Assisted Suicide

 

Don’t buy into “aid in dying”

By Stephen Drake
Editor’s note: Stephen Drake is the research analyst for the disability rights organization “Not Dead Yet.” This article was published by the Rochester NY Democrat and Chronicle on October 30 and republished on the Not Dead Yet website October 31.

Stephen Drake

Recently, you’re hearing and reading a lot about “aid in dying” — a relatively new term that is increasingly used in place of “assisted suicide.” You’re also being told that the issues surrounding assisted suicide are simple, with the only objections coming from far-right Christian conservatives.
There are many nonreligious progressives who have actively opposed legalization of assisted suicide for many years. The organization I work for is a secular disability rights group formed 19 years ago to oppose legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia. Thirteen other national disability rights groups also oppose legalization – many of them for over a decade.

Legalized assisted suicide sets up a discriminatory policy toward suicide based on the health status of the person who wants to commit suicide. Young, healthy, nondisabled people’s suicides are treated as preventable tragedies, while old, ill and disabled people are seen as expressing autonomy and deserving assistance to make sure our suicides don’t fail.

Seen from our perspective, that doesn’t smack of compassion or respect. Is it a coincidence that assisted suicide is gaining ground just as more of us are aging while we face growing cuts in the health care and social safety nets on both state and federal levels? Derek Humphry — often called the father of the assisted suicide movement — wrote in a book he co-authored in 2000 about the Unspoken Argument that it would be economics more than anything else that would drive assisted suicide to the plateau of acceptance.

Advocates for assisted suicide also claim that legalization will bring an underground practice into the light. That’s bogus.

First of all, the state reported “data” we get from Oregon comes from the doctors who prescribe lethal drugs and the pharmacies that dispense them, with no state verification or investigation, even when problem cases come to light in the mainstream press. While advocates for assisted suicide generally support statutes that have the appearance of accountability, it’s no accident that two of the five assisted suicide bills proposed in New York State have no reporting requirements at all.
As for the “aid in dying,” this term was the result of extensive testing with focus groups, according to assisted suicide advocates giving a presentation at a conference several years ago.
“Aid in dying” is a marketing term to draw more support than the term “assisted suicide.” But don’t buy it.

Source: NRLC News

Paul Ryan

 

“I don’t think Planned Parenthood should get a red cent from the taxpayer” says new House Speaker Paul Ryan

By Dave Andrusko

New Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, interviewed by CNN’s Dana Bush.

If you had the chance to watch newly elected pro-life Speaker of the House Paul Ryan(R-Wi.) on even a couple of the Sunday talk shows yesterday (he was on five!), you could readily see why he is pro-life John Boehner’s successor. Ryan is smart, articulate, funny, quick on his feet, and aware that the White House is still controlled by pro-abortion President Barack Obama with Senate Democrats more dedicated than ever to protecting Planned Parenthood .
Asked about defunding Planned Parenthood on “State of the Union,” Ryan told CNN’s Dana Bush

“I don’t think Planned Parenthood should get a red cent from the taxpayer. I’ve always believed that, even before these disgusting videos came out. But I believe we need to do our oversight. We’re just beginning to start a committee to investigate Planned Parenthood. That’s important. So the special committee on Planned Parenthood, I think, should be in the driver’s seat overseeing this process.”

(Ryan was referring to the eleven undercover PPFA videos released by the Center for Medical Progress and the creation of a special panel under the jurisdiction of the House Energy and Commerce Committee to investigate various allegations of misdeeds by Planned Parenthood.)
A first step was taken back in October when the House passed the “Restoring Americans’ Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act,” (H.R. 3762) which would block, for one year, most federal payments to affiliates of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA).
As NRLC explained H.R. 3762 is a special type of legislation called a “reconciliation bill.” This means that it cannot be blocked in the Senate by the filibuster, which has been the main obstacle to previous attempts to pass legislation to defund Planned Parenthood. Nevertheless, the bill faces formidable obstacles in the Senate.

