July, 2005
July, 2005
On My Mind... Earlier this week
President Bush chose Judge John Roberts to replace outgoing Justice Sandra
O'Connor. The President has made a good choice in Judge Roberts, who has proven
himself an excellent candidate for the Supreme Court.
Of course we can expect the Senate to challenge Judge Robert's candidacy because
of his staunch support of the constitution, his strict interpretation of it, and
his personal faith. They will seek out his opinion on Roe-v-Wade, because the
mainstream bureaucracy still believes that the support of Roe-v-Wade is the
consensus of Americans, (Wrong! But we know that money talks, doesn't it?)
Act now, and take a moment to contact your representatives in the Senate, and
let them know that you expect a fair up-and-down vote, that Judge Robert's
personal and moral beliefs should not be used to de-rail his confirmation. We
need a balanced Judiciary. We can surely lose the opportunity through inaction.
Momentum is key. --Joe
posted 7/ 17/ 05
In The Mailbag... This is
exactly why Pro-Life Support doesn't have a majority voice. SPEAK UP! --Joe
Taboo Topics in Journalism Today
By Cliff Kincaid | July 14, 2005
Evan Thomas of Newsweek estimated that media bias for Kerry-Edwards was worth
between 5 and 20 million votes.
The old media, with their documented and demonstrable liberal bias, have lost
much of their clout. But through the networks, the major papers, and the White
House press corps, they continue to set the national agenda. And that means
there are some things you just don't write about if you want to remain
"in" with the liberal media.
Newsweek senior writer Charles Gasparino, appearing on Tina Brown's now-defunct
CNBC show, made the following admission. "We sow the seeds of our own
demise. Journalists have been advocates of the liberal attitude for way too
long, and now we're paying the price-Fox News." Gasparino was saying
something that should be quite obvious-that Fox News is a response to the
overwhelming liberal media bias. He explained, "Journalists are generally
liberal. That does come out in the reporting…It comes out in the stories
that they do."
ABC News political director Mark Halperin and his staff explained the bias this
way:
"Like every other institution, the Washington and political press corps
operate with a good number of biases and predilections. They include, but are
not limited to, a near-universal shared sense that liberal political positions
on social issues like gun control, homosexuality, abortion, and religion are the
default, while more conservative positions are 'conservative positions.'...The
press, by and large, does not accept President Bush's justifications for the
Iraq war...It does not accept the proposition that the Bush tax cuts helped the
economy...It remains fixated on the unemployment rate..."
Evan Thomas of Newsweek estimated that media bias for Kerry-Edwards was worth
between 5 and 20 million votes.
The bias is evident, as Thomas said, in coverage of Democrats vs. Republicans.
But the bias is also evident in coverage of the issues. Here are some of the
things you can't write about objectively in the mainstream media:
The harmful effects of abortion. Abortion is considered a sacred right of women
that should not be challenged. In a related matter, a link between abortion and
breast cancer is always discounted.
The theory of intelligent design. This theory, an alternative to Darwinian
evolution, says that life has a purpose. But because it has possible religious
implications, our media side with secular humanists who do not want the theory
even discussed in the public schools.
That DDT has saved lives and can save millions more. DDT has been demonized by
the environmentalists and the media for decades, leading to its banning. This is
changing somewhat, as even the New York Times has now editorialized that some
use of DDT may be justified to save lives. But the Times' recognition of the
truth has come millions of lives too late.
The violent nature of Islam. The media repeat claims that Islam is a religion of
peace, despite passages in the Koran justifying violence against unbelievers.
Diplomacy might justify the "Islam is a peaceful religion" mantra of
the Bush administration, but there's no excuse for the media to ignore the facts
that are available at such websites as www.prophetofdoom.net
The link between pornography and violence against women. The media depict
Playboy founder Hugh Hefner as a cultural icon, even though he is a dirty old
man with a long history of manipulating and exploiting women. Hefner's Playboy
Foundation contributed funding to a recent Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)
film, "The Education of Shelby Knox," about a teenager who becomes an
advocate of explicit sex education and a "gay-straight alliance" in
her school. No expressions of concern came from the media over Playboy funding
of a PBS film because reporters were too busy writing articles decrying the
possibility that the public broadcasting budget might be cut by 25 percent.
