Danger of a Pro-Choice World

A few weeks ago, I told you that there are an estimated 160 missing Asian women: missing because they were never born.   SOURCE: LifeNews.com


These women, victims of sex-selection abortion, are the subject of a new book by Mara Hvistendahl. Hvistendahl begins with what Paul Ehrlich famously called the “Population Bomb” and the population-control movement of the 1960s and 70s. Would-be population controllers discovered that people’s desire for a son was a major impediment to their efforts: Throughout the developing world, especially in Asia, women kept having children until they had a boy.

Thus, as Hvistendahl tells us, “proponents of population control began talking about” sex selection. Ehrlich wrote in The Population Bomb that “if a simple method could be found to guarantee that first-born children were males . . . then population control problems in many areas would be somewhat eased.”

Well, it wasn’t long before western money and technical know-how provided the “simple method” — amniocentesis, followed by abortion. Doctors, first in India, and then throughout Asia, learned how to use the combination to ensure people had a son the first time. And their teachers were groups like the Rockefeller Foundation and the United Nations Family Planning Agency, UNFPA.

The population controllers insisted that the need to curb population growth was so great, that “the drawbacks of a skewed sex ratio” would have to be tolerated. Boy, were they wrong. By 2020 an estimated 20 percent of all Chinese men “will lack a female counterpart.” And as I told you, this lack of women has fueled a growing sex trade in Asia.

Given what Hvistendahl calls the “tragic results” of the “Western advocacy of sex selection,” you would expect her to be angry, and she is. But get this: She’s angry at pro-lifers! Because they dare to cite her research to make the connection between Asia’s missing women and “abortion rights” advocacy.

She has criticized New York Times columnist Ross Douthat for pointing out that it is difficult for supporters of abortion-on-demand to then insist that abortion not be used for sex selection. She laments the “bind” in which Planned Parenthood and United Nations now find themselves.

It’s hard to imagine a clearer example of the blinding power of a false worldview. Having documented the role of abortion-on-demand in wiping 160 million women out of existence, Hvistendahl takes offense when people suggest that abortion on demand may not be such a good thing after all.
Incredible, but a classic example of the post-modern impasse. In a society that worships self-autonomy over all else, when we get what we want, we discover we can’t live with it.

For years I’ve taught how important it is that we embrace a worldview that comports to reality; how important it is that we test the validity of any worldview. Push a worldview to its logical conclusions, and if you can live with those conclusions, well, the worldview proves to be rational.

But one thing is very clear: pro-choicers, entire societies — and at least 160 million would-have-been women — cannot live with the logical conclusions of a worldview that values choice over human life, therefore proves to be irrational or false.

What It Means to Be Pro-Life (aQ&A)

You asked:

And this is my response.

What It Means To Be Pro-Life

It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish. - Mother Teresa

I wonder, since I haven’t done anything to deliberately invite such a message, if you’re one of the pro-abortion advocates who periodically messages any and all pro-lifers on Tumblr to draw them into pointless arguments and successively nasty messages. It doesn’t really matter, but I did wonder. I hope you’re not.

Whatever your motivation, you should know I’ve given a great deal of thought to your questions. I’ve heard them before, and will likely hear them again, so I’ve had ample time to consider my position and why I am confident it is both true and just. Therefore, I will answer your questions thoroughly, which is why this is going to be a bit long. Please click the read more link.

[Also, I should probably mention: TRIGGER WARNING for rape.]
Perhaps you’ve heard the following arguments before, perhaps not, but I want to be thorough. I’ll make some general points first, and then, with the necessary underpinnings established, address your individual questions.

Life is the right of every child, not a special privilege for the fortunate, the planned, and the perfect. - Catholic Life Guard

I am pro-life for one simple reason: Abortion is murder. But we should examine what that statement means, because this is not, as some abortionists want to claim, a “side” issue or red herring. It is the issue. If it were not, there wouldn’t be any debate at all. As it is, there are only two options:

Abortion either takes a human life or it does not. If not, then abortion should be no different from plastic surgery. If it does, then abortion is prenatal murder. - Joe Healy

There are many kinds of killing. We kill animals for food, enemies in war, and attackers in self-defense. Depending on the circumstances, all of these are moral reasons to kill. Murder is the one type of killing specifically condemned by traditional morality and civil law, because murder is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being. The universal condemnation of murder rests on two principles: life is the ultimate good, indeed the first good on which all others are based, and human life is worth protecting. Murder is therefore intrinsically wrong, which means it is wrong everywhere, all the time, no matter what. It is a violation.

