Prenatal Discrimination Act

PRENDA, the Prenatal Discrimination Act, has failed. It would have made sex-selective abortions illegal, but the two-thirds majority needed failed with 246 yes and 168 no. (Read more here).

What's more, today Live Action released another video in their War On Baby Girls series. This time, in New York City, yet another Planned Parenthood employee counsels a woman seeking to abort if her baby is a girl. She says having another girl would be horrible because she wants a boy. What will Planned Parenthood do now? They keep saying they are against gendercide, they seemed to luck out last time by having already fired the employee of the previous video, what will be their next move?

Abby Johnson of Live Action, author of Unplanned, and former Planned Parenthood clinic director, said, "The counselor in this video is a licensed social worker. In this video you will hear her encourage the pregnant women to get a Chorionic Villi Sampling test to determine the gender of her baby. Here's what the counselor doesn't say...CVS testing is very risky...miscarriage rate is 1 in a 100 procedures. Oh well, it's not like they really care about the unborn or risks...or informed consent."

And yes, this has been my second post of the day and it's only 4:30. That's what happens when interesting things are happening in abortion news and I'm trying to draft that darn chapter four about abortion history. 

Planned Parenthood: "Every Child a Wanted Child" Except If It's Bad Publicity

Two days ago Live Action released a video exposing Planned Parenthood's willingness to help women have sex-selective abortions. A Live Action actor came into a Planned Parenthood, explained to the employee that she wanted a boy but would abort a girl, and caught the employees reaction on film. The results, honestly, don't shock me much after watching Planned Parenthood handle themselves in the past. They agreed to go through testing to discover "the sex of the pregnancy" (the word "baby" is always avoided within Planned Parenthood's walls), and abort if the child is a girl. 


However, Planned Parenthood released a statement saying that they fired the employee in the video soon after the incident, before Live Action ever released the video. They said the employee did not handle the situation well, and as they strive for the best quality care for their patients, they let her go. But it still raises a question: if Planned Parenthood's goal is to make every child a wanted child (by aborting the unwanted ones), then what if a girl is unwanted while a boy would be? As they refuse to admit that they are involved in gendercide, they contradict one of their main ideas. They can't have it both ways. 


Planned Parenthood said in one of their statements regarding the situation, "Planned Parenthood cares about staff, and conducts retraining or other personnel action responsibly." As Jill Stanek pointed out, they're caring about their staff by throwing them under the bus and not taking responsibility for their mistake? 

Gendercide: "War On Baby Girls, part 1" from Live Action

Live Action is a pro-life organization that performs under-cover investigations of Planned Parenthood, America's largest abortion provider. So far they have exposed Planned Parenthood involved in human trafficking, covering up sexual abuse, accepting racist donations, and giving women inaccurate medical information. Yesterday they released another project called War On Baby Girls. The first video in the series, in a Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas, shockingly shows the clinic employee helping a woman plan how to abort her unborn child if its a girl, but continue with the pregnancy if it's a boy. Then she helped her abuse Medicaid in order to fund this sex-selective abortion.

Stay tuned for more videos in the War On Baby Girls series. In the meantime, you can sign this petition to ban sex-selective abortions nationwide. 100 million girls are missing today. There are 100 million more boys in the world today due to this gendercide. What happened to equality, women's rights, and feminism? Girls are being killed just for being girls. That has to stop now.

Chapter 4

Today's goal: write chapter four (currently titled "'73") in under 5,500 words in four and a half hours.

Remember me complaining here and here and a bunch of other times too? Same chapter, only I finally feel like I'm starting to understand the material I'm writing about. Spending a semester studying this topic, writing a research paper on it, and finally giving a speech about it really made it click. Imagine that. Unfortunately, I'm scrapping most of the previous draft I have and starting fresh. I'm so hard to please sometimes!

Norma McCorvey, or "Jane Roe" of Roe v Wade

Most people know that Roe v Wade is the case that legalized abortion. Some people know the details of the case, and even fewer know anything about the woman named "Jane Roe" who made the case happen. "Jane Roe" is a woman named Norma McCorvey. I read her book Won By Love a few years ago, and right now I'm in the middle of I Am Roe. Both are incredible reads, but I don't think one should be read without the other. I would definitely recommend them. The life of the woman who became "Roe" is really remarkable, and something that should be taken into account when looking at the abortion movement as a whole.

Definitely go read the books. McCorvey's life is heartbreaking at times; she needed the love of Christ but could only find drugs, alcohol, and one night stands. Won By Love tells of how she came face-to-face with the love that she desired, and in the most unlikely place imaginable: the young daughter of a pro-life advocate who worked next door to McCorvey's abortion clinic. Through the love offered by the people who should be her worst enemy, McCorvey met Christ and eventually became pro-life. I don't think I've ever read a more moving testimony of God working in someone's life.

