Free Republic

News from the Trenches (Editor’s Note: We reprint the item below at the request of Jack Smith, editor of The Catholic Key, official newspaper of the Diocese of Kansas City. In his blog entry below, Mr. Smith points out that a group calling itself “Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good” is really a front organization sponsored by the Democratic National Committee. “This group has been treated as legitimate by CNS and other Catholic news sources,” noted Mr. Smith in an email to California Catholic Daily.) WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2008 Cardinal George Slams 'Common Good' Fraud Catholics in Alliance for...

Reading the words carries an impact, but nothing compared to when you listen to them: It happened when a Planned Parenthood worker is asked to accept a donation specifically to abort a black child, and her response is: "Understandable, understandable." Now, however, those interested in the controversy over Planned Parenthood's large role in the nation's abortion industry may have to settle for seeing those words, since YouTube has decided to censor several audio recordings that had been posted by pro-life activists documenting the corporation's willingness to accept donations on the basis of race.

Hello, I’m going to go against what a very nice, well-meaning freeper warned me NOT to do just after joining FR and start an abortion discussion thread. Why? Because I’ve been thinking about these things, and my views on the issue are changing. I would like people’s input and hope that that input can help me shape my thinking(as I wrote in my introduction thread, I’m a 25 year old who is in this election for the first time going to vote republican)… Anyways, this isn’t a troll thread. I’m finding my views on this issue are morphing the more...

I wonder to myself how people can read the Bible, believe in God, love Jesus and or sit in church every Sunday and think it is okay to be Pro-Choice instead of Pro-Life. I have tried not to be tunnel visioned about this. And, as the elections heat up every cycle, I come back to this same head scratcher. People who know me know that I truly do not understand this. I have never gotten a reasonable answer.

I heard John Roberts' angry question towards Palin's choice for her baby (born April 18 this year) questioning whether Sarah could take care of a baby with Down's Syndrome and also manage to be Vice President. This was echoed on TV (again voiced by democrat male reporter), and by several seminar-callers to radio shows on Friday afternoon. Several radio show hosts - most in-depth was Hugh Hewitt with two interviews with DS organizers - skewered John Roberts about his attitude, and his assumption that having a child "with special needs" (as he put it) would take too much time, that...

Because I am addicted to arguing, I sometimes stray from Free Republic to go lock horns with liberals in their haunts. I don't go to DU, they delete you the minute they sense your shadow casting its blue shade across their tofu. I go to IMDb, where everyone roams free. The Obamites hold forth endlessly about how Bush has crippled women's sexual freedom. Any restriction on abortion, you see, cripples women's sexual freedom. How can anyone get laid if you can't have RU-486 via drive-thru?Now, I'm not really particularly interested in the abortion issue. I used to care, and was...

Infidels are Cool discovered this shocking audio from 2002: VIDEO LINK Barack Obama argues for death of babies that survive an abortion in 2002: In this audio Obama coldly claims two doctors helping a baby born alive after a botched abortion would be a burden when he was arguing against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act at the Illinois state legislature April 2002: "Essentially adding an additional doctor who then has to be called in an emergency situation to come in and make these assessments is really designed simply to burden the original decision..." Speechless.HotAir confirmed the legitimacy of the...

In wombs all across America, unborn children suck their thumbs and think, “I hope the next vice president isn’t in favor of aborting me!” OK, no they don’t. But plenty of Republican voters are apparently thinking it for them, which brings us to the latest symbolic litmus test to which John McCain is being subjected to mollify the conservative base, which still can’t quite come to grips with the fact that McCain is the Republican nominee for president. McCain, who thinks for himself and has been known to come to conclusions with which this column disagrees, let slip in a...

By Michelle Malkin  •  August 19, 2008 09:11 AM Scroll down for updates… Wouldn’t put it past him. Would you? Which is why, despite all the encomiums he’s received from his Saddleback appearance, I haven’t joined the ga-ga bandwagon (and won’t).Rich Lowry reports: NR has learned that the McCain campaign has been calling key state GOP officials around the country the last couple of days and sounding them out about the consequences of a pro-choice VP pick. The campaign is asking about the reaction of conservative grass-roots activists to such a pick and whether a pro-choicer can be sold to them....

According to National Review, McCain has been calling around floating the idea of a Pro-Choice VP. This is our opportunity to influence McCain's decision. Here, we'll post phone numbers, email addresses, and templates so you can contact your local and national party headquarters and let McCain know how Conservatives really feel. It is time to remind folks of the FReeper Voice! To start, here are the contact numbers to a lot of talk shows. The Alan Colmes Show Alan Colmes 1-877-FOR-ALAN M-F, 10pm - 1am ET Battle Line with Alan Nathan Alan Nathan 1-800-510-TALK M-F, 12pm - 3pm PT Bill...

