As a Catholic, I was interested in seeing this ad, and it was worth it. I found it very, very powerful. I’ll admit it, at some points it even brought tears to my eyes (don’t ask me why, because I don’t know. It just did).

This video, I think, is relevant to more than just Catholics. They’re right on multiple levels, whether you’re Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, agnostic, atheist… whatever your religious preference, it doesn’t matter, because the values that this country was founded on are applicable to all Americans, regardless of race, gender, or religion.

And yes, abortion plays a role in that, as does gay marriage, but it’s more than just that. It’s about reclaiming our heritage as Americans, about getting back to the values, morals, and traditions we once held dear. We’ve long since let them go. Our culture has been cheapened, and this election will be a step in either the right or the wrong direction. CatholicVote doesn’t come right out and say which way is the right way, but I think we can hazard a guess.

In any case, this ad was great. It’s a good reminder of what’s really important, and hopefully it will encourage people to wake up and start paying more attention between now and November — and most importantly, encourage them to vote in November.

Hat Tip: Hot Air

Get your tissue box ready. Here is a truly heartbreaking story from David Hlavsa, who made the decision with his wife to give birth to their stillborn baby:

My first son was born some time in the gray dawn. In such cases, there is no rupturing of waters. The birth sac slips out whole and unbroken. The bag was a little bigger than my fist. The midwife put it on a towel and, with a small pair of scissors, carefully snipped it open.

She unfolded our son’s limbs, disentangling one from the other, unfurling him like a new leaf, talking softly to us all the while, describing him. He was about five inches long, she said. He was anacephalic, which means his brain and nervous system had failed to develop. He had probably died about a week earlier.

Gingerly, she handed him to Lisa, and though it was clear that Lisa wanted to hold him longer, it was only a minute or two before she passed him to me. Later, she told me she was afraid he would come apart in her hands.

Resting on my outstretched hand, he was thin, nearly weightless, his skin pinkish-gray and translucent. He seemed to me less like a small baby than a scale model of a stripling child. I cradled his head between the ends of my middle and ring fingers, his features peaceful, perfect, blank. His feet reaching nearly to my wrist, his toes were like mine and my father’s, the second toe longer than the big toe.

When we got back from the hospital, the epidural had not quite worn off, so Lisa did not have full use of her legs and clung to me as we staggered up the front steps. Thinking of ourselves as a public spectacle (How must we look to the neighbors? Drunk again!), we burst out laughing. Once inside, the bleak humor continued: Anacephalic? All right, so he won’t go to Harvard.

It wasn’t until I had settled Lisa onto the couch that my own legs quit working. I was in midsentence — something about an errand — teakettle in hand, halfway between the tap and the stove. A spasm went through me, I doubled over and I heard my own voice howling from far off, the full-throated cry of a child.

Pro-abortion advocates will tell you an unborn child is a fetus or a blob or a clump of tissue. Those who have suffered stillborns or miscarriages will tell you that it’s a baby. It’s their child.

I’ve never been pregnant, and so have never had to suffer the kind of pain that this man has.

But many of my friends have.

One friend, at nineteen, was married and pregnant with twins. The first one died, thanks to Vanishing Twin Syndrome. They lost the second in a car accident. Another friend of mine suffered five miscarriages before she finally delivered a healthy baby girl. And yet another friend made it to five months before losing hers. Each of these friends have cried to me when this happened. I’ve held their hands as they’ve expressed to me their feelings of emptiness and loss. Each of them have gone on to deliver healthy babies, but the feeling of loss does not go away. As one friend put it, “It’s like there are five empty chairs around our dinner table that will never be filled. The pain never goes away. I just pray and tell myself they’re waiting for me in Heaven.” The grief that they feel — both the mommies and the daddies — is one that I cannot begin to comprehend. I’ve dealt with loss, but this is different. And although they didn’t get to give birth to their babies, it never changed how much they loved their children. My friend with the twins, who just gave birth to a healthy baby girl last month, has told me before that she thinks of her sons every single day. She and her husband loved them. It wasn’t an empty medical term or a little meaningless clump of tissues. They were their children, and they loved them, even though they weren’t born yet. They named their children. They mourned them. And like this couple, the loss of their children was deep and painful.

Time can sometimes be fleeting. We don’t know why this can happen to some people, but all we can do is trust that God has a reason and cherish the time we do have, even if it’s just twenty weeks in pregnancy, or a few hours after being born, or a few days, or a few years. Tomorrow is promised to no one. But that doesn’t change the love we feel.

Love knows no bounds. Love has no limits.

