Tell everyone you know to watch “Planned Parenthood: Hidden Harvest” on Fox News –

“A one-hour Fox News Reporting special, Planned Parenthood: Hidden Harvest, digs deep into the ghoulish but profitable practice of dissecting aborted babies and selling their hearts, brains, lungs, eyes, arms, legs and livers to the highest bidder.

Our friends at the Center for Medical Progress conducted a 30-month sting to get top officials from Planned Parenthood and the “procurement” companies they partner with to talk about this unfathomable practice while being covertly filmed.

With Hidden Harvest, anchored by veteran TV journalist Shannon Bream, Fox News will reveal to a national audience the way abortionists alter the way they extract these innocent victims from their mother’s womb to ensure intact organs and the callousness they demonstrate toward these babies. These are not clumps of cells being aborted; they are tiny humans whose hearts are more valuable to Planned Parenthood than their souls.

Does that sound like health care to you?

It’s not health care, and it’s not legal.

Hidden Harvest will premiere at 10 p.m. ET Friday, Sept. 4, on Fox News Channel and will be rebroadcast at 1 a.m. ET Saturday, Sept. 5.”

Fr Frank Pavone

Bias Bash: The problem with Planned Parenthood coverage

Who?

“Who do you say I am?”
Jesus asked.
Who do you say I am?

The jars lined the walls.
Each one marked:
A weight and words,
“Products of conception.”

Parts, just parts!
Parts, just parts?
Who do you say I am?

©2012 Joann Nelander

my-life-is-a-gift-even-if-it-was-an-accident-response-to-molly-corn-abortion-advocate

by Gabrielle Timm

A few weeks ago, I read an opinion piece in The Hustler titled “The hypocrisy of anti-abortion extremists” by Molly Corn. The entire piece was written from a pro-choice perspective, and while I am pro-life, my response is prompted by the author’s direct and indirect comments about adoption.

Corn states that she believes “it (abortion) is right because every child deserves to be a gift, not an accident.” While the debate about when life begins will go on, a statement implying that because a child results from an unwanted pregnancy, he or she is not a gift is absurd.

I am adopted. To be more specific, I am the unplanned result of a one-night stand that likely involved alcohol. After my birth mother became aware of her pregnancy, my birth father wanted an abortion and she seriously considered that option for a while.

While I am an “accident,” I think it is possible to be both an accident and a gift. To my parents, who weren’t able to have biological children, I am a gift. To imply otherwise is insensitive and offensive to me, to my parents and to many adopted children and their parents, as well as to the courageous people who chose adoption over abortion.

The piece wasn’t directly about adoption, but Corn links to a column that disparages adoption as a genuine alternative for those with an unwanted pregnancy and includes several misrepresentations about adoption and the pro-life movement. The message seems clear: Life is only a gift if it is planned and/or wanted by its biological parents.

The column states that the pro-life movement often makes adoption out to be “the easy choice.” My birth mother, and others like her, did not make an easy choice. But, to many people, adoption is the only moral solution to an incredibly difficult situation when a birth parent does not want to raise the child or is unable to do so. To interpret the pro-life position so superficially, or to state it as a fact, is a gross misrepresentation of the pro-life movement’s stance as a whole regarding adoption.

The article also cites that the number of adoptions that occur annually is stagnant. Combined with the discussion about the danger of babies ending up in foster care should abortion cease to be legal, this article seems to imply that there is not a very large demand for domestic infant adoption. However, in recent years, the rate of babies being placed for adoption has dropped for a variety of reasons, including the widespread and common acceptance of abortion services and changing attitudes toward single parenting. While there are no readily available national statistics that track the number of couples looking to adopt, Richard Pearlman (executive director of the Adoption Center of Illinois, who has worked in the field for more than 26 years) notes that there is still a strong demand to adopt infants, evidenced by waiting lists which average six to 12-month waits.

A large part of the linked column discusses emotional negatives surrounding adoption, failing to fully address the serious problems abortion causes. Dr. David Ferguson, a pro-choice researcher, conducted a study that found women who had abortions were significantly more likely to experience mental health illnesses such as depression. Ferguson continues to be pro-choice, but noted in an interview that it would be foolish to not take the risks and benefits into account when considering abortion.

Adoption is a challenging and courageous choice. The adoption agency I was adopted through (Adoption Center of Illinois at Family Resource Center) even has links on its blog discussing the emotional difficulties birth mothers face. Judging the adoption alternative requires thoughtful consideration of the real issues associated with both adoption and abortion.

Finally, fewer than 140,000 total adoptions occur annually in the United States, which include international adoptions, adoptions from foster care, adoptions by step-parents, etc. Fewer than 20,000 of those are domestic infant adoptions. I would be very skeptical when reading statistics or articles arguing that many adopted children suffer from emotional problems due to separation from their biological mother, since the studies include all ages of adopted children and do not account for early experiences in foster care, orphanages, etc. A child’s emotional health, whether they are adopted or not, recognizes the important truth that families are bound not solely through biological ties, but through unconditional love.

I do not feel abandoned by my birth mother, who at the time of my birth had recently graduated from college. If I ever meet her, my first words would be to tell her how grateful I am that she decided to place me for adoption and how I think she is incredibly brave for giving me the gift of life and the gift of a child to my parents.

My life is a gift, even if it was an accident.

via LETTER: Prolife adoptee shares her story – The Vanderbilt Hustler: Opinion.