Questions about the real cause of AIDS. The HIV=AIDS theory is never questioned,
even though the official definition of AIDS does not require a diagnosis of
having HIV, and AIDS tests are notoriously unreliable. In a related matter,
objections to massive spending on AIDS at the expense of other diseases are
completely ignored by the press. As the FAIR Foundation has shown (www.fairfoundation.org),
in terms of federal government spending per death, AIDS gets more money than 16
diseases that kill one million more Americans annually. The only national
journalist who has tackled this sensitive subject is ABC's John Stossel.
Real reform of the CIA and FBI. Anonymous CIA bureaucrats frequently leak
information to the Washington Post and New York Times in order to make their
critics look bad, especially when questions are raised about the performance of
the CIA. Even though the FBI has been racked by a series of failures, ranging
from Ruby Ridge to Waco to 9/11 and the failure to solve the anthrax attacks,
very few reporters write critically of the bureau, especially its treatment of
former scientist Steven Hatfill, labeled by the government a "person of
interest" in the anthrax case without any evidence at all.
That homosexuality is a lifestyle one can leave and reject. Homosexuality is
portrayed by the media as natural and acceptable, and all major papers run
announcements of homosexual "marriages." Ex-homosexuals are ignored.
This bias extends to groups such as the National PTA, which refused to allow
ex-homosexuals to run a workshop at its national convention. But the PTA did
allow Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) to hold a workshop.
That the Bush Doctrine is leading to positive developments in the Middle East,
including democratic progress and women's rights. It is fashionable to write of
Iraq being a quagmire and a dead-end, in order to make Bush look bad.
That Alfred Kinsey, the father of the sexual revolution, was a sex pervert who
gathered data from sexual experiments on children performed by a Nazi pedophile.
Instead, Kinsey has been presented in several films as a ground-breaking
scientist who uncovered true facts.
That foreign aid doesn't work. Rather than examine how hundreds of billions of
dollars have been wasted on foreign aid, the major media give glowing coverage
to events such as the Live8 concerts which demand even more money.
Support for nuclear power from some members of the environmentalist movement,
including a founding member of Greenpeace.
And the fact
That so-called medical marijuana is a complete hoax. A video shows Ed Rosenthal
of High Times magazine telling fellow marijuana activists, to laughter, cheers
and applause, that he smokes dope to treat glaucoma, which he admits he doesn't
have, and because he likes to get high.
This is certainly not a complete list of major issues ignored by the press.
Indeed, almost every significant issue is subjected to such distorted coverage.
The good news is that the old media are losing their clout and hold over the
minds of the American people.
But further bad news is that the bias in the old media may get worse.
Chris Mooney, a liberal writer for the New Republic and the Boston Globe, among
other publications, has written that traditional "balanced" coverage
of climate change and an abortion-breast cancer link cannot be justified
because, in his view, the evidence supports the liberal view of those issues.
Victor Navasky, publisher of The Nation and now chairman of the Columbia
Journalism Review, wrote an article for the Los Angeles Times under the
headline, "Objectivity is Highly Overrated." He argued for more
"opinion journalism" from the media.
He'll get his wish. The trouble is that the opinion journalism is being provided
under the cover of objective reporting.
posted 7/ 16/ 05
In The Mailbag... This is
exactly why Pro-Life Support doesn't have a majority voice. SPEAK UP! --Joe
Taboo Topics in Journalism Today
By Cliff Kincaid | July 14, 2005
Evan Thomas of Newsweek estimated that media bias for Kerry-Edwards was worth
between 5 and 20 million votes.
The old media, with their documented and demonstrable liberal bias, have lost
much of their clout. But through the networks, the major papers, and the White
House press corps, they continue to set the national agenda. And that means
there are some things you just don't write about if you want to remain
"in" with the liberal media.
Newsweek senior writer Charles Gasparino, appearing on Tina Brown's now-defunct
CNBC show, made the following admission. "We sow the seeds of our own
demise. Journalists have been advocates of the liberal attitude for way too
long, and now we're paying the price-Fox News." Gasparino was saying
something that should be quite obvious-that Fox News is a response to the
overwhelming liberal media bias. He explained, "Journalists are generally
liberal. That does come out in the reporting…It comes out in the stories
that they do."
ABC News political director Mark Halperin and his staff explained the bias this
way:
"Like every other institution, the Washington and political press corps
operate with a good number of biases and predilections. They include, but are
not limited to, a near-universal shared sense that liberal political positions
on social issues like gun control, homosexuality, abortion, and religion are the
default, while more conservative positions are 'conservative positions.'...The
press, by and large, does not accept President Bush's justifications for the
Iraq war...It does not accept the proposition that the Bush tax cuts helped the
economy...It remains fixated on the unemployment rate..."
