Missouri Cloning Lies

Colleen Carroll Campbell has an article in the Weekly Standard that was posted today on the Ethics and Public Policy Center's web site regarding the deceptive "cloning ban" in Missouri.

Key paragraph (my emphasis):

Connie Farrow, spokesperson for the Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures, cites those rulings as proof that the ballot language is clear enough for voters. When asked how the initiative can be said to ban human cloning while allowing the cloning of human embryos for research, Farrow says, "Creating stem cells in a lab dish to cure disease and save life is not the same thing as cloning a human being." Pressed to identify the source of the embryonic stem cells in her hypothetical lab dish, she adds, "I believe it's a cloned organism. I don't believe it's the same thing as a baby. . . . And the majority of scientists agree with me."

No shame. No shame at all.

Related:
Life Links 5/3/06
"Common sense meanings?" Why not just be truthful?

The fate of frozen embryos

Ross Douhat has directed me to a long article in Mother Jones on frozen human embryos created by in-vitro fertilization. The article is in Mother Jones so it obviously is going to have factual failings like the false pre-embryo assertion ("a fertilized egg is not considered an embryo until about two weeks of development") but it takes a fairly open approach to discussing the interesting topic of how IVF parents view their frozen embryonic children and how they struggle to decide what to do with these children.

What I find intriguing is how pro-choicers who use the bodily autonomy argument ("even if the unborn are human beings, women should still be allowed to have abortions because they should be able to control what happens in their bodies") to argue in favor of legal abortion approach the issue of frozen human embryos. Without the woman's womb to hide behind, how will those in favor of abortion rights based on the bodily autonomy argument defend the intentional killing of human beings who aren't currently in a woman's body? Will they fall back on dehumanizing the human embryo or will they accept the humanity of the embryos and work to protect them and bring them to birth?

One woman in the story seemed to take an approach I've often seen from women who have abortions:

"Little lives, that's how I thought about them," said one woman. "But you have to switch gears and think, ‘They're not lives, they're cells. They're science.' That's kind of what I had to switch to."

In other words, use the power of the human mind to deceive yourself.

Other pro-choice women defend their embryonic children.

They ardently wish for them to grow into children. The experience can be transforming: “I was like, ‘I created these things, I feel a sense of responsibility for them,’” is how one ivf patient put it. Describing herself as staunchly pro-choice, this patient found that she could not rest until she located a person—actually, two people—willing to bring her excess embryos to term.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out

The Oglala Sioux Tribal Council has voted 9 to 5 to impeach abortion advocate Cecelia Fire Thunder as their tribal president. But at least all those pro-choice bloggers provided her with financial support to start that abortion clinic on Indian land. What a good idea that was!

There are unethical, unsanitary abortion clinics who make false claims? Says who?

A prolife pregnancy center? A prolife group?

How about another abortion clinic?

The web page of Liberty Women's Health Care notes on a number of pages how their abortion clinic is safer than some other "unethical" clinics.

In their "safer abortion overview" page they warn women, "Please beware of some unethical clinics that falsely claim to do surgical abortions at 3 weeks, which is definitely not safe to attempt, since the pregnancy cannot be seen at 3 weeks."

They also say, "We use only sterilized surgical instruments and sterile, one-use-only, disposable plastic uterine curettes, unlike some unsanitary "bargain" clinics that reuse these curettes and do not practice safety, cleanliness, and sterility." (my emphasis)

When talking about second trimester abortions, Liberty's web page notes, (my emphasis)

We use only sterilized surgical instruments and sterile, one-use-only, disposable plastic uterine curettes. In order to increase the safety for our patients, we always use ultrasound guidance during every second trimester abortion, rather than doing the abortion blindly, which is commonly done at other facilities and which is far more dangerous. We take an additional step and do a post-operative ultrasound exam of the uterus at the end of every abortion to further ensure the safety of the patient and the successful completion of the procedure. Other facilities do not do this.

HT: Real Choice

Quotables

Joe Carter: "I've also come to the conclusion, based on overwhelming evidence, that anyone who claims that American evangelicals want to establish a theocracy is either irredeemably stupid or dishonest."


Albert Mohler: "Those words end Lamott's essay. There is no extended moral argument for her action in assisting the suicide of her friend. There is no engagement with the Christian moral tradition, and there is no real sense of moral reflection at all. As with the issue of abortion, Anne Lamott is simply guided by her own sense of what is right and wrong."


