Archive for the ‘Abortion’ Category
Let’s hope this happens in other states, too
What happened in the Tennessee General Assembly this year could not have happened with Democrats still in control. Elections do matter. The General Assembly has passed legislation that would direct around $1 million in Title X money away from Planned Parenthood and to local health departments. This is long overdue, and hopefully, given the insidious things that go on at Planned Parenthood, other states will follow suit.
Planned Parenthood in Tennessee appears to be losing its special treatment and possibly $1 million in Title X family planning funds as the state legislature, following the release of an undercover video exposing the abortion business’s practices, is changing directions.
The Legislature has voted for Senate Bill 470 which, instead of continuing the preference for Planned Parenthood to get about $1 million in federal money allocated to the state for family planning, requires officials to give money first to county health departments.
The vote happened only weeks after a video was released by Live Action Films revealed a counselor at a Memphis, Tenn., Planned Parenthood abortion business apparently advising a “patient” to lie to a judge about her boyfriend’s age to avoid possible felony charges against him.
Today’s Lebanon Democrat column: “Pro-lifers say the unborn’s life speaks for itself”
For the first time since Gallup began tracking public opinion on abortion back in 1995, a majority of Americans view themselves as pro-life. The poll, conducted last month, reveals that 51% of Americans consider themselves pro-life, up from 33% just 14 years ago when Gallup began tracking abortion views. Conversely, 42% of Americans identify themselves as pro-choice, down from 56% in 1995.
Digging a little deeper, 53% of respondents believe abortion should be legal under certain circumstances. Twenty-three percent believe abortion should be completely illegal, and 22% believe it should be legal under all circumstances.
Pro-life women outnumber pro-choice women 49% to 44%. Pro-life men outnumber pro-choice men 54% to 39%.
There are several reasons for the conservative shift on abortion.
First, President Obama, the most abortion-minded president we’ve ever had, has overreached in his pro-abortion policies. A Gallup poll conducted earlier this year found that 58% of Americans opposed scrapping the Mexico City Policy, meaning that most Americans oppose having their tax dollars used to promote and perform abortion overseas.
Second, pro-lifers have waged an aggressive campaign against the so-called “Freedom of Choice Act,” which would lift virtually all limits on abortion. FOCA, which has the support of President Obama, would put an end to parental consent, conscience clauses, 24-hour waiting periods, and a return of the gruesome practice of partial-birth abortion.
Third, ultrasounds put a face on unborn human life. Pro-life organizations such as Focus on the Family have placed ultrasound machines in a number of crisis pregnancy centers. Mothers who see ultrasound images of their unborn children are far more likely to choose life than those who don’t. People don’t need medical degrees to recognize human life when they see it.
Finally, women and men who have been hurt by abortion are speaking out. Maria Vitale of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation explains, ”Each abortion leads to two victims – the baby who dies and the mother who’s wounded. Women who regret their abortions are speaking out, talking about the pain, both emotional and physical, that resulted from their abortions. They trace drug addiction, alcohol abuse, eating disorders and sleep disorders to the abortions of their past. Men, too, are grieving and opening up about the devastation abortion has caused in their lives. There is nothing quite so powerful as the complaint of a dissatisfied customer, and the abortion industry has a number of former clients expressing buyer’s remorse.”
Since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, there have been approximately 50 million legal abortions performed in the U.S. According to the Center for Disease Control, the number of abortions peaked in 1990 at more than 1.4 million. Last year, that figure was around 800,000, indicating a significant decrease in the demand for abortion. As a result, many abortion clinics have permanently shut their doors.
Unfortunately, America’s pro-life shift has not played out at the ballot box. The last election produced an increase in the Democrats’ majorities in both chambers of Congress, and the election of Barack Obama. When he was an Illinois state senator, President Obama opposed legislation that would have made it illegal to kill abortion survivors — a practice that can only be called infanticide.
Unfortunately, the Republicans did not make abortion a major election-year issue. President Obama’s far-left views on abortion are shared by only a handful of Americans, yet the McCain campaign and the GOP did not expose our current president’s views when they had the opportunity.
While delivering the commencement address at the University of Notre Dame last month, President Obama remarked, ”That’s when we begin to say, ‘Maybe we won’t agree on abortion, but we can still agree that this is a heart-wrenching decision for any woman.’ So let us work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies. Let’s make adoption more available. Let’s provide care and support for women who do carry their children to term.”