The unborn children of human beings are also human beings. “Unborn” doesn’t mean “potential.” It means child-inside-the-womb. Despite common interpretation of the popular idiom, when a woman is pregnant she isn’t “going” to have a baby. She has a baby. She is “going to have a baby” in the sense that “this baby will come out of the womb in 9 months.” This is an undeniable biological fact. Therefore, the most aware and consistent pro-abortion arguments try to argue that unborn children are not “persons” and therefore not deserving of the full protection of the law. This is a “slippery slope” argument that leads to the likes of Peter Singer defending the enforced murder of handicapped persons and debating whether a sleeping person still counts as as a “person.” This is a sick and twisted worldview in which personhood is reduced the ability of an individual to be a consumer. Life, humanity, and logic have no place in such a philosophy.

It is also worth noting that whenever the word “person” is redefined in history, it is always to the advantage of a group that wants to take away someone else’s rights. For slave owners, people with non-white skin weren’t persons. For Nazis, Jews weren’t persons. General culture and medical textbooks alike recognized the humanity and personhood of unborn human beings until, in the furor after Rove v. Wade, it became legally and politically incorrect to do so. Even the Hippocratic Oath required doctors to refuse to perform abortions.

The burden of proof is on the woman or man who wants to murder a child. They must prove that the dismemberment and death of the genetically distinct, growing organism in the mother’s womb, the natural result of sexual intercourse, has no humanity worth protecting.
No one has “proven” that because it cannot be proven.

You probably radically disagree with me so far. Very well. But for the sake of fair argumentation, briefly suspend your disbelief and follow me to the logical conclusion of these premises: that an unborn child is just as much of a human being worth protecting as an infant, toddler, kindergartner, teenager, and adult. I ask you: What “reason” can possibly justify taking that person’s life? It is their life, not yours. You do not have the power to make that “choice.” 

Ah, you’ll say, but minors can’t legally make decisions for themselves, their parents must. Exactly. And what law would exonerate or praise a parent for ripping apart their infant, toddler, or teenager? For scalding them to death with chemicals? This is as brutal as it sounds. Those are the methods of abortion, which cause very real pain for the unborn child in his or her last moments of life.

No law or person would praise a parent for such a crime, as the recent case of Casey Anthony shows. Yet if Casey Anthony had had an abortion, it would not have been news. She would just be considered one of the millions of “enlightened” people who believe that the more helpless a child is, the more permissible it is to take that child’s life.

You asked, “Why do you think that women should be forced through pregnancy and childbirth against their will?”
The answer is, I don’t. Sex leads to babies. That is its biological purpose. Babies are a natural consequence of sex. Any educated woman knows this and therefore by freely engaging in sex risks pregnancy. But there’s birth control, you’ll argue. Yes, there is. And any educated women knows that all birth control is fallible. It will fail. It’s just a matter of time. The only 100% way to not get pregnant or an STD is abstinence.

But there’s rape, you’ll say. What about women who are impregnated through rape?
I hope you’re reading very, very closely and paying strict attention, because next to the statement that abortion is murder, this is the single most heartfelt and true thing I can tell you: There is a special circle of hell reserved for rapists. Prison is too lenient for them, death too good, annihilation too clean. I hope and pray that rapists spend an eternity experiencing the inexpressible horror they put innocent people through. And make no mistake, all victims of rape are innocent. No one is ever, ever, “asking for it,” despite what our rape culture tells you. No one deserves to be victimized that way. No one deserves the consequences of being raped.
And that includes the innocent children conceived in rape.

To say this is an unpopular opinion is to make the understatement of the decade. I am aware of this. But popularity does not determine truth. Why, well-meaning people ask in horror, should the poor woman be forced to suffer any more? There is only one legitimate response. Why does one crime justify another? It’s a cliché because it’s true: two wrongs don’t make a right. Rape does not justify murder. (This does not, as I made clear above by defining “killing” and “murder,” include circumstances of self-defense.)

You said, “Just because a woman happens to be pregnant doesn’t mean that she’s mature or responsible enough to care for the fetus growing inside of her. And do you really want an immature, irresponsible woman to eventually be trusted with the life of a child, after it’s born?” What about child abuse?

