Roundup: Unsafe Haven, Wheel of Fortune, Font of Compassion, and Jesus' Silence

Unsafe haven

A mother dropped her baby off under a Safe Haven law -- then got prosecuted because the child tested positive to exposure to marijuana and cocaine.

Comments are running strong against the sheriff, on the grounds that the woman obviously realized she was unfit and was trying to do right by the child by placing him in more able hands. I'd tend to agree.

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Tonight's Wheel of Fortune features soap opera stars winning money for charity. Usually the celebrities choose non-controversial charities, such as afterschool sports programs for inner city kids, Make A Wish, etc.

But one of tonight's soap opera stars chose a Planned Parenthood as her charity.

That's just fingernails on a chalkboard. The other stars were playing for a dance program for inner city kids and a library for a school. Nice, uncontroversial charities that work to make kids' lives better.

Why did that .... uniquely challenging individual have to choose an organization that is at best highly controversial? Even if you don't consider PP outright evil, you have to admit that choosing it as your celebrity charity is drawing the show needlessly into hot ground.

If she loves PP so much, let her give them money out of her own pocket, and choose something like Big Brothers or Boys and Girls' Clubs as her celebrity charity. She has to know she's spitting in the eyes of half the viewers by choosing a charity they'd rather see abolished..

And no, I'd not be okay with a celebrity choosing, say, National Right to Life or any other equally controversial charity. Wheel of Fortune is not the venue for making political statements.

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We can file Pesky Apostrophe under "Font of Compassion." She has nothing but snarky contempt for post-abortion women. Don't go to work for a suicide hotline, Pesky.

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Random Brown is having some fun with "Jesus never said anything about homosexuality or abortion".

Note to leftists: Jesus never said squat about child molestation, arson, or rape either. And he really stayed away from sexual harassment and second-hand smoke. Since you assume Jesus' silence equalled approval regarding abortion and homosexuality, shall we also assume He was cool with child molesting, arson, rape, sexual harassment, and breathing your stinky cigarette smoke into other people's faces?

Two anniversaries

"Judy" was a 42-year-old mother of four from upstate New York when she chose safe and legal abortion in 1970. She was to have a tubal ligation done at the same time.

Judy underwent the procedure, but went into cardiac arrest. Her heart was started again, but she remained in a coma for six days until her death on July 12.

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This is also the date that Debra Gray underwent the abortion that would claim her life.

More from the blogosphere: The Liberal Bible, PP debate tips, recommended reading

Pro Ecclesia points out that there are only three verses in the Liberal Bible:

* Judge not, lest you be judged.
~Matthew 7:1

* Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
~Matthew 7:3

* Let him who is without sin cast the first stone
~John 8:7

I noted among the Scriptures they excised from their Bibles:

* Jeremiah 7:6 "...and do not shed innocent blood in this place..."
* Matthew 25:40 "...whatever you did for the least of one of these my brothers and sisters, you did for me."
* Romans 12:1 "...offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God..."
* 1 Peter 4:9 "Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling."
* Isaiah 49:15 "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?"

They also excised The Parable of the Good Samaritan.

They cut out all the Scriptures about the unborn:

* Jeremiah 1:5 - "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart"
* Psalm 139:16 - "Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be."

And they really blow off Biblical words on social justice:

* 2 Chronicles 25:3 "...The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, or the children be put to death for the fathers..."
* 1 Corinthians 10:24 "Nobody should seek for his own good, but the good of others."

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LTI Blog gives Planned Parenthood Debate Prep hints. Links are provided to Toddler Tactics and Five Bad Ways to Argue.

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Happy Catholic provided this great link: I Don't Feel Spiritual

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Abortion in Washington recommends three new books on abortion. I'm familiar with two and can recommend them heartily:

Daring women—those who were told not to have their babies due to perceived disabilities in themselves or their unborn children—tell their stories in this controversial book that looks critically at medical eugenics as a contemporary form of social engineering.

Unplanned pregnancies happen to women in every season of life: the newly married, the never-married, the empty-nester, the teenager, the overworked mother, the career woman. Yet we rarely talk about how lonely and confusing this experience can be.

