Despite charade, abortion proponents still running from A-word

Recently, abortion proponents decided if you can’t beat, join ‘em, and began urging their people to counter post-abortive stories of regret with post-abortive stories of relief.

They launched the 1 in 3 Campaign and began writing articles explaining the importance of coming out.

Even Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards finally admitted to having an abortion skeleton in her closet, claiming it was easy peasy, even if something about it kept her from sharing the good news beyond her inner circle for years and years.

Abortion proponents now say it is wrong to connect abortions with sob stories, which further stigmatize the deed as something sought only in dire circumstances or for catastrophic reasons.

So they exalt the “freedom to f*** up,” lauding those like post-abortive Merritt Tierce, who bragged about not one but two! abortions in the New York Times, one garnered after an affair in which she was unsure of paternity, and the other sought after her attempt to trap a man via pregnancy failed. Tramps trump tragedy.

But do they practice what they preach? Only when convenient.

Despite the charade, the industry knows everyone but them thinks abortion is skanky, to say the least.
So, while Planned Parenthood committed nearly one million of the three million U.S. abortions of the past three years, it continues to use math gimmicks to insist abortion accounts for a minuscule portion of its business.

And in a Cosmo puff piece a few days ago, “How to get hired at Planned Parenthood,” Senior HR Officer Gaitre Lorick failed to ever bring up the a-word. It came up only once, in the article’s intro. Abortion is obviously not an employment magnet.

Lorick wrote candidates are expected to have “a basic understanding” of the organization, and to check out Planned Parenthood’s website for details. But there is no a-word at the supplied link. Lorick also touted Planned Parenthood’s internship program, but that link omits the a-word as well.

At the Washington Post, 16 “influential” feminists submitted what they hope to accomplish in 2015, and again, the a-word never came up. The closest was one invocation of the vague term “reproductive rights.”

Everyone knows you can’t be a feminist if you’re not pro-abortion. It’s the litmus test.

But the feminists listed just about everything but abortion as important agenda items for the new year – living wages, gender equality, police brutality, domestic violence, LGBT justice, digital dualism, online harassment, hate speech, rape, quality childcare, queer and trans people of color in media, campus violence, immigration, incarceration, and even women in online game development.

Is abortion that secure? Hardly.

Amanda Marcotte blames the “anti-choice movement’s relentless propaganda about ‘abortion regret'” and the “ever-misogynistic gossip press” for a stigma against abortion that just won’t die.

Marcotte needs to talk to her own, for instance, Michael Odenthal of Highbrow Magazine.

Odenthal just wrote a laudibly pro-abortion piece (“Conservative America’s dangerous war on abortion”) wherein he promoted the a-word 21 times, except, strangely, within the three paragraphs where he sympathetically told the story of a now incarcerated Pennsylvania mother who illegally ordered pills online to “terminate” her pregnant 16-yr-old daughter’s “pregnancy,” which landed the hemorrhaging girl in the hospital.

“The daughter had a miscarriage,” wrote Odenthal, “as the pills were intended to induce.”
Um, no. The daughter had an abortion. Why not say it straight? Because in this case the a-word doesn’t play well?

Mixed messaging from abortion advocates, often subconscious, betrays the reality they may not even realize they know… this because abortion stigma is inborn, pardon the pun.

Abortion is unnatural. Abortion is violent. It is inherently abhorrent to kill one’s own offspring.
The fact is, abortion stigma will never die… simply because of that which does.

The post Despite charade, abortion proponents still running from A-word appeared first on Jill Stanek.

By Jill Stanek, jillstanek.com

U.S. House Intros Pro-Life Legislation on First Day of Congress

Tuesday afternoon two Republican House members introduced a bill that could save up to 18,000 babies each year. The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act would stop abortions after 20 weeks, based on scientific evidence that shows preborn babies can feel pain at that time.

The Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List) is championing the bill.

“As the 114th Congress is sworn in today, we are encouraged to see our pro-life allies wasting no time in the fight to protect the lives of the most vulnerable,” said SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser. “Sixty percent of Americans support the legislation …to stop abortion on demand after five months. That’s more than halfway through pregnancy. It is time to move the United States off the list of only seven countries to allow abortion on demand beyond this point.”

A Quinnipiac poll found that 60 percent of Americans support the pro-life measure and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has promised to bring it to a vote in the Senate. While it’s doubtful President Obama would sign the bill into law, Dannenfelser said they’re treating the issue like a marathon instead of a sprint.

“We thank Congressmen Franks and Blackburn for their bold leadership,” she said. “Their efforts to pass this legislation in 2013 – including a compelling debate on the House floor led by the House Pro-life Women’s caucus – spurred continued action at the state level. Thirteen states have passed similar limits on abortion in the last three years. A federal law is long overdue and this Congress now has a clear mandate from the American people.”

By: CitizenLink Team, CitizenLink

March for Life unveils theme for '15 event

The 43rd annual March for Life has chosen a special theme this year.

The upcoming March marks the January 22nd anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe vs Wade decision which legalized abortion in the United States. Since then, over 57 million children have died in the womb.

Jeanne Mancini, who heads the organization, says the theme this year draws attention to a special problem related to an abortion-versus-life decision. The theme is "Every Life is a Gift," which focuses on children who have are diagnosed with a disability in the womb and are aborted at what she calls a "high disproportionate rate."

That includes babies who are aborted because of Down Syndrome, Spina Bifida, Anencephaly and other conditions. In those cases, the abortion rate ranges from 60 to 90 percent, and prenatal diagnoses play a large role in those decisions.

