Life Links 3/23/07

But the embryos will destroyed anyway, so why not perform research on them and get something out of it? Scott Klusendorf (who'll be in my part of country on April 4 to debate the ACLU's President) provides an answer.


Mississippi's governor Haley Barbour has signed an abortion trigger law that will go into effect when Roe v. Wade is overturned.


Paying women $500 to choose adoption over abortion? That's what one Texas legislator wants to do.


The LA Times had an article (registration required, I believe) about the prolife movement's attempts to reach out to the African-American community.

"Now that I look at him, I wouldn't care if the counselors were white, Asian, black — they saved his life," Yarbrough said. "But when I first started out … I wouldn't have been as comfortable with a white person as I was with Jettie. She looks like me. She knows what I'm going through."

Also, you won't want to miss Janice Martel Gaiter's opinion on which organizations should be allowed into the black community. For some reason, I think she believes that Planned Parenthood, NARAL, NOW, etc. aren't "upper-middle-class white organizations" while prolife organizations are.

As if you needed another reason to dislike prosperity theology

A church in Michigan has purchased a $4 million house for their pastor.

Supposedly, this is "compensation" for the pastor leaving a high paying job in the auto industry. Is it me or does this totally skew what the call of God to be a pastor is all about?

HT: Mindful Mission

LifeLinks 3/21/07

Is praying in front of an abortion clinic worker's house and having a picture of an aborted child "disturbing the peace?"


An abandoned newborn was found dead outside a motel in Ypsilanti Township. Here's the reaction of the man who found the child.

"I didn't get much sleep," Dziak said Tuesday. "How you can live with yourself after this? That has to be an amazing strain on somebody."

MIT's Technology Review has an article on a new study which hopes to clarify some issues in using adult stem cells to treat patients with heart ailments.

Life Links 3/20/07

The Georgia Senate has passed a bill to promote non-destructive types of stem cell research.


South Carolina legislators have introduced a bill which would require women to see an ultrasound image of their unborn child before an abortion.


Wouldn't be nice if AP reporters (and editors, for that matter) knew enough about stem cell research and human cloning to not allow this kind of gobblegook into their stories.

Challengers say they want cures, too. But they're against research that uses embryos. With the technique, known as somatic cell nuclear transfer, embryos are destroyed once stem cells are extracted from an altered human egg stimulated to grow in a lab dish.

How did somatic cell nuclear transfer (a technique researchers use to try to create cloned human embryos) become a technique to destroy human embryos altered human eggs?

One wonders if Andale Gross took the time to actually interview anyone who was opposed to the creation and destruction of cloned human embryos. Probably not.

When the headline doesn't match

How is this for a headline? Ugh....At least the first sentence clarifies the headline.

Abortion "meltdown"

A woman who is scheduled to have an abortion near the end of the month is struggling with her emotions about her decision. Some excerpts from her posts:

My feelings of guilt and shame are overwhelming. I can't bear to face friends/co-workers/ family right now because I feel like a fraud. I feel that if they knew about the scheduled abortion, they would lose all respect for me.....

I don't for a second doubt my decision – I just don't know how to handle the feelings inside. I can't stop crying and I want to lash out and scream and vent. I know that won't solve the problem – I just don't know how else to cope. My conscience is killing me and I'm trying to reconcile the fact that there is a life growing inside of me and I'm making the decision to end it. Who am I to play God and will I ever be forgiven?? Do I even deserve forgiveness?? ......

He's not the one that has this life inside him, he's not the one that has to deal with the shame of lying on some cold medical table while a horrendous piece of equipment is shoved inside the most private part of his body in order to suck out a human life (sorry for the vulgarity).....

A while back we talked about the death penalty and he said he was opposed to it because he doesn't believe in a world that doesn't value life. Isn't this life?? This his own flesh and blood! How does he reconcile that in his mind?? I guess he just picks his values and beliefs by supporting those that have no direct or unpleasant impact on him. How very easy and convenient. .......

MB and I have none of those issues – there is absolutely no reason for us not to see this through other than we are two of the most selfish people on the planet. We are completely capable of providing a good life for this child but instead we care only about ourselves and how we would be inconvenienced. The realization that this is who I really am is making me sick ....

This woman admits there is a life inside her and she is making the decision to end that life for what she says are selfish reasons. She even wonders if she deserves forgiveness.

As prolifers I think we sometimes think we just need to prove to women that what is growing in their wombs is a life (therefore abortion takes that life) and then they'll decide against abortion.

But it doesn't always work that way. There are some women who know full well what's going on, don't think abortion is a positive thing and yet have one anyway. This woman's conscience isn't allowing her to go through with an abortion as if it were a just an everyday medical procedure. Her conscience is forcing her to examine herself and her reasoning and she doesn't like what she sees. Yet she still plans on having an abortion.

What can the prolife movement say to a pregnant woman who understands she's carrying a life, is against making an adoption plan, and has decided on abortion even though her conscience is fighting it and she doesn't like the reasons for her decision?

Life Links 3/19/07

The NIH has a site on new advances in non-embryonic stem cell research which claims it will be updated on a regular basis as new peer-reviewed studies are published.


Meanwhile, the Detroit Free Press editorial board is continuing to prove itself to be one of the most incompetent in the country. A recent editorial calls on Michigan to lift its non-existent ban on embryonic stem cell research. The headline ("Lift state's ban on stem cell research") is even more misleading. The article is filled with more misinformation including the claim that Iowa lifted their restrictions on stem cell research when what the actually did was repeal their ban on human cloning for research. I think the best claim though has to be that Minnesota has an "express ban" on embryonic stem cell research. Don't tell that to the people in charge of the University of Minnesota's human embryonic stem cell training program!

So is the Detroit Free Press editorial board A.) stupid, B.) lazy, C.) biased or D.) all of the above?



Macht on what happens when we see children as "wanted" and "unwanted." I think he also has a good point regarding how sexual temptation doesn't disappear if you're homosexual or heterosexual or with marriage.

A "wanted child" owes his or her very existence to his or her mother. A "wanted child" in an abortion-friendly culture is a child whose existence is due to that child's particular qualities or the "life situation" of the parents. In other words, the child is not accepted or welcomed into this world unconditionally. If the child is in good health and doesn't have any genetic abnormalities and the parents are financially well off and if the parents are responsible enough and so on and so forth, then we will welcome and accept the child.

The idea of a "wanted child" is totally foreign to Christian thought. Christians say that all humans deserve love, dignity, and acceptance unconditionally and a culture of abortion does not allow this.

Bobby Schindler reviews some of what happened to his sister on the second anniversary of the removal of her feeding tube.

I must be one of those "useful idiots"

What I often find disconcerting about some individuals who post comments on pro-choice blogs is how they view the prolife movement and its intentions. For example, this comment by Dianne at Feministe:

It is in the US's interest to make people in most of the world as miserable as possible and killing and maiming women is one way they do it. Plus anti-choicers get off on the idea of women being hurt. Oh, there are people who believe that they are saving lives by preventing abortion. I suspect that the higher ups in the anti-choice industry refer to them as "useful idiots". But the average professional anti-choicer is dedicated to enslaving, maiming, and killing women. Period. There is no desire to "save babies" there.

