This is why Dr Tiller was murdered.

Abortion criminalizers reserve their most strident shrieeekkking for late-term abortions. As a result of their hateful propaganda, their campaigns of never-ending harassment and their acts of terrorism, the vast majority of obstetricians will refer such heart-wrenching cases to doctors who have the skills and the facilities to provide this medical intervention.

In July last year, in order to counter the loathsome lies that the opponents of contraception and abortion put on their websites, Hot Flash Report posted this at their blogsite.

I'm going to discuss Fetal anomalies in detail because this is the number one reason women get abortions past 24 weeks. That's why I call them Mercy Abortions. One of the largest providers of late abortions, Dr. George Tiller in Wichita KS, has been the object of harassing investigations by Kansas authorities, culminating in an unprecedented Grand Jury trial prompted by anti-abortionists. He was just recently vindicated and the Grand Jury refused to bring charges.

But, his detractors won't stop, and more harassment is anticipated. ... These doctors are extremely compassionate and committed medical professionals. I've been to both clinics and have known them personally and can attest to their credibility as both doctors and humane individuals.

Without a doubt, the number one reason for abortions past 24 weeks is the late discovery of a fetal anomaly incompatible with life. I've talked with many women who find themselves in this situation and it is always an extremely difficult and heart wrenching situation. Many women even underwent infertility treatments to become pregnant. ...

You're 28 weeks along and the OB/GYN that's been caring for you can't help you out. You see, the hospital where he practices will gladly take your money and let you give birth there, but they won't let your OB/GYN perform a Mercy Abortion on you so that you can maintain your fertility for future pregnancies and lessen the devastation on you and your family by ending the pregnancy now.

Oh no. The powers that be want you to carry that anencephalic baby for 10 more weeks, then give birth, then slowly watch it die right in front of your eyes. Now, if that's how you want to handle the situation, fine. But, if you'd like a more merciful ending to this tragic situation, a trip to Dr. Tiller or Dr. Hern might be in order. For now, that is.

You say. "This is just an isolated instance." Oh no ... this scenario is played out every day. And many of the families that this happens to are anti-abortion. But, at that moment where they are told that the pregnancy is flawed, many choose the Mercy Abortion to alleviate their suffering and the suffering of their child. Mercy Abortions are also extremely necessary in maintaining the woman's fertility so that a successful pregnancy can be possible in the future.

So, as Democrats committed to pro-choice values, let's not jump into the Rovian trap that the anti-abortion framing has given us on late abortions. They have demonized a procedure that mercifully saves women and promotes healthy families. It may be you or someone in your family that needs a Mercy Abortion in the future.

Fox News is reporting that Dr George Tiller was a Christian and a good man. Too late - sanctimonious back-pedaling will not "right" the years of biased reporting fed by the undiluted rantings of organizations like Operation Rescue, which posted home addresses, personal details and photographs of the staff who worked at the Wichita maternal health clinic on their public website.

Update: JJ at unrepentant old hippie reports that the alleged murderer of Dr Tiller is a fundamentalist religious anti-choice nut who posted at Operation Rescue.

Pity the poor abortion criminalizers.

Pity the poor abortion criminalizers for they cannot rejoice out loud.

Shed a tear for their plight; Bill Donohue and Jill Stanek stewing in their venom, silenced because their noisy jubilation could attract unwanted FBI attention.

Consider their dilemma: for years they've directed murderous hatred towards health care practitioners who provide abortion and now they're not able to claim the glory.

So sad for the members of the Vulture Culture who want to embrace the man who shot Dr George Tiller dead in the lobby of his church.

Life is unfair, they cannot trumpet that this is a MASSIVE victory for their side, lest they be charged as co-conspirators in this public assassination.

Edited to add: And now Operation Rescue is obliged to lie ... to LIE!!! to cover up any perceived complicity in this deliberate act of terrorism.

Dr George Tiller Murdered

We called it here. The insanity that is rightwingnuttery in the US has -- as was inevitable -- manifested in the murder of Dr George Tiller.

Here is the complete story at the moment:

George Tiller shot to death at Wichita church
BY STAN FINGER
The Wichita Eagle
George Tiller, the Wichita doctor who became a national lightning rod in the debate over abortion, was shot to death this morning as he walked into church services
Tiller was shot just after 10 a.m. at Reformation Lutheran Church at 7601 E. 13th, where he was a member of the congregation. An anonymous police source confirmed Tiller was the victim.

A very brave man. A very sick society.

UPDATE: A bit more here. Suspect, white male in his 50s, fled the scene.

UPDATE 2: If you have the stomach for it: Freepers respond.

UPDATE 3: Suspect in custody.

UDATE 4: Sanctimonious statements from the Forced-Pregnancy Gang. I particularly like these two (emphasis mine):

"I am saddened to hear of the killing of George Tiller this morning. At this point, we do not know the motives of this act, or who is behind it, whether an angry post-abortive man or woman, or a misguided activist, or an enemy within the abortion industry, or a political enemy frustrated with the way Tiller has escaped prosecution. We should not jump to conclusions or rush to judgment.

"But whatever the motives, we at Priests for Life continue to insist on a culture in which violence is never seen as the solution to any problem. Every life has to be protected, without regard to their age or views or actions."

--Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life

George Tiller was a mass-murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God. I am more concerned that the Obama Administration will use Tiller's killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions. Abortion is still murder. And we still must call abortion by its proper name; murder.

Those men and women who slaughter the unborn are murderers according to the Law of God. We must continue to expose them in our communities and peacefully protest them at their offices and homes, and yes, even their churches.

Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue

Eureka!

As several bloggers and commenters have noted, at a glance one can assess HER state of mind by the amount of fetal pron SHE decorates HER posts with. And lately there's been a ton.

So, while I declined HER invitation to a show-down at the Fetus Fetishist Corral here, I was following the discussion.

When I read the following comment, it seemed clear that her last remaining neuron had exploded with a tiny shrieeeek of its own.

SHE is replying to a comment by JJ, who said: 'Most of us feel this is a private personal matter, about as "up for debate" as what kind of feminine hygiene protection we use.'

But JJ, the thing I'm advancing is not ultimately about abortion.

I'm advancing that all innocent human beings, including the unborn, deserve an unqualified right to life that trumps every other right.

It's not ultimately about abortion. I don't care if abortion is considered private or not.

I don't care that the decision to abort is the result of a grave personal circumstance.

It conflicts with what I am advancing, namely that fetuses are people, too. The fact that they are inside a woman's body doesn't give her a license to kill.

See, that's the debate, really.

If there was no debate-- and by that I mean no controversy-- about the status of the fetus, I would AGREE with you.

But feminists don't talk about the fetus.

That's why it is considered a non-debate.

I am talking about the fetus.

That's the debate.

*backing slowly away* Riiiiight.

I backed all the way over to JJ's to ask 'WTF?'

The always wise JJ replied:

fern hill – She’s talking about fetal rights :roll: In her somewhat convoluted way, I think what she’s saying is that she doesn’t care if women have abortions, as long as they don’t hurt the fetus :shock:

Eureka! I got it! By george, I got it!

