Pro-life blog buzz 3-21-14

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.

The Passionate Pro-Lifer tells the ending to a story that began over a year ago, when William Costello attacked and injured 69-year-old Everett Stadig, who was collecting signatures for a personhood petition. Stadig ended up with a broken hip, while Costello was arrested. His DNA was then linked to three unsolved sexual assault cases from 2008-2011. (One assault was on a 13-year-old.) Since it garnered little media attention, PPL obtained a press pass and attended all the hearings. The defendant was out on bail but failed to appear for his second day of his trial. He was subsequently found in his apartment of what authorities call an apparent suicide.


Real Choice points out that Kermit Gosnell was not the inventor of “snipping” the necks of infants necks upon delivery to “ensure fetal demise”. The inventor was abortionist Dr. Martin Haskell, creator of the D&X, or “partial birth” abortion.

At New Wave Feminists, Destiny responds to a porn star who believes she is a feminist and that her “work” is liberating: Pornography dehumanizes those participating in it, especially women. Therefore, if the goal of feminism is to elevate women above a subhuman level, porn and feminism cannot co-exist.

Pro-Life in TN remarks on the recent stories about an 18-year-old Duke undergraduate who is proudly financing her way through college as a porn star. She claims she finds it “empowering” to do porn, because it enables her to “make choices” about her own body. In an appearance on The View (video at link), the young woman explains that she has been watching pornography online since age 12. The panel expresses shock, but only one – Sherri Shepherd – is brought near tears at this revelation. (As a side note, I found it odd that Jenny McCarthy, once a Playboy centerfold, would seem to be so curious about why this young woman would enter the world of porn.)

Reflections of a Paralytic asks “[w]hat’s with society’s split personality when it comes to genetically modified organisms (GMOs)? Milk from a cloned cow is unnatural and unsafe, but injecting a human being with stem cells from their own (dead) clone is positive scientific progress?” Good question. RP posts a video discussing this.

Pro-Life Wisconsin discusses the protests against a Mayo Clinic doctor who consults on high-risk pregnancies at Mayo-Franciscan Skemp, a Catholic hospital in LaCrosse, WI. This doctor does not hesitate to recommend abortion for children with Down syndrome: Lief and Karen Arvidson say they discovered this firsthand while receiving treatment for a high-risk pregnancy at Mayo-Franciscan. According to the Arvidsons, the doctor in question told them their child had a probability of Down syndrome, and he recommended they abort.
If Mayo-Franciscan hospital is indeed employing an abortionist who refers high-risk pregnancies to himself to drive his abortion business, then they are materially cooperating in abortions. This would be a grave scandal for a Catholic hospital.

Pro-Life Action League responds to a writer at Religion Dispatches and to Rev. Harry Knox of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, who believe PLAL’s call to pray for three abortion activists during Lent is actually a threat. Knox calls PLAL’s effort “hate in love’s clothing.” He also believes the graphic (pictured above) featuring the activists’ likenesses is really a “Wanted” poster. Eric Scheidler responds:

… I can understand why our opponents beat this drum so loudly. It’s a lot easier to demonize pro-life activists than to defend abortion, which violently takes the lives of over 3,000 unborn children every single day.
It’s become a kind of knee-jerk response. It was prominently on display in January when the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the McCullen v. Coakley Massachusetts buffer zone case. Never mind that someone willing to commit an act of violence would hardly be deterred by a buffer zone — or that not one arrest was made under a less restrictive law previously in place in the state.
But never are these rare acts of anti-abortion violence juxtaposed with the overwhelmingly peaceful pro-life activism taking place day in, day out throughout the United States: the hundreds of marches, rallies and protests, and the countless hours of prayer and outreach on the sidewalks outside America’s abortion clinics.
Given how much pro-life activism is going on, and how high we think the stakes are here—literally a matter of life and death — it’s remarkable how very peaceful this movement truly is.
And why is it so? Because we pray. Like we’re doing now for Robin Marty, Katie Klabusich and Cheryl Chastine.
Indeed, if “intimidation” were really our goal, this campaign would have to be considered pretty feckless. If this is really a “thinly veiled” call for violence, what, one wonders, would a “thickly veiled” one look like?