Blackbird singing in the dead of night Take these broken wings and learn to fly
- The Beatles

About Alexa
Alexa lives in the far east with her son Tyler and their cat Brownie. She can be reached via email here


In Memoriam
For Smelly and Fish

iTunes

Inspired By

Bulletin Board




Are you pregnant? Make an informed choice!




Abortion Counter from www.1way2God.net

Tell-all Archives

Pregnancy Resources

Single Parenting

Adoption

Pro-choice Resources

Abortion Library

Recovery and Healing

Other Pro-life Resources

Activism

Reads

Pro-life Bloggers

Euthanasia

Credits
Design: Blogfrocks
Photo: iStockPhoto
Powered by Blogger

 
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
 



Alexa swing by at 4:52 PM

 
Stanek: Hush little fetus..

Jill Stanek on the evolution of human development research.


Alexa swing by at 4:46 PM

 
A question of...

No respect


The Raving Atheist guest-blogs.


Alexa swing by at 4:42 PM

 
Planned Parenthood's Teenwire website offers a feature article touting "open adoption," an arrangement in which birth mothers select and interact with the adoptive parents of their babies. The article tells the story of a California teen who says she considered abortion - but realized it was the wrong choice for her. She chose adoption instead. An editor's note at the end of the article says fewer pregnant teens are choosing adoption today - but, it adds, "Adoption is a good choice for many, especially as open adoptions... become more popular." The note explains that most adoption agencies now offer this option, and it lists the telephone number of the Independent Adoption Center.


Alexa swing by at 3:14 PM

 
The myths of motherhood...


Alexa swing by at 3:04 PM

 
4-year-old stomped to death


Alexa swing by at 2:36 PM

 
Texas Abortion Parental Consent law to take effect September 1, new law could see abortion butchers charged with capital crime


Alexa swing by at 2:23 PM

 
On Good Friday this year, 10-year-old Joshua Heldreth was arrested for attempting to bring a glass of water to the late Terri Schindler. His picture adorned the front pages of several newspapers nationwide, and the picture clearly shows him being handcuffed by the Pinellas County Police officers, loaded into a paddy wagon, and taken to jail. Joshua was represented in court by the attorneys at the American Family Association. Joshua pleaded out and was sentenced to 25 hours of community service and commanded to write an apology for his actions.

Here is his handwritten apology:

Excerpts:

Not giving Mrs Schiavo food or water was wrong. The reason I had to go on your property was because Jesus would do the same thing. It made me sad that she was so thirsty and it made Jesus sad too. I knew she would die without water and I am called by Jesus to be a defender of the defenseless. So I had to go on your property to try to bring her a drink.

I am sorry you didn't like that and wouldn't allow me to help her when I came on your property. I am also sorry you didn't help save her life and one day you will have to tell God why. I won't be able to help you then like I tried to help her.



This is Joshua when he was arrested back then..



Dad: "He was the one who begged us to go down, because he wanted to give her a glass of water... We explained that police will never let you help... you'll be arrested, but he went anyways."

God bless you, Joshua Heldreth.. God bless you!


Hat tip: Annie


Alexa swing by at 1:10 PM

Tuesday, August 30, 2005
 
Wanna see more Britney?




Alexa swing by at 11:33 AM

 
Now they are calling him "woman-hater"...

Alternative link


Alexa swing by at 11:28 AM

 
Retired Sen. Jesse Helms compares abortion to Holocaust and Sept 11 attacks
"I will never be silent about the death of those who cannot speak for themselves," the former senator wrote in "Here's Where I Stand," which is scheduled for release Tuesday.

The North Carolina Republican, known as "Senator No" for his consistent efforts to block what he considered liberal initiatives and unqualified foreign policy appointees, makes clear his views on abortion and other issues have hardly moderated since he left office in 2003.

He repeatedly introduced bills seeking to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion and, in his book he defends his criticized comparisons of abortion and the Holocaust.

"I reject that criticism because this is indeed another kind of holocaust, by another name," he wrote. "At last count, more than 40 million unborn children have been deliberately, intentionally destroyed. What word adequately defines the scope of such slaughter?"

Helms, 83, writes that when 3,000 people died on Sept. 11, 2001, "the American people responded with shock, sadness and a deep and righteous anger - and rightly so.

"Yet let us not forget that every passing day in our country, more than three thousand innocent Americans are killed" through abortion.

Alexa swing by at 8:53 AM

 
Alexa swing by at 8:49 AM

 
14-year-old girl in teen wife rape case gives birth.


Alexa swing by at 8:40 AM

 
Heads-up: Hurricane Katrina

Folks, here's how you can help victims of Hurricane Katrina:

Scroll down this page for links and information on where and how to donate, volunteer or learn more about it.

This page has video updates.


Bloomberg reports:
Hurricane Katrina weakened as it moved across Mississippi after pummeling the Louisiana coast with winds as high as 140 mph. New Orleans was spared a direct hit.

The center of Katrina, a Category 1 storm with winds of 95 mph, was about 20 miles (32 kilometers) west-southwest of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, moving to the north at about 18 mph (29 kph), according to the National Hurricane Center at 2 p.m. local time. The storm, which pushed oil prices to a record, knocked out power to hundreds of thousands along the Gulf Coast.

Katrina is moving through southern Mississippi on a northeastern path that will bring the storm into Tennessee by tomorrow morning. The storm's surge has caused flooding, trapped people in buildings and caused an unspecified amount of damage, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour said today.

"It came in on Mississippi like a ton of bricks,'' Barbour, a Republican, said at a press conference. "It's a terrible storm."

An earlier projected path had Katrina directly striking New Orleans, some of which lies 20 feet below sea level. Officials and area residents -- millions of whom fled for higher ground -- had been concerned the storm would cause flooding that would overwhelm the city's system of levees and pumps. Katrina lashed the city with winds as high as 135 mph.

"It looks like a war zone, with tree branches down everywhere,'' John Hazard, 44, said today from the uptown New Orleans home of his brother-in-law Bill Hines. Looking out on Audubon Boulevard, he said, "garbage cans are floating in 3 feet of water. The wind is howling and the trees are dancing like crazy.''

President Bush Declares Louisiana, Mississippi Disaster Areas


Alexa swing by at 8:13 AM

Monday, August 29, 2005
 
Abortion: America's holocaust
Many women have been brainwashed into thinking that abortion is socially acceptable and that their unborn child is not a living human being.

Children, women and families are truly victimized by the abortion mills.

Our culture tells women that it is not the right time to have a child, they are to young, they can't afford it or it might interfere with their plans. Relative to the human suffering and loss this is a cultural lie. It is a profound mistake that a woman will never get over her entire life. Abortion doesn't solve any problems but rather increases the exploitation, pain and suffering of women. It fails to benefit the physical, emotional and social well being of women. Women aren't better off they are worse off. It makes it easier for husbands and boyfriends to leave their wives and girlfriends. Women who have had abortions have a history of significantly more health problems, many of which are very serious. These women are many times confused and frightened, and there is little point in pointing an accusatory finger towards them. These women are the losers. Their child will never live in this world. It is the people gaining monetarily who work in the abortion office and the clinic itself who benefit.

Alexa swing by at 3:49 PM

 
Warning: Graphic contents

That fetus-bird sculpture


Alexa swing by at 3:42 PM

 
Brits: Abortion limit must be cut to 20 weeks

A new poll revealed that 58% said abortions should not be carried out after the 20th week of pregnancy, with women more likely than men to favour tighter controls. Only 27% of those polled believed that the current 24-week legal limit for termination should be retained.


Alexa swing by at 3:29 PM

 
It's been weeks since my last latte, and really, I'm having a major craving for my Starbucks' Irish cream latte right now. Hmph. Not looking too good, are we? I'm a bad, bad boycott-er I know, I hate how I'm even craving for it, but I'm telling ya, I'm NOT GIVING IN, you hear? Now, having said that... I'll move on to .. Spinelle. Or Cartel. Or Coffee Club. There are dozens of coffee places out there, so... who needs Starbucks? *whimper whimper*

So now that mom's divorce is final, we have barely six months to dispose off the matrimonial home. Pity about that, because mom really loves the house. Super Munchkin Boy, his faithful familiars (one Smelly fur-ball and one fishy Fish) and I will be moving in with her to a new place in a couple of months. It's gonna be fun I think. Thing is, we are still looking for that prefect new place (scroll down for my sticky post).


Alexa swing by at 1:41 PM

Sunday, August 28, 2005
 
Consider
a girl who keeps slipping off,
arms limp as old carrots,
into the hypnotist's trance,
into a spirit world
speaking with the gift of tongues.
She is stuck in the time machine,
suddenly two years old sucking her thumb,
as inward as a snail,
learning to talk again.
She's on a voyage.
She is swimming further and further back,
up like a salmon,
struggling into her mother's pocketbook.
Little doll child,
come here to Papa.
Sit on my knee.
I have kisses for the back of your neck.
A penny for your thoughts, Princess.
I will hunt them like an emerald.
Come be my snooky
and I will give you a root.
That kind of voyage,
rank as a honeysuckle.

