Are you really pro-life? By Chris Johnson

One of the things that’s the hardest to understand about atrocities like the Holocaust or the Rwanda genocide or other ethnic “cleansing” atrocities is the question of how the ordinary, uninvolved citizen allowed it to happen. When your neighbors are being pulled into the streets and butchered or hauled off by police and never returning, how do you just go on with your life? It’s difficult to comprehend how those people just sat back and allowed it to happen when we are now part of one of the most civil societies known to man.

But maybe it’s not so hard to understand after all. According to a new Rasmussen poll, 54% of voters now call themselves pro-choice, while only 38% identify as pro-life.

So, that’s pretty depressing, huh? Sounds like those of us who see unborn babies as people are now in the minority.

Except we’re not. Rasmussen polled voters, but are you ready to be sick to your stomach? Gallup released a poll of the general public in May of this year stating that the pro-life position is actually more popular than the pro-choice position. By nine points, 50% to 41%.

That should even make pro-choicers sick. That means that millions of people who recognize  a yet- to-be-born baby as a person couldn’t be bothered to go draw a line on a piece of paper to possibly save those little people’s lives.

Once every four years we get an opportunity to elect leadership that finds dismembering babies to be heinous and put an end to the practice, but many of the people who recognize that that is occurring in America can’t be bothered even to vote.

Let’s look at those numbers for a second. The population of the USA today is 311 million, so if 50% of Americans are pro-life, that comes to about 155 million. And, according to the Center for the Study of the American Electorate, about 126 million out the 311 million Americans voted. 38% of the 126 million voters would equal roughly 48 million pro-life voters.

Now, Rasmussen‘s poll was of likely voters, not of actual voters and, of course, the 155 million pro-lifers in America are not all eligible voters. So there’s quite a bit of wiggle room to my math, but no matter how much it wiggles there’s no getting past the fact that tens of millions of pro-life Americans couldn’t turn out to vote to put an end to what they believe (and I agree) is killing babies. And many may have voted for the guy who whole-heartedly supports it.
Is it so easy to condemn the Germans who watched the Holocaust happen and did nothing when many Americans are doing the exact same thing now?

http://www.americandecency.org/full_article.php?article_no=1606

What’s Good for the Noose is Good for the Pander

Recently, Ann Coulter wrote a controversial column suggesting that numerous Republican losses in the 2012 election cycle could be tied to the GOP stance on abortion. After lamenting the problem, she suggested a solution: the GOP should officially abandon its opposition to the so-called rape exception to a ban on abortion.

Ann’s position on this matter is wrong for three reasons. First, it is unprincipled. Second, it will not be received with the popular support she envisions. Third, it is not the best political response to the problem. After elaborating on each problem associated with Ann’s position, I propose an alternative. It is one that I consider to be more viable, so to speak.

1. It is the not the principled position. Conservatives don’t believe that we should be punished for the actions of others. We believe that we should be held responsible for our own actions. I should not have to bail out my neighbor if he cannot pay his mortgage. I should not have to pay for welfare programs if my neighbor refuses to work. I can help my neighbor if I so choose. But I ought not to be forced to do so. The consequences of my conduct should fall upon me, not upon others.

Ann does not claim we should adopt the rape exception as a compromise. Ann actually claims that the rape exception is the principled position. She makes this claim entirely on the basis of the principle that it is wrong to force the rape victim to carry the rapist’s baby to term. But no one wants to apply force to the rape victim. True conservatives want to ensure that no one applies force to the innocent child before he or she can be given up for adoption. Why? Because the baby is innocent. The baby has never committed a rape. Therefore, the baby should live. And if the baby defaults on her mortgage in adulthood, she should bear the consequences, not someone else.

2. It is not the majority position. Ann Coulter has asserted that the rape exception is popular. She has even gone so far as to suggest that 99% of the people agree with it. That is an assertion, which is unsupported by evidence. It is also patently false. No one who is pro-choice is in favor of the rape exception to a rule banning abortion. The reason is simple: they cannot favor any exceptions to a rule they don’t actually favor.

