Vilifying those people who dismember babies in the third trimester in utero is not the point.

I know, as do most, that the line between good and evil lies within every human heart. This is not to say that pro-lifers are Good and abortion providers are Bad. We are both subject to the same sinful temptations. It is to say that abortion providers are relying on the evil side in their hearts on this issue and are choosing not to pay attention to that which could be truly good, right and beautiful. The women getting these abortions are described as crying and being in anguish–with good reason.

This is not something we can be relativistic about. Babies, clearly babies, even if sick, even if dying, are still people and when we dismember them limb from limb for no reason or for a very good reason, we do wrong.

And by the way, I don’t care whether abortion providers look like ogres or my grandmother:

Robinson decided, “I want to be a face that is not that gruesome guy from Philadelphia, Gosnell, those ghastly botched abortions. He’s the face of late abortion. I look like someone’s grandmother. It’s a little harder to make me into a bloody butcher.”

Actually, it’s not that hard at all.

If you are against assisted suicide and euthanasia, then you will like to sign this declaration, as I have already done.

Father Raymond de Souza writes about Lance Armstrong. Nothing much to do with life or abortion, but I really like his writing style.

Finally, this:

Lance may well prosper again, for a dishonest age honours its own,”

made me think about how some have honoured Henry Morgentaler. If it’s a dishonest age then it should come as no great surprise when cheaters (or murderers, as the case may be) prosper.

Interesting. Apparently this has to do with “endometrial thickness.” The theory is that the Pill decreases the thickness of the lining of the endometrium, which is required to maintain a pregnancy. Also interesting that I didn’t hear about this study in the mainstream press. Did you?

(h/t)

Could there please be more articles on the end of dating/traditional courtship? (That was sarcasm.) So far as I can tell, this ended before I was in university, and I didn’t graduate yesterday. Also, no blaming men, please. Why on earth would a man proffer dinner and roses when we appear to be satisfied with Kraft Dinner?

That may explain why “dates” among 20-somethings resemble college hookups, only without the dorms. Lindsay, a 25-year-old online marketing manager in Manhattan, recalled a recent non-date that had all the elegance of a keg stand (her last name is not used here to avoid professional embarrassment).

After an evening when she exchanged flirtatious glances with a bouncer at a Williamsburg nightclub, the bouncer invited her and her friends back to his apartment for whiskey and boxed macaroni and cheese. When she agreed, he gamely hoisted her over his shoulders, and, she recalled, “carried me home, my girlfriends and his bros in tow, where we danced around a tiny apartment to some MGMT and Ratatat remixes.”

She spent the night at the apartment, which kicked off a cycle of weekly hookups, invariably preceded by a Thursday night text message from him saying, ‘hey babe, what are you up to this weekend?” (It petered out after four months.)

“She spent the night at his apartment…” And did so for another four months. Et voila. The demise of the courtship, explained.

So this article from the Toronto Star is filed under “spectactularly depressing.” Yes, that’s right: my alma mater, University of Toronto (wonder why I don’t donate?) is hosting an “epic sex adventure” where students can come and experience “sex positivity.” Here’s a quote:

The event begins in the daytime, and organizers are asking students to keep their clothes on until 7 p.m., when the “party becomes clothing-optional so you can get naked with all your new friends.”

Even though this is an extreme manifestation of sexual mores in our culture, it is still representative of sexual mores in our culture: We don’t reserve sex for marriage because that is so terribly old-fashioned and ridiculous. But at the other end of the continuum lies university-sponsored orgies. Don’t get me wrong, I’m aware there are a couple of possibilities in between. But the reality is that when we teach young high school students that sex is a normal, regular activity to have with “someone you love” (but keep it safe! and bring your student card!) by the time that young person hits 25 they are still young, just very jaded. Don’t get me started on this. I’m still calling for a prude revolution. In fact the word “depravity” is lurking somewhere at the back of my mind, a kind of a Lord of the Flies image.

Even though this is an extreme manifestation of sexual mores in our culture, it is still generally representative of sexual mores in our culture.

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Andrea adds (yes, to her own post): Ten bucks says no one comes and that this expo has the same clinical, boring feel as the Sexhibit here in Ottawa. Trust school bureaucracies to make sex boring.

An inspirational video.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Opl0jnKbn5Y]

I read this article about M-408 with great interest and a bemused smile. We are being studied, people! Yes. It’s true. Keep on keeping on, my thoughtful and courageous pro-life friends. Let the progressives keep on pontificating about what they see. Generally, apparently, they view us as a threat, which I dare say is encouraging for those of us in the trenches.

I don’t get my knickers in a knot over labels. I do like to make what I stand for clear.

I stand for the defence of women through defending their unborn children. I do not view something as serious as taking a life to be just another choice. Therefore, I am anti-choice with regards to abortion. I am pro-life because being anti-abortion nurtures life in the fullest sense of the word both for the baby and the mother. And I believe that when we fail the most vulnerable among us, which includes children but also women experiencing an unwanted pregnancy, we are failing in society in general.

So it’s with interest that I read that Planned Parenthood doesn’t like their “pro-choice” label anymore. I always thought it was quite a successful euphemism for them. Perhaps we are all getting too smart to be deceived by it anymore?

With a tagline like that, how can I help but link to Prager University? University does a lot of damage these days–we have to work to undo that, so thanks, Dennis Prager, for getting the ball rolling. (University did me a lot of damage. I went because it was expected. My Master’s year was more useful–it became educational at that point and I enjoyed that. But four years of undergrad? Not so much. I should add, I wouldn’t have my current job without a degree of some kind. So I won’t be ungrateful, sitting pretty from my employed perch in a knowledge-based economy. But when I talk about how “useful” university was, I’m referring to the pursuit of truth and the development of my relationship with God. And the phrase “relationship with God” is not one I heard for a full five years on campus.)

I plan on taking Prager’s “courses” with regularity. Here’s another one, about how men and women are different.