I agree. Becoming a mother does not automatically make a woman a capable or qualified caregiver. But since an unborn child is still a child, being pregnant means a woman is a mother, whether she likes it or not. Her decisions affect the life of her child from the moment of its conception. Some mothers play Mozart, read books out loud, and tell their child how much he or she is loved. Some mothers drink until the baby is born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. And some mothers murder their children, inside or outside the womb.

This is tragic. All child abuse is tragic. It’s incomprehensible to me that pro-lifers must work to prove how much we recognize this. The premise of the pro-life position is not “any life is better than none.” The premise of the pro-life position is the right to life applies to all human beings. Only once a human being has that right guaranteed is it possible to talk about and secure quality of life. Which we must, and do.

I see lots of talk on Tumblr about how people would take the pro-life position more seriously if pro-lifers did more than just try to close abortion centers: if they worked to improve the adoption system, to secure safe and loving homes for children, to end child abuse, to support pregnant mothers, to offer alternatives to abortion, to provide love and sympathy, to end rape and rape culture.  

And I agree. Being pro-life doesn’t stop at opposing the murder of children. It means working to improve, to make possible, a good quality of life for mothers, children, and fathers. It means loving your neighbor as yourself, treating those in need as we ourselves would want to be treated. It means going into battle every day against human rights abuses and fighting with prayer, words, education, and legal action. It means understanding that life is sacred and must be treated as such. We don’t do this because we want to be cool, or popular, or liked, or loved, or powerful. Doing this prevents us from being any of those things. We do it because it is the only possible moral action in a world drunk on death and violence, a world that glorifies selfishness as truth and tolerance as agreement, a world that worships anarchy in the name of freedom.

You said, “Sometimes death is preferable to life,” and “That’s why people kill themselves, and that’s why abortions are necessary: because not all lives are worth living.” You also said, it’s not true that “with Jesus, life is always worth living,” and,“simply believing in Christ won’t solve your problems, especially if those problems are psychological.” These claims, and therefore their answers, are intertwined, so I will address them as such.

The only part of that with which I will categorically disagree is your disagreement that life isn’t always worth living, even with Jesus. The reason for that should become clear shortly.

“Not all lives are worth living” can be a true statement, but that does not justify an immoral, intrinsically wrong action, such as murder. When that statement is true, it’s not because life itself is not valuable. Lives are what people make of them, and people, being fallen and fallible, sometimes make horrible choices. Some people bring misery on themselves and others have it forced on them, but there is no such thing as a private sin. My evil affects you just as yours affects me. Your misery is mine and mine is yours. The pursuit of happiness, of lives worth living, is and must always be a social pursuit. Which is why it is completely false to claim that no one can legislate morality. Of course we can. We must. We do it all the time.

I’m sure you’ve heard this before:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Life is not listed first by accident. Without the absolute, secure, guaranteed right to life, we cannot exercise liberty or pursue happiness. Parents who get abortions and the “doctors” who perform them make value judgments about the life of the child they kill. But it is not their life to make that decision about, as discussed above.

Perhaps you’re familiar with the Star Trek: Next Generation episode “The Masterpiece Society.” The Enterprise encounters a society crafted to “perfection” by genetic engineering. Geordi La Forge, the brilliant engineer of the Enterprise, was born blind. He wears a special VISOR to mimic sight. Ironically, it turns out that the technology in his VISOR is what will save that “perfect” planet from impending doom. Consider these two dialogues:

Geordi: Oh, that’s perfect.
Hannah Bates: What?
Geordi: If the answer to all of this is in a VISOR created for a blind man who never would have existed in your society. No offense intended. 

And:

Geordi: So - guess if I had been conceived on your world, I wouldn’t even be here now, would I?
Hannah Bates: No.
Geordi: No. I’d have been… terminated, as a fertilized cell.
Hannah Bates: It was the wish of our founders that no one have to suffer a life with disabilities.
Geordi: Who gave them the right to decide whether or not I should be here? Whether or not I might have something to contribute?  

(It doesn’t matter whether the writers of the episode deliberately meant to oppose abortion or not. The point stands.)

As far as your last clause goes, you’re partially right. Believing in Christ doesn’t necessarily solve your problems, especially medical problems like blindness or mental illness. But it is categorically unprovable (and ignorant) to claim absolutely that having faith in Jesus Christ can’t, doesn’t, or won’t “solve your problems.” For one thing, it depends on what kind of “problems” we’re talking about.