When you add a) the forty-something percent of the population that rejects the exception because they reject the rule and b) the sizable portion of pro-lifers who reject the exception as a matter of principle, then what do you get? You get a majority rejecting the rape exception. That’s the reason you don’t have a bunch of unbathed rape exception supporters huddling on Wall Street shouting “we are the 99 percent!”

3. It is not the best political position. Ann has been going wobbly on us in recent years. This sort of thing goes with the territory when you live in Manhattan and serve on the board of gay political organizations. She should not be suggesting that we retreat on the rape exception in order to avoid the accusation that we are soft on rape. She should be joining me in a legislative blitz that will prove conclusively that Democrats care less about rape than Republicans. My plan is simple: we push to legalize the execution of rapists who impregnate women through force, instead of executing “their” babies.

The Supreme Court has banned executions for rape – even aggravated child rape since 2008. They did it because most states – almost all of them, in fact – did not allow that option. It’s called evolving standards of decency. When a punishment falls out of favor with the states, the Court bans it across the board. The solution is simple: all Republican-led legislatures need to pass new laws providing for the execution of rapists who impregnate women. The evolving standard of decency is a door that should swing both ways. If the effort is shot down in the capitol or the courtroom it will be liberals, not us conservatives, who do it. Let them tie the noose around their own necks, in a manner of speaking.

If this goes like I plan then the Democratic Party will be exposed and damaged for caring more about preserving unrestricted abortion than stopping sexual assault. Republicans might even attract the votes of illegal immigrants who are currently known as undocumented Democrats.

Mike Adams

Mike Adams is a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and author of Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts “Womyn” On Campus.

http://townhall.com/columnists/mikeadams/2012/11/14/whats_good_for_the_noose_is_good_for_the_pander/page/full/

First, I Chose Life and Truth, Which Leads Me In the Right Way!

John 14:5-7 (KJV)

⁵ Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?

⁶ Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

⁷ If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.

I just came back from voting, and it really was a no brainer!  Anyone who values what God says, will always go for the candidate that sides with preserving life of an unborn child, over abortion, any time.  If you call yourself a Christian, and you choose a candidate who is pro-choice, stands for abortion, and has proven they are supporting the Planned Parenthood organization, then all I have to say is, you need to re-evaluate you standing with God.  You need a closer walk, and talk, with Him, so He can show you the error of your ways.

I feel good that I went online, and chose all the candidates that are first, and foremost, pro-life.  Yes, I’m not naive enough to think they may be just saying things to get into office, and then change what they stand for, politicians do that, but that’s between them and God, and they will have to answer to Him on judgement day.  I can only go by what I prayed about, and sought God for, and my voting, and I chose to vote pro-life in my voting, because my motto is, “Where’s there’s LIFE, there’s always HOPE!”

My hope is not in this world anymore.  My hope is in my Heavenly Father above.  He gives me the hope I need every day, when things look bleak, and I am in pain from my migraines, or my feet, and hands are hurting, tingling, or numb.  I know that one day I won’t feel this anymore, because he is going to call me to my Heavenly home on high, as long as I stay true to Him, do what I can to witness for Him, here on earth.  That’s why I use this blog to get whatever kind of message I can to people about the wonderful love of God.  I also use my facebook to do so, and started a facebook for my church.  I want to spread God’s word, and love, as much as possible, to as many people as possible.

I don’t know how many people really read what I put on here, and maybe I will never know, but if what I put on this blog brings one lost soul to Christ, it is well worth all the time I put into it.  This is for God’s glory, not mine, and I do this, because I felt led by God to start this blog, since I can’t work right now, and this is the best way I can reach people to witness for Him.  I hope I inspire someone to not just sit on the sidelines.  Everyone can do something for God’s kingdom. No one is worthless, or useless!  God can, and will use everyone, all you have to do is give Him you heart, and life, and see what wonderful things God will do in your life!

Suicide by Choice? Not So Fast By BEN MATTLIN

NEXT week, voters in Massachusetts will decide whether to adopt an assisted-suicide law. As a good pro-choice liberal, I ought to support the effort. But as a lifelong disabled person, I cannot.

There are solid arguments in favor. No one will be coerced into taking a poison pill, supporters insist. The “right to die” will apply only to those with six months to live or less. Doctors will take into account the possibility of depression. There is no slippery slope.