DENVER - The request befuddled Leah Daughtry. The experienced political hand in charge of planning next month's Democratic National Convention - a self-described "black chick from Brooklyn" and ordained Pentecostal minister who keeps a Bible in her purse - didn't know what to tell the atheists. Daughtry, 44, was preparing for an Aug. 24 interfaith service that will open the Democrats' gathering here - a first for a party that hasn't always gotten God. Before her was an angry letter from a secularist group that wanted to know whether atheists would be on the podium. "Atheists speaking at an interfaith...

In his column of June 24, Wall Street Journal writer William McGurn looked at the mostly NARAL-friendly Catholics named to the Obama campaign’s National Catholic Advisory Council. Noting that Obama enjoys a NARAL approval rating of 100%, and that — while in the Illinois State Senate — he voted against a measure similar in intent to the unanimously approved 2002 Federal Born Alive Act, McGurn wonders how the council and other Catholics for Obama can rationalize support for a candidate who stands in such profound contrast to the church’s firm teaching that abortion is “an intrinsic evil.” The…line of argument...

An abortionist who claims to have destroyed more than 20,000 unborn children and who once was Hillary Clinton's OB-GYN says he is doing "God's work" when he terminates a pregnancy. "Embryos and fetuses spontaneously aborted – most, but not all of those 'canceled' by 'God' – are ... luckless human souls," wrote William Harrison, referring to an ancient poem describing the plight of mankind. "But a few spontaneous abortions occur in desired pregnancies with no discernable abnormalities. For those girls and women and their families whose circumstances would make their babies 'luckless human souls,' I 'cancel' them before they become...

Back in my pro-choice days, I read that in certain ancient societies it was common for parents to abandon unwanted newborns, leaving them to die of exposure. I found these stories to be as perplexing as they were horrifying. How could this happen? I could never understand how entire cultures could buy into something so obviously terrible, how something that modern society understands to be an unthinkable evil could be widely accepted among large groups of people. Because of my deep distress at hearing of such crimes against humanity, I found it irritating when pro-lifers would refer to abortion...

Return to the Article June 30, 2008Obama's Callous IndifferenceBy Peter Kirsanow Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen declares that Barack Obama is " 'likable enough' -- in fact, so much so that he is the most charismatic presidential candidate I have seen since Robert F.Kennedy." Well, even though I've  never spoken with Obama, I don't like him very much  (I did testify with him [and a few others] once about a bill he'd sponsored on voter intimidation, but at the time he didn't impress me as unlikable, just a little intellectually lazy) . This hasn't always been the case.  Until...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- To draw attention to the way abortion disproportionately affects the African-American community, black pro-life advocates will be protesting outside the upcoming annual meeting of the nation's largest organization representing blacks. The NAACP protest will also reach the Democratic presidential candidate. Rev. Clenard Childress, a New Jersey pastor, told LifeNews.com about the protest and said pro-abortion presidential candidate Barack Obama and former candidate Hillary Clinton will be at the convention.  "Because 2008 is an election year, the presidential candidates will undoubtedly speak at the convention. This gives us a national stage to make our case to the...

by Steven Ertelt Bristol, England (LifeNews.com) -- A new report indicates a teenager died just one week after having a legal abortion -- providing more evidence that legal abortions are not safe for women. Manon Jones, an 18-year-old student from Caernarfon, Gwynedd experienced heavy bleeding after the abortion and eventually died. After the abortion, Jones felt light-headed over subsequent days and began experiencing abnormal bleeding. She then became what is believed to be the fourteenth woman to have died after using the dangerous abortion drug

Upcoming Schedule Sunday, May 18, at 11:00 AM About the Program Susan Wicklund takes your calls about her book, "This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor." About the Author Susan Wicklund has worked as a doctor in the women's reproductive health field for over twenty years

In February 2004, U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama's wife, Michelle, sent a fund-raising letter with the "alarming news" that "right-wing politicians" had passed a law stopping doctors from stabbing half-born babies in the neck with scissors, suctioning out their brains and crushing their skulls. Michelle called partial-birth abortion "a legitimate medical procedure," and wouldn't supporters please pay $150 to attend a luncheon for her husband, who would fight against "cynical ploy[s]" to stop it? But that's not why Obama's opponent Alan Keyes said Jesus Christ wouldn't vote for him. Obama recalled Keyes' statement in a recent USA Today opinion piece...

