For all his bravado, in the end Jack Kevorkian was a coward. Dr. Death promoted killing as virtue and convinced far too many people to rally around his evil creed. But, in the end, what he advocated for he ran away from personally. Notwithstanding all of his medical suffering, rather than pull out his suicide machine, the evil doctor instead reserved for himself a natural death. While his followers may still be lost, Kevorkian himself now knows the truth.

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In the midst of the budget debate last week an important premise was planted:  That President Obama is willing to risk a lot, and lose a lot, in order to keep the federal spigot open and tax dollars flowing to Planned Parenthood.

The New York Times report on the budget negotiations included this gem:

At one crucial moment in the game of chicken over a looming shutdown of the United States government, President Obama and the House speaker, John A. Boehner, faced off in the Oval Office. Mr. Boehner, a Republican heavily outnumbered in the room by Democrats, was demanding a provision to restrict financing to Planned Parenthood and other groups that provide abortions. Mr. Obama would not budge.

“Nope. Zero,” the president said to the speaker. Mr. Boehner tried again. “Nope. Zero,” Mr. Obama repeated. “John, this is it.” A long silence followed, said one participant in the meeting. “It was just like an awkward, ‘O.K., well, what do you do now?’ ”

That meeting broke without an agreement. But while Mr. Obama may have held tough on the abortion provision, he and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, had already made a broader concession — agreeing to tens of billions of dollars in spending cuts that would have been unthinkable had Republicans not captured control of the House from Democrats in midterm elections last year.

Keep in mind, Mr. Obama wasn’t protecting a right to abortion, but something even more radical:  the right of America’s largest abortion provider to reach into our pockets!

Planned Parenthood has almost one billion dollars in net assets and $737 million in reported revenues, not counting the $363 million from taxpayers.   Isn’t that a special favor for “Big Business”?

And what a business.  From its most recent report we learn that Planned Parenthood clinics aborted 332,278 American children, about the same number of people who populate the city of Cincinnati. (For more important facts on Planned Parenthood, see this wonderful piece by Susan Wills)

The budget negotiations revealed, again, President Obama’s abortion zealotry.  We have the Republicans congressional leaders to thank for that.  As my colleague Tom McClusky asks:  “Who is the hard liner on abortion?”

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Last Friday the world heard the news that the Catholic Church will beatify Pope John Paul II later this year, which is one step closer to the Church formally recognizing that he rests in Heaven.  I suspect that many of my Evangelical friends are well ahead of the Catholic Church in knowing that he is there, in the great cloud of witnesses, adoring his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Before beatification the Catholic Church confirms that a miracle has occurred due to the intercession of the deceased. In Pope John Paul’s case, it is the miraculous cure of a French nun, Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, who had suffered from Parkinson’s disease.  This little nun says John Paul was and is an inspiration because of his defense of the unborn child. “John Paul II did everything he could for life, to defend life,” she said. “He was very close to the smallest and weakest. How many times did we see him approach a handicapped person, a sick person?”

It is hard for me to approach another anniversary of Roe v. Wade without thinking of this great man who once said that “a nation that kills its own children is a nation without hope.”  His very life was a witness to the sanctity of all human life. John Paul survived an assassination attempt and immediately forgave his assassin.  He survived the two greatest threats to life and freedom of the 20^th century, Nazi Germany and Communist Totalitarianism, and of that bloody century, said: “The cemetery of the victims of human cruelty in our century is extended to include yet another vast cemetery, that of the unborn.”

He dedicated an entire encyclical to abortion and euthanasia, and in the magnificent “Gospel of Life” he minced no words:  “No human law can claim to legitimize” abortion, he said.  We have a “grave and clear obligation to oppose” such laws, even through “conscientious objection.”

Another spiritual leader on her way to saintly recognition, Mother Teresa, was his comrade-in-arms on this issue and equally blunt:  “America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation.  The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men.  It has portrayed the greatest of gifts — a child — as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience.”

Imagine the homecoming for these two giants for life: a choir of little ones, in the millions.

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There’s a lot of buzz about Will Saletan’s incisive analysis of Elena Kagan’s role in shaping, from the White House, the “medical” conclusions of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists on the partial-birth abortion method.  (See full article, below.)  The criticism of Kagan and ACOG is certainly welcome, especially coming from this “pro-choice” writer at this left-leaning magazine.

But Saletan is dead wrong on one central point:  Kagan did substantively change the ACOG statement with the sentence she dictated to the organization.  Before Kagan’s interference, the ACOG statement read:

“a select panel convened by ACOG could identify no circumstances under which this procedure, as defined above, would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman.”

Before Kagan, partial-birth abortion was equal to or lesser than other methods in ACOG’s view.  With the addition of Kagan’s wording that it “may be the best” method “in a particular circumstance,” partial-birth abortion now became potentially better than other methods in the official view of ACOG.  Saletan apparently doesn’t understand that making it potentially best in some unnamed hypothetical situation was equivalent to making it definitively best in the view of the reviewing courts.  Even a cursory reading of the lower court rulings shows that the Kagan “best” language was absolutely key to the courts’ reasoning in overturning the bans.

Ultimately, of course, the Supreme Court got past this politicized medicine and got the ruling right.  But this revelation should be a permanent black eye for ACOG’s reputation on any abortion-related issue in the future, and is proof that Kagan is a zealous pro-abortion political animal trying to disguise herself in judge’s robes.

Continue reading »

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Sage words from an “aging sex symbol”:

On Marriage:  “I’m ashamed to admit that I myself have been married four times,” she writes, “and yet I still feel that it is the cornerstone of civilization, an essential institution that stabilizes society, provides a sanctuary for children, and saves us from anarchy.”

On Oral Contraception:  Choosing a sexual partner “used to be the equivalent of choosing a life partner.”  “The growing proliferation of birth control methods has … led to a sea change in moral values. And a significant and enduring effect on women was the idea they could have sex without any consequences – meaning fewer today see marriage as a viable option. Seriously, folks, if an aging sex symbol like me starts waving the red flag of caution over how low moral standards have plummeted, you know it’s gotta be pretty bad.  In fact, it’s precisely because of the sexy image I’ve had that it’s important for me to speak up and say: Come on girls! Time to pull up our socks! We’re capable of so much better.”

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Our friends at C–Fam, the pro-life watch dogs at the United Nations helmed by my husband Austin, issued a blockbuster last week when they revealed that the Girl Scouts had a meeting for girls only at the UN last week which included a Planned Parenthood guide for sex. It was a no-adults-allowed affair; any adult not associated with the Girl Scouts was kicked out.

The Girl Scouts have been officially “pro-choice” for years. Now they’re pushing promiscuous sex on the girls. Here’s an excerpt from page 11 of the Planned Parenthood guide offered at the secret meeting:

Some people have sex when they have been drinking alcohol or using drugs. This is your choice. Being drunk or high can affect the decisions you might make about sex or safer sex. If you want to have sex and think you might get drunk or high, plan ahead by bringing condoms and lube or putting them close to where you usually have sex.

Apparently Planned Parenthood does advocate some limits to sex: “It is not okay to have sex with someone who is so drunk or high that they are staggering, incoherent or have passed out.” (What prudes!)

C-Fam’s report has rocketed around the Girl Scout world. Girl Scout officials have issued denials that the brochure was even present at the meeting while faith-filled Girl Scout leaders are up in arms and threatening to leave. C-Fam stands by its report: the Planned Parenthood sex guide was at the meeting.

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You’ve gotta love Bart Stupak, the brave Democrat from Michigan who is standing athwart the Obama-Abortion-Care Juggernaut, yelling, “Stop!”

Here are some choice quotes (to use a pun) from Representative Stupak from a recent interview with the Weekly Standard:

When the reporter mentioned speculation that Stupak was ready to cave and vote for a health care bill that would force taxpayers to fund abortion, his response was clear: “Obviously they don’t know me,” he said.  “If I didn’t cave in November, why would I do it now after all the crap I’ve been through?”

President Obama’s attempt to get Stupak’s vote is both ridiculous and revealing:  Apparently the President invited Stupak to the Russian opera last week.  (This is reminiscent of candidate Nelson Rockefeller at the working man’s bar ordering beers all around and a Courvoisier for himself.)  The Weekly Standard writes:  “Asked if he was a big fan of the opera, Stupak, who represents a district encompassing the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, laughed and said:  ‘No, I’m not a fan of opera, especially not Russian opera because I wouldn’t understand a thing.’”

