Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform - See it. Believe it. End it.

Do We Know When Life Begins?

jvanmaren — Tue, 21 May 2013 17:17:27 +0000

by Stephanie Gray

Have you ever heard someone who supports abortion claim, “No one knows when life begins”? The funny thing is, these very individuals actually do claim to know when it begins. If they ban abortion at 3 months, then they are implicitly saying life begins at 3 months. If they ban abortion at 6 months, then they are implicitly saying life begins at 6 months. The question is this: Is where they draw the line based on fact or convenience?

Moreover, abortion advocates are making an even greater concession than they realize. Consider the labels “3 months” or “6 months”: these reveal the passage of time, and show that time is being “clocked” from a beginning point 3 or 6 months prior. So wherever abortion advocates draw a line, they are unwittingly making this major admission: that life began where they started clocking the passage of time that brought them to 3 or 6 months. So what happened 3 or 6 months prior? Fertilization. And that’s when life begins.

Life begins at fertilization, but not because I say so; rather, because science says so. Embryology texts repeatedly echo the sentiment expressed by Keith Moore in his medical textbook The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology: “Human development begins at fertilization.”

To paraphrase my friend and pro-life apologist Steve Wagner, consider these 3 questions:

1. If something is growing, isn’t it alive?

2. If it has human parents, isn’t it human offspring?

3. And we humans have human rights, don’t we?

Our society recognizes the latter—that’s why we are outraged when genocides occur. As for the second point, as long as we don’t re-open the debate about the humanness of women, and as long as we don’t open a debate about the humanness of men, there is no reason to doubt the humanness of their offspring.

As for the first point, at fertilization, a one-celled embryo grows into two cells, then four cells, then eight and so forth. Thus, he or she is clearly alive. That embryonic human may be smaller, less developed and more dependent than the rest of us, but let’s remember that a toddler is also smaller, less developed, and more dependent than us too.

We are labeled when we are certain ages (e.g., “embryo” or “toddler”) and as a result of our age, we may or may not be able to do certain things. But regardless of which age category we fit into, we’re human beings at all stages of our development. To allow those of us who are older to kill those who are younger is age discrimination.

As for the claim that embryos don’t “look” human; actually, they look exactly as a human should look at that stage of development. And that brings to mind an analogy from Richard Stith: consider a Polaroid picture. Once you click the camera and the card comes out, what initially appears is brown/black smudges. But within a few minutes the image appears with clarity. The image is captured in an instant but it does need time to develop. So it is with each of us—who we are as unique, unrepeatable individuals of great dignity is captured in an instant (fertilization); we just need time to develop.

To conclude, it’s worth considering that when scientists want to create human life in a lab, they don’t plead ignorance about when life begins. On the contrary, they know exactly when it begins, for they aim to replicate not an individual at 3 or 6 months’ development, but rather they aim to replicate the moment of fertilization. They aren’t satisfied with a sperm or egg by themselves, but they are satisfied with a one-celled embryo.

So why is it that when scientists, or others, wish to destroy human life, they claim to not know when it begins? Perhaps it’s because we don’t want to know when life begins. Because if we admit life begins at fertilization, then we have to admit our society is committing and permitting the greatest human rights violation in the history of the world when we allow for the destruction of the youngest of our kind.

Stephanie Gray is co-founder and executive director of the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform: http://www.unmaskingchoice.ca

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Anti-Abortion Group Confronts Calgary MP Michelle Rempel

jvanmaren — Tue, 21 May 2013 12:23:19 +0000

May 21, 2013: For Immediate Release

ANTI-ABORTION GROUP CONFRONTS CALGARY MP MICHELLE REMPEL

Calgary, AB. Calgary Centre-North MP, Michelle Rempel, is coming under fire from a national anti-abortion group which says she “failed the children.” Rempel is the second of five politicians at the heart of the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform’s (CCBR) controversial “Face the Children” campaign, which involves circulating tens of thousands of graphic postcards in a politician’s riding. The announcement that CCBR is targeting Rempel follows on the heels of a sweeping postcard distribution last week in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Riding.

CCBR’s postcards are extremely shocking, showing Rempel’s face next to a 6-month aborted fetus. It highlights the fact that Rempel was named one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women by the Women’s Executive Network, and also says she has been listed as “pro-choice” by Canada’s most radical abortion “rights” group, the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada.

“As a powerful woman, Ms. Rempel should be protecting Canada’s powerless children, but she failed them last fall,” said Stephanie Gray, executive director of CCBR.

Gray is referring to Motion312, which Rempel voted against in the fall of 2012. Motion 312 was proposed by MP Stephen Woodworth, asking Parliament to strike a committee and examine whether or not Canada’s criminal code was in line with modern science about when life begins. Currently the criminal code says a child doesn’t become a human being until “It has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother.”

Motion 312 failed and the postcard says, “The defeat of Motion 312—thanks to Rempel and other MPs—means that pre-born humans can continue to be killed during all nine months of pregnancy.”

A 2013 Environics Poll found 60% of Canadians say human life should receive legal protection by the sixth month of pregnancy. Abortions are permissible in Canada through all nine months of pregnancy.

CCBR’s executive director, Stephanie Gray, explained her group’s new tactic: “It is increasingly difficult for pro-life MPs to broach the abortion issue without facing backlash from opposition parties or their own. This needs to be reversed—now, politicians who won’t change the status quo that permits the dismemberment of the next generation of Canadians will be the ones to face backlash.”

CCBR remains tight-lipped about who its next three MP targets are. It did reveal, however, that it is selecting MPs based on their voting history regarding matters that affect the pre-born. Gray said, “For years, politicians who discriminate, based on age, against pre-born children have maintained Canada’s bloody ideology unimpeded. It’s time that people were exposed to the reality of what the voting records of certain MPs actually mean—that in Canada, where you live may well dictate /if/ you live.”

Face the Children is part of a series of controversial projects CCBR’s young staff of 21 have been doing. Most recently they made waves in Toronto where they stand outside high schools five days/week with abortion imagery—a project they started in Calgary two years ago and have since maintained there too. And last year they launched a cross-country tour of anti-abortion activism with their “New Abortion Caravan,” a campaign that re-traced the steps of the old “Abortion Caravan” that abortion-supporting activists did in 1970 to repeal the abortion laws. The new Caravan kick-started CCBR’s plan it calls “EndtheKilling,” which they say will enable them to fulfill their goal of ending abortion in their lifetime.

For more information contact Stephanie Gray at 647-472-7770.

###

Edna Adan: Maternal Health Activist

jvanmaren — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:18:20 +0000

by Alanna Gomez

One of the most dangerous places to be pregnant is the small, unrecognized country of Somaliland in South East Africa. Women there have a 1/12 chance of dying in childbirth during their lifetime. Most people live in remote villages and have no access to medical attention. There is an attitude that it isn’t worth spending the money to give women medical help, and even if there were hospitals anywhere near their villages, women who seek medical help are often seen as weak. Women are often treated as expendable.

One woman has brought down the maternal mortality rate to ¼ the national average in her hospital. Edna Adan, a former senior UN official, left her high-powered life and sold everything she had to return to her homeland and start a maternity hospital- the first of its kind in the country. Before the hospital was built, her new office was under a tree in a dusty courtyard. She persevered, and the global community came together to help fund her hospital.

Before entering politics, Edna was the first trained nurse and midwife in all of Somaliland. Following in the footsteps of her father, a respected doctor, Edna trained in the U.K.. Her father told her, ”Before you learn to work with your hands, your heart must learn to do the work.”

There can be no doubt Edna is working with her hands and her heart. Her hospital trains midwives from all across the country, sending them back to their villages. Edna looks at a map of her country and sees a battle zone. The enemy? Disease and unnecessary death. The main culprits of such high rates of maternal mortality are the lack of access to health care professionals, lack of basic hygiene, malnutrition, and other conditions that are entirely preventable or treatable in more developed parts of the world. Another huge factor-- female genital mutilation (FGM).

