Life Links 8/4/09

John McCormack has a piece in the Weekly Standard on Congressman Tim Ryan and his slide away from being prolife. It includes this telling part of an interview between the Weekly Standard and Ryan:

TWS: When do you believe life begins?

REP. RYAN: That answer's above my pay grade. That's for God to determine.

TWS: So you're not saying first trimester, second trimester, conception?

REP. RYAN: I don't know. I mean, that's God. God knows when it begins, and when it ends, and all that other stuff.

If Ryan doesn't know when life begins, then on what does he base his supposed "prolife" position?


Illinois' parental notification laws goes into effect today after 14 years of being in court limbo. Abortionists still have a 90-day grace period where they won't be prosecuted for breaking the law. According to the Naperville Sun, Planned Parenthood's throughout Illinois will begin following the law today. Here's a quote that stands out for its cognitive dissonance:

Rev. Emmy Lou Belcher of DuPage Unitarian Universalist Church, said she always thinks it's better if a girl's parents are involved in her personal life. But in cases where incest and abuse is involved, she said, the law could make it "most difficult for the weakest and frail of our society, and that's never a goal of religion."

The Christian Broadcasting Network has a portion of an interview with Joshua DuBois, head of President Obama's "Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships," regarding abortion reduction/common ground.

We’ve been meeting with groups on both sides of this spectrum and in the middle as well and learning their best ideas about that common ground space in the middle. Now we’re bringing all that information back. We’re going to give it to the President. He’s going to think through and talk about where he wants to go forward in that area so we’ve concluded the set of meetings and now we’re just kind of compiling it and getting ready for the President and then he will eventually talk about where he thinks we should be going.”