Last year I wrote about Stephen Woodworth’s talk on human dignity being shut down due to protestors.  Protestors included student Ethan Jackson who dressed up in a giant vagina costume he named Vulveta.

The talk was rescheduled for this week and Mr. Woodworth was able to get through his talk about when Canadian law says life begins. I’m a little astounded at how much security was needed. Seriously? A talk about a social issue? It shouldn’t require this much effort to ensure a fair exchange of ideas on a college campus. Le sigh.

This time, things were different. The man in the genitalia — Ethan Jackson, a fourth-year women and gender studies and religion student at nearby Wilfrid Laurier University — is banned from the Waterloo campus, as was a fellow protester.

So Mr. Woodworth’s rescheduled talk went ahead Thursday night under heavy police protection, as officers patrolled empty hallways and medics sat at the ready outside a poky little second-floor classroom, half-filled with the school’s anti-abortion club.

 

Still nothing great, but this is progress I suppose.

China’s family-planning policy currently limits most urban couples to one child and allows two children for rural families if their first-born is a girl. It also allows two children for parents who themselves are both singletons.

The new policy will allow two children for families where only one parent was an only child.

The Chinese government credits the one-child policy introduced in 1980 with preventing hundreds of millions of births and helping lift countless families out of poverty. But the strict limits have led to forced abortions and sterilizations, even though such measures are illegal. Couples who flout the rules face hefty fines, seizure of their property and loss of their jobs. […]

The China Development Research Foundation said the policy had resulted in social conflict, high administrative costs and led indirectly to a long-term gender imbalance because of illegal abortions of female fetuses and the infanticide of baby girls by parents who cling to a traditional preference for a son.

I just listened to the latest Life Report episode where Josh Brahm, Gabi Vehrs and Steve Wagner talk about various pro-life activities and their value. Wagner uses as a test the following question (and I’m paraphrasing): With this activity, will you be making a moral statement or a moral impact?

I think we’d all like to make an impact. To change hearts and minds by sharing our own hearts and minds. It’s a good 30 minute discussion. Watch it below.

As Andrea noted in a previous post on this topic, there really is a time for judging – this is the abortion culture and it is heinous in every sense of the word.  “After Tiller” is a documentary featuring the only four “doctors” in America that legally perform third trimester abortions, and the women that come to them for the procedure.

What is evident in reading this article (not sure I could stomach the actual documentary) is that there is no life-threatening or even compelling health reason why these abortions are being performed.  (There actually never is a health reason to ever warrant deliberately killing a viable unborn baby, but abortion advocates like to use that as a justification for late term abortions.) These babies are killed for social reasons – in fact one 16-year old girl ‘gets’ her post 26-week abortion despite the fact that her boyfriend’s family want to adopt the child.

Both the abortionists and the patients “struggle” with their decisions.  In fact one of the abortionist’s actually says,

“I think the reason I’ve struggled is that I think of them as babies,” she says. “I don’t think of that as a fetus.”

The author of the article  writes that the crux of the film actually portrays the pain and anguish of the people going ahead with these abortions.

All these decisions are presented in contrast to pro-life protests being held outside the clinics. You certainly get the sense that pro-life picketers are in anguish, but it’s a completely different species of the feeling. You get the sense that no matter how much the protesters feel, it doesn’t begin to compare to the pain some of the women in these clinics face.

This is probably one of the most compelling examples of why we need a law on abortion. The law exists to protect us from ourselves, because sometimes there are just too many choices.

I have always wondered why Hollywood insists on making crap movies when there are a lot of good storylines out there. I do like most every Russell Crowe movie I’ve ever seen, so perhaps Noah will be another good one.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSeecpWM8AA]

This article was forwarded to me in response to the post on researchers at Cambridge University who have shown scientific evidence that those in unconscious states are in fact aware of their surroundings. I much prefer the term “unconscious state”- the vegetable reference is a terribly inhumane way of referring to these people who are obviously nothing like vegetables.

Incidentally, the anecdotal evidence of those who come out of these unconscious states is plentiful and incredible, as the article describes.