Peggy Noonan "This is the exact opposite of the truth. Hillary doesn't have to prove her guy chops. She doesn't have to prove she's a man, she has to prove she's a woman. No one in America thinks she's a woman. They think she's a tough little termagant in a pantsuit. They think she's something between an android and a female impersonator."


Alexander Cockburn: "Welcome to blog world. They’re loonies, beyond any sanction or reproof by reality. These people are going to stop a war, change the direction of our politics? They make Barbra Streisand sound like Che Guevara."

"Thank God for abortion"

That's a statement that one young woman (language warning) "couldn't agree with more" along with a number of child hating statements.

What leads one to have such an incredible level of hate for children? My niece is in town this week and my wife and I had the opportunity to spend time with her last night. She spent the majority of the evening entertaining us and the rest of my wife's family with her antics. The idea that someone could hate children like her is almost incomprehensible to me.

Life Links 6/28/06

Scientists have discovered that adult stem cells from bone marrow defend the body against viruses and bacteria in the blood. These could be good news to people suffering from autoimmune diseases.

"It may be possible to boost immunity when necessary and also shut down inappropriate responses. That could provide a powerful tool to fight cancer, lupus and many other diseases," Kincade said."

Will the pro-choice movement abandon the term "choice?"

No one got into the specifics of exactly how to condense the term—certain using the slogan a woman's "right to an abortion" doesn't seem to be exactly the correct phrasing—but switching from the word "choice" seems to be the right step.

Not exactly the correct phrasing? That's because the slogan uses the word ‘abortion' and that's usually a no-no when pro-choicers are trying to create a slogan that will work with the public at large.


NARAL's web site links to this article in the Los Angeles Times but doesn't explain this phenomenon described in the article and neither does the article for that matter:

California spends $124 on family planning for every woman in need, more than any other state except South Carolina and Alabama. The state's Family PACT program offers teens and low-income couples easy access to free or affordable birth control. Yet California has one of the highest abortion rates in the country — the same rate as Nevada, which spends only $32 per woman in need, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

Nebraska presents the opposite scenario. The Guttmacher Institute ranks it worst in the nation at helping poor women avoid unintended pregnancies. Yet Nebraska has one of the country's lowest abortion rates.

If I was a NARAL donor....

I'd be wondering why my money was paying for something as lame as this.

One wonders how voting pro-choice in November will "defeat" Justice Scalia and Alito?

Chief Justice John Roberts is probably thinking, "Hey where I am? Wasn't I the guy who supposedly "supported" an abortion clinic bomber? Wasn't I going to take away your birth control pills if I was confirmed? Can't I be King Kong?"

HT: Abortion Pundit

Another entry for the most deceptive way to describe human cloning

The Detroit News recently had an editorial which went after Michigan's laws against human cloning and killing human embryos for research purposes. The editorial included this amazingly deceptive description of human cloning for research:

The other law that gets in the way of stem cell research, Professor Morrison adds, is a ban on a procedure known as nuclear transfer or therapeutic cloning, in which stem cells are "customized" for particular patients by scientifically melding their cells with stem cells to develop matter that will be accepted by a patient.

Right to Life of Michigan's Ed Rivet is having none of it:

The Detroit News' June 15 editorial "Backward laws stifle jobs-creating research" is breathtaking for either its ignorance of science or its arrogance in trying to bamboozle the public.....

Scientifically melding? Develop matter? What this Orwellian language covers up is the cloning of human embryos. There is no "melding" of a patient's cells with stem cells. It is cloning -- taking a patient's DNA, putting it into a human egg, stimulating it to grow the same way all humans start to develop, then destroying the cloned embryo to harvest the stem cells. It is clone and kill research."

Anne Lamott Friend Killer Extraordinaire

Steve Wagner links to Anne Lamott's attempt to defend assisted suicide in the Los Angeles Times. Anne tells the story of how she assisted in the suicide of her friend Mel by getting pills, crushing them, mixing them in apple sauce and feeding them to him.

Usually defenders of assisted suicide will focus on the unstoppable pain a person might be in or how our government shouldn't interfere in the relationship between a doctor and their patient. Lamott does neither of these things. She notes how her friend with lifelong depression couldn't hike anymore and "space(d) out a little more often." As Steve notes, "she makes no argument, except to assert the will of human beings as the primary concern in end-of-life situations." Her previous defense of abortion was likewise bereft of anything resembling a logical argument.

An excerpt from Lamott:

We had discussed a story in the paper once, about a local man who gave his wife an overdose, and then sealed her upper body in a plastic trash bag with duct tape. Then he had done this to himself, and they died holding hands. What love!

