What are you willing to give up?

What are you willing to give up until abortion ends?

I'm tempted to give up something easy--but that doesn't seem right.

Chocolate will be HARD to give up. But it's one I'm willing to make.

The whole site is really inspiring, it's based on a Whole Life concept which I love: I Am Whole Life.

Spread the word!

A movie review

If These Walls Could Talk (1996)

Yeah, it's about abortion. I watched it today because I'd forgotten to take it off my Netflix list.

The first story takes place in the 1950's, where a young widow has found herself pregnant after a one-night stand with her dead husband's brother. This being 1952, children are only a welcome blessing when conceived under the right circumstances-otherwise they are a sign of shame. And people want to bring those days back?

A desperate character (played by Demi Moore) desperately attempts to terminate the pregancy, first by overdosing on pills, then with a knitting needle, then finally with the services of an illegally operating doctor using unsterilzed equipment on her kitchen table. This first part of the film ends with her bleeding and desperately trying to call for help.

Story #2 opens in 1974. A mother of four (Sissy Spacek) is pregnant again--not what she'd wanted at this point in her life! Even more disturbing is the reaction of her hippie teenage daughter, who resents that she might have to go to a state college instead of the Ivy League school she wanted to go to. I wanted to strangle the braless know-it-all and scream "some of us had to pay our OWN way through college, you selfish child!". She wanted to kill her own sibling more than her mother did.

And in the end, the baby lived. If this portion had ended with an abortion, I don't think I could have made it through the rest of the movie.

Story #3, 1996. Anne Heche is a college student impregnated by a married professor. He breaks it off and hands her some money-not enough to support the child, but enough to get it taken care of. Way to take responsibility there, Professor. Heche's character is struggling with this as she's personally against abortion, as is her best friend (played by Jada Pinkett).

Heche makes a first trip to the local clinic alone. It is mostly peaceful there, the only protests being from a non-violent group of mostly older women praying rosaries in front of the clinic. When Heche approaches, they are polite and offer other options and will pray for her. Finally! A positive portrayal of pro-lifers.

She enters the clinic, but later changes her mind and leaves having not had the abortion.

I wish I could say the film ends there.

First we had Black Friday. SUCH a big deal to line up at the shops at 6am.

Now? Stores are open on Thanksgiving Day.

Not cool, retailers!

Mississippi Personhood Amendment

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/279742/distorting-mississippi-personhood-amendment-michael-j-new

While I'm not surprised that the media exaggerated this amendment, I do still have some questions.

What the bill says.

I have to ask the good people of Mississippi: do you have a plan to care for those children? Do you truly support ALL life? Got a universal health plan there to cover for it (I can only hope the U.S. would join the rest of the civilized world soon when it comes to health care)?

And because ALL life is important--what about those women for whom their pregnancy could kill them? While medical technology has vastly improved, I do know of at least one woman who would have died if an abortion was refused her: she miscarried one twin at 19 weeks and would have bled to death if the doctor hadn't removed the other fetus.

I'm struggling with this one. I do support the outlawing of abortion but I fear that not making exceptions when a woman's life is in danger will only vilify the pro-life movement.

LIVE: The Supreme Court upheld Troy Davis' death sentence.

Murder is happening under our very noses by the state of Georgia as we speak.

A Mother's Story

Martina Davis-Correia, sister of condemned man Troy Davis, speaks about her brother.

Troy is scheduled to die in three days for a crime he did not commit--please pray that the State of Georgia does not follow through with their crime!

Two things to write about today

First, the original Hippocratic oath:

I swear by Apollo, the healer, Asclepius, Hygieia, and Panacea, and I take to witness all the gods, all the goddesses, to keep according to my ability and my judgment, the following Oath and agreement:

To consider dear to me, as my parents, him who taught me this art; to live in common with him and, if necessary, to share my goods with him; To look upon his children as my own brothers, to teach them this art.

I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.

I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion.

But I will preserve the purity of my life and my arts.

I will not cut for stone, even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art.

In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction and especially from the pleasures of love with women or with men, be they free or slaves.

All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal.

If I keep this oath faithfully, may I enjoy my life and practice my art, respected by all men and in all times; but if I swerve from it or violate it, may the reverse be my lot.


Funny how we forget that bolded part as doctors now regularly perform abortions, give lethal drugs to the terminally ill on request, and are present at executions.


Second: Georgia will execute an innocent man in 10 days. Please join me in signing the petition to stop it, this cannot be allowed to happen!

Wow...bad taste ahead...