Additional information on this year's March for Life can be found on the web site as well as trip planning information.

By: Charlie Butts, OneNewsNow.com

Planned Parenthood: More Dead Children, More Money

"For decades now, Planned Parenthood has operated the most proficient killing machine in the United States," said Douglas R. Scott, Jr., president of the Planned Parenthood watchdog organization Life Decisions International (LDI). "And the machine continues to be oiled by American taxpayers."

In a new report released by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), the group confesses to having slaughtered 327,653 preborn children in 2013, generating an estimated $140 million; a figure closely mirroring 2012. Only 1,880 PPFA customers were referred to adoption agencies (down some 17%).

In FY 2013-2014, PPFA generated nearly $1.3 billion (nearly 7.4 percent more than in FY 2012-2013). PPFA's income included a hefty check from American taxpayers. In FY 2013-2014, government funding exceeded $528.4 million (41% of PPFA's entire budget).

This "not-for-profit" ends every fiscal year with millions of dollars in "excess revenue over expenses," which is also known by another name — "profit." The "excess" for FY 2013-2014 alone was a whopping $127.1 million, a staggering 118% jump from FY 2012-2013. Still, PPFA often make wild claims whenever a corporation, organization or government entity chooses to eliminate or cut funding. (Since the FY2000-2001, PPFA has had a total "excess" of nearly $1 billion.)

Scott said PPFA's greatest ally has always been public ignorance of its agenda and activities. "The Pro-Life Movement can be proud for its ongoing efforts to expose PPFA's agenda. The more public 'black eyes' the group receives, the harder it will be for it to get away with lying to and bullying the American people."

In a related matter, LDI announced that, so far, at least 313 corporations have agreed to stop funding Planned Parenthood, which has kept more than $42 million out of PPFA coffers. The most recent addition to LDI's list of boycott targets is Expedia (Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Hotwire.com, Trivago.com, Venere.com, CarRentals.com, etc.).

Contact: Life Decisions International

March For Life Chicago - January 18, 2015 at 2 p.m.

March For Life Chicago -- 10th Anniversary: Midwest Pro-Life Advocates Proclaim Sanctity of Human Life

The 10th Anniversary of the March for Life Chicago, on Sunday, January 18, 2015 at 2 p.m. (Central), will share multiple perspectives of the pro-life stand against abortion. Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich, Congressmen Dan Lipinski and Peter Roskam, and multi-generation advocate families, will lead the call to end abortion in Illinois and proclaim the sanctity of all human life. A notable line up of speakers will mark with sadness the January 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in the United States, including former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson, Dr. Erwin Lutzer of The Moody Church, and the iconic "godfather" of the pro-life movement, Joe Scheidler.

Over 3,000 participants from Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana are expected to amass on Chicago's Federal Plaza and march through the Loop to the James R. Thompson Center. There will be rallies at both the March for Life assembly point and the destination.

"The March for Life Chicago message is one of love and hope," stated Emily Zender, president of March for Life Chicago. "This occasion affirms the authentic dignity of women, celebrates the gift of children, and promotes a culture dedicated to protecting life at every stage of development. March for Life Chicago joins events across the country from Washington DC to San Francisco to proclaim that all lives matter and declare that it is time to end abortion in America."

WHAT: 10th annual March for Life Chicago

WHEN: Sunday, January 18, 2015, from 2 to 4 p.m. (Central)

WHO: Thousands of individuals and pro-life groups from Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana

WHERE: Assembling at Federal Plaza, 50 W Adams, Chicago, MAP: http://goo.gl/maps/Zu1lI, and marching to James R. Thompson Center, 100 W. Randolph, Chicago, MAP: http://goo.gl/maps/zpzQC

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: www.MarchForLifeChicago.com

START LOCATION: Federal Plaza

SPEAKERS:

• Most Reverend Blase J. Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago, Roman Catholic Church

• The Very Reverend Archimandrite Paul Gassios, Bishop-elect, Episcopal See of Chicago, Diocese of the Midwest, Orthodox Church in America

• Dr. Erwin Lutzer, Senior Pastor, The Moody Church, and co-author, Jesus, Lover of a Woman's Soul

• Three generations of pro-life advocates:

   -- Joseph Scheidler, National Director of the Pro-Life Action League

   -- Eric Scheidler, Executive Director of the Pro-Life Action League

   -- Sam Scheidler, third generation pro-life advocate and blogger

• Tommie Romano, personal post-abortive testimony

• Pastor Mark Jobe, lead pastor, New Life Community Church, and founder, New Life Centers

• Katie Melody, Students for Life of Illinois and leader of Loyola Students for Life Service Committee

RALLY LOCATION: James R. Thompson Center

• U.S. Representative Dan Lipinski, 3rd Congressional District of Illinois, Democratic Party

• U.S. Representative Peter Roskam, 6th Congressional District of Illinois, Republican Party

• Patrick McCaskey, co-owner of the Chicago Bears

• Abby Johnson, former Planned Parenthood director and founder of And Then There Were None

• Three generations of pro-life advocates:
   -- Mary Cooper
   -- Julie Cooper
   -- Sandy Hiltebrand

• Chanel Moore, personal post-abortive testimony
Master of Ceremonies: Mary-Louise Hengesbaugh, former Miss Wisconsin and Respect Life Director – Archdiocese of Chicago, author, and mother of two adoptive children.

