If you find yourself in Quebec City this sunny, spring long weekend, consider marching against euthanasia. Please click here for more info.

This sad story highlights the hypocrisy of a pro-choice movement that can’t ever have consensus on what a pregnancy is, because “choice” trumps logic.

This woman wanted to have a baby, so the pills her boyfriend tricked her into taking took her baby’s life.

However, had she chosen to take them of her own free will, there would have been no baby to speak of and no court case and we wouldn’t have heard a whisper about it.

TAMPA BAY – Federal authorities arrested a local doctor’s son, who they say tricked his pregnant girlfriend into taking an abortion pill, killing their unborn child. John Andrew Weldon, 28, is now facing first-degree murder and interfering with interstate commerce charges. According to a federal arrest affidavit, Weldon swapped out his girlfriend’s antibiotics with abortion pills, specifically Cytotec. “I was never going to do anything but go full term with it, and he didn’t want me to,” explained Remee Lee, 26, Weldon’s now ex-girlfriend.

I love this story!

A photographer has commemorated her daughter’s fifth birthday by dressing her up as five different influential women from history – Amelia Earhart, Coco Chanel, Susan B Anthony, Helen Keller and Jane Goodall – and capturing the images for a photo series.

Be it resolved that “greater love has no woman than this, that she lay down her life for her friends.”

I noticed in all the discussion over at this post that some guiding principles appeared to be lacking. I think the above sentiment is a beautiful one. Of course, we can never force a woman to lay down her life for her friends, but do we aspire to this value that it might be honourable to do so? And who are our “friends”? What about losing your life for your enemies? More or less honourable?

I would think it would be a good way to go, though, if I could show myself to be so courageous and so loving that I died for someone else to live. But perhaps that’s my melodramatic side talking. And ever so easy to say in the theoretical.

So much to discuss, so little time.

Breaking news from LifeNews:

The jury in the murder trial of abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell returned a verdict and found him guilty on three of the four first-degree murder charges he faced.

Gosnell was found guilty of killing Baby A, Baby C and Baby D and found not guilty of killing Baby E. He was also convicted on hundreds of lesser charges ranging from infanticide to running a corrupt organization.

The guilty verdict on these three counts subjects the abortion “doctor” to the potential he will face the death penalty when a second jury considers his sentencing on the convictions.

One local reporter covering the trial indicated Gosnell “heard verdict passively, with small bitter faced smiles.” A Fox news reporter added, “Our Fox producer in the courtroom says Gosnell looked mad when the verdicts were read.”

Multiple reports indicate an assistant prosecutor sobbed as the verdict was read.

Ten days…wow. The jurors do have a lot of information and evidence to sift through…

Jurors here informed a judge Monday morning that they were hung on two charges in the capital murder trial of abortion provider Kermit Gosnell, who is accused of severing the spinal cords of babies born to women during procedures at his clinic.

It remained unclear which of the many charges he faces had caused the stalemate. When jurors were brought into the courtroom around 11:15 a.m., Judge Jeffrey P. Minehart gave them what is commonly called a Spencer charge, telling them to re-examine the evidence and continue trying to reach a verdict…

Monday’s impasse came as jurors began their 10th day of deliberations, which now have stretched into their third week.

Gosnell, 72, faces four first-degree murder charges in connection with babies identified in court as A, C, D and E. He originally faced seven first-degree murder charges, but Minehart previously dismissed three of those charges.

Someone sent me this story with the comment, “Ain’t feminism grand?”

Here we have a case of female jail guards getting into relationships with inmates:

White, 36, showered three of the guards with expensive gifts, including luxury cars and jewellery. The four women — Jennifer Owens, 31, Katera Stevenson, 24, Chania Brooks, 27, and Tiffany Linder, 27 — are among 25 people, 13 of them female prison guards, who face federal charges that include drug conspiracy, money laundering and racketeering.

They are now, belatedly, asking whether it’s appropriate to have women guard men:

Instead, the scandal has raised questions about why female prison guards would become intimately involved with their charges and whether it was appropriate to have women corrections officials guarding male inmates in the first place.

I recently discovered Michael Kiwanuka and I’m loving his song Bones. It’s beautiful. He has a few songs that are apparently inspired by his faith, like this one. I’d love to see him in concert. He’s currently touring with Mumford and Sons. Maybe I’ll make a road trip out of it.

Today is the day we call Mother’s Day. A tricky subject for a blog that reflects on the nature of what abortion is and does. For the record, I think it is a very barbaric culture that sets up special clinics in which we kill people at the sole discretion of the one person who should protect them. It’s this reality that so many women are grappling with this Mother’s Day. So what to do?

I suppose in each and every circumstance I see the possibility of redemption. And if I didn’t, I wouldn’t bother with this pro-life stuff. I am not in the business of ranking mistakes. I am not in the business of shaming people for things they have done or are doing. I am in the business, in some odd, idealistic way, of letting light shine brightly where it can. Perhaps I have no success with this whatsoever but apparently I can do no other.

Lots of women who were mothers aren’t anymore. Lots of women who are mothers, wish they weren’t. Lots of women wish they could be mothers, who aren’t. Lots of women are pretending they don’t want to be mothers. Lots of women say they never want to be mothers at all, and then are the very best kind and are totally thrilled with it.

At the end of the day, the pro-life story is one of redemption and hope. It’s the epic story that can be told because the story does not end with death–neither that of the mother, nor the child. I believe women can and should lean into their own best versions of themselves. That they can and do overcome the short term suffering of an unplanned pregnancy to do good for another. They can live, not as a “prisoner to their biology” but as a person who does what is selfless and hard for her child, no matter how accidental.

At the end of the day, my life philosophy is simple. Some things are not a choice. And we see this very clearly in almost every instance but abortion.

A blog like this can’t have a happy-clappy, Hallmark Mother’s Day greeting. Yet I’d hazard to say there are many women out there today who are not looking for that, but rather, since they have their own hard pasts and presents to deal with, might do better with a more sombre reflection. I suppose the less sombre thing is to look to a brighter future. And on the life file, I am hopeful like on no other.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Check out the new and improved site here. LifeCanada did a great job. It includes so much great information. According to their press release:

The AbortioninCanada.ca is one of the most comprehensive sites covering almost every aspect of abortion, including funding, methods, public opinion and statistics. It has becomea top hit for searches on abortion, garnering some 150,000 unique visitors every year.

“LifeCanada has chosen to use this already well-visited site as an outreach to women who might be in a state of indecision about their pregnancies”, said Natalie Sonnen, Executive Director of LifeCanada. “Apart from the current and accurate statistical information that we present, we also felt the need to reach these women with messages of hope.  It is not easy to find positive messages in a culture that so readily promotes abortion as the only option for women experiencing unplanned pregnancies.”