Oxford Afraid You Might Agree With This Message

.@timothy_stanley: Here's my speech on #abortion that an Oxford mob doesn’t want you to hear http://t.co/ea3wbKdl1e pic.twitter.com/2FI2FoavWl

— Catholic Herald (@CatholicHerald) November 19, 2014

This is the text of a speech that was due to be given at Christ Church college yesterday. The speech was not delivered following protests by the Oxford University Student Union Women’s Campaign.

I’m not here tonight to debate whether or not abortion should be legal – so if anyone wants to ask what should be done about abortion in cases of incest or rape please don’t waste your time. Most people accept that abortion is in certain circumstances a tragic necessity and is here to stay. No, I’m here to debate this specific motion – whether or not the abortion culture harms Britain.

I define the abortion culture as a culture in which abortion is used so often that it begins to look like it’s being treated as a regular form of contraception (which the numbers suggest) and in which there is a widespread view that it is a right, carries no risks and in fact represents some kind of liberation for the women for whom it is available. In an abortion culture, it would be controversial to near-impossible to debate the this of terminating a pregnancy – and the attempts to close down this reasonable discussion suggestions that such a culture exists.

But I think that the abortion culture actually makes certain injustices in our society worse. And anyone who truly cares about the freedom and rights of women – and that is all of us – has to be prepared to look again at the evidence of what abortion on demand does to us. And how silence on its effects harms certain minority groups.

First, the numbers. The abortion statistics for 2013 tell a grim story. There were 185,331 in that year. Of which, only 1 per cent were due to a risk of the child being born handicapped. 99.84 per cent of those carried out under Ground C of the Abortion Act 1967 were due to the “the risk to mental health of the woman” – a provision that is notoriously easy to get around. Vincent Argent, the former medical director of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, admitted on record earlier this year that doctors routinely pre-sign abortion forms without meeting the woman. It’s worth noting, by the way, that 64 per cent of abortions take place in the private sector financed by the NHS. There is money to be made in this.

Now if you dig down deeper into those numbers you find some interesting things about class and race, which suggest that abortion is something that is found in particular concentration among particular groups. We know a lot about this in American society: the first legalised abortion clinics were heavily located in black-dominated areas and in 2012 data showed that in New York City more black women had abortions than actually gave birth. In Mississippi, African-Americans represent around 37 per cent of the population but 75 per cent of abortions. Those figures are not so dramatic in the UK because our population is more demographically homogenous. But consider this: “Black or black British” people only make up 3.3 per cent of the population but account for 9 per cent of abortions.

Some 37 per cent of all women having abortions in 2013 had had one or more before (up from 32 per cent in 2003) and around one in seven women who had abortions were actually in a relationship. This data suggests that abortion might be being used by some people as a form of contraception. This is extraordinary given that our society is saturated with messages about safe sex and given that abortion industry advocates insist that the procedure is safe, legal and rare.

So why is abortion being used in this way? One explanation might lie in a Joseph Rowntree Study from 2004 that found that girls with few educational prospects choose to keep their babies while those who planned to go to college and find work were more likely to have an abortion. In other words, certain groups of people are still having regular, unprotected sex and still getting pregnant (despite decades of education) – and what they do next is a choice framed not necessarily by personal will but by economics.

Now you might say “that’s good because it means that women exerting control over their bodies are also in control of their economic future”. But turn it on its head. What it also means is that a) certain groups are ignoring all the information about contraception and relationship advice, getting pregnant and then returning to the clinic again and again as thought it was no different to the pill. And b) it means that decisions about child rearing are determined less by genuine personal choice and more by cultural pressure. It suggests that women aren’t given serious alternatives to abortion – they’re not getting support from families or their government, but they are receiving cultural messages about the terrors and pressures of child rearing. You might take some of that message from Tory policy on withdrawing child benefit, which I would argue runs counter to their family friendly image.

While we’re talking about cultural pressure, let’s talk about the issue of disposability. Abortion on demand feeds the idea that we all deserve full autonomy and liberation from responsibility for others. That’s great for the strong; bad for the vulnerable.

Consider this strange hypocrisy. We live in a society where we care very deeply about the rights of disabled people – the backlash against the government’s welfare reforms showed that – and we’re always telling ourselves that they have a right to full citizenship. Yet we also tell pregnant women that if the child is disabled then they have a total right to abort it. The results are pretty troubling. Nine out of 10 unborn babies diagnosed with spina bifida are aborted. The proportion is about the same for kids with Down’s Syndrome. In fact, a 2009 study found that three babies were aborted every day due to Down’s.

Now, again, I’m not saying that women shouldn’t necessarily be free to make that decision. All I’m saying is that in an abortion culture, there is a bias towards choosing abortion as a mythically easy option. Peter Elliott, Chairman of The Down Syndrome Research Foundation, who has a 24-year-old son David with Down’s Syndrome, said of that 2009 study: “Why are the abortions at such a high rate unless they have been given the impression the situation was terrible and it warranted an abortion? I don’t think the choice is presented to the parents in the light of the true situation where the children have a good life and are in fact viewed as a blessing to the parents, not a curse, and I don’t think these parents getting the abortions know much about Downs syndrome at all.”

