I like pretty songs. (Yes, I describe songs as “pretty” because I don’t know any better.)

Here’s another one.

Really good interview:

I learned about Ian and Larissa Murphy a few years ago. Here’s a short summary of their story from their blog:

we met in college in 2005. we started dating then, too. love came quickly and how fun it was.

in september of 2006, on his way to work to earn money for a ring, ian’s car slammed under an SUV. along with part of his brain, it took the plans that we had made. and left us with a brain injury.

but then came eight twenty eight.

“and we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28

God held us.

ian’s dad, steve, was a regular writer on the blog after the accident, along with me, larissa. then on october 8, 2009, steve met God after a six-week battle with brain cancer.

steve’s birthday is eight twenty eight. our wedding day is eight twenty eight, made official four years after the accident.

After Ian came out of this coma and learned to speak again, they married. Their story is one of hardship and difficulty as they live with the daily reality of a brain injury, but also one of thankfulness and grace.

When Larissa vowed to be there “in sickness and in health,” she meant it. And she lives this out every day.

Larissa just did an interview with Darling magazine, and I thought the way the interviewed closed was powerful:

What do you hope to inspire in others, by sharing your story with us?

A dear friend of ours lost his wife a few short months before our wedding. He had been her caregiver for many years as she battled cancer. Before our wedding, he spoke seven words that I’ll carry with me forever—“You’ll never regret loving this much.” It’s as simple as that. Love gives life.

I think that’s an important message. Choosing love when it’s hard, trying and messy.

I once heard a pro-life woman speak about her family. One of her children lived with a severe disability. She admits that her life cannot be defined as ‘easy’ but she asked the audience if that’s what they wanted – an easy life.

Would they want to look back on their lives as having been ‘easy’? Or would they rather live a life that might be hard at times, but rich in love and depth and life lessons and moments of surprising joy. She explained how her daughter’s life had permitted her family to learn about selflessness, love, faithfulness, and the simple joys of life in a way they might not have otherwise.

Something inspiring to think about between reading stories of the Gosnell trial and such.

In this morning’s Globe and Mail:

He noted the apparent rise in stillbirths coincided with major advances in prenatal diagnosis. Blood tests, ultrasound images and other screening techniques have made it possible for doctors to monitor the progress of the developing fetus.

In a small faction of pregnancies, the tests will reveal a serious defect in which the child is not expected to survive very long after birth. It may be an inoperable heart problem or a neural-tube defect, such as anencephaly, in which part of the brain or skull is missing.

“If it is a very severe or lethal condition, the parents might choose to terminate the pregnancy,” said Joseph.

Many of these diagnostic tests are carried out between 18 to 20 weeks, and the therapeutic abortions are performed around 20 and 22 weeks. That timing becomes critically important in terms of how these events are reported.

“The definition of a stillbirth is a baby who dies in utero and is delivered after 20 weeks, ” explained Joseph. “So the pregnancy termination occurs at a time when we will have to fill out a stillbirth certificate.”

In the past, these cases would have had another ending and become a different type of statistic. “The baby would have been born alive and might die in a few days or weeks. It would get counted as an infant death, instead of a stillbirth.”

If the pregnancy terminations are removed from the stillbirth statistics “our rates are essentially flat or declining,” said Joseph.

So it seems that abortions skewed the data.

Despite what I know about China’s one child policy, gendercide and forced abortions, I am still stunned and horrified by this story:

The Chinese government recently admitted that over the last four decades the country has aborted 336 million unborn children, many of them forcibly…

To put the numbers in perspective, the 336 million deaths in China are:

• More than the entire population of the world at the time of the Crusades (c. 1100 AD).

• Equal to the entire combined populations of the United States and Australia.

• More deaths than were caused by (in millions): the Bubonic Plague in Europe (100), the Great Chinese Famine (45), the 1918 Influenza Pandemic (40), the HIV/AIDS pandemic (25), the Holocaust (13), the Soviet famine of 1932-1933 (8), the Russian famine of 1921 (3), and the American Civil War (.8).