This is typical Obamaspeak. Sometimes one just has to conclude that he means the opposite of what he says. President Obama wants to reduce the number of abortions, yet he supports legislation that would make abortions easier to obtain, and would also legalize partial-birth abortion.
So one has to ask, if there is nothing wrong with abortion, why would President Obama want to reduce the number of abortions? Could it be that President Obama does understand the evil of killing the unborn? Could it be that even our abortion-minded president wants to reduce the number of abortions for the same reason that we want to reduce heart disease, cancer, AIDS, automobile accidents, homicides, and all the other contributors to premature death?
Last week while giving a speech at the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany, President Obama noted that Buchenwald “teaches us that we must be ever-vigilant about the spread of evil in our own time, that we must reject the false comfort that others’ suffering is not our problem, and commit ourselves to resisting those who would subjugate others to serve their own interests.”
Indeed, and that is why we pro-lifers must never give up fighting against the mass killing of the unborn.
Winning in the arena of ideas
Maria Vitale of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation lists the reasons why pro-lifers are winning in the arena of ideas.
Reasons Behind The Shift To Pro-Life – The Philadelphia Bulletin Archives.
Winning the war of ideas
For the first time since Gallup began tracking public opinion on abortion, a majority of Americans view themselves as pro-life. Indeed, life speaks for itself. So does murdering the innocent.
Really, is there anyone out there who seriously doubts that Sonia Sotomayor is pro-choice?
Pro-life bill finally passes the Tennessee House
By a surprising 77-21 vote, the Tennessee House of Represetatives has passed SJR127. That means a lot of Democrats also voted for this bill. Here’s a money quote from Speaker Campfield: “…more and more Dems are stepping away from their party leadership and voting for conservative legislation on the floor.”
An Obama quote that I agree with
“I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. Because no matter how much we may want to fudge it — indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory — the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable.” — President Obama’s commencement speech at Notre Dame
Hand of Hope
Pro-lifers are celebrating the tenth anniversary of one of the worst things to happen to pro abortionists in quite some time — a simple photograph.
“When I see that picture, the first thing I think of is how special and lucky I am to have God use me that way,” Samuel told FOXNews.com. “I feel very thankful that I was in that picture.”
On Aug. 19, 1999, photographer Michael Clancy shot the “Fetal Hand Grasp” — his picture of a 21-week-old fetus grasping a doctor’s finger during innovative surgery to correct spina bifida. Nearly four months later, on Dec. 2, Samuel Armas was “born famous.”
The photo, which first appeared in USA Today on Sept. 7, 1999, quickly spread across the globe as proof of development in the womb and was later cited during congressional debates on the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, which passed in 2000.
Conscience coercion
Here’s your lesson for the day; liberals are absolutely, positively NOT pro-choice. They are pro-abortion, and pro-government control on practically everything else. The notion that they actually respect a woman’s right to choose is total bunk.
Let’s look forward to a few years from now, a not too distant future to another group of Christian men and women. These are health care workers, who again are denying the right of the State to coerce their conscience, and refuse to perform or assist abortions. They have already been derided by their colleagues, lost their jobs, and now they stand on trial for not killing an unborn child.
The modern proconsul exhorts them to abandon their beliefs and get with the program, while the crowds jeer at the troublemakers. Eventually, these men and women are also sentenced, convicted felons for obeying their conscience instead of the State.
Does this seem far-fetched? Anything but. One of the first priorities of the administration of President Barack Obama razed the path to unrestricted abortions. The greatest impediment to this plan is a formed human conscience that recoils at the idea of murdering an unborn baby while lies in its mother’s womb.
Six weeks into President Obama’s term of office, he has begun to uproot this obstacle by repealing a regulation granting broad protections to health workers who refuse to take part in abortions or provide other health care that goes against their consciences.
Another crack at it
The Tennessee GOP’s perennial pro-life amendment which declares that “nothing secures or protects the right to abortion, or requires funding,” has cleared its first hurdle. Perhaps, at long last, we can get this thing passed, although I fear that a former Republican named “Williams” will ultimately stand in the way.
WKRN, Nashville, Tennessee News, Weather, and Sports |Abortion amendment passes Senate committee.
