May 15, 2009
Pro-lifers, including elderly priest, arrested at Notre Dame

UPDATE, 2:35p: Am adding stills from archived video of the arrest...

Note all the media...

If you go to the video link above (video #4), begin watching at about 12:00. The arrest of this dear elderly priest (photos on page 2), while perhaps following the letter of the law, was despicable. Think of the circumstances. This almost made me cry....

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I gotta say I'm changing my mind on the value of civil disobedience at Notre Dame and the willingness of Alan Keyes et al to get arrested.

From Fox News, within the hour:

Protesters opposed to President Obama's address to the graduating class of Notre Dame were arrested Friday after they disobeyed rules about staging their demonstration and walked onto the university campus....

Protesters were told they could protest all they want in the town of South Bend, IN, but once they stepped onto Notre Dame property, they would be arrested.

Former presidential candidate Alan Keyes led about 50 people onto the campus. They came across the gate and about 200 yards up the driveway where campus police were waiting. They were peaceful. The police asked the protesters to leave. They refused and were taken into custody. Vans were ready to load them up.

Perhaps the most dramatic moment happened when Father Norman Weslin of Omaha, NE, a former army colonel and founder of the Lambs of Christ, refused to leave. He was singing and was carried off on a stretcher, not strong enough to march off on his own.

All in all, about 15 people, a group not from the Notre Dame community, were arrested.

Outside of the arrests, the campus was generally quiet. A lot of students say the president's visit has been a constant source of debate about the school's teachings on life.

Both sides have been very civil. However, the activity off campus has caused some anxiety for members of the community who say that raucous protests may detract from the students' graduation day....

[HT: reader Gene P.; photo attribution: Associated Press]

taken from Jill Stanek's blog.

President Obama will be speaking Sunday at the graduation. There is a lot of peaceful protesting, and obviously you are arrested only if you go on campus. Question of the day. Would you go on campus and be arrested if given the opportunity? Pam

Great News Everyone!

Just finished listening to David Bereit from 40 Days for Life talk about this past Spring Campaign, and the one we are gearing up for in the fall.

Here are the results from the Spring Campaign:

215,000 people involved
240 cities involved
4 Canadian Providences involved
6 nations involved
1561 confirmed mothers whose hearts were changed and kept their babies
18 abortion clinic workers quit their jobs
3 abortion facilities closed

Praise the Lord! Isn't that wonderful! This is what happens when God's people get on their knees and pray! Also, they are gearing up for an even greater campaign in the fall. This summer we are focusing on getting out in the community to get people educated on the truth of abortion! We are also hoping to get more and more churches involved. Anyone that would like to participate and get involved with 40 Days for Life, contact the director in your city. We NEED more and more people to get the word out in between the campaigns!

Also, reports are coming in that Abortion support has decreased by 8% in the past months. Click here to read Jill Stanek's latest report. One more thing that was brought up by David Bereit from 40 Days for Life. If abortion was decreased or defeated under a legislation that was Pro Life, man would get all the glory, and the Pro Choice movement would look at the politicians. When abortion is defeated, and it will be!, under a radical Pro Choice administration, GOD will get ALL THE GLORY!!!! Keep praying my fellow prayer warriors! God is moving and He will be victorious!!! Pam

May 9, 2009
Breaking news: Pro-life ad to air during American Idol finale

There was great news at yesterday's National Catholic Prayer Breakfast. According to NCRegister.com:

EWTN's Raymond Arroyo announced that this new pro-life video ad has been accepted for broadcast on the closing episode of American Idol.

Produced by CatholicVote.org as part of its series of "Imagine the Potential" ads, the new ad promotes adoption by highlighting famous people who were themselves adopted.

The ad is fabulous! You'll watch it more than once...

This is the most absolute, wonderful, best thing, we in the Pro Life movement could do. Start promoting adoption, adoption, adoption. Getting the abortion laws overturned isn't going to happen anytime soon, but changing how people think, can. If we renew people's minds, especially the young girls and women to think LIFE for their baby, well, we wouldn't have to worry about the laws. Pam

taken from Life Training Institute

Moral Debate - Take the organs from aborted babies, or go the higher path and clone them for their organs.

taken from Life Training Institute

Killing Two Birds With One Clone [Bob]

I recently wrote on my own blog about the moral questions surrounding organ donation. In a nutshell, the topic has become more morally controversial in recent years as technology -- and a redefinition of what it means to be dead -- have "evolved" with the times. It used to be that one was considered dead when they became cold, blue and stiff. But as medical technology advanced to the point that organ donation became more viable, transplant medicine demanded that vital organs not be degraded beyond a useful state — a state that “cold, blue and stiff” often violates. So, in 1968, a Harvard committee proposed a more updated definition of death based on the brain dead criteria that has become a part of the national lexicon.

