June, 2005
June, 2005
In The Mailbag... This
woman "gets it" too! (see earlier posting below) The Thought Police
are here... now. --Joe
The Ottawa Citizen Saturday, June 25, 2005 Re: Morgentaler accepts degree amid
familiar controversy, June 17.
On June 16, at the University of Western Ontario, Henry Morgentaler was awarded
a doctor of laws degree. In his speech, he told the audience how he was
instrumental in bringing about a "safer, kinder society." I am led to
believe that I, as a Canadian woman, owe my "emancipation" to this
man, that it is because of him I am able to "fully participate in society
and assume (my) full potential," that I am now "fully equal"
because he has given me the "freedom" to kill my very own children
before they are born, and that I need this "freedom" to "be able
to give life to wanted babies." He received a lengthy, standing ovation.
In his chilling novel Nineteen Eighty-four, George Orwell described Big
Brother's totalitarian regime, which sought to control the people by controlling
their thoughts. Those able to resist the mind-control techniques employed by the
Ministry of Truth, such as the invention of "truth" and the abuse of
the English language, were sent to the Ministry of Love where they were
terrorized by what they most feared until their will was broken -- until they
believed two plus two equalled five -- until they learned to love Big Brother.
The audience at the UWO ceremony loved Henry Morgentaler. How long will it be
before the Ministry of Love comes for me?
Barbara McAdorey,
Richmond Ontario
Ms. McAdorey is the administrator for Canadian Physicians for Life.
posted 6/ 28/ 05
In The Mailbag... This woman "gets it" too. (see posting below) --Joe
posted 6/ 28/ 05
In The Mailbag... this one
from Canada. This writer "gets it" : Aborted fetuses are human
beings... that life begins at the union of sperm and egg. Why can't everyone see
that? Henry Morgentaler (I won't dignify him by calling him a doctor), while
having suffered at the hands of the Nazis, did not learn a better way to deal
with social problems outside of mass destruction of human life.
Instead of focusing on education and abstention as a possible best answer, this
Humanist wants us to believe that the answer to the problem of over-population,
crime, indescretion, irresponsibility and abuse is simply a matter of culling
the herd at the gate. He should be vilified for playing at God, and enjoying the
role of judge, jury, and executioner of the un-born human race. Yet for his
deeds he is awarded an honorary law degree and is celebrated in spite of his
crimes against humanity! How sad is what we are become. --Joe
Honorary law degree not what doctor ordered
The Daily News (Truro)
Sat 25 Jun 2005
Page: A7
Section: OP ED
Byline: Jonas, George
A doctor I knew had to flee Canada some 40 years ago to avoid being jailed for
performing abortions. Times have changed. Last week, performing abortions netted
Dr. Henry Morgentaler an honorary law degree from the University of Western
Ontario. You've come a long way, baby.
I'd be as reluctant to jail abortionists as to give them medals. It shows that
I'm out of step with Canada's trendsetters (said he with some pride.) If
coercing births made for an unfree society 40 years ago, rewarding abortions
denotes a society that's morally tone-deaf.
Being neither pro-choice nor pro-life, I rarely write about abortion. When I do,
it's usually to probe the logic of some abstract argument. In this vein, I wrote
about the "fetal viability" test some years ago. At the time, this
test looked as if it might limit capricious abortion. It was an attempt to
balance two conflicting interests, the mother's and her baby's. Without it, once
we departed from the absolute protection of life, there would have been no limit
at all.
Today I'd rather write about the viability test as it pertains to euthanasia.
Euthanasia is becoming a more pressing issue than abortion for an aging society
- or perhaps a more urgent problem for an aging journalist. Abortion or
euthanasia, the viability test no longer seems adequate. One reason is
practical. "Viability" doesn't mean the point at which a fetus can
rent its own apartment. It simply means the earliest juncture at which, with
some help from medical technology, it can survive outside the womb. But this
juncture changes from year to year. By now a zygote could survive outside the
womb in an up-to-date incubator. Soon, not just a fetus, but an embryo, and
eventually even a fertilized cell, will be technically "viable." On
the viability test, what are we going to do? Outlaw abortion after the 24 hours
of pregnancy? Compel women who don't want children to transfer their viable
embryos to a test tube? This would be more intrusive than an all-out ban on
abortion.
