The reasons most frequently cited were that having a child would interfere with a woman's education, work or ability to care for dependents (74%); that she could not afford a baby now (73%); and that she did not want to be a single mother or was having relationship problems (48%). Nearly four in 10 women said they had completed their childbearing, and almost one-third were not ready to have a child. Fewer than 1% said their parents' or partners' desire for them to have an abortion was the most important reason. Younger women often reported that they were unprepared for the transition to motherhood, while older women regularly cited their responsibility to dependents.

Zhu Hong Ying and her husband, Xia Jian Dong, who are farmers in Zhai Tian Zhuang village near Linyi, and who already have one son, said they first heard of the forced abortions in March, when Zhu was five months pregnant.

"We panicked and ran into (Linyi) to hide," Zhu said in an interview that had to be conducted on the telephone as local police had sealed off her area in the wake of Chen's detention. "But to get to us, about a month after we left they arrested three of my sisters-in-law. So we felt very guilty and went home."

Zhu said what happened next went beyond her deepest fears.

Officials from the local family planning department took her to a clinic where a doctor injected her in the stomach. A day later Zhu said she delivered a still-born baby boy. Gazing at the corpse was "the most heartbreaking moment of my life", she said.

But there was no time to dwell on emotions.

Xia said a nurse came into the room and dumped the dead baby in a black plastic bag and asked him to throw it into the back of a truck parked nearby.

"It had a large container kind of thing at the back," said Xia, his voice quavering over the line. "When I opened the door and looked in it was full of black bags and blood."

Referring to abortion, Mercedes wrote that although "for some people it is very easy, after reading a book on the subject I would never do it" because abortion is nothing less than the "killing of a child, because he cannot escape from the womb, and he is much more vulnerable because his body has not yet fully developed."

It is very difficult for me to separate the effects of the abortion and the sexual abuse. The abortion feels like an extension of the sexual abuse. I believed that I had no right to make my own decision; my body was again violated by someone else's selfish concerns. The feminist movement was working very hard on the legalization of abortion at this time. I now think that is why I got pushed so hard by the Parenthood counselor. I could have said "no" to my husband and I could have said "no" to the abortion but I had no resources for either.

Abortion is wrong. It is not a political issue. Not an ideological value. Not a "choice". It is simply wrong. We are, literally, as women, as mothers, sacrificing our children for ourselves. As a mother of three vibrant, living children, I cannot ever imagine doing that. I would die for them in a heartbeat.

Yet no one told me this as a young woman. No one explained that the fact that I was thinking about my pregnancy in terms of a baby, my baby, a child, indicated a moral stance and a belief that I had already become a mother. What I was told, instead, was that most women looked back later in life and reminded themselves why they made that "choice".

How incredibly lame. Had I been more mature, less frightened, or felt like I had a "choice", I might have been able to see through that statement. I wasn't and I didn'T.

Abortion is not a "choice" for women who are taught to respect their hearts, their souls, and the part of them born to be a mother. Abortion is the antitheses of "choice". It is an ending. A brutal ending, whether for the unsuspecting mother or child. It is irreversible and damaging. What a far better thing to endure nine months of pregnancy than 18 years of self condemnation and a life time of grief that never completely goes away.

When people talk about doing abortions because of rape, they're generally thinking with there emotions rather than their brain. In addition to the evidentiary concern with catching the rapist, add to that, the emotional and physical damage done by abortion with increased chances of miscarriage, stillbirths, mental illnes, and suicide, it becomes obvious that even if you put the moral objections to killing a child because the Father was a rapist, you're doing something incredibly unwise. You're basically saying, "You've been through extreme emotional trauma. Lets go ahead and put you through some more and by the way, we'll make sure that we dispose key evididence that could be used to catch the person who did this.

The brouhaha has focused on the tastefulness of the display more than its message, obscuring the substantive question of whether abortion is indeed genocide.

That, of course, hinges on whether abortion is even murder - the matter at the heart of the decades-long abortion debate in this country. And, as anyone who's ever gotten into an extended argument over abortion knows, it's very difficult to convince someone else to change his or her mind on the issue.

The debate over abortion being genocide, however, is a matter of terminology rather than philosophy and theology. That puts it into a realm where there can be give-and-take without striking at the core of people's personal beliefs about what is moral and when life begins. Moreover, I think it's possible to disagree over whether abortion is murder but agree that it certainly isn't genocide.

Harriet Miers' friends and colleagues, including both Texas senators, expressed disappointed Thursday at Miers' decision with withdraw as a U.S. Supreme Court nominee, but Democratic detractors say the former Dallas attorney made the right decision.

Southern Methodist University business law professor Ala Bromberg, who taught Miers when she was a student at SMU in the 1960s, say the withdrawal is a great loss both to the court and to the American people.

But Texas Democratic Party chairman Charles Soechting of Houston says Miers wasn't qualified.

Soechting says he hopes the withdrawal will be a signal to the Bush administration that the practice of cronyism has got to stop.

Miers detractors argued that she was nominated not because she was qualified, but because of her loyalty to the President.

But former Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice John Hill says Miers has had plenty of experience dealing with constitutional issues, especially in her five years at the White House.
[...]

"Harriet Miers is a good friend and devoted to her nation," said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.

"I remain confident that Harriet Miers would have made a superb Supreme Court justice. She is and will continue to be a trailblazer in the legal community. My admiration of her has only increased because of this action," she said.

"She made this decision because she believed it was right for the president and the country. While I am disappointed she will not be on the bench, we must begin to focus on filling the vacancy to the high court. This is a task so critical to our nation that partisan politics must be set aside," she said.

"I'm disappointed that Harriet Miers has asked the President to withdraw her nomination to the United States Supreme Court," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.

I'm sorry to hear that Miss Miers has decided to remove her name from consideration. I think that this is a sad episode in the history of Washington, D.C. ... The way Harriet Miers has been treated is really disgraceful.

According to informed sources, this is how the last day of the Miers nomination played out. Yesterday morning, President Bush met with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Majority Whip Mitch McConnell, and others at the White House, where they discussed the problems facing the nomination. There were staff conversations between the majority leader's office and the White House throughout the day. There was a meeting in Dick Cheney's office in the afternoon, with the vice president and nomination strategists taking part, in which the fading support for the nomination was discussed. And then in the early evening, Frist had a phone conversation with White House Chief of Staff Andy Card in which Frist gave what's being called a frank assessment of the nomination's prospects. Not long afterward, a final decision was made, and Miers called the president at 8:30 p.m. to say she would withdraw, and the formal announcement was set for this morning.

Eight in ten adults in Great Britain regard Britain's annual count of 200,000 abortions as too many and want ways to be found of reducing that figure, says a new poll conducted by CommunicateResearch on behalf of campaign group Alive & Kicking.

A representative sample of 1005 GB adults was polled, by the professional polling company from October 21-23.  The findings, published to mark the eve of the Abortion Act's 38th anniversary yesterday, noted that young people and women were strongest in their support for reduction of the gestational limit of 24 weeks, until which abortions are considered legal in England.

The poll found that of those offering an opinion more than six in ten (62%) believe the 24-week abortion limit should be lowered 'significantly' given that more than 80% of babies born at that age survive. Among the 18-24 age group support rises to 75% and among women support stands at 66% (compared to 58% of men).

Also attracting massive support (89%) was the proposal that the government 'should put in place an automatic regular review of abortion law to account for advances in medical knowledge'.

"In July of 1993, Miers gave a speech entitled, 'Women and Courage.' She offered glowing praise for Ruth Bader Ginsburg's ascension to the Supreme Court and Janet Reno's appointment as the first female attorney general," Bauer reported. "Not many conservatives were excited by either fact."

Only months earlier, Miers spoke to the Executive Women of Dallas. Bauer noted that this was "more than a decade after her religious conversion and four years after she filled out a pro-life questionnaire."

"Here is what she said about abortion," Bauer continued. "'The ongoing debate continues surrounding the attempt to once again criminalize abortions or to once and for all guarantee the freedom of the individual women's right to decide for herself whether she will have an abortion.'"

Bauer complained about Miers' terminology.

