Life Links 10/16/08

Jill Stanek and Ed Morrissey cover Obama’s misleading response when McCain brought up the Born Alive Infant Protection Act during the debate last night.

I think McCain did alright with the abortion question but I was waiting for him to bring up Obama’s favoring the use tax dollars to pay for abortions and wish his response regarding “health” and abortion was a little more exact or call Obama out for his campaign’s “clarification” regarding abortion and mental health. Or maybe mention how BAIPA passed in the U.S. Senate 98-0. McCain also said “Breyer” when he meant Alito.


CQ Politics has the text of the debate here. The abortion question comes up approximately 3/4 of the way down. I just don’t know how any rationale person can actually find the following Obama line convincing:

There was a bill that was put forward before the Illinois Senate that said you have to provide lifesaving treatment and that would have helped to undermine Roe v. Wade

What? How would declaring born-alive infants who survive abortions “persons” help to undermine Roe v. Wade? Does Roe prevent states from saying born-alive infants aren’t “persons?” Could someone from Planned Parenthood or Barack Obama’s campaign provide an explanation for this assertion? Maybe someone in the media could actually ask for some reasoning to this nonsensical statement? I won’t be holding my breath. The media “fact-checkers” have been exceedingly horrendous on this issue.


Sharon Begley reports on how a leading scientist thinks it will take a “major miracle” for embryonic stem cells to treat Parkinson’s. Apparently, when transplanted, they eventually change in the same way the body’s original cells change.

In other words, whatever went wrong in the brain originally to produce Parkinson’s was still going wrong, ravaging the transplanted cells. Very bad news for Parkinson’s patients who have pinned their hopes on stem cells—and ironic given the prominent, courageous role Michael J. Fox and his foundation have played in drumming up public support for stem cell research.

Unfortunately, earlier in the piece Begley (who is a proponent of embryonic stem cell research who ignores the success of adult stem cells) doesn’t inform readers the successful treatment of blindness by British research Pete Coffey was with adult stem cells from the patients’ own eyes.


The Bay City Times comes out against Proposal 2.

Proposal 2 would allow researchers in Michigan to harvest embryonic stem cells in the state, and prohibit any attempt in the Legislature to tinker with the law.

This is a textbook example of what we mean about locking laws into the vault of the Michigan Constitution. If flaws in this proposal later appear, it's too late to tweak the law after it becomes part of the Constitution.

Life Links 10/15/08

Robert George on Barack Obama's abortion extremism and the arguments of prolife Obama supporters.

They say that his economic and social policies would so diminish the demand for abortion that the overall number would actually go down-despite the federal subsidizing of abortion and the elimination of hundreds of pro-life laws. The way to save lots of unborn babies, they say, is to vote for the pro-abortion-oops! ''pro-choice''-candidate. They tell us not to worry that Obama opposes the Hyde Amendment, the Mexico City Policy (against funding abortion abroad), parental consent and notification laws, conscience protections, and the funding of alternatives to embryo-destructive research. They ask us to look past his support for Roe v. Wade, the Freedom of Choice Act, partial-birth abortion, and human cloning and embryo-killing. An Obama presidency, they insist, means less killing of the unborn.

This is delusional.

JT at Between Two Worlds has a nice piece which summarizes George's arguments and links to various pieces of legislation on life issues where Obama's position is always on the wrong side.


George Wiegel has a long piece in Newsweek touching on basically the same subject entitled "Prolife Catholics for Obama."

And should an Obama administration reintroduce large-scale federal funding of abortion, the bishops will have to confront a grave moral question they have managed to avoid for decades, thanks to the Hyde amendment: does the payment of federal taxes that go to support abortion constitute a form of moral complicity in an "intrinsic evil"? And if so, what should the conscientious Catholic citizen do?

About which, it will be very interesting to hear what professors Kmiec, Kaveny and Cafardi have to say.

Brent Bozell on the major network blackout of Barack Obama's record on abortion.

Try this on for size: ABC, CBS, and NBC together have unloaded more than a thousand stories on Obama’s presidential campaign, and we’re still waiting for the first broadcast network TV story devoted to examining Obama’s abortion record....

Remember all this omission when you see vapid pseudo-journalists like Jon Stewart oozing to Michelle Obama that her family has been "vetted about as much as a family can be vetted." Remember all this when the networks claim the campaign should be about "the issues." Obama’s been on the presidential campaign trail for twenty months, and the TV networks are still giving him a pass. At this point, it isn’t accidental, nor is it coincidental. It is deliberate.

Life Links 10/14/08

Kathryn-Jean Lopez lists some of Obama's positions on abortion.

Barack Obama has told the Planned Parenthood Action Fund that the first thing he will sign as president will be the Freedom of Choice Act, which will sweep away limits on abortion — state and federal — including restrictions on government funding of abortion and laws protecting anti-abortion health care providers.

Barack Obama has condemned the Supreme Court’s Gonzales v. Carhart ruling, which affirmed the federal partial-birth abortion ban.

Barack Obama supports federal funding of abortion.

Barack Obama opposes the Hyde Amendment, which restricts use of taxpayer dollars for supporting abortion.

Melinda Henneberger has an article in Slate on how some prolife women she's talked to will be voting for Obama this year for various reasons. She seems to see this as some sort of trend that prolife women are tired of voting for Republicans based on the abortion issue. I'm highly skeptical of this kind of interview less than 10 people study and then try to come to a conclusion. Isn't this the same kind of article we see every year where Catholics who supposedly voted for Republicans previously are now gung-ho for the Democrat.


Jill Stanek discusses her interaction with "fact-checking" Newsweek journalist Michael Scherer.

Given the time spent with and information given to Scherer, I should have been shocked today by his Groundhog Day follow-up article, "How valid is Palin's abortion attack on Obama?" but by now I'm used to MSM's willing suspension of belief in the truth about Obama, because the truth is just so incredibly awful, and he seems so nice. Obama couldn't possibly support infanticide of certain preborns, despite the fact he does. He just couldn't.

The Detroit Free Press has an article on the rehabilitation work of a woman who traveled to Portugal to receive an adult stem cell transplant for her spinal cord surgery. It's a reminder that there is no "silver bullet" to heal severe spinal cord injuries.


Pro-choicers in South Dakota recently held an event to show their displeasure with a proposal to make abortion illegal (with some exceptions). I don't think rallying for abortion in South Dakota is a big crowd getter. The article notes they had "more than 2 dozen" attend the rally. Is a rally really a rally if only 25 people show up?

Life Links 10/13/08

It’s about time. The McCain campaign seems to have finally realized it’s time to seriously criticized Barack Obama’s voting record on abortion and the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. LifeNews has Sarah Palin’s full remarks. Time has a skewed “fact-check” on Sarah Palin’s remarks and the BAIPA issue but it includes for the first time (or at least as far as I can remember) in the mainstream media some of the text from Barack Obama’s nonsensical speech against the Illinois BAIPA (my guess is the writer, Michael Scherer, actually found Obama’s reasoning valid). The fact check doesn’t include any information about Barack Obama’s years of misrepresenting why he voted against the Illinois BAIPA, him calling NRLC “liars” or his campaign’s admittance of Obama’s misrepresentation. Both campaigns are unfortunately claiming BAIPA required providing medical treatment.


Another week and another reprogramming cell advance. This time without using any viruses.


Those Michigan specific diseases? Proponents of Proposal 2 in Michigan have no valid reason for why they can’t merely import embryonic stem cells from other states. Why do they have to kill human embryos for research in Michigan? Here’s the most recent example of their attempt to find a reason.

Biology Prof. Sue O’Shea said relying on out-of-state embryos is limiting.

“We would like very much to make disease models, to study diseases that Michigan people have,” she said.