Contact: Tom Ciesielka, March For Life Chicago

Maternal love as an argument against abortion

Admitting that abortion is ever acceptable is incompatible with unconditional maternal love

    Prof. Alexander Pruss

Countless pregnant women love (or grow to love) their unborn children. But we do not generally use this fact in any argument against abortion. (Abortion is wrong because it unjustly takes the life of an innocent human being who deserves respect and protection regardless of how others think or feel about her.)

Consider, however, the following argument from Baylor University philosopher Alexander Pruss.

Many unborn children are loved as if they bear the kind of intrinsic value that would make killing them wrong. If those unborn children do not have such value, then those who love them are loving irrationally (or are otherwise mistaken or confused); but it is implausible to say that pregnant women are loving irrationally.

Therefore those unborn children really do have intrinsic value that precludes killing them. Since there are no morally relevant differences between unborn children who are loved and those who are not (the opinion of others cannot determine their moral status), it follows that all unborn children are valuable and ought not be killed. So abortion is wrong.

The decisive premise, it seems to me, is that mothers are not mistaken when they love their unborn offspring. This intuition is so strong that I doubt many pro-choice advocates would deny it, and many have loved their own unborn children and surely thought themselves reasonable in doing so.

Pruss writes:

It seems not only a sociologically natural kind of love, but a perfectly rational love. It would be implausible to suppose that the loving mother is in the throes of some conceptual confusion or is ignorant of some relevant fact. But if the love is perfectly rational and not ignorant, then the object of the love has at least the kind of value that it is loved as if it had. Therefore, plausibly, the fetus has the kind of value which justifies the mother’s love. But the amount of value which the mother in her love predicates of the child is such as would make killing the child prima facie wrong. Hence, abortion is prima facie wrong.

Pruss goes on to answer a number of objections to this argument. The bottom line is that the apparent reasonableness of maternal love for unborn children is significant evidence that abortion is morally impermissible. To say that abortion is permissible, on the other hand, one would have to hold that perhaps a majority of pregnant women (by loving their unborn children as individuals who really matter) are behaving irrationally or out of ignorance or confusion!

Editor’s note. Paul Stark is Communications Assistant for Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, NRLC’s state affiliate.

By Paul Stark via NRL News Today

Parents of disabled baby arrange their child’s death by starvation

Charles L. Bosk, a writer and researcher, spent time in a pediatric hospital where doctors and nurses took care of disabled and/or premature babies. Sometimes, when disabled babies were born (despite the program’s efforts to detect and abort them), the parents didn’t want them. Bosk wrote about a couple that chose not to treat their disabled baby with routine surgery, but instead allowed the child to die:

She [the woman who counseled the parents] reported that the parents had decided not only that they did not want to repair the child’s omphalocele, but they wanted the child to die, and they were willing to do what they could to hurry that event along. The parents had left orders that the child not be fed. She reported that Berger [a doctor] was very upset with this turn of events… Berger claimed that it was one thing for the physicians and the parents to handle this, and quite another for the nurses who had to deal with the infant every day and would be the ones to watch it starve.

The mother was upset when the baby did not deteriorate quickly enough:

Bill [another doctor] reported that the mother was discouraged because today the baby looks good. She was hoping that it would die soon, so seeing it looked healthy really discouraged her.

Yes, this happened legally in the United States, and the practice is likely happening in neonatal care units across the country.

Tragically, there is little talk about the babies who are born and slowly starved to death. There is also little mention of children who are refused routine surgery that would have easily saved their lives. To my knowledge, there has been little documentation of these cases and no studies to show how often they occur.

This passage was written back in 1992. How many quiet murders of disabled babies have taken place since then?

Source: Charles L Bosk, All God’s Mistakes: Genetic Counseling in a Pediatric Hospital (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992) 77, 80.

Editor’s note. This appeared at liveactionnews.org.

By Sarah Terzo via NRL News Today

“What Would You Do?” captures public’s reaction when teenage girl tells boyfriend she’s pregnant

A recent episode of the ABC TV show “What Would You Do?” features an idea sent in by Jared Smith. Smith’s high school in Wisconsin had the highest teen pregnancy rate in the United States, and he came up with the idea to combine two controversial issues – teen pregnancy and abortion – into a What Would You Do? scenario.

To turn his idea into a reality, actors posed as a teen couple in a restaurant. The girlfriend, 16, told her boyfriend that she was pregnant. Smith wanted to see how restaurant patrons would react when they overheard her revelation, and her boyfriend’s unsavory reaction:

The most notable takeaway may be the fact that the younger the restaurant-goer, the more likely he or she was to sympathize with the teen mom’s desire to choose life for her baby.

One touching moment occurred when the show’s host, John Quiñones, emerged from behind-the-scenes to ask a group of teen girls what their thoughts had been during the couple’s argument. “I wanted to take her home and take care of her,” said one young woman.



Likewise, in a second round of the staged scene among a different set of patrons, a young man at a nearby table approached the girl after her boyfriend stormed out to offer her a ride home, and to tell her she deserved better treatment.

By Lauren Enriquez via NRL News Today

Editor’s note. This appeared at liveactionnews.org

Illinois abortions fall to lowest number since 1974

The Illinois abortion rate has fallen to its lowest number in 40 years, a new report reveals. The 2013 Illinois Abortion Statistics, issued by the Illinois Department of Public Health, reported that the abortion rate has dropped by 5.7 percent. This decline represents nearly 2,500 babies who saw life instead of abortion last year. The abortion rate decreased in every age group except for those 45 years of age and above.