Even more recently, another definition of death has been put forward for organ donor candidates. The notion of cardiac death is defined as an “irreversible cessation of cardiac function.” This questionable criterion hinges on the definition of "irreversible," especially when you consider that the heart from one patient who has been labeled thus can be removed and instigated to go on beating in the chest of another patient. In that case, does irreversible mean that "we can't" restore cardiac function, or that we "won't." [re: Salvo, Spring 2009, Issue 8, p. 32]

In each case, there is a dilemma in play that begs us to consider the morality involved in not only choosing between offering one -- or several -- individuals a new lease on life through organ harvesting and taking the life of another by doing so.

These are difficult decisions. At least they have been in the past. But now, thanks to the insight of Sir Richard Gardner of Oxford University, they no longer need be. Gardner has found an ingenious solution to avoid the moral and medical difficulties of organ harvesting by completely bypassing the need to tiptoe along the hazy line that defines death ...

An Oxford University stem cell expert has urged the use of aborted children in organ transplants as a solution to the shortage of available organs. Sir Richard Gardner has called for a feasibility study on the possibility of obtaining organs from the bodies of aborted babies.

He said, "It is probably a more realistic technique in dealing with the shortage of kidney donors than others."

Brilliant!

But, as if Gardner's clever solution isn't despicable enough, a careful reading of the announcement shows that there may be a method to his macabre madness and that his outrageous suggestion may be nothing more than floating a trial balloon.

Notice that Dr. Gardner is described as a "stem cell expert."

No doubt he, or someone like him, will soon propose that, in order to mollify the moral objections that the "extremists" may see in using aborted fetuses to harvest body parts, we could avoid all such controversy by creating embryonic stem cells for the specific organs we need to replace. In other words, utilizing IVF embryos or engaging in therapeutic cloning for the purpose of embryo destruction to produce needed organs would be touted as a morally superior option. No ripped up babies! No motivation to abort babies! We'd just be doing "therapy."

This is the place where stem cell research and harvesting organs meet. There should be no doubt in anyone's mind that there is a slippery slope here and that we have been on it for many years. Those who have constructed the slope are doing nothing but covering it with grease.
http://lti-blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/killing-two-birds-with-one-clone-bob.html

Wait and see, they will end up using both aborted babies and cloned ones for organs and research. There will be a lot of money involved with the aborted babies. How did we get here? Pam

Pro Choice People are Smart

It is 11:30 at night as I write this with an aching head, back, and heart. It has gotten to the point where much time is spent keeping up with what all is going on. Let me tell you something, I am not very smart. There are articles and opinions out there that are amazingly written and well thought out. They use their words wisely. The Pro Choice people are very smart too. They are good at manipulating words, manipulating thoughts, and manipulating lives. The Pro Life people aren't real good at that, because most of us have our Father to answer to, and He requires us to tell the truth. No manipulating of anything. Truth only, as His son did while here on earth. People didn't like His son too much while He was here on earth wanting to help people, telling the truth about sin, and pointing people to His Father. Kind of sounds like what the Pro Life people are doing, doesn't it? And kind of sounds like those Pro Choice people are like the ones that didn't like Jesus.

Unfortunately, there are many that don't like Christians because they feel we are taking away their rights. They feel that we are restricting their lives from having fun and living freely. Kind of like rebellious teenagers. That is what the liberals remind me of. Destructive, rebellious teenagers who think only of themselves, and do not realize that certain rules and laws are put in place to help and protect them, along with society. That boundaries are good. That their actions and decisions have consequences. Not only for themselves, but others also. Although the Pro Choice people are smart, very smart, they have regressed mentally and emotionally back to being rebellious, dangerous teenagers, who destroy everything in their paths. And that would include our President. Pam

Readers, will you please read this article and tell me what you think?

taken from Jill Stanek
May 4, 2009
Psychological warfare: Students complain about "abortion plane"

I've been writing quite a bit about the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform Midwest's "abortion plane," as Wonkette called it. I requested donations for this important pro-life work over the weekend. (Thanks to all who donated. Please give now if you haven't.)

Received this email from Gregg Cunningham, head of CBR:

This is very much a psychological warfare tactic. The students are now complaining in large numbers that they can hear the plane inside their classrooms and it bothers them.

Planes fly over Notre Dame all the time and they have never before bothered these students. What is happening now is that when any plane flies over, it is suddenly audible at a new level. They fear that it is not just some plane, but THE plane.

Now instead of picturing a generic plane, they picture "that f***ing" plane, as so many messages call it. Now the sound of the engine forces them to see an aborted baby in their minds eye and it deeply stresses them. This is the first pro-life project from which they could not totally shield themselves. It reaches them wherever they try to hide....