Moreover, it makes perfect sense that a culture that regards human life as disposable at one end of the lifecycle should regard it as equally disposable at other points during its cycle. That point of view was eloquently expressed in an article in The Journal of Medical Ethics by Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva, who argued that newborn babies are not “actual persons” and do not have a “moral right to life” – after all they are not, like that embryo in the womb, entirely autonomous of their parents. They said that parents should be able to have their baby killed if it turns out to be disabled when it is born.

It’s perfectly natural to extend this logic to euthanasia – which has been legalised in the Benelux countries and is now being discussed seriously in Britain. Dr Joseph Fletcher, one of the godfathers of modern bio-ethics and a celebrated proponent of both abortion and euthanasia rights once reminisced fondly about about the days when he and the family planning advocate Margaret Sanger joined the Euthanasia Society of America, in order to “link the two [abortion and euthanasia] causes so to speak the right to be selective about parenthood and the right to be selective about living”. Fletcher explained, “We’ve added death control to birth control as a part of the ethos of life style in our society.” His argument was that life really has no value unless it is of a certain quality – a point reinforced by Richard Dawkins when he advised of a child with Down’s, “Abort it and try again – it would be immoral to bring it into the world”.

By the way, Dr Fletcher would have agreed. He once said that there was “no reason to feel guilty about putting a Down’s syndrome baby away, whether it’s ‘put away’ in the sense of hidden in a sanitarium or in a more responsible lethal sense. It is sad; yes. Dreadful. But it carries no guilt. True guilt arises only from an offense against a person, and a Down’s is not a person.” A horrific attitude, you might think, but not so strange really when you consider the great violence that abortion does to our very concept of personhood.

Perhaps the greatest irony of this whole phenomenon is that while abortion was supposed to give women greater autonomy, we have evidence that it was being used in England by some families to terminate pregnancies entirely because the fetus was female. In other words, abortion was being used in such a way as to validate the medieval idea that girls are worth less than boys. Happily, this abuse looks set to be officially and explicitly outlawed for the first time.

All these problems are all the more troubling for the fact that we don’t discuss them. This reflects how modern capitalist societies deal with issues surrounding poverty, suffering, abuse etc – it pushes them out of view, using medical jargon or political phraseology to cover up for a variety of problems that need to be discussed in far blunter terms.

I was not always pro-life. I became so when my historical research into the American conservative movement compelled me, reluctantly, to read pro-life literature.

I was shocked to discover how messy abortion is. How painful it can be. How there is evidence to show it having long-term psychological effects. For instance, research by Professor Priscilla Coleman published in the British journal of psychiatry argues that, “abortion is associated with moderate to highly increased risks of psychological problems subsequent to the procedure. Women who had undergone an abortion experienced an 81 per cent increased risk of mental health problems, and nearly 10 per cent of the incidence of mental health problems were shown to be directly attributable to abortion.”

Why did I not know this? Because while abortion deals trauma to our society, we deal with it by ignoring it. It’s no different to the fact that we ignore shockingly high rates of suicide in prison. Appalling standards of care in elderly homes. The abuse and rape of children in children’s services. And this is what is so doubly perverse about the abortion culture: we effectively open the floodgates on something – and then refuse to talk about its reality. Abortion is at the very centre of the therapeutic state: the state that dulls pain with simplistic solutions rather than addresses their complex causes.

And all I’m asking for here today is that we have a serious conversation about it. Thank you for listening.”

Fully Human, Fully Alive! A Prayer

When I worked NICU, I cared for a preemie that fit in my hand just like this. Though it was tiny, and it’s skin so thin I could see the veins that circulated its blood,  there was no doubt that this was a human being, young, out of the womb or in the womb, fully human,fully alive!

Anyone think its not a person?

Prayer for anyone considering abortion, or troubled by their pregnancy:

Lord of Life and Love

O Lord of Love and Life,
Bless me and Your child entrusted to my care and keeping.

Though the forces of Hell conspire against me,
You, O God, are for me,
And for my little one growing beneath my heart.

May the beating of our hearts proclaim You Holy,
And this life sacred to Your glory.

God is for us!
May no power on earth,
No friend, no relative, no worldly voice,
Or power from the Pit,
Persuade me otherwise.

O Lord of Love and Life
Bless us.

Argument from Size

When we step on an ant,

An ant smaller than a fetus,

We acknowledge killing an ant.

 

We may not fret,

After-all, it’s an ant!

Haven’t we the right to kill an ant?

We do confess, we killed an ant,

Though it be smaller than a fetus.

 

When a mother, a nurse,

A doctor, a bio-scientist,

Or technician trained in the art,

When “we the people, a nation,

Cut short the life of a fetus,

All deny the killing.

"It’s too small to matter."

 

Do we really believe,

We are doing good?

Have we a care beyond convenience and profit?

Do we have the right?

Are we in the right?

 

How big does Truth have to be?

Answering Atheism: An Interview with Trent Horn (Video)

Non-Violent Solutions for Life Problems? Abortion – a Moral Solution?

#Albuquerque is Stilling Willing to Take Innocent Life

First Reading for this day – 2 MC 7:1, 20-31

What has God said to both Jews and Christians in Maccabees about life?  (Some Protestants do not have Maccabees in their Bibles, but they should note that the Feast of Dedication, or Hanukkah, was enjoined upon the Jews to be celebrated only in Maccabees. John 7 tells of Jesus going up to Jerusalem to celebrate this feast. So Jesus concurred with the Jews and honored the injunction of Maccabees as given by His Father and recorded in holy writ.)

