Attorney Who Aided Terri Schiavo’s Husband Now Advising Barack Obama

Life News ^ | 12/7/08 | Steven Ertelt

[wagglebee]

These miscreants are simply devoid of souls.

Thread by narses.

The abortion doctor

Susan Wicklund has received death threats and worn a bulletproof vest to work. But what really scares her, she writes in "This Common Secret," is the war on reproductive rights. By Eryn Loeb

Jan. 22, 2008 | Thirty-five years after Roe v. Wade made abortion legal, it is the most common minor surgery in the United States, yet 87 percent of U.S. counties are without a provider. Because of the shortage of doctors trained in providing abortions, dedicated physicians often split their time among several locations, in some cases regularly traveling hundreds of miles to perform abortions in clinics that are open only one day every other week.

Dr. Susan Wicklund is one of them. She has been providing abortion services for 20 years, first quietly skirting regulations as a general practitioner, then putting in 100-hour weeks as the abortion provider for multiple clinics in the Midwest, and later in her very own clinic in rural Montana. Wicklund's new book, "This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor," weaves her personal story with those of many women she has treated over the years. She deftly turns individual stories into indictments of abortion policies she sees as misleading, condescending and unsafe.

Wicklund describes her work as a privilege and an honor. But it's also a job, often a dangerous one. She has donned disguises to get past the protesters who scream and wave signs outside both her home and her medical office. She's worn a bulletproof vest and carried a gun. In some states, Wicklund is required to read abortion patients misleading, politician-penned scripts that refer to an embryo as an "unborn baby" and warn that the procedure can be fatal (with no mention of the fact that wisdom tooth removal is far riskier).

While young celebrities like Nicole Richie and Jamie Lynn Spears beam and pose through their unplanned pregnancies and movies like "Juno," "Waitress" and "Knocked Up" portray childbirth as clearly the best path, plenty of people are making other choices, ones we don't hear about. Salon spoke with Wicklund recently about the complicated landscape of abortion rights.

How did you come to do this work?

I had been involved in home births, and midwives were being arrested for practicing medicine without a license. It was important to me to learn how to do abortions for my own patients, because as a young woman I'd had an abortion that was not done under very good circumstances. I really felt that care should be much better than the care I'd received. By my own choice, I was trained to do abortions as part of my medical training.

Shortly after that, I got into private practice, and I was told by the practice that I was not allowed to do abortions. I was angry and very frustrated. At the March for Women's Lives in Washington, D.C., in 1989, I really felt a personal call to action. I went back to the Midwest where I was practicing, made some phone calls, and ended up meeting with directors from a number of different clinics and going to work in the clinics as an abortion provider. Some of them were rather remote and underserved, and they were having a very difficult time finding doctors.

Abortion is a "common secret" in that 40 percent of American women have an abortion during their childbearing years, but it's rarely spoken about. Why do you think there's such profound discomfort in talking about this?

In other cultures and other countries -- in Europe, for instance -- it isn't such a taboo subject. There's also a much freer atmosphere around recognizing or talking about people's individual sexuality. In this country we have sex all around us, on billboards and in advertising. It's so pervasive, and yet for somebody to have a child out of wedlock, in most communities, is still something that people talk about [negatively]. It's an outward sign that they've had sex. If you've had an abortion, obviously it means you've also had sex. The religious right has told us over and over again that it is wrong, and we continue to buckle under that. I don't understand why...

[wagglebee]

Eluana Update

Eluana is being betrayed just like Terri was.

Thread by me.

Italian pols back off right-to-die dispute

STRASBOURG, France, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- Italian officials say they are taking a hands-off approach after a European court rejected efforts to block a father's efforts to let his comatose daughter die.

Italy's ANSA news agency Tuesday said Beppino Englaro has been unable to find a clinic that will facilitate the death of his daughter, Eluana, who has been in a coma for 17 years.

"Personally I hope that the woman continues to live, but I can't interfere with the decisions of her father,'' said Edouard Ballaman, president of the regional council of the Northern League.

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg Monday rejected an appeal by pro-life organizations trying to block Englaro's efforts on the grounds that only immediate family could be involved in the decision.

ANSA said Italy's health minister warned clinics last week not to take part in the removal of the woman's feeding tube.

"We will not be silent. We are your bad conscience. The White Rose will give you no rest."

[wagglebee]

This is an excellent commentary about the deathbots and the danger that Charles Dickens saw in them.

Thread by me.

Malthus And Scrooge

That phrase--surplus population--is what first tipped me off to Dickens' philosophical agenda. He's taking aim at the father of the zero-growth philosophy, Thomas Malthus. Malthus' ideas were still current in British intellectual life at the time A Christmas Carol was written. Malthus, himself, had joined the surplus generation only nine years before. But his ideas have proved more durable.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[exDemMom]

That doctor is pure evil.

With her medical training, there is no way on earth that she is unaware of the fact that an unborn baby is a living human being, yet she complains of having to inform clients in some states of just that fact.