Hat Tip: My colleague Bill Jempty at Wizbang

It’s always interesting to me to see a liberal get caught saying what he really means. There’s furious backtracking, accusations of mischaracterization, and about 7 times out of 10, some mention of Karl Rove thrown in for good measure.

With Nick Provenzo, I got the first two. And hey, two out of three ain’t bad (although the Karl Rove “evil genius” stuff is the most entertaining). Yesterday, I wrote about Nicholas Provenzo’s vile column saying that Trig Palin should have been aborted, and that Sarah Palin’s decision not to was selfish, immoral, and “worship of retardation”.

And, wonder of wonders, Nicholas Provenzo actually responded! Here’s what he had to say:

Hi. I’m Nick. And I’m not an asshat. I see that you linked to my post affirming abortion rights. But I do notice that you contradict yourself.

You say:

> Every woman has the right to “choose”, as they like to say.

That would imply you recognize the right of a woman to choose abortion. And yet you later say:

>[This Nick fella adocates abortion] unless you’re 100% “healthy” — and by whose standards is “healthy” defined anyway? — you don’t have a right to live? And what gives this guy the right to decide?

That would be a straw man. I didn’t say that, and your claiming as much is a lie. After all, you yourself quote me as writing:

>[I]t is completely legitimate for a woman to look at the circumstances of her life and decide that having a child with Down syndrome (or any child for that matter) is not an obligation that she can accept. After all, the choice to have a child is a profoundly selfish choice; that is, a choice that is an expression of the parent’s personal desire to create new life.

So which is it? Do you support the right of a woman to choose abortion (and by extension) my affirmation of a woman’s right to abort in the case of physical or mental disability, or do you claim that women *must* carry a disabled fetus to term, even if they decide themselves unable to live up to the responsibly?

I’m sure the +90% of women who choose abortion in the case of sever retardation await your answer (and perhaps more pressingly), Gov. Palin’s.

Ah, the joy of backtracking. Ain’t it grand?

Nick’s argument seems to be that all he was saying is that it’s a legitimate choice to abort a child with severe retardation. But poor Nick seems to forget that we can still access what he wrote. And that wasn’t his argument. His argument was never simply about whether or not a woman had the right to choose. Nick’s original argument was that it was morally wrong and selfish for a woman to carry a disabled child to term, not to mention sheer disgust and condescension towards people with disabilities. You can see him saying that here:

Given that Palin’s decision is being celebrated in some quarters, it is crucial to reaffirm the morality of aborting a fetus diagnosed with Down syndrome (or by extension, any unborn fetus)—a freedom that anti-abortion advocates seek to deny.

And here:

Because a person afflicted with Down syndrome is only capable of being marginally productive (if at all) and requires constant care and supervision, unless a parent enjoys the wealth to provide for the lifetime of assistance that their child will require, they are essentially stranding the cost of their child’s life upon others.

And here:

At Noodlefood, Diana Hsieh condemns such a stand as “the worship of retardation.” Given that Palin had complete foreknowledge of her child’s severe disability yet nevertheless chose to have it, it is hard not to see her choice as anything less.

Sorry, Nicky. You lose this round.

Your argument was not about whether or not a parent could choose to abort a baby they knew would be severely disabled. And anyway, is Down’s Syndrome really considered “severely disabled” these days? I wouldn’t have thought so.

Anyway, your entire argument in your first column revolved around the complete and utter worthlessness of the life of a disabled child, and that a parent that chose to keep a disabled child rather than abort it was making a selfish choice — not only a selfish choice, but an immoral choice. Like it or not buddy, that’s what you said. Nick, sweetheart, you wrote that stuff. Not me. If you read it and found it disgusting like the rest of us who are, well, normal did, then that just means you snapped out of whatever hallucinatory state you were in when you wrote that disgusting drivel. Trying to twist around what you said simply will not work. Not when it’s all too easy to go back and see that, oh wait, you did say that it was “moral” to abort a child with Down’s Syndrome.

Sorry, Nicky boy. That’s what we like to call eugenics. I know it’s a dirty word for you guys out in Liberal Land, and pretty words like CHOICE! and HOPE! and CHANGE! sound so much better, but it doesn’t change the definition of what you were advocating. You weren’t making an argument that it was OK for a woman to abort her disabled baby if she so chose. Your column focused on attacking someone who decided to carry her disabled baby to term. That’s not CHOICE!, honey. That’s the arrogance and narcissism that seems to be embedded into the minds of all liberals. You can’t say you support CHOICE! and then turn around and ridicule someone for their choice just because, well, you don’t like it or you disagree. You liberals just tend to think you can dictate the choices people make because you’re so much gosh-darned smarter than everyone. It’s why liberals love the idea of big government. That’s why you felt it was perfectly OK to belittle, ridicule, and smear Sarah Palin for her choice to let Trig live. It’s because you don’t actually believe in choice, do ya, Nick?

