Life Links 6/2/11

The Department of Health and Human Services has rejected Indiana's plan to defund Planned Parenthood and has given them 60 days to appeal. At this point, Indiana is sticking to their guns and reviewing their options.

Bryan Corbin, a spokesman for Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller, said the letter was being reviewed to determine the state's options but that "we will continue to defend the statute."

Berwick writes in his letter that Indiana should change its plan to conform with federal law, noting that the state has 60 days to appeal. The letter does not state it explicitly, but Indiana could face penalties if it does not comply. In the past, state Medicaid plans that did not conform with federal law have been changed by states before HHS enforced any penalties.

In addition to Berwick's letter, HHS also posted a notice on Wednesday to other interested parties that sought to make clear that the department would take a dim view of similar efforts to ban specific providers from federal funds.

The Montreal Gazette has a story on a former leader of the Tiananmen Square protests who is now focusing her attention on preventing sex-selection abortions in China.

She launched the group All Girls Allowed, which aims to end what she described as "gendercide," the elimination of millions of girls in China and elsewhere through sex-selective abortion.

The group raises money to donate $20 a month to poor Chinese women who raise girls, hoping that their husbands and in-laws would see added value in keeping baby girls instead of considering them to be a burden.

Morgan Zalot has a piece in the Philly Post in which she argues against abortion restrictions based on the experience of a friend who had an abortion as a teenager and is now in nursing school.

Staunch pro-lifers will be quick to judge and condemn, as they always are, and quick to say she didn't consider her "unborn child." But she did—she knew that it wouldn't be fair to bring a young person into a world where she knew the situation just wouldn't work..

It wouldn't be fair to bring a child into this world so she killed him? That's just so convincing. And, of course, Zalot can somehow see into the future and know without a doubt that the situation wouldn't work. Please.

If abortion means the end of what would have been (or, to some, already was) a new life, the question is still valid: What makes that life any more important than the woman's life, forever altered and maybe hindered by the decision to have an unplanned child? What about all the people Rose will help—the lives she'll save when she becomes a nurse—that wouldn't have been, had she chosen otherwise?

Now Zalot is asking what makes the life of an unborn child more important than her friend's "life" except her friend's life wasn't at stake. Her preferences were. She preferred not to be a teen mother. Now she prefers not to have an ex-boyfriend be the father of her child (of course, who knows if their relationship, which continued after the abortion, would have been different if they had a child). None of that threatens her existence. Abortion ended the existence of her child.

Zalot also undermines her friend. Would going to nursing school be more difficult with a child? Sure. That doesn't make it impossible or even that unlikely.

What is it with pro-choicers and their view of mothers? It's like some of them seriously think women are incapable of following their dreams the second a child emerges from their wombs. Suddenly, things like going to nursing school become the equivalent of putting a man on Mars.


The Justice Department has filed another suit claiming a Colorado couple (Kenneth and Jo Scott) violated the FACE Act by standing in front of Planned Parenthood's driveway.


The leadership at Notre Dame is laughably asserting that a Board of Trustee member named Roxanne Martino who has given 25K to EMILY's List over the years didn't know their sole goal was electing pro-choice women.

Let's say, however, that, nevertheless, Martino was, as Father Jenkins and Notebaert tell us, shocked, shocked to learn that Emily's List had anything to do with abortion (which would make her one of the most unaware people in America). Is this a person whose judgment you want on a board of trustees? According to FEC (Federal Election Commission) records, Martino has given the group more than $27,000 starting in 1998 — with her most recent contribution of $5,000 in December.

At this point, the question of judgment goes far beyond Martino. What does it say about Notre Dame's chairman of the board and its priest-president that they would send out the dissembling emails they have?