• More than all the people killed in the 10 ten deadliest wars in human history (Based on highest estimates (in millions): World War II (72), World War I (65), Mongol Conquest (60), An Lushan Rebellion (36), Taiping Rebellion (30), Qing Dynasty conquest of the Ming Dynasty (25), Conquests of Timur (20), Dungan Revolt (12), Russian Civil War (9), Second Congo War (5.4))

• More than all the children that will be born in the world over the next ten years.

_________________________

Andrea adds: If abortion doesn’t horrify you, then neither will these numbers. Perhaps the forced part might horrify some. But other than that, we are in little position to judge, with our modern western provision of abortion on demand. In our world today, this is 336 million medical procedures, nothing more.

The administration, citing security concerns, told the UFV Life Link club that the event was cancelled due to the possible presence of protestors. The presentation by Mike Schouten, Campaign Director of WeNeedALaw.ca, concerns the current legal status of abortion in Canada.

Earlier in the semester the administration had banned the students from distributing anti-gendercide resources that highlighted the missing women worldwide and the fact that this practice is occurring in Canada.  The university told the students they would only be able to distribute such resources in a closed room.

Some of the bravest people I know are pro-life university students. They need to be. They face battle after battle simply to share their perspective on an important human rights and public policy issue.

Read more here.

Wowza, this is one strongly worded editorial piece:

There is more than a whiff of soft racism in this refusal of Mr. Warawa’s motion. Gendercide, it seems, is perceived not really to be a Canadian problem, but rather a problem confined to certain cultural ghettos. And so the government’s chosen path is simply to avert our eyes to the practice, as if it were so much shark-fin soup.

For a decade, left-wing politicians have been insisting that Stephen Haprer has a “secret agenda” to take away the “right to choose” of Canadian women. It turns out they were 100% wrong: By censoring Mr. Warawa, our Prime Minister effectively has established himself as the country’s most powerful pro-choice activist — for the gesture indicates that there is no mode of abortion so frivolous and morally odious that our “Conservative” government will not condone it, so long as a few grubby votes can be picked up as part of the bargain.

We’re spending a lot of time these days talking about bullying and arguing over the most effective ways to address it. Today, Tricia Lott Williford offers an inspiring example of a parent’s role in this fight against cruelty. In her post, she describes how she handled peer pressure and bullying when it came to her two young boys.

Dear Neighbhoord Bullies, there’s a new sheriff in town. She has snacks in her pantry, chocolate in her purse, and fun in her home. But she has boundaries and rules and a firm voice.

We love you, and you are welcome here. Provided you follow the rules.

If I’m fortunate enough to be a mother someday, I hope I’m able to react to these types of situations with similar grace and wisdom.

(Tricia is my favourite blogger. Check her out.)

The Globe and Mail that is, wearing her IMFC hat.

(On an extended email thread with a few friends, one said “My mom thinks I’m important because I know Andrea.” I think all our mothers feel that way, just a little. 😉 )

More thoughtful commentary by Andrew Coyne:

People like me are inclined to look for structural causes in cases like these. But it is as much about the character of the individuals involved. Because whatever the wishes of those in power, in fact everybody has a choice in these situations. The members of the committee who voted to throw out Warawa’s motion knew they were doing a grubby, sordid thing. They did it anyway…

There is a role for parties, of course, and in return for the benefits of membership, party members are obliged to accept certain responsibilities. If you are elected on a common platform, for example, you are honour-bound to support that platform. But just because a party takes no position on an issue does not mean its individual members may not. No platform can abolish freedom of speech, and no leader can promise to bar members from presenting private member’s motions in Parliament.

But then, it is not only the Conservative leadership that needs reminding of this. For the suppression of MPs in favour of the leader is an ill that afflicts all parties, to a greater or lesser extent. Members of all parties voted together to deprive Warawa of his rights, at the behest, you may be sure, of their respective leaders. That is whose “team” was really in action at that moment: the party leaders, who whatever their other differences, share a common interest in power, and their own possession of it.