Pushing aside the nonsensical U.S. interests bit - this is just so weird to me. Are all the professional prolife women (probably the majority of professional prolifers) dedicated to enslaving, maiming and killing women? If the main goal of professional prolifers is to do all these horrible things to women then why do they spend all this time and energy on other issues (embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, cloning, etc.) which don't effect whether women can have abortions or not? Is all that work just a ploy to keep their cover? If prolifers want to hurt and punish women then why do most prolifers not favor the idea of imprisoning women if abortion were to become illegal? What are the board meetings of the "higher ups" like? Old, white men cackling as they plot the next way to enslave, maim and kill women?

How can people who go about working, interacting and living as average human beings think such incomprehensibly foolish things?

Is it really that hard to fathom some people genuinely think killing nascent human beings is wrong and should be stopped and because of this they dedicate their lives to trying to save those human beings?

Winning the Fetus Debate

The posters at the Life Training Institute Blog are having a decision about the term fetus. Jay started by writing that he thinks prolifers shouldn't fear the use of the term "fetus," Serge points out some pro-choicers use the term "fetus" as an attempt to dehumanize the unborn and he tries to remember to always use the terms "human fetus" or "fetal human being" instead of just saying fetus, and then Jay discusses how poor an argument it is when pro-choicers act like they've proven the unborn aren't worthy of protection simply by calling them fetuses.

What I find interesting here is that I think the prolife movement for the most part has won the debate over what a human fetus is or isn't. I think when most people hear the term fetus, they don't think about a tiny grouping of cell with no value but rather they think about a miniature human being in the womb which has some value. Their minds go to the 3-D images of unborn children or they think of children who are born very premature as being in the womb. As time has passed, more people have become familiar with the term and it is not as abstract as it once was. Hardly anyone thinks fetal farming (killing human fetuses solely for their parts) should be permitted and reading pro-choice blogs I rarely see the term fetus used as if human fetuses weren't worth a dime. Only the dimmest of dim think this somehow amounts to some great point. Some prolifers have even used terms which were once so dehumanizing to humanize the unborn in the eyes of others.

I believe the same thing is happening to a certain extent with the term "embryo." Lawmakers and advocates whom favor of embryonic stem cell research and the creation of cloned human embryos for research will often intentionally avoid using the term "embryo." Somehow they think it's persuasive to argue the human embryonic stem cells they so crave are removed from something which is not a human embryo. Other terms like "pre-embryo," "certain material" or, in the case of legislation to expressly legalize the creation of cloned human embryos for research, "unfertilized egg" are used as synonyms for what they know to be a human embryo.

Why are they scared of using the term "human embryo?" Or even just "embryo?"

Because they recognize a decent portion of our society has become familiar with the term "embryo" and recognize that a human embryo is, just that, a human being in the embryonic stage of development. Terms like "pre-embryo," "unfertilized egg," and "product of nuclear transplantation" are the next generation of terms used to dehumanize the unborn. They need these new terms because the terms "fetus" and "embryo" no longer have the dehumanizing effect they once had in the public arena.

The Worst Father of Year Award

Goes to a man from Indianapolis named Kevin Chandler who is accused of stabbing his 11-month old son Devon in the back with a kitchen knife and then throwing him out of the car.

Thankfully, the child survived and is recovering.

More stem cell links

Scientists in Britain are using adult stem cells to help treat patients who have a rare genetic eye disorder called aniridia.

Four patients have so far received the treatment successfully in one eye and reported an improvement in their comfort and vision, and now await treatment in their other eye.

The University of Wisconsin is one of 15-20 research sites taking part in a Phase II study to "investigate the efficacy, tolerability, and safety of blood-derived selected stem cells to improve symptoms and clinical outcomes in patients with chronic myocardial ischemia (CMI), a severe form of coronary artery disease."


There's an event tonight at the University of Michigan co-sponsored by the Student Society for Stem Cell Research and the Students for Life focusing on embryonic stem cell research. I'm impressed these groups are working together to put on what looks to be an interesting and informative event. Each group has invited three speakers to address the issue. According the SFL web site, former congressman Joe Schwarz, Dr. Sue O'Shea and Kathleen Russell will be speaking for the SSSCR while Rep. Jack Hoogendyk, Dr. David Prentice and Cindy Northon will be speaking for the Students for Life.

Worst Boyfriend of the Year Award

This year's award goes to Daniel Riase. Riase is a 21 year-old man from Virginia who faces charges (including administering a drug with the intent to cause an abortion) after crushing misoprostol (one of the drugs used in an RU-486 abortion) pills and putting them in his pregnant girlfriend's glass of milk.

His girlfriend began to bleed and then drove herself to a hospital where she was told that she miscarried. Here are some more background articles with more information.

After losing her child, I-Sharii Best, investigated her boyfriend and found an e-mail verification of his order of the abortion pills. She then recorded her boyfriend's admission on a tape recorder after confronting him. Before spiking her drink with the abortion drug, Riase had tried to pressure Best into getting an abortion.

Stem Cell Links

Six Stem Cell Facts by Robert George and Father Thomas Berg

Most scientists acknowledge that ESCs will not provide therapies for many years, if ever. Their therapeutic potential is, at best, speculative. They cannot be used now, even in clinical trials, because of their tendency to produce tumors. So it comes as no surprise that many scientists now admit that their primary interest in pursuing ESC research lies not in the hope for direct cell transplant therapies, but in the desire to enhance basic scientific knowledge of such things as cell signaling, tissue growth and early human development.

The Baltimore Sun has an article about the importance of words in the stem cell debate.


California's U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein delusionally thinks embryonic stem cell researchers are "handcuffed" even though her state will be doling out billions of dollars to them in the next decade. We should also know that "the hopes of millions of Americans depend on" President Bush changing his mind about the federal funding of killing human embryos.

"Forceps encrusted in brownish blood-like residues"

That was one of the reasons the New Jersey state health department has temporarily closed down the Metropolitan Medical Associates in Englewood according to this story in the Record.

Inspectors also found opened packs of items which were supposed to be sterilized, rusty crotchet hooks (which were used to remove IUDs), and "a quarter-inch of dark red "dirt and debris" under an exam table."

The clinic also couldn't prove they had anyone in control of infection control and the person who was supposedly in charge of it wasn't trained and couldn't recall being in charge of it. Also,

In separate records released Tuesday, investigators concluded the facility failed to notify the department "of an event occurring within the facility that jeopardized the health and safety of a patient." The department refused to release details of the "event."

The department also found that the patient's medical and operative records were incomplete.

"The operative report was not immediately completed following the procedure because Staff Member #1 reported being 'superstitious' and was aware that Patient #1 had emergency surgery performed and was waiting for the results," investigators wrote. The patient has since sued for malpractice.

Pro-choice advocates spend a lot of time lamenting on the poor conditions of illegal abortions in foreign countries yet I've heard not a word from abortion advocates (like the National Abortion Federation) about these seedy conditions at one of their own facilities.

This case also shows how some abortion providers work to cover up their mistakes and don't follow the law about reporting abortion complications to the state health department.

Related:
Another less than safe abortion clinic
More on shady abortion clinic
Still more on the Metropolitan Medical Associates

Tags: abortion clinic, new jersey, metropolitan medical associates

"It just hurts so bad!!!! Yes, I feel like I am murdering my own child!"

So says a pro-choice woman who is pregnant with her fourth child. Yet she thinks abortion is the right decision in her situation. Plus, her boyfriend, who is 20 years older, is pushing her to have an abortion because he doesn't want his father (a pastor) to find out he had sex outside of marriage.

Life Links 3/13/07

The bodies of two unborn children were found in a storage shed after a woman admitted to self-aborting after her husband's suicide. The police got a tip after the woman told friends. How does that subject come in conversation?


