Abortion raises risk of mental health problems by 81% says major new review

Christian Medical Comment has the story.

Constantine did not found the Catholic Church

The Journey debunks one of my historical pet peeves: the belief that Constantine founded the Catholic Church.

I hate this myth because it's so easily debunkable and there's no excuse for it.

Why US infant mortality rates are misleading

Many leftists decry the US' relatively high infant mortality rate. However, the high rate is misleading, because other countries do not count the deaths of low-weight infants because they are "non-viable". Also, babies who do not live more than 24 hours are also excluded.


As Dr. Linda Halderman explains:

According to the way statistics are calculated in Canada, Germany, and Austria, a premature baby weighing <500g is not considered a living child.

But in the U.S., such very low birth weight babies are considered live births.

The mortality rate of such babies — considered “unsalvageable” outside of the U.S. and therefore never alive — is extraordinarily high; up to 869 per 1,000 in the first month of life alone. This skews U.S. infant mortality statistics.


...

Some of the countries reporting infant mortality rates lower than the U.S. classify babies as “stillborn” if they survive less than 24 hours whether or not such babies breathe, move, or have a beating heart at birth. Forty percent of all infant deaths occur in the first 24 hours of life.

In the United States, all infants who show signs of life at birth (take a breath, move voluntarily, have a heartbeat) are considered alive.

If a child in Hong Kong or Japan is born alive but dies within the first 24 hours of birth, he or she is reported as a “miscarriage” and does not affect the country’s reported infant mortality rates.

The length of pregnancy considered “normal” is 37-41 weeks. In Belgium and France — in fact, in most European Union countries — any baby born before 26 weeks gestation is not considered alive and therefore does not “count” against reported infant mortality rates.

H/T: American Thinker

Sex now being taxed in Germany

Sex tax meters' introduced for German prostitutes.

Whatever you do....Don't tell McGuinty. :)

Dr. Dawg's Defamation Case Against FD: DISMISSED

*** APPLAUSE ***

FD Thread here.

This is how you take the pro-life movement to the next level

Sometime I wrote about ramping up the pro-life movement by creating our own network of businesses and institutions and bringing the philosophy to local people.

This is exactly what I'm talking about:

Over 1,000 hairstylists commit to talk about abortion at their shops.

We have to make pro-life philosophy part of people's daily lives.

Health Canada warns against buying semen over Web

Whew! A good thing the government told me that! Going to the internet for semen, to get impregnated-- that would have been my first choice.

Health Canada maintains a list of semen processors and importers that are subject to regular inspections.

There are government inspectors for that huh?

One woman's experience at Planned Parenthood

She writes:

They do a physical exam and an ultrasound of the baby. I honestly can say I felt its presence more than ever before, as they performed the ultrasound. It really made me curious, what did it look like? Me, him? Was it a girl, a boy? I imagined its little eyes, hands, feet… So I asked the technician if I could see the baby, and she quickly told me no. I asked why I wasn’t able to see my baby and she told me that it was because people were likely to change their mind.

"But they only do late-term abortions for medical reasons"

From  Australia:

Meanwhile, new figures reveal women are travelling from overseas and interstate to the clinic to abort unborn babies who have been in the womb for more than 20 weeks for ''psychosocial reasons''.

The Consultative Council on Obstetric and Paediatric Mortality and Morbidity 2008 annual report released last week shows there were 328 late term abortions that year, 178 of which were performed on women for ''psychosocial'' reasons

And oh yeah:

At least two of the psychosocial abortions were performed on women more than 7 months pregnant.

But if an unborn child has to die for "psychosocial reasons"...so what, right feminists? Right.

Pro-life activist beaten up by police

Another instance of police brutality.

Another quick update on donating to a public cord blood bank

I've done more research on donating cord blood/stem cells to a public cord blood bank in Canada.

The areas in which you can donate to a public cord blood bank are limited:

* Southern Ontario
* Montreal and Quebec City
* Alberta, Northern Canada, Ottawa and Thunder Bay through the Alberta Cord Blood Bank.

Each bank has its own criteria. They appear to be somewhat stringent.

For instance, at the Alberta Cord Blood Bank, women who were prescribed medication-- even something as mild as Diclectin-- cannot donate.

Neither can they donate if the conception took place past age 36.

Or if you are having a c-section.

