Prager U’s latest course: “Is there such a thing as objective morality? If there is, does that suggest a moral law giver? Peter Kreeft, distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Boston College, takes on these critical questions and offers some challenging answers.”
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New Prager University Video: Capital Punishment
The latest from Prager University:
Is it immoral for the state to kill convicted murderers? Is it immoral for the state not to? Best selling author and nationally syndicated radio talk show host Dennis Prager answers both questions in this powerful five minute presentation.
New at Live Action – "I Don’t Want This Child": NY Times Columnist Unintentionally Reveals the Cultural Corruption of Abortion
My latest Live Action post:
Abortion does more than kill; it corrupts. It’s impossible to participate in or support the practice without its twisted morality rubbing off.Case in point: on April 14, New York Times columnist Susan Heath wrote about an allegedly better time in American history, when she was able to get an abortion without fear of bombings, excessive regulation of “constitutionally protected procedures,” or slut-shaming.For the record, she’s wrong on each point – anti-abortion violence is practiced only by an infinitesimal sliver of abortion opponents and overwhelmingly condemned by the rest; abortion is judicially protected but not protected by the actual text of the Constitution; and regrettable though it was that Rush Limbaugh called contraception activist Sandra Fluke a “slut” (which he apologized for), it had nothing to do with abortion, but rather Fluke’s testimony implying that college students were having so much sex they were going broke, which she demanded be alleviated through government intervention.She goes on to describe why in 1978, after becoming pregnant with her fifth child, she decided she simply didn’t want another – “I’ve got other things to do, and I don’t have it in me to be a good enough mother to a fifth child” – and how nice it was to get an abortion without the torment of “pickets shouting at me” or counselors “showing me pictures of fetuses.” No muss, no fuss, no “judgment.”Good for her. Too bad her son or daughter wasn’t so lucky.
Read the rest at Live Action.
New at Live Action – Is the WI Pro-Life Community to Blame for Planned Parenthood Arsonist?
My latest Live Action post:
Francis Grady, the 50-year-old Wisconsin man who set fire to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, is pleading guilty to his crime, bringing the mystery that began Sunday night to a relatively quick close:
The criminal complaint indicates police say Grady used a hammer to break a window, and poured gasoline from a plastic bottle to start the fire.
After being arrested, the complaint states Grady admitted to officers, “I lit up the clinic.”
His motive for what he did? He said “because they’re killing babies there.”Talking Points Memo reports that authorities are now investigating whether Grady had any prior involvement with the Wisconsin pro-life movement:
Grand Chute Police Chief Greg Peterson said investigators in the case learned that Grady may have been involved in past protests at the office. The information was so far unconfirmed, Peterson said, but it is being looked at closely by the team of local and federal investigators handling the case.
“There was some indication that surfaced at some point that he has been involved in some of the demonstrations,” Peterson told TPM. But the chief described the information as coming from “someone who didn’t have direct knowledge,” so there was still more work to be done.If Grady was passionate enough about abortion to attempt arson at an abortion clinic, then I’d be more surprised if he didn’t attend a pro-life demonstration or two. But the significance of that would be what, exactly? Whenever you attend any decent-sized rally or protest, odds are you’ll have in-depth interaction with only a few people.
Read the rest at Live Action.
New at Live Action: Partial-Birth Abortion Defender Claims Phone-Calling Protestors Are More Offensive Than Killing Babies
My latest Live Action post:
The abortion crowd has so much invested in the narrative that pro-lifers are bullies that finding an actual example of pro-life misbehavior to exploit must feel like an early Christmas present. Washington Post columnist Petula Dvorak tells the tale of Todd Stave, the landlord of a Maryland abortion clinic where partial-birth abortions were performed by the notorious LeRoy Carhart, who’s had enough of the harassment anti-abortion protestors have allegedly subjected him to:
[H]is tormentors crossed the line last fall when a big group showed up at his daughter’s middle school on the first day of classes and again at back-to-school night. They had signs displaying his name and contact information as well as those gory images of the fetuses.
‘What parent wants to have that conversation with an 11-year-old on the first day of school?’ he fumed.
Soon after that, the harassing calls started coming to his home. By the dozens, at all hours.Stave, however, didn’t take this lying down:
He began to take down the names and phone numbers of people who made unwanted calls. And he gave the information to his friends and asked them to call these folks back.
‘In a very calm, very respectful voice, they said that the Stave family thanks you for your prayers,’ he said. ‘They cannot terminate the lease, and they do not want to. They support women’s rights.’
This started with a dozen or so friends, and then it grew. Soon, more than a thousand volunteers were dialing.
