Laundry

I’ve followed the news of late, but not much has compelled me to post. I’d rather change diapers than comment on Obama et al these days. And the news from my home state of Colorado this weekend saddened me beyond words. So did this heartbreak.

This, however, caught my eye this morning.

Via Bryan Preston, witness change:

It found that 66 percent believe paltry job growth and slow economic recovery is the result of bad policy. Thirty-four percent say Obama is the most to blame, followed by 23 percent who say Congress is the culprit. Twenty percent point the finger at Wall Street, and 18 percent cite former President George W. Bush.

The results highlight the reelection challenge Obama faces amid dissatisfaction with his first-term performance on the economy.

The poll, conducted for The Hill by Pulse Opinion Research, found 53 percent of voters say Obama has taken the wrong actions and has slowed the economy down. Forty-two percent said he has taken the right actions to revive the economy, while six percent said they were not sure.

Indeed.

Moving along, also from Mr. Preston who has kept me entertained in late-night nursing sessions, this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heh. Obama owns this economy.

 

 

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“pro-choice” label alienates, fewer self-identify

I wonder why.

Support for abortion rights dropped to a new low in the 18-year Gallup survey.Witness feminist teeth gnashing over this one:

The 41% of Americans who now identify themselves as “pro-choice” is down from 47% last July and is one percentage point below the previous record low in Gallup trends, recorded in May 2009. Fifty percent now call themselves “pro-life,” one point shy of the record high, also from May 2009?

Gallup began asking Americans to define themselves as pro-choice or pro-life on abortion in 1995, and since then, identification with the labels has shifted from a wide lead for the pro-choice position in the mid-1990s, to a generally narrower lead for “pro-choice” — from 1998 through 2008 — to a close division between the two positions since 2009. However, in the last period, Gallup has found the pro-life position significantly ahead on two occasions, once in May 2009 and again today. It remains to be seen whether the pro-life spike found this month proves temporary, as it did in 2009, or is sustained for some period.

Ed Morrissey notes the largest shift among demographics:

Independents now favor the pro-life position 47/41, a dramatic shift from last years’ 51/41 support for abortion, and the trend lines for independents roughly mirror the trends of the overall population.

You don’t say. Maybe The Lightbringer needs to call a press conference to say his former position–you know, not caring that infants born alive could survive the abortion procedure against the original intent of the mother–has now changed because he’s so Christian and that his thinking has evolved since public opinion means so much to him.

 

 

 

Planned Parenthood pleads: Pray for abortions!

I missed this earlier this month when LifeNews covered it, but I must say I’m awed at the brazen sacrilege of calling people to 40 days of prayer for infanticide. Today is Day 38:

Today we pray for a cloud of gentleness to surround every abortion facility. May everyone feel calm and loving.

Because gentle, calm and loving is exactly what comes to mind when babies are slaughtered, no?

Some of these are beyond rich. Day 3:

Today we pray for our daughters and granddaughters, that they will always know the power of making their own good decisions.

Who associates a good decision with abortion? Besides our POTUS, of course, who never wanted his girls “punished with a baby.”

Day 25:

Today we pray for women who have been made afraid of their own power by their religion. May they learn to reject fear and live bravely.

I find it telling that the PP crowd associates power with abortion. It’s powerful to kill your own child. Funny, I see it so differently: women do have an awesome, God-given power to create life. Creation, destruction. Good, evil. Life, death. Amazing, isn’t it, that liberals always seem to fall on the, er, wrong side of the equation?

Bryan Preston calls the brochure of prayer intentions “the most repulsive thing” he’s “ever seen.” I agree. But it’s not as ugly as what happens in an abortion clinic.

Day 27:

Today we give thanks for abortion providers around the nation whose concern for women is the driving force in their lives.

What a great defense for ol’Kermit: he was concerned for women.

Preston concludes:

Note also the absence of praying for girls to have families.

Can’t have that. Families are the enemy of the socialist state.

