Really horrifying stuff:

North Korea forces women to undergo abortions and young mothers to drown their newborn babies, and has starved and executed hundreds of thousands of detainees at secret prison camps — atrocities that the chairman of a U.N. panel that documented the abuses compares to those of Nazi Germany.

“The world’s apathy to the daily atrocities in North Korea is only matched by the ineffectiveness of those who do know and care but are unable to do something about it.” So says someone who knows about these things, when I sent him this link. It’s depressing enough to make an atheist pray.

Make your views known, at this link.

My answer to the first couple of questions were as follows. Feel free to cut and paste, provided you agree. The more voices, the better, and I know not everyone can whip up a response in four minutes, as I did.

1. Do you think that purchasing sexual services from an adult should be a criminal offence? Should there be any exceptions? Please explain.

Comment: Yes, purchasing sexual services from an adult should be a criminal offence. This is because a high percentage of adults who are prostitutes are victims of drug and sexual abuse and are therefore do not have meaningful free choice. Purchasing sex contributes to human trafficking. Purchasing sex demeans men and women. The legal purchase of sex does not make prostitution safer for the men and women prostituting themselves. The availability of sex for purchase contributes to family breakdown. And family breakdown destabilizes our communities, country and by extension, our economy. Finally, when the purchase of sex is legal, it is almost impossible to clamp down on child prostitution, since youth can look like adults and few carry ID cards.

2. Do you think that selling sexual services by an adult should be a criminal offence? Should there be any exceptions? Please explain.

Comment: No. Selling sexual services by an adult should not be a criminal offence. This is because those selling sexual services are generally victims of drug and sexual abuse. Please follow the Nordic Model on clamping down on prostitution.

3. If you support allowing the sale or purchase of sexual services, what limitations should there be, if any, on where or how this can be conducted? Please explain.

Comment: I do not support allowing the sale or purchase of sexual services. It will result in the degradation of our communities. Will we have a red light district or will brothels be anywhere? Those who simplistically say “it’s the world’s oldest profession” and turn a blind eye are not considering the logistics of what this will mean.

A documentary about this would be awesome:

After exploring the economics of childbirth in their 2008 documentary The Business Of Being Born, director Abby Epstein and exec producer Ricki Lake are reteaming to take a similar a look at another health issue affecting women all over the world. Docu Sweetening The Pill, which just launched production, raises questions about the safety and long-term effects of hormonal birth control and is based on Holly Grigg-Spall’s upcoming 2015 book Sweetening The Pill Or How We Became Hooked On Hormonal Birth Control. The feature-length nonfic pic will take a look at the dangers of the Pill and alternative options available in the wake of recent civil lawsuits over oral contraceptives Yaz and Yasmin, as well as health complaints over the Nuvaring which have been shown to cause fatal blood clots in some women.

Now what would the pro-life equivalent be? (Warning: If you are extraordinarily sensitive to sexual images you might not want to watch this.)

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-a8dAHDQoo”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-a8dAHDQoo]

I am totally serious, what would the pro-life equivalent be? We face the problem that the victims in our cause don’t talk. Or dance, as the case may be. And people seem to be oddly unmoved by the miracle of the embryo/fetus/baby.

I welcome any and all ideas on little videos that would be provocative and give viewers a shake, like this one did for me.

If I could summarize my own pro-life-ness, it might be to say something just like that. Awful. Beautiful. Life.

Another very touching look at Iver Benson.

The National Post ed board has a very funny set of videos up on the right hand column here. The writers read the comments people send them. This is very cathartic, considering I just got mail calling me a “she-man” (among other words I won’t repeat here).

SO funny.

This is what I hope for. That abortion rates would go down because women stop choosing abortion. Of course, here in Canada, thanks to our shoddy abortion statistics, we will never know whether the abortion rate is going up or down, for realsies.

In the states, the pro-choice Guttmacher has said recently that the abortion rate is going down. They say it is because of increased contraception use, among other reasons I disagree with, but here we have a piece that asks whether maybe it’s simply because women don’t want ’em.

I dream of a day when every woman has the reaction that I would have to someone suggesting I get an abortion, which is the banality of evil in action. (While what I am about to write remains purely theoretical for this instance my responses might include anything from lawsuits to swearing to an interrogation the likes of which the MD would never have seen before. An interrogation that would rise above the zeal of one Ezra Levant in the Human Rights Commission office. Ah yes, happy times, for the unsuspecting MD who makes that suggestion to me.)

Interestingly, none of these analysts is willing to consider that shifts in public opinion on abortion may be playing a role. May of 2009 was the first time that a majority of Americans identified themselves as “pro-life” in a Gallup survey. “Pro-life” has outpolled “pro-choice” six out of nine times since the spring of 2009. The relationship between public opinion toward abortion and abortion rates is not well-researched, but it’s a theory that merits more attention from analysts.

Media outlets have paid considerable attention to the abortion decline the occurred between 2008 and 2011, but have generally given less attention to the fact that the abortion rate has declined by 35 percent since the early 1990s. This suggests the debate has shifted toward pro-lifers: It’s true that contraceptive use has increased since the early 1990s, but that was increasing well before the abortion rate started to decline. More important, data from both Guttmacher and the National Center for Health Statistics shows that the unintended-pregnancy rate has remained fairly stable since the mid 1990s.

Since the abortion rate is falling while the unintended-pregnancy rate is stable, a higher percentage of women facing unintended pregnancies are choosing to carry their children to term. Data from the Department of Health and Human Services support this, pro-lifers should take heart in it.

Regardless of what mainstream-media analysts may say, declining abortion numbers provide evidence that pro-life efforts to change the hearts and minds of women facing unplanned pregnancies are bearing fruit — and, more important, saving lives.

Amazingly happy and tragic story at the same time.

He’s really, really small, but he looks perfect,” said Benson. “He’s just the most adorable little person I’ve ever seen in my life, and I’m so proud that he’s my son, and how hard he fought to be here and how hard my wife fought to give us this beautiful little boy.”

Robyn Benson was taken off life support the day her son was born.

“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” (2 Peter 3:8)

This little guy got ten thousand years.

The couple, along with their four other young sons, documented the ten precious days they got to spend with baby Zion at their home in Lake Zurich, Illinois before he passed away on January 21.“

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyFjPHwF6To&feature=youtu.be&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DvyFjPHwF6To%26feature%3Dyoutu.be&app=desktop]