Fair enough, but I remain skeptical. There’s been scant evidence of abuse so far in Oregon, Washington and Montana, the three states where physician-assisted death is already legal, but abuse — whether spousal, child or elder — is notoriously underreported, and evidence is difficult to come by. What’s more, Massachusetts registered nearly 20,000 cases of elder abuse in 2010 alone.

My problem, ultimately, is this: I’ve lived so close to death for so long that I know how thin and porous the border between coercion and free choice is, how easy it is for someone to inadvertently influence you to feel devalued and hopeless — to pressure you ever so slightly but decidedly into being “reasonable,” to unburdening others, to “letting go.”

Perhaps, as advocates contend, you can’t understand why anyone would push for assisted-suicide legislation until you’ve seen a loved one suffer. But you also can’t truly conceive of the many subtle forces — invariably well meaning, kindhearted, even gentle, yet as persuasive as a tsunami — that emerge when your physical autonomy is hopelessly compromised.

I was born with a congenital neuromuscular weakness called spinal muscular atrophy. I’ve never walked or stood or had much use of my hands. Roughly half the babies who exhibit symptoms as I did don’t live past age 2. Not only did I survive, but the progression of my disease slowed dramatically when I was about 6 years old, astounding doctors. Today, at nearly 50, I’m a husband, father, journalist and author.

Yet I’m more fragile now than I was in infancy. No longer able to hold a pencil, I’m writing this with a voice-controlled computer. Every swallow of food, sometimes every breath, can become a battle. And a few years ago, when a surgical blunder put me into a coma from septic shock, the doctors seriously questioned whether it was worth trying to extend my life. My existence seemed pretty tenuous anyway, they figured. They didn’t know about my family, my career, my aspirations.

Fortunately, they asked my wife, who knows exactly how I feel. She convinced them to proceed “full code,” as she’s learned to say, to keep me alive using any and all means necessary.

From this I learned how easy it is to be perceived as someone whose quality of life is untenable, even or perhaps especially by doctors. Indeed, I hear it from them all the time — “How have you survived so long? Wow, you must put up with a lot!” — even during routine office visits, when all I’ve asked for is an antibiotic for a sinus infection. Strangers don’t treat me this way, but doctors feel entitled to render judgments and voice their opinions. To them, I suppose, I must represent a failure of their profession, which is shortsighted. I am more than my diagnosis and my prognosis.

This is but one of many invisible forces of coercion. Others include that certain look of exhaustion in a loved one’s eyes, or the way nurses and friends sigh in your presence while you’re zoned out in a hospital bed. All these can cast a dangerous cloud of depression upon even the most cheery of optimists, a situation clinicians might misread since, to them, it seems perfectly rational.

And in a sense, it is rational, given the dearth of alternatives. If nobody wants you at the party, why should you stay? Advocates of Death With Dignity laws who say that patients themselves should decide whether to live or die are fantasizing. Who chooses suicide in a vacuum? We are inexorably affected by our immediate environment. The deck is stacked.

Yes, that may sound paranoid. After all, the Massachusetts proposal calls for the lethal dose to be “self-administered,” which it defines as the “patient’s act of ingesting.” You might wonder how that would apply to those who can’t feed themselves — people like me. But as I understand the legislation, there is nothing to prevent the patient from designating just about anyone to feed them the poison pill. Indeed, there is no requirement for oversight of the ingestion at all; no one has to witness how and when the lethal drug is given. Which, to my mind, leaves even more room for abuse.

To be sure, there are noble intentions behind the “assisted death” proposals, but I can’t help wondering why we’re in such a hurry to ensure the right to die before we’ve done all we can to ensure that those of us with severe, untreatable, life-threatening conditions are given the same open-hearted welcome, the same open-minded respect and the same open-ended opportunities due everyone else.

Ben Mattlin is a freelance journalist and the author of “Miracle Boy Grows Up: How the Disability Rights Revolution Saved My Sanity.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/opinion/suicide-by-choice-not-so-fast.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

 

Of Babies and Beans? A Frightening Denial of Human Dignity

Adam Gopnik is a gifted essayist and writer whose contributions, often published in The New Yorker, are almost always thoughtful and interesting. Nevertheless, one of his most recent writings is deeply disturbing, and at the deepest level.