A second reason for not liking the viability concept is even more compelling. If
viability - meaning the capacity of an organism to cope with earth's environment
without outside support - becomes the test for a right to society's protection,
a lot of human beings may lose their right to life. A suckling infant is no more
"viable" than a fetus. An abandoned baby will surely perish. An
infant's parents must give as much of their own resources as pregnant women -
including body-parts, such as milk-glands - to enable a
baby to survive.
Unconscious, crippled or elderly people aren't really "viable" either.
They cannot exist without a special environment created and maintained by other
persons for their benefit.
Do they also lose their right to life? Can their spouses, children, doctors, or
social workers make a choice to kill or abandon them at will? The viability test
says: "A fetus isn't really a 'life' because it's totally dependent on
someone else for every drop of nutrient, for every breath, for every
heartbeat." But how is this different from someone in an oxygen tent? Could
we say that such beings are not "life" either? Could we simply choose
to unplug such patients? Worse, could we unplug them even if we knew (as we do
know in the case of fetuses) that in a few months they'll become completely
viable?
Ironically, the viability test makes dependence and defenselessness negative
factors, denying the law's protection to those who need it most - which is never
the self-sufficient. If the law didn't protect healthy adults from those who may
find their existence inconvenient, they could still protect themselves. Once
born, even a baby might try to crawl away from harm, but what can a fetus or a
comatose patient do? Employed as a test, it now seems that viability may prove
to be the slipperiest of all slopes. It may provide the most direct route from
the social acceptance of abortion to the social acceptance of euthanasia.
The viability test offered at least some check on unbridled abortion-on-demand.
It seemed better than nothing. But that was before we gave Morgentaler a medal
for disposing of our non-viable children. His next medal may come for disposing
of our non-viable parents. Or the non-viable in general.
The posters go up in our brave new Wild West. Wanted: The Unwanted. Reward: An
honorary law degree from an accredited university. It isn't funny.
George Jonas is a Canwest news service columnist.
posted 6/28/ 05
In The Mailbag... Take a
lesson here. Stand firm. --Joe
Subject: Anti-abortion
doctor, FDA adviser, stands firm in political storm
Jun. 20, 2005 Anti-abortion doctor, FDA adviser, stands firm in political storm
BY SARAH VOS Knight Ridder Newspapers
LEXINGTON, Ky. - (KRT) - Until Dr. W. David Hager performed his first and only
abortion, he believed that women had the right to choose. But as he watched
fetal tissue from a first-trimester pregnancy pass through a plastic tube
sometime around January 1973, his views changed. "I found it very
schizophrenic that an obstetrician could ... do everything (he) could to promote
that life," Hager said recently, "and turn around at the same time and
say that I'm willing to destroy that life."
In the 30-odd years since, the Lexington physician has been an advocate for the
anti-abortion movement. He also became a model candidate for the Bush
administration's push to put scientists who share its religious views in
positions to influence public policy.
In 2002, the White House personnel office interviewed Hager for the position of
surgeon general. Someone else got the job, and Hager was appointed to the Food
and Drug Administration's Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs.
The doctor's role in helping to convince the FDA to reject a proposal to make
Plan B, an emergency contraceptive, available over the counter and an allegation
from his ex-wife that he sexually abused her during their marriage have put him
at center stage in an ongoing political tug of war. Hager says the allegations
of abuse are false and that an article in The Nation that publicized them was
incomplete.
"He's been a target," said David Stevens, executive director of the
Christian Medical Association, who has known Hager since college. "He's
become the poster boy for the other side." Recently Hager said he does not
expect to be reappointed when his term expires at the end of June. Hager, 58,
has a silver goatee and shaves his mostly bald head, which is tan and freckled,
daily. He says that he has never understood the attention he has attracted.
"People overrate my significance," he said. "I carry a very small
role." But in a speech at the chapel at Asbury College in Wilmore, Ky.,
last fall, Hager presented a different view.
The Plan B decision was the second time in 50 years, Hager said, that the FDA
did not follow the recommendation of its advisory committee. Hager said his
words were influential because he argued from a scientific perspective, not a
biblical one. "You don't have to wave your Bible to have an effect as a
Christian in the public arena," Hager said. "Once again, what Satan
meant for evil, God turned into good."
Hager said he was criticized because of a "war" being waged against
Christians. "It wasn't my scientific record that came under scrutiny, it
was my faith," he said. "The fact that I am pro-life, pro-family and
support abstinence until marriage made me unacceptable to hold office."
