Is the only reason to be opposed to human cloning the fear of "cloned armies of human killing machines?"

After reading this piece by Ellis Henican, one might get that impression. I've never read anything from anybody talking about how they're opposed to human cloning experiments because those experiments might lead to "cloned armies of human killing machines." It's like Henican just finished watching one of the recent Star Wars movies and came up with this.

Fred's out

I guess one of the lessons learned from Fred Thompson's rather quick departure from the presidential race is that organizations shouldn't base their endorsements on the results of national polls taken in October. Will National Right to Life PAC issue another primary endorsement?

Giuliani's numbers in recent polls are fairly clear evidence that national polls taken months before any primary or caucus takes place aren't the best predictors of who the nominee will most likely be.

"You'll be able to see arms and stuff...."

UPDATE: For some reason or another the following article is no longer on the Yale Daily News web site.

What kind of person can say something like this:

"It's not as scary as it seems. It's just blood and mucus," Khoury said, referring to the fetus remains in the device. She added, "You'll be able to see arms and stuff, but still just minuscule."

The speaker is Rasha Khoury, a member of the Yale Medical Students for Choice and someone who wants to be an abortionist.

Later on in the article, Khoury notes that not all women feel relief after an abortion.

"Often times, women are crying and cursing and saying they're going to hell," Khoury said. "It may be a quick and easy medical procedure, but it definitely is a very involved social-medical procedure."

HT: The Corner

Ethics? We don't need no stinkin' ethics.

So much for that stem cell ethics committee in New York, eh? From this editorial by Daniel Sulmasy it sounds like Governor Spitzer created the ethics committee just to appear as if he actually cared.

Ethics-committee members hold diverse views on the controversial kinds of stem-cell research. Nonetheless, the committee unanimously recommended that the board hold off on funding these practices for six months so that the committee could examine these thorny ethical issues carefully and recommend guidelines.

The ethics committee thought that ethics mattered.

But perhaps ethics doesn't matter much in New York. The board's funding committee, composed almost exclusively of scientists and advocates for embryonic-stem-cell research, agreed on ambiguous guidelines that permit all the controversial practices noted above: cloning, chimeras, parthenogenesis and creating human embryos solely for research.

Full-speed ahead. Ethics (or even any discussion of them) be damned.

The ethics committee's sensible plan of ethical due diligence proved intolerable to the funding committee. It argued that even temporary limits would "send the wrong message to scientists."

And we wouldn't want those poor, little scientists to worry about what's ethical or not. They might leave for another state if they don't what they want when they want it.

This precipitous funding decision sends the wrong message - namely, that the discussion of research ethics should never encumber scientists' work. That's a dangerous premise for any society to hold. Was a six-month delay to allow ethical review really too much to ask? It's preposterous to propose that this would've had a "chilling effect" on science.

Indeed.

Note to Spitzer: Just because New York is known as the Empire State, that doesn't make you the Emperor.

Sanctity of Human Life Day 2008 Life Links

Family Research Council has a live feed of the Blogs for Life conference, though it is currently not working for me.


Justin Taylor interviews Robert George about Roe v. Wade and abortion.

Let's give up on no one. Let us treat everyone, even our opponents in this profound moral struggle, with respect, civility, and ungrudging love. Loving witness is something all of us can give. And lovingly witnessing in our churches and communities to the sanctity of human life is something all of us are called to do.

Scott Klusendorf summarizes Robert George's and Christopher Tollefsen new book - Embryo: A Defense of Human Life. Meanwhile, Marvin Olasky interviews George and Tollefsen about the book.


Nancy Gibb has a piece in Time discussing the various probable reasons why abortion rates have fallen.


Kate Michelman and Frances Kissling have an editorial in the LA Times where they admit, "Advocates of choice have had a hard time dealing with the increased visibility of the fetus. The preferred strategy is still to ignore it and try to shift the conversation back to women. At times, this makes us appear insensitive, a bit too pragmatic in a world where the desire to live more communitarian and "life-affirming" lives is palpable." They close by writing,

If pro-choice values are to regain the moral high ground, genuine discussion about these challenges needs to take place within the movement. It is inadequate to try to message our way out of this problem. Our vigorous defense of the right to choose needs to be accompanied by greater openness regarding the real conflict between life and choice, between rights and responsibility. It is time for a serious reassessment of how to think about abortion in a world that is radically changed from 1973.

I know Kissling has said this type of thing before but it seems to be a rather stunning admission (that there's actually a real conflict between life and choice and the pro-choice movement needs a serious reassessment regarding how they think about abortion) from the former head of NARAL.


Planned Parenthood plans on getting more involved in the 2008 elections.

"This decision defied everything I believed in.."

Kate shares her experience with abortion and how her parents' reaction to the unplanned pregnancy of her brother's girlfriend played a role in her decision making process.

Deciding that I could not endure my parents incessant and demeaning lecturing, nagging and manipulating, I opted for an abortion. This decision defied everything I believed in, but as I could not figure out how to conceal a pregnancy from my parents, I chose the "easy way out". If I'd had the baby, I would have wanted to give her/him up for adoption.....

When I was 30, I had a quasi-nervous breakdown about the abortion. I had no idea that it bothered me so much. I uncontrollably heaved waves of tears, and in between sobs blabbered about having an abortion, and how I murdered my unborn child. I went on to say that I felt guilty that I'd had such a good life and that after the abortion, I went on to have fun and finish college and do all of the things I'd always hoped to do and that I didn't deserve my life.

Sickening

Dawn Eden links to the blog of someone claiming to be a Planned Parenthood employee. The blogger shares the story of how she didn't report her suspicions that her 12-year-old patient looking for birth control might be in a situation where she's being taken advantage of by an older man. The blogger is too concerned about being "patronizing" to the 12-year-old girl.

Life Links 1/21/08

Nicole Russell has some thoughts about the March for Life which strongly mirrored some thoughts I had last year when I attended the March. I thought I wrote some of those thoughts down but I can't seem to find them.

Still: What if every person who wanted to attend a rally this year spent those hours instead volunteering at a local crisis-pregnancy center? Or, what if they took the money that they would have spent traveling to a rally — and the money that they could have earned had they worked for those hours instead — and purchased baby diapers, formula, and clothes to donate to mothers who have chosen life in spite of being in difficult circumstances? Many community groups already sponsor such efforts — often coinciding with "Sanctity of Human Life Sunday" that many churches observe at the end of January — volunteering at or providing material support for local crisis-pregnancy centers. But it's still hard not to see the wasted opportunity cost of 200,000 people getting themselves to Washington to be seen marching on the Mall — when those resources could be used to reach out in far more personal and effective ways.

The March for Life is great time for prolifers to come together and make a public stand. There will most likely be at least a couple of articles in large newspapers. It probably goes down as a really fond memory for the multitude of young people there. But sometimes I wonder if all the resources spent on bringing the thousands of people to Washington and back would be better spent elsewhere.


Michael New discusses abortion statistics and the good news for prolifers about prolife legislation even if the media would prefer to tell another story.


Kaye McSpadden should take the time to read Michael New's piece before writing editorials like this .

However, despite imposing more restrictions than many countries, the U.S. continues to have one of the highest abortion rates in the industrialized world. Clearly, increasing restrictions does not work to reduce abortions.

The old two-prong attack: bad facts and a logical fallacy. McSpadden heads the Indiana Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice but apparently isn't a member of the clergy herself but does appear to be active with the Unitarian Universalists.

Life Links 1/18/08

Is it me or does Gerard Bradley's endorsement article in the National Review today certainly makes it sound like Senator John McCain has changed his position on expanding the funding of embryonic stem cell research. This would be good news if it is accurate.

