Nationalism run amok

The Los Angeles Times has a story on the reporters and whistle blowers who helped prove that Hwang Woo-Suk's human cloning research was fraudulent. The story also notes the ugly face of South Korean nationalism.

Some supporters argue that even if Hwang lied, the South Korean media shouldn't have exposed him because it will put the country at a disadvantage with the United States in the competitive biotech industry.

"You're America's dog," fumed a Hwang loyalist in an angry posting on MBC's online bulletin board. "Those who buried the greatest scientist in the history of the Korean people will incur the wrath of the heavens."......

Although the "pro-truth" camp, as Choi puts it, is now beginning to outweigh the pro-Hwang camp, the network still receives about 1,500 messages a day complaining about the coverage.

"Even now," Choi said, "people still believe in Hwang's righteousness."

Overheard

Jennifer Roback Morse: "I bring up abortion politics and rhetoric because a very destructive and false view of human sexuality is behind the drive for unlimited sexual activity as an entitlement. Only the widespread availability of abortion without cost makes that view of sexuality even remotely plausible.

But the plain fact is that many women have experienced abortion for themselves, and they know that there are negative consequences to it. So I bring up the subject to illustrate how deeply implicated the "pro-choice" view of the world is in the creation of the consumer-sex world we all inhabit."

Joe Carter: "There really is no excuse for accepting her as one of our own. Perhaps if she possessed intelligence and a rapier wit, her cutting barbs might be endurable. But Coulter's "humor" slices like a shard from a Mountain Dew bottle found on a meth lab floor. Her remarks leave jagged gashs that grow infected and fester with pus, infecting all of us in the process.

Conservatism deserves better, deserves more civility and less Coulter. The fact that she is tolerated—much less admired--by conservatives is evidence that we have lost our philosophical moorings. If the Big Tent of conservatism really has room for the likes of Coulter, then it might just be time to close this circus down."


Aaron Earls: "Lamott's reasoning-death is better than resentment-should come as a surprise to most normal human beings who have faced resentment and lived to tell about it. Should we be disappointed that life was inflicted on us?"

Blogs dealing with abortion

Jayme starts her blog by sharing this:

Actually I dont know what to think--- He and I sat down in December and had a long heart to heart you could say and I found out that the whole time he was sleeping with me he was sleeping with other people. I was crushed of course--then I found out I was pregnant with his baby-- he didnt care but he didnt want it--at first he said it wasnt his which he knew better. But he talked me into an abortion- now I feel totally guilty. I dont know what to do I wish he would see me before I disappear.

Verity says she is planning on having an abortion in a post titled "baby going to go :("

Life Links 2/13/06

CBS News has a story on embryonic stem cell research where Lesley Stahl interviews Art Caplan and Robert George. Caplan mentions the 400,000 human embryos that are frozen but fails to mention that more than 90% aren't available for research. Surprise, surprise. It also seems that Stahl had some tough questions for George while Caplan was allowed to relay his talking points.


Unfortunately, Senator Jim Talent has backed away from his support of a federal ban on human cloning. Ramesh Ponnuru and Wesley Smith aren't buying Talent's reasoning.


An aborted male child survived for 4 hours after being born alive at 28 weeks in South Africa. The abortionist is facing a 300,000 Rand (about $50,000) lawsuit.

"Inflict" Life

Author Anne Lamott has a column in the Los Angeles Times that is another sign (at least to me) that the prolife movement is winning (though slowly) the argument over abortion.

Anne was on a panel discussion with some progressive theologians and the panel was asked "about how (they) should reconcile (their) progressive stances on peace and justice with the ‘murder of a million babies every year in America.'"

At first, Anne, who notes in her column that she has had multiple abortions and described herself after one abortion as "sadder than I'd been since my father died.", passed at responding but then answered when asked another question. Here's what she was thinking:

"Then, when I was asked to answer the next question, I paused, and returned to the topic of abortion. There was a loud buzzing in my head, the voice of reason that says, "You have the right to remain silent," but the voice of my conscience was insistent. I wanted to express calmly, eloquently, that pro-choice people understand that there are two lives involved in an abortion — one born (the pregnant woman) and one not (the fetus) — but that the born person must be allowed to decide what is right."

In other words, according to Anne, the born person "must be allowed to decide" if the life of unborn can be ended. The born, based on their location, can "decide what is right" for the unborn.

But Anne admits that she didn't respond calmly and ended her answer by saying that a "woman's right to choose was nobody else's goddamn business."

One of the last paragraphs of her column is nonsensical jibberish.

