Pro-life blog buzz 11-30-12

from Jill Stanek.com


by Susie Allen, host of the blog,Pro-Life in TN, and Kelli

We welcome your suggestions for additions to our Top Blogs (see tab on right side of home page)! EmailSusie@jillstanek.com.
Pro-Life in TN writes that with all the warring over the looming fiscal cliff,HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is busy doling out $100,000 to teach at-risk girls how to better “negotiate” condom use with their sexual partners.
Abortion in Washington exposed the fact that Group Health Cooperative was running an abortion clinic in Seattle and training future abortionists on site. After filing a public records request (since GHC refused to disclose its data), it was found that 294 babies were killed in 2011 at the facility.
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition publishes a letter from an Oregonwoman who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and voted for assisted suicide so she could end her life. Her doctor instead encouraged her to choose life and seek treatment. 12 years later, she is grateful to be alive and no longer supports assisted suicide.


Live Action reviews their personal favorite pro-life statements of 2012, including one about Bella Santorum(pictured left with her father,Rick Santorum) fromTime’s Joe Klein, who wrote:


I am haunted by the smiling photos I’ve seen of Isabella with her father and mother, brothers and sisters. No doubt she struggles through many of her days — she nearly died a few weeks ago — but she has also been granted three years of unconditional love and the ability to smile and bring joy. Her tenuous survival has given her family a deeper sense of how precious even the frailest of lives are.

All right, I can hear you saying, the Santorum family’s course may be admirable, but shouldn’t we have the right to make our own choices?

Yes, I suppose. But I also worry that we’ve become too averse to personal inconvenience as a society — that we’re less rigorous parents than we should be, that we’ve farmed out our responsibilities, especially for the disabled, to the state — and I’m grateful to Santorum for forcing on me the discomfort of having to think about the moral implications of his daughter’s smile.
Accepting Abundance points out how preborn children are now routinely – and almost nonchalantly – destroyed in the hopes of curing “more developed” people.
Life Training Institute promotes a great read on raising a child withDown syndrome.
Secular Pro-Life expresses support for the American Center for Law and Justice’s film, Life Happens:


“Life Happens opens with a short, accessible, and useful history of the abortion conflict in the United States. The film’s coverage of the question of when human life begins is also excellent, with numerous expert interviews. But the heart of the film consists of personal stories.

Though some inaccurate adoption language is used in the film, it covers “hard cases” such as special
needs children and rape:

100K from HHS to negotiate condom use skills with girls on probation!!!!.....you cannot make this stuff up!

Some things you simply cannot make up.....while Congress and POTUS fuss over the looming fiscal cliff  and POTUS is wavering on cutting out the obvious spending addiction.....HHS headed by abortion supporting Kathleen Sebelius is going full blast.
They  approved a  grant for $100,000 to teach at risk girls how to better "negotiate" condom use with their boyfriends! These girls ages 14-17 are on "intensive probation with the Harris County Juvenile Probation Department." I wonder what intensive probation is??

"According to the school's release, "Parrish notes one of the big issues for this population of adolescent girls is condom negotiation. They may have a boyfriend who says it isn't 'cool' to use a condom. To prepare the girls for these types of situations, the counselors and pediatricians will teach them how to negotiate condom use with their partner. The intervention also helps empower and motivate girls to make healthier choices regarding their alcohol use, smoking and prevention of unplanned pregnancy."

So this is how much they get for a study to see if their "negotiation" skills work. What a joke! I have worked with reputable non profits who do excellent work with teens teaching abstinence and the  hard realities of not choosing abstinence and been turned down by HHS. But anything that has the sex without consequences ....everyone is doing it....gets the grant. Amazing! We are so sick.

McCain wants less abortion talk as way to win...

Article explores Senator John McCain's willingness to throw the lives of innocent defenseless developing babies in the womb under the bus for what he thinks is the way to win votes and elections.  While appearing on a Sunday morning talk show hosted by Chris Wallace, Senator McCain gave this viewpoint. 

"And as far as young women are concerned, absolutely — I don't think anybody like me, I can state my position on abortion, but to — other than that, leave the issue alone when we are in the kind of economic situation and, frankly, national security situation we're in."
Wallace drew the obvious conclusion, even if McCain would not.
"When you say leave the issue alone, you would allow, you'd say, freedom of choice?" the Fox News host asked.
"I would allow people to have those opinions and respect those opinions," McCain answered. "I'm proud of my pro-life position and record. But if someone disagrees with me, I respect your views." 

