Verdict in on Sotomayor?

I've indicated before some uncertainty about Supreme Court justice-nominee Sonia Sotomayor's leanings on the Life issue.

The organization Americans United for Life has done deeper research, and they speculate that not only will Sotomayor be pro-abortion, she will be worse than David Souter, the Justice she would replace.

Follow the link to see the full argument, but their conclusion is based on three premises:

1. Judge Sotomayor was a governing board member of an organization that actively pushed the Supreme Court toward a radical expansion of abortion rights.
2. The PRLDEF briefs indicate Judge Sotomayor would be more pro-abortion than Justice Souter.
3. The White House, pro-abortion Senators, pro-abortion organizations, and former associates of hers agree that Judge Sotomayor would support abortion rights.

Since it is unlikely that judge Sotomayor's nomination will be defeated, I guess all we can do is hope that AUL is wrong about her.

Silent No More: Angela

This is the story of Angela, who spoke as a member of Silent No More Minnesota at the state capitol in January 2005. Because she made the wrong choice 20 years ago, she missed out on her one and only chance to have a child.

Click to hear Angela's story

Transcript:

My name is Angela, and only by the grace of God do I stand before you today. It was twenty years ago when I found out I was pregnant. I was unmarried and caught in a very emotionally abusive relationship. I was afraid and unsure of what I should do.

My boyfriend and I went to the abortion clinic. He was not against me having an abortion. Two hundred dollars was the price I paid for my child's life. No one at the abortion clinic offered any information about another choice for me to make. After all, it was only cells. I believed them.

After all, it was just a medical procedure, after which life would go on as if I had never been pregnant. It was not to be a big deal. No one would have to know. And is not this the same message the abortion industry is saying today? Just be a well-adjusted individual, and stuff this into the recesses of your mind, and go on as if nothing ever happened.

But can one ever forget they were pregnant? What they forgot to mention was those cells had arms and legs. Those cells had a face, eyes, and a mouth. What they forgot to mention was the excruciatingly physical pain I would go through during the abortion process, something I will never forget.

What they forgot to mention was the turmoil that would follow. One can have an abortion, and it will terminate your pregnancy, but it will not terminate your memories completely or remove from your mind your child, the one you could be holding now. What they failed to mention is that you can never go back and undo what you have done.

And they do not tell you that this baby may be the only child you will ever conceive. For Christina Rose, my only child, who instead of being able to rest in my arms today, rests in heaven. For her, I remain Silent No More.

I want people to know that women and men do suffer from abortion and to let you know that if you have had an abortion, you are not alone in the regret and that there are ways to find healing that you need from that pain. More and more women and men are seeking help for that pain. If you are out there right now thinking of having an abortion, please look into other options, for I would never wish this pain and suffering that I have gone through on anyone.

And even though by the grace of God, through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, I have found healing, I still live with the regret of having aborted my only child. I cannot count the number of tears I have shed. For the face of every baby, child, and teenager that I look into mirrors back to me the fact that I did make the wrong choice twenty years ago, and I wish it had not been an option. Thank you.

Angela's story is given here with the permission of Silent No More Minnesota. To obtain a copy, please contact SNMM and consider donating to their cause. Their message is powerful and one that more women need to hear before they have an abortion.

Contact info
Website: http://www.silentnomoremn.org/
Phone: 763-536-8800
Email: annmarie@silentnomoremn.org


Previous:

Silent No More: Chuck

Silent No More: Deb

Silent No More: Colleen

Silent No More: Tina

Silent No More: Valerie

But what about the women?

I didn't kill him either...

In today's Philadelphia Daily News (via RCP), Christine Flowers makes a smart observation regarding the double standard applied to guilt by association.

Excerpts:

I DIDN'T kill George Tiller.

Neither did Bill O'Reilly, Randall Terry, Pope Benedict or the little old lady praying the rosary outside Planned Parenthood.

So to all of the pro-choice advocates and their sympathizers in the media, drop the collective guilt trip, OK? Because the myth that the pro-life movement bears any responsibility for Tiller's death is on par with the fairy tale that most abortions are performed to protect a woman's health....

The man who murdered Tiller, Scott Roeder,... was not one of us. He was a psychopath, a man whose demented mind led him to commit a crime that is, essentially, the antithesis of what the pro-life movement represents.

But that's not the way it's being played on the editorial pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post and our sister paper here in Philadelphia. Somehow, Tiller's blood is on the hands of all of us who ever wore a rose in our lapel, protested in front of an abortion clinic, criticized Roe v. Wade or sent money to crisis pregnancy centers.

WHICH IS really interesting because those same opinion pages loudly lamented any demonization of Muslim-Americans after 9/11. They were appalled that a whole group of people could be blamed for the criminal acts of 19 men. They took great pains to call Islam a religion of peace and distinguish it from the violence of extremists.

And they condemned guilt-by-association.

They've even downplayed the fact that the killer of a soldier outside of an army recruitment center was a Muslim convert who spent time in that favorite vacation destination for budding terrorists: Yemen.

But when it comes to the pro-life movement, there isn't the same attention to detail....