Ummm.... Are there any diseases which are Michigan specific besides maybe being a Detroit Lions fan? I know this is a college paper but if someone said something like that, wouldn’t your first question be, “Well, what diseases do people in Michigan have that people in other states don’t?”


Meanwhile, obviously biased Detroit Free Press reporter Megha Satyanarayana has an article about Bill Clinton trip to Michigan to help raise money for Proposal 2. President Bush’s embryonic stem cell funding rules are said to have restricted “all federal funding for the work, with minor exceptions. Attempts by Congress to override Bush have been unsuccessful. Both presidential candidates have indicated they would overturn the ban.” The event included testimony from a young woman with a spinal cord injury who was treated with adult stem cells in China.


Proposition 71 in California promised Cures! Cures! Cures! Jennifer Lahl talks about how its currently more like Buildings! Buildings! Buildings!

What's scarier than a Barack Obama presidency?

How about Supreme Court Justice Jennifer Granholm?

Michigan's pro-choice Governor Jennifer Granholm could supposedly be on his short list for appointees to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Another source of pluripotent stem cells

A study in Nature finds that stem cells taken from men’s testicles seem to be as versatile as embryonic stem cells. The research was done by German scientists. Germany has a policy against the killing embryos for research which is very similar to Michigan’s laws. Here’s the AP story.

The new study used cells taken from biopsied tissue from 22 different men undergoing various medical treatments. The men ranged in age from 17 to 81. Researchers found that after a few weeks of growth, the cells could differentiate into various types of cells just like those taken from embryos.

Life Links 10/8/08

Douglas Johnson compiles the case against Barack Obama on prolife issues and the mainstream media's failure to highlight Obama's positions on issues like tax-funded abortions and the Freedom of Choice Act.


David Lewis Schaefer puts some honesty in the debate about Roe v. Wade and what would happen if it was overturned.


The Columbus Dispatch has an article on a case where Planned Parenthood failed to notify the parents of a 14-year-old girl who had an abortion. They also failed to report statutory rape to the authorities. The girl's parents are now suing Planned Parenthood and a portion of the lawsuit will be argued at the Ohio Supreme Court.

Planned Parenthood lawyer Daniel J. Buckley denied that the medical provider shirks its responsibility to inform authorities of abuse.

Yeah, too bad Students for Life of America has some rather convincing evidence that Planned Parenthood employees fail to report statutory rape when they are aware of it.


Proposal 2 backers are bringing in the big guns to raise money for them. Bill Clinton will speak at a fundraiser at the Oakland County Airport. The minimum price for a seat is $500. The article by Tanner Ali has this passage,

"This decision has huge implications for the university. ... This decision has huge implications for the state," Taubman said, adding that 8,000 jobs would be created instantly if the ballot proposal is passed.

Michigan has some of the most stringent stem cell research laws in the country, with scientists using new human embryos for research facing a $10 million fine and up to 10 years in prison.

8,000 jobs instantly created because researchers at the University of Michigan can kill human embryos instead of merely importing stem cell lines? Only a complete idiot would believe that. The ridiculous "economics" study funded by proponents of killing embryos only estimated something like 400 biotech jobs and 300 additional jobs.

Also, the $10 million fine and 10 years in jail is the maximum punishment for human cloning not killing human embryos for research. The Detroit News and Free Press constantly get this wrong because they're just parroting a talking point of proponents of killing human embryos for research and haven't ever actually taken the time to read Michigan's law.

Obama's Health Care Plan and Abortion

Will Barack Obama's health care plan cover abortions? His campaign doesn't seem too open to sharing that information.

Life Links 10/6/08

The Los Angeles Times is featuring an article on how some families who want to give their embryonic children for medical research are facing some obstacles. The article includes a rather sad quote from the embryos’ parents.

"I thought of them as potential life, but I don't think of them as children," says Chris Bailey. "They are definitely more than sperm and egg."

After much discussion, the couple decided to donate the embryos to research.

"We felt we were so lucky that research had been done and [that it] gave us the opportunity to have children," says Tanya Bailey. "So why not give our embryos to research as well to help somebody else out?"

How about the simple fact they’re your children and not research materials?


The Los Angeles Times also has an article on how donating embryo for adoption can supposedly be difficult except the only reason it was difficult for the lone individual they profile is because she didn’t want to use an embryo adoption service (instead she’s just trying to find someone on the internet) and wants the adoptive family to make her the children’s godmother. To me, Leanna Wolfe seems to be more focused on what she can get out of donating her embryos (the embryos were conceived with both egg and sperm donors) as opposed to focusing on giving those embryos the best chance at life. This is typically how it works with donations - if you’re focused on getting as much as you can out of a “donation” then it isn’t really that much of a donation.


The Boston Globe has an article on abortion with video of Cardinal Sean O’Malley’s address at the recent Respect Life Walk in Boston.


Rebecca Taylor on human embryos and the duty to die mentality.

But what I realized is that Lady Warnock and others who share her opinions really think there are humans that have a "duty to die." Not just the sick or elderly who are a burden on their families, but also the "left-over" embryos from IVF.

This twisted logic says that "left-over" human embryos in the deep freeze have a "duty to die" to give the rest of us "cures." It is the frozen embryo's duty to be ripped open for the "betterment of society" just like it is the duty of the sick and eldery to get rid of themselves.

Rita Marker writes a letter to Mary Warnock explaining why her attempts to legalize assisted suicide in Britain have failed.

By now you should realize that Lee has been very effective in the years since she first worked on a proposal that mirrored yours. And, Baroness, you can also be effective. All you need to do is remember a few crucial points:

* Be very careful with language. Use soothing phrases.
* Don't try to achieve your entire goal at one time. Use a step-by-step approach.
* Manufacture statistics. Use them to bolster your claims, whatever they are.
* Portray any opposition as "anti-choice religious zealots."
* Keep all focus on the current proposal. Never discuss your plans for expansion.
* Always portray your motivation as caring and compassionate. Never, ever, let anyone know that you see legalized assisted suicide and euthanasia as a means of cost containment.

Life Links 10/2/08

Jon Shields writes on how Republicans need to educate the public about Roe v. Wade when they’re asked about it.

What these candidates do not seem to know is that surveys also reveal massive ignorance about what Roe means. James Davison Hunter, a sociologist at the University of Virginia, has shown that the vast majority of Americans believe Roe allows more restrictions than it actually does. Such “‘mass legal illiteracy,’” according to Hunter, explains why “Americans want to keep Roe intact, but also favor proposals that would restrict (some severely) what it currently allows, if not undermine it altogether.”

While the simple “I’m prolife” response to any question about abortion may be designed to lessen the number of individuals who are turned off by the answer, it doesn’t provide the opportunity to influence anyone.


The Matthew 25 Network should be ashamed of itself. It’s one thing for a prolife Christian to support Obama. It’s quite another for a self-proclaimed Christian organization to intentionally mislead people about a candidate’s position on abortion just because they favor him because of other issues.


In another example of pro-choice intolerance and violence, Jason Shireman has been charged with aggravated assault after allegedly trying to run over abortion protesters with his car.

During an interview with police, Shireman stated that he drove onto the sidewalk to show the demonstrators "what he thought about them." He denied trying to run over them.

Wesley Smith on the Governator’s most recent veto:

And what was Schwarzenegger doing as the CIRM bought Cadillac buildings on California citizens' credit card? Rather than chide the administrators to spend the people's borrowed money more prudently, the governor instead enthusiastically applauded the agency's opulence in a CIRM press release.

And now comes the cruelest cut of all; the veto of Democratic state Sen. Sheila Kuehl's SB1565, which would have forced the CIRM to keep Proposition 71's campaign promise to help the poor by, as a Senate committee analysis put it, guaranteeing "uninsured Californians access to any drug that is, in whole or in part, the result of research funded by the CIRM."

