Scott Roeder convicted of first degree murder

It took the jury only 37 minutes to find Scott Roeder guilty of first degree murder after he admitted that he shot abortionist George Tiller.

Life Links 1/29/10

Yesterday, Scott Roeder admitted on the stand to killing abortionist George Tiller and at the end of his testimony Judge Warren Wilbert ruled that the jury couldn't consider Roeder guilty of only voluntary manslaughter.

In his testimony, Roeder did not dispute any of the evidence brought against him by prosecutors. He admitted he bought a gun and ammunition, and took target practice in the days prior to Tiller's shooting.

He said he had thought about killing Tiller for years, even considering buying a sword to cut off his hands or hiding out like a sniper to shoot him walking into his Wichita, Kansas abortion clinic.

Roeder also acknowledged having carried a gun into Tiller's church on at least two occasions prior to May 31 and said he had considered killing other abortion doctors but that Tiller was his only "target."

Authorities in New York have released some more details about Kisha Jones' alleged attempts to kill the child of her husband's mistress. After tricking her into taking an abortion drug (which could have caused the child's premature birth), Jones then pretended to be a hospital administrator and tried to get hospital staff to allow a man to feed the child a "tainted liquid" she claimed was breast milk.


In New Jersey, a trial is underway where the defendant Ahmmad Johnson is charged with car jacking and then shooting his girlfriend's father (he survived) in a drive-by. He allegedly attempted to kill his girlfriend's father because he had convinced her to have an abortion. He also allegedly killed the car's owner, Piotr Raczek, after Raczek identified him as the car thief.


A teen in South Carolina will appear in court today after being charged with desecrating human remains for burying a stillborn child.

Officers with the Horry County Police Department were dispatched to a location on 17th Avenue North in Surfside Beach around 3 a.m. on Dec. 7 after pictures of the deceased fetus were discovered on the teen's phone. Other pictures shown to authorities upon arrival included what appeared to be a burial for the fetus.

Police say the mother of the 16-year-old girl went to an address on Woodwinds Drive in Conway, where she dug up the skeletal remains of the fetus herself.

Another story notes the child was less than 20 weeks old.

Check-mated by his own P.R.

I think Rich Lowry provides an apt explanation for President Obama's recent troubles.

It's a sign of how lost he is that he invoked the "I didn't explain clearly enough" defense on health-care — this from the guy whose every utterance has been hyped as brilliant, moving, and for the ages. By the end, the self-pity (it reminded me a little of that debate where Bush kept on saying the Iraq War is hard) and the dishonesty (it's as if he didn't bless all the back-room deals that have disgusted people) interacted in a toxic way. Here is a man check-mated by his own P.R., which created the otherworldly expectation that all the inherent difficulties of governing could be resolved in himself, and his blatant misreading of the electorate and his mandate.

Life Links 1/28/10

Chris Stirewalt on the left’s reaction to Focus on the Family’s Super Bowl ad featuring Tim Tebow:

News of the ad had a predictably Pavlovian effect on the Left. Since the spot combines many of the elements that the "educated class" most detests about America -- frank expressions of Christianity, pro-life advocacy, home-schoolers, football hero worship and the South -- they were incensed that cash-strapped CBS would take Focus on the Family's money.

Jehmu Greene, head of the Women's Media Center, is leading a drive to punish CBS for airing the ad, which she claims is "sexist."

A little decoding is necessary here.

In terms of Super Bowl ads, "sexist" is code for "anti-abortion." But "sexist" does not apply to parading women around in their underpants to sell beer.

Got it?

Meghan Duke relates her experience of being told to remove a prolife pin when she visited the National Gallery of Art after the March for Life.

I decided to visit the Gallery after attending the March for Life the day before. There was an exhibit on processes of photography before the digital age that I hoped would confirm me in my refusal to give up on film. After searching my bag, the two guards at the Gallery told me, “You’re good to go in, but first you need to remove that pro-life pin.” He was indicating the small lime green pin with the message “impact73.org” and the silhouette of a small hand inside that of a larger hand that I had attached to the lapel of my coat. The pin, they informed me, was a “religious symbol” and a symbol of a particular political cause and it could not be worn inside a federal building. Why, I asked, can I not wear a religious or political symbol inside a federal building?