Rich Lowry: Who Cares About Abortion?


Rudy Giuliani hates abortion? My behind.


Researchers at the University of Michigan have that a type of stem cells in lungs "may be able to help with lung disease and donated organ rejection."

Baby got book

This is about a year old but I hadn't seen it until today.

"It's worn, it's torn and I know that girl's reborn."

"39 plus 27 equals 66 books. And if you're Catholic, there's even more."

Friday Cat Blogging

In case you wondered whether cats like to be put in a Christmas stocking.



They don't.

They can't wait to start misrepresenting prolife legislation, huh? Totally believable.

Jessica at Feministing and at the BushvChoice blog links to an article about Mississippi's trigger law to ban abortion except in the cases of life of the mother and rape once Roe v. Wade is overturned. After quoting the article about the legislation and how someone guilty of performing an illegal abortion would spend 1 to 10 years in jail, Jessica exclaims,

They just can't wait to start punishing women, huh? Unbelievable.

Too bad Jessica probably hasn't actually read the legislation because if she did that basic research she might have known the law says specifically that women won't be punished for performing abortions on themselves (my emphasis below).

Any person, except the pregnant woman, who purposefully, knowingly or recklessly performs or attempts to perform or induce an abortion in the State of Mississippi, except in the case where necessary for the preservation of the mother's life or where the pregnancy was caused by rape, upon conviction, shall be punished by imprisonment in the custody of the Department of Corrections for not less than one (1) year nor more than ten (10) years.

But hey, why do simple research like reading legislation before commenting on it when you can just pigeonhole prolifers as people who just want to punish women?

Tags: abortion, mississippi, pro-choice bloggers

Life Links 3/9/07

Ramesh Ponnuru on prolife litmus tests.

One thing I think is often missing when talking about Giuliani's positions on life issues is his position on other life issues like the funding of embryonic stem cell research and human cloning for research and even the funding of international groups which promote abortions overseas. He promises to appoint the right kind of judges but will he promise to continue the Mexico City Policy and prevent tax dollars from being used to kill human embryos? Probably not.


Beverly Nuckols explains how embryonic stem cells need to be changed into adult stem cells before they can be used.

The answers are obvious if you think about it -- even the "embryonic proponents" are trying to make adult stem cells.

None of the treatments involved in therapy - now or in any likely future therapies - are actual embryonic stem cells, because the cells we need will only function in specific conditions and surroundings. The specific conditions and surroundings are only found in place, in the actual site of damage.

Embryonic stem cells function is to make embryonic tissues and must develop into precursors and then specific tissues. The "gold standard" test for embryonic stem cells is their ability to make tumors called teratomas in mice. And this is what they would do in any body, as long as they are "embryonic stem cells."

It's all about the patents, baby! An editorial in the journal Stem Cell says isolated stem cell lines should be patented. When researchers like the University of Michigan's Sean Morrison tell you they need to create their own embryonic stem cell lines, it's not because those stem cell lines are somehow going to work better than other embryonic stem cell lines or being able to create kill embryos is somehow going to create thousands of jobs. It's because they want the patents.

Life Links 3/8/07

Catholic World News is reporting the baby boy from Italy who survived an abortion has died.


Missourians aren't going to accept human cloning in Missouri without a fight.


Richard Doerflinger lists 75 New Reasons to Reconsider the Alleged Need for Stem Cell Research which Destroys Human Embryos.

Attempt to kill unborn child because of supposed abnormalities fails and it turns out there weren't abnormalities

A baby in Italy is struggling to survive after an attempted abortion at 22 weeks failed. The reason for the abortion was because there were indications the child had digestive system abnormalities (which are correctable, by the way). After the child was born alive, it was discovered the child didn't have the abnormalities.

Michigan's financial woes

Greg Kaza paints the picture of Michigan's continuous single state recession and how the economies of western states are expanding. Will Governor Granholm take note? Not likely.

Tags: granholm, michigan, financial crisis

Life Links 3/7/07

A woman in the Boston area named Jennifer Raper is suing Planned Parenthood for child rearing costs after one of Planned Parenthood's abortionist failed at killing her unborn child in 2004. She is also suing another doctor who failed to detect her pregnancy months after the failed abortion.


The Metropolitan Medical Associates abortion clinic in Englewood, New Jersey has failed to pass its follow-up investigation 12 days after being closed up by the health department of the state of New Jersey. The clinic had assured the health department that it had taken care of its violations.


The Detroit News has a good article on umbilical cord blood and how to donate umbilical cord blood in Michigan.


The National Catholic Register isn't about to accept Rudy Giulani's position on abortion.

We're sorry, but we don't see what is so unreasonable about the right to life. We've seen ultrasounds, we've named our babies in the womb, we've seen women destroyed by abortion. What looks supremely unreasonable to us is that we should trust a leader who not doesn't only reject the right to life but even supports partial-birth abortion, which is more infanticide than abortion.

Life Links 3/6/07

Here's a spectacularly bad editorial on stem cell research entitled "Stem cell research is the only hope for our future" by Cal-State Fullerton student Cindy Cafferty. Paging Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Probably the worst part is when Cafferty tries to explain the financial cost of Proposition 73 (6 billion dollars "might cost us a penny or two") and then acts like California's taxes ( 7.25% sales tax, which is highest in the nation and 9.3% income tax if you make more than $40,000 ) - aren't that bad ("California, comparatively speaking, is in the bottom of income tax revenue collection by national standards").


An Iowan takes issue with the DesMoines Register's assertion that "Destroying (human embryos) isn't the same as destroying a human life."


Stuart Taylor has a prediction on how the Supreme Court will rule on the federal partial-birth abortion ban amongst other predictions.

Abortion. The Roberts Court has already voted in a big abortion case, on the constitutionality of the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. But we probably won't know who won until June.

Pro-choicers noisily fear, and pro-lifers hope, that the Court will uphold this congressional ban on a late-term abortion procedure likened by critics to infanticide because the fetus is destroyed when mostly outside the womb. In the process, many predict, the justices will overrule a major 2000 decision striking down a very similar Nebraska ban. O'Connor was the fifth vote then. Alito is now, and this will be the first salvo in a conservative assault on Roe v. Wade.

My predictions are different: The Court will indeed uphold the federal "partial-birth" ban -- thanks to the Alito-O'Connor swap -- but only by construing it so narrowly that it will have very little effect. And the Court will never overrule Roe v. Wade.

Specifically, the justices will limit the federal ban to "D&X," or dilation and extraction, abortions, the most grisly late-term procedure, and exempt "D&E," or dilation and evacuation, abortions, which are much more common. The Court may also carve out an exception to the ban for those exceedingly rare cases in which more than a few medical experts consider D&X safer than D&E. The justices will narrow but stop short of overruling the 2000 Nebraska decision.

During the argument on this case, Roberts seemed to be pushing for a narrow interpretation of the federal ban. Such a split-the-difference approach might appeal to the conflicted Kennedy; he is the fifth pro-Roe vote, but he wanted to uphold the Nebraska "partial-birth" ban. In future cases, the justices will narrow Roe v. Wade (as they started doing in 1992) but strike down any state laws making it difficult for most women to get abortions.

Amazing Ignorance

At ProlifeBlogs, Barbara links to an article in the Columbia Tribune which discusses ministers, rabbis and other religious people who are pro-choice.

Blake's 40 years of supporting reproductive choice began when he was a medical student and saw women who had been mutilated by illegal abortion, he said.