The bill would close the largest pipeline for federal funding of Planned Parenthood, Medicaid, and apply as well to the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and the Title V and Title XX block grant programs. These sources account for roughly 89% of all federal funds that currently flow to Planned Parenthood. Under the bill, the amounts denied to Planned Parenthood are reallocated to community health centers.
When Mr. Ryan was sworn in as the 54th speaker of the House last Thursday, he was the youngest speaker in 150 years. When he was selected by Mitt Romney to be his running mate in 2012, the rest of the country had the opportunity to see what pro-lifers already knew about Paul Ryan.
“Congressman Ryan has a deep, abiding respect for all human life, including unborn children and their mothers, the disabled, and the elderly,” said National Right to Life President Carol Tobias. Ryan has compiled a 100% voting record from National Right to Life ever since he entered the House in 1989.
Our anti-life counterparts understood his track record just as well as we did. “Rep. Paul Ryan’s extreme anti-choice record shows just how serious a threat Mitt Romney’s presidency would be for women,” said Nancy Keenan in 2012, then president of NARAL Pro-Choice America.
Naturally he was accused of being a warrior in the tiresome “War on Women.” Ryan deftly handled the bogus allegations in his acceptance speech.

“Our different faiths come together in the same moral creed. We believe that in every life there is goodness; for every person, there is hope. Each one of us was made for a reason, bearing the image and likeness of the Lord of Life.

“We have responsibilities, one to another. We do not each face the world alone. And the greatest of all responsibilities, is that of the strong to protect the weak. The truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves.

“Each of these great moral ideas is essential to democratic government, to the rule of law, to life in a humane and decent society. They are the moral creed of our country, as powerful in our time, as on the day of America’s founding. They are self-evident and unchanging, and sometimes, even presidents need reminding, that our rights come from nature and God, not from government.”

Those pro-lifers who knew him best–Wisconsin Right to Life–sang his praises. Here’s what then-executive director Barb Lyons wrote when he joined Romney:

When Paul Ryan first ran for Congress in 1998, he was a very young 28 — boyish and eager. He came to a Wisconsin Right to Life interview with his clean-cut button-down shirt and fresh approach to public life. WRTL-PAC endorsed him for his fervent and sincere right-to-life convictions, but thought him perhaps too young to succeed. But succeed he did and Ryan has been over-achieving ever since.

Who is Paul Ryan? Fervently pro-life, amiable, tons of character, principled, honest, charismatic, man of integrity, fantastic communicator, devoted husband and father. This is the man we met in 1998 and he has not changed, just grown in stature and maturity. People know Paul Ryan and like him. All of these qualities have allowed him to continue to be re-elected with over 60% of the vote in a district that is, at best, a “swing district” but mostly Democratic.

To pro-lifers it is very reassuring that when retiring Speaker Boehner handed the gavel over to new Speaker Ryan, the most visible and important position in the House of Representative remained in strongly pro-life hands.

Source: NRLC News

Euthanasia

 

Disability Advocates join call for Exit Inquiry

Australian euthanasia activist Philip Nitschke

Australian Disability Advocacy group Lives Worth Living weighed in on the news concerning the medical board of Australia’s decision to severely restrict Dr Nitschke’s affiliation with the work of Exit International, by joining the call of an Inquiry.
LWL Convener Craig Wallace said that

“LWL welcomes the heavy restrictions placed on Dr. Nitschke. They highlight the need to protect all Australians from coercion to commit suicide, especially people with disabilities. Australians with disabilities face a lack of support, including specifically designed suicide prevention programs.”

“Despite the decision, the threat is not over. There now needs to be a Parliamentary Inquiry into the actions of Exit International. The restrictions placed on Dr. Nitschke raise real questions about the role and work of Exit International in coaching people towards suicide through online forums as evidenced in the tragic events reported last year.”

This echoes the call made by HOPE for the substance of the 12 complaints made to the medical board to be made public through an inquiry process.
“Doctors and others must listen carefully to the concerns of people with disabilities, who often face uncertainty and barriers in our lives. Encouraging suicide is not the answer. Better support is,” Mr. Wallace said.
You can read LWL’s full press release.