You weren’t advocating choice. You were advocating death and eugenics. And if you don’t like that, then I’m not the person to be whining to. Trying to complain that you were only trying to make a pro-abortion argument isn’t gonna work here, buddy. Sorry.

And yes, Nick. You are an asshat.

UPDATE: Nick responds again in the comments. Here’s what he says:

I give your attempt at a reply only one whore diamond for being both sad and lame. It is absolutely moral to abort a fetus diagnosed with Down’s syndrome if a woman, acting in her own self-interest, determines that to be her choice. There is nothing special about retardation qua retardation that justifies not aborting a fetus. In fact, to knowingly bring a severely retarded fetus to term just because you have an anti-abortion fetish, while legal (and must remain so), ain’t exactly my idea of a moral or just choice, given what I have observed of the affliction.

You nevertheless claim otherwise; in condemning my position, you write:

>That’s what we like to call eugenics. I know it’s a dirty word for you guys out in Liberal Land.

Sorry, sweetie-pie, but that dog doesn’t hunt. If is supported eugenics, I’d have to mandate forced abortions. Show me where I advocate as much. Show me where I say Sarah Palin should have been compelled against her will to abort the fetus she wanted to bring to term.

Of course you can’t, although given your propensity to dig yourself deeper, I’m sure you will try. If I see it on my google alerts, I promise you I’ll laugh.

And I do love that you call me a liberal. I guess you were too lazy to look up my opposition to the coerced redistribution of wealth, my support for the utter defeat of Islamic totalitarianism (to include thermonuclear war if American military commanders decide that to use these weapons would save American lives), my opposition to multiculturalism, my support for the right of an individual to bear arms under the Second Amendment, and even my opposition to taxpayer-financed abortion.

Yup, I’m to liberal like you are to honest. But don’t worry your pretty little head about it. Just remember me if you encounter a woman who is denied her right to abort her unwanted fetus in a post Roe v. Wade world, and remember how I was an “asshat” for writing about the fault-lines in the time before the rules changed.

Patronizingly yours,

Nick

PS: Please have the last word if you wish, ’cause I’m otta here.

Hey, lucky me: I get a “whore diamond”! I have to say, I’ve never heard that before. And I’m curious: is Nick visiting all the blogs who have been condemning him over this asshattery, or am I just special? I’m certainly not the only one who’s posted about it.

But, there you are, guys. There’s no real need for me to keep saying the same thing over and over again, because he speaks pretty well for himself. There’s no defending his position on this, try as he might. And I think I already pwned this guy pretty good.

But that doesn’t mean you guys can’t have at him. So go ahead. Show no mercy (in MY comments section, folks — no rude e-mails to Nick or anything like that, please).

So says columnist Nicholas Provenzo, the latest asshat in a series of asshats to make attacks on Sarah Palin using her son Trig.

As everyone in the United States knows, Sarah Palin found out early in her pregnancy that her son would have Down’s Syndrome. Rather than aborting Trig, she went through with the pregnancy and now has a five-month-old beautiful baby boy. Even if you are pro-abortion, it’s a good story, right? Every woman has the right to “choose”, as they like to say. Except you’re supposed to choose what liberals tell you to choose.

Provenzo isn’t the first to suggest Trig should have been aborted. But he is the latest, and here’s some excerpts from his disgusting column:

Like many, I am troubled by the implications of Alaska governor and Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s decision to knowingly give birth to a child disabled with Down syndrome. Given that Palin’s decision is being celebrated in some quarters, it is crucial to reaffirm the morality of aborting a fetus diagnosed with Down syndrome (or by extension, any unborn fetus)—a freedom that anti-abortion advocates seek to deny.

A parent has a moral obligation to provide for his or her children until these children are equipped to provide for themselves. Because a person afflicted with Down syndrome is only capable of being marginally productive (if at all) and requires constant care and supervision, unless a parent enjoys the wealth to provide for the lifetime of assistance that their child will require, they are essentially stranding the cost of their child’s life upon others.