I know that here in the PNW we tend to take a casual attitude towards religion, but this is ridiculous.

No Hooters shirts in Mass, please.

Really now, folks...try to have at least a little respect for whatever religious house you're in!

Blood is thicker than...what?

I've accepted that my husband and I will never have children of our own. It's out of our control, things happened long ago, we're done worrying about it. We've talked adoption and are in the process of saving up for adoption fees.

Those closest to us are understanding, accept that what we're doing is what's best for us, and have offered nothing but love and support.

Our own parents have not been so supportive. Almost every week it's some passive-aggressive remark about how lovely it would be to have grandchildren around. When I mentioned adoption, the outcries of "I don't want someone ELSE'S grandchildren, I want MY grandchildren!" were enough to send me home in tears.

Every week I get some article in my inbox about the latest scientific breakthroughs in fertility technology (we're both against IVF and artificial methods in general) and guilt trips about how selfish we're being.

I'm sick of it. It's not just angering, it's heartbreaking.

Six years ago

In Iran, two teenage boys were publicly hanged.

Their 'crime'? Being homosexuals.

There are forces in this country who would like nothing more than to bring the same punishment down on GLBTQ persons. I shouldn't feel terror at this minority, and yet...this country could go either way and intolerance still abounds.

At 13, she was ruined

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/26/988771/-At-13,-She-Was-Ruined

I agreed with this article until they brought abortion into the picture (yeah, I know, big shock huh?).

I won't claim to know about Appalachian life or subculture. I'm pretty sheltered in my liberal city/suburban lifestyle and perhaps it's better that I am. I can't fathom of a world where teenage girls are routinely married off to men twice their age or more--and yes, I realize it's a common occurrence in many parts of the world even to this day.

A 13 year old is a child. A 30-something man is an adult. This *should* be red flag #1.

Said child is pregnant by 14 and increasingly isolated from her friends and schoolmates by both the adult man and the subculture around her. She herself is the child of a single mother, so the adult male marries her. She should be *thrilled*, right? After all, he's doing the "right thing" (never mind that the real "right thing" would have been to leave her alone in the first place).

Her husband ignored her requests for help when stated she wasn't feeling well (what would HE know of teenage pregnancy, I wonder), until it was too late and he came home to find her unconscious on the floor, severely brain-damaged from a stroke. The baby didn't make it.

No one blamed her husband for anything. Not even neglect, since now this poor girl would be brain damaged for life and never able to care for herself.

From the article: It's doubtful that she was ever given the option of having an abortion, or giving the baby up for adoption, or even raising the child on her own.

Abortion is not the answer. Proper healthcare (which I doubt this girl ever received) would have saved both her and her baby.

The chilling after effects of sex-selective abortion

Unnatural Selection.

I want to read this book. Framed in this light, I can't help but find myself wondering how any feminist could support abortion.

Why does the reason matter?

keep the Southwest in your thoughts and prayers!

Wallow fire nearing New Mexico border.

I don't normally support religious organizations, but I'm thrilled to discover His Nesting Place. A religious home for pregnant women that is unabashedly pro-life, supporting women even AFTER they've had their child.

21 week preemie now a healthy 7 pounds, will likely have no health problems.

What a medical miracle! And to think that so many people would still say it's okay to kill a child that far along...

Should I be happy that Osama bin Laden is dead?

On an instinctual level, I think anyone who was affected by the 9/11 attacks (which is pretty much EVERYONE who was around to remember it) is expressing some kind of positive emotion.

I cannot bring myself to cheer. A life unnecessarily taken is a life lost, regardless of the crimes.

People are all around chanting "we won!". But did we? In a decade we have gone from living in freedom to living in fear. Thousands of lives have been lost in the War on Terror, both at home and abroad. An entire religion of peace has been vilified due to the actions of a few extremists. The economy has gone from stable to an absolute disaster.

Osama bin Laden is dead. This doesn't mean it's over.

sigh

Sometimes reading my Facebook posts just makes me realize how much of a minority I am in my beliefs about human life.

A century later

100 years ago today, 146 garment workers died when a fire started in the factory they worked in. Why couldn't they escape?

The doors were locked.

An eyewitness describes the sight: Horrified and helpless, the crowds — I among them — looked up at the burning building, saw girl after girl appear at the reddened windows, pause for a terrified moment, and then leap to the pavement below, to land as mangled, bloody pulp. This went on for what seemed a ghastly eternity. Occasionally a girl who had hesitated too long was licked by pursuing flames and, screaming with clothing and hair ablaze, plunged like a living torch to the street. Life nets held by the firemen were torn by the impact of the falling bodies..