"Big problems with Proposal 2? That's okay, just change them later"

The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press and their cookie cutter editorial board writers can’t help themselves from again falsely calling Michigan’s law against killing human embryos a ban on embryonic stem cell research. Why their editorial board writers continue to promote this lie over and over again is just more evidence they aren’t trustworthy news sources.

What I love most (besides the non-stop throwing around of the "embryonic stem cell ban" line in a state where embryonic stem cell research is federally funded) is the defense in both papers of how Proposal 2 prevents any state or local restrictions on human embryo research. State Senator Tom George recently highlighted this rather large problem in a Free Press editorial. The Free Press writes, “But that doesn't preclude the Legislature from seeking another constitutional change if that appears warranted” while the News notes, “Opponents warn that other language in this amendment, which prohibits future regulations on this research, could be problematic, and they have a point. In a new area of research, regulation may be necessary. But if that necessity arises, a process is in place to revise the state Constitution.”

Yeah, because changing the state Constitution is something that’s just so easy to do. It’s not like it takes millions of dollars to pass ballot proposals or anything.

Life Links 10/1/08

CBS News has the text of the part of Katie Couric's interview with Sarah Palin which aired last night. Here's the question Couric asked about abortion,

If a 15-year-old is raped by her father, do you believe it should be illegal for her to get an abortion, and why?

Unfortunately, politicians never answer this question very well. The usually just basically assert they're prolife without ever explaining the prolife position. However, we can all see the media bias here. I just can't wait until she or one of the other major network news anchors asks Obama about his position on tax-funded abortion and the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.


Stephen Waldman provides his take on the Obama-Born Alive controversy. While most of it is fair, he seems to have accepted Doug Kmiec's erroronous take that the legislation would force hospitals to try to save the lives of infants who aren't viable.


Archbishop John Vlazny has strongly criticized Oregon's governor Ted Kulongoski for hosting a fundraiser for NARAL. Kulongoski attends a Catholic church.

"This is a source of embarrassment for our church and a scandal for the Catholic community," Vlazny said in a statement. "For a Catholic governor to host an event of this sort seems a deliberate dissent from the teachings of the church."

Life Links 9/30/08

Newsweek asked it's On Faith panelists the following question:

John McCain and Sarah Palin say it's time to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. Do you agree? What is the right moral choice?

Here are their responses. I'm sure there's lot of good blogging material here. On contributer, Willis Elliott considers single-issue, anti-abortion voters immoral and claims people who vote based on prolife issues are practicing "fetolatry, the idolatry of sacralizing the conceptus/embryo/fetus."

Also notice how Elliott doesn't seem to understand Justice Scalia's position on abortion. It's not that Scalia thinks "anti-abortion laws violate constitutional freedoms." Scalia thinks the Constitution doesn't say anything about abortion so Supreme Court should leave abortion regulations up to the legislative branch. If he thought "anti-abortion laws" were so bad, he probably wouldn't be the so a big boogey-man for the pro-choice movement.


Senator Sam Brownback has a column on his legislation to provide support and information to parents whose children are diagnosed with Down Syndrome.


Archbishop William Burke was interviewed in an Italian newspaper and discussed how the Democratic Party is changing into the Party of Death.

Maybe we should lower the voting age

Then we might get some better political ads. Not all of these are very good (I’m considerably more partial to the ads directed at elementary school children like #25, #20, #14, and #12) but you might get a couple of laughs.

Life Links 9/29/08

The Los Angeles Times has a long article about abortion in Russia. Here’s a classic quote from the story:

"The spiritual position," said Natalia Karpovich, a leader of the State Duma committee focused on family, women and children, "should be that this is murder and the woman who does this commits a sin. Still, I want to stress it's a woman's choice."

It’s a woman’s choice to commit murder?


Adult stem cells have been used to help treat patients with alcoholic liver cirrhosis.


Linda Hirschmann has a typical Hirschman piece in the Washington Post making some ludicrous claims about what could happen if Roe v. Wade is overturned.


The Argus Leader runs down the exceptions in South Dakota’s most recent attempt to ban abortion and allows both sides to explain their position.

Life Links 9/26/08

Yuval Levin and Wesley Smith have both commented on the recent advance of creating induced pluripotent stem cells in mice using adenoviruses instead of retroviruses. This work clears another objection from embryonic stem cell proponents who often claim induced pluripotent stem cells can't replace embryonic stem cells because of the danger of using retroviruses.

Levin writes,

More then ever, it appears that the promise of such pluripotent cells can be explored—all the way from basic science to the clinic—without the need to use or destroy human embryos, and so without political or ethical controversy. As President Bush put it back in 2006, in defending his approach to the issue and describing the iPS technique (which was then still largely theoretical), science and ethics need not be at odds; with the right policies and the right scientific techniques, they can be championed together. Here's hoping.

I'm worried no matter how far induced pluripotent stem cell research advances, there will still be scientists who'll want to kill human embryos for their stem cells.


A judge in Australia has ruled that an 18-month pregnant 12-year-old girl who has the intellect and emotional maturity of a 9-year-old can have an abortion. There's nothing in the articles I've read about finding the individual who raped her.

The girl had told her carers she wanted the termination and her parents had both consented. However, it was considered their consent was beyond their powers and a judge's declaration was needed.

Hmmm.... can someone with the intellect of 9-year-old really understand having an abortion. I'm guessing her "carers" had their own thoughts on what should happen to this girl's child.


Time profiles a new book on what would happen in the states if Roe v. Wade fell. The book is written by Paul Linton, who works as special counsel to the prolife law firm the Thomas More Law Society.

Life Links 9/25/08

The Brownback-Kennedy bill to give information to parents whose child is diagnosed with Down Syndrome has passed the U.S. Senate on a voice vote.


A Fox affiliate in Alabama has a story on a woman who went to Germany to receive an injection of adult stem cells to help treat her spinal cord injury.

She went to Germany in August. Adult stem cells were taken from her bone marrow and injected into her spine. She says she's starting to have feeling in her legs.

Tara Blackwell told FOX10 News, "They inserted 9,000 stem cells into my spine. I can feel my left thigh, and what's really weird when I itch my right shoulder, I can feel it in my hip.

The Boston Phoenix is featuring the abortion story of an anonymous pro-choice woman.

Back at the dorm, hours later, I know that I writhed in my twin bed, suffering from debilitating, convulsing cramps. My roommates, best friend, and boyfriend hovered around; they brought me pain killers, Tiger Balm, hot-water bottles, and applesauce, and all the while they stroked my head and conferenced in the background about how I was doing. I bled profusely as my body rejected the fetus that had been described to me as “the size of a grain of rice.” I threw up. And finally, I fell asleep.

Life Links 9/24/08

The Detroit Free Press has a couple of articles on embryonic stem cell research which give you a clear idea of where reporter Megha Satyanarayana stands on the issue. One article focuses on Proposal 2 while the other talks to a woman who went through IVF and would have given any "leftover" embryos to be adopted, if she had any. At the end of the second article I'm wondering to myself, "Why didn't they interview someone who actually had their embryos adopted or adopted embryos?"

In the first article, Dr. Sean Morrison intentionally misleads the reporter on a number counts (failing to note how U of M gets federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, claiming getting new embryonic stem cells is "costly," and insinuating Michael Clarke (the unnamed researcher who went to Stanford) did so because of Michigan's laws. Of course, Satyanarayana fails to actually check into any of Morrison's claims. The rest of the article displays the typical reporting style of someone with an axe to grind. The points of opponents of Proposal 2 are quickly dismissed by lengthy quotes from proponents of Proposal 2 while the opponents of Proposal 2 aren't given any space to correct false claims from Dr. Morrison and other Proposal 2 advocates. The article concludes by comparing opposition to killing human embryos for research with the opposition to the use of insulin.