Tommy Hays, an attorney who is the spiritual director of Messiah Ministries,
said Hager always expected his appointment to be a subject of debate. "But
he felt called to that," said Hays, who, as Hager's prayer partner, meets
with him every Tuesday to talk and pray.
Hager grew up in Wilmore. His father, C.R. Hager, was superintendent of the
Jessamine County Schools and intermittently served as interim president of
Asbury, the Methodist college which David Hager later attended and where he met
his first wife, Linda Carruth. Hager and Carruth, now Linda Davis, divorced in
2002. Last year, Hager married again, this time to Kathleen Martin, a
gastroenterologist. When Hager came to Lexington in 1978 to join a
gynecology/obstetrics practice, he became involved in the Committee For Life.
Hager never protested outside an abortion clinic. The committee's purpose was
educational, according to Kent Ostrander, another member and now director of the
Family Foundation of Kentucky, and Hager gave slide-show talks about abortion.
Today, Hager chairs the Physicians Resource Council at Focus on the Family,
James Dobson's group, and has worked on proposed legislation in several states
to ban partial-birth abortion.
During the 1990s, Hager wrote three books that combined medical advice with
Bible verses. In the books, wayward husbands who experiment with homosexuality
are described as sex addicts. Women who have sexually transmitted diseases from
unfaithful partners' premarital sexual relationships are given medical treatment
and counseling. He refers more than one patient to Christian singles groups.
Hager offers the same advice in his writing as he says he does to his patients:
The only safe sex is sex inside marriage.
At Asbury's chapel, Hager said that his first marriage ended because he had
neglected it. But in an article that ran in May, his former wife told The Nation
that she left because Hager forced her to have anal sex. Davis declined to be
interviewed except to say that the story was accurate. (The accusations are not
mentioned in the couple's divorce papers.) Hager won't discuss the allegations
from his first wife. "I can tell you that those allegations are false and
that all the information is not included," he said.
Hager has a thriving practice and a loyal following among his patients. He has a
reputation as a good doctor, the kind, according to Stevens, whom women
recommend to their closest friends. "He got me through some very, very
difficult times," said Patti Edmon, who has been Hager's patient since
1992. He treated her through four
pregnancies, two of which ended in miscarriage. Some women see him because they
share his anti-abortion views. In the past, he has referred women with unwanted
pregnancies to the AA Pregnancy Help Center, which counsels women considering
adoption. Hager objects to emergency contraception, such as Plan B, because a
few studies have shown that it may prevent implantation of a fertilized egg. If
a patient comes to him seeking an abortion, he tries to talk her out of it, but
Hager says he will give patients a list of abortion providers if they ask.
In 1989, when EMW Women's Clinic, a Louisville, Ky.-based abortion provider,
opened an office in Lexington, Hager returned the brochures the clinic sent him
along with a letter saying that he had no need for the information. "I am
greatly surprised by the title of your pamphlets, `Meeting a Woman's Needs for
Qualified, Sensitive Health Care,'" he wrote, "since you obviously are
not sensitive to the needs of all women because you terminate the lives of
female infants as well as male infants."
Hager prescribes birth-control pills to single women, but he encourages
teenagers and college students to abstain from sex. "But if she chooses to
be sexually active, then I will prescribe birth control for her," Hager
said. He prays with patients but says that he has never forced his beliefs on
anyone. Dee Deakins became Hager's patient after she moved to Lexington in 1987.
She didn't know about Hager's anti-abortion work or his religious views. He
prescribed birth-control pills for Deakins, who wasn't married, without
objection. He was formal and professional, she said.
After Hager was nominated to the FDA advisory committee and Deakins learned
about his views on abortion, she started going to someone else. It wasn't
anything Hager said to her. But she didn't feel comfortable anymore. "It
made me more aware of how different we really are," Deakins said. By the
time the White House personnel office called in June 2001, Hager had amassed an
impressive list of anti-abortion credentials. He had testified before Congress
about abstinence, partial-birth abortion and stem-cell research. He had been the
spokesman for the Christian Medical Association in its attempt to persuade the
FDA to pull RU-486, a drug that induces abortion, and had done broadcasts with
Dobson of Focus on the Family.
Hager had worked with Concerned Women for America, a conservative public policy
group, and advised the Medical Institute for Sexual Health, a Texas-based group
that conducts research to encourage abstinence, on the accuracy of its
publications. "He's really helped us with our credibility," said Joe
McIlhaney, the institute's founder, and a member of the Presidential Advisory
Council on HIV and AIDS. When the Bush administration called about the opening
on the Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs, Hager was told that
critical issues would be coming in front of the committee. The administration
wanted Hager there.