2 MC 7

“Most admirable and worthy of everlasting remembrance was the mother,
who saw her seven sons perish in a single day,
yet bore it courageously because of her hope in the Lord.
Filled with a noble spirit that stirred her womanly heart with manly courage,
she exhorted each of them
in the language of their ancestors with these words:
“I do not know how you came into existence in my womb;
it was not I who gave you the breath of life,
nor was it I who set in order
the elements of which each of you is composed.
Therefore, since it is the Creator of the universe
who shapes each man’s beginning,
as he brings about the origin of everything,
he, in his mercy,
will give you back both breath and life,
because you now disregard yourselves for the sake of his law.”

The response of this heroic woman’s son before his life was ended in accordance with an unjust law is also worth noting:

She had scarcely finished speaking when the youth said:
“What are you waiting for?
I will not obey the king’s command.
I obey the command of the law given to our fathers through Moses.
But you, who have contrived every kind of affliction for the Hebrews,
will not escape the hands of God.”

Our laws do not excuse us before God this day or on our particular judgment day, so our choices matter for our eternity.  What we choose to do with our freedom matters in life and in death.  Therefore it is incumbent upon us to choose wisely and form our consciences as though our eternity depends on it.

,Catholic Groups Criticize Pelosi’s Claim That Abortion Is ‘Sacred Ground’ | Daily News | NCRegister.com

Prominent Catholics and members of the pro-life movement denounced statements by House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi that, as a Catholic, she views the protection of late-term abortion as “sacred ground.”

Maureen Ferguson, senior policy adviser for the Catholic Association, called it “amazing” that the trial of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell “did not touch Nancy Pelosi’s heart.”

“What we learned from the Gosnell trial and what we understand is going on inside other clinics is not only human-rights abuse’ but it also puts women in harm’s way,” she said in a statement.

Gosnell was a Philadelphia late-term abortionist who was recently convicted of several counts of first-degree murder for the killing of infants who survived his abortion attempts, among other crimes and health violations.

During a June 13 press conference, Pelosi was questioned about the matter by a reporter who asked what the moral difference was between legal late-term abortions and the infanticides of babies of the same age committed by Gosnell.

The question came in reference to Pelosi’s opposition to a bill introduced in Congress to ban late-term abortions after 20 weeks gestation unless doctors deemed the mother’s life or basic health were deemed to be at risk.

Pelosi did not answer the question, saying instead that the bill was an effort to ensure that “there will be no abortion in our country.”

She also framed the protection of late-term abortion as a matter of faith.

“As a practicing and respectful Catholic, this is sacred ground to me when we talk about this,” she said. “I don’t think it should have anything to do with politics.”

via Catholic Groups Criticize Pelosi’s Claim That Abortion Is ‘Sacred Ground’ | Daily News | NCRegister.com.

Hello Baby–3 D imagery

Incredible 3D scans allow parents to see foetus SMILING and MOVING in stunning detail | Mail Online.

• The state-of-the-art software adds extra detail to 3D ultrasound scans
• Software developed by Dr Bernard Benoit to help detect malformations
• Expectant parents can see unborn baby smiling and kicking in the womb

By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 06:23 EST, 29 March 2013 | UPDATED: 12:39 EST, 29 March 2013

A blurry blob on a hospital screen is the first view most expectant parents get of their child.

But new state-of-the-art imaging software is now able to map a foetus in incredible detail.

The software takes a conventional 3D ultrasound scan and adds colour, skin texture, lighting and shadows.

Scroll down to watch video

The incredibly detailed pictures of the foetus allow parents to see their baby’s face before it is born

The images are created by adding colour, skin texture and shadows to conventional 3D scans

The technology was developed by world renowned Dr Bernard Benoit known for his work on foetal scans

The technology gives unparalleled clarity and allows parents to see the face of their child before it is born.

There is also a 4D version which means mothers and fathers are able to see their baby smiling and kicking in the womb in realtime.

They could even turn it into a DVD.

The software is allowing doctors to detect problems in a foetus much sooner than before.

It also removes background details that can often obscure the foetus.

Expectant parents can see their unborn baby move around on a DVD

The state-of-the-art technology shows unborn twins in unparalleled detail

The amazing pictures can even be taken when the foetus is very small

It has been developed by Dr Bernard Benoit of the Princes Grace Hospital, Monaco.

He is known around the world for his focus on introducing innovative ultrasound technologies.

The keen photographer specialises in detecting malformations in a foetus within the first trimester.

The images are far more detailed than the grainy 2D images usually offered by the NHS.

Many hospitals offer paid-for 3D images but the NHS and the Health Protection Agency warned expectant parents against getting unnecessary scans simply to get the souvenir pictures.

The 3D images are far more detailed the grainy 2D scans that are normally provided by the NHS

The technology is allowing doctors to detect problems with a foetus much sooner than before

This 3D ultrasound scan of a foetus is taken at just six weeks into the pregnancy

30-week-old baby yawning for the camera

Eclipse of Reason- Video-Charlton Heston Introduction

Eclipse of Reason- Video-Charlton Heston Introduction

Happy 40th Anniversary, Baby–Creep Show Video

Reproductive rights celebrated in style.  How out of fashion can God and His creation be? How fall can we fall? How darkened and blind can our society become.  Just wait and see: 54,000,000 and countin”. Pray, pray, pray!!!