Reproductive justice, indeed.

Heh. Via The Lonely Conservative.

Need I remind you, the future belongs to the fruitful.

UPDATE: linked at Theo Spark. Thanks, Chris! AND at Temple of MUT! Merci!

Pricetag of the would-have-been aborted daughter: $3 million

Meet Ariel and Deborah Levy of Portland. They have three children. Two of whom are sons:

The Levys said their sons are healthy, strong and bright. The oldest is a competitive chess player and has placed in the 99th percentile on standardized tests.

Alas, their daughter–despite all the prenatal tests and ultrasounds–has Down Syndrome. The parents claim they would have aborted their now four year-old girl, Kalanit, had they known of her disability, a tidbit gleaned from the British press rather than the American. They sued the medical center where tests had been performed, and the jury awarded them the money.

I’m struck by many aspects of this story, most of all that a British tabloid is more truthful that the American press which obfuscates the reality of this horror, all the while emphasizing how much they love her:

Experts say so few parents choose to file wrongful birth suits because it forces them to take an awkward position: They must be willing to say on the record that they would have aborted the pregnancy, and that they feel a burden — albeit financial — of raising the child.

The Levys’ attorney, David K. Miller, said his clients deeply love their daughter but worried about being portrayed as heartless. Miller said they sued because they worried about providing all that their daughter would need over her lifetime. Experts testified that she will continue to need speech and physical therapy and face a concerning list of possible medical problems over her lifetime. Professionals have told the Levys that she will likely never be able to live independently, or earn a living.

Anyone who goes on record as saying they would have aborted her child after four years of raising her–not a “pregnancy”–does not love her.

How incredibly sad for any kid, disabled or not.

The defense argued that Kalanit’s form of Down Syndrome–mosaicism–was the reason the tests came back incorrectly. Mosaicism accounts for a very small percentage of Down Syndrome, and it means that not all cells have the extra copy of a gene, i.e. a percentage of cells do. As a result, kids with mosaicism tend to not have as many health problems and also generally have a higher IQ. Given that, I’m awed and a little angered by the “expert testimony” the Levys paid for who argued Kalanit would never be able to live independently or of the medical problems she would face.

But the jurors didn’t care.

Deborah Levy, who had held her emotions in check throughout the trial, began to cry as Judge Karin Immergut read the verdict. The couple nodded and mouthed “thank you” as jurors filed out of the courtroom. A few nodded back, smiled or reached out a hand toward the Levys. One juror visibly held back tears. Another wished them peace.

Peace, indeed. Peace to explain to your daughter–who will understand–why you chose to publicly disown her life which you don’t feel is worth living.

UPDATE: I had forgotten about this story from last September:

The jury awarded the parents $4.5 million to help “buy prostheses, wheelchairs and other medical services experts say he will need to live any semblance of a normal life” because their son was born sans arms and with only one leg.

At least Bryan Santa has a life, no?

What torment for a child at the age of three to know that mommy and daddy would have chosen to abort him because his life was too hard for them to bear.

Pray for this kid. Not because he has no arms and one leg. Pray for him because he knows he’s not wanted. And instead of teaching their child to focus on what he does have–a life, for the love of God!–they only look at his shortcomings.

I remember watching a documentary as a teenager about the thalidomide babies. Many were bitter. Some were ugly bitter, so twisted with hate because they were different, likely because the parents resented the intrusion from normalcy. But one–I still remember how his zest for life overcame everything, largely, I think, because he came from a big family where he was one of many. He played the drums with his feet. He painted. He could play frisbee. He had a wife–all limbs intact–and children. He was a happy man.

Bryan Santana, be that man. That’s my prayer for you. You have a heart and you have a mind. No one can take that away, not even your parents.

UPDATE: From the comments, Sherry imparts this:

The world says love equals never having to sacrifice or suffer at all.  And people want to believe it.

How true. It reminds me of Joe Klein’s thanks to Santorum for forcing uncomfortable thoughts regarding our society’s position on disability and parenting.