SHE's totally OK with abortion as long as no fetuses are harmed.

So, like, then, I can be totally OK with capital punishment as long as no one is strung up, electrocuted, lethally injected, beheaded, or you know, killed.

Seriously. This is why I say again: fuck the debate.

Too delicious to hide away.

Over at Dawg's Blawg, a lively discussion about pedophile priests in the comment box here, Christ 1; Church 0, has moved on and spilled over into this more recent one - Organized religion and child abuse, Part 3. The neo-con blogger known as Raphael 'Ruffles' Alexander who has achieved minor recognition for the shallowness of his knowledge as well as for his propensity for non sequiturs, misogyny and xenophobia offered the following nugget:

"The biggest obstacle I see to child abuse being cleansed in the Roman Catholic Church is liberal reforms that allow priests to marry, and becoming more accountable and responsive to allegations of abuse from those priests."

Huh? Child abuse can be "cleansed"? WTF does that even mean? And what's that about "liberal reforms" being the "biggest obstacle"? And whatever the point of that incoherent statement is, does it even begin to address the MASSIVE campaigns of sexual terror waged by serial pedophile priests such as Charles Sylvestre?

Nonetheless, Peter - a frequent commenter at Dr Dawg's - had a witty rejoinder to Ruffles:

"Yes, Raphael, we defenders of traditional marriage often argue that it's good for children, but I don't recall ever seeing that particular angle. I don't know if you are married, but if you are, do you silently thank your wife on your anniversary for helping to save the neighbourhood kiddies from you?"

That exchange was simply too delicious to leave tucked away in a combox.

Saturday Comix

SHE fibs. Go read pretty shaved ape at Canadian Cynic. The finest example of a smack down this side of Pharyngula.

Meanwhile, over at unrepentant old hippie, the laughs never stop as we take a crack at completing the Blob Blogging Wingnut-coined expression: Extremist Canadian Feminist Pro-Abort Runs …

what? what? How about:

Extremist Canadian Feminist Pro-Abort Runs … with the deer, the bunny rabbits and the chipmunks. Yup. You got it.

We were once Snow White but sadly, we drifted.

In 1 ... 2 ... 3 .... Shrieeek!

This was completely predictable, of course.

A Senior Vatican figure, Spanish Cardinal Antonio Canizares, prefect for the Congregation of the Divine Worship, this week appeared to downplay the findings of the Ryan report when suggesting that the millions of lives lost through abortion represent a much more serious crime against humanity than clerical sex abuse.

How candid. Feminazis that we are here at DAMMIT JANET! we thought that the logic behind his statement deserved a closer look.

Oh, looky here.

Christine Buckley, barely a month old was found guilty of being the child of an unwed mother. For decades, such “sins” were sufficient to land children — and more than 30,000 others — in workhouse-style schools for girls and boys run by the
Roman Catholic Church.

At such schools, according to a long-awaited report Wednesday, children were beaten, sexually abused and emotionally terrorized for more than half a century.

A “culture of silence” protected victimizers rather than the children in their care — consigning generations of Ireland’s poorest children to misery, Ireland’s Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse has concluded. ...

These are some of the findings of the controversial 2,600-page report unveiled in Dublin on Wednesday after a nine-year investigation. Drawing on the testimony of nearly 2,000 witnesses, men and women who attended more than 200 Catholic-run schools from the 1930s to the 1990s, the commission painted a damning picture of a church engaged too often in covering up misdeeds instead of rooting out their perpetrators.

The panel found that sexual molestation was “endemic,” committed by offenders who were often transferred to other institutions rather than dismissed or turned over to authorities. ...The five-volume report is a major blow for a religious institution that continues to wield significant influence on Irish society, especially on moral issues such as divorce and abortion.

Nonetheless, it wasn’t tough enough for some of the victims who lobbied long and hard for an official investigation. Many are angry that the report includes no names of alleged offenders, an omission that one of the religious orders under investigation fought for — and won — in court. Only pseudonyms are used, making slim the chances of criminal prosecution based on the report’s findings.

“I do genuinely believe that it would have been a further step towards our healing if our abusers had been named and shamed,” said Buckley, now 62.

She spent the first 18 years of her life in a Dublin orphanage where she said children were forced to manufacture rosaries — and were humiliated, beaten and raped whether they achieved their quota or not.

Rosaries, hmmm. Who knew the Vatican Taliban was concerned with the loss of enslaved child-labour in Ireland? It's no wonder then that Blob Blogging Wingnut is so ecstatic about the growing encroachment of Catholicism in China. If "sinful" women are forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, then it would certainly be financially salutory for such children born "in sin" to labour in rosaries-manufacturing sweat-shops run by the Catholic Church - covertly of course.

Survival

Two news stories about the harm done to children caught my attention today.

A 5-year-old Russian girl found in a filthy apartment imitating the cats and dogs she was shut up with has been placed in state custody as authorities consider neglect charges against her father and other relatives. Officials said the girl barks like a dog, laps food directly off the plate and seems to have been "raised" by the animals.

Police in the Transbaikal region of Siberia said Wednesday that the girl was kept shut up with the animals in the regional capital, Chita. She lived in the apartment with relatives, including her father and grandparents. ...

The ITAR-Tass news agency cited the girl's mother as saying the child's father had taken her away without her permission when she was 2 1/2 years old. But the father claimed his mother-in-law had asked him to take the child because the mother was not taking proper care of her, the news agency quoted regional police spokesman Yegor Markov as saying.

And the reason that anyone would believe the veracity of what this man claims to justify the criminal neglect of his daughter is ....?

New Mexico authorities say a 7-year-old girl drove her father's Jeep in an attempt to get help after he was ejected in a rollover crash east of Clovis. Elizabeth Kazza got about three miles from the crash site when a motorist spotted her trying to drive the wrecked Jeep and stopped to help, the Albuquerque Journal reported Wednesday. ...

Authorities say the girl's father, Guillermo Montes, 40, was speeding and lost control ... Elizabeth and her 3-year-old brother were unrestrained in the Jeep at the time of the crash, Glascock said. They told investigators Montes had driven to Clovis to buy beer and was drinking while heading back to his home in Bovina.

Little girls often do what needs to be done to survive, especially when the adult caring for them is an incompetent or irresponsible parent.

Palling around with terrorists

For undisclosed reasons, the OPP will not pursue charges against convicted murderer and domestic terrorist James Kopp.

James Kopp, serving a life sentence for killing a U.S. doctor who performed abortions, will not face charges in the attempted murder of an Ancaster physician, the OPP say.

"Following consultation with the Hamilton Crown Attorney's office on the evidence relating to the attempted murder of Dr. Hugh Short, the Ontario Provincial Police and Hamilton Police Service joint investigation team has decided not to proceed with charges at this time," according to a press release.

Short was shot and wounded by a sniper in his Ancaster home in November 1995.

Check out Kopp's story and Canadian links.