So while anti-abortion commentators such as Michael Franc of the National Review sees Down syndrome’s victims as “ambassadors of God” who “offer us the opportunity to rise to that greatest of all challenges,” for many, that opportunity for challenge is little more than a lifetime of endless burden. In this light, it is completely legitimate for a woman to look at the circumstances of her life and decide that having a child with Down syndrome (or any child for that matter) is not an obligation that she can accept. After all, the choice to have a child is a profoundly selfish choice; that is, a choice that is an expression of the parent’s personal desire to create new life.

And most parents seek to create healthy life; in the case of the unborn fetuses shown to have severe developmental disabilities, one study reports that over 90% of these fetuses are aborted prior to birth. But if you notice, the anti-abortion zealots try to attach a dirty little slur to these abortions, labeling them a form of eugenics.

…

[W]e need the mentally retarded to teach us how to better sacrifice our lives and divest ourselves of our self-interested ways more than they need us to care for them. At Noodlefood, Diana Hsieh condemns such a stand as “the worship of retardation.” Given that Palin had complete foreknowledge of her child’s severe disability yet nevertheless chose to have it, it is hard not to see her choice as anything less.

Pretty vile stuff.

So, I guess in this guy’s mind, we should have no Helen Kellers or Franklin D. Roosevelts; no Lord Byrons, Lord Nelsons, or Beethovens. Is that the argument? That unless you’re 100% “healthy” — and by whose standards is “healthy” defined anyway? — you don’t have a right to live? And what gives this guy the right to decide?

And just so you know, this guy is no small potatoes columnist either. He’s written for the Washington Times and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He’s been on Bill Maher’s show. He isn’t some minor-league columnist who no one knows and has never heard of.

Views such as his are despicable and indefensible. I can only imagine how families with disabled children must feel upon reading this. Not only does this man think that it’s wrong to proceed with a pregnancy that will bear a child with a disability, but he thinks you are selfish and irresponsible. That child’s life is not a blessing to him, but a burden. And not only is his position the correct position, but it’s the moral one!

How crazy can you get?

What’s so ridiculous is that this isn’t his child to be upset over. It was Todd and Sarah Palin’s decision to have Trig, and no one else’s. To them, Trig’s birth was not a burden. So what is he complaining about? I guess you could say that maybe a family that is not as well-off financially as the Palins’ might see a disabled child as a burden — but if they don’t see it that way, then what’s the problem?!

It’s sad that someone can’t see anything but hatred and negativity in the beauty of a child with a disability like Down’s Syndrome. (And FYI, Nicholas, Down’s Syndrome does not automatically mean a lifetime of care and supervision with zero productivity, asshat.)

Just a little personal story: my brother worked at a summer camp for children with disabilities, right up until weeks before he passed away. I can tell you with complete and total honesty that he loved doing it. He got so much joy out of being with those children. Some of them were mildly disabled and completely capable of taking care of themselves. Others were severely disabled, requiring constant 24/7 supervision. My brother worked his way up to the severely disabled kids, and loved every second of it. He never complained or thought it was too hard. And I can tell you he certainly never saw any of “his” kids’ lives as a waste or a burden. He loved those children, heart and soul. And when I say loved, I mean it. He truly and sincerely loved them. I don’t think he would have been prouder of anything else he had done in his life.

But to this guy, people like my brother, and Sarah Palin, and other parents and friends and caretakers of people with disabilities are idiots who are not only dumb and selfish, but immoral. How sickening.

To close, does all the talk about Trig Palin needing to be aborted simply because he has a disability remind anyone else of Hitler’s talk of a perfect Aryan race?

Oh, but wait. I forgot. These guys are the “tolerant” ones.

Hat Tip: Newsbusters

31 years ago, Gianna Jessen survived a saline abortion. She survived. Other infants are not so lucky.

Had she been born in Barack Obama’s America, would that still be the case? She doesn’t think so.

Shockingly (or perhaps not-so-shockingly), feminist blogs have been silent on this particular issue. How do they respond to someone like Gianna Jessen? It’s an indefensible position. And if you’d be willing to side with this bill just for the sake of protecting Roe v. Wade, it says a lot about what kind of person you are. Abortion is a sticky subject, but once the child is out of the womb and alive, there is no longer any argument. Period.

Alan Colmes took the idiot road on this one, saying that somehow, not wanting to allow infants who survive abortions to be treated so they can survive is not infanticide. It may possibly be the feeblest attempt at defending a poor position ever:

Smoooth, Colmes. Smooth.

Flashback: Gianna Jessen speaks to the House Judiciary Committee in 1996. Here are her remarks:

My name is Gianna Jessen. I am 19 years of age. I am originally from California, but now reside in Franklin, Tennessee. I am adopted. I have cerebral palsy. My biological mother was 17 years old and seven and one-half months pregnant when she made the decision to have a saline abortion. I am the person she aborted. I lived instead of died.