"Notice how she described the issue," Bauer wrote. "'criminalize' versus 'guarantee the freedom of women.' The pro-life side never talks about 'criminalizing abortion.' We don't want to send women to jail."

Jody had two abortions, one when she was 22 and one when she was 26. She chose both abortions out of fear and confusion. Never before had she felt so angry and alone.

"In my heart of hearts, I knew what I was doing was wrong. But I justified it, buried it, saying: 'it's legal, it must be okay,'" she said.

"I don't remember much after the (first) abortion, except a sense of relief at being over the crisis," she said. "My mom recently told me that in the car on the way home I had cried and said that I felt like the life had been sucked out of me. I attempted suicide a couple months later and ended up in drug and alcohol treatment."

During the second abortion, "it was as if a part of me shut down that day," she said. "I look back and wonder how anyone can experience the trauma of abortion and not shut down. Abortion goes against the very mystery of what is loving, beautiful, and sacred about being a woman. I was deeply wounded. I had no awareness of how my entire life, my entire being had been affected."

After resolving to keep the baby if she became pregnant a third time, Jody miscarried after 10 weeks.

"I began hearing an ad on the radio that said: 'Why when I wanted it, it was a baby and when I didn't, it wasn't?'" she said. "My heart broke into a billion pieces. That was the beginning of a very powerful conversion to Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church. God was replacing my heart of stone with a heart of flesh."

Road to healing

Jody attended her first Rachel's Vineyard retreat about four years ago, then a second retreat with her mom a couple years later. "During the retreat I was aware that I was being led by the light of Christ, the love and encouragement of the (retreat) facilitators and the other retreatants," she said.

At the first retreat, all the feelings Jody had buried for years came rushing back - guilt, regret, confusion, sorrow, anger, helplessness and hopelessness, despair. But as the retreat weekend progressed, those feelings were replaced by feelings of forgiveness, peace, acceptance, hope, and love, she said.

"I connected with my children. I recognized their humanity and uniqueness. I offered myself as their mother. I welcomed them as my children. I knew that they'd forgiven me, as Jesus had. I have never cried so much - such healing, healing tears," she said.

Rachel's Vineyard gives women and men a safe place to grieve and to begin the journey to wholeness after abortion, Jody said. "I encourage grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, uncles, and siblings of aborted children to attend a retreat," she said. "I want to encourage women and men to 'be not afraid,' as our beloved John Paul II said.

"Let us not linger, but go forth with the light of Christ and the love and support of so many into the darkness of our pasts. We can be forgiven and set free, free to help others who are struggling, too."

Sarah's story

Sarah's (not her real name) abortion took place 26 years ago in January, 1979. She was a sophomore in college and dating a young man she thought she would marry after college.

When her fears about being pregnant were confirmed, Sarah was very afraid, she said, and felt as though she couldn't admit to her parents her mistake of becoming sexually active and still have their love.

She did not share the news of her pregnancy with her parents but instead turned to her boyfriend for support and protection.

"I still remember being shocked at the suggestion my boyfriend made that an abortion was the solution, as he was not ready to be a father," she said. "I felt hurt and rejected and just checked out emotionally at that point."

Sarah's boyfriend made all the arrangements, paid for the procedure, and accompanied her to the abortion clinic. Blocking the abortion from her mind, Sarah said it seemed like a vague, bad dream from her past.

"From my present vantage point, it is clear to me that I lived in deep denial for the next 23 years of the trauma my abortion was to my body, my mind, and my soul," she said. "I was able to function well in my life as a wife and mother to four beautiful, healthy children; however I see clearly now how my relationships with those closest to me suffered from the heavy but unnamed guilt, unworthiness, and shame I was carrying all those years."

Sarah attended a Rachel's Vineyard retreat in November of 2002 in Madison at the urging of her husband, with whom she was finally able to share her past after 21 years of marriage.

"The retreat weekend was the perfect setting I needed to pour out this long-held grief, regret, anger at myself and others, and to replace that with the unconditional love our merciful and forgiving Father offers us through His Son, Jesus.