We say NO McCain this is why moderate wishy washy candidates do not win. Being pro life is not a losing issue and not one to keep "mum" about. If you are proud of your pro life views and voting record you should be able to articulate why to the people. 
"Indeed, one could hardly imagine Sen. McCain offering to respectfully disagree and then "leave the issue alone" if someone were to tell him that the lives of the Americans in our consulate in Benghazi were not deserving of protection. Such a statement, it seems safe to say, would arouse the fighting side of John McCain, former navy pilot and decorated Vietnam War veteran, who endured five and a half years as a prisoner of war. His response would rightly be clear, forceful, and unequivocal. A minimum amount of respect and civility might be included, but chances they would not be the most noticeable features of his reply. Simply put, such a foolish and uncaring statement would make McCain mad as hell."

 Republicans have a messaging problem....not a platform problem. They say we are pro life but let's not talk about it okay?? Our position is correct and totally defensible. Take a stand.

pix: AP 

Pro-life blog buzz 11-27-12

from  Jill Stanek.com

by Susie Allen, host of the blog, Pro-Life in TN, and Kelli
We welcome your suggestions for additions to our Top Blogs (see tab on right side of home page)! Email Susie@jillstanek.com.

• Americans United for Life says the recent reports touting the CDC’s abortion rate drop tell only part of the story. What isn’t highlighted is the fact that the 12 women who died following their abortions is “double the deaths reported the previous year and it’s the highest since 1994.” Reporting by states is also voluntary and California does not participate.

• At Live Action, Kristen Walker Hatten promotes Reggie Littlejohn’s new Save a Girl campaign against gendercide and coerced abortion in China:
  
  “We ask people to contribute $25 a month,” says Littlejohn. “Twenty dollars goes to the women and $5 goes to cover our costs and to the field workers who are bravely finding these women and getting the money into their hands….
  Our primary focus is to end gendercide,” Littlejohn says, “so we’re definitely locating women who are determined to abort or abandon babies. The other thing we’re doing is helping women who are fleeing from forced abortions. We have one woman who was fleeing from village to village to avoid the family planning police. She had a baby boy a few months ago.”
  
• Fletcher Armstrong spots a piece of disgusting advice for teens from Planned Parenthood that might as well have been taken from a pornographic magazine: If you’re okay with swallowing semen, go for it. But as a footnote… remember, kids, unprotected oral sex can still give you STDs. (No mixed message there, right?)

• Right to Life of Michigan fact checks a pro-embryonic stem cell piece from the Detroit Free Press, which is long on spin of promised cures but short on truth about the failures and dangers of such research. Notably missing are arguments against ESCR and discussion of induced pluripotent (adult) stem cell successes. The ESCR article features a photo of adult stem cell success – a definite misleading of the public in order to promote an agenda.
• Real Choice shares the story of two women who died from abortions 50 years apart in order to show why the legalization of abortion did nothing to save women’s lives.
• Wesley J. Smith reports on a fertility doctor who has decided to save money by using an “assembly line” approach:
  
  Dr. Ernest Zeringue… sharply cuts costs by creating a single batch of embryos from one egg donor and one sperm donor, then divvying it up among several patients.
  As long as this industry remains unregulated and human life is bought as a commodity item, we can expect to see more of this.

[Graphic via The Stem Cell Blog]

Pro-life blog buzz 11-23-12

from Jill Stanek.com

by Susie Allen, host of the blog, Pro-Life in TN, and Kelli
We welcome your suggestions for additions to our Top Blogs (see tab on right side of home page)! Email Susie@jillstanek.com.

• Michael New reveals the numerous flaws with a non-peer-reviewed and highly publicized “turnaway” study which purported to show that women who were refused abortion due to gestational age were more likely to experience greater stress and financial hardship than women who obtained abortions.
• The Anti-Abortion Gang discusses the so-called war on women, suggesting conservatives do not need to be afraid of their beliefs but need to better articulate their positions:
  
  Women are smarter than this, but they need to be educated on conservatism. They need to know that they need not fear conservatives.
  Conservative women are women too. We fight the same battles they do, we just don’t use our unborn children as pawns in the battle to attain truly equal rights.
  