Once
a king had a christening
for his daughter Briar Rose
and because he had only twelve gold plates
he asked only twelve fairies
to the grand event.
The thirteenth fairy,
her fingers as long and thing as straws,
her eyes burnt by cigarettes,
her uterus an empty teacup,
arrived with an evil gift.
She made this prophecy:
The princess shall prick herself
on a spinning wheel in her fifteenth year
and then fall down dead.
Kaputt!
The court fell silent.
The king looked like Munch's Scream
Fairies' prophecies,
in times like those,
held water.
However the twelfth fairy
had a certain kind of eraser
and thus she mitigated the curse
changing that death
into a hundred-year sleep.

The king ordered every spinning wheel
exterminated and exorcised.
Briar Rose grew to be a goddess
and each night the king
bit the hem of her gown
to keep her safe.
He fastened the moon up
with a safety pin
to give her perpetual light
He forced every male in the court
to scour his tongue with Bab-o
lest they poison the air she dwelt in.
Thus she dwelt in his odor.
Rank as honeysuckle.

On her fifteenth birthday
she pricked her finger
on a charred spinning wheel
and the clocks stopped.
Yes indeed. She went to sleep.
The king and queen went to sleep,
the courtiers, the flies on the wall.
The fire in the hearth grew still
and the roast meat stopped crackling.
The trees turned into metal
and the dog became china.
They all lay in a trance,
each a catatonic
stuck in a time machine.
Even the frogs were zombies.
Only a bunch of briar roses grew
forming a great wall of tacks
around the castle.
Many princes
tried to get through the brambles
for they had heard much of Briar Rose
but they had not scoured their tongues
so they were held by the thorns
and thus were crucified.
In due time
a hundred years passed
and a prince got through.
The briars parted as if for Moses
and the prince found the tableau intact.
He kissed Briar Rose
and she woke up crying:
Daddy! Daddy!
Presto! She's out of prison!
She married the prince
and all went well
except for the fear --
the fear of sleep.

Briar Rose
was an insomniac...
She could not nap
or lie in sleep
without the court chemist
mixing her some knock-out drops
and never in the prince's presence.
If if is to come, she said,
sleep must take me unawares
while I am laughing or dancing
so that I do not know that brutal place
where I lie down with cattle prods,
the hole in my cheek open.
Further, I must not dream
for when I do I see the table set
and a faltering crone at my place,
her eyes burnt by cigarettes
as she eats betrayal like a slice of meat.

I must not sleep
for while I'm asleep I'm ninety
and think I'm dying.
Death rattles in my throat
like a marble.
I wear tubes like earrings.
I lie as still as a bar of iron.
You can stick a needle
through my kneecap and I won't flinch.
I'm all shot up with Novocain.
This trance girl
is yours to do with.
You could lay her in a grave,
an awful package,
and shovel dirt on her face
and she'd never call back: Hello there!
But if you kissed her on the mouth
her eyes would spring open
and she'd call out: Daddy! Daddy!
Presto!
She's out of prison.

There was a theft.
That much I am told.
I was abandoned.
That much I know.
I was forced backward.
I was forced forward.
I was passed hand to hand
like a bowl of fruit.
Each night I am nailed into place
and forget who I am.
Daddy?
That's another kind of prison.
It's not the prince at all,
but my father
drunkeningly bends over my bed,
circling the abyss like a shark,
my father thick upon me
like some sleeping jellyfish.
What voyage is this, little girl?
This coming out of prison?
God help --
this life after death?

- Anne Sexton, "Briar Rose"


Alexa swing by at 3:09 PM

 
A blind human-rights activist is suing the Chinese government over forced sterilizations, forced abortions, and other human-rights violations related to China's population-control policies:
It might appear a quixotic crusade -- a blind peasant with limited legal training taking on the Communist Party's one-child policy, which has long been considered a pillar of the nation's economic development strategy and off-limits to public debate. But the Linyi case marks a legal milestone in challenging the coercive measures used for decades to limit population growth in China.

While there have been scattered cases of individuals suing family planning officials, legal scholars say the Linyi farmers appear to be the first to band together and challenge the state's power to compel people to undergo sterilization or abort a pregnancy since the enactment of a 2002 law guaranteeing citizens an "informed choice" in such matters.

"The population and family planning law affects everyone's individual rights, so a case like this is an important test," said Zhan Zhongle, a law professor at Beijing University who helped draft the legislation. "By suing the government, the Linyi peasants are merely asserting their legal rights. Whether the courts accept the case, and how they handle it, will be a test of China's justice system and of whether China can govern according to law."
[...]

On a recent visit to Maxiagou village, in another rural part of Linyi, he interviewed Feng Zhongxia, 36. She recounted that she was seven months pregnant and on the run when she learned that local officials had detained more than a dozen of her relatives and wouldn't release them unless she returned for an abortion.

"My aunts, uncles, cousins, my pregnant younger sister, my in-laws, they were all taken to the family planning office," she said. "Many of them didn't get food or water, and all of them were severely beaten." Some of the relatives were allowed to call her, and they pleaded with her to come home.

Feng called the family planning officials. "They told me they would peel the skin off my relatives and I would only see their corpses if I didn't come back," she said. The next day, she turned herself in. A doctor examined her, then stuck a needle into her uterus. About 24 hours later, she delivered the dead fetus. "It was a small life," she said quietly.

Afterward, she said, the family planning workers insisted on sterilizing her, too. "I'm a human being. How can they treat me like that?"

Hat tip: Fr. Tucker


Alexa swing by at 12:53 PM

 
He's always shine shine shine
For the strangers he meets
Shine shine shine and quick on his feet
When he came along in a week gone
Down to bad bad Florida as long as it's hot
Bad Florida as long as it's hot

It went cold down in Florida but he was frozen with time
She was a hurricane that broke every night
First he was wrong and then he was gone
Bad Florida it's as long as it's hot
Bad Florida as long as it's hot


Alexa swing by at 12:32 PM

Saturday, August 27, 2005
 
Duh Cindy...


Alexa swing by at 6:00 PM

 
See how wonderful she is?

Here's another video of Baby Charlotte

Pray, spread the word.. help Baby Charlotte live.


Alexa swing by at 5:54 PM

 
Here's more proof that the "clump of cells" isn't just.. a "clump of cells"...

New study reveals babies cry in the womb

A new study has revealed that unborn babies cry within the womb. Ultrasound videos taken of infants within the womb revealed 28-week-old babies crying in response to a noise stimulus.

Scientists played a 90-decibel noise to the unborn child, roughly the equivalent of a tummy rumbling, and recorded the effect the noise had via ultrasound. "It was strikingly like an infant crying," said New Zealand pediatrician Ed Mitchell, who contributed to the US study, according to New Zealand's The Age. "Even the bottom lip quivers."

(You can see the awesome ultrasound video here)

The findings, published in the journal, Archives of Disease in Childhood - Fetal and Neonatal Edition, reinforce the fact that babies experience pain and discomfort well before many abortionists claim. "We actually still do things to babies without anaesthesia," professor Mitchell added. "Maybe this is a wake-up call to obstetricians and neonatologists."

Commenting recently on the issue of fetal pain, Dr. Paul Ranalli, professor of neurology at the University of Toronto, said: "Across the nation, Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) are full of bravely struggling preemies ...The only difference between a child in the womb at this stage, or one born and cared for in an incubator, is how they receive oxygen -- either through the umbilical cord or through the lungs. There is no difference in their nervous systems."


Alexa swing by at 5:51 PM

 
A family meanwhile, loses their court fight yesterday to overturn a decision by doctors to withdraw life support systems from their critically-ill father.

The Muslim family believe doctors should do everything in their power to maintain the life of their 86-year-old father, saying any withdrawal of life support would be "tantamount to murder".

The patient fought for Britain in the Second World War and was described by his family as a "strong, active man" until he had a heart attack in July. His health rapidly deteriorated after catching MRSA and he is now being kept alive by life support systems and regular life-saving operations.

The NHS trust that runs the hospital where he is being treated believes he has no chance of getting better and wants the right to withdraw life support.

Mr Justice Kirkwood, sitting at the High Court in London, ruled that doctors could withdraw medical care.

He said the family's beliefs were outweighed by the overwhelming consensus from the other doctors who had dealt with their father, and he granted the NHS trust the declarations they sought, enabling them to withdraw intensive care support.


Alexa swing by at 5:45 PM

 
Sen. Sam Brownback, sponsor of the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act says fetal pain-abortion study flawed, defends bill

The new study claims unborn children don't feel pain until 28 weeks into the pregnancy, but Brownback says that's inaccurate and that it "flies against practical sense."

"They're saying 28 weeks. But you have premature babies delivered at 23 and 24 weeks and you wouldn't dream of doing surgery on them without anesthesia," Brownback told the Topeka Capital Journal newspaper.

Brownback also said the study was biased because it was conducted by abortion advocates, including a woman who is a late-term abortion practitioner in San Francisco.

"I don't trust just one study, particularly given the source of the authors of this study," Brownback added.


Alexa swing by at 5:24 PM

 
Two weeks after pulling out its ad, NARAL is back with another ad blasting John Roberts, this time focusing on rights to privacy...




