Life Links 2/25/09

Ross Douhat comments on William Saletan's New York Times op-ed.

That sounds enormously impressive - until you consider that as of 2004, there were 2.8 million pregnancies among unmarried women in the United States, and roughly 1 million abortions. Which means that the universalization of this program, according to its supporters, might reduce the national abortion rate by somewhere between 1 and 2 percent. That's not nothing, obviously, but it's not a whole lot either - and in a country of millions upon millions, where countless trends shift the number of pregnancies and abortions around from year to year, it's perilously close to statistical noise. When you consider that there's good reason to think that Roe v. Wade raised the abortion rate by well over 50 percent, I think you can see why most opponents of abortion look at a "more birth control" strategy as a cop-out, rather than a cure.

It always riles me when pro-choicers act like more public funding of birth control will dramatically lower the abortion rate and blame the high abortion rate on prolifers not promoting birth control like Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood gets hundreds of millions of dollars from our government every year to promote and distribute birth control. Saletan wrote,

By comparison, 28 percent said they had thought they wouldn't get pregnant, 26 percent said they hadn't expected to have sex and 23 percent said they had never thought about using birth control, had never gotten around to it or had stopped using it.

Whose failure is this (besides the individual's)? Is it the prolife movement's (which receives no federal money to promote birth control) failure? Or is it Planned Parenthood's ($300 million from the government) failure?

Maybe that $300 million would be better spent if not given to America's #1 abortion provider.


The Telegraph has an article on a paralyzed British man who was treated with his own adult stem cells in Ecuador.

Michael Flounders, 53, broke his neck after attempting a handstand and feared he would be forced to use a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

But Mr Flounders is getting the feeling back in his legs for the first time following pioneering surgery in South America.

Politico covers the Sam Brownback/Catholic Advocate letter controversy.

A mystery is brewing over the appearance of Sen. Sam Brownback’s John Hancock on an inflammatory letter questioning the religious bona fides of prominent pro-abortion-rights Catholic Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry.