I found this adorable commercial and couldn't resist sharing it on here. Note: I'm not necessarily endorsing Pampers. I just love their video.
They're All Devils
Anti-lifers are horrible, baby-hating people. Uncaring and unfeeling, they’re only bent on squeezing as much money from murdering babies as possible. They lie through their teeth to trick women into letting their “doctors” butcher children in an extremely dangerous, horrendous procedure, yet claiming that it is safer than carrying to term. All their staff are cold to their clients. Their exam rooms are filthy, stained with blood and littered with unwashed tools. They rush through the abortions, botching many of them and harming the women they claim to protect, just for the sake as getting as many abortions done as possible and raking in as much blood money as they can. They have conned the American people into giving them millions of dollars to continue in this ghastly practice, ruining the economy and murdering children.
I hope you didn’t agree with what you just read. I’ve read many things to this degree, though few are as extreme. What’s wrong with the above paragraph?
It generalizes.
The truth is, pro-abortioners aren’t devils. Most of them aren’t just after blood money. Many of them truly care about women and are passionate about their work. They truly think what they’re doing is right and good. My guess is that there are a generous supply of Abby Johnsons out there. (Abby Johnson was a Christian Planned Parenthood director for eight years, now a pro-life advocate. She truly believed what she was doing was right.) Remember that pro-abortion blog I read? Well, take a look at this following paragraph:
Anti-choicers are horrible, freedom-hating people. Uncaring and unfeeling, they actually think FETUSES, a tumor growing inside a women, is more important than the woman bearing it. They deceive women into thinking these parasites are actually babies, or else they intimidate and harass them by saying they’ll go to hell for their CHOICE of a LEGAL and SAFE procedure—a procedure that’s safer than pregnancy itself! They’re so bent on illegalizing abortion and reducing women to baby incubators. They don’t want abortion, yet they don’t want BIRTH CONTROL either! They can only see the fetus. They don’t see the real, living, breathing, hurting woman in front of them. ARE THEY BLIND?? They want to save the fetus, but the won’t help the woman! They don’t even care about the fetus once it’s born! They don’t care about life: they only care about devolving our society by restricting the most basic human right: the right to control our own bodies and reproduction!!
(Would you believe me if I told you that it was actually easier (as in thinking of what to say) for me to write that paragraph, reducing people like me to scum, than writing the first paragraph, reducing people like them to scum? I’m not sure what this means…)
Did that paragraph surprise you? I see it all the time in the pro-abortion literature I read (mainly in the pro-abortion blog—minus the passionate cursing). They truly think we’re blind, uncaring individuals. There are soo many things wrong with that paragraph, but I won’t get into them, because I’m sure you can see what they are.
I wrote that paragraph based on what I'd read (I promise, it's true-to-life). Here's something that, to my knowledge, was actually made by somebody pro-abortion. Take a look at the following cartoon:
Did that make you angry? It makes me angry every time. It generalizes. Generalization is rampant on both sides because it makes the enemy sound horrid, and consequently makes your side sound angelic.
Here’s another glance into the pro-abortion mind: they do their jobs at the risk of their lives. They’re afraid for their lives and the lives of their doctors. They’re afraid of anti-choice extremists. I knew that it would be worrying to them, but I hadn’t imagined the extent to which they would mention it.
There are always exceptions to the rules, of course. They have their Gosnells and we have our Roeders. That’s what lets us write our generalizations and get away with it. Because those people do exist. But not all are like that.
Now, the pro-abortion people could very well be exaggerating their fear of being attacked by pro-life extremists so they can victimize themselves. They could very well be simply lying about how much they care about women. And I’m sure many of them do. But many of them do not.
This is frustrating to no end. It is so much easier to defeat the “enemy” in our own minds if we can just see them as Satanists. But they aren’t Satanists. They’re real people, and they’re all created by God. (Not to gloss over the barbaric “safe and legal” procedure of abortion. It’s evil. Complete evil. There’s no other way to describe it.)
My point to all of this is that we cannot and should not view them all like this. I admit it: I have a hard time loving this type of enemy. To be honest, I used to hate them. I pray for them, along with the women and their babies. God can give us the love, though. God can give us His love for them. He does love the abortionist doctors. I don’t really love them now, but I no longer hate them. I hate what they do. Not them.
God, please give us Your love.
Devil image found via Google Images. Cartoon from here.
Life Begins Now (Part 3)
In two previous posts, I’ve been going through a list. It’s a list of different opinions about when life (and/or personhood) begins. Today, I’ll finish explaining the last few things on that list, and, finally, give my own reasons for when life begins.
