Pro-life blog buzz 5-31-13

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 writes that the CEO of Sir Richard’s condom company intends to donate one condom to a developing country for each condom purchased because “if everyone bought our condoms, we could really change the world.” SPL says:
  
  According to the CDC, while condoms are highly effective at preventing HIV transmission, the typical use failure rate for condoms as a contraceptive is a dismal eighteen percent. People often fail to make that distinction, and therefore do not appreciate the chances of pregnancy as fully as they should. No doubt that misunderstanding will be magnified in a region that has little in the way of healthcare access and sex education.

• Reflections of a Paralytic shares a Guttmacher graphic (pictured left; click to enlarge) on the “unmet need” for contraceptives in the developing world, which actually shows that women in developing countries do not report lack of access as their primary reason for not using contraception.
• ProLife NZ has a must-read on the dehumanization infiltrating embryology today. According to Princeton biology professor Lee Silver:
  
  The term pre-embryo has been embraced wholeheartedly by IVF practitioners for reasons that are political, not scientific. The new term is used to provide the illusion that there is something profoundly different between a six-day-old embryo and a sixteen-day-old embryo. The term is useful in the political arena—where decisions are made about whether to allow early embryo experimentation — as well as in the confines of a doctor’s office where it can be used to allay moral concerns that might be expressed by IVF patients.

• Down on the Pharm speaks of billionaire Bill Gates’ wife Melinda (pictured right), who is working with the pro-abortion arm of the United Nations at the Women Deliver Conference to raise money (despite her own personal wealth) to bring birth control to the under-developed countries of the world. Her selection of trainers is questionable: infanticide proponent Peter Singer and LeRoy Carhart, whose nurses and clinic (which “has eight pages of failures listed on its last state inspection”) are both substandard. LifeNews adds:
  
  
  Although Gates, a self-professed Catholic, declared at the London [2012] summit that the [reproductive healthcare] initiative was “not about abortion… not about population control,” her remarks were belied by the lineup of premiere global abortion and population control advocacy agencies in attendance….
• Priests for Life features Kevin Burke’s blog, which notes the link between child sexual abuse and post-abortive men:
  
  I encountered a number of men on Rachel’s Vineyard healing programs who had a history of previous abuse and were involved in an abortion decision.
  As they explored that abortion decision they shared a powerful sense that they abandoned their unborn child when they were vulnerable… just as they were hurt when vulnerable and defenseless children. These men felt they allowed their unborn child[ren] to be abused by the abortion procedure.
  

• The Passionate Pro-Lifer updates us on Colorado’s tolerance and leniency for serial child rapists like William Costello (pictured left), who was also charged almost a year ago with assaulting an elderly pro-life man who was collecting signatures for a personhood petition. Costello remains out on bail. PPL attended his preliminary hearing on charges that he raped three females – one being a 13-year-old girl, stating, “The details I heard in the preliminary hearing are so graphic they can’t be shared here.”
• Pro-Life Action League announces the observance of the National Day of Remembrance for Aborted Children on September 14:
  
  The observance will be marked by simultaneous memorial services in cities from coast to coast at gravesites of aborted babies. This is the first time in the history of legalized abortion that such nationwide memorials will be conducted and thousands of people from across the country are expected to participate.
  Organizers may be needed in your area.
  
• Pro-Life Wisconsin shares an eye-opening video entitled, “You Deserve to Know the Truth about Contraception”:

Pro-life blog buzz 5-28-13

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.

• Kansans for Life reports that legislators listened to scientific and medical evidence before passing the state’s Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act in 2011, including the information that “as revealed in scientific studies developed over the past three decades… unborn children are ‘wired’ to feel pain MORE intensely than any child or adult ever can” and that “the highest density of pain receptors per square inch of skin in human development occurs in utero from 20-30 weeks gestation.”

• The FRC Blog condemns the Obama administration’s refusal to charge Major Nidal Hasan (who shot 30 people at Fort Hood, Texas – killing 14 – while shouting “Allahu Akbar”) with a violation of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act for the murder of victim Francheska Velez’s (pictured left) preborn child:
  
  She cried out “My baby! My baby!” but Hasan killed her and her unborn child anyway. The Obama administration has elected not to charge Hasan with violation of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, even though the law was passed explicitly to cover such instances.
• Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life discusses an analysis on abortion’s effect on women, released at the World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland, utilizing data from several countries:
  
  Documented complications include hemorrhage, infection, cervical damage, uterine perforation, pelvic disease and retained fetal or placental tissue. Large record-based studies from Finland, Denmark and the United States found that maternal mortality rates were significantly higher after abortion compared to childbirth.
  Long-term risks of abortion, including subsequent preterm birth, infertility, cancer, miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy and placenta previa, can substantially impede future reproductive success. In addition, abortion is associated with increased risk of negative psycho-social consequences. For example, a 2011 meta-analysis published in the British Journal of Psychiatry found an 81 percent increased risk of mental health problems. Anxiety, depression, alcohol and drug use and suicidal behaviors have been found to increase following abortion, along with damage to key relationships.
  