Someone sent the link above to my attention and I've been trying to figure out what message this is conveying. No need to click the link, it says,"ABORshun." Aside from the ebonics, what's with this? Pro-life? Pro-choice? Who'd wear this?

There is no political affiliation in history that has been, or is at present, as full of cowardice and fear as the left wing. Being leftist means never wanting to take any kind of responsibility whatsoever. A leftist, typically toting the label of "liberal", will not accept the basic facts of life, and cringes at life. Liberals don't want to pay for their own health care. They want government to do it. Liberals don't want competition to determine who gets a job or a fully funded college education. They want the government to do it. Liberals don't want businesses to...

"The dog that didn't bark" is the central clue in the Sherlock Holmes story, "Silver Blaze." This oddly quiet watchdog's silence told Holmes that the horse-theft was an inside job - pulled off by the horse's trainer. The canine guardian who was supposed to sound an alarm - but who instead didn't make a noise - was the final clue that fingered the guilty culprit. Today's "dog that didn't bark" is none other than the political media. For more than a month now, the media has effectively covered up a potentially damning statement made by Senator Barack Obama. No trivial...

Despite a 2004 order from the future Pope Benedict XVI barring pro-choice Catholic politicians from the Communion table, a quintet of elected officials flouted his wishes twice during his recent six-day visit here by partaking of the sacrament right before his eyes. The bishops whose job it is to enforce the pope's wishes have been all over the map in responding. While New York Cardinal Edward Egan publicly chastised former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani for taking Communion during an April 19 Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral, the bishops of Washington, Boston and Norwalk, Conn., have not disciplined members...

Four years at Yale costs $180,000. Here is how senior Aliza Shvarts planned to conclude hers: The art major would repeatedly artificially inseminate herself, then induce miscarriages, which she would record on video. She would build a four-foot-wide plastic cube and wrap it in layers of plastic. Between the layers would be Vaseline mixed with blood from the miscarriages. She would hang the cube at an exhibition and project video of the miscarriages onto four of its sides. "This piece," Shvarts wrote in the Yale Daily News, "is meant to call into question the relationship between form and function as...

The utter horror of an abortion, and its moral magnitude, has increasingly caused Medical Doctors in Italy to refuse to engage in the brutal practice. May their refusal spread among their colleagues throughout the world and help to hasten the end of this barbaric practice.

I make a modest proposal to my readers. Join me in a new verbal effort in our fundamental human rights struggle. Let's now refer to those who support abortion as the “Wrong Choice Movement”.

Cannot Post due to copyright issues: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/03/17/080317taco_talk_hertzberg

Last week, I wrote that Barack Obama, as an Illinois state senator, opposed a bill to define as a "person" a fully born baby who survived an abortion. Obama opposed this bill, I wrote, even after an amendment was offered to it that mirrored language included in a virtually identical federal bill that won a 98 to zero vote in the U.S. Senate after Sen. Barbara Boxer said the language in question protected Roe v. Wade.

If there was ever any question as to how diverse the Republican Party is, this campaign season has answered it. The reason there are so many viable candidates in the Republican presidential primary this year is because each candidate hails from a different part of the Republican base. That Republican diversity earns a special New Year’s Look. Rudy Giuliani hails from the liberal wing of the Republican Party. The Republican liberals are regionally based in the Northeast. They think that women should have the right to choose abortion, support destructive embryonic stem cell research, and generally support homosexual rights. They...

His liberal record went right up until his final days in office as governor. Despite what he has said since leaving office, he was always there, ready to help out to keep abortions safe and legal. His new claim is that he would have blocked it if he had the chance. Of course, Mitt. Of course you would have done that. If only the track record didn't get in the way of facts. Why do facts always have to get in the way of a good story? More hypocrisy from Mitt, after the jump. Former governor Mitt Romney's economic development...

There was a time when the Republican Party was the ship that flew the banner of the Equal Rights Amendment. Mary Crisp went down with the Titanic, railing about women’s issues to the irate Reagan revolutionaries in the days leading up to the 1980 presidential convention. All revolutions have their heroines and heroes whose heresies lead them to be burned at the stake,” wrote Tanya Melich in “The Republican War Against Women.” “Mary Crisp was ours.” It was quite a finale for a woman who was basically a career volunteer, the prototypical ’50s suburban housewife who worked to put her...