I don't know where Lamott gets her concept of love but for someone who claims to be "Jesusy," her concept of love certainly doesn't come from Jesus and her view of life seems to be anchored less in Christ and more adrift in the sea of trying to defend and rationalize one's actions.

I find it intriguing that she never says that she prayed about this decision. I can't imagine a Christian author assisting in the suicide of a friend without praying for advice. But if assisting in someone's suicide is comparable to helping someone get an incomplete at "Earth school" then why ask the principal for advice? And when her friend first tells her that he wants to accept her offer, she's not comfortable. Lamott writes, "I couldn't take someone's life. I'm not at all that sort of girl." But she does and she is.

What sort of person in Lamott's view assists in the suicide of another? And why did Lamott think she wasn't of this sort?

Maybe it's because some people can talk a good game about thinking it's ok to kill another person if that person asks for it but it takes an entirely different sort of person to actually follow through with it and intentionally take the life of another human being. That sort of action is usually left to a group of deranged persons like Michigan's Jack Kevorkian or Australia's Philip Nitschke.

Life Links 6/26/06

Joe Carter: Our Inalienable Responsibility: Dignity as a Foundational Concept


A woman named Kathryn Rhett shares her abortion story and then her choosing life story in the New York Times.


Raving Atheist: Honor Among Atheists

Steve Wagner

Last weekend I had the pleasure of having lunch with Steve Wagner. For those of you not familiar with Steve, he's a young man who works at Stand to Reason and travels the country defending the prolife view at college campuses. I thought that I would take the time to recommend his prolife articles and newsletters to you. Steve is currently working on a booklet for Stand to Reason called "25 Questions to Build Common Ground on Abortion."

He also is responsible for raising his own support so if you like what you read, you can give him your support.

Michigan abortions down again

According to the Michigan Department of Community Health, the number of abortions performed in Michigan in 2005 decreased to 25,209. This is the lowest number of annual abortions being reported in Michigan since Michigan started requiring abortionists to record abortion information in the last quarter of 1979. In 2004, there were 26,269 abortions performed in Michigan. This year's number indicates a drop of more than 1,000 abortions or 4.0%.

Other facts include:

There were 19 abortions performed after 24 weeks.

Five children showed evidence of life after being aborted.

49% of women were having at least their 2nd abortion and 22.9% of women were having at least their 3rd abortion. 86.4% of women were not married.

Cincinnati Planned Parenthood not following Ohio's parental consent law?

AP Wire: "The Cincinnati Planned Parenthood Clinic must give a family that is suing the clinic all records on abortion patients younger than 18, a judge ruled.

The documents are being sought in a lawsuit by the family of a teenage girl. The suit alleges that Planned Parenthood never got parental consent to perform an abortion on the girl, as required by Ohio law.....

The family's lawsuit alleges that the girl's 21-year-old boyfriend took her to the clinic and identified himself as her stepbrother, and the abortion was performed without notifying the girl's parents."

Ramesh Ponnuru On Point

Ponnuru discussing his book, Party of Death, on the radio program On Point with Tom Ashbrook. Unfortunately, Ashbrook spends way too much time on the title instead of the issues involved.

South African woman killed for refusing her boyfriend's demand for her to have an abortion

"But she refused and told him this was impossible for her. She said that if he wanted her baby dead, he should kill her first."

Unfortunately, he did.

An adoption story

By a birthmother named Christy.

Life Links 6/21/06

Joseph Bottum discusses a New Yorker interview with Cynthia Gorney regarding South Dakota's abortion ban.


Californians will get another chance to vote on parental consent.


Leon at Red State points to some interesting results of an abortion survey which has been taken since 1972.


The Raving Atheist dispatches Jill of Feministe's don't-tell-me-what-not-to-do-while-I-tell-you-what-not-to-do arguments against Dawn Eden's book regarding being chaste.

"It's so easy for him, isn't it?"

I Could be Anyone (ICBA) (whom I blogged about here and here) is scheduled to have her abortion tomorrow. Today (language warning) she discussed a fight/conversation she had with her boyfriend John. She writes,

I am angry that he gets to feel so removed. It's so easy for him, isn't it? I made the decision he wanted, I made the hard choice, the one that he wanted, but he doesn't EVER have to feel like he pressured me in to it or coerced me to make this choice. What he DOES NOT GET is that by breathing not one word about the alternatives and pretending that they didn't exist, he certainly didn't show any support for any of the others did he? Not that I wanted to go there but I did want to think that he made the same gut wrenching decision I did after considering the same alternatives I did.