Stupak isn’t afraid to call out his own Party, saying that White House officials are “trying to get face time with members to convince them to vote for a bill that no one has seen in writing.”

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So says the slogan spread by “Catholics” for Choice in Nicaragua and El Salvador to overturn laws in those countries restricting abortion.
This pro-abortion propaganda effort is in anticipation of what will be one of the most heavily attended U.N. conferences this year: The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), a gathering of radical feminists, from all points on the globe, with so-called “reproductive rights” as its centerpiece.

Samantha Singson reports in C-Fam’s Friday Fax that groups like “Catholics” for Choice and other NGOs (non-governmental organizations) are circulating declarations to present to delegations who attend the event in New York on March 1-12. This so-called Catholic group demands “the immediate restitution of therapeutic abortion” in Nicaragua and, in El Salvador, “the restitution of law that guaranty therapeutic, ethical and eugenical [sic] abortion.”
Singson writes that this year’s CSW is particularly significant because it is the fifteenth anniversary of the Beijing Conference on Women where advocates tried, but failed, to establish an international “right” to abortion on demand. She reports that abortion is a matter of frequent debate among member states at this conference, where delegates attempt to sneak into conference documents ambiguous language that can later be used as a platform for such a right.

Against all odds, pro-life forces have defeated their efforts year in and year out. WWJD at the CSW? Maybe He’s been doing it all along.

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Following on Bob Morrison’s post on the President’s National Prayer Breakfast remarks, read Mother Teresa’s speech, reprinted below in full. It is beautiful, and in it three times she calls abortion the greatest destroyer of peace:

Continue reading »

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President Obama’s speech this morning at the National Prayer Breakfast included a moving litany about looking in the eyes of every different kind of person and in each seeing the face of God. They should’ve scheduled a Q & A! What should we see when we look through the screen of an ultrasound machine at the sweet little closed eyes of a baby? It would be impossible for President Obama to answer that question in any way that would not utterly undercut the central theme of his speech. And “above my pay grade” would be the worst answer.

A word to the White House image mavens: The rank hypocrisy here will be clear to the majority of Americans who are pro-life, and no doubt to many in the minority who are not.

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On Friday, the New York Times published a review of the new Denzel Washington movie, The Book of Eli. But the review doesn’t mention even once what Eli is protecting: the last copy of the Bible on Earth. The closest the reviewer can bring herself to mentioning the point of the story is to speak of the “fog of religiosity that hangs over the movie.” Ha!

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On Monday the Post endorsed the Democratic candidate for the Virginia Senate seat vacated by Attorney General-elect Ken Cuccinelli. No news there. But in the process the editors took the opportunity unfairly to smear the other candidate, Steve Hunt, a Republican who previously served on the Fairfax County School Board. The vote is January 12th.

While claiming it is his views on transportation funding that make Hunt the wrong man for the job, what’s really got their goat — judging from the amount of ink they spill — is Hunt’s principled and heart-felt social conservatism. They cite a letter he wrote to high school principals in 2005 suggesting that, on the issue of homosexuality, students be given information not only from those promoting the homosexual lifestyle as natural and positive but from other perspectives, such as from those in the ex-gay community. Here is an excerpt from Hunt’s 2005 letter:

My challenge to you is to ensure that the students are presented with all of the facts and the spectrum of perspectives. I know that many schools in Fairfax County have brought in guest speakers to talk about homosexual and transgender issues. It is my understanding that these have been speakers that have spoken in favor of the homosexual life style. The remaining viewpoints have been missing from the discussion. Allowing students to make decisions based after hearing only one side of an issue is more indoctrination than discourse.

There is a local group called Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX at www.pfox.org). Regina Griggs is the PFOX Executive Director and can be reached at Pfoxmom@pfox.org or 703-360-2225. She has offered to speak or provide speakers from the Ex-Gay perspective. As you might imagine, her perspective is one of great love and concern since she has people very close to her that are living in the homosexual lifestyle. (Click here to read letter in full.)

Unquestioningly respectful, the letter informed the principals about a resource of which they might otherwise not have been aware. But the School Board issued a statement critical of Mr. Hunt, calling his letter an unauthorized, unilateral recommendation of “changes to the school system’s instructional materials and programs.” (Click here for School Board’s statement) Hunt explained that he was not trying to change curriculum and apologized to all concerned. (Click here for Hunt’s response.)

