White House Prepares for Possibility of 2 Supreme Court Vacancies
Published February 4, 2010 | 
SCOTUS Watchers Believe Justices Stevens and Ginsburg Could Decide to Step Aside
Mugged by Ultrasound
Published February 4, 2010 |
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In the aftermath of Roe v. Wade, second-trimester abortions were usually performed by saline injection. The doctor simply replaced the amniotic fluid in the patient’s uterus with a saline solution and induced labor, leaving it to nurses to dispose of the expelled fetus. That changed in the late 1970s, when “dilation and evacuation” (D&E) emerged as a safer method. Today D&E is the most common second-trimester procedure. It has been performed millions of times in the United States.
But although D&E is better for the patient, it brings emotional distress for the abortionist, who, after inserting laminaria that cause the cervix to dilate, must dismember and remove the fetus with forceps. One early study, by abortionists Warren Hern and Billie Corrigan, found that although all of their staff members “approved of second trimester abortion in principle,” there “were few positive comments about D&E itself.” Reactions included “shock, dismay, amazement, disgust, fear, and sadness.” A more ambitious study published the following year, in the September 1979 issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, confirmed Hern and Corrigan’s findings. It found “strong emotional reactions during or following the procedures and occasional disquieting dreams.”
Another study, published in the October 1989 issue of Social Science and Medicine noted that abortion providers were pained by encounters with the fetus regardless of how committed they were to abortion rights. It seems that no amount of ideological conviction can inoculate providers against negative emotional reactions to abortion.
Such studies are few. In general, abortion providers have censored their own emotional trauma out of concern to protect abortion rights. In 2008, however, abortionist Lisa Harris endeavored to begin “breaking the silence” in the pages of the journal Reproductive Health Matters. When she herself was 18 weeks pregnant, Dr. Harris performed a D&E abortion on an 18-week-old fetus. Harris felt her own child kick precisely at the moment that she ripped a fetal leg off with her forceps:
Instantly, tears were streaming from my eyes—without me—meaning my conscious brain—even being aware of what was going on. I felt as if my response had come entirely from my body, bypassing my usual cognitive processing completely. A message seemed to travel from my hand and my uterus to my tear ducts. It was an overwhelming feeling—a brutally visceral response—heartfelt and unmediated by my training or my feminist pro-choice politics. It was one of the more raw moments in my life.
Harris concluded her piece by lamenting that the pro-choice movement has left providers to suffer in silence because it has “not owned up to the reality of the fetus, or the reality of fetal parts.” Indeed, it often insists that images used by the pro-life movement are faked.
(Pro-choice advocates also falsely insist that second-trimester abortions are confined almost exclusively to tragic “hard” cases such as fetal malformation. Yet a review of the literature in the April 2009 issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology found that most abortions performed after the first trimester are sought for the same reasons as first-trimester abortions, they’re just delayed. This reality only intensifies the guilt pangs of abortion providers.)
 “No one at Planned Parenthood wanted this job. . . . I had to look at the tiny hands and feet. There were times when I wanted to cry.”
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Hern and Harris chose to stay in the abortion business; one of the first doctors to change his allegiance was Paul Jarrett, who quit after only 23 abortions. His turning point came in 1974, when he performed an abortion on a fetus at 14 weeks’ gestation: “As I brought out the rib cage, I looked and saw a tiny, beating heart,” he would recall. “And when I found the head of the baby, I looked squarely in the face of another human being—a human being that I just killed.”
In 1990 Judith Fetrow, an aide at a Planned Parenthood clinic, found that disposing of fetal bodies as medical waste was more than she could bear. Soon after she left her position, Fetrow described her experiences: “No one at Planned Parenthood wanted this job. . . . I had to look at the tiny hands and feet. There were times when I wanted to cry.” Finally persuaded to quit by a pro-life protester outside her clinic, Fetrow is now involved in the American Life League.
Kathy Sparks is another convert formerly responsible for disposing of fetal remains, this time at an Illinois abortion clinic. Her account of the experience that led her to exit the abortion industry (taken from the Pro-Life Action League website in 2004) reads in part:
The baby’s bones were far too developed to rip them up with [the doctor's] curette, so he had to pull the baby out with forceps. He brought out three or four major pieces. . . . I took the baby to the clean up room, I set him down and I began weeping uncontrollably. . . . I cried and cried. This little face was perfectly formed.