McCain has said — it is true — that he approved embryo-destructive research in the limited case of so-called "spares"— those embryos "left-over" after couples have exhausted their interest in IVF. I disagree with him.In face-to-face conversation with McCain I said not only that such research was wrong, but that it would never be limited to "spares." I said that big biotech needed a far larger supply of research subjects than "spares" could provide. McCain asked to continue that conversation, to hear more. Now he realizes that there is no need to exploit "spare" embryos, in light of recent successes with adult cells. And so he has been telling South Carolinians over the last few days.

Britain's fertility non-regulator Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority says, Yes! Yes! Yes! to allowing scientists to attempt to create cloned human-animal hybrid embryos.


Dawn Eden defends Wendy Wright and points to a gaping flaw in the "abstinence-education-is-to-blame" meme.

To hear Planned Parenthood's spokespeople tell it, the increased incidence of STDs can be blamed on one thing: government-funded abstinence-education programs that fail to promote condom use.

There's just one problem with that argument: According to the state's Department of Education website, a 2003 statewide survey found that 96 percent of California school districts provided comprehensive sexual health education (read: condom instruction) and all its schools have been required to teach HIV/AIDS prevention education (read: more condom instruction) since 1992. Planned Parenthood's educators have long been welcome in school districts across California, and in 1996 the state became the first to reject federal funding for abstinence programs.

In other words, in the state that best models Planned Parenthood's brand of "comprehensive sexual education," the approach has failed to do one of the main things it is supposed to do: prevent disease.

I've never seen a pro-choice advocate ever try to honestly defend how in some states (such as California and New York) where their prescribed policies (no prolife laws, tax-funded abortions, comprehensive sex education, great contraception rankings from NARAL) are put in place, the effects they claim to desire (fewer STDs, abortions, and unplanned pregnancies) don't occur.


A patient in StemCells, Inc.'s clinical trial using a type of neural stem cells (labeled HuCNS-SC by the company) from the brains of human fetuses to treat Batten disease has died.

The nine-year-old patient was transplanted with the cells in January 2007 and was due to return to Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), the trial site, for a 12-month follow-up.

However, she was hospitalized with a viral infection, seizures and respiratory distress two weeks ago and died earlier this week.

The principal investigators at OHSU, the company's medical experts and the independent Data Safety Monitoring Committee agree the death was most likely the result of the disease's natural progression, and not because of the implanted stem cells.

Friday Baby Blogging

Life Links 1/17/08

Jack Kevorkian is clearly a crazy, angry old man. Here's a video of what appears to be an interview done by someone (possibly a student) at the University of Florida with Kevorkian before Kevorkian's recent speech. What an odd society we live in that someone like this gets paid more than many people make in a year to give a speech for an hour. If I was an assisted suicide advocate, I'd be doing whatever I could to make sure this guy stays out of the spotlight.

UPDATE:Here's an article that has a large number of quotes from Kevorkian's speech. I feel immense pity for anyone who listened to Kevorkian's speech and thought like one quoted student that Kevorkian is "very knowledgeable about everything."

HT: Wesley Smith


Justin Taylor has posted an interview with Scott Klusendorf about Scott's upcoming book, the rational basis for the prolife position and his favorite prolife books.


A Michigan Senate committee has approved a legislation which would become a state ban on partial-birth abortion. The legislation now will come before the full Michigan Senate. The legislation definition of partial-birth abortion mirrors the federal ban's definition.


Researchers have been able to stop the growth of human melanoma in mice by attacking cancer stem cells.

Human Cloning in California

Researchers from Stemagen, a San Diego-based biotechnology company, claim to have documented the creation of a cloned human embryos. Their research was published online today by the journal Stem Cells (here's the PDF) according to this article in the San Diego Union-Tribune. They apparently accomplished this in May of 2007 but "did not want to reveal its success until the work could be verified through genetic testing and then published in a peer-reviewed journal."

Also significant in Stemagen's work, scientists said, is that it used 25 donated human eggs to create five human blastocysts, of which three were confirmed genetic clones.

Abortions down in 2005

The Alan Guttmacher Institute has a new study claiming there were an estimated 1.2 million abortions performed in the U.S. in 2005. This is a rather dramatic drop from a Guttmacher report in 2006 which estimated there were 1.287 million abortions performed in 2003. There's coverage in the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, among others.

Kevorkian's speech in Florida

Here's a couple of news stories about Kevorkian's speech at the University of Florida. They paid $50,000 for the rantings of a crazy old man. Besides speaking out against voting, noting his oppositions to prisons and comparing himself to Thomas Jefferson, Kevorkian claimed "he helped kill about one out of every five patients who asked to die. The ones he turned away didn't show enough medical evidence to justify ending their lives."

If this is true (it's obviously not), one is left to wonder what medical evidence Kevorkian needed to justify assisting in suicides. The majority of the people he killed weren't terminally ill. Some, like Marjorie Wantz and Rebecca Badger, didn't even have the medical conditions they claimed to have had. I guess when reality isn't on your side, you just make something up for sympathy and hope no one checks the record.

Too bad nobody asked him any of Wesley Smith's suggested questions.

When the desire for ideal conditions gets in the way of life

The Alan Guttmacher Institute web site's is promoting a recent study based on "in-depth interviews with 38 women who obtained abortions in the United States in 2004." Their summary of the research notes:

In addition, many of the women surveyed made direct and indirect references to the "ideal" conditions of motherhood, expressing the view that children are entitled to stable and loving families, financial security, and a high level of care and attention.

The title of the article (abstract here) appears to be a quote from one of the one of women interviewed:

"I Would Want to Give My Child, Like, Everything in the World"

Does the prolife message reach women like this? How can we better share that mothers don't need to give their child everything but they should at least give them a chance at life?

My thoughts on the Republican Michigan Primary

At National Review, Byron York tries to get to the bottom of why Romney won Michigan Republican primary. I think it has less to do with Romney's promises regarding the auto industry which I didn't hear about (or maybe didn't remember) until this morning and more about the number of and frequency of his TV commercials.

I think I've seen about 5 different Romney spots in the past month. The first commercial attacked Hillary Clinton as not having the experience to run government and noted Romney's experience as businessman, at the Olympics and as governor of Massachusetts. Another commercials touted his prolife/pro-family positions, another notes his endorsements from some Michigan newspapers, one featured a man sharing how Romney helped find his daughter in New York and another hit on Romney's Michigan roots and talked about our one-state recession.

I saw only two McCain commercials - one discussing his status as a troublemaker for Washington (noting campaign finance reform, pork-barrel spending, and his disagreement with Rumsfield's strategy) and another which shared quotes from various Michigan newspaper endorsements. McCain's commercials aired fairly frequently but not as often as Romney's.

Huckabee had a single commercial which I saw around 5 times which discussed his prolife/pro-family beliefs. I probably saw a commercial from the Club for Growth which attacked Huckabee's record on taxes as many times (if not more) as I saw Huckabee's ad.

Romney appealed to differing segments of Michigan's population, McCain appealed to individuals with independent streaks and Huckabee appealed to socially conservatives voters.

With those kind of appeals, these kinds of results aren't that surprising. Romney's support was broad-based, McCain won among individuals who are independents and Democrats, don't attend church, have no religion, are dissatisfied with Bush and Huckabee did well with individuals who attend church often and think the religious beliefs of a candidate matter a great deal.

What motivates the prolife movement?

Well, according to ex-John Edwards' blogger Amanda Marcotte, it appears a variety of nefarious motives, none of which is actually extending basic human rights to unborn human beings, spur us on. (Some of the posts below might contain language which could be considered offensive by some.)

According to a post today, Marcotte claims,

"It's well understood that one of the primary motivations of the anti-abortion movement is generating a steady supply of white babies into the adoption market."

Last week, Marcotte believed prolifers were "primarily motivated" by a "desire to control sexual expression, especially female sexual expression."

