Dawn Eden posts a story of the first hand account of a women visiting Planned Parenthood to get an abortion.
SAN FRANCISCO — A nonprofit that runs a national post-abortion telephone talk line has unveiled a series of electronic greeting cards that concerned friends and family can send to a woman after she chooses to terminate a pregnancy.
"Women having abortions are calling our line because often they don’t have someone to talk to — it’s a stigmatized issue," said Aspen Baker, founder and executive director of Oakland-based Exhale. "So the chance to honor and acknowledge someone’s experience by calling upon something that is within our social practices and social mores seemed important and could go a long way toward supporting people."
Like Exhale’s confidential talk line, the six e-cards available on the group’s Web site were designed to be nonpartisan and encompass the range of someone’s potential responses to going through an abortion.
One expresses sympathy, offering the gentle reminder that, "As you grieve, remember that you are loved." Another provides encouragement for someone who "did the right thing." Yet another strikes a religious tone with the thought that "God will never leave you or forsake you.
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 Jester Hat Tip: |
Kevin Miller | ||
Every time Exhale makes it into the news they always talk about their non-partisanship when it just does not exist. But just sending an e-card for someone who has just had an abortion is just about as tacky as you can get. Though I can imagine the regular greeting card companies getting into the business considering the drop of birthday cards that could have been potentially bought since Roe v. Wade. 44 million and counting is a large demographic to lose.
Update: Thinking more about this I think it just goes to show that often pro-abortion supporters don’t really believe what they say they believe. If a child in the womb is just a tissue mass or a "product of conception" then its removal has the moral weight of having a mole removed from your face. Yet we don’t see e-cards for people having moles removed. If they are non-partisan where are there e-cards for "you made the right choice" for women who keep their child?
The idea that Exhale is non-partisan is laughable. Under spiritual concerns they link to resources from several faiths, and of course under Catholicism they have Catholics For a Free Choice and goes on to say:
Pope John Paul II recognizes that “in dire circumstances, some women may honestly feel trapped with no viable option or alternative but to turn to abortion. Decisions that go against life sometimes arise from difficult or even tragic situations of profound suffering, loneliness, a total lack of economic prospects, depression, and anxiety about the future. Such circumstances can mitigate, even to a notable degree, subjective responsibility and consequent culpability of those who make these choices which, in themselves, are wrong.” (as quoted by Father Roberts, speech, 1998)
No one will be surprised to hear that this is a misleading paraphrase of what John Paul II wrote in Evangelium Vitae.
Decisions that go against life sometimes arise from difficult or even tragic situations of profound suffering, loneliness, a total lack of economic prospects, depression and anxiety about the future. Such circumstances can mitigate even to a notable degree subjective responsibility and the consequent culpability of those who make these choices which in themselves are evil. But today the problem goes far beyond the necessary recognition of these personal situations. It is a problem which exists at the cultural, social and political level, where it reveals its more sinister and disturbing aspect in the tendency, ever more widely shared, to interpret the above crimes against life as legitimate expressions of individual freedom, to be acknowledged and protected as actual rights.
The explanation under Protestant Faiths was quite odd.
What the Bible says: “What is a good woman?” The biblical tradition repeatedly offers a clear idea of free choice for women. In the Bible, good women make many complex and important decisions. Fertility is not one of the attributes for which women are praised in the Bible. Instead, women are praised for their wisdom.
Fertility is not one of the attributes women are praised for in the Bible? Gee when did the book of Psalms get dumped from the Bible? "Children too are a gift from the LORD, the fruit of the womb, a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children born in one’s youth.
Blessed are they whose quivers are full. They will never be shamed contending with foes at the gate." I guess women are praised for buying a certain brand of underwear and being archers with lots of ammunition.
Their fetal development page I think was written by a farmer. "cells to the shape of a small summer squash.", "The embryo is the size of a poppy seed", "size of a small grape", "of an average strawberry."
Rome, Italy (LifeNews.com) — The baby boy who became the victim of an abortion after doctors failed a disability test on him died over the weekend. Physicians advised his mother to have an abortion after they had misdiagnosed a physical deformity but the boy survived the procedure.