"But as a Christian and a feminist, the most important message I can carry and fight for is the sacredness of each human life, and reproductive rights for all women is a crucial part of that: It is a moral necessity that we not be forced to bring children into the world for whom we cannot be responsible and adoring and present. We must not inflict life on children who will be resented; we must not inflict unwanted children on society."

A crucial part of the sacredness of each human life is that some human beings should be able to decide whether other humans live or die? Every life is sacred but we should kill unborn children who will be resented and unwanted? Are you sure you think every life is "sacred" or do you really think that the only "sacred" lives are the lives of those who are wanted? We must not "inflict" life but we should inflict death? Why do we feel the need to "inflict" life on "unwanted" born children? Why don't we just deinflict "life" from all the unwanted born children. So you're fighting for the sacredness of each human life while fighting to make sure that it is legal to kill some human lives?

Technology has forced many in the pro-choice camp to admit that the unborn are living human beings. Instead of trying to provide good reasons for why one human being (the mother) should be allowed to have another human being (the unborn child) killed, many pro-choicers like Anne Lamott are left with nothing to spew but empty slogans and contradictory crap.

UPDATE:
Frank J. succintly adds "Who would Jesus Abort?"

Kevin Drum shows that he's not quite up to speed on what a human being is and doesn't have a problem with women using abortion as birth control. He certainly is a political animal.

UPDATE #2
Emily at After Abortion comments, "That's a lot of anger, and it does not reflect the calm resolve of someone who is in a place of peace about her past. Far from it."

A commenter at Amy Welborn's blog says, "husband and I attended part of the conference Anne Lamott is writing about. skipped the Sunday evening session, and her tantrum. our friends relate that it was like a bomb dropping in the room, destroyed all the goodwill and peace built up over the course of the weekend. so sad. she has to deny it is a life, in order to live with herself, I guess."

These two sentences should never be next to one another

Here.

"On some level i feel as if i've already bonded with my child and feel it is murder to kill it, especially when its that developed."

"i also think (abortion is) the right choice for me as i cant afford a child and have nowhere to live, most importantly im also half way through my degree and don't want to have to give that up."

Life Links 2/10/06

Could mainline church denominations be aborting their future members?


Amanda Carpenter at the Human Events' blog has transcribed some of Senator Rick Santorum's speech at CPAC where he replays a dialogue he had with Senator Hillary Clinton.


The Mississippi House has voted overwhelmingly to ban human cloning. The article includes quotes from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International which show that the JDRFI lied through their teeth in an effort to spread confusion about this legislation. Those in favor of human cloning for research purposes are continually forced to mislead others in sad attempts to gain the support of lawmakers and the public.


Adult stem cells have been used to treat individuals with type 2 diabetes. The article says, "According to some American researchers and diabetologists, this is the most important step toward the cure of diabetes since 1929, when Drs. Banting and Best discovered Insulin." HT: Rebecca Taylor

Columnist Connie Schultz is dealing with a stacked deck

Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Connie Schultz has a recent column which discusses abortion and how religious people view abortion. Her column also features comments by Rev. Carlton Veazey, who is in charge of the Religious Coalition of Reproductive Choice.

In the column, both Veazey and Schultz attempt to persuade readers that religious people support Roe v. Wade and abortion rights. Veazey does this with nothing but ignorant assertions while Schultz tries to back up her position with results from a survey.

Her statistics come from this survey from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. After reviewing this survey I got a much different impression about how religious people view abortion than Schultz presents.

First, the survey misleadingly describes Roe v. Wade as establishing "a woman's constitutional right to an abortion, at least in the first three months of pregnancy." We all know Roe v. Wade did a lot more than that.

Second, Schultze says that, "Even among evangelicals who were polled, fewer than half favored overturning Roe v. Wade." Schultze fails to note that fewer than half of evangelicals also favored keeping Pew's faultily-defined version of Roe. It was a 48% to 48% tie. However, of the evangelicals that were "high commitment," 60% favored dumping Roe. The majority of white Catholics with "high commitment" were also in favor of overturning Roe.

Third, the study clearly shows that the more people attend church, the more likely the are to be opposed to abortion. For individuals that attend church "weekly or more," 18% thought abortion should never be permitted while 43% thought that abortion should be illegal except in cases of rape, incest, or the mother's life. For individuals who attend church "sometimes," these percentages drop to 5% and 30%, respectively. For those who attend church "seldom or never," they drop even further to 2% and 16%, respectively.

What I think the survey shows most of all is that the average American, churchgoer or not, doesn't have a clue to what Roe v. Wade did and they don't know what overturning Roe v. Wade will do. How else can you explain that 63% of survey respondents want some kind of change in abortion law yet 65% oppose overturning the Supreme Court ruling that prevents changing the level of abortion's legality?

