Friday Baby Blogging

My niece in her Easter dress.

Life Links 4/28/06

Serge shares a hypothetical from a pro-choicer which strongly questions the absolute bodily autonomy argument (even if the fetus has the right to life) for abortion rights most famously expressed by Judith Jarvis Thompson.


The Raving/Unaborted Atheist offers his take on Carolyn Maloney's bill against crisis pregnancy centers.


Melanie Childers says that prolife people saved her sister's (Andrea Clark's) life. For those of you who don't know who Andrea Clark is, here's some background info.

Who really needs embryonic stem cells?

James Kelly discusses how he believes Christopher Reeve was misled to become a strong proponent of embryonic stem cell research and how many Americans are being misled by scientists who are more intent on finding work than finding treatments. Take the time to read this.

Kelly notes,

"Reeve opened my eyes to an unfolding global tragedy. He made me realize how far those pursuing a multi-billion dollar goldmine in long range basic research will descend to achieve their ends. I eventually concluded that while it appears that science and industry are using disability and disease to exploit human fetal and embryonic life, the truth is far worse. The push for ES and cloning research may exploit us all.....

To me it seemed increasingly impractical for society to commit massive research resources to tackling complex safety and performance issues linked to ES cells, including rejection, epigenetic instability, tumor formation, or teratoma formation. It seemed impractical to pay science to puzzle over turning ES cells into stable, fully functional adult cells, when adult stem cells are designed to do it naturally....

"We" do not need additional problems to solve, but basic researchers do — as many as they can find or make. Each additional hurdle represents years of future work. The public sees problems in ES safety and performance as roadblocks to their medical use. To scientists they represent future articles in research journals, ladders to professional fame, university tenure, research funding, potential patents, licensing fees, royalties, biotech 'start up' firms, and hype to encourage investment."

HT: Wesley Smith

Sullivan, read the book before you embarrass yourself anymore

Andrew Sullivan is just sometimes content to embarrass himself for seemingly no other reason than because his ego is too large for him not to say anything about something he knows nothing about. Yesterday and today he's attacking Ramesh Ponnuru's book (which he hasn't read) because of its title here and here. Ramesh replies to Sullivan's first post here.

Sullivan says, "Conservative writers have now made fortunes calling their partisan opponents traitors, godless, and now pro-death. Their rhetoric increasingly equates being a Christian with being a Republican. I never thought someone as civilized and intelligent as Ponnuru would sink to this kind of rhetoric."

Pseudo-conservative writers now make fortunes calling the title of a book they haven't read "reprehensible." Their rhetoric now creates silly and ignorant strawman arguments since I've read the book and never noticed Christianity being equated with being a Republican. I'm well aware that someone as "knowledgeable" as Sullivan would attack a book he hasn't read based on nothing but the book's title even though he doesn't care seem what the author means by the title. Thanks Andrew. Never let your complete ignorance on a subject keep you from self-righteously taking cheap shots at others.

But I really think Andrew should read the book because Ramesh aptly discusses and logically destroys Sullivan's "personally prolife" position also famously held by Mario Cuomo. You see Andrew "abhors abortion as a moral matter" and "can never condone it" (seemingly because abortion intentionally ends the life of an innocent human being) yet he thinks that "attempt(s) of the government to police a woman's body in the first stages of pregnancy to be a deeply unconservative idea." Sullivan can never condone abortion yet thinks restricting abortion in the first trimester is deeply unconservative? Gee, thanks. How many sides of his mouth can he talk out of? Why attempts to police a woman's body later in pregnancy (after the first trimester) aren't "deeply unconservative" is never explained.

Sullivan provides no reasoning (except saying "balancing of goods") as to why it should be illegal to abort 12-week fetuses yet illegal to abort 13-week fetuses. What changes in that one week make the developing human being worthy of legal protection? Is there no real reason except to "balance the goods?"

Why the first trimester? Why not the first quadmester?

Nor does Sullivan seem to recognize in his second post that one branch of the federal government (the Supreme Court) has already imposed itself into the abortion debate.

If Sullivan took the time to research the book a little before commenting (if he didn't feel like waiting to read it) he might notice that various bloggers like Amy Welborn and Naaman have already shared what Ramesh says he means by the title.

Help for Lydia

Please pray for Lydia or try to help her. I discussed Lydia's situation in the post below.

Even though Lydia is against abortion, it appears from a recent entry on her blog that she may have scheduled an appointment at an abortion clinic for Tuesday. Lydia is under a lot of pressure to abort.