The announcement drew criticism from pro-choice groups. Hager was not the only
questionable appointee, according to Kirsten Moore, president of the
Reproductive Health Technologies Project. Another member, Joseph Stanford of the
University of Utah, refused to prescribe hormonal birth-control pills. Frank
Miller, former chairman of the obstetrics and gynecology department at the
University of Kentucky Medical School, where Hager is a part-time professor, was
surprised by Hager's appointment. "I was not aware of any credential that
would single him out to do that," Miller said. Glenn Moore, a partner of
Hager's since 1978, saw Hager's background in private practice as an asset.
"Too many times, people who get appointed to those type of committees are
academics and work in an ivory tower and really don't have the day-to-day
patient contact," Moore said.
In December 2003, the FDA advisory committee voted 23 to 4 to approve Plan B for
over-the-counter use. Hager voted against the change. Soon afterward, he sent a
letter to the FDA commissioner stating his concerns. His arguments were based in
science, but he also had moral objections. "I'm opposed to any effort that
may potentially increase adolescent sexual activity outside of marriage,"
Hager said during an interview on CNN. At Asbury, Hager said that someone had
asked him to write the letter, which he called a minority report. Hager won't
say who that was.
Eventually, the FDA rejected Plan B's bid to go over the counter. After Hager's
comments about his minority report were first reported in The Nation, Sens.
Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., asked the secretary
of health and human services to investigate the influence Hager's letter had and
find out who had asked him to write it. The senators were concerned that
personal beliefs were being placed above science. Hager's term on the advisory
committee expires at the end of June. He does not expect his appointment to be
extended or to be nominated to another position. (The FDA declined to comment.)
In the meantime, Hager's practice is growing. He's still involved with Focus on
the Family and the Medical Institute. He's on an obstetrics-gynecology advisory
board at Merck, a pharmaceuticals company. He has enough to keep him busy, he
said, without a federal appointment. "I was shocked the first time,"
Hager said. "I would be shocked to be appointed again."
posted 6/ 18/ 05
In The Mailbag...
posted 6/ 16/ 05
A Trophy of
Compassion
Fr. Frank Pavone (Contact:Priests
for Life)comments on Terri Schiavo autopsy --Joe
The autopsy of Terri Schiavo has been released to the public, bringing attention
once again to this sad and tragic case, and reigniting so many of the debates
surrounding her life and death. Does the autopsy shed any light on this tragedy?
Does it change anything?
The autopsy, of course, is a medical document about Terri's physical condition.
It is filled with complicated medical terms and statistics. In and of itself, it
tells us simply the details found upon examining Terri's body. An autopsy is not
a crystal ball either into the past or the future. Nor is it a moral evaluation
of the worth of a human life.
The big temptation is to stretch the autopsy beyond its purposes, and somehow
get it to do more than it can do. Some, indeed, wonder whether this autopsy was,
from the beginning, a political tool worked out by the euthanasia advocates to
advance their agenda regarding Terri. Whether or not that is the case, the
autopsy will certainly be used by such advocates to further de-humanize Terri
and rob her of her claim to care and protection.
But let's presume that those who conducted this exam did so objectively and
honestly. What, then, do we learn?
For one thing, the autopsy shows that all the media reports that so confidently
aserted that Terri collapsed because of "an eating disorder" or
"a heart attack" should not have been so confident. In short, the
autopsy does not provide a basis for those claims, and leaves the cause of her
initial collapse in 1990 a mystery.
Was Michael Schiavo at all responsible for her collapse? The autopsy does not
answer that question. Perhaps Michael should. What the exam does tell us,
however, is that Terri died from dehydration. Of course, we knew that already.
She wasn't given any water the last two weeks of her life, and we know why.
Michael, and those acting in concert with him, insisted on that and get the
courts to enforce their wishes. We don't know if Michael was responsible for
Terri's injury, but we do know he was responsible for her death.
The autopsy goes on to say that Terri's brain was "profoundly
atrophied," and only half the normal size. Fine. If that's what the experts
tell us, there is no problem believing them. But what does that mean, that she
was only half-human, only half a person, or that she had only half the rights
that the rest of us have? That is the conclusion that we must never accept. That
is a conclusion that does not come from an autopsy, but from a callous disregard
for human life.
