Life Links 9/15/08

Reflections of a Paralytic on a new McCain ad on stem cell research.

Indeed, “change is coming” to Washington. It looks like no matter who is president, we can say goodbye to our current stem cell policy as laid out in the White House stem cell report.

I think it’s a pretty lame response to Biden’s comments but McCain’s position doesn’t really leave him with a better response.


Ed Whelan responds to a recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal on abortion and the election.


A woman in Massachusetts was assaulted by her boyfriend after she told him she didn’t want to get an abortion.

A city man angry because his pregnant girlfriend did not want to get an abortion slammed her head against a refrigerator Wednesday, according to police and prosecutors.

Joshua W. Figler, 24, of Frederick Street is accused of assaulting his 20-year-old girlfriend after continued bickering over the woman's pregnancy.....

"(She) wants to keep the baby and refuses to get an abortion," said Belknap, noting that Figler "has become more frustrated and aggressive" toward the woman since learning about the pregnancy.

The Washington Post has an article on raising children with Down Syndrome which contains an almost unbelievably sad story.

Many parents also talk about how the phone never rings with invitations for a play date for their children or an offer to help carpool. Sometimes, they find themselves answering people who suggest that their child should never have been born.

That happened to Tia Marsili, 49, of Vienna while driving from her hometown in western Pennsylvania to Virginia Beach with her sister. The trip lasted six hours and was not without some fussing from Marsili's daughters, Sheridan and Skye. Both girls have Down syndrome. Sheridan's condition had come as a surprise after birth, but Marsili knew from prenatal testing that Skye would have Down syndrome.

"My sister looked at me and said, 'Why didn't you abort her?' " Marsili recalled. "I said, 'What? Because we love her, and she's my baby, and we love her!' 'But you knew,' my sister said. . . . It was pretty shocking. Even people that close to me."