I'm quite disappointed as I am over the age of 36, am having a c-section and I've used Diclectin once or twice.

Notwithstanding the barriers, I hope we can publicize this effort. Pro-lifers should be at the forefront of promoting ethical stem cell research. :)

Only 14 per cent of US OB-GYN's offer abortion services

So if only 1 in 7 offer abortion, wouldn't that be negligent of them? Woudn't it necessarily mean that women are dying from their refusal to do abortions?

Bull. Women are not dying from lack of abortion access. This is a myth perpetuated by the abortion lobby.

Could a man sustain a pregnancy (without a uterus)?

This article is over three years old, but very interesting.

The short answer: yes, a man could sustain a pregnancy in his peritoneal cavity, but the placenta would become intertwined with other tissue and the expulsion of this tissue could rupture whatever organs it is attached to.

I know abortion is not typically the subject of comedy, but imagine a play or movie called "The Man who Wanted an Abortion". Consider the hilarity of someone calling a CPC with that case (and of course being hung up on as a crank call) and the jitteriness of the pro-life counsellors trying to figure out what to say to persuade the man to keep the baby instead of going to a clinic-- which in itself could be another source of jokes-- how do you perform a suction curettage on a guy? (Please no racy jokes).

Of course, you'd have to solve the problem of how conception took place in there in the first place. It'd be a comedy, it doesn't have to make sense. :)

My CBC is...

Being pummeled.

I'm too lazy to leave a message, but I'm happy to vote on the comments. :)

Liberal Journalistic Bias

This is old news to people on the right, but worth repeating. From Bernard Goldberg:

A study out this week by the conservative Media Research Center concluded that if you’re a Republican running for president there’s a good chance you’ll be labeled a conservative. But if you were a Democrat running for president four years ago, there was virtually no chance journalists would call you a liberal.

...

Journalists identify conservatives because inside the bubble conservatives are out of the mainstream. They’re different. Their views are often seen as alien, even dangerous. None of that applies to liberals, of course. Their views are the very essence of mainstream.

What makes this especially dopey, is that while about 40 percent of Americans identify themselves as conservative, only 20 percent identify themselves as liberal. So which side is really mainstream and which is different?

Debunking the autonomy argument in favour of abortion

Erika Bachiochi:

Even if “failure to rescue” were an accurate approximation to abortion, special affirmative duties arise, both morally and legally, when the drowning individual is not a stranger, but is one’s own dependent child. One does not play the “good Samaritan” but the responsible and law-abiding parent when she rescues her drowning child from a pool of water. In pregnancy, the dependency and vulnerability of the nascent, developing child are even more evident, and the parent’s affirmative duty of care is arguably more obvious. For not only is the unborn child dependent and vulnerable, but her mere existence (as a dependent and vulnerable developing child) is due, at least biologically, to the life-giving act in which her parents engaged.

This reasoning does not cede philosophical ground to the contractarian view (that underlies pro-choice rhetoric) by arguing that because a woman consented to sex, she consents to pregnancy. Rather, the argument, based in centuries-old common law, maintains that when an individual puts another individual in a position of vulnerability (“in harm’s way”) and has the ability to offer help and assistance, the law requires that individual to do so. As philosopher Francis Beckwith has written, “The parents of the fetus are responsible for assisting it because they are in fact responsible for bringing into existence a being that is needy by nature and thus are responsible for its neediness.” Thus, parents share an affirmative legal duty toward their unborn child who, in his vulnerability, is utterly dependent upon their help and assistance—even more so than their born child, for whom other competent adults could care.

Update: Donating Stem Cells During Childbirth in Canada

A few days ago I posted about donating stem cells from cord blood.

I phoned up Canadian Blood Services.

And unfortunately, they do not have a system of cord blood donation set up yet. It's in the works, but it will not be operational for another couple of years.

So the cord blood will have to go to waste. What a shame.

I look forward to the inauguration of this system, and I think the pro-life movement should promote it aggressively. If we create a supply of easily accessible stem cells, it will make embryonic stem cell research less attractive.

Meanwhile, you can still donate blood marrow.

What if we found the biological origin of homosexuality?

This abstract raises an interesting question for me.

What if we found the biological origin of homosexuality....

Would it be ethical to develop a treatment in utero in order to correct the problem?

Of course, the first step would be to develop a prenatal test.

Which might lead to large numbers of potentially homosexual boys being aborted.

