Gender-driven abortion: coming soon to a country near you

Caught this from the Washington Times today.  Apparently, Sweden has ruled that it's A-OK for women to abort their babies based on the sex of the fetus.  It's already a common practice in China, which has a one-child per family policy. 

In China, couples don't want a girl for their only child, so they abort them at very high rates.  Sweden doesn't have a one-child policy.  Gender-driven abortion is just a matter of choice for them.

The reasoning seems to be that in Sweden, women have the unfettered right to abort until the 18th week of pregnancy, no matter the reason.

I have two thoughts about this,a side from the fact that it makes me ill.  First is that since the current president is extremely pro-abortion, as is the Congress, I see no reason to believe that this couldn't become standard practice in the US.  And, it would have the full blessing of the government.

Second, this is nothing less than war against women.  These babies are being destroyed solely based on the fact they are female.  This gives me great confidence that feminist groups, and lawmakers who champion women's rights, are going to jump all over this.  I'm sure we will see protests in front of the Swedish embassy in Washington, DC.  We should see the condemnation of this practice starting anytime now.

In fact, I'll just right here until the protests start...

(H/T: Hot Air)

If life was good enough for Obama...

...shouldn't it be good enough for every baby?

The perfect Christmas gift...

One-stop shopping for every woman on your gift list...

What matters to me--Obama vs. McCain...

I haven't talked a lot about the presidential campaign. Mostly that's because I'm pretty disgusted by the whole system. And, between the voter registration fraud that's going on all over the country, I'm afraid we're slipping ever closer to being a third-world country, politically-speaking.

I also have a firm belief that God is totally in control of what happens. He is not bound by political systems, poll results, or voting trends. And there is no doubt He is at work, no matter who's in that fancy house on Pennsylvania Avenue.

That being said, there are a few issues that are important to me as a Christian (and not just as an American). I think they should be important to people of faith. The biggest question is one that is really foundational: what value do we put on human life?

It's an important question, and there is a portion of society that seems determined to lower the value we place on human life. (Don't believe me? Look here, here, here, and here for details.) And unfortunately, the guy who is probably going to win the election believes that unborn humans have no rights, even if they are born alive after a botched abortion.

Obama's views on life issues make it impossible for me to even consider voting for him, even if he was good on every other issue (which he isn't).

We'll know for sure what happens in just a few hours. Either way, we believers need to remember where our hope lies...

Who decides which lives are valuable?

It seems like there's a lot of news this week regarding pro-life issues. Most of the news isn't good, because it seems clear that there is a growing number of people who believe that some humans have less value than others. This story comes from London, where a woman who is called "Britain's leading moral philosopher" has suggested that people suffering from dementia should kill themselves because they are "wasting people's lives."

Warnock's main argument is that people with dementia take up too much of the health care system's resources. If they kill themselves, it will free up resources for other, more "worthy" people to be cared for. At this point, she is only suggesting that people with dementia be allowed kill themselves for the common good. But it seems like a short step from suggesting to demanding. After that, maybe the English government will just decide to end the lives of people who refuse to do it themselves.

I mean, if a government bureaucrat isn't qualified to decide who lives and who dies, who is?

There are really 2 huge problems here. First, this woman sees some people not as people, but as burdens on the state. Therefore they need to go away, so the state can operate more effectively. The idea is that people are valuable if they add something to society, but should be discarded if they impede progress (as defined by the state).

Second, these issues will always be a problem when the state controls and pays for health care. This is the aspect of nationalized health care that people don't want to acknowledge. In a nationalized system, people will always be seen as burdens on the system. And some burdens just can't be carried indefinitely. They will need to be purged.

And who does the purging, and why, should be important questions in the US at a time when one major political party advocates a government-run health care system...

Should Down syndrome babies be aborted?

Since John McCain picked Sarah Palin to be his running-mate, there has been an ugly conversation going on among some people in this country. The conversation is about Trig, the Palin's baby who has Down syndrome. There is a segment of people who think the Palins should have aborted this baby because of his condition. I think Christians need to be aware that this thinking is out there, even if it's just a small section of the population.

This writer, who also writes columns for the Washington Times and The Atlanta Journal Constitution, makes the argument that aborting Down syndrome kids is the right thing to do because they are a drain and burden on society. He goes so far as to say, "...it is crucial to reaffirm the morality of aborting a fetus diagnosed with Down syndrome (or by extension, any unborn fetus)..." (emphasis mine).

The danger in believing that aborting Down syndrome kids, or any kids with birth defects, should be obvious. It makes an assumption, mainly that some people have value, and some don't. Clearly, to the writer of this post, people with disabilities are a burden. And it's OK to eliminate people who are burdens.