A recovery nurse rebuked Sparks for her unprofessional behavior. She quit the next day. Sparks is now the director of a crisis pregnancy center with more than 20 pro-life volunteers.
Handling fetal remains can be especially difficult in late-term clinics. Until George Tiller was assassinated by a pro-life radical last summer, his clinic in Wichita specialized in third-trimester abortions. To handle the large volume of biological waste Tiller had a crematorium on the premises. One day when hauling a heavy container of fetal waste, Tiller asked his secretary, Luhra Tivis, to assist him. She found the experience devastating. The “most horrible thing,” Tivis later recounted, was that she “could smell those babies burning.” Tivis, a former NOW activist, soon left her secretarial position at the clinic to volunteer for Operation Rescue, a radical pro-life organization.
Other converts were driven into the pro-life movement by advances in ultrasound technology. The most recent example is Abby Johnson, the former director of Dallas-area Planned Parenthood. After watching, via ultrasound, an embryo “crumple” as it was suctioned out of its mother’s womb, Johnson reported a “conversion in my heart.” Likewise, Joan Appleton was the head nurse at a large abortion facility in Falls Church, Virginia, and a NOW activist. Appleton performed thousands of abortions with aplomb until a single ultrasound-assisted abortion rattled her. As Appleton remembers, “I was watching the screen. I saw the baby pull away. I saw the baby open his mouth. . . . After the procedure I was shaking, literally.”
| This handful of stories is representative of many more. In fact, with the exception of communism, we can think of few other movements from which so many activists have defected to the opposition.
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The most famous abortion provider to be converted by ultrasound technology, decades ago, is Bernard Nathanson, cofounder of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, the original NARAL. In the early 1970s, Nathanson was the largest abortion provider in the Western world. By his own reckoning he performed more than 60,000 abortions, including one on his own child. Nathanson’s exit from the industry was slow and tortured. In Aborting America (1979), he expressed anxiety over the possibility that he was complicit in a great evil. He was especially troubled by ultrasound images. When he finally left his profession for pro-life activism, he produced The Silent Scream (1984), a documentary of an ultrasound abortion that showed the fetus scrambling vainly to escape dismemberment.
This handful of stories is representative of many more. In fact, with the exception of communism, we can think of few other movements from which so many activists have defected to the opposition. Nonetheless, the vast majority of clinic workers remain committed to the pro-choice cause. Perhaps some of those who stay behind are haunted by their work. Most, however, find a way to cope with the dissonance.
Pro-choice advocates like to point out that abortion has existed in all times and places. Yet that observation tends to obscure the radicalism of the present abortion regime in the United States. Until very recently, no one in the history of the world has had the routine job of killing well-developed fetuses quite so up close and personal. It is an experiment that was bound to stir pro-life sentiments even in the hearts of those staunchly devoted to abortion rights. Ultrasound and D&E bring workers closer to the beings they destroy. Hern and Corrigan concluded their study by noting that D&E leaves “no possibility of denying an act of destruction.” As they wrote, “It is before one’s eyes. The sensations of dismemberment run through the forceps like an electric current.”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: Jon A. Shields & David Daleiden. “Mugged by Ultrasound.” The Weekly Standard vol. 15, no. 18 (January 25, 2010).
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/abortion/ab0161.htm
Prez Obama: #7 on Judicial Watch’s List of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians” 2009
Published February 4, 2010 |
Obama, Pelosi, Rangel, Geithner, Holder on Judicial Watch 2009 Most Corrupt List; MSM Silent
Published February 4, 2010 | ….Sadly, parents cannot even look to our President and elected officials as role models for our children because I’ve never heard a child say, “When I grow up, I want to be a corrupt politician.” The shame and dishonor to their family names, the Founders, and the American people that these people bring to the USA should not be tolerated anymore…..
By SusanAnne Hiller, Big Journalism.com, Feb 3rd 2010
Judicial Watch issued its Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians” for 2009″ list a couple of weeks ago and I’ve been waiting for MSM coverage of this story–as President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Tim Geithner, Eric Holder, Charles Rangel, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, John Murtha, Roland Burris, Rep. Jesse Jackson, and John Ensign are this year’s trophy winners.
For the record, Ensign is the only Republican and President Bush has never been on the list. I wonder if the Ds and Rs were flipped, if the MSM would have covered the story because I have not been able to find anything on this story from the major networks. I found the story handily on the FoxNation but nowhere else in the MSM.