· When the heart begins to beat
A baby’s heart begins to beat at eighteen days after conception. Though this, like most of the other opinions, doesn’t signify personhood in itself, it’s hard to ignore. Something that has a heartbeat is very obviously alive. And, other than insects and algae and the like, very few animals don’t have a heart. Also, not many animals have two hearts. See what this implies?
Not only is the baby alive, it also is its own person. The baby has its own blood and own heart, completely separate from the woman’s blood and heart. (As I’ve mentioned before, pro-abortioners say that a woman has a right to control her own body. So she does. The baby isn’t part of her body.)
· When the first brain waves are recorded, or when the baby is conceived.
I “squished” these two last opinions together because they ran together while I was writing this.
A popular opinion among pro-lifers is that brain waves can be detected at six weeks, two days. A popular opinion among pro-abortioners is that this is bogus.
To be honest, since there is such an immense amount of controversy (even more so than with fetal pain) and such convincing arguments on both sides, and since I haven’t tried measuring fetal brain waves myself, I’m not comfortable with saying for sure which opinion is right. However, in The Biology of Prenatal Development, distributed by National Geographic, as well as many other sources that aren’t necessarily pro-life, it is stated as true. (Here is the segment where this is stated. I encourage you to watch some of the other videos as well—this is incredible footage of live embryos and fetuses.) (To be fair, it is also rebuffed as not true by multiple sources as well. However, I have yet to see something rebuff this claim that isn’t pro-abortion.)
There’s something else to this though. Wilder Penfield, a neural cartographer, electrically stimulated the brains of his patients (for necessary surgical reasons. You can read about it here.), often resulting in a body part (such as a hand) moving involuntarily. The patients would often hold down their own hand to keep it from moving. The brain can be stimulated to make physical aspects of people move, but you can’t stimulate the brain to, for example, make a person pro-life or pro-abortion. You can affect a person’s environment to influence their thinking, you can plant an idea like in “Inception”, but it is the person who makes the choice. You can’t stimulate their choice. It doesn’t work like that. My point? There is something non-physical about human beings. That's what makes human beings special. Despite all the scientific facts and evidence you can gather, there’s still something elusive that can’t be tracked down with a microscope. Who are we to ignore that? It's impossible to tell when this "starts".
Life begins now. When does the life gain personhood? The baby is a person when it is born. She is a person a few hours before she is born. A few days. A few weeks? Where is the line? Where does this clump of tissue suddenly become a person? Preemies can be born at twenty-three weeks, and they are people then. They'll still be people a few hours before. A few days. A few weeks? Let's say babies become people at twenty weeks. Okay. Fine. So it's okay to kill them at nineteen weeks, six days? WHERE DO YOU DRAW THE LINE? Does this really happen: not a person...not a person...BOOM! PERSON! What happens in a twenty-four hour time line? How is the baby less of a person at nineteen weeks, five days? Four days? Three days? What's the difference between eighteen weeks and seventeen weeks?
From now until death, this human is alive. Human beings are special. This human is her own unique person, non identical to any other living thing for all of creation. She is completely separate from her mother, and also completely dependent on her mother. Does it really matter what physical things are functioning or not? Before, she wasn't anybody. She was an it, devided into two halves. Egg, sperm. Nothing. Not growing, just sitting. Alive just as a finger or kidney is alive. And then...they join together. Conceived, and she now has eye color and height and personality and gender. From the instant she is conceived, she is growing. Conscious, aware, feeling, or not, this human is a person. Humans are people, not mere tissue.
People.
Image found via Google Images. No copyright infringement intended.
From now until death, this human is alive. Human beings are special. This human is her own unique person, non identical to any other living thing for all of creation. She is completely separate from her mother, and also completely dependent on her mother. Does it really matter what physical things are functioning or not? Before, she wasn't anybody. She was an it, devided into two halves. Egg, sperm. Nothing. Not growing, just sitting. Alive just as a finger or kidney is alive. And then...they join together. Conceived, and she now has eye color and height and personality and gender. From the instant she is conceived, she is growing. Conscious, aware, feeling, or not, this human is a person. Humans are people, not mere tissue.
People.
Video on Phill Kline Ethics Hearing
This interview was conducted Tuesday, I believe, and is a pretty good summary of how Mr. Kline's hearing is going, and what exactly the hearing is on.
Kansan Chaos
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| Phill Kline |
There’s been a lot going on in Kansas this year, and prayers are needed. As I showed in a previous post, Governor Brownlee has signed three pro-life bills into law. Now, there are several more things going on, all connected to Planned Parenthood of Kansas and mid-Missouri.