Rebuked
The Holy See has reprimanded the Speaker of State Nancy Pelosi over her pro-abortion views, more or less telling the most powerful woman in America that those with higher positions have higher responsibilities not to formally cooperate with the sin of abortion.
(And why is it that every time I see a picture of Speaker Pelosi, her eyes are as big as saucers?)
President Obama opposed legislation that would have made this illegal
Yes, readers, the American voters put into high office a man who supports this type of practice:
Eighteen and pregnant, Sycloria Williams went to an abortion clinic outside Miami and paid $1,200 for Dr. Pierre Jean-Jacque Renelique to terminate her 23-week pregnancy.
Three days later, she sat in a reclining chair, medicated to dilate her cervix and otherwise get her ready for the procedure.
Only Renelique didn’t arrive in time. According to Williams and the Florida Department of Health, she went into labor and delivered a live baby girl.
What Williams and the Health Department say happened next has shocked people on both sides of the abortion debate: One of the clinic’s owners, who has no medical license, cut the infant’s umbilical cord. Williams says the woman placed the baby in a plastic biohazard bag and threw it out.
Fla. doctor investigated in badly botched abortion : 24 Hour Breaking News : The Buffalo News.
Best pro-life video ever
Freedom of choice?
“The first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That’s the first thing that I’d do.” — Senator Barack Obama, speaking to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, July 17, 2007
Fortunately, that wasn’t the first thing Barack Obama did as president, but only because Congress hasn’t passed it yet. For those who don’t know, the Freedom of Choice Act is a grossly misnamed piece of legislation that would remove any freedom of choice for those who choose life. Oddly, abortion-rights activists typically refer to us pro-lifers as “anti-choice,” yet pro-abortion liberals are the most anti-choice people on the planet. Just recall the battle it took to legalize “Choose Life” license plates here in Tennessee.
Among many things, the FOCA would supercede any and all state laws that restrict abortion in any way. It would also overturn the Federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, which was passed back in the good ol’ days when Republicans ran things. Furthermore, FOCA would overturn laws restricting government funding of abortion and laws prohibiting abortions in public hospitals, meaning the concept of “choice” gets tossed out the window when that choice happens to be for life instead of abortion.
If I were an abortionist, I wouldn’t want these pictures shown, either
I’ve always thought that one of the most effective ways to combat the evil of abortion is to simply show pictures of those who have been aborted. Gruesome? Absolutely. And perfectly legal, too.
This is why Democrats don’t campaign on the abortion issue
WisdomIsVindicated points to a recent Harris poll that shows just 9 percent of Americans believe abortion should be legal for any reason at any time during pregnancy. This is Barack Obama’s position. Of course, the president-elect even believes abortion should be legal AFTER birth given his support for infanticide. At any rate, Democrats are so far from the mainstream that they absolutely cannot disclose to the American public their true beliefs about killing the unborn.
A silver lining
There has been one positive outcome from the Madoff financial scandal. Planned Parenthood is laying off 20% of its staff. I don’t normally rejoice when people lose their jobs, but I’ll make an exception with the abortion industry.
Today’s Lebanon Democrat column: “Sarah Palin for President in 2012″
I hope we have not seen the last of Sarah Palin. She was the one bright spot in an otherwise dim campaign season for the Republican Party. Governor Palin has already made it clear that the door to a presidential run in 2012 is open. Let’s hope so. She was the only true conservative on the ticket, and if there’s one thing the GOP sorely needs, it’s a conservative at the top.
The left despises Sarah Palin. The mainstream press and Democrats were relentless and merciless in their attacks on her and her family. True, when you enter the political arena, you certainly open yourself to scrutiny and criticism, but what Governor Palin endured was far more grueling than the public examinations given Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
Her critics said she was inexperienced, even though Sarah Palin has more executive experience than John McCain, Obama, and Biden combined. They went after her family, at one point spreading the rumor that her baby Trig was not her son, but her grandson. They exposed the Palins’ teen-aged daughter Bristol and her pregnancy, sneering about the hypocrisy of a family-values conservative having a daughter pregnant out-of-wedlock. They went after Todd Palin and his associations. They made an issue out of Sarah Palin’s $150,000 wardrobe. They hung her in effigy and hacked her e-mail account.