Reflecting on the debate between Vice President Joseph Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan, Gopnik registered alarm at “something genuinely disturbing and scary” that had been said by Paul Ryan. Gopnik first complained that Biden and Ryan should not have even been asked about the role their Roman Catholic faith plays in their thinking, specifically on the issue of abortion.

 

Related Posts

• Radical Enhancement and the Denial of Human Dignity
• Radical Enhancement and the Denial of Human Dignity (Audio)
• What Do You Really Believe About Human Dignity, Dr. Collins? (Audio)
• “Licensing People to Put Others Down” — The End of Human Dignity
• A New Threat to Human Dignity — Down’s Syndrome Revisited

Gopnik then wrote:

“Paul Ryan did not say, as John Kennedy had said before him, that faith was faith and public service, public service, each to be honored and kept separate from the other. No, he said instead ‘I don’t see how a person can separate their public life from their private life or from their faith. Our faith informs us in everything we do.’ That’s a shocking answer—a mullah’s answer, what those scary Iranian “Ayatollahs” he kept referring to when talking about Iran would say as well. Ryan was rejecting secularism itself, casually insisting, as the Roman Catholic Andrew Sullivan put it, that ‘the usual necessary distinction between politics and religion, between state and church, cannot and should not exist.’”

Gopnik accuses Paul Ryan of reasoning like a mullah and rejecting any distinction between church and state. Ryan did no such thing, of course. Instead, Ryan stated the obvious — “Our faith informs us in everything we do.” Any faith of substance will inform every dimension of our lives. It is hard to imagine that Adam Gopnik would have complained or even taken offense if a similar statement had been made, for example, by the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., concerning his advocacy for civil rights.

Our total worldview inevitably “informs us in everything we do.” Paul Ryan was simply responding with honesty, and he did not call for a theocracy. Interestingly, Joseph Biden, though a champion of a woman’s right to choose, has repeatedly claimed the influence of his Roman Catholic faith in other arenas of public policy, especially economics. This has not elicited similar cries from liberals, accusing Biden of attempting to forge a theocracy.

Gopnik attempted to make his position clear, arguing that religious beliefs “should not inform us in everything we do, or there would be no end to the religious warfare that our tolerant founders feared.” Mr. Gopnik would no doubt be surprised to discover that many of the founders were not so tolerant, in his sense, as he believes. A good many argued for the absolute necessity of theism as a foundation for morality and civil society. In any event, does he really believe that a candidate’s most deeply held convictions should have no influence in his or her thinking on the most serious of issues? That is not only impossible; it is absurd.

As off-base as his complaint on this issue is, however, it pales in contrast to the argument Gopnik then turned to make. He referred to the fact that Ryan defended the right to life of the unborn, and that Ryan and his wife had named their unborn first child “Bean” as an affectionate reference to the shape on the ultrasound image. Gopnik asserted that “a bean is exactly what the photograph shows—a seed, a potential, a thing that might yet grow into something greater, just as a seed has the potential to become a tree. A bean is not a baby.”

There is no mistaking Gopnik’s claim — that the image of the unborn Ryan child revealed only a bean, and not a baby.

Gopnik then wrote:

“The fundamental condition of life is that it develops, making it tricky sometimes to say when it’s fully grown and when it isn’t, but always easy to say that there is a difference and that that difference is, well, human life itself. It is this double knowledge that impacts any grownup thinking about abortion: that it isn’t life that’s sacred—the world is full of life, much of which Paul Ryan wants to cut down and exploit and eat done medium rare. It is conscious, thinking life that counts, and where and exactly how it begins (and ends) is so complex a judgment that wise men and women, including some on the Supreme Court, have decided that it is best left, at least at its moments of maximum ambiguity, to the individual conscience (and the individual conscience’s doctor).”

Chillingly, Gopnik limits human dignity to “conscious, thinking life.” This is the life “that counts,” he claimed.