Meanwhile, Kopp continues to be the main suspect in three non-fatal shootings of Canadian doctors: Dr. Garson Romalis in Vancouver (1994), Dr. Hugh Short in Hamilton (1995), and Dr. Jack Fainman in Winnipeg (1997). He was charged in the Hamilton shooting after DNA evidence was found at the scene that matched Kopp's hairs. Kopp is also a suspect in a fourth non-fatal shooting in Rochester, New York—Dr. David Gandell (1997). All five victims, including Dr. Slepian, were shot through a window of their home by a sniper hiding behind the house, armed with an assault rifle.

The cops have Kopp's DNA from the Ancaster scene? And they're not pursuing the case? WTF?

Sure, I understand that Kopp will die in prison in the US, but he likely shot three Canadian doctors. And we don't seem to care about proving this? Finding out who helped him in Canada?

Me, I wanna know who Kopp was palling around with in Canada.

A Campaign Against Unwanted Pregnancy

... in Nigeria. Cue the shrieeeking from Blob Blogging Wingnut and the foaming-at-the-mouth hyperbole from SoWrongOrNuts. Because here are the facts - also known as a reality check - as presented by the Executive Director of the Campaign Against Unwanted Pregnancy, Dr. Boniface Oye-Adeniran, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist:

"The general public needs to become more enlightened on issues of unwanted pregnancy and unsafe abortion. The media, both electronic and print, are recognised pathway for achieving increased enlightenment on unwanted pregnancy and unsafe abortion."

Oye-Adeniran stated that based on several hospital based studies carried out by the CAUP and the Gututtmacher Institute, 760,000 abortions were carried out in Nigeria annually. According to him, one out of 10 women in Nigeria has had an abortion, while two out of five women who have obtained abortion used the services of quacks.

He said, "The majority (about two-thirds) of women who had abortion used dangerous methods and objects." The medical doctor identified those who mostly sought abortion in the country as unmarried women; students and those whose partners refused to accept pregnancies.

Oye-Adeniran disclosed that complications from unsafe abortions contributed about 30 per cent to maternal deaths in the country. He stated that the CAUP had generated new data on maternal mortality based on a study carried out in ten local governments‘ areas of Lagos State. According to the medical doctor, the findings from the study will help in programming and intervention initiatives to reduce pregnancy-related deaths in the country.

In March the pope toured some countries in Africa, spreading the Vatican Taliban's anti-condom and anti-contraception message, which can be summed up thus: Women must die to uphold Catholic Church doctrine.

OCTO-POP!

Mel Gibson's public response to news that his female companion is pregnant.

Beyond the usual tabloid fodder regarding his alcohol-fuelled misogynist and judeophobic rants, Gibson is also known for his adherence to an obscure religious sect.

US federal tax filings showed Gibson’s Holy Family Catholic Church now has tax-free assets worth a total of $64 million. Gibson is the sole contributor to the church, which has a small congregation of about 70 members and follows a 500-year-old ethos. ...

Gibson’s secretive sect is not recognised by the Catholic Church because it does not acknowledge the authority of the Pope or the Vatican and rejects the universally accepted teachings of the Second Vatican Council.

The church’s financial coffers are impressive, particularly when compared to the funds of other religious organisations in the US. The Archdiocese of New York’s Catholic Charities organisation listed its total assets at the end of 2006 as only $5.1 million.

Gibson’s church, which offers a daily morning Mass in Latin, follows an antiquated ideology of Catholicism dating back to the 16th century. Female followers must abide by a strict dress code requiring them to wear veils over their hair and long skirts. Pants are banned.

This is a pre-conversion (and pre-Mel) photograph of Oksana Grigorieva who may (or may not) become the next Mrs Gibson.

Sotomayor's Record on Reproductive Rights

So far, it seems little is known of Obama's Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's stand on reproductive rights. Steven Waldman of Beliefnet has a quick summary of her abortion-related rulings, which weren't really abortion-related. Worryingly, she has twice ruled in favour anti-choicers, but not on abortion itself.

In better news, Americans United for Life are against her, not for her abortion stance, but for her evul activism.

Ah well, in the shrieeeek-fest that is looming, we'll surely learn more.

MORE: A link to Christian news site on her opinion on the 'Mexico City rule', you know, the rule about not sending US gov family planning dough to any outfit outside the US that supports or refers for, let alone does, abortions. The one that Obama struck down pretty early. Sotomayor's view: it's OK for gov to base actions on a 'pro-life' point of view. REVISION: From JJ in the comments:

Just a little nuance on her Mexico City ruling -- her opinion wasn't that it was "okay" for the government to make policy favouring anti-abortion views, but rather that it was not a violation of the pro choice group's 1st amendment rights to do so, and that, according to the law of the day, the government had the right to exercise such bias. It was a straight legal interpretation; meaning the 1st amendment was the wrong way to take down the Mexico City Policy.

MORE TWO:Glenn Greenwald is very positive about her. Lots of links there and updates as various worthies weigh in.

More 'Pro-Life' Delusion

I don't like Iggy. I don't like most Liberals in fact, but Iggy really gives me the pip.

That said, according to LifeShite, Iggy gave the finger to fetus fetishists.

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has issued a blunt response to Canadians who emailed him in the lead-up to the 40th anniversary of legalized abortion in Canada, concerning Canada's abortion laws.

In a response sent to several individuals who contacted him for comment on his party's stand on abortion, Ignatieff stated: "It is the longstanding view of the Liberal Party of Canada that women must have the right to choose, and this party will take no step that limits, or opens the door to limiting, access to safe medical services for women across Canada."

Good.

But the so-called pro-life delusion continues. Fr. Alponse de Valk, editor of Catholic Insight said:

"I will not now comment on the 'right to choose' and 'safe medical services,' after three-and-a-half million babies have been slaughtered and tens of thousands of women suffered from the after-effects," Fr. de Valk said, referring to the terminology used by the party leader in his response. "It seems to me that Ignatieff has just written the death notice of the Liberal party."

Do these zygote zealots have their heads up their butts or what? As my co-blogger and sister feminazi, deBeauxOs, said the other day: 'When even David Frum recoils from the insanity, you have to wonder.'

Go Bold, Obama

There's an interesting article by Dahlia Lithwick on Obama's possible thinking on his Supreme Court nominee in Newsweek. (emphasis mine)

Unconstrained by the demands of national security, with this Supreme Court pick Obama finally has the chance to be bold. He has the opportunity to name someone who will deliver a much-needed defibrillating to the intellectually exhausted left wing of the court. Everyone—including me—has been expecting Obama to name a respectable incrementalist to slide into Souter's respectable incrementalist shoes. But I am more and more apt to think he might just shock us all in the coming days with someone ready to take up the mantle of Thurgood Marshall and William Brennan.

First, he needn't fear the filibuster. Moreover, it's clear that a moderate, minimalist technocrat will face the same rump-blistering confirmation as a liberal bomb-thrower. (The Judicial Confirmation Network has launched a series of ads trashing the moderate Solicitor General Elena Kagan, the more outspoken Judge Diane Pamela Wood of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and the somewhat more outspoken Sonia Sotomayor of the Second Circuit in about equal measure.) The game of destroying Obama's nominee has little to do with the nominee. Whoever he or she might be, the actual name won't matter in the race to tarnish him or her as a hysterical, abortion-loving activist.