“It has been such a surreal, amazing experience that I still think sometimes that I will wake up and it will just be a beautiful dream”

So says 82-year old Ruth Lee of meeting her 100-year old birth mother, Minka Disbrow, who was raped as a teenager in 1928 and subsequently forced to give up her newborn daughter for adoption.

Ruth Lee is the mother of an astronaut and five other children.

What heartbreaking and awesome proof that all life–including unexpected, unplanned, and yes, even the product of rape–is something special.

From the AP:

For most of her 100 years, Minka Disbrow tried to find out what became of the precious baby girl she gave up for adoption after being raped as a teen.

She hoped, but never imagined, she’d see her Betty Jane again.

The cruel act of violence bore in Disbrow an enduring love for the child. She kept a black and white photograph of the baby bundled in blankets and tucked inside a basket.

It was the last she saw of the girl — until the phone rang in her California apartment in 2006 with the voice of an Alabama man and a story she could have only dreamed.

Disbrow, the daughter of Dutch immigrants, weathered a harsh childhood milking cows on South Dakota dairy farms. Her stepfather thought high school was for city kids who had nothing else to do. She finished eighth grade in a country schoolhouse with just one teacher and worked long hours at the dairy.

On a summer day in 1928 while picnicking with girls from a sewing class, Disbrow and her friend Elizabeth were jumped by three men as they went for a walk in their long dresses.

Both were raped.

“We didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know what to say. So when we went back, nothing was said,” Disbrow recalled.

Months passed. Her body began to change.

Disbrow, who had been told babies were brought by storks, didn’t know what was happening.

Her mother and stepfather sent her to a Lutheran home for pregnant girls. At 17, she gave birth to a blond-haired baby with a deep dimple in her chin and named her Betty Jane.

In her heart, Disbrow longed to keep her. But her head and her mother told her she couldn’t bring an infant back to the farm.

A pastor and his wife were looking to adopt a child. She hoped they could give Betty Jane the home she couldn’t.

“I loved that baby so much. I wanted what was best,” Disbrow said.

A young mother who thought babies were brought by storks loved that baby and wanted what was best. Any “woman’s advocate” of this day and age would tell us differently, that no woman could ever love the product of a violent rape. But Minka did. And she gave her up at 17 because she couldn’t provide for Betty Jane.

Betty Jane–now Ruth–grew up a happy child and always knew she was adopted. She didn’t pursue her birth mother until she was diagnosed with heart problems in her 70s. One of her sons did the legwork and was stunned to find Minka alive.

Every year, she thought about Betty Jane on her May 22 birthday.

Five years ago, Disbrow prayed she might get the chance to see her.

“Lord, if you would just let me see her,” Disbrow remembers praying. “I promise you I will never bother her.”

On July 2, the phone rang.

It was a man from Alabama. He started asking Disbrow, then 94, about her background.

Worried about identity theft, Disbrow cut him off, and peppered him with questions.

Then, the man asked if she’d like to speak with Betty Jane.

Her name was now Ruth Lee. She had been raised by a Norwegian pastor and his wife and had gone on to marry and have six children including the Alabama man, a teacher and astronaut Mark Lee, a veteran of four space flights who has circled the world 517 times. She worked for nearly 20 years at Wal-Mart — and especially enjoyed tending to the garden area.

What a testament to love–regardless of its origin.

 

“So perfectly organized a structure, it was hard not to attribute divinity to it.”

So says Alexander Tsarias of collagen and how the structure changes within the human body. Watch the TED lecture and marvel.

Tsarias:

The magic of the mechanisms inside each genetic structure saying exactly where that nerve cell should go– the complexity of these, the mathematical models of how these things are indeed done are beyond human comprehension. Even though I’m a mathematician, I look at this with a marvel of how did these instruction sets not make mistakes as they build what is us. It’s a mystery, its magic, its divinity.