• 40 Days for Life concludes another campaign with great results: one abortion clinic closed, three workers quit and currently there are four lawsuits pending against Planned Parenthood for Medicaid fraud (from former employees with insider information). In a recent webcast, former PP clinic director Abby Johnson [pictured left with 40 Days' campaign director Shawn Carney] shared this encouraging tidbit:
  
  I remember the last Planned Parenthood conference that I went to before I quit. We were actually talking about the 40 Days for Life. Planned Parenthood was saying that their no-show rates go up as high as 75% when people are simply standing and praying outside of abortion clinics.
• Down on the Pharm encourages states to opt out of Obamacare’s state exchanges:
  
  The federal government did not allocate funds or any other means to set up the exchanges, and rely on cooperation from the states. Without this cooperation, Obamacare will essentially crash and burn.
• Euthanasia Prevention Coalition announces Alex Scadenberg’s new book entitled, Exposing Vulnerable People to Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide.
• Generations for Life discusses Eric Scheidler’s recent International Pro-Life Youth Conference presentation on how pro-lifers can improve their messaging and presentation so pro-choicers will be more likely to take a second look:
  
  Our first step, then, has to be convince our “pro-choice” audience that they need to give the pro-life position a second look. In all likelihood, we’re not going to change the mind of a hard-core abortion supporter on the spot, but if, by being diplomatic in our presentation of the pro-life message, we can convince them that we are merely wrong — and not crazy — we will plant the seeds for an eventual change of heart.

AP reporting of abortion rate decrease tells us nothing....

There is an AP story out saying the abortion rates have dropped by 5% in the past year. Sounds like good news but I find some interesting points in the story. You need to learn to read these stories with a discerning eye.

First they want to be sure you don't think that state laws regulating abortion such as waiting periods, informed consent, parental notification for minors is the reason. They discount these factors as  contributing to the lower number.  No reason to discount these regulations, they just do. Doesn't fit their narrative. They point out that most of these restrictions have been past in the last two years and this is the biggest decrease in a single year for the past decade. But...no....it isn't due  to these new laws saving lives.  

They surmise that women are using birth control more carefully during these times when our economy is so tenuous.  Who are these experts and what are their credentials? And what do they call birth control anyway....IUD's and morning after pills. Their is no debate that the IUD does not prevent conception but implantation of the embryo, therefore starving it. The MAP depends on where you are in your cycle as to whether it is a contraceptive agent or abortifacient.  But alas, AP doesn't get technical it is bubble gum for the eyes type of reporting.

 A big  point in this story is  that reporting of abortion numbers is voluntary and that the state of CA which has the largest population and the largest number of abortionists doing business does not bother to send in their numbers.  So if the reporting is voluntary, how can we put any credence to these reports??

They also point out some stats that show their bias loud and clear. I have had reporters state that their style book is quite specific as to how to word these points. For instance they say most abortions are done in the 8th week gestation. But they feel the need to say that the baby is just the size of a Lima bean at that stage. The old size factor again. If you are small you do not count. If they want to be medically accurate they would say something like this...most abortions are reported to occur in the 8th week of pregnancy....

His embryonic tail is just about gone, and all his organs, muscles and nerves are beginning to function. In his brain, nerve cells are branching out to connect with one another, forming primitive neural pathways. Your baby's hands now bend at the wrist, and his feet are starting to lose their webbed appearance. His eyelids cover more of his eyes and taste buds are forming on his tongue.


Another point they bring out is the incidence of abortion among races....

"White women had the lowest abortion rate, at about 8.5 abortions per 1,000 women of child-bearing age; the rate for black women was about four times that. The rate for Hispanic women was about 19 per 1,000."

Wow....why not say the actual number 34 per 1000.....sounds high because it is high. PP as we know usually put their facilities in minority neighborhoods. Why? Read up on Margaret Sanger their illustrious founder and see her eugenic views on limiting the races.

Their last point is that...."The CDC identified 12 abortion related deaths in 2009." Hmmm, that is three years ago and if it is voluntary to report abortions, why would they have to report abortion related deaths.

So all in all....I would say this agenda driven report is a waste of your time.