After Senator Harry Reid, in 2005, called the Republican Congress the most corrupt in history, he may want to look at the 2009 list and retract that statement. It’s refreshing to see that the United States government is so well represented on this list, including the President, Speaker of the House, Secretary of the Treasury, Attorney General, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, House Financial Services Committee Chairman (Frank), and Chairman of Housing, Banking, and Urban Affairs (Dodd).
Furthermore, Obama has been on Judicial Watch’s Most Corrupt list each year since 2006—in 2008, and 2007, and 2006 (dishonorable mention).
Because so many high-ranking elected officials in Congress and members of Obama’s cabinet, in addition to the President himself are deep-rooted in corruption year after year, the United States has joined the ranks of other corrupt governments throughout the world. Sadly, parents cannot even look to our President and elected officials as role models for our children because I’ve never heard a child say, “When I grow up, I want to be a corrupt politician.” The shame and dishonor to their family names, the Founders, and the American people that these people bring to the USA should not be tolerated anymore.
Here’s a sample. The subject is — who else? — soon-to-be-former Senator Chris Dodd:
This marks two years in a row for Senator Dodd, who made the 2008 “Ten Most Corrupt” list for his corrupt relationship with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and for accepting preferential treatment and loan terms from Countrywide Financial, a scandal which still dogs him. In 2009, the scandals kept coming for the Connecticut Democrat. In 2009, Judicial Watch filed a Senate ethics complaint against Dodd for undervaluing a property he owns in Ireland on his Senate Financial Disclosure forms. Judicial Watch’s complaint forced Dodd to amend the forms. However, press reports suggest the property to this day remains undervalued. Judicial Watch also alleges in the complaint that Dodd obtained a sweetheart deal for the property in exchange for his assistance in obtaining a presidential pardon (during the Clinton administration) and other favors for a long-time friend and business associate. The false financial disclosure forms were part of the cover-up. Dodd remains the head the Senate Banking Committee.
See the entire Judicial Watch 2009 Most Corrupt List here.
Justice Thomas Defends Ruling on Finance
Published February 4, 2010 | 
WASHINGTON — In expansive remarks at a law school in Florida, Justice Clarence Thomas on Tuesday vigorously defended the Supreme Court’s recent campaign finance decision.
And Justice Thomas explained that he did not attend State of the Union addresses — he missed the dust-up when President Obama used the occasion last week to criticize the court’s decision — because the gatherings had turned so partisan.
Justice Thomas responded to several questions from students at Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport, Fla., concerning the campaign finance case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. By a 5-to-4 vote, with Justice Thomas in the majority, the court ruled last month that corporations had a First Amendment right to spend money to support or oppose political candidates.
“I found it fascinating that the people who were editorializing against it were The New York Times Company and The Washington Post Company,” Justice Thomas said. “These are corporations.”
The part of the McCain-Feingold law struck down in Citizens United contained an exemption for news reports, commentaries and editorials. But Justice Thomas said that reflected a legislative choice rather than a constitutional principle.
He added that the history of Congressional regulation of corporate involvement in politics had a dark side, pointing to the Tillman Act, which banned corporate contributions to federal candidates in 1907.
“Go back and read why Tillman introduced that legislation,” Justice Thomas said, referring to Senator Benjamin Tillman. “Tillman was from South Carolina, and as I hear the story he was concerned that the corporations, Republican corporations, were favorable toward blacks and he felt that there was a need to regulate them.”
It is thus a mistake, the justice said, to applaud the regulation of corporate speech as “some sort of beatific action.”
Justice Thomas said the First Amendment’s protections applied regardless of how people chose to assemble to participate in the political process.
“If 10 of you got together and decided to speak, just as a group, you’d say you have First Amendment rights to speak and the First Amendment right of association,” he said. “If you all then formed a partnership to speak, you’d say we still have that First Amendment right to speak and of association.”
“But what if you put yourself in a corporate form?” Justice Thomas asked, suggesting that the answer must be the same.
Asked about his attitude toward the two decisions overruled in Citizens United, he said, “If it’s wrong, the ultimate precedent is the Constitution.”
Justice Thomas would not directly address the controversy over Mr. Obama’s criticism of the Citizens United ruling or Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s mouthed “not true” in response. But he did say he had stopped attending the addresses.