Happy 40th Anniversary, Baby.

Tough As Nails – Open Letter to God 

We are willing to discard the person for the part.

“We’ve made great strides”,  “…a long way, Baby.”

You and Your creation shall serve us.

Yes, that is our “Way”.

It makes perfect sense to us.

After all, You are invisible,

As invisible as a child within the womb,

That is, until the flesh is torn away.

We have the technology.

See, no cringing here. “Just do it!”

We’re tough as nails.

You are familiar with nails?

Yes, tough as nails.

In this world you have to be!

Hello.  Knock, knock.  Are You there?

…. See, He doesn’t care.

You hold Your anger, so we say,

“Where is this God of yours?”.

Our world crumbles,

Chaos all around.

Evidence of Your absence or Your ire?

It doesn’t matter.

You are the Past. We are Now!

If I pull Your beard, will You awaken.

Are You like us?

Will You take a poll

Or turn Your blind eyes?

In Your retirement or death,

We’ve found our voice. We’ve found our fist!

Not to worry. We’ve come a long way.

Crowned ourselves God!

©2010 Joann Nelander

Rosebud

Rose before dawn,
Nestled life in bud.
Sun of mother-love withdrawn.
Rose before dawn
Life, so sweet, soon gone.
Red flower, the color of blood.
Rose before dawn
Nestled life in bud.

Copyright Joann Nelander

Rosebud

 

Rose before dawn,
Nestled life in bud.
Sun of mother-love withdrawn.
Rose before dawn
Life, so sweet, soon gone.
Red flower, the color of blood.
Rose before dawn
Nestled life in bud.

Copyright Joann Nelander

When is the Argument Not Hypothetical

Pro-life…..Pro-choice…..Pro-life…..Pro-choice…..Pro-life…..Pro-choice…..Pro-life…..Pro-choice…..Pro-life…..Pro-choice…..Pro-life…..Pro-choice…..Pro-life…..Pro-choice…..Pro-life…..Pro-choice…..Pro-life…..Pro-choice…..Pro-life…..Pro-choice…..

Ready for the truth?   Google images: vacuum contents of abortion.

Must Read – Long before Becoming a Bishop

ARCHBISHOP AQUILA: 40 Years of the Culture of Death

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I went to college in 1968 with the idea of becoming a doctor, like my father. College campuses in the late ‘60’s and throughout the 70’s were places of turmoil. I didn’t practice my faith much in the first three years of college and I certainly never imagined that the Lord would one day make me a bishop.

I spent my first three years of college working as a hospital orderly and assisting in the emergency room, at a university student health center and in a hospital in California during summer break.

When I began the job, I hadn’t thought much about human suffering, or about human dignity.

But during my employment in hospitals, something changed. At that time, some states had approved abortion laws that I wasn’t even aware of. Because of those laws, when I was in college I witnessed the results of two abortions.

The first was in a surgical unit. I walked into an outer room and in the sink, unattended, was the body of small unborn child who had been aborted. I remember being stunned. I remember thinking that I had to baptize that child.

The second abortion was more shocking. A young woman came into the emergency room screaming. She explained that she had had an abortion already. When the doctor sent her home, he told her she would pass the remains naturally. She was bleeding as the doctor, her boyfriend, the nurse and I placed her on a table.

I held a basin as the doctor retrieved a tiny arm, a tiny leg and then the rest of the broken body of a tiny unborn child. I was shocked. I was saddened for the mother and child, for the doctor and the nurse. None of us would have participated in such a thing were it not an emergency. I witnessed a tiny human being destroyed by violence.

The memory haunts me. I will never forget that I stood witness to acts of unspeakable brutality. In the abortions I witnessed, powerful people made decisions that ended the lives of small, powerless, children. Through lies and manipulation, children were seen as objects. Women and families were convinced that ending a life would be painless, and forgettable. Experts made seemingly convincing arguments that the unborn were not people at all, that they could not feel pain, and were better off dead. Read more:

Begin by Change–Defend Life–Truly we have an obligation to try” (Obama)

The classic case of do as I say, not as I do?

Great Atrocities Demand Remembrance and Hope

From Catholic Sistas:

The response to great atrocities, whether the Holocaust during World War II, the Rwandan massacres, or our own American Abortion Holocaust must be to remember. As Wiesel said, “We must remember the suffering…[and] struggle to invent a thousand and one reasons to hope.” The stories, especially those of hope,  not only respect the victims of the past, they give courage to new generations fighting to overcome the darkness of the present.

Stolen name replaced by number,
Savaged soul and broken heart.
Hell, a people to encumber.

Blind eyes outside in darkness.
Dead souls dismissed the human face.
Stolen name replaced by number

Rising from the ashes,
Pledging nevermore.
Hell, a people to encumber

Yad VaShem, the vault of memory,
Yad VaShem, the ground of tears
Stolen name replaced by number

Shoah: families, children.
Here named, remembered, mourned
Hell, a people to encumber

Faces pictured in the silence.
Tears cried forevermore.
Stolen name replaced by number
Hell, a people to encumber

Copyright 2011 Joann Nelander

(experimental Villanelle)

Rose before dawn,
Nestled life in bud.
Sun of mother-love withdrawn.
Rose before dawn
Life, so sweet, soon gone.
Red flower, the color of blood.
Rose before dawn
Nestled life in bud.