Indeed. Whoever he nominates is going to be excoriated by rightwingnutters. Why not go bold?

Try a Little Gentleness ...

Last month we blogged about how curious it seemed that the religious zealotry disorder-impaired somehow couldn't get behind campaigns for the purpose of preventing violence against infants, toddlers and children.

This in part demonstrates the connection between an adherence to religious authoritarism and support for using physical abuse as a form of discipline to exact obedience from children.

And then of course, there are those who defend, rationalize, justify and tolerate the decades of physical, sexual, emotional and spiritual violence that members of the Catholic Church clergy and those under their authority inflicted upon children in their care.

It's inspiring to see that the Canadiens hockey player Georges Laraque lends his support to efforts to educate parents about the dangers of Shaken Baby Syndrome.

Survivor New Brunswick

The craven government of New Brunswick is trying to outlast Dr Henry Morgentaler, who seven years ago filed a lawsuit to get the province to play by the same rules the rest of Canada does.

Morgentaler wants medicare to pay the $750 fee for each abortion in his Fredericton clinic, and last week the New Brunswick Court of Appeal cleared another hurdle that the province erected to block the court challenge.

Peggy Cooke, who works at the clinic, hopes the province will stop stalling the legal process.

"So I think they're kind of waiting for him to give up and waiting for him to be incapable of doing it anymore," she said.

Morgentaler is 86 years old and there have been reports his health has been declining.

Morgentaler's name is on the lawsuit. His death would force another plaintiff to restart the legal process.

New Brunswick is considering appealing the last ruling that went against it to the Supreme Court of Canada. It is still arguing that Dr. Morgentaler doesn't have standing even though two courts in NB have ruled he does.


Join the 21st-century, New Brunswick.

Giddy-up Cowboy Zombies!

Dr Dawg's got your number.

Also known as better the devil you know - the one with a gold lamé dress on.

Meanwhile, over at Blob Blogging Wingnut's House of Constant Shrieeeking and Fetus Porn, news of the unborn, the undead, the halfborn, the halfdead, the pre-born, the post-dead and the brain-sucking have been greatly exagerated hyperbolated grandiloquized reported, no?

Scathingly wrong rightwingnutz polemic, propaganda and glurge - as JJ often observes at unrepentant old hippie - is the stuff of some bizarroid alternate universe, material you couldn't even begin to invent unless you were afflicted with the same religious zealot disorder. When even David Frum recoils from the insanity, you have to wonder.

They hate children, don't they?

Canadian Cynic: The Catholic Problem - pretty shaved ape has posted a cohesive and comprehensive round-up of the latest disclosures about the Catholic Church enabling and seemingly sanctioning the violence that members of the Roman Catholic clergy (or non-clergy under their authority) directed towards thousands and thousands of children in Ireland, as well the exalted bishops who rationalize somehow that it's not really evil but actually tolerable if you're a "good Catholic."

Go read it.

The only element missing, as the coup-de-farce would be the pope granting a MASSIVE pardon to the sexual predators who "regret" their actions.

As for those malevolent Catholic Church clergy and administrators who derived moral satisfaction from the savage physical, emotional and spiritual violence they inflicted upon the children in their care, they were merely enforcing religious doctrine, that is, they were faithfully "following orders".

Partay: Ur doin it rong

I don't drive so probably won't get to this bunfest. But I'm just wondering -- the 12:1 ratio here is just rong.

Yo! Free Speechers!

Liberty U. pulls plug on campus Democratic club.

Liberty University, the university founded by the late Christian evangelist Rev. Jerry Falwell, has revoked its recognition of the campus Democratic Party club, saying “we are unable to lend support to a club whose parent organization stands against the moral principles held by” the university, The News & Advance, of Lynchburg, Va., reports.

“It kind of happened out of nowhere,” said Brian Diaz, president of the student Democratic Party organization that the school had formally recognized in October.

Diaz, the paper reports, said he got the news May 15 in an e-mail from Mark Hine, vice president of student affairs.

According to the e-mail, the club must stop using the university’s name, holding meetings on campus, or advertising events, the newspaper reports.

Hine said late Thursday that the university could not sanction an official club that supported Democratic candidates, the newspaper reports, but stresses that "we are in no way attempting to stifle free speech.”

I thought it was only us commies who stifled free speech.

UPPITY-DATE: From the Washington Post:

Text of E-Mail From Liberty University Revoking Recognition and Access for College Democrats

From: Hine, Mark (VP Student Affairs)
Sent: Friday, May 15, 2009 1:37 PM
Subject: LU College Democrats

I must inform you that the College democrats' club is no longer going to be recognized as a Liberty University club. We are unable to lend support to a club whose parent organization stands against the moral principles held by Liberty University. I expressed these concerns when we met, earlier in the spring semester.

The Liberty Way states, "It is the duty of every student to respect Liberty's Statement of Doctrine and Purpose. They may not engage in any activity on or off campus that would compromise the testimony or reputation of the University or cause disruption to Liberty's Christian learning environment."

The Liberty University School of Law had been working on a policy to govern their clubs and organizations for quite some time. They have now completed that policy and we have adopted it for Liberty University as well. Now that it has been adopted and will apply to all clubs and organizations, it is clear that this club does not comply.
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Below is a copy of the policy which governs clubs and organizations at Liberty University. This policy is posted on the website.

STUDENT CLUBS AND ORGANIZATIONS POLICIES

Student clubs or organizations must request and receive permission from the Liberty University administration before they may meet on campus, advertise, distribute or post materials, or use any University facilities for their activities or events. All such clubs or organizations and their activities or events must be consistent with the University's mission, and must be and remain in compliance with the Liberty Way, the Honor Code, and any policies or procedures promulgated by the University. The University reserves the right to refuse the use of its facilities for any reason to any student club, organization, activity or event.

Consistent with the Honor Code, all students, student clubs and organizations, faculty and staff of Liberty University, have a responsibility to uphold the moral and ethical standards of this institution and personally confront those who do not.

No student club or organization shall be approved, recognized or permitted to meet on campus, advertise, distribute or post materials, or use University facilities if the statements, positions, doctrines, policies, constitutions, bylaws, platforms, activities or events of such club or organization, its parent, affiliate, chapter or similarly named group (even if the similarly named group is not the actual parent, affiliate or chapter) are inconsistent or in conflict with the distinctly Christian mission of the University, the Liberty Way, the Honor Code, or the policies and procedures promulgated by the University.

Even though this club may not support the more radical planks of the democratic party, the democratic party is still the parent organization of the club on campus. The Democratic Party Platform is contrary to the mission of LU and to Christian doctrine (supports abortion, federal funding of abortion, advocates repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, promotes the "LGBT" agenda, Hate Crimes, which include sexual orientation and gender identity, socialism, etc). The candidates this club supports uphold the Platform and implement it. The candidates supported are directly contrary to the mission of LU. By using LU or Liberty University and Democrat in the name, the two are associated and the goals of both run in opposite directions.