Cancer survivor, new mom is thankful like she's never been thankful

from Tennessean:

Cancer survivor, new mom is thankful like she's never been thankful

"Joanna Montgomery was featured in the Mother’s Day issue of The Tennessean. Since telling her story through her blog, she has received national attention, including a September appearance on Katie Couric’s show, “Katie.” Follow Montgomery at www.hellojomo.com or on Twitter @hellojomo."

"On Dec. 1, 2011, I underwent an emergency C-section. Mysterious pain brought me into the emergency room, and it was discovered that I was experiencing a partial placental abruption."

"I now know that it was pain from the cancer growing inside me that brought me to the emergency room that day. It was the cancer that alerted us to the fact that our little girl was about to lose her source of nourishment.

It was the cancer that saved her life. And she saved mine, too. If I hadn't become pregnant, the cancer — a typically asymptomatic type — likely would not have been discovered until it had spread much further."

pix: Tennessean

Pro-life blog buzz 11-20-12

from Jill Stanek.com

by Susie Allen, host of the blog, Pro-Life in TN, and Kelli
We welcome your suggestions for additions to our Top Blogs (see tab on right side of home page)! Email Susie@jillstanek.com.

• Culture Campaign has good news about Tyndale House Publishers, who won a lawsuit against the HHS contraceptive mandate.
• Abolitionist Society calls a United Church of Christ congregation to repentance for their support of abortion:
  
  We did this for all of the reasons that we have already given, the reasons that we are abolitionists. The Lord Jesus has commanded us to love our neighbor, and He gave no exceptions and no exemptions to that loving command. It is our joy, privilege, and responsibility to stand up for the preborn and to agitate to inform our culture and destroy misinformation about their daily fate. We sought the repentance of this evil church.

• Kansans for Life says the careless use of social media with regards to the Phill Kline (pictured immediate left) ethics case got a Kansas appellate court clerk fired:
  
  The shocking “tweets” of a Kansas appellate court clerk, during Thursday’s Supreme Court review of ethics charges against former Kansas AG Phill Kline, have earned her a suspension, pending review [AP now reports she has been fired]….
  The Kline-denigrating tweets of Sarah Peterson Herr [pictured far left] (outed Thursday evening by Operation Rescue) reflect the culture of abortion corruption that has long plagued Kansas as well as a deep, dangerous and pervasive animus towards Kline among the legal authorities in this state.
  
• Abortion in Washington says Republican politicians should be trained on how to properly articulate the pro-life position:
  
  [They] are not receiving any helpful professional advice from their consultants and advisers on how to message their pro-life position. It’s an after-thought at best….
  What we need is consultants to train pro-life candidates not just on how to message their pro-life positions, but how to go after and destroy the pro-abortion Democrats for their radical records, and how to proudly go on offense for life and make Democrats wish the topic would go away.
  

[Photo via inquistr.com]

Attack on elderly pro-lifer leads to arrest of serial rapist

Attack on elderly pro-lifer leads to arrest of serial rapist

Pro-life blog buzz 11-16-12

from Jill Stanek.com

by Susie Allen, host of the blog, Pro-Life in TN and Kelli
We welcome your suggestions for additions to our Top Blogs (see tab on right side of home page)! Email Susie@jillstanek.com.

• Secular Pro-Life spots an employment ad seeking an abortionist for an apparently “lucrative” position with American Women’s Services, which “operates sixteen abortion offices on the East Coast.” And doctors don’t even have to have GYN training – what luck!

• Women’s Rights Without Frontiers explains that despite reports to the contrary, China has not abandoned coerced abortions or their One-Child Policy. With the country’s demographic winter on he horizon, a think tank is recommending easing into a two-child policy, then abandoning the policy by 2020. This, however, is only a recommendation and would not end the problems of coercion and gendercide.