There was a very dramatic abortion decline among minors – 20 percent fewer young mothers choose abortion from September to December. Illinois Right to Life credits the decline to the implementation of a new parental involvement law:

Most notably, in August of 2013, the Illinois Parental Notification Law went into effect, requiring children under the age of 18 to notify one parent or guardian before obtaining an abortion. With that law in effect for only the last four months of 2013, we see a dramatic 20 percent decrease in the number of minors obtaining abortions, pointing to increased parental involvement and a positive effectiveness of the law. In 2013, 1,762 abortions were performed on minors 17 years old and younger, in contrast to the 2,213 in 2012. The number of abortions performed on girls 14 years old and younger dropped 31.6 percent in 2013 to 149 – the lowest number in at least 18 years.

We have seen the dire need for parental notification laws in states like Texas, where consent can be easily bypassed by a judge without parents knowing that their daughter sought or underwent an abortion procedure. Notification ensures that parents are informed, and as Illinois has proven, this knowledge plays a crucial role in the decisions that children make. Illinois is demonstrating the effectiveness of the measure.

In 1973 (the only year that had a lower abortion rate than 2013), Illinois saw 32,760 abortions, with dramatically more – 46,800 – in 1974. Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion on demand in the U.S., did not pass until late January of 1973. That year’s abortion rate would likely have not encompassed a full year of legal abortions.

Editor’s note. This appeared at liveactionnews.org.

By Lauren Enriquez via NRL News Today

Illinois Employers to provide special accommodations for pregnant women January 1st

Beginning next Thursday, Illinois employers will need to accommodate pregnant women working for them with work rules and special considerations.

Starting January 1, workplace provisions for women expecting babies will include limits on heavy lifting and assistance in manual labor; access to places to sit; more frequent restroom breaks; time off to recover from childbirth; and private break space for breast-feeding and expressing breast milk.

These new state rules are in addition to federal mandates requiring employers to provide for fulltime workers health care insurance that covers birth control, abortion and sterilization.

Public Act 98-1050, sponsored by State Rep. Mary E. Flowers (D-Chicago) and State Sen. Toi Hutchinson (D-Chicago Heights), and signed into law by Governor Pat Quinn in August, requires employers to provide what the General Assembly considers "reasonable accommodations and safe working conditions for expectant mothers so that they can continue working without fear of endangering their health or the health of the child."

The Illinois Department of Health Resources has a poster summarizing requirements of the new law, including the right to be free from unlawful discrimination and information on how to file a discrimination charge, which is to be downloadable from the IDHR website at www.Illinois.gov/IDHR 

Source: Illinois Review

Members of Congress: Abortion funding breaks health care law promise

More than 75 members of Congress have written the Obama administration emphasizing that abortion coverage must be billed separately under the health care law, as it was promised.

“The abortion surcharge must be a separate payment. However, the proposed rule brazenly ignores the separate payment requirement in the law and instead specifies that the abortion surcharge may be collected in a single payment and the surcharge does not even have to be listed on the consumer’s bill,” the members of Congress wrote in a December letter to HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell.

 When the law was passed, the separate billing for abortion coverage was meant to assuage concerns of those objecting to paying for abortion coverage for reasons of conscience. At least one health plan not offering abortion coverage was to be featured on each state insurance exchange set up under the law.

 Back in September, however, an independent government watchdog found that five state exchanges offered only plans including abortion coverage. In addition, the Government Accountability Office reported that many insurance issuers were not separately billing enrollees for abortion coverage as was promised.

 In the Affordable Care Act, Section 1303 directs health plan issuers on the insurance exchanges to “segregate” the estimated abortion coverage costs for all enrollees choosing such coverage.

 However, the members of Congress charged in the letter, the proposed HHS rules allow insurers another way aside from separately billing abortion coverage: simply itemize the estimated cost of abortion coverage and send it as part of one single bill.

 The text states, “Section 1303 of the Affordable Care Act permits, but does not require a QHP [qualified health plan] issuer to separately identify the premium for non-excepted abortion services on the monthly premium bill in order to comply with the separate payment requirement. A consumer may pay the premium for non-excepted abortion services and for all other services in a single transaction, with the issuer depositing the funds into the issuer's separate allocation accounts.”
The members of Congress argued that the proposed rules go against the health care law.

“In contrast to the law, the proposed rule permits issuers to collect the premium in a single transaction. Additionally, issuers are permitted but not required ‘to separately identify the premium for non-excepted abortion services for the monthly premium bill in order to comply with the separate payment requirement’,” they wrote Secretary Burwell.

“Therefore under the proposed rule, the surcharge is not billed separately and will likely be all but invisible to the consumer,” they continued.

“[I]t is essential that the administration at least follow the minimal statutory requirements related to the accounting gimmick often referred to as the Nelson amendment,” they continued.

 Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), co-chair of the Bipartisan Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, argued the lack of enforcement by the HHS is part of more broken promises from the Obama administration.
“President Obama’s solemn promise not fund abortion on demand continues to be broken with impunity,” the congressman said in a Dec. 18 statement.

 Commenting on the health plan enrollees and the billing for abortion coverage on the insurance exchanges, he stressed, “Consumers have a right to know.”

Source: CNA/EWTN News

Abortion Rights author criticizes Planned Parenthood, says tide shifting pro-life

    Katha Pollitt

Editor’s note. There have been a half-dozen stories reported on a new book by pro-abortion militant Katha Pollitt, “PRO—Reclaiming Abortion Rights.” The following story is based on what I would assume is a C-SPAN recording of Pollitt speaking at the highly influential “Politics and Prose” bookstore in Washington, DC.