Unavoidably linked to the maternal mortality rate, a large part of Edna’s work involves education about FGM. This major human rights violation is estimated to have been inflicted on more than 130 million women worldwide. Some hesitate to decry this horrific procedure, seen as a traditional practice in some cultures. Reporter Nicholas Kristoff explains that “There was a period when Americans were too soft on FGM…cultural relativism didn’t want to criticize other cultures…at some point, you got to say that is wrong. It may be your culture but it is a pretty lousy aspect of culture.”

FGM is just what it sounds like--the cutting up of young girls genitals. They are sewn back up, leaving almost no opening. The procedure itself has major health risks, and is done in barbaric ways, but also causes severe problems when it comes time to give birth. The scar tissue that has formed is not as elastic as the muscles of the birth canal, and cannot stretch to let the baby out. Usually, women have to be sliced open to be able to deliver.

Actress Diane Lane, upon meeting Edna and witnessing her work said, “When there is a practice that is so offensive to the human rights of women, it is okay for us to say this is wrong—let’s try and see what we can do to turn it around, to eradicate it.”

Edna welcomes reporters to visit rural villages with her, to open our eyes to the difficulties she faces in changing the maternal mortality rate in her country. In an interview with Nicholas Kristoff, she said, “Unless [the world sees] the reality they will not understand the severity of the situation.” This also applies to the video she obtained of a FGM procedure. She wants people to see and understand the damage that is being done to young girls- a procedure that has implications on their whole lives. Edna herself had this procedure done, and says that every-time she sees another laboring mother mutilated like she was, it brings the horror all back to her. “This is probably why I fight it,” she remarks.

Visiting a remote village of camel, goat and sheep herders with reporters, Edna met with a woman who was 8 months pregnant with her third child. She hadn’t eaten meat in two months and thought she was anemic. The Traditional Birth Attendant was there and displayed a razor blade on a piece of twine- her tools to assist in the birth. When Edna’s dream is fully realized, women in these communities will all have access to a trained public health midwife who can focus on preventing complications and dealing with pregnancies. She wants to train at least 1000 women to fill this desperately needed role. The graduates of her programs are pioneers in women’s health in Somaliland.

Edna explains she doesn’t only have hope- she has confidence. Already, she is seeing the change that is needed. The effects on communities, the talent of girls who have been trained and the number of girls who desire to be trained prove that this change can and is happening. In Edna’s words, all because of a hospital built on a garbage dump by a crazy old woman. She challenges the world- if Somaliland, an extremely poor, developing nation can do it, any country can do it.

Learning from History: An Interview with Brock Thoene

jvanmaren — Wed, 15 May 2013 19:13:28 +0000

by Jonathon Van Maren

“People have often asked, and we’ve asked ourselves—how could Nazi Germany participate in the Holocaust? How can you take entire segments of your society, Jews as well as Gypsies as well as dissenting pastors, and round them up, and exterminate them in the millions?” Brock Thoene says, “Germany was widely regarded as the most advanced, the most civilized, most cultured nation in Europe of that era. It seems almost imponderable. How can you reconcile those things?”

As a renowned author of historical fiction, Brock Thoene has spent his entire career searching for the answers to these questions—and presenting the public with answers in the form of historical fiction.

There are very few authors who can lay claim to a resume as impressive as that of husband-wife writing team Brock and Bodie Thoene—they’ve produced over 65 superbly researched and beautifully written works of historical fiction, garnering eight Gold Medallion Awards from the Evangelical Christian Publisher’s Association. These works, including the much acclaimed Zion Covenant Series (detailing the lead-up to the creation of the State of Israel), the Zion Chronicles Series (following the events leading up to the outbreak of World War II), and the Shiloh Legacy Series (set in the USA during the Great Depression), have been published in twenty languages and sold more than 35 million copies.

Bodie, a successful journalist before turning to fiction writing, has been acclaimed by none less than actor John Wayne, who called her “a writer with talent that captures the people and the times.” Brock, a historian, is largely responsible for ensuring that the people and the times have been depicted accurately—and as a result, both the Zion Covenant and the Zion Chronicles series have been “recognized by the American Library Association, as well as Zionist libraries around the world, as classic historical novels and are used to teach history in college classrooms.”

Speaking on the phone from his office, Brock Thoene offers his own theories on the questions he has just posed to me. First, he notes, the Nazi regime demonized the Jews and other dissenters as the root of Germany’s economic problems. However, one of his theories touches rather shockingly on a very controversial issue: Abortion.

“There’s the other thing that’s often overlooked,” Thoene notes, “In the year before Hitler came to power, 1932 in Germany, there were one million abortions. Germany was not even that populous a nation—I don’t know what the German population was in 1932, but a million! A million is a significant number. If you don’t have regard for the segment of your society that is least able to defend itself, that being the unborn, then why do you accord protection to anybody else?”

This, of course, is a controversial point to say the least—but one that demands attention. Once the concept of “personhood” is separated the status of being a human being, it becomes an arbitrary label to be bestowed or rescinded by the state. Historical circumstances surrounding the denial of personhood, of course, differ widely—with one brutally evident similarity: in each case where personhood was denied to human beings—Jews, African Americans, Native Americans, and now the pre-born, the youngest members of our species—atrocities resulted. Or, in the case of abortion, are still ongoing.

To Brock Thoene, the logical progression from killing one subset of human beings into killing another is almost inevitable. “The only people who can protect the unborn are folks…who have the ability to stand up for themselves,” Thoene tells me, "Once you’ve made that decision that as a society you don’t extend the protections of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness to the unborn, it’s not really much of an issue then to say, the elderly are a drain on society, so whether they live or die is up to the state. The physically handicapped are a drain on society, so whether they live or die is up to the state. The mentally challenged, the mentally ill, all of these groups—and then it’s really not much of a stretch, it’s just one more step to say, ‘Well, the Jews…’ or whoever you want to target, Christian pastors, dissenting politicians, and so on. They are a drain on society because they are in opposition to what we know is progress.”

An uncomfortable truth, but one that the long and bloody history of man’s inhumanity to man has unfortunately borne out. The evidence of the barbarism abortion inflicts on tiny human beings is an undisputable matter of fact—yet one that everyone, including large swathes of the Christian community, seems intent on studiously ignoring. This, says Thoene, is a problem in desperate need of fixing.

“I don’t think I’ve seen a poll that ranked on how people voted and why they voted, but I suspect pro-life is way down on the scale of issues,” he says. “That is really sad, and goes to widespread moral corruption—why isn’t this issue number one? When you’re choosing a candidate, why don’t you look at that first? And that goes to a failure of leadership. Why aren’t Christian leaders saying, ‘How can you?’”

As long as Christians continue to ignore the issue of abortion, says Thoene, it will become “more and more submerged. You can’t expect a secular media to make that point—but you should be able to expect Christian pastors to make that point, and when they don’t, they have abdicated their responsibility.”

Every generation has had their struggles to deal with, and Brock Thoene believes we should be standing up to confront ours, regardless of how difficult it may be. “We look back at my [parents] and Bodie’s parents, the ones that grew up through the Great Depression and the ones that successfully fought the Second World War, and we quite rightfully say they are the Greatest Generation,” he says, “Look at the fortitude they showed, look at how they persevered through all those difficult times. I suspect, however, that if you had spoken to them while that was going on, they’d say, ‘We’d rather not have this challenge, we’d rather not have to deal with it.’”

Will things change? Brock Thoene’s answer to that question is more of a challenge: “When people will take their faith seriously and speak out unafraid regardless of the consequences, great changes happen.”

He is perhaps unconsciously repeating the words he and his wife wrote in The Key to Zion: “Being brave…is not always being unafraid. Maybe it’s more like doing what you know is right even when you’re too tired. Or scared. It’s going on and doing anyway…even when you think you can’t take one more step.”

And we have many more steps to take.

A Reckoning for Gosnell and a Warning for Canada

jvanmaren — Mon, 13 May 2013 20:58:08 +0000

by Jonathon Van Maren

Note: Read CCBR's eyewitness coverage of the Gosnell Trial here and here.