Copyright 2011 Joann Nelander

President Obama Ironically Defends the Lives of Children

H/T Reflections of a Paralytic

What the Catholic Vote Looks Like

Life Begins – Science of the Womb

 

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/national-geographic-channel/all-videos/ngc-in-the-womb-1/

Four statements seem particularly interesting, but the entire video is worth watching:

“Once within the egg wall, the sperm’s nucleus is drawn toward the egg’s. The two cells gradually and gracefully become one. This is the moment of conception – when an individual’s unique set of DNA is created – a human signature that never existed before and will never be repeated.”

“The mother provides the shelter and the basics – food, water and oxygen. But the real star of the show is the fetus herself – building, dividing, growing according to an intricate set of plans created at the moment of conception.”

“The genes she’s [the girl shown in the womb] inherited already predetermine her looks and much of her character. Whether she’s stubborn or intelligent, a thrill-seeker or good at music and even her vulnerabilities to certain diseases like cancer, schizophrenia and diabetes. The exact course of her life will depend on such things as her friends, family and environment. But at the instant of fertilization, much of her future is predetermined.”

“Where it once seemed that the mental development of a baby began at birth, now it appears that birth could be a relatively insignificant event in developmental terms. She may have to support herself after birth, but as for the process of thinking, learning and remembering, she’s already been hard at it for three months [before birth]. And her brain will continue to grow at the same rate for the next year.”

 

Who?

“Who do you say I am?”
Jesus asked.
Who do you say I am?

The jars lined the walls.
Each one marked:
A weight and words,
“Products of conception.”

Parts, just parts!
Parts, just parts?
Who do you say I am?

©2012 Joann Nelander

Being Begins at Conception

Incredible Man Adopts Fifty Babies

What can one man do in an ever darken culture of death?

Patrick Kennedy Called to Order

As the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops continues to lobby forcefully against including federal financing for abortion in the health care legislation, Bishop Tobin, takes the fight of the City of God to the world of the day-to-day and the politics that mask secular world views with phony compassion and outright attempts to blind the faithful with fancy verbal confusion and misrepresentation. We have all seen it and know it well.  Finally, a clarion call to fidelity and truth!

Bishop Thomas Tobin’s public rebuke of Rhode Island Congressman Patrick Kennedy continues to speak with Church authority and honest discretion, no mealy-mouthed kowtowing here:

Abby Goodnough of the New York Times writes:

Bishop Tobin stepped up his public rebuke of Mr. Kennedy, accusing him Wednesday of “false advertising” for describing himself as a Catholic and saying he should not receive holy communion because he supports using taxpayer money for abortions.

“If you freely choose to be a Catholic, it means you believe certain things, you do certain things,” Bishop Tobin said on WPRO, a Providence radio station. “If you cannot do all that in conscience, then you should perhaps feel free to go somewhere else.”

This Makes Obama Pro-Abort

Our President Obama has a way with words, but his actions make him a pro-abort President, a pro-abort Senator and a pro-abort inhumane being.

This from Steven Ertelt Life News. com:

November 5, 2008 – Obama selects pro-abortion Rep. Rahm Emanuel as his White House Chief of Staff. Emanuel has a 0% pro-life voting record according to National Right to Life.

November 19, 2008 – Obama picks pro-abortion former Sen. Tom Daschle as his Health and Human Services Secretary. Daschle has a long pro-abortion voting record according to National Right to Life.

November 20, 2008 – Obama chooses former NARAL legal director Dawn Johnsen to serve as a member of his Department of Justice Review Team. Later, he finalizes her appointment as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of the Legal Counsel in the Obama administration.

November 24, 2008 – Obama appoints Ellen Moran, the former director of the pro-abortion group Emily’s List as his White House communications director. Emily’s List only supported candidates who favored taxpayer funded abortions and opposed a partial-birth abortion ban.

November 24, 2008 – Obama puts former Emily’s List board member Melody Barnes in place as his director of the Domestic Policy Council.

November 30, 2008 – Obama named pro-abortion Sen. Hillary Clinton as the Secretary of State. Clinton has an unblemished pro-abortion voting record and has supported making unlimited abortions an international right.

December 10, 2008 – Obama selects pro-abortion former Clinton administration official Jeanne Lambrew to become the deputy director of the White House Office of Health Reform. Planned Parenthood is “excited” about the selection.

December 10, 2008 – Obama transition team publishes memo from dozens of pro-abortion groups listing their laundry list of pro-abortions actions they want him to take.

Pro-Abortion Presidential Record – 2009

January 5, 2009 – Obama picks pro-abortion Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine as the chairman of the Democratic Party.

January 6, 2009 – Obama chooses Thomas Perrelli, the lawyer who represented Terri Schiavo’s husband Michael in his efforts to kill his disabled wife, as the third highest attorney in the Justice Department.

January 22, 2009 – Releases statement restating support for Roe v. Wade decision that allowed virtually unlimited abortions and has resulted in at least 50 million abortions since 1973.

January 23, 2009 – Forces taxpayers to fund pro-abortion groups that either promote or perform abortions in other nations. Decison to overturn Mexico City Policy sends part of $457 million to pro-abortion organizations.

January 26, 2009 – Obama nominee for Deputy Secretary of State, James B. Steinberg, tells members of the Senate that taxpayers should be forced to fund abortions. Nominee erroneously says limits on abortion funding are unconstitutional.