She comments in one of her posts:

All I am told on a daily basis is how I am going to ruin my life because I have not even graduated from high school, though I will in June.
Everyone keeps telling me it will be hard on me to balance college and a baby and then later have to balance a baby and a career.

The only ones here to help me and assist me in any way are my friends and most of them are turning their heads now. I have no where to go if I keep my child and I am being looked down on because I do not believe in abortion.

Everyone is on my back at every second they have a chance to shove the idea of abortion down my meak throat; no matter how hard I try to get them to understand, they just say I'm too immature and I cannot do it.

I pray every day for someone to just send me a sign and let me know I can do this and I haven't received anything.

My ex boyfriend and father of my baby will not have me if I have our child and that kills me inside. I feel like he cannot love me enough to love something of our own creation and for that I am a failure.

I'm just so confused. I cannot raise a child without any support from my family or my baby's father or his family.

As much as I don't approve the idea, I am ultimately going to be a murderer in my eyes and I can't change anyone's heart enough to get them to see that with clarity.

Events in Michigan this week

This week has been a big week for life issues in Michigan.

On Tuesday, a variety of pro-choice groups sponsored a pro-choice rally at the state capitol which included a speech by Governor Jennifer Granholm. You can watch clips of the Michigan March for Choice Rally at a web site created for the rally. A variety of prolife college students protested this rally. You can see a prolife sign saying "Women Need Love, Not Abortion" in the left hand side of a picture at the Lansing State-Journal.

On Wednesday, Right to Life of Michigan held its annual Legislative Day in Lansing. At this event, prolifers (including myself) learned about a variety of prolife bills which are making their way thru the legislature and were encouraged to lobby their legislators whom joined them during lunch. Dr. David Prentice, Senior Fellow for Life Sciences at the Family Research Council and founding member of Do No Harm spoke about stem cell research and I think he did a good job of explaining the basic of the research, some of the great things that adult stem cell research has done and explaining the ethical and scientific problems with embryonic stem cells.

New Abortion Poll

The Susan B. Anthony List has released the results of a recent poll on abortion.

The poll found the majority of those polled (54%) were more likely to pick a prolife option to describe their position on abortion. The six options were 1. abortion prohibited in all circumstances (16%), 2. abortion should be legal only to save the life of the mother (16%), 3. abortion should only be legal in cases of rape and incest and to save the life of the mother (22%), 4. abortion should be legal for any reason but not after the first trimester (21%), 5. abortion should be legal for any reason but not after the second trimester (8%), 6. and abortions should be allowed for any time during a woman's pregnancy and for any reason (12%). Another 6% didn't know or refused to answer.

The poll also shows that the majority of Americans aren't familiar with what happened in Roe v. Wade yet 65% thought they were familiar with it.

HT: Ramesh Ponnuru

"If I have an abortion, I lose everything."

An 18-year-old named Lydia is says she'll make a final decision regarding her pregnancy today. From an entry on her blog it appears that her father threatened to move out of the house if she didn't have an abortion. In another entry it appears he's changed his mind. It also seems that the father of the child wants her to have an abortion. Most of her postings are speaking to the father of the child.

Some notable quotes from some of her various posts:

"If I have an abortion, I lose everything."

"I'm sorry you can't see how passionate I am about life. How precious life is. How perfect it is when it's formed. I'm sorry I cherish and almost worship that and my morals. I'm sorry I love someone I haven't even met yet, and that's wrong in your eyes."

"I guess the only choice I have to make you happy is to abort.
I'll abort our life we made, that possibly came around at the wrong time, but I saw it was a blessing in disguise...it was a hindering object to you.
I'll let it go.
But, if it goes, so do I. I cannot live knowing that I went through with an ultimate sin against my heart.
I cannot live knowing death of the innocent makes you think everything will be okay.
Nothing will be perfect.
I'm not perfect."

"I am selfish for keeping a life?
Isn't it selfish to kill it just for the sake of getting out of the consequences?
I think so....
If I do lose you then I'll still die happy, because I'll still have a piece of you that I will carry and nurture and love forever.
I promised I would love you until the sun forgets to rise or set and I'm keeping that promise.
No matter how hard this is on me, no matter how you still tell me that my eyes are amazing, I cannot be phased.
I am keeping it.
I will love and support it."

So much for Stanford

Stanford student Alicia DeSantola has a piece in the Stanford Progressive called "The Real Pro-life Movement" which almost makes me feel bad for pro-choice college students if this is the kind of ignorance they are filled with.