Alexa swing by at 5:09 PM

 
There was an old woman crying in her own front yard
She was on her knees and praying to the night rush hour
Nobody knew what to do or what to say
The traffic lights changed and we just drove away


Alexa swing by at 4:17 PM

Friday, August 26, 2005
 
When the evening turns to twilight
And the stars light up the sky,
In a quiet room with candles lit
Exist my love and I.
The shadows hide the corners
As the shadows hide his eyes,
And the energy between us
Is alive with love and lies.

I am beautiful, he'll tell me
With his hands upon my body
And his mouth in constant contact
While my mind is soaring high.
I am suffering from romance,
I beseech him to stay with me,
He must live with me forever...
But I know it's all a lie.

There's a thousand rooms like this
Where lovers go to dream and kiss,
Being driven mad with romance in their heart;
Sipping rare imported wines
Reciting all their favorite lines,
Vowing never to allow their lives to part.

He and I, of course, are different
Gazing in each other's eyes -
We are sworn forever faithful
Not to tell each other lies.
When he goes home in the morning
I will never doubt his trust;
There is Christmas in this moment
And the world is only us.

- Julia Cecelia Smith, "Love & Lies"


Alexa swing by at 1:44 PM

 
Alexa swing by at 1:28 PM

 
Schiavo tangled web extends to St. Petersburg College...

The Empire Journal has more.


Alexa swing by at 1:13 PM

 
Another update on Baby Charlotte...

"Darren and Debbie Wyatt went to the Appeals court again today. They were, once again, turned down. They will go back to Mr. Justice Hedley again in October. "


Prayers for Baby Charlotte and the Wyatts.

To learn more about the Charlotte Wyatt case, please visit SaveCharlotte.


(Thanks, Joshua)


Baby Charlotte's parents loses laltest appeal


Alexa swing by at 1:10 PM

 
Man killed former lover over abortion

A man shot his former lover dead in cold blood as revenge for her aborting their baby on his birthday, a Supreme Court jury was told yesterday.

Crown prosecutor Douglas Trapnell told the jury of nine men and three women that Pisey Prasoeur, 23, of Chadstone, shot Aneta Pochopien, 32, as she sat in her parked car outside her home after finishing work at 5.30am on April 14 last year.

Mrs Pochopien and Prasoeur worked night shifts at a factory and started a sexual relationship in May 2003. She fell pregnant to Prasoeur four months later, the jury was told.

Mr Trapnell said Mrs Pochopien told her husband, Peter, of the affair and a decision was made for her to have an abortion. On September 19, 2003 - Prasoeur's 23rd birthday - Mrs Pochopien sent him a text message telling him that she had undergone the procedure.

"He (Prasoeur) was devastated at the time because he didn't believe in abortion," Mr Trapnell said.


Alexa swing by at 12:58 PM

 
IVF mothers more prone to postpartum depression and early parenting difficulties, study says

Australian researchers have revealed that women who conceive through in-vitro fertilization are four times more likely to suffer from post-partum depression and early parenting difficulties as compared to women who conceive naturally.

Publishing their findings in the latest issue of the journal Fertility and Sterility, the authors wrote, "These data would suggest that obstetricians, pediatricians, and other clinicians caring for pregnant women and mothers and infants after childbirth should be conscious that a previous history of fertility difficulties, advanced maternal age, assisted conception, operative delivery, and multiple birth may heighten the risk for postpartum mood disturbance and early parenting difficulties."


Alexa swing by at 12:56 PM

 
65 girls at area achool pregnant

There are 490 female students at Timken High School, and 65 are pregnant, according to a recent report in the Canton Repository.

School officials are not sure what has contributed to so many pregnancies, but in response to them, the school is launching a three-prong educational program to address pregnancy, prevention and parenting.

The newspaper also reported that students will face mounting tensions created by unplanned child-rearing responsibilities, causing students to quit school and plan for a GED. This will make it difficult for the Canton City School District to shake its academic watch designation by the state.

According to the Canton Health Department, statistics through July show that 104 of the 586 babies born to Canton residents in Aultman Hospital and Mercy Medical Center had mothers between 11 and 19.


Alexa swing by at 12:51 PM

 
Apparently the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) which publishes the controversial study that unborn children don't feel pain from abortions until late in pregnancy was "unaware" that it was written by abortion advocates...


Alexa swing by at 12:36 PM

 
In France, fishermen reportedly uses live puppies and kittens as shark baits, Bridget Bardot intervenes..


Alexa swing by at 12:26 PM

 
More abortions than birth in Russia, officials say


Alexa swing by at 12:26 PM

Thursday, August 25, 2005
 
Woozy, woozy, woozy still. It's half past three in the pm. Somebody slap me, pour a bucket of water over me, wake me up. I need to clean the house, feed the munchkins, walk the smellies, cook a meal or two. But I'm too woozy to do anything. Too woozy to post. Too woozy, too woozy...


Alexa swing by at 3:42 PM

 
Alexa swing by at 3:03 PM

 
Preemie's mom shot to death, state seeks DNR order

A baby girl born minutes after her mother was shot to death has tested positive for three types of narcotics, is suffering from brain injuries and is on life support, according to state lawyers.

The lawyers, speaking in a child-welfare hearing Tuesday, asked for a "do not resuscitate" order for the girl, whom medical staff reportedly call "Janie".

Third District Judge Elizabeth Lindsley said she would have to review Janie's medical status before ruling on the state's request and asked the lawyers for a formal written motion.

Janie remained in critical condition at LDS Hospital on Tuesday. Her mother, 30-year-old Darla M. Woundedhead, who, according to court records, had two other children born with drugs in their system, died early Thursday from a shotgun blast to the chest and upper abdomen.

Police say Woundedhead, who was seven months pregnant, was in Room 26 of the Dream Inn, 1865 W. North Temple in Salt Lake City, when she answered a knock at the door. Someone fired a shotgun through the doorway, striking Woundedhead.

Police say drugs and drug paraphernalia were in the motel room and drugs might have been a factor in the shooting. Officers on Friday arrested Kerri Armant, 32, in connection with the shooting, but they don't know if she was the shooter and are still seeking three unidentified men who fled with her. Armant, who has not been formally charged, remained in the Salt Lake County jail on Tuesday.

After Woundedhead died, physicians at LDS Hospital performed a Caesarean section to deliver her baby.

On Tuesday, Lindsley awarded the Utah Division of Child and Family Services temporary custody of Janie. In that hearing in West Jordan, DCFS for the first time disclosed details of the girl's medical condition.

Janie tested positive for cocaine, opiates and barbiturates, said Assistant Utah Attorney General Annette T. Jan. The girl has a severe brain hemorrhage, suffers from seizures, is not responding to pain stimuli and is on life support, Jan added.

After the hearing, DCFS Deputy Director Duane Betournay said Janie is sedated and on a respirator. Doctors don't know whether she has brain activity, Betournay said. He added his office is gathering more medical information about Janie before filing a motion formally asking Lindsley to issue the nonresuscitation order.


Alexa swing by at 2:21 PM

 
Michael J. New: Don't look too hard for accuracy in abortion coverage

"Abortion, as we all know, is one of the most scrutinized issues in American politics. The mainstream media is always eager to detail the positions of various candidates, document platform fights, and analyze the views of prospective Supreme Court nominees. However, despite this, the media have only granted scant coverage to the consistent decline in the abortion rate since the early 1990s. Even worse, the only occasions when the media has used, or in some cases misused, these numbers is to advance liberal political objectives."


Alexa swing by at 2:18 PM

 
Hannah has an update on Baby Charlotte and...

a video footage!


(Thanks, Hannah!)


Alexa swing by at 1:43 PM

 
Unborn don't feel pain? Hello?

A new report from researchers at the University of California says unborn children do not likely feel the pain of abortions during the earlier parts of a woman's pregnancy. The findings are coming under fire from doctors who specialize in fetal development and they say it's off the mark.



The UC report, which appears in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association, says unborn children likely do not feel any pain, including that of an abortion, until 28 weeks into pregnancy.

The report, intended to undercut support for Congressional and state-level legislation requiring abortion doctors to inform women considering an abortion of the pain babies will feel, says offering women anesthesia for the baby is misguided.


Authors of Disputed Fetal Pain Study Work for Abortion Group

ALL says study 'misses the point'


Meghan Cox Gurdon at NRO:
Just had a sonogram, myself, today, and almost wept at the sweetness of the sight of daughter #4 SUCKING HER THUMB. Had heard this happens but have never seen it. Also she was yawning. Admittedly, she's not at the coarse, unfeeling age of 20 weeks; she's 34 weeks, so clearly she's MUCH more evolved, yet still, naturally, not quite human enough for pro-choicers to think worth saving...

Alexa swing by at 1:23 PM

 
Alexa swing by at 12:56 PM

 
Remembering Alan...

So what do you know? It's been a year since Alan left. My dear, sweet Alan. Somehow it felt like he's been gone forever. Time is like a monster that you cannot wrestle with. It moves like a snail, ever so slowly.. or like a gazelle that you cannot catch your breath. I miss him, I miss him everyday.

Rest in peace, my love, rest in peace. You are in my thoughts and in my prayers.. always.


Alexa swing by at 12:39 PM

Wednesday, August 24, 2005
 
Nothing seems to be the way
That it used to
Everything seems shallow
God give me truth
In me
And tell me somebody's watching
Over me
And that is all I'm praying is that

Someday I will understand
In God's whole plan
And what He's done to me
Oh but maybe someday I will breathe
And I'll finally see
I'll see it all in my baby

Don't you run too fast my dear
Why don't you stop?
Just stop and listen to your tears
They're all you've got
It's in you
You see somebody's watching
Over you
And that is all I'm praying is that

Someday you will understand
In God's whole plan
And what He does to you
Oh but maybe someday you will breathe
And you'll finally see
You'll see it all in your baby
You'll see it all in your baby

No moment will be more true
Than the moment I look at you
It's in you
You see somebody's watching
Over you
And that is all i'm praying is that

Someday you will understand
In God's whole plan
And what He does to you
Oh but maybe someday you will breathe
And you'll finally see
You'll see it all in your baby
You'll see it all in your baby
You'll see it all in your baby
You'll see it all in your baby


Alexa swing by at 10:28 PM

Tuesday, August 23, 2005
 
A good man is hard to find,
You always get the other kind.
Just when you think he is your pal,
You look for him and find him fooling 'round some other gal.
Then you rave, you even crave to see him laying in his grave.

- Eddie Green (1918)


Alexa swing by at 5:31 PM

 
Alexa swing by at 4:49 PM

 
Mark your calendars, folks..

October 3 is ALL's Pro life Memorial Day




Alexa swing by at 4:43 PM

 
A new poll by irishhealth.com finds that half of those polled think that abortion should be legalised in Ireland. Of those who answered, just over half - 53% - said yes, it should. Almost four in 10 people - 38% - said no, abortion should not be legalised, while a further 9% were unsure on the issue.


Alexa swing by at 3:18 PM

 
FDA toughten rules for use of Accutane, acne drug users must report on birth control

Accutane is a powerful solution for chronic acne, but it also causes severe birth defects in infants exposed to it during pregnancy. While previous regulations required girls and women taking Accutane to also use two forms of birth control, pregnancies still occur - which has led to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to announce even stricter rules.

Today, the FDA will open a new computerized national registry that every patient, doctor and pharmacy taking, prescribing or dispensing Accutane will have to join by Oct. 31. Each month, women will be required to enter, by phone or Internet, their two contraceptives.

The new program, called iPLEDGE, also requires all patients to sign a document stating they are aware of the risks of Accutane and generic isotretinoin, including the possibility it may cause depression or suicidal thoughts.


Alexa swing by at 3:13 PM

 
UK hospital fights to retain DNR order despite Charlotte Wyatt's improvement

Never mind that Baby Charlotte is getting better each day, the Portsmouth Hospital Trustees went to court anyway to make sure that when Charlotte had a breathing crisis she would not be ventilated, as her parents desperately wished, on the grounds that her life was overly burdensome and should not be prolonged. This despite their statement that her improvement has been 'remarkable'.

On January 28 this year, the judge sided with the hospital but Charlotte, now nearly two years old, continues to fight for her life.


Let's continue to pray for Baby Charlotte and the Wyatts. You can also make a donation by following the link to SaveCharlotte.


Alexa swing by at 1:55 PM

 
This girl is just brilliant.


Alexa swing by at 1:52 PM

 
The Washington Examiner slams PP's "Superhero for Choice" (scroll down or Click here to find the video):
Apparently, the lesson to be learned is that abortions are OK, especially if it means less welfare payments later. The animation ends on the high note of referring to the Rev. Jerry Falwell as a "schmuck."

The video is a shameful and disrespectful take on the very sensitive issue of abortion and reproductive rights, where good, reasonable people disagree for good and reasonable reasons. By taking the low road and appealing to the lowest - and juvenile - common denominator, Planned Parenthood demeans its opponents and, even more, its supporters.

Hat tip: Dawn Eden


Alexa swing by at 1:44 PM

Monday, August 22, 2005
 
Bill Maher, abortion... and Larry King


Transcripts of Bill Maher's interview on Larry King Live


Alexa swing by at 3:51 PM

 
Alexa swing by at 3:44 PM

 
Bill Maher on stem cells..
you know, to take it to the degree of stem cell research, stem cells which, I don't know if people are aware, are not even cells. They're things that become cells. And we know how small a cell is. And for these people once again, once again, the idea of no doubt. They have this certitude that life begins when the sperm hits the ovum.

I mean, the man is not even lit the cigarette. And there is a third person in the room, Larry. He hasn't even gotten up to get the towel. The woman doesn't even have to say, what are you thinking? And there is already three people in that room. That's a little ridiculous.

Alexa swing by at 3:18 PM

 
Skin cells converted to stem cells, Scientists 'reprogram' matter without using new human embryos

Scientists for the first time have turned ordinary skin cells into what appear to be embryonic stem cells -- without having to use human eggs or make new human embryos in the process, as has always been required in the past, a Harvard research team announced yesterday.

The technique uses laboratory-grown human embryonic stem cells -- such as the ones that President Bush has already approved for use by federally funded researchers -- to "reprogram" the genes in a person's skin cell, turning that skin cell into an embryonic stem cell itself.

The approach -- details of which are to be published this week in the journal Science but were made public on the journal's Web site yesterday -- is still in an early stage of development. But if further studies confirm its usefulness, it could offer an end run around the heated social and religious debate that has for years overshadowed the field of human embryonic stem cell research.


Alexa swing by at 1:38 PM

 
Annie blogged about the disturbing trend on violence against and the killing of pregnant women here:
If we have laws that it's ok to kill a baby in the womb, it isn't too far a leap to some men thinking that because a woman has a legal right to kill that baby in utero, they ought to, and therefore must take full advantage of that right. When women don't, it upsets the men's apple carts. It takes away their supposed birthright to free, unfettered sex and fun living and how dare she decide to take that away from him? She doesn't have that right!

We've taught men that it's ok to kill the baby in the womb: a helpless, defenseless, insignificant, disposable obstacle to fun-fun-fun, and something that can be easily replaced with another at a later time if so desired. When they view their women as this very same kind of "entity," is it any wonder they feel it's ok to kill the baby and the woman, in one fell swoop?

There's a good discussion on the issue here as well.. so go read.


Alexa swing by at 1:17 PM

Sunday, August 21, 2005
 
Apparently the ACLU, now defending a woman who was accused of endangering her unborn child by using cocaine while she was pregnant, think the drug-using mom is innocent since.. well, the baby isn't a person...

Kelly Cruz, 30, was found guilty of a reckless endangerment charge Aug. 5 after waiving her right to a jury trial. She was ordered to serve 2 1/2 years in prison. Cruz was charged in February, about a month after giving birth to a premature baby boy who tested positive for cocaine.
Defense attorneys had sought an acquittal, arguing there was never a risk of harm to another person -- because a fetus doesn't meet the definition of a person under state law. But a Talbot County judge ruled that the person who suffered the risk was the baby after it was born.

Alexa swing by at 8:17 PM

 
Judge Roberts vs ...
I have five daughters, and I didn't want them ever to be in the position of having an unwanted pregnancy with nowhere to turn. When my hospital formed an abortion approval committee, I voted yes in every instance. I didn't feel guilty, because I knew how wrong the law was.

Many women outside of that hospital had no choice but to risk their lives and health. These women were desperate. They used coat hangers. They used knitting needles. It was a horrible, unnecessary, pervasive problem for physicians. We were powerless.

Those are the stakes with this Supreme Court nomination: not just individual rights and freedoms, but also public health. A Supreme Court justice who opposes legal abortion is a threat to the health and lives of women nationwide.

If Roe v. Wade is overturned or gutted, as Judge Roberts has advocated, the consequences would look different than they did decades ago - but women would still suffer. Already, women in Pennsylvania and other states suffer at the hands of laws that restrict access to abortion and delay medical treatment.

Voices of Choice


Alexa swing by at 8:13 PM

 
The dirt on the "Guardian of the Year"...

It appears now that Michael Schiavo may have made a false swearing when he filed his application for guardianship of his wife, Terri, in 1990. The Empire Journal has more.


Alexa swing by at 7:47 PM

 
Alexa swing by at 7:45 PM

 
Remains of missing pregnant woman found, ex-boyfriend arrested

The remains of 24-year-old LaToyia Figueroa and her unborn child were recovered in a grassy, partially wooded lot in Chester, 13 miles from Philadelphia. A few dozen members of the Figueroa family and supporters arrived at the scene shortly after daybreak, clustering close to the police tape and embracing each other. Stephen Pouche, the father of Figueroa's unborn child has been arrested and charged with murder, police say.


Alexa swing by at 7:34 PM

Saturday, August 20, 2005
 



Alexa swing by at 6:58 PM

 
A neo-feminist's view of abstinence

"I am not an ultraconservative who is cohabitating with a houseful of cats and TiVo'ing Lifetime movies. I'm a middle-of-the-road 32-year-old who likes tattoos and loud music. And yes, I am cute (I've been told by friends and strangers alike). So you can put aside the notion that I'm bitter about not being offered the chance to have sex.

What I am is a neo-feminist. Definition: "One who respects her body so much that she won't allow it to be used as someone's playground.""


Alexa swing by at 6:35 PM

 
Here's why the morning after pill should not be available over-the-counter.