Would the prochoice community respect the right of women to rid the world of these babies?

Just an interesting thought.

PS: I don't put a lot of stock in any explanation of homosexuality that only focuses on biology.

Compare rhetoric of white supremacists and that of abortion supporters

I've been meaning to write a post like this, I just never got around to it. So happy someone did!

From the Abolitionist Society of Oklahoma:

This foundational belief or assertion supported both the legal justification of human slavery and abortion. Consider the Supreme Court of the United States' declaration that black people enslaved in the South were:

“A SUBORDINATE AND INFERIOR CLASS OF BEINGS”

(US Supreme Court decision, 1857. Dred Scott v. Stanford)

The Supreme Court of the United States similarly declared the unborn as a deficient class of human beings when Roe v. Wade declared them to be only “potential” humans.

“THE FETUS, AT MOST, REPRESENTS ONLY THE POTENTIALITY OF LIFE.”

(US Supreme Court decision, 1973. Roe v. Wade)

Prophetic Words from Bishop von Galen

Bishops of Canada, when will you start talking like this about abortion and euthanasia? When will the lacklustre performance end?

If you establish and apply the principle that you can kill ‘unproductive’ fellow human beings then woe betide us all when we become old and frail! If one is allowed to kill the unproductive people then woe betide the invalids who have used up, sacrificed and lost their health and strength in the productive process. If one is allowed forcibly to remove one’s unproductive fellow human beings then woe betide loyal soldiers who return to the homeland seriously disabled, as cripples, as invalids. If it is once accepted that people have the right to kill ‘unproductive’ fellow humans–and even if initially it only affects the poor defenseless mentally ill–then as a matter of principle murder is permitted for all unproductive people, in other words for the incurably sick, the people who have become invalids through labor and war, for us all when we become old, frail and therefore unproductive.

Then, it is only necessary for some secret edict to order that the method developed for the mentally ill should be extended to other ‘unproductive’ people, that it should be applied to those suffering from incurable lung disease, to the elderly who are frail or invalids, to the severely disabled soldiers. Then none of our lives will be safe any more. Some commission can put us on the list of the ‘unproductive,’ who in their opinion have become worthless life. And no police force will protect us and no court will investigate our murder and give the murderer the punishment he deserves.

Who will be able to trust his doctor any more?

He may report his patient as ‘unproductive’ and receive instructions to kill him. It is impossible to imagine the degree of moral depravity, of general mistrust that would then spread even through families if this dreadful doctrine is tolerated, accepted and followed.

14-year-old gets abortion at 27 weeks without notifying her suicidal mother

How about this scenario?

The mother finds out her daughter had an abortion at 27 weeks and becomes even more suicidal...

Did anyone think of that scenario?

They spent about $7000 on the procedure.

How about taking that money and spending it on psychiatric care for the suicidal mother?

Important figures in the history of the unborn child

The following is a brief list of people who have made significant contributions to the history of the unborn child.

It is my hope that the pro-life community develops a historiography of the unborn child. If we want the unborn to be treated as real people, then we must provide the means for the rest of the world to see them as real people. Writing their history is one way of doing this.

The abortion debate plays a central role in the history of the unborn child, but many of you reading this already know its major players. I wanted to underscore lesser known figures who influenced to some degree the welfare of the unborn, whether positively or negatively.

I hope that by publishing this list, I can generate some interest in this topic, and perhaps spur more research--both formal and informal.

Instead of re-writing whole biographies, I've decided to link to ones that have already been published on the internet.

---

Wilhelm His: (1831-1904) Swiss anatomist pioneer of embryology. He tried to explain embryological development and he made a series of famous drawings of human embryos, the first widely published images. His work laid the foundation for future work, including that of American embryologist Franklin P. Mall.

---

Franklin P. Mall (1862-1917), groundbreaking embryologist who developed a  famous collection of human embryo specimens collected from miscarriages. The collection was donated to the department of embryology of the Carnegie Institution (housed at Johns Hopkins University). He donated his collection to the department, and his successors continued to add to it until the description of human embryonic development was completed in the 1930s.

---

Ian Donald(1910-1987) British Obstetrician credited with the invention of the ultrasound in the 1950s. He was active in opposing the liberalization of Britain's abortion law in 1967, but he did not oppose abortions in "cases of necessity". I remember reading that he would give presentations about the unborn child while projecting images of ultrasound on large screens to his audience.