"I can never undo the horrible damage that was done that day to my innocent child, to myself and my boyfriend, but most of all to the relationship I had with my God, but I do understand now, through the gift of this weekend that Jesus does want to forgive me, and he wants me to forgive myself and others for what occurred," said Sarah. "To a large part I have accepted these gifts of forgiveness for myself and others, something I would never have allowed for myself without experiencing a Rachel's Vineyard retreat.

"Rachel's Vineyard restores hope in lives that feel at times hopeless," she said. "It restores life - not the life of the child, who is at peace now with Jesus, but the life of the mother or father who have been lost, sometimes for years, in the lies surrounding abortion."

"They've asked for paperwork about the decision-making process, what her recommendations were," Bush told reporters after a Cabinet meeting. "That would breach very important confidentiality and it's a red line I am not willing to cross." Disclosing that material "would make it impossible for me and other presidents to be able to make sound decisions," he said.

Fathers are the missing ingredient for many children. The results of father absence are staggering. An analysis reported in 2001 of nearly 100 studies on parent-child relationships found that, in some studies, father love was actually a better predictor than mother love for certain outcomes, including delinquency, substance abuse and overall mental health and well-being.

In other studies analyzed in the 2001 report, after controlling for mother love, researchers found father love was the sole significant predictor for certain outcomes such as psychological adjustment problems, conduct problems and substance abuse. The importance of Edwards's commitment to his wife and his children is born out by research. Fathers do matter. They matter a lot.

Karlyn Bowman, who studies public opinion for the American Enterprise Institute, has compiled poll data about abortion from several years into one handy document. Her conclusion is that public opinion on the issue has been "remarkably stable." When Gallup asked whether abortion should be available under all, some, or no circumstances, respondents split 21-54-22 in April 1975. In May 2005, they split 23-53-22. That is impressive stability.

Yet there has been some movement. In some respects, opinion seems to have shifted first in a pro-choice direction and then in a pro-life direction. The high tide for the pro-choicers seems to have been in the mid-90s. In February 1995 the split was 33-50-15. (Scan pages 6-7 of the document yourself and you'll see that none of these three dates were outliers. Each was consistent with the findings of other polls taken around that time. The trend appears to be real.)

Women who eat fish during pregnancy may help increase their infants' cognitive abilities, says a Harvard Medical School study.

The finding, published in the October issue of Environmental Health Perspectives, suggests that recent guidelines from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration advising pregnant women to limit the amount of mercury-containing fish they eat may have the unintended effect of depriving fetuses of essential nutrients found in fish.

The researchers noted that while excessive mercury intake during pregnancy can harm neurological development in fetuses, n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and other nutrients in fish may play a crucial role in the neurocognitive development of infants.

"During the recess, I took home a large compendium of cases that she'd been involved in and I studied them, and I found out they were very complex," he says. "She had an underground easement case which was very complicated, she represented Disney in a jurisdiction issue in Texas, she represented Microsoft in a patent case. She represented a woman, pro bono, on Social Security [and] a criminal defendant in a habeas corpus case. And I could see as I went through her legal record that she's a good lawyer. She deals with complex, conceptual issues and, I think, demonstrates the capacity to handle a wide variety of issues, including constitutional issues."

Whenever I am out with Margaret, I'm conscious that she represents a group whose ranks are shrinking because of the wide availability of prenatal testing and abortion. I don't know how many pregnancies are terminated because of prenatal diagnoses of Down syndrome, but some studies estimate 80 to 90 percent.

As Margaret bounces through life, especially out here in the land of the perfect body, I see the way people look at her: curious, surprised, sometimes wary, occasionally disapproving or alarmed. I know that most women of childbearing age that we may encounter have judged her and her cohort, and have found their lives to be not worth living.

To them, Margaret falls into the category of avoidable human suffering. At best, a tragic mistake. At worst, a living embodiment of the pro-life movement. Less than human. A drain on society. That someone I love is regarded this way is unspeakably painful to me.

I stand behind abortion rights because I believe that no one can serve as a better governing body over an individual than that person. I believe individuals have the ability to discern what they will and will not do, as they are autonomous beings. For this reason, I am also vegan, against the death penalty, opposed to state power and fully supportive of individual sexual decisions.