Hat tip: Stanek


Alexa swing by at 5:32 PM

 
Alexa swing by at 5:10 PM

 
Kansas Attorney General Phil Kline meanwhile wants to stop tax-funded abortions and has filed a lawsuit against pro-abortion Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to obtain a court order preventing the state from paying for abortions through its Medicaid program for poor residents. Kline's lawsuit says spending taxpayers' money on abortions violates the state Constitution and its protection of "inalienable natural rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."


See Kansas abortion stats here.


Alexa swing by at 4:50 PM

 
In what was said to be the first of its kind, a pediatric surgeon in Texas performed a surgery to remove a tumor on an unborn child that saved the baby's life.


Alexa swing by at 4:47 PM

Friday, August 19, 2005
 
Somebody already broke my heart

- Sade


Alexa swing by at 5:26 PM

 
JivinJ links to Marie Stopes' study of late term abortions between 19-24 weeks gestation in the United Kingdom and the women who have them. Their findings indicate that the majority of women they surveyed had abortions later in pregnancy because they didn't recognize the signs and symptoms of pregnancy. A small minority of women were aware of their pregnancy early on but they didn't have an abortion earlier on because of either denial or a change in their circumstances.

The study also includes the testimonials of post-abortive women.


Alexa swing by at 5:12 PM

 
Well, I guess every abortion decision is a difficult one, one I may or may not know after all. Thanks to Mary for sharing this story..


Alexa swing by at 4:56 PM

 
A life worth living is worth losing...

And Gary Ivey is so right.


Alexa swing by at 4:43 PM

 
Attorney For Terry Shiavo Family Explains Causes of Tragic Result of Schiavo Case, warns many similar but unpublicized aases are "happening every day"


Read also: Anita Crane's full-length report, outlining the many abuses of the Schiavo case as explained by the Schindler's lawyer, Robert Destro.

Inside the Terri Schiavo case: And why it matters now


Alexa swing by at 4:34 PM

 
Why I oppose abortion

".. a common criticism I hear from the left is all abortion opponents are men who have had no experience with abortion, who have no idea what women go through, etcetera etcetera.

My parents never discussed abortion. Abortion was someting other people went through. My sister became very liberal. Her daughter was a very wild teenager and because she was on her way to college, it was 'decided' she should not have to deal with a pregnancy. She had an abortion, and possibly several other abortions during her college years. She did not want children.

Ten years later, she was married and she wanted a child. She never told her husband about what she had done in the past. She wanted to make a clean break. She was ready to be a mother, and saw the past as the past. She got pregnant, and with only a few minor problems, carried the child to full term. Until delivery day.

The baby was born a month premature. The doctors discovered she was so scarred inside that she was lucky to have carried the baby as long as she did. Mother and child developed jaundice and both nearly died. She was in a coma at one point. The baby underwent a dozen operations before he was a year old. Several years later, he's still sickly and it is a miracle he is alive. He used to bleed for no apparent reason, he was slow to develop, he has hearing problems.

My niece can never have another child. I'm not a doctor - perhaps these problems had nothing to do with her abortion(s). But she blames herself. Every day she worries and waits for what could happen to her only living child.

How many young girls who use abortion as birth control think of what will happen to their bodies when or if they want to have children? How many think of the pain they may inflict on any future children they manage to bear?

I hear some liberals say abortion should be 'celebrated'. Well, my niece and her son will be 'celebrating' every day for the rest of their lives."


Alexa swing by at 4:13 PM

 
Alexa swing by at 4:09 PM

 
Durbin will vote against Supreme Court nominee John Roberts in the Senate Judiciary Committee if Roberts disagrees with the Illinois Democrat's view that the U.S. Constitution guarantees a right to abortion.


Alexa swing by at 3:48 PM

 
Swiss scientists at the University Hospital of Lausanne are now using skin of aborted babies to treat burns

Here's the article (registration required) published on The Lancet.


Alexa swing by at 3:46 PM

 
She refused to have an abortion, so he attacks her

A Florida man will head to jail for 10 years after agreeing to a plea bargain with prosecutors in a case that saw his girlfriend reject an abortion and him attempt to kill her . Brandon Andrew Lawrence, 27, will go to prison and his victim, 17 year-old Gretchen Alvarez, will be left with the physical and emotional scars.

It was March 2004 when Alvarez found out she was pregnant. She told Lawrence he was the father. Lawrence tried to talk Alvarez into an abortion and offered to pay for it. She wanted nothing of it and said she planned to keep the baby.

Lawrence later ask Alvarez to meet her at a local restaurant where he worked to talk about the situation. After going behind the restaurant to talk, he told Alvarez to close her eyes and claimed he had a gift for her. Instead, the Florida man slashed her throat three times with a butcher knife and dragged her toward his car. Alvarez struggled and Lawrence stabbed her in the back as she tried to resist.


Alexa swing by at 3:29 PM

 
The promise of the umbilical cord blood...

British and American researchers have produced embryonic-like stem cells from umbilical cord blood, a breakthrough that could have serious ramifications in the debate between adult and embryonic stem cell research.


Alexa swing by at 3:20 PM

 
Got rally for teen also?

'In anticipation' of the upcoming Senate hearings on the confirmation of Judge John G. Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court, Planned Parenthood LA has organised a rally, "Teen Spirit Rally" for teens to protect their "choice".


Alexa swing by at 3:16 PM

 
Tim has a message from the father of Susan Torres..
I am Susan's Father. Aren't you tired of the headline "Brain Dead, Pregnant Woman, Gives Birth to Very Premature Baby Girl, Who May Have Melanoma Too?"]

How about this Headline ?..."An Incredible Miracle Happened at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, VA?" The story then reads. "A 26 year old NIH scientist, who defied most of the doctors who gave her "No Chance of making it past the first week",...Whose strong will, and determination, even after brain being pronounced dead from a brain hemorrhage that left her brain virtually destroyed, delivered a healthy baby girl. Every attending physician, was amazed at the positive outcome because it should never have been possible. There was only one Will stronger than Susan's and he was working with Susan."

Anyone who ever knew Susan (Rollin) Torres, would tell you that they are not the least bit surprised that Susan got the job done. She never could be told that she could NOT do anything. Since she was a very little girl, she defied anyone who told her, "Susan, You Can't Do That. You Are Not Strong Enough". She made them all eat crow.

Alexa swing by at 3:03 PM

 
Paul at Wizbang has a good one up here on RU 486... and apples:
Anytime I hear of a story about public health scares, I think of the great Alar hoax, where million of people quit buying apples because Meryl Streep went before Congress and said we were poisoning our children with Alar sprayed on apples. If you are too young to remember it, this was the talk of the country for about 6 months. 60 Minutes did a .. story on it and it was in every magazine and newspaper. Thousands of apple growers lost their farms because you couldn't give an apple away. And it turned out Alar was indeed bad for you... If you drank a 55 gallon drum of it, then you might get cancer or something. The whole thing was a hoax.

So when I hear a public heath statistic I wonder, "How many apples is that?"

The United States produces a little over 200 million cartons of apples per year. There are roughly 90 apples per case, so that's about 18 billion apples. If one out of 92,000 apples killed the person who ate it, that would be 195,652 dead people per year or 536 people PER DAY.

Now stop and consider if 536 people died every day from eating apples. Congress would be holding hearings, the news networks would be covering the story 24/7 and survivors of the dead apple eaters would be lynching former apple growers.
The point is obvious. Killing one 1 of 92,000 users of your product is nothing to be proud of. While that mortality rate might be acceptable in medicine, that mortality rate on another product would get it banned.

So why don't we ban Amoxicillin? Simply because it saves many times more lives than it costs. The good outweighs the bad. Where Steve and Bill's analogy falls down is that Amoxicillin saves children, RU486 kills them.

We derive good from Amoxicillin. Do we derive good from RU486? Well, I'll leave that to you the reader.. I don't see any.
But comparing the 2 numbers is, in many ways, like comparing apples and oranges. Sure they are somewhat analogous because they are both pharmaceuticals but that has more to do with form factor than relative worth to a society. If you are look at the larger picture of whether a product should be banned, that is completely irrelevant to the discussion. [...]

People's thoughts on banning of RU-486 is going to closely parallel their beliefs on abortion. And for the record, I'm not arguing in this piece that we should or shouldn't... But I can say without a doubt; if it were apples, we'd ban it.



Alexa swing by at 3:01 PM

 
Thank the gods he's not retiring


Alexa swing by at 2:42 PM

Thursday, August 18, 2005
 
I'm not covering Cindy Sheehan

.. but she's all over the news and the war parents are biting back.

Really, she should just shut up instead of dishonoring her son like that.


Alexa swing by at 9:32 PM

 
Pennslyvania abortions on the low..

The new Pennsylvania figures show a decline of 2.4% in 2004. According to new data from the state's health department, Pennsylvania abortions went down from 36,030 in 2003.


Alexa swing by at 9:07 PM

 
Somebody go lock up The Backstreet Boys...

Is it me or are they looking really old these days?