Keep it up Satyanarayana and you'll have a long career in an industry which is continuing to lose the trust of the American people because of obviously biased articles like yours.


The Chicago Tribune fact checks Obama's ad which mislead listeners on McCain position on "stem cell research." If you're going to mislead people about your opponent's position at least claim he's opposed to embryonic stem cell research since no one is opposed to all types of stem cell research.


Rebecca Taylor examines a statement by Wisconsin's Governor Jim Doyle on embryonic stem cell research.


Wesley Smith contrasts the results of a trial of a mother who killed her disabled child with Robert Lattimore who killed his disabled child but claimed he was doing so out of compassion.

Life Links 9/23/08

Both the Washington Post and Newsweek have stories about a Alan Guttmacher study which was supposedly released today (the closest thing I could find on their web site this morning was a study with a release date in August) on the demographics of who has abortions. UPDATE:Here's a link to the study.


Denis Hart, the Archbishop of Victoria is warning Catholic hospitals in Victoria could close their maternity wards if a new abortion law passes. The law would force doctor who object to performing abortions to refer women to an abortion provider. It appears the Archbishop's warning aren't going unheeded. Proponents of the bill don't seem to fully grasp why doctors who oppose performing abortions don't want to refer women to abortion providers.


Steven Waldman on the disappearance of Barack Obama's abortion reduction plan:

My uninformed theory on what's happened:there was always a tension for them between two goals: 1) appealing to pro-choice moderate women and 2) appealing to pro-life moderate evangelicals and Catholics. They've now concluded:

Winning moderate evangelicals is hopeless and, it turns out, centrist Catholics just dont care all that much abortion. Given that, it makes more political sense to reach out to those pro-choice women.

Of course this obviously leaves them open to charges that they didn't believe in abortion reduction all that much in the first place.

On a similar note, Cardinal Justin Rigali, chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities, sent a letter to all members of Congress regarding the Freedom of Choice Act along with a legal analysis of what FOCA would do. In the letter he notes how FOCA will the have opposite effect of the supposed bi-partisan goal of reducing abortion.

"However," wrote Cardinal Rigali, "there is one thing absolutely everyone should be able to agree on: We can't reduce abortions by promoting abortion.... No one who sponsors or supports legislation like FOCA can credibly claim to be part of a good-faith discussion on how to reduce abortions."

What did Barack Obama promise would be the first thing he did once elected president? That's right.

Muskegon Chronicle explains embryonic stem cell research

Classic. A Muskegon Chronicle editorial in favor of Proposal 2 explains the opposition to killing human embryos for research thusly:

Those unfamiliar with the debate may wonder what all the hue and cry is. It's over the fact that the research material is created from the fetuses of human embryos, a terrible sin in the eyes of those opposed to this kind of scientific exploration.

The fetuses of human embryos? Seriously? The phrase “the fetuses of human embryos” is in a newspaper’s editorial. This was written by someone and was edited by at least one editor, if not multiple editors.

I’m guessing the writer means to say something like “the research material is created from the bodies of human embryos” but didn’t want to say “bodies.” I don’t know. Your guess is as good as mine.

This gives you a taste of how incredibly ignorant your average newspaper editorial board is on the subject of stem cell research. They don’t even know the basic terminology and can’t even explain why some people oppose killing human embryos for their stem cells. Is there not one individual on the Muskegon Chronicle editorial board with the knowledge to explain to his/her co-workers that there is no such thing as "fetuses of human embryos?"

Life Links 9/22/08

Jill Stanek notes the numerous deceptions in a Barack Obama campaign ad which attempts to defend him from criticism on his Born Alive votes. An additional deception would be the claim about McCain running on a platform to ban abortion in cases of rape and incest.


This is hilarious but unfortunately not surprising story. People in favor of killing human embryos for stem cells pay a college professor an inordinate amount of money to write a pathetic study based on admittedly “arbitrary” estimates. The Detroit Free Press writes two stories on the study without actually examining the study or putting the paper before an unbiased source. A Political science professor at Michigan State easily notices the paper’s flaws.


Meanwhile, James Thomson’s companies are shifting to focus their work on non-embryonic stem cells. HT: Wesley Smith

Friday Baby Blogging

The How-Can-She-Sleep-Like-That? Edition

When Does Life Begin?

RH Reality Check has recently started a series of videos on abortion and issues related to abortion featuring Amanda Marcotte. The first video I watched focuses on the Amanda Marcotte's inability to accept the scientific reality that the life of a human being begins at conception. The commentary of the video is the usual laughable diatribe of Marcotte assertions and silly arguments. Most of sounded like talking points I've heard from her before.

The best part occurs at around 3:14 when Marcotte claims, "The argument that life begins at conception at fertilization is a fundamental Christian belief that has no scientific evidence behind it."

This really shows how astoundingly ignorant she is. She doesn't even understand what a fundamental Christian belief is (last I checked "life begins at fertilization" isn't in the Apostle's Creed) and has never taken even a brief look at the scientific evidence to answer the question of when life begins.

What's funny is the video is supposed to be Marcotte debunking the prolife position but I have trouble seeing how Marcotte comes off as any more persuasive than the strawman they set up for her to beat up.

Life Links 9/18/08

Ramesh Ponnuru outlines the numerous problems with Doug Kmiec’s attempt to defend Barack Obama’s votes against the giving basic rights to infants who survive abortion.

I find it odd that Kmiec calls the Born Alive legislation a “legal charade” but says that he would have voted for it. Are their other pieces of prolife legislation, Kmiec is now willing to call “legal charades” since Obama voted against them? The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, perhaps?

What’s not surprising is that Kmiec never mentions Obama numerous varying excuses for his votes against this legislation and instead comes up with a new and false excuse. What’s also not surprising is Kmiec never mentions how legislation identical to the legislation Obama voted down passed the U.S. Senate 98-0.


Google will now allow religious organizations to place ads on abortion after their policy was challenged.


Michael G. Franc writes to the Palin children about how their brother Trig is a blessing by talking about his experience with his brother John:

I came to realize that this was the theme of John’s life and, if the Lord indeed works in mysterious ways, this is the reason John entered my life and the lives of those around me. He made us better people, bringing forth “the better angels of our nature.”

Life Links 9/17/08

CNN is covering BornAliveTruth's television ad regarding Obama's votes on the Illinois Born Alive Infant Protection Act. Obama campaign is still struggling to come up with a plausible explaination for Obama's votes and his various past reasons for voting against this legislation. Wouldn't it be so much easier (instead of coming up with lame excuse after lame excuse) for Obama to admit he made a mistake and trusted the wrong special interest (i.e. Planned Parenthood) on this legislation?


In a paper in Down's Syndrome Research and Practice, Down's Syndrome Education International chief executive Frank Buckley and Professor Sue Buckley are estimating that two children without Down Syndrome die during testing for Down Syndrome for every 3 children who are aborted after it is discovered they have Down Syndrome.


In a post about how Christians and non-Christians should think about their positions on abortion, Washington Post reporter Sally Quinn provides her rather unthoughtful position on when the unborn become human beings.

I have total respect for those who believe that life begins at conception. I do not. My belief is that when a fetus is viable, when it can survive on its own, then it is a human being. My beliefs are based, not on religion, but on my own sense of morality. I do not want others imposing their religious beliefs on me.

So she bases her position on whether the unborn are alive or not on whether she thinks its okay to kill them or not. So the unborn before viability aren't alive because Sally Quinn thinks it should be legal to kill them but after viability they're alive because Sally Quinn doesn't think it should be legal to kill them.

Who needs embryology when we have Sally Quinn's morality to tell us whether the unborn are alive or not?