The Post editors also make fun of Hunt for remarks he made at a meeting of the School Board which they characterize as a “soliloquy about his regrets in losing his virginity before marriage” and about which they quip: “As the kids might say: Too much information.” Their use of a childish idiom is apt, for they’re acting like children: Steve Hunt’s comments were part of his remarks on abstinence education — he was, as the kids might say, just keeping in real. Their taking him out of context and trying to make him look like an oddball is nothing more than a childish prank.

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News reports on Pope Benedict’s recent statement on the environment left out significant quotes relating the Church’s “grave misgivings” of the modern environmental movement.  True, the Pope supports “efforts to promote a greater sense of ecological responsibility” — but only those that “would safeguard an authentic ‘human ecology’ and thus forcefully reaffirm the inviolability of human life at every stage and in every condition, the dignity of the person and the unique mission of the family, where one is trained in love of neighbour and respect for nature.”

For a good analysis of how the mainstream media is spinning the Pope’s World Day of Peace message — and for important quotes you won’t read elsewhere — see John-Henry Westen’s editorial in LifeSiteNews.com.

To read the Pope’s full World Day of Peace Message click here.

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A recent survey of 1,000 adults by Harris Interactive found that 76% of Americans disagree with the proposition that “viewing hardcore adult pornography on the Internet is morally acceptable” and 74% disagree that it is “harmless entertainment.”  The survey was commissioned by Morality in Media in connection with the White Ribbon Against Pornography week this week.

“There is a perception held by many that hardcore adult pornography has become acceptable in American society.  But the perception is false,” according to Robert Peters, President of Morality in Media.  This is evidence that, “what primarily fuels the market is sexual addiction, not casual viewing,” said Peters in a press release.  For full survey results and more information about WRAP week, contact Bob Peters at Morality in Media.

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According to Bob Peters of Morality in Media, our nation is facing a moral crisis, including, among other things, teen promiscuity, sexually transmitted diseases (including AIDS), abortion, illegitimacy, divorce, sexual abuse of children, rape, trafficking in women and children, on-the-job sexual harassment and lost worker productivity.  And what is fueling this crisis is the spread of hardcore pornography, on the Internet and elsewhere.

That’s why one week every October we observe White Ribbon Against Pornography week, where people display white ribbons and inform their public officials about the harms of pornography and the need to enforce our obscenity laws.

The 22^nd annual WRAP week runs Sunday, October 25 through Sunday, November 1^st, and its chief promoter is Morality in Media.  (Resources for individuals and groups can be found at www.moralityinmedia.org under “WRAP Campaign” and include information about ordering white ribbons, sample letters to Attorney General Holder and state prosecutors, and sample prayers and sermons.

If you think about it, someone is going to define the culture.  The Porn Industry and their friends at the ACLU seek an America where there are no legal limits on pornography – no limit to how graphic it may be, no limit to the people it can exploit for profit, including children.

And they’re winning, not because what they’re doing is legal, but because they’re getting away with it.  But the Supreme Court has ruled that obscenity laws can be enforced against “hardcore pornography” when a jury finds the material appeals to the prurient interest, is patently offensive, and lacks serious value.

So it doesn’t matter what the Porn Industry or the ACLU thinks.  All that matters is what a jury thinks, and that means ultimately it’s up to the American people to decide what’s illegal or not. 

But the people become disenfranchised when obscenity laws are not vigorously enforced.

Our voice is the jury verdict.  Without obscenity prosecutions there are no juries, and no juries mean no verdicts, and no verdicts mean the people have no voice.  And that leaves the Porn Industry to set the standards for the culture.

An important way to attack the moral crisis is so simple it’s deceptive:  enforcement of our already-existing obscenity laws.

We call on President Obama and Attorney General Holder give us back our voice, and to vigorously enforce this nation’s obscenity laws.

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How can anyone ignore the irony in this awful story reported in the Washington Post yesterday?

A young woman walks out into a field with a pink towel, scissors, and a plastic bag, gives birth to a daughter, cuts the umbilical cord and leaves the baby to die.

Of course she could have had an abortionist legally kill the child.