Today Dr. Kermit Gosnell, the abortionist butcher from Philadelphia on trial for snipping the necks of born-alive infants among hundreds of other charges, has been found guilty on three counts of first degree murder and one count of third degree murder. I’m sure the pro-choice spin doctors are already at work drafting press releases announcing that they are in oh-so-hearty agreement with the verdict due to Gosnell’s unorthodox and unsanitary methods of practicing the barbarism they champion, but make no mistake: This verdict is a victory for all those who value human life in all its forms.

I have to say I’m surprised. There is a mountain of evidence illustrating the fact that infanticide in North America is increasingly accepted by many in the political realm and medical community as really, really late-term abortions. Medical professionals have been suggesting that “post-birth abortion” might be okay, if not desirable. America re-elected a president who openly voted against the Illinois “Born-Alive Infants Act,” specifically designed to protect babies such as Gosnell’s victims. An Edmonton judge gave an Alberta woman a suspended sentence for strangling her newborn and tossing him over the fence due to Canada’s relaxed views on abortion. Live Action’s “Inhuman” expose project has revealed many abortionists who openly admit that babies surviving abortion are either left to die or actively killed.

And of course, Canada’s own Stephen Harper, recently referred to in the Ottawa Citizen as the “de facto leader of Canada’s pro-choice movement,” responded to the revelation that 491 babies had been born alive and subsequently died after abortion procedures in Canada between 2000 and 2009 by ignoring the issue entirely. When asked about it in the House of Commons, he stated that, “All members of this House, whether they agree with it or not, understand that abortion is legal in Canada and this government, myself included, have made it very clear that the government does not intend to change the law in this regard.”

Inside the womb, outside the womb. To abortion status devotees, it’s hairsplitting. Gosnell actively butchered abortion survivors, while Stephen Harper seems content to simply reiterate abortion’s legality, implicitly classifying the deaths of born alive infants as abortion victims. To be fair, they are. But the brutal truth is that our prime minister seems perfectly willing to give abortion practitioners who might be inclined to engage in what we’ll refer to as “Gosnell tactics” a free pass. That door marked “abortion debate”? Stay away from it. It’s messy. In fact, don’t even go near it—the blood leaking under the door looks slippery.

But finally, excruciating evidence of abortion barbarism has pricked the right consciences, and Kermit Gosnell will be facing at minimum a lengthy prison sentence, if not the death penalty, which Pennsylvania permits. Abortion victims have been recognized as people in need of justice, not trash in need of cremation. That is a significant victory.

Keep in mind that many of the things Dr. Gosnell is charged with are legal in Canada, where abortion is legal up until birth. Canada’s own infanticide victims have been ignored by our law enforcement officials and our prime minister.

It’s up to the pro-life movement to make them impossible to ignore. It’s up to us to push for justice for the victims of Canada’s abortionists.

And we are.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Anti-Abortion Activists Face-Off With Stephen Harper

jvanmaren — Mon, 13 May 2013 12:56:45 +0000

May 13, 2013. For Immediate Release:

Anti-Abortion Face-Off with Stephen Harper

Postcards with Aborted Fetus Images Alongside Harper Images Go to Constituents

Calgary, AB. Starting today, a group of anti-abortion activists will circulate postcards with images of Prime Minister Stephen Harper next to bloody, graphic pictures of late-term aborted children to homes in Harper’s constituency. Harper is the first of five politicians the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform (CCBR) says it will make “Face the Children”—the name of its new project. The group plans to distribute 250,000 postcards in the five ridings by summer’s end.

The group said it’s starting with Prime Minister Harper because of his unwillingness to have any legislation limiting abortion. On June 15, 2004, during the English election debate, Stephen Harper said, “I will not have legislation limiting a woman’s right to choose.”

He has maintained his pledge, even voting against Bill C-510, otherwise known as “Roxanne’s Law,” a bill that would have protected Canadian women from being coerced into an abortion. And in April 2011, Stephen Harper was quoted by CBC as saying, “[Abortion-related] legislation that is brought forward will be defeated as long as I am prime minister.” In 2008, when interviewed by reporters he said, in French, “This government will not open, will not permit anyone to open the abortion debate. Our position is clear.”

“Prime Minister Harper’s cold indifference to the slaughter of pre-born children must be challenged,” said Gray. “His position to defeat any abortion-related legislation and to shut down debate in Parliament is so extreme that it means he is unwilling to ban abortion in the third trimester—pitting our prime minister against a majority of Canadians.”

A 2013 Environics Poll found 60% of Canadians say human life should receive legal protection by the sixth month of pregnancy. Abortions are permissible in Canada through all nine months of pregnancy.

CCBR remains tight-lipped about who its next MP targets are. It did reveal, however, that it is selecting MPs based on their voting history regarding matters that affect the pre-born. Gray said, “We are closely monitoring what politicians do and do not do—what they say and do not say. If they fail the children, they will face the children.”

Face the Children is part of a series of controversial projects CCBR’s staff of 21 have been doing. Most recently they made waves in Toronto where they stand outside high schools five days/week with abortion imagery—a project they started in Calgary two years ago and have since maintained there too. And last year they launched a cross-country tour of anti-abortion activism with their “New Abortion Caravan,” a campaign that re-traced the steps of the old “Abortion Caravan” that abortion-supporting activists did in 1970 to repeal the abortion laws. The new caravan kick started CCBR’s plan it calls “EndtheKilling,” which they say will enable them to fulfill their goal of ending abortion in their lifetime.

For more information contact Stephanie Gray at 647-472-7770.

###

Kim Sung-eun: Smuggling People to Freedom into South Korea

jheikoop — Fri, 10 May 2013 20:04:50 +0000

"I saw dozens of emaciated bodies of North Koreans streaming down the Tumen River. It was too horrible to watch," Kim said. "Right there and then, I decided to dedicate my life to defectors." (1)

Reverend Kim Sung-eun followed through on his vow. In the year 2000, when he witnessed this heart-breaking scene at the North Korea-China border, Kim decided to do more than donate money to help citizens fleeing the brutal North Korean regime of Kim Jong-un. He became a human rights activist.

Active he is. Today, more than ten years later, Kim and his small congregation at the Caleb Mission church have helped hundreds of North Korean defectors escape to the south. They are fleeing starvation, re-education camps, economic instability, mass executions and other horrors of what may be the world’s most repressive regime.

One woman helped by Kim tells how her family was forced to watch hundreds of executions, along with all her neighbors (2). Soldiers would drag everyone from their homes, including children, and make them all witness the murder of their chosen victims. She now lives in South Korea, but her husband is still in the north, while her daughter was sold by Chinese gangsters, likely into prostitution. Kim and his contacts have not been able to locate her.

On one of his early trips to the Chinese border area, Kim met his wife, Park Ester. She had fled North Korea after both her parents died of starvation. Her scarred hands spoke volumes to Kim. He knew that she was committed to helping others like her to escape and would be a good partner in his mission.

Kim uses a large network of contacts to help defectors escape, but also to document the reality of life in North Korea. He sends in spy cameras and pays people to smuggle out official documents. The information that he has gathered is arguably better than what the South Korean government is able to access. Obtaining this information puts those who smuggle it out at great risk—and therefore costs a great deal of money. The Caleb Mission has released some of their clandestine footage to garner some attention and raise money for further investigations.

Despite the value of this information and the attention this part of his mission receives, Kim says that rescuing people is the most important part of his work. His team is always looking for ways to make their rescues more efficient. He knows he can’t save everyone, but firmly believes in the power of God to help those whom he tries to rescue. Kim says he has “experienced miracles many times over” and knows that “as long as [he doesn’t] give up, [he] will be able save at least one more precious life.”(1)

What better example could other human rights activists ask for? To see injustice, be moved to action, trust in God and never give up the chance to save just one more precious life.

1http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/07/world/la-fg-south-korea-defectors-20120807

2http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/north-korea-barbaric-regime-revealed-1828378

WARNING: Genocide Photos Ahead

jvanmaren — Tue, 07 May 2013 16:18:01 +0000

by Ruth VanDyken

As published in the Christian Renewal (crmag.com)

The headline above is the first sign you would see as you walked through Detroit’s Eastern Michigan University on April 11 and 12. Continuing up the path a massive billboard with pictures of the victims of genocide would commandeer your mind. Your senses would be filled to overflowing with the emaciated, dead bodies of Jews – more than you can take in. Beyond this is a picture of several black Americans, eyes bulging, bodies hanging from a tree. And as your wary eyes travel further yet, they rest on the sight of a bloody fetus – tiny feet and little toes floating just below a tangled mass of intestines; a rib cage half-crushed. Mercifully for your eyes, at least, the head is not in the picture. And above it, the caption reads “Genocide Victims are Denied Rights of Personhood.”