Evan Thomas of Newsweek estimated that media bias for Kerry-Edwards was worth
between 5 and 20 million votes.
The bias is evident, as Thomas said, in coverage of Democrats vs. Republicans.
But the bias is also evident in coverage of the issues. Here are some of the
things you can't write about objectively in the mainstream media:
The harmful effects of abortion. Abortion is considered a sacred right of women
that should not be challenged. In a related matter, a link between abortion and
breast cancer is always discounted.
The theory of intelligent design. This theory, an alternative to Darwinian
evolution, says that life has a purpose. But because it has possible religious
implications, our media side with secular humanists who do not want the theory
even discussed in the public schools.
That DDT has saved lives and can save millions more. DDT has been demonized by
the environmentalists and the media for decades, leading to its banning. This is
changing somewhat, as even the New York Times has now editorialized that some
use of DDT may be justified to save lives. But the Times' recognition of the
truth has come millions of lives too late.
The violent nature of Islam. The media repeat claims that Islam is a religion of
peace, despite passages in the Koran justifying violence against unbelievers.
Diplomacy might justify the "Islam is a peaceful religion" mantra of
the Bush administration, but there's no excuse for the media to ignore the facts
that are available at such websites as www.prophetofdoom.net
The link between pornography and violence against women. The media depict
Playboy founder Hugh Hefner as a cultural icon, even though he is a dirty old
man with a long history of manipulating and exploiting women. Hefner's Playboy
Foundation contributed funding to a recent Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)
film, "The Education of Shelby Knox," about a teenager who becomes an
advocate of explicit sex education and a "gay-straight alliance" in
her school. No expressions of concern came from the media over Playboy funding
of a PBS film because reporters were too busy writing articles decrying the
possibility that the public broadcasting budget might be cut by 25 percent.
Questions about the real cause of AIDS. The HIV=AIDS theory is never questioned,
even though the official definition of AIDS does not require a diagnosis of
having HIV, and AIDS tests are notoriously unreliable. In a related matter,
objections to massive spending on AIDS at the expense of other diseases are
completely ignored by the press. As the FAIR Foundation has shown (www.fairfoundation.org),
in terms of federal government spending per death, AIDS gets more money than 16
diseases that kill one million more Americans annually. The only national
journalist who has tackled this sensitive subject is ABC's John Stossel.
Real reform of the CIA and FBI. Anonymous CIA bureaucrats frequently leak
information to the Washington Post and New York Times in order to make their
critics look bad, especially when questions are raised about the performance of
the CIA. Even though the FBI has been racked by a series of failures, ranging
from Ruby Ridge to Waco to 9/11 and the failure to solve the anthrax attacks,
very few reporters write critically of the bureau, especially its treatment of
former scientist Steven Hatfill, labeled by the government a "person of
interest" in the anthrax case without any evidence at all.
That homosexuality is a lifestyle one can leave and reject. Homosexuality is
portrayed by the media as natural and acceptable, and all major papers run
announcements of homosexual "marriages." Ex-homosexuals are ignored.
This bias extends to groups such as the National PTA, which refused to allow
ex-homosexuals to run a workshop at its national convention. But the PTA did
allow Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) to hold a workshop.
That the Bush Doctrine is leading to positive developments in the Middle East,
including democratic progress and women's rights. It is fashionable to write of
Iraq being a quagmire and a dead-end, in order to make Bush look bad.
That Alfred Kinsey, the father of the sexual revolution, was a sex pervert who
gathered data from sexual experiments on children performed by a Nazi pedophile.
Instead, Kinsey has been presented in several films as a ground-breaking
scientist who uncovered true facts.
That foreign aid doesn't work. Rather than examine how hundreds of billions of
dollars have been wasted on foreign aid, the major media give glowing coverage
to events such as the Live8 concerts which demand even more money.
Support for nuclear power from some members of the environmentalist movement,
including a founding member of Greenpeace.
And the fact
That so-called medical marijuana is a complete hoax. A video shows Ed Rosenthal
of High Times magazine telling fellow marijuana activists, to laughter, cheers
and applause, that he smokes dope to treat glaucoma, which he admits he doesn't
have, and because he likes to get high.
This is certainly not a complete list of major issues ignored by the press.