There is an underlying assumption also, that people don't have worth just because they are people. Their worth has to be granted by someone else. But who grants worth? The government? We've tried that, in Germany and other places. It didn't work out so well.

In fact, there is only one objective for giving equal value or worth to every human being: each of us is God's special creation. That gives us worth that can't be taken away by any government, or any self-important writer.

As Christians, we should be on the forefront of the fight to see that each person is treated as valuable and worthwhile. This applies to people with special needs, of course. But it applies equally to anybody who is considered "less than" or worthless.

We can't look to political leaders to protect the rights of these people. We do have one presidential candidate who pays lip service to helping the "least of these." But I'm afraid that doesn't apply to everyone, especially the unborn. It's up to those of us who really see human life as valuable to do all we can to see to it that no one is left out when we say that "all men are created equal..."

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, R.I.P.

One of the greatest writers of the 20th century died this week. (OK, not as great as this guy, but great nonetheless.) Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was an author who really opened my eyes to the reality of communism and totalitarianism.

I don't remember why I picked up his book, The Gulag Archipelago, in the mid 1980's. It was based partly on his own experience of being a political prisoner in the Soviet prison system after World War 2. He told the story of what the Soviet Union was really like in a way that was beautiful, terrifying, inspiring, and sickening, all at the same time. Later I read The First Circle, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, and a bunch of his speeches and essays.

Solzhenitsyn was a true intellectual heavyweight who understood the evil threat that communism presented to the world. But he also saw that the West was suffering from moral and spiritual decline, which he said were caused by our materialism, reckless individualism, and lack of courage.

I was a little disappointed by Solzhenitsyn's willingness in his later years to embrace Vladimir Putin. Solzhenitsyn's desire to see a strong Russia rise from the ashes of the Soviet Union blinded him somewhat to the excesses of Putin's regime. But that doesn't do anything to lessen Solzhenitsyn's impact on the 20th century. And his insight into the nature of evil still can instruct us today.

In fact, if you read his speeches, and replace "communism" and "Soviet Union" with "Islamic extremism", much of what he said then still applies to the threats we face today.

Solzhenitsyn was unafraid to call communism for what it is: evil. He also wasn't afraid to condemn the evils of secular Western culture.

The lesson I learn from his life? One person who dares to speak the truth with passion, and without compromise, really can make a difference in the world.

Thanks, Mr. Solzhenitsyn. R.I.P.

Abortion as big business...

As much as I dislike politicians (especially this whiner and this snake), I gotta commend one that's got it right. Michelle Bachman is a congressman (woman? person? human?) from Minnesota. She gave this speech in the House chamber last week:


She's got it right: abortion is big business. Planned Parenthood brings in a ton of money every year to kill unborn babies. They get millions in government grants to carry on their nasty business. Then they funnel campaign contributions back to the same politicians who help them get their grants. It's all very convenient.

Who loses? The babies of course. But since they can't give large campaign donations, they aren't considered.

And Bachman brings up a good point: every dollar that goes to Planned Parenthood Is a dollar that won't go to centers that try to help women who are going through crisis pregnancies. That means it's up to those of us who value life to pick up the slack. This is a good place to send your money if you want to support a great pregnancy resource center...

Apparently, babies CAN be thrown away...

It's been a pretty outrageous couple of weeks for the American legal system. I'm going to hold off on my opinions over the recent Supreme Court decisions. But this story really gets to me, and it happened not too far from me.

It's the story from 2005 of a USC student who gave birth, then threw her baby into a trash dumpster. A homeless man found the baby's body later on. The coroner concluded that the baby had been born alive. The county DA tried twice to charge her with murder, but the judge wouldn't allow it. (The woman claims that the baby was stillborn, contradicting the coroner.) The DA wasn't left with a lot of options, so they worked out a plea deal.

She pled no contest to a child endangerment charge. (Does that make sense? If the baby was stillborn, how did she endanger it? The whole thing is screwy.) Her sentence? The 30 days she's already served. That's it. 30 days and a stern lecture from the judge, and you can throw your baby away.

Here's the kicker: it isn't the first time this has happened with this woman. The year before, in 2004, she went to an LA hospital because she was bleeding. She told the doctors then that she had given birth to a stillborn baby. But she didn't know where the baby's body was, and it was never found. She wasn't arrested that time.

So that's 2 dead babies, and she gets a total of 1 month in jail. It just shows how little we really value children in this society. Despite the fact that every law and regulation that's passed seems to be about protecting the children. We really don't care. This case just illustrates the point...