Clearly, Gopnik agrees with those who restrict human dignity to persons who achieve “conscious, thinking life,” and apparently only for so long as they maintain that state of consciousness and thinking ability. This is the horrifying logic of the German doctors of the Weimar Republic who argued that certain human beings were not fully deserving of life — deemed “life unworthy of life.” They argued that certain abilities or characteristics must be acquired and maintained in order for life to be “worthy of life.”

I am quite certain that Adam Gopnik, who writes so movingly of his love of fatherhood, did not mean to associate with the full impact of such an argument, but his own assertions lead to the very same conclusion. We must note that Gopnik goes so far as to cast doubt, not only on when “conscious, thinking life” begins, but where it ends. Did the readers of The New Yorker even notice?

This is the logic of the Culture of Death, and it is an assault upon the dignity and worth of every human being. There was indeed “something genuinely disturbing and scary” said with reference to the Vice Presidential Debate, but it wasn’t said by Paul Ryan. It was written by Adam Gopnik.

http://www.albertmohler.com/2012/10/17/of-babies-and-beans-a-frightening-denial-of-human-dignity/

Abortion is 27 Percent of Deaths in England, Wales: 189,000 Babies Terminated in 2010 in UK By Myles Collier , Christian Post Contributor

Disturbing Report Makes Legislators Rethink Abortion Limits.

There are disturbing reports coming from England and Wales as  national statistics show that more than a quarter of all deaths in the countries  are caused by abortions.

The numbers were released by the Office for National Statistics of the U.K. and offers a  complete accounting of the mortality statistics for all deaths that occurred in  2010.

The report was divided into two parts; major causes of death and death from  external causes. The report listed the total number of deaths and the resulting  cause or factor.

The report listed a total of 493,242 deaths in England and Wales from “all  causes” in 2010. This number includes 224 babies who died “before, during or  after birth.” However, the 224 babies who died were not represented in the  189,574 human deaths from abortion in England and Wales in 2010.

Adding the total number of pre-born babies who died as a result of abortion  in 2010 to the total number of human deaths in England and Wales for that same  year produces an overall total of 682,816 deaths.

This leads to 27 percent or 189,574 of the 682,816 deaths being caused by  abortion.

Recently, several top British government officials have proposed and endorsed  calls to lower the current abortion limit of 24 weeks to a new limit of 12  weeks.

Jeremy Hunt, Britain’s new health secretary, explained that while he  understands the seriousness concerning this debate, he feels that reducing the  time limit from 24 weeks to 12 weeks is the right point to start with when  considering the moment life starts.

“Everyone looks at the evidence and comes to a view about when they think  that moment is, and my own view is that 12 weeks is the right point for it … It  is just my view about that incredibly difficult question about the moment that  we should deem life to start,” Hunt told The Sunday Times U.K. during an  interview.

Hunt did not cite any specific scientific evidence to explain his position,  nor did he assume any religious motives for his statement.

“It’s just my view about that incredibly difficult question about the moment  that we should deem life to start. I don’t think the reason I have that view is  for religious reasons,” Hunt said.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/abortion-is-27-percent-of-deaths-in-england-wales-189000-babies-terminated-in-2010-83726/#hlSYL8fwaQdujvBV.99

A Scary Thought

Sometimes, I wonder if Halloween is supplanting the Fourth of July as our national holiday.

Come summer, the flags will fly and the fireworks will pop, and bands will ring out “Stars And Stripes Forever.” But these don’t seem to resonate in the broader culture anymore, the way vampires and zombies do. Year-round, TV and the movies are awash in the blood of horror flicks. Horror fiction seems to outsell everything else, for teens and adults. And in many neighborhoods, people seem much more excited about spooking up their homes for Halloween than they do about sprucing them up for Christmas.

Walking down the main thoroughfare of a major American city a few nights ago, I was taken aback by the level of sexual depravity and death depicted in one window display after another, block after block – a saturation of satanic commercialism.

Now, full disclosure: I’ve never liked Halloween anyway. But even with that, I can’t help wondering if our growing national obsession with this holiday is a dark reflection of things happening at deeper levels of our collective conscience. Looking past the masks we wear in most of our conversations about elections, government, and the society we share, any honest observer would have to admit that, in many ways, America is only a ghost of its former self.

