A man puts up a billboard following his girlfriend’s (EX-girlfriend’s) abortion:

The sign on Alamogordo’s main thoroughfare shows 35-year-old Greg Fultz holding the outline of an infant. The text reads, “This Would Have Been A Picture Of My 2-Month Old Baby If The Mother Had Decided To Not KILL Our Child!”

Think about it. The man lost his child, a person he would have valued deeply, a person of great personal significance. Every abortion is about one person’s life, and that life is connected to aunts, uncles, fathers, mothers and friends.

On a bad day, if I were this man, I think I’d put up a billboard, too. And my other thought is God Bless America, for having people with gumption like this.

A great quote:

Her most recent stint behind bars goes back to January 2009. Ms. Gibbons says the last 28 months were long, but that she compartmentalized her own problems to focus on counselling fellow inmates. “I’m either counselling the women on their addictions, or I’m counselling some woman not to have an abortion, sharing the faith with them or giving them some encouragement to get through the day,” she says. “When you’re in [jail], you’re not saying, ‘I wish I wasn’t here.’ You’re just saying, ‘What do I do here?’”

Linda Gibbons, who has been in jail for 28 months for protesting inside the bubble zone of an abortion clinic, is out, without conditions until she must reappear in January 2012. Read about it, here.

I wrote this in today’s Ottawa Citizen. (I dedicate it to all the smart, beautiful, classy, funny, single women I know, who have higher standards than the culture around them, and who desire to be married. These same women are inclined to wonder if they are still single because “there is something wrong with me.” No. High standards is not a fault, neither is living in a culture with low standards.)

“Doctor Death” has himself died. You always knew this was coming. It’s just hard to know what to say when a man like that dies. It takes a bit of a psychopath to kill over 100 people and then have “no regrets” about that.

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Jennifer adds: According to The Telegraph today, one in three doctors now support euthanasia.

A broad movement to limit access to abortion is gathering steam. So says The Economist.

Chai Ling is a Chinese dissident who has started a campaign called All Girls Allowed:

People ask from time to time what my position on abortion after rape is. This time I was asked this by a reader because of this CNN column.

My line for the media is that I’d be happy to discuss abortions for rape victims in more detail when we eradicate the 98 percent of abortions that are not the result of rape.

Behind that answer, however, lies a deep concern for the victims of rape, and a deep conviction that abortion kills a human being and is therefore not a solution for a rape victim.

Today we live in a culture that accepts abortion as a solution. People’s views vary, but generally, for many Canadians, abortion is a plausible solution for an unwanted pregnancy in any of the following life circumstances: Poverty. Life stage. Wanting to finish education. Wanting to compete in an athletic event where nine months out would mean you couldn’t. Not wanting to be in contact with the father, who you believe will be involved and you don’t want him to. The list goes on.  

None of these reasons consider the humanity of the child. And the humanity of the child doesn’t change, given the reason for having an abortion.

We are appalled when someone is raped. And the circumstances are horrifying. We don’t view abortion as horrifying, and therefore, to many, abortion in the case of rape makes sense. I get that.

However, I am horrified by abortion, and so, in my mind, when you consider the trauma of rape you don’t top it up with the trauma of abortion. 

I know I’m in the minority on this one, and so I return to my media line. Let’s have a big discussion of rape when the vast majority of abortions for social reasons have been eradicated.

I’m not sure what it will take to change the societal attitude that abortion is AOK. I recently spoke to a woman who was about to go for her third abortion. To be clear: She is using abortion as birth control. I was definitely more eaten up by this situation than she was. I jumped into high gear to try and help her, because I thought she wanted help. Turns out she actually didn’t. She was being offered help up and down the block, but abortion was the “solution” she wanted. Some kid paid the price because she didn’t feel like it. Not claiming her circumstances were ideal, no, but they weren’t dire either. I’m just saying it’s a sad world when help is offered and denied when someone’s life is on the line.

We don’t view abortion as a life and death circumstance. And if we did, we wouldn’t offer it up as a solution to rape victims.

(And by the way, I think the politician’s dialogue clipped here by the author sounds terrible, callous and useless, but then again, so is this CNN columnist’s viewpoint.)

Pregnant in Heels: It’s a new TV show. I probably won’t see it, given my cableless life. I do wonder how it is that these Sex and the City types manage to wear high heels over the miles of Manhattan sidewalks, pregnant or otherwise. But especially when pregnant. Must involve lots of cabs.

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Deborah adds: Oh, but you have to look at the one practical side! Most high heels are slip-ons! Way easier than bending over (or trying to bed over) to tie my converse shoes! And you don’t have to put on socks to wear heels, so even less trying to reach your feet! (Admittedly, I was determined to be able to wear heels while pregnant, especially after one of our priests exclaimed early on (not too seriously) “Heels! Why are you wearing heels? You shouldn’t be wearing heels, you’re pregnant!” But then the hormones made my ligaments too lax and now I don’t even do any walking without a cane. I guess the joke was on me!) 🙂

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Véronique adds: It’s just like at my house!!

An ectopic pregnancy makes it to 32 weeks, Mom and baby are doing fine:

When doctors told Nicky Soto that her baby was growing outside her womb, the Arizona mom was stunned and scared. Soto was told that her life would be at risk if she opted to continue with the ectopic pregnancy — and no one held out much hope that the baby would survive.But Soto, 27, had struggled for five years to become pregnant. After some soul searching, she decided to take the risk, fearing that this might be her last chance.