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| Steve Six |
Steve Six, former Kansan Attorney General, has been nominated by President Obama to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals is one of thirteen courts that are “intermediate appellate courts between the district (trial) courts and the Supreme Court of the United States”. Six getting a job here would be, put simply, not good, and here’s why:
In Mr. Kline’s own words, “[t]he charges are based on records redacted of patient identities which were subpoenaed by Shawnee County District Judge Richard Anderson in October of 2004. [5] Typically law enforcement can receive such records with patient names within three working days, yet here Planned Parenthood was able to delay use of the records for three years.”
Combined with Planned Parenthood stalling big time, Six did the following to help them (again in Kline’s words): “1) pursuing two lawsuits aimed at returning the evidence against Planned Parenthood to Planned Parenthood ;[7] 2) obtaining secret orders to silence a key witness ;[8] and 3) suing the prosecutor (myself) [Kline] in an effort to remove from my [Kline’s] office the evidence against Planned Parenthood.”
Besides this, Six used a warped, illogical way of thinking to help delay the trial by claiming that Kline didn’t have the authority to file the charges. First, when Kline was the Attorney General, Six said that only a District Attorney could file the charges. (He also made this claim when Kline filed charges against the late Dr. George Tiller, who used to be the largest late-term abortionist, defeating Kline’s attempt.) But then, after Kline became a District Attorney, and Six was Attorney General, Six claimed that only his own office could hold the evidence against Planned Parenthood, though his own office couldn’t file the actual charges.
Excuse me? How much sense does this make?
This is an important trial against Planned Parenthood. If convicted of the “107 criminal acts, including 23 felonies,” Planned Parenthood of Kansas and mid-Missouri could easily lose all of its federal funding.
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| Sebilius and Six |
Basically, with all obvious bias and corruption, Six SHOULD NOT be given a position in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. And I didn’t even go into Six’s deception to Senators, his lawsuit against a judge, or the fact that his witness-silencing was done as secretly as possible. (You can read the detailed article by Phill Kline here, and another one by Kansans for Life here.)
Despite Six’s two-year delay, Planned Parenthood’s criminal trial is now in progress.
The decision on Six’s possible appointment has yet to be made.
Phill Kline went into the second part of his trial TODAY, July 19th, for charges against him concerning both of the investigations he led against Planned Parenthood and Dr. Tiller. The claim is that he obtained information illegally.
If you live in Kansas you can contact either of the U.S. Kansas senators (whichever one is yours) and thank them for publicly opposing the Six nomination and ask them to continue to do so. And whether you live in Kansas or outside it, you can pray. It is much appreciated.
Images found via Google Images. No copyhright infringement intended.
Rape vs. Life
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| Quick, kill him! He has rapist genes! |
Two of the hardest issues to think about in the pro-life movement are rape and incest (referred to here as simply “rape”)—the two times where the woman did not have a choice to get pregnant. It then seems cruel to force her to take responsibility for something that isn’t her fault. People that are generally considered radically pro-life usually say that they are against all abortion, except in cases where the life of the mother is in danger or the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest.
It’s true that it isn’t fair that the mother had no choice in the matter. But it’s even less fair to let her abort the child in those instances. People who make the exception for rape and incest are looking at the problem out of proportion. If a fetus is a child, then it is murder to abort her no matter what the circumstances of her conception. Rape and incest don’t change that. You can’t sensibly say that it isn’t okay to kill the fetus in most circumstances, but it is okay to kill the fetus in cases of rape or incest, unless you don’t truly believe that the fetus is a child in the first place.
A common argument for abortion in cases of rape and incest is that the baby will have rapist genes. This is saying that it’s okay to kill this particular baby because he’s a potential rapist. Eugenics, in other words. Strictly speaking, we’re all potential rapists. Even if we’re more genetically inclined to certain kinds of evil than other people, it still comes down to the choice of the individual. If we managed to track down everyone who was genetically inclined to a crime and kill them, the population of the Earth would go from three billion to zero. Besides that, plenty of people from rough homes with rough genes grow into good people. Many also do not, unfortunately. But environment has much more to do with how people turn out than genetics.
Even if the “rape gene” was truly a deciding factor in whether someone becomes a rapist, that suggests that humans are merely evolved animals that can’t think for themselves (which many people do believe) and therefore isn’t really capable of making the decision to not rape—but if that’s the case, then there’s nothing wrong with rape (because we’re all animals anyway), and therefore absolutely no reason to abort rapist-gene-babies. Hmm. Contradict, much?
It’s a personal choice, raping. Non-genetically-inclined people can still make the choice to rape people. You can’t eliminate the “rape gene” and assume that will eliminate rapists.