Roundup: "Family Planning" in China, Firebomb or Lamp? And more

Well, at least the LA Times is noticing what is being done in China in the name of "family planning" -- China's One-Child Problem:

When a self-taught lawyer and activist named Chen Guangcheng went public with reports of forced abortions and other abuses by family-planning officials in China's Shandong province, he became a local hero.

.... Roughly a year later, despite international pressure, widespread support from lawyers and an acknowledgment from national officials that many of his disclosures were accurate, the 35-year-old Chen remains in custody.

....

On Monday, the blind activist's wife was interrogated and one of his supporters beaten, the latest in a series of moves apparently designed to intimidate and punish Chen for exposing forced abortions and sterilization under China's one-child campaign, one of his lawyers said.

Chen, villagers and his lawyers say tens of thousands of women and men were subjected to forced abortions and obligatory sterilization in and around Linyi, a municipal area with about 10 million people, in order to meet stringent quotas under the one-child campaign.

Read the whole story for more details.

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I'm not sure I'm buying this one: Woman says her motives mistaken in abortion clinic incident

The cops say it was a Molotov cocktail. The woman says it was a "memorial lamp" to commemorate her sister's abortion.

I'd like to see the item in question. But wouldn't she have stuck around and prayed or something if she was lighting a memorial lamp?

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Ten pages of search on Technorati found not a single worthwhile blog entry on abortion. I used to be able to find one or two per page of search results. I gave up and turned to Google Blog Search.

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Jo's Journal says, Break the Abortion Taboo. She thinks that shameless boasting about lack of regret will win over the public. I told her to go for it. Go ahead and tell the public that many aborting women are shallow, conscienceless creatures who can slay their own children without a qualm. Then stand her and her friends next to the Silent No More women. Which women are more likely to win people over?

More lack of consciences is displayed at women of color blog. Sorry, cache, but anybody who can look at the shredded remains of an aborted fetus with satisfaction of a job well done could also look at Buchenwald and praise the Nazis for their efficiency. Have a conscience, for the love of humanity! Tearing the arms and legs off babies isn't nice! How can you fail to grasp something that obvious?

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California High School Conservative blogs, Planned Parenthood Official: Abortion Decline "dismaying". Well, duh! Any business will be dismayed at a drop in their customer base.

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Michael J.W. Stickings, in The Abortion Wedge, regurgitates some disproven abortion-advocacy assumptions (such as the idea that pushing contraception reduces abortion), but nevertheless brings some fresh air into the room:

What would it do to the Republicans if the Democrats put reducing the number of abortions in this country into the Party platform (without changing the language on choice of course, but in addition to it)? It would be devastating to the Republicans and would energize people like the woman who called in to David’s show. If done right, it could turn abortion into a unifying issue for the Democrats and neutralize the Republicans’ favorite perennial wedge. That kind of payoff is certainly worth taking a look at.

....

I’m not particularly concerned with reducing the number of abortions per se, but I am interested in providing women with more choices, and by doing that, those who are concerned with reducing the number of abortions would get what they want as well. We may not have the same reasons for addressing the underlying factors that contribute to abortion, but we can still come up with a plan that we can all get behind.

Okay, some of his suggestions have been proven to increase, not decrease abortions, but he is wanting to find areas of common ground and he's not in the "If prolifers want it, we must fight tooth and nail against it" mindset many abortion advocates embrace.

I've also suggested that perhaps the Democrats could address the issue of seedy abortion mills. That would give the prochoice Dems some credibility among prolife Dems. Just a gesture to show that women's lives really do matter would be nice, a refreshing change from "All else must be sacrificed in the name of immediate access."

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File this one under "emetics": VirtueOnline, in Episcopal Church still pro-abortion quotes a church document that could have been penned by Satan himself:

You, and no one else, are 'called' to figure out what this unwanted pregnancy is about. And you are to do it without guilt or shame... You are to claim your godlike, God-given role in creation by saying yes or no, secure in the knowledge that whatever you decide, after having honestly sought what is right, God will bless.