Understand, in saying that, I’m not just pining for “a simpler time.”  I’m not looking to drag us all back to delusions of Mayberry or some Norman Rockwell idealized yesteryear. I’m talking about the things that have always made America a nation apart from the rest – our extraordinary, even unprecedented, commitment to life, to family, to faith, to freedom.

Those things have mummified a bit in America today – we still see them, hear of them, talk of them, but like Halloween, they’re wrapped more and more in the things not of life but of death. We have a million extraordinary medical means at our disposal to physically save or prolong fragile lives – even those of babies, born months too soon. And yet life is cheaper now, in some ways, than it’s ever been, and babies are more vulnerable than ever to the caprices of reluctant mothers and the financial interests of profiteers like Planned Parenthood.

Through the marvels of communications technology – phones, webcams, texts, and e-mails – and a plethora of responsible dating sites, single men and women have more safe, convenient opportunities to meet, learn, court, and marry each other than at any time in history. And yet more and more young people are rejecting holy matrimony for the passing pleasures of “hooking up” and the half-hearted commitment of living together. Divorce rates soar and families dissolve while those driving popular culture and entertainment are obsessed with promoting same-sex relationships that promise only physical destruction, emotional havoc, and moral degeneration.

Since all of this – the contempt for life, the redefinition of marriage, the dissipation of families – goes hard against the grain of souls made in the image of God, the elimination of God has quickly become something of a new national pastime.

Aborting babies, legitimizing homosexual behavior, warping and erasing gender…all of these require us to defy nature and deny God. How do mere mortals justify doing that? By telling ourselves that we’re more tolerant than He is. By convincing ourselves that our own ideas of compassion surpass the truth of His eternal love.

God says homosexual acts, adultery, and all sex outside of marriage between one man and one woman is wrong. We say “true love is more important than society’s rules or old-fashioned morality.” God says we’re responsible for controlling our sexual desires, regardless of what the law may allow, and that a child, no matter what the circumstances of its conception, has a right to live. We say, “A woman’s right to her own body is more important than a baby’s right to draw breath.” Amazing…how much smarter we are about things like love and freedom than is the God who created both.

We have taught ourselves to separate the judgments of God from the wisdom of God. Several thousand years of human experience to the contrary, it’s not wisdom if I disagree with it.  It’s not right if it makes me uncomfortable. It’s not fair if it doesn’t give me what I want.

The inevitable end of such childish arrogance is…emptiness. Selfishness must lead to nihilism.  In redefining righteousness, we trade faith in God for faith in ourselves. And our selves are fallible. We know this. We can’t deny this. We prove it to ourselves every day.

When the thing in which we have the most faith is fallible, hope goes to pieces. We’ve reinvented ourselves as God – and we’ve created a monster.

Shutting down churches and shutting up Christians won’t change that. We know ourselves too well. We’re our own Achilles heel. We’re vampires, draining the life from our own veins.

Behind the trick-or-treating and the costume parties, Halloween has become a symbol of these deeper, darker things. It is a celebration, for many, of some small battles they think they are winning against God and the truth He has planted within us. But the celebrations are premature, and the victories are sad, empty things…hollow as the jack-o-lanterns with their ghastly smiles.

For there’s this – always this – when you declare war on God: you know you won’t win.

Scary stuff, on Halloween—and the rest of the year, too.

Alan Sears

Alan Sears, a former federal prosecutor in the Reagan Administration, is president and CEO of the Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal alliance employing a unique combination of strategy, training, funding, and litigation to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.

http://townhall.com/columnists/alansears/2012/10/31/a_scary_thought/page/full/

Rape, God, Life and Liberals

Let’s stipulate that people, and particularly politicians, can get into trouble by attempting to speak for God. But that’s not the moral of the story regarding Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock.