My guess is that a large percentage of Americans, many of whom were persuaded by a slanted media and/or deceptive pro-choice groups, believe that Roe v. Wade only allows abortion in the first 3 months of pregnancy and if Roe v. Wade is overturned then abortion will be illegal throughout America.

LifeLinks 2/8/06

One blogger share her story as a birth mother.

A number of Irish blogs are debating the legalization of abortion.

How one young woman feels after her second trimester abortion:

"I have no enthusiasm for anything. I don't want to wake up in the morning, don't want to go to school. I do because my mom forces me. I get to school and I'm a little better because I'm with my friends and they're hyper\happy\silly. They don't know about all of this though. I come home and I sleep and talk to my friends. I don't do my school work. I dont even want to eat, just eat so I'll still be alive. By no means am I suicidal or anything. I just lost all motivation in me."

Pro-choice moderator Eyelid thinks the symptoms described above sound more like a physical problem than an emotional problem. But then again for Eyelid, it's tough to imagine that any bad emotions after an abortion could be based on anything more than pregnancy hormones.

What's the Leading Cause of Death in the Black Community?

Some would guess heart disease or cancer or even crime or AIDS?

According to the National Center for Injury and Prevention, in 2003, 77,372 African-Americans died from heart disease, 62,660 died from cancer, 8,932 died from homicide, and 7,479 died from HIV/AIDS.

All of those deaths combined (156,443) don't come anywhere close to the leading cause of death in Black community. The leading cause of death in the Black community is abortion.

It is estimated that there were 1.29 million abortions in the United States in 2002. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 35.6% of abortion reported by race were performed on Black women. That means that around 459,240 abortions were performed on Black women in 2002. That means that 459,240 Black unborn children were killed by abortion in a single year. More than 1,200 every day.

Abortion kills about 3 times more African-American human beings every year in the United States than heart disease, cancer, homicide and HIV/AIDS combined.

Life Links 2/7/06

Ashli on the difference between artificial food and hydration and alternative food and hydration.


Greg Gutfield on the prostitution of fetuses. If killing human fetuses isn't wrong, then is there anything wrong if fetal prostiution?


Nat Hentoff: "As a reporter, I usually am able to understand why people with whom I disagree, think and act the way they do; but I am at a loss to understand how an abortionist finds his daily vocation in deliberately, brutally ending a human life."

Too bad Hwang couldn't clone money

Asian media outlets are reporting that disgraced Korean cloner Hwang Woo-Suk embezzled millions of dollars. The New Scientist reports that Hwang gave some of the money he received to politicians and his reports can't account for more than $6 million.

It looks like someone will be seeing the inside of a jail cell in the future. Unfortunately, some in Korea are still going to extreme lengths to show their support for this crook.

Obviously I'm not over it.

A blogger named Pinkscars discusses her abortion (warning language):

"Saturday night I kept thinking about my abortion. MY abortion. I did it. I gave the word and killed my baby. How sick. How awful and selfish and terrible of me. I haven't thought about it in a while. Obviously I'm not over it. I still think it was a mistake.. and if not a mistake I definitely think I took the easy way out."

So is it banned or not?

In a recent editorial, the Detroit Free Press shows that its editorialists are completely clueless about embryonic stem cell research.

What I found incredible was that in one sentence the editorial erroneously claims that the state of Michigan has a ban on embryonic stem cell research and then a few paragraph later the editorial says that the University of Michigan is doing embryonic stem cell research. So is it banned or not? If embryonic stem cell research is banned in Michigan then how can the University of Michigan be doing it? Does the Free Press think its readers are that stupid? Or are the editorial writers that stupid?

The editorial also claims President Bush withdrew federal funding on embryonic stem cell research even though before Bush's policy was implemented there was no federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. It's kind of tough to withdraw something that wasn't there is the first place, isn't it?

The Press also pushes the "fairy tale" that embryonic stem cells could treat Alzheimer's.

The end of the editorial says that "(t)here's no moral victory in preserving embryos that could never be implanted or "adopted."" I have no clue how they can claim that. Why couldn't the human embryos be adopted and implanted instead of killed? How is that not a physical possibility?

And the Free Press also takes the inevitable cheap shot at human embryos.

Embryonic stem cell research doesn't kill anybody. Scientists want to use blastocysts -- three days old, devoid of brain waves, smaller than the period at the end of this sentence -- that fertility clinics would otherwise discard.

Actually, aren't the human embryos killed usually 5-7 days old (the lowest number I've seen before is 4 days old) and since when does age, size and level of development determine if an organism is an "anybody?"