For anybody who actually professes Christianity, this is on a par with sacrificing virgins on the altar as part of Easter services.

The Bible condemns the shedding of innocent blood. And it takes a very dim view on leading others to sin. If drafting a demonic creed like that can't land you in Hell, nothing can.

This is not to say that they can't repent -- but they'd better get moving on it. Encouraging believers to sacrifice their children to Molech isn't a very wise spiritual move, especially not when you're presenting it as a way to win God's blessing. I literally can not believe that the people who drafted that document are actually Christians. I think that they are pagans who have infiltrated the Episcopalian church in order to destroy it from within.

The whole "godlike" think is what got Lucifer cast out of heaven, people!

Anniversary: The death of Beverly Moore

Beverly Ann Moore, age 15, died July 11, 1975 after abortion by Tuckey Hayes at Chattanooga Women's Clinic -- the "Lime 5" clinic.

Hayes assured Beverly's parents that she would be "all right" just fifteen minutes before she died.

Chattanooga Women's Clinic was written up for continued deficiencies even after Beverly's death. Noted flaws included (with dates of citation):

• "Wrist, knee or foot controls not provided on lavatories used by physicians and nurses" (3-8-79)
  
• No system for referring patients to other health care providers (3-8-79)
  
• No emergency transfer arrangements (3-8-79)
  
• Lack of written job descriptions (3-8-79, 10-10-89)
  
• Lack of documentation of staff qualifications (10-10-89)
  
• Inoperable emergency lighting (3-8-79, 3-12-87, 3-17-87, 4-5-93)
  
• Re-use of disposable curettes (3-12-87)
  
• Medications out-of-date (5-22-85, 3-12-87, 3-17-87, 10-10-89, 4-6-92)
  
• Outdated IV solution (10-10-89)
  
• Medications improperly stored (3-8-79, 3-12-87, 3-17-87, 6-18-87)
  
• Unwrapped speculums stored in examining table drawer (6-18-87)
  
• Used disposable curettes stored on shelf with clean supplies (6-18-87)
  
• Blood in procedure table (10-10-89)
  
• Dirty floor and equipment in lab (10-10-89)
  
• "[O]ut of date sterile instruments are in autoclave area" (6-18-87)
  
• "Sterile instruments in treatment room observed to have stains" (4-6-92)
  
• Patient records lacking documentation of required testing for sexually transmitted diseases (10-10-89).

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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Nobody wants to adopt those retardates. Better to abort them. Yup.

Children with Down syndrome in demand:

Because one of their seven children has Down syndrome, a type of disorder caused by a genetic malfunction, they decided they wanted another one with that condition.
The Petersohns found that they had plenty of company. The couple from Liberty, Mo., placed their names on national lists of people seeking to adopt children with Down syndrome, and waited.
After waiting nearly three years, they turned to a private agency that facilitates international adoptions. Today, they're raising money and completing paperwork to adopt a 6-month-old boy from Ecuador who has the syndrome.

Adoption Awareness:

An average of 4-5 calls are received each week requesting information on making adoption plans for a child with Down syndrome. There are presently over 100 families on the waiting list with completed homestudies waiting for children with Down syndrome.

Down Syndrome No Longer An Adoption Deterrent:

"I was working on trying to place a little baby in the last couple weeks," said the agency's social work supervisor, Katie Sharp. "I have had 10 to 15 families that want the baby."

Hopeful parents who want these children almost invariably have had experience with children with Down syndrome. Or they are professionals who have cared for children with the disorder.

In Ohio, the Down Syndrome Association of Greater Cincinnati keeps a list of parents nationwide waiting to adopt kids with what it calls DS. The waiting list is 150 names long. Couples are waiting months to up to two years.

Mile High Down Syndrome Association:

According to the National Council for Adoption, babies, regardless of medical problems, who are “free for adoption,” generally don’t wait long for families. There are waiting lists of families wishing to adopt infants with Down syndrome.