Alexa swing by at 8:55 PM

 
Alexa swing by at 8:52 PM

 
Okay, first impression? I thought he was SO not funny. In fact, I thought he was full of crap. I even told Tulip I want to smack his lame ass behind. I can't remember when or how, but it all started in the Meteora discussion, um, he was less lame then, so I "kinda" invited him to join Lena and me for our weekend night out. He said yes of course, but I got his email too late. We never get to have that drink, but exchanged more emails in turn. I thought he was funny then. Not smart-arse funny, but witty funny. He left his number, I left mine, then a couple of days later he text me. He left voicemails on my cell. We ended up IM-ing till past three in the morning the first time. A couple more days later, Rob formally introduced us. I brought Karen along as my chaperone, she warned me right there in front of Rob, "don't you sleep with him". I slept with him anyway. He was a silly boy, and he made me laughed.

I was at Dr Yong's office (Dr Yong is my surgeon) today and Christie, his nurse asked me why I'm still 'unmarried'. I'll tell you why.

That day I met him and the days following that was what I thought some of the happiest days I had in a while. I can never forget that. He made me laughed. He made me cry too. I hated how he was a bloody bastard, that heartless wuss. I hated that. He made me cry and laugh even now two years later. After all that. And he gave me a gift. And the ability to feel what I felt. I don't think I could feel the same way about another person again.


Alexa swing by at 8:16 PM

Wednesday, August 17, 2005
 
STICKY, STICKY:

Folks, I am looking for a small two/three bedroom or a studio apartment (preferably a nice walk-up) to rent. Must be:

1) cheap
2) close to town
3) allow munchkins and pets
4) child friendly
5) cable ready
6) cheap

Would love one of those houses in Chip Bee Gardens (now, now, no need to panic, darling...) but I think may be a little tight for me at the moment (hello? single mother, remember?). Still, if I can find a nice, decent stranger with no criminal record of any sort, who supports the LDI boycott list, can cook, clean, adores superheroes, Spiderman and smellies, and don't mind listening to good ole Barney all day, to share with, that could be lovely too.

Please email, tag or text Alexa.



Alexa swing by at 4:12 PM

 
Behold, the tide is turning...

Thanks to NARAL's lies, the MSM is beginning to publicly scrutinize pro-aborts as they should be scrutinized.


Alexa swing by at 3:48 PM

 
A new take-home kit allows expectant moms to find out their baby's gender as early as five weeks into their pregnancy.


Alexa swing by at 3:43 PM

 
Fr. Frank on unborn pain


Alexa swing by at 3:13 PM

 
Newsweek's Ken Woodward explores how averse the NYT is in particular to the terminology of partial-birth abortion:
From the outset, the Times determined to avoid using "partial-birth" in its news headlines. A computer search of the newspaper’s database since June of 1995 shows how persistently this prohibition has been enforced. Only once, on a news story published in April 2004, has "partial-birth" appeared in a headline. Instead, the Times has employed whenever possible a selection of opaque substitutes. The most frequently used terms were "type of" abortion and "form of" abortion, abortion "method" or "procedure" or "echnique," or simply a generic abortion "ban" or "curb." Here is a sample of Times headlines, chosen for their variety of usages and published between 1995 and 2004:

House Acts To Ban Abortion Method, Making It a Crime

President Vetoes Measure Banning Type of Abortion

U.S. Judge in San Francisco Strikes Down Federal Law Banning Form of Abortion

Bush Signs Ban on a Procedure for Abortions

Anyone who has ever written a headline knows that a way could be found in most of these examples to use "partial-birth." From my computer analysis, I think it is obvious that the Times regards "partial-birth" as a toxic term.


Hat tip: Tim Graham


Alexa swing by at 3:10 PM

 
Alexa swing by at 2:32 PM

 
Abortion's changing landscape
WHEN A RAP singer is urging a young woman ''to make the right decision and don't go through with this knife incision," America's abortion wars are in a different psychological place.

Clearly, NARAL Pro-Choice America needs to figure out how to fight on the new battlefield.

Hit by critics on the right and left, the pro abortion rights advocacy group pulled an ad that falsely sought to link Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. to abortion clinic bombings. Why anyone connected with NARAL ever believed the ad was a good idea is difficult to understand. The tone was all wrong, displaying ignorance and arrogance about the public's current feelings about abortion.
[...]

These results from a recent CBS News poll also speak to a changing abortion debate. When 1,222 adults nationwide were asked if the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade was a ''good thing" or a ''bad thing," 60% of all respondents said the constitutional right for women to obtain legal abortions is a ''good thing."

However, when asked to describe their personal feeling about abortion, 28% said abortion should be permitted in all cases; 15% said it should be permitted, but subject to greater restrictions; 33% said it should be permitted only in cases such as rape, incest, and to save a woman's life; and 15% said it should be permitted only to save a woman's life. 5% said abortion should never be permitted.

Conclusion: America is pro Roe v. Wade. But what that means varies greatly; individuals draw the prochoice line in different places.

Why? Antiabortion advocates successfully altered public opinion. Science and medical technology changed it as well. Also, the women's rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s is not the driving social force it once was. And frankly, abortion rights activists cried wolf too often.

Alexa swing by at 2:24 PM

 



Hat tip: Dan Lacey


Alexa swing by at 2:17 PM

 
Question: Why do men morph into heartless bastards/arseholes/expletive/expletive the minute we tell them that we are pregnant? (Yes, that includes you too, darling..)

Really, if you are not man enough to take responsibility, then don't have sex. Don't make promises you can't keep. Don't ruin lives. Don't leave some child fatherless or parents childless.


This is Tracy's story:

"I paid with a credit card and began the 24-hour waiting period. Because of the timing of my appointment, I had to wait about 36 hours before it would be done. I had to sleep on my decision for 2 nights. It was so bad that I slept for about 3 hours each night. As I tried to sleep, I prayed and said goodbye to my baby. Actually, I had many conversations with her. (I named her Ashly.) I pretended that I could feel her kick (even though it was way too early) and that my boyfriend was out at the 24-hour market buying me ice cream for my cravings. When I woke up, reality hit me.

I went to the abortion clinic that morning. They put me in a cold room with only a dressing gown and a thin blanket. I was completely alone because my roommate had to stay in the waiting room. After a long time, the nurse came in and started an IV sedative. It did relax me and warm me up a little. When the doctor came in (it was the first time I met him) he attempted some feeble jokes to relax me and then explained that I was going to feel a little tugging in my lower belly. The nurse stood at my side and held my hand through the procedure. It was more painful than they said it would be, but I was walking a few hours later. After they served me juice and cookies, my sedation wore off and they released me with medical instructions.

I didn't cry on the way home, I just felt numb. After that, the nightmares began. I dreamed of what I had done and the life I was missing out on. If you notice that I don't talk much about my feelings about the baby, it's because it's too painful. I know I killed my baby, and sometimes I can't even look in the mirror."


Alexa swing by at 12:25 PM

 
John Roberts called abortion "tragedy"..

As a young lawyer in the Reagan White House, Supreme Court nominee John Roberts concluded that a group's memorial service for aborted fetuses was "an entirely appropriate means of calling attention to the abortion tragedy."

Roberts' wrote the advice in an October, 1985 memo after he was asked to review a proposed telegram from President Reagan to the memorial service promoted by the California Pro Life Medical Association.

"The president's position is that the fetuses were human beings, or at least cannot be proven not to have been, and accordingly a memorial service would seem an entirely appropriate means of calling attention to the abortion tragedy," wrote Roberts.

Read more here


Alexa swing by at 12:15 PM

Tuesday, August 16, 2005
 
Fighting war on terror..



But, but... erh.. this is just funny...


Alexa swing by at 5:12 PM

 
A baby for Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher?


Alexa swing by at 4:24 PM

 
Meanwhile, according to the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, Canadian researcher Brent Rooney, director of the Vancouver-based Reduce Preterm Risk Coalition, reports in his article that teenagers, especially African American teens, fall into a high risk group for breast cancer and a future premature birth if they have abortions. This is due to the immaturity of their organs.

Rooney cited epidemiological evidence, a 1994 study by Janet Daling et al., to support his argument on the breast cancer risk. Epidemiological evidence reveals whether or not there is a correlation between a particular exposure (in this case, abortion) and a disease (breast cancer).
In 1994 Dr. Janet Daling (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center) et al. reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute that women who had induced abortions before age 18 multiplied their risk of breast cancer by 2.5 . (1)  This 150% boost in relative breast cancer risk for under age 18 abortions is triple the overall risk increase of 50% for women in general in the 'Daling' study in Washington state. (1)

In 2003 the overwhelming evidence for the prematurity risk of prior induced abortions was presented in two review articles published in peer-reviewed medical journals. (2,3) Teenage SIAs (Surgical Induced Abortions) produce an even greater risk of subsequent premature births, since such procedures have a greater than normal risk of infection and weakened cervix. (4,5,6,7). Teen U.S. women are 2 1/2 times as likely as women over 19 to have second trimester abortions; such procedures are a significant risk for a very weakened cervix. (8)  Black American women have triple the rate of elective abortions as Caucasian women. (9) Thus, the most disparate impact of future prematurity risk lies with black American teenagers.

Alexa swing by at 3:37 PM

 
Glamour Magazine Disinforms Readers about Abortion-Cancer Link, Says the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer

The coalition chastised Glamour's journalists today for erroneously reporting in an August article that the abortion-breast cancer (ABC) link had been "disproved."

"We challenge Glamour to find just one scientist who has disproved the biological explanation for the link," declared ABC President Karen Malec. "No scientist dares to challenge the explanation because it makes good physiological sense."

