abortion

New at Live Action – Hypocrisy Alert: Pro-Abortion Sexist Lectures Pro-Life Men on How to Treat Women

Calvin Freiburger abortion, bigotry, feminism, Huffington Post, hypocrisy, Live Action, pregnancy, sex, sexism, women
My latest Live Action post:
As a male pro-life activist, I’ve run into my share of sexism and condescension over the years, as abortion defenders have claimed I shouldn’t have a say on the issue because I’ll never have to worry about getting pregnant.  They’ve insinuated that I’m somehow trying to control or oppress women. Though pure sophistry, it’s something any guy who wants to save babies should expect to deal with – a lot.
On Monday, at the Huffington Post, Laura Trice fumed that she’s sick of men having the nerve to express their opinion on public policy questions related to abortion and birth control. She wants us to “rewind 2-3 months before most abortions happen and look in the mirror.” She wants men to take the following actions, which she claims would lead to a 90% decrease in abortion rates within 3 months, if widely practiced:

7. Make a personal commitment today to stop looking at pornography, stop engaging prostitutes and stop visiting strip clubs.
6. Make a personal commitment today to stand against sexual violence, rape and incest.
5. If you are Christian and have strong views, read this Susan B. Anthony essay and make a commitment today to be a better type of Christian husband.
4. Make a personal commitment today not to pressure a woman for sex of any kind when she says, “No,” “I don’t feel well” or “I’m tired.”
3. Make a personal commitment today to know a woman for at least 6 months to one year before having intercourse with her.
2. Make a personal commitment today not to take advantage of any woman who has been drinking or is impaired.
1. Make a personal commitment today to stop smooth-talking and lying to women to “get in.”

(Note: these are just the individual steps; see the original column for elaboration.)
Taken on its own, that’s perfectly smart, moral advice. So how can it possibly be controversial? Because of the implication in Trice’s conclusion…
Read the rest at Live Action.

New at Live Action – British Abortion Provider Asks Pro-Lifers to Let the Fox Guard the Henhouse

Calvin Freiburger abortion, CNN, Great Britain, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, pregnancy, pro-life

My latest Live Action post:

For those who are sick of those pesky pro-lifers picketing outside abortion mills, CNN feels your pain. They’ve given column space to Ann Furedi, head of U.K. abortion provider British Pregnancy Advisory Service, to explain “why anti-abortion activists should not intimidate women”:

The problem with the protests is this: the protesters oppose abortion in principle — but their actions are against women who want to consider abortion — not in principle — but as a private medical solution to a personal, individual problem.
Women attend our clinics for care or counseling because they need help. They do not come to demonstrate support for abortion. The protesters should leave them alone, to deal with their problems privately with those they have chosen to seek help from.

The mindset of abortion-seekers has no bearing on whether abortion destroys an innocent life, separate and distinct from his or her mother’s. It makes precious little difference to an unborn baby how political his or her mother is. Besides, aren’t the least politically aware the ones most in need of hearing both sides before “choosing”?

Read the rest at Live Action.

New at Live Action – Wisconsin Pulls the Plug on Webcam Abortions

Calvin Freiburger abortion, evil, Fair Wisconsin, Live Action, pro-choice, pro-life, webcam abortions, women

My latest Live Action post:

Last night Wisconsin made modest yet meaningful strides toward a culture of life as the State Assembly passed a bill to prohibit so-called ‘webcam abortions’. The legislation, which has already passed the house and is expected to receive pro-life Governor Scott Walker’s signature, forbids doctors from prescribing abortion-inducing drugs without physically examining the patient and requires them to be with the patient when she receives the drugs, as well as requires doctors to ask women if they’re being coerced into aborting their child.

Most state Democrats voted nay, with Madison Representative Mar Pocan complaining that lawmakers “don’t trust the people of Wisconsin to make a decision with their doctor about their own health care.” And Jessica Pieklo of Care2.com is incensed:

In neighboring states like Iowa and Minnesota, patients living in rural areas are able to have mifepristone prescribed via online video conference. This would not be an option for women living in rural Wisconsin.
Finally, the bill requires a woman return to an abortion clinic for a follow-up visit 12 to 18 days after being given the drug. Women who take mifepristone already have a follow-up visit, but most see their primary care physician for that follow-up. This bill forces women to have that follow-up visit at an abortion clinic, putting yet another unnecessary burden on the backs of women trying to access health care services.

Unnecessary? Not quite. Pro-Life Wisconsin explains…

Read the rest at Live Action.

New at Live Action – WaPo Columnist: It’s Racist to Defend Black Babies From Abortion

Calvin Freiburger abortion, demagogues, dishonesty, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, hypocrisy, Left, Live Action, pro-choice, race, racism

My latest Live Action post:

Lately, the mainstream media’s been doing a pretty good job of reminding pro-lifers that we hate women, but surely our malice isn’t limited just to women, is it? Of course not. Fortunately, dear readers, we have Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy to remind us that we’re racist, too. Milloy claims the real intent of the pictured billboard, sponsored by Life Always’ “That’s Abortion” campaign, is to “shame the black woman, single her out by race and cast her body as the personification of sin and death”:

[T]he conservative effort now underway to overturn the court’s decision is not just being waged on women’s reproductive rights, but on the black woman as a person.
Do white women recognize the difference?