In order to understand where I’m coming from, a few clarifications need to be made. Having faith in Christ does not mean, as some of those “devout fundamentalists” you mentioned sometimes like to claim, simply expressing that one has faith and then expecting smooth sailing until death. Having faith in Christ is a way of life, often a difficult way of life. The word “Christian” means “little Christ,” and the world loves us as it loved Him: to death. In other words, the point of believing is to become sanctified, to become like Christ: to have faith as He did, to do good works as He did, to enter heaven like He did. People who convert to Christianity and truly begin to live the life of a Christian often find that many of their problems lessen or disappear: their marriages improve, they’re happier, they feel as if their lives has meaning and purpose. Which they do, as do all lives, whether the person living it realizes it or not, because Christ is the author of Life and made Himself, True Happiness, its point and purpose. This doesn’t mean that Christians with medical problems such as mental illness, which I’m assuming is what you meant by psychological problems, necessarily instantly recover upon conversion, though miracles have happened and continue to. One of my good friends is a devout Catholic who suffers from depression. What it does mean is that, for the Christian who truly understands what it means to follow Christ, yes, in fact, with Jesus life is always worth living, because it is love that makes life worth living, and Jesus Christ is the author of Love. It is His very essence.
Following from that, as a Catholic, in a limited respect I do agree with your first statement, that sometimes death is preferable to life. Take martyrdom for example. Martyrdom, in its original, technical sense, is what happens when a Christian dies defending their faith, usually for refusing to denounce Christ. It was quite popular back in the day when Christianity was novel and illegal, and I suspect it will be again in the future, since true Christianity is still novel and quite likely to be illegal again. Martyrdom was both feared and desired by Christians because to be a perfect Christian means to imitate Christ, and the model of action he gave us to imitate is cruciform love, that is, love that goes the way of the cross:

Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13.)

The reward for living the Way, Truth, and Life which is Christ is eternal bliss in Heaven. Let me put it another way:


So, yes, in a sense, death is sometimes preferable to life, if by death you mean “separation of the soul from the body,” that necessary rite of passage to enter heaven. Because human beings are immortal, as any Christian who knows their Bible can tell you: all persons will live forever. Souls are immortal. Bodies will be resurrected. Life is everlasting. Those who choose suicide are seeking not death, but annihilation. And yes, if by death you mean self-sacrifice for a greater good, of which Christ and the martyrs are the preeminent example (and, to continue fictional analogies, Spock and Harry Potter are also good examples.) In short, death is preferable to life when death serves life. But sacrificing others for the “greater good” or for one’s own selfish motives does not serve life. Sacrificing others means treating people as things, which the origin of most sins and the source of every human rights violation. Including abortion.

Lastly: You make suicide sound like a legitimate option, but it is not. It is a tragedy. It is a failure of love. The martyr dies for love; the suicide dies for lack of it. They are opposed morally and eternally. One is selfish, and the other is selfless. It needs to be very clear at this point that I am not blaming those who commit suicide or the people close to them for the tragedy of suicide. Finding out who is at “fault” for a suicide may be necessary and ultimately beneficial in individual cases, but it is not my place to make sweeping generalizations about the state of the souls or consciences involved and I would not dream of doing so. This is the meaning of Matthew 7:1, “Judge not, that you may not be judged.” What I am doing by describing the nature of the act of suicide is challenging your implied assertion that suicide is a good and necessary form of death, like abortion. Suicide, like abortion, is an act of murder. Like abortion, suicide is a tragic act that love, education, and quality of life can and should prevent. And making that love, education, and quality of life available to prevent the murder of others and self is what being pro-life is all about.

In conclusion: I’ve argued that being pro-life, like being a follower of Christ, is an all-encompassing way of life based on absolute, knowable, moral truths about the value and meaning of human life. Therefore the pro-life position, properly understood and lived out, does not deserve the infamy its mudslinging opposition preaches. We are pro-life because abortion is murder and we will not be complicit in, silent about, or supportive of, infanticide.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all, born and unborn.

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SOURCE: I found this Question and Response @ http://badwolfcomplex.tumblr.com/post/7743006345

Obama’s Obsession with Sexual Orientation

By Austin Ruse @ CT

A few weeks ago, Malawi’s Ambassador to the United Nations said privately that the Obama administration had threatened to withhold $350 million in aid unless Malawi’s government struck down its laws on sodomy. Let’s take a look at tiny Malawi*. According to the CIA World Fact Book, among Malawi’s roughly 16-million inhabitants, the life expectancy is a paltry 5I.7 years, which turns to be the 211th lowest life expectancy in the world. Malawi has the eleventh highest infant mortality rate in the world. And 44 percent of the population does not have safe sanitation, meaning they very well might be peeing where they drink.  Malawi is also among the poorest countries in the world. A $350-million aid package goes a long way there, yet here are President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton holding Malawi hostage to the new U.S. homosexual agenda. Make sodomy legal or your people can twist in the wind.  Malawi did not exactly arrive at its sodomy laws through a fatwa. It is 82% Christian and a multi-party democracy with a bi-cameral legislature ( bi-cameral: the practice of having two legislative or parliamentary chambers) and judicial review.  Within days, its government committed to changing Malawi’s sodomy laws. Obama the Bully hailed this as a great victory. Yes, you can usually get your way by threatening the world’s poorest people. This is just a small and shocking measure of how the LGBT agenda has come to dominate at least part of our young president’s foreign policy.  On June 21 our U. N. Ambassador, Susan Rice, rose in the General Assembly to congratulate Ban Ki-Moon for reelection as Secretary General. In her short speech she thanked him for insisting on “recognizing that lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, and transgender rights are, simply, human rights.” No other ambassador made such a reference.  One incensed ambassador wondered if she was under instructions from President Obama reaching out to his N. Y. homosexual constituency. He said, “In that solemn atmosphere the reference to LGBT sounded very strange, if not totally out of place or even something of bad taste.” He pointed out that Rice did not even mention the Millennium Development Goals**, a sign of where the administration’s heart really lies.   ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ * A landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, and Mozambique on the east, south and west. The country is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by Lake Malawi. Its size is over 118,000 km2 (45,560 sq mi). ** Millennium Development Goals  Summit on the Millennium Development Goals 20-22 September 2010 The UN Summit on the Millennium Development Goals concluded with the adoption of a global action plan to achieve the eight anti-poverty goals by their 2015 target date and the announcement of major new commitments for women's and children's health and other initiatives against poverty, hunger and disease. Visit the Summit website!

Planned Parenthood Attempts to Infiltrate Texas Schools

Planned Parenthood is attempting to increase their presence in public schools to promote their pro-abortion agenda to students.  The official Planned Parenthood website has a section designed for middle and high school educators to use for sexual education lessons.

Planned Parenthood’s website offers educators several resources and links to help them create a sexual education curriculum that promotes sexual promiscuity and exploration of alternative lifestyles.  The website offers to help educators craft lessons and activities that “cover human development, human reproduction, sexual health, masturbation and other sexual behaviors, all options for unintended pregnancies, sexual expression, sexual identity, and sexual orientation.”

Teachers are encouraged to select pamphlets for their classroom that cover all topics from having sex to deciding to have an abortion.  There are also links to videos and websites that cast sexual behavior and expression in a positive light.  Students are getting the message that sexual expression is healthy and normal, and if they should happen to need an abortion as a result of all of this activity, then their local Planned Parenthood affiliate will be there to assist them.  There is a disclaimer on the website that Planned Parenthood Federation has not necessarily reviewed or endorsed these curricula or materials.
Planned Parenthood also provides “educators and trainers” who are available for public schools to present topics to students in health or biology classes. 

The topics available include abortion, safer sex, and women’s sexual health.  There is a section of the website for educators to enter their zip code to find a local list of presenters.  The site promises that these presentations are, “engaging, medically accurate, and age-appropriate.”  These speakers are articulate, energetic, and persuasive and create a permanent link between fun and Planned Parenthood in the student’s minds.

Pro-Life activists and organizations must continue to fight to either expel or keep Planned Parenthood materials and speakers from all public schools.  Most districts now require parental notification and consent letters before students are exposed to speakers from Planned Parenthood.  If this has not happened, local Pro-Life activists begin grassroots and legal efforts to make sure that these safeguards are implemented immediately.  The most effective steps to fight the presence of Planned Parenthood in schools include educating the community about the situation and addressing the school board with an accurate, detailed, and researched complaint. 

Pro-Life Texans have done an excellent job of keeping Planned Parenthood out of public schools.  One of our own “Generation Now” scholars had a Planned Parenthood speaker in her biology class in a public high school in Corpus Christi.  A local activist was able to make a difference and make sure that the school no longer had speakers from Planned Parenthood ever again.

This is an area in which the Pro-Life community must never cease our efforts.  Planned Parenthood is working around the clock to spread their pro-abortion agenda and corrupt the impressionable minds of the country’s youth.  Call your local school district administrative offices and ask them who provides the sexual educational materials for health and biology classes.  If they say that Planned Parenthood is the provider, contact Texas Right to Life for steps you can take to fight and expel this organization from your child’s school.   


LifeNews.com Note:  Doug McGee writes for Texas Right to Life.
http://www.lifenews.com/2011/06/23/planned-parenthood-attempts-to-infiltrate-texas-schools/

Grade 5 Student’s Abortion Speech Subject to ‘Intimidated Censorship’

Source: 5th Grade Student's Speech by Rebecca Millette FALKLAND, British Columbia, June 2, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com)

“Did you know that from the moment of conception, every distinctive characteristic of this new human being is programmed into this single initial cell?” asks Calise Jontz.

Young, bright-eyed and articulate, 10-year-old Calise lives with her parents and seven siblings on a cattle ranch in rural British Columbia.  An avid Justin Bieber fan, she also loves horses, reading, singing and dancing.  Most recently, she has become a pro-life advocate.

“Today I will be speaking to you about abortion,” continues the confident, self-assured Grade 5 student from rural Falkland, B.C. “Is this a controversial issue? Yes, but like all controversial issues it requires urgent attention and education.”

The statements come from a speech that the young girl delivered as part of a school speech contest. When Calise first delivered it at her local school, it “didn’t seem to be bothered by this topic,” says Calise’s mom, Yolanda Jontz, “although the Principal did request to hear her speech initially, I guess to make sure it was appropriate for elementary school aged children.”

But all that changed when Calise went to the regional speech competition at a nearby host school, where Jontz says her daughter encountered what she called “intimidated censorship.”

According to Jontz, her daughter’s speech deliberately did not include any graphic details about abortion, such as descriptions of partial birth abortions, instead sticking to the facts and results of abortion in a manner appropriate for a young audience.

Nevertheless, upon arriving at the host school for the speech competition, Yolanda and her daughter found the gymnasium nearly empty, where Yolanda says usually the entire school, as well as competitors and parents, would attend. A handful of competitors, parents, and the judges were present for Calise’s speech, but only after her speech, as well as few others, did both younger and older students come.

Yolanda says that Calise’s speech was singled out and boycotted by other schools, with students and their parents being forewarned about its content.

LifeSiteNews contacted the principal at the school that hosted the competition.  Principal Denise Brown was reluctant to discuss the issue, saying no letter about the speech had been sent to parents at her school; she directed all other questions to Wendy Woodhurst, School District Director of Instruction.

In response to inquiries about what actions the school took in reference to Calise’s speech, Woodhurst refused to comment unless a face-to-face interview could be conducted, which was impossible for the reporter.

Yolanda told LSN, however, that at least one parent that she knows of received a warning letter about the abortion speech, while no mention was made of other controversial and even gory topics. 
“We weren’t informed that one speech was going to be about dolphin slaughter, or that another was about how great Lady Gaga is. This seemed unfair,” she said. “Maybe people can be offered the chance to hear it for themselves and decide if it is offensive or not.”

However, Yolanda says that one adult male approached her following her daughter’s presentation and, with tears in his eyes, commended Calise for her speech and her bravery.

Another student’s father, formerly a trustee with the school board, also praised Calise and expressed concern about the negative attention surrounding her speech, said Yolanda.  While he said he might not agree with everything Calise presented, he would never have censored her topic. The speech, he added, had sparked good discussion with his own daughters. 

“Intimidated censorship,” said Jontz. “That’s kind of what I viewed it as. It must have upset somebody, because it wouldn’t have gone this far.”

In the speech Calise asked: “Is the fetus human? And does it deserve protection?” concluding, “The answer to both is yes.”

“A fetus is a rapidly developing human being, not just a clump of cells, and is worth protecting. Many stages of human development have been scientifically documented, just view an ultrasound – I have,” says Calise, who explains that she saw ultrasounds and felt the movement of her younger brothers while they were still within their mom.

“So what is abortion, you ask?” concludes Calise. “Abortion isn’t just ending a pregnancy or eliminating a piece of tissue. No, abortion is killing an unborn child and hurting a mother.”

Komen Sends Women to Planned Parenthood for Nonexistent Mammograms

ACTION: Contact Komen for the Cure to ask it to stop referring women for nonexistent mammograms at Planned Parenthood at http://ww5.komen.org/Contact.aspx

Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the breast cancer awareness group, is coming under criticism again — this time for referring women to the Planned Parenthood abortion business for mammograms Planned Parenthood doesn’t provide.
In March, officials with Live Action conducted an undercover investigation by calling Planned Parenthood centers nationwide. They learned that Planned Parenthood doesn’t have machines to perform mammograms and, despite advertising to women that they can contact the abortion business for them, it refers all women seeking mammograms to other health care providers.