The Supreme Court case of Doe v. Bolton mandates that an abortion be legal even after viability if an abortion doctor cites emotional or “familial” reasons for the abortion.  During a post-arrest interview the woman said she had been raped, and the prosecutor said the woman got rid of the baby because she was afraid the man she was living with, whom she considered her husband, would break up with her for having another man’s child.  Plenty of legal grounds for a late-term abortion.

Assistant State’s Attorney Renee Battle-Brooks argued that whether she was impregnated because she was raped was irrelevant.  “That doesn’t make [the baby's] life any less valuable,” Battle-Brooks said. “That baby struggled for breath in that plastic bag. She was alone, she was cold and she was hungry.”

Last month a 33-year old Rhode Island woman was sentenced to 25 years for killing her newborn daughter.

The baby was found in a plastic garbage bag under a laundry appliance in the woman’s parents’ home.  Judge Robert Krause of Providence County said, “Not to impose a substantial jail sentence … would simply devalue the life of a child.”  Krause added: “No civilized society is prepared to do that and neither am I.”

My point in raising these cases is not to argue for criminal penalties for women who have abortions – no one in the pro-life movement seeks that – but to show the irony in our law, and the striking quotes from those in the legal system as they recognize and defend the humanity of the youngest of babies.  They sound so much like pro-lifers.  One day, God willing, everyone will speak this way about children, even before birth.

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It was announced this morning that President Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Reuters reports that The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised Obama for “his
extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation
between peoples.”

But this prize was apparently awarded *prospectively*, since the nomination
deadline for the prize came less than two weeks after Obama took office.

So what actions did Obama as President take before the February 1st deadline
that gave the committee such assurance of his future worthiness of the
prize?

On January 20 he called for the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act and
declared his intention to give multiple rights and privileges to homosexual
couples.

On January 22 he issued an order announcing his intention to close
Guantanamo Bay.

On January 23 he issued an order authorizing tax dollars for abortions
abroad.

As Michael Novak wrote in National Review Online at the time: “These first
steps were unworthy of a great nation and unworthy of a serious leader.”

Mother Teresa called abortion the greatest destroyer of peace.   But
according to the Nobel committee, forcing taxpayers to fund it gets you a
peace prize.

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Last week I mentioned the tragic death of a depressed young woman who drank antifreeze and presented a Living Will forbidding treatment to save here.  According to a Coroner’s Inquest this week, the doctors who let poor Keri Wooltorton, 26, die acted lawfully:

Doctors who allowed a young British woman to die in hospital after she swallowed poison and declared her intention to commit suicide acted lawfully, according to the findings of an inquest this week. Under the provisions of the Mental Capacity Act 2005, the coroner’s inquest ruled that doctors had no choice but to allow the woman to die after she had written a letter saying she did not want to be saved.

Read the full story here.

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Read this story of a poor young woman, just 26 years old, who was depressed about not being able to have a child.  She’s now dead, thanks to her Living Will which forbade emergency medical treatment to save her life after she swallowed antifreeze.

Whether the doctors were actually forbidden from saving her life or not, I don’t know – mightn’t her depression have impacted her competency to refuse live-saving treatment? — but they believed they were and the result is now irrevocable.

The story calls this the first case of a Living Will used to commit suicide.  How can we know this?   Perhaps it’s only the first obvious case.

The point here:  these are powerful legal documents, and Congress is poised to create a government-run health care system which will pay doctors to encourage patients to execute them.  Think of the perils.  People who are sick or in pain are inherently vulnerable.  They are also often depressed.  It would not take much to persuade them to sign away their right to future care.  Remember, the Hemlock Society drafted this section of the heatlh care bill.  I wonder what they think of the death of poor Kerrie Woolterton.

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The state of morality on the American college campus seems to be in perpetual decline, and I have shuddered to think about what it will be like in a dozen years when my own daughters will be getting ready for college.  But from a liberal college in a liberal state comes a small ray of hope.  Tufts University has revised its “guest policy” for dorm visitors for the new school year to include the following new rule:  “You may not engage in sexual activity while your roommate is present in the room.”

Shouldn’t this be obvious?  Word from my friends with kids in college is that, shockingly, it’s not.  Nor is it a problem unique to Tufts.

So a tip of the hat to the Tufts’ administration for having the courage to draw a line.  And if Tufts can do it, any school can.

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