Stanford scientists have changed skin cells from mice tails into neurons without first making them pluripotent.

In the past, normal cells have been coaxed into changing function by first turning them into "induced" stem cells.

These have similar properties to stem cells taken from embryos, giving them the potential to become any kind of tissue in the body.

The new research went a step further by transforming mouse skin cells straight into functional neurons, while by-passing the stem cell process. .

Remember those “Choose your own adventure” books? You know, the ones where the reader could decide what the protagonists would do. “If you choose to enter the spooky old house, turn to page 131. If you choose to go to the police station, turn to page 189.”

There is now a web show called “Bump +” in which the viewers apparently choose what the actors in this fake reality show do with their pregnancies.

Life Links 1/27/10

Sarah Palin slaps down NOW for their protestations of the Tebows' Super Bowl ad.

NOW is looking at the pro-life issue backwards. Women should be reminded that they are strong enough and smart enough to make decisions that allow for career and educational opportunities while still giving their babies a chance at life. In my own home, my daughter Bristol has also been challenged by pro-abortion “women’s rights” groups who don’t agree with her decision to have her baby, nor do they like the abstinence message which she articulated as her personal commitment. NOW could gain ground and credibility with everyday Americans, thus allowing their pro-women message to be heard by more than just their ardent supporters, if they made wiser decisions regarding which battles to pick. They should call attention to and embrace the Tebows’ message, instead of covertly and overtly disrespecting what Mrs. Tebow, Bristol, and millions of other women have chosen to do (in less than ideal circumstances).

Serge contrasts how our society treats thalidomide and RU-486.

Thalidomide accidentally caused harm to 10,000 unborn children. However, the UK as well as the US presently approves a medication that intentionally kills millions of unborn children. That medication is mifiprex or RU-486. Unlike thalidomide, the only reason that mifiprex is given is to intentionally kill an unborn child. If the unborn child survives after a woman takes mifiprex, it is considered a failure of the medication.

What does it say about our culture that we issue apologies for harming children in the past at the same time we market a medication that intentionally kills children? Instead of harming children, what if thalidomide was more effective in killing them? Would we still apologize?

Senator Ben Nelson is now claiming in an interview with LifeSite News that he planned on putting the Nelson-Hatch-Casey amendment (which mirrors the Stupak amendment) into health care reform once the bill got to conference committee where he thinks he would have had more leverage. I don't know who's going to buy that story.

What is happening to my city?

A 15-year-old girl allegedly stabbed her cousin in the back with a knife after a dispute regarding his borrowing of movies.

Woman, child die in crash on I-94

This is an incredibly sad story. A pregnant woman and her child died yesterday on the I-94 in Detroit when their car hit a pole and she was thrown out of the car. The child came out of his mother's body after the crash.

A 23-year-old pregnant woman died in a car crash on I-94 on Tuesday morning, along with her baby, who was ripped from her body along the freeway.

Shardae Homesly of Detroit was not wearing a seat belt as she rode in the front seat of her SUV, driven by her fiancé, Michigan State Police Sgt. Linda Mys said.....

But the 7 1/2 -month-old fetus Homesly had been carrying fell from her ripped-open body, Mys said.

"Troopers at the scene realized the grotesque scene in front of them," Mys said, explaining the rush to save the baby.

Mother and son were taken to St. John Hospital, where Homesly worked as a lab technician. Both were pronounced dead there.

The AP's version of the story in the Chicago Tribune calls the child a "fetus."

New Jersey woman dies after abortion in New York clinic

A 37-year-old woman and mother of four named Alexandra Nunez died after getting an abortion at the A1 Medicine abortion clinic in Queens.

Alexandra Nuñez began bleeding heavily during the procedure at A1 Medicine in Jackson Heights on Monday, officials said.

One of Nuñez's arteries was inadvertently severed and she went into cardiac arrest, according to police sources.

She was taken to Elmhurst Hospital Center, where she died a short time later.

Here's the caring response from the abortion clinic.

An employee at the clinic - a one-stop gynecology and plastic surgery clinic that was still seeing patients yesterday - insisted that everything had gone well at the second-floor medical facility.

"The patient was transferred to the hospital, she didn't die at the clinic," said the woman, who refused to give her name. "Nothing happened here."