Fortunately for me the abortionist was not in the clinic when I arrived alive, instead of dead, at 6:00 a.m. on the morning of April 6, 1977. I was early, my death was not expected to be seen until about 9 a.m., when he would probably be arriving for his office hours. I am sure I would not be here today if the abortionist would have been in the clinic as his job is to take life, not sustain it. Some have said I am a “botched abortion”, a result of a job not well done.

There were many witnesses to my entry into this world. My biological mother and other young girls in the clinic, who also awaited the death of their babies, were the first to greet me. I am told this was a hysterical moment. Next was a staff nurse who apparently called emergency medical services and had me transferred to a hospital.

I remained in the hospital for almost three months. There was not much hope for me in the beginning. I weighed only two pounds. Today, babies smaller than I was have survived.

A doctor once said I had a great will to live and that I fought for my life. I eventually was able to leave the hospital and be placed in foster care. I was diagnosed with cerebral palsy as a result of the abortion.

My foster mother was told that it was doubtful that I would ever crawl or walk. I could not sit up independently. Through the prayers and dedication of my foster mother, and later many other people, I eventually learned to sit up, crawl, then stand. I walked with leg braces and a walker shortly before I turned age four. I was legally adopted by my foster mother’s daughter, Diana De Paul, a few months after I began to walk. The Department of Social Services would not release me any earlier for adoption.

I have continued in physical therapy for my disability, and after a total of four surgeries, I can now walk without assistance. It is not always easy. Sometimes I fall, but I have learned how to fall gracefully after falling 19 years.

I am happy to be alive. I almost died. Every day I thank God for life. I do not consider myself a by-product of conception, a clump of tissue, or any other of the titles given to a child in the womb. I do not consider any person conceived to be any of those things.

I have met other survivors of abortion. They are all thankful for life. Only a few months ago I met another saline abortion survivor. Her name is Sarah. She is two years old. Sarah also has cerebral palsy, but her diagnosis is not good. She is blind and has severe seizures. The abortionist, besides injecting the mother with saline, also injects the baby victims. Sarah was injected in the head. I saw the place on her head where this was done. When I speak, I speak not only for myself, but for the other survivors, like Sarah, and also for those who cannot yet speak …

Today, a baby is a baby when convenient. It is tissue or otherwise when the time is not right. A baby is a baby when miscarriage takes place at two, three, four months. A baby is called a tissue or clumps of cells when an abortion takes place at two, three, four months. Why is that? I see no difference. What are you seeing? Many close there eyes…

The best thing I can show you to defend life is my life. It has been a great gift. Killing is not the answer to any question or situation. Show me how it is the answer.

There is a quote which is etched into the high ceilings of one of our state’s capitol buildings. The quote says, “Whatever is morally wrong, is not politically correct.” Abortion is morally wrong. Our country is shedding the blood of the innocent. America is killing its future.

All life is valuable. All life is a gift from our Creator. We must receive and cherish the gifts we are given. We must honor the right to life.

Her remarks are as valid today as they were twelve years ago.

Hat Tip: Hot Air

I know, you’re all shocked. It’s like the sun actually rises in the East. That’s how crazy this revelation is. Well, Don Surber was able to ferret out this little nugget of fantastic-ness from back in 2001:

On the Illinois Senate floor, Obama was the only senator to speak against the baby-protecting bills. He voted “present” on each, effectively the same as a “no.”

“Number one,” said Obama, explaining his reluctance to protect born infants, “whenever we define a pre-viable fetus as a person that is protected by the Equal Protection Clause or the other elements in the Constitution, what we’re really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a — a child, a 9-month old — child that was delivered to term. That determination then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place. I mean, it — it would essentially bar abortions, because the Equal Protection Clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child, then this would be an anti-abortion statute.”

If only Obama had the same proficiency at lying as Bill Clinton, he’d be having no problems here. It’s a shame for him, isn’t it? And let’s not even get started on courage. He may be filled with all the hope-changeyness in the universe, but this guy has got about as much spine as a jellyfish.

Of course, this is irrelevant, right? The real issue here is that McCain cheated, and poor little Obama wasn’t given the same opportunity to prepare. If only he’d been able to study beforehand and start preparing answers. Unfortunately, he was too busy catching some killer waves in Hawaii to bother.

