Rejecting Abortion Using Obama's Argument

On Friday, January 23, Barack Obama rescinded the Mexico City Policy -- this means that Americans are now paying for abortions all over the world. Not only this, but Obama's adminstration promises to sign into law the FOCA (The Freedom of Choice Act), an act that would practically remove all state-level restrictions on abortion.

Our president stated in his Call to Renewal address, "Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all."

It seems, then, that our president ought to ban abortion if a valid argument, apart from religion, can be made as to why it is an immoral act. While many would say this cannot be done, it is actually very easy to make such an argument.

In fact, it is not only possible to make an argument, but to make the argument very well, and quite strong. "In his book Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments, Randy Alcorn notes a number of completely secular arguments for why abortion should be prohibited by law [one of them being that m]edical textbooks and scientific reference works consistently agree that human life begins at conception. Some of the world's most prominent scientists and physicians' testimonies to Congress have asserted this scientific fact.

One might add to Alcorn's remarks that there is without question considerably more scientific evidence for life beginning at conception than there is for global warming. Yet the president earnestly supports protection of the environment and dismisses the need for protecting the unborn. Is that reasonable?

"If there is uncertainty about when human life begins, the benefit of the doubt should go to preserving life," says Alcorn. "If a hunter is uncertain whether movement in the brush is caused by a person, does this uncertainty lead him to fire or not to fire? If you're driving at night and you think the dark figure ahead on the road may be a child, but it may just be the shadow of a tree, do you drive into it or do you put on the brakes? If we find someone who may be dead or alive, but we're not sure, what is the best policy -- to assume he is alive and try to save him, or to assume he is dead and walk away?"

What faith group or atheists would honestly say go ahead and fire at the unknown object behind the bush, go ahead and drive into the dark and unknown figure on the road, or even walk away from the person that has questionably fallen dead or alive -- even if it's me? Whether a person of faith or not, the right to life is not something theoretical or hypothetical -- it's personal and fundamental to all...and an unjustifiable or careless breach of that right is universally agreed to be a crime."

President Obama, the case has been efficiently and sufficiently made by many people. Please, look at the facts, and repeal and prohibit those laws advancing the termination of the life within the womb.

quote from Creech. source.

Does Abortion Lead to Mental Illness?

From The Sunday Times

March 16, 2008

Royal college warns abortions can lead to mental illness

Sarah-Kate Templeton, Health Editor

Women may be at risk of mental health breakdowns if they have abortions, a medical royal college has warned. The Royal College of Psychiatrists says women should not be allowed to have an abortion until they are counselled on the possible risk to their mental health.

This overturns the consensus that has stood for decades that the risk to mental health of continuing with an unwanted pregnancy outweighs the risks of living with the possible regrets of having an abortion.

MPs will shortly vote on a proposal to reduce the upper time limit for abortions “for social reasons” from 24 weeks to 20 weeks, a move not backed by the government. A Sunday Times poll today shows 59% of women would support such a reduction, with only 28% backing the status quo. Taken together, just under half (48%) of men and women want a reduction to 20 weeks, while 35% want to retain 24 weeks.

Some MPs also want women to have a “cooling off” period in which they would be made aware of the possible consequences of the abortion, including the impact on their mental health, before they could go ahead.

More than 90% of the 200,000 terminations in Britain every year are believed to be carried out because doctors believe that continuing with the pregnancy would cause greater mental strain.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists recommends updating abortion information leaflets to include details of the risks of depression. “Consent cannot be informed without the provision of adequate and appropriate information,” it says.

Several studies, including research published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry in 2006, concluded that abortion in young women might be associated with risks of mental health problems.

The controversy intensified earlier this year when an inquest in Cornwall heard that a talented artist hanged herself because she was overcome with grief after aborting her twins. Emma Beck, 30, left a note saying: “Living is hell for me. I should never have had an abortion. I see now I would have been a good mum. I want to be with my babies; they need me, no one else does.”

The college’s revised stance was welcomed by Nadine Dorries, a Conservative MP campaigning for a statutory cooling-off period: “For doctors to process a woman’s request for an abortion without providing the support, information and help women need at this time of crisis I regard almost as a form of abuse,” she said.

Dawn Primarolo, the health minister, will this week appeal to MPs to ignore attempts to reduce the time limit on abortion when new laws on fertility treatment and embryo research come before parliament.

Dr Peter Saunders, general secretary of the Christian Medical Fellowship, said: “How can a doctor now justify an abortion [on mental health grounds] if psychiatrists are questioning whether there is any clear evidence that continuing with the pregnancy leads to mental health problems.”

Royal College of Psychiatrists statement on abortion and mental health, 2008

The college's stance on the psychiatric factors in abortion, 1994

[source]

Modern Day Racism

Racism Alive and Well at Planned Parenthood

A shocking set of recordings was released this week that could prove disastrous for Planned Parenthood's ties with the African-American community. Lila Rose, a pro-life student and reporter at UCLA, launched an undercover investigation aimed at exposing the racism of the nation's largest abortion merchant. With the help of an actor, she contacted Planned Parenthood clinics in seven states, inquiring if they would be willing to accept a donation earmarked for the abortion of black babies. The results were jaw-dropping.