Source: NRLC News

Adoption

 

Simple Reminders about the Value of Adoption

By Micaiah Bilger, former Education Director, Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation
Editor’s note. November is Adoption Awareness Month.
As I sit here at my desk and type, I can see my little sister’s picture in the corner of my eye. Her face is vibrant as she poses in her pink and blue ballerina tutu with little fairy wings and a flower pinned in her hair.
Below that is a funny little picture that she sketched in church one day, a scribbly portrait of me and my husband. Every time I look at it, I smile. My husband has one big curly hair coming off the top of his head, and I think I have a tail.
Sometimes, I forget that my little sister was adopted. Even though we are 20 years apart and I was married before she was part of our family, I don’t think of her with an “adopted” label.
But when I saw that November is National Adoption Awareness Month, I was reminded that adoption brought her into my family’s lives. She has been a blessing in big ways and small ways, from her scribbly picture that greets me every morning at work to her filling my parents’ empty nest with the joy that only a child can bring.
And I just want to thank her birth mother and every birth mother who makes the difficult decision to make an adoption plan. I don’t know if my little sister’s birth mother considered having an abortion, but I do know she had the wisdom to see the value of her little girl’s life.
This is a short, simple post, but I just wanted to remind you (as I remind myself) of the value of adoption.
Learn more about adoption in Pennsylvania at AdoptPAKids.org.

Source: NRLC News

Media Bias

 

Chris Matthews dismisses the real significance of a major media that is almost entirely “liberal”

By Dave Andrusko

Chris Matthews

So, should we be surprised that the very epitome of “very liberal” and hyper-partisan journalism–Chris Matthews–should write a piece for Fortune magazine under the headline “Conservatives Are Right: The Media Is Very Liberal”?

No, if Matthews merely concedes the obvious: “Study after study has shown that the mainstream media leans left, and that, as economists Tim Groseclose and Jeff Milyo have written, ‘an almost overwhelming fraction of journalists are liberal.’” And that “it is safe to say that the median journalist in America is to the left of the median American voter, and that this affects how the news is presented to the public”? (Hold on to that latter thought for a second.)

But yes, if Matthews would leave it at that. Fat chance of that . Instead he spends almost the entirety of his essay  “proving” that “if there’s demand for more conservative media, the free market would provide it.” (This is supposed to be hoisting “free-market fundamentalists “ on their own petard.)
Trying to dissect his argument, I gather the gist of what Matthews is arguing goes like this. Quoting from a 15-year-old study (a) “Journalists themselves, and the type of person who aspires to journalism, are almost uniformly of a liberal disposition”; (b) “People with the talent, temperament, and personality to be journalists might also be inclined toward liberal political causes”; and (c) “The hyper-educated media elite are trading the better pay they might fetch in corporate communications (for example) for the prestige of journalism work. If managers of media companies tried to force these workers to produce content that robs them of the benefits of working in journalism, they’ll simply find work elsewhere.”

I’m not sure whether it’s circular reasoning and/or the hint that those who go to what Matthews calls “Legacy news organizations like NBC News or the New York Times” (which “have brand recognition and resources”) are just better people for turning down higher paying jobs for which they are qualified, or smarter, or both.

But that’s all fine and good but it avoids entirely the far more pressing questions: why conservatives, and independents “increasingly distrust the news media” and how having one almost wholly dominant political orientation “affects how the news is presented to the public.”

One answer is in Matthews’ opening paragraph which he acknowledges how one of the Republican presidential candidates turned the obvious biases demonstrated by the CNBC moderators against them in the most recent GOP debate. But he swings and misses when he suggests it was just “conservatives” who found the panel’s questioning appalling. That discomfort and dismay and displeasure was felt across much of the ideological spectrum, excepting President Obama who (what else?) mocked the Republicans for being angry.

The other part of the answer to the question of what is the effect on “how the news is presented to the public” when the “median journalist in America is to the left of the median American voter” is found in the moderators’ responses. They couldn’t believe, couldn’t grasp how anyone could think they had an agenda. They were just doing their job.

Put another way, it’s the questions not asked, the assumptions never questioned that fundamentally distorts how the networks and the New York Times and the Washington Post and the AP cover, say, abortion. Their stories read as if they were lifted from press releases from Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America.

And they could have been, because they are ideologically almost wholly in tune with one another. It would never dawn on “Legacy news organizations” to question Planned Parenthood when it says it adheres to the highest ethical standards or to trash those who do not take PPFA’s word for it.
But that’s why we have alternatives, such as National Right to Life News and National Right to Life News Today. I trust you are sending links to our stories to your pro-life contacts.