“We don’t provide those services whatsoever,” admitted a staffer at Planned Parenthood of Arizona while a staffer at Planned Parenthood’s Comprehensive Health Center clinic in Overland Park, Kansas tells a caller, “We actually don’t have a, um, mammogram machine, at our clinics.”

In April, following criticism of Komen because it provides grants to Planned Parenthood that it has said are in part, to provide mammograms, Komen officials admitted Planned Parenthood doesn’t do mammograms.

“When a mammogram is indicated, a patient is often referred to a local program, such as the state’s breast and cervical cancer program. In other cases, the Komen Affiliate’s grant to Planned Parenthood may include funds to pay for mammograms outright. When this happens, a local provider performs the mammogram, and is then reimbursed by Planned Parenthood using the Komen grant funds,” Komen admitted.

Following up on the controversy, John Jansen of the Pro-Life Action League was curious to know whether Komen would continue to refer women to Planned Parenthood for mammograms.
“I’m looking for a clinic where my mom could go to get a free mammogram,” Jansen wrote from his email account in late April. “Someone told me that she can get one at Planned Parenthood, is that true?”
Komen responded to the email with three referrals for Jansen:  a listing of local Komen affiliates, a link to the Centers for Disease Control and links to Planned Parenthood.

“Women can make an appointment for low-cost breast health services with the clinic nearest them,” Komen says and includes a link to the Planned Parenthood web site and its toll-free phone number.


Jansen said, “You’ll notice, of course, that this form letter response didn’t actually answer my question. And so even though I knew what the answer would be, I did as I was advised, and then I responded to Komen, ‘I called the 1-800 number for Planned Parenthood and they connected me to the clinic closest to where I live, but when I called them they said they don’t do mammograms.”

“Komen’s representative then replied by slightly modifying the form letter she had previously sent and removing any reference to Planned Parenthood,” he indicated.
Last week, Jansen conducted a followup from a different email address and directly asked Komen if Planned Parenthood does mammograms, saying, “I seem to remember hearing that they offer mammograms. Can you confirm whether they do?” Jansen said he figured he would get the same email back and, although a different Komen employee responded, he received the same email with the three links, one of which promotes Planned Parenthood.


Live Action released videotaped footage of calls to 30 Planned Parenthood centers nationwide in 27 different states where abortion facility staff were asked whether or not mammograms could be performed on site. Every one of the Planned Parenthood centers admitted they could not do mammograms. Every Planned Parenthood, without exception, tells the women calling that they will have to go elsewhere for a mammogram, and many clinics admit that no Planned Parenthood clinics provide this breast cancer screening procedure.

“Given the public relations black eye that Planned Parenthood has suffered these past few months, you might think that Komen would want to distance itself from Planned Parenthood,” Jansen concludes. “But then you’d be wrong.”

Last year, Komen spokesman John Hammarley confirmed 20 of Komen’s 122 affiliates have made donations to Planned Parenthood and, in 2009, those contributions totaled $731,303. He also confirmed Komen affiliates contributed about $3.3 million to the abortion business from 2004-2009.

ACTION: Contact Komen for the Cure to ask it to stop referring women for nonexistent mammograms at Planned Parenthood at http://ww5.komen.org/Contact.aspx

Source: http://www.lifenews.com/2011/06/16/komen-sends-women-to-planned-parenthood-for-nonexistent-mammograms/

Wife of China Activist Against Forced Abortions Details Torture

The human rights organization ChinaAid has obtained a letter from Yuan Weijing, the wife of blind attorney and forced abortion opponent Chen Guangcheng on Wednesday that offers details, for the first time, of the torture and beatings both have faced.



Chen is credited with further exposing the brutal forced abortion and sterilizations campaigns that took place in his home city of Linyi that saw thousands of people victimized by family planning officials enforcing the nation’s one-child policy prohibiting couples from having a second child. After he gave interviews to the Washington Post and filed a class action lawsuit on their behalf, Chinese officials arrested him on bogus charges and he was imprisoned.

During the time Chen was imprisoned, he was severely beaten and tortured and his wife Yuan faced house arrest and her own beatings by local thugs hired by city and family planning officials.