Indeed, almost every significant issue is subjected to such distorted coverage.
The good news is that the old media are losing their clout and hold over the
minds of the American people.
But further bad news is that the bias in the old media may get worse.
Chris Mooney, a liberal writer for the New Republic and the Boston Globe, among
other publications, has written that traditional "balanced" coverage
of climate change and an abortion-breast cancer link cannot be justified
because, in his view, the evidence supports the liberal view of those issues.
Victor Navasky, publisher of The Nation and now chairman of the Columbia
Journalism Review, wrote an article for the Los Angeles Times under the
headline, "Objectivity is Highly Overrated." He argued for more
"opinion journalism" from the media.
He'll get his wish. The trouble is that the opinion journalism is being provided
under the cover of objective reporting.
posted 6/ 15/ 05
In The Mailbag... This
one from Canada, by way of The London Free Press DATE: 2005.06.29
EDITION: Final SECTION: Opinion Pages PAGE: A7 . Good Reading. --Joe
BYLINE: L. L. DEVEBER, FREELANCE WRITER deVeber Institute for Bioethics and
Social Research in Toronto.
ABORTION'S LINGERING DAMAGE
After reviewing the various letters to the editor supporting abortion on demand
and Henry Morgentaler, I would like to make a few comments and corrections.
Pro-life supporters come from various moral and religious backgrounds, but they
all want to see the unborn child or fetus given some recognition and status so
it cannot be eliminated simply because it's not wanted.
They see a small, defenseless human individual, which at seven weeks has a heart
beat and brain activity, and by 14 weeks is fully developed. By 20 to 24 weeks
these babies become viable, as in rare cases they can survive outside the womb.
About this time, before birth, they can have intrauterine surgery on the heart
and other organs, at which point they become patients.
Of course, they have no legal status until a miraculous passage through the
birth canal, when it is recognized by everyone as a legal human being.
However, since abortion supporters choose to ignore these facts, they should be
concerned about complications following abortions that are increasingly reported
in scientific literature: 1) A study sponsored by the College of Physicians and
Surgeons of Ontario, in 2001 showed that 41,000 women who had abortions had five
times the number of hospital admissions for psychiatric problems, compared to a
similar number of women who had no abortion. This was a short-term study done at
three months, and did not deal with long-term effects of abortion. 2) A study
published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal in 2003 showed an
increase number of psychiatric admissions among lower-income women who had
induced abortions. 3) A Finnish study of the records of 600,000 women showed a
six-fold increase in suicides in post-abortion women compared to those with a
live birth, three times the incidence of women in general. There are other
published studies in Britain and the U.S. showing similar findings. 4) It is
obvious there are large numbers of women with post-abortion psychological
problems, judging by the growth of hundreds of related counseling centres in
North America, the largest being Project Rachel.
The pro-choice counseling service, Healing Choice, estimates at least 10 per
cent of post-abortion women have severe psychological problems, and that many
others who appear to have "moved forward with their lives" suffer
various degrees of guilt, grief and ambivalence, sometimes for the rest of their
lives. There are documented cases of women expressing grief, guilt and spiritual
pain on their death beds many decades after an abortion.
Besides these psychological problems, there are documented medical problems that
are less common, yet still significant, such as subsequent premature deliveries,
infertility and increased risk of breast cancer. The incidence of maternal
mortality from induced abortions is unknown (Statistics Canada), since maternal
deaths after abortion are classified by the cause of death (hemorrhage,
infection, etc.) and not by the procedure itself.
Although post-abortion problems may not affect the majority of women, the number
of women affected is significant when one considers more than a million
abortions have occurred in Canada over the last 10 years. Finally, one wonders
what sort of informed consent is offered women considering abortion, in view of
the problems cited in the literature. In the United States, there are at least
12 states with right-to-know laws stipulating what information should be
presented to these women, which I presume is more detailed than what women in
Canada are offered.
posted 6/ 12/ 05
In The Mailbag... This
one from Canada, by way of The London Free Press -- DATE: 2005.06.29
EDITION: Final SECTION: Opinion Pages PAGE: A7 . This is a good read. --Joe
By: L. L. deVeber-- deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research,
Toronto.
ABORTION'S LINGERING DAMAGE
After reviewing the various letters to the editor supporting abortion on demand
and Henry Morgentaler, I would like to make a few comments and corrections.