Rose was appalled to discover that every last clinic agreed. Not one employee objected or questioned the request, even when the actor insisted that the purpose was to "lower the number of black people" in America. When the caller phoned an Ohio branch, he was told that Planned Parenthood "will accept the money for whatever reason." Read the outrageous transcript from the Idaho clinic, which is also available with Rose's other recordings in a montage at [I will post the video at the end of this article]

Actor: ...I really faced trouble with affirmative action, and I don't want my kids to be disadvantaged against black kids.

Planned Parenthood: Yes, absolutely.

Actor: And we don't, you know, we just think the less black kids out there the better.

Planned Parenthood: (Laughs) Understandable, understandable... This is the first time I've had a donor call and make this kind of request, so I'm excited and want to make sure I don't leave anything out.

Students at UCLA are so infuriated by the investigation that they are petitioning the university to cut all affiliation with Planned Parenthood. What few people realize is that the organization has a history of racism that has been ingrained since Planned Parenthood's earliest days, when founder Margaret Sanger advocated negative eugenics and spoke to a woman's branch of the KKK (Margaret Sanger, An Autobiography, 1938, p. 336-367). However, as is customary for Planned Parenthood, the organization has managed for decades to cover its tracks--and the facts. That task has just been made monumentally more difficult. Abortion has taken the innocent lives of over 14 million black children--a national tragedy that has begun uniting and mobilizing African-Americans across party, state, and financial lines.

Today, FRC [Family Research Council] hosted a press conference to kick off the National Black Pro-Life Gathering in Washington, D.C. which drew pastors, parents, leaders, and activists from across America to commemorate Black History Month by calling on abortion merchants like Planned Parenthood to stop preying on their community. As these abortion clinics continue to demonstrate that blood money is not colorblind, we call on Congress to de-fund and disavow Planned Parenthood. Taxpayers should not be forced to spend over $300 million on an organization whose scruples are for sale, even to those who seek racial genocide.

NOTE: there are a few sensual images that could have been left out of this video

Follow-up Article

No, Planned Parenthood, Virginia Isn't Santa Clause

Representatives for Planned Parenthood are scrambling to explain how seven of its branches were caught on tape agreeing to accept bigotry-inspired donations. When recordings of the undercover investigation were released this week, spokesmen from Idaho to Ohio desperately tried to explain away the incidents. Rebecca Poedy, the executive director of Planned Parenthood Idaho, where a vice president for development was caught exclaiming how "excited" she was to receive money from a donor who wanted to reduce the state's black population, says her employee was misunderstood. "We need to train our staff to handle calls from people that are coming with offensive agendas," Poedy told reporters. Unfortunately for Planned Parenthood, the tapes speak for themselves as to whose agenda is truly offensive. "Planned Parenthood firmly and unequivocally denounces racial bias in the delivery of health care... [T]his employee made a serious mistake." Apparently the mistake was not considered serious enough for the employee to be fired. In Ohio, where a clinic worker agreed to accept a donation from a man who said, "There's definitely way too many black people in [the state]," no disciplinary action was taken. Lila Rose, the UCLA student who organized the calls, believes Planned Parenthood's PR nightmare has just begun. Rose plans to release the audio from other clinic calls in the upcoming months to expose the organization's deep-rooted prejudice. As the evidence against Planned Parenthood continues to mount, so too does the reluctance of state lawmakers to fund the organization. For the first time in 10 years, the Virginia Senate voted yesterday to strip all funding for Planned Parenthood because it performs and promotes abortion. The amendment, offered by Sen. Ken Cuccinelli (R), withstood the Democrats' fiercest challenge. After hours of trying to dissuade Sen. Charles Colgan (D) from voting in favor of the amendment, Democrats finally succumbed to a 20-20 tie, in which Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling (R) cast the deciding vote to sever ties with Planned Parenthood. The bill now heads to Gov. Tim Kaine's (D) desk, where he should have ample reason--after this racial controversy--to distance Virginia from this squalor. Please, if you live in Virginia, contact Gov. Kaine by phone at (804) 786-2211 or through email at www.governor.virginia.gov/AboutTheGovernor/contactGovernor.cfm and encourage him to stop using taxpayer dollars to fund Virginia's abortion mills. If you live elsewhere, why not urge your state to do the same?

Additional Resources

Contact Gov. Kaine

both articles came from FRC's Tony Perkin's Washington Update, from Febuary 28 and 29, 2008, respectively.

Passport to Controversy

In light of my previous post, you can understand why this latest development concerns me greatly.