As your mind attempts to process all of this, a voice interrupts. “What are your thoughts on abortion?” Now engaged, from mind to voice, you fire back, “How can you compare abortion to genocide?”

This was the scenario six Canadian friends and I saw hundreds of times during our time at the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP,) joining American students and prolife activists in Michigan. It’s a valid question, one that we had to ponder before the whole endeavour. Is abortion really genocide?

It’s a bold claim, yet the parallels between past genocides and abortion are striking. When cultures separate humanity and personhood – whether the denigrated subjects be Jews, blacks or pre-born babies – monstrous injustice results. When groups are classed as subhuman, as a “disease on society,” and as a barrier blocking the way to a desired lifestyle, innocent humans are starved, gassed, enslaved or torn limb from limb.

This is the travesty of “choice.” In Canada and America, nearly one in four pre-born children dies by dismembering, disembowelling and decapitation. Since Roe v. Wade, 54.5 million children have been legally aborted in the USA.

54.5 million Americans. It can be a dangerous thing to compare mass-killings, but it may give an idea of the scope of abortion to juxtapose 54.5 million with the most widely-cited example of injustice, the Holocaust, where six million Jews were murdered.

Abortion IS genocide. And “Choice” is just state-sanctioned barbarity masquerading as women’s rights. This was a part of the message spread to the many troubled, angry or apathetic passersby during those two days. Before I get into a more personal account of GAP, let me tell you a little bit about the Genocide Awareness Project.

GAP is a display of about 16 to 30 billboards broadcasting disturbing images of genocide, child abuse and animal torture alternated by pictures of aborted children. GAP is hosted by the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform and travels to university campuses throughout America, sometimes venturing north of the border. At this event in Michigan, a core group of about 25 students, volunteers and CBR staff spoke and witnessed to students and teachers, although many other students joined as the event progressed.

As I and my Canadian friends rolled into America on a cold, rainy morning, I couldn’t help but feel a bit like a social dissident. How do you explain a project like GAP to the border guards? “We’ve come to change your country’s laws,” is not one of them!

We began setting up the display at 7:00 a.m. and the action started immediately. A Planned Parenthood rep in bright pink boots staged a small counter-protest for “Women’s health without borders.” Maggie, a lady in dark sunglasses approached me through the rain. “What do you think about this?” I asked her. “What do I think?! I think I – expletive – hate you! I just want to kick you!” Maggie marched away before the conversation could rise to a more rational level.

On her heels came a young man who burst out, “This is so awful! I can’t believe America is doing this!” “You don’t have a uterus! What – expletive – right do you have to talk about this?!” Maggie fired at him. Despite lacking a uterus, he joined the campus prolife group anyway.

A girl walked up, in her upper teens. She was horrified by the photos, horrified by abortion. She began weeping at the mention of abortion in cases of rape, and she told me she had been raped. We shared some tears before she went her way, perhaps a little comforted.

I spoke with a woman who had aborted her child – the result of an incestuous relationship. It was as if all the hurting people in Detroit had found their way to GAP.

Then began a seemingly interminable discussion with a philosophy-minded student. His extreme-relativist worldview did not condemn the torture and mass-killing of toddlers, if society allowed for that. I was relieved to know that his disastrous consistency broke down on a personal level and that he could not personally condone the torture of toddlers.

The most typical conversations were with that vast demographic who are “personally against abortion, but support a woman’s right to choose.” Ryan the cookie salesman was one such. After establishing the personhood of the pre-born child, we started unpacking the logic of “choice.” “If I said I was personally against rape, but couldn’t deny others the right to rape, you’d think I was crazy, right?” “Yes! But abortion is different!” Ryan said. “I don’t like it, no one likes it, but, well, women need options.” “And the option to kill a pre-born baby – a person – is a good one?”

“I’ve never thought of it like that,” Ryan said. “I’ve got to think about this.”

As the frigid Thursday wore on, we ran inside to soak up a little heat – and chug the frequent coffees and hot chocolates people offered – before returning to the battleground outside. Our group spoke with hundreds before calling it a day at 5:00. Images of horror haunted my thoughts and dreams. The next day it began all over again.

Admittedly, it’s difficult to gauge the impact of an event like GAP. “Holding up a mirror to society,” as one observer noted, is sure to provoke a reaction. It brings a wave of hurt and guilt to post-abortive men and women – people like one young man who spoke with my colleague Francisco Gomez. An ex-girlfriend had aborted two of this man’s children, and his heart bore a burden of hurt and resentment. He and Francisco talked through some of that pain, and Francisco challenged him to forgive his ex-girlfriend. “He shook my hand and said, ‘Yes I will. Thank you for stopping by, I’m so glad...’”

There were others whose angry demeanor oozed hurt and guilt. For these, one hopes that these images will bring repentance and healing. Some remained stubbornly apathetic.

For the majority of those passing by, it wasn’t a case of complete 180 degree-changes. I can recall a large number who were shocked that this is what abortion actually looked like. Many left with the conviction that they needed to think about and really consider what “choice” is.

Darius Hardwick, regional director of CBR and GAP organizer, emphasized the long term impact of abortion images. “One of the things these pictures do is they inoculate people, they get stuck in people’s minds so that when the issue of abortion comes up in the future, they have the pictures in their head instead of just the [pro-choice] rhetoric,” Hardwick said.

At each day’s debrief, the group was eager to tell stories of the many cases of changed minds. Devorah Gilman, a Canadian colleague, described her experience with a young man named Mike. The conversation began with Mike telling Devorah he was pro-choice. As they worked through the parallels of genocide and abortion, he began to see the horrors of “choice.” “We’re killing an innocent baby! That’s not OK!” Devorah recalled him saying. “He was so horrified and so upset over abortion.” He joined the Students for Life organization and asked, “What else can I do? What else can I do!?”

We left Michigan that Friday evening, bone-cold, exhausted and rejoicing in the hope that the institutionalized massacre of innocents may come to an end within our lifetime.

A Review of 42

jvanmaren — Fri, 03 May 2013 16:39:42 +0000

by Alanna Gomez

“You want a player who doesn't have the guts to fight back?”

“No. I want a player who's got the guts not to fight back.”

(Warning: Plot Spoilers Ahead)

I've never been very interested in baseball. That is, until last Tuesday night. Now I'm seriously considering joining my husband on a trip downtown to watch the Blue Jays this season. We went to go see 42, a movie about Major League Baseball's (MLB) first black player, Jackie Robinson. The film focuses on the first two years of his time in MLB, which he joined at the age of 28, ending 60 years of total segregation in professional baseball.

The president of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Branch Rickey, was a key figure in helping Robinson break the colour barrier in the league. He had his public reasons (money) but also his private reasons (redemption). A man who deeply loved the sport of baseball, we see how he carefully chose Robinson to be the first black player, not because Robinson was the best player out there (although he was excellent) but because he demonstrated a strength of character and an ability to face all the challenges inherent to his role in defying segregation. He tells Robinson early on that, “Your enemy will be out in force. But you cannot meet him on his own low ground.”

This is advice the pro-life community needs to continue to take to heart. We can look to Robinson for an example of how to turn the other cheek. The most important message of the film, in my opinion, is Robinson's commitment to not repay hatred and bigotry with anger or violence. We see the frustrations and emotions that Robinson experienced and had to manage while simply trying to play baseball but also see the decisions he makes to take the higher road.

Integrated into the film is the love story of Jackie and his wife Rachael. Their relationship provides much of the strength Jackie needs to stand up against the fierce prejudice he deals with everyday, off and on the field. We meet the first of the Robinson's three children and discover why Jackie takes his responsibilities as a father so seriously.

