Articles for Month: June 2013

Yup, it’s them again. America’s most charming couple is back in the news. You remember, don’t you? We were introduced back in May when Albert Garland (a pseudonym), published a piece on Babble with the charming sub-headline: “My wife’s expecting twins — and I’m not happy about it.”  Things only went downhill from there. Well, apparently the reaction to Albert’s piece was less than positive (who knew?), and now his wife has stepped forward to tell her side of the story in a follow-up piece on Babble.  “Mrs. Albert Garland” patiently explains, in their defense, that she and her husband only […]

Have you been given this scenario to justify abortion before? “What about a baby whose mother is addicted to crack cocaine and will be born with an addiction to crack? Would you rather that baby suffer horribly and have a terrible life?” How do you respond? Usually, I reply with something like the following: “No, of course I wouldn’t rather have the baby suffer. No one wants a baby to suffer. However, I wouldn’t kill a child as a solution to her potential suffering. Shouldn’t we always seek to eliminate suffering- not the person who is suffering?” Or “Do you think there are ways […]

A crowd of three dozen pro-life activists assembled Wednesday in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park to protest outside Total Wellness Inc. — the family practice office of Dr. Cheryl Chastine, the “registered agent” of the recently opened South Wind Women’s Center abortion clinic in Wichita, Kansas. Chastine doesn’t want her regular patients and her Oak Park neighbors to know she’s an abortionist, and one doesn’t have to think about it very long to understand why. Pro-Abortion Activists Help the League Expose Chastine As an Abortionist That’s the whole point of our protests: to make sure that Chastine’s patients and […]

The media is buzzing today with the news that Britain is planning to become the first country in the world to offer controversial ‘three-parent’ fertility treatments to families who want to avoid passing on mitochondrial diseases to their children (See BBC, Guardian, Times (£), Independent, Daily Mail and Telegraph).  The Department of Health announced yesterday that it would draw up draft guidelines to allow fertility clinics to offer the technique. The proposed guidelines would be released for public comment later this year, and Parliament would vote on a final version in 2014.  Scientists are currently researching two main three-parent IVF techniques. The first, being developed at Britain's Newcastle […]

Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, a self-professed Catholic, said this week that abortion restrictions are wrong because the choice should be a discussion between women, their doctors, and “their priests.” “I'm alarmed about restrictions being passed by various legislators that take out of the control of women and their partners and their doctors and their priests, their own decision about their own healthcare,” she said. “I think women should make their own decisions and have a range of options available to them.” The Catholic Church opposes abortion as a form of murder.  The remarks are reminiscent of […]

If yesterday's Supreme Court decisions on gay marriage were tough to swallow, this post will be even more of a challenge to accept. On the merits of the cases, dissenting Justice Scalia got it exactly right. No argument there. It’s where the blame ultimately lies that separates me from many fellow conservative and orthodox Catholics. It’s many, if not a majority, of us. It’s hard for me to blame the gays and lesbians here. They are a tiny minority of the population who have managed to swing some 55% of the nation their way. Yesterday was a hard-won victory for […]

Colin McGregor (not his real name) is unlikely to forget his 15th birthday. ‘The night I cut my hand, I was celebrating my birthday,’ he says. ‘I told my friend I was going to burgle a house down the street because I wanted a television set. He said I should be careful that I didn’t cut myself smashing a window but I didn’t take proper precautions and came back bleeding. I was scared about people’s reactions but a bit excited at the same time. But then when I told my parents they didn’t take it well at all. All hell […]

A hearing was held on Tuesday, June 18 in the case of People of the State of Illinois v. Women’s Aid Clinic of Lincolnwood in Cook County Court in downtown Chicago, and  Women’s Aid Clinic owner Larisa Rozansky is continuing her stall tactics: As has happened in four of the past five hearings in the case, Rozansky didn’t bother to show up in Judge Alexander White’s courtroom. The state Attorney General’s office filed suit [PDF] against Women’s Aid in August 2012 after the notorious abortion facility refused to pay the $36,000 fine assessed against it by the Illinois Department of […]