"Millions of women had illegal abortions," he said. "Only a small percentage had abortions that were performed by people that knew what they were doing."

How does one square that quote with the following quote from Dr. Mary Calderone (medical director of Planned Parenthood at the time) in the American Journal of Health in 1960?

"...90% of all illegal abortions are done by physicians. Call them what you will, abortionists or anything else, they are still physicians, trained as such; and many are in good standing in their communities. Whatever trouble arises usually comes after self-induced abortions, which comprise approximately 8 percent, or with the very small percentage that go to some kind of non-medical abortionist. Another corollary fact: physicians of impeccable standing are referring their patients for these illegal abortions to colleagues they know are willing to perform them."

Another classic quote from the pro-choice religious crowd:

Brown said he believes the right to reproductive choice is inborn and connected to being created in God's image and free will.

Do you get that? So being created in the image of God gives us certain rights, including the right to kill another being created in the image of God?

Still more really bad arguments. One Bonnie Shapero:

"My feeling has been all along if the government can tell you that you can't have an abortion, that is very close to the government telling you that you have to have an abortion."

What utter nonsense. They're not very close. They're polar opposites. For example, "My feeling has been all along if the government can tell you that you can't steal, that is very close to the government telling you that you have to steal. If the government can tell you that you can't rape, that is very close to the government telling you that you have to rape. If the government can tell you that you can't murder, that is very close to government telling you that you have to murder. If the government can tell you that you can't snort cocaine, that is very close to the government telling you that you have to snort cocaine. If the government can tell you that same sex people can't marry, that is very close to the government telling you that you have to marry someone of the same sex." What other issue could someone say something so completely unreasoned and incoherent and not get laughed at by everyone around them?

Another from Rebecca Turner:

Turner said the MORCRC's bottom line is "because religions do not agree on the beginning of life, ensoulment or when abortion is a morally acceptable choice, the government cannot legislate one religious view over another.

Bad assumption: The belief that life begins at conception is a religious view.

Bad argument: Because different religion take different positions on what is morally acceptable, the government cannot (or should not) speak legislatively on an issue where there is disagreement among religions.

What would be consequences of such an argument? Human sacrifice would be legal because some religions call for it. Some Muslims religious leaders think killing certain non-Muslims is morally acceptable so therefore the government shouldn't speak legislatively on whether Muslims can kill non-Muslim. Some church leaders might even think it is morally acceptable to bomb abortion clinics so killing abortionists shouldn't be legislated according to Turner's argument.

I sometimes think that the people who attempt to defend abortion on religious grounds often come up with some the worst arguments for why abortion should be legal.

Tags: abortion, religion, pro-choice

Still more on the Metropolitan Medical Associates

After hearing about Rasheedah Dinkins' lawsuit against abortionists Keith Gresham and Nicholas Kotopoulos of the Metropolitan Medical Associates, a woman named Christina Ruvolo has come forward to talk about her abortion complications at MMA.

"They didn't finish it," Ruvolo said. "There was a part of the baby inside."
....
She said she tried to talk to a doctor after the second procedure resulted in complications, but the staff would not help her.

Another woman named Gloria Mozas has also come forward and is suing the abortion clinic for injuries she suffered in 2003.

Are we smarter than a fifth grader?

Bryan Kemper points out how in describing what the unborn are, adults are often not smarter than fifth-graders.

National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers

At least one organization, the National Abortion Federation, is gearing up to celebrate and honor people who make a living killing unborn children. The irony is that they're doing this while one of their abortion providers is being sued because they put a woman in a coma for a month. I'm guessing Rasheedah Dinkins won't be signing that petition anytime soon.

Life Links 3/2/07

Michael Fumento on the "false adult stem cell paper" that wasn't false.


Frank Beckmann: Civility can still reign even on divisive issue of abortion

Though Tim Stickel's kindness towards the protestors was commendable, I believe he could have given some better answers to their questions.


Adult stem cells might eventually be able to help treat male infertility.

These data demonstrate that bone marrow stem cells have the potential to differentiate into cells of the testes involved in sperm production, both germ cells and supporting cells. Interestingly, the germ cells did not differentiate fully into sperm, suggesting that additional factors or cellular signals are needed.

Future studies will characterize the other factors, such as hormones, required to complete sperm production in this transplant model. In addition, since the bone marrow cells used here represent a mixed population of stem cells, further studies will determine which specific stem cell type was able to colonize and differentiate in the testes. The results of future studies could have dramatic implications for treating male infertility or testosterone deficiency.

The abstract of the study is here.

More on the shady abortion clinic in Englewood, New Jersey

After being temporarily shut down by the state of New Jersey, Metropolitan Medical Associates is getting sued by a woman named Rasheedah Dinkins who spent a month in a coma after her abortion.

Dinkins, 20, felt ill after undergoing the abortion, and had to be rushed to a hospital by ambulance after she passed out at her home, her family said.

Once there, she was given blood transfusions and had her uterus removed, Slater said. The attorney also said Dinkins suffered a stroke due to serious blood loss, and one of her lungs collapsed.

Tags: abortion clinic, lawsuit

More Cloning Deception in Iowa

Iowa Governor Chet Culver signed a bill into law to legalize human cloning for research. At the signing he said ,

"Today, thousands of Iowans who have been affected by serious illness and disease now have hope."

Do you think Culver actually believes this? I can't imagine how ticked off I would be if I had a horrible disease and politicians like Culver were continually telling me that this research would save my life only to find out this research is never going to come anywhere near saving my life. I guess human cloning for research proponents hope people with diseases have short memories.

Culver also said,

I want to thank everyone who has been fighting for this life-saving research for the last five years since the stem cell research ban went into effect.

Things to note:
1. Human cloning for research hasn't come anywhere near helping any human patient much less saving a single life so how can Culver call it "life-saving?"
2. Did the Iowa legislature ban stem cell research or did they ban human cloning for research five years ago? Why can't proponents of human cloning for research be honest about what they want?

The absolute vileness of these people. It makes my skin crawl.

Related:
Our argument is we have no argument

Debating Human Cloning Legislation in Iowa

Ultrasounds all around

Looks like a number of states, including South Carolina, Idaho, Georgia, and South Dakota are trying to follow Michigan's lead in making sure women considering an abortion are given the chance to view an ultrasound image of their unborn child.

Tags: abortion, legislation, ultrasound

Another less-than-safe abortion clinic

A large abortion clinic called the Metropolitan Medical Associates Englewood Center for Women in New Jersey has been temporarily shut down by state health officials after they found violations posing "immediate and serious risk of harm to patients."

Problems included but were not limited to "infection control, instruments, equipment used for sterilization of patient care use items and the processing of equipment."

If only their clinic was as clean and inviting as their web site, huh?

The investigation which led to the temporary closing was initiated after emergency room staff treated a woman whom experienced complications from an abortion at the Englewood clinic.

The Metropolitan Medical Associates abortion clinic in Englewood may sound familiar to prolifers. They've been in the news before. This is the same clinic where abortionists admitted to performing 1,500 partial-birth abortions annually back in the mid-90's and one of the clinics that advertised in a Pennsylvania yellow page book trying to convince Pennsylvania teens to cross the border to avoid Pennsylvania's parental consent law.

The National Abortion Federation's web page for New Jersey lists "Metropolitan Surgical Associates" in Englewood, New Jersey with the same phone number as Metropolitan Medical Associates as one of their member clinics.