Doctors at the teaching hospital Careggi performed two ultrasounds on the boy and his mother and they said he had a defective esophagus. That’s a disorder that surgery could have corrected after birth in some cases.
However, when they went to abort the baby boy, they discovered he was healthy and desperately tried to resuscitate him.
The boy was born health and lived for six days following the failed abortion, which was done at 22 weeks into the pregnancy.
U2 rock star and humanitarian Bono has come in for some recent criticism. According to Advertising Age (registration required), his (RED) campaign has spent upward of $100 million on advertising to produce a mere $18 million for the Global Fund to support African AIDS programs.
A little more than a year ago, Bono and Bobby Shriver launched the (RED) campaign in London. It would go on to attract attention (and advertising) from such media elites as Steven Spielberg, Chris Rock, and Oprah Winfrey, while attracting sponsorships from AOL and MySpace. It created quite a buzz: Ads were all over the place and the world would be changed.
The idea was simple: new lines of consumer goods—all from the trendiest companies, Gap, Giorgio Armani, Motorola, Apple iPod—would be launched with the (RED) logo. When you bought one of these products, the company would give a fraction of the proceeds to the Global Fund. The (RED) Manifesto put it simply: “You buy (RED) stuff. We get the money, buy the pills and distribute them. . . . If they don’t get the pills, they die. We don’t want them to die. We want to give them the pills. And we can. And you can. And it’s easy. All you have to do is upgrade your choice.”
So I guess they will rename it to the "In the Red" campaign. Ryan T. Anderson’s article is well worth reading in critique of the problems of global funds and the use of a consumerist approach to help those in Africa.
Mitt Romney on the Terri Schiavo case.
"I generally think that it’s not a good idea for courts to legislate. Nor is it great idea for legislatures to adjudicate in a specific circumstance."
This is quite a dumb statement. This was no case of the legislature adjudicating since what they were doing was allowing the case to be judged at a higher level. This was providing access to the courts and adjudicating, not legislating what the outcome was to be. This was a case of the legislature legislating. Another silly part of the statement is that he "generally" thinks that it is not a good idea for the court to legislate. How about it is never a good idea for the court to legislate. Mitt Romney should have a little better understanding of the Schiavo case considering that his state tried to kill 11 year old PVS diagnosed Haleigh Poutre who is now talking.
But remember the meme that Romney has had a conversion to the pro-life cause. Yes life is precious, but don’t let the government get involved to help to save a life.
[Via AMDG]
As is often the case the headline means absolutely nothing and is in no way indicative of the actual story. The article covers New Jersey’s adult stem-cell research, something that the Catholic Church has never been against. The whole idea of gaining ground when absolutely nothing has changed is just another case of MSM perversion of truth relating to the Church.
Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine signed a bill last December providing $270 million in state aid to build five research centers, including a $50 million center at the New Jersey Institute of Technology that will be devoted to adult stem cell research. Such work is morally acceptable, according to the Catholic viewpoint, because no living thing is destroyed in the process of extracting the "adult" cells. They are found in placentas, umbilical cords, bone marrow, fat cells and nasal membranes.
I found this paragraph to have a couple of odd things. For one why is adult surrounded by scare quotes? The other is "no living thing is destroyed." It is just so hard for them to say human in connection to stem-cell research. That they have to replace human with thing just shows how deep the bias is on this issue. Congratulations your pregnant with a thing. Though pregnant moms who are fans of the Fantastic Four might pass out to find there pregnant with a Thing (it would be Grimm news).
"As we go along," he said, "we’re learning more and more." Breakthroughs in both embryonic and adult stem cells seem to be coming constantly, he added.
Hold the presses there has been a breakthrough in embryonic stem-cell research. Funny I must have missed it and strangely this breakthrough has received no coverage. I guess the number of cures due to ESCR have increased from zero to nothing.
One problem is the whole terminology of adult stem-cells, this is rather confusing considering that these stem-cells are being recovered via umbilical cord blood and other methods. Though at this stage of the game it is a term that just is not going to go away.
[Via Jill Stanek]
Interestingly the same reporter Kitta MacPherson wrote another column on the subject today Promising results in stem cell research that really spins ESCR.