Source: NRLC News

More on China

 

The totalitarian mindset and China’s One-Child Policy

By Dave Andrusko
National Right to Life News Today has posted five stories about the announced change in China’s infamous, brutal One-Child Policy. We will continue to closely follow the story for four compelling reasons.

First, announcing that married couples may now have a second child doesn’t mean that change will be honored. “The new policy needs to be thoroughly vetted for dishonesty,” Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) wrote. “The Chinese government lies about its human rights record. In 2013 it claimed an end to the horrific ‘Reform Through Labor’ system of detention. But we know now that system has continued under different names.”

Second, while the number of “allowed” children may have increased, “Children will continue to be killed if unauthorized by the government and huge fines imposed—the so-called social compensation fee—on families who evade detection and have so-called illegal children,” Smith wrote. “Both the old and ‘new’ policies implement forced abortions, involuntary sterilizations and huge fines. These coercive methods result in a gender imbalance favoring males that drives human trafficking problems region-wide,” added Smith, who serves as the Chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. “It remains highly restrictive because it still limits the size of Chinese families, which means it will be enforced coercively.”

Third, the reasons given for the change are as entirely demographic just as the outcome–a 118-100 boy-to-girl sex ratio and an aging population–was entirely predictable.
But, and this is a huge but, “Noticeably absent from the Chinese Communist party’s announcement is any mention of human rights,” wrote Reggie Littlejohn of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers.
“The Chinese Communist Party has not suddenly developed a conscience or grown a heart. Even though it will now allow all couples to have a second child, China has not promised to end forced abortion, forced sterilization, or forced contraception. Coercion is the core of the policy. Instituting a two-child policy will not end forced abortion or forced sterilization.”

To its credit, the Washington Post wrote a devastating editorial. I can’t honestly say if the Post was a Johnny-Come-Lately to the choir of critics of this grotesque abridgement of human rights, but it did say (in “China’s lifting of its one-child policy can’t undo the damage already done”) that

There’s a broad lesson in this about simplistic Malthusian thinking — as well as a very specific lesson about the characteristic mind-set of totalitarian states.

The Post observed that, in addition to ignoring the “radical contingency of the future ,”

What also dissolved, in the minds of the one-child policy’s architects, was any shred of compassion. Even if it had succeeded in fine-tuning China’s population growth according to some universally acknowledged criteria, the one-child policy would have been monstrous. The proof of that is the litany of forced abortions, harassed and jailed mothers and female infanticide that the policy brought in its wake, and which continued even after Beijing liberalized the rules five years ago. Those who spoke up in protest, such as dissident lawyer Chen Guangcheng — now living in U.S. exile — often wound up arrested and jailed, too.

There is a fourth reason we will continue to cover China’s population control polices, just as we have for decades. As we wrote yesterday, there were, are, and always will be apologists for what you could properly call “soft totalitarianism.”

The practitioners of soft totalitarianism, like Paul Ehrlich, start out telling you that the end-is-near, the apocalypse is around the corner unless you [fill in the blank]. In this case the 1968 doomsday prediction was “The Population Bomb.”

When their predictions do not come true, they double down, becoming even more intolerant of doubters. I am indebted to Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal for this:

“My language would be even more apocalyptic today,” an unrepentant Mr. Ehrlich told the New York Times earlier this year. “The idea that every woman should have as many babies as she wants is to me exactly the same kind of idea as, everybody ought to be permitted to throw as much of their garbage into their neighbor’s backyard as they want.”

As Stephens points out, “Notice what Mr. Ehrlich is comparing to garbage.”

Stephens traces the origins of China’s One-Child Policy to Ehrlich. But his key insight is that there will be always be people like Ehrlich–trained as an etymologist, for heaven’s sake–who make exaggerated statements and are impenetrable to evidence that they are wholly wrong. It’s the motivation of followers , who tend to be highly educated, that is mysterious. Or, maybe not. For them

What matters, rather [that evidence], is the strength of the longing. Modern liberalism is best understood as a movement of would-be believers in search of true faith. For much of the 20th century it was faith in History, especially in its Marxist interpretation. …In short, a religion without God.