Well, Tialoc, I'll concede you this: I can't find the source that said the waiting list was three years. (I spotted it in passing when looking for places to post about the Chinese baby. I didn't bookmark it because I wasn't expecting anybody to seriously start arguing that it was horrible that the baby was alive in the first place.) Only some families wait three years. But I was right that it's the families that are waiting, not the babies.

Need faith in humanity restored

Reading the words of hardcore abortion supporters has really undermined my faith in humanity. Between the attitude that it's better than to let women die than to concede an inch to prolifers, and Tialoc's wish that the little Chinese baby had been put to death rather than placed in an adoptive home, I'm really beginning to agree with David Byrne's comment that "Nuclear weapons can wipe out life on earth, if used properly."

I'm clinging to two stories right now:

1. The way the Pepsi company notified Coke about the attempt to sell them trade secrets.
2. A story of a local man who woke everybody in his apartment building, alerting them to a fire and saving their lives. This man remained in a burning building to make sure his neighbors got out okay!

But there's not a whole lot else.

Does anybody else have heartening news about people displaying basic decency? Such stories aren't usually considered newsworthy but surely they're out there somewhere.

And they wonder why we think they worship death

I've been doing blog searches, and found a snotty response to my "Who's Putting the Unborn Ahead of the Born?" This uniquely challenging individual, Sarah, got all snarky about how "All surgery has risks." As if that makes it okay to run a filthy clinic where there's no emergency equipment! As if that somehow justifies leaving an injured woman with no medical supervision while you run to the airport. As if that justifies shoving a hemorrhaging teenager out the door to die. As if that justifies any of the behavior abortionists indulge in without raising a single prochoice eyebrow.

The Sarahs of the world pretend it's all about the woman, but here Sarah is, making it plain that death is all she cares about. She wants that fetus dead, and if the mother dies as well, hey, "All surgery has risks." As if all surgery is performed by quacks who leave patients unattended to bleed to death or to choke on their own vomit.

After reading the blithe indifference of the likes of Sarah and company, I'm starting to become convinced that aside from the occasional exception like achromic, prochoicers are the ones who really believe that aborting women are just evil sluts who deserve to die. They must think this, because they don't want seedy abortion mills shut down. They want them open for business, ensuring "access" to death, for mother as well as for the fetus. As long as somebody dies, all is well. A dead mother is a two-fer. One less welfare queen, I guess. One less piece of white trash cluttering up the trailer park.

I bet Sarah would change her tune if her next abortion was at one of those seedy abortion mills. I bet if she was the one crying out in agony as some quack pulled her bowel out through her vagina, she'd not be grateful toward the person telling her to shut up and stop scaring the other patients. I bet if she was the one gasping out her last breath, bleeding out on the dirty cot, grasping at the passing staff and begging for help, she'd not be really appreciative if somebody told her to be thankful for "access" and to just accept that "All surgery has risks."

Her head would come out of the sand real quick if she was the one suffering. But as long as it's minority women and poor white trash, Sarah and others like her can afford not to care.

And they wonder why we think they worship death.

Media bias -- or willful ignorance

Bruce Wilson asks: Is Mainstream Media Guilty of Bias or Incompetence?

The best example is this:

Just before the start of the Senate confirmation hearings for pro-life Supreme Court appointee Samuel Alito, NBC News excitedly reported that Alito was out of step with a clear majority of Americans who support a woman’s right to an abortion. The conclusion was based on an NBC News poll that asked the following question:

“The Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe versus Wade decision established a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion, at least in the first three months of pregnancy. Would you like to see the Supreme Court completely overturn its Roe versus Wade decision, or not?”

Anyone who has done their homework realizes that Roe v. Wade legalized abortion without restriction in the first six months of pregnancy and provided a loophole that makes it almost impossible to restrict abortion even in the last three months of pregnancy.

So why would NBC News falsely imply that Roe v. Wade legalized abortion only in the first three months of pregnancy?

More to the point: How come the public is comprised of people who don't see through this? They can read. They can open their local phone books and see abortions advertised to 24 weeks. How do they reconcile this with the myth that Roe only allows abortions in the first three months?