A photograph of GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney at a 1994 Planned Parenthood fundraiser has surfaced, once again raising questions about the former Bay State’s governor’s abortion flip-flopping. The picture, a copy of which was obtained by the Herald, shows Romney and his wife Ann at a house party fundraiser in Cohasset with Nicki Nichols Gamble, who was the president of the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts at the time. Romney has already downplayed ties to Planned Parenthood after revelations that Ann Romney donated $150 to the group. Gamble said the pic was snapped at an event at GOP activist...

Hard to conjure up that image but it's true. Thomspon sends out an e-mail blast taking issue with Romney's statement today on MTP that "every piece of legislation which came to my desk in the coming years as a Governor, I came down on the side of preserving the sanctity of life." The "fact check" includes this: "Romney's health care legislation provides taxpayer-funded abortions for a co-pay of just $50. Romney vetoed EIGHT provisions in his health care bill that he deemed objectionable, including the expansion of dental benefits to Medicaid recipients. He did not veto Planned Parenthoods' guaranteed position...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” today that he wept with relief when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Mormons, announced a 1978 revelation that the priesthood would no longer be denied to persons of African descent. Romney’s eyes appeared to fill with tears as he discussed the emotional subject during a high-stakes appearance that he handled with no major blunders. “I was anxious to see a change in my church,” said the Republican presidential candidate, appearing for the full hour just two weeks ahead of the crucial Iowa caucuses. “I can...

"The problem in our church [national] is about the lack of respect for the authority of scripture and the nature, character and work of Jesus Christ," said Curran, an Episcopal priest for 15 years. "It's about the failed leadership of The Episcopal Church and whether or not we will continue to be under the authority of a failed leadership. And for many of us, the answer is no."

Dennis Gerard Embo  Other Articles by Dennis Gerard EmboPrinter Friendly Version   A New Idolatry for the Contemporary American -- Part One November 27, 2007 Elijah stepped forward and said to the people, "How long will you sit on the fence? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him." (I Kings 18:21; New English Bible)Another election year is approaching as well as the 35th anniversary of the infamous U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, a decision which turned what was already in many states a steady stream of carnage into a bloody coast-to-coast...

This is why a lot of people wanted Fred Thompson in the race. Who do you trust? Mitt today or Mitt from...whenever he changed his mind on abortion. What? Three years ago? That doesn't smack of a real change of heart more than a political calculation. If the abortion issue doesn't bother you then listen to Mitt run from the "Reagan-Bush" years.

The presidential campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney told Cybercast News Service on Wednesday that Romney does not favor punishing women who have abortions but does favor punishing abortionists, perhaps even with incarceration. The description of Romney's abortion policy was made in a statement that Romney Communications Director Matt Rhoades issued to Cybercast News Service after Cybercast News Service asked a Romney spokesman about an answer Romney had given in a Nov. 19 interview with Human Events. "Several of your rivals said they opposed criminalizing abortion, by putting the women or the doctors involved in jail. Do you agree?"...

Presidential candidate Fred Thompson, the former Tennessee Senator and Law & Order actor, slammed Mitt Romney for supporting and signing into law the Massachusetts Health Plan that allows for women to have an abortion with no restrictions for a $50 co-pay. Columnist David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network, whose founder Pat Robertson endorsed Rudy Giuliani, a pro-choice candidate, for president, analyzes the contradictions of Romney’s abortion stance. Brody writes that “the problem that Romney continues to have on abortion is that it’s hard for him to criticize Giuliani, Thompson or anybody else on the issue because he has his...

Mitt Romney supporter Paul Weyrich, one of the founders of the Moral Majority, is pretty upset that Fred Thompson got the endorsement from the National Right to Life Committee. He's so mad he's made a spurious charge against the Thompson campaign and the NRLC which is bound to hurt Romney: Fred Thompson's campaign lashed out at Mitt Romney Wednesday after one of Romney's key supporters suggested Thompson's recent endorsement by the anti-abortion National Right to Life Committee was traded for cash. In an article in The Washington Times on Wednesday, Paul Weyrich — the socially conservative co-founder of the Moral...

Responding to the National Right to Life Committee's endorsement of Fred Thompson, Paul Weyrich suggested that Thompson's backers greased some palms. "I think in all probability the Thompson people were engaged with the National Right to Life people in financial dealing," Weyrich told the Washington Times. That's a pretty tough charge and almost certainly not what Romney's campaign wanted their big social conservative "get" to suggest (at least not publicly). Sensing opportunity to win more points from their own big "get" (the group's nod) Thompson communications director Todd Harris unloaded: "Gov. Romney is new to the pro-life movement and his...