Tags: abortion clinic, new jersey, health violations, national abortion federation

Did they really find Jesus Christ's tomb filled with his and his family's DNA?

Nope.

Stand to Reason's blog has posted a response by Dr. Paul Maier.

Ben Witherington also has some comments.

Secular scholars are also dismissing the film's claims as false.

Dave Konig has a more comedic take.

Tags: Jesus, Mary, tomb

Life Links 2/27/07

The New York Times has a profile article on Frances Kissling. Kissling will be stepping down from her position at Catholics for a Free Choice tomorrow.


Another example of pro-choice intolerance.


Illinois appears to be the next state headed down the road of funding embryonic stem cell research and human cloning for research. Of course, you wouldn't know that S.B. 4 allows state money to be used for somatic cell nuclear transfer from reading this article in the News-Gazette. The legislation also has the typical deceptive definition of cloning.

For purposes of this Section, "clone or attempt to clone a human being" means to transfer to a uterus or attempt to transfer to a uterus anything other than the product of fertilization of an egg of a human female by a sperm of a human male for the purpose of initiating a pregnancy that could result in the creation of a human fetus or the birth of a human being.

Is it me or does this leave the door open for implanting a cloned human embryo as long as the pregnancy couldn't result in a human fetus because the child would be aborted before that stage of development?

Don't allow alternatives to euthanasia

So says Mark Rutte, leader of the Dutch People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD).

Rutte says the new government puts too much emphasis on palliative care in the stance it has now taken on euthanasia. He fears that the government will try to somehow make palliative care into an full-fledged alternative that will make euthanasia superfluous. Rutte thinks euthanasia should remain an "independent alternative" in situations of unbearable and untreatable suffering.

A full-fledged alternative to physicians ending the lives of their patients? Unbelievable. Don't those other parties know that euthanasia should be the only choice "independent alternative" for individuals who are suffering. Why try to treat the suffering when you can just kill those who are suffering?

Rutte also pointed out that the coalition wants to urge pregnant women to consider adoption as an alternative for abortion.

The nerve of these people. Not only do they want palliative care to be an alternative to euthanasia, they want adoption to be considered an alternative to abortion. Don't they understand that death always works best?

Life Links 2/26/07

An article in the UK's Scotsman includes one woman sharing what she felt after having a late-term abortion.

Four months later - around the time her baby might have been born - she went to pieces.

Stricken with grief and guilt, she turned to drink. "I knew I needed help badly, I was so messed up," she adds.

"I'd been given the scan picture of the baby - by mistake, I suppose. But I kept it and used to put it beside me on my pillow when I went to bed. I'd have nightmares. I could hear this child calling my name."

According to an Indian newspaper, a young man in India who has paralyzed from the waist down is now walking after a stem cell transplant.

Nearly 100 ml of his bone marrow was removed, harvested and isolated before the stem cells were injected near the injured spot in his spinal cord.

Our argument is we have no argument

The Des Moines Register Editorial Board came out today with a disastrous editorial on legislation to legalize human cloning for research in Iowa.

The title of the editorial asserts the "Stem-cell bill is NOT about human cloning" even though the editorial notes that "therapeutic cloning would be allowed" and an embryo is destroyed when its "human embryonic stem cells" (my emphasis) are extracted. It's amazing how scientists hope to get human embryonic stem cells out of embryos which are created through a cloning process that somehow isn't human cloning, isn't it?

The line that takes the cake though, is

There are some lawmakers who believe destroying a clump of cells smaller than the period at the end of this sentence is analogous to taking a human life. We have no argument to0 persuade the people who believe that.

They have no arguments to disprove that human embryos are living human beings. Exactly. Why not? Because it's true, perhaps? Because embryology clearly shows that human embryos are human beings at the earliest stage of development? At least the editorial staff of the Des Moines Register can acknowledge they are entirely bereft of anything resembling an argument. What's amazing is their arrogance to continue to assert their completely untenable and unargued for position.

They continue,

We can only remind Iowans that what we're talking about here are microscopic masses of cells. Destroying them isn't the same as destroying a human life. Holding back this research, though, could prevent saving and improving lives.

They can only point out that human embryos are small and then assert that somehow because human embryos are small they are not human life.

The Des Moines Register is also one of the many papers which inaccurately labeled President Bush's policy on embryonic stem cells as a ban.

How many years will it be before the editorial staffs of newspapers eventually realize that the bevy of miraculous cures from cloning isn't coming. How long before the public actually starts to completely write this kind of propaganda off? 5 years? 10 years?

Richard Doerflinger sums it up when he writes,

Not a bad deal, really: Promote "hope and opportunity" while affecting a general support for "progress"; ignore the falsehoods, failures, and frauds that plague this agenda; and keep promising pie in the sky, by and by, until it's too late for the voters to do anything about it. Not too nice for those patients who needed cures, of course.

Addition is not the strong suit of the RH Reality Check Blog

Marcy Bloom in her second attempt to argue that the right to an abortion is a basic human right, writes,

With 68,000 women (mostly black and brown) dying from unsafe abortion in the developing world every year, including 34,000 women in Africa, 38,000 women in Asia, and 5,000 women in Latin America, this public health necessity has become a moral, legal, and political imperative.

Is there a typo here? Because 34,000 plus 38,000 plus 5,000 is 77,000 not 68,000. Looks like Bloom might have gotten some of her women dying from unsafe abortions estimates mixed up.

I also think this part is laughable.

Forcing a woman to undergo a clandestine abortion threatens her rights to life and survival, violating the most fundamental of human rights.

Hmm... Since when do laws which ban abortion force women into clandestine abortions? Oh wait, they don't anymore than laws against robbery force people to rob banks. Or laws against forcible sex force men to rape women.

You wonder why people have really bad arguments

Well, sometimes it's because they never try to take the people they're arguing against seriously. If you view the people you disagree with as nothing more than sexophobic buffoons you're not likely to actually read what they write seriously and try to form good arguments against their arguments. Amanda Marcotte provides almost a perfect example of this in the comments thread of a post of hers at the TPMCafe.

Agreed. I have zero moral qualms about abortion or contraception. Most people feel abortion is immoral for the reason they feel that women sleeping around is immoral---they are products of a culture that has irrational sex phobia, especially towards women, and they've absorbed it.

Do you get that? Amanda thinks the majority people who think abortion is immoral do so because they have absorbed an irrational sex phobia towards women from our culture. It's not because they think ending the lives of developing, unborn humans is an actually wrong itself. It's because they don't think women should be having sex for fun. That's like a prolifer like me thinking everyone who is pro-choice is pro-choice because they like unborn children being killed. Imagine how that would skew my arguments.

When you see the majority of people who think abortion is immoral (by the way, according to a Pew Research poll, the majority of Americans think abortion is morally wrong) as being dolts controlled by a sex phobia you fail to see their actual motives and arguments and this makes it much more difficult to actually address their arguments.

In a recent post by Amanda at Pandagon, she tries to argue that abortion is a moral good and deciding to have an abortion is the "most moral choice" in "the vast majority of abortions." Yet nowhere in the post does she actually make anywhere near a decent argument for why abortion is a moral good. Never once. She tells pro-choicers they shouldn't say abortion is immoral because that "reinforces (an) anti-choice claim" (even though that has nothing to do with whether abortion is actually immoral or not). She says, "Having the notion that women are moral midgets and that abortion is an evil, even if you think it's one that should be tolerated, being reinforced by pro-choicers does the pro-choice argument no good. So I'd like to argue against it."