In all seriousness though, I think that this just proves my earlier thesis. He’s terrified to let Americans know where he really stands on controversial issues. So he’s desperately trying to remain as vapid and ambiguous as possible. And of course, the question was not easy to answer. But he’s a constitutional scholar, for crying out loud. He’s a Senator running to be President. In his job as a Senator, he should be able to make tough decisions like this. No one said being President would be easy, and that once you’re inaugurated you’d suddenly mysteriously have all the answers. But you do have to take a stance, and make a decision, and be able to live with the fact that it will sometimes be the wrong one. Can the Obamamessiah handle that? My guess is no, he can’t. He’s bought into the hype already. As far as he’s concerned, he is the Anointed One here to save us all. He can’t give a wrong answer. So when people start questioning the things he says and does, he is completely flabbergasted by it. I almost feel bad for the guy… he’s been surrounded by too many “yes” people.

In any case, if Obama thinks that he’ll be able to make it through this entire election without anyone finding out about his radical liberal positions, he’s dead wrong. He got into the wrong profession if he didn’t want to have to deal with this kind of stuff. It’s just the way it goes. Yes, every vote you record in the Senate can possibly be held against you in the future. Yes, everything you say will be picked apart and analyzed. And why shouldn’t it be? You want to be the guy who will decide which direction this country will go in for the next four years. Americans have a right to know where you stand. They can agree or disagree… but they have a right to know.

And Obama, you owe us that much. Is honesty and enough backbone to be willing to stand up and say, “This is what I believe in”, too much to ask from you? It certainly seems so.

Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin

The smartest answer on abortion EVAH:

Here’s the succinct version, narrowing it down to the good stuff:

Rick Warren: OK, now, um, let’s deal with abortion. 40 million abortions since Roe V. Wade, you know, as a pastor, I have to deal with this all the time. All of the pain, and all of the conflicts. I know this is a very com… complex issue. 40 million… uh, abortions. At what point does a baby get human rights in your view?

Obama: Well, uh, you know, I think that whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or, uh, a scientific perspective, uh, answering that question with specificity, uh, you know, is, is, uh, above my pay grade.

Deciding when an unborn baby gets human rights is only one of the major points in deciding whether you are pro-life or pro-abortion. And considering how widely polarizing abortion is, I would think it would be important for the man who can undeniably have a huge impact on one of the biggest court rulings in the last century, Roe V. Wade, shouldn’t that be something they have a firm answer on? To just brush it off, saying it’s “above my pay grade”, is beyond ridiculous.

That statement is Obama’s way of dodging having to give an answer.

He knows his views on abortion are not in line with most Americans, even pro-abortion Americans. He’s got an extremely radical position on abortion, including most recently a record that came to light where he voted against babies who survived abortions being allowed to live. He calls Margaret Sanger, the racist eugenicist founder of Planned Parenthood, one of his heroes. He’s voted for partial-birth and late term abortions. He’s got a 100% approval rating on abortion from NARAL and a 0% rating from the NRLC. He’s voted against parental notification for minors to get out-of-state abortions (even though it made an exception for the health of the mother). He’s a co-sponsor of the “Freedom of Choice” act, which would nullify all limitations on abortions. He’s voted against the Hyde Amendment, which banned the use of taxpayer funding for abortions through Medicaid (so according to him, pro-lifers should still have to pay for women to get abortions — nice.).

Those are Obama’s positions on abortion.

And you know what? If that’s what he supports, then it’s what he supports. Abortion is a hot-button issue, and there are certainly some people who will look at the above as a benefit to his campaign, not a liability. Where he stands on the issue of abortion is not the problem in this particular instance, even though I greatly disagree with him. The problem here is that, in this video, he’s being as ambiguous as possible because he doesn’t want to get tied down to any particular stance. If he’s talking to a bunch of Christians who are pro-life, he wants to be able to say he respects life. If he’s talking to a roomful of feminists, he wants to be able to say he’s pro-choice. And if he’s talking to a bunch of undecided moderates, he wants to be able to say he can relate to them, too.

The problem is, the job title of President — and even Senator — means that you have to define where you stand, and especially on such polarizing issues. That’s part of the job description. You can’t be everything to everyone, a shocking concept to the Obamamessiah, I’m sure. His being pro-abortion will likely piss a lot of people off. If he was pro-life, it’d piss a lot of people off, too. You can’t please everyone, and if you want to be a politician, you have to be able to take a stance on tough issues. It’s not a lot of fun, but it’s the way the game works.