Pro-choice author, Katha Pollitt joined Politics and Prose to promote her new book, PRO.
Pollitt believes that there is no bad reason for an abortion. She has rightly claimed that most abortions are for convenience and makes no apologies for supporting this. In addition, Pollitt has said that abortion is more moral than the decision to have a child.

Pollitt began by pointing out that when she speaks in various places, people are always asking her why she wrote her book.

She claimed her reason was obvious – because the pro-life movement is winning. And specifically winning the debate with their language. Pollitt admitted the tide was shifting toward the pro-life side of language.

That was clear after the November 2014 elections when voters rejected nearly all of Planned Parenthood’s darlings in races across the board.

“I wrote this book because all you have to do is open up the newspaper and see the way things are going,” said Pollitt, “Since, 2010 when the Republicans were so successful there have been 205 new abortion restrictions passed in the states, and, even more than the restrictions- the discourse. You can just feel it shifting. You can feel it shifting toward the anti-abortion side of language and the greater and greater defensiveness of the pro-choice side.”

The advocate of abortion-on-demand for any reason goes on to criticize abortion giant Planned Parenthood calling their decision to drop the term “pro-choice” a mistake.

Earlier this year, Planned Parenthood’s president, Cecile Richards, told the New York Times, “The ‘pro-choice’ language doesn’t really resonate particularly with a lot of young women voters.”

Pollitt responded to this tactic, “I have to say that I was really slow to pick up on this. I now think that when Planned Parenthood decided not to use the word ‘pro-choice’ anymore…That–that was a mistake,” she tells the crowd.

“Now they speak of, and I don’t know how this works, they speak of, okay, I’m not going to say pro-choice anymore, I’m going to say I’m walking – I’m walking in another woman’s shoes. So, what? It’s the pro-shoes position?” Pollitt asks.

Editor’s note. This appeared here.

By Carole Novielli, via NRL News Today

Mom told to abort her baby, who is now a 7-year-old “joy”

When Nalida Besson was pregnant with her third child, she was told to abort. It seemed some people, including her midwife, didn’t think Nalida could handle a third child, especially one who had a 50/50 chance of inheriting congenital cataracts, a condition that makes the eyes small and leads to blindness. It’s a condition her husband Michael and both of their daughters were born with. However, Nalida and her husband Michael knew that their son was worthy of life.

Her girls, Mikaella and Leonida, were ages 9 and 5 at the time of Michael Jr.’s birth. Mikaella, who also has autism, was doing well in an inclusive education school. She had some behavioral issues but was very verbal and very social. Leonida, who is also on the autism spectrum and has a seizure disorder, was in an autistic kindergarten class and struggling with some behavioral challenges.

“Her behavior was erratic,” explains Nalida. “Even as I was pregnant with my son, I’d be in church or the store and she’d have a meltdown. She would kick, and I couldn’t carry her. She’s better now, but back then, it was a tough time.”

Her pregnancy with Michael Jr. was a surprise, but a welcome one. Nalida called the office of the doctors she had used for her first two pregnancies and made an appointment to confirm that she was indeed pregnant. She had no plans of seeing anyone except the nurse, but that’s not how the appointment went.

“The nurse said to me, ‘Well, it’s not planned, but a blessing, right?’ She was upbeat and positive,” says Nalida. “And then she said, ‘Well the midwife wants to see you.’ I didn’t have an appointment, but she was my midwife, so I figured she wanted to check in. So I went into her office. She said to me, ‘I heard the test is positive and you’re pregnant. Things are difficult. You already have two kids with disabilities. Your plate is too full. You have a choice. You don’t have to keep the baby.’ I was stunned. I didn’t say much. I didn’t believe in abortion, and I was just converting to Catholicism. I was taken aback, and I didn’t even answer her. I just stood there. She said it was too hard for me and we could make an appointment.”

Nalida didn’t give her midwife a response and simply left the office. She continued with the practice, and the midwife later asked her repeatedly what she was going to do with a boy, since she had two girls. It seemed to Nalida that her midwife was looking for reasons for the pregnancy to be terminated. To Nalida, it seemed as though many people were asking her if she would keep this baby.
“Maybe the culture shifted more, or maybe it was because I had kids with disabilities that I felt that way,” she says, “but people just kept saying, ‘Are you gonna keep the baby?’ No one has asked me to that extent before.”

After Michael Jr. was born, the midwife asked Nalida about her birth control choice. When Nalida responded that she would be using NFP, her midwife told her that because of NFP, she would be seeing her again in two years. Nalida switched practices and never went back.

All three of Nalida’s children have had surgery as infants to remove the cataracts, which involves removing the natural lenses. They each wear thick glasses to replace that natural lens, which improves their vision but doesn’t correct it. They are now 17, 13, and 7 years old.

“Life is busy, but blessed,” says Nalida. “Of course I have challenges with educational plans and getting them the right services, but behavior-wise, it’s much better. My younger daughter has mellowed out and is just a loving child. It was a tough time when I had Michael because of her meltdowns, but then, just as he grew, she outgrew the behaviors. My older daughter is thinking about the future and careers with her challenges, and my son is making his first Holy Communion this year.”