“I don’t go because it has become so partisan and it’s very uncomfortable for a judge to sit there,” he said, adding that “there’s a lot that you don’t hear on TV — the catcalls, the whooping and hollering and under-the-breath comments.”
“One of the consequences,” he added in an apparent reference to last week’s address, “is now the court becomes part of the conversation, if you want to call it that, in the speeches. It’s just an example of why I don’t go.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/us/politics/04scotus.html?hp
Audio: Clarence Thomas Defends Supreme Court’s Campaign Finance Decision . . . “The Ultimate Precedent is the Constitution”
Published February 4, 2010 | If 10 of you got together and decided to speak, just as a group, you’d say you have First Amendment rights to speak and the First Amendment right of association. If you all then formed a partnership to speak, you’d say we still have that First Amendment right to speak and of association,” Justice Clarence Thomas said at Stetson University College of Law. [Note: The follow-up question regarding McCain/Feingold is asked by John McCain's cousin.]
http://www.breitbart.tv/audio-justice-defends-supreme-courts-campaign-finance-decision/
Every Thugocracy Needs Its Enforcers
Published February 4, 2010 | “Fact #44: The Left’s Uncivil Unions” Tony Perkins, Family Research Council, Feb. 3, 2010
Every thugocracy needs its enforcers, and in the case of ObamaCare, that role is currently filled by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The SEIU president, Andy Stern, was a frequent visitor to the White House last year (28 times in one six month period!), and his influence paid off. SEIU provided “security” at numerous Democratic Members townhall meetings and were always quick to oust anyone who disagreed with them. In one instance, they assaulted an African-American protester at a townhall in St. Louis while screaming racial slurs at him. When the government takeover of health care seemed to falter, this Union was the first out the door, threatening political repercussions for any Democrat who doesn’t toe the line. And it was SEIU’s political money and influence that made the Democrats promise to exempt unions from any of the taxes on certain health care plans.
Now with the Democrats’ super-majority in jeopardy, they are still trying to sneak in as many favors to the unions as they can, including pushing through the nomination of controversial nominee for Solicitor General at the Labor Department, Patricia Smith. If you’re looking for the Obama Goon Squad–look for this Union label.
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=WU10B03&f=PG07J01
Opening the Flood, Gates
Published February 4, 2010 | Tony Perkins, Family Research Council, Feb. 3, 2010
“You don’t have to be straight to shoot straight.” That’s the best argument Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) could come up with for repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” during yesterday’s Senate hearing in the Armed Services Committee. According to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), it’s not good enough. “At this moment of immense hardship for our armed services, we should not be seeking to overturn the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy… Has this policy been ideal? No… but… [i]t has helped to balance a potentially disruptive tension between the desires of a minority and the broader interests of our all-volunteer force… We owe our lives to our fighting men and women, and we should be exceedingly cautious, humble, and sympathetic when attempting to regulate their affairs. ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ has been an imperfect but effective policy. And at this moment, when we are asking more of our military than at any time in recent memory, we should not repeal this law.” We applaud Sen. McCain for holding the line when so many in the administration have crossed it.
Apart from his comments, the only positive note from yesterday’s hearing was that senators of both parties reminded Secretary Robert Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen that opening the military to homosexuals would require Congress–it’s not within the President or Pentagon’s power–to act unilaterally. Judging by our busy press room, FRC continues to be the go-to organization on this issue in the media. Apart from a series of print interviews, Peter Sprigg and I took the lead on a few national talk shows yesterday, debating the fallout of homosexuals in the military with experts from the other side. You can watch all three appearances–on CNN, MSNBC’s “Hardball,” and “Larry King Live“–by visiting our newsroom.
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=WU10B03&f=PG07J01
Obama Fumbles after Health Care Blitz
Published February 4, 2010 | Tony Perkins, Family Research Council, Feb. 3, 2010
With a new stimulus jobs bill in motion and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” on the line, President Obama is still trying to reset the play clock on health care reform. Yesterday, he made it clear who was calling the plays, saying that Congress is still huddling on the plan’s “minor” problems. At a townhall meeting in New Hampshire, the Sports Fan-in-Chief used every football analogy in the book. 
Health care reform is on “the five yard line,” he promised. (Maybe this is fantasy football?) “We’re in the red zone,” he said. “We’ve got to punch it through.” Well, they’re in the red zone all right–but only when it comes to cost.