It appears that ICBA is looking for empathy from John and not getting it. While John wanted ICBA to have an abortion and agrees with her decision, he doesn't seem to struggle with the decision or think it was a hard decision. As the man, he can, in a way distance himself from the unborn child and the abortion decision, while ICBA is carrying the child and she will have an abortion so distancing herself from the situation is near impossible.

ICBA is also upset that John doesn't seem able to voice reasons for why he thinks abortion is the right decision for ICBA. He seems to be following the "I'd prefer you have an abortion but it's your choice and I'll support your choice" mentality. ICBA is frustrated by that mentality. She wants him to share his real feelings and thoughts and not just defer to her.

What I'm wondering is how often do other women considering abortion feel the same way? From my memory it often seems that pro-choice women on abortion related boards are happy when an abortion-minded woman's boyfriend does what John appears to be doing. Completely deferring to the woman's decision is usually seen as a good, supportive thing. Yet ICBA sees this as being "afraid and weak." From John's perspective, he might be thinking, "I didn't make the decision, it was ICBA's decision. Therefore, I can distance myself from the results of that decision and the emotions that surround it."

I would again ask anyone reading this not to post or e-mail "you're killing your baby" type comments to ICBA. You might also want to say a pray for her.

Semi-related: Your Choice = Your Responsibility

The score board has changed again

It's now 70 to 0 in favor of adult stem cell research.

Life Links 6/19/06

Dave Andrusko reviews the book Surprise Child by Leslie Leyland Fields. The book includes Leslie's story of an unplanned pregnancy and has the story of more than 20 women who also experienced an unplanned pregnancy.

Surprise Child tells the story of women (of any age) who watch with dread to see whether a line will appear in the pregnancy test stick.

When the results are positive, they feel (as Fields did initially) overwhelmed by the "darkness of anxiety, resistance, and fear."

The U.S. Supreme Court announced it will review two cases dealing with partial-birth abortion in its next term starting in October. The new case will discuss whether the ban on partial-birth abortion is "an undue burden on a woman's right to seek an abortion and whether it is unconstitutionally vague."


Serge reviews the National Abortion Federation's crisis pregnancy center report. I've read it as well and agree with his assessment of being "underwhelmed." Best line: "Imagine that: clinics designed to give women with unplanned pregnancies alternative choices and free support target areas in which - get this - there tend to be women who are at risk for unplanned pregnancies. If only those darn CPCs would locate themselves only in affluent areas or locations in which there are predominately elderly populations!"


A woman in South Dakota shares her abortion experience at Planned Parenthood. She felt coerced into abortion by her boyfriend and testifies that the abortionist and Planned Parenthood failed to comply with South Dakota's informed consent law. It's also telling how Planned Parenthood wants to make her name public. This from the organization that was so concerned about the privacy of their patients who were victims of statutory rape that they fought to prevent the release of medical records to state Attorney Generals. Planned Parenthood has also resisted releasing records with regards to partial-birth abortion even if personal information was removed. But when a traumatized young woman didn't like the service she received at Planned Parenthood, her name should be made public? All in the name of privacy, huh?

Goldberg on Abortion and the Party of Death

In a recent column for the Los Angeles Times, Jonah Goldberg discusses abortion, Ramesh Ponnuru's book (The Party of Death) and the book detractors.

"But once religious views are declared illegitimate — a stance that would have surprised Martin Luther King Jr. — any unwelcome position can be branded "religious" and therefore out of bounds. Ponnuru scrupulously sticks to nonreligious arguments. But that hasn't stopped critics from charging that his motives are unacceptably religious, while others have complained that he is too coldly rational. It seems Ponnuru's real sin isn't how he says things but that he says them at all."

Good News for Birmingham

Associated Press:

A Birmingham abortion clinic has surrendered its license amid allegations that a woman delivered a nearly full-term stillborn baby after a clinic staff member gave her an abortion-inducing drug and performed other medical treatments without a doctor present, health officials said Wednesday....

Wednesday's move avoids a hearing on June 20 in which the state would have presented its case against the center and sought to revoke its license....

Cheryl Sabel, acting president of the Montgomery chapter of the National Organization for Women, said that the allegations against the clinic were "shocking and dismaying" and that the closure is a setback for women in Alabama, where there are now nine abortion clinics.

"Every time a women's health clinic closes, it is a huge blow for women and it's very unfortunate," she said. "But women must be protected, and there are standards -- as there are for every health care facility -- and every facility needs to abide by the rules."