Some of the bodies were identified where they landed in the street. Others were identified by relatives in the morgue.

The youngest victims were barely teenagers. Most were immigrants.

If anyone ever wonders why I'm a liberal, here is a list of 146 reasons.

And now conservatives want to scale back on worker protection measures and break up unions. If you're one of those--what if one of your children was working in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory?

I can't believe I missed this

“My switch to pro-life had nothing to do with religion”

Dr. Bernard Nathanson, 1926-2011, abortion doctor turned pro-life advocate.

Sometimes, I wonder if it's hypocritical of me to now speak against abortion when I had one myself. And then I read about men like Dr. Nathanson, and I realize it's never too late to do the right thing.

budget cuts

All over the country, states are being forced to cut their budgets, which also includes things like family-planning and womens' health services (Planned Parenthood). I get it..the money has to come from somewhere. But where's the money to help the already poor families and children?

I don't like Planned Parenthood any more than any other pro-life woman, but there's got to be some kind of alternative to make sure families are being cared for.

Victims of an ongoing tragedy

Photos of late-term fetuses included in grand jury report speak of horrifying conditions at clinic.

Warning: shocking and disturbing photos in the link.

EDIT: The full report can be found at http://operationrescue.org/pdfs/GrandJuryWomensMedical.pdf.

A sad anniversary indeed

Today, January 22, 2011 marks the 38th anniversary of Roe V. Wade. This decision has caused over 53,000,000 innocent human beings to lose their lives to voluntary pregnancy terminations (abortions). Today I am changing my status for life, to stand in unity with other pro-lifers against this horrible tragedy. Stand with me for life, copy and paste this status for one hour today.

Thank you, Cam, for posting this...I will be leaving it here on my blog as I don't use Facebook, but I encourage others to repost!

the birth of a moral compass

On this day in 1929, a great man was born. 39 years later he was brutally murdered.

He fought for equality, and even more importantly he stood for the right of all persons to live, born or unborn.

On January 17, 2000, Martin Luther King Jr.s niece, Alveda King, spoke at a pro-life meeting at Faneuil Hall of Boston University. She said:

"What would Martin Luther King say if he saw the skulls of babies at the bottom of abortion pits? If Martin Luther King's dream is to live, our babies must live. We have been fueled by the fires of women's rights. What about the rights of the baby who is artifically breached. We can't sit idly by and allow legal murder." (Martin Luther King's Niece Supports Right To Life, Boston University Daily Free Press, 18 January 2000, p.1)

Abortion, Alveda stated, "has done what the Klan could only dream of".
http://margaretsanger.blogspot.com/2007/08/niece-of-martin-luther-king-jr-abortion.html


Think about it. In YOUR city, what is the racial makeup of the neighborhoods that the abortion clinics are located in?

Email

I've given up on my mail.com account, I dislike the platform and Google is so much nicer.

Love me? Hate me? Convinced I'm just a teensy bit off-kilter? Write me at cgburns28@gmail.com.


In other news...it can stop snowing now. Like, anytime. Really.

a reminder about humanity.

Below is a copied list saved from the site Listverse, which I follow mainly because it appeals to my inner trivia nerd.

This list, however, was so controversial that the site owner took it down quickly and issued an apology.

I don't think it should have been removed. It stands as a chilling reminder about the evil that can occur when we stop thinking of a particular group of people as human. Some of the photos are graphic. History shouldn't be sugarcoated.

Ten Targeted Mass Killings

10
Trans-Atlantic Chattel Slavery

Dates: 1502 to 1888
Deaths: Exact numbers unknown, but definitely in the tens of millions.

From the time the Spanish first brought African slaves to the New World until Brazil became the last Western Hemisphere nation to abolish slavery, the trafficking in humans and the use of enslaved Africans for labor caused the deaths of staggering numbers of people. Men, women, and children were born, raised, and died under the lash and in chains. We Americans fought a War Between the States in order to end slavery, but our hands were not the only ones bloody. Slavery was alive and well on the plantations of South America for over twenty years after the Civil War. A nation of people was enslaved simply because of the color of their skins.

9
The March of the Conquistadors


Dates: 1492 to 1616
Deaths: Virtually the whole of the Aztec, Incan, and other Meso-American nations.