This project isn't just about teaching ND a lesson. It is about signaling to every other Catholic college that if you invite this serial killer to speak on your campus, you are going to be inviting an intolerable level of disruption. It is about signaling to the White House that if they try to pull this stunt again with any other Catholic college, we are going to be there to embarrass the president by relentlessly, remorselessly hammering the administration, faculty and student body at that school.

FYI, this is finals week. Everyone is in class. I've received word the plane will fly 6 hours instead of the usual 3 each of the next 2 days.

What do you think about this? Is it wrong? Is it good? Is there a better way? Should we not say anything or stand up? Pam

Please Read this Article and Donate to the Huge Protest in Notre Dame to Keep the Planes Flying!! Help Keep their Stress Level Up!

May 2, 2009
Weekend question

President Abortion's anti-life activism has caused an unexpected backlash.

The 1st sign was the public's reaction to Obama's overturn of the Mexico City policy so as to provide taxpayer $$ to international abortion groups. This got him a 65% disapproval rating according to Gallup.

Then Politico.com reported a spike in pro-life recruitment and mobilization.

This week a Pew Poll showed the biggest drop in abortion support in 15 years - mostly from abortion-leaning Independents.

Obama may be winning battles like the Sebelius confirmation, but at this point he's losing the public opinion war.

Translation: Obama is making abortion unpopular.

The public fights Obama is instigating about abortion through his staff-picks and policy decisions are having an impact.

Next will be the fight over David Souter's Supreme Court replacement.

But right now Notre Dame is where it's at. When ND President Fr. John Jenkins announced ND would honor Obama at its May 17 commencement, I'm sure he was braced for backlash. But no one could have anticipated the tsunami.

Read this convicting email from Gregg Cunningham, president of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform. As I've previously reported, CBR is running an effective ground and air Obama Awareness Campaign. Someone asked him how much $$ he needs for the next 16 days:

... But $15K is a bare-bones budget which I could easily and usefully spend in the time remaining till graduation by simply increasing the number of hours we fly each day.

If I had even more money, I would bring in one or more additional planes. I would very much like to do that because the more hours we fly the more stress we cause the campus and community. The more stress we cause, the less likely it will be that Mr. Obama will end up on another Catholic campus any time soon.

Every time Catholic leaders venerate this mass murderer, they reinforce Obama's subliminal message that "you don't have to agree with me on abortion, as long as you agree with me that abortion is no big deal." That empowers him. It makes it easier for him to ram his agenda into law. It makes it easier for him to get re-elected and expand his loony-left majority in Congress.

Our very stressful presence at ND signals the left that if they want to make a pact with the devil, they will pay a price. Mr. Obama just announced he is putting FOCA on the back burner until "some of the anger" dies down. He is talking specifically about us.

The left scoffed at pro-life protesters at ND till we showed up. They scoff no longer.... Liberals think they should be able to get away with serial murder and we should just shut up and take it. They don't want to be criticized, but they really don't want to be forced to face the truth that abortion kills real babies and Obama is a real baby-killer. The pictures rain on their commencement parade. The pictures out the fact that everything isn't alright at ND. Now the pro-Obama students can't feel quite so good about abortion, Obama or themselves.

I could spend $30K here between now and graduation and still wish I had more. This is an extraordinary opportunity to pound the opposition. This is one of the few times when Mr. Obama's handlers have stupidly walked him into a political ambush, and I don't want to let them walk him back out. They have made the mistake of underestimating the pushback this invitation would trigger, and that makes them extremely vulnerable for the next 16 days.

We have paid for 3 more days of flying at 3 hours per day, but that merely covers graduation weekend. Keeping the pressure on between now and then will fray nerves exponentially with each passing day. That greatly magnifies the impact of those last 3 days. This is a classic psychological warfare operation, and the effect of the stress we are imposing is cumulative. If we ease up and let everyone recover, we greatly diminish the influence of those last 3 days of flying. This is such an extraordinary opportunity.... Don't you agree?

Yes, I do! Which brings me to this weekend's question:

Will you please invest money NOW in this critical pro-life battle?

The Stanek website receives between 4-6k unique visitors each day on weekends. If 4k people gave CBR $25, that would give CBR $100k. I know some people coming here are pro-abort, and some pro-lifers can't give. But you can see there is easy potential to meet a $15k goal and for us to pay to fly CBR's plane through commencement. I sent CBR a $100 check last week. Some of us can donate a little more. Please give something.

Mail checks to: CBR, PO Box 360503, Columbus, OH 43236

Donate online here. If that link doesn't work, go to the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform Midwest homepage and click the donate tab 4th line down on the right.

Donate online if possible. You'll get 'er done and not have to think about it again, and CBR will better know how much $ it has for this project.

Thanks in advance... :)

[Top photo courtesy of AFP; 2nd photo courtesy of ABC; bottom photo courtesy of CBR]

I am donating my 25.00 because I want to be able to say I contributed to their stress and uncomfortableness! Pam