Jonathan Moreno gets it wrong on stem cells again

I’ll try to have more on this tomorrow but Jonathan Moreno and Rick Weiss have an editorial in the Boston Globe entitled "GOP wants to close stem cell lab doors. The editorial falsely claims the GOP’s platform calls for a “ban (on) all embryonic stem cell research.”

The platform does no such thing. It calls for the U.S. to ban "experimentation on human embryos for research purposes." This is much different than calling for a ban on any research using cells which were obtained from human embryos. There’s a difference between research on human embryos and research on human embryonic stem cells. The language of the GOP platform would ban the former but not affect research on embryonic stem cells which were previously extracted from human embryos. If the proposal were passed into law then federal law would mirror current Michigan law where research on human embryonic stem cells is legal but killing and non-therapeutic experimentation on human embryos is illegal.

Here’s a good rule of thumb: If Jonathan Moreno is making a claim with regards to stem cell research, the claim is most likely false.

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."

Life Links 9/11/08

Father Thomas Williams on Joe Biden’s recent appearance on Meet the Press:

The more serious problem for Joe Biden at this point is not the loss of his credibility as a Catholic, but as a person of conscience. When you say on national television that you agree with your Church that abortion is murder, but that you intend to support legislation that keeps abortion fully available, you leave voters wondering why you would support a right to what you consider to be murder.

There is stupid and then there’s really stupid:

A Democratic Party leader said Wednesday that Sarah Palin's "primary qualification" for the vice presidency is that she has not had an abortion.

Dr. Andre Lalonde, executive vice president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in Ottawa, is worried all the news surrounding Sarah Palin and her son Trig will have an “implication for abortion issues in Canada,” namely women in Canada choosing not to abort their children diagnosed with Down Syndrome.


Camille Paglia (a pro-choicer) writes on abortion and the Democratic Party:

Hence I have always frankly admitted that abortion is murder, the extermination of the powerless by the powerful. Liberals for the most part have shrunk from facing the ethical consequences of their embrace of abortion, which results in the annihilation of concrete individuals and not just clumps of insensate tissue. The state in my view has no authority whatever to intervene in the biological processes of any woman's body, which nature has implanted there before birth and hence before that woman's entrance into society and citizenship....

It is nonsensical and counterproductive for Democrats to imagine that pro-life values can be defeated by maliciously destroying their proponents. And it is equally foolish to expect that feminism must for all time be inextricably wed to the pro-choice agenda. There is plenty of room in modern thought for a pro-life feminism -- one in fact that would have far more appeal to third-world cultures where motherhood is still honored and where the Western model of the hard-driving, self-absorbed career woman is less admired.

More news in the Boston Globe on the sinking biotechnology ship that is Advanced Cell Technology.

Life sciences executives in Boston said yesterday that it is difficult for stem-cell research firms to secure funding because their work focuses on unproven and potentially controversial science.

But those same executives also said Advanced Cell Technology’s trouble could be linked to its history of making scientific claims that later could not be substantiated.

Jesus was a Community Organizer?

That’s a slogan which some Obama supporters ( including one Congressman) have laid claim to. Often added to the slogan is noting that Ponius Pilate was a governor. The subtext there is rather obvious.

It’s the kind slogan people who aren’t Christians and don’t personally know Christians think will somehow be persuasive on Christians. It won’t.

It won’t work because I doubt a single person ever claimed Jesus was a community organizer before Barack Obama started running for president.

It won’t work because people who worship Jesus Christ as their Risen Lord and Savior don’t think of the work he did here on earth as “community organizing.” They think of the work Christ did on such a higher level that they’d actually be insulted when people claim Jesus was a community organizer. It’s not that community organizing is bad work that should be insulted but when you have Jesus changing the history of world by preaching and teaching, performing numerous miraculous feats, asking people to leave their possessions and follow him, dying on the cross to reconcile humanity with God and then rising from the grave and ascending into heaven, community organizing isn’t anywhere near the right label for that work. The only people who would think it is are people so enamored with Obama that they’ve lost their perspective on what Christ was sent to earth to do or individuals who are ignorant about what Jesus’ life and message were actually about.

The slogan is so idiotic, I could only find one attempt to actually make an argument for it. In a blog entry, Daily Kos diarist Spiritual Progressive attempts to take the gospel narrative and make it into a community organizing narrative where Jesus’ main goal was to prevent the Roman empire from ruining the Jewish way of life. I think you might even notice some subtext where President Bush is compared to Herod the Great. Here’s a snippet:

He saw that his people's God-given way of life was slowly being stripped away by King Herod's son Antipas and the Roman Governor Pilate. As well, he knew that those who held religious power were aligned with the government of the day. He knew that it was time for change.

Change we can believe in?

Biden on stem cells and developmental disabilities

Joe Biden's campaign must not have thought a lot before putting this line in his speech.

“I hear all this talk about how the Republicans are going to work in dealing with parents who have both the joy, because there's joy to it as well, the joy and the difficulty of raising a child who has a developmental disability, who were born with a birth defect. Well guess what folks? If you care about it, why don't you support stem cell research?”

Yuval Levin and Wesley Smith have some thoughts.

Levin writes,

Biden’s remark is indicative of the lack of seriousness with which some Democratic politicians treat the relevant science here: they don’t themselves think this is one avenue of cell biology that could offer important help in one range of potential biomedical advances but rather they see it as a kind of magic bullet and universal cure-all that allows them to be for curing all that ails the human race and accusing their opponents of being against it all, meanwhile paying no heed to ethical concerns.

While "all this talk" is clearly referring to Sarah Palin's convention speech (I haven't heard any other "talk" regarding this issue than Palin's speech), Biden's press secretary had this to say, “Long story short: couldn’t be farther from being a comment about Gov. Palin.”

Uh... yeah. That's convincing to the die-hard Obama-Biden ticket supporters and just about no one else.

I find it sad the audience would give this kind of comment a standing ovation. That doesn't shed the best light on some Obama-Biden supporters in Missouri who are apparently ignorant about the differences between adult and embryonic stem cells, don't understand that stem cells aren't going to be able to get rid of the extra chromosome in children with Down Syndrome and McCain's position on this issue.

Life Links 9/9/08

Greg Koukl discusses Senator Joe Biden's Meet the Press answer about abortion and the beginning of human life.

The logic of the modified pro-choice position reduces to, “I think it’s wrong to kill my own children, but I don’t think we should stop other people from killing theirs.”

Notice that this critique has nothing to do with whether abortion is right or wrong. That’s a different question. I am simply pointing out that the modified pro-choice view deals itself a fatal blow. That is Biden’s blunder, and the blunder of anyone else advancing such a foolish notion.

Yuval Levin on how the Democratic ticket can't answer questions about the beginning of life without confusing science and theology.

Both insist that the question of when a human life begins is a theological question, and so one without a generally applicable answer. But in fact, the question of when a new human life begins is not fundamentally a theological question but a biological question.....

Do all human beings share in some minimal equal humanity that entitles us to some minimal equal protections, like the protection from intentional killing, regardless of our age, our size, our capacities, abilities, and circumstances?

That’s not a question that answers itself. But it is the question at the heart of the abortion and embryo research debates, and Senators Obama and Biden are avoiding the question by insisting they lack an answer to the prior question — the question of the beginning of life — which they wrongly assert to be a matter of theology.

The Anchorage Daily News has an article about Sarah Palin's beliefs on abortion and attempts to pass abortion restrictions in Alaska.