Passport to Controversy

In a move that took even member nations by surprise, the Council of Europe has passed a resolution of "unconditional" support for abortion. The body, which shapes policies that are often adopted by the European Union (EU), deals a painful blow to global pro-life efforts. In a rushed move, the group's Parliamentary Assembly allowed just three minutes of discussion on the abortion issue, then proceeded to vote with only 185 of the 316 members present. The few amendments that pro-lifers scrambled to introduce to water down the language were rejected. The Council declared a "right to unlimited legal abortion" by a 33-vote margin. Although the Council of Europe doesn't create policy, it does influence it, which makes this decision significant as the EU's clout increases. If there's a silver lining, it's that the vote isn't "legally binding." However, it sends a disturbing message about the Council's utter disregard for the sanctity of human life. As Pat Buckley of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children said, "Nothing in the European Convention on Human Rights recognizes a right to abortion. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the issue of when the right to life begins is a question to be decided at the national level." Clearly, the Council is vastly overstepping its bounds. We urge member nations to denounce the declaration and call for an honest debate.

Additional Resources
Council of Europe Declares Unlimited Abortion an Unconditional Right for all of Europe
from FRC's Tony Perkin's Washington Update, April 18, 2008

Test Gave Inaccurate Results

Stories such as the one following are not uncommon at all. I personally know quite a few people with no problems who would not be alive if their parents had aborted thinking they would be defective. Weigh carefully your decision: a human life is in the balance.

Baby born healthy after doctors advise aborting him

Rusty Pugh - OneNewsNow - 3/4/2008 1:00:00 PM

A leading women's pro-life group says a recent case in Wales, in which a perfectly healthy baby boy was born after a doctor had advised the couple to abort the child, is a good example of why parents should always choose life.

A baby that doctors said would be deaf, blind, and survive only a few hours is now healthy and attempting to talk. However, doctors previously urged Becky and Kriss Kramer to abort their baby. They claimed the child would be born with a rare condition that affects fewer than one-out-of-a-million people worldwide.

But the couple defied the doctors' advice, and their son Brandon was born in October. The new parents say he is now teething and attempting to talk.

Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, advocates that all parents should give their children a chance at life.

"This story that comes out of Wales is a good example for why parents ought to take medical diagnoses with a grain of salt, and should follow their natural instincts to love and nurture and care for and protect their child," she insists. "Even if the child had been born disabled, that is not a reason to kill the baby. We would never dream of killing a two-year-old that had significant disabilities."

The British Pregnancy Advisory Service, which bills itself as the U.K.'s "leading sexual healthcare provider," reports that it performs about 55,000 abortions a year. BPAS has facilities in England, Wales, and Scotland.

source

35 Years After Roe v. Wade

January 22, 2008 - the 35th anniversary of Roe v Wade - this commentary was delivered by PFM President Mark Earley.

The Legacy of Abortion
By Mark Earley

A woman-let's call her Caroline-was 92 years old. She was dying, in agony, but Caroline's pain was not physical. It was emotional. Caroline, you see, had been carrying a secret for more than 50 years: As a young woman, she had undergone two abortions, suffered terrible guilt all her life-and now, on her death-bed, afraid that God could not forgive her.

As her palliative-care nurse, Jean Echlin, writes, "At the end of her life she shared with me her agony over her lost babies . . . she felt that she had committed murder."

Caroline is not alone, as Echlin writes in Perspectives 2007, a publication of the De Veber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research. Echlin also tells the story of a woman named Lydia, who was dying of cancer. Even with the use of a pain pump, which gave her steady doses of morphine, Lydia's pain did not abate.

"I asked her if her faith or prayer could be of any comfort," Echlin writes. "Lydia remained silent except for her moaning." But the next day she confided the truth. "I can't pray-God won't listen," Lydia said. "I killed a precious baby when I was 18 . . ." Lydia's abortion had taken place more than 40 years ago-and she was still grieving over it.

Caroline and Lydia are but two examples of what the Institute calls an "unexpected correlation" between abortion and pain-relief care. Dying women experience unresolved guilt and psychological pain related to their abortion-guilt and pain that stand in the way of a peaceful death. Their guilt is so great, Echlin says, that it impedes the effectiveness of their pain medication. Only when the abortion issue is resolved-when someone listens to them and assures them of God's forgiveness-is the pain medication made effective, and the women able to die peacefully.

This is dramatic testimony that abortion is not, as the abortion lobby claims, something women will "get over" in a week or two. It is evidence that we know inherently that we are made in the image of the God who gives life. When we do violence to that image-when we destroy life instead of nurturing it-it has a profound effect on our emotions, our psyche, and our souls.

Today, as we mourn the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and the tens of millions of abortions that have resulted from this dreadful decision, we must recognize that there are likely many women among us who are silently suffering abortion grief decades after their babies' lives were snuffed out. As the De Veber Institute notes, these women need our compassion, and their trauma should be recognized and acknowledged by their care providers.

As we comfort the dying, we must also help the living. We must make sure young women know the truth: that abortion takes a human life; that there are alternatives to abortion; and that there are people who will help them through a difficult, unplanned pregnancy.

And they must be told that the notion that they will simply "get over" an abortion is a bold-faced lie. The truth is that if they walk into that abortion clinic, they may still be feeling the agony over taking their baby's life-even on their deathbed a half century later.


Featured article from Breakpoint, the newsletter of Crosswalk.com, on January 22, 2008. Email entitled "Crosswalk: The Legacy of Abortion - January 22, 2008."