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“The science is on our side and now it appears that a major news program has even noticed.”
good news from over at Creative Minority Report:

Creative Minority Report: ABC News: Tiniest, Most Fragile of Patients -

Former Abortionist Bernard Nathanson Exposes Lies of American Pro-Abortion Movement

We can hope and pray and keep praying, that more people have these “Damascus moments.”
“We were guilty of massive deception” says Nathanson about abortion industry
By Tim Waggoner
TORONTO, ON, July 29, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – On July 9, 2008, CFRB talk show host, Spider Jones, interviewed former abortionist Dr. Bernard Nathanson about his past involvement in the abortion movement and his conversion to the pro-life viewpoint.
At one time Nathanson was deeply entrenched in the American pro-abortion movement, having co-founded the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) and overseen 75,000 abortions as director of an abortion clinic. During the CFRB program Nathanson recalled the deceitful and dishonest tactics that he and NARAL relied upon to push for the legalization and acceptance of abortion.
“We claimed that between five and ten thousand women a year died of botched abortions,” he said. “The actual figure was closer to 200 to 300 and we also claimed that there were a million illegal abortions a year in the United States and the actual figure was close to 200,000. So, we were guilty of massive deception.” “I mean as a founding member and chairman of the medical committee, I accepted the figures which came from a biostatistician named Christopher Tietze and he and his wife passed along these figures to us at NARAL. We were in no position to validate them or not, so we accepted them in the interests of higher standards, or at least higher objectives,” he explained.
Nathanson’s conversion to the pro-life movement was sparked by the advent of the ultrasound machine in the early 1970s. He related how his heart was moved to realize that a fetus is in fact a human being after he watched an unborn baby recoil from a vacuum abortion device before being sucked from its mother’s womb. (more)

The Vindication of Humanae Vitae

A long but worthwhile read on the vision and wisdom of the papap encyclical Humanae Vitae. Not being a Catholic the teachings of this document against contraception are difficult but thought provoking and shoudl at least give Christians of any “flavor” a moments pause in prayerful meditation. The warnings of the document give added weight to it’s teachings. It is my understanding that the Eastern Orthodox are a bit more flexible in their teachings. Either position is preferable to the cavlier and (pardon) “devil may care” attitude of most Protestants.

An excerpt from First Things:
…Let’s begin by meditating upon what might be called the first of the secular ironies now evident: Humanae Vitae’s specific predictions about what the world would look like if artificial contraception became widespread. The encyclical warned of four resulting trends: a general lowering of moral standards throughout society; a rise in infidelity; a lessening of respect for women by men; and the coercive use of reproductive technologies by governments.
In the years since Humanae Vitae’s appearance, numerous distinguished Catholic thinkers have argued, using a variety of evidence, that each of these predictions has been borne out by the social facts. One thinks, for example, of Monsignor George A. Kelly in his 1978 “Bitter Pill the Catholic Community Swallowed” and of the many contributions of Janet E. Smith, including Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later and the edited volume Why Humanae Vitae Was Right: A Reader.
And therein lies an irony within an irony. Although it is largely Catholic thinkers who have connected the latest empirical evidence to the defense of Humanae Vitae’s predictions, during those same forty years most of the experts actually producing the empirical evidence have been social scientists operating in the secular realm. As sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox emphasized in a 2005 essay: “The leading scholars who have tackled these topics are not Christians, and most of them are not political or social conservatives. They are, rather, honest social scientists willing to follow the data wherever it may lead.”
Consider, as Wilcox does, the Nobel Prize-winning economist George Akerlof. In a well-known 1996 article in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Akerlof explained in the language of modern economics why the sexual revolution—contrary to common prediction, especially prediction by those in and out of the Church who wanted the teaching on birth control changed—had led to an increase in both illegitimacy and abortion. In another work published in the Economic Journal ten years ago, he traced the empirical connections between the decrease in marriage and married fatherhood for men—both clear consequences of the contraceptive revolution—and the simultaneous increase in behaviors to which single men appear more prone: substance abuse, incarceration, and arrests, to name just three.
Along the way, Akerlof found a strong connection between the diminishment of marriage on the one hand and the rise in poverty and social pathology on the other. He explained his findings in nontechnical terms in Slate magazine: “Although doubt will always remain about what causes a change in social custom, the technology-shock theory does fit the facts. The new reproductive technology was adopted quickly, and on a massive scale. Marital and fertility patterns changed with similar drama, at about the same time.” …(more)

A Great Evil Afoot

At First Things from the closing address of Richard John Neuhaus at the annual convention of the National Right to Life Committee:
…The culture of death is an idea before it is a deed. I expect many of us here, perhaps most of us here, can remember when we were first encountered by the idea. For me, it was in the 1960s when I was pastor of a very poor, very black, inner city parish in Brooklyn, New York. I had read that week an article by Ashley Montagu of Princeton University on what he called “A Life Worth Living.” He listed the qualifications for a life worth living: good health, a stable family, economic security, educational opportunity, the prospect of a satisfying career to realize the fullness of one’s potential. These were among the measures of what was called “a life worth living.”
And I remember vividly, as though it were yesterday, looking out the next Sunday morning at the congregation of St. John the Evangelist and seeing all those older faces creased by hardship endured and injustice afflicted, and yet radiating hope undimmed and love unconquered. And I saw that day the younger faces of children deprived of most, if not all, of those qualifications on Prof. Montagu’s list. And it struck me then, like a bolt of lightning, a bolt of lightning that illuminated our moral and cultural moment, that Prof. Montagu and those of like mind believed that the people of St. John the Evangelist—people whom I knew and had come to love as people of faith and kindness and endurance and, by the grace of God, hope unvanquished—it struck me then that, by the criteria of the privileged and enlightened, none of these my people had a life worth living. In that moment, I knew that a great evil was afoot. The culture of death is an idea before it is a deed. (more)