Think about how abortion fits into this secular catechism . It is the be-all and end-all (literally for the unborn child) that will rescue women from the nefarious forces of history–the shackles of organized religion, the chains of customs and mores, and the manacles of the dreaded Patriarchy.
And because evidence has no place, the Planned Parenthoods, the NARALs, the EMILY Lists cannot be dissuaded.
Thus forever and always, Death=Life.

Source: NRLC News

China- The Rest of the Story

 

China’s new two-child policy will not end forced abortion or gendercide

Editor’s note. This analysis comes from Women’s Rights Without Frontiers.

Reggie Littlejohn, speaking at a Capitol Hill press conference on Chinese human rights. (Photo credit: Reuters.)

BEIJING, CHINA–Xinhua News Agency reported Thursday that China will move to a two-child policy for all couples, “abandoning its decades-long one-child policy.”
Characterizing this latest modification as “abandoning” the One-Child Policy is misleading. A two-child policy will not end any of the human rights abuses caused by the One Child Policy, including forced abortion, involuntary sterilization or the sex-selective abortion of baby girls.
The reason given for this adjustment is entirely demographic: “to balance population development and address the challenge of an ageing population.” The adjustment is a tacit admission that continuation of the one-child policy will lead to economic and demographic disaster. The policy was originally instituted for economic reasons. It is ironic that through this very policy, China has written its own economic death sentence.
Noticeably absent from the Chinese Communist party’s announcement is any mention of human rights. The Chinese Communist Party has not suddenly developed a conscience or grown a heart. Even though it will now allow all couples to have a second child, China has not promised to end forced abortion, forced sterilization, or forced contraception.
Coercion is the core of the policy. Instituting a two-child policy will not end forced abortion or forced sterilization.
The problem with the one-child policy is not the number of children “allowed.” Rather, it is the fact that the CCP is telling women how many children they can have and then enforcing that limit through forced abortion and forced sterilization. There is no guarantee that the CCP will cease their appalling methods of enforcement. Women will still have to obtain a government-issued birth permit, for the first and second child, or they may be subject to forced abortion. It will still be illegal for an unmarried woman to have a child. Regardless of the number of children allowed, women who get pregnant without permission will still be dragged out of their homes, strapped down to tables, and forced to abort babies that they want.
Further, instituting a two-child policy will not end gendercide. Indeed, areas in which two children currently are allowed are especially vulnerable to gendercide, the sex-selective abortion of females.
According to the 2009 British Medical Journal study of data from the 2005 national census, in nine provinces, for “second order births” where the first child is a girl, 160 boys were born for every 100 girls. In two provinces, Jiangsu and Anhui, for the second child, there were 190 boys for every hundred girls born. This study stated, “sex selective abortion accounts for almost all the excess males.”
Because of this gendercide, there are an estimated 37 million Chinese men who will never marry because their future wives were terminated before they were born. This gender imbalance is a powerful, driving force behind trafficking in women and sexual slavery, not only in China, but in neighboring nations as well.
Source: NRLC News
Sending out the message that China has “abandoned” its one-child policy is detrimental to sincere efforts to stop forced abortion and gendercide in China, because this message implies that the one-child policy is no longer a problem. In a world laden with compassion fatigue, people are relieved to cross China’s one-child policy off of their list of things to worry about. But we cannot do that. Let us not abandon the women of China, who continue to face forced abortion, and the baby girls of China, who continue to face sex-selective abortion and abandonment.
The one-child policy does not need to be modified. It needs to be abolished.
Sign our petition to end forced abortion here.

Source: NRLC News

Media Bias

 

Familiar pro-abortion lament: “The Big A is treated as a dirty word” in popular culture

By Dave Andrusko

Gina Rodriguez and Justin Baldoni in “Jane the Virgin” (Credit: The CW/Patrick Wymore)

I’ve never seen “Jane the Virgin” and (given my schedule) it’s highly unlikely I will. But when Salon politely trashes the show for insufficiently promoting the “pro-choice” agenda, I took time to carefully read Nico Lang’s argument.
The post is necessarily complicated and compressed. Lang summarizes the premise of the story and its first season + in this manner:

The critically acclaimed dramedy stars Golden Globe-winner Gina Rodriguez as an aspiring writer who accidentally gets artificially inseminated after a hospital mix-up—and decides to keep it. This causes obvious tension in her relationship with Michael (Brett Dier) and a romance to blossom with Rafael (Justin Baldoni), the soon-to-be father of her child.