The film highlights in several instances the way children reacted to Robinson, and how their reactions to Robinson are shaped by the adults in their lives. A small boy arrives to a game, excited about seeing one of his favorite home-town heroes, Pee Wee Reese. His innocence turns ugly when the crowd around him starts booing Robinson, and he joins in, clearly because everyone else is doing it.

In the heat of that ugly moment, Pee Wee Reese, captain of the Dodgers, plays a big role in moving the crowd towards acceptance of Robinson. He exemplifies the journey of Robinson's teammates towards dislike, resentment and rejection of Robinson, to admiration and respect. The film aptly portrays the choices each player has to make to overcome his prejudices- and the choices some players make to retain theirs.

This past April, shortly after the release of the film, all the players in MLB wore the number 42 for a day, as they do every year, honoring Robinson (who was the first player to have his number officially retired). Foreshadowing this, after a particularly heated moment with the crowd booing Robinson at a game, one of the other players jokes that perhaps the next day, the whole team can wear his number, 42, so the crowd can't tell them apart.

It is unrealistic to expect a Hollywood film to portray the full depth and complexity of a real life hero, especially when we are only offered a brief snapshot of his life. We don't get to see how Robinson became such a strong man, with such excellent character. We miss out on the many struggles and triumphs of his journey after his first two years in the MLB. However, the movie provides us with an introduction to the towering figure of Jackie Robinson, draws us in and sparks an interest in learning more about his accomplishments.

For example, today I learned that when Robinson retired from baseball, he was extremely active in politics and also continued to speak out against the remaining problems with racism in the baseball leagues. 42 shows us how Robinson challenged racial segregation by the mere act of daring to play baseball with white men, but we miss out on how outspoken he was in public about this injustice He was dedicated to fighting segregation and a champion of civil rights, on and off the field. Not satisfied with mere individual victories against racism, Jackie once said in a speech:

“All these guys who were saying that we've got it made through athletics, it's just not so. You as an individual can make it, but I think we've got to concern ourselves with the masses of the people – not by what happens as an individual, so I merely tell these youngsters when I go out: certainly I've had opportunities that they haven't had, but because I've had these opportunities doesn't mean that I've forgotten.”

Besides sharing the story of the legendary Robinson, the film is shot beautifully, which makes the sport of baseball look terribly exciting, even for those of us who previously yawned through even a single inning (to be fair, those innings can drag on and on, unlike the brief snippets of game highlights we witness in the movie). Like most sports movies however, in 42 baseball is still only the vehicle used to share the greater story of Jackie's courage, his willingness to accept persecution and the initially fierce opposition incurred by any attempt to stand up to any injustice.

Gosnell Murder Trial Snippets as My Mind Races

jvanmaren — Wed, 01 May 2013 19:46:54 +0000

by Stephanie Gray

On a few occasions now I've had coffee with two abortionists. On Monday, though, I had a very different encounter with an abortionist; this time, I watched Kermitt Gosnell stand trial for murder.

And as I sat in bed in Philadelphia at the end of my day which began at 3:30am, sleep didn't feel like it was going to work for me, at least right away. How does one process what one heard? Did what I listened to sink in? Did I even want to let such knowledge of depravity fester in the recesses of my mind?

But there it was, for on Monday I heard. And saw. And it seemed that everything I noticed that day was through the lens of what was being shared in courtroom 304.

My shoes. My cute, shiny, slightly pointy, black high heels. I looked at those differently on Monday. The prosecutor prompted me to—not intentionally, of course, but it was in his closing arguments: He reminded the jury of all they'd heard from witnesses in the preceding weeks, and he threw out the measurement: "Two feet long," he said. And of course I looked down for a frame of reference that matched the measurement a witness gave for one of Gosnell's newborn victims.

The public washroom. I've never walked into a stall, stared at the toilet, and thought about a baby floating in it. But that's where my mind went at a bathroom break moments after leaving the courtroom where the prosecutor reminded the jury that at Gosnell's "House of Horrors," a staff member saw a 6-month baby born alive into a toilet. The staffer then slit the baby's neck.

I walked to the sink to wash my hands. As I watched the water flood into the basin and funnel at the drain, like a snapshot my mind instantly thought of tiny human arms being flushed down the sink. Oh wait, that wasn't the sink; it was the toilet. Right. Another fact that dropped from the lips of the prosecutor—the clinic's maintenance man routinely (once or twice a week, in fact) fixed clogged drains at the clinic; one day, when he opened the drain on the outside of the building, material gushed out that included human arms and other body parts.

I returned to the courtroom. It was filled with people. And as the words of the prosecutor entered in, summarizing weeks of gruesome testimony, my ears competed with my eyes. I kept scanning the audience—from jury to judge to Gosnell himself. My mind continually scanned the crowd to dare an impossible feat—to figure out what was going through their minds. The juror with the beard. He kept stroking it. Was he uncomfortable? Not yet convinced? Is it as obvious to him as it is to me that there is no shadow of doubt. Wait a minute. That female juror at the end, interesting—she's rubbing her eyes. Is she crying? Is the brutality getting to her? Oh, wait, no, she just looks tired. A few hours for me, but weeks for her. Blank expressions. Too many blank expressions. Mystery baits me and I want answers. But I'm left to merely wonder.

There's a break. Gosnell's lawyer walks right in front of me. I look. And keep looking. Okay, I'm staring. If he noticed, I'd look rude. I don't care; I'm utterly bewildered and curious—what kind of person defends a man like Gosnell? If he believes Gosnell is innocent does that mean he's blind? If he knows Gosnell is guilty but makes an alternate case, does that mean he's evil?

We're seated again. The court artist is good. My spot is perfect to watch her; from my vantage point I get to see everything from her vantage point. Gosnell himself is coming to life on her sheet. Wow, she's really good. I crane my neck to get my own glimpse. What, on earth, is going through his mind? He's taking notes. His right hand now cradles his chin and mouth. The hands that witnesses say slit the necks of babies born alive. The hands that a witness says slapped the thigh of a patient who got "a little bit rowdy."

I look at my own hands. They shook—cradled, fact—the hands of men like Gosnell. On several occasions. Those men too have used their hands to kill, to suction and dismember the fragile bodies of the youngest of our kind. But they're not on trial; no, they killed their victims in-utero, not outside.

A distinction without a difference.

Kermit's Carnage: A Day At "The Abortion Trial Of The Century"

jvanmaren — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 15:59:00 +0000

by Jonathon Van Maren

My colleague Stephanie Gray and I arrived at the Philadelphia Criminal Justice Centre at 1:30 PM and headed through security and up three flights of stairs to Courtroom 304. Defence attorney Jack McMahon was just finishing his closing arguments, jabbing his finger towards a jury box full of moderately impassive and ordinary-looking people passing off as the peers of a serial killer. “Have the courage to say no to the press,” he said coaxingly. “Show courage, and show integrity.

Integrity and courage in this case, of course, meant letting Dr. Kermit Gosnell, on trial for four counts of first degree murder, one count of the third degree murder of Karnamaya Mongar (or “reckless killing”), and some 250 other abortion-related charges, off with a slap on the wrist—and perhaps a warm handshake for all the work he did to apparently serve impoverished women. While Philadelphia is known as “The City of Brotherly Love,” the unfolding “Abortion Trial of the Century” is shining a light on a dark, grotesque underbelly of the city that defies the name—“brotherly love” scarcely describing the allegedly hundreds of instances of Gosnell and his gang slitting and snipping the necks of newborns.

The judge stood up and informed the court that proceedings would continue at 2:45. Just outside the building, reporters from FOX, NBC and ABC swarmed around McMahon, who parried questions with all the smoothness of a Nuremburg defence counsel.

“So you’re saying that it’s a fake—all the babies were already dead?”

“That was my argument.”

“You believe this prosecution is racist?”

“That’s what I said, yes.”

Most of the trial spectators seemed to be from anti-abortion groups—Father Frank Pavone and Brian Kemper of Priests for Life, Chris Slattery of EMC FrontLine Pregnancy Centers, and representatives of Maryland Right to Life, Americans United for Life, and Operation Rescue chatted just outside the courtroom. The defence counsel’s arguments had people worried in spite of the trite tactics, and everyone was eager to hear the prosecution recap the mountain of bloodstained evidence that would be presented to the jury to remind them of Kermit’s years of carnage. The remnants of his spree sat in front of the courtroom—a chair stained with what looked like blood as well as cat feces, a filthy operating table with stirrups, battered ultrasound equipment.

