from Talk to Action

In Life's Dominion, Ronald Dworkin posited that although most people believe that abortion is sometimes justifiable, they also believe it "a kind of cosmic shame when human life at any stage is deliberately extinguished."

Dworkin concluded that "because opinions about abortion rest on differing interpretations of a shared belief in the sanctity of human life, they are themselves essentially religious beliefs" -- which made the banning of abortion an unconstitutional establishment of religion.

But as self-styled political "moderates" decide that some forms of human life count more than others -- and that Christian conservative votes count most of all -- there's plenty of cosmic shame to go around.

from Talk to Action

Equipped to Serve is a popular training resource for crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) or, as they call themselves among themselves, "pregnancy center ministries." The first of the "Seven Fundamentals" at Equipped to Serve begins as follows.

"Truth is a very different thing from fact. ... Truth in the inward parts is a power, not an opinion."

Maybe that explains why the "truth" presented by CPCs strays so very far from the facts.

Human Life International (HLI), "the largest international, pro-life, pro-family, pro-woman organization in the world," is directed by Fr. Thomas Euteneuer. Euteneuer is a well-connected activist who has logged over 700,000 miles in his tireless crusade to eliminate safe abortion care both here and around the world. Now he's written a book about exorcism, and one of the demon-worshipers who's simply got to go is ... me.

The HLI site is headlined by an article titled "Abortion: The Devil's Masterpiece." It's heavily larded with the inflammatory language of hatred — including a charge that my colleagues and I literally worship the demon Moloch by supplying him with blood sacrifices of children  — and Father Tom means every word of it.  

If he wasn't such a man of peace, I'd think he was trying to get us killed.

Last week, Flip Benham's Operation Save America converged in Birmingham to "push what is left of the abortion industry into a deep grave." Writing of an OSA action against Birmingham clinics in 1994, Benham likened his mission to that of Dr. Martin Luther King.

Saints [were] held in the Birmingham jail where Rev. Martin Luther King wrote his letter.  The battle we fight is the same, just a different colored glove. One colored glove:  the humanity and equality of our black brothers and sisters.  Second colored glove:  the humanity and equality of our little brothers and sisters in their mother's wombs.  Both gloves cover the hand of one who has come to rob, kill, and destroy -- the devil!  The battle is the same.

Legitimate members of the clergy on the scene in Alabama this year included the Rev. Dr. Katherine Ragsdale of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, who witnessed a different kind of battle altogether.

from Talk to Action

What do you call a woman who has an abortion? A "murderous mom"? A victim rendered mentally incompetent by the hormone rush of pregnancy?

Do you call her your wife, your lover, your sister, your daughter . . . or somebody else's criminal?

Thoreau said, "The soul of man exists in the Contemplation of the nature of women behind bars."  In this, as in so many things, he appears to have been right.

As the Army of God honors executed murderer Paul Hill in Milwaukee and Operation Save America descends upon the same clinic bombed by Eric Rudolph, Operation Rescue prepares to host its own event in Wichita. Its target is Dr. George Tiller, the object of a years-long crusade by former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline.

Besides the usual gang of suspects with shadowy pasts and dubious friends, this year's list of high-profile guest stars includes the president of a United States NGO delegation to the United Nations.

Not bad for a group with its own ties to the Army of God.

While the Bible that the Christian Right is substituting for the Constitution these days maintains that "her price is far above rubies," those same people have decreed in various bans on abortion that the worth of any woman, no matter how virtuous, plummets at "that point in time when a male human sperm penetrates the zona pellucida of a female human ovum." From that moment forward, not only her body, her hopes and her dreams, but sometimes -— despite the hollow promise of tacked-on provisions allowing "a medical procedure designed or intended to prevent the death of a pregnant mother" — even her very life can be forfeit.

from Talk to Action

In their avid thirst for the blessing of the Christian right, GOP presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Sam Brownback lined up last fall to prostrate themselves before James Dobson and Tony Perkins. In the grip of his own presidential fever, John McCain joined them in espousing the religious right's agenda.

Catholic bishops are frustrated by Rudy Giuliani, who says he is personally opposed to abortion, but would not impose his beliefs on the nation. Some Catholic bishops condemn Giuliani's more moderate position on abortion as "pathetic," saying "he shares the identical position on abortion as John Kerry and Hillary Clinton."

from Talk to Action

As Flip Benham's Operation Save America prepares to besiege the same Birmingham, Alabama clinic bombed by Eric Rudolph, longtime associates of the underground terrorist network calling itself the Army of God prepare to memorialize assassin Paul Hill — complete with a reenactment of the shotgun murder that took the lives of Dr. John Britton and his escort, James Barrett.