One may ask about the self-determination and autonomy of a child. Once a child is born, I wish it nothing but the best. I would love to see every child have an education, food, shelter and medicine. However, I fail to see how a mass of cells the size of a kumquat, with no nerve endings, or a potentially viable fetus that is so deformed it has no chance of surviving (plus, it may kill the woman carrying it) can qualify as self-determined individuals. I fail to see how one can even consider the aforementioned cellular growths to be humans.

Our highest court claims not to know that any unborn child is actually human and alive. Roe holds that a change in location, passage through the birth canal, can turn a potential human being into an actual human being.

But this makes no sense. What something is does not depend on where it is. How something is perceived may change with location, but not what it is in itself.

the very basis of the Roe v. Wade decision -- the one that grounds abortion rights in the Constitution -- strikes many people now as faintly ridiculous. Whatever abortion may be, it cannot simply be a matter of privacy.

That right of privacy, first enunciated in 1965 in Griswold v. Connecticut, once made sense. It overturned a state law forbidding the use of contraceptives by married couples. The average person could easily understand that a right of privacy was at issue here. If the government telling you what you can and cannot do in your own bedroom is not about privacy, then what is?The Connecticut law had to go. If the state legislature wasn't going to take it off the books, then the court had to.

Abortion is a different matter. It entails so much more than mere birth control -- issues that have roiled the country ever since the Roe decision was handed down in 1973 -- and so much more than mere privacy. As a layman, it's hard for me to raise profound constitutional objections to the decision. But it is not hard to say it confounds our common-sense understanding of what privacy is.

If a Supreme Court ruling is going to affect so many people then it ought to rest on perfectly clear logic and up-to-date science. Roe , with its reliance on trimesters and viability, has a musty feel to it, and its argument about privacy raises more questions than it answers.

1987: Chair, Advisory Committee, Girls, Inc. of Dallas, a national non-profit youth organization. Contact: Cecilia Boone, Dallas Chair, (214) 654-4530.

The six former justices, all of them men, said they had worked with Miers while she was a lawyer in Dallas and they endorsed her Supreme Court nomination.

"I'd trust her with my wife and with my life," former Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice John Hill told reporters on the White House driveway after a meeting with President George W. Bush.

The White House has some major work to do to shore up Miers' chances of Senate confirmation. Some conservatives want Bush to withdraw her nomination and pick an experienced judge with known conservative views who could shift the balance of the nine-member high court firmly to the right.

"I think this is an excellent choice by the president of the United States and I think when people get to know her and understand her like we do, they'll find her an excellent choice. And she'll be a legend on that court before her career is finished," said former Texas Supreme Court Justice Craig Enoch.

Scientology's "silent-birth" doctrine holds that children should be delivered in an atmosphere of total quiet, without any groans, screams, or sounds of pain from the mother, or even the audible exchange of information among hospital personnel... Has Katie, a good Catholic girl and longtime advocate of saving it for marriage, gone completely out of her engram bank? I'm not saying she should go for an AA or anything, but maybe it's time to deaberrate. Giving birth hurts; that's evident to any Operating Thetan through simple obnosis.

Word out of the White House this morning is that in prep sessions for her hearings, Miers has been working on outlining her arguments that Roe. v. Wade is "settled law."

Since the court-sanctioned death of Florida's Terri Schiavo, the conversational media and written press have predictably and (almost) obediently echoed sentiments of self-proclaimed bioethicists in touting living wills as a measure to ensure that one's own autonomy and personal directives are observed and held fast to in times of medical crisis.

Using the unfortunate Terri Schiavo as their unconsenting poster child, a good many media outlets and bioethics 'experts' have screamed from the rooftops that no one should ever allow a fate such as hers to befall them. In other words, sign your life away now so that no one can fight for it later, should you become unable to speak for yourself.

Traditionally speaking, a living will is an excellent mechanism for denying yourself unwanted medical treatment, so-called heroic medical measures or resuscitation in the event of a healthcare catastrophe. They, however, do not address the needs, sovereignty, personal choices or desires of those of us who aren't in a gratuitous dash to let someone else decide our fate.