Terri did not die from atrophy of the brain. She died from an atrophy of
compassion. Too many people, starting with Michael, were unwilling to accept the
fact that profoundly injured people require profound compassion and care. Even
if this autopsy report showed that Terri was ten times more damaged than she
was, our moral obligation to respect and protect her life would not change at
all. We don't have to pass a test to qualify for our human rights. An autopsy is
a measure of physical damage, not of human rights.
The autopsy says Terri was blind. That is not the morally relevant point. The
point is that we are blind...Blind all too often to the fact that even the
disabled and the severely injured have the same dignity and worth as the rest of
us, and show forth the image and glory of God, even in their brokenness.
The autopsy says that Terri was beyond repair or rehabilitation. But that does
not mean we are supposed to throw her away, like we throw away a car that is
beyond repair. Again, there is no problem accepting this medical conclusion. But
morally speaking, our compassion is not beyond repair. We can build a society
that respects and protects all our brothers and sisters, recognizing that their
value does not come from how well they function, perform, or produce.
I will never forget my hours with Terri, both before and after her feeding tube
was removed. She responded to me, and she responded to others who visited her.
She laughed, she tried to speak, she returned her parents' kisses, she followed
us with her eyes, she closed her eyes when I prayed with her and opened them
when we were finished. Medical examiners can offer their conclusions because of
what they saw, but none of that changes what we saw. But both we and the medical
examiners were looking in from the outside. Any honest medical expert will admit
that there is so much about the human brain we still don't know. What Terri
experienced on the inside is a mystery that only she and God
know.
The challenge at this moment is simply this. Whatever she experienced, to
whatever extent she was damaged, and even if she were totally unresponsive,
Terri was one of us. She was our sister, she was a child of God, she was fully
in possession of her human rights, and nothing can ever justify what was done to
her.
Terri Schiavo was murdered, because she was deprived of food and water. We've
done the examination on her body. Maybe
it's time for an examination of our souls.
posted 6/ 16/ 05\\
In The Mailbag...
posted 6/ 16/ 05
In the Mailbag... Thank
you, Roy Lessin. These are the roles we were created to play. We were not put
here to be harvesters of the unborn, a depth to which many have fallen. -- Joe
The Heart of a Father
See how very much our heavenly Father loves us, for He allows us to be called
His children, and we really are!
I JOHN 3:1 NLT
The heart of a father is found in the heart of God. In order for a man to be the
kind of father that his children need, a man must understand what kind of a
father God is to his children. Here are four important areas to consider:
1. Leadership: Children need leadership. A father has been called by God to
instruct his child, point his child to the path of life, and show his child how
to walk upon it. A father is a child's spiritual leader. From a father's lips, a
child needs to hear wise words and wise counsel; from a father's steps, a child
needs to see the importance of wise choices and good decisions; from a father's
love, a child needs to discover his purpose, his identity, and his true worth.
A Dad is respected because he gives his children leadership.
2. Care: Children are very needy people. Every child needs to be cared for and
have his or her basic needs met. A father has been given the main responsibility
of caring for and providing for his children. A man's work is a God given way
for a father to care for his family. No work is small or insignificant in the
eyes of God. A man's work is honorable and is a doorway through which a father
helps to express his love and care for his children in practical ways.
A Dad is appreciated because he gives his children care.
3. Time: Every child has a need to spend time with his father. Being a father is
about being together with your child to share life's joys and God's blessings.
Every moment a father spends with his child is another opportunity for good to
happen in a child's life. A father needs to value and guard his time with his
children. Time is a precious gift that a father can give his children and it
will have far greater value than any material gift he could ever buy for them.
A Dad is valued because he gives his children time.
4. Himself: Even greater than a father giving his child the gift of time is when
a father gives his child the gift of himself. When a father gives the gift of
himself, he is saying to his child, "I am not only spending this time with
you, but you have my complete attention. My eyes are upon you, my watch-care is
over you, my thoughts are with you, and my love is around you." When
God spoke to Abram, God gave him this precious promise, "Fear not, Abram: I
am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward." GENESIS 15:1 KJV
A Dad is loved because he gives his children the one thing they treasure most:
himself. --Roy Lessin
posted 6/ 15/ 05
In The Mailbag... Courage
being born in this young man gives me hope for the pro-life battle. Momentum...
momentum! --Joe
Hello, Joe.