Responding to a question about abortion, Mourdock offered a grieved response — his voice breaking a bit — on the matter of which exceptions he favored. His Democratic opponent, Joe Donnelly, also pro-life, said that he would permit abortions in cases of rape, incest and to save the life of the mother. Mourdock said he had “struggled with it . . . for a long time,” but had come to the conclusion that “life is a gift from God.” Unfortunately, he didn’t stop there. He added that “even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”

That was sufficient for the Democrats and their eager Dobermans in the press to salivate and pounce. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, head of the Democratic National Committee, fulminated, “Richard Mourdock’s rape comments are outrageous and demeaning to women. Unfortunately, they’ve become part and parcel of the modern Republican Party’s platform toward women’s health as Congressional Republicans like Paul Ryan have worked to outlaw all abortions and even narrow the definition of rape.”

The Associated Press headline said “God at Work When Rape Leads to Pregnancy” and the Atlantic screamed “Republican Senate Candidate Says Rape Pregnancies Are a ‘Gift from God.’” There was much more along those lines.

Mourdock clarified a day later, saying “God creates life, and that was my point.  God does not want rape, and by no means was I suggesting that he does. Rape is a horrible thing, and for anyone to twist my words otherwise is absurd and sick.”

But absurd is what the Democrats do. The Democratic Party is in the caricature business. Just consider Barack Obama’s stock description of Mitt Romney: “He’s running around the country saying he has a five-point plan. But he really has a one-point plan: Folks at the top get to play by a different set of rules than you do. They get to pay lower taxes than you do and use offshore accounts. Or they can invest in a company, bankrupt it, fire the workers, take away their pensions, ship the jobs overseas and still make money doing it.”

It’s getting hard to tell who’s the lower demagogue — Mr. Obama or Ms. Wasserman Schultz.

Mr. Mourdock chose his words poorly while attempting something dangerous — to grapple with a serious moral question in a political debate. People wonder why politicians are so guarded and rehearsed. Well, this is why. One stray word and you become fodder for the demagoguery machine.

The very fact that a couple of ill-chosen words by pro-life candidates have become lightning rods this election season betrays the overwhelming bias of the press on this issue. Most Americans consider themselves to be pro-life. The pro-life posture is accordingly the mainstream view. An August CNN survey found that 52 percent say abortion should be illegal in all (15 percent) or most (37 percent) circumstances. A May Gallup survey found that more women call themselves pro-life (46 percent) than pro-choice (44 percent). But the press allies with the Democrats to smear pro-life candidates as “extremists.”

Abortions that are the result of rape amount to fewer than 1 percent of all abortions. Yet the press treats these rare exceptions as central. What goes virtually unreported are the doctrinaire positions of liberal Democrats: They oppose waiting periods, parental notification, limits on sex selection abortions, restrictions on late-term or “partial birth” abortions, and laws protecting the lives of babies “accidentally” born alive following botched late term abortions. Has there ever been a political debate in which the pro-choice candidate was challenged about his or her positions on those questions?

It’s obviously a ghastly thing for a woman to be raped and to find herself pregnant as a consequence. What Mourdock was saying, if inartfully, was that the child so conceived is innocent, and doesn’t deserve to die because of the crime of his or her father. He understands that this is a tough issue. It makes everyone horribly uncomfortable. But the liberal answer — abort the child or else be accused of approving of rape — is a slimy abuse of tragedy and a disgrace to civil discourse.

Mona Charen

Mona Charen is a syndicated columnist, political analyst and author of Do-Gooders: How Liberals Hurt Those They Claim to Help .

http://townhall.com/columnists/monacharen/2012/10/26/rape_god_life_and_liberals/page/full/

Chinese Officials Force Abortion on 6-Month Pregnant Woman by Kat Lewis

Shandong Province, Zibo City – The first week of October should be the happiest time for Chinese citizens, a celebratory holiday marking the anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.  For Qiao Ping’an and his wife Song, however, the week was marred by an injustice that led to a double tragedy—a mental breakdown and a death.

On October 2^nd, Song was alone in her home in Zibo City (Gaoqing County, Heilizhai Town, Qiaojia Village)  while her family was out in the field bringing in the fall harvest.  A mother of 2 girls and nearly 6-months pregnant with their 3^rd child, Song had no reason to believe that she was in any danger.  After all, she had heard nothing from the Family Planning Police about her pregnancy, and it was a national holiday, when no government officials would be working.  Yet, at 5pm that evening, 7 Family Planning officials arrived at her home, took her by force into a vehicle and drove her 100 kilometers away to Dongying Universal Love Women’s Hospital.