---

Kazunori Baba: Japanese inventor of the 3D ultrasound in 1984. I don't have a lot of information about him, unfortunately.

---

Stuart Campbell: British giant of fetal medicine, still active in the field. He popularized the use of 3D and 4D ultrasound. He was one of the first to suggest 3D ultrasound as a means of maternal bonding with the child. He also developed the procedure to aspirate ova in order to facilitate in vitro fertilization. In 2008, he called for the gestational limit of Britain's abortion law to be reduced from 24 weeks to 20 weeks, but he believed that the requirement for two doctors to sign off on 1st trimester abortions should be removed.

---

William Liley: (1929-1983). Deemed the father of foetology. An obstetrician from New Zealand who invented life-saving fetal blood transfusions for Rh disease. This provided the groundwork for future fetal surgery.

Although an atheist, he was a strong proponent of fetal personhood. In 1970 he founded New Zealand’s Society for the Protection of Unborn Children. He was also appointed to the Pontifical Institute of Science.

At the end of his life, he despaired that his research was used to further abortion. He became depressed and took his own life.

In 1972 he wrote a classic text called The Fetus as Personality. (More info).

---

Aleck Bourne: (1886-1974). British doctor who, in 1938, was tried and acquitted for having performed an abortion on a 14-year-old victim of a gang rape. The Bourne Decision effectively legalized abortion in the Commonwealth in limited circumstances. He later became a founding member of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children and opposed Britain’s 1967 abortion law.

---

Michael Harrison: Considered the Father of Fetal Surgery. He operated on the first survivor of fetal surgery, Michael Skinner, in 1981, when his patient was aged 7 months gestation. Dr. Harrison is still active at the Fetal Treatment Center at the University of California at San Francisco.

---

Kyprios Nicolaides (1953-): The Father of Fetal Medicine. He opened Britain's first fetal medicine unit in 1984. He specializes in prenatal diagnosis. One of his most important contributions is his research on nuchal transparency to identify babies with Down Syndrome.

The History of the Human Embryo

Making visible embryos is a neat little site that gives a quick overview of the history of the embryo.

I think that pro-lifers should be more involved in studying and diffusing the history of the unborn, as well as abortion. It would provide insight into how abortion was legalized.

I think one of the main reasons why abortion was legalized was the widespread ignorance of the unborn. I know the website says that images of the embryo became more prevalent in the 20th century, but I think that the average person was not exposed to them often before the rise of the pro-life movement and the advent of routine ultrasound.

Of course, the contested status of the unborn was not the only reason abortion was legalized. But without a clear idea of who and what the embryo is, the arguments for legalized abortion seemed much more plausible. When you hear that an embryo is only a blob of tissue or a cluster of cells, it makes abortion seem perfectly reasonable.

What we would we do without studies?

From the abstract on the article:

Parental Monitoring During Early Adolescence Deters Adolescent Sexual Initiation: Discrete-Time Survival Mixture Analysis.:

An increase of parental monitoring across ages is accompanied with a decrease of sexual risk. The continual high level of parental monitoring from ages 14 to 16 also mitigated the risk of engagement in substance use and delinquent behaviors from ages 14 to 23.

So if you pay attention to what your kids are doing, they will delay sexual activity and be less likely to use drugs or engage in delinquent behaviours.

Well duh.

Canada:National cord blood bank to recruit ethnic donors aggressively

I have looked into donating umbilical cord blood. I asked my obstetric nurse. She said that it has to be organized on an individual basis. Maybe it's just my preggo brain, but I haven't found a Canadian website that spells out what it entails.

I suspect this would interest a lot of women. Could someone write the article and pass it around? The pro-life community should make this common knowledge. If the medical community has a steady and reliable supply of cord blood and other stem cells, they might be less willing to use embryos.

Pedophilia in Hollywood

SoCon or Bust's take on it.

I saw the interview on ABC of Corey Feldman. Wanted to blog it, but was too tired. That's been happening to me a lot lately.



UPDATE: I thought I'd put a title on this post. Anyhow...