Pro-life supporters come from various moral and religious backgrounds, but they
all want to see the unborn child or fetus given some recognition and status so
it cannot be eliminated simply because it's not wanted.
They see a small, defenseless human individual, which at seven weeks has a heart
beat and brain activity, and by 14 weeks is fully developed. By 20 to 24 weeks
these babies become viable, as in rare cases they can survive outside the womb.
About this time, before birth, they can have intrauterine surgery on the heart
and other organs, at which point they become patients.
Of course, they have no legal status until a miraculous passage through the
birth canal, when it is recognized by everyone as a legal human being.
However, since abortion supporters choose to ignore these facts, they should be
concerned about complications following abortions that are increasingly reported
in scientific literature: 1) A study sponsored by the College of Physicians and
Surgeons of Ontario, in 2001 showed that 41,000 women who had abortions had five
times the number of hospital admissions for psychiatric problems, compared to a
similar number of women who had no abortion. This was a short-term study done at
three months, and did not deal with long-term effects of abortion. 2) A study
published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal in 2003 showed an
increase number of psychiatric admissions among lower-income women who had
induced abortions. 3) A Finnish study of the records of 600,000 women showed a
six-fold increase in suicides in post-abortion women compared to those with a
live birth, three times the incidence of women in general. There are other
published studies in Britain and the U.S. showing similar findings. 4) It is
obvious there are large numbers of women with post-abortion psychological
problems, judging by the growth of hundreds of related counseling centres in
North America, the largest being Project Rachel.
The pro-choice counselling service, Healing Choice, estimates at least 10 per
cent of post-abortion women have severe psychological problems, and that many
others who appear to have "moved forward with their lives" suffer
various degrees of guilt, grief and ambivalence, sometimes for the rest of their
lives. There are documented cases of women expressing grief, guilt and spiritual
pain on their death beds many decades after an abortion.
Besides these psychological problems, there are documented medical problems that
are less common, yet still significant, such as subsequent premature deliveries,
infertility and increased risk of breast cancer. The incidence of maternal
mortality from induced abortions is unknown (Statistics Canada), since maternal
deaths after abortion are classified by the cause of death (hemmorrhage,
infection, etc.) and not by the procedure itself.
Although post-abortion problems may not affect the majority of women, the number
of women affected is significant when one considers more than a million
abortions have occurred in Canada over the last 10 years. Finally, one wonders
what sort of informed consent is offered women considering abortion, in view of
the problems cited in the literature. In the United States, there are at least
12 states with right-to-know laws stipulating what information should be
presented to these women, which I presume is more detailed than what women in
Canada are offered.
posted 7/ 12/ 05
In The Mailbag...
From across the "big pond" come words of wisdom. This "Joe"
speaks his heart. He well describes the current state of a humanity lost by the
existence of a world ruled by Big Brother. Read & heed. --Joe
June 23, 2005 - Volume XIII, Issue 25 Budapest Sun A
Tragedy of Man
By Imre Téglásy
The baby whose pictures was seen all over the Internet is now a healthy newborn
boy. Samuel Armas touched the hearts of America when he reached out of his
mother's womb to grip the finger of a surgeon while still an unborn baby of 21
weeks. Samuel was undergoing pre-natal surgery to correct a case of spina bifida.
The surgery at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center was innovative and
risky: the doctors removed the uterus from his mother, drained the amniotic sac,
operated on the child, and finally returned the child and the uterus to the body
of the mother. The case caught international attention due to a photo taken by
Paul Harris near the end of the surgery.
As the surgeon replaced the uterus, a tiny hand reached out to clutch his
finger. Of course, if the mother had had a different mindset, a child at that
age could have been legally aborted throughout the United States. Since the
humanization of unborn babies under the dictatorship of abortion is regarded as
a politically incorrect speech, Fox talk show host Matt Drudge
was fired when he insisted on showing the photo on national television to make
this same point.
Hungarians (and mankind) face another temptation to fall into sin as they let
atheism and godlessness take control over every aspect of their life. The matter
at issue is that, as Balázs Barsi, a Hungarian Franciscan monk once said,
"- The greatest sin of mankind is not that they keep cursing God or that
they simply neglect Him, their major sin is much rather that they try to slap
the Creator in the face." Abortion, euthanasia, in vitro fertilization (IVF),
merchandising of parent-cells and human organs produced by genetic engineering
are all serious anti-life activities and a clear
declaration of war against God the Creator.