They tried to pass her off as a dumb blond, a cheerleader-type who was chosen for her appearance rather than her substance. They questioned whether she could handle the job of vice-president and still raise a family, which is odd given that the staple of liberal feminism has been to convince women to eschew families and pursue careers. In short, the candidacy of Sarah Palin transformed the party of women’s rights into the party of male chauvinism.
But what really stoked the left’s outrage was the fact that Sarah Palin gave birth to a baby with Down Syndrome. You see, abortion is the sacrament of the Democrat Party. There have been nearly 50 million unborn children sacrificed on the altar of choice under Roe v. Wade, and the left’s callous disregard for unborn human life is just as rife as ever. That Sarah Palin did not abort Trig hit them squarely between the eyes. The image from the GOP convention of the Palins’ 7-year-old daughter wetting and smoothing the baby’s hair during Governor Palin’s speech endeared pro-family conservatives, but frosted the left.
For example, Canadian Dr. Andre Lalonde, executive vice president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in Ottawa, expressed concern that such a prominent role model as Sarah Palin completing a Down Syndrome pregnancy may prompt other women to make the same decision against abortion because of that genetic abnormality, and thereby reduce the number of abortions.
About 9 out of 10 Canadian women given a diagnosis of Down Syndrome choose to terminate their pregnancies. But Dr. Lalonde worries that Palin’s decision may cause abortions in Canada to decline as other women there and elsewhere follow suit.
Barbara Walters said on The View (October 6) that Sarah Palin having her baby at the debate “bothered her.”
And the day before, Liz Trotta was on Fox News Live to discuss the Palin-Biden Debate, and remarked “One other note…the image of dragging that handicapped infant around and having it on stage has caused consternation in some quarters as to how tasteful this is.”
Folks, this is how liberals see unborn/newborn life that is less than perfect. The Democrat Party just nominated and got elected a politician who has supported infanticide for abortion survivors. On the other hand, Sarah Palin carried a Down Syndrome pregnancy to term, and she is despised for it.
Remember, Democrats are supposed to be the party of the little guy, the downtrodden, the oppressed. And yet when it comes to the littlest and most defenseless of us all, liberals have shown themselves to be completely devoid of compassion. Their behavior toward the Palin family, especially 7-month-old Trig, was classless and shameful.
Margaret Sanger’s dream comes true
A study on abortion demographics shows that black women account for a disproportionate share of abortions, and that figure is going up.
In 2004, there were 10.5 abortions per 1,000 white women ages 15 to 44, compared with 28 per 1,000 Hispanic women of that age and 50 per 1,000 black women. That translates into approximately 1 percent of white women having an abortion in 2004, compared with 3 percent of Hispanic women and 5 percent of black women. Jones attributed that to the focus on reducing teenage pregnancy and on increasing contraceptive use.
“We’ve made the most important progress in reducing teen pregnancy and abortion rate, [rather] than reducing unintended pregnancy in older women,” Jones said.
The proportion of all abortions performed for white women decreased from 45 percent in 1994 to 34 percent in 2004, while the proportion for Hispanics increased from 16 percent to 22 percent and the proportion for black women rose from 35 percent to 37 percent.
Study Finds Major Shift in Abortion Demographics – washingtonpost.com.
Abortion and the campaign
A reader has slipped me a couple of abortion-related links from the Catholic News Agency regarding the abortion issue as it has been shaped by the 2008 presidential campaign.
First, Carl Anderson of the Supreme Knights of Columbus has sent an open letter to Senator Joe Biden regarding the Democrats’ misrepresentation of the Catholic Church’s position on abortion.
The bishops who have taken public issue with your remarks on the Church’s historical position on abortion are far from alone. Senator Obama stressed your Catholic identity repeatedly when he introduced you as his running mate, and so your statements carry considerable weight, whether they are correct or not. You now have a unique responsibility when you make public statements about Catholic teaching.
On NBC’s Meet the Press, you appealed to the 13th Century writings of St. Thomas Aquinas to cast doubt on the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church on abortion.
There are several problems with this.
Second, the VP candidacy of Sarah Palin has highlighted Down’s Syndrome pregnancies, yet it remains a fact that few Down’s Syndrome pregnancies ever make it to birth. As I noted in a post ten days ago, some on the left actually fear that might change — that fewer Down’s Syndrome pregnancies might end in abortion, and more will be born.