• American Life League’s Judie Brown harshly criticizes Cardinal Timothy Dolan for calling pro-abortion Governor Andrew Cuomo (despite the governor’s support for abortion and homosexuality) a “Catholic in good standing,” and for agreeing not to exclude him from receiving Holy Communion despite canon law. Brown asks readers to pray and fast for all Bishops.
• Americans United for Life condemns the recent ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals “[which] struck down Arizona’s prohibition of abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, despite the fact that the risks to maternal health dramatically increase with such later-term abortion procedures”:
  
  Substantial medical data — utilized even by the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute — demonstrates that a woman seeking an abortion… at 20 weeks is 35 times more likely to die from abortion than she was in the first trimester. At 21 weeks or more, she is 91 times more likely to die from abortion than she was in the first trimester.
• At Live Action News, Lauren Enriquez has a piece discussing the tension in some Christian circles regarding pro-life activism.
• Fletcher Armstrong wants to bring a pro-life training academy to your town, teaching pro-lifers to “answer tough questions about abortion and [learn] the science and logic behind the pro-life position.”
• At The Leading Edge, Brendan Malone shares the promo video for a pro-life internship opportunity for New Zealanders. The deadline to apply is June 16:

Pro-life blog buzz 5-24-13

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.

• Wesley J. Smith warns that the U.S. can expect to see in ten years under Obamacare what we currently see under the National Health Service in the UK. Quality of life medical decisions could mean more than just discrimination for the disabled.
• Reggie Littlejohn of Women’s Rights without Frontiers shows that violence in China isn’t limited to the preborn. It extends to men whose “crime” is fathering more than the allowable number of children.

• Bryan Kemper of Stand True reintroduces a t-shirt design that was very popular in the 1990′s but began to lose favor as pro-lifers became concerned about offending others. Kemper says we should “be offended that this act of homicide exists as a legally protected right in the first place.”
• ProWomanProLife focuses on the beauty of adoption over the tragedy of abortion with the story of Ryan Bomberger, who was adopted after being conceived in rape. In defending abortion, the industry points to conception during rape as the ultimate tragedy justifying the need for abortion. Bomberger puts a human face on this issue.
• Pro-Life Action League recently assisted pro-life citizens of Fairfax, Virginia, in battling an abortionist’s request to open a “mega mill” abortion facility. The swift action and pressure from the pro-life community caused the abortionist to withdraw his application the day before the city council meeting (which was nearly filled to capacity with citizens ready to voice their opposition). PLAL offers their expertise and assistance to all pro-lifers who are fighting to keep abortion clinics out of their communities.

• Secular Pro-Life says “facts are not gaffes” when it comes to the recent comments of E. W. Jackson (pictured right), candidate for Lt. Governor in Virginia. Jackson dared to state the fact that “Planned Parenthood has been far more lethal to black lives than the KKK ever was”:
  
  In 2011, the last year for which figures are available, Planned Parenthood performed 333,964 abortions in the United States. Nationally, 37% of abortions are performed on black women, according to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute. We can therefore surmise that in one year alone, Planned Parenthood killed approximately 123,567 unborn African-American children….
  [T]he number of blacks killed by the KKK, in its entire history, does not approach 123,567.
  
• Bud Shaver of Stand for Life wonders if the fear of losing their 501(c)(3) statuses (thanks to the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups) might cause churches to fear man more than they fear God. Shaver says we should look to the past for guidance:
  
  The most frustrating thing about all this is that it doesn’t have to be the legacy we leave for posterity! Our churches and pastors in 2013 should learn from the past and realize what the religious leadership of the Civil Rights Era accomplished! They peacefully took to the streets in protest and ended the greatest injustice of their generation! PROTEST is the key. Protest is what ended that injustice, and protest is what will end this injustice [abortion].

Pro-life blog buzz 5-21-13

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 notes that despite the lack of reporting from mainstream media, Christians are successfully and quietly winning lawsuits against Obamacare’s HHS contraception/abortifacient mandate.
• At the FRC Blog, Chris Gacek gives two updates on the federal prosecution of a Florida man who gave his six-weeks-pregnant girlfriend misoprostol without her knowledge, causing an abortion. This appears to be the third use of the state’s Unborn Victims of Violence Act to prosecute an offender.