It's a pity that the mainstream press and media overlooked the fact that Terri Schiavo, while still in full capacity, could never have consented to the removal of enteral nourishment upon the event of a profound neurological insult. Indeed, it wasn't until 9 years after Schiavo suffered her injuries, and at least a year after her husband and guardian petitioned the court for the authority to withdraw her tube-provided food and water, that such an act could take place and - even then - only under certain circumstances. It is, therefore, unreasonable and disingenuous for columnists, bioethicists and 'scratch' attorneys to promote the idea that a simple piece of paper would have circumvented the predicament that the Schiavo case triggered. It is also completely false to say that a living will, in the traditional sense, is a document crafted to protect the patient's best interests. It's anything but.

In sum, a great disservice upon the general public has been committed by those promoting the idea that a living will is a means to ensure personal autonomy. Understanding that each of us holds dissimilar values, beliefs and desires, ushering people into signing their lives away under duress is something I view as a criminal act and not in keeping with the intent of the laws that allow us our own privacy and decision-making.

A living will has nothing to do with living. It, instead, has everything to do with dying. It has to do with granting permission to others to withdraw medically necessary care from you so that you can either die naturally or die quickly - whichever comes first. For many people, the provision of artificial life support when death is eminent can seem unreasonable and unwanted. That's certainly understandable. But, consenting to such a thing can be a hazard inasmuch as it opens the door for the removal of medically necessary treatment when death isn't eminent.

Two of the things we hold most sacred in America, two things which are at other times on the same side of the fence, are at odds: the rights of the individual and the lives of our children.

Sadly, this issue could have been resolved decades ago were it not for the involvement of self-serving politicians and a number of extremist groups. As is usually the case, the involvement of the aforementioned people has caused the issue to become clouded and divisive, and from that divisiveness has arisen bitterness and violence. Most Americans are plain, old fashioned, nuts and bolts, common sense people. We sit in the coffee shops after work and discuss the issues of the day, and wonder why the "Damn Politicians" can't seem to solve whatever pressing problem is dominating the morning's headlines.

So... Is abortion murder, or should a woman truly have the right to end her pregnancy? To fully understand the situation, one must look at all sides of the issue and understand the agendas of both the Left and the Right in this regard. More than ever, both Conservatism and Liberalism are dominated by their respective extremists, and it is the extremists who often set the agenda for both groups, although one could make the argument that the extremists have become the mainstream where the Left is concerned.

between his mother's last breath and his first, Nicolas Khyree Figueroa went a few critical moments too long without sufficient oxygen. He suffered irreversible brain damage and remained on a respirator at the neonatal intensive care unit as his aunt visited him day after day after day.

"Hoping, hoping, hoping," Johnson would say.

The 32-year-old aunt remained willfully optimistic. She rubbed the baby's chest and sang to him and spoke to him of his mother. She read three books to him over and over: "God Loves You So Much," "I Love You Forever," "Angels A to Z." She sang to him as she had to her own four children.

"The Barney song," she recalled.

The boy more than doubled in size, from 2 pounds, 8 ounces, to 5 pounds, 10 ounces, but his neurological condition remained unchanged. He developed an infection and other complications. The doctors said the Miracle Baby was beyond hope.

Pinellas-Pasco County chief medical examiner Dr. Jon Thogmartin confirmed Terri Schiavo died of "marked dehydration," even though he listed the exact cause of death as "complications of anoxic encephalopathy," or brain damage. He declared Terri's heart to be strong and estimated she would have lived another decade if not for the feeding-tube removal.

Thogmartin couldn't provide an answer for the $64,000 dollar question, although the media were largely persuaded he had and variously reported the autopsy "backed Schiavo" in his longtime assertion that his wife was in a persistent vegetative state, or PVS.

Thogmartin and consulting neuropathologist Dr. Stephen Nelson stressed in the autopsy report that PVS is a clinical diagnosis made through physical examination of a living patient ? not a pathological diagnosis made postmortem. Still, Nelson reported that pathological and anatomical findings, such as her shrunken brain and dilated ventricles, were "consistent" with the PVS diagnosis reached in the court. He pointed out that Terri's brain weighed 615 grams, which is less than half of the expected weight for an adult her age. He also pointed out Terri's brain weighed less than her famous vegetative predecessor Karen Ann Quinlan.