Nalida wants other parents who are pregnant with or have children who have special needs to know that even though some people may say it will be too much or too stressful or that they can’t do it, it’s okay. She says that it isn’t true that only a certain type of person can handle having a child with special needs. She knows firsthand that the love you give and the love you get back are incredible and totally worth it. Despite the challenges, she says that every child’s life is worth it. About her son, she says:

He’s just a joy. I mean, I look at this kid and I always think to myself, my God, if I had listened to that woman! He’s a mama’s boy. He just hangs out with me and talks to me. He’s got a great sense of humor. He’s just a bright kid. Two years ago I said something about people believing it was okay to take people out of their mommy’s tummy and that someone wanted me to do that to him, and he asked if she was in jail, and then he said that she should be. My goodness, this kid! It’s the kids who get that [abortion] is wrong. I feel blessed to have my kids. There is dignity in every human being.

For more information about finding a pro-life OB/GYN, visit the American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Editor’s note. This appeared at liveactionnews.org.

Source: NRL News Today

Two contrasting responses to brain-dead women carrying unborn babies

Dylan Benson, whose wife Robyn had been on life-support, announced the arrival of his son Iver Cohen Benson on Facebook. (photo: Dylan Benson)
 

So a woman is declared brain dead in Ireland, but not taken off maintenance so her unborn child can gestate long enough to survive. The family wants to bury her. But a human life can be saved!
This really upsets Emer O’Toole in The Guardian. From, “A Brain Dead Irish Woman’s Body Is Being Used as an Incubator: Be Angry:”

It is right to be angry and upset in the face of injustice… Be angry that a dead woman’s body is being used as an incubator. Be upset that Miss Y was forced to carry her rapist’s child to 24 weeks. These are women’s bodies. These are women’s lives. And that is what matters here.

Why the dripping disdain? Anger at Ireland’s anti-abortion laws is the pretext. But is this case really about abortion?

I understand the family can’t move on. That has got to be terribly painful.

But how is the woman hurt in any way? Her life isn’t affected. She’s gone. Her body isn’t being harmed, but it is benefiting her child–just as she did before her brain failed.

Would the same people think it wrong to try and save the baby in a mechanical incubator? I suspect so. Because, well, the baby should be dead.

Meanwhile, in Italy, another brain dead woman’s baby has been saved. From the The Local IT story:

In what has been hailed a miracle, a baby boy has been born to an Italian woman pronounced clinically dead in October. The 36-year-old woman was 23 weeks pregnant when she was rushed to Milan’s San Raffaele hospital after suffering a brain hemorrhage.

Doctors were unable to save her, but with the agreement of her family, they kept her on life support for the next nine weeks. She was kept alive with equipment that kept her breathing and her blood flowing, while a tube to her intestines fed the growing fetus.

When she reached the 32nd week of pregnancy on Thursday, doctors performed a cesarean, La Stampa reported. The baby boy was born weighing 1.8 kilos and in good health.

A new baby has been born and joins us in the world! Surely, saving a life is worth the effort. I believe that greater good should matter most.

I am beginning to believe that lurking underneath it all, some people loathe the female reproductive function.

By Wesley J. Smith

Editor’s note. This appeared on Wesley’s great blog at www.nationalreview.com/human-exceptionalism/395162/why-revulsion-dead-woman-giving-birth-wesley-j-smith

Why Bioethics Should “Fail”

    Julian Savulescu

Julian Savulescu represents all that I find so objectionable about the mainstream bioethics movement.
Rejecting the sanctity/equality of human life, utilitarian in outlook, embracing a eugenics point-of-view, the Oxford professor–what does that tell you?–would lead society in a way opposed by most of the very people bioethics claims to serve.

Savulescu ”gets” that the field has not swept all before it–to which I would add, not for lack of trying.  But he is clueless as to why.

He writes that the alleged problem can be cured by somehow improving the “philosophy.” From, “Bioethics: Why Philosophy is Essential for Progress,” published in the radical Journal of Medical Ethics, which he edits:

Ethics is not peripheral to medicine and research—it is central. What you study will determine what you will find. It is an ethical decision, as is when you will start treating, or whether to stop treatment. One excellent example of hidden ethical values is the concept of futility used to limit treatment. There are many definitions.14 Some are quantitative, such a treatment with a <1% chance of a beneficial effect.

But this is not futile. Imagine that you have had a massive stroke and will die, but there is a treatment that has a 1/10 000 chance of saving your life and returning you to full health. Such a treatment is not futile in the way that trying to sew a decapitated head back on is futile (that is, being incapable of achieving the desired result); it is just very unlikely to achieve the desired result.

What people who deploy ‘futility’ arguments usually mean is the treatment is cost-ineffective. Such judgments are most justifiably made as resource allocation and distributive justice decisions.

The example he gives of “futile” is known as physiological futility, and contrary to Savulescu, bioethics has pretty clearly delineated what medical futility means–a combination of the cost/benefit value system he identifies, mixed with a disdain for life of perceived low quality.
Thus, the futility question sounds in raw power: Whose values prevail, the patient and/or family, or the Julian Savulescus?

People get that: Medical futility hasn’t (yet) become the rule in health care because it has been insufficiently philosophically masticated, but because patients and families who would be victimized by the policy want no part of it!

We also know that, despite its claim to high regard for autonomy, as an essentially utilitarian enterprise–whether explicit or in outcomes–the field would eventually include coercion. Thus, Savulescu believes the state should require organ donation (which would not make it “donation” at all):

There is a basic moral obligation to donate organs. Why? Because this is not just an easy rescue, it is a zero cost rescue.

Organs are of no use to us when we are dead, but they are literally lifesaving to others. Nonetheless, most people choose to bury or burn these lifesaving resources, and are allowed to.

Yet the state extracts death duties and inheritance taxes, but not the most important of their previous assets—their organs. (My emphasis.)

I agree we should generally be organ donors after death.