Two weeks ago, it was all about virginity. Prolife men don't care about unborn children, they want to make sure women are virgins on their wedding nights. This, of course, is part of the "larger social agenda, which is controlling women." I'm not sure if this extends to the numerous women who lead prolife organizations.

Seven months ago, Marcotte revealed the "true intentions" of prolifers were "to punish and control women, and it has nothing to do with babies" because authorities in Pennslyvania arrested a woman for the abuse of a corpse after she stored her apparently miscarried child inside her freezer.

With our "true intentions" being to "punish and control women," our "primary motivations" being to generate a "steady supply of white babies" for adoption and to "control sexual expression" and our "larger social agenda" being focused on "controlling women," I wonder why we spend so much time on things like embryonic stem cell research and end-of-life issues?

Life Links 1/15/08

Michigan tops American United for Life's list of the most prolife states for the third year in a row. AUL's web site has updated information about each state's legislation on life issues.


British scientists claim creating and killing human-animal hybrid clones for their stem cell has (my emphasis) "massive potential to provide treatments for serious debilitating disorders ranging from developmental abnormalities in young children, to stroke, cancer, HIV/Aids, diabetes and Parkinson's disease, as well as better and safer treatment for infertile couples."

What a massive amount of cow manure! The sad thing is that in 10 years I doubt British citizens will remember how much they were lied to by scientists.


MIRS News (a political news service out of Lansing which requires a subscription to get online articles) claims today the petition drive to legalize the killing of human embryos in Michigan is "A Go." Apparently, they're still drafting language and they're going to go for a constitutional amendment. Going for a constitutional amendment (as opposed to merely just passing legislation) is typically seen as harder because a segment of the population doesn't like messing with the Michigan constitution because it's harder to change.

The article lays out two options for the Stem Cell Research Ballot Question Committee. They can go for regular legislation where they'd need to "collect 304,101 signatures by May 28 to put the question before the Legislature. If lawmakers reject or take no action on the question, it goes before the voters in November for adoption" or the constitutional amendment where they'd need "to get 380,126 signatures" by July 7.

Either way they seem to be cutting it close on time especially since they don't have their language drafted or approved (the approval process can take a little time) and they don't have any type of grassroots network. I think they're going to need a bunch of cash to pay professional petition circulators to collect signatures.

Exceptionally dumb pro-choice quote of the day

From Melody Rose at the RH Reality Check blog:

Through funding bans, waiting periods, limitations on teens, declining numbers of providers, and myriad other barriers to access, there is no longer a legal right to abortion.

So unless the poor teenagers can get their abortions paid for with tax dollars throughout the country, without having to wait, without any parental involvement, and there are a plethora of abortion providers, the legal right to abortion doesn't exist.

That's like saying we don't have the right to bear arms unless the government pays for poor teenagers to get automatic weapons without a background check, waiting period or any parental involvement and there are a multitude of guns stores.

Shooting down Lee Silver's embryo beliefs

I don't think I'll ever get tried of prolifers pointing out the huge flaws in Lee Silver's "human embryos are pretty much the same as skin cells" baloney.

The view—held by almost everyone irrespective of their moral opinions—that embryos are fundamentally different from other cells, has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with the scientific evidence. To draw any moral conclusions on how embryos should be treated—be it from a religious or a secular ethical standpoint—one first has to answer the question What is an embryo? Only by settling what an embryo is—a question of biological fact, not theological speculation—can one determine an embryo's moral status and what interest God and society might (or might not) have in protecting it or permitting it to be killed to benefit others. Our disagreement with Silver is over the scientific evidence. It has nothing to do with religion.....

If the capacity for organization is not a "fundamental" difference between cells and embryos, what basis is there for distinguishing highly organized molecular biologists from mere human cells? One could, in theory, manipulate the organization of Silver's body by dissociating it into a cellular suspension, without destroying cells or altering their epigenetic state. How could Silver possibly object to this transformation of his body into a cellular soup, since, in his view, there is no fundamental difference between human living cells and living human organisms?

......

Silver confuses what something can be converted into with what it actually is. He assumes that, because a woodpile can be made into a chair, it actually is a chair, right now. Because a piece of lumber and a chair have the same DNA and (by the action of external forces) can be changed into one another, Silver concludes, they are the same thing, or at least not "fundamentally" different. It seems to elude Silver that a piece of wood cannot become a chair on its own, any more so than an embryonic stem cell can become an embryo on its own.

Life Links 1/14/08

Researchers hope to use adult stem cells to create functioning organs for human beings in 10 years. They've already created beating rat heart in the lab removing "all the cells from a dead rat heart, leaving the valves and outer structure as scaffolding for new heart cells injected from newborn rats. Within two weeks, the cells formed a new beating heart that conducted electrical impulses and pumped a small amount of blood."


The pro-choice group the Republican Majority for Choice is going after Mitt Romney in Michigan for changing his position on abortion. The ads seem to be targeted at prolife Republicans.


Authorities in South Africa have discovered the horrible conditions some illegal abortion providers operate in. Abortion is legal in South Africa but some individuals (in this case immigrants from Uganda and Mozambique who aren't doctors will perform illegal, cheap abortions.

Conditions were extremely unhygienic.

"Everything that had been used was still on the floor."

Modingoane said boxes with tablets to induce labour, a number of used condoms, and gloves - some with blood still on them were some of the articles found.

Blood stains could be seen on the floors.

"In one room were panties with blood stains all over."

Modingoane said police were investigating what happened to the foetuses.

He said people using the building had spoken of finding a foetus next to a dustbin.

Prolifers are trying to disrupt Giuliani's events in Florida.

Life Links 1/11/08

Here's Rick Weiss' article in the Washington Post on ACT's re-announcement announcement. It doesn't appear the technique of creating the stem cell lines will get federal backing but research on some of the cell lines which were created might.

The embryos Lanza used, which were donated for research, appear not to have been damaged, Landis acknowledged. However, she said, "it is impossible to know definitively" that the embryos were not in some subtle way harmed by the experiment. And "no harm" is the basis of the Bush policy, she said.

Landis said the only way to prove that the technique does not harm embryos would be to transfer many of them to women's wombs and see whether the resulting babies were normal. But it would be unethical to do that experiment, she said, so the question cannot be answered.

That standard has Lanza fuming. By all scientifically recognized measures, he said, the embryos -- currently frozen in suspended animation because they were donated for research and not to make babies -- are normal, he said.....

As long as that risk is there, funding under Bush's policy will not be available, with one possible exception, Landis said.

Although the NIH will not fund Lanza's method of making stem cells, she said, the agency might fund studies on the cells themselves once they are isolated from the embryos with private money and the embryos are shown to be healthy.

Asked who would make that funding decision, Landis said it would be up to NIH officials.

Yuval Levin provides his thoughts on ACT's latest.


The Associated Press has a couple more details (some which differ from the original story) regarding Daniel Jarrett II's assault on his pregnant girlfriend.

A 24-year-old college student faces life in prison on charges of killing his girlfriend's unborn child by beating her.

Westland police allege Daniel Jarrett II of Wayne threw the 19-year-old to the ground several times and kicked her in the abdomen after she told him she didn't get an abortion.

Editorialize much?

New Scientist writer Andy Coghlan can't help but add some editorial flavor to his story on Advanced Cell Technology's announcement they created embryonic stem cell lines by removing single cells from embryo without destroying the embryo. ACT made similar claims in August of 2006 ago but couldn't hide the fact they killed all the embryos their lines came from. ACT also supposedly did this 6 months ago but I don't believe their work was published until now.

According to Coghlan, the restrictions President Bush put on the federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research were a "heavy" "clapdown," most of the federal-approved embryonic stem cell lines "are of such poor quality they are useless" so new lines are "desperately needed."