Thogmartin conceded it is unknown how much the long duration of dehydration contributed to the shrinkage of Terri Schiavo's brain.

At the press conference held to announce the autopsy findings, Nelson went further in lending support for the court's diagnosis of PVS. He emphasized the pathological findings were "very consistent" with PVS, but admitted he could not rule out the possibility Terri Schiavo was in a minimally conscious state, or MCS, because there are no published studies on pathological correlations to the clinical diagnosis of MCS.

In a critique of the autopsy posted on her weblog, ErosColoredGlasses.blogspot.com, physician and scientist Dr. Sherry Eros called it "medically reprehensible" for Nelson to have stated to the press that the autopsy results are either "consistent with" or "not inconsistent with" a PVS diagnosis, without emphasizing "that it is illegitimate to use postmortem findings to retroactively make the clinical diagnosis of PVS." Eros further questions the relevance of findings that are "consistent" with PVS.

"When the scientific and medical data is equally consistent with both x and non-x as in the Schiavo case, then it is utterly meaningless to suggest ... that it supports or establishes one or the other as true," she wrote. "It is only when the physician or the ME can use data to "rule out" something, by finding that the data is 'not consistent with' such a diagnosis, or cause of death, that something meaningful has been said." Eros further derisively equated Nelson's phrase "very consistent" with the nonsensical "very pregnant."

The Chinese Ministry of Health says 3.53 out of every 100,000 Chinese women died from breast cancer from 1990 to 1992.

The fatality rate of breast cancer in the 1991-2000 period rose 38.7% for urban Chinese women, and 39.1% for those in rural areas.

The disease is affecting younger women aged 45-49, 10-15 years younger than their counterparts in the United States..

"You are the best governor ever - deserving of great respect," Harriet E. Miers wrote to George W. Bush days after his 51st birthday in July 1997. She also found him "cool," said he and his wife, Laura, were "the greatest!" and told him: "Keep up the great work. Texas is blessed."

I was scared for my baby and that's why I aborted it. I was scared it would have a terrible life. I was scared of being depressed. Before I had the abortion I spoke to the baby. I told him that I loved him (I think it would have been a boy) and to please come back to me later.

I felt that I was doing the right thing for the baby and for me, but I very much wish I was in a different place in life, not so afraid. I love my baby and thats why I aborted it, so it wouldn't grow up to be sad like me.

While it is certainly not a bad thing to be a Republican, an Evangelical, or personally pro-life, this does not mean that Ms. Miers has a judicial philosophy that will lead her to reject the extraconstitutional law-making of Roe , Doe, and Casey. The vast majority of members of Congress describe themselves as personally pro-life, but are actually opposed to overturning Roe or amending the Constitution - including a majority of the members of the Judiciary Committee (and a few names that might surprise folks). Many Texas Republicans - some maintain that list includes the President , who still believes that "the culture" needs to change before such things can happen - fall into this category. In fact, as ludicrous as it may sound, many of the original authors of Roe were personally pro-life.

"Dr. Smith's medical treatment included intercourse in which he told plaintiff was needed to help alleviate plaintiff's lower back and lower extremity pain"

My first objection is more of a delicious irony. Notice how so many righteously offended liberals keep referring to fetuses as people. In the New York Times, Bob Herbert proclaims that Bennett considers "exterminating blacks would be a most effective crime-fighting tool." Schultz and McAuliffe say Bennett wants to exterminate "babies."

Funny, I thought the bedrock faith of pro-abortion liberals is that fetuses aren't babies. Isn't it interesting how this lynchpin of liberal morality evaporates the moment an opportunity to call Bennett a racist presents itself? Talk about utilitarianism. [...]

Which raises the point missed by so many Bennett detractors, often deliberately. His argument wasn't about race at all. His point was to discourage even pro-lifers from demeaning the cause by making abortion into an acceptable governmental tool for social policy. [...]

The former philosophy professor picked a hypothetical that he thought would make the horror of such utilitarianism obvious to everybody. Murder a whole generation just to lower the crime rate? Disgusting!

Bennett's real mistake was in thinking people would be mature enough to get it.