Good folks doing good work...

The Mighty Mrs. J and I are blessed. We have a great marriage (at least I think so), with great kids, and a nice house. We don't have a ton of money, but we don't hurt for anything either. And it's becoming more important to us that we help people in this world who have real needs. There's a lot of reasons this is more important to us. One, it is the right thing to do. Second, we want our kids to realize how blessed they are, especially compared to other people.

I say all that to tell you about one of the groups that we've been supporting for a while, the Foothills Pregnancy Resource Center. They work with pregnant women here in southern California. They provide counsel and guidance for these women, trying to get them to choose life for their babies. They are growing, reaching out, trying to provide more services to the communities they serve.

Here's a link to their web site. Click over and see for yourself what they do. And, I'm not one to tell you how to spend your money. But while you're at their site, why not give them a donation? Saving kids is a pretty terrific way to spend your money...

Huckabee in '08???

I need to apologize. Not just to you, my blog-tastic friends. But to this great country of ours. Why must I apologize? Well, I am an evangelical Christian, a recovering Southern Baptist. So I need to apologize for what my well-intentioned brothers and sisters in Iowa have done tonight. They were largely responsible for making sure Mike Huckabee won the Iowa caucus.

I believe they were bamboozled by the good reverend. You can hardly blame him. He sounds like a conservative. He says he's against abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and gay marriage. And he says he's for lower taxes, school choice, stricter immigration laws, and gun rights. What's not to love?

The problem is that the good reverend has the right talk, but his actions reveal a totally different person with very different values. According to this article, he's taken money from businesses that endorse call embryonic stem cell research "essential" in curing disease. He also took $13,000 to speak to a group that advocates the expanded use of the "morning after" pill. He pocketed another $4,000 to speak to a group that wants to expand health care coverage to illegal immigrants.

Speaking of illegal immigration on that front as governor of Arkansas the good reverend proved to be a good friend for those who want to come here illegally. See reports here and here for details. No matter what he's saying now about immigration (and his current plan is still amnesty for illegal aliens), his past record says he's an open-borders guy, just like the current president.

Then there's school choice. He had the support of a lot of homeschool families in Iowa, but he signed some of the most restrictive laws in the country regarding homeschooling in Arkansas. He has even picked up the endorsement of the New Hampshire chapter of the National Education Association (they're an ultra-liberal teachers' union.) As governor, he partnered with a branch of the United Nations to bring "international standards" to several schools in Arkansas. (Read the story here. It's too long for me to go into in detail.) He's no conservative on education, and no friend of homeschoolers.

This post is running way long, so I won't even go into detail about how he raised taxes, or let rapists and murderers out of jail early, or how he's clueless when it comes to foreign policy. I also won't go into how disgusting I find his attacks on Mitt Romney and his faith. Or his hypocrisy on the WGA strike.

To sum up, Huckabee is a fake conservative, and he's playing conservative Christians for the suckers we sometimes are.

And I, as a conservative Christian, just want to apologize...

So George W. Bush got one right...

People who know me know that I think G W Bush has been mostly a disaster as a president. From immigration, to spending, to national security, to the conduct of the war in Iraq, to prescription drug coverage, to education, to our energy policy, to reforming social security, to pushing his globalist agenda, I've little use for him.

But I've got to give the man credit for one thing he did right. And, it's something he took all kinds of heat for when it happened. He has been a staunch opponent of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. And rightly so. The hoopla over embryonic stem cells has been largely without merit. There haven't been any major medical cures using embryonic cells. But, there this huge push to pour all kinds of money into research using these cells. (Personally, I think this has more to do with legitimizing abortion, but that's for a different post.)

Well, scientists have announced the discovery of some amazing new treatments using stem cells. What's most amazing is that scientists found these by experimenting with adult stem cells. Apparently, they've found a way to use these adult stem cells to cure sickle cell anemia in mice. They believe this is going to lead to new treatments for all sorts of diseases.

What does this have to do with GWB? If he hadn't limited federal funding on embryonic stem cells, there would have been a flood of government money poured into that area of research. And scientists would have had no incentive to work with other types of stem cells. There would have been a growing need to destroy more embryos. Not to mention the temptation to go into really nasty ethical areas, like creating embryos for the purpose of harvesting their stem cells.

But GWB's policy forced researchers to find a different way. And they have. Now this area of research can continue without the ethical questions raised by embryonic stem cell research.

Good job, GWB! If you had done as well with all the other stuff I mentioned, you would've been a pretty good president...