At the hospital, the officials violently tied Song down, confiscated her cell phone and stripped all of her clothes off.  Because she was so resistant, they forcibly injected her with a sedative, then pressed her finger to sign the voluntary abortion consent form.  They forcibly injected a needle into her womb with a poison to kill the baby and to induce labor.  After this, they left her naked on the hospital bed and locked her in.

Song’s family was not notified of her whereabouts, and so only arrived at 11pm after it was too late.  While they sought justice at the local police station, they were forced to return to their home while Song remained at the hospital.

On the evening of October 5^th, Song gave birth to a dead baby.  However, the loss of the baby was not all—Song herself suffered a mental breakdown from the trauma of her experience.  As a result, she is in a trance-like state of shock and cannot take care of herself.  Her seven-year-old daughter cries every day, asking what has happened to her mother.  Family Planning officials continue to monitor Song and her family around the clock.  There has been no official public apology and no compensation; instead, it has been reported that the Heilizhai Town Family Planning officials immediately sought aid from more senior officials in Gaoqing County to cover up the story.  The victim’s family can be reached at +86-183-6997-1712.

http://www.lifenews.com/2012/10/24/chinese-officials-force-abortion-on-6-month-pregnant-woman/

Obama Steps Up Abortion, Contraception Rhetoric to Win Back Women Voters By Paul Stanley , Christian Post Reporter

The Obama campaign team has made it clear they are going to focus  on recapturing some of the women’s vote that has drifted to Mitt Romney since  the first debate. An ad that is now running in a key swing state says that Romney would overturn Roe v. Wade  and that is just one example of what voters will probably see more of in the  next 18 days.

Polls taken in September showed Romney picking up steam with blue-collar,  Republican leaning women who have lately been labeled “Wal-Mart Moms.” Yet when  the former Massachusetts governor began cutting into the more educated women  voters who tend to lean Democratic, that’s when Obama’s team leapt into  action.

ABC/Washington Post conducted a survey of women over the last two weeks that  has found Obama falling behind Romney among college-educated females – a group  that the president captured easily in 2008.

A more recent Gallup survey released on Thursday found Romney maintaining a  52-45 lead over Obama among likely voters, contradicting another ABC/Washington  Post poll on Oct. 15 that showed Obama with a 49-46 lead over Romney.

Yet another USA Today/Gallup poll taken in 12 key swing states and released  earlier this week found the two candidates in a dead heat among women voters  with Romney leading 54-42 among likely male voters. These types of numbers have  given the Obama team cause for concern.

But immediately after debate number two, Obama’s talking heads brushed past  foreign policy and oil and what was or wasn’t said in the Rose Garden. David  Plouffe wasted little time in defining where their campaign election strategy  was headed.

“I thought the exchange on women’s health issues was very important,” he  said, “not only for tonight but for the next 21 days.”

One of the most obvious examples came in an exchange the two men had about  Planned Parenthood during Tuesday night’s debate when Obama accused Romney of  planning to strip Planned Parenthood of government funding and for not answering  questions about making it easier for women to sue over discrimination.

Now the Obama team is running an ad in swing states saying that Romney would  “be delighted” to sign a bill making abortion illegal. What it doesn’t say is  that Romney believes a ban on abortion is “not where America is today.”

The ad will run in Virginia – a highly contested battleground state.

“If Roe v. Wade was overturned, Congress passed a federal ban on all  abortions and it came to your desk — would you sign it? Yes or no?” ask the ad,  which shows Romney saying, “I’d be delighted to sign that bill.”

Amanda Henneberg, a Romney spokesperson commented on the ad.

“President Obama’s campaign continues to mislead voters in a desperate  attempt to distract from this president’s failed economic record. Five and a  half million women are struggling to find work in the Obama economy, and they  are suffering from record unemployment under this president.”

http://www.christianpost.com/news/obama-steps-up-abortion-contraception-rhetoric-to-win-back-women-voters-83608/cpf#3SLPrpAGp7YXLXPh.99