Events like these are intended to remind abortion providers that there is a violent underground. But they should also remind the rest of society that there is an armed wing of theocratic activism, to which most turn a blind eye.  — Frederick Clarkson

from Talk to Action

As Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards got right with Jesus and the only "single-issue voters" that rate the Democratic Party's approval, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tried talking the talk to enlist "pro-life" support for funding stem cell research.

 House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has drawn guffaws from the pro-life community for comments saying that embryonic stem cell research, which involves the destruction of days-old human embryos, is a "gift from God." Her remarks came after the House approved a bill to force Americans to fund it.

"Science is a gift of God to all of us, and science has taken us to a place that is biblical in its power to cure... And that is embryonic stem cell research," Pelosi said.

[Promoted from the Diaries - MB]

from Talk to Action

As Rick Santorum, Hillary Clinton, Sam Brownback and Barack Obama packed to attend Jim Wallis' Pentecost 2006, some wondered about Wallis' true agenda.

The source of Wallis' appeal is his apparent moderation, both political and theological. His argument is compelling in its simplicity: An overriding commitment to social justice is more basic to Christianity than the issues championed by Christian fundamentalists. But to prevail he must avoid seeming too militantly progressive. "The country is not hungry, I don't think, for a religious left to counter the religious right," Wallis [said]. "The country is hungry for a moral center."

Don't speak the word "abortion!"

Steven D said it first at The Booman Tribune.

It's often an unstated assumption that many of us on the left make. We are afraid to talk about abortion and morality in the same sentence. Indeed, we are often so intimidated we don't even use the word abortion itself, referring to the debate as one between those who are "pro-choice" vs. those who oppose choice. It's become a dirty word, a word we have become ashamed to use, even among those who are most committed to providing women the opportunity to chooses an abortion ...

My response to Steven was that "no politician who's afraid to say abortion out loud unless it's followed by the phrase 'personally pro-life' can be trusted to defend any woman's right to have one."

Because "a woman's right to choose" just doesn't mean much anymore.

Johnny Castle and Baby could have taken lessons from Texas Speaker of the House Tom Craddick and Joe Pojman of Texas Alliance for Life. With the Speaker's one-man rule of the House facing an unprecedented challenge from within his own party, with the passage of a high-impact antiabortion bill at stake, and with the Texas legislative session in its final days, Craddick and Pojman were caught dancing the political payola polka.

"One of the sources of irritation with the Speaker this session is the amount of blood spilled and floor time that has been committed to socially conservative issues," but Craddick and the "pro-life" lobby are longtime partners — and one good move deserves another.

In the Texas Legislature, dirty dancing is only politics as usual.

A couple of months ago, a Karl Rove disciple by the name of Florence Shapiro introduced Texas Senate Bill 785.  Shapiro's bill required doctors to make detailed reports to the state about women who had abortions. The Senate passed it after removing sections making targets of judges who issued judicial bypasses, and even sending women to jail for failing to reveal highly personal information about their private lives to the state.

But now the bill is in the House, all the dangerous and intrusive provisions have returned with a vengeance, and the vote is tomorrow.  

Should this legislation succeed, the confidentiality of personal information, and medical privacy as we know it, will become a thing of the past for women in Texas. And doctors, instead of inspiring confidence in their patients, will be forced by law to pressure women with emotional blackmail.

Live and let live?  Sorry, but George W. Bush's god has other plans for your life.

We have just stepped up the pace of the killing in Kenya, and in the most budget-conscious way imaginable. Unlike our excesses in Iraq, this war isn't costing us a dime. No depleted uranium, no white phosphorus, no Mark VII second-generation napalm - no, nothing so messy. In Kenya, we are still killing them softly.

Both those opinions are wrong -- for some women, even today, literally dead wrong.  Should you still cling to either of those cherished illusions, PBS Frontline's The Last Abortion Clinic and numerous abortion providers will tell you that you're only whistling past the graveyard.

OK, everybody, how about some good news for a change?  

If you live in Rhode Island, chances are that you already know about the impressive professional accomplishments, extensive political involvement and numerous social contributions of Dr. Pablo Rodríguez.

Basically, as many people already know, and as the Bushistas in Florida are only beginning to find out, Pablo Rodríguez rocks.

And I thought everybody else might like to know him, too.

Meet my friend Dr. Pablo Rodríguez.

And this morning none of us was shocked--shocked!-- to hear about Harriet Miers' 1989 promise to support a Constitutional amendment banning abortion altogether.  

But now I'm going to tell you an abortion story that hasn't made the news, and probably won't--a story about the women of Katrina, and about the hurricane relief effort no one talks about--the Katrina aid that dare not speak its name.