Apostolic Authority

From 5 Catholic Teachings That Make Sense to Atheists

5. Apostolic Authority

One of the biggest atheist pet peeves I encounter—and one that I shared when I was an atheist—is the way much of modern Christianity interprets the Bible. It was baffling to see Christians go back and forth about how to interpret some section of the Bible, each person convinced that his own interpretation was the correct one, despite the fact that there were as many other different interpretations as there were people in the group. It fed into the stereotype that religion is a tool that people use to manipulate others when I’d see Christians come up with their own personal spin on what the Bible said, then tell everyone else that they had to conform that that view. Years later, when I was beginning to explore Christianity, I almost gave up on the religion altogether because I couldn’t even figure out what its doctrines were. I couldn’t fathom which church I should go to when there were thousands of different denominations, each claiming to be based on the Bible. Then someone told me that Jesus founded a Church that he guides to this day, and that this one God-guided Church has final authority on matters of doctrine. Finally, I saw a system that made sense.

CORRECTION: Linda Gibbons August arrest not related to 1994 “temporary” injunction

TORONTO, Ontario, August 10, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In last week’s LifeSiteNews on Aug. 4 and Aug. 5 reports regarding the latest arrest of Linda Gibbons, it was stated that she was arrested for refusing to comply with the 1994 “temporary” injunction. In fact, LifeSiteNews has learned today that a different injunction applies at the “Morgentaler Clinic” at 727 Hillsdale Ave. E. in Toronto.

On April 4, 1989 when the original Toronto Morgentaler Clinic was still operating at 85 Harbord St, abortionist Henry Morgentaler launched a $1 million lawsuit against pro-life activists Denise Wiche, Tom Brown, Ann Packer, Dan McCash and Joe Bissonnette. While the case proceeded, the Harbord St. location was firebombed in 1992. Police eventually found the prime suspect to be a father enraged over the abortion of his baby at the Morgentaler Clinic. He was never formally charged and tried since he become mentally very unstable and murdered his parents on the front lawn of their home. In the meantime, the pro-life movement was unjustly blamed by Canada’s media and abortion activists for the firebombing.

Following the firebombing, the provincial government provided substantial financial and security resources that enabled Morgentaler to open a new abortion mill at the higher quality and more secure location on Hillsdale Ave. The province went so far as to provide 10 years free rent that totaled about $5 million. The new clinic was also given an additional $450,000 of taxpayer money for security services.

The facts about the provincial government largesse were discovered by Frank Kennedy, a reporter for the pro-life newspaper, The Interim, in response to a freedom of information request that he submitted to the government. His information was later included in a report by Canada Free Press that was published almost verbatim in the Ottawa Citizen on October 5, 1999.

In addition to the full financing of his abortion business, Morgentaler also gained a new permanent injunction against any pro-life protesting at the location. The injunction includes an unusually large 500-foot bubble zone within which all pro-life activity is prohibited. This legal straightjacket against free speech appears to have been facilitated in some way by the original lawsuit against the five pro-life activists launched in 1989.

LifeSiteNews is attempting to discover more details regarding the Hilldale Ave. injunction and will report them as they become available. Gibbons’s defense lawyer, Daniel Santoro, currently also has very little information about this injunction and is seeking full details in order to be able to defend his client.

The August 4 and August 5 LifeSiteNews reports have been corrected to reflect the updated information.

Pro-Life: Demand More of Your Politicians

Sometimes pro-lifers you make me want to scream.

You elect lots of pro-life MP's, thinking that's enough.

No it's not enough.

Take for instance the government's promise to not re-open to the euthanasia debate.

You think: oh good, the legislation is safe.

Are you nuts?

There's a Supreme Court Case which could have the potential to legalize euthanasia.

We should be pressing the government to do everything in its power to stop legalized killing.

And if they do nothing...don't vote for them. Even if they're allegedly pro-life.

If pro-lifers don't vote for them, then they won't win.

And yes, I know the next objection: but the leftists will make things worse.

And I understand that.

But if you don't demand more of your politicians...now pay attention to this:

Nothing will get better.

It's not good enough to be pro-life just in theory. If pro-life politicians don't move in some fashion to restrict the culture of death when they are in power...

Then they do not deserve our support.

Simple.

Do you want the political scene to get better? Then do the things that will motivate them to take action.

That is, threaten their jobs.

If their jobs are not threatened they will not take action.

There are large numbers of pro-life MP's in the Conservative caucus.

How many of them actually do something concrete for the pro-life cause?