So it's a huge blow for women when a clinic (with a history of "gross malpractice") shuts down after a non-doctor gives a nearly full-term pregnant woman RU-486 after doing an ultrasound and telling her she was only six weeks pregnant? If NOW wants abortions to be safe and legal then one would hope they'd see shutting down a clinic like this as a step in the right direction.

Life Links 6/15/06

People from other countries come to the United States to choose the sex of their child.

"But one doctor who offers embryo selection for about $20,000 says he is serving the marketplace and helping Nature, not playing God."

HT: World


It seems some scientists have made progress in the hopes of converting adult stem cells into cells with embryonic stem cell like properties.

"Two studies published in Nature1,2 identify key proteins that endow embryonic stem cells with their coveted abilities to divide again and again, ad infinitum, and to generate all the different tissues in the body.

The papers do not provide a definitive recipe for the sought-after cocktail; either more proteins must be identified or those already known must be mixed in an unknown combination. But if found, this recipe could leapfrog the intense controversy and toil that is currently involved in extracting stem cells from a human embryo, which is destroyed in the process."

HT: Wesley Smith

Wider than tall

I've heard women jokingly say that when they were pregnant, they were bigger around than they were tall. This woman isn't joking.

Here's a story and picture of Qiao Yubo. Qiao is Chinese woman who is 5 months pregnant with at least 5 children.

Smearing the competition

The National Abortion Federation is getting on Planned Parenthood's campaign to smear pregnancy centers.

From their press release:

The National Abortion Federation (NAF), the professional association of abortion providers in the United States and Canada, will hold a telephone press conference on their new report entitled Crisis Pregnancy Centers: An Affront to Choice on Thursday, June 15 at 11 a.m. ET. The publication highlights numerous instances where CPCs have harassed, bullied, and given false information to women who had come through their doors, leaving them feeling betrayed and misled. The report also discusses legal action taken against CPCs, their current sources of funding, and what concerned citizens may do to combat their harmful tactics.

Who would have thought that centers which offer free help to pregnant women would be "an affront to choice?"

"Why Terminate?"

At Just Tenured, a professor has struggling with a decision regarding her pregnancy for a month and seems to have decided on abortion.

In a post yesterday she asks,

"Why terminate? Because I'm selfish, chicken, terrified...

It's easy to terminate. As much as I've given "ease" lip service, I've never really taken the easy road - I've tended towards the riskier, tougher path that has huge potential rewards. And I've always been happy with my choices, ultimately. Then again, I could say that it's easy to choose to have it now....

$h!t. I think I'm having a kid."

In a post today, where she seems to have decided on abortion, she writes,

"Termination certainly is a difficult, brave, and right choice. So is having it....

I feel comfortable that I've made a decision. I feel comfortable with the decision. It's scary, I like the idea of this kid, want it, but.... it's not quite right.
I want us time. That doesn't mean that I'm trying to save or prolong the relationship - or clinging, as some have suggested. The relationship isn't in question. When I say I want us time, it means that I want alone time. Fun time. "

Like another blogger, she has also flipped a coin to try to help her decide.

If you choose to post a comment on her blog, please be respectful. This woman has struggled with her decision and is probably still struggling so saying things like "You're killing your baby!" are not likely to turn her away from abortion but will merely give her a bad impression of prolife people.

Fellow cat lovers

I thought you might enjoy this story and picture if you haven't already seen them.



My cat is apparently a little less fierce. Rascal recently had a staredown with a neighborhood squirrel and instead of being scared, the squirrel kept getting closer and closer to Rascal until my wife, fearing for Rascal's safety, brought her inside.

Racing to be Michigan's governor

According to a recent poll compiled by EPIC/MRA on behalf of the Detroit News, Republican gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos leads Governor Jennifer Granholm 48% to 40%. Television commercials featuring DeVos have been airing in Michigan for months and it appears they're working. The Democratic Party in Michigan has just recently begun airing it's own television commercial promoting Granholm.

The poll also shows that if the election were held today, 29% of Detroiters would vote for DeVos. This number may seem small but according to the Michigan Secretary of State only 5.4% of Detroit voters voted for the Republican gubernatorial candidate in 2002. On the other hand, the poll shows that DeVos isn't doing as well as he could in Oakland County. He only gets 43% of their vote to Granholm's 48% even though President Bush got 49% of Oakland County in the 2004 election.

Life Links 6/13/06

Here's a baby the size of a mobile phone in Britain. The child, named Ruby Angel Dunn, was born at 25 weeks and weighed a mere 12.5 ounces at birth. That's approximately 355 grams. In 2004, there were 29 abortions in Michigan where the unborn child weighed more than 400 grams.