It’s pretty clear what Obama’s position on abortion is, but with videos like this, he’s clearly trying to hide it as much as possible. It’s what he’s done throughout this entire election. During the primary, he tried to align himself with the far left as much as possible. Now that he’s got to win over the rest of the country, he’s trying to make himself appear more moderate. And so he’s got to try to hide his radical views. Fortunately for the Obamamessiah, the mainstream media isn’t going to hold him to anything whatsoever.

Unfortunately for the Obamamessiah, the rest of us will. And if defining your stance on a hot-button issue is “above your pay grade”, Mr. Obama, then the Presidency is above your pay grade, too.

Hat Tip: Hot Air

Obama tries to paint himself as a pro-choice moderate, which of course, he isn’t. An explosive story has broken showing just how radical he truly is. Not only is Barack Obama pro-abortion, he actively campaigned against a bill giving babies who survive abortion and are born alive protection. I guess he thinks it’d be all right to just kill the suckers, huh? Not even NARAL sinks this far:

In 2000, the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act was first introduced in Congress. This was a two-paragraph bill intended to clarify that any baby who is entirely expelled from his or her mother, and who shows any signs of life, is to be regarded as a legal “person” for all federal law purposes, whether or not the baby was born during an attempted abortion. (To view the original 2000 BAIPA, click here.)

In 2002, the bill was enacted, after a “neutrality clause” was added to explicitly state that the bill expressed no judgment, in either direction, about the legal status of a human prior to live birth.

(The “neutrality” clause read, “Nothing in this section shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand, or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being ‘born alive’ as defined in this section.”)

The bill passed without a dissenting vote in either house of Congress. (To view the final federal BAIPA as enacted, click here. To view a chronology of events pertaining to the federal BAIPA, click here.)

Meanwhile, Barack Obama, as a member of the IL State Senate, actively opposed a state version of the BAIPA during three successive regular legislative sessions. His opposition to the state legislation continued into 2003 - even after NARAL had withdrawn its initial opposition to the federal bill, and after the final federal bill had been enacted in August 2002.

When Obama was running for the U.S. Senate in 2004, his Republican opponent criticized him for supporting “infanticide.” Obama countered this charge by claiming that he had opposed the state BAIPA because it lacked the pre-birth neutrality clause that had been added to the federal bill.

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NRLC and other pro-life observers have always regarded Obama’s “defense” as contrived, since the original two-paragraph BAIPA on its face applied only after a live birth; the “neutrality clause” added in 2001 merely made this explicit, and therefore the new clause did not change the substance of the original bill.

Moreover, the overwhelming majority of liberal, pro-abortion members of the U.S. House of Representatives did not embrace the initial NARAL position that the original bill was an attack on Roe v. Wade. The Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee, then as now, were a solidly liberal group, yet only one of them voted against the original BAIPA without the “neutrality clause,” and he cited a different reason.

Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), who supported the bill, and who described himself as “as pro-choice as anybody on Earth,” argued that under his understanding of Roe “if an abortion is performed, or a natural birth occurred, at any age, [even] three months, and the product of that was living outside the mother, and somebody came and shot him, I don’t think there’s any doubt that person would be prosecuted for murder.”

When the original bill - with no “neutrality clause” - came up on the House floor on September 26, 2000, it passed 380-15.

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The documents prove that in March 2003, state Senator Obama, then the chairman of the IL state Senate Health and Human Services Committee, presided over a committee meeting in which the “neutrality clause” (copied verbatim from the federal bill) was added to the state BAIPA, with Obama voting in support of adding the revision. Yet, immediately afterwards, Obama led the committee Democrats in voting against the amended bill, and it was killed, 6-4.

The bill that Chairman Obama killed, as amended, was virtually identical to the federal law; the only remaining differences were on minor points of bill-drafting style. To see the language of the two bills side by side, click here.

There’s no getting around this. Obama knew the language in question was in the bill, because he himself added it. Obama voted for infanticide and then tried to cover it up, probably when he realized how wildly unpopular this would be with voters (duh, you moron). I wonder how he’ll try to get around this one… probably using a lot of “uh’s”, “um’s”, and “you know’s”.

It’s one thing to be pro-abortion. That, at least, is debatable. However, if a child somehow survives an abortion and still has a heartbeat, then there is no way it should ever be permissible to kill that child. The pro-abortion argument centers around a woman’s choice to do with “her body” what she chooses. But if the child is expelled from her body, and is still alive, it’s no longer her choice to make. That is a living, breathing human being, and to extinguish that life would be murder. I don’t care if you wrap it up in a pretty bow and call it “choice”, because it’s still murder.