Former Aide: John Edwards wanted his mistress to have an abortion

This shouldn't really come as a surprise to anyone. According to former aide Andrew Young, former Vice-Presidential candidate John Edwards allegedly tried to get Young to help him talk his mistress Rielle Hunter into an abortion.

According to Young, Hunter called him in May 2007 to say she was pregnant. Young says that when he informed Edwards, the senator told him to “handle it,” to which he replied: “I can’t handle this one.” Young writes that Edward unloaded on Hunter as a “crazy slut,” said they had an “open relationship,” and put his paternity chances at “one in three.” Young says that Edwards asked him for help persuading Hunter to have an abortion. Young writes that Hunter believed the baby to be “some kind of golden child, the reincarnated spirit of a Buddhist monk who was going to help save the world.”

Teen Pregnancy, Abortion Up in 2006

That's according to a new report from the Guttmacher Institute.

When you hear lazy pro-choicers like Jill at Feministe make horribly stupid generalizations (like blaming the increase completely on abstinence education) note that the majority of increase was amongst 18 and 19-year-olds.

But the new Guttmacher report rounds out the picture: in 2006, there were 71.5 pregnancies for every 1,000 women under the age of 20. That's 3% more than in 2005. The increase was concentrated among 18- and 19-year-olds — pregnancies among those 17 or younger rose only marginally — and occurred in a year when the number of abortions among teens rose 1%.

Life Links 1/26/10

The National Organization, the Feminist Majority and other pro-choice groups are petitioning CBS to not run Focus on the Family's prolife Super Bowl ad featuring Tim Tebow and his mother Pam.

CBS doesn't appear to care.

CBS said it has approved the script for the 30-second ad and has given no indication that the protest would have an impact. A network spokesman, Dana McClintock, said CBS would ensure that any issue-oriented ad was "appropriate for air."

It's amazing what abortion advocates will say about an ad they've never even seen. NOW's Terry O'Neill can't seem to understand how ridiculous it is for here to make this statement.

Terry O'Neill, the president of the National Organization for Women, said she had respect for the private choices made by women such as Pam Tebow but condemned the planned ad as "extraordinarily offensive and demeaning."

"That's not being respectful of other people's lives," O'Neill said. "It is offensive to hold one way out as being a superior way over everybody else's."

Because NOW would never hold one view about anything out as being superior to the views of others.


The LA Times summarizes early testimony in Scott Roeder's trial.


A pregnant woman in Iowa has been arrested for "attempted feticide" after allegedly throwing herself down the stairs to kill her child because she was mad at her husband.

Police were called to a hospital late Tuesday after (Christine) Taylor reportedly told a nurse she intentionally fell down the stairs of her home because she wanted to end her pregnancy.

Such a small view of woman

Watching this video of interviews at RH Reality Check blog with the few pro-choicers protesting the March for Life, I’m reminded about how often times the most adamant of pro-choicers have such a small view of women.

Interviewees act like women won’t be able to do anything if they can’t have abortions. It’s as if they think giving birth to a child from an unplanned pregnancy completely destroys any future a woman would want to have.

It's also interesting because the same poor reasoning could just as easily be used as an excuse to kill born children.

One interviewee says, “Choice means an ability to choose your path in life.”

Laurette Cucuzza doesn’t think she would have been able to “make something” of herself if she didn’t have an abortion at 17.

Maria Lauron interview thinks without abortion women wouldn’t be able to control their futures.

Michelle Kinsey Bruns thinks abortion is what allows women to make their lives what they want them to be and “make her life happen how she wants”

Polly Stamatopoulos think abortions rights are the “most fundamental rights in this country.”

My son, "a choice"

How disturbed of a person do you have to be to give your toddler a sign which reads, “I was a choice”?

The parents are basically bragging about how they could have chosen to kill their child.

HT: Jill Stanek

WaPo columnist struck by the youthfulness of the March for Life

The Washington Post has at least one pro-choice columnist who is living in reality. Robert McCartney was with it enough to actually take the time to visit the March for Life and interview some young people.

Iwent to the March for Life rally Friday on the Mall expecting to write about its irrelevance. Isn't it quaint, I thought, that these abortion protesters show up each year on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, even though the decision still stands after 37 years. What's more, with a Democrat in the White House likely to appoint justices who support abortion rights, surely the Supreme Court isn't going to overturn Roe in the foreseeable future.