Why is abortion tragic?


MIT stem cell biologist James Sherley on Harvard's human cloning ventures.

"They promise that cloned embryos will allow determination of the cause of a person's illness by analysis of embryonic stem cells derived from the person's own cloned embryos. They pronounce that this research is too important to not do. However, they fail to disclose that pigs will grow wings and fly before this approach leads to successful medical therapies."

Life Links 6/12/06

Nat Hentoff: Insisting on Life


A premature infant was delivered from a brain dead woman in Italy. HT: World Magazine


Rebecca Taylor: Doesn't a definition of embryo death pre-suppose embryo life?


Keith Plummer on Harvard's efforts to clone human embryos.

Flipping a coin to decide a child's fate?

I don't what to say about this young lady and her mother except "maybe that was a sign."

I really did consider it. I cried so much and I talked to one of my closest friends and couldn't decide. I even resorted to making a pro/cons list for keeping it or aborting. They were both equal. I hate being the kind of person that can see both sides of things.
I flipped a coin. heads was keep. tails was abort. it was heads - so i kept flipping. i flipped 7 times and oddly enough they were all heads.
i consulted the magic 8 ball twice and they both said to keep it.
I kept going back and forth.

My niece has attitude

and a tummy that's a tad too big for her shirt.

Things that make you go hmmmm...

It never ceases to amaze me the contradictory things women who are considering an abortion will say to convince themselves their unborn child is not alive. From "I could be Anyone" whom I blogged about yesterday.

"So a brief discussion of how I am feeling. I am about six weeks along, which means that there is a little heartbeat in there - and that scares and saddens me. That does certainly make it a little more real, doesn't it?

...I suppose, since I am committed to the abortion I should not really consider the health issues of the Glob. It seems ridiculous to be concerned about the welfare of a Glob when the fate of the Glob is to be removed. I am basically saying that the Glob is not a life when I say that I can terminate it so why would I worry about the effect of alcohol on it?"

So she knows her unborn child has a heartbeat and she knows the child is affected by alcohol but she reasons that the child is "not a life" because she's decided to terminate that life which really isn't a life?

I also thinks its staggering how society has trained people to be more concerned about pregnant women smoking and pregnant women drinking than pregnant women having abortions. A pregnant woman has been given the complete say over whether she can have someone intentionally end the life of her child because it's "her body, her choice" but if the same woman decides not to have an abortion she would be looked down upon if she decides to consume alcohol or smoke during pregnancy because those actions might injure the child. So it's "her body, her choice" with abortion but "don't do that, it will hurt the child" with smoking and drinking.

One less thing pro-choice feminists can accuse conservative Christians of stopping

In spite in of the mythological opposition of conservative Christians, the FDA has approved a vaccine for HPV (human papillomavirus) from Merck. HPV is the leading cause of cervical cancer, a disease which kills 3,900 women a year and condoms do not prevent its spread.

The vaccine from Merck is called Gardasil and females aged 9-26 are permitted to use the vaccine, which is injected in three doses over six months. The company is still testing the vaccine on women aged 26-45, on men, and continuing testing to see how long the vaccine is effective.

The vaccine targets 4 strains of HPV (there are more than 70 types) which are responsible for the majority of cases of cervical cancer. There are approximately ten types of HPV which cause cervical cancer as far as scientists can tell. The vaccine does not protect against all forms of HPV and won't prevent every case of cervical cancer.

Some individuals who can't stand the idea of government involving itself in a woman's "private medical decision" to have an abortion are quite adamant about making sure that the vaccine (which doesn't prevent every case of HPV or cervical cancer and is rather expensive) is mandatory for school admission. So much for freedom of choice with regards to medical decisions.

"My choice is mine, and I am not proud of it"

A 33-year-old woman has started a blog to chronicle her experience leading up to her abortion (which is scheduled for June 21). She has consulting with two of her friends (who both have affiliations with Planned Parenthood) and one of her friends will assist with the procedure.

She sees her blog as an "educational and comforting blog" and asks that readers, "Please, do not post anything negative in this space."

If you choose to post a comment on her blog, please respect her wishes.

"It was in memory of the baby inside of me."

One post-abortive woman built a bear and she and her boyfriend talk to it in memory of their unborn child.