“When you add racism to sexism, oppression manifests itself differently,” said Paris Hatcher, executive director of an Atlanta-based women’s advocacy group called SPARK Reproductive Justice Now. “In this country, it’s okay to shame and blame the black woman, to pathologize and criminalize her behavior. Black women become the nannies, the mammies, the Jezebels.”

That must be it! Why didn’t anybody see it before? Apparently the rest of us were taken in by Life Always’ clever ruse of staffing its four-person Board of Directors with two black men and one white woman, leading us to naively infer that the billboards were motivated by compassion for the innocent black girls killed by abortion. How foolish of us!

Read the rest at Live Action.

New at Live Action – New York Times Pushes Fake Centrists Obsessed with the GOP’s "War on Women"

Calvin Freiburger abortion, birth control, contraception, feminism, GOP, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Live Action, mainstream media, media bias, New York Times, RINOs, Sandra Fluke, sex, women

My latest Live Action post:

Over the weekend, Susan Saulny had a report in the New York Times on “centrist women” who are turning against the Republican Party, and I must say, I’m a little disappointed. Not that the article’s a hatchet job, mind you—that’s what I’ve come to expect from the Times. No, I’m disappointed that it’s such a shoddy attempt; I’ve come to expect much more effort and creativity from America’s premiere propagandists.

From a “randomly generated list of voters,” Saulny interviews a handful of self-described moderate or Republican women who claim that the birth control debate currently raging in the media has destroyed whatever intention they have of voting for the GOP candidate in November:

  • Mary Russell, retired teacher, “evangelical Christian and ‘old school’ Republican who supported Mitt Romney “just two weeks ago” but is now considering Barack Obama: “We all agreed that this seemed like a throwback to 40 years ago. I didn’t realize I had a strong viewpoint on this until these conversations. If they’re going to decide on women’s reproductive issues, I’m not going to vote for any of them. Women’s reproduction is our own business.”
  • Fran Kelly, retired public school worker who voted for John McCain in 2008: “Everybody is so busy telling us how we should act in the bedroom, they’re letting the country fall through the cracks. They’re nothing but hatemongers trying to control everyone, saying, ‘Live as I live.’ If Republicans would stop all this ridiculous talk about contraception, I’d consider voting in November.”

Read the rest at Live Action.

New at Live Action – Shocker: Episcopal Priest Brags That She’d Break the Law to Give Minors the "Blessing" of Abortion

Calvin Freiburger abortion, Christianity, Episcopal Church, evil, extremism, Live Action, parental notification, pro-choice, pro-life, religion, Religious Left

My latest Live Action post:

In a textbook case of being too honest for her own good, a pro-abortion activist told lawmakers on Thursday that she’d gladly break the law to help minors kill babies without their parents’ knowledge or consent. Episcopal Divinity School president and dean, Dr. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale, “recalled the time she took a 15-year-old girl she had never met before to get an abortion”:

‘Although New Hampshire was closer to that girl’s home than Boston, as it happened, I did not take her across state lines,’ Ragsdale said. ‘Nor did I, to my knowledge, break any laws.’
‘But if either of those things had been necessary in order to help her, I would have done them,’ she continued. ‘And if helping young women like her should be made illegal I will, nonetheless, continue to do it.’
Ragsdale cited her vows as an Episcopal priest as the reason why she would “have no choice” but to break the law.

The modern leadership of the Episcopal Church might embrace abortion, but the Bible they claim to follow is decidedly less sympathetic. And doesn’t the church have anything to say about respecting parents’ relationships with their children, or whether their judgment and authority takes precedence over that of a complete stranger?

Read the rest at Live Action.

New at Live Action – A Berkley Professor Wonders Why More Americans Don’t Accept Abortion

Calvin Freiburger abortion, Berkley, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Live Action, polls

My latest Live Action post:

Implicit in most pro-abortion commentary is a certain level of frustration that there remain people who disagree with them. “It’s the 21st century and the Supreme Court has spoken; can’t you anti-choice yahoos get with the program?” This leads to all sorts of outlandish speculation about what really makes pro-lifers tick.