This need to believe that abortion is only legal for the first three months is apparently very strong.

I once overheard a discussion between two co-workers about abortion. One, Susan, kept insisting that abortion was only legal in the first trimester. Without saying a word, I opened the local phone book to the ads posted by the two facilities in town. Both advertised abortions to 24 weeks. I put the phone book in front of Susan and pointed to the ads. She gave me a dirty look, slammed the phone book shut, and changed the topic.

A couple of weeks later, I heard Susan in another discussion, insisting again that abortion is only legal during the first 12 weeks.

I had a discussion online with a man who also insisted that Roe only legalized abortion through the first 12 weeks. I provided URLs to the National Abortion Federation, Planned Parenthood, the CDC, and the Alan Guttmacher Institute, along with a dozen URLs for abortion services through 24 weeks. This guy insisted that all those URLs were phony -- that they'd been put up by prolifers trying to lie and convince the public that abortions were legal after 12 weeks, but, again, they weren't. This guy insisted that performing an abortion after 12 weeks would land a doctor in jail.

What's with this, anyway? It's not just perplexing that people are so able to ignore the reality all around them. It's perplexing that they feel such a powerful need do dismiss the evidence. I mean, if you're okay with killing fetuses, why should it matter how old they are? Why is that the same people who insist that it's 100% the woman's right to kill a fetus at 12 weeks so disturbed by the idea of killing a 13-week fetus that he (or she) can't even let himself believe that hit happens at all?

I don't get it.

Two tragic anniversaries

Virginia Wolfe, age 33, went to Methodist Women's and Children's Hospital on July 6, 1998, to have an abortion performed by Dr. Lillian Jones. Jones performed a suction abortion. During the procedure, she punctured Virginia's uterus and bladder.

Virginia suffered massive hemorrhage, losing so much blood that her heart stopped.

Doctors repaired her bladder and removed her uterus, but Virginia's brain had already been damaged by the lack of oxygen. Virginia was pronounced dead on July 10, 1998.

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On this date in 1926, Edith Green, age 20, died of complications from an illegal abortion performed by Dr. Thomas E. Walsh. To evade responsibility, Walsh dismembered his young victim and disposed of her body. It would be discovered by a laborer on his way to work, three days later.

Not Just the Unborn: Help needed for baby

Family needs help to care for baby, beating the odds

Little baby Cameron has beaten the odds already by surviving to birth. He's passing milestones doctors never thought he'd meet. He has alobar holoprosencephaly (HPE) -- when he was an embryo, his brain didn't separate into hemispheres.

If you are interested in contributing money to help Cameron, contact Assistant Chief P.K. Johnson or Sgt. Robby Johnson with the Millbrook Police Department at 334-285-6832.

Anniversary: The death of Guadalupe Negron

Guadalupe Negron, a 33-year-old mother of four from Honduras, went for an abortion at Metro Women's Center in Queens, New York, on July 9, 1993. She was accompanied by her niece.

A receptionist for the facility noted that after Dr. David Benjamin had performed Guadalupe's abortion at 10AM, she was moved to the recovery room and left unattended for over an hour. When Benjamin's wife, who acted as his assistant, brought Guadalupe into an examination room, she came out screaming "Oh my God! Oh my God!" and "Call the ambulance! Call the ambulance!" However, the ambulance was not summoned until 1:40 PM.

When paramedics arrived, they found Guadalupe naked and bloody, with a nurse screaming and trying to revive her in a small, unventilated room with an inadequate oxygen tank and no necessary equipment such as a blood pressure cuff. They also noted that Benjamin had inserted a breathing tube into Guadalupe's stomach instead of her trachea, causing stomach fluids to travel up the tube, into her mouth, and down into her lungs.

The paramedics also indicated that they were hindered in their attempts to save Guadalupe's life because Benjamin lied to them about the nature of her problem.

The autopsy report found that in trying to extract a 20-week fetus, Benjamin had lacerated Guadalupe's cervix and punctured her uterus. She hemorrhaged and went into shock and cardiac arrest. Authorities determined that Benjamin had initiated the risky procedure without having first examined the patient.