It's an excellent point. The same folks who bent over backwards to make sure we understand that peaceful Muslims were not responsible for 9/11 have no problem not only connecting peaceful pro-Lifers like you and me to Tiller's assassination, but portraying it as evidence of a growing movement of violence.

Most in the left-leaning media wouldn't know a religion of peace if it bit 'em.

Comments fixed - y precauciones de España

A friend confirmed (thanks!) that there was a problem with posting comments here. I did some digging, and I think I found the problem. You should be able to post comments now.

He also pointed me to a New York Times report about a clash between a Catholic educator and the Spanish Prime Minister.

One day last month, Sister María Victoria Vindel gave her 15-year-old students a shockingly graphic lecture on reproductive health: PowerPoint slides of dismembered and disfigured fetuses interspersed with biblical quotations and pictures of a grinning José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain's prime minister.

"They laugh while many innocent children will die," one of the captions read. The presentation ended with the message, "No to abortion, yes to life!...."

The school, where Sister Vindel is headmistress, refused to comment on the slide show, which appeared to be downloaded from the Internet. The regional government, run by the opposition Popular Party, sent inspectors to the school, a Catholic institution that is financed partly by the state and partly by the parents. The government called the presentation "inappropriate" and said that it could constitute "moral aggression...."

Another important nugget in the story is the illustration of how the "health of the mother" exception to laws restricting abortions is used as a wide open door to obtaining abortions in Spain.

Abortion is technically a crime in Spain, though a law introduced in 1985, 10 years after Franco's death, permits abortions under certain circumstances. In practice, however, abortions are widely available because doctors cite a mental health exception.

The current law allows terminations in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy only in cases of rape and in the first 22 weeks in cases of congenital disorder. However, a woman can abort at any time if her mental or physical health is at risk — an exception cited in about 97 percent of abortions in Spain, according to Empar Pineda, spokeswoman for the Spanish Association of Accredited Abortion Clinics.

This is why abortion rights supporters in the US fight so hard for these health-of-the-mother exceptions. "Health" can be so vaguely defined that the resulting loophole is so large as to render abortion restriction laws ineffective.

The Night Writer has more about this and the direction to which Spain is headed generally.

Dead babies and injured mothers, FREE today only!

An abortion clinic in Philadelphia has "honored" the memory of George Tiller by giving away free abortions.

Philadelphia, PA (LifeNews.com) -- An abortion business in Pennsylvania is drawing criticism [f]or giving away free abortions on Tuesday in honor of slain late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller. The Philadelphia Women's Center said the free abortions were meant to show appreciation for Tiller, who was allegedly killed by extremist gunman Scott Roeder.

Town Hall columnist Jillian Bandes said a staff member at the abortion center said an unspecified number of free abortions were done yesterday for Tiller's "memory and legacy...."

Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, correctly reminds us that while these abortions were free, they were not without cost.

"There seems to be no comprehension of the value of human life with these people. Killing babies for free to honor someone who was murdered can only be described as sick," he told LifeNews.com.

"There is no such thing as a 'free abortion,'" said Newman. "It costs the life of an innocent baby and puts the women at risk for increased problems in their lives. The loss of each innocent life diminishes us all."

CHZ LIF

This week marks the ten-year anniversary of the introduction of "Choose Life" license plates.

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- It began as one man's dream to save lives by promoting adoption as an alternative to abortion and it has resulted in raising millions of dollars. That's the Choose Life license plate effort that started in Florida and has moved to dozens of states that either have the plates or are working to get them.

Russ and Jill Amerling are the founders of the national effort to put the yellow license plates with a child-like drawing of the faces of a boy and girl on vehicles across the nation.

Little did they know that the plate or one like it would grace the bumpers of cars in 24 states and generate more than $10 million for adoption agencies, maternity homes and pregnancy centers....

According to Choose-Life.org, MCCL is hoping to eventually promote the introduction of these plates in Minnesota.

Congratulations to the Amerlings for the success of a truly worthy cause!

Shout out from the Strib!

Well, whaddyaknow -- it looks like this humble little blog has made the big time of sorts. The Star Tribune's latest "Blog House" opinion piece, entitled "When words are a loaded gun," features my post on the murder of George Tiller.

Unfortunately, the author, Tim O'Brien only snipped out a few carefully selected sentences and, shall we say, "massaged" the context to fit his premise. That premise, you ask? Well, here's how O'Brien starts the piece:

No one should have been shocked by the assassination of George Tiller on Sunday in Wichita, Kan. Tiller was one of the few remaining doctors who performed partial-birth abortions and had been the target of physical violence in the past.

But the 67-year-old doctor had also been the target of another kind of violence -- an unrelenting stream of verbal violence. He had been called "Tiller the Baby Killer" and had been compared to Nazis and Al-Qaida. And that was just by Bill O'Reilly.

The heightening of political rhetoric, whether it is about abortion or about former Vice President Dick Cheney or about President Obama, has many people worried that Tiller will not be the only casualty....