"Everybody is always saying to us, ‘Well, you guys studying the human embryonic stem cells, you haven’t benefited anyone yet,’" said Evan Snyder, a neuroscientist who has published breakthrough papers on both embryonic and adult stem cells. "Well, this is it."
The international team, headed by Snyder, a physician-scientist at the Burnham Institute in California, also compared the effectiveness of embryonic stem cells versus the "adult" variety and found them to be equally effective.
The data is so strong, Snyder said, he plans to call upon the federal Food and Drug Administration to allow him to launch clinical trials immediately to test the effectiveness of the treatment against Tay-Sachs disease, a genetic disorder affecting Ashkenazi Jews.
But note this part of the story. The scientists used both adult and embryonic stem cells in their experiments, with interesting results: The international team, headed by Snyder, a physician-scientist at the Burnham Institute in California, also compared the effectiveness of embryonic stem cells versus the "adult" variety and found them to be equally effective. In other words, in mice adult stem cells were just as therapeutic as embryonic! That should have been the headline and the story’s emphasis. Moreover, if this is so, why use ESCs in human trials, as these scientists want to do, given their propensity to cause tumors and their ethical contentiousness?
Yes the breakthrough in ESCR is that for this test it has the exact same effectiveness of adult stem-cells. If anything this only shows the effectiveness of adult stem-cell treatment and the need for problematic sources as unnecessary.
Dawn Eden sent me this latest bit of Planned Parenthood activism.
Join the Planned Parenthood Pill Patrol and ensure women in your neighborhood have access to EC.
Just last week, we learned that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Office of Women’s Health, which was at the center of the fight to make EC available over the counter, just had more than one-quarter of its operating budget cut. Now people are asking — is this payback for the prolonged EC controversy?
Over the past three years, Planned Parenthood has worked with large pharmacy chains, urging them to change their policies to stock EC and ensure that women can access their birth control in-store, without discrimination or delay. Some pharmacies, like CVS, have stepped up to the plate, changed their policies, and worked to ensure that those policies are enforced to protect their customers. Other pharmacies have flatly refused to adopt such policies. In the wake of EC going over the counter, Planned Parenthood has had numerous reports of women being denied access in their pharmacies. We are asking for your help. Today, Planned Parenthood is launching the next phase of its campaign to protect women’s health — a nationwide grassroots effort to ensure that EC is available in every neighborhood in America.
Sign up to survey a pharmacy in your area now.
During the month of March, Planned Parenthood needs hundreds of volunteers to join its Pill Patrol and attempt to purchase emergency contraception at neighborhood Costco, Target, Wal-Mart, and Supervalue/Osco stores.
Joining the Pill Patrol is easy. When you sign up to survey a store in your neighborhood, you’ll receive an activist toolkit that includes easy instructions, a script, and a phone number to call if you have any questions.
Isn’t their support of EC a tacit admission that their quest to make sure that not only that everyone is sexually active, but already taking a contraceptive pill a failure? Or do they want people to come to rely on EC which would have a lower effectiveness and when it fails they will pick them up on the rebound in one of their abortion clinics?
As for the supposed budget payback, I wish that was actually true. The idea that birth control pills require a prescription, but that a stronger dosage of the same thing doesn’t is pure insanity. Though I am sure they will turn it into an argument to make the pill OTC also.
Doctors call it a miracle. A Southern Colorado woman was in a vegetative state for more than six years, but now, she’s talking for the first time. She spoke exclusively to 11 News.
Christa Lilly had a heart attack then a stroke. That’s the last thing she remembers. It was November of 2000, when Lilly slipped into a vegetative state, which is essentially like a coma, but with the eyes open. Lilly was unconscious and unaware of her surroundings. Now, for the first time in six and a half years, she’s awake, alert, and talking. "I think it’s wonderful. It makes me so happy," Lilly tells us.
[Image]
The last time Lilly was aware of the world around her, Bill Clinton was in office and the September 11th attacks hadn’t even happened. Lilly was also surprised to find out her youngest daughter is now 12. "It’s kinda exciting," Chelcy says. She’s Christa’s daughter. And she’s also a grandmother of three, that’s new too. "Seeing her talking," Latiana says, is the greatest gift of all. She’s 6-years-old and the oldest of the grandchildren.