While the President says the bill is “90%” there, most Americans would argue that he’s 100% wrong. He can try the hurry-up offense, the quarterback sneak, but none of it will change the fact that the legislation has been blown dead in its current form with taxpayer-funded abortion, higher premiums, new taxes, rationing, state-driven bribery, and trillions in the bottom line. Yet, as the President told New England yesterday, “[I]t’s not over.”
As recently as yesterday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced that Democrats will try to eat up small yardage by scheduling votes on popular slivers of the bill like antitrust laws. According to Politico, “The vote is part of her new two-track strategy to tackle things that won’t be included in a more sweeping bill…while giving her members something politically popular to vote on.” In the meantime, both chambers are pouring over their playbooks to find a reasonable way to move forward. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was less optimistic. “Don’t pin me down as to days or number of weeks,” he said.
Speaking of switching teams, a U.S. tax court handed down a ridiculous ruling yesterday on a man’s sex-change operation, ordering the government to accept a $5,000 tax deduction of the costs. In its decision, the court rebuked the IRS for dismissing it as a legitimate medical claim. Attorneys for the IRS argued that the surgery was “cosmetic,” not a medical necessity. If the ruling stands, however, it could have sweeping implications for taxpayers and the transgender community–particularly since “gender identity disorder” (still considered a mental illness by the American Psychological Association), would not only be legitimized by the federal government–but subsidized as well. Welcome to ObamaCare.
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=WU10B03&f=PG07J01
Rush Sizes Up the Prez
Published February 4, 2010 | “I think Obama has been covered for all of his life, and this is the first time there’s not a professor around to turn his C into an A or write the law review article for him that he can’t write. He’s totally exposed. There’s nobody to make it better.”
-Rush Limbaugh (Video and Transcript of the Fox Interview)
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_020310/content/01125120.guest.html
The ‘Common Touch’
Published February 4, 2010 | …..The chattering class suggests that (Obama) has temporarily lost the common touch. But when did he ever have it? He didn’t need the common man to win the presidency; he had the influential elite. He is largely a product of self-congratulatory upper-class euphoria, who is no more comfortable with Scott Brown the Pickup Driver than with Joe the Plumber . . . It would be more appropriate for Obama to give interviews beneath a painting of JFK than Lincoln, though JFK pulled off a more successful remoteness. Obama manages to be aloof and tediously familiar at the same time. Contrary to his recent protestations, he has spoken directly to the American people — through a teleprompter…..
SOURCE: The President Who Knew He Was Right”
By George Neumayr, American Spectator, 1.28.10
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/01/28/the-president-who-knew-he-was
China’s One-Child Policy Will Have Significant Implications by 2020
Published February 4, 2010 | 
To say that China’s one-child family policy has been a disaster is an understatement. A report released earlier this month by the nation’s top think tank – the Communist Government’s Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) – says that the policy has created a huge gender imbalance with significant implications for future social stability.
Indeed, according to the report, 24 million men reaching marriageable age by 2020 will never marry because of the sex imbalance. Think of it in these terms: what if the entire population of New York City or of Australia was never able to marry. Imagine the social implications in a city or nation that large where no one can marry. Imagine if that city or country is comprised solely of 24 million men; men with no homes to return to at night; men without the responsibilities of a family to keep them engaged in productive pursuits.
The CASS report – carrying the understated title “Contemporary Chinese Social Structure” – raises some key questions but it is short on answers.
Since the report was published many Chinese bloggers have been commenting on its implications. Some more daring Chinese netizens have highlighted that many boys entering puberty are oblivious to the fact that they will never be able to marry; they ask which parents wish to tell their sons to prepare for a bleak future alone – unable to find a wife and unable to establish their own families. Interestingly the CASS report termed those condemned to bachelorhood “bare branches” because they would not be able to establish family trees of their own.
How China got to this pitiful state is well documented. A rigid one child per family policy, legal and easily available abortion, and a cultural and economic preference for sons, resulted in sex selective abortions since the early 1980s. Laws to deter such behaviour have failed resoundingly. For example, obtaining knowledge of an unborn baby’s sex from ultrasounds was made illegal to stop abortions of baby girls by the 1990s. But throughout China’s rural villages and towns it remains possible to bribe staff in medical clinics and hospitals to find out the sex of an expected child. Once the parents decide to abort an unborn baby, Chinese law does not require them to carry an unborn baby girl to term.