Life and Death and...the AVENGERS!!

I'm not usually one for action movies. While they can be fun, completely lacking a plot is one of the most annoying things a movie can do. Even if there is a plot, not having good characters or character development or anything at all realistic is really annoying. Well, I don't know if the Avengers somehow managed all of that perfectly or if I was just in a super good movie-watching mood when I watched it, but I loved it.

Maybe I just liked all different superheroes with all different back stories, habits, styles, and struggles all trying to put aside their differences and work together. Iron Man's arrogance, the Hulk's anger issues, Captain America feeling outdated, Thor being a mythical god...ect, it made for an interesting plot.

Or maybe I just like the idea of superheroes.

Or maybe I realized just how much superhero movies appeal to the part of us that wants the good guys to win, that wants evil to lose, that wants human life to be spared.

I'm beginning to realize the parts of our culture that does value life. The Avengers have to work together in order to protect millions of people from dying at the hands of evil. Near the end of the movie, New York City is under a huge attack and many authorities wanted to drop a nuclear bomb on the city in order to keep the attack from spreading. The Avengers want to spare as much human life as they can, so they have to find a way to save the world as well as the city.

I like superhero movies, cause with each daring and incredibly act they are protecting the lives of the human beings. Too many action movies show thousands of people dying during a really cool shot of a building blowing up. Superheroes value and protect human life.

Life and Death and Parks and Rec

Last week's episode of the best TV show ever, Parks and Recreation, brought up some interesting questions. When City Counsel candidate Leslie Knope accidentally insulted a man in a speech, only to find he had just died, people were horrified. What she said would have been fine if he had been living, but because he had recently passed away it was unacceptable. Now me, being the Parks and Rec fan and nerd that I am, couldn't help but ask questions.

What is it about death that makes us respect those who have passed?

We go to funerals of people we barely knew or aren't even fond of. Why is that? Why is insulting a deceased person extra offensive, even if it's the truth? Why do we honor the dead, even those whose life we never honored?

I think this has to do with our understanding and value of life. Which leads to more questions.

How much do you value life? If you had to put a price on it, what would it be? To what extent would you go to save the life of someone you love, somebody you know, or a stranger? Saving a life could mean jumping in a frozen lake to save a drowning person, pushing someone out of the path of an oncoming car, stepping in when a person is being mugged, preventing suicide, performing life saving surgery, being at the right place at the right time to call 911, or sending money to developing countries to provide food, water, and medicine to the poor. Whatever it may be, is it worth you sacrificing your time, energy, and resources for?

We all value life to some extent. It's not entirely about courage, bravery, or sacrificing. While that's definitely part of it, I think it's mostly about our value of life. Do we ever not value life enough? That's an extremely dangerous mistake to make, but I do it all the time. Where do we need to value life more? Whose life am I not valuing?

(Also, congratulations to Leslie for winning the campaign.) 

Pro-Abortion Irony

Oh the irony. Everybody knows that Christians are the hypocrites of the world, and the pro-choice side is completely logical. Right?

President Obama is by far the most pro-abortion president our nation has ever seen. He invited Nancy Keenan, the head of NARAL (National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws) to the White Houses' Christmas party and he's met with Cecile Richards, the CEO of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, four times in the White House alone. He's repealed abortion laws, voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act (which criminalized infanticide), and gave this promise to Planned Parenthood. All that to say, he's extremely pro-abortion.

However, this week the White House made a pretty surprising change to their security system. The Director of the White Houses' Visitor's Office, Ellie Shafer, is now including the unborn in her tours. When you're signing up for a tour of the White House and you're pregnant, you must sign in your unborn child too.

Planned Parenthood in D.C. 

I find this quite ironic. You can go to the White House and have to sign you unborn baby in, then right afterwards walk 0.6 miles to the Planned Parenthood down the street and have that baby killed. Abortions in D.C. can be performed up to the due date, but the unborn are included in the headcount when giving tours in the White House for security purposes. It looks like the only safe place for the unborn is in the White House, even with the extremely pro-abortion president we have.

Douglas Johnson, the legislative director of National Right to Life, pointed out to Lifenews that when registering your unborn child, you must indicate the gender. If you don't know then you have to report it after birth. But what do you do if you abort your child? Do you have to report that, too?

Oh the irony.

Abortion and Cannibalism

Warning: this post is about a very gruesome topic. I believe understanding the abortion industry and culture is important, but it's definitely not for everyone. I strongly caution you before reading on. 

I get daily email updates from many different pro-life news sources. I at least skim all of them, and if the title of an article catches my interest then I'll read the entire thing. Because of this I've found countless resources, beautiful testimonies, and encouraging updates about new abortion laws in place in North American and Europe. However, there is a downside.