The premise of Alicia's column is that pro-choice Democrats (you know the ones in favor of legal abortion, tax dollars paying for abortions, etc.) are actual the real "prolifers."

Alicia claims that "the Democratic Party is quietly working to ensure that abortion is safe, legal, and nonexistent." Nonexistent? That's new, no?

She then ignorantly claims, "During the Reagan era, the hallmark of "pro-life" policies, the number of annual abortions increased by 70,000. Similarly, during all but one year of the first Bush administration, abortion occurrences rose dramatically."

Alicia obviously has a very limited knowledge of prolife laws and policies. The Reagan era was hardly the "hallmark" of prolife policies. Most current prolife laws weren't passed until after the Supreme Court's decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey so during Reagan's presidency there weren't a whole lot of prolife policies enacted. She's also wrong about the first Bush presidency. According to the CDC, the number of abortions performed in America dropped in two of the four years he was in office.

Alicia does mention one policy from the Reagan era (the Mexico City Policy) but she seemingly has absolutely no clue what that policy actually does.

"These figures are no coincidence. Presidents Reagan and Bush, pandering to their religious conservative base, both endorsed abstinence-only programs in high schools. Combined with the "Mexico City policy" of refusing to fund non-governmental family planning organizations which offer abortion counseling, these policies contributed to a general lack of sexual education in the American population."

Unfortunately, Alicia seems to be unaware that the Mexico City policy has nothing to do with family planning and sex education in the United States. It deals with the U.S. government giving funds to international family planning groups. The United States government did and does give a bunch of money to family planning organizations such as Planned Planned which are involved with abortion.

Countless times conservatives have presented the argument that every unwanted child can be raised in a loving home. Of course every child deserves to be loved. However, if abortion foes win an outright ban, our already overloaded foster care system would reach breaking point.

Alicia's evidence that South Dakota's foster care system would reach a breaking point if the approximately 800 abortions performed there annually didn't exist?.... Cricket chirping....more crickets.......

Is it me or do some pro-choicers have no idea where foster children come from? It's like they think every child in the foster care system was born into the foster care system. And that any newborn child up for adoption will spend the rest of their life in foster care.

Will Overturning Roe Hurt Republican Prolifers?

Ramesh Ponnuru doesn't think so.

Celebrity Abortion News

According to Hollywood.com, court papers filed by Denise Richards charge that Charlie Sheen requested that Richards abort their first child and only accepted the pregnancy after Richards threatened to leave their marriage. Sheen has denied this charge and other charges that Richards has leveled against him.

"Access"

One of the terms that have taken on a life of their own in recent years is "access." Whether it be "access" to contraceptives or "access" to abortion, we're told over and over again that poor women don't have "access" to something because they are poor. I'm still waiting for the NRA to say that low income men don't have "access" to guns because of the high cost for guns and bullets.

The fact is that low-income women have plenty of access to contraceptives. Plenty. Nothing stops a low-income woman from buying condoms or having her partner purchase condoms. Nothing. If a woman and her partner want to have sex, all she needs to steadfastly say is: "We're not having sex unless a condom is involved" and guess what?

That guy will go out and buy a condom.

Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton have recently written an op-ed (HT: Feministe) where "access" is mentioned.

"Most of these unintended pregnancies -- and the resulting abortions -- can be prevented if we eliminate the barriers that prevent women from having access to affordable and effective contraception."

What barriers prevent women from buying condoms? Are there invisible steel bars at the grocery store preventing women from grabbing a pack of Trojans? Are there invisible walls which stop women from getting a birth control prescription at their doctor's door?

Hillary and Harry later go on to diss South Dakota.

For example, a recent analysis by the non-partisan Guttmacher Institute revealed that South Dakota is one of the most difficult states for low-income women to obtain contraceptives.

What they conveniently don't mention is that South Dakota, which supposedly doesn't provide free contraceptives to poor women, has a much lower rate of abortion than states like New York and California which were given high marks with regards to contraception from the Alan Guttmacher Institute.

Why is it that according to the CDC, residents of South Dakota ( ranked 44th overall by the AGI) had an abortion rate of 6 (per 1,000 women aged 15-44) and an abortion ratio of 94 (per 1,000 live births) in 2002 when New York residents (5th overall by the AGI) had an abortion rate of 30 and an ratio of 462 in the same year? The last year the CDC records abortion statistics for California is 1997. At that time California (occurrences not residents since the resident statistics are basically non-existent in 1997) had an abortion rate of 38 and an abortion ratio of 525. California, by the way, was ranked #1 overall by the AGI. I'm sorry but with results like those, I don't think South Dakota is going to be running to New York and California for advice on lowering abortions.

