Life Links 3/10/09

Today is one of the least celebrated "holidays" in America. It's National Abortion Provider Appreciation Day. Only a few people will be celebrating. One of them is the Nation's Katha Politt. The New York Times fulfilled their duty a few days early by printing this puff piece on the graying of abortion providers whose sole source seems to be the claims of abortion providers. Another is former abortionist Suzanne Poppema who has a RH Reality Check piece entitled, "Save the Endangered Abortion Provider!"

We're still waiting for Hallmark to make us a special line of greeting cards, but the very existence of a day honoring abortion providers is a step in the right direction.

You'll be waiting for a long time. Imagine a card section for abortionists in the card shop next to Husband, Wife, Mother and Father. What would a form thank you card for an abortionist say?

"To the person who made me wait in a crowded room all day, charged me $400 and then saw me for a minute or so before vaccuuming out my uterus, you're the best physician I've ever met (well, I guess we really didn't meet, did we?)."


Adam Keiper notes Obama's empty rhetoric about understanding the concerns of people opposed to killing embryos.

What room is there for ethics in President Obama’s thinking? He says that he “understand[s]” the concerns of opponents of this research, but this is the sort of empty and condescending acknowledgement of an opponent’s views encouraged by the teachers of conflict resolution — a formulaic expression of the sort that careful listeners will frequently hear from our new president. Neither the president’s speech nor his executive order actually acknowledge what the ethical concerns are. He assures the nation that the research will proceed “responsibly” and that “the perils can be avoided” — but from the point of view of opponents of this research, it is his policy itself that leads irresponsibly toward the peril of embryo exploitation and experimentation, toward accepting the destruction of one class of human beings for the benefit of another.

In more "Obama understanding" news, Wesley Smith notes how Obama also rescinded President Bush's order to fund research which attempted to find alternatives to methods of creating pluripotent stem cells without killing human embryos. This is really spiteful and there's just really no good reason for it.

I can think of only two reasons for this action, for which I saw no advocacy either in the election or during the first weeks of the Administration: First, vindictiveness against all things "Bush" or policies considered by the Left to be "pro life;" and second, a desire to get the public to see unborn human life as a mere corn crop ripe for the harvest.

So much for taking the politics out of science!

Australia has dropped a policy which mirrored the United States' Mexico City policy.