Lang gives the CW story line kudos for realistically portraying the trials and tribulations of becoming a single mom and for being “an incredibly non-judgmental view of motherhood.” So, where does the story go off the rails for Lang? How does it “struggle to walk its pro-choice talk”?
The seeds of doubt seem to have been planted early, at least in retrospect.

The show’s pilot was lauded for its pro-choice depiction of a matter-of-fact conversation about abortion when Jane finds out she’s pregnant, and later, for a conversation about whether or not Jane would terminate the pregnancy if tests showed severe abnormalities (she wouldn’t, and they didn’t).

Drats. How could Jane not agree?
This is followed by a recent episode regarding the choice made when the boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend [Petra] self-impregnates (I know, I know, but stick with me for a moment. This is, after all, a telenovela.)

Confusingly, the show emphasizes that it’s Petra’s body and her call, but abortion — in many ways, the least dramatic choice Petra could make here — is a non-starter. The Big A is treated as a dirty word.

Remember, we have read a gaggle of stories trumpeting that television and movies are becoming more “realistic,” that is, much more willing to resolve unplanned pregnancies in the “appropriate” manner–have an abortion. “Jane the Virgin” threatens the narrative that the days of the simple-minded response–have the baby–are long since gone.
To that end, Lang retraces what are, to her, the false steps–those movies where abortion was either not considered at all–such as “Waitress”–or considered and rejected–“Juno.”
Lang ends this way (the Cody is Diablo Cody, the screenwriter for “Juno,” who, like its creator, Judd Apatow, is pro-choice):

Cody argued that she intended to show the “human, teenage reasons” that someone might choose not to have an abortion, which is fair, but too rarely do we ever get to see the “human, teenage reasons” that a girl like Juno might choose to terminate her pregnancy.

She follows on to conclude

While the misstep is disappointing, pop culture has long struggled with how to present a woman’s right to choose in ways that are validating and non-dismissive.

But the large part of the thrust of the stories and posts and scholarly essays lauding the coming (but not complete arrival ) of more “realistic” portrayals of abortion in popular culture is that teenage girls are having abortions in shows such as “Friday Night Lights” and “Degrassi: The Next Generation.” (Adults , too–see “Grey’s Anatomy.”)

And, of course, in the movies, there is “Grandma” where Lilly Tomlin plays the grandmother who helps her granddaughter raise money to have an abortion, and the idiotic “Obvious Child,” whose adult-age lead character has the emotional intelligence of a pre-teen.
So, it is not as “rare” as Lang suggests.

Perhaps Lang’s real gripe is that while things are getting “better” (from her perspective), abortion is not the reflex option, the default position when a girl or woman faces an unplanned pregnancy in popular culture.
Thank goodness it isn’t.

Source: NRLC News

Robbie

 

Before you have an abortion, remember Robbie

  Kristi Burton Brown 

Three years ago today, a young woman had an abortion. Before she laid down on the cold, hard table, she named her baby Robbie, believing he was a boy. This young woman debated her decision over and over, taking weeks to make up her mind. But once she made her choice – to complete the abortion – there was no way she could bring her Robbie back.
I talked to this young woman many times in the weeks leading up to her abortion, and I grew to love her. We discussed the pain preborn babies scientifically feel in abortions – as early as 5.5 weeks; she watched The Silent Scream – a video made by a famous former abortion doctor, commenting that “that poor thing looked like it was crying when it died;” she saw pictures showing her how developed Robbie was at his young age. But there’s one thing I didn’t show her that I wish I could have.

I wish I could have showed her this:

And this:

You see, at the same time I was talking to Robbie’s mother, I was pregnant with my own son. I didn’t know it at the time, but my son is only four or five weeks younger than Robbie would be today.
Looking at my own son and knowing what an absolute gift he is – despite unpredictable circumstances and health issues we’ve encountered – makes me wish I could have shown Robbie’s mother the gift her son would be today, too.
I wish she also could have seen what a gift Christina is and realized Robbie would have been the same.