I guess there's no need for editorials with articles like this.

Life Links 1/10/08

A man in Michigan named Daniel Jarrett II kill his unborn child after he punched and kicked the abdomen of his 6-month-pregnant girlfriend after they had an argument about getting an abortion. He wanted her to have an abortion, she didn't.

"She got into an argument with the boyfriend about getting an abortion," said Karrick.

As the discussion became increasingly heated, Karrick said that the suspect grabbed the pregnant woman by the throat, threw her to the ground, and punched and kicked her repeatedly in the abdomen. She subsequently lost the baby, which was delivered dead on Saturday.

A television station in Detroit has an article which claims the man has been charged but it isn't specific about if he has been charged for the assault on his girlfriend or the killing of his child or both.


ABC News' Jake Tapper is reporting on how the GOP is planning on using Obama's votes on Illinois' Born-Alive Infant Protection law against him. He includes links to the text of the legislation and Obama's horrible defense of his reprehensible votes.


Huffington Post writer Susan Smalley tries to address her inconsistency about being against eating chicken eggs because they have the "potential to become an embryo" but being in favor of killing human embryos and fetuses.


John Miller interviews Robert George about his book - Embryo: A Defense of Human Life.

Television investigation into an abortion clinic in Spain

A video which I believed aired sometime in 2007 on television station in Spain has been partially translated into English. The video is by a doctor working for the television station using a hidden camera as he gets a job at an abortion clinic. The abortion clinic uses the salt poisoning method to abort late term unborn children.

You can certainly file this under - "Why prolifers don't trust abortion providers." One of the abortionists admits their psychiatrists will sign off on any late term abortion and that many of the girls there for late term abortion are there for purely elective reasons. The New York Timessummarizes Spain's abortion law by saying,

Spain decriminalized abortion in 1985, and under current law women can have an abortion during the first 22 weeks of pregnancy if there is a risk of fetal malformation and the first 12 weeks in cases of rape. However, they are allowed to abort at any point if they can demonstrate that their mental or physical health is at risk.

The video is on YouTube here. There are some graphic images of aborted children being delivered towards the end of the video and the undercover doctor examines an aborted child of about 20 weeks gestation.

The conversation at the end of video where the undercover doctor examines an unborn child and talks with the abortionist isn't translated but I believe it goes something like this:

Undercover Doctor:And they are exactly 23 weeks?
Abortionist: This is 20, 21
A: But I never watch/look at them
UD: Never, never?
A: Never ever
UD: Why?
A: Because I don't like to
UD: It's clear you're a mother

HT: Jill Stanek and RealChoice

Another infanticide in Michigan

If Christopher Ryan Richardson is guilty of what he is accused of, he deserves his life behind bars.

Richardson, 21, is charged with felony murder, first-degree criminal sexual conduct and child abuse in connection with the Nov. 24 death of Nevaeh, who died from sepsis following an assault.

Life Links 1/9/07

Jeremy Lott in the American Spectator with The Planned Parenthood Primary.

Most political observers learn to take what goes on in presidential primaries in stride, but one thing I still find immensely depressing. Every four years, like gruesome clockwork, Democratic hopefuls of course try to nail down liberal votes by promising to keep abortions safe, legal, and rarely challenged.

Shinya Yamanaka is predicting it will take around ten years for induced pluripotent stem cells to be used to treat human patients with some conditions. I doubt it.


New research into cancer stem cells shows that they are "abnormally trapped at an early stage of development."

The researchers found that the TICs (Tumor-initiating cells or cancer stem cells) isolated from an adult patient are more similar to early embryonic stem cells than to later embryonic or adult-derived stem cells.

Hmmm.....It will be either a very brave or very ignorant individual who allows themselves to be one of the first test subjects injected with cells created from embryonic stem cells.


I don't think the people at American Right to Life are big Romney fans. It appears they've created a video posted on YouTube regarding Romney's change of positions on the abortion issue. Both Huckabee and Romney are courting prolife voters in Michigan with ads discussing their beliefs.

I just can't understand people like Lauren Bull

At the RH Reality Check Blog she writes,

That's not okay with me. I consider myself a sex-positive person and I truly do not care whether someone is sexually active or not. But I do care when it involves children and young people who are not equipped with the knowledge to protect themselves.

I hate the idea that middle school students are having sex. But what I hate even more is that we aren't helping them be safe about it because we think they're too young.

If our fourth graders are participating in oral sex, we have no choice but to teach them how to be safe.

No choice? Really? We can't take any steps to prevent fourth graders from having oral sex? We can't tell them oral sex is completely inappropriate behavior for children of that age? We can't separate children who are participating in oral sex from each other and make sure they aren't together without supervision? We can't contact the parents to try to figure out where a child of this age is learning this kind of behavior?

For the life of me, I can't understand adults who think like this. It's like they've been clubbed to death with a stupid stick.

Bull continues,

But we also need to figure out what is driving this trend and how to stop it. Our children deserve better. We need to fix this issue before we're forced to teach every eight-year old how to put on a condom.

We also need? How about we make that the priority? How about we stop this kind of behavior instead of teaching children how to "safely" act inappropriately? Can eight-year-olds even understand how to correctly use condoms? Also notice the "before we're forced" line. It's as if she thinks that if a large portion of eight-year-olds begin to have sex then society will have no other options and we will be forced to teach little kids who should be playing on a jungle-gym how to use condoms.

Bull also can't help from contradicting herself. She says she doesn't care whether someone is sexually active or not (as long as the are equipped to protect themselves) but then says she hates the idea of middle schoolers having sex. It's like they can on one level recognize how wrong it is for little kids to be having sex but then on another level their "sex-positive"-we-can't-judge-or-stop-them-so-focus-on-safety ideology takes over.

One reason why you shouldn't shoplift knifes

You might fall on them and stab yourself.

A shoplifting suspect who was stabbed in the stomach by knives he is accused of trying to steal was expected to have a brief stay in the hospital, police said.

The 26-year-old Comstock Park man hid $300 worth of hunting knives in his waistband at the Knapp's Corner Meijer store, police said. He suffered puncture wounds to his abdomen about 5:40 p.m. Monday when he tried to flee and scuffled with security workers. During the struggle, the suspect fell on the knives, authorities said.

Talking about abortion on NPR

Abortionist Susan Wicklund is interviewed by Diane Rehm on National Public Radio about her newly released book entitled "This Common Secret." Wicklund does abortions up to 14 weeks.

After the first segment with Wicklund, Rehm interviews Lori Campbell. Campbell has an article in the January 2008 issue of Vogue magazine where she discusses her partial-birth abortion. She supposedly obtained a partial-birth abortion in 1998 after her water broke at 22 weeks because of an incompetent cervix and doctors told her and her husband the child had little to no chance of surviving. So instead of waiting for the child to die, Lori decided to have a partial-birth abortion. Her stated reasoning for why she got a PBA was because she didn't want to have a baby that would suffer and die and that it would be more like a miscarriage instead of the death of a child.

Campbell goes on to claim the term "partial-birth abortion" didn't exist in 1998. This is an incredibly ignorant claim considering Charles Canady introduced the original partial-birth abortion ban act in 1995 and Congress passed it that same year. Congress also passed another partial-birth abortion ban in 1997 and there was a segment on 60 Minutes in 1996 on partial-birth abortion.

After the interview with Campbell, there's a question and answer segment with Wicklund from listeners.

When asked about people who think all life is precious starting at conception, Wicklund says she believes there is "not a human being existing in that embryo." When a caller challenges her on this later and Wicklund says you have to define life. She then says, "everyone's entitled to their own beliefs but after seeing what I've seen in the clinics and with the women that the embryo isn't an independent life."