This isn't easy for me but I want to say it. I've never told anybody this except
for my best friend. Me and my girlfriend (I'll call her "Missy")
didn't start "fooling around" until we were seniors. We were stupid
not to wait for married sex. We should have because she told me a couple of
months after we started that she'd skipped her "time of the month". I
about freaked out at the news. I didn't want to be a daddy, I was just getting
ready to graduate. And I knew if our moms and dads found out that I'd or worse
we would really be in trouble.
Missy wasn't showing or anything yet, but she knew she would start soon and she
was getting freaked out too. The problem was solved for us by her aunt. She told
me her aunt said that she didn't have any choice but to get an abortion! That
she couldn't bring this embarrassment to her mom and dad. She told Missy that
we'd ruined our lives. Her aunt told her mom that she was going to take Missy
down to Muscle Shoals for graduation and they took off a week after we
graduated.
When Missy came back she told me she got the abortion, her aunt paid for it.
Then she told me she couldn't be with me anymore or her aunt was going to tell
her mother about what happened. I was ok with all that, but that was then. Now
it's been 2 years and me and my family moved away.
I just want to say that now I know what we did was wrong. All we did was break
the rules and had sex and then we'd killed a baby, our baby, just to keep us out
of trouble. Missy's aunt killed it too. She made missy kill it from
embarrassment, and finally, the doctor killed our baby for money. Blood money.
That was my baby, just as much me as Missy. I'll never know if it was a boy or a
girl, but it was a human being, not some kind of "blob of tissue" like
Missy said they told her it was. It was a human being with a brain that could
have grown up to be president or something even better, but we didn't give him
or her a chance. She was glad it was over, but I wasn't. I still have bad
dreams. I don't feel like my life is going to get better. Sometimes I don't want
it to get better, because I can't stop thinking about what I did. My part in
this started the whole thing. I am guilty as charged for conspiracy to commit
murder after the fact for not being a man, and fighting for my baby's life.
I think people should know that what we did was not about womens rights, or
because Missy might have died, or because the baby was going to be deformed, or
we couldn't afford it (we were both working and pretty much independant except
for still living at home) it was only because we were selfish. We took the
chance having sex, and a human being paid for it with their life. Don't be like
we were! It's not anybody's fault that women get pregnant except that kids want
to be grown up, and then there is nothing to look foward to when you do grow up.
Thank you for writing to me. Your website gives me the courage to talk about
this now. I hope that people hear me.
"Screwed up in 'bama"
Dear " 'bama",
The best part about talking things out is the release of the burden. Your public
confession will go far in demonstrating that, young or old, men and women can
and should accept responsibility for their actions... and the consequences,
however complex, that may follow. You are correct... it was not a
"blob": At the moment of conception the human being created possessed
a full set of DNA instructions sufficient to carry it through an entire
life-time. And, yes, it was murder. That is the truth... sad and brutal as that
truth may be.
Consider this: your experience was perpetrated by a society that has lost its
objectivity. We live in a world with some people in it who only believe in
themselves, possessing a total lack of selflessness. Abortion is not about
choice, it is about rights gone wrong. It is a civil battle on the road to
women's reproductive rights... a road that has been and continues to be paved by
the crushed bodies and blood of defenseless babies. and it is about money,
billions of abortion-for-profit dollars obtained by capitalization on human
misery. These are the horrific facts of the "Great Human Tragedy"
It is interesting to note that women who are fighting for the right of choice,
and further demonstrate that right by choosing legal abortion, are throwing
themselves to the lions: senseless deaths for both mother, and child, as the
best current data supports findings that a significant percentage of them will
succumb to breast cancer, and many, many will die from it. (That is some right,
and that is some choice!)
There is healing ahead for you " 'bama", and it began for you today.
Speak your heart and your soul, for you were forgiven by a long ago sacrifice
far far greater than any of us can ever make.
The tide is turning, my young friend: Abortion is on the decline, and this is
largely because of people [yourself now included] that are willing to sacrifice
much to stand and tell the whole truth. Our cause is just, but increasing
momentum requires an outside force. Believe me, your efforts will transform you,
and the quality of your life and lives of those you touch will be better for it.
Welcome, 'Bama-Joe(!) to your new life. Keep your letters coming.
You are in my prayers. --Joe
posted 6/ 14/ 05
In The Mailbag... "Who hath ears, let him hear" --Matt13:19 Cannot everyone hear when we tell you that PPFA and other Abortion-4-Profiteers will stop at nothing to get their blood-soaked almighty dollars? What's the next money-making scheme? Prescription perforated prophylactics?