"If the link was 'disproved,'" said Malec, "why did British researcher Patrick Carroll present new research to the Joint Statistical Meetings in Minneapolis on August 10 showing abortion to be the 'best predictor of British breast cancer trends'? Why do governmental agencies continue to spend millions of tax dollars on ABC research?"


Read the Glamour article here.


Alexa swing by at 3:26 PM

 
Alexa swing by at 3:10 PM

 
New details emerge as CDC investigates RU 486 abortion deaths

As the Centers for Disease Control investigates why four California women have died after using the abortion drug RU 486, new details are emerging about one woman's recent death. All of the deaths appear to have involved infections brought on by themifepristone abortion drug and misuse of the abortion pills by Planned Parenthood.
Oriane Shevin, a 34 year-old woman from Sherman Oaks, in southern California, is the latest to die from using the abortion pills. She passed away June 14 after she took the Mifeprex abortion drug and the misoprostol pill to have an abortion.

Shevin, an attorney and mother of two children, was taken by ambulance to Encino-Tarzana Regional Medical Center and doctors said she died from sepsis, a blood infection that was also responsible for the September 2003 death of Holly Patterson.

The CDC and state officials are investigating the deaths and trying to determine whether the misuse of the drugs is to blame.

When women use drugs to produce a chemical abortion, they engage in a two part process.

The Mifeprex abortion pill essentially starves the unborn child by denying her the nutrients she normally obtains from the mother's placenta. A second drug, misoprostol, causes contractions and produces a miscarriage that births the deceased child.

However, misoprostol is not a drug meant to be used in abortions and Searle, the company that produces the ulcer medication, has warned doctors repeatedly not to use the drug in abortions.

Meanwhile, FDA protocols call for using the misoprostol drug orally, like the Mifeprex pill. However, Planned Parenthood officials appear to instruct women to take the misoprostol pill vaginally, as they did with Patterson and Shevin.

Alexa swing by at 3:08 PM

 
The FDA has placed tough new restrictions on the anti-acne drug Accutane because it can cause birth defects for unborn children. Teens and young adults are more likely users of the medication. Everyone who uses the acne drug Accutane will have to enroll in a national registry, along with every doctor who prescribes it and every drugstore that sells it. Both male and female patients will have to enroll in the registry, called iPLEDGE, by Dec. 31 or they can no longer receive Accutane. Young women of childbearing age who use the drug are also supposed to have two negative pregnancy tests before they are eligible to use the drug. They must also have another negative pregnancy test before a refill. In a more controversial step, the FDA is requiring women using the drug to use two methods of birth control and to enter those on the FDA database. There was no word as to whether abstinence would count as meeting the requirement.


Alexa swing by at 2:08 PM

 
HEADS-UP: 8-month-old Nathaniel needs a liver transplant!

Please help this child!

Nathaniel Cooper was diagnosed with biliary atresia, a disease that caused his bile duct, which leads from the liver to the small intestine, to deteriorate, preventing it from secreting bile, when he was about 7 weeks old. The bile builds up in the liver and eventually destroys the liver.

Within a week of his illness being diagnosed, Nathaniel underwent what is called a Kasai procedure, in which a surgeon connected a piece of his small intestine to his liver, creating a bile duct, thus providing a way for bile to be carried out of his liver. The surgery was performed at Yale Children's Hospital.

That operation saved his life," his father, Benjamin Cooper said. "The doctors told us that if the surgery had been done as little as a month later, his survival chances would have dropped from 90 percent to about 10 percent."

Because Yale Children's Hospital does not perform transplant surgery, Cooper said Nathaniel's case was referred to Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, one of only a handful of hospitals on the East Coast where transplant surgery is performed.

"We have been working with the doctors at Mount Sinai Hospital and, in the last week, it appears some of the medication Nathaniel is taking is beginning to work," Cooper said.

He said some of the swelling in Nathaniel's stomach appears to have receded. When a person's liver becomes hardened, as Nathaniel's has become, blood cannot flow into the liver and the body reacts by seeking alternate ways to deliver the blood supply to his heart. That can cause swelling in his esophagus or bleeding in his intestinal tract.

Nathaniel is near the top of the list of children waiting for a donor liver, although there is a possibility he could be a candidate for a innovative transplant from a living donor, his father said.

Cooper, a lieutenant commander in the Coast Guard, is a native of Killingly and his wife, the former Karen St. Jean, grew up in Woodstock. Both are 35 and are the parents of a "perfectly healthy" 3-year-old daughter, Julia.

"The military has been very helpful throughout the entire situation," Cooper said. "They have two people assigned to our case to help us with paperwork and other details. Both have been very understanding and we couldn't ask for more."

While he said his military insurance will cover a significant portion of Nathaniel's medical expenses when his transplant surgery occurs, friends and relatives of the Coopers have pitched in to help raise money to help with the medical costs.

The surgery alone will cost about $250,000. That amount doesn't include follow-up care or medications.

Nathaniel, who weighed 6.14 pounds at birth, is very small for his age, weighing just under 14 pounds today, the normal weight for a 3-month-old. He is fed through a feeding tube inserted through his nose into his stomach, receiving nourishing formula throughout the night while he's asleep and for one-hour intervals three times a day.

Carol Cooper Ryley of Killingly, Nathaniel's grandmother, and friends of the family in Killingly will hold a yard and bake sale Aug. 27 at the South Killingly Firehouse on Route 6, with all proceeds benefiting the Cooper family.

The Coopers' neighbors in Gales Ferry are also pitching in mightily, posting a sign-up sheet to volunteer for various activities. They'll run a soda and water booth at the Ledyard Fair, Sept. 9-11, with money raised there going to the family. They're also organizing a street-wide tag sale Sept. 17 and the Ledyard Congregational Church, where the Coopers worship, will host a spaghetti supper on Feb. 23 to help raise money for Nathaniel's surgery.


Alexa swing by at 2:05 PM

 
When pro-life advocates Dave and Mary Labun left their house, they didn't expect to see a note on their car. What they found surprised them. In their hands they held not a complaint from a neighbor or a police citation. Instead, a teenager told them their pro-life bumper sticker prompted her to reconsider a decision to have an abortion.

Maine residents Dave and Mary Labun sport a sticker with the phrase "Abortion Stops a Beating Heart," on their vehicle.




The unnamed girl left the couple the following note:

Hello,

This might be very weird, but I wanted to thank you. I'm not sure what you believe in, but I'm a strong believer in God, and right now I am 17 and pregnant. And on my way to school one day, I was really wondering what to do - I was really thinking about abortion, because I was scared.

As that thought came to mind, I walked past your car, and happened to look over and saw your bumper sticker, "Abortion Stops a Beating Heart."

My heart dropped. I believe God was talking to me, through that sticker, and I also believe I will never think about it again. I'm going to keep my baby, and I'm not that scared any more.

Thank you so much for helping me make the best choice of my life.

God bless - a very happy mother-to-be.



Click here to see the note.


Alexa swing by at 1:19 PM

Monday, August 15, 2005
 
Michael Ackley reveals why the New York Times wanted to look at the sealed adoption records of John Roberts' two children.


Alexa swing by at 2:59 PM

 
Planned Parenthood's Teenwire's guide to.. I'm-pregnant-now-what:
You have three choices if you are pregnant. You can choose to have a baby and raise the child. You can choose to have a baby and place the child for adoption. Or you can choose to have an abortion and end the pregnancy.
[...]

Abortion is a legal and safe procedure. Most women say that early abortion feels like menstrual cramps. Some say it feels very uncomfortable. Others feel very little physical discomfort.

Serious, long-term emotional problems after abortion are rare. Most women feel relieved. Some women experience anger, regret, guilt, or sadness for a short time. Women are more likely to experience serious regrets after abortion if they have strong religious feelings against it.
Hmph. I would personally keep Teenwire far, far, away from my kid.


Alexa swing by at 2:54 PM

 
Mommies-to-be, let it all hang out (aka Demi Moore)!

Oh, and I actually stopped sucking in my tummy after my pregnancy. Heh.


Alexa swing by at 2:22 PM

 
Ellen Goodman certainly needs her history lesson..

"To many being a pro-life feminist is an oxymoron, though there aren't so many women eager to identify themselves as feminists that I would kick Jane (Roberts) out of the sisterhood. Working to make college campuses more friendly to motherhood is better than videotaping license plates at the abortion clinic."

Serrin Foster responds to her article here:

"those who first defined the movement, British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, early American feminist Susan B. Anthony, founder of the Seneca Falls Convention, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and author of the Equal Rights Amendment, Alice Paul, all opposed abortion on the basis of civil rights and as an exploitation of women.... The same women who fought for our right to vote also fought for our right to life."


Alexa swing by at 1:43 PM

 
Not feminists but "fetalists"...

Katha Politt certainly doesn't see how you can be feminist and oppose abortion -- just because:

"In the FFL view, women have abortions because they are victims--of shamed parents, abusive boyfriends, prochoice propaganda and a society hostile to motherhood. Only a "few percent" of women who have abortions have what they need to choose childbirth instead--the rest are like prostitutes, Foster told me, coerced women falsely said to be making a free choice. The FFL vision is that women should embrace motherhood whenever a wayward sperm meets an egg, and that this is what women really want to do, and would do if given support. [...]