It has been a very bad day for marriage, the family and freedom. Today has revealed that the American system of checks and balances in government in the United States has been deliberately corrupted. There is no way the Supreme Court should have made the decisions it did on DOMA and on Proposition 8. Ladies and gentlemen, freedom is quickly being snuffed out in the United States and the only answer is for the silent, distracted masses and all patriotic American citizens to wake up and vigorously challenge today's illegitimate and immoral governing establishment. It would be very foolish to […]

I am pleased that Charmaine and Kathryn had posts this morning about SB 5. As I mentioned yesterday, this piece of legislation would ban abortion after 20 weeks, require that abortion clinics meet the same standards as other health-care facilities, and mandate that abortion providers have admitting privileges at a local hospital. The legislation was under consideration during a special session of the Texas state legislature which was required to end at midnight. Senate Republicans succeeded in ending Senator Wendy Davis’s filibuster at around 10PM. However, various procedural moves delayed consideration of the full bill. As the clock neared midnight there was a concerted […]

“There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation,” a tousled, sweaty-looking Pierre Trudeau told a clump of reporters outside the House of Commons in 1967. It was, history now tells us, an iconic moment. Trudeau’s phrase rapidly became a slogan: “The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation”—which, in turn, was becoming a secular dogma. Across North America and indeed, the morally ravaged husk of what was once known as “Christendom,” the sexual fascists of the Relativist Revolution demanded that we all recognize that the only Truth was that there was no Truth, […]

The corruption of innocence is a deadly sin, because it corrupts the innocents. Better a millstone be tied around the necks of those who corrupt the innocent and they be flung into the sea, said Jesus. He really never pointed out too many particular sins attaching to them a ‘woe betide’. About the only other one was at the Last Supper when He said it would be better had Judas never been born than to betray Him. So the corruption of the innocent ranks pretty high on the list of deadly sins. This all comes to mind after attending my […]

June 15-16, 2013 will be days I remember for the rest of my life.  I had the opportunity to participate in an official capacity with the Vatican in celebrating the pro-life encyclical of Pope John Paul II – the Gospel of Life, and meet with his successor Pope Francis. The Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization invited LifeSiteNews.com to participate in the Vatican’s celebration of Evangelium Vitae – Pope John Paul II's encyclical known in English as “The Gospel of Life.” Beyond promoting the Day with a few stories and interviews, LifeSiteNews.com co-founder Steve Jalsevac and I travelled to Rome […]

During the past couple days the Texas state legislature has been engaged in an intense debate over Senate Bill 5 (SB5), which would ban abortion after 20 weeks when there is medical evidence that the unborn can feel pain. SB5 would also require that abortion clinics meet the same standards as other health-care facilities and mandate that abortion providers have admitting privileges at a local hospital. Some have argued that regulations included in this bill would result in the closure of many Texas abortion clinics. Many supporters of legal abortion have been present in the state capitol in Austin to […]

A column by William Saletan who covers science for Slate, appeared in Thursday’s Chicago Tribune as an attack on the U. S. House vote to outlaw abortion at 20 weeks. His effort is to show that pro-lifers are subtly attempting to push back the cut-off date until we reach the very beginning of fetal life. But in the attempt he does pro-life and the unborn a great service by trotting out the facts of fetal development that we are always trying to explain to the public. He says while pain is felt before 20 weeks, this isn’t the point. It’s just a […]

A video making the rounds of the pro-life Internet world comes directly from a prominent online sign language dictionary, and shows the sign for the word “abortion.” It is both heartbreaking, and surprising in its honesty. A baby being cradled in the signer's hands, and then being unceremoniously dumped with one of the hands. Some pro-life activists often say that people won't be against abortion until they see abortion. This sign allows people to “see” abortion in a powerful way, even without the use of graphic images.  Take a look (if the video doesn't work, click here): Click “like” if you are […]