Michelangelo presents the Almighty Creator, who is able to create life, in full
grandeur and glory of his majesty on the wall painting of the ceiling of the
Sistine Chapel. The finger of the Ancient Father (this is the etimology of the
word "God") reaches out towards the first man to infuse into him a
mysterious life-giving power in the form of a divine radiation (enthesma divinum).
Man gets both his status as a child of God and the unique, sacred and inviolable
majesty of his life from this very action of God.
And the dignity of every created being and the sanctity of his or her life is
based on the holiness radiating from the Creator. Several centuries after
Michelangelo the physician-biologist experimenting with life tries to steal the
divine creative power only to pave the way for a profit-oriented
entrepreneurship which wants to market all these scientific achievements.
Before the 17th century the word 'profit' did not meant material increase but
much rather spiritual and intellectual progress. In the new era - starting with
the industrial revolution - the meaning of this word shifted towards material
earnings and financial gain leading to accumulation of wealth.
After this an enormous tension builds between "to have" and "to
exist", these two antagonistically different views of life. So the meaning
of "profit" shifted completely towards "to have" and the
lordship of possession also stared to take complete dominion over the formerly
sacred and invulnerable categories of life.
No wonder that the Hungarian playwright, Imre Madách presents a vision of the
future of mankind in the scene of phalanstery where dry-as-dust scientists try
to usurp the creative role of God and want to do away even with the most natural
human relationships based on genuine and pure love.
With this we have arrived at the eugenic theory of Hitler's era and the survival
of it with the arrival of lots of new Mengeles: or perhaps we have entered this
"Brave New World" already!
The dress rehearsal of Imre Madách's Tragedy of Man is being run by the
government in China, where it imposes sanctions on its people that no more than
one child may be born into one family. In countries considering themselves
modern Western democracies on the other hand - where basically the same
screenplay is being followed - a chemical weapon is put into action within the
womb to annihilate the unborn babies of mothers who get into crisis.
At the same time you may find American scientists who acknowledge the total
hegemony of abortion over certain strata of society from where - to their mind
-descendants with the traits of criminals and social deviancy would swarm into
our world if we hadn't aborted these unfit elements in time.
But even if they might be born, there is professor Peter Singer, lecturing at
Princeton University, who tries to convince us that a one-year-old child born
with some handicap is no more valuable than an animal, that's why you may
consider him of no value and without restraint can annihilate him. There is no
trace of human freedom to decide here, much rather we are forced to obey inhuman
government decrees and laws.
It would be a pity, however, to point at others since we are all
participants in this vicious-circle and invisibly also creators of it. In the
'60s and '70s the two basic options of Hungarian family planning was summarized
in the slogan "Baby or car", which clearly shows that the original
understanding of humanity as being the children of God was replaced by a
schizophrenic state of mind.
As a result of the extremist, greedy hegemony of the capitalistic
profit-oriented worldview, which by its insatiability destroys both mankind and
nature, creation was replaced by production of goods and the worship of the
Creator was replaced by that of the producer and the consumer.
This new system "castrates" the male because he is no longer
considered as a valuable father-to-be (because the "engineers" of
human reproduction may create much more valuable offsprings in their
test-tubes), and the females will never be mothers because this new system
values their working potentials and production capacities much more than the
role of parents in procreation and raising new life.
And, of course, the highest achievement of post-modern "art" is when
it succeeds in turning the two sexes - who according to their original design
are both dependent on and complimentary to each other - against each other. One
of the symptoms of this new trend is the feminism which, under the cover of the
false slogan of "self-realization", basically surrendered itself to
the capitalistic system by betraying and devaluating motherhood and fatherhood,
which had been in crisis anyway.
I have no reason to be happy when I think of the love-cult of my children and
that of the coming generations because there is a fair chance that children will
be "made" by authorized and specially qualified people.