Want to lower the number of abortions? Promote and encourage marriage.

While looking thru Indiana's abortion statistics from 2003, I came across some statistics that baffled me a little bit. One of things that some in the prolife movement have focused on in recent years is the dramatically higher percentage of abortions that are performed on Black women compared to the population in general.

Indiana is striking example of this. Indiana's population is 8.4% Black yet Black women from Indiana get 27.4% of the abortions that are performed on Indiana residents.

What threw me for a loop was Indiana's "Termination Ratios by Age and Race". When viewing the graph you can see that termination ratios (TR) (number of abortions divided by the number of live births multiplied by 1,000) of Black women are higher than those of white women through every single age group but the difference becomes especially exaggerated in the 25-29, 30-34, and 35-39 age groups. In the 25-29 age group, the TR for Black women (346.3) is 5.5 times higher than the TR for white women (62.8). In the 30-34 age group, the TR for Black women (373.3) is 6.5 times higher than the TR for white women (57.0). If you factor out miscarriages, White women aged 25-34 from Indiana brought 94.3% of their pregnancies to term. Only 5.7% had abortions. On the other hand, Black women aged 25-34 in Indiana brought 73.7% of their pregnancies to term while 26.3% had abortions. In other words, for these age groups white women aborted only 1 out of every 18 pregnancies while Black women aborted 1 out of every 4.

The first thing that popped into my head as to why this huge difference would exist was marriage. Abortion statistics from various states usually show with common regularity that around 85% of abortions are performed on unmarried women.

In Indiana, the median age for marriage among Black women is 31. The median age for white women? 27. While 8.4% of Indiana's population is Black, Black women made up only 7.1% of Indiana's brides even though Black men made up 8.4% of Indiana's grooms.

These statistics certainly don't show a causal effect but it seems clear to me that a sustained effort of promoting and encouraging healthy marriages would dramatically lower the number of abortions in our country.

Will and Katha - just one question - what are the unborn?

Slate's William Saletan and the Nation's Katha Pollit have been having a discussion over what kind of strategies pro-choice groups and individuals should partake in. Though both writers are pro-choice and would like it if the number of abortions in our country decreased, Saletan believes that abortion is bad while Pollitt doesn't share that conviction. Saletan proposes that pro-choice groups pit contraception (good) against abortion (bad) and that this strategy would gain popular support.

I found Thursday's discussion quite interesting in that it exposes the enormous problem that many of those in the pro-choice movement face. Mainly, that they can't rationally and logically discuss what the unborn are and what abortion is.

On Wednesday, Katha asked Saletan to explain why he thinks abortion is bad. His response follows:

"You ask why I think abortion is bad. I think it's bad because the fetus is of us and is becoming us. It's not a person, but it's on the way to becoming a person, and the longer it develops, the more I recoil at the idea of killing it. Most people, according to polls, think the same way."

While I'm much more sympathetic to Saletan's view than Pollitt's, the above statement would get flipped on its head by most prolifers who have decent experience arguing about abortion.

So it's "of us" but it isn't yet one of us? How can two organisms produce something that isn't one of them but then later becomes one of them? Doesn't that violate the Law of Biogenesis? If it's not currently "one of us," then why is it bad to kill it? When and how do the unborn traverse into the realm of personhood? Why should I accept your definition of personhood over the definition of anyone else?

Katha's view is even worse. After saying that abortion isn't "morally trivial" and that it's a "sad necessity" and "morally serious, very unfortunate event," Katha would rather just try to avoid answering the question of what the unborn are and what abortion really is.

You ask what my own view of abortion is. I think the meaning of abortion is what the woman says it is: For a woman who wants a child but can't have this one it can be sad; for a woman who doesn't want a baby, it can feel like a huge relief, like having your whole life given back to you......I think women have the right to consult their own wishes, needs, and capacities and produce only loved, wanted children they can care for—or even no children at all.

So to Katha abortion isn't really an objective thing. It's a subjective act that means whatever the woman having an abortion wants it to mean. Sounds a lot like, "personally i feel a human being begins when the mother decides the fetus in her body is a human being and she wants a baby and she accepts reponsibility for its care." Hiding behind this kind of relativistic hogwash has been mainstream pro-choice strategy for years.

What I think Katha realizes but Will doesn't is that if pro-choice organizations admit "abortion is bad" they'll have to have a good answer to "why is abortion bad?" Planned Parenthood will have to explain why it's performing 250,000 "bad" abortion procedures a year. NARAL will have to explain why it thinks tax-dollars should pay for hundreds of thousands of "bad" surgeries. NOW will have to explain why they vehemently oppose parental involvement laws for "bad" teen abortions.