In some ways, pro-life action was better under the dying days of the Liberal government, because you at least had guys like Paul Szabo and Garry Breitkreuz DOING something for the pro-life cause.

Now you have ministers like Jason Kenney not doing diddly squat because he wants to keep his job.

What the hell is the point of voting for a good Catholic like Jason Kenney if he's not advancing the pro-life cause?

I like Jason Kenney. But if he doesn't do the job, he is of no use to us.

Don't vote for him.

Don't just cast your vote because the Conservatives are the least of evils, or even worse, because you're a Kool-aid drinking party member who thinks the Conservatives are just to die for (oh gag).

Demand progress from your politicians. And if you don't get it, stop being a patsy and don't support them.

Ramping up the pro-life movement in Canada

Ten years ago, the media would not give the pro-life movement the time of day in Canada.

Now, I think we have succeeded in getting media attention for our cause.

Notwithstanding the extra attention, we have not been able to change public opinion in our favour.

This is not a criticism of the pro-life movement. It's more of an observation.

We should not be satisfied with mere media attention.

We need to move forward and amplify our efforts.

And I'd like to suggest two angles that will help us do that. They're inter-related.

The first angle is what I like to call micro-pro-lifism. I'm sure someone will come up with a better term.

The problem with pro-life activism as I see it is that it's focused on national and provincial action in very specific areas of large cities.


Pro-life activism has not reached every suburb, every neighbourhood, which is what it needs to do. Most people don't encounter pro-life thought. Most people don't follow politics well enough, or they don't care. The pro-life cause is a blip on their radar, if it's there at all.

This has to change. We have to create a climate where average people cannot go through a day without encountering pro-life thought in their locale. That locale is not the abortion clinic, or the church, or online. It's their street, their community centre, their library, their grocery store, etc.

So how do we manage to get in these institutions, which are often closed off to us?

And this is the second angle of my plan.

We must build our own institutions. We have to become a community, not just a bunch of activists who believe in a cause.

We have a few institutions: some churches and some schools. That's not enough. We need to create spaces which are open to people who are not of our faith or even our political persuasion.

Let me give you an example. In Ottawa, there is a project to build a pro-life medical clinic. I'm not sure what kind of clinic this would be, whether it would treat all patients or just address crisis pregnancies.

I'm hoping it's the former. A medical clinic would be a great place to expose non-pro-lifers to the pro-life philosophy. If people know that's the pro-life clinic, and we help them in concrete ways, that's a plus in our favour.

What are other possibilities? A community centre. A sports complex. A private library. A musical venue like a coffee house. A cinema. If it's a place where large numbers congregate, we need one of those run by the pro-life community.

Of course, this is incredibly labour-intensive, not to say expensive. I can also foresee the objection that such efforts deter from the real efforts to stop abortion-- lobbying and prayerful witness.

How would a private pro-life library be of service? It's not just the fact that we could stock the shelves with pro-life books, although that would be of use. There would be pro-life posters. We could host pro-life speakers. We could advertize the phone number of the local crisis pregnancy centre.

Another example: how would a coffee house/musical venue run by a pro-lifer help us? Besides giving pro-life artists the chance to build experience and audience, it could be a place for local pro-lifers to meet. It could also donate to the local pro-life pregnancy centre.

A third example: how would a sports complex help us? Besides keeping kids out of trouble, we could stack literature racks with pro-life literature. We could have pro-life type summer camps. We can teach a pro-life vision of "health". Like a strong anti-alcohol, anti-drug, pro-chastity stance.

You get my drift?

People who have nothing to do with the pro-life movement would have a contact with it. And being helped by the pro-life movement, in their local neighbourhood, they would be more open to consider what we have to say.

I think that unless the pro-life movement is able to do this, it will not get ahead. We can't just be a bunch of disembodied voices in cyberspace, or a bunch of noisy political militants. We have to be real to the general population.

When pro-life thought is not alien to their world, it won't seem so scary for them. These institutions would also provide a crucial basis for political and social mobilization. People can find many spaces for local activism. Whereas now, your choices are basically the local pro-life organization (if there is one and if it's active) or the church (if you attend one).

Two caveats: I think that in order for this to work, it would require not taking a cent of government money. The moment we accept tax money, we are subject to someone else's rules, and that could put our efforts in jeopardy. Everything would have to be absolutely privately owned and operated.