Christina’s mom walked out of an abortion clinic. Read her amazing story, told in Christina’s own words: “‘Do you want to have this baby?’ The ‘YES’ that changed everything”

If only she had listened to the truth she knew inside. As she told me:

Abortion seems like a sad way to die, being alone and unloved b[y] the only person who is supposed to love you and take care of you. …I think its a bit like killing an animal for food…its sad…

But Robbie’s mother decided that her son wasn’t human enough for her to avoid abortion. She was in her first trimester, and perhaps didn’t realize the absolute humanity of a child from his very first moments.

Annabelle was 8 weeks, 5 days old when her mother had a miscarriage and took this (and more) photo of her.

Sadly for Robbie’s mother, she felt pressured into abortion for a number of reasons – just as so many other girls and women do. Maybe a doctor is urging them to make their “choice” now – within the next ten minutes – after an uncertain or scary ultrasound. Maybe they feel pressure from their boyfriend or their parents – as these young women did. Perhaps they feel pressure from an unknown future, one they believe will be lost if they have a baby. It’s natural to feel pressure in unexpected, difficult circumstances. But there are so many more answers than the ones we see upfront.

“At 8 weeks, this baby can kick and straighten his legs, and move his arms up and down.” (Photo credit: Life Dynamics.)

Practical, emotional, and physical help is offered to pregnant women around the nation by pregnancy resource centers, groups like Stand Up Girl, Embrace Grace, and Teen Mother Choices International, and helplines (phone, text, online chat, and email) including Pregnancy Line, Option Line, Life Call, and Pregnancy Decisions Line.
There are beautiful answers that include a smiling, chubby-cheeked toddler like my son. A toddler who, just like Robbie and every other child, deserves to be born, to take a breath, to fill the air with his laughter. A toddler who started out small, and equally precious, as real photos and videos of fetal development demonstrate.
<a href="http://www.ehd.org/widget2.php?movie=1&size=400&bg=1&nobuy=1">Play Movie</a>
A week or so before her abortion, Robbie’s mother canceled her first abortion appointment, demonstrating the strength that so many women have – to cancel an appointment, to not show up, to walk out, and even to get up off the abortion table itself. Other mothers have courageously reversed their abortions, once theirs had begun. (For more on abortion reversal – after taking an abortion pill or having laminaria inserted – go here and here.)
But every year, when the leaves turn and fall from their wooden perches, I remember Robbie. I remember his mother. And I look at my own son and think of what could have been. I wish I had been able to show this young woman that along with the hardship and pain of life, there is immeasurable joy. The birth of a new life is the very definition of hope itself.

A baby in her first trimester

Why I choose life

So before you choose abortion or before you let someone you know make this decision, remember Robbie, and save a life.
Go get an ultrasound – they are free at pregnancy resource centers. Hear your baby’s heartbeat – see what the young woman at the end of this article said about the moment she heard her tiny daughter’s heart beating. You are stronger than you know, and there are many who will come alongside and support you.
For more information, facts, and practical resources:

• 10 reasons not to have an abortion
• Learn the facts about fetal development – from an unbiased, scientific source
• 10 amazing things that happen to babies before birth
• What to do if you are being pressured into an abortion
• Waiting in an abortion clinic, here’s why she changed her mind
• What, exactly, is abortion?
• Abortion and men: What’s a father to do? (The info here can also apply to other relatives or friends of a pregnant woman.)
• How to stop someone from forcing you into an abortion
• 6 people who are showing a different side to common reasons for abortion
• 7- and 8-week-old babies prove the humanity of every child in the womb
• Mom shares touching photos of her baby at 19 weeks
• A tale of two babies – Nathan Isaiah and #AnotherBoy
• Raped while on a business trip, my husband and I chose life
• Abortion, according to a doctor who has performed over one thousand of them
• Doctors told this young mom her baby would have deformities, and her boyfriend scheduled her for abortion, but she chose life
• Teenage mother: I chose you even when I wasn’t ready for you
• Hundreds of women and girls share why they regret their abortions

Source: LiveAction News

China's New Policy

 

Under China’s Two Child Policy, there will still be ‘hundreds of women crying each day’

  Nancy Flanders  

China announced last Thursday that the country is ending its 35-year-old One Child Policy. The policy restricted urban couples to having only one child and rural couples to no more than two. However, this isn’t the first time headlines have proclaimed the end of the strictly enforced policy, and the facts demonstrate this newest change will not end the outrageous human rights violations plaguing China.