From Abortion Info at Live Journal:

ok so I had my abortion in december. i dont regret anything, because i know it was for the best. the weekend before the abortion me, my boyfriend and his family went to houston. we went into a build a bear workshop, bought and named a bear. it was in memory of the baby inside of me. now, 6 months later, this bear is still a part of me. we both talk to him and treat him as if hes there.

does anyone else do this? am i hurting myself more by keeping it in the present?

Thoughts? I'm guessing a fair number of post-abortive women talk to their unborn child even if they don't have an object which symbolizes the child.

Is "knowing something is for the best" a good reason not to regret an abortion? Is it possible to feel that abortion was for the best but still regret it?

"June 10 will always be the day that I decided to kill my baby."

That's what one young woman, who is actually planning on having her abortion today says (language warning).

"For the rest of my life, June 10 will always be the day that I decided to kill my baby. My life from this point on, will always be different. Nothing will be the same....

I hate that this situation will forever change my relationships with so many people. I hate that I'm statistic. I hate that I'm scared. I hate that I want it out of my body. I hate everything about being pregnant...I hate myself for hating it.

I'm sorry....
...Sorry for not wanting you
Sorry for not being able to keep you...."

Obstacles at every turn won't stop the efforts of wannabe cloners

So Harvard wants to clone human beings? At least these scientists are being honest about their goal to clone human embryos unlike their counterparts in Missouri. Check out the NY Times article on this announcement. Efforts to create cloned human embryos are labeled, "develop(ing) embryonic stem cells from the adult cells of patients suffering from certain diseases."

One wonders if the Ivy League school and those who have invested millions in this project thought about how much money the nation of South Korea flushed down the toilet on Hwang Woo-Suk and his falsified human cloning experiments.

Also worth noting is the struggle that Robert Lanza and Advanced Cell Technology have had getting their hands on human eggs.

Dr. Robert Lanza said that Advanced Cell Technology, where he is vice president for research, has been trying unsuccessfully to recruit women to do nuclear transfer since December. Lanza said that about 100 woman have responded to ads but that they were dissuaded by the potential risks -- and the fact that they could earn thousands of dollars to do the same thing as an egg donor for fertility treatment.

"After six months of exhaustive effort, it seems like this is going to be problematic without some form of compensation," said Lanza.

The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) includes this information about Lanza's efforts to obtain eggs:

Initially there were many replies, but as women realized the discomfort and risks involved in hormone treatments, the numbers dwindled to two or three potential candidates. "We don't have a single egg at this point," (Lanza) says.

Not one egg after a "six-month effort" to recruit donors according to the article in the NY Times. Not one. Hwang used over 2,000 eggs and wasn't able to clone a human being. Do the scientists at ACT really think they'll be able to create a cloned human being if they can't get a single egg after six months of recruitment?

Another year in the books for Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood's web site recently released Planned Parenthood's 2004-2005 Annual Report.

It shows that the number of abortions performed at Planned Parenthood increased from 245,092 in 2003 to 255,015 in 2004. Meanwhile, adoption clinic referrals decrease from 1,774 to 1,414. Planned Parenthood's prenatal clients actually increased from 16,427 to 17,610.

The report shows that Planned Parenthood's revenues for the year ending June 30, 2005, include $346.8 million in clinic income, $272.7 million in government grants and contracts and $215.8 in private contributions. Their total revenues exceeded their total expenses by $63 million.

Life Links 6/6/06

Dawn Eden posts the picture of a little girl whose mother was supported in a trying time by prolife bloggers.


Researchers at Columbia University have been working on defining criteria for embryo death . HT: Wesley Smith


John O'Sullivan on The End of Ignorance…and Innocence

Nutty Professor

Dr. Ian Wilmut, the face behind the cloned sheep Dolly, has now come out in favor of the reproductive cloning of human beings when cloning is shown to be safe. The goal would be to prevent the birth of children with serious diseases.

The children would be cloned from the purified cells of an embryo created via IVF. Wilmut says,

"I am extremely concerned about the effects on a child of being a clone of another person and I oppose it. However, an early embryo is not a person and I see the use of nuclear transfer to prevent a child's having a dreadful disease as far less controversial."

HT: Wesley Smith

Blaming Bush

On Sunday, the Washington Post ran the story of 42-year-old D.C. area woman named Dana who had sex with her husband without using a contraceptive (because of a "sudden rush of passion"), called her doctor for Plan B and when she found out neither her doctor or her internist prescribed Plan B she decided to "take (her) chances and hope for the best" instead of calling other doctors or going to Planned Parenthood for emergency contraception.

She ends up getting pregnant and having an abortion which she blames on the Bush Administration because the FDA hasn't yet approved emergency contraception for over-the-counter sales.