She'd like to argue against the idea that "abortion is evil" because it doesn't do the pro-choice argument any good not because the idea in itself is wrong.

She also writes later, "Also, saying that abortion is morally questionable, even if you're pro-choice, is a huge insult to the brave men and women who risk life and limb to perform them."

It's not that saying abortion is morally questionable is wrong in and of itself, it's wrong because it insults abortion providers. Get the picture.

Amanda's main attempt at an argument comes in a long paragraph that I will copy below with a few slight changes.

To see that infanticide is moral, you just need to look at women as human beings with lives that have value. When a woman chooses infanticide, she's not indulging some guilty pleasure, like sneaking in a round of adultery at lunch, to bring up a genuinely immoral action that should not be criminal. She is probably thinking about her family's well-being and yes, her own well-being. Taking your own well-being into consideration is called "selfish" by anti-choicers, but I think valuing yourself is a moral good, even if you are female. In fact, especially if you are female, since you live in a world where having self-esteem can be an act of moral courage that requires some defiance. If I gave birth, I wouldn't even have to suffer much mental strain to realize that infanticide would be the best choice for myself, my family, and my relationship. Infanticide, not just the right to infanticide but the actual procedure, is a moral good that helps women and families and should be honored as such. Women who commit infanticide should be recognized as people who can accurately weigh their choices and make the most moral one.

Now if you think replacing abortion with infanticide isn't fair then the question I have for you is "why isn't it fair?"

A pro-choicer's response would probably be something like, "Well, because born children are different than unborn children and therefore are worthy of legal protection."

So, in other words, Amanda's whole argument that abortion is moral assumes the unborn aren't worthy of legal protection while born children are without ever actually making that argument.

Debating cloning legislation in Iowa

Here's an article about the cloning legislation in Iowa. Human cloning is referred as a type of stem cell research (most likely because that's how the bill describes it) even though no one has actually been able to get stem cells from human clones. A child with a diabetes is convinced by his parents that God gave humans the ability to try to clone human embryo for a reason. Mark Hunt, a professor at the University of Iowa, lies about what researchers at the University of Iowa want to do. I'm thankful the article actually explains what somatic cell nuclear transfer is.

The process creates a cloned embryo by removing the nucleus of a human egg cell and fusing the "empty" egg with the nucleus of another human cell. The cell then divides, and embryonic stem cells can be extracted to be used for research. The embryo is destroyed.

How rare is it that a newspaper actually describes what somatic cell nuclear transfer is? Unfortunately, that paragraph is the second to last paragraph.

Another article from Radio Iowa contains a dodging-the-question answer from University of Iowa researcher Amy Sparks,

University of Iowa researcher Amy Sparks answered the critics who say there have been no cures found in stem cell research using cloned human embryos. "Why haven't we seen cures today? Well, we haven't had the opportunities. We know our colleagues abroad are starting to do some work in the United Kingdom. Some of the states in the United States are now starting to support this research," she says. "Here in Iowa we have a ban. We can't do any of it yet. Hopefully, when this bill passes, we will."

But why haven't they (in places where the research is allowed and paid for with millions of tax dollars) come up with any cures, Amy? Why was Hwang Woo-suk, who was formerly one of the most highly-regarded cloning scientists, not able to get a single embryonic stem cell line from a cloned human embryo (or even create a cloned human embryo for that matter) even though his government poured tens of millions of dollars into his research and he had over 2,000 eggs at his disposal? Why hasn't anyone been able to get stem cells from cloned embryos? Do you actually think the University of Iowa would have found a cure using stem cells from cloned embryos if Iowa hadn't banned human cloning?

Life Links 2/21/07

A thirteen-year-old girl in Italy was forced by a court to have an abortion because of her mother's wishes.

Since the abortion this month, Valentina has been recovering in a hospital psychiatric unit. La Stampa quoted her as saying: "You made me kill my baby now I'm going to kill myself."

Wesley Smith on the "anything goes" ethics of the International Society for Stem Cell Research.

There is also the usual discouragement of reproductive cloning. However, the Guidelines do not claim that creating a cloned human embryo for gestation and birth is morally wrong. Rather, they provide a strictly utilitarian analysis: "Given current scientific and medical safety concerns, attempts at human reproductive cloning should be prohibited." Of course, today's safety concerns may be overcome tomorrow. Indeed, the very research that the Guidelines encourage--e.g. creating cloned and natural embryos for experimentation--could provide information about early gene expression needed to eventually make reproductive cloning "safe."

James Bopp Jr. argues that social conservatives should support Mitt Romney.

Predictions come true

I know this is old news but I was gone for a week.

On February 6, I wrote,

Can anyone see a resignation in the near future? Maybe the "I don't want my blog to restrict the efforts of this campaign. This should be a campaign about the issues and how we can make America a better place. My hire by the Edwards' campaign has impeded the ability of John Edwards to share his message of hope with America. Therefore, I tendered my resignation so the campaign could focus on the important issues which face America." type of resignation?

On February 12, Amanda from Pandagon wrote ,

Regardless, it was creating a situation where I felt that every time I coughed, I was risking the Edwards campaign. No matter what you think about the campaign, I signed on to be a supporter and a tireless employee for them, and if I can't do the job I was hired to do because Bill Donohue doesn't have anything better to do with his time than harass me, then I won't do it. I resigned my position today and they accepted.

Not right on but fairly close, huh? I did completely missed the blame-the-people-who-share-what-I-wrote strategy. How could I forget to blame the right wing noise machine and the patriarchy?

"Every time I coughed?" Do you mean every time you wrote something where you intentionally maligned people of faith?

My guess is that both of bloggers were forced out. I think they made a deal where they wouldn't be publicly fired in exchange for agreeing to resign in the near future and not maligning the Edwards campaign on their blogs.

Time's article on pregnancy centers

If you haven't read it already, here's a long article in Time about pregnancy centers. In terms of long articles about pregnancy centers, this article is probably one of the fairer ones.

I found this part interesting,

Courtney Barbour, an administrative assistant at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, arranged to pick up the urine of a pregnant woman on her way to Birthchoice, a CPC in nearby Raleigh, so she would test positive and see the reaction. Having heard horror stories from friends in college, she was braced for the worst. "But it really wasn't what I expected," Barbour says. "They acted like they really did want to help me." While one woman handled the pregnancy test, Barbour spoke to a counselor who was very sympathetic. "She didn't show me any disgusting movies--though she did show me these plastic models of the fetus at each stage of development--and told me that it has a heartbeat immediately, which I knew medically was not true."

Barbour seems to be completely ignorant about fetal development and worse Barbour's ignorance of fetal development is never corrected in the article and treated as if it were true or if Barbour had some kind of expertise in fetal development. How easy would it have been for the reporter to look up an embryology textbook or maybe even give an embryologist at the local university a call?

Another thing the reporter might have wanted to include is some more background on Ms. Barbour. A google search would have revealed that Ms. Barbour is not just an administrative assistant. In fact, she labels herself "a second-generation pro-choice activist" in an e-mail she wrote to Brian Williams and posted on her blog.

A "second-generation pro-choice activist" who doesn't know the first thing about when an unborn child's heart starts beating? I'm not surprised either.

Courtney is also the type of individual who uses the term "f***wads" when referring to prolifers (language warning). She also appears to think the U.S. government was responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

Here's another interesting quote from an abortion provider in North Carolina:

"If I didn't continue, the place would close. No one wants to go into abortion providing. But it's so important. I know that I'm providing a service to women that no one else will."