Close to 3:00 pm, Dr. Gosnell was escorted into the courtroom. An elderly man with a graying fringe of hair, he didn’t look dangerous at all—more Dr. Jekyll than Mr. Hyde, even though the evidence set up in front of the court belied that. He smiled at Father Pavone in the front row, and took a seat next to his lawyer. Assistant DA Edward Cameron, who apparently was running a fever, strode out in front of the jury and announced, “I’m going to talk for two hours. This is about Karnamaya Mongar and the four babies that were killed.”

Then, he said something profoundly absurd: “This trial is not about abortion.” The next two hours, as it turns out, were all about abortion.

Cameron started off his closing statement by pulling up the Hippocratic Oath on a PowerPoint, to the general boredom of both the jury (as far as I could tell, of course) and the courtroom at large. He pointed out that 54 prosecution witnesses had damned Gosnell’s career as an incredibly inept and barbaric tenure of botched butchery—assistants with crippling mental health issues, one only 15 years old, the “standard practice” of slashing the necks of wriggling, mewling newborns, and slapping women who protested his callous treatment. “What one of you women,” he demanded loudly of the jury, “would go to a doctor, sit on that chair [pointing at the filthy reclining chair and stirrups] while that…person—[pointing at an impassive Gosnell]—would hit you?”

Cameron began to warm up. One of the babies born in Gosnell’s “House of Horrors” was born alive at 29.5 weeks, and Gosnell’s assistant called him in a panic. Gosnell rushed to the clinic—and the child promptly disappeared. “That baby would have been four and a half years old,” Cameron said, “I wish to God there was something we could do so it could walk through that door. But it had scissors jammed in its neck, and suffocated to death.” He pointed at a steel basin sitting on a table. “Babies DO feel pain—you stick something in them, they’ll react. Babies were delivered into this metal pan while the doctor was out, and left to die.”

To my right, Gosnell’s bored face began to take shape on a court reporter’s placard. Cameron pulled up the next slide. It was an abbreviated quote from witness Dr. Karen Feusilin: “Babies never allowed to be born alive—Abortion 101.” Cameron paused. “Maybe that’s not the best way to put it,” he said uncomfortably—and the cat, as it were, was out of the bag screeching and clawing. This trial was about abortion—more than that, it was a stark and gruesomely perfect microcosm of our cultural schizophrenia that stipulates that if you want to kill someone, it’s all about location, location, location. Cameron only had one thing to quickly add to Feusilin’s blunt assessment of Gosnell’s legal troubles—“If they are born alive, and you do anything to speed up their death, you are guilty of murder.”

Cameron’s next point, too, seemed to slip out of his mouth by accident, as he mocked Defence Attorney Jack McMahon’s assertion that a billboard in Gosnell’s clinic featuring “happy patients” revealed his scissor-less sweet side: “Abortion patients don’t send pictures of kids,” he pointed out. On the jury bench, jaws dropped. The tension was fleeting, but palpable. Again, Cameron seemed to realize what he had said and moved on, attempting a recovery by pointing at a graphic photo of post-utero murder victim “Baby Manning”: “That’s a baby, not a fetus,” he asserted lamely.

Quickly re-establishing his assertion that this trial was “not about abortion” by highlighting the testimony of an abortion doctor, Cameron brought up the assertions of a Planned Parenthood abortionist named only as “Dr. Benjamin.” Dr. Benjamin, who had the good sense to dismember his victims prior to their forcible eviction, was the perfect example of someone whom Gosnell should have looked up to: “Never was a baby born alive with a heartbeat—because he did things the right way.” His follow-up, again, defeated the point: “This nameless baby was one of the many killed by this man. We’ll never know who they were, or what they could’ve done.” As opposed to Benjamin’s some 40,000 victims, who apparently had no future whatsoever beyond a suction aspirator, medical waste container, and cremation.

The horrific details kept coming, from a baby delivered into a toilet and attempting to swim, to toilets backed up with baby parts (the word “fetus” mysteriously absent from Cameron’s vocabulary at this point.) I almost felt sorry for Cameron when he had to defend Pennsylvania’s 24-hour waiting period prior to an abortion, while maintaining support for abortion. The woman needs a chance to decide whether she “wants to keep the baby,” he told the jury, because “When the baby is done…er…when the abortion is done, it’s done.” One woman who attempted to change her mind but had her qualms ignored by Gosnell regrets her abortion to this day—because, Cameron pointed out, “This doctor wouldn’t take the time to tell her what abortion is and what it does to the fetus.” Cameron cleared up an ambiguity the courtroom had about this a few moments later: “The proper way to do abortions is under anesthesia and the…baby…is manually removed.”

The prosecutions’ closing arguments were powerful. The assistant DA appealed to the jury emotionally, appealing to their humanity. “My dog was sick recently,” he told them. “I took it to the vet, and it was put to sleep. These babies didn’t even get that. My dog was treated better than these babies.” Imagine, he asked the juries, being a pre-born child: “You live for months inside the mother—you go out into the light in intense pain…” only to be stabbed to death by Gosnell. At this point, Cameron seemed to be filled with genuine outrage, stabbing his finger in Gosnell’s direction. “Are you even human? To med women up and stick knives or scissors in their [the babies’] necks?”

Gosnell snickered. Perhaps he was considering the irony of being called inhuman in a culture that expects him to kill babies without the benefit of good lighting.

Cameron finished with a speech that sounded like something from a pro-life rally, calling Kermit Gosnell the captain of an abortion hell. “Baby after baby after baby…” he pleaded with the jury, “Be their voice.”

He sat down. One or two pro-lifers even ventured a clap. “The Abortion Trial of the Century” was over—and it was in the hands of the jurors, who have before them a case that encapsulates the sheer ridiculousness of the abortion movement’s “conflict of rights” rhetoric like none before.

In a culture filled with relativism and inherent contradictions, nothing for me was quite as simultaneously sickening and enlightening as watching an abortion doctor on trial in a country that endorses abortion. We’ve accepted one evil while trying to condemn evils proceeding directly from it—as Alexander Solzhenitsyn noted, “In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.” Or in this case, we’re actually ripping up new generations, limb from limb.

Perhaps the assistant DA himself summarized it best when he called Karnamaya Mongar, the immigrant woman Gosnell allegedly killed by giving her too much anesthesia, the “epitome of the American dream.” Indeed, this is now the American Dream—immigrate to America, adopt American values, and have your baby butchered. Gosnell, too, is then the “epitome of the American dream”—an entrepreneur endeavoring to provide a service in high demand—and innovative to boot. But when this trial pulled back the curtain on this American Dream, it revealed what we’re truly talking about—an American Nightmare, replete with severed limbs, beheaded babies, and corpses in the freezer.

We can only hope that this is enough to wake us up.

I'm a Mother-to-Be

jvanmaren — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:32:03 +0000

By Stephanie Gray

Around this time last year, there were three interesting rumours going around about me: One was that I was dying, the other was that I was engaged, and the third was that I was a consecrated single. All three are false (although I suppose the first is true if you consider that every day we get older we’re closer to death).

There is, however, one rumour about me that isn’t going around, so I’d like to put it into circulation: I’m a mother-to-be. This is one rumour that is actually true.

If any pro-lifer reads that news and thinks, “WHAT?! Scandal!” then such an individual needs to consider whether they really believe what they’ve claimed to believe. I don’t mean the pro-lifer needs to reconsider the label “scandal,” but rather I mean that such a pro-lifer needs to reconsider whether they truly believe life begins at fertilization. For if they do, then they would know that labeling me a “mother-to-be” means I can’t possibly be pregnant.

Any woman who has never been pregnant is a mother-to-be. By virtue of our femininity, we women hold within us the potential for biological motherhood, but in the absence of conception, motherhood is a future possibility, not a present reality. “Mother-to-be” speaks of what is to come. “Mother” speaks of what is now. After all, “bride-to-be” indicates a woman isn’t yet a bride. Or, what would we call a student who’s going to be a lawyer one day, but is not one yet? A “lawyer-to-be.” So what would we call a woman who’s going to be a mother one day, but not a mother yet? A “mother-to-be.”