When the National Right to Life Committee endorsed Fred Thompson for president this week, their news conference was less announcement than cri de coeur — not just from this group but from the whole social conservative movement. No one could miss the irony in the choice of Thompson or in the justifications offered for that choice by NRLC executive director David O'Steen. Here was the nation's largest and best known anti-abortion organization embracing a candidate who had just told NBC's Tim Russert that he did not support the Human Life Amendment — the centerpiece of the NRLC legislative agenda for...

The most cynical group currently operating on the American political stage, the National Right to Life Committee has endorsed the most cynical man to seek the presidency in recent memory, Fred Thompson, for the Republican nomination. It is a perfect match, although not one that can be said to have been "made in Heaven." After all, what brings the National Right to Life Committee and Fred Thompson together is the fact that both the interest group and the candidate have sold their souls to the highest bidder. National Right to Life gave its blessing to Thompson despite the fact that...

Fred Thompson is the Republican most likely to beat abortion-rights supporter Rudy Giuliani, the National Right to Life Committee said Tuesday, announcing its endorsement of the former Tennessee senator for president. "While there are various polls, and some are up-and-down, the overwhelming consensus has been that he is best-positioned to top pro-abortion candidate Rudy Giuliani for the Republican nomination," the group's executive director, David N. O'Steen, said at a news conference. ...By emphasizing Thompson's political potential _ he ranks second behind former New York Mayor Giuliani in national Republican polls _ the anti-abortion group played down its own differences with...

There is an old hymn written by Fanny Crosby, sung at generations of camp meetings, which exclaims: "Crown Him! Crown Him! Prophet, and Priest, and King!" Since the emergence of evangelicalism as a cultural force in the 1950s, three approaches to politics, represented by three personalities, have emerged. They are the prophet, the priest and the kingmaker. The prophet has been psychologist James Dobson, who dispenses child-rearing advice on the radio from his Colorado ministry, Focus on the Family. On family issues, Dobson's counsel is moderate and broadly appealing. On politics, his tone sharpens. He rails against compromise on social-conservative...

Few issues spur as much passion during election season and, well, the rest of the time, as abortion. Bumper stickers and applause lines that have passed the test of time are thrown around indiscriminately. Promoting “a culture of life” is one of the lines politicians utter almost solely to Christian audiences, considered automatons who respond instinctively to monotonous pro-life declarations. On Sundays and on television, countless clergymen, including mine, preach against abortion, emphasizing the Christian duty to oppose it. As a result, proponents of legalized abortion insist that those Christians keep their beliefs to themselves, and are completely bedazzled by...

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his rivals for the Republican nomination will face a tough crowd when they address the religious conservatives at the Values Voter Summit starting Friday. “I think what we can expect is a lot of folks talking about how dissatisfied they are with the choices they have,” former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) said. Giuliani’s positions on abortion and gay rights continue to dog him as he looks for support within the leadership of the religious conservative movement, and those leaders say they want to hear more from the former mayor this weekend than...

Christian conservatives have thus far failed to rally behind a single candidate, but a prominent conservative leader predicts at least one candidate will emerge from the upcoming Values Voter Summit with major support from social conservatives. Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council, recently said he was “very optimistic” with the field of candidates that will attend this week’s Washington Briefing 2007: Values Voter Summit. He believes there will be one to two contenders that will be revealed as the favorite among social conservatives during the three-day gathering. But even if none of the candidates appeal to values voters, it...

The way to avoid a Rudy nomination is to simply bury him in the primaries. Let's examine a few key facts. 1) The current national polls have Rudy at about 30%, Thompson at 21%, McCain at 13%, Romney at 11%, and Huckabee at 6%. The other 19% are either going for a minor candidate or are undecided. 2) Rudy is mostly leading because a) he's the only pro-choice candidate against seven pro-life candidates and b) he's supported by some conservatives because he's seen as the best chance to win. 3) While McCain is listed as third here, it's pretty generally...

Conservative evangelical leader Dr. James Dobson admits that a third-party plan supported by pro-family leaders might unintentionally help elect democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton. The influential pro-family advocate still contends, however, that he would rather vote following his values than compromise and be forced to choose between two pro-choice candidates. “We’re very, very concerned about the implications of a Hillary Clinton presidency, but you know, we have been working … for 35 years, I’ve been trying to defend the unborn child,” Dobson said on Fox’s Hannity & Colmes show Monday. “That’s been my life. That’s been my belief, along with...