This boggles the mind:

“I felt that my MP was using this issue as a wedge to drive into Canadian women’s abortion rights,” said pro-choice activist Laura Kaminker, referring to a letter — signed by Lizon — sent to RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson on Jan. 23, calling for a homicide investigation into late-term abortions…

“We want to oppose going backwards…we want to stomp out infringement on people’s rights. Women have the right to choose and have control over their own bodies.”

First, the request made by the three MPs, as I explained here, was not about criminalizing late term abortions. This is made clear in their letter to the RCMP. It is spelled out in plain English. The MPs want the RCMP to investigate the death of children who survive an abortion procedure and then die, whether from neglect or because they are somehow killed.

Second, the pro-choicers are arguing that this is about a women’s right to have control over her own body. In these cases the child is born alive – after surviving the abortion – and is already outside the mother’s body. So are these pro-choice activists arguing that the “right” to choose to abort one’s child extends to the right to kill one’s born alive child? Seriously?

When do they deem infanticide should be legal? Ten minutes after a child is born? A day? A week? Only after a failed abortion procedure?

What if a mother wakes up a week after giving birth, is exhausted from sleepless nights and decides that enough is enough? Should it be legal for her to kill her child? The child would also be “unwanted” at that point, wouldn’t it?

From First Things:

After weeks of growing frustration, pro-lifers took to Twitter en masse Friday to express disbelief and outrage over media silence on the multiple-murder trial of American abortion provider Kermit Gosnell. And the media, at least some of it, seems to be listening…

A little later in the day, Megan McArdle published an article for The Daily Beast entitled “Why I didn’t write about Gosnell’s trial—and why I should have.” She confesses that she and others haven’t written on the topic not because it isn’t newsworthy, but because it’s unpleasant. “The truth is that most of us [‘pro-choice mainstream journalists’] tend to be less interested in sick-making stories—if the sick making was done by ‘our side’.” She agrees the media have been remiss in ignoring the trial. “This story should have been covered much more than it was—covered as a national policy issue, not a ‘local crime story’. The press has literally been AWOL.”

Though it’s sickening it took this long for the mainstream media to pick up the story, I’m encouraged that pro-lifers banded together towards a common goal and succeeded in increasing media coverage of this story. Good, good. Off to read all those new stories…

Kelly McParland on the stillbirth story I linked to on Wednesday:

The language of abortion is a wondrous thing. The success of the “pro-Choice” movement was built to a significant extent on its ability to divert the issue away from the reality of abortion – i.e. ending lives – towards a contrived battle over “a woman’s right to choose.” If you were repulsed by abortion, you were “anti-choice,” and therefore anti-woman. Brilliant. Dishonest, but brilliant….

Many Canadians do believe that it’s entirely acceptable to abort a child that is likely to face severe medical challenges, or die within days of its birth. That, in turn, feeds the argument that it is fundamentally justified to abort a child for whatever reason the parent decides. Because it has asthma, because it’s a girl, because another child is too many, whatever. If it’s OK to abort a child, it’s OK no matter what the reason. The language helps this along: abortion is simple and painless, but a living child could cause grief in the parents.

That’s not really the truth, of course. The psychological impact of abortions is immense. But the terminology war has been won by the pro-abortion — sorry, pro-Choice — people.

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.

Two things when it comes to abortion and the media: 1) Journalists are undeniably pro-choice, more so than the public at large and 2) Pro-lifers are given to exaggerated fears of media conspiracies of silence as a result. “The MEDIA,” I will hear, “are DELIBERATELY SUPPRESSING pro-life stories x, y, z.”

It’s almost certainly true that they are. But then there are cases where [insert pro-life story here] wasn’t a terribly newsworthy one. And finally, given that reality, pro-lifers are getting savvy to the notion that we have to try harder. Write better. Be more active. Etc. I’m not saying the media aren’t silent on items where they ought to report. They are. However, I’m accepting that this is the case and saying pro-lifers should engage in “a little less conversation, a little more action,” in the words of the One Eternal King, by whom I mean, naturally, Elvis. (Which we are and it’s resulting in greater coverage, more fair coverage, one story at a time.)

That was by way of intro to say that there is some special kind of silence happening on the Gosnell case in the States. I agree with this column. The abortion distortion is at major play here. Were the topic anything other than abortion, this story would indeed be front page news. But it’s awkward, isn’t it, when your support of “abortion rights” conflicts with the cold, harsh reality of what that looks like.

You don’t have to oppose abortion rights to find late-term abortion abhorrent or to find the Gosnell trial eminently newsworthy. This is not about being “pro-choice” or “pro-life.” It’s about basic human rights. The deafening silence of too much of the media, once a force for justice in America, is a disgrace.

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.

Ok people, no one can compel me to read French like the one and only Véronique Bergeron, once ProWomanProLife blogger, now over at Vie De Cirque.

Here’s a little bit from her bio on our site:

Bergeron got pregnant with her first child at 21 while in law school. “As soon as the little line turned blue, it became clear that what I thought would be a no-brainer – abortion — was really excruciating,” says Bergeron. Another formative influence was the complete and utter disbelief of her peers that she would do something so stupid as to “keep” the baby and ruin her professional life. “That’s when I realized that women may have been liberated but liberation was achieved by excluding their reproductive abilities. I advocate for a complete liberation of women that includes the fact that they bear and deliver children.”

This is the birth story of her first daughter. Even if you don’t read the post, please do scroll through the pictures. It’s like a photo-journal. We end with a beautiful photo of her daughter. (This embryo, so irrelevant, well, it became a person. Imagine that.)

Please also note that I scroll through the photos and I see a young Véronique. And I consider myself at 22. And I consider that I wouldn’t likely have had the maturity level or courage to keep the baby. Therefore, no judgment here on those women/girls who do have abortions. Just a sense of wanting more and wishing we had more role models like Véronique.

I’m struck at the wide gulf between a pro-life and a pro-choice view of Kermit Gosnell. From this late term abortionist’s trial, we are getting some of the most gruesome testimony ever to be heard.

Pro-lifers say: This is a natural outcome where your business is killing babies. Inevitably, you are going to end up killing one who makes it out alive, and it’s not going to be pretty or easy. This is the logical extension of a view that women have sole decision making power of life and death over their children.

Pro-choicers say: This would never happen were it not for restrictive laws on abortion clinics, put forward by pro-lifers. If pro-lifers weren’t out restricting early term abortions, we’d never see women with their backs against the wall forced to go to butchers like Gosnell.

The point of intersection is that both pro-lifers and pro-choicers think Gosnell is a butcher.

Pro-lifers say it is inherent in the business. Pro-choicers argue not, because they think early term deaths aren’t really deaths at all, or, alternatively, matter less because they are early term.

I don’t know why I felt inclined to write this post. I suppose I didn’t want to write the typical “Woah! This is disgusting!”

But really. I am pro-life, and this is disgusting. I challenge pro-choicers to consider the logical extension of their worldview.