Wicklund is later asked about what the difference between a 14-week-old child and a 21-week-old fetus is and why she wouldn't do abortions at 21 weeks. Her response starts with her saying, "A 14 week-old embryo, fetus, whatever you want to call it...." as if both terms could be correct.

Her reasons are that there is a different kind of procedure, a size difference, there is a potential the 21 week fetus could feel pain and doctors don't know when viability is.

Towards the end of the interview, Wicklund is also asked about how her work played a part in the break up of her marriage and how she was fired from another abortion clinic because she didn't want to be solely a technician (meaning having minimal interactions with the patients) while the clinic apparently did.

Life Links 1/8/08

Abortion clinics in Spain are striking because the country is cracking down on illegal abortions which are occurring in Spain. I'm not sure how the strike is going to help their cause. "Let us perform illegal abortion or we won't perform legal ones" doesn't seem that persuasive to me. How does that influence prosecutors? I only wish the strike would last longer than 5 days.

"The Association of Clinics Accredited for the Interruption of Pregnancies" is the name of the organization organizing the strike. I think abortion providers do a little more than interrupt a pregnancy. It's not like they interrupt a pregnancy and then that pregnancy continues at a later date.


The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal of the Sixth Circuit Court's ruling which struck down Michigan's Legal Birth Definition Act.


Scientists have begun applying for federal grants to do research on induced pluripotent stem cells. Geron's Thomas Okarma lays down a whopper in the article.

Chief Executive Officer Thomas Okarma said Geron, one of the largest embryonic stem cell companies in the U.S. by market size, won't invest in the non-embryonic method because it's ``too complicated and too expensive.''

Yeah, because the embryonic method is so much easier and cheaper.


Women in the UK have been selected to get half-priced IVF treatments for donating half of their eggs for human cloning experiments. The researchers seem to have selected women based on which women were likely to produce more eggs.

Life Links 1/7/08

The Los Angeles Times has a Stephanie Simon article about how abortion can effect men.


High courts in China have agreed to hear the case of a woman who was forcibly aborted at 9 months.

Jin Yani's waters had already broken when China's abortion police came for her. They took her to a nearby abortion centre, injected her unborn baby girl and removed the body two days later.

Mrs Jin's crime was to have become pregnant by her fiance five months before she married him at the age of 20, the legal minimum.

Doctors in Dallas have used umbilical cord stem cells taken after a child's birth to help treat the child's neuroblastoma

Doctors are hoping the healthy stem cells will replace the ones that have been damaged by the cancer, which has spread to his bones, liver and bone marrow.

Treatment with stem cells is still experimental and has been rarely used on someone suffering from neuroblastoma. "It's either the second or third time it's ever been done in the world," said Joel Weinthal, Caden's doctor.

The New Scientist has a preview of an article about how some researchers are using adult stem cells from healthy donors to treat graft v. host disease in children who received bone marrow transplants.

Prolife answers

Serge has posted some responses to questions posed by Jill from Feministe regarding abortion and whether unborn children are persons. Jill does posts like this with some regularity and yet when someone like Serge links to his prolife answers to her pro-choice questions, she pays no attention. Which makes me wonder if she actually cares how prolifers would answer her questions.

In the comments section of Jill's post, I found this response by Jill to a question from a prolifer named Jessica about when personhood begins to be worth noting (my emphasis).

"Jessica, I hear ya, it is a hard line to draw. I guess what these questions eventually lead me to is, It doesn't really matter. I know that sounds cold, but the way I see it, even if a fetus is a person it doesn't have the right to use another person's body for its survival. It's a balancing act, and for me, the woman's right to her own body comes out on top."

Has Jill really thought through comments like this and the implication of them?

My daughter uses my wife's body everyday for her survival. If my wife decided that she no longer wanted to use her body to help my daughter survive, would it be alright for my wife to kill our child?

In a response to another comment about the consensus Jill writes,

"I am saying that if we accept the pro-life premise that embryos are people, then we have to re-calculate a lot of these things. I am saying that doing so will be a logistical nightmare, and will illustrate just how silly it is to argue that embryos are people in the first place."

How poor is this argument? The unborn aren't people because counting them in a census would be a logistical nightmare? That's probably one of the least sound reasons for determining whether someone is a person that I've ever heard.

I also enjoyed this comment from Zuzu (another pro-choice writer at the Feministe blog) responding to someone claiming "we obviously don't assign soc sec numbers based on when we think personhood starts."

Actually, we do. Try to get a social security number for a fetus sometime.

Our 3-week-old daughter doesn't have a social security number yet. It takes around a month or so (I believe that's what we were told) for the government to assign a social security number. Does that mean my daughter isn't a person until the government gets around to assigning her a social security number?

Monday Baby Blogging

A little over three weeks after birth and mom and baby are doing well. Mrs. Jivin and I could probably both use a little more sleep and there was a slight issue with the baby losing more weight after birth than normal but that problem has cleared up as she gained 22 ounces in 15 days. I believe the vest in the picture is one my wife wore when she was a baby.

Life Links 1/3/08

Scott Swenson at the RH Reality Check Blog believes Mike Huckabee doesn't think all people have intrinsic value because Huckabee is opposed to abortion, is opposed to same sex marriage and favors abstinence education. One would hope Swenson would actually learn the meaning of intrinsic before making such a silly claim.

Note to Scott, believing all human beings have intrinsic value doesn't mean one has to believe it should be legal to kill unborn human beings, favor allowing individuals of the same sex to marry or teaching sex-ed in public schools.


Just Another Alias discusses her thoughts a year after her abortion.


Jill at Feministe tries to defend her reasoning that if abortion is made illegal then there will be no legal argument to prevent laws against forced abortions. The problems with her argument are many. First, it fails to note that if the unborn are granted the right to life (which is what prolifers want in the long run) then that would be a strong legal argument against forced abortions since killing them by forced abortion would violate their right to life. Second, it assumes the entire right to privacy would be overturned if the courts overturn the right to legal abortion. Jill assumes the entire right to privacy would be "destroy(ed)" instead of the justices merely ruling that killing your unborn child isn't part of the right to privacy. Jill also seems unaware that in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the court changed their reasoning for the justification of legal abortion by using arguments for "liberty" and discarding Blackmun's "privacy" reasoning and trimester framework. Another problem I see with her reasoning is: Is there any legal argument to stop forced abortions after viability? If abortions are illegal after viability (as pro-choicers claim) then wouldn't Jill's position entail there aren't any legal arguments against forced abortion after viability?


Two men have been arrested for setting an abortion clinic in New Mexico on fire. The article notes the possible motive:

According to a criminal complaint, Baca's roommate told authorities that Baca allegedly confessed to setting the fire because his former girlfriend was scheduled to have an abortion at the clinic.

If this is the case and the suspects aren't involved in the prolife movement but merely a young man who didn't want his former girlfriend to have an abortion and his friend, will pro-choice bloggers still act like this violence is because of the prolife movement?

Life Links 1/2/08

Jay Lefkowitz provides an inside account of President Bush's decision making process for stem cell funding in the summer of 2001.

HT: Scott Klusendorf, Wesley Smith


A man who caused his girlfriend to miscarry after crushing abortion pills into a beverage is still at large after jumping bail last week.


Here's the latest from the pro-killing human embryos for research forces in Michigan. They really have nothing new to say, do they? Why doesn't Robert Kelch mention the numerous problems embryonic stem cells need to overcome before they can "become useful for new disease treatments?"

Life Links 12/27/07

In case you missed it, Robert George wrote a letter to Anne Rice regarding her endorsement of Hillary Clinton.