Why don’t we focus more on stopping current rapists and getting “rapist babies” (who are just as beautiful as any other baby) into good homes, and forget the easy way “out” that won’t work anyway?
Images found via Google Images. No copyright infringement intended.
Images found via Google Images. No copyright infringement intended.
Life Begins Now (Part 2)
I intended to finish explaining my list of opinions about when life begins today, but the next subject is so sticky and deep that I decided to devote this entire blog post to it.
Some believe life begins:
· When the baby can feel pain.
At the very least, by this time it seems cruel to dismember the fetus. Few people would want to hurt helpless beings, whether they are people or not. When something can feel pain, that something is conscious in some way shape or form. And when something is conscious human being, it’s hard to argue that the something isn’t a person.
However, those with this opinion usually aren't aware just how early babies begin to feel pain. There is a lot of debate, naturally, over when this happens. Currently, a new Kansas law prohibits most abortions past twenty weeks. Other states (I’m unsure about the exact number, as many have been debating and/or passing them recently) now have similar laws.
“At 20 weeks, the fetal brain has the full complement of brain cells present in adulthood, ready and waiting to receive pain signals from the body, and their electrical activity can be recorded by standard electroencephalography (EEG).”
— Dr. Paul Ranalli, neurologist, University of Toronto
— Dr. Paul Ranalli, neurologist, University of Toronto
An unborn baby at 20 weeks gestation “is fully capable of experiencing pain. … Without question, [abortion] is a dreadfully painful experience for any infant subjected to such a surgical procedure.”
— Robert J. White, M.D., PhD., professor of neurosurgery, Case Western University
— Robert J. White, M.D., PhD., professor of neurosurgery, Case Western University
Both quotes from here.
Approximately twenty-eight years ago, Kanwaljeet Anand, a doctor who dealt with pre-term babies (preemies) was surprised to find that the infants suffered less trauma in the operation room when given anesthetic before the operation. Studying this, he found that “even the most premature [about 22 weeks] babies grimaced when pricked by a needle.”
Story found in the New York Times (Online).
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| Twenty weeks old |
Overall, people generally agree that, perhaps we should assume that babies can feel pain up to twenty weeks. I did a Google search on fetal pain and all the articles I looked at, whether pro-abortion or pro-life, at least mentioned that it was possible (though maybe not likely) that babies could feel pain around twenty weeks.
Abby Johnson, former director of a Planned Parenthood clinic, left Planned Parenthood and joined the pro-life movement after helping with an ultrasound abortion—an abortion where the doctor watches a live ultrasound so he can see what he’s doing. The baby was thirteen weeks old. Abby watched as the baby struggled for her life, clawing, trying to get away from the vacuum probe. Obviously, that little “fetus” could feel the probe. If babies can feel touch, why would they not be able to feel pain?
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| Thirteen weeks old |
Thirteen weeks. Not twenty. Wow, that’s early.
Wait, I’m not finished yet.
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| Twelve weeks old |
The Silent Scream is a video of a week twelve ultrasound abortion. (I have yet to see this video, mostly because my internet security program blocks it, understandably. I am also afraid to see it. I’ve seen the aftermath of abortion but watching it happen, watching murder happen—that’s different.) Though I haven't yet seen it myself, from the reports I've read the baby struggles for its life...and then screams.
But I’m suggesting earlier still. This quote taken from abortionfacts.com (The entire article is excellent and easy to read, if you want more facts than I am presenting here.).
“By this age [eight weeks] the neuro-anatomic structures are present. What is needed is (1) a sensory nerve to feel the pain and send a message to (2) the thalamus, a part of the base of the brain, and (3) motor nerves that send a message to that area. These are present at 8 weeks. The pain impulse goes to the thalamus. It sends a signal down the motor nerves to pull away from the hurt.”
Eight weeks. Weeks six to eight are when a majority of abortions are done.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, there’s still another fact that makes it even more painful:
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| Eight weeks old |
Eight weeks. Weeks six to eight are when a majority of abortions are done.
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| Seven weeks old |
"Far from being less able to feel pain, such premature newborns may be more sensitive to pain"...that babies under 30 weeks have a "newly established pain system that is raw and unmodified at this tender age." P. Ranalli, Neuro. Dept., Univ. of Toronto
Last two quotes from here.
What’s more, something that can feel pain is at least partially conscious.
Unconscious people don’t shy away from vacuum probes.
Images "Thirteen" "Twelve" "Seven" and "Six" were found here. All other images found via Google Images. No copyright infringement intended.
Unconscious people don’t shy away from vacuum probes.
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| Six weeks old |
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