The unanswered question is: Why does no one want to go into abortion providing?

Tags: time, abortion, pregnancy centers

The size of a pen

A child named Amillia Sonja Taylor, who was born 21 weeks after being conceived, is being released from the hospital today after spending the last four months there. Amillia was 9 and ½ inches long and weighed less than 10 ounces when she was born. She isn't expected to experience any long term problems from the complications of her premature birth.

Life Links 2/9/07

Here are two news stories from January regarding rat stem cells and hearts that I missed. From the latter story,

They appear at this time to be the ideal cell to use for cardiac repair," Taylor said. "They do everything embryonic cardiac cells do, and they don't create teratomas, or tumors."

I think the statement from John Edwards' spokeswoman in this story is hilarious.

Asked whether the campaign had sufficiently screened the two women before they were hired, Ms. Palmieri said it was difficult to find and read every word a prolific blogger had written over a period of years.

You didn't need to find and read every word. You just needed to read a week's worth of posts and that should have been enough to make you wonder if the upside of hiring Marcotte (support from the leftwing blogosphere) was worth the down side (being associated with someone who's said the kinds of things Marcotte has).


A columnist at Michigan State discusses abortion and coolness and wonders if Sufjan Stevens can make the prolife position cool.


James Thomson appears to be trying to help reporters understand that embryonic stem cells aren't going to be curing anyone anytime soon.

Classic "I'm sorry if...." apologies from Edwards' bloggers

Both Amanda and Shakes have posted classic "I'm sorry if" apologies on the John Edwards blog. Edwards says he is personally offended by the tone and sentiment of some of their posts (did he read these posts before hiring them?). He has talked to them and believes "it was never their intention to malign anyone's faith." If he believes that Amanda never intended to malign anyone's faith for a millisecond, he's stupider than I thought.

Too bad this Washington Post story didn't include any quotes from Amanda's blog.

Here's the "You Might Be a Godbag If" post from Punkass Marc along with Amanda's approving comment of the list.

Among the list are:

"If openly argue that your god/s is/are the only true god/s and everyone else's gods are a bunch of phooey, you're a godbag."

So you're a godbag if you actually believe your religion is true and are willing to stand up for your beliefs.

"Similarly, if you collect money in the name of or try to make a living off of people's beliefs in god/s, you're baggin' it god-style."

So every pastor who makes a living by being a pastor is a godbag.

More commentary on the non-firing at Hot Air.

UPDATE: Dawn Eden nails it -

I guess it's nice to know that all those times her blog referred to Our Lord and Saviour as "Jeebus" — in 114 blog entries to date (the most recent last Sunday) — she was only kidding.

It's also interesting looking through the comments section of various blogs who are fans of Amanda and reading their reactions to Amanda's "apology" and Edwards reaction. Many are not happy with Edwards for scolding the bloggers and calling their language intolerant.

Tags: marcotte, john edwards, bloggers

Life Links 2/8/07

Michelle Malkin has a Edwards/Marcotte update (language warning) and points to a Marcotte post on the death of William Rehnquist that shows just how ignorant Marcotte was about certain things. What state would have outlawed birth control? What politician supports outlawing birth control? I think my resignation prediction still has a chance since we're not sure yet if she has been fired.


Jason Mattera discusses how a Catholic school in Michigan has canceled a prolife speaker named Dan Flynn. Flynn was going to talk about Margaret Sanger. There was some controversy in the same school, Mercy High School, a couple of years ago when they had an auction and one of the items up for bid was a lunch with Michigan's pro-choice governor, Jennifer Granholm.


Michael Fumento on amniotic stem cells.

Given the growing number of state initiatives that fund embryonic stem cell, but not non-embryonic stem cell, research and given that overall National Institutes of Health funding increases are unlikely anytime soon, is it truly moral to take away funds from a technology that's been saving lives for half a century in favor of another technology that promises nothing but "promise"?

Governor Granholm on embryonic stem cell research

During Tuesday's 2007 State of the State Address, Governor Jennifer Granholm had a couple of things to say about embryonic stem cell research in Michigan.

We can also improve the quality of health care in Michigan and give our economy a boost by removing the barriers to embryonic stem cell research, which could help thousands of people afflicted with life threatening and debilitating diseases.

It will also energize our emerging life sciences industry in Michigan. Today, Michigan is at the back of the pack when it comes to allowing this important research.

It's time to act on the issue. I can assure you, if the Legislature does not allow this research, the people will be taking it to the ballot.

Improve the quality of health care? Give our economy a boost? All this just by allowing scientists to kill human embryos for research and clone and kill embryos for research? Amazing, huh? I wonder if proponents of embryonic stem cell research will still be making these kinds of outlandish claims in 5 years if they still are nowhere near treating people.

The supposed barriers Granholm is referring to are Michigan's ban on killing human embryos for research and Michigan's ban on human cloning. That's the research which is not being allowed but you wouldn't know that from Granholm's speech. Embryonic stem cell research is legal and going on right now at the University of Michigan.

Are these "barriers" really pushing Michigan to the back of the pack in life sciences? If so, then why did Governor Granholm claim less than a month ago that Michigan's "21st Century Jobs Fund are already at work positioning the state as a leader in life sciences" and note that there are 120 new life sciences companies in Michigan since 2000? Are we at the "back of the pack" or are we "a leader?" Can Governor Granholm give us a straight answer?

But what I'm really wondering about is how will research which is typically whining and moaning for public funding help boost our state's struggling economy and when will this supposed boosting begin? We've already seen proponents of embryonic stem cell research and cloning in California make a number of outlandish claims about financial returns to their state. What reasons do we have to believe that legalizing human cloning in Michigan will boost our economy?

The undue burden of having the chance to view an ultrasound

The South Dakota House has passed a bill which would require the one abortion provider (Planned Parenthood) in South Dakota to give women considering an abortion the option of viewing an ultrasound image of their unborn child.

One opponent of this legislation called giving women the opportunity to view their ultrasound "an undue burden."

What's a wannabe President to do?

It seems like the rest of internet has picked up on the recent edition to the John Edwards campaign staff including Michelle Malkin, Kathryn Jean Lopez and Dean Barnett. I think this leaves the Edwards campaign in a bit of a predicament.

If they keep Amanda Marcotte on staff then they'll continue to have to deal with (or maybe just ignore) people posting and commenting on some of Marcotte's more venomous rants. Maybe that's okay with them or maybe they think it will blow over but when someone you hire is on record as saying the type of things Marcotte has, you're in for a long ride.

If they fire her, then they'll probably face an angry left-wing blogosphere. Plus, they'll have to justify why they hired her in the first place and why they fired her.

If you hired her because you thought she was a good blogger, then that means you read her blog, right? If you thought her blog was good then you'd have to think the regular use of profanity and the mocking of religious people (amongst other things) is okay, right?

If you fire her because you were unaware of her use of language and positions, then that makes you look wholly incompetent because then it seems like you didn't do any research on the person you hired to run your blog. If you're going to hire someone to run your blog, maybe you should at first look over what they've written on their blog and agree with the majority of it, right?

Can anyone see a resignation in the near future? Maybe the "I don't want my blog to restrict the efforts of this campaign. This should be a campaign about the issues and how we can make America a better place. My hire by the Edwards' campaign has impeded the ability of John Edwards to share his message of hope with America. Therefore, I tendered my resignation so the campaign could focus on the important issues which face America." type of resignation?