One must wonder what factors led her to have such profound hatred for the human race that she considers killing the innocent “a privilege and an honor.”

She apparently is completely devoid of any kind of empathy. In most walks of life, people like her are considered psychopaths.

[wagglebee]

A perfect comparison of Herod's slaughter of the Innocents and Big Murder's gift card program.

Thread by lightman.

The perfect present: Abortion gift card

It's long been the case in the U.S. that different groups of people choose to celebrate different aspects of the Christmas story. Merchants, of course, celebrate the giving of gifts by the Magi to the Christ child because the symbolism encourages shoppers to knock themselves out making the cash registers ring.

Secular humanists celebrate the notion of good will toward men, even though they're hard-pressed to articulate a cogent reason why anyone should feel all warm and tingly toward anyone, much less complete strangers, in a godless, empty universe.

Christians celebrate the wonder of the creator of the universe becoming one of us in order to sacrifice himself for us in our lostness.

Yet, until now, there's been one aspect of the Christmas story that never gets celebrated -- the slaughter of the innocents. King Herod, you'll recall, exercised his sovereignty over the children of Bethlehem by having everyone under the age of 2 put to the sword so that he wouldn't have to suffer a competitor to his throne.

Now comes word that in what certainly appears to be a celebration of Herod's exercise of his right as sovereign king to choose the deaths of those children, the Indiana Planned Parenthood affiliates are selling gift certificates this Christmas season which can be used for, inter alia, procuring an abortion.

It happens that lots of people are disgusted by this, but I think it's the perfect gift to celebrate that part of the Christmas narrative, Herod's infanticide, which rarely gets much positive recognition...

"We will not be silent. We are your bad conscience. The White Rose will give you no rest."

[wagglebee]

The deathbots are moving forward with their agenda in the UK.

Thread by me.

Legalising euthanasia needs careful thought (UK)

THE debate on euthanasia and assisted suicide is seldom far from the public eye. We have had a controversial documentary, "Right to Die", showing the death at the Dignitas clinic in Zurich, of a patient with motor neurone disease.

More locally, there has been a repeat TV screening of MSP Margo MacDonald's documentary about assisted dying and news coverage of the launch of her consultation paper which she ultimately hopes will lead to legalisation of assisted suicide in Scotland.

Over the years that I have been involved in the debate, I have seldom if ever seen one side convincing the other, so this article probably will not win any converts. The convictions about the rights and wrongs of the issues are deeply held. It does worry me though that these convictions sometimes seem to be founded either on gut feelings about our personal rights, or other gut feelings that it contravenes some sort of basic religious or moral code, rather than being well informed by practical realities.

When it is presented simply in terms of my right to a dignified death, how could anyone disagree? To quote Margo MacDonald: "... all of us have the right to die with dignity and only we ourselves can determine when life is intolerable." Surely any opinion to the contrary must be irrelevant, probably originating from a stuffy, conservative medical profession or from religious dinosaurs, neither being prepared to embrace a progressive concept for modern society. And surely in this day and age we can devise legislation to enable the safe adoption of this ultimate act of compassion into standard medical practice! Assisted suicide? Dying with dignity? Of course! Why on earth not?

I find it disturbing that the word "dignity" in this context has been hijacked so that it is now regarded as synonymous with euthanasia or assisted suicide. The Voluntary Euthanasia Society has been rebranded as Dignity in Dying, and if you go to Zurich to end your life, it is to the Dignitas Clinic. The implication is that medical care which does not include assisted suicide or euthanasia therefore lacks a fundamental component of dignity...

[wagglebee]

Chuck Colson has a wonderful commentary on the Vatican's "Dignitas Personae."

Thread by me.

(Chuck Colson) Human Dignity: What Matters Most, Part 1

Two weeks ago, headlines across the world announced the release of the Vatican’s official position on bioethics. Naturally, the Catholic Church’s stance on the destruction of human embryos, the creation of designer babies, and the like was greeted with scorn by liberal Catholics and by many medical professionals and scientists.

But two things truly fascinate me about the release of this document. The first is its title: “Dignitas Personae”—or, in plain English: “On the Dignity of the Person.”

Now that’s an interesting title for the Catholic Church’s official teaching on bioethics. Actually, it’s the perfect title because the question of human dignity is at the root of virtually every major question facing humans today. Not just bioethics, but also medicine, the economy, and the environment...

[floriduh voter]

Scotland is against euthanasia. Watch Brits move to Scotland when this is enacted. This is what Hitler did and the UK fought against. Up is down and down is up. Evil is good and good is evil. The UK is there.

[Robert Drobot]

You might open a thread I prepared for today's Traditional Roman Catholic Mass wherein I give attention to the Feast of the Holy Innocents :

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2155152/posts

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[wagglebee]

An excellent thread by Ethan Clive Osgoode showing the dangers of eugenics going back a century.