From the first contact under Columbus until around 1616 when they finally realized El Dorado really wasn’t out in the desert wastes of the American Southwest, the Spanish Conquistadors carved a swathe through the native nations and cultures of South, Central, and North America. The destruction is legendary: Cortez and the extermination of the Aztecs; Pizzarro and defeat of the Incas; and other conquests small and great in the threefold pursuit of God, Gold, and Glory. The Spanish took the best of the native cultures, such as cocoa and tomatoes and left the worst of European culture, such as smallpox and slavery. We white folk wouldn’t be here in the Americas today without Columbus, et al, but is that necessarily a good thing? Depends on who one asks. The Incas, at least, got some measure of revenge by the introduction of a little evergreen plant to the Europeans. It’s called the coca plant and it’s child, cocaine and all the misery associated with it, is one of the ultimate prices the Europeans would pay for the bloodsoaked land.

8
American Westward Expansion


Dates: 1607 to 1912
Deaths: Hundreds of millions of Native Americans

In 1607, Jamestown was founded and in 1912, Arizona became the last of the 48 contiguous states to join the United States of America. In between, the European, mostly white, settlers of the Original 13 Colonies moved slowly from the Atlantic to the Pacific, claiming all the land in between as their own. Unfortunately, the land wasn’t empty. Far from it, it was instead occupied by many varied nations of Native Americans with vibrant cultures as diverse as the sands on a beach. The settlers and the government troops that backed them more or less killed them all. Following the credo that “the only good Indian (was) a dead Indian”, the US Army slaughtered villages of natives, who, when they decided to fight back, were deemed savages unworthy of protection. The tribes who didn’t or couldn’t fight anymore ended up on tiny reservations as the nation they helped nurture early on turned its back on them. The Native Americans are extracting some measure of revenge now, however. Compulsive gambling at tribal owned casinos all over the country is paying the white man back for his wholesale slaughter of a proud people.

7
Australian Treatment of Aborigines


Dates: 1829 to 1975
Deaths: Unknown for certain. Likely in the thousands as well as the death of much of the Aboriginal culture.

Early in the settlement of Australia, relations between the European settlers and the Aborigines was civil and curious. Beginning about 1819, however, things changed and all legal protection was stripped from Australia’s natives, just as their land had been stripped from them as well. The next 150 would see Aborigines shot at will, lashed to death for the theft of a handful of flour, and, most heinously, cut off from their traditional watering holes by fences. Of all the atrocities visited upon the black Australians by the whites, however, nothing could equal the forcible removal of Aboriginal children from their homes and villages to be raised and educated in white boarding schools in an effort to eradicate Aboriginal culture. These “Stolen Generations” were a blatant attempt at a “superior” culture to destroy an “inferior” one.

6
Slaughter of the Armenians


Dates: April 24, 1915 to November 11, 1917
Deaths: between one and one and a half million men, women, and children.

Under the Ottoman Empire’s rule, Armenians had always been relegated to second class citizens, but with the coming of the First World War, the chaos involved enabled the Ottoman rulers like Talat Pasha to move against the Armenians with ruthless efficiency. On 13 September 1915, the Ottoman parliament passed the “Temporary Law of Expropriation and Confiscation”, stating that all property, including land, livestock, and homes belonging to Armenians, was to be confiscated by the authorities. Basically, anything belonging to an Armenian now belonged to the Ottoman Empire. The Armenians were rounded up and herded into concentration type camps as far away as the Syrian Desert. Eyewitness accounts of atrocities such as churches being filled with people then locked and burned abound. Mobile killing squads, eerily foreshadowing the einsatzgruppen of the Nazis, roamed the country rounding up pockets of Armenians and slaughtering them. It is this historical event that Adolf Hitler used in part to justify his own destruction of the minorities of Europe famously saying, “who now speaks of the killing of the Armenians?”

5
Japanese Rape of China


Dates: July 7, 1937 – September 9, 1945
Deaths: 20 to 35 million Chinese soldiers and civilians

For sheer brutality, the behind the scenes activities during the Second Sino-Japanese War are hard to surpass. The Japanese took few prisoners and left little standing in their eight year assault on China. The official policy of the Empire of Japan was succinctly stated as “the three alls” – kill all, loot all, burn all. Some incidents, such as the Rape of Nanking are famous in their own right. Many have no doubt heard of the famous “contest” between two Japanese officers to see who could behead 1,000 people the fastest with their samurai swords. Simply put, the Japanese strove to kill every Chinese person they could find and only the destruction of the Japanese war machine during the Second World War prevented them from accomplishing what most pundits have claimed is impossible, namely the eradication of the Chinese people.