How wrong I was. The antiabortion movement feels it's gaining strength, even if it's not yet ready to predict ultimate triumph, and Roe supporters (including me) are justifiably nervous.

Also, for another example of how down in the dumps pro-choicers are now, check out the quote McCartney gets from pro-choicer at the March. Imagine how depressing it would be to see thousands of young people file by you as you stand with a dozen or so people.

Activists who support abortion rights conceded that there's less energy among young people on their side of the debate.

"Unfortunately, I feel my generation is a little complacent," said Amanda Pelletier, 20, co-director of the abortion rights group at American University. "It just doesn't seem to be a very hip issue."

Life Links 1/25/10

In a NPR interview, late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart shared his opinion on “back-alley” abortionists who performed illegal abortions prior to Roe v. Wade.

But I've always defended the back alley providers because most of them do a really decent job.

Carhart also says, he’s “pro-life” and claims the only person who knows when life begins is the “mother of the life that she's carrying.”


Jack Cashill on a couple cases of media malpractice relating to the March for Life 2010.

As Sanchez deliberated, CNN's cameras seemed to have found the same disgruntled crew of pro-abortion protestors that USA Today had found the year before. After the commercial break, Sanchez finally conceded that although he had not "gone out and counted signs individually," most of the protestors "seem to be anti-abortion activists."

A couple of pro-choice filmmakers (Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing) debuted a movie at Sundance Film Festival entitled, “12th and Delaware” which focuses on a crisis pregnancy center and an abortion clinic which share a street corner in Florida.

Making "12th and Delaware" turned out to be eye-opening for the filmmakers in another way: It made them feel that the anti-abortion forces, in Grady's words, "are winning the hearts-and-minds campaign. Abortion is still legal, but there's a huge taboo about it. Who cares if it's legal if no doctor will train to do it?"

"While we were sleeping," says Ewing, "the pro-life side organized a cultural campaign. A recent Gallup poll showed that for the first time more than half of the country identifies itself as pro-life. They have an unpaid multitude of soldiers and they're more revved up; they think it's murder, so of course they're revved up."

The Guttmacher Institute has a couple of resources which may be useful to prolifers. One describes various legislative actions relating to abortion in 2009. The other lists new laws enacted by states and the month of enactment.


Here’s the San Francisco Chronicle’s write-up of the West Coast March for Life.

A counterdemonstration organized by the Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights drew only a few dozen demonstrators, many of whom marched alongside their counterparts on the Embarcadero, chanting slogans including, "Get off our ovaries, keep your rosaries."

Organizers and participants of the abortion rights demonstration worried about their paltry showing.

March for Life 2010 photos

Here are some March for Life 2010 photos by bloggers at Jill Stanek, Political Housewyf and St. Blogustine.

The Washington Times and the Washington City Paper also have photo galleries.

Friday Baby Blogging

Prolifers in 2009

Michael New explains how prolifers made a comeback in 2009.

It’s no secret that the pro-life movement lost significant ground during the 2008 elections. However, the events of 2009 have clearly demonstrated the movement’s resiliency and heft. Indeed, it is safe to say that pro-lifers have been the most effective opponents of Obamacare. Their efforts on this issue alone show unmistakably that the right-to-life movement is an indispensable part of the center-right coalition.

Life Links 1/22/10

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

Gloria Feldt's piece is downright weird.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pro-choice Canadian retracts comments about images of aborted children

This is interesting.

Jeanette Doucet, a former board member and volunteer spokeswoman for Canadians for Choice and (former? - yep on her twitter page she's looking for a job) executive director of Planned Parenthood Ottawa, admits she had no clue what she was talking about when she claimed graphic images used by the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform were fake.

I described Mr. Ruba’s presentation to Ms Teitel as follows: “The first thing he does is show a movie – it’s a show of gore, images of a fake abortion not medically possible.”

I wish to retract my allegations that The Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform uses videos which depict a “fake abortion” (which is) not medically possible”. I am not a physician or a nurse or a medical professional of any sort. I have no medical or professional experience in the performance of abortions. I regret any harm my remarks may have done to the reputations of Jose Ruba and The Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.