• At Bound4Life, Matt Lockett believes that God is using the horrors of the Kermit Gosnell (pictured left) trial to speak to the conscience of both the church and our nation. In part two of his series he writes:
  
  There is no question that the ugliest parts of the abortion industry are being exposed right now in increasing measure. The debate in the last few years has centered on birth control and so-called women’s health. These are huge topics for sure, but something has emerged in the meantime. We as a nation are now revisiting late-term abortion and infanticide in spite of the fact that Congress passed the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act in 2002. We’re revisiting it because there appears to be an increasing number of examples where BAIPA isn’t preventing the abortion industry from murdering constitutionally protected Americans. While this is obviously an enormous legal question for the nation to grapple with, I believe God is using infanticide to pierce our hearts and speak to us about abortion as a whole. God is weighing our response….
  The church cannot turn away from this question.
  
• Euthanasia Prevention Coalition explains its opposition to the Assisted Dying Bill being introduced in the UK, which purports to assist in the suicides of only mentally competent adults with less than six months to live. However, as has been seen in several other countries, this will more than likely extend incrementally beyond this group.
• The Guiding Star Project discusses the difficulties of delivering a child under 20 weeks who has died in utero:
  
  You see, in most states, unless you are at a private hospital (and even then it might not matter), babies stillborn under 20 weeks of gestation, or any fetal remains of a miscarriage or D & C must be treated as medical waste….
  In many places it is next to impossible for parents to obtain the remains of their babies or have them released to a funeral home for a proper burial. Since life insurance policies do not cover miscarried or stillborn children, the costs of a funeral and all the necessities are often too high for a family who wasn’t expecting to have to bury a baby.
  

• Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life asks why ethical issues are not considered with regards to human cloning, when cloning “can be rejected on practical [as well as ethical] grounds”:
  
  Human cloning also raises other ethical concerns, including the commodification of human life; the dangers to the health (and possible exploitation) of women, from whom eggs must be harvested; the tenuous barrier between “therapeutic cloning” (SCNT for the purpose of killing cloned embryos to derive stem cells) and “reproductive cloning” (SCNT for the purpose of implanting cloned embryos in a woman’s uterus and allowing them to develop toward maturity), which could result in the birth of a cloned baby; and the possible development of other Brave New World technologies, such as genetic engineering….
  Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) seem to offer the same potential benefits as stem cells from cloned embryos (they are pluripotent and patient-matched), and they are easier and less expensive to produce. Moreover, every proven stem cell treatment to date has used ethically-uncontroversial adult stem cells. In short, the therapeutic benefits sought from human cloning can be achieved without it.
  

Pro-life blog buzz 5-17-13

 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.

• ProLifeBlogs features an article from The Black Kettle which states that when the pro-life group Coalition for Life of Iowa applied for nonprofit status, the IRS “sought details about the content of members’ prayers at a Planned Parenthood” and “demanded that the group refrain” from doing so. They later dropped the demand when the group sought assistance from the Thomas More Society.
• Secular Pro-Life examines the three ways in which the pro-choice side “corrupts” the abortion debate through use of dishonest language.
• Wesley J. Smith says human cloning has arrived, and just as expected, scientists and reporters are giving inaccurate information about the process:
  
  The unfertilized egg is not turned into stem cells. Rather, in the same cloning process as resulted in Dolly the sheep, it becomes an embryo, which is destroyed to obtain the cells. Moreover, the process is hardly common. In fact, this is the first time [it] has worked in humans.
  Click graphic to enlarge:

• Suzy B lists their 2013 Young Leader Awards recipients and nominees for their efforts toward life causes. Congratulations!
• Albert Mohler writes an excellent article on what the trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell reveals about our nation:
  
  … [P]ro-abortion forces found themselves continually forced to argue that Dr. Gosnell’s house of horrors was an exception and that abortion is not really at issue in the entire Gosnell trial… but it is an impossible point to make. The babies murdered in Dr. Gosnell’s “clinic” were not visiting a pediatrician. They were born only after so-called “botched abortions.” …
  While the trial was not an open debate about the morality of abortion, that issue is what every thoughtful person recognizes is at stake — which is precisely why the pro-abortion movement had to insist, over and over again, that the morality of abortion is not the issue.
  Here is a clue: When you have to argue at every turn that the issue is not abortion, the issue is abortion.
  
• Pro-Life New Mexico features statements made by Tara Shaver in front of Southwestern Women’s Options in Albuquerque. New Mexico allows abortion all nine months of pregnancy and does not regulate or inspect its abortion facilities. How many Gosnells might be in NM?