For now, what I hope you will consider is simply this: The child in the womb either is or is not a human being–a member of the human family. If he or she is, then he or she is entitled as a matter of basic justice to the protection of laws and, indeed, to the equal protection of the laws. For a voter or public official to seek to deny to the unborn elementary legal protections against killing that we favor for ourselves and others we regard as worthy is a gross and appalling injustice. There is no way around this. Once one concedes the humanity of the child–as one must in view of the plain facts of human embryogenesis and early-intrauterine development–the principle of the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every member of the human family requires the legal protection of the unborn.

A letter to Chicago's Daily Herald notes that not all opposition to abortion is based in religious beliefs.

Defenders of abortion concentrate heavily on religious arguments against abortion and generally ignore the secular arguments because they have no real answers.

When human life begins is not a matter of dogma or religion; it is a scientific fact provable in any laboratory that life begins at conception.

Former employees of movie producer Jon Peters are suing him because they claim Peters threatened to fire the husband if his wife didn't have an abortion.


It looks like Andy Meisner's seat in the Michigan House could be filled by someone (Ellen Cogen Lipton) who promotes as much misinformation on stem cell research as he does.

She said that as one of only five states that prohibits stem cell research, "Michigan is missing out" on millions of dollars in valuable federal grant money.

Let's see - Michigan doesn't prohibit embryonic stem cell research much less "stem cell research" and the University of Michigan received a fairly large (over $2 million) federal grant for embryonic stem cell research in 2003.

Life Links 12/21/07

Serge’s thoughts on Yamanaka’s induced pluripotent stem cell work.


Wesley Smith on some new deception from the Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures.


Jill Stanek relays a touching story from my hometown newspaper about a son finding out that he and his birthmother worked at the same Lowe’s.


It was good to see Mitt Romney call out Hillary Clinton on Meet the Press for her vote against finding alternative method of creating pluripotent stem cells. I would the mainstream media to pick up on this but I doubt it will happen unless someone like Romney continues to point it out.


Rev. Jim Luallen shows the distorted thinking of someone who’s a member of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. After noting that the unborn are living organisms with human DNA, Luallen notes he thinks abortion isn’t morally wrong and should be legal because life isn’t an “entitlement.”

As a Christian minister, I believe that no one has a God-given right to be born. Life is a gift - not an entitlement. This is the truth revealed in the Bible.

So the unborn are alive and life is a gift from God but it’s okay to intentionally kill that life (gift from God). How’s that for clear thinking?


Anna Clark at the RH Reality Check blog discusses her conversion from being prolife to pro-choice. Note this instance of pro-choice tolerance.

I argued for having both the pro-choice and the anti-abortion groups sponsor the forum. A more diverse audience! We won't preach to that interminable choir! Besides, not all inmates are pro-choice. No, of course, we don't want this to be a debate. Let's have a nuanced conversation.

In this leftist group, alluding to anti-abortion views was no less startling and shameful than if I'd proceeded to urinate on another PCAPer. The others made meaningful eye contact to each other and moved on. The event was sponsored by the pro-choice group.

For unto us a child is born

Over the weekend my wife gave birth to our daughter! ! My wife and baby girl are both home and doing well. Needless to say, blogging will probably be fairly sparse for the next little while.

Christmas v. Ramadan: Where Congress stands

The U.S. House of Representatives recently had two votes on separate pieces of legislation acknowledging religious holidays.

One piece of legislation (H.R. 847) was with regards to Christians and Christmas, while another piece of legislation (H.R. 635) was with regards to Islam and Ramadan. The Ramadan legislation passed 376-0 with 42 (41 Republicans and 1 Democrat) voting "present" while the Christmas resolution passed 372-9 with 10 (9 Democrats and 1 Republican) voting "present."

I'm trying to understand why 9 Democrats (Gary Ackerman, Yvette Clarke, Diana DeGette, Alcee Hastings (FL), Barbara Lee, Jim McDermott, Bobby Scott (VA), Pete Stark, and Lynn Woolsey) voted against the Christian/Christmas resolution. Of the nine that voted against the Christmas/Christian resolution, 8 (with the exception of Lee who didn't vote) voted yes on the Islam/Ramadan resolution.

As you can read, the resolutions have fairly similar wording. Both note the religion in question is one of the great religions of the world, the Ramadan resolution expresses friendship and support for Muslims while the Christmas resolution expresses support for Christians, both reject hatred and bigotry towards the religious groups, and both acknowledge the religious holidays, the Ramadan resolution commends Muslims who reject using Islam to justify terror while the Christmas resolution expresses its respect for Christians. The only significant differences I see is that the Christmas resolution acknowledges Christianity's role in the founding of Western civilization and America and acknowledges the importance of the Christian faith.

Life Links 12/14/07

A man in Oklahoma named Eric Phan is being charged with two counts of first degree murder after killing Lauren Barnes (who was 22 to 26 weeks pregnant) and their unborn child.

Barnes said she had told Phan's current girlfriend that he was the father of her unborn child and was afraid he would "blow up" when they met, the affidavit says....

Phan told Huynh "that he choked her and that the last thing she said to him was that she would get an abortion," Sgt. Cadle wrote in her affidavit.

Here are more details about the woman from the Netherlands who was jailed after allegedly obtaining an illegal abortion in Spain. Her lawyer claims she felt pressure to abort the child, she was living a double life, and she's Moroccan. The woman also contends she wasn't over the legal limit but the justice department claims they have evidence she was at least 27 weeks pregnant.


Matthew Baremore, a fourteen-year-old boy from Arizona was treated with stem cells from his bone marrow to help his severe scoliosis.

Flood straightened and bolstered Matthew's spine with a series of rods and pins _ a typical surgical treatment for severe scoliosis. Then the surgeon combined Matthew's own stem cells, which had been concentrated to pack about 10 times more cells than the traditional method, with crushed bone from the hospital bone bank.

I enjoyed this letter to editor in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel where the writer William Huber asserts, "I have been told that embryonic stem cells still hold the most promise for good, even though other cell types may prove helpful in the future, a truth that Goldberg ignores" in response to a recent Jonah Goldberg column about the recent advance with induced pluripotent stem cells.

Told by whom??? Sources matter. I've been told my niece is going to have her 5th birthday in a couple of weeks. However, the source for this information was my 2 year-old niece who will soon be turning 3.

Life Links 12/13/07

A woman in the Netherlands has been released from a four-week stay in prison after allegedly procuring an illegal abortion in Spain. The prosecutor's office is still investigating.


A doctor in Australia tries to justify killing an unborn child at 32 weeks.

The reason the mother wanted the abortion?

Her child was diagnosed with dwarfism. According to Dr. Lachlan de Crespigny, this made her suicidal. So instead of getting her some counseling or mental health help, he injected potassium chloride into the child's heart because the pregnant woman requested an abortion.

Anyone who wants an abortion at 32 weeks because their child has dwarfism has serious mental or moral issues. Anyone who would agree to perform such an abortion is mentally or morally deranged.


The web site of the Washington Times is linking to the video of Michigan abortionist Alberto Hodari telling medical students at Wayne State University about how he lies to clients and their significant others. The clip also includes the part where he claims that doctors have a "license to lie."

Glow-in-the-dark cloned cats

Have been created in South Korea.

The cloned kittens look red fluorescent under ultraviolet light because of the red fluorescence protein in their skin cells while an ordinary one appears to be green.

What do you think about when you think abortion?

How about an Easter bunny?

One individual at LiveJournal's abortion info community created a pixel with what appears to be an Easter bunny hugging a basket of easter eggs next to blocks that spell "abortion." She encourages other members to "(f)eel free to use it to take away the stigma and show celebration and support. I want women to see it as a bright thing that have support for!"

Celebrate that bright thing that is abortion!

This could have been good satire if it weren't so unbelievably sad.

Life Links 12/11/07

Robert George in First Things: Law and Moral Purpose. Read it.


Chelsea Zimmerman has posted video of a post-award interview of Tim Tebow. Towards the end of the interview, Tebow mentions how his mother decided not to abort him.