Imre Téglásy, PhD, is the founder and secretary general of Alpha Alliance
in Hungary. In 1998, he was sentenced to 10 days' obligatory hospital work by a
lower court in the city of Baja because it was said he intervened
"inappropriately" to make sure that a pregnant girl aged below 14 in
the village of Dávod should give birth to her child against the wishes of her
family. As a result of his initiative, 15 state hospitals have announced that
they are joining the movement for holding at least three abortion-free days a
year. He was awarded the American group Heartbeat International's Servant Leader
award in 2001 and the United Kingdom Life League's Joshebed Award in 2004.
posted 7/ 7/ 05
On The Wire... The crack
is widening: Momentum... momentum. -- Joe
Liberals
ready to abandon US right to abortion
BY: Gaby Wood, in New York
Sunday July 3, 2005 / The Observer
Last autumn, in the midst of a presidential election, America's Democrats were
fighting furiously to protect what they described as a constitutional right - to
have an abortion. But in an extraordinary turn of events, some argue that it is
the single issue standing in the way of their election prospects. They are
daring to say what once was regarded as heresy - that it is time to let the
argument go. Abortion may still be the most divisive issue in the US, but in a
move indicative of creeping conservatism, Democrats now seem happy to amend -
even relinquish - their position on it.
On Friday pro-choice campaigners received another blow - Sandra Day O'Connor,
the first women to serve in the US Supreme Court, announced her retirement. Her
crucial pro-choice vote has now gone and George Bush is likely to replace her
with a conservative . There has been unprecedented discussion about 'letting go
of Roe' - meaning Roe v Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that decriminalised
abortion. Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks argued that 'unless
Roe v Wade is overturned, politics will never get better'. Liberals, he
believes, have lost touch with working-class Americans because they rely on the
courts to impose their views and have never had to debate values' with those
voters.
But it is not only conservatives making this case. Cynthia Gorney, author of A
Frontline History of the Abortion Wars, says she has 'heard it coming from
people who you certainly wouldn't have heard it from three or four years ago.
It's people who are ardent Democrats, fed up with the vacillations and
ineffectiveness of the party. One aspect of that was: we've hung on too long to
things that are destructive to us ultimately and clinging to Roe is costing us
more than it's gaining us.'
The reason for the debate is the very real prospect of new conservative
appointments to the Supreme Court, and whether they are likely to vote to
overturn Roe v Wade. A deeply contentious case, the 'Partial-Birth Abortion Ban
Act' is expected before the Supreme Court soon, by which time its pro-life Chief
Justice, William H. Rehnquist, will have retired (he is suffering from cancer).
This is the longest-serving Supreme Court; eight of the nine justices are over
65 - and Day O'Connor and Rehnquist could be replaced with pro-life justices
this year.
In the Atlantic Monthly, avowed pro-choicer Benjamin Wittes advised
abortion-rights supporters to 'let Roe die'. Commitment to it, he wrote, 'has
been deeply unhealthy for American democracy'. The battle over Supreme Court
nominees is likely to become 'an ugly spectacle in which a single narrow issue
pushes to the sidelines discussion of a broad array of other important legal
questions' and liberals should have faith in the pro-choice majority. But if Roe
v Wade is overturned, women will lose what was judged in 1973 to
be a constitutional right. Many argue that this is akin to relieving black
people of their civil rights, and fear the return of back-alley abortions.
According to the Centre for Reproductive Rights, if the right to an abortion is
again decided state by state, 21 are very likely to ban it altogether. Others,
which legalised abortion before Roe, would continue to protect it. Gorney
believes there is not necessarily as much to fear as some suggest. The Supreme
Court line-up has remained the same for 10 years, a period in which Roe v Wade
has been upheld by those very same justices. Seven of the nine have been
appointed by Republicans.
Even the pro-Roe count is open to interpretation. Anthony Kennedy is considered
to be the most crucial swing voter. His personal views on abortion are unknown,
though he is a conservative on other issues. For this reason, some put him in
the anti-Roe camp, and consider the pro-Roe vote to be 5-4. With the vote so
close, losing one pro-Roe justice could bring down Roe v Wade. But Kennedy's
actual record shows his to have been the swing vote in support of upholding Roe
in 1992 and for this reason others put him in the pro-Roe camp, making the vote
a less risky 6-3.
Last month, the debate over stem cell research reached a peak of moral
simplification when antagonists publicised their use of the phrase 'embryo
adoption', instead of 'embryo donation', used by clinics. To protest against a
bill supporting the use of embryos for stem cell research, Bush appeared holding
a baby who had been 'adopted' as an embryo.
William Saletan, author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion
War, thinks pro-lifers are 'on a collision course' with IVF. 'Embryo adoption'
is not unlike 'partial-birth abortion', a term given by anti-abortionists to a
particular procedure,' he said. 'What's happening now is they're fighting at the
wrong end of pregnancy. There is no pregnancy. They are going to try to dress
this up as "embryos are people". But it's just too hard to sell.'
posted 7/ 6/ 05