The second caveat is that I don't think it should be overtly Christian, although I anticipate that many Christians will be involved. When people see Christian institutions, they sometimes think it's for someone else, not for them. These efforts need to be seen as open to the general public.

I can also foresee the objection that these efforts might be impractical in an age of human rights commissions. What if we do not want to hire the left-wing pro-abort for the job?

Then I think the solution is to fight for our freedom to hire whom we please.

These are all necessary efforts, and the lack of freedom and pro-life institutions are very much tied into why the pro-life cause is so far behind.

I know that I'm not well-placed to put this strategy into practice. However, I'm hoping that the idea might catch on, so that we start thinking about it, and eventually building our own spaces.

VIDEO: The arrest of Linda Gibbons

What a bloody joke. Seven police officers had nothing better to do than to come down on this quiet, peaceful grandmother.

Oh yeah, what a threat to "women's rights" this woman is. Holding a sign and handing out literature.



H/T Concerned for Life

UPDATE at 9:37 PM:

Steve Jalsevac has an account.

Abortion worker admits: Abortion kills an unborn child

Says Jeannie at Abortion Witness:

(...) We should never deny that abortion kills an unborn child. When the topic comes up, a simple “yes, I know—and so do women who have abortions” will often suffice. Several years ago, the director at the clinic where I worked was on a radio show talking about second trimester abortion. A caller said, “you can’t tell me it’s not a baby. And you can’t tell me that the baby won’t die!” Yes, she said calmly, it is a baby and yes, it is killed. Women know this, and they have abortions anyway. This is exactly why abortion is complicated, like many of life’s challenges. We must remember, though, that complicated does not necessarily mean wrong.

Why is that complicated?

If an unborn child is a human being, then the pregnant woman is his mom who has a responsibility to protect the child, not kill him.


H/T Pro-Life Action League

Yes, there is such a thing as an unborn baby

One lame argument I’ve come across in my online abortion debates from poor-choice advocates is that “ there is no such thing as an unborn baby” or alternately “ a fetus is not a baby”.

The way poor-choicers frame the debate, they make it seem that the term is some arcane phrase used exclusively by pro-lifers to humanize the unborn child.

But is this actually the case?

One good way of knowing whether a phrase is in the mainstream is to consult a dictionary.

Dictionaries will not tend to define the phrase “unborn child”.

However, if you look up the definition of "child", it will often include the unborn in its definition.


For example, The Oxford Pocket Dictionary and Thesaurus:

Child: (…) b. unborn or newborn human being.

Merriam-Webster Online says a child is:

"an unborn or recently born person"

The American Heritage Dictionary says that a child is even

“An unborn infant; a fetus.”

Note that the word “child” does not even require the qualifier “unborn” to describe a fetus. It is taken for granted that a fetus qualifies as a child.

Sometimes, if you look up the definition for “fetus” you will get similar results. (From the Online Oxford Dictionary):

an unborn or unhatched offspring of a mammal, in particular, an unborn human more than eight weeks after conception.

The Collins Thesaurus of the English Language lists as a synonym for fetus:

“unborn child”.

The Oxford Dictionary of Difficult Words goes so far as to define an embryo in the following way:

“An unborn human baby, esp. in the first eight weeks of conception (…)”.

And if there was any doubt that the word “baby” and “fetus” can be used interchangeably, the American Heritage Dictionary says that among the definitions of "baby" is:

“An unborn child; a fetus.”

General use dictionaries are not the only ones that call fetuses children or children fetuses.

The Bantam Medical Dictionary (published by Random House) says of the fetus:

“In human reproduction, it refers to an unborn child from the end of its eighth week of development.”

The Webster’s New World Medical Dictionary (published by WebMD) in defining fetal circulation says:

“ The blood circulation in the fetus (an unborn baby). “

These examples are of course not exhaustive.

What they do is show that the phrase “unborn child” and “unborn baby” are not terms made up by the pro-life movement or used exclusively by them.

It also shows that “unborn” is not even a necessary qualifier. The English language recognizes that the fetus is synonymous with child or baby.

So when pro-lifers say that abortion kills children or abortion kills babies, they are not misleading the people, because our language understands fetuses to be children and babies.

Top Ten Reasons not to Abolish Slavery. Or Abortion.

I discovered the libertarian blog Liberty PEI which posted a list of reasons not to abolish slavery.