Ryan Anderson points to a New York Times article in which Shinya Yamanaka notes how there is only a "small difference" between human embryos and his daughters.


Researchers in Australia have developed a drug to kill cancer stem cells.

Scientists believe that some cancers arise from a small number of aberrant cells that, like adult stem cells, have the ability to self-renew and differentiate into multiple cell types. These cells often persist in cancer patients in low numbers even following therapy, and can cause cancer relapse. Therapies that effectively kill cancer stem cells may thus hold promise for improving the treatment of cancer and increasing survival from the disease.

A teenager from the Traverse City area traveled to Grand Rapids to receive chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant to help treat his testicular cancer.

Tags: abortion, stem cell

"We're behind!" - "No, were losing ground" - "No, our country is the least hospitable"

I thought the U.S. was falling behind in stem cell research or at least that's what the media and embryonic stem cell proponents always seem to be telling me. I've read about the "brain drain" so much I get worried I won't be able to fly internationally because every researcher in the U.S. is moving overseas because of America's supposedly harsh restrictions. But wait! Here's an article from a Japanese paper which includes complaints from Shinya Yamanaka about how Japan could fall behind the United States in research on induced pluripotent stem cells.

Hochedlinger said Yamanaka would lead the competition in the short term. But he said many U.S. researchers would catch up with Yamanaka within a few years because U.S. research institutes have more abundant financial resources than their Japanese counterparts and many talented scientists from around the world conduct their work in the United States.

Tags: stem cell research, brain drain

Doctors advised Tim Tebow's mom to have an abortion

This is a rather amazing story. Doctors claimed he was an irreversibly damaged fetus. Now he's an absolutely ridiculous athlete.

I fear the defense of my Michigan Wolverines is going to get ripped apart by Heisman winner "Timmy" and the Gators on New Year's Day.

HT: S.I.C.L.E. Cell

UPDATE: Chelsea at Reflections of a Paralytic has posted a video where Tim mentions his mother's decision not to have an abortion towards the end of his post-award interview with Chris Fowler on ESPN.

Life Links 12/10/07

On Sunday, the Topeka Capitol Journal printed a story about the scandal involving Kansas Attorney General Paul Morrison. Morrison had an affair with a subordinate and the woman, Linda Carter, has claimed sexual harassment. Carter is also alleging Morrison pressured her to obtain information about Phill Kline's investigations into abortion providers. Morrison has admitted to the affair but is denying the other charges.

Morrison and Carter had an argument in March about Morrison's investigation of Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller. Kline had attempted to charge Tiller with violating the state's abortion statutes, but he was never was able to bring Tiller to trial.

When Morrison became attorney general, he promised to conduct a complete, independent review of the Tiller case. Carter said in her statement that she urged Morrison to charge Tiller.

She also said Morrison alleged Kline's approach to the abortion investigation was "unethical." The argument ended with Morrison storming out of Carter's apartment.

I'm having trouble understanding why anyone would pay $7,500 for retrieval and a $63 monthly storage fee to store your own adult stem cells. Doesn't your body already store them for you?


Edward Emig has a letter to the editor responding to Ellen Goodman's latest column.

The truth is that all human life, at whatever stage of development, has the same inherent moral value. Based on this truth, one's aunt with diabetes has no moral right to expect that human embryos should be destroyed as a means of helping to prolong her life simply because she has reached a more advanced stage of development.

Hadley Arkes discusses abortion and Giuliani in a reply to David Frum.

In reporting to us that Rudy Giuliani shares an aversion to abortion, he tells us that Giuliani has declared "his personal revulsion at abortion." Does David not recognize this as the old line of "personally opposed, but …"? That is, the line that treats an issue as a matter of personal feeling or personal taste and conspicuously not as a matter of moral judgment of right or wrong. Giuliani does not say, "I am personally opposed to racial discrimination, or the use of drugs, but who am I impose my personal revulsions on anyone else?" He treats those issues with the logic of a moral judgment, the judgment he conspicuously avoids here. This late in the seasons of our experience, why would David offer this argument with a straight face as though we were witless enough to be taken in by it?

Cristina Page is back with more delusions in the Huffington Post. This time she posits that numerous Republican candidates for president are against contraceptives because they believe that life begins at fertilization. Does this mean the authors of embryology textbooks oppose contraception as well?

Ridiculously broad statements include, "And pro-lifers insist the pill (prevents implantation)" and "Study after study proves that contraceptive use is the only way to prevent abortion" (the only "study" she then links to back up this assertion is the recent WHO/Alan Guttmacher "study").

Tags: abortion, stem cell, cristina page, paul morrison

Life Links 12/7/07

Researchers have used reprogrammed mice iPS cells to cure mice with sickle cell anemia


More conflicts of interest at the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine which seem to be based on contradicting rules in Prop. 71 grant application process.


Patrick Deenan has an interesting post on abortion, presidential candidates, what happens when Roe is overturned, etc.


Mark Stricherz discusses how and why the Democratic Party changed with regards to abortion.

The Rest of the Story

Or the rest of the quote.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science has released the transcript of the press interviews with James Thomson and Junying Yu. A quote I've seen over and over again from the media is Thomson claiming "the political controversy set the field back about 4-5 years." This quote is on page 15 of 24 in the transcript. From the interview context and the question that was asked, it's obvious that Thomson is referring to the embryonic stem cell research field, not work on reprogramming adult cells into pluripotent stem cells as some individuals (like Jonathan Moreno and Ellen Goodman) have unfortunately attempted to claim. But what's really interesting is the rest of the quote which I haven't seen anywhere (and you'll know why when you read it). Here's the entire answer to a question about whether the U.S. policy on embryonic stem cells forces researchers out of the country:

My feeling is that the political controversy set the field back about 4 – 5 years. And if you look at funding, from 1998 – 2001, there is no federal funding for this work in the United States. So there were 3 lost years where essentially nobody could do this work. And then the stigma associated with it, I really do think young investigators avoided getting into this field, and so talent just did not join the field. So from one positive point of view from the Bush decision, federal funding was allowed for this work starting in late 2001. It still represented very bad public policy as the primary concern, it did get the ball rolling. But I do believe because of the restrictions, and I do believe because of the political controversy the field is much slower taking off than it would have been otherwise.

Question: Why do all the individuals citing this 4-5 year claim say Bush is responsible for the 4-5 years when Thomson indicates directly that a couple of those years were before Bush ever took office? Why is no one saying Bill Clinton slowed down embryonic stem cell research?

Answer:Because they're biased individuals who feel the need to stick to the Bush-is-to-blame storyline regardless of how true it is.

The New York Times also joins the blame Bush crew with this op-ed quote,

Dr. Thomson estimated that the political controversy and the President’s restrictions on federal funding have actually set the field back four to five years, mostly because the stigma discouraged scientists from working on embryonic stem cells.

Note how they fail to mention the political controversy started long before Bush became president.

Tags: stem cell research, james thomson, new york times

Life Links 12/6/07

Francis Beckwith is interviewed about his book, Defending Life, by Ignatius Press.

Last year at UCLA Law School when I debated the issue of embryonic stem-cell research, I answered the "religious argument" charge this way: "Wow, I thought you were going to claim my argument was bad."

HT: Scott Klusendorf


Meanwhile, Scott Klusendorf summarizes chapter six of Defending Life.


Ramesh Ponnuru discussed his book and life issues on BloggingHeads.


MSNBC's Aswini Anburajan didn't think EMILY's List president Ellen Malcolm performed too well when trying to claim Hillary Clinton was the only candidates who stood up for abortion when it was tough to do so.

Dawkins says down with monogamous fidelity and yes to politicians lying about their private lives

I can't fathom how anyone in their right mind would find Richard Dawkins' arguments regarding marital fidelity to be at all persuasive.