Dana describes her abortion by saying, "It was a decision I am sorry I had to make. It was awful, painful, sickening."

I feel sorry that Dana felt she had to have an abortion but I can't stand it when people have to blame the results of their actions on others. Dana goes on to say,

"But I feel that this administration gave me practically no choice but to have an unwanted abortion because the way it has politicized religion made it well-nigh impossible for me to get emergency contraception that would have prevented the pregnancy in the first place."

No choice, huh? What about the choice to have sex without your diaphragm? Dana and her husband may have a had a "sudden rush of passion" but they aren't animals. As grown human beings, we have the ability to control our urges and think about consequences before we engage in various actions. When I feel the urge to use the bathroom, I don't just drop my pants and go to town. I look for a proper place to go to the bathroom. I hate it when our society treats teens like animals who can't control their urges. It's even sadder when a middle-aged woman treats herself and her husband like that.

Dana also had the choice to look for other doctors who would be willing to prescribe emergency contraception. But she didn't. She gave up after calling her two doctors and a midwife practice. I can understand how calling three places and coming up empty could be frustrating but that's no reason to say it's "well-nigh impossible" to get Plan B. All she had to do was call Planned Parenthood. But she didn't. She also apparently never discussed her doctor's feelings regarding emergency contraception before this situation.

This quote also stood out:

The hidden world of abortion services soon became even more subterranean.

The hidden world? Have you checked your phone book lately? You know the one with the quarter-page full-color abortion ads?

Overheard

Daniel Mansueto (HT: Dawn Eden):

"But what can feminists like Ms Clinton say about sex selection abortion given their commitment to the so-called "right to an abortion"? Some feminists on the left say, not very loudly, that sex selection abortion is wrong, and is permissible to outlaw, because it discriminates based on sex. However, they cannot vigorously assert this argument without jeopardising the "right to an abortion" because the logic of the argument completely undermines that so-called "right." If an unborn girl has the right not to be discriminated against, she necessarily also has the more fundamental right to life. And if unborn girls have the right to life, it necessarily follows that all unborn children, whether male or female, have the same right."

Inded, how can one have the right not to be discriminated against if one doesn't have a right to live? It's crazy how legal abortion is seen by many women in the United States as a fundamental necessity which is integral in the struggle of females to have equal rights with males while some women use this "fundamental right," which is supposedly essential to giving females equal rights, to discriminate against other female human beings.

Bob making his contribution to the Ridiculous Pro-Choice Language Hall of Fame (HT: Serge) :

"As far as abortion is concerned, I can speak for myself in that the killing of a pre-sentient fetus does not equate to murder, any more so than the killing of a fly amounts to murder (and I can actually make the case that killing a fly is MORE heinous a moral act than permanently interrupting the development of a potential being)."

Besides the laughable euphemism for killing, one has to wonder how one could permanently interrupt the development of a potential being. If the entity involved isn't an actual being (just a "potential" one) then how is it developing and how can one permanently interrupt the development of a "potential being?"

Help please

Read the last letter to the editor on this web page and tell me if you think the author is being serious or if the author is being impressively sarcastic?

You should probably read it more than once.

Amazing faith

UPDATE: The blog which tracks Whitney's recovery is here.

If you haven't already seen the blog about Laura Van Ryn (mostly written by her sister Lisa) take the time to do so.

The Van Ryn family has been helping to care for a young woman (Whitney Cerak) they thought was their daughter and sister for the past month after a tragic car accident in which four students and one administrator from Taylor University were killed.

The body of Lisa Van Ryn was mistakenly identified as the another Taylor student named Whitney Cerak. Whitney has been recovering in hospitals in Fort Wayne and in Grand Rapids for the past month with the help, prayers and encouragement of the Van Ryn family who thought that Whitney was Laura.

Only recently has Whitney become more aware of her surroundings and been able to help others identify her as Whitney. A memorial service for Laura will be held in Grand Rapids on Sunday.

The blog of the Van Ryn family is an amazing testament to their faith. Almost every entry starts with a verse or a prayer and then chronicles the small steps of recovering while thanking those who are praying for them and often asks prayers to be given for the families of those who lost a family member in the accident.

After finding out that the young woman she's been caring for isn't her sister, Lisa writes,

For us, we will mourn Laura's going home and will greatly miss her compassionate heart and sweetness while knowing that she is safe and with her King forever. We rejoice with the Ceraks, that they will have more time on this earth with their daughter, sister, and loved one.