Why aren’t we?  Lack of trust, for one thing–easily understood when you read bioethicists urging that doctors be permitted to kill for organs or pushing “presumed consent” that all patients are organ donors–and then in the next breath urge that doctors/bioethics committees be empowered to unilaterally withdraw life-sustaining treatment.

Connect the damn dots!

And, of course, Savulescu wants policy dominated by the “experts,” e.g., people like him:

But for many people working in bioethics or medical ethics, or formulating guidelines or policy, ethics is a ‘hobby’. They have no formal training in ethics. Imagine that I was to sit on a cardiological research funding panel, or review a paper in cardiology, or stem cell science. It would be laughable. Yet I have 7 years formal training in medicine and research. Many people ‘doing medical ethics’ have nothing like that training or experience.

Sorry, a corner barber has as much right to a voice in these subjective issues of public policy as the highest Oxford don. Moreover, who wants Julian Savulescu philosophical clones dominating medical ethics? I sure don’t.

Savulescu grouses that in his entire career he has rarely accomplished any good:

From time to time, we ought to ask how well we are doing. In my own career, apart from promoting people’s careers, I am only aware of two instances where my work did some good…

It is hard to know how much good or harm we have done. But I think we should at least reflect. Modern medical ethics, as a field, seems to me to have failed in many important respects.
May it continue to be so!

Considering what he perceives to be “good.” if Savulescu succeeds, society will be less moral, the weak and vulnerable will be at greater risk, and a bioethics authoritarianism will be loosed upon the land.

Source: Human Exceptionalism, Life and dignity with Wesley J. Smith.

Pro-abortionists see 2014 as “a terrible year for reproductive rights

Let’s take a few minutes to see why pro-abortion militant Armanda Marcotte believes “It’s Been a Terrible Year for Reproductive Rights.”

But we’re going to take her conclusion first because it’s the kind of question-begging argument that pro-abortionists specialize in. And then we will end where Marcotte began.

Pro-lifers and those who have no particular stake in the abortion issue have passed a great number of laws going back to 2011 that require that abortion clinics upgrade their physical plant (and therefore the safety of women); that they use the FDA recommended protocol for chemical abortions; that abortionists have admitting privileges at a local hospital so when there are the inevitable complications they can go with the woman to the hospital—to name just three.

For purposes of her argument, Marcotte adds the Hobby Lobby decision which (unlike her characterization) in fact afforded only a modest victory for religious conscience rights but did not truly correct any of the major abortion-expanding problems created by Obamacare.


Amanda Marcotte

But for Marcotte none of this had anything to do with either protecting women, calling the abortion industry to task for the likes of Kermit Gosnell, or religious freedom. The “escalation in anti-choice activism is a reaction to something, and it’s not hard to guess what it is,” she writes.

Okay, what is it? It’s that “Women have, in recent years, really been gaining control over our reproductive capacities.”

Really? That may be what the folks at places such as rhrealitycheck.org believe—or, more accurately, what they need to believe to make sense of what was for them a disastrous year (or two, or three)—but it is poppycock.

Marcotte et al. are even more glum about the future. Many more pro-lifers were elected in state legislatures this last election and more governorships and state houses are controlled by Republicans, courtesy of the November 4 outcomes. This makes passage of pro-life legislation more possible, even though many years of experience reminds us that a determined pro-abortion minority—or a pro-abortion governor—can bring progress to a grinding halt.

But as NRL Political Director Karen Cross reminds us over and over and over elections do matter. We had a banner mid-term election cycle with not only a gain of nine in the United States Senate, but also (in 2015) the most Republicans serving in the House of Representatives since 1929.
Let me conclude with Marcotte’s opening paragraph:

Looking over the battle for reproductive rights that took place in 2014, I wish I could say that I’m optimistic for the coming year. But that, frankly, would be a lie. The sad fact of the matter is those who oppose the basic right to control one’s own reproduction have had a banner year, as they watch their efforts to chip away at abortion and contraception access finally come together in such a way that the restrictions may become permanent. Things are looking bleak for American women, and there’s no way to get around that fact.

By Dave Andrusko, NRL News Today

Thomas More Society seeks Lerner emails affecting policy towards pro-life groups

CHICAGO - While Lois Lerner's name has faded from headlines, those 30,000 emails that were mysteriously recovered are still of interest to pro-life groups that were harassed during the time Lerner oversaw the Internal Revenue Service.

This week, Chicago-based Thomas More Society submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the IRS, seeking copies of all the "newly found" emails to or from Lois Lerner, the fired IRS Senior Executive, that may have indicated possible discrimination of pro-life groups.

"For at least four years, discrimination against pro-life and conservative groups by the IRS was taking place under the direction of Lois Lerner," said Peter Breen, vice president and senior counsel of the Thomas More Society. "Based on our clients' experience, we knew the law had been broken. We are seeking these emails in hopes of building a strong case for the appropriate prosecutor to take legal action against those in the IRS who abused their authority by acting against pro-life non-profit groups on the basis of the group members' protected beliefs."

In both May and August of 2013, the Society provided the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means with a mountain of evidence comprising over 500 pages of documentation from six different pro-life groups that had been victimized by viewpoint-biased discrimination on the part of the IRS, dating back to 2009.

In March 2014, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released a staff report entitled "Lois Lerner's Involvement in the IRS Targeting of Tax-Exempt Organizations," based in part on information that Thomas More Society had uncovered nearly a year before.