4
The Nazi Killing Machine


Dates: 1933 to May 8, 1945
Deaths: At least 11 million people and very likely many, many more.

This is not about the Holocaust, though that is a facet. Instead, this entry is more about the Nazi attempt to exterminate the “subhumans” to purify the “Aryan” race. Of course, everyone knows about the horrendous condition of the Jews, but the Nazis also nearly succeeded in wiping out the Roma and Sinti tribes most people commonly refer to as Gypsys. Soviet civilians were treated at partisans whether they were armed or not. Soviet POWs were slaughtered wholesale. To be Catholic, homosexual, a Jehovah’s Witness, or any of the other multitude of “criminal classifications” under the Nazi regime was a death sentence. The Nazis automated mass murder in a way never seen before or since. They killed anyone who was different.

3
The Killing Fields


Dates: 1975 to 1979
Deaths: 1.4 to 2.5 million

The Killing Fields were a number of sites in Cambodia where large numbers of people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge regime, during its rule of the country from 1975 to 1979, immediately after the end of the Vietnam War. At least 200,000 people were executed by the Khmer Rouge (while estimates of the total number of deaths resulting from Khmer Rouge policies, including disease and starvation, range from 1.4 to 2.2 million out of a population of around 7 million). In 1979, Vietnam invaded and toppled the Khmer Rouge regime ending four years of brutality. During their time in power, the Khmer Rouge expelled almost all of the Vietnamese population living in Cambodia and the Chinese community (about 425,000 people in 1975) was reduced to 200,000.

2
Hutu Slaughter of Tutsi in Rwanda


Dates: May to July 1994 Deaths: 800,000 to 1,000,000 people

There is no genetic or ethnic difference between a Hutu and a Tutsi. Those terms were imposed by the Belgian colonial governors during the 19th century. Unfortunately, some people took their labels a little too seriously and for nearly a century, the two groups were at best acrimonious towards each other. At their worst, they resulted in the killings of 1994. In reprisal against the Tutsi dominated government of Rwanda, the more numerous Hutus, under the leadership of groups collectively called Hutu Power, started slaughtering their neighbors and colleagues at work while the rest of the world looked on in mild shock. For three months, killing squads roamed the countryside hacking people to death with machetes over a supposed difference that truly didn’t even exist.

1
Legalized Abortion


Dates: January 22, 1973 – present
Deaths: a few million people and at least three doctors, plus numerous innocent bystanders during clinic bombings and the like.

This final entry is not about pro-choice vs anti-choice or about the morality of abortion. It is about the indisputable fact that several million more people would be alive in the United States today if not for Legalized Abortion. In this case, living people are able to impose their wills on those not yet alive. As a result, the population is somewhat smaller than it would be otherwise. As a corollary to the whole affair, some anti-abortion activists have turned terrorist or outright murderers and as a result, several good and decent people have gone to an early grave. No matter one’s stance, it must be realized that abortion has controlled the population. Now remember, before you comment, that the title of this list is “10 targeted mass killings”; there is no doubt that millions of babies have been killed by abortion which is an operation which expressly intends to kill unborn children. Thus it meets the requirement.

The correlation between abortions and infertility

The liberal feminist backlash

Shorthand version: columnist Ross Douthat pointed out in The New York Times that there's an interesting tension in America between "the burden of unwanted pregnancies and the burden of infertility." (The Wire cited Douthat's column in its Monday 5 Best roundup.) Douthat wrote that while some women long to have children but are biologically unable, others find themselves contemplating abortion in the midst of an unwanted pregnancy. He went on to note that adoption rates have declined since 1973--the year Roe v. Wade was decided--and lamented that so many pregnant women choose to have abortions rather than give birth and allow their children to be adopted.

Pro-choice feminist responses, as one can imagine, have been huge (and, obviously, not in support). Yeah, I'm not surprised.

Now, one woman's infertility in no way obligates another woman contemplating abortion to give the baby to her instead. What bothers me is the implication that there somehow is a connection, and that a pregnant woman who is considering abortion is in anyway obligated to give her baby to some other woman (likely upper-class, given the prohibitive expenses involved in adoption).

What bothers me is the lack of understanding from the baby's perspective. Abortion isn't wrong because it denies an infertile couple someone else's baby. As one response pointed out, babies aren't a commodity.

They're HUMAN BEINGS. There shouldn't need to be any other argument against abortion!

And no, Jill Filipovic, "valuing life" does not mean "punishing women". Unless you want to punish the unborn woman that might be in your own womb.