Wesley Smith, an expert in end of life issues, makes the point, that was waiting to be made in my previous post, that we actually have begun to starve and dehydrate these people to death.  The most famous case being the Terry Schiavo fiasco that ended in her starvation death which took place over an agonizing 14 days.  He writes:

We dehydrate helpless people to death in this country because they have a catastrophic cognitive impairment. Advocates for dehydration say it is just medical ethics, the withdrawal of the medical treatment of tube feeding. (Now, there is even a lawsuit to compel starvation by withholding spoon feeding–not a medical treatment!)

Dehydrating helpless people to death was once unthinkable. Then, in the 80s, bioethicists began advocating withdrawing tube-supplied food and fluids. And so it came to pass.

The ‘take-home message’ I believe, is that these people need to be considered as just that, people.  We wouldn’t deliberately starve and dehydrate a dog to death let alone a person.  The research coming out of Cambridge helps to make that point.

There are many who have had negative run-ins with pro-lifers and for this I am very sorry. I don’t doubt that it is true. I’m just sorry, because those aren’t the pro-life folks I know or hang out with.

To help combat this negative image, I thought I’d post Victoria’s story, since she is so calmly encouraging for anyone facing an unplanned pregnancy right now.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGVyJ1RefHY]

New research out of Cambridge University has found that people in so-called “vegetative states” (a very dehumanizing term) are cognitively aware.

Researchers were able to show that words were being recognized and the patients could actually follow instructions.

They found that one of the vegetative patients was able to filter out unimportant information and home in on relevant words they were being asked to pay attention to. Using brain imaging (fMRI), the scientists also discovered that this patient could follow simple commands to imagine playing tennis.

If this ability can be developed consistently in certain patients who are vegetative, it could open the door to specialised devices in the future and enable them to interact with the outside world.

This is an oldie but a goodie.

Wendy Davis, the darling of the pro-abortion lobby who filibustered the proposed law banning late term abortion (hard to believe) is pro-life (harder to believe). Well, not really.  It is interesting that she would bother to make the claim, however funny it is.  It says something about US politics, namely that it is really quite distinct from anything Canadian.  No female MP would ever claim to be pro-life even if she was.

But the analogies in this little piece are quiet amusing.

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Andrea adds: I like it. Especially when it gets really silly: “I’m a hobbit!”

I’m in the States right now and I can attest to the major difference between politics north and south of the border–that Republicans need to be pro-life, or need to pretend they are pro-life. And Democrats need to be pro-life in certain constituencies as well. It is certainly a refreshing change from the “we won’t re-open the debate” rhetoric one gets from a certain Canadian party that may or may not be in government right now. Honestly.

Let me add this, though: I believe these Democrats and Republicans need to be pro-life because so many Americans are. The divisiveness of abortion creates interesting politics because people are engaged and demand answers. There really never has been consensus after Roe v. Wade. There’s a new book out, in fact, about how Roe v. Wade constitutes an egregious example of judicial activism. I’d like to read it.

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Natalie responds: With regard to the politics, I always say that the debate is not only NOT over, it’s never going to go away.  Sorry, Canada. The very nature of abortion will not allow it – the absolute violation of one person’s life rights versus another person’s “quality of life” rights (if there is such a thing) is just too much of an injustice, no matter which way you slice it.

And I think you should put together a PWPL reading list, Andrea.  All in favour, say “I”.  You have the most interesting book suggestions of anyone I know and are an inspiring reader, ie., you inspire me to want to read (period).

Have fun in the States.  If you are in Washington DC, I am very jealous!

It is always encouraging to be reminded of the good that can be done when we use our modern medical capabilities the right way.

Due to the rise in autism over the past few years, researcher Gary Steinman, MD, PhD, is attempting to do something about it.  He has found that depressed levels of a protein called insulin-like growth factor (IGF) could potentially serve as a biomarker that could anticipate autism occurrence, meaning that blood tests from new-borns can indicate whether these levels are low and hence whether the child has a propensity for autism.  He proposes that increasing levels of IGF can easily be done (mother’s or bovine milk) and will prevent the onset of this debilitating disease. He is suggesting that in future, we can test amniotic fluid for the same levels and supplement the baby in utero to prevent the onset of autism.

If future research were to confirm a connection between IGF and autism, Dr. Steinman recommends a new phase of research focused upon the detection of possibly depressed IGF levels in amniotic fluid during the second trimester of pregnancy. This might be followed by supplementation of the growth factor before symptoms of autism develop.