The Anatomy of a Bad Pro-Choice Argument

After noting she thinks believing “life begins at conception” makes sense to a lot of people and providing her own phraseology for how she would prefer to acknowledge this scientific reality, Jill at Feministe writes:

But here’s the problem: The fact that a collection of cells starts to develop when that sperm hits the egg doesn’t make that collection of cells a person, or the moral equivalent of a born human being. I think most people would agree — an acorn is not a tree, a seed is not a plant, and a zygote is not a person, even if a seed is a necessary precursor to a plant and a zygote is a necessary precursor to a person. The fact that about half of fertilized eggs don’t implant — ending the potential development of those early “lives” — coupled with the fact that there is no “pro-life” concern for all those billions of fertilized egg-deaths belies the idea that pro-lifers really believe a zygote is the moral equivalent of a born human being. The anti-choice view has always been more about controlling women and controlling sex than saving lives.

Here Jill argues the unborn aren’t persons or “moral equivalent of born human beings.” Her reasoning seem to be as follows:

1. A lot of people don’t think zygotes are persons even though zygotes develop into persons.

2. Approximately half of fertilized eggs don’t end up implanting.

3. There is no prolife concern for embryos which fail to implant and therefore die.

4. Therefore, prolifers don’t really think zygotes are the moral equivalent of born human beings.

5. Therefore, the true motivation is really more about controlling women and sex than saving the lives of unborn human beings.

How many ways does this argument fail?

1. Jill provides no evidence that there is “no prolife concern” for embryos which don’t implant. This assertion can be demonstrated false fairly easily. There are a number of prolife organizations who are opposed to hormonal birth control because they think it may prevent/impede the implantation of a human embryo. Prolifers have also done much with regards to preventing the killing of human embryos slated to be killed for their embryonic stem cells. If prolifers didn’t really think embryos (at the stage of development where implantation takes place) were the moral equivalent of human beings, why would they expend so much time and effort to prevent the killing and cloning of these embryos? How are controlling women and sex the motivation for saving those embryos?

2. The supposed lack of prolife concern for embryos who don’t implant is likely more based on ignorance than lack of concern. My guess is less than 10% of prolifers have any clue as to how many human embryos fail to implant. Though it seems to be an oft-recycled pro-choice blog talking point - the vast majority of prolifers aren’t aware of it.

3. For prolifers who do know that numerous human embryos fail to implant, I believe Jill is confusing lack of ability to save the lives of those embryos who don’t implant with lack of concern. What are prolifers supposed to do to save the lives of human embryos when we don’t even know if fertilization has taken place or if there is something we can do to make implantation more likely.

4. Jill fails to acknowledge that most efforts of prolife organizations deal with preventing people from intentionally killing human beings not preventing unintentional natural deaths. Prolife organizations don't do much to cure Parkinson's but that doesn't mean they think people with Parkinson's aren't the moral equivalent of other human beings.

5. Even if prolifers showed no concern, that wouldn’t necessarily prove we don’t think human embryos aren’t the moral equivalent of born human beings. Do individuals who do nothing to prevent the high rates of infant mortality in some developing countries automatically not believe that infants in developing countries are the moral equivalent of grown human beings?

6. Even if prolifers showed no concern for embryonic human beings, how does that prove embryonic human beings aren’t persons? If your best argument for why unborn human beings aren’t persons is because prolifers don’t care enough about embryos at a certain stage of development, then you don’t have very much of an argument at all.

Life Links 9/8/08

I wonder why Obama didn’t finish his thought on ABC’s This Week.

"Probably. ...What I intended to say is that, as a Christian, I have a lot of humility about understanding when does the soul enter into ... It's a pretty tough question.

The soul enters into.... what exactly?

The living human body, perhaps?


Is it me or did Joe Biden’s “when does life begins” answer on Meet the Press reek of relativism?

SEN. BIDEN: I'd say, "Look, I know when it begins for me." It's a personal and private issue. For me, as a Roman Catholic, I'm prepared to accept the teachings of my church. But let me tell you. There are an awful lot of people of great confessional faiths--Protestants, Jews, Muslims and others--who have a different view. They believe in God as strongly as I do. They're intensely as religious as I am religious. They believe in their faith and they believe in human life, and they have differing views as to when life--I'm prepared as a matter of faith to accept that life begins at the moment of conception. But that is my judgment. For me to impose that judgment on everyone else who is equally and maybe even more devout than I am seems to me is inappropriate in a pluralistic society. And I know you get the push back, "Well, what about fascism?" Everybody, you know, you going to say fascism's all right? Fascism isn't a matter of faith. No decent religious person thinks fascism is a good idea.

When will people stop acting like the question “when does the life of a human being begin?” is a question that different people can have different correct answers to?

Biden would “impose his judgement” on religious people in our pluralistic society on any number of given issues yet on the issue of when life begins, his judgement is suddenly not worthy of being imposed.

I wish Brokaw’s follow-up question had been phrased like this, “So your judgement is that the unborn are living human beings but you still think it should be legal to kill these living human beings?”


The New York Times has an article on Sarah Palin’s pregnancy with Trig.

Later that day, Ms. Palin sent an e-mail message to her relatives and close friends about her new son, Ms. Bruce said. She signed it, “Trig’s Creator, Your Heavenly Father.”

“Many people will express sympathy, but you don’t want or need that, because Trig will be a joy,” Ms. Palin wrote. She added, “Children are the most precious and promising ingredient in this mixed-up world you live in down there on Earth. Trig is no different, except he has one extra chromosome.”

I missed news about this case a couple of weeks ago. The California Supreme Court ruled that rapes which result in pregnancy can result in harsher punishments than ones which don’t after a man named Gary Cross repeatedly raped his 13-year-old stepdaughter while her mother worked at night. After the girl became pregnant, Cross arraigned for her to have an abortion at 5 ½ months.

After the abortion in December 2003, Cross resumed sexual activity with the girl until the following July, when K.'s mother came across paperwork from the abortion and summoned police.

A PDF of the court case which includes some horrible details is here. Cross originally took her to an abortion clinic for a pregnancy test and then return for abortion when the mother commented on her daughter’s weight. The abortion clinic then referred them to San Francisco General Hospital because she was so far along.

Life Links 9/5/08

Jonathan Last has a theory on why they hate Sarah Palin.


Jonah Goldberg on the swings and misses at Palin.

The Eagleton Option exposed the press’ gut instincts, and the viscera are not pretty. Eagleton dropped out because it was leaked that he’d received shock therapy for ill-defined mental problems. Many of those who expected Palin to withdraw see her values and her choices as proof of a mental problem. “She’s more a conservative man than she is a woman on women’s issues,” quoth a spokeswoman from the predictably shrill National Organization for Women, which always defines womanhood by a woman’s commitment to left-wing feminist dogma. If you’re pro-life, or even just a Republican, you’re not a real woman, you’re suffering from some sort of pernicious gender confusion.

American Right to Life's plan for ending abortion in less 12 years apparently includes staging a sit-in at Focus on the Family because James Dobson said he'll vote for John McCain if the election was "held today."

With ignorant, self-righteous "friends" like these......


I was going to leave a comment but The Raving Atheist beat me to it and slams RHReality Check blogger Emily Douglas for her inability to check her "facts" almost a day after the charge about Sarah Palin cutting funds for special needs children was proven false. Let's see if she corrects her post.

I wonder if there is a cause-and-effect with regards to fact-checking or the lack therefore which could help explain why people like Emily Douglas are pro-choice. If you believe all the nasty things pro-choice blogs say about prolifers, CPC's, and conservative Christians without examining the evidence, then I can see how one would be pro-choice. Or is it vice-versa where being pro-choice leads people to blindly believe anything another pro-choicer says? Or maybe there is some underlying cause which leads people like Emily Douglas to be both pro-choice and unwilling to question charges by pro-choicers against prolifers.

"A joke candidate"

That's what Frank Schaefer is calling Sarah Palin in a Huffington Post column.

Palin is a joke candidate only on the ticket as a sop to pro-lifers. End of story.

Quality argument, huh? I guess the "end of story" assertion makes up for the complete lack of an argument.