I have also read countless horrifying articles. News reports from policemen going into abortion clinics that have never been inspected. Rusty instruments, patients' medical documents strewn around, no medical waste bins, blood-splattered freezers filled with jars of aborted babies. The worst, though, is the cannibalism.

Krishna Rajanna 

An abortionist named Krishna Rajanna was caught dumping medical records in a recycling bin. Being a "doctor," he should now that in his state, a patient's sensitive medical records must be kept by the doctor for ten years, then disposed of with a shredder or by burning them. When he was inspected, authorities found his abortion clinic was a horrendous mess. The chaos of his clinic lead to him (either accidentally or on purpose) eating a fetus, though I will spare you of the details. As I said at the beginning, understanding the abortion industry has its place, but there are horrifying details that are hard to get past. If you want to learn more, though, here are the two articles and the police report about him.

So there's one abortion doctor, but are there other connections between abortion and cannibalism? Recent reports show: yes.

China's infamous one-child policy leads to millions of abortions and infanticides each year in an attempt to cut down the population (by half? How can a country stand to lose half its population in one generation? But that's another post for another time). A pharmaceutical company learned how to profit on these millions of deaths. They found they can buy the cadavers of babies killed through infanticide or abortion, dehydrate them, make them into pills, then sell them pills as "stamina boosters." When people were caught smuggling them into South Korea, the pills were taken and tested for DNA.

They were 99.7% human.

More than 17,000 pills were found being smuggled from China to South Korea. How many more are there?

This is very troubling to me. Are there other connections between abortion and the horrendous practice of cannibalism? It makes sense, if life can be thrown away with a couple hundred dollars then what makes a deceased persons' body sacred? What should tell us to give any respect to the bodies of the dead? What's the difference between the meat of a human and that of a chicken or a pig or a cow?

This is why the fight for life is so important. We are so far from a culture of life, where every life is valued, respected, and been worthy of our protection. In a culture of life there is no abortion, no murder, no rape, no bullying, no selfishness. This is impossible for us to create because humanity is so broken and depraved. However, God already died for every sin, including abortion, infanticide, and cannibalism. He rose from the grave but left our sin there. He and only He can create a culture of life.

Teen Mother Choices International

I've been looking for an organization like this for a while. Teen Mother Choices International is taking Pro-Life to the next level. They come along side of the girls who choose life and help them in the most practical ways, such as finding them a mentor, taking them through life skills classes, paying for childcare so the young woman can go to school, and even helping them out with taxes. I love how Christa March, the founder of TMCInternational, explains it:

"It's not about glorifying teen motherhood. It's honoring those women who have chosen to give their children life. And saying that we're going to help you do whatever it takes to be independent so you don't need anyone--not the government, not a bad boyfriend." 

I'm sick of hearing people say that we should look down upon teen moms because they were irresponsible to get pregnant in the first place. We've all made bad decisions, and we all have to live with them. If we as the church don't help teen moms, then who will?

"'Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven--for she loved much. But he who is forgive little, loves little.' And He said to her, 'Your sins are forgiven.'" (Luke 7:47-48)

The teens who choose life for their child deserve respect and honor. They could have taken the easy way out with abortion, but instead they did the sacrificial thing, put their own lives on hold, and chose life. Choosing life is not a one time decision, it's a commitment to making that decision everyday. They are laying their lives down for another, isn't this the greatest kind of love we're told to emulate?

"Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13) 

Stand With Teen Moms Day is on May 6, 2012, one week before mothers day, because teen moms became moms just a little earlier than most women. 

PepsiCo No Longer Using Aborted Fetal Cells

Whether you're pro-life, pro-choice, or undecided, this should still be good news.

PepsiCo, the makers of Pepsi, had been using aborted fetal cells to test their flavors. Besides the fact that it's using deceased human beings to make a soft drink taste right, it's a gross practice that should never have been allowed. (It reminds me of the Bodies Exhibit that is traveling around the U.S. At first it caused a lot of controversy because the bodies displayed in the exhibit may have come from Chinese prison labor camps.)

However, good news! PepsiCo announced that it will no longer be associated with Senomyx, the organization that used the aborted fetal cells. That means Pepsi, Gatorade, Quaker Oats, Tropicana, and Frito Lay are no longer tested on aborted babies.

Wreaking Havoc, One Misspelled Word at a Time

I just practiced my speech for tomorrow, and I realized just how frequently I mix up words like "contraception" and "conception," or "birth control" and "birth canal." I've been researching and writing about this for years, and I just now realize my book is probably filled with those mistakes? It's like a copy editor's nightmare. Oy vey.

Update: When I typed the title, I wrote "Type" instead of "time." Maybe it's just my fingers this week.