I believe Macht makes a good point about Dawkins' talk about "rising above nature. "

There is something odd, I think, about a staunch naturalist thinking we can "rise above nature." Odd, not only in the fact that he seems to think that there is something wrong with nature that needs to be overcome, but also in the fact that he thinks there is something above nature to which we can rise.

Life Links 12/5/07

A study by Australian researchers has found that "young women who have abortions are more likely to drink heavily and abuse hard drugs."

The study tracked 1,122 young women who were born at the Mater hospital in the early 1980s, finding that 21 years on, about one-third had an abortion.

Those who had an abortion were three times more likely to also abuse hard drugs, like heroin, methamphetamines and glue, than the women who had either had no pregnancy or those who had a child....

The findings were adjusted for age, family socio-demographic factors and previous mental health problems.

The researchers (or at least the lead researcher) appear to be pro-choice and the article doesn't mention where, if anywhere the results have been published. The results were presented recently at the World Psychiatric Association conference.


Illinois NOW (whose political action committee has endorsed Clinton) is taking shots at Obama for his "present" votes on prolife legislation. We're getting messages about his votes from NOW and Planned Parenthood. Interesting.


The New York Times reviews Juno, a movie whose title character is a pregnant teenager.


For some reason, the NY Times prints this incredibly ignorant letter to the editor from James Chenitz on stem cell research which claims "President Bush has provided nothing to stem cell research but impediments." You just can't win with some people. If you're the first president to provide federal funding for embryonic stem cell research but want some kind of moral line, somehow all your actions impede stem cell research.


Researchers at Kyoto University have discovered a way to help adult stem cell from bone marrow regenerate damaged nerves.

Ron Paul on the View

They get into an abortion discussion and Ron Paul makes some good points. He asks Joy Behar if it's "her body, her choice" why shouldn't he be allowed to perform abortions in the 8th month of pregnancy. Behar responds that there must be something wrong ("either her mental state or health") with a woman who wants an abortion at 8 months. Wait - what happened to it's her body, her choice?

Whoopi tries to act like she knows there is "a limit" to when someone can have an abortion. Towards the end of the segment, Joy Behar says "it's murder" when Paul says she's not in favor of abortion a minute before birth.

I would bet $100 that not a single woman hosting the View today could give an accurate description of what Roe v. Wade did. They all seem to be very in favor of Roe yet seem to have a very limited idea of what it wrought.

Tags: abortion, the view, ron paul

Cristina Page needs a history lesson

There are quite a few problems with this recent Cristina Page post at the RH Reality Check blog. Apparently, it's "stunning" that Fred Thompson isn't in favor of locking up women for having abortions. If Page finds this position (which Thompson has been repeating for more than a month) to be "stunning" that means she either doesn't follow abortion politics too closely or has a delusional belief prolifers want to lock women up.

Page then claims (without an citation), "The last time the United States banned abortion -- pre-Roe -- doctors faced only minimal penalties for providing safe care."

When did the United States ban abortion? I guess Cristina must be referring to various states within the U.S. who passed various laws banning abortion.

"Minimal penalties" is also an extremely odd claim. Performing an abortion was felony in numerous states. For example, here's a Planned Parenthood fact sheet claiming that without Roe v. Wade, physicians performing abortions in Wisconsin could face penalties (up to 15 years in prison) which I certainly wouldn't deem as "minimal." Here's a link to Wisconsin's abortion law (940.04). Michigan's abortion law also lists abortion as a felony. In Georgia, the penalty for performing an abortion was imprisonment for "not less than one nor more than ten years." I could go on and on. Needless to say, when Page claims that individuals performing abortions prior to Roe faced only "minimal penalties" in states where abortion was illegal, she's not telling the truth.

The reason? The truth doesn't fit into the point Page is hoping to make. She continues,

This time around the crime of abortion, if (and apparently only if) performed by a doctor, will be murder and extreme penalties will apply. It seems clear that the environment post-Roe will be harsher than pre-Roe.

Last time around, a clandestine network of safe abortion services sprung up. This time, if the anti-abortion candidates have their way, the risk for physicians would be too great. And so women who can't reach safe care will be much more likely to take matters into their own hands, which the Republicans apparently don't mind.

Ha!!! By ignoring history, Page can now claim this year's crop of fiendish Republican presidential candidates want to pass abortion laws which have harsher penalties than old laws and these laws (which somehow have harsher penalties than the old felony laws) will supposedly prevent abortionists from risking participating in safe, underground abortions. Page shows how disingenuous this line of reasoning is later on when she mentions how states (not the federal government) would regulate abortion if Roe were to be overturned.

Then, instead of actually addressing the numerous points and positions taken by contributors to National Review's symposium on the question of how much time women having abortion should do, Page claims, the symposium's answer was: "Treat the women having the abortion as, essentially, a child." That summation of NR's symposium is more evidence that some pro-choicers couldn't give a lick to how prolifers respond to the question of "How much time?" The question is all about trying to frame prolifers as either A.) heartless goons who want to throw women behind bars or B.) inconsistent advocates who don't really believe the unborn should be legally protected.

Page then, after hammering away with some other pro-choice talking points, goes on to claim the "whole of the right to life movement" believes emergency contraception is an "abortive drug."

Her evidence for this blanket statement? Nothing.

Past post on Page's pieces here.

Tags: abortion, cristina page, rh reality check

Life Links 12/4/07

Hillary is going after Obama for his votes on prolife legislation (he often voted "present" inside of "no") when he was a state senator in Illinois. The problem, however, is this is apparently how Planned Parenthood and other pro-choice organizations told him how to vote. So what's worse for Obama - voting "present" on abortion restrictions or being instructed how to vote by others?


A cop in Illinois named Dick Lalowski got canned because he harassed individuals protesting at an abortion clinic. Here's a story with some information on how Lalowski treated the protesters.


In China, a man has been sentenced to death after severely burning his pregnant girlfriend. The attack burned 30% of her body and killed their unborn child. A possible reason for the attack could be that an ultrasound at 6 months indicated the child was a girl. It seems that this is what have might have prompted the boyfriend to request she have an abortion.


Michael J. Fox says he'll back the "most pro-science candidate is that comes out of either primary."

Hmmm.... Obama and Clinton both voted against funding alternatives methods of creating pluripotent stem cells. Does that mean they're "anti-science?" Fox is really saying he'll back the candidate most in favor of killing human embryos for research.

Tags: abortion, stem cell

Just what the prolife movement needs

More infighting.

Prediction: Five years from now American Right to Life won't exist.

Some one might also want to tell them the whole "Who they are" section of their web site (which I'm guessing will eventually be all about attacking National Right to Life) appears to something written in Latin.

Am I the only one who thinks it makes no sense for a "national" organization to be the subsidiary of a state organization?

Life Links 12/3/07

The BBC will broadcast a report tonight about women of Indian who live in Britain traveling to India to abort their unborn daughters.


Abortion provider George Kabacy has plead guilty to possession of child pornography. He had more than 8,000 images on his computer. He pled guilty so prosecutors wouldn't charge him with advertising the images he had.


Ellen Goodman joins Jonathan Moreno in claiming that Bush's stem cell funding policy somehow slowed research into creating pluripotent cells without killing human embryos.

Goodman also claims Bush (the first president to provide federal funds for research on human embryonic stem cells) slowed research "by starving funding and scaring off researchers." Her editorial also has this bizarre sentence that makes one wonder if she has any clue what she's talking about:

But the embryo could do what they were still unable to do: Cause ordinary body cells to act like stem cells.

The New York Times profiles Booth Gardner, the man behind a movement to legalize assisted suicide in Washington state and also discusses the viewpoints of those opposed to assisted suicide.