So, from this we are to conclude what, exactly? That Tiller's killer was motivated by Bill O'Reilly's hate speech? That we dare not criticize President Obama's policies, or he might be next?

When citing me, O'Brien cherry-picked:

No fan of Tiller or his profession, A Voice for the Unborn (5) tried to put the tragedy in the proper light:

George Tiller was not your ordinary abortion doctor. George Tiller was personally responsible for hundreds, if not thousands, of late-term abortions. ... [T]o add a bit of perspective, in the US since 1973, less than one abortion doctor has been murdered for his practice for every 10,000,000 babies aborted during that time.

Maybe I'm being overly sensitive here, but doesn't it seem as though O'Brien is implying I endorsed Tiller's murder?!

To be clear, I also noted in my post:

The shooting was unjustified and needs to be denounced emphatically, unequivocably, and often.

The shooter acted alone, not as an agent of any pro-Life organization.

The shooter was suspected to have been suffering from mental illness.

And, of course, Mr. O'Brien completely ignored my conclusion, which was:

For all but a few nuts, this doesn't need saying, but the solution to abortion is not to kill abortion doctors, but rather to put them out of business by removing the demand for abortions through compassion and education.

The Blog House piece does, however, support the prediciton I made in the same post:

This is a bad day not only for the Tiller family, but also for the pro-Life cause. The story now is the blood on Roeder's hands, not Tiller's. The story now will be "those crazy right-wingers," not the staggering number of innocent unborn lives lost.... There will still be those who say the Tiller shooting is evidence of extremism rampant within the pro-Life movement. There will be those who conclude that the increased scutiny of pro-Lifers by DHS is justified. They're wrong, of course, but they're the opinions that will be promoted by a biased media.

Oh, well. This was my first time being quoted out of context by (what used to be) a major newspaper. I guess I should feel honored?

*tap* -- Is this thing on?

Ok, folks, it's not that I'm feeling lonely or neglected (much...), but I've noticed an unusual lack of comments here lately.

I just want to make sure there's not a Blogger configuration problem here, so if you've tried to leave a comment and have had problems, please send an email to "a (dot) voice (at) comcast (dot) net" and let me know. Thanks.

I'm hoping it's just that my insights have just been so, um, insightful that you've been rendered speechless...

Is she or isn't she?

I haven't opined about Supreme Court Justice-nominee Sonia Sotomayor yet, primarily because I'm not sure what to think about her yet. Looking strictly through the pro-Life lens, her judicial record doesn't give many clues. We know she had a Catholic upbringing, so we can hope that will have at least some influence on her views toward protecting the unborn.

It is too much to expect a Justice nominated by President Obama to be a firm pro-Lifer, so if Judge Sotomayor is even slightly to the right of the retiring Justice Souter on the Life issue, that is a step in the right direction and a step we should welcome (other ideological problems with Sotomayor notwithstanding). Rush expressed a similar sentiment on his show today.

On the other hand, Sen. Dianne Feinstein today told pro-choicers not to worry, that Judge Sotomayor is on their side.

The bottom line: I still don't know what to think about her.

The Tiller shooting

George Tiller was not your ordinary abortion doctor. George Tiller was personally responsible for hundreds, if not thousands, of late-term abortions. His specialty was abortions on babies well past the age of viability outside the womb. George Tiller was a monster.

George Tiller did not deserve to be shot to death in his own church. Details are still coming in about the shooter, Scott Roeder, but at least for now, there is no indication that Roeder was acting as an agent of any pro-Life organization. It seems he acted alone, and he may have been suffering from mental illness.

This is a bad day not only for the Tiller family, but also for the pro-Life cause. The story now is the blood on Roeder's hands, not Tiller's. The story now will be "those crazy right-wingers," not the staggering number of innocent unborn lives lost.

According to this article (HT Hugh Hewitt), Tiller was the eighth person and the fourth doctor killed supposedly in the name of the pro-Life movement since Roe v. Wade.

So, to add a bit of perspective, in the US since 1973, less than one abortion doctor has been murdered for his practice for every 10,000,000 babies aborted during that time.

The numbers won't matter, though. There will still be those who say the Tiller shooting is evidence of extremism rampant within the pro-Life movement. There will be those who conclude that the increased scutiny of pro-Lifers by DHS is justified.

They're wrong, of course, but they're the opinions that will be promoted by a biased media. In the meantime, the best thing we can do to negate those opinions is to denounce this shooting emphatically, unequivocably, and often.

Gov. Sarah Palin puts it pretty well (HT Ben Smith at Politico):

I feel sorrow for the Tiller family. I respect the sanctity of life and the tragedy that took place today in Kansas clearly violates respect for life. This murder also damages the positive message of life, for the unborn, and for those living. Ask yourself, 'What will those who have not yet decided personally where they stand on this issue take away from today's event in Kansas?'

Regardless of my strong objection to Dr. Tiller's abortion practices, violence is never an answer in advancing the pro-life message.

For all but a few nuts, this doesn't need saying, but the solution to abortion is not to kill abortion doctors, but rather to put them out of business by removing the demand for abortions through compassion and education.