Feeble-mindedness

It is necessary to remember that feeble-mindedness is largely handed on by heredity. It was formerly supposed that idiocy and feeble-mindedness are mainly due to environmental conditions -- to the drink, depravity, general disease, or lack of nutrition of the parents; and a few authorities on the feeble-minded still hold that view. But serious as the results of such bad environmental conditions may be, and frequent as they are in the parentage of the feeble-minded, they do not form the fundamental factor in the production of the feeble-minded, and some scientific authorities even deny that they can produce mental defect in the offspring at all, though that position is doubtless too extreme. Exact investigation is now showing that feeble-mindedness is inherited to an enormous extent. Some years ago Dr. Ashby, speaking from a large experience, estimated that at least 75 per cent, of feeble-minded children are born with an inherited tendency to mental defect. More precise investigation has since shown that this estimate was under the mark.

Not only is feeble-mindedness inherited, and in a much greater degree than has hitherto been suspected even by expert authorities, but the feeble-minded tend to have a much larger number of children than normal people. That, indeed, we might expect, apart altogether from the question of any innate fertility. The feeble-minded have no forethought and no self-restraint. They are not ordinarily capable of resisting their own impulses or the solicitations of others, and they are unable to understand adequately the motives which guide the conduct of ordinary people. The average number of children of feeble-minded people seems to be usually about one-third more than in normal families, and is sometimes very much greater...

[wagglebee]

Like our dear FRiend T'wit, Paul Weyrich was fighting to protect innocent life right until his last breath.

Thread by me.

Abortion, A Doctor's Conscience and Obama's Lack of Campaign Commitment (Weyrich's Final Column)

The President-elect appears to have stepped back from some of his campaign promises. That merely is speculation. We shall see. The President-elect did make a dogmatic statement regarding the so-called "Freedom of Choice" Act (FOCA).

He said he will propose FOCA, which would eliminate all State and Federal restrictions upon abortion. It would purport to force Christian hospitals to perform abortions or close. It would demand that physicians perform abortions or give up their practice.

Whatever happened to freedom of conscience?

A hallmark of professionalism in the United States has been that we never force anyone to violate his or her conscience in the performance of a duty. That is the first line of defense of the pro-life movement...

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Republic]

Obama is putting together the dirtiest, creepiest, nastiest anti-American team of slugs possible. He is already making klinton look like a piker.

It appears Obama has no judgement capacity. He knows words, knows how to string them together and knows how to look pretty. He apparently knows NOTHING about integrity and justice and love.

He must be evil. Must be. He could NEVER invite the filth he is enlisting into his move to DC were he a man of faith and integrity.

[wagglebee]

A glimmer of hope in the UK.

Thread by me.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown Confirms Opposition to Assisted Suicide Bill

London, England (LifeNews.com) -- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown hinted at opposing a bill to legalize assisted suicide in England and, in a Tuesday interview, may that opposition solid. Brown engaged in an interview with Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, a guest host of the Today program on Radio 4.

Brown said he would block and legislation to legalize assisted suicide and he said he believed British law should make “absolutely clear” that it recognizes the value of human life.

"I am totally against laws [allowing assisted suicide or euthanasia]," Brown said. "It is not really for us to create any legislation that would put pressure on people to feel they had to offer themselves because they were causing trouble to a relative or anyone else."

“I think we have got to make it absolutely clear that the importance of human life is recognized," the British governmental leader added...

[wagglebee]

The media NEVER reports the opposition to infanticide.

Thread by GonzoII.

Spain Sees Hundreds of Thousands Rally Against Abortion at Catholic Event

Madrid, Spain (LifeNews.com) -- The Socialist government of Spain wants to expand the nation's abortion laws, which already allow virtual abortion on demand. Hundreds of thousands of Spaniards responded on Sunday at a Catholic rally in the nation's capital with an address by Pope Benedict XVI.

The rally in Madrid saw a massive gathering of people in the event deigned to promote pro-life values in the face of the government's desire to expand abortions.

Pope Benedict XVI talked with the participants via a live video feed from The Vatican and said in his prayer that the residents of Spain shouldn't allow their leaders to distort the sanctity of human life...

[PhilDragoo]

Hear! Hear!

[wagglebee]

This will probably be the most important March ever.

Thread by GonzoII.

Pro-Lifers Prepare for March for Life 2009

"We will ask him (President Obama)'Have you seen an abortion? Have you seen a child who has been subjected to abortion?"

WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) - As pro-life leaders and citizens across America and the world gear up for a historic chapter in Washington's March for Life on January 22nd, founder Nellie Gray gave LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) a preview of the message that the march plans to send to the country - and to Mr. Obama, one of the most virulent abortion advocates in American politics, two days after his inauguration...

[wagglebee]

Steven Ertelt has a story/thread exposing the fact that Obama's proposed replacement in the Senate is as pro-death as he is.

Burris Watered Down Abortion-Infanticide Law Obama Refused to Fix

Roland Burris has been named by embattled pro-abortion Gov. Rod Blagojevich to serve the remainder of Barack Obama's term in the Senate. However, pro-life advocates are not happy with appointment in part because Burris watered down an anti-infanticide law that was contentious in the presidential campaign.