But I love how this comes from someone who only has a Huffington Post column because he's the rebellious, liberal son of a famous evangelical. Projection, anyone?

What a shameless human being.

Can you say "backfire?"

According to a poll from Rasmussen Reports:

Over half of U.S. voters (51%) think reporters are trying to hurt Sarah Palin with their news coverage, and 24% say those stories make them more likely to vote for Republican presidential candidate John McCain in November.

Thirty-nine percent (39%) also believe the GOP vice presidential nominee has better experience to be president of the United States than Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

But 49% give Obama the edge on experience, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey taken before Palin's historic speech Wednesday night to the Republican National Convention.

While Republicans and Democrats predictably favor their party's candidate by overwhelming margins, the experience gap among voters unaffiliated with either party is even narrower than the national totals. Forty-two percent (42%) say Obama has better experience to be president, but 37% say Palin does.

Links on Sarah Palin and the Media

What would our world be like if we didn’t have newspapers like the Washington Post falsely claiming Sarah Palin “slashed funding” for a home for teenage mothers and bloggers like the New Republic’s Michelle Cottle and Feministing’s Jessica Valenti thoughtlessly parroting them without checking the facts?


Yuval Levin writes,

The spectacle reveals a deep rot at the heart of the political press, and has been among the most shameful chapters in the history of modern American journalism. Not everyone has joined in, of course, but essentially all of the important institutions of our political press have played their part in one way or another. We can only hope those involved have begun to come to their senses, and that they recognize the magnitude of their failure this week. That doesn’t mean they should go easy on Palin: it makes sense to look into her past (as it would make sense to look into Obama’s past at some point before November too), and she certainly needs to prove herself tonight and beyond, as any vice presidential candidate has to. But the treatment she has received is not what just any VP candidate would get, and the attitude and assumptions underlying this week’s amazing assault raise very troubling questions about the cream of the crop of political reporters. They have shown themselves to be too insulated and too solipsistic to help the public better understand our politics, and too self-important to report on events as they happen. This is far more than media bias. Let us hope it is a passing episode.

Peggy Noonan has a good suggestion for the media after this last week:

The mainstream media, which has been holding endless symposia here on the future of media in the 21st century, is in danger of missing a central fact of that future: If they appear, once again, as they have in the past, to be people not reporting the battle but engaged in the battle, if they allow themselves to be tagged by that old tag, which so tarnished them in the past, they will do more to imperil their own future than the Internet has.

Wesley Smith suspects the media treatment of Palin might have something to do with her youngest son.

I hope I am wrong, and of course I cannot prove it, but I suspect that the ultimate cause of the liberal media's irrational loathing springs from the Palin family's joyful acceptance of Trig, a vivid rejection of the "quality of life" drive to wipe people with Down and other "defects" off the face of the earth. Such unconditional love stands in stark contrast to the pronounced lack of love that drives the new eugenics, burning the conscience like acid.

Here’s the text of Palin’s speech last night. I missed it but thankfully my wife thought to tape it for me.

Life Links 9/3/08

I hoping for more of this at the GOP convention. Note how the article doesn't include the full quote from Fred Thompson's speech which was:

And my friends, we need a president who doesn't think that the protection of the unborn or a newly born baby is above his pay grade.

The Stupid Pro-Choice Quote of the Day belongs to Emily Douglas who writes in response to Thompson's quote (my emphasis):

Thompson's "newly born baby" is a clear reference to those supposed survivors of abortion. Their existence is medically impossible, but if such a case occurred, existing law would clearly protect him or her.

Medically impossible? Tell that to Gianna Jessen or any other abortion survivors whose continued existence is something Douglas can't grasp.


Barack Obama's campaign is using misleading radio ads to attack John McCain's position on abortion. The voice on the ad is a Planned Parenthood employee. I wonder if this means Obama is done with his attempts to reach out to evangelicals. I also wonder if the Obama campaign is airing this ad now because of the Palin pick.


Albert Mohler recently wrote about the pregnancy of Bristol Palin. Unfortunately, I think he got one thing way wrong.

The press is likely to leave this issue alone, at least as much as possible.

Thoughts on the media reaction to Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate

Did the media spend so much time wondering if Obama could still talk about "change" after he selected Biden (someone who has been in Washington for more than 30 years) as they have been audibly wondering if McCain can still talk about experience because Palin isn't the most experienced (at least in terms of government experience) pick?

Was the lack of foreign policy experience that noteworthy when John Edwards was selected as John Kerry's running mate in 2004?

What possible GOP running mates have foreign policy experience? Tom Ridge? Ewhh...

What would have the reaction been if McCain picked a white male?

On the news of Bristol Palin's pregnancy, I hope evangelicals will have the same reaction if in the future a Democratic candidate's teenage daughter becomes pregnant.

Barack Obama's acceptance speech

Here are a few of my favorite lines from his speech last night.

Tonight, more Americans are out of work and more are working harder for less. More of you have lost your homes and even more are watching your home values plummet. More of you have cars you can't afford to drive, credit card bills you can't afford to pay and tuition that's beyond your reach.

These challenges are not all of government's making. But the failure to respond is a direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed policies of George W Bush.

So it's the government's responsibility to bail out people who buy stuff they can't afford?

But the record's clear: John McCain has voted with George Bush 90% of the time.

Is it 90% or 95%? Why can't the speakers at the Democratic Party convention get their statistics in order? Is this statistic for over the last 2 years or the last 8? And could someone actually explain what this statistic means. President Bush doesn't vote so McCain obviously didn't vote the same way as Bush voted. So this statistic means something like McCain has voted in favor of 90% (or 95%) of the legislation Bush has signed. Or Bush has vetoed only 10% (or 5%) of the legislation McCain voted in favor of.

For over two decades, he's subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy - give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else.

"Give" more? Don't you mean take less than what was being taken from them but still take a larger percentage than is being taken from those with less? This is a perfect example of how liberal and conservatives differ on how they see government. The government is not my daddy who generously "gives" me some of the money I earn as an allowance.

Ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves - protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools and new roads and new science and technology.

And bail us out when we buy stuff we can't afford.

That's the promise of America - the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation; the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper.

Who my brother's and sister's keeper? Individual people or the government? Who's responsible to help them out when they're down? Their friends, family and faith community or the government?

And for the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, I will set a clear goal as president: in ten years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

This quote is hilarious for a number of reasons - 1.) It shows how ignorant Barack Obama and his speechwriter are with regards to who the U.S. imports oil from. Of the top 15 countries the U.S. imports oil from, only 3 are in the Middle East (Saudia Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait). We get more oil from Canada and Mexico than the 3 main exporters in the Middle East. 2.)How is he going to do this? 3.) And if he can magically do this in 10 years, why not just magically do it in 5 years.

The sad part is I'm guessing McCain will make the same kind of silly promise.

John McCain likes to say that he'll follow bin Laden to the Gates of Hell - but he won't even go to the cave where he lives.

When he said this, I couldn't believe he would say something this stupid and that people would applaud it.

Because one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other's character and patriotism.

Ummm.... Didn't you just claim McCain wouldn't follow the most wanted man in world? What were you challenging there?

If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.

This coming from the guy whose resume is so slim he has to take credit for legislation he didn't even vote for and whose campaign's main goal is to link John McCain with George Bush.

But I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the nay-sayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me. It's been about you.

Yeah, and that's why Obama uttered the phrase "I will...." like umpteenth times in his speech.

Life Links 8/28/08

Another cell reprogramming breakthrough is in the news. This time Harvard researchers used gene reprogramming to change one type of mice cell into another without reverting the original cell back to a pluripotent stem cell state. They used this technique to treat mice with diabetes. Another nail in the coffin of the claim that "embryonic stem cell offer the best hope."