If they could find the information, Stave’s supporters would ask during the callbacks how the children in the family were doing and mention their names and the names of their schools. ‘And then,’ Stave said, ‘we’d tell them that we bless their home on such and such street,’ giving the address.
The family of a protester who called Stave’s home could get up to 5,000 calls in return.Obviously, harassing a man’s children crosses the decency line, no matter the cause. And if a call to his home was truly threatening, I’m not about to get worked up over Stave turning the tables on that caller.
But looking up their children’s names and schools?
Read the rest at Live Action.
New at Live Action – Wisconsin Pulls the Plug on Webcam Abortions
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 – Shocker: Episcopal Priest Brags That She’d Break the Law to Give Minors the "Blessing" of Abortion
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 – Newt Gingirch Reminds America That the Media Covered for Barack Obama’s Baby Killing Past
My latest Live Action post:
Each presidential candidate had his ups and downs in last night’s CNN Republican debate, but former House Speaker Newt Gingrich had the evening’s most memorable moment. Moderator John King posed the following question:
Since “birth control” is the latest hot topic, which candidates believe in birth control and if not, why?
The audience’s raucous booing made clear they weren’t interested in the press’s latest talking point, and neither was Gingrich. He turned the tables beautifully:
I want to make two quick points, John. The first is there is a legitimate question about the power of the government to impose on religion activities which any religion opposes. That’s legitimate. But I just want to point out, you did not once in the 2008 campaign, not once did anybody in the elite media ask why Barack Obama voted in favor of legalizing infanticide. So let’s be clear here. If we’re going to have a debate about who is the extremist on these issues, it is President Obama, who, as a state senator, voted to protect doctors who killed babies who survived the abortion.
Right on cue, Naureen Khan of National Journal sprang into action to defend the president and the press:
According to Politifact, an independent fact-checking organization that looked into similar claims made by former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum on the campaign trail, Obama voiced his opposition to the new legislation as a state senator because it would have given legal status to fetuses and would thus have been struck down by the courts, and because Illinois already had laws to ensure infants who survived abortions would be given medical attention.
Not true…
Read the rest at Live Action. (I’ve previously examined Obama’s abortion extremism here, here, and here.)
What Is the Libertarian Position on Abortion? UPDATED
That is the question posed by Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey to Reason Magazine’s Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie for their “Ask A Libertarian” video series:
Ed reacts with appreciation for a “measured, thoughtful response.” As you might expect, I’m not so charitable.
No, Ed, this was not a thoughtful response. A thoughtful response would have asked what the scientific evidence reveals about the humanity of the unborn, and the discussed how the answer relates to the nature of liberty (you know, the root word of “libertarian”) and the libertarian purpose of government. Instead, all we got was platitudes about respecting differing views wrapped around, quite frankly, Naziesque talk of a “sliding scale of humanity” and how “definitions of life and death change with time.” Gillespie even admits that the sliding scale is an intuitive idea, rather than a logical argument.
I’ll be the first to acknowledge that there are principled, consistent libertarians out there, like Libertarians for Life, who embrace the full implications of the statements “all men are created equal” and “to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.” But in what might be the most disturbing part of the video, Welch claims that only about 30% of libertarians call themselves pro-life. If that number is accurate (and I don’t know if it is), then that confirms my worst suspicions about libertarianism being merely a form of liberalism that wants to keep its paycheck rather than a sincere, coherent liberty ethos.
But hey, that moral and intellectual confusion is one of the reasons I’m a conservative and not a libertarian. That’s their knot to untangle, and I hope for the sake of the Right as a broader coalition that pro-life libertarians are successful in untangling it.
UPDATE: Speaking of libertarians and social issues, Ann Coulter nukes Ron Paul and company along similar lines, in a column so good we’ll let slide her misguided infatuation with Chris Christie:
Most libertarians are cowering frauds too afraid to upset anyone to take a stand on some of the most important cultural issues of our time. So they dodge the tough questions when it suits their purposes by pretending to be Randian purists, but are perfectly comfortable issuing politically expedient answers when it comes to the taxpayers’ obligations under Medicare and Social Security.
If they could only resist sucking up to Rolling Stone-reading, status-obsessed losers, they’d probably be interesting to talk to.
In my book “Demonic: How the Liberal Mob is Endangering America,” I make the case that liberals, and never conservatives, appeal to irrational mobs to attain power. There is, I now recall, one group of people who look like conservatives, but also appeal to the mob. They’re called “libertarians.”
Politically Incorrect Question of the Day
Why don’t the defense attorneys in the Casey Anthony trial simply argue that their client performed an eleventh-trimester abortion?
Conservative Standards 