Life Links 2/6/07

Julie Makimaa and her mother Lee Ezell were featured in a story on ABC News. Julie was conceived in rape.


ProlifeBlogs has the video of Rudy Giuliani sharing his thoughts on abortion on Hannity and Colmes. The "personally opposed" strategy never seems to get old. Could some reporter or host please ask "Why do you hate abortion?"

Also of note, Giuliani didn't answer what he thought about Roe besides saying "it's precedent" unless you count the affirmation of "right to choose" as an affirmation of Roe. Giuliani also said he is in favor of a ban on partial-birth abortion as long as there is a life of mother exception and is in favor parental notification as long as there is judicial bypass. Hannity should possibly have also asked what Giuliani's stand on tax-funded abortions would be.


Scientists in Spain have supposedly for the first time treated a patient's heart using stem cells culled from the patient's fat tissue.


There's a debate in Kansas over how to define certain terms used in when discussing stem cell research. I'm guessing those opposed to the definitions in H.B. 2098 would prefer it if human cloning were defined as something like "implanting the product of nuclear transfer (aka human clone) into a uterus."

The Circular Firing Squad turns the gun on themselves

American Life League's President Judie Brown has a blog post where she attacks a bill recently introduced in Colorado to ban abortion based on an article in the Rocky Mountain News. According to the article, the bill has an exception for the life of the mother.

Brown takes exception to this exception and says,

Thus it is not a ban, but it does enshrine abortion into the law. Hope it fails to pass. And undoubtedly it will.

When are pro-lifers going to realize that we have to be either against child killing or join the ranks of the pro-choice-to-kill some babies crowd?

Before posting Judy might have want to actually take a look at the Colorado bill before passing judgement. One would hope the leader of a large prolife organization would actually read a bill on abortion before saying that she's hope it fails to pass.

If Brown had read the bill before passing judgement she would have known that it has basically the same exact wording regarding dangers to the mother's life as the South Dakota bill which she favored so heavily.

The Colorado bill says,

(3)(a) A licensed physician who performs a medical procedure designed or intended to prevent the death of a pregnant mother shall not be guilty of violating this section if the physician makes reasonable medical efforts to preserve both the life of the mother and the life of her unborn child in a manner consistent with conventional medical practice.

while the South Dakota bill said,

No licensed physician who performs a medical procedure designed or intended to prevent the death of a pregnant mother is guilty of violating section 2 of this Act. However, the physician shall make reasonable medical efforts under the circumstances to preserve both the life of the mother and the life of her unborn child in a manner consistent with conventional medical practice.

Open mouth, insert foot. It would really be nice if Brown did a little more than just insult the legislative efforts of other prolifers.

She's right about the bill not passing though. The bill won't pass. But not because of the language of its life of the mother exception but because the Colorado legislature has Democratic majorities in both chambers and has a pro-choice governor.

UPDATE:Judy Brown has responded to a comment I left at her blog. Her response - "Frst of all, I made no mention of the Colorado bill, but have read it and agree with you."

What??? You "made no mention" of the bill the entire second half of your post was about?

Abortion thoughts

Ms. Kate shares her thoughts on how Christians should react when people they know have abortions or are considering abortion.

Friday Cat Blogging

First they fight



and then they make up

The "threat" that wasn't

An Iowa book store canceled an appearance by Krista Jacobs who recently edited the book Abortion Under Attack: Women on the Challenges Facing Choice. Some stories are claiming threats, including "intimidating e-mails and telephone calls," forced the cancellation of the event yet another story mentions the police say the store received "no direct threat of violence when store officials decided to close." The same story also says,

Iowa City police Sgt. Troy Kelsay said store employees called police and said an unidentified person had brought to the store's attention that the reading might spark protests. The threat may have come in the form of an e-mail, Kelsay said.

"The reason that we closed was because we just didn't want a physical confrontation in the store," said Paul Ingram, the Prairie Lights book buyer.....

"This is the first time we've been threatened," he said. "It wasn't a general threat. It was a threat directed at this particular reading. I don't think anyone's going to come in and bomb Prairie Lights."

Another story says,

Iowa City police Sgt. Bill Campbell said he didn't have enough information to comment but said he thought the word "threats" might be too strong to describe the incident.

So what's going on here? Did somebody say they were going to protest the event? Is that the intimidating threat? Oddly, the story which says there were "intimidating e-mails and telephone calls" also says a book store employee "did not indicate there was a specific threat of violence (to the police) and did not request extra police patrols in the area."

The Iowa Press Citizen story seems to mention where the information about the supposed threats came from:

Karen Kubby, director of the Iowa City Emma Goldman Clinic who had requested to speak after Jacob's reading, said a Prairie Lights staff member told her the bookstore received "some intimidating calls and an e-mail."

So in other words, the information about the supposed intimidating threat(s) is coming secondhand from an abortion clinic director.

It seems more like a store employee was warned by someone (maybe prolife, maybe pro-choice) maybe by e-mail that a talk by a pro-choice advocate could or would generate a protest and the employee decided to call the police and ask how the bookstore could handle such a protest (maybe questions like "can we prevent protestors from being on our property?" ). The employee then probably mentioned this to the store owner who might have not wanted a controversy in and around his store for business reasons.

Those vicious prolifers strike again, huh? But I can almost guarantee this situation will be used as evidence that prolifers are threatening to kill people. Oh wait, it already is,

Lauri Wollner, one of the book's contributing writers and a former antiabortion activist, agreed.

"It's scary that 'pro-life' people are threatening lives," she said.

Tags: iowa, abortion, bookstore

Lazy fact checking at the RH Reality Check blog

Annie Newman from the RHReality Check blog really needs a lesson in not trusting citeless statistics from a newspaper editorial. She parrots the claim from a Hartford Courant's editorial that "Up to 8 percent of sexually assaulted women in the United States become pregnant with the assailant's child."

8%? Really? According to Planned Parenthood's website, "eight out of 100 women will become pregnant after having unprotected sex once during the second or third week of their cycles." Is that where the Hartford Courant's statistic came from? Not quite the same thing, huh?

It's also amazing how Newman also seemingly can't understand why Catholic hospitals would give an ovulation test to women who have been raped (it's not a "purity-test" as Newman claims) and won't give EC to women who have ovulated. It's because they think EC might prevent an embryo from implanting and if the woman has already ovulated then EC won't stop ovulation and the only theoretical way EC would then work is to prevent the implantation of a human embryo - which they oppose.

I think pro-choice organizations who want Catholic hospitals to distribute EC would be much better off if they pointed to studies which tend to show that EC doesn't have a post-ovulation effect instead of trying to demonize prolifers. But then this would probably also force pro-choice organizations to actually examine a wide range scientific studies relating to EC which would also point to how EC is much less effective than they claim.

Random thoughts

About the casting of 24: Why is Jack Bauer's dad like 7 feet tall (he's actually 6'7)? Jack is probably around 5'10 while his brother is probably like 5'7. I know there can be large height differences between children and their parents but it just seems odd to have the senior Bauer towering over his sons.

Also, why do you hire a woman (Marisol Nichols) of Mexican descent (according to IMDB) for the role of a woman (Nadia) who is supposed to be of Middle-Eastern descent?


If you're running for President, why would you appoint someone to be in charge of your blog who has a long history of swearing up a storm and has used the term "godbag" to describe Christians?


Rasheed Wallace is probably one of the most annoying professional basketball players. You're 6'11. Stop standing outside the 3-point line. Post up and get some rebounds.