The letter Yuan sent to ChinaAid followed recorded video footage the organization released in February showing how both Chen and his wife have been badly wounded. Chen’s mother is also under video surveillance by Chinese officials and their five-year-old daughter lost her freedom to move without government scrutiny in February.

Yuan’s letter says that, on February 18, “led by the vice secretary of the Communist Party of Shuanghou Town, Zhang Jian and some National Security Policemen, a group of 70-80 guys stormed through my home gate. They beat and tortured my husband Chen Guangcheng and me for more than two hours.”

“Without showing any legal documents and without any of them wearing a uniform, they plundered almost everything from my home. My husband and I were wounded severely, yet not allowed to leave home for any medical aid,” Yuan explained. “More than 10 men covered me totally with a blanket and kicked my ribs and all over my body. After half an hour’s non-stop torture, I finally squeezed my head out of the blanket. I saw more than 10 men surrounded Chen Guangcheng, torturing him.”

“Some of them twisted his arms forcefully while the others pushing his head down and lifting his collar up tightly. Given his poor health condition of long-time diarrhea, Guangchen was not able to resist and passed out after more than two hours of torture,” Yuan’s letter continues. “My left eyebrow bone and one of my bottom left ribs might be broken. My left eye lost vision for 5-6 days because of the bruise, blood in the white of my eye, and swollenness. Even today, I still can not stand with my body straight and I suffer pain when breathing. At the same time we were being tortured, the other men performed a thorough search with all kinds of their detective equipment. They took away our computer, video camera, audio tape recorder, all of our chargers, and even flashlights, etc.”

“When they were searching, they kept silent. None of them had uniforms on, neither did they show any legal document to us. They did not even give us a receipt for the confiscated items of our family property. Before their departure, Zhang Jian said to us that they were following orders from higher-level officials, and he expected we understood that without his explanation. He ordered those men to drop us on the ground, and left with them,” Yuan continued.

The Chinese officials prohibited the couple from obtaining proper medical care following the beatings.
“We had to stay in bed because of the wounds, having difficulties turning around our bodies. We had no access to any medical aid. On Feb 19 they only allowed me to get a one-time IV injection from a village doctor. No more medical aid afterward,” Yuan said in the letter to ChinaAid.

Following the beatings, officials have been busy trying to limit the couple’s contact with the outside world.
“On March 3, they sealed our windows with sheets of metal. On March 6 they cut off electric power. At midnight of March 7, the guards crept into our home and cut off our TV antenna. In the morning of March 8, the electric power was back. On the same day, Zhang Jiang led 40-50 men storming into my home and took away our old computer, some hand written materials, DVD player and some remotes, and all of the materials about Chen Guangcheng’s case,” Yuan said in the letter. “Zhang punched my head with his fist because I confronted him by asking why they were robbing us. On March 17, Zhang Jian led another group of 40-50 men into my home with a few dozen huge bags. They sacked all of our property which they thought they should take into the bags, including all of our books, the posters of our children on the wall, the calendar, Guangcheng’s blind cane, all of our papers, worn power plugs, antenna, wires, etc. March 22, they installed two video cameras on our home gate and southwest corner of our courtyard so they can monitor my home completely.”

“Since Feb 24, our five-year-old daughter has been under house arrest, just like us, without being allowed to step outside of home. They took her books and some toys away,” Yuan said.
The surveillance extends to Chen’s mother and Yuan writes, “Guangcheng’s mother is closely followed and physically monitored by 3 men every day, step by step, even when she works in the farm’s field. After mid-March, she was not allowed to go out even for buying vegetables. Therefore our daily life has gotten too hard to survive. Besides, Guangcheng’s health condition got worse. The blood from his diarrhea turned to dark instead of red as before. That is why I am so worried.”

The letter asks ChinaAid to contact friends of the couple for legal help and Yuan says she is worried the officials will take the couple from their home and force them to live in an open courtyard outside their village.

Bob Fu, ChinaAid president, commented on the contents of the letter and condemned the actions by the Chinese officials.

“Peaceful legal advocates, like Chen Guangcheng, can be beaten, jailed and tortured, but they will not disappear unless the international community is silent,” he said. “Chinese police torture a poor, blind lawyer to cover up evidence of the government’s abuses against women. This is unacceptable from a country that claims to follow the rule of law. The international community, including the Obama administration, should call China to account.”

Source: http://www.lifenews.com/2011/06/17/wife-of-china-activist-against-forced-abortions-details-torture/