To be clear, then, a pregnant woman is not—I repeat: NOT—a mother-to-be. A pregnant woman is a mother. Birth does not endow motherhood. Fertilization does. When a woman becomes pregnant, her status is permanently changed. Whether her child survives or is miscarried, aborted, or adopted, her status as mother never disappears.

And so, I am not a mother-to-be because I’m pregnant. Rather, I am a mother-to-be precisely because I am not, nor have been, pregnant.

If we want to make a pro-life culture, it’s time we use the language and perspective that goes along with a pro-life culture. So I encourage readers to live this philosophy out in the following ways:

Spread the word: I encourage all never-been-pregnant ladies to re-post this article with the caption “I am a mother-to-be! Click here to learn more.”
Be accurate: Please don’t go to a baby shower for a friend with a card that says, “Congrats, mom-to-be!” It’s not accurate, so is really quite silly. If you’ve already bought such a card for an upcoming shower, consider this fun solution: mail it to a girlfriend who’s never been pregnant (snail mail is exciting to get, and think about the subsequent conversation you’ll have). Then go buy (or make) a card that says “Congrats, Mom!”
Be timely: Don’t wait until your friend’s baby is born to wish her a “Happy Mother’s Day” or him a “Happy Father’s Day.” You’ll be a year late; instead, if they are pregnant now and the holiday is now, then celebrate it now.
Be consistent: If you’re pregnant with your fifth child, please don’t say you have four children and are expecting your fifth. You’re not expecting that child any more than you’re “expecting” your toddler. If you just have eggs inside you and hope to get pregnant again, then fine, you’re expecting your fifth. But if you’ve conceived again, then there’s nothing to expect anymore: Congratulations, you already have your fifth.

As I ruminate how to rock the culture with this important perspective, I think I’m going to buy myself a big button that says “Mother-to-be” and pin it to my jacket. Just imagine the fun conversation that will ensue when I go out in public:

Stranger: “Congratulations!”

Me: “For what?”

Stranger: “For being pregnant.”

Me: “What makes you think I’m pregnant?”

Stranger: [Awkward silence] “Um, well, your button.”

Me: “I don’t mean to be difficult, but what about the button implies I’m pregnant?”

Stranger: “Um, it says, ‘mother-to-be.’”

Me: “That’s correct. Mother-to-be implies that one day I’ll be a mother, but that day is not yet. Otherwise, it would simply say, ‘I’m a mom.’ After all, bride-to-be implies a woman is not yet a bride just like mother-to-be implies a woman is not yet a mother, right? J What do you think about that?”

Stranger: “Haha, I guess that makes sense, but then why are you wearing that pin since people interpret it differently?”

Me: “Good question. I’m wearing it to have this precise conversation. You see, a lot of people treat a pregnant woman as though she’s going to be a mom, but isn’t a mom yet. But that doesn’t make sense, for the pregnancy test is what tells her she doesn’t just have eggs inside her anymore; she has her own little, tiny baby who simply needs some time in her to grow. Once that baby is there, no matter how quiet and small, that baby’s presence makes her a mom. You see, being a woman means you might be a mom. But being pregnant, or having been pregnant in one’s past—that means, no matter what happened, that you are, and always will be, a mom. What do you think?”

Let the words sink in.

Look deeply and lovingly into the person’s eyes, for it is the eyes that are the windows to the soul.

And then be ready for an encounter that could change, even save, a life.

Escalofriantes descripciones de los abortos de Kermit

jvanmaren — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 19:35:28 +0000

by Jonathon Van Maren

A pesar del bloqueo casi total de los principales medios de comunicación, igual se han filtrado detalles del juicio por homicidio del abortista de Filadelfia Kermit Gosnell, una tras otras las sangrientas y terribles historias. Algunos hechos que ocurrieron en la clínica de este carnicero son difíciles de creer – el escritor Eric Metaxas (autor del libro Amazing Grace) se refirió a la historia como la "Cabaña del Tío Tom del movimiento del aborto". Gosnell, quien está acusado de matar a una paciente por sobredosis de anestesia, así como de posiblemente matar cientos de bebés del término "tijereteando", una práctica en la que se mete una tijera en la parte posterior del cuello del bebé y se corta la médula espinal, se ha mostrado confundido acerca del porqué está siendo acusado de poner fin a la vida de estos niños. En su opinión, sólo estaba realizando abortos - y terminándolos un poco tarde.

Los testimonios de los trabajadores de Gosnell están sacando a la luz lo que se hace posible – y yo diría, en base a la evidencia, probable - cuando nuestra cultura acepta con entusiasmo la idea de que los humanos más jóvenes son desechables. El resultado es una barbarie sin paliativos contra los más jóvenes de nuestra especie. Considere lo siguiente:

Los investigadores encontraron frascos en un estante de la oficina de Kermit Gosnell, cada uno contenía partes de fetos, muchos de las cuales eran pies. Otros cadáveres, por razones aún desconocidas, fueron almacenados en envases de leche, envases de jugo o dejados en bolsas en el congelador. La fiscal asistente Joanne Pescatore especuló que estos pedazos de cuerpos podrían ser "trofeos” de Gosnell.

Sherry West, trabajadora de la Clínica, quien dice que les decía "ejemplares" a los bebés para hacer más fácil el proceso de matanza, recordó un incidente en el que un bebé nació vivo, y la llamaron para ayudar a eliminarlo: "Había un recipiente de vidrio transparente , y yo lo vi, y pensé, '¿Qué esperan que haga?' No se había desarrollado plenamente. No tenía ojos o boca, pero estaba como chillando, haciendo un ruido. Era extraño. Sonaba como un pequeño extraterrestre... me asusté mucho y dije que llamaran al Dr. Gosnell, y volví a salir a la recepción".

Lynda Williams, trabajadora de la Clínica, dijo a la corte que cortar el cuello de los recién nacidos era un "procedimiento estándar", describió cómo Gosnell la entrenó para dar vuelta a los bebés y rápidamente meterles las tijeras en el cuello para cortar su columna vertebral. Relató un caso en el que un niño fue parido en un inodoro, y ella rápidamente le cortó el cuello- "el brazo saltó...", dijo.

Steven Massof, quien trabajó para Gosnell durante nueve años, pintó un panorama de salvaje rutina dentro de la "clínica" - " los fetos llovían, fetos y sangre, por todos lados. Me sentía como un bombero en el infierno. No podía apagar todos los fuegos. "

Kareema Cruz, trabajadora de la Clínica, también dio testimonio de la barbarie abortista. Según el informe del gran jurado: "Después de que el bebé salió, Cruz notó que respiraba, aunque no por mucho tiempo. Después de unos 10 a 20 segundos, mientras la madre dormía, "el médico le cortó el cuello", dijo Cruz. Gosnell puso el cuerpo del niño en una caja de zapatos. Cross describió al bebé tan grande que sus pies y brazos colgaban por los lados del recipiente. Cruz dijo que vio al bebé moverse después de que su cuello fuera cortado, y después de que el médico lo pusiera en la caja de zapatos. Gosnell le dijo, "son los reflejos del bebé. No se está moviendo de verdad". Gosnell, al parecer en un intento de aligerar el ambiente, bromeó diciendo que el bebé era lo suficientemente grande para caminar a la parada de autobús.

Adrienne Moton, uno de los asistentes médicos de Gosnell, testificó que un bebé de 24 semanas de edad, nació viva en un inodoro, y que ella rápidamente le cortó el cuello al "Bebé D" para completar el procedimiento.

Por desgracia, podría seguir. La saga de muerte y miseria de Gosnell se desarrolla y sus asesinatos parecen no tener fin.