Maybe, just maybe, a state's policies on giving out free contraceptives don't necessarily correlate to a lower abortion rate. Maybe some other factors apply, like, let's say, where a state pays for low-income women to have "access" to abortion. Or maybe what the average age of marriage is? Or maybe how abortion is seen by the residents of that state? Or maybe how unborn children are seen by residents of that state?

Party of Death - Book Review - Part One

I recently received Ramesh Ponnuru's new book, The Party of Death, and have been reading it on my lunch break during the last two days. Besides the fact that receiving this book for free is the first tangible thing I've gotten from almost a year and a half of blogging, Ramesh is probably my favorite writer for the National Review so I've looked forward to reading this book for quite some time.

As of today I've read the first seven chapters and enjoyed them thoroughly. In the first chapter, Ramesh takes the time to shatter the myth of what Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton did and dismantles Judge Blackmun's "flimsy" reasoning and the media's acceptance of the "first three months" line. Chapter two discusses how the abortion issue has realigned the political orientation of many individuals, the abandonment of prolife principles by many Democratic politicians, and the "personally opposed" stance of politicians like Mario Cuomo. Chapter notes how many Democrats have taken advocacy of abortion to the extremes of wanting tax dollars to pay for abortion and their disapproval of Unborn Victims of Violence law. Chapters four and five discuss partial-birth abortion. Chapter six addresses whether abortion has brought about social good (such as a reduction in crime) and how those arguments are "something of a sideshow." Chapter seven (which was my favorite chapter so far) discusses personhood and other arguments used in an attempt to argue away the rights of the unborn.

Though I'm only a third of the way through the book, if the rest of the book is like the first seven chapters (and I'm guessing it is), Ramesh Ponnuru has taken the stores of knowledge prolifers have acquired over the past 30+ years and condensed that knowledge into an enjoyably readable 248-page tome on arguably some of the most important political issues of our time.

Some quotable quotes so far:
"But saying that Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in the first three months of pregnancy is like saying that World War II pitted Germany against Great Britain: It's true in a narrow sense, but it's very far from being the whole story."

After posting a classic discussion between Rick Santorum and Barbara Boxer - "These are the difficulties one takes on in defending the killing of a human being inches away from being born: You're forced either to defend infanticide openly, or to draw distinctions that amount to a deadly game of Hokey-Pokey."

"The legislators who tried to outlaw partial-birth abortion were trying to work around (the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court used birth, a change of location, to transform a fetus to a human being). Conceding that the Court would not allow them to protect life within the womb, they tried to mark an outer boundary to the abortion right: to establish that they could protect human beings partway out of the womb. It is this attempt to draw a limit that the courts put down. In the process, they ascribed their own irrationality to others."

"The argument for the sanctity of life is straightforward. If human beings have intrinsic dignity and worth, then they have this dignity and worth simply because they are human beings. It follows that all human beings have this dignity and worth. They are equal in the fundamental rights that attach to being human. These rights - and to have any rights at all must be to have the right not to be killed - cannot depend on particular qualities that some human beings have and others do not."

"There is a radical difference that separates both an adult human being and a human embryo from both a kitten and a sperm cell. The first two are complete, living human organisms and the second two are not. Yet the party of death ignores that basic difference while making a difference of degree - the adult's greater age and development of his capacities - the basis of a radical difference in treatment."

End of life debate in West Michigan

The Grand Rapids Press has a two stories about a 97-year-old woman named Hazel Wagner in Allegan General Hospital. One doctor there, Brian Drozdowski, has "filed a petition eight days ago asking Van Buren County Probate Judge Frank Willis to cease the heroic efforts to keep Wagner alive, court records show. He asked that her "full code" status be changed to respite care, with her breathing tube removed, tube feedings stopped and measures taken to make Wagner comfortable." In the court document, Drozdowski has stated that Wagner has "almost no chance of meaningful recovery."

The patient has dementia, only one living relative, and never filled out any kind of end-of-life document such as a do-not-resuscitate order, a living will or a durable power of attorney.

The second article details that Ms. Wagner's guardian, Tammy Dykstra, has removed Ms. Wagner from Allegan General Hospital to a hospital in Kalamazoo. According to court officials, Dykstra "understood Wagner was improving."