] in order to get victims on the table to separate them from their mistakes and
their cash because... and I've shouted this before: Abortion-4-Profit
doesn't make a dime unless they murder and mutilate a baby! (And
then cash in again in the form of grants from breast cancer institutions like
Susan G. Komen, who kick back for effectively creating a market!) Just SAY
NO! --Joe
Rich Lowry
Planned
Parenthood Perversity
A cautionary tale of abortion-rights extremis,.
Can you say "perverse"? Planned Parenthood in Indiana and Kansas is
effectively fighting to protect child rapists from potential prosecution in two
high-profile legal fights. That an organization devoted to the interests of
women finds itself in this position is a cautionary tale of abortion-rights
extremism.
In Indiana, the attorney general is seeking the records of girls under the age
of 14 who have visited Planned Parenthood clinics. Let that sink in: We're
talking about 12- and 13-year- old girls. It is a crime to have sex with a child
under 14 in the state. Under law, individuals with reason to believe a child is
a victim of sex abuse are required to report it to the proper authorities. In
Kansas, the attorney general is carrying on the same fight (he is also looking
for evidence of illegal late-term abortions).
An Indiana judge has just upheld the Indiana attorney general's request,
although the case is under appeal. "The great public interest," the
county superior judge wrote, "in the reporting, investigation and
prosecution of child abuse trumps even the patient's interest in privileged
communication with her physician because, in the end, both the patient and the
state are benefited by the disclosure"
The loopiest free-sex advocates might imagine that after sex-ed courses on how
to put a condom on a banana, 13-year-old girls blissfully explore their bodies
with 13-year-old boys. Put aside that this vision will make most parents gag
: it's not how it works. Teen sex often involves adult men exploiting teen
girls. Estimates are that in 60 percent or more of teen births, the father is an
adult. A California study found that the fathers in births to junior-high-school
mothers were on average nearly 7 years older.
Why would a feminist organization not be eager to cooperate in a fight against
the sexual exploitation of young girls? Well, Planned Parenthood represents that
wing of the feminist billed as "sex positive." Although that phrase
doesn't quite capture it. Planned Parenthood is developing the "statutory
rape-positive" wing of feminism.
These feminists are unwilling to pass judgment on any sex in any circumstances,
don't care if parents are cut out of the equation entirely, believe the right to
an abortion trumps any other consideration, and embrace a notion of privacy so
sweeping it includes men who have, under law, raped their young sexual partners.
If only Michael Jackson were interested in girls instead of boys, he might, in
the right circumstances, have a friend in Planned Parenthood.
Privacy is a mere excuse not to provide the records. It is not at all unusual
for criminal prosecutions to involve medical records. And no one is going to
make public the names of the girls involved, which are being provided to the
authorities, not the news media. "We've been doing these investigations
since the 1970s, and there's never been a case where we have not maintained the
confidentiality of records," Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter told a
local columnist. In Kansas " where the case is pending before the state
supreme court " Attorney General Phil Kline authored the state's rape
shield law when he was in the legislature. It is not the girl in any of these
cases who will be in jeopardy, but her adult abuser (if there is one).
This fight is so important because our culture relentlessly sexualizes children.
The message, for instance, of Britney Spears's act before she came
of age was "teen girls are hot." Pop culture won't change, but the law
can at least try to send an opposite signal.
Key Democrats from Hillary Clinton to Howard Dean have of late said their party
needs to become more moderate on abortion. They could add substance to the
rhetoric by opposing Planned Parenthood's position in these cases. Of course,
that will never happen. The abortion absolutists control the Democratic party, a
sad fact for those Americans who have moral qualms about abortion, but a happy
one for men who impregnate 13-year-olds.
Rich Lowry is author of Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years.
posted 6/ 03/ 05\
In The Mailbag...
This is a startling revelation, a frightening dose of reality. When will the men
of our world and society stand up and fight for the deaths of our women,
children, and soon our world? Our future is certain, for we are creating a
wasteland. God help us all. --Joe
Second Hand Estrogen
By Steve Kellmeyer
May 19, 2005
NewsWithviews.com
For years, we have been warned of the dangers of second-hand smoke. We are told
that second-hand smoke blackens lungs, causes cancer, offends women, injures
children, creates untold medical expense and causes the clock on your VCR to
blink (alright, I made the last one up). As the formerly asthmatic son of a
life-long smoker, I must admit that I have no love for the smell of cigarette
smoke, but I must also admit that the evidence for the wealth of claimed dangers
has never been particularly strong. Still, on the basis of rather tenuous
evidence, smoking has been banned on airlines, in workplaces and in public areas
around the nation. Who wants to breathe air someone else has fouled?