Under the updated policy, the Chinese government says it will allow all married urban couples to apply for a second birth permit after having one child. As with the 2013 revision to the One Child Policy – which allowed couples where one member was an only child the privilege of having a second child – couples will have to go through the steps of applying for a birth permit. In addition, couples will likely still have to overcome restrictions such as being the correct age, from a certain type of family, and living in a particular location before being able to obtain a birth permit.
Freedom House reports that the process of obtaining the permit is arduous. Couples must get official stamps of approval from a variety of people, including their work supervisors. Neighbors and coworkers are encouraged to report any couples who have more than the approved number of children, and incentives such as work bonuses are on the line if anyone within a company is found to have violated the policy. Couples who do violate the policy are at risk of hefty fines, job loss, and forced abortion as well as sterilization.

None of this will end with the latest reboot of the policy.

Blind human rights activist, Chen Guangcheng, tweeted:

This is nothing to be happy about. First the #CCP would kill any baby after one. Now they will kill any baby after two. #ChinaOneChildPolicy

“China’s change to the One Child Policy is not enough,” said Matthew Li, founder of China Life Alliance. “Couples who have two children could still be subjected to coercive and intrusive forms of contraception and forced abortions – which amount to torture. […] Today there will be hundreds of women crying in China because they are required to abort against their will. After the One Child Policy is changed to the announced ‘Two Child Policy’ there will still be hundreds of women crying each day.”
Women’s Rights without Frontiers – an organization which works to end forced abortion – agrees, saying there is no guarantee that the Chinese Communist Party will end the “appalling methods of enforcement” of their One Child Policy. In a statement, the organization wrote:

Regardless of the number of children allowed, women who get pregnant without permission will still be dragged out of their homes, strapped down to tables, and forced to abort babies…

The real problem with the One Child Policy, says Women’s Rights without Frontiers, was not that Chinese couples were restricted to one child, but that they were restricted at all. Limiting couples to two children is still in violation of a couple’s human rights, and using methods such as forced sterilization and forced abortion to ensure couples follow the policy further violates those rights.
“No human should be told how many children they have,” said Li, who is calling for China to end all family planning policies.
In addition to the horrific and common occurrences of forced abortion, sterilization, and contraception, China’s One Child Policy has led to further tragic consequences, including the gendercide of millions of females.
The ratio of women to men has become so skewed in China that in some areas of the country, there are just 100 girls born for every 190 boys. Gendercide has left 37 million Chinese men without women to marry. This tragedy has led to an increase in sex trafficking and sex slavery in China as well as its neighboring countries. The new Two Child Policy will do nothing to end this, as many couples will still abort any preborn girls until they become pregnant with a boy.

Baby hatches are one way some in China are trying to save lives.

Despite the horrific consequences suffered by the people of China, their government has made no mention of human rights as a reason for implementing the policy change. Instead, the stated goals are to overcome the looming labor shortage created by the One Child Policy, and to deal with the growing population of aging adults.
China’s population control has caused a decline in the country’s working age population which, according to The Washington Post, dropped 3.71 million in 2014 after slightly declining in 2013 and 2012 as well, due to a consistently shrinking labor force. In the last two decades, the birth rate has nearly been cut in half.

The consequences of one and two child policies: the death of children and much more.

“Starting in two or three years, you’re going to see another substantial, precipitous drop in young labor entering the labor market,” Wang Feng, an expert on Chinese demographics told the Financial Times. He believes China “for decades to come will have to live with the aftermath of this costly policy.”
The conversion to the Two Child Policy may be too little too late for China. Just as it won’t end forced abortions or sterilizations, it won’t end gendercide either. And their economy likely won’t feel the effect of more born children for decades.
The people of China will continue to suffer as long as any population control is in place. China Life Alliance is calling the Two Child Policy nothing more than a public relations stunt, warning that we should even be “hesitant to believe the announced changes until we learn more details.”

Source: LiveAction News