I cracked open the July copy of the Chatelaine magazine and my eyes fell upon the headline: Tommy’s Story. One woman shares her harrowing choice to end her pregnancy and say goodbye to the unborn son she already loved. “Whoa”, I thought. “This should be interesting.” Once I read the story, my first response was to be heart-broken for this woman, who clearly regrets her decision, but still seems to be under the delusion that what she chose wasn’t outright wrong. The article focuses on her feelings and struggle to make the decision to have an abortion but not the effect her decision […]

The number of assisted suicide deaths in Washington State, increased by 17% in 2012. Assisted suicide was legalized in March 2009, after a ballot measure. The number assisted suicide deaths in WashingtonState were: 83 in 2012, 70 in 2011, 51 in 2010. There has been a 63% increase in the number of assisted suicide deaths in Washington State since 2010. The number of prescriptions for assisted suicide were: 121 in 2012, 103 in 2011, 87 in 2010. There has been a 39% increase in the number of prescriptions for assisted suicide in Washington State since 2010. In Oregon, where assisted suicide has been legal since 1998, the number of assisted suicide […]

Dear Cecile Richards, Please stop abusing civil rights history to justify your present-day killing fields. Martin Luther King Jr’s memory is not a dummy that you can manipulate like a ventriloquist. Although he regrettably accepted the inaugural Margaret Sanger Award from the nation’s largest birth control chain in 1966, he wasn’t praising the slaughter of millions that Planned Parenthood was plotting to make central to its mission.  The nation’s abortionist-in-chief tweeting about Juneteenth, a celebration of the abolition of the dehumanizing institution of slavery, is like China celebrating freedom of speech. “No one is free until all are free” apparently […]

A couple weeks ago, I wrote a piece in this space critiquing one aspect of a blog post by pro-abortion activist and blogger Katie Klabusich. Katie’s post was a scattershot rant about how terrible pro-life sidewalk counselors and prayer partners are (Note: They’re not), in which she repeated the common pro-abortion trope that the images of aborted babies we use in our activism are fake (Note: They’re not). Katie then “responded” to my piece with another blog post. I put responded in quotes because she didn’t actually address any of my evidence that our pictures are real. I get it. Like I said in my […]

A new article by Gonzalo Herranz, “The Timing of Monozygotic Twinning: A Criticism of the Common Model,” appears to deflate one of the most common science-based challenges to pro-life personhood philosophy. According to the theory that has been accepted for more than half a century, early human embryos have the ability to split, forming monozygotic (“identical”) twins, up to 14 days after fertilization. This is often used to challenge the pro-life contention that every human being is an individual, unique person from the moment of fertilization. It is argued that because of the possibility of twinning, there is no reason […]

When two Glasgow midwives won the right to opt out of supervising abortions last April I suggested that the General Medical Council (GMC) needed to revise its professional guidance on the matter which now seemed to be at odds with the law. At the time Niall Dickson (pictured), the GMC's chief executive, actually told the Guardian that the GMC would need to consider the implications of the judges' decision on its guidance. He is quoted as saying:  ‘We will study the outcome of this ruling, which has just come out, to see if there are any implications for our guidance. We already have clear […]

H.R. 1797 — The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act pending in Congress — as amended on June 14, 2013, now has a rape and incest exception — as if children conceived in rape are such mutants that we are incapable of feeling pain.  Well, I'm feeling the pain right now — especially when you've thrown us under the bus!  This is a callous attack on children conceived in rape — a wanton and reckless disregard for our lives.  The first section of the bill goes into great detail how unborn children experience pain, and why, beginning at 20 weeks gestation, […]

Despite infanticide still being murder under (the rarely enforced) Netherlander criminal code, the Dutch Medical Association (KNMG) has issued an ethics opinion holding that doctors may euthanize dying babies to end the parents’ suffering. From the story (Google translation): When parents [of a dying child] can not stand it anymore, physicians may hasten death, the KNMG decided. On this issue existed for years ambiguity. Doctors should accelerate death in a dying child [using] muscle relaxants if the death takes so long that it is better for the parents not to see severe suffering. It’s about real life without newborns for whom further treatment by doctors is […]