Ralph Waldo Emerson famously said that foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of
little minds. At the risk of summoning hobgoblins, let us apply the standards
that we hold so dear for community air to community water. Certainly the
environmentalists could not be offended by the principle. Or could they?
What if we were to speak not of industrial corporations spewing waste into
streams, nor of run-off from agriculture fertilizer that contaminates so many
water tables, but of another source of deliberate contamination? Let us strike a
little close, closer to home: let us open the door on the family medicine
cabinet.
Or, to be more precise, let us open the door on the American individual's
sterility cabinet, for it is the synthetic female estrogen and progesterone
hormones that have allowed this country to become the great and childless nation
that it is today.
But to properly savor the experience, we must first recall to mind a few facts
concerning hormonal contraceptives in pill, patch, shot and now ring. When the
birth control pill was first released, it was so dangerous that reports of its
side effects created the Congressional committee which developed the
now-ubiquitous drug package insert. The pill caused strokes, blood clots, liver
problems, vitamin and metal imbalances, headaches, weight gain, hair loss and
decreased libido, and those are just the highlights.
Just as the tobacco industry was forced to develop the low-tar and filter
cigarettes to fend off critics of early death, so the pharmaceutical industry
was forced to develop low-dose estrogen and progesterone only pills. The
problem, of course, is that the new drug formulations do not prevent ovulation.
Instead, they prevent pregnancy by preventing the embryo from implanting. They
cause abortions.
The pharmaceutical companies, realizing the problem, fought hard to implement a
solution. They wanted to re-define when life begins. After all, this is easier
than formulating a safe hormonal contraceptive.
They succeeded. Newsmakers in the medical community now insist pregnancy only
begins at implantation, thus everyone can say with a straight face that hormonal
contraceptives do not cause abortion.
But the problems didn't stop there. Just as the cigarette companies had
diversified their market by advertising to younger and younger audiences, the
pharmaceutical companies began a similar diversification. They not only began to
market to younger and younger audiences, but also to the aged. Tobacco helps us
lose weight; synthetic estrogens, according to the pharmaceutical companies,
were just the thing for the treatment of menopause, a biological condition which
apparently is now a disease.
Unfortunately, as with the tobacco companies, science intervened. Not one but
two massive national studies had to be shut down as initial data showed that
hormone replacement therapy (HRT) was massively lethal to older women. The
mainstream news media were at pains to ignore the fact that virtually the same
estrogens were used in both HRT and every hormonal contraceptive. Why such drugs
would be acceptable for younger and middle-aged women while being unacceptable
for older women was never commented on, much less explained.
So, why does all this matter? Well, ask the environmentalists. For years,
environmental scientists have known that the synthetic hormones from birth
control pills are being flushed into aquifers, rivers and streams and have been
causing catastrophic feminization in fish and wildlife populations.
Between 30 and 60% of the synthetic hormones and the biologically active
metabolites from the birth control pill are excreted in the urine of a drugged
woman. Sewage treatment plants do not remove this drug effluent. Septic tanks do
not remove it either. The patch and the estrogen ring are even more concentrated
sources of synthetic hormones, containing as much as three to six months
concentrated supply of synthetic, biologically active hormone. Rainwater seeping
through garbage dumps rinse the drugs out into the water table, assuming the
septic tanks and treated sewage water haven't gotten there first.
Recent studies show that these same synthetic estrogens cause prostate
deformities in men and kidney disease in both sexes. Since cancer cells are
notorious for the proliferation of estrogen receptors, these hormones are also
actively suspected as being the fuel for many cancers. They are likewise
suspected as a principle culprit in reports of falling sperm counts throughout
the developed world.
So, the next time you raise a glass of drinking water to your lips, think about
the millions of individual, sexually active women who flush their toilets five
times a day and thereby contributed to the contents of your glass. If we ban
cigarettes because of their health risk, certainly our liberal friends would
want to ban hormonal contraceptives. Or is second-hand estrogen a cow too sacred
to touch?
2005 Steve Kellmeyer - All Rights Reserved
posted 6/ 01/ 05