Benjamin was indicted for second degree murder due to "depraved indifference to human life." One of the paramedics told a reporter, "I wouldn't take my dog there (Benjamin's clinic)." New York newspapers covering Benjamin's murder trial discovered that he had a long history of malpractice and had changed his name from Elias Bonrouhi to David Benjamin in order to cover up his record. Benjamin was convicted, and his license was revoked.

Why aren't all the accomplices in prison?

Operation Rescue asks, Why is Mom in Jail and Abortionist is Not? But more people are guilty than just the mom and the abortionist.

The stepfather of two Kansas girls got the children pregnant -- four times. One pregnancy was aborted, the others resulted in live births. One of the girls gave birth to twins on her 12th birthday.

The stepfather is now in prison. The mother, who looked the other way, will do 14 months.

But what of everybody else who looked the other way? The teachers? The ob/gyn staff? And yes, the abortionist?

This is what happens when we hypersexualized our children, to the point where people simply look the other way when a pregnant 11-year-old shows up for school every day. Nobody bothers to investigate. They assume that an 11-year-old girl has a right to "privacy." As if an 11-year-old girl could possibly have the maturity to consent to sex.

Every adult in those kids' lives failed them. Because they believed that children have a "right" to sex, rather than a right to be protected from abuse.

Every adult in those kids' lives belongs in jail.

Anniversary: The death of Junette Barnes

Junette Barnes, mother of four, had a tubal ligation on June 16, 1988.

One week after this operation, she found out that she had been pregnant at the time of the surgery, and was still pregnant. She saw her family physician, Dr. Ted Shields on July 8, 1988, and he performed an abortion on her at Surgicare Outpatient Center in Victoria that day.

During the abortion, he perforated her uterus and cut an artery and several veins. Junette was transferred to a hospital, where she died of blood loss during emergency surgery.

Blog/Web Roundup: What is right-wing, protesters, stem cells, etc.

Y Safle asks Why is Pro Life Considered Right Wing?, revealing a misunderstanding of what the American political Right is about. It's not that "generation of wealth is the greatest good". Rather, prosperity brings goods such as health and leisure time, and prosperity can only be promoted by allowing people to keep what they produce. Still, the entire post is a refreshing departure from the usual "Oh, mommy, I am so happy here in your tummy!" from the prolife and "It's MY FREAKING RIGHT GODDAMMIT!!!" from the prochoice.

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1 Man 1 Cat 0 Mission is sick of seeing abortion protesters outside the local death mill. If he was the one slated for death I think he'd be less annoyed by the presence of people trying to stop the killing.

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Feministe ponders The Stem Cell Moral Dilemma.

To which I say: There'd be no moral dilemma -- and there'd be a lot more cures -- if researchers would stick with the proven track record of adult stem cells. Adult stem cell treatments are producing cures. Embryonic stem cell treatments are producing dead mice. But, you see, researchers can't patent treatments using adult stem cells, so there's not as much potential to get filthy rich from other people's desperation. So those whose motives are less cure-oriented and more wealth-oriented zero in on what they can patent, rather than what is most likely to benefit the patient.

Why is it that the only good greedy capitalist is a greedy capitalist who wants to get rich from patenting embryonic stem cell treatments? Never mind that they are raising false hopes and steering people away from real treatments currently available! They're gutting embryos! So they must be good guys!

The post also rambles with a lot of the usual misunderstanding (or deliberate mischaracterization) of what prolifers stand for, but since there's nothing new there it can be safely ignored, I think.

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What is a Human Right Anyway ponders 100 million women and girls missing:

Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen has calculated that there are more than 100 million women and girls missing from the world demographic today due to abortion of female foetuses, female infanticide and malnutrition and neglect of girls.

It's -- What's the right term to use here? Ironic? Poetic justice? -- It's interesting that abortion, touted as some great good for women, is used to target females for extermination. And it's also interesting that mainstream feminist and "prochoice" organizations look the other way.