We need more men like this in science and art–in this life, no? More men to speak plainly the truth of that mystery, magic, and divinity apparent in each human being and to breathe life into the art of science. To show the miracle of life and living. I’ve been a little awed by it myself lately.

My apologies for the extended absence. It’s a long and rather boring story. But I’m back on the wagon. With hope.

H/t: CMR

Romney to NARAL in 2002: GOP “not doing themselves a favor by being so vehemently anti-choice”

What a surprise, right? The Washington Post endears Romney to the so-called liberal Republicans:

Mitt Romney was firm and direct with the abortion rights advocates sitting in his office nine years ago, assuring the group that if elected Massachusetts governor, he would protect the state’s abortion laws.

Then, as the meeting drew to a close, the businessman offered an intriguing suggestion — that he would rise to national prominence in the Republican Party as a victor in a liberal state and could use his influence to soften the GOP’s hard-line opposition to abortion…

“You need someone like me in Washington,” several participants recalled Romney saying that day in September 2002, an apparent reference to his future ambitions…

Melissa Kogut, the NARAL group’s executive director in 2002, recalled Wednesday that as she and other participants in the meeting began to pack their belongings to leave after the 45-minute session, Romney became “emphatic that the Republican Party was not doing themselves a service by being so vehemently anti-choice.”

The abortion rights supporters came away from the meeting pleasantly surprised. Romney declined to label himself “pro-choice” but said he eschewed all labels, including “pro-life.” He told the group that he would “protect and preserve a woman’s right to choose under Massachusetts law” and that he thought any move to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision would be a “serious mistake for our country.”

With friends like NARAL, Romney doesn’t need enemies. How enlightening that would be in a debate with Obama, no? They could parrot each other. Keep it, um, safe, legal, and … yeah. Kill more babies! How depressing that a Republican nominee could be as dangerous to life as the Democrat. Look how far we’ve come! More from the WaPo:

Now, as they [his liberal BFFs] watch Romney’s ascent from his old stomping grounds in Boston, many of the liberals he encountered wonder whether his transformation has been sincere or a matter of sheer politics. Not only did he espouse more liberal views at the time, but Romney presented himself as a change agent who could soften the GOP’s rough ideological edges.

One of the liberal fans–a Democrat for Romney, if you will–believes it’s a matter of saying whatever needs to be said to win the nomination. What a surprise, eh? Via Smitty at The Other McCain, here’s damning praise if I’ve ever seen it:

One of Mitt Romney’s oldest Democratic supporters says the Republican presidential contender is a “warm” and “decent” person who is only masquerading as a die-hard conservative to win the Republican nomination.
“Obviously the positions that Mitt’s taking now are different than the positions he did when he ran for and served as Governor of Massachusetts,” Rocky Anderson, the former mayor of Salt Lake City, told HuffPost. “His handlers got to him and said, ‘This is what you need to do.’ And that’s what he’s doing to get elected.”

Smitty argues:

BHO has pretty well destroyed any need for consistency from politicians, so maybe being on all sides of every major issue is a boon to Mitt.

No. Maybe liberals could care less if Obama has no–or successfully hid his–core convictions. But for those of us who think conviction matters (how antiquated), voting for Mitt is as much of an impossibility as voting for Obama.

H/t: Hot Air headlines

The 10%

Via LifeSiteNews‘s facebook page, a smiling reminder of the grim toll of Roe v. Wade:

I fight for him. Do you?

A Pundette “Recommended Read.” Thanks!

Seven months

That’s how long Baby Joseph lived with the tracheotomy performed in an American hospital after Canadian officials denied the family the simple operation that would allow the family to bring Joseph home. Via Wesley Smith:

“Baby Joseph” died with his mother Sana Nader, father Moe Maraachli at the home, CBC News reported. “It seemed like a relaxing breath, like he was OK. It didn’t seem like he struggled,” Nader said, according to the report. “It was God’s way of telling us his last breath was OK.”

Prayers Joseph and for the family he left behind.