The purpose of this list was to list the arguments to get people to stop pushing for libertarian ideas, even though they are unpopular.

I thought that the reasons echoed many of the same reasons that some people use oppose criminalizing abortion. The blogger's list is a summary of a list produced on the Mises.org website.

REASON NOT TO ABOLISH SLAVERY	REASON NOT TO ABOLISH ABORTION
1. Slavery is natural.	1. Abortion is natural.
2. Slavery has always existed.	2. Abortion has always existed.
3. Every society has had slavery.	3. Every society has had abortion.
4. Slaves are not capable of taking care of themselves.	4. Fetuses are not independent human beings.
5. Without masters, slave would die off.	5. If abortion is eliminated, infant morality rate will increase.
6. Where the common people are free, they are even worse off than slaves.	6. If abortion is eliminated, children will die of abuse and neglect.
7. Getting rid of slavery would occasion great bloodshed and other evils.	7. Getting rid of legal abortion would lead to greater evils, such as coathanger abortions.
8. Without slavery the former slaves would run amuck, stealing, raping, killing, and generally causing mayhem.	8. Without abortion, crime levels will rise because children are unwanted.
9.Trying to get rid of slavery is foolishly utopian and impractical	9. Trying to get rid of abortion is foolishly utopian and impractical.
10. Forget abolition. Your time is better used keeping slaves happy.	10. Forget abolition. Your time is better off trying to help mothers get adequate prenatal care/socio-economic help.

Now the comparisons are not perfect in every case, especially if you compare with the original list from Mises.org but there are many striking parallels.

Pro-Lifer shares her story of pregnancy loss

Lisa at Wife for Life lost her baby Olivia eight years ago. Read her story. Very interesting.

Pro-life Artist William Kurelek

I recently received Campaign Life Coalition's newsletter and my curiosity was piqued by the mention of a Canadian pro-life artist by the name of William Kurelek (1927-1977). It appears that some of his painting depicted graphic abortion images.

Here's one painting that I found entitled "Abortion".

VIDEO: Pro-Life Activist Alissa Golob Interviewed About Police Misconduct

Please widely diffuse this video.


The cops do this to both right-wingers and left-wingers. The question is: will left-wingers stand up for the civil rights of pro-lifers?

Doubt it.

6-yr-old with developmental disorder accused of sexual assault

Sheer insanity.

How in the world does a six-year-old get charged for anything?

The Wisconsin Department of Children and Families said a review of the case found that the Grant County Department of Social Services referred the matter to law enforcement as required by law.

A six-year-old playing doctor?

Under state law, the boy is too young to be charged with a crime or in a juvenile delinquency petition, the equivalent of a criminal complaint for juveniles. Instead, a petition seeking protection or services for the boy was filed in November in Grant County Circuit Court.

Protection from whom?

The petition alleges the boy had sexual intercourse with a child under the age of 12

How does a six-year-old consent to sex?

A second petition filed two weeks after the first also accused the boy of disorderly conduct for allegedly grabbing the breasts of two teenage baby sitters, taking off his clothes and rubbing himself on their legs, and trying to kiss them.

Accused?

How about training the kid to keep his clothes on and his hands to himself? Is that so difficult? Any parent can do it.

Related: Can a 6-year-old commit sexual assault?

Child Protection should be protecting children FROM this kind of persecution, not facilitating it.

Funniest Christian joke of all time

Said The Guardian in 2005. But illustrates painful truth of Christendom.

Liberal Party Statement on the Month of Ramadan

Just interesting:

Today Canadians of the Muslim faith start observing the holy month of Ramadan, commemorating the moment when the Qur’an was revealed to the Prophet Mohammed (p.b.u.h.).

As Muslims here and around the world fast during the daylight hours they will contemplate the values of patience, modesty, and spirituality. These values are important to all Canadians and help us think of what brings us together as a country which prizes its cultural and religious diversity.”

Liberal Multiculturalism Critic Jim Karygiannis continued:

“A multicultural society offers the opportunity to share one’s culture and faith. Ramadan offers a unique opportunity for Muslim Canadians to share the tenets of their faith with their fellow Canadians. This sharing helps to bring understanding and acceptance of what makes each of us unique. It also helps to strengthen the ties which make us Canadian.

On behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada and our Parliamentary Caucus we extend greeting to all Muslim Canadians.

Ramadan Mubarak!”