This, apparently, was not important to Barack Obama. If he didn’t support this, then what in the hell could he be proposing? That an infant who survives an abortion should just be killed because Mommy doesn’t want him and didn’t get to kill him the first time around? That’s sick. That’s disgusting. Does this man have no moral compass?!

Of course, there are some wonderful examples of his thoughts on children. You know, like the one where he called babies “punishment”:

Barack Obama supports infanticide, partial-birth abortion, late-term abortion, and calls children a punishment. Yet he tries to run on “family values”. What family values? These are not the family values that most Americans would support.

At what point do Obama supporters realize how grossly out of touch he is with everything that Americans hold dear? At what point are all of these scandals, and the radicalism, and the associations with racists, terrorists, and anti-semites become too much? Barack Obama is simply not fit to lead anything, much less the most powerful country in the world.

Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin

This video is fantastic. It’s a presentation by Michele Bachmann (R-MN) to an almost empty chamber, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t get any attention (I hope). It shows her rightfully slamming Planned Parenthood’s non-profit status as a scam and a fraud, calling it both the Lenscrafters and Wal-Mart of abortion.

The amount of money that Planned Parenthood, a non-profit organization, makes is unbelievable. Why they still are tax-exempt is beyond me. Here’s the thing. For those of you who find abortion morally wrong and reprehensible, but don’t want to inflict your views on anyone else, tell me why it is you should be forced to pay for women to get abortions. Feminists are always crowing about how abortion is all about choice, but I don’t have a choice in the matter. I find abortion repugnant, and want absolutely nothing to do with funding them, but I’m forced to. It’s incredible. Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood is getting record profits every year. Why are they still considered non-profit?

If abortion is going to be legal, then it isn’t something that should be taxpayer-funded, especially considering how many Americans are ardently against it. If Planned Parenthood wants to give out free or cheap abortions, then more power to them — as long as the funding isn’t coming out of my paycheck. That is a scam and a fraud just as Michele Bachmann says, and it should cease immediately.

Hat Tip: Hot Air

See for yourself just how “tolerant” they are when pro-life group Pointers for Life put up a display of 4,000 crosses symbolizing murdered fetuses on campus at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.

Students at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point butted heads Thursday after an anti-abortion organization planted 4,000 white crosses on campus to symbolize aborted fetuses and a student responded by pulling hundreds of them out of the ground.

The display, sponsored by Pointers for Life and planted on Isadore Street outside the Health Enhancement Center, is called “Cemetery of the Innocents” and features crosses and anti-abortion and religious signs, one of which reads “Seek Jesus.”

The group has come to expect minor vandalism each time it displays the exhibit, but students were shocked when Roderick King pulled up many of the crosses in protest.

“It’s just so disrespectful, and it’s disappointing that this comes from UWSP students. I’ve always thought of this campus as a tolerant place. … Someone made these (crosses) with their own hands,” said Pointers for Life member Tracey Oudenhoven.

King eventually left the site of the display after speaking with Protective Services officials, but he later returned to protest. King said his anger was not just politically charged, but also related to the anonymity of the exhibit.

“If you’re not ashamed of this, then you should claim it and sign it,” King said. “My student dollars are going to support this, this travesty.”

Pointers for Life reserved the space but didn’t indicate its sponsorship of the exhibit. At King’s request, students eventually posted a sign reading, “Sponsored by Pointers for Life.”

Students put up the exhibit early Wednesday. By Thursday morning, some signs had been slashed and a few crosses had been broken. King said he didn’t participate in those acts.

Why bother letting someone with a different opinion than you speak out or protest?

Let’s just imagine it was the other way around, and a pro-abortion group had put up a display showing their support. Some members of a pro-life student group came along and started tearing it down because they didn’t agree with it. What do you think the reaction would be?

Let me guess: it would be OPPRESSION! Right Wing intimidation tactics! Christian extremists trying to silence opposing voices!

One student gets it:

Passing students paused to watch King debate the moral implications of abortion with Pointers for Life members, and even some who supported abortion rights said they supported the group’s right to protest.

“You don’t have to agree with this. I don’t agree with this, but they have just as much right to be here as the Pro-Choice Alliance,” said student Colleen Kiefer.

Only some who supported “abortion rights” thought it was OK for the pro-life group to protest? Wow, how very tolerant of them. It must be the liberal streak in them.

Michelle Malkin shows us past vandalism from pro-abortion groups on college campuses.

Who cares about free speech when an angry lefty college student disagrees with you? Free speech only counts when it fits into the liberal — and in this case, pro-abortion — agenda. Too bad these students never got the message.