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It's easier to get an abortion than an aspirin

Public schools require permits, doctor's permission and written consent from parents to give a Tylenol to a student. It's much easier for an eighth-grader to get an abortion.

All it took last year for a 14-year-old "Jane Roe" was a cell phone number. A staffer at a local Planned Parenthood clinic called the number and got permission - from a 21-year-old man who was molesting the girl and coerced her into an abortion.

The man, now in prison, pretended to be her father on the phone, then posed as her brother at the clinic. He paid with his credit card, and had the girl injected with Depo-Provera birth control, so he could resume having sex with her three days later.

The attorney for the girl's family also alleges that the girl never met with a doctor and wasn't given information about the abortion surgery or its risks. Planned Parenthood just vacuumed the girl out and sent her home with her abuser.

Planned Parenthood claimed that hey, they can't be responsible for failing to see through a charade. But the clerks at convenience stores are expected to spot fake IDs and to refuse to sell booze and cigarettes to underage customers. Is Planned Parenthood really embracing a good strategy, to claim that their trained and highly professional staff can spend hours with a girl and not spot a ploy that any 7-11 clerk would be expected to thwart in the thirty seconds it takes to try to buy cigarettes?

HT: Adam's Blog

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Crisis Pregnancy Centers: A choice, not an echo looks at the latest re-aminmation of the Evil CPC Zombie. (Why is it that the abortion industry trots out this particular bogeyman the way an angler will trot out stories about the one that got away? It just reveals them for the lying slimebags that they are.)

Anniversary: The Death of Darlene Wood

On July 2, 1982, Darlene Wood was put under anesthesia for a second trimester abortion at Temple University Hospital. The abortionist was Renga Rajan; the anesthethesiologist was William Stevenson-Smith.

Darlene was given nitrous oxide by face mask. She started coughing after the procedure began. After the abortion was completed, she was admitted to the respiratory intensive care unit, where she was diagnosed with primary pulmonary hypertension.

Over the next several days, Darlene experienced increasing respiratory distress. She was given medication to maintain her blood pressure. But on July 7, Darlene went into cardio-respiratory arrest. She was pronounced dead at 2:50 p.m.

The administratrix of Darlene's estate contended that the lack of appropriate medical and anesthetic clearance was a substantial factor in her death.

Rajan was also successfully sued for the 1987 abortion death of Iris Velazquez.

Those prochoice population control officers

China Woman Who Died Fleeing Forced Abortion May Have Been Beaten

A Chinese woman who died trying to flee family planning officials who wanted to forced her to have an abortion of her twin unborn babies may have been beaten beforehand, new information shows. The Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Hong Kong says Li Shimei may have been attacked before she attempted to flee.

Li was seized at her home by 18 people from the Tongling Road Family Planning Office. They took her to the hospital in the eastern city of Hefei, Hefei Shuguang Hospital, because she already had one child when she became pregnant.

Yup. Population control is all about giving women choices! Yup! Yup!

Who's Putting the Unborn Ahead of the Born?

In my gut, I am completely aghast at what goes on at that place. But I staunchly oppose anything that would correct this situation in law.
Prochoice activist Janis Compton-Carr on Miami's Dadeland abortion mill

I've noticed a major irony in the stands of prochoice organizations. Follow this.

They're 100% against any kind of governmental oversight of abortion because it might jeopardize the future of "choice". When 60 Minutes was investigating an abortion mill where one woman had been allowed to die and another left incapacitated, reporters asked pro-choice Maryland State Senator Mary Boergers why nothing was being done to address dangerous abortion clinics. Boergers said, "There's only so much of a willingness to try to push a group like the pro-choice movement to do what I think is the responsible thing to do because they then treat you as if you're the enemy."

Barbara Radford, then-president of the National Abortion Federation, defended the head-in-the-sand attitude the organization took toward safety issues by saying, "We want to make sure that women have choices when it comes to abortion services, and if you regulate it too strictly, you then deny women access to the service."