More girls than boys are aborted. Many more. So much more that Mao Zedong’s words – to emphasise the equality of the sexes – that “women hold up half the sky” will soon ring hollow.
Of course, China has never really given women true equality. Whether it was foot-binding – an atrocious practice only finally outlawed by the Communists – or the Communists telling women how many children they may have, Chinese women have long been denied the right to determine their own futures, especially when it has come to their most basic right, the right of reproduction. The fact that women in China’s National Population and Family Planning Commission promote the policy does not make it any the less repressive of women.
The main concern raised by the CASS report is that 24 million men condemned to a life alone will result in a major strain on the State welfare system. Essentially, without families of their own to care for them as this generation starts ageing, the State will need to step in with sufficient pension funds and aged care facilities for the old bachelors of the latter decades of the 21st Century.
But other problems – such as a rising incidence of prostitution and violent crime – are on the horizon, judging by some current trends.
For example, while the number of baby girls being born has declined, the number of kidnappings and trafficking of young girls has risen. According to the National Population and Family Planning Commission – that’s right, the very organization responsible for the one child family policy — abductions and trafficking of women and girls has become “rampant”.
Young girls are being kidnapped within China and also from neighboring countries (Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand) by organized gangs who sell them to families with boys of a similar age. The girls will be raised by the families and given as brides to their sons as soon as they reach marriageable age. Others are shipped to brothels within China for a life as sex slaves.
Needless to say China’s neighbours are not enamored of the growing practice. Diplomatic tensions have risen over the issue and China has had to establish a special police unit to help its neighbours combat the very crime its policy has created. Continue reading
Founder’s Quote Daily
Published February 4, 2010 | 
“Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and corruption of manners make a people ripe for destruction. A good form of government may hold the rotten materials together for some time, but beyond a certain pitch, even the best constitution will be ineffectual, and slavery must ensue.”
–John Witherspoon, The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men, 1776
Video Friday Five: Former Planned Parenthood Director Abby Johnson
Published February 4, 2010 |
After witnessing an abortion via ultrasound, Abby Johnson left Planned Parenthood and began fighting for the rights of the preborn.
The first thing was that they kept talking about how Planned Parenthood’s goal was preventing unintended pregnancy and, so therefore, preventing abortion. That was something that I believed in. I believe that abortion shouldn’t be happening. They told me that they believed abortion should be rare and I got behind that; also them talking about how they wanted to help women and that was their goal to help women. And that was ultimately what drew me there.
2. What was the key experience for you inside the abortion clinic that motivated you to quit your job and become pro-life?
I saw an ultrasound-guided abortion procedure. And, I saw on the ultrasound a baby fighting for its life during the abortion procedure. And, when I saw that I realized that everything I had been told by Planned Parenthood and by the pro-choice movement – it’s not a baby and it’s just a mass of cells and it’s not living – was not true.
3. During the time you worked at Planned Parenthood, you went to church and had a Christian faith. How did you reconcile your abortion industry job with your Christian faith?
It was a struggle for me to be a Christian and to work at Planned Parenthood, but I was able to reconcile it by telling myself that I was doing God’s work by helping these women; and that this is what God wanted me to do, because I was helping them so that they wouldn’t have to go to these places that were unsafe. And I would say, “How could you be a Christian and not be pro-choice?” It was just total disregard for the woman’s pregnancy and for the baby.
4. Looking back, what is your biggest regret in your time with Planned Parenthood?
A: I think one of the greatest regrets for me is some of the tactics I used to coerce women into having abortions; some of the things I didn’t even realize I was doing to help persuade women into having abortions; the things I said to my friends when they would come to me and confide in me that they had an abortion. They were struggling with that issue. I would just blow them off and tell them that they were going to be fine. I didn’t want to recognize that women did struggle after having an abortion and that those feelings they were having were real.
5. What’s your greatest hope as you look forward now?
My greatest hope is that people will spring into action, that they will see that their efforts in the pro-life movement do bear fruit and that I would be a reminder to people that going out there and being in front of these clinics does work. It’s not enough just to say that we’re pro-life, but we actually have to put action behind those words.
MORE INFORMATION
You can also catch Abby Johnson on the Focus on the Family daily radio broadcast, “Leaving Planned Parenthood,” with Jim Daly and John Fuller, scheduled to air on Jan. 21-22.