Yesterday, UC Berkley sociology professor Claude Fischer published his thoughts on the “abortion puzzle,” attempting to figure out why Americans are growing “notably more laissez-faire on most sexual issues,” but not abortion:

Before the Roe v. Wade decision on behalf of abortion rights perhaps 25% to 30% of Americans were inclined to say yes [abortion is acceptable for any reason]. Then opinions shifted a bit in the liberal direction. Since that initial shift, however, the distribution of opinions has changed little. The trend since Roe v. Wade is displayed in the blue line in the graph below. About 37% of Americans said yes to abortion on demand at the end of the 1970s and about 41% said yes at the end of the 2000s.
Contrast that to the change, three times greater, in the percentage who said that “sex relations before marriage… [is”] not wrong at all” — the red line — from about 38% at the end of the 1970s to about 51% at the end of the 2000s. And contrast that to the shift, five-fold greater, the green line, in the percentage of Americans who disagreed with the proposition that “Women should take care of running their homes and leave running the country up to men.” Another perspective on this compares generations of Americans. The generation born in the 1970s was far more liberal than the generation born in the 1910s on whether women should stay at home and on premarital sex (by over 30 points on each question). But the 1970s generation was only a bit more liberal on abortion than the 1910s generation (only 7 points more).   

To begin with, the premise’s question is flawed in two ways.

Read the rest at Live Action.

New at Live Action – Nancy Pelosi Wants to Force Georgetown Law to Subsidize Sandra Fluke’s Promiscuity

Calvin Freiburger abortion, birth control, culture, Georgetown, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Live Action, Obama, ObamaCare, Pelosi, promiscuity, responsibility, sex

My latest Live Action post:

Pro-abortion, anti-liberty zealot Rep. Nancy Pelosi has inadvertently done the pro-life cause a favor. On Monday the House Minority Leader held a congressional hearing on the cost of birth control, and the testimony of her witness, Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke, put the narcissism and disingenuousness of her cause on full display.

Without insurance coverage, contraception can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school. For a lot of students who, like me, are on public interest scholarships, that’s practically an entire summer’s salary. Forty percent of female students at Georgetown Law report struggling financially as a result of this policy. One told us of how embarrassed and powerless she felt when she was standing at the pharmacy counter, learning for the first time that contraception wasn’t covered, and had to walk away because she couldn’t afford it. Students like her have no choice but to go without contraception.

Craig Bannister at CNSNews.com did the math and found that “At a dollar a condom if she shops at CVS pharmacy’s website, that $3,000 would buy her 3,000 condoms – or, 1,000 a year.” Divide 1,000 by 365, and it seems Ms. Fluke wants us to believe Georgetown girls are “having sex 2.74 times a day, every day, for three straight years.” Considering that my friends and I (male and female alike) managed to survive four years of college without having any sex, I don’t think the Georgetown kids cutting down a little is too much to ask.

Read the rest at Live Action.

New at Live Action – Abortion Funding Muddies the Waters of DC Budget Controversy

Calvin Freiburger abortion, abortion funding, District of Columbia, Live Action, politics, pro-life
My latest Live Action post:
Because it is the nation’s capital, the District of Columbia works a little differently from most localities.
For starters, its budgets are subject to review by the United States Congress. The legislative branch of the federal government is currently considering whether or not to give DC greater control over its own budget, but the specter of abortion is complicating the decision.  The Huffington Post states:
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which oversees D.C. affairs, expressed his commitment late last year to giving budget autonomy to the District to help city government avoid a shutdown whenever Congress appears unable to pass a spending bill.
D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), Mayor Vincent Gray and others welcomed the proposal but reluctantly rejected the plan Issa unveiled in November because it contained a provision barring local funding for abortions — a move Issa said was necessary to win Republican votes.
Read the rest at Live Action.

New at Live Action – How Low Can You Go? Salon Writer Accuses Rick Santorum of Wanting Her Daughter Dead

Calvin Freiburger abortion, Left, liberalism, Live Action, politics, pro-choice, Salon, Santorum, slander
My latest Live Action post:
Once again proving how hated those who stand for life are in some corners of society, Sarah Fister Gale at Salon explains how Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum “would have killed my daughter.”
She explains how a prenatal test of her unborn baby’s amniotic fluid revealed that she had Rh negative disease, which would have been fatal to her if left undiscovered. The prenatal testing saved the child’s life by enabling Gale’s doctor to track her development, ensure that she was delivered at the safest time, given a full blood transfusion, and monitored to make certain the disease was eliminated. Thankfully, little Ella is alive and well today.
What does this have to do with Rick Santorum, though?

If Rick Santorum had his way, I wouldn’t have been able to get that test, and she most likely would have died. Because according to him, tests that give parents vital information about the health of their unborn children are morally wrong. Though he has no medical training, and no business commenting on the medical decisions that women and their doctors make, he argues that such tests shouldn’t be provided, or that employers at least should be allowed to opt out of paying for them on “moral grounds.”

Santorum’s position is that “People have the right to do it,” but not “to have the government force people to provide it free” because prenatal testing often leads to abortion. He noted that he was speaking from experience: “I have a child that has Trisomy 18. Almost 100 percent of Trisomy 18 children are encouraged to be aborted.” The facts support Santorum—92% of positive Down syndrome diagnoses, for instance, result in abortion.
Read the rest at Live Action.