The New York Times Magazine has published a fawning article about an ongoing research project, sponsored by the University of California, San Francisco, about women who sought abortions but were unable to obtain them because of the gestational age of the unborn child. The research project is certainly interesting and should be of value to all parties in the abortion debate, but the Times’coverage is predictably disappointing. It offers no scrutiny about the preliminary findings and it seriously distorts and misrepresents current public-health research about abortion.  Throughout the article, the author takes considerable pains to give the impression that there is a strong scholarly consensus that abortion poses no serious health […]

To the surprise of exactly no one, Planned Parenthod President Cecile Richards is thrilled that so-called emergency contraception (hereafter:EC) is now available over-the-counter with no age restrictions. This means that 16 year old girls (and boys) can now get the morning-after pill without a prescription. So can 15 year olds, and 14 year olds, and 13 year olds, and 12 year olds, etc., despite the fact that the age of consent in every state is between 16 and 18. It would be dangerously naïve to believe that making EC available to all teens and pre-teens will have any positive impact at all. On the other hand, […]

Earlier this week, I was asked on a radio program what I as a pro-life activist had to say about Father’s Day. My answer was simple: Where are all the fathers? In today’s hookup culture, the dynamics of so-called “choice” (and, for that matter, so-called “family”) are becoming increasingly messy and complex. Women and men alike—and more often, teenagers—have separated sex and pregnancy to the extent that they seem to have forgotten how it is, exactly, that humans reproduce. As the result of this, the logical extension of the twisted “pro-choice” ideology is starting to gain recognition: As political philosopher […]

As I reported here previously, Quebec will be debating the legalization of euthanasia–not assisted suicide–a bill that does not limit medicalized killing to dying patients. But don’t tell that to so-called journalists, who are busily about the task of badly misstating what the proposal would permit. I mentioned a Toronto Star example in my original post. Now, AFP has also misreported the story: The government of Canada’s mostly French-speaking Quebec province on Wednesday unveiled legislation allowing terminally ill patients to kill themselves with a doctor’s help. The bill, expected to be passed into law as early as September, would make Quebec the first province in […]

The Quebec government has introduced a bill, to legalize euthanasia through the back-door. After two government reports and input from its citizens, Quebec is considering the legalization of euthanasia (not assisted suicide) as a form of medical treatment by establishing prosecution guidelines stating that euthanasia will not be prosecuted under certain circumstances. Opposition to euthanasia is based on three main concerns. 1. No person, institution or government agency should be given the right or power to take the life of a human person.  2. The power of one person, to cause the death of another person, will be abused. Human […]

An Australian journalist and TV personality who is campaigning for legal euthanasia has penned an emotional open letter to her deceased mother in which she describes how close she came to killing her by smothering her with a pillow, and apologizes for not carrying through with the homicide.  The letter begins: I'm so sorry I didn't kill you. I came close, believe me. The pillow was millimetres from your mouth. But I just couldn't do it. Tracey Spicer explains that her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer of the pancreas and the lungs. Although she opted to undergo chemotherapy, doctors […]

At her coronation in 1953 Queen Elizabeth II was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury: ‘Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel? Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law? Will you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in England?’  She replied, ‘All this I promise to do’. The Queen is a committed Christian believer who takes very seriously her duty to […]

An autistic teenager was murdered by his mother to “end his suffering. From the CBS Chicago story: Cook County prosecutors said a west suburban woman and family caregiver planned for at least a week to kill the mother’s 14-year-old son, because they believed he wasn’t getting sufficient care for his autism…Prosecutors said the two women plotted for a week to kill Alex, who suffered from a severe form of autism, because they thought he had received inadequate medical care, and wanted to put him out of his misery. CBS 2’s Mike Puccinelli reports Alex Spourdalakis was found dead from multiple stab wounds on […]

Two Glasgow midwives, who won a landmark legal battle to avoid taking any part in abortion procedures, may now have to return to court. Last April appeal judges ruled that the right of Mary Doogan and Concepta Wood (pictured) to conscientious objection meant they could refuse to delegate, supervise or support staff involved in abortions. The verdict marked the first time in Britain that the right to conscientious objection was deemed to extend beyond direct participation. But a spokesperson for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (GGC) has now said that it is the health board’s intention to appeal the decision of the Inner House […]

In December 2010 Planned Parenthood ordered all its affiliates to begin offering abortions at a minimum of one clinic location by the beginning of 2013. At the time the number of Planned Parenthood affiliates stood at 87, far below their all-time high of 200+. That number has now now shrunken further to 73 with the news earlier this week that Planned Parenthood of Kentucky was merging with Planned Parenthood of Indiana to create the too cute acronym, PPINK. But Planned Parenthood’s flowery explanation for the merge masked the real reason, according to Jim Sedlak of American Life League’s STOPP in an email to me. There is an overriding factor that is not mentioned in the article. At the beginning of 2013, […]

When confronted with an uncomfortable issue—and one which people have very strong views on—people often try to find a middle road, a way of agreeing with everyone, or at least not angering them. If those people are politicians, they’re often as talented at accomplishing this as a rubber man playing Twister. And so, in response to anti-abortion postcards depicting MP Rick Dykstra and a 20-week aborted baby, the St. Catharine’s Standard reported that, “His office would only say that while Dykstra is personally pro-life, he stands firm behind Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s decision not to reopen the abortion debate in Canada.” This […]

Child euthanasia: It’s all over but the final voting in Belgium as the Parliament agrees across party lines that doctors should be able to euthanize children. From the Presseurop story: In the wake of several months of testimony from doctors and experts in medical ethics, a Belgian Senate committee will on June 12 examine the possible extension of the country’s euthanasia law to include children.  “On both sides of the linguistic border, liberals and socialists appear to agree on the fact that age should not be regarded as a decisive criteria in the event of a request for euthanasia,”De Morgen. They want doctors to decide […]

Last July I blogged about the 14 NHS abortion clinics which according to reports by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the health service regulator in England, had broken the law by allowing doctors to pre-sign forms authorising abortions.  The story was covered by the BBC, Telegraph, Daily Mail and Guardian.  The breaches were uncovered in an investigation ordered by Health Secretary Andrew Lansley who asked the CQC to investigate whether the practice, first identified in January 2012, was widespread. The Abortion Act 1967 requires a form (HSA1) certifying that the requirements for a termination have been met to be signed by two doctors before the procedure takes place. Click “like” […]

I have noticed over the years that many bioethics death pro choicers (autonomy) actually envision the right as a one way street; a right to die but not a right to live. For example, almost all agree that we have a right to refuse medical treatment–even if it means we die. Okay, I’m cool with that. Most others say that seriously ill/disabled/mentally ill should be able to access assisted suicide or a lethal jab from doctors. I am definitely not cool with that. But then, when some patients want life-extending treatment with which the bioethicists disagree, well autonomy has its limits. Suddenly, doctors and bioethics […]

I was researching something last week and stumbled on an announcement by Planned Parenthood of Northeast, Mid-Penn & Bucks County in Pennsylvania that it was shuttering its Carlisle clinic. This is not an abortion mill; it is what pro-lifers call a “feeder” – a conduit to PP abortion mills. But its closure is still a boon for the health and welfare of that community. And Planned Parenthood’s political influence will be removed from the area. Add this to the news last week that the Planned Parenthood feeder clinic in Herkimer, New York, was also closing, and my latest tally is that the U.S. is down to 722 Planned Parenthoods, from a high in 1995 of […]

Various media outlets, including the Albany Times Union, have favorably reported on a recent Quinnipiac University poll. This survey purportedly finds that two thirds of New York residents support the abortion-expansion provisions included in Governor Cuomo’s revamped Women’s Equality Act. However, these results greatly overstate the amount of public support for Governor Cuomo’s proposal. Respondents were asked only if they “support allowing late-term abortions when the woman’s health is at risk, but her life is not at risk.” This was misleading for a couple of reasons. First, the Roe v. Wade decision already allows for late-term abortions when a woman’s health is at risk. […]

There are few politicians who do not claim that “youth engagement” in politics is near and dear to his or her heart. As any young person who has attempted to get involved in politics on any level can testify, politicians are generally more than thrilled to see any young person (of voting age, mind you) show up to any political event—when as a university student I showed up with a friend at a Stephen Harper rally, a campaign staffer promptly stuffed us into Conservative t-shirts, handed us signs, and ushered us to the seats directly behind the podium with a […]

The Daily Mail has an amazing article profiling three different mothers who were pressured by their doctors to abort one or more of their children. From the story: Kirsty was told to destroy TWO of her triplets to ensure she'd keep one Anne Marie was pressured not to keep her Down's syndrome baby Fiona was told her baby might be disabled and to should consider aborting What would you do if a doctor recommended you abort a much-wanted child? It's a heart-rending situation no woman would ever want to face. But these three mums found themselves confronting that very dilemma […]

Hot on the heels of Holly actor Michael Douglas’ claim that his oral cancer was the result of oral sex (also see here) comes today’s report  that diagnoses of sexually transmitted infections rose to almost half a million in England last year, with the highest rates in those aged under 25. According to Public Health England, there were 448,422 diagnoses in 2012 – a rise of 5% from 2011. The data show too many people are putting themselves at risk through unsafe sex, it says. People aged under 25 made up 64% of all chlamydia and 54% of genital warts diagnoses in heterosexuals in 2012. […]

Pro-choice blogger Katie Klabusich, a former Chicago area abortion clinic escort, recently wrote a post entitled, “Picketers vs. Patients.” In the post she parrots the worn out liberal talking point that pro-life sidewalk counselors and prayer partners are actually “killing women” by scaring them so badly they are forced into the arms of the likes of convicted murderer and abortionist Kermit Gosnell. This is, of course, patently false. Most women drive or walk right by sidewalk counselors without a care in the world. After all, as much as Klabusich wants to make it sound like a horrible gauntlet, we’re talking […]

Wow. A child with cerebral palsy who suffered a cardiac arrest and became – they thought – permanently unconscious, appears to have been successfully treated with his own stored umbilical cord blood stem cells. From the Science Daily story: Bochum’s medics have succeeded in treating cerebral palsy with autologous cord blood. Following a cardiac arrest with severe brain damage, a 2.5 year old boy had been in a persistent vegetative state — with minimal chances of survival. Just two months after treatment with the cord blood containing stem cells, the symptoms improved significantly; over the following months, the child learned to speak simple sentences […]

An article about our recent protests of abortionist Cheryl Chastine appeared last week in the Chicago Tribune, making it clear that Chastine should expect to be seeing us outside her office on a regular basis. The purpose of our protests is simple: Chastine is killing babies at South Wind Women’s Center abortion clinic in Wichita, Kansas, and we want her to quit. South Wind is owned by Trust Women, a PAC led by lobbyist Julie Burkhart, a former employee of abortionist George Tiller. Burkhart was quoted in the article as saying: If you have a medical practice that also incorporates abortion care into it, […]

These missionaries will be all over the United States this summer, but this one moment in Kettering, OH will be a defining moment as they fight to bring an end to abortion.

Our nation was outraged, and rightly so, to learn of the gruesome practices of abortionist Kermitt Gosnell, who killed babies both inside and outside the womb, and stored their body parts in milk jugs, orange juice cartons, cat food containers, and freezer bags. In the 2010 raid on his abortion clinic, the bodies of 45 children were discovered, most of whom were in the second trimester of pregnancy. They have been in the possession of the Philadelphia Medical Examiner during the course of the various legal proceedings against Dr. Gosnell. He has been sentenced and has indicated he will not […]

On the back of yet another tragic case of human pain and suffering, some abortion advocates try to push through their agenda of widespread access to killing the littlest amongst us.  The recent health problems of a pregnant woman and her pre-born child in El Salvador have been drawing worldwide attention—and some abortion advocates are riding on that attention to legalize something both unethical and unnecessary. Just like with the recent controversial pregnancy cases in Ireland and the Dominican Republic, in El Salvador, legalized abortion wasn’t, and isn’t, the answer either. In this most recent case, a 22-year-old woman identified only as Beatriz, […]