We are removing the club from the Liberty website and you will need to cease using Liberty University's name, including any logo, seal or mark of Liberty University. They are not to be used in any of your publications, electronic or internet, including but not limited to, any website, Facebook, Twitter or any other such publication.

If you have questions please do not hesitate to contact me.

Mark Hine
VP for Student Affairs
Liberty University

Hee. 'Radical planks'.

Hip-i-tude to the MAX, Baby!

OMFG!!!! I am laffing my ass off.

Remember a while back when JJ sleuthed out that a seemingly new anti-choice org, Signal Hill, was really just a re-branding of BC Pro-Life? We blogged about it too: here and here. In that second link, we were wetting ourselves giggling over Signal Hill's avowed intention to be 'hip' -- something nobody had ever accused anti-choicers of before.

Well. Signal Hill is going for the the last word in hip-itude and ultra-cool. They've snagged that icon of all that is trendy and to-die-for hip . . .

Wait for it . . .

Master P.DaddyManning!!!!!

Get a load of this from Terry O'Neill in the Pest today:

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Preston Manning, the newly emerged champion of a B. C.-based group called Signal Hill. The fast-growing organization intends to help Canada reconsider its acceptance of abortion. Signal Hill's strategy is to put aside impassioned political and moral arguments in favour of service, education and compassion. You might say the group is aiming, not for Canadians' minds, but for their hearts. And Manning couldn't be more pleased.
. . .
Pro-lifers in B. C., on the other hand, decided to adopt a different approach. Building on the success of their compassionate Focus on Life television campaign, they made some creative changes last June. They adopted a new name, Signal Hill, and featured a woman-and family-friendly look to their Web site and printed material. It all goes along with a new educational and service-oriented approach to help women make informed choices when they are in a crisis pregnancy.

The Signal Hill moniker was chosen as a way of telling Canadians that the group intended to take the high ground in the abortion debate and that it aimed to separate truth from falsehood. (Full disclosure: I sit on the board of Signal Hill.) Response in the Canadian pro-life community (yes, there is a widespread and active -- although somewhat aged -- one) has been largely positive. Indeed, some groups in other provinces have requested permission to adopt the Signal Hill brand.

Enter Manning. Back when he led the Reform Party of Canada, Manning always worked hard to keep the hot potato of abortion (opposition to which is closely linked with Christian groups) from landing in his party's hands. Today, with his Manning Centre for Building Democracy sponsoring such offerings as a "faith-politics interface program," Manning is freer to speak his mind on such big questions. But it doesn't mean that he's in favour of using religious or moral arguments in the public square..

Utter bullshit. The Signal Hill is BC Pro-life with a new website but all the old links to fetus fetishist codswallop about the risks of abortion in general and to breast cancer in particular.

But now they got Presto! Ooooo, I'm feeling the coolth all the way from BC to Tranna.

h/t to Antonia at Broadsides.

You can check out any time you want

... but you can never leave. Yes, this post is about f***ing Facebook and its continued flouting of privacy regulations.

User photographs can still be found on many social networking sites even after people have deleted them, Cambridge University researchers have said. They put photos on 16 popular websites - noting the web addresses where the images were stored - and deleted them. The team said it was able to find them on seven sites - including Facebook - using the direct addresses, even after the photos appeared to have gone.

Facebook claims that photos deleted by its subscribers are removed from its servers immediately.

To perform their experiment, the researchers uploaded photos to each of the sites, then deleted them, but kept a note of direct URLs to the photos from the sites' content delivery networks. When they checked 30 days later, these links continued to work for seven of the sites even though a typical user might think the photos had been removed. [O]ne of the PhD students who carried out the study, said: "This demonstrates how social networking sites often take a lazy approach to user privacy, doing what's simpler rather than what is correct."

Last year, when Facebook attempted to change the terms of use, subscribers objected and some even sought legal recourse.

'The prolife delusion'

David Frum weighs in on that weird Gallup poll, in a piece titled 'The prolife delusion'.

Is America becoming more prolife? A new poll by Gallup says so. The poll, released on the Friday before President Obama addressed Notre Dame University, thrilled the anti-abortion movement—and offered Republicans their first glimmer of hope in months.

But the poll is wrong. Worse, it’s misleading—and threatens to send Republicans careening in precisely the worst possible direction in pursuit of votes they will not find.

Charles Franklin of Pollster.com explains the poll’s big technical error. Gallup oversampled Republicans. At a time when only 1 in 5 Americans identifies as Republican, 32 percent of the respondents in Gallup’s survey group identified themselves as Republican. Franklin offers some interesting explanations of how this oversampling could have occurred. But what matters most are the consequences.

As the Republican Party shrinks, it becomes more conservative. Today’s shriveled GOP is much more prolife than the robust GOP of years past. So if you oversample Republicans, you are oversampling prolifers. Sure enough, when you look at Gallup’s breakdown of its results, all the rise in anti-abortion feeling is concentrated among self-identified Republicans.

To paraphrase Norma Desmond in “Sunset Boulevard”: The prolife movement isn’t bigger—it is the Republican Party that has got small.

Hee. David Frum funny.

This leads to the special danger the (mis)information in the Gallup poll presents to Republicans. As multiple polls show, Republican appeal has drooped to levels not seen since the aftermath of Watergate, maybe not since the 1930s. Those Republicans who remain committed to the party are, as the abortion poll suggests, the most conservative—especially the most socially conservative. Very understandably, they wish to believe that the party can recover by focusing most on people like themselves. (It takes very little evidence to persuade people to do what they want to do anyway.)

Yet a strategy that emphasizes abortion and other family life issues can only lead Republicans to greater difficulty. The prolife segment of American opinion is disproportionately black and Hispanic. (Hispanics are almost 10 points more prolife than whites.) Unfortunately, as repeated disappointment should by now have taught Republicans, abortion is just not a voting issue for these voters. They vote for their pocketbooks, as poorer people of all races usually do.

Yes! Teh base! Teh base! Keep pandering to the base!

"... self-serving secrecy ..."

If you guessed that this post will address the Catholic Church and its attitude towards pedophile priests, you are partly correct.

In Ireland, there is so much more behind that fundamentalist and dogmatic religious "self-serving secrecy".

Victims of child abuse at Catholic institutions in the Irish Republic have expressed anger that a damning report will not bring about prosecutions.

The report, nine years in the making and covering a period of six decades, found thousands of boys and girls were terrorised by priests and nuns.

Government inspectors failed to stop beatings, rapes and humiliation. ... The victims were among 35,000 children who were placed in a network of reformatories, industrial schools and workhouses until the early 1990s.

As always, the Catholic Church is God's bully when it claims to defend the interests of the fertilized ovum, the zygote, the embryo and the fetus. And after women have been forced to carry their unwanted pregnancies to term, a number of clergy have persevered in tormenting, beating and violating these children to remind them that the Church believes they are no longer the innocent unborn, but the product of their parents' sins and should be made to suffer for them.

More news stories about the Commission of inquiry into the physical, sexual and emotional abuse of Irish children in reform schools, orphanages and hospitals run by the Catholic Church.

His Poopiness Will Hate This

It's still early days but this looks very promising for women's health -- combined contraception and protection against HIV, controlled by women.

Researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College have published results showing that a new contraceptive device may also effectively block the transmission of the HIV virus. Findings show that the device prevents infection by the HIV virus in laboratory testing. The promising results are published in the most recent issue of the journal AIDS.

The new device is a vaginal ring that releases multiple types of non-hormonal agents and microbicides, which would prevent conception as well as sexually transmitted HIV infection.

What a boon this would be for sex workers and women in high-HIV areas in Asia and Africa. I hope it will be cheap too.

And I wonder how long it will take before His Poopiness declares that this too, like condoms, helps spread AIDS.

What about Obama?

Sarah Posner has a cogent and profound perspective regarding the complicated relationship that the US president has developed with religious institutions and their role in public life. She highlights the challenge involved:

On reducing the need for abortions, Obama's own preference is a commonsense public policy to fund comprehensive sex education and contraception to reduce unintended pregnancies. This has been the position of mainstream reproductive-health advocates for decades. This has also been the position of religious organizations like Catholics for Choice, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, and the Religious Institute for Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing. But Obama hasn't reached out to those voices for a public, religious imprimatur for his own policy positions.

Instead, Obama has focused his outreach efforts on more conservative religious groups (you know, the ones who haven't been voting Democratic). He claims to honor their position on moral issues. But when the dust settles on the Notre Dame controversy, he'll have to figure out what to do with the policy advice he has sought from the council. How Obama reacts to that advice will demonstrate whether the council is mere window dressing to shore up support from swing constituencies or whether Obama will yield to conservative religious dogma on reproductive-health issues.

It's worth reading. Go have a look.

Big Bucks for Fake USian Pregnancy Clinics

Fabulous post about USian fake pregnancy clinics Crisis Pregnancy Centres.

Big Surprise

Not.

Vandals literally close the doors of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Florida.

But the geniuses were caught on tape.

"Anti-choice demonstrations have increased since Obama got in office," said Planned Parenthood CEO Charlene Wendel. "Locally we have always had protestors."

There are more than a dozen security cameras around the building for security purposes. Two weeks ago, those cameras caught four young men vandalizing the clinic. They super-glued the frame and cemented shut the bottom of the clinic doors.

"We couldn't open either door," said Wendel. "We actually had to take a shovel and really chisel out the cement."

It took workers more than an hour to finally open the doors.

"Anger, frustration. You know, this was the literal translation of people are trying to close our doors, " said Wendel.

And a couple of weeks ago, vandals hit Dr George Tiller's clinic in Kansas.

Yo! Fetus fetishists! This is what happens when you ratchet up the rhetoric. When someone gets hurt -- and they will -- it'll be on you.

Don't F*ck the Debate, Update It!

John Marshall has some notions on Aborting Abortion Debate's Tone. Funny. I liked this one:

Update the Propaganda. Americans are embracing new media from FiOS to Imax, yet pro-life forces are umbilically attached to old school agitprop - the truck that drives around with a giant billboard showing fetus photos. Give these nameless, unborn models hip tags and let people follow them on Twitter.

Jon & Kate + Hate

Whoa! There is some serious schadenfreude happening in the US. First there was the adoration that fetus fetishists heaped upon octo-mom, only to back pedal furiously and run shrieeeking from the media phenom as grittier details of her life emerged. Now it appears that the long-suffering residents of Wernersville Pennsylvania have ratted out Jon and Kate to the paparazzi. Rather than bringing economic prosperity to the town and generating good will, it appears that the couple's egoistic arrogance and ostentatious preening has provoked quite the nasty backlash.

As evidence of their marital melt-down spreads from the tabloids to prime-time TV, it would seem that Jon and Kate did not learn the # 1 lesson of how to exploit and harvest the fruits of breeding multiples: Make sure that you share some of the profits of your industry with the community. And by that, I don't mean scoring free haircuts from the styling salon in town, like the odd rooster coif Kate is sporting while promoting her merchandise.

Conspiracy uncovered! Shrieeek!!!

Today is the day that Notre Dame University, that US bastion of Catholic higher learning, bestows a honorary degree upon President Obama who will then deliver the commencement address.

Conservative Catholics have opposed the university's awarding of a degree to the President, whose views on abortion and stem cell research conflict with the teachings of the church. Their intolerance has provoked a backlash and made this cohort even more Catholic than the pope!

As Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne pointed out, "To the dismay of many conservatives, the Vatican's own newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, offered what one antiabortion Catholic blog called 'a surprisingly positive assessment of the new President's approach to life issues'." The reaction was so positive that a spokesman for the National Right to Life Commitee criticized Pope Benedict XVI's newspaper! Furthermore, two-thirds of Catholics approve of Obama's performance in office and, according to a recent Pew Research Center poll, 50 percent of Catholics think Notre Dame was right to invite the President.

Thus it's no surprise that fundamentalist Catholics claim to have uncovered a 'secret' conspiracy or connection that explains why Notre Dame is being led down the road to damnation.

Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., President of the University of Notre Dame, sits on the board of Millennium Promise, an anti-poverty organization which reportedly supports the distribution of condoms and encourages the establishment of abortion services where legal.

“Any Catholic university that supports a program to reduce poverty by eliminating poor children has a serious problem. No Catholic should be taking a leadership role in an effort that distributes contraception or promotes abortion," said Patrick Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society. ...

Millennium Promise works to raise funds from the private sector for “Millennium Villages,” a group working with under-privileged African villages. While these “villages” seem to have laudable goals, a Millennium Villages handbook explains that "family planning and contraception services are critical to allow women to choose family size and birth spacing, to combat sexually transmitted infections, including HIV infection, and contribute to the reduction of maternal morbidity and mortality."

ShriEEEKKK!!!

No wonder those fundamentalist Catholic zygote zealots are going into shrieking paroxysms. It is a well-documented fact that the Vatican Taliban would rather uphold medieval ideology than save the lives of African women and children. In their rabid religious fanatical view, only embryos and fetus are worth saving.

This is how a smackdown is done.

There's a slew of comments in response to Dr Dawg's posting of a video "Pro-life" savagery, produced with footage from the Forced Pregnancy Parade.

In our humble opinion however, this one from sleazebear - who should be blogging, not just leaving comments - is superb.

jimmy durante writes: "At what point do non-sentient embryos become sentient and thus, per your definition, human?"

Sentience is necessary, but not sufficient, to be considered human. Not that I'm a philosopher or anything. But that's what I'd say. As for when it happens, from what I understand (see below), medical experts say sentience isn't achieved until late in the second trimester.

But let's leave that aside. What I've always wondered, but have been too lazy to check out, is how many "late term" abortions actually happen in Canada. So, I decided to check out the statistics on this. According to my limited research (just about 10 minutes on the web), no pregnancies are viable before 20 weeks, and almost all are viable after 27 weeks.

According to Statistics Canada, in 2003, 0.7% of abortion procedures for which detailed records were available were performed after 20 weeks of gestation. (89.4% were in the first trimester when it's generally considered by medical experts that fetuses do not have a sufficiently developed to be considered sentient -- and once again, it's arguable as to whether sentience is sufficient to declare a fetus "human".) If we do a little calculation, we can make a rough estimate that probably 725 abortions that year were performed after the 20 week mark before which hardly any fetuses are viable.

