Life Links 1/22/10

Sarah Palin promoted the March for Life on her Facebook page yesterday.

In the years following Roe, we were told that the issue was no longer open for debate and that we should get over it and move on. But we couldn’t get over the stirrings of our conscience or move on from an issue that cuts to the heart of who we are as a nation. Affirming the dignity and worth of every innocent human life and defending the defenseless are fundamental American values. With that in mind, this peaceful, hopeful grassroots crowd of individuals, families and students comes to our capital every year to remind us that every innocent life is beautiful, precious and full of potential. These warrior souls come to show their dedication to the weakest among us: those with special needs, women without anyone to turn to, and children without a voice.

Justin Taylor has an interview with Americans United for Life's Clarke Forsythe on overturning and undermining Roe vs. Wade.

When it is not possible to completely prohibit a social evil, it is both moral and effective to limit it as much as possible. When the ideal is beyond our power, it is moral and effective to seek the greatest good possible. Prudence instructs us that an “all-or-something” approach is better than an “all-or-nothing” approach in politics. One of the reasons is that progress is almost always a result of momentum, and momentum—in the face of countervailing obstacles—is often produced by small victories.

A Newsweek blog has probably one of the most uniformed (or intentionally deceptive) posts about the March for Life that I've ever seen. Krista Gesaman takes quotes from Stanley Radzilowski, an officer in the planning unit for the Washington, D.C., police department, and Kristy Maddux, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland, to assert that the majority of people at the March for Life are in their 60's(!!!!) and young women aren't involved in the March because they're not trained to go out and protest.

Only someone who is blind could honestly assert that the majority of Marchers are in their 60s and only someone who is extraordinarily incompetent wouldn't think about how improbable it would be for the majority (50+%) of participants to be in their 60s. The largest contingents at the March are easily young people from high school and college. The streets of Washington, D.C. are teeming with these young people before and after the March.


There's so much goobledy-gook on the RH Reality Check blog today. Robin Marty thinks that because months after her miscarriage her hcg level is high that the definition of pregnancy is complicated. Therefore, whether the unborn are alive or not must be complicated as well. She writes,

We lost that potential life at 8 weeks 2 days, or just over six weeks after conception.

If it was just a "potential life," how did you lose it?

Gloria Feldt's piece is downright weird.

Reproductive choice is our right and also our responsibility, an awesome responsibility. But in an even more profound sense, choice is the human condition. It defines us as humans, and we are in turn defined by the choices we make. Choice is the basis of morality after all, and it is sacrifice as much as it is freedom.

Huh? Choice is the basis for morality? What does that mean? Is she asserting that what we choose to do makes something moral or not?

So this grandmother of 12 dedicates Roe's 37th anniversary to changing the conversation about abortion from a debate about the limits of privacy to to an unwavering affirmation that reproductive choice is a fundamental human and civil right and as a result, a health care service that should be covered for all women in any health reform plan regardless of who is paying the premium.

Does Gloria Feldt really think she can change the conversation about abortion (and get rid of debate) by simply asserting the same choice mumbo-jumbo she's been asserting for years?

Because if we want our beautiful, wonderful, precious granddaughters to have an equal place in this world, then our society must value their choices as much as we grandmothers value their lives.

How stupid is that? We should value people's choices as much as we do their lives?