Prochoice groups are fond of accusing prolifers of putting the needs of the unborn -- specifically, existing fetuses -- ahead of the needs of living, breathing, born women. But here they are, these prochoice groups, sacrificing the real safety of the 4,000 living, breathing, born women walking into abortion clinics today, to protect the possible preferences of women who haven't even been conceived yet.

This is the ultimate placing of a higher value on the unborn over the lives of the born. These organizations point fingers at prolifers, who place the lives of existing fetuses before the lifestyle choices of their mothers. Then these same organizations place the hypothetical future choices of non-existent women ahead of the safety and lives of women undergoing abortions in the here and now.

We can't pretend that there aren't horrible things happening to women in abortion mills across the country. Just on RealChoice, which barely scratches the surface, I've summarized cases including:

• Scott Barrett, who used overdoses of local anesthetic to facilitate abortions
  
• Inglewood, that had five-minute abortions down to an art form, with often fatal results
  
• Eastern Women's Center, that allowed three abortion patients to die and couldn't even find its medical director

One abortion clinic even uses other clinics' safety shortcomings as a selling point for its own services!

The collective response of the prochoice movement is at best a big yawn. Not a peep was heard when an illegally-operating Tennessee abortion mill misadministered RU-486 to Brenda Vise, with fatal results. Silence greeted the death of Leigh Ann Alford at the hands of a legally-operating quack. It's been prolifers, not prochoicers, demanding a full-scale investigation in the third-trimester abortion death of Christin Gilbert. And the recent cluster of RU-486 deaths in the Los Angeles area has even the FDA and the CDC taking notice, without any complaints by prochoice groups about off-label administration of dangerous abortion drugs. (In fact, it was two high-profile prochoice organizations, the National Abortion Federation and Planned Parenthood, whose members administered the fatal doses; this may explain the deafening silence.)

Another response is to concede that malpractice isn't right, but to nonetheless lament state action to address it. This is the response from Ms. Compton-Carr that I quoted above. Recently, staff at an Alabama clinic nearly killed a woman by ignoring her dangerously high blood pressure, giving her RU-486, and sending her home -- though she was eight months pregnant. The president of the Birmingham chapter of NOW called the clinic's closure "unfortunate".

In some cases, the prochoice movement actually moves in to defend an abortionist whose practice leaves much to be desired, as they did with Bruce Steir after the death of Sharon Hamplton.

The pattern is clear: Organizations that are supposed to protect women's interests instead pursue an agenda of protecting "choice" at all costs -- even the cost of women's lives.

When are we going to see prochoice organizations start to put the needs of real, living, breathing women ahead of their politics?

Not Just the Unborn: Don't give up hope

Man talking, joking after 20 unresponsive years">Man talking, joking after 20 unresponsive years

Reflections on Independence Day

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

On this anniversary of the day Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, we would do well to reflect on these words.

The right to life is paramount, because without it, one can not exercise any other right. Yet in the United States (and most other "progressive" nations) we have a two-tier system of legal "rights:"

• the strong and vocal, who have not only the fundamental rights recognized by the Founding Fathers, but who have also collected spurious "rights" such as the right to have pizza delivered regardless of the risks to the life of the person hired to deliver the pizza
  
• the silent and disenfranchised, whose only "right" is to be disposed of at the behest of the strong and vocal

So today, those who benefit from the two-tiered system celebrate their rights -- including the "right" to abort their unborn children, their "right" to deny medical care to the severely disabled, and their "right" to have their ailing relatives put to death.

These rights are a legal fiction, fabricated for the benefit of the strong and vocal. It is my prayer that one day all people, regardless of age, handicap, or illness, will be protected from the "rights" of those who hold power over them.

Until that day, there will always be a degree of hipocracy in celebrating Independence Day. Until no one can be deprived of life without due process, we celebrate "freedom for me, but not for thee."

To quote Alan Keyes:

If the Declaration of Independence states our creed, there can be no right to abortion, since it means denying the most fundamental right of all, to human offspring in the womb. But if human beings can decide who is human and who is not, the doctrine of God-given rights is utterly corrupted. Abortion is the unjust taking of a human life and a breach of the fundamental principles of our public moral creed.