So each year, only 725 abortions past 20 weeks in Canada out of more than 100,000. 0.7%. Also of interest: there are very few providers of late term abortions in Canada. They are not easy to get. According to statistics I found on a pro-life site -- a pro-life site -- there were only 49 abortions in Canada performed past the 24-week "sentience" point. That's roughly 0.04%.

Please note that the Canadian Medical Association does not endorse "elective" abortions past the 20 week mark. That means that those 725 abortions are undoubtedly almost all due to serious fetal illness or serious threats to the health of the mother. (Many severe fetal defects that result in miscarriage or death soon after birth are undetectable before 24 weeks.)

From the information that I could find, abortions past 20 weeks aren't even particularly easy to find in Canada. No doctor in Quebec performs them, for example, even in the case of fetal illness or threats to the mother.) So I'm left to wonder how many of these mythical 8-month abortions happen in Canada? From what I can tell in my admittedly quick bit of Google research, the number is probably zero. And based on the policy of the CMA, I'd be surprised to find a doctor Canada that would perform an abortion on a viable, healthy, late-term fetus when there's no threat to the health of the mother. In other words, it really is about controlling women's bodies.

Indeed. It is ALL about controlling women, and their bodies too.

HAHAHAHAHA!

I actually laughed out loud at this. In the ritual annual bleat that the MSM ignored the Forced Pregnancy March AGAIN, Mr. Kicking Abortion's Ass concludes that it doesn't matter because the media is irrelevant.

SUZY ALL-CAPS chimes in:

That’s how I feel more and more. They barely cover the March in Washington, so who cares? As they become more marginal, we don’t their coverage.

Well, SUZY would know about becoming marginal, wouldn't she? (And what word did SHE omit before 'their coverage'? Merit?)


Anyway, the MSM did not totally ignore the foetishists' bunfest, as JJ reports.

Spain slowly moves away from medieval age.

Although some countries remain resolute in maintaining laws that endanger women's reproductive health and deny their rights and choices, the Spanish government has advanced a plan to decriminalize abortion, facilitating pregnancy terminations in the first trimester.

The new proposal, which would allow women to seek a termination within the first 14 weeks of pregnancy without having to give a reason, has set the Socialist government on a collision course with Spain's Catholic Church. The bill, which needs ratifying by parliament, eases strict abortion laws that have been in place since 1985 and is the latest in a series of social reforms by the Spanish prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriquez Zapatero. The proposal tackles one of the traditionally Roman Catholic nation's final taboos and will bring the abortion law in line with most other European countries.

Under the current law abortions are only offered under restricted circumstances and rarely in a public hospital. Terminations are only allowed until the 12th week of pregnancy in cases of rape or until the 22nd week in cases of severe fetal
malformation.

Women who get an abortion outside the terms set by the legislation are committing a crime, at least on paper, although arrests are extremely rare. The new law would erase abortion from the penal code altogether.

The zygote zealots are already spinning the usual disinformation and prevarications.

The Catholic Church has launched a massive [there's that favourite qualifier again] campaign against the plan and the Bishops' Conference said unborn children already have their rights protected less than law pertaining to flowers and trees.

Mmm. Is that all they can use as examples? Our own religious fanatics are so much more imaginative, comparing the loss of an embryo to the theft of a parrot in a cage or a wide-screen TV.

Cue the Gloating

Fetus fetishists will have a bounce in their step today, even though the Canadian branch of them didn't quite get the 'tens of thousands' they were confidently predicting for yesterday's Forced Pregnancy March. The always reliable *snerk* LifeShite pegs the number at a suspiciously round 10,000.

That affair might have been a damp squib, but a new Gallup Poll will rev them up again.

A new Gallup Poll, conducted May 7-10, finds 51% of Americans calling themselves "pro-life" on the issue of abortion and 42% "pro-choice." This is the first time a majority of U.S. adults have identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking this question in 1995.

The move is apparently the work of the Party of No.

The source of the shift in abortion views is clear in the Gallup Values and Beliefs survey. The percentage of Republicans (including independents who lean Republican) calling themselves "pro-life" rose by 10 points over the past year, from 60% to 70%, while there has been essentially no change in the views of Democrats and Democratic leaners.

There's some interesting speculation on why this happened.

With the first pro-choice president in eight years already making changes to the nation's policies on funding abortion overseas, expressing his support for the Freedom of Choice Act, and moving toward rescinding federal job protections for medical workers who refuse to participate in abortion procedures, Americans -- and, in particular, Republicans -- seem to be taking a step back from the pro-choice position. However, the retreat is evident among political moderates as well as conservatives.

So, the Rethugnicans may be getting some traction with their 'most baybee-killingest president evah' bullshit.

Or not.

It is possible that, through his abortion policies, Obama has pushed the public's understanding of what it means to be "pro-choice" slightly to the left, politically. While Democrats may support that, as they generally support everything Obama is doing as president, it may be driving others in the opposite direction.

Meh. Merkins. Who can figger them?

MORE: Hmmm. Here's some evidence that these numbers may be outliers.

BONUS! Dr Dawg posted a video from the Forced Pregnancy March that shows your average zygote zealot and misogynist vulture at his best.

MORE BONUS! Yes! Yes! Teh base!

For some strong opponents of abortion rights, the poll is seen as a mandate for the Republican Party to recommit to social conservatism.

Complaints.

Fetus fetishists complain. Oh how they like to complain.

Over at Canadian Cynic CC connects the dots between the sanctimonious bleating about the lack of mainstream media coverage for the Forced Pregnancy March and blogging reformaTories who don't like demonstrations by brown-skinned people drawing attention to the whole scale murders of civilians in Sri Lanka.

Meanwhile Blob Blogging Wingnut parrots MP Bruinooge's prevarications against those who are suppressing zygote zealots and stopping them from speaking out. Rod (Ask Me About The MASSIVE Poll!) Bruinooge conflates a bunch of things which he claims is proof that abortion-criminalizers' free speech rights are being disrespected.

For example, this:

"And although there are close to 100,000 abortions every year in Canada, we actually know very little about the practice. For example, we don’t know the gestational age of the unborn child in over 60% of the cases because abortion providers aren’t required to report this information. Nor are they required to report health complications or the reasons women obtain abortions. Stifling free speech allows the whole secrecy surrounding the practice of abortion to thrive."

Demanding reporting mechanisms for medical interventions is not free speech. What Bruinooge wants is access to patient health information files which are confidential not 'secretive'. If Bruinooge had an embarassing health emergency, for example if a rogue magic bullet got stuck up his rectum and he needed medical assistance, he would certainly be happy that nobody (except, he would hope, discreet health care providers) had access to his patient file.

'Pro-life with their wives, pro-choice with their girlfriends'

State senators in Missouri are wrangling over yet another restrictive abortion law.

Last night, State Senator Joan Bray made an impassioned speech. Here's the text of it (emphasis mine):

“After multiple years on this issue, I’m sick of it. I’m totally sick of it.