January 29, 2009 – President Obama nominates pro-abortion David Ogden as Deputy Attorney General.

February 12, 2009 – Obama nominates pro-abortion Elena Kagan to serve as Solicitor General.

February 27, 2009 – Starts the process of overturning pro-life conscience protections President Bush put in place to make sure medical staff and centers are not forced to do abortions.

February 28, 2009 – Barack Obama nominates pro-abortion Kathleen Sebelius to become Secretary of Health and Human Services.

March 5, 2009 – The Obama administration shut out pro-life groups from attending a White House-sponsored health care summit. Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion business, made the invitation list as did other pro-abortion groups.

March 9, 2009 – President Barack Obama signed an executive order forcing taxpayer funding of embryonic stem cell research.

March 10, 2009 – Obama announces the creation of a new foreign policy position to focus on women’s issues. He names Melanne Verveer, an abortion advocate, to occupy the post.

March 10, 2009 – Reverses an executive order to press for more research into ways of obtaining embryonic stem cells without harming human life. The order Obama scrapped would have promoted new forms of stem cell research.

March 11, 2009 – Obama signed an executive order establishing a new agency within his administration known as the White House Council on Women and Girls. Obama’s director of public liaison at the White House, Tina Tchen, an abortion advocate, became director of it.

March 11, 2009 – Obama administration promotes an unlimited right to abortion at a United Nations meeting.

March 11, 2009 – Obama administration officials deny negative effects of abortion at United Nation’s meeting.

March 17, 2009 – President Barack Obama makes his first judicial appointment and names pro-abortion federal Judge David Hamilton to serve on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

March 26 – President Obama announced $50 million for the UNFPA, the UN population agency that has been criticized for promoting abortion and working closely with Chinese population control officials who use forced abortions and involuntary sterilizations.

April 7 – The Vatican has rejected three Obama ambassador nominees because of their positions in favor of abortions.

April 7 – Obama has named pro-abortion law professor Harold Hongju Koh as the top lawyer for the State Department.

April 7 – Put more abortion advocates on his White House advisory council for faith-based issues.

April 8 – Obama nominee for assistant attorney general for legislative affairs, Ron Weich, is pro-abortion.

April 14 – Obama administration releases document that claims pro-life people may engage in violence or extremism.

April 17 – Obama administration releases the proposed guidelines that implement his decision to allow taxpayer funding of embryonic stem cell research that involves the destruction of human life.

April 23 – Refused to appeal a ruling requiring the FDA to allow 17-year-old girls to purchase the morning after pill without either a doctor visit or parental involvement beforehand.

April 27 – Obama’s women’s ambassador Melanne Verveer touted Obama’s decision to send $50 million to the United Nation’s Population Fund.

May 5 – Details emerge about a terrorism dictionary the administration of President Barack Obama put together in March. The Domestic Extremism Lexicon calls pro-life advocates violent and claims they employ racist overtones in engaging in criminal actions.

May 8 – President Obama releases a new budget that allows the Legal Services Corporation to use tax dollars to pay for pro-abortion litigation.

May 8 – President Obama’s new budget calls for taxpayer funded abortions in the nation’s capital.

May 8 – President Obama’s budget eliminates all federal funding for abstinence-only education.

May 15 – Appointed pro-abortion New York City health commissioner Thomas Frieden as head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

May 17 – During his commencement speech at Notre Dame, Obama deceived listeners into thinking he wants a conscience clause, promoted embryonic stem cell research and misstated his pro-abortion record.

May 26 – Appoints appeals court judge Sonia Sonotmayor as a Supreme Court nominee. Sotomayor agrees that the courts should make policy, such as the Roe v. Wade case. Sotomayor is later opposed by pro-life groups and supported by pro-abortion groups and those who know her say she will support abortion on the high court.

July 2- Calls for an unlimited right to abortion at a United Nation’s meeting.

July 7- The Obama administration admits it ignored the majority of Americans who opposed the proposed guidelines that would implement Obama’s decision to force taxpayers to fund embryonic stem cell research.

July 14 – Obama science czar nominee John Holdren is revealed to have written before that he favors forced abortions.

July 30 – Awards several pro-abortion activists with the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom.

July 31 – Tells the National Institutes of Health to adopt rules that allow embryonic stem cell research.

August 4 – Information becomes public that Ezekiel Emanuel, an Obama advisor at the Office of Management and Budget and a member of Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research, supports rationing health care for disabled Americans that could lead to euthanasia.

August 6 – Obama criticized for asking for people to “snitch” on groups and people who oppose the pro-abortion health care bills in Congress.

August 13 – Obama wrongly said a senator backed the pro-euthanasia components of the health care bill.

August 23 – Said pro-life advocates were making “phony claims” about the health care bills. Also said the claims were false.

August 24 – Releases veterans guide promoting euthanasia.

September 13 – Misleads on the federal conscience clause in a health care speech and misleads on abortion funding.

September 13 – Obama waits two days to comment on shooting of pro-life advocate whereas he commented immediately on shooting of abortion practitioner.

September 15 – Senate confirms Obama’s new regulatory czar Cass Sunstein, who is pro-abortion.

October 5 – Selected pro-abortion lawyer and Georgetown University law professor Chai Feldblum for the EEOC.