They don't have good answers to these questions. Which is why it's unlikely that pro-choice organizations are going to be latching on to Saletan's proposal anytime soon.

Friday Baby and Cat Blogging

I'm with my niece. Steelers all the way.



Rascal has recently been having what we like to call her "special time." For a few days she goes around the house with her rear in the air trying to convince any inanimate object to mate with her. No doors, chairs or walls have consented to the best of my knowledge.

RU-486 is still not "safe or effective"

Dr. Margaret Gray and Dr. Donna Harrison have published a review of FDA's Adverse Event Reports from RU-486 abortions in the February 2006 issue of the Annals of Pharmacotherapy.

They note that the "third most common class of severe adverse events was undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy." The drugs (mifepristone and misoprostol) involved in RU-486 abortions shouldn't be given to women with ectopic pregnancies. In the discussion section of the paper, the doctors note,

"Ectopic pregnancy is an absolute contraindication to the use of mifepristone, and failure to rule out ectopic pregnancy resulted in one death, as well as unnecessary morbidity. Requiring ultrasound documentation of intrauterine location of the pregnancy by a qualified ultrasonographer prior to the administration of mifepristone would reduce this life-threatening complication to a minimum."

It's clear that some abortion providers are failing to give women an ultrasound to determine if they have an ectopic pregnancy before prescribing mifepristone, even though failing to rule out an ectopic pregnancy can lead to severe injury or death.

The doctors also mention that,

"With mifepristone abortions, the rate of failure to cause complete termination of pregnancy increases dramatically, along with hemorrhagic events, as the gestational age and the size of the placenta increases. The US clinical trial demonstrated a failure rate of 8% at 49 days or less from the last menstrual period (LMP), increasing to 17% at 50–56 days from the LMP, and further increasing to a 23% failure at 57–63 days from the LMP, as established by sonographic criteria."

Numerous abortion clinics, including Planned Parenthood, disregard the FDA's medication guidelines and prescribe mifepristone up to 63 days from LMP and all the while tell women that it's "96-97 percent effective."

Representative Roscoe Bartlett is currently getting some media coverage for his legislation to withdraw the FDA's approval of RU-486 and review the way in which it was approved.

Related:
RU-486 - I'm Hatin' It
Safe and Effective or Unsafe and Ineffective?

What is Birth?

Yesterday, Dawn Eden posted some excerpts from Judge Chester Straub's dissent in the 2nd Circuit Court's ruling that struck down the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003.

Some of these excerpts strongly echo the intent of Michigan's Legal Birth Definition Act. This Michigan law, which was passed as citizen initiated legislation after Governor Granholm vetoed it, defines legal birth and the commencement of legal rights when any non-severed part of the child is outside the mother's body. It draws a line between abortion and infanticide and because it does NARAL has labeled it "one of the most extreme anti-choice laws this country has seen since Roe v. Wade was decided thirty-two years ago." Though the law never mentions partial-birth abortion, it would effectively prohibit the ghastly procedure.

In his dissent, Judge Straub notes,

"Some argue that the removal of a fetus during a D & X is not "birth." See Farmer v. Planned Parenthood of Cent. N.J., 220 F.3d 127, 143 (3d Cir. 2000). However, "birth" is the "passage of the offspring from the uterus to the outside world." Dorlands Illustrated Medical Dictionary 207 (27th ed. 2000). The removal of a fetus from its mother surgically does not mean that it is not born, as a fetus removed from its mother via a cesarean section is certainly "born....."

I disagree with Chief Judge Walker that the fact that the Act is
not limited to post-viability abortions necessarily vitiates the
compelling interest of the State in preventing the procedure to
distinguish abortion from infanticide. Once a fetus is born, its
viability ceases to be relevant to determining the constitutional
protections to which it is entitled.....

In addition to vindicating the right to life of those in the process of being born, the State has a compelling interest in protecting the line between abortion and infanticide."

The Legal Birth Definition Act was overturned by one judge but is currently working its way through the appeals process. Hopefully, they'll be a couple of judges on the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals who recognize what Judge Straub recognizes.

Life Links 2/1/06

Adult stem cells are treating lupus.

"The Park Forest, Ill., woman is among 48 patients with severe lupus who had the treatment at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Thirty-three patients have had no disease symptoms for up to more than seven years following their transplants, said Northwestern's Dr. Richard Burt, who led the study."

Wesley Smith says that little Haleigh Poutre still isn't safe.


What President Bush could have said last night.


It looks like William Saletan and Katha Pollitt will continue their arguments regarding pro-choice strategy on abortion at Slate.