• Voice for Hope takes on critics after receiving a barrage of “Biblical” pro-choice justifications for abortion after posting a pro-life, Christian graphic (pictured left) on Facebook.
• John Smeaton discusses Savita Halappanavar’s death, which is being blamed (by abortion advocates) on Ireland’s strict abortion law. Smeaton disagrees with pro-life Catholic commentators who claim that it would have been acceptable to induce labor:
  
  Savita was in the 17th week of pregnancy. There is no scientific evidence that unborn children are capable of surviving outside the womb at such a young age. If the doctor in Savita’s case had agreed to induce her child, he would have been performing an abortion. The principle of double-effect would not have justified inducing Savita….
  Smeaton also states that there are alternatives to induction which were not exercised in this case.
• Michael New responds to a new “study” which claims that states with incremental pro-life laws have higher levels of abortion clinic harassment:
  
  The authors fail to consider that… even though individual clinics in conservative states are more likely to report various forms of harassment — the fact there are fewer clinics in conservative states might mean that the actual amount of harassment might be relatively similar in conservative and liberal states.
  Interestingly, despite all its shortcomings, the study finds that there was no statistically significant difference in clinic-violence rates between the most “pro-life” states and the most “pro-choice” states. There was some evidence that clinics in “pro-life” states had a higher rate of minor vandalism. However, even in the most conservative states, only a small percentage of clinics reported any kind of vandalism. Of course, these facts will go unreported in the mainstream media.
  

• Reflections of a Paralytic posts a cartoon pointing out a double standard that is alive and well (pictured right).
• Moral Outcry examines Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards’ post-election statements against states like Texas, who are attempting to defund the organization:
  
  The president of Planned Parenthood wants you to know, “There’s no better place in America to make sure that women have an opportunity than at Planned Parenthood.”
  Yeah, you heard that right. According to Cecile Richards in San Antonio Current, abortion gives women opportunity. I suppose her reasoning is that if a woman’s birth control fails, or she forgets to use it — or simply doesn’t want to — then she has an out called abortion, aka killing your unborn baby so that you can continue with your opportunity. Discussing the election and then pointing her fingers at Texas, Richards asserts that a world without Planned Parenthood just wouldn’t be a good place.
  
• At The New Feminism, Marjorie Murphy Campbell excoriates both political parties as “delusional,” claiming neither understands women and the realities they face today. She also makes the questionable claim that, for “most women,” “abortion and contraception are not moral issues. They are issues of survival.” The prevalence of single parent households (some by choice) is a sad reality, but the fact that one political party made free contraceptives a campaign issue (and won) is even more disturbing.
• Stand for Life shares a pro-adoption ad during National Adoption Month, which is running on the Oxygen Network:

Pro LIfe Blog Buzz 11-13-12

from Jill Stanek.com
by Susie Allen, host of the blog, Pro-Life in TN and Kelli
We welcome your suggestions for additions to our Top Blogs (see tab on right side of home page)! Email Susie@jillstanek.com.

• Live Action looks at Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards’ post-election interview with the Huffington Post. She suggests that the Republican party return to former President Richard Nixon’s family planning program initiatives. Interestingly, audio tapes have now made public the knowledge that Nixon was a racist and saw family planning as a way to control the African-American population. Others have reported that Nixon was pro-choice in his thinking, and he shared the same eugenic agenda at the root of Planned Parenthood and Margaret Sanger.
• Americans United for Life cites some state level pro-life election victories that give us reason to celebrate.

• Fletcher Armstrong writes that the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform’s graphic abortion photos appeared in London’s Sunday Times, reaching one million readers. The article quotes CBR’s UK director Andy Stephenson:
  
  The atmosphere in the UK is changing…. The abortion lobby has had it easy for too long with no accountability, no consequences and very little meaningful opposition — but there is a new generation of pro-lifers emerging and disillusioned, battle-weary pro-lifers being reinvigorated because they have seen the fruits of what groups like ours are achieving with very little resources.
  Efforts appear to be making a difference among abortion-minded women, but pro-choice groups, have stated, “If the police won’t stop them [pro-lifers], we will have to.”
• Culture Campaign says San Francisco plans to use taxpayer dollars to treat gender identity distress issues – not only with counseling and hormonal treatments, but with surgical interventions such as mastectomies and genital reconstructions.
• At Ethika Politika, Peter Lawler gives his post mortem analysis of the election with some thoughts from Alexis de Tocqueville.
• FRC Blog discusses a Salon article in which the author expresses her shock (and pleasure) at being treated like a lady instead of like a one-night stand by a man she dated. One can only hope that romance begins making a comeback to edge out no-strings casual sex.
• Big Blue Wave shares a video of women voicing their appreciation for the presence of sidewalk counselors outside abortion clinics: