And this is not a dolphin!
Why not?
Because they’re both still in their mothers’ wombs. These are in utero pictures.
Yet if the "Out of sight, you don’t count" logic of pro-aborts were applied to animals the way it is to humans, these wouldn’t count as an elephant and a dolphin. They’re just "blobs of cells" or "tissue."
GET THE STORY.
The supreme court just heard a case involving whether partial-birth abortion can be banned without a health exception.
Six years ago, they heard a smiliar case involving a Nebraska law, and five of the injustices voted that it was unconstitutional: Darth Breyer, Darth Ginsburgh, Darth Souter, Darth Stephens, and Darth O’Conner.
But Darth O’Connor ain’t there no mo.
Now there’s Justice Alito.
And also Justice Roberts.
Will they vote with Justices Scalia and Thomas–and even Darth Kennedy?–who voted in favor of upholding the Nebraska ban on partial-birth abortion in an apparent rare moment of being torn between the Light Side and the Dark Side.
GET THE STORY.
John over at Generations for Life writes:
I thought you might be interested in an entry I recently posted on the
Generations for Life blog.Last week, Judith Arcana, a member of the group "Jane," which claimed to
have performed over 11,000 illegal abortions in Chicago in the years prior
to Roe v. Wade, spoke at Loyola University Chicago at the invitation of the
school’s Women’s Studies Department.
In the post, John quotes a former speech in which the babykiller explained how her underground murder syndicate worked:
Women joined the Service through periodic orientation meetings, and learned the necessary tasks from those who had come before them. Once their counseling skills had been developed in new recruits, and the group had come to trust them, they could learn more – doing everything from basic record keeping to becoming a medic, one who performed abortions.
Ultimately, we learned to do abortions in all three trimesters. Although we did only a handful in the third, as you may imagine, there were many in the second, no doubt because illegality forced women and girls to take so much time searching for abortionists and saving up money. The methods that we learned, we primarily learned from one man. He was not a doctor, but he was the best. Once we understood that many of the people doing abortions at that time were not doctors, we realized that we could do it too. This would mean women would not have to be charged a lot of money, could even come through the Service free.
So we pressed this man to teach us, as he had been taught. He was an extraordinary man in many ways, had been doing this work, and maybe other illegal work, virtually all of his life.
He also quotes her as saying
I performed abortions, I have had an abortion and I am in favor of women having abortions when we choose to do so. But we should never disregard the fact that being pregnant means there is a baby growing inside of a woman, a baby whose life is ended. We ought not to pretend this is not happening.
following which, he trenchantly notes
It’s bad enough when a Catholic university gives a platform to a pro-abortion politician or other public figure — that in itself is prohibited by the U. S. Catholic Bishops. Loyola, like so many other Catholic universities, has done that before.
But the fact that a Catholic university has given a platform to someone who actually facilitated abortions, has no regrets about having done so, and who, by her own admission, understands that abortion is the taking of a baby’s life — takes the word “scandal” to a whole new level.
Indeed!
CHICAGO, September 21, 2006 – "Contrary to popular belief, contraception is
not the answer to reducing the number of abortions," said Joseph M.
Scheidler, National Director of the Chicago-based Pro-Life Action League.
"And it is not the solution to teen pregnancy."
On September 22 and 23, the Pro-Life Action League will host a national
conference to highlight the fact that the contraception theory is a lie.
Speakers at the two-day conference, entitled "Contraception Is Not the
Answer," will focus on the impact that contraception has had on our culture
– its effects on women, on men, on marriage, and on the culture.
Presenters include Dr. Lionel Tiger, the Charles Darwin Professor of
Anthropology at Rutgers University, Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, author of
Smart Sex: How to Find Life-Long Love in a Hook-Up World, and demographer
Andrew Pollard, director of EMP Intelligence Service in Northampton,
England.
"Contraception Is Not the Answer" opens Friday, September 22 at 6:00 p.m. at
the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Rosemont, IL, with a presentation on the failure
of "comprehensive" sex education programs, and an analysis of the Protestant
embrace of contraception in the twentieth century.
A press conference will be held Saturday, September 23 at 8:00 a.m. in
Ballroom One of the Crowne Plaza, prior to the presentations scheduled for
the day. Dr. Allan Carlson, president of the Howard Center, Dr. Janet Smith,
professor of theology at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Damon
Clarke Owens, director of Joy-Filled Marriage, and Fr. Thomas Euteneuer,
president of Human Life International, will join Dr. Tiger, Dr. Morse and
Prof. Pollard to answer questions from the media.
"I believe this is exactly the right time to confront the common
misconceptions about the effects of contraception," said Scheidler. "This
conference will prove to be historic."
For further information see www.prolifeaction.org/cinta or call
773-777-2900. A brief preview of several of the conference presentations can
be accessed on the Pro-Life Action League website at
www.prolifeaction.org/cinta/teleseminars.htm.
-30-
We’ve commented before on the fact that Roe is doomed for the simple reason that those who favor abortion have a higher rate of using it and therefore produce fewer children, meaning that those who don’t favor abotion will eventually outpopulate them and have the strength to get rid of abortion in America (which will be a long and messy process).
HERE’S AN ARTICLE THAT–WITHOUT AN ABORTION-SPECIFIC APPLICATION–MAKES A PARALLEL POINT.
EXCERPTS:
According to the 2004 General Social Survey, if you picked 100 unrelated politically liberal adults at random, you would find that they had, between them, 147 children. If you picked 100 conservatives, you would find 208 kids. That’s a "fertility gap" of 41%. Given that about 80% of people with an identifiable party preference grow up to vote the same way as their parents, this gap translates into lots more little Republicans than little Democrats to vote in future elections. Over the past 30 years this gap has not been below 20%–explaining, to a large extent, the current ineffectiveness of liberal youth voter campaigns today.
Alarmingly for the Democrats, the gap is widening at a bit more than half a percentage point per year, meaning that today’s problem is nothing compared to what the future will most likely hold. Consider future presidential elections in a swing state (like Ohio), and assume that the current patterns in fertility continue. A state that was split 50-50 between left and right in 2004 will tilt right by 2012, 54% to 46%. By 2020, it will be certifiably right-wing, 59% to 41%. A state that is currently 55-45 in favor of liberals (like California) will be 54-46 in favor of conservatives by 2020–and all for no other reason than babies.
That, of course, is not only assuming that current trends hold but also that nothing else is affecting the situation.
But there is something that can affect it: Immigration.
If you aren’t making enough new voters on your own, importing them is always a possibility, and since liberals tend to do better with newly immigrated voters (for at least a few generations), there is a strong incentive on the part of political liberals to want to encourage as much immigration as possible–legally and otherwise. This also explains the efforts on the part of some political liberals to create situations in which even illegal aliens can vote in American elections.
While large-scale immigration can slow the ending of abortion, it can’t stop it, however. The United States cannot absorb an unlimited number of new immigrants, and at some point the current massive influx we are seeing will stop. When that happens, the ordinary consequences of the Roe Effect will act in an unimpeded manner and lead to those who disfavor abortion outpopulating those who favor it.
Abortion’s still doomed. It’s just a question of how many babies have to get killed before it ends.
Despite problems I also have with certain recent votes taken by the U.S. Senate, I also want to give them credit when it is due to them (EXCERPTS):
The Senate voted yesterday to make it a crime to take a pregnant minor to another state to obtain an abortion without her parents’ knowledge, handing a long-sought victory to the Bush administration and abortion opponents.
The bill would help about three dozen states enforce laws that require minors to notify or obtain the consent of their parents before having an abortion. It would bar people — including clergy members and grandparents — from helping a girl cross state lines to avoid parental-involvement laws. Violations could result in a year in prison.
Most states have passed such laws, but courts have invalidated at least nine of them, advocacy groups say. Maryland and Virginia have parental-notification laws; the District does not. The Senate voted 65 to 34 to approve the bill, which is similar to one the House has approved before, including last year.
The White House said the measure would "protect the health and safety of minors" and "protect the rights of parents to be involved in the medical decisions of their minor daughters consistent with the widespread belief among authorities in the field that it is the parents of a pregnant minor who are best suited to provide her counsel, guidance and support."
The administration urged House and Senate negotiators to reconcile their differences and send Bush a bill to sign. Unlike the Senate version, the House measure would penalize physicians who knowingly perform abortions for minors who circumvented parental-involvement laws.
The following is a list of U.S. Senators who voted in favor of harvesting babies currently frozen in order to get at their stem cells:
Now here is a list of those senators who voted to defend the babies against being harvested in order to steal their stem cells:
Kindly remember which individuals stood up for the babies and which voted to kill them for medical experimentation.
(CHT: Southern Appeal)
If you’d like to look up how your state’s two U.S. senators voted, CLICK HERE.
President Bush has used the first veto of his presidency to kill a stem cell bill that would have led to the death of many children.
EXCERPTS:
"It crosses a moral boundary that our decent
society needs to respect, so I vetoed it," Bush said at the White House.
"We must also remember that embryonic stem cells come from human embryos that are destroyed for their cells. Each of these human embryos is a unique human life with inherent dignity and matchless value," Bush said in his comments to specially invited families at the White House.
"Some people argue that finding new cures for disease requires the destruction of human embryos," Bush said, before adding: "I disagree.
"I believe that with the right techniques and the right policies we can achieve scientific progress while living up to our ethical responsibilities."
Shame on all those in the House and Senate–including members of the Republican majority in both houses–who voted in favor of the bill.
The British "newspaper" The Telegraph has run a story headlined "Vatican vows to expel stem cell scientists from Church" and illustrated yet again why the secular press is too incompetent to keep its job when it comes to reporting religion stories.
According to the story:
Scientists who carry out embryonic stem cell research
and politicians who pass laws permitting the practice will be
excommunicated, the Vatican said yesterday."Destroying
human embryos is equivalent to an abortion. It is the same thing," said
Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, head of the Pontifical Council for the
Family."Excommunication will be applied to the
women, doctors and researchers who eliminate embryos [and to the]
politicians that approve the law," he said in an interview with
Famiglia Christiana, an official Vatican magazine.
Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!
The Telegraph needs to hold its horses on this one.
First, the fact that the head of a pontifical council said something in a magazine interview–even in a magazine published by the Vatican–does not ammount ot a statement of Vatican policy, so it is completely misrepresents the situation to take the cardinals interview remarks and pitch them as "Vatican vows" to do anything. The Vatican doesn’t make policy statements in magazine interviews.
Second, we’re talking about the head of the Pontifical Council on the Family, here. While he’s a great guy, it is not within his brief to make binding statements regarding the extent to which canonical matters like excommunication apply to particular situations. He’s certainly entitled to express his opinions on the matters (and ED PETERS THINKS HE’S RIGHT REGARDING EMBRYO DESTROYERS) but the good cardinal is not empowered to move beyond the realm of offering an opinion and into making binding interpretations of canon law. So one more reason why this ain’t a "Vatican vow."
Third, we’re not talking about all stem cell scientists–just those who destroy embryos. As JAMIE BEU POINTS OUT, only stem cell research involving embryos is in question, not adult stem cell research.
Fourth, even confining outselves to embryonic stem cell research, it ain’t all scientists who do this research that the cardinal was addressing–just those who destroy embryos. If a scientist is doing experiments on a cell line derived from embryos who were killed in the past, he’s not performing an abortion and thus he’s not whacked by the sentence of excommunication. Regardless of whether he’s engaging in a moral activity in doing such experiments, he’s not aborting embryos and thus does not incur excommunication for procuring or assisting in the procurement of an abortion.
Fifth, excommunication does not "expel [one] from [the] Church"! It just doesn’t! Not under current canon law. The canonical effects of excommunication are enumerated in CANON 1331 and being expelled from the Church ain’t one of ’em.
So any way you slice it, The Telegraph staff responsible for this story have done a flatly incompetent job–at that before we even get past the headline!
It’s not even clear from the way the story is written how far its incompetence goes.
For example, note this statement:
"Excommunication will be applied to the women, doctors and researchers who eliminate embryos [and to the] politicians that approve the law," he said in an interview with Famiglia Christiana, an official Vatican magazine.
Since I don’t have a copy of Famiglia Christiana (or a translation of it), I have to rely on The Telegraph that the material from the cardinal is being quoted accurately and in context, but there is a question in my mind about that because of the inserted "[and to the]" which bridges an elipsis in the cardinal’s remarks.
There is a question in my mind about whether this insertion and elipsis distorts what the cardinal said because there would be notable canonical problems with the assertion that politicians would be excommunicated.
Penal laws are subject to narrow interpretation (Canon 18), and the Church has not historically interpreted the abortion excommunication politicians who vote in favor of laws that allow abortion as being excommunicated. Those directly involved in the abortion are, but not those who established the legal framework allowing abortion to take place.
Further, John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae 73 that in certain situations Catholic politicians can vote for laws that allow abortion if there is no practical way to get the abortion-allowing provisions out of the laws.
If Cardinal Trujillo did say that the abortion excommunication applies to politicians (and I don’t know what is meant by "approve"–whether it is morally approve or approve in the sense of voting, either one of which would have canonical hurdles for such excommunications to take effect) then that is his opinion, but it is once again not an authentic (i.e., authoritative) interpretation of canon law.
Unfortunately, I can’t even be sure what the cardinal said or meant from the incompetent way that The Telegraph’s staff has handled this story.
Bishop Fulton Sheen once pointed out that the reasons people give for their opposition to something sometimes don’t match up to why they’re really opposed. He told the story of giving instruction in the Catholic faith to a young woman who became violently upset when he started telling her about confession. She ranted that she would never join the Church because of its position on confession. Sheen looked at her and told her that the violence of her objection in no way correlated to what he had said about confession and asked if she had had an abortion. She hung her head and admitted that she had.
I was reminded of this story when I read about the Supreme Court refusing to hear the case of abortion rights groups petitioning to disallow states from issuing Choose Life license plates. On the face of it, the abortion rights cadre didn’t like the idea that the state legislature decided who would get the money made off the plates. That didn’t make sense, so I looked at the article more closely.
"About a dozen states allow drivers to pay extra for the specialty car tags to show the car owner’s opposition to abortion.
"Justices said they would not look at tag laws in Louisiana and Tennessee.
"Abortion opponents contend they have a free-speech right to broadcast their own views on their car tags. Proposals to offer car owners an alternative ‘Choose Choice’ plate failed in both state Legislatures."
Ah, now there we have it. If pro-abortionists cannot ram their "Choose Choice" plates through the state legislatures then they’ll make sure that pro-lifers cannot display their adherence to life on their license plates either. I’d say that such an attitude is childish, but in this context that would be obscene.