Euthanasia petitioner beats death, hugs life

We are so sure, aren’t we, that we will know what we want, that even now we know ourselves enough to make decisions for situations we cannot imagine. We seek in the end, as we have throughout our lives, to be in control, to be our own god. To make decisions of life and death. To create and destroy. We know, that we would never want to live like Christopher Reeves, that a crippled life would not be worth living, we just KNOW. But the real issue here as in most parts of our lives is one of fear and faith. Those end of life directives, those pleas for the hemlock, at first glance they seem so modern, so level headed, so open minded. But made without reference to Truth they end in tragedy which mangages at times to stretch beyond the mere prospect of death. Even believers fear being less than whole; fear the prospect of suffering, fear what we do not know. We forget that we worship a God who has suffered with us and for us, who understands our suffering and our fear and bids us do not be afraid, to trust in Him and not ourselves and our limited ability to see. This article from the India Times:
CHANDIGARH: Two years back Seema Sood longed for death and had even petitioned the President of India for euthanasia. But hope triumphed over despair and today, walking with difficulty, but walking nonetheless, after a total knee replacement surgery, the Bits Pilani gold medallist is ready to take on life once again. The turnaround has been both spectacular and miraculous for the 37-year-old who lost all movement of her limbs for 15 harrowing years after a crippling attack of rheumatoid arthritis. The disillusionment was so intense that she wanted permission for mercy killing. But that was then. “I regret the letter to the President,” she said, still frail and moving in tiny steps with the help of a walker. “Everything was so dark for me earlier, but I am excited about my mobility now and I am confident I will improve.” (more)
There is some good comment here:, excerpted below:
But euthanasia allows for no changes of mind. It is the philosophy of despair. What sick and disabled people who want to die really need is the sort of help and support which Mrs. Sood received both from politicians and her friends. Note well, politicians. Your actions could save a life like Mrs. Sood’s rather than condemning her and others to death.”

Dobson Attacks Obama on Abortion

From Townhall:
…Dobson’s segment largely focused on Obama’s 2006 religiously-themed Call to Renewal Speech and took particular issue with Obama’s refusal to support the Born Alive Infant Protection Act as an Illinois State Senator. The bill would have given medical protection to babies who miraculously survived abortion.
Dobson played several audio portions of Obama’s speech, pausing to criticize certain passages. Obama, who maintains he is personally pro-life but has a 100 percent voting record from abortion lobbyists, said, “I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.” (more)

Howard Dean’s Abortion Contortions

Sex, lies and death-from the DNC. The DNC chairman gets his facts wrong.The Dailey Standard:
YESTERDAY MORNING AT the Christian Science Monitor breakfast meeting, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean was asked whether the Democratic platform on abortion should be amended. That will be up to Barack Obama and his delegates, Dean said, adding that the Democratic party believes “individuals have a right to make up their own minds in personal matters … but this party also believes that we ought to significantly reduce the number of abortions in this country.”
Given the latter, I asked how he could square Barack Obama’s and the Democratic party’s support for public funding for abortion–which studies show significantly increases the abortion rate.
Dean responded: “Total nonsense. It’s total nonsense that public funding” increases the abortion rate.
Well, according to the Guttmacher Institute, that’s not total nonsense.
A 1994-1995 AGI survey of abortion patients found that in states where Medicaid pays for abortions, women covered by Medicaid have an abortion rate 3.9 times that of women who are not covered, while in states that do not permit Medicaid funding for abortions, Medicaid recipients are only 1.6 times as likely as nonrecipients to have abortions….(more)

Audacity of Death

I agree. Straight talk as usual from the folks at merecommments:
How can I not read about this position (American Spectator via WSJ) on what is clearly infanticide taken by my senator and not be disgusted? No way to wash one’s hand of this bloody business, I’m afraid. (more)

Curriculum Mortae

Sometimes Indoctrination Is a Matter of Life and Death
The end of academia as documented over at SalvoMag:
Having undergone a rather abrupt and atypical shift to the pro-life view the summer after completing college, I entered my PhD program with all the enthusiasm of the newly converted. Noticing the posters, stickers, and flyers promoting various causes that adorned the other office doors in my department, I engaged in some interior decorating of my own. Soon, half of the door to the office I shared with another graduate student was gilded with my cleverest pro-life propaganda. I had to admit that it looked a bit odd next to the gay-themed flyers on the other half of the door, but hey, I thought, this is grad school, land of tolerance and diversity.
Unfortunately, my officemate didn’t agree. The pro-life signs were “embarrassing,” she said. She didn’t want her students—or worse, her professors—to think that she was “anti-choice.” (“So should I be worried about everyone thinking I was a lesbian?” I wondered.) My colleague resolved the problem the way all good liberals solve the problem of differing points of view: by silencing them. We “agreed” to denude the door and use only the space above our own desks for personal expression. Such was my welcome as an out-of-the-closet pro-lifer at a bastion of liberal learning. But this was merely a foreboding of even worse things to come. (more)

Tired of Pro-Life

From Mere Comments a particularly strong closing. Be sure and read the whole post here:
Paul Engor writes on “Roman Catholics for Obama ‘08″ in the current issue of Catholic World Report. A similar phenomenon occurs among other religious groups, Evangelical included. I call in pro-life fatigue. We’ve been informed that the “Religious Right” has lost the culture war, get over it, we didn’t change the culture, when we thought our political involvement would win the day. Now is the time to give up “single issue voting” and become more sophisticated and nuanced in our approach. What they don’t understand, however, is that many pro-life Christians don’t put much stock in politics to begin with….(more)