalizing abortion on demand. It's not about saving women because they have pre-eclampsia. Be clear about that, too.

Amnesty International doesn't believe in the human rights of unborn children.

Managing Birth

Does anyone ever ask what birthing mothers want?

Canada's caesarean-section rate reached an all-time high in 2007-08, with surgical births accounting for nearly 28 per cent of all deliveries.

(...)

A recent survey of more than 6,000 women in Canada who gave birth in 2006 or 2007 found 48 per cent said they gave birth lying flat on their back.

More than half -- 57 per cent -- said their legs were in stirrups when their baby was born.

"I thought that went out with the ark," says Ottawa midwife Paula Salehi.

Research has shown that women who labour in an upright position -- standing, crouching, propped up or sitting -- have shorter labours, and fewer medical interventions, including C-sections.

Oh sure, just what I want to do when I'm nine months pregnant and in labour, walk around.

Maybe people lie on their backs to give birth because that's the most comfortable position.

All this new thinking on birthing sounds new-agey to me

"Why wouldn't you want to use gravity, and the basic forces of nature to help that baby get out, instead of pushing upstream?"

Because you're sick to death of having twenty extra pounds on your belly and want nothing to do while upright? Squatting during labour? No thanks!

"If you're in a labour room somewhere and someone is screaming at you, 'Just get this baby out, I want a C-section,' you know what you're going to do? You're going to do the C-section. It's a vicious cycle of the public having to understand what's the safest thing to do, and physicians needing to stand their ground and say, 'You're safe, the baby is safe, the best thing is to see what happens in the next two hours. We're going to wait.' "

I remember when I was giving birth to my oldest on Christmas Day. The nurses were flustered with me because I wouldn't push. This is about two hours into the pushing stage. I just wanted to sit down, relax, catch my breath, find that second wind I needed to get the baby out. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. They were ready to go home to their families, let me tell you.

After four hours of pushing, I think I earned my C-section (for those unfamiliar with birth, pushing shouldn't take more than half an hour.)

Okay, so maybe I'm the minority view, but I feel a lot of skepticism about birthing theories. Breathing to control your pain? No meds during labour? Feminist theories of keeping control of birth? Egad, what planet are these people living on?

I feel like the "birth plan" forms they give out at the hospital is an attempt to plan the next episode of "A Baby's Story". It's birth people. It's gross. It's tiring. It's fraught with risk and pain. Let's just face the facts.

I often think my mother's generation had it right: go in, get put to sleep, wake up with new baby. No muss, no fuss.

(And in case you're wondering: I get sentimental about babies, not birth :D)

Mel's marriage is annulled ... by his own dad

Mel Gibson has got to know that this is a sham.

Having had his request turned down by Catholic bishops, Mel, 53, pleaded his case in front of a tribunal of members from the Church of the Holy Family, his breakaway Catholic church in Malibu.

Hutton, who once studied for the priesthood only to leave before he was ordained, presided over the hearing. He granted Mel's annulment request after his son presented evidence that his union to Robyn, 53, was never a true marriage — even though they wed in a Catholic ceremony in Australia in June 1980.

"Especially important was Mel's description of how he felt pressured into the marriage in the first place because Robyn was pregnant," a family insider says.

"Those feelings indicated to Hutton that it couldn't have been a true marriage, and so he felt it must be invalid.

And he only figured it out, now, huh? After he committed adultery and knocked up his girlfriend?

Look, play by Catholic rules, or don't call yourself Catholic. Self-appointed lay people can't annul marriages.

You can't go to the Catholic bishops and then scurry back to that schismatic sect every time things don't turn out the way you like.

The Rhino Party Objects!!!

First baby rhino born in Uganda in 28 years is named Obama

"Once we could get close enough to see what sex he was, there really was no other name that we could give him."

There's a joke in there somewhere. I wish I had that comedic gift :)

And for our American Friends: The Rhino Party.

England: Erotic photoshoot in church causes uproar

Given the State of the Church of England, I'm surprised they didn't use the photos as a PR stunt to recruit converts.

It's only normal that people engage in offensive behaviour this way and then look at us all wondering "What did I do?" The Anglican Church doesn't respect itself enough. Too concerned about being goody-goody (in a politically correct sense), not concerned enough about the rudiments of faith.

It took a feminist to write this: "Fetus fetishism"

Rosalind Pollack Petchesky was the first to suggest, in her landmark essay, "Foetal Images: The Power of the Visual Culture in the Politics of Reproduction " (1987), that the public fetus is best understood as a fetish. Fetishism of the fetus consists in attributing to it value as "life," as if this were a property magically inhering in the fetus alone, in a manner that obscures the fact that the continued vitality of any actual fetus depends utterly and complelely upon its continued sustenance by the woman who carries it.

I get the feeling that feminists attribute false intentions to supporters of fetal rights.

Do they suppose that all opponents of abortion are those who've never had children themselves?

How do you depict the fetus while depicting the mother, so that the two can both be represented and in their utter reality and their humanity? I'm open to suggestions. I thought about taking a picture of a woman having a 3-D ultrasound. But of course, the ultrasound monitor would be placed on a shelf, separate from the woman.

If there were a machine that would allow people to view a pregnant woman and a fetus together, and see all the vital functions at work simultaneously, I would be completely in favour of revealing those images. Because no matter how you project the images, the woman is an adult (or close to being one). The fetus is a vulnerable unborn child. No amount of critical theory will do away with the reality that they both have a distinct existence, even if the fetus is dependent on the mother.

The feminists only want people to see the woman, or the woman as supreme. The unborn child is a threat. The fact that he is depicted apart from the mom is not a graphical detail-- you are working with 2 dimensions and only have so much space-- it's a sinister conspiracy. It means that you are attributing the value of life to the fetus alone-- not working within the constraints of reproducing the photos.

I wish I were more familiar with the literature on feminist analysis of the fetus. I would like to know if there are pro-life scholars responses. If there aren't, there should be.

I recommend this chapter selection to my readers to know what our opponents are saying about the unborn child. I also liked some of the information I learned in this. I am cautious about taking all the historical details on her word, but if true, the points are rather interesting. We need to do the pro-life version of this.

Title: The Public Life of the Fetal Sonogram: Technology, Consumption, and the Politics of Reproduction

Author: Janelle S. Taylor
Edition illustrated
Publisher: Rutgers University Press, 2008
ISBN: 0813543649, 9780813543642
Length: 205 pages