Nancy Pelosi’s attempt to defend her pro-choice position in light of her Catholic faith continues to draw criticism from Catholic leaders and theologians.


Why was James Bopp, Jr. (he’s National Right to Life’s lawyer) opposed to changing the Republican party platform to make the platform be against killing human embryos for research? (Note: I disagree with Spruiell’s concluding assessment of the new language - the language doesn’t state opposition to research on embryonic stem cells, it states opposition to research on human embryos. This would make the Republican platform identical to Michigan’s current law which prevent killing human embryos for research but doesn’t ban human embryonic stem cell research.) UPDATE: Spruiell clears up some of Bopp's reasoning in subsequent post. Bopp was supposedly against the language because it could possibly mean the GOP was against experiments designed to help human embryos. However, staffers at the Family Research Council aren't buying it.


M.Z. Hemingway has a piece on the Democrats for Life at the Democratic National Convention and the Democratic Party Platform on abortion which I think provides a good idea of how hard it must be to be prolife Democrat.

Life Links 8/27/08

Ramesh Ponnuru highlights and summarizes FactCheck.org's assessment of the National Right to Life vs. Barack Obama on Illinois' Born Alive legislation. From FactCheck:

A June 30 Obama campaign statement responding to similar claims by conservative commentator William J. Bennett says that SB 1082 did not contain the same language as the federal BAIPA....

The statement was still on Obama's Web site as of this writing, Aug. 25, long after Obama had accused his detractors of "lying." But Obama's claim is wrong. In fact, by the time the HHS Committee voted on the bill, it did contain language identical to the federal act.

Prolife Republicans are supposedly anti-science but Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the House Democrats, bases her views on what happens at conception not on science or embryology but on the views of priest living in the 5th Century.


The Republican Party platform renews their opposition to abortion. The Associated Press calls their position "a hard line."


Steve Wagner on Bob Casey, Jr., Barack Obama and common good with regards to abortion:

Isn't it odd to speak of the "common good" when just this week we have heard both Barack Obama and Nancy Polosi go mute on the question of when human beings begin? What is the common good anyway, but the good of all human beings taken as a collective whole? If we can't judge who is a human and who is not, how can we discuss the good of those humans?

Ken Epp writes on his Canadian version of the Unborn Victims legislation and its opposition.

One of my most vocal critics has literally said this: “If the fetuses are recognized in this bill, it could bleed into people’s consciousness and make people change their minds about abortion.” My reaction was, “if opponents are really worried about this, their issue is not with C-484 but about protecting their ideology at all costs.” If their ideology can’t withstand people thinking about what that ideology actually involves, how secure are they in their position?

Life Links 8/26/08

Dennis Byrne in the Chicago Tribune on Barack Obama's opposition to Illinois' Born Alive legislation.

But by arguing against the born-alive legislation because it might in some distant and ambiguous way obstruct abortion, Obama implies that the right to an abortion trumps an infant's right to life, even after he is born.

Such logic is breathtaking. It says that even after birth, a mother's right to rid herself of the baby supersedes any right that a child, now independent of the mother's body and domain, has a right to live. Where America stands on this issue truly is a measure of its sense of justice and compassion. On this score, Obama fails.

Two Catholic bishops have publicly corrected Nancy Pelosi's take on the Catholic Church's position on abortion.

Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput and his auxiliary bishop, James Conley, said in a statement posted on the archdiocesan Web site: "Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is a gifted public servant of strong convictions and many professional skills. Regrettably, knowledge of Catholic history and teaching does not seem to be one of them."

A doctor in Australia has been accused of performing an abortion around 24 weeks on mentally disabled woman who was not able to give consent.

It was also alleged during Tuesday's medical board hearing that Dr Schulberg failed to turn his mind to the fact the pregnancy was the result of a sexual assault and he did not inquire about whether police were aware of this, given the woman was incapable of consenting to sex.

It is further alleged he went ahead with the termination and, had it not been for the intervention of the Office of the Public Advocate - a body protecting the rights of people with disabilities - police may not have got the DNA necessary to charge her father.

Life Links 8/25/08

According to an Indian news web site, the family of a murdered woman is accusing her in-laws of strangling her because she refused to abort her unborn daughter.


A woman in California has been charged with attempted murder after dumping her infant daughter in a garbage bin outside her home. The newborn child was found by her 11-year-old sister.


The McCain camp used his radio address to mention Barack Obama’s position on the Born Alive legislation. Jennifer Rubin has the text.


Pastor Rick Warren isn’t buying the “evangelical vote is up for grabs” storyline.

But there is a misunderstanding by the media, says Mr. Warren. "A lot of people hear [about a broader agenda] and they think, 'Oh, evangelicals are giving up on believing that life begins at conception,'" he explains. "They're not giving up on that at all. Not at all."

Andrew Sullivan links to the blog (language warning) of a woman who is planning on having an abortion at Planned Parenthood in the near future.

Hadley Arkes (the architect of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act) writes about Obama opposition to the Born Alive legislation in Illinois.

The National Abortion Rights Action League saw at once the principle that lay at the heart of the bill, which is why they opposed it when it was introduced in July 2000. Barack Obama saw precisely what those activists saw. He voted against the Born-Alive Act, as he said, because he thought it would threaten, down the line, the right to abortion. But there lies the depth of his radicalism. For the sake of protecting that right to abortion, for any reason, he was willing to withdraw even the protection usually offered by the law for children born alive. The one exception would be: the children marked for abortion. For Obama, the right to abortion is nothing less than the right to an “effective abortion” or a dead child. For all of his nimbleness and his Ivy League bearing, that is the unlovely truth of his position; the truth that the media cannot quite grasp or report.

Life Links 8/22/08

Charges have finally been filed against Michigan abortionist Alberto Hodari for improper disposal of patient records. Back in March, prolifers found the remains of aborted children along with patient records in Hodari's dumpster.

The warrant was issued on behalf of 12 patients whose records were found in the trash outside the facility by an anti-abortion group in February and turned over to police, Carley said. Documents listed birthdates and social security numbers of three patients. Others indicated the type of medical procedure, test results and drugs prescribed.

Andrew McCarthy on "Why Obama Really Voted For Infanticide?"

The shocking extremism of that position — giving infanticide the nod over compassion and life — is profoundly embarrassing to him now. So he has lied about what he did. He has offered various conflicting explanations, ranging from the assertion that he didn’t oppose the anti-infanticide legislation (he did), to the assertion that he opposed it because it didn’t contain a superfluous clause reaffirming abortion rights (it did), to the assertion that it was unnecessary because Illinois law already protected the children of botched abortions (it didn’t — and even if it arguably did, why oppose a clarification?).

What Obama hasn’t offered, however, is the rationalization he vigorously posited during the 2002 Illinois senate debate.

John McCormack reports that prolife Obama supporter Doug Kmiec didn't know in late May (or at least acted like he didn't know) Barack Obama supports using tax-dollars to pay for abortions. How could he not know that?


Dana Goldstein is still arguing Obama voted against Illinois' Born Alive legislation (without linking to the text of the bills again) because it was about partial-birth abortion. She's doing this despite the fact that Obama, his campaign and pro-choice organizations have made numerous excuses for his votes and never once have mentioned partial-birth abortion. Dana Goldstein is lost in the forest and for some reason is unable to look around and realize no one is with her. The American Prospect should be embarassed for having her on the payroll.


Japanese researchers have created stem cells from wisdom teeth. The AP article seems to indicate the cell are pluripotent and were created using 3 of the 4 genes Yamanaka's induced pluripotent technique used.


The proposal to legalize research on human embryos in Michigan will be on the ballot in November. It will be Proposal 2. So vote no on proposal 2 if you live in Michigan!

Friday Baby Blogging

Posing with her favorite friend



Splashing in the pool