October 5 – Announces he will give the keynote speech for pro-abortion group Human Rights Campaign

Go here for links: Steven Ertelt Life News. com:

What can we do?  PRAY for our President! Here is a powerful prayer from St. Gertrude the Great:

Jesus, Savior of the World, have mercy on me.  You to Whom nothing is impossible, bestow mercy to the wretched. O Christ, Who by Your Cross, hast redeemed the world, hear us.

The Lord is my strength and my glory; He is my salvation.

Hail Jesus, my loving Spouse.  I salute You in the ineffable joys of Your Divinity; I embrace You with the affection of all creatures, and I kiss the Sacred Wound of Your love.

Focus On Life – Audacious Hope

Michelle Malkin rightly and vociferously condemns the murder of Late-term abortion doctor George Tiller.  Malkin quotes Princeton University professor Robert P. George:

“Whoever murdered George Tiller has done a gravely wicked thing. The evil of this action is in no way diminished by the blood George Tiller had on his own hands. No private individual had the right to execute judgment against him. We are a nation of laws. Lawless violence breeds only more lawless violence.”

The area of abortion is already stained with the blood of millions of the unborn, adding to the bloodshed by taking any human life will not vindicate those lost to abortion or prevent the future from being likewise drenched in “little murders” as Archbishop Chaput of Denver writes.

Malkin realistically warns that pro-choice and pro-choice forces will use this sad event to muddy the waters with rhetoric.  Malkin knows from experience what lies ahead:

Prepare for the continuing redefinition of any and all sharp political disagreement as “hate” — a ruinous trend that inevitably comes back to haunt the hysterical accusers decrying “hate” the loudest.

“Prepare for whitewashed hagiographies of Tiller’s career as an abortionist.

Prepare for DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano’s defenders to gloat about vindication.

Prepare for collective demonization of pro-lifers and Christians — and more gratuitous attempts to tar talk radio, Fox News, and the Tea Party movement as responsible for the heinous crime.

The only people is this country allowed to use “hate” speech on a regular basis is the Left when speaking of Christians, Pro-life advocates and any friend of Conservatism.  It is hard not to pick up the same brush and paint with flaming rhetoric.  However, ‘Life’ is at issue here.  It is precious whether possessed by the innocent and the heinous. Let’s not lose focus.

“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” require self-knowledge and self-control.  They are goals and well worth suffering to achieve, not for one group, but for all.  Prayer comes before self-knowledge and self-control.  Pope Benedict XVI has and is working tirelessly with Peoples of all Faiths and all Nationalities to recognize and protect our common humanity. It is the work of a lifetime for all of us. Building a world of peace makes room for audacious hope in the true sense.  Hope lies in the human heart, and enables us to forgive the past to build a truly human future.

Our Lady of Guadalupe – Defection of Latin Heart

How the world has changed. The Hispanic community used to care about Life issues.  I’m lost as to what “empathy” actually means in today’s Obama-speak. The GOP wants to please Hispanics and Hispanics want to please Obama and swallow his policies and now SotoMayor because she’s a Hispanic.  What price integrity?

Hot Air covers the politics of it:

GOP officials say they realize the party needs to improve its standing among Hispanic voters in order to have any hope of winning a national election, and they admit that trashing the first Latina nominee to the court could cement stereotypes or further alienate minorities…

I’m trying to come to grips with the duplicity in the Latino community in regard to their recent voting history; their love affair with Obama to be concise.  How does the head come to be divided from the heart, or at least from who used to own their hearts.  People of Spanish decent in this nation have strongly held and loudly proclaimed devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe.  How this same people can live with that heart-set, while abiding a mind-set of choice and abortion flies in the face of integrity.  What has been the price of their defection?  Have they been won away from Our Lady of Guadalupe whose mantle they still claim as their own?

Counting on Our Lady’s for favor, love and protection under the mantle of her Son, while secretly voting with the Enemy whose head she will crush defies both logic and presumes a certain gullibility on God’s and Our Lady’s part. Here’s the crux of the matter.  Our Lady of Guadalupe is the pregnant Mother of God.  Have Latinos abandoned her for politico advantage, monetary benefit, educational expediency, life style convenience, a “good” life apart from the heart of this very pregnant Virgin.  For under her heart is the womb and nesting place of Jesus.

They have abandoned the heart of their Mother?  What else is one to think, when, while still blessing their homes and churches with her image, they none-the-less carry Obama’s torch and wave the banner of Choice.  Should her name be invoked as “Our Lady of Choice” or “Our Lady of Abortion,” for either of these, ‘choice’ or ‘abortion’ rank, by the hispanic vote, higher than the Infant she carried to term and into Life?  Poorly formed, ignored or silenced consciences, do not speak well for the once Christian people. In name only, may replace ‘In God We Trust’  as the banner over this proud inheritance.

As God’s eyes watched over the Babe in Our Lady of Guadalupe’s womb, they now watch over choices we make in life and in death.  God’s eyes watch over the womb of our Nation, which is 1/3 empty.   Should Our Lady of Guadalupe, now the patroness of the Americas and Life, not look to the Latino as her particular people, having chosen them to announce her under that title?  She has carried them.  Will they no longer claim her by their actions, affiliations and votes. The choice they now make and live, they will carry into life, death and the hereafter, as all life’s choices tend toward eternity.

Michelle Malkin cares about jurisprudence is anyone listening?