Palins Promote LIFE….Aggravate Libs
Published February 4, 2010 | Sarah and Bristol Palin In Touch cover: “We’re glad we chose life”
SOURCE: Jill Stanek, January 13, 2010
Wow, it can’t get any more pro-life than this, the new In Touch magazine cover…
The tease, posted on the magazine’s website today…
Bristol Palin didn’t know what she was in for when she made the life-changing and controversial choice to have a baby at the young age of 18. But after she gave birth to her son, Tripp, in December 2008 – and broke up with her boyfriend, Levi Johnston – the reality of single motherhood quickly set in.
“I remember sitting on a black recliner, just bawling my eyes out,” Bristol tells In Touch. “I was just rocking Tripp to sleep because he had been screaming for so long. I was just like, ‘What am I going to do? This is as bad as it gets.”
Though raising an infant has been challenging, Bristol has the unconditional love and support of her family – especially her mother, Sarah Palin.
After all, no one can better understand the complicated decision to have a baby under difficult circumstances. Just a year earlier, at the age of 44, Sarah carried her son Trig to term, even though she was told during a sonogram that he would be born with Down syndrome.
Now, the mother and daughter are sharing a unique experience – raising baby boys together under the same roof. In an exclusive interview at the family’s home in AK on January 10, Sarah and Bristol plopped down on the teenager’s bed and opened up about the joys and challenges of raising Tripp and Trig. With Trig’s birth, Sarah’s vice presidential run and Bristol’s very public pregnancy during the campaign, “The last few years have been unreal and surreal,” Sarah tells In Touch.
For the full exclusive, including heartwarming photos of the family and complete interview, plus the Palins’ joys and challenges of raising their sons, check out this week’s issue of In Touch, on newsstands Friday.
Of course, libs are aggravated…
http://www.jillstanek.com/archives/2010/01/sarah_and_brist.html
Pro-Life Organization Responds to Needs of Pregnant Women in Haiti
Published February 4, 2010 | MaterCare International (MCI), an international organization of Catholic health professionals dedicated to the care of mothers and their born and unborn children, has answered the call of the Missionaries of Charity to provide care for Haitian women and their babies.
While many organizations have rushed to provide aid to the quake-stricken nation, much of the aid being provided is for very basic needs. Organizations are focusing on providing food, shelter or basic medical care. However, as MaterCare’s Executive Director Dr. Rob Walley pointed out, “pregnancy does not stop because of a disaster of this kind.”
Following the earthquake, there has been a great need for obstetrical care.
“From previous experience in East Timor, after the occupation forces left and during the Kosovo crisis back in 1999, it seems that the needs of women during pregnancy and childbirth are forgotten as if pregnancy and birth can be put on hold,” Dr. Walley said.
In Haiti, he added, “these mothers have also endured the earthquake, suffered injury and the loss of children, husbands and other family members.” In the disaster’s aftermath “they face infectious disease from contaminated water as well as starvation.” Continue reading
GOSPEL & MEDITATION
Published February 4, 2010 | Thursday, 4th week in OT – Father Alex Yeung, LC
Mark 6:7-13
Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over unclean spirits. He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick — no food, no sack, no money in their belts. They were, however, to wear sandals but not a second tunic. He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave from there. Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you, leave there and shake the dust off your feet in testimony against them.” So they went off and preached repentance. They drove out many demons, and they anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.
Introductory Prayer: Father, I come before you today hungry for all the graces you desire for me in this meditation. I believe in your goodness. I wish to become more like your son, Jesus Christ, every day. I want to live a life of self-giving love like Christ. Thank you for your grace.
Petition: Christ Jesus, grant me a spirit of teamwork in spreading your Gospel.
1. Silent Testimony Christ sent out his apostles in pairs. The fact that the Gospel mentions this detail shows that it is not just an accident. There are some passages in Matthew’s Gospel that can shed some light on this desire of Christ. First, “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (Matthew 18:20). The apostles are first and foremost called to witness to Christ by their example. They are to foster communion and charity among themselves, so that others, seeing how they interact with each other, will be led to exclaim, “See how they love one another!” The apostle-teams exhibited oneness of heart and soul, sharing in common what they were able to procure: lodging, success, failure. With such an attitude, Christ promises that he would be there in their midst.