It is indeed feminist to say no woman should have to abort a wanted child to stay in school or have a career--FFL's line is thus an advance on the more typical antichoice position, which is that women have abortions to go to Europe or fit into their prom dress. You can see why their upbeat, rebellious slogans--"refuse to choose," "question abortion," "women deserve better"--appeal to students. (But what do those students think when they find that the postabortion resources links are all to Christian groups and that FFL's sunny pregnancy-assistance advice includes going on food stamps or welfare?) Exposing the constraints on women's choices, however, is only one side of feminism. The other is acknowledging women as moral agents, trusting women to decide what is best for themselves. For FFL there's only one right decision: Have that baby. And since women's moral judgment cannot be trusted, abortion must be outlawed, whatever the consequences for women's lives and health--for rape victims and 12-year-olds and 50-year-olds, women carrying Tay-Sachs fetuses and women at risk of heart attack or stroke, women who have all the children they can handle and women who don't want children at all. FFL argues that abortion harms women--that's why it clings to the outdated cancer claims. But it would oppose abortion just as strongly if it prevented breast cancer, filled every woman's heart with joy, lowered the national deficit and found Jimmy Hoffa. That's because they aren't really feminists--a feminist could not force another woman to bear a child, any more than she could turn a pregnant teenager out into a snowstorm. They are fetalists."

Now, Susan B. Anthony would be turning in her grave right now.


"No ministering angel, she To bind up wounds or cool the fevered brow
With the soft hand of pity.
She was of that sterner stuff
Whereof God makes his heroes.
Stalwart, stark, yet pitiful withal,
With tearless tenderness that found expression
In deeds of battle for the cause of right.
Hers was the warrior soul
Locked in a woman's heart,
Predestined to do battle.
Nobly she strove, yet sacrificed no whit
Of that true womanhood
Which was her high ideal.
A lady valiant, she,
Semiramis of suffrage, who enlarged
The boundries that spaciously enclose
Her sex's empire.
Great were her labors, great her victories,
As liberty attests. The pay be hers.
Yet this her greatest glory-
That though opposing and opposed thereby
To stale conventions by the world esteemed,
She overthrew them; yet at last still held
The love of women and respect of men."



Alexa swing by at 1:13 PM

 
Kate Michelman on John Roberts and Roe:

"Based on the thousands of pages of records that paint Roberts as a clear legal architect of the Reagan and Bush strategies to limit civil rights, it seems quite plausible that he is as conservative as Scalia, Thomas and Rehnquist. But the fact that he crosses the critical threshold--being more conservative than O'Connor--is beyond doubt. Many observers note that there is no guarantee Roberts would be a conservative on the Court. To accept that reassurance, one must make the dubious assumption that the record he has compiled as both a practitioner and a judge is but a prelude to the complete reversal that awaits. The choice, then, is to believe Roberts has executed what must rank as one of history's greatest and longest-running political deceptions, or simply to take a man widely admired for his integrity at his word--namely, that he is a judicial conservative. That is neither an epithet nor an insult; it is simply an accurate description of his philosophy.

Senators must explore whether Roberts believes the requirements of stare decisis (respecting and adhering to precedent), about which he has spoken approvingly, are satisfied by upholding a right in name only if its core protections are gutted. Moreover, does Roberts believe the Court should decide cases of individual rights based on the number of individuals at stake and uphold laws on the theory they deprive "only" some, but not all, women of their health and liberty?

Senators have the right--and responsibility--to evaluate Roberts as President Bush did: on the basis of his judicial philosophy and legal views. But it is equally imperative that they frame the issues properly. If the debate about personal privacy and reproductive rights is limited to whether Roberts will vote to overturn Roe , it will raise a vital question but almost certainly fail, at least decisively, to answer it. But senators can easily ascertain whether Roberts stands to O'Connor's right, and that alone provides ample reason to worry. By all indications Roberts might vote to overrule Roe . To imperil the lives and rights of millions of women, he would not have to. Roberts need only vote like a shadow of the conservative he's always claimed to be."

Read the full article here


Alexa swing by at 12:18 PM

Sunday, August 14, 2005
 
Coffeecup activism?



This is one of the latest coffee cups being sold at Starbucks with a pro-homosexuality message...


Alexa swing by at 4:12 PM

 
Good God. It's Mr. Penis-head and Miss Vagina!

Our dear Rebecca has found yet another cartoon from Planned Parenthood. Created by Flickerlab, it features Peter and Mina as talk show hosts of a programme called The G Spot, which talks about "How Pregnancy Happens".

Here's a portrait of them by the way:



Peter is Mr Penis-head who gets excited easily and can't control himself.. "You're leaking again!", and Mina is Miss Vagina who, as Rebecca puts it, excels at showing how women are bitchy, overbearing, controlling and cold. Christ. The sperms yell "Banzai!" as they spring into action. LMAO. You gotta see it...




Alexa swing by at 4:05 PM

 
Listen and learn, NARAL...

Changing the tone

"While abortion-advocacy groups will spend the coming weeks trying to strike fear in the hearts of Americans over the prospect of a plausibly pro-life judge on the Supreme Court, the not-so-sidebar story is that Feminists for Life now has a higher profile - a calm and caring one - one that has real potential to resonate with Americans who have no interest in screaming about abortion. Feminists for Life has the civil, compassionate alternative to dead-end debates. The Roberts family has already made history."


Alexa swing by at 4:04 PM

 
A male fetus estimated to be between four and five months in gestation, was found in the trash inside the stall of a MacDonalds restroom. Police believe the mother delivered the fetus in the restroom. It's believed to be either Caucasian or Hispanic, and it is unknown if the baby was dead or alive upon delivery.


Alexa swing by at 4:02 PM

 
James Taranto at Opinion Journal on 'the extremist antifetus group' boss Nancy Keenan (Keenan had said that "many people have misconstrued our recent advertisement about Mr. Roberts' record":

"If Keenan had class, she'd acknowledge that the ad was false and unfair ratherthan blaming others. But then again, NARAL's position is that the "constitution" guarantees the right to an abortion--and this ad certainly was one."


Alexa swing by at 2:56 PM

 



Alexa swing by at 2:55 PM

 
Alexa swing by at 2:38 PM

 
Alexa swing by at 2:36 PM

 
So, the world is full of distressed people, Courtney Love for one. It's no wonder that Courtney is Courtney. Maybe people wouldn't understand why some of us turned to drugs and alcohol or kill ourselves. Because it IS exhausting to feel like this. Sometimes I just feel like I want out.

"We hope for the better things in the future, not because we really want bigger cars, better jobs, or all the other goods of earth, but because we really hope for heaven. That's why, when we reach the age where we have a pretty good job or a nice car or whatnot, we aren't satisfied and we cast around looking for happiness - and sometimes mistake it for the past. The reality is, we weren't fully happy then just as we aren't fully happy now. Only (if we are wise) we will realize that we aren't happy now because earth cannot fulfill our desires. Only heaven can."


Alexa swing by at 2:26 PM

 
Alexa swing by at 2:01 PM

 
Pro-choice but anti-NARAL

"I wish the pro-choice movement would appeal to centrists of both sexes instead of playing to its activist base. The best way to keep abortion legal is to rely not on the Supreme Court but on the public, because three-quarters of Americans do not want to outlaw abortion.

Many of these people have moral objections and resent the Supreme Court's presumption in its Roe v. Wade decision, but they're also pragmatic enough to realize that a ban couldn't be enforced and would create a new set of problems. If Roe v. Wade were overturned and abortion policy left up to the states, these pragmatists would start to matter more than the ideologues on the left and right who now dominate the debate.
[...]

Instead of feeling obligated to fight over every vacancy on the Supreme Court, women would have a more secure right to abortion. They wouldn't have to worry about every brief and memo the nominee ever wrote - and they wouldn't suffer through an invidious commercial that only hurt their own cause."


Alexa swing by at 1:48 PM

Saturday, August 13, 2005
 
Boston Globe writer Renee Graham takes a swipe at Nick Cannon, calling his "Can I Live" video "emotionally manipulative video ripe for political exploitation" and "melodramatic."


Alexa swing by at 10:12 PM

 
"You know, no matter how many times I hear that number - 46 million dead - I still get a chill running down my spine. Since Jan. 22, 1973, the date of the U.S. Supreme Court's infamous Roe v. Wade ruling, that is how many unborn babies have been butchered in our nation.

To put that striking number in further perspective, ALL points out that one baby has been killed ever 24 seconds over the course of 32 years. In fact, for every two babies born, one is surgically aborted.

Because of this mass slaughter, the first ever Pro-life Memorial Day will be observed on Monday, Oct. 3 of this year and subsequently on the first Monday of every October. ALL and Rock for Life leaders are encouraging pro-life Americans nationwide to participate in this important campaign to honor the 46 million innocent lives lost to surgical abortion.

I believe this campaign can be extraordinarily effective in educating our fellow Americans to the fact that abortion is responsible for such an enormous number of deaths. I seriously doubt if many Americans - particularly young people - have any idea that 46 million babies have been aborted over the past three-plus decades."

Remembering the 46 million


Alexa swing by at 9:29 PM

    Photo Copyright © iStockPhoto
Webset Copyright © Blogfrocks