The evidence submitted by the Thomas More Society detailed the experience of several pro-life organizations that had applied for 501(c)(3) charitable recognition and had experienced blatant bias on the part of the IRS agents assigned to process their applications. Repeatedly, these pro-life groups were harassed with questions about time spent in prayer and the content of prayers at abortion facilities, and they were told that they must educate and advocate on abortion from both sides of the issue. One group's directors were ordered to swear they would never again picket or protest at a Planned Parenthood facility.

Several Thomas More Society clients - all pro-life organizations - experienced significant delays with their tax exemptions under Lois Lerner's watch, when "exemption organization specialists" refused to apply tax-exempt law correctly until the Society's legal counsel intervened.

Thomas More Society has now requested the following documents from the IRS, included in the 30,000 recovered Lois Lerner emails, which the Inspector General recently recovered (after the IRS had earlier claimed that the emails could not be found):

1. All e-mails which mention the following pro-life organizations (Thomas More Society clients who experienced harassment from the IRS while under Lois Lerner's direction):

a. Christian Voices for Life of Fort Bend County (Texas)

b. Coalition for Life of Iowa (Iowa)

c. Small Victories (Illinois)

d. Cherish Life Ministries (Virginia)

e. LIFE Group (Missouri)

f. Emerald Coast Coalition for Life (Florida)

2. Any emails using the phrase "right to life," "pro-life," "anti-choice," "anti-abortion," or "abortion."
Thomas More Society says they hope the evidence produced in response to its FOIA request will assist in bringing justice to the pro-life organizations harassed by the IRS through Lois Lerner.

Source: Illinois Review

Three things Christmas tells us about human life and dignity

Christians use the Christmas holiday to remember and celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. This event (apart from everything else it entails) provides a number of insights about human life and dignity.

Here are three.

1. Each of us was once an unborn child. The Incarnation—the coming into the world of Christ—did not happen in the manger. It happened some nine months earlier. This is what the facts of human embryology and developmental biology tell us, and it is what the scriptural accounts affirm.

Mary is said to be “with child” (Matthew 1:18) upon Jesus being “conceived … from the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:20). Earlier, Mary is told she will “conceive in [her] womb … a son, [to be named] Jesus” (Luke 1:31), who even before birth is called a “child … [who] will be called holy—the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). Luke 1:41-44 recounts that the unborn John the Baptist (who was probably in his sixth month) “leaped for joy” in his mother’s womb when he entered the presence of the unborn Jesus (who was probably a very young embryo at the time).

Jesus began his earthly existence as an embryo and fetus. So did all of us.

2. The weak and vulnerable matter just as much as the strong and independent. God himself chose to enter the world in the most vulnerable condition possible: as a tiny embryo, and then a fetus, and then a newborn baby lying in a manger. This turned ancient “might makes right” morality on its head. It suggests that human dignity is not determined by age, size, power or independence.

3. Human life is extraordinarily valuable. Christmas is part of God’s larger plan to rescue humanity because He loves us (John 3:16). Jesus was born so that we might live. From this Christian perspective, God considers human life to be immensely precious and worth saving at tremendous cost. “Christian belief in the Incarnation is thus inseparable from belief in the objective, and even transcendent, value of the human race as a whole, and of each human person as an individual,” writes Carson Holloway.

By Paul Stark via NRL News Today

Editor’s note. Paul Stark is Communications Associate for Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life , NRLC’s state affiliate. This appeared at prolifemn.blogspot.com.

Abstinence education gets a shot in the arm … and it’s working

The just-passed federal omnibus spending bill gives added funds to states for abstinence education programs, which is great news for many pro-family organizations.

This is something the National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA) has been wanting for a long time.

NAEA Executive Director Valerie Huber says some states refused to offer abstinence education teaching, and she says the unused Title V abstinence education state block grant money in the past just lay fallow and did not get used.

“This new provision will redistribute those funds to states who want to give young people the skills and information to wait for sex,” Huber explained.

With the midterm elections giving control of the House and the Senate to Republicans, Huber is hopeful more gains can be made for abstinence education.

“There are key leaders in committees and in caucuses of influence who care about this issue,” Huber insisted. “More than that, they care about the future of young people, the importance for our culture in general and they are motivated to really make some great gains in this area.”

Huber is very optimistic that abstinence education is doing its job and that America’s youth is seeing the value of saving themselves until marriage.

"Nearly 75 percent of 15- to 17-year-olds have not had sex, so it makes sense that sex education policy would reinforce those healthy decisions."

By: Bob Kellogg, OneNewsNow

Potential scam: calls requesting donations to NRLC

The National Right to Life Committee warns that a potentially bogus group is soliciting donations in their name.

National Right to Life Committee reports they have been by contacted by people who have received calls asking for contributions to a right to life committee. Carol Tobias is president of the national organization and she clarifies that these calls are not from the NRLC.

“It is certainly not National Right to Life doing it,” she tells OneNewsNow. “If we do phone calls, we are asking people to donate to National Right to Life Committee, National Right to Life Educational Trust Fund, National Right to Life Pac, the National Right to Life Victory Fund. We make sure that our name is in there so that people know who they are giving to.”

Tobias says people who do receive the calls should ask the caller to send a letter verifying the request for a donation.

“They should check out who the group is before they send their money,” she says. “I would encourage people not to give money with a credit card over the phone unless they are sure that they know who will be getting the money. And if someone did get the phone call, we would really appreciate it if they would let us know any information they found out.”

NRLC is looking for information in order to track down the source of the calls. At this point Tobias says they don't know who is making the calls, or whether it's a legitimate cause or a fraud.

By: Charlie Butts, OneNewsNow.com