I’m sick of women being treated like they are so stupid that they can’t make their own decisions regarding their reproductive rights and their bodies.

I’m sick of women having no options, and being coerced to give birth.

I’m sick of a bunch of men around here, year after year after year, piling up restriction after restriction after restriction on women who found themselves in a very unhappy, unpleasant circumstance of an unwanted pregnancy.

Missouri has the most restrictive abortion laws in the country and, as a result, Missouri’s women are put in danger when they finally do ever get to have an abortion — they’re later and they’re tougher abortions to have because there are so many barriers to Missouri women getting to have a safe and legal abortion.

I am sick of the disrespect for women who come to the Capitol defending a woman’s legal right to choose an abortion.

I am sick that they’re being treated dismissively and rudely.

I’m sick of the ethic around here that men are pro-life for their wives and pro-choice for their girlfriends.

I’m sick of the failure to take steps that would, in fact, reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, through sex education, contraception, family planning and emergency contraception.


No man in this body will ever have an unwanted pregnancy.

But, mark my word, your daughters, your wives, your sisters, your granddaughters, your nieces will.

And your actions here tonight will disrespect and diminish them.”

Well, apparently the male senators were some pissed over that crack. Here's what the blogger said:

Goodman said Bray had insulted “decent, committed families” and Senate spouses who shoulder the job of being a single parent during the week when the Legislature is in session.

.
At the link, most of the comments are in support of Senator Bray.

A forty-shrieeeker anniversary.

Our blogging buddy JJ over at unrepentantoldhippie reminds us that today, May 14th, is the 40th anniversary of the passage of the Criminal Law Amendment Act

... an omnibus bill that introduced major changes to the Criminal Code of Canada. It was introduced as Bill C-150 by then Minister of Justice Pierre Trudeau in the second session of the 27th Canadian Parliament on December 21, 1967. ... The bill was a massive 126-page, 120-clause amendment to the criminal law of Canada. It proposed, among other things, to decriminalize homosexuality, allow abortion and contraception, ... The bill was described by John Turner, Trudeau's successor as Minister of Justice, as "the most important and all-embracing reform of the criminal and penal law ever attempted at one time in this country". Trudeau famously defended the bill by telling reporters that "there's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation", adding that "what's done in private between adults doesn't concern the Criminal Code".

The usual bunch of no-choice, abortion-criminalizing, meretricious, homophobic, fundamentalist religious zygote zealots will gather on Parliament Hill, their numbers swollen by the busloads of Catholic school students converging on Ottawa to provide better optics. Sure hope that Gawd doesn't rain on their parade.

March for Forced Pregnancy Day

Well, today's the Big Day! The day hundreds of Catlick school kids get the day off to be bussed to Parliament Hill* to the annual wank-fest known as March for Forced Pregnancy.

Afterwards, they'll bitch about how the mainstream media totally ignores them. Oh. Wait. Michael Coren is already bitching about how the mainstream media is totally ignoring them.

Oh.

Wait.

A headline writer at the Globe must not have got the memo. The headline reads: 'Forty Years Later, Debate Rages On'.

So. Is there a debate or not? One commenter there thinks not. Quoting numbers from the article:

shoshana berman from Canada writes: So 92% of Canadians SUPPORT abortion with 2% having no oppinion, so lets call that 94% ok with abortion and you think, "Debate Rages On?" 5% is a wimper or a tiny moan from the lunatic fringe, not a raging debate. There is no debate.

I'm with shoshana. But I'd put it a little more strongly.

Meanwhile, there are pro-choice rallies today in Montreal and Winnipeg. Fittingly, the Winnipeg rally will be held outside a fake pregnancy clinic, aka lying liars lying for baybees a Crisis Pregnancy Centre.

*Heh. I just checked the weather for Ottawa. I hope the Catlick kids bring their brollies. And somebody should check and make sure that pesky Canada wordmark doesn't sneak back onto their banners.

"Putting my journalism degree to work ..."

That journalism degree?

Palin attended Hawaii Pacific College in Hilo, Hawaii, in 1982 for a semester, where she majored in Business Administration, and transferred in 1983 to North Idaho College for the 1983-1984 school year. After winning a scholarship, she transferred to Matanuska-Susitna College in Alaska for one term before transferring back to the University of Idaho the following year where she finished out her college education and received a Bachelor of Science degree in communications-journalism from the University of Idaho in 1987, where she also minored in political science.

Bachelor of Science, communications-journalism. That's an interesting degree mash-up, particularly since the University of Idaho lists the School of Journalism and Mass Media and the Department of Psychology and Communication Studies as separate programs, under the College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences.

Although you just never know with Palin, since the grist for her memoirs will be the diaries that she has kept up throughout most of her life.

"There have been so many things written and said through mainstream media that have not been accurate, and it will be nice through an unfiltered forum to get to speak truthfully about who we are and what we stand for and what Alaska is all about," Palin, who will write the book with a collaborator, told her local paper, the Anchorage Daily News.

"It will be nice to put my journalism degree to work on this and get to tell my story, Alaska's story," said Palin, who graduated from the University of Idaho. She has kept diaries for much of her life, she added, which would help her write the book. "My journaling really ramped up when I found out that I was pregnant with Trig and then Track was going off to war and I found out Bristol was pregnant. When we had those episodes in our lives come to the surface, it was very therapeutic for me," she told the Alaskan paper.

Harper publisher Jonathan Burnham told the Associated Press that the book – which Palin said she hoped would become a bestseller – would be the story of "the soccer mom and the political operative, and how one became the other". It will be co-published by HarperCollins imprint Harper, and by its subsidiary Zondervan for the Christian market.

Palin will be writing her memoirs with the help of a collaborator? Ya betcha!

More from the 'you can't make this sh*t up' department

Take two kinds of nuttiness, blend, and stir vigorously. What do you get? Sheer wackadoodliness.

ROSWELL, New Mexico, May 12 /Christian Newswire/ -- Alien Resistance, a Christian counter-cult outreach ministry, will hold an all-Christian-speaker Symposium on aliens during the annual Roswell UFO Festival July 3-5th, 2009. The 11 participants include 4 PhDs, 2 doctorates of ministry, 2 pastors, 2 ordained ministers, and several pastoral counselors, with 12 books written between them on the UFO/Alien topic. The Symposium will educate on the UFO/alien topic from a Biblical Christian perspective, with emphasis on counter-cult evangelism, creationism, and spiritual warfare. . . .
Organizers assert that, "From a Biblical Christian perspective it becomes clear that 'aliens' are actually the evil spirits of the Bible. This idea is backed up experientially with the evidence of numerous testimonies of 'abductees', which show that 'alien abduction' experiences stop in the name and authority of Jesus Christ. Also the sinful behaviors of the 'aliens' behind abductions, the false gospels and new age messages they proclaim, and their supernatural powers so very reminiscent of those described in the Bible as being had by angels, all adds up to make clear that 'aliens' are in fact the evil spirits of the Bible."

Paging deBeauxOs. We need another new term for religious mental illness.