“To come back out of it… God is good," Minnie Smith, Lilly’s mother, says. She has been taking care of her all these years. She says this past Sunday, her prayers were answered. "Every morning, I always check on her when I wake up, before I go to the bathroom. I always say, ‘Hi baby, how are you doing?’ She said, ‘I’m fine’ and that’s when I knew she was awake." A two-word answer that changed everything.
Lilly says her biggest frustration is learning how to talk again. "I’ve been eating cake." Eating is no problem for this woman, who had been kept alive by a feeding tube.
“This is a miracle,” Lilly’s neurologist, Dr. Randall Bjork, tells us. He checked to see her how her brain is functioning. He says he’s as surprised as everyone else. "This is all mystical and I can’t explain it."
[Via Secondhand Smoke]
PVS? Not persistent or vegetative – well I guess two out of three ain’t bad. It is interesting that the doctor resorts to the mystical to explain it.
Fr. Martin Fox has a great post "Weekly Standard: throw prolifers under the bus" about all of the Rudy Giuliani support.
Also Jay Anderson posts in response to Fr. Fox’s post Weekly Standard to Pro-Lifers: Shut Up and Eat Your Peas.
I have found all this Giuliani apologetics in recent weeks to be quite sickening. Why is the GOP looking for their own version of President Clinton? Whatever happened to character mattering which was the bugle call during the Clinton years?
We hear that he will give us judges in the mode of Scalia as the constant refrain. That even though he is pro-abortion he will vote the right way on these issues. So I guess now if a candidate is a hypocrite it is okay as long he votes with us. It doesn’t matter what he believes, it is how he acts. Now we have come to find this quite common among Democrats in how their personally held opinions won’t affect how they vote, and they were rightly mocked for this total lack of personal integrity. Now though we are using open-arms to welcome candidates with the exact same schism between beliefs and actions. Only it is acceptable if the personal schism goes the right way.
Though this idea of Giuliani appointing judges that are strict constructionalist is pretty laughable. He didn’t do this in his eight years as mayor where he appointed Democrats over Republicans 8 to 1 with many outright abortion supporters. His pick of judges was praised by NARAL Pro-Choice New York.
Somehow I guess we are suppose to ignore all of his character flaws, affairs, and being the wrong side on so many issues because he will be good concerning the war on terror. That he can be wrong on so many issues of much importance, yet he will be near flawless in his choices in the fight against terrorism. Responding quite well in aftermath of the 9/11 attack does not mean that he will make the right moral choices in fighting terrorism.
Giuliani I mentioned would be our version of Bill Clinton in many ways, and in many others he will be our version of John Kerry. Kerry is a Catholic who is personally opposed, yet would vote for abortion. Giuliani as a Catholic is personally for but will vote against it. They are flip-flop mirror images of each other concerning abortion though they are quite syncopated on many other social issues. Why in the world is so many in the GOP running down the hill to make their first Catholic nominee someone hardly distinguishable from Democratic versions of the same? Exactly where is the clamor for Communion to be denied for Rudy as there was for John Kerry? Though Rudy isn’t the nominee yet and I hope the day never comes where he is.
An anti-abortion group hoping to persuade women not to end their pregnancies offered free sonograms on the doorstep of a South Bronx abortion clinic yesterday, drawing few takers and a mixture of curiosity and anger from neighbors.
The mobile "crisis pregnancy center" – an RV that travels from clinic to clinic – is a new tactic in the anti-abortion movement, and it angered officials at the Dr. Emily clinic, one of at least seven clinics in the borough where the procedure is performed.
"This is going to hurt women," said a clinic administrator.
[Via Jill Stanek]
As Jill noted the headline "Abort-foe RV gives sonograms, but critics say it ‘hurts women’" is based totally on this one quote with no explanation how an RV offering sonograms hurts women. Though I guess if the RV happened to run over some women this could be credible. Barring that I guess access to truth hurts women; that is if the women work in an abortion clinic and they loose some ‘business.’