One of the articles also notes that if a judge ruled in favor of Drozdowski petition, the guardian (not Drozdowski or the hospital) would be allowed to decide if Ms. Wagner continues to receive food and water and breathing support.

I think the language used in the first story is instructive of how our culture views those that receive and need certain life-sustaining medical care.

"should be allowed to die"

‘"unethical" to keep her alive like this'

"He finally died in October 2001"

"Our opinion is that it would be futile to continue to aggressively treat (such patients)."

This is absolutely hilarious

Patterico has caught LA Times columnist Michael Hiltzik posting under a couple of aliases, referring to himself in the third person, having one of the aliases compliment him and complimenting his own alias.

Only Michael Hiltzik's incredibly lame response could top it for laughs.

UPDATE: The LA Times has suspended Hiltzik's blog for violating "The Times ethics guidelines."

Adult stem cell news

Next month a San Diego-based company will begin the first clinical trial to see if "stem cells derived from fat can be used to regenerate breast tissue."

The study will include women who have had "partial mastectomies due to breast cancer."


In Australia, researchers are using adult stem cells to treat patients with broken bones which failed to heal.


Baptist News shares the story of a young woman named Jacki Rabon. Jacki was paralyzed after a car accident in 2003. She is currently walking with the help of a parallel bar after going to Portugal, receiving a transplant of stem cells from her olfactory tissue and spending months rehabilitating.

Ask Amy

Here's an Ask Amy column where a 40-year-old pregnant woman is told by her friend of 10 years that she should have an abortion.

When I told one of my friends that I am pregnant, she got upset with me "for letting this happen at your age." She told me that she thinks I should exercise my "right to choice" and have an abortion.

I told her that I have decided to have the baby and that it already has a heartbeat.

She said that "there ain't nothing there that you can call a life" and that obstetricians perform ultrasounds so early in pregnancy to "browbeat and intimidate" women into having babies that they don't want.

Overheard

Dave Andrusko: "To (Cristina) Page, the real reason you and I object to ripping the heads off of unborn babies is not because we find this a stomach-turning abridgement of basic human rights and a betrayal of our nation's best impulses, but rather because we are afraid of sex. This simple-minded putdown represents the ultimate one-explanation-fits-all strategy, which, for Page, also has the wonderful effect of eliminating the need to take ANYTHING we say seriously."


Karen Bodle: "I was in denial over the truth of abortion for over 20 years."


Random abortion clinic worker to a woman struggling with whether to have an abortion at around 7 weeks (my emphasis): "I know there's a lot of information on the internet about fetal growth, etc, so you probably have this picture in your head of an actual "baby" growing inside you. While later in your pregnancy, that'd certainly be more accurate, you have to realize that at this point, your pregnancy isn't even fetal. Fetal growth does not begin until the 8th week of gestation. Your pregnancy now is a tiny sac, the size of a peanut, with some liquid on the inside."
Just some liquid, huh?

In other teacher/abortion news

A fourth-grade social studies teacher in Pennsylvania named Katherine McGuire is on paid leave after discussing abortion with her students.

According to the story, McGuire discussed abortion and asked her students to vote if they'd would choose abortion or adoption. She then told her students she was against abortion.

Some parents are threatening legal action against McGuire.

According to the account given by the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, Ms. McGuire wasn't the one who brought the subject up but she described an abortion procedure and noted that a baby was killed during the procedure.

We can only guess at the cricumstances of this discussion. My guess is that Ms. McGuire was teaching her young students about elections and government and maybe certain issues that people vote on when one of her students (probably a student with prolife parents) mentions abortion. Other students may have quickly asked, "What's abortion?" At that point, what's a teacher to do? Do you discuss abortion and the political controversy surrounding it with fourth graders or do you try to avoid the subject?

I've actually discussed this type of situation with someone I know who has a child of similar age. The child's mother is strongly prolife and because of her involvement with various prolife events has taught her daughter some things about abortion. During the 2004 election, the young students at the daughter's school were asked to take part in a mock election between Kerry and Bush (this is where I think the cause of the problem lies) and the daughter was asked by her friends or the teacher (I can't remember) why she was voting for President Bush. The daughter said she's voting for Bush because he's against abortion and then went on to describe her understanding of abortion. This, of course, caused some stirring and eventually the teacher requested that the daughter not talk about abortion in class. The teacher later mentioned this incident to the mother and requested the mother talk to her daughter about not talking about abortion in class.

Any thoughts on how parents and teachers should handle this type of situation?

"I am so glad I didn't listen to him and get an abortion"

Deanna defends her baby.