2. Apostolic Teamwork “If you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses” (Matthew 18:16). The word of one person, who has witnessed a miraculous event alone, is often taken as no more than the word of a crazy man. However, if more than one person confesses to having witnessed the event, there is much stronger proof. The apostles went about witnessing to the things that Jesus was doing and the signs he was working: healing the sick, casting out demons, etc. It is wonderful to team up with fellow Christians in the workplace or in the family, in order to witness to the work of Christ in our lives.
3. Two is Better Than One Jesus makes it clear: with regard to the mission, another apostle is much more important than other material tools. Jesus teaches us here the principle of teamwork. An apostolic “colleague” helps us to be vigilant against dangers to our health and well-being (physical and spiritual). Prayer can be in community; Jesus assures that “if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven” (Matthew 18:19). Working in a team also helps to improve apostolic efficacy: Each enriches the other with the exchange of knowledge, personal and lived experiences, and views on the situation. Each complements the other, contributing their God-given gifts, abilities and qualities. “Two heads are better than one.”
Conversation with Christ: You sent your apostles out in twos, Lord Jesus, to teach me about the importance of teamwork. Help me not presume that I am alone in the mission. When I try to do everything myself, sometimes it may be out of subtle pride. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for the gift of apostolic colleagues. Increase in my heart true fraternal charity for those who work alongside me in building up your kingdom, so that the world may believe.
Resolution: I will make it a point to involve an apostolic colleague in my effort to help some friend or family member encounter Christ.
http://www.regnumchristi.org/english/articulos/articulo.phtml?se=363&ca=975&te=735&id=20302
ST. JOSEPH OF LEONISSA
Published February 4, 2010 | 
Joseph of Leonissa, OFM Cap.; was the third of eight children born at Leonessa (Italy) on January 8, 1556.
At baptism he was given the name Eufranio.
Impressed by the example of Matthew Silvestri, who had left the medical profession to embrace the Capuchin life and whose holiness was evident, Eufranio was inspired to become a Capuchin. After overcoming family opposition, he was admitted to the novitiate and received the habit and the name Joseph and made profession on January 8, 1573.
On May 21, 1581, the Capuchin general vicar issued patents for preaching, the ministry in which Joseph would be engaged for the remainder of his life.
Relying solely on grace and with a mission crucifix always tucked in his cincture, Joseph negotiated the most obscure, mountainous regions of Umbria, Lazio and the Abruzzi in an intense and extensive mission of evangelization among those who were poor.
Joseph enjoyed such great success in preaching because of his intimate union with God which was cultivated by incessant prayer. He would pray and meditate on the road, while holding his crucifix. Assigned to Constantinople he was appointed as chaplain to some 4,000 Christian slaves who worked in the penal colony of Qaasim-pacha. He immediately went to work bringing the gospel and charitable relief to those who were languishing in inhumane conditions. Many times he offered himself as a substitute in order to obtain the release of a slave who was near death. His offer was never accepted.
When the plague broke out in the penal colonies, the Capuchins immediately took up the ministry of assisting those who were sick and dying. Two Capuchins, Peter and Dennis, died doing so. Although Joseph became ill, he and Brother Gregory alone survived to remain at the mission. After converting a Greek bishop who had renounced the faith, Joseph devised a plan which entailed approaching the sultan, Murad 111, to seek the recognition of the right of freedom of conscience for anyone who was converted or returned to the Christian faith.
When Joseph attempted to enter the sultan’s chambers, he was arrested and bound in chains. He was condemned to an immediate death by being hung on hooks. He was hung from the gallows with one hook through the tendons of his right hand and another through his right foot. Near death, on the evening of the third day, the guards cut him down.
Joseph quickly left Turkey and arrived at Rome where he and the converted Greek bishop presented themselves to Pope Sixtus V. Following Joseph’s return to Italy, in the autumn of 1589, he took up residence at the Carcerelle in Assisi.
In the aftermath of the Council of Trent, Joseph spent much time and energy catechizing. He began a ministry of evangelization among shepherds who lacked even rudimentary knowledge of the faith, prayer and the commandments. He would walk through the streets ringing a bell, reminding parents to send their children to catechism class.
When he became deathly ill, Joseph asked to be taken to Leonessa in order to pay his last respects to his relatives and friends. On Saturday evening, February 4, 1612, after beginning the divine office,which proved too difficult to continue, Joseph repeated his favorite prayer: “Sancta Maria, succurre miseris.” Joseph was beatified by Clement XII in 1737 and canonized by Benedict XIV in 1746.
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