La respuesta civilizada a tales revelaciones, por supuesto, sería reconocer que en alguna parte, fallamos trágicamente. Los defensores del aborto no tienen intención alguna de mirar la obvia (y natural) progresión del aborto hacia el infanticidio (que es, más o menos, lo mismo, según afirmó recientemente un abogado de Planned Parenthood.) De hecho, cuando las noticias de los crímenes de Gosnell se supieron en 2010, la Red de Atención del Aborto (Abortion Care Network) respondió haciendo una pregunta extraordinaria (y deliberadamente ignorante): "¿Por qué, si con los años, mucha gente llegó a saber que algo andaba mal, nadie lo detuvo?"

La respuesta a esa pregunta, por supuesto, es ridículamente simple y bien sabida por la Red de Atencion del Aborto: cada vez que alguien señala algo fuera de lugar en una clínica de abortos, los defensores del aborto se ponen como locos y acusan a sus adversarios de matonismo "anti-derecho a decidir" o se ponen creativos y hacen algún paralelo alucinante con un régimen totalitario del pasado.

Después, el artículo señala que la clínica abortiva no debería haber permanecido abierta debido al "peligroso y mortal "servicio" que prestaba. Su punto es, por supuesto, que si usted va a desmembrar a un niño no nacido, lo mejor es hacerlo en un ambiente limpio y estéril.

Si usted es pro-vida, siga de cerca el juicio. El infanticidio ya sucede con frecuencia, si no regularmente, y bien puede ser el próximo campo de batalla de los derechos humanos. Y si está a favor del aborto, le ruego no mirar para el lado. Encienda el televisor, y suba el volumen. Puede no gustarle la historia, pero usted ayudó a escribir el guión.

A Tribute to Phil Arnsby

jvanmaren — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:20:21 +0000

by Stephanie Gray

My earliest memory of Phil Arnsby is of his determination to get the pro-life message out to as many young people as possible. In 2006, he arranged a speaking tour for me in the London area, and he packed it so that I spoke to thousands of people over just a few days. Lives were forever changed, as students told us they became pro-life. It all started with Phil. And it happened because of Phil.

My subsequent encounters with this pro-life hero, and his heroine wife Elaine, were marked by joy, great conversation and fellowship, as well as spiritual encouragement.

And so, news that Phil had passed away on April 17 was received with great sadness, not only by me and my colleagues, but across the Canadian pro-life movement. Phil was a stalwart in the movement, particularly for London Area Right to Life of which he was past president, and he most certainly “walked the talk.” As my colleague Jonathon Van Maren has pointed out, “We at CCBR believe we can see the light at the end of the tunnel because we stand on the shoulders of pro-life giants like Phil Arnsby who have spent decades of their lives working for the rights of the pre-born.”

Phil and Elaine have supported CCBR practically from its beginning. They opened their home to my colleagues and me on various trips through the London area. They were with us through significant and tense events—from a talk at King’s College that required police protection, to our New Abortion Caravan whose pro-abortion protesters necessitated police intervention. They helped student pro-lifers at the University of Western Ontario and King’s College. As one grieving graduate told me, “They [Phil and Elaine] were good friends when I was struggling to keep Western’s pro-life club afloat.”

Phil not only wanted to help students convert their peers, but he desperately wanted to see the conversion of abortion doctors. In 2011, I made a quiet entrance into London to debate that city’s late-term abortionist Dr. Fraser Fellows (the debate was a closed event, open only to medical students). Phil and Elaine were part of the small group of pro-lifers who knew this was happening, and welcomed me to stay at their home. When I arrived they shared this surprising story: “We met protesting outside of Dr. Fellows’ home!” Indeed, in the '90s, pro-lifers faithfully and peacefully protested outside Dr. Fellows’ home as a plea for him to stop killing children. It was both Phil and Elaine’s dedication to the pro-life cause which drew them to this significant event, and God in turn eventually drew them to each other.

I will remember Phil as a thoughtful, prayerful, determined, convicted, gentle, self-sacrificing, and grandfatherly man. He undoubtedly “loved the least,” and I imagine that on April 17, as he went to rest in the Lord, he heard the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant, because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.”

Rest in peace, Phil Arnsby.

Philly Mayer: An Ordinary Child with an Extraordinary Attitude

jvanmaren — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 16:07:09 +0000

by Alanna Gomez

Philly Mayer loves to swim. If he had his druthers, he’d probably be in the pool all day. Now, many kids love to swim but for Philly, being in the water gives him the rare opportunity to fully stretch and move around-- something that is hard to do from a wheelchair. Philly has Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), a condition where the motor neurons in his spine aren’t developing properly, which in turn impairs his mobility and causes his muscles to waste away.

When Philly was born, his parents were delighted with their beautiful, healthy baby boy. His mother, Angela, recalls what a happy, chubby child Philly was, always smiling and laughing. Then suddenly, right around his first birthday, Philly stopped walking. His parents turned to doctors for an explanation as to why his motor skills were deteriorating; Philly was eventually diagnosed with SMA. Upon the diagnosis, his parents were told they would only have their son until he was 7 years old.

His dad, Philip, recalls the moment the doctor delivered that news. “I wanted to hit somebody because I just felt right away that it was a lie.” Angela asked what she could do to help her son and was told there was nothing she could do. As a mother, to be told she couldn’t help her child was unthinkable.

Luckily for Philly, his parents didn’t take the doctors at their word. While there was no medicine to help their son, they have decided to do everything they could to ensure that he is happy. Each and every day, they demonstrate a strength and willingness to do whatever it takes to fulfill their duties as parents. Angela and Phillip feel their responsibility is to make his life as full as possible, regardless of how long he lives. If he wants to do something, they find a way to make it happen.

It would be easy for parents in their situation to try and shelter a boy like Philly- try to keep him safe by keeping him at home- but the Mayers explain their attitude by saying that “[Philly] is going to do whatever he wants to do and we aren’t going to try and hold him back.” Instead of feeling burdened by their son, they describe how, instead, it can be a struggle is to step back and let Philly do things on his own, without their help.

While Phillip and Angela are heroes in this story, for their sacrifice and willingness to be there for their son, it is Philly himself who shows true courage in the face of a difficult disease. The Mayers have home videos which show Philly as a joyful, outgoing toddler and in interviews from the present day, it is clear he hasn’t changed since the onset of his symptoms.

In many ways, Phillip is a typical ten year old boy. He debates the merits of the Play Station 3 over portable video game devices. His power wheelchair allows him the mobility to join into games with other kids, and gives him the freedom to move around to wherever he wants to go, although he’d probably appreciate if it moved even faster. The license plate on the back of his chair reads CULATRMN. That’s “See you later, man,” for the rest of us.

In other ways, Phillip is not so typical. He is the type of kid who hates to see anyone upset. “He wakes up singing,” his parents share. “He never complains about going in his wheelchair…he presses through and does what he needs to do.” Of course, Phillip dislikes all the surgeries he has to deal with, and his regular physical therapy sessions (he calls them physical torture sessions) but deals with it all in good humour.

While many people would see having a child with such a severe disability as a burden, a weight or drain on their family, Angela and Phillip insist that their son is the very opposite. “On your worst day, Philly can put a smile on your face…Phillip’s like the glue and he just glues everybody together. Makes it all happen…He just inspires us to be together. He wants all of us to remember that we are important to each other…[We] would take a thousand more children just like Phillip.”

It is the attitude of service and of thankfulness that we can greatly admire in the Mayer family. We can always choose which attitude to have in the face of difficult circumstances. It is the joy, contentment with life and the will to live life to its fullest that we can admire in Philly and imitate in our own lives.

My Sibling I Never Acknowledged

jvanmaren — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 21:37:46 +0000

by Stephanie Gray

For as long as I can remember, when I met people who would ask, “How many siblings do you have?” my answer was always “one.” But I recently had an epiphany: That answer isn’t true.

I don’t have just one sibling; I have two. So why wasn’t my eldest sibling in the count?

I never met Paul Francis. He lived—and died—before I ever came to be. Why should my sister be acknowledged because she has lived 34 years (and counting), but my brother not because he lived only 6 weeks?

That I never had the chance to play Hide & Seek with him doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be acknowledged.

That I never rode my bike to piano lessons with him doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be remembered.

That he never got to experience family trips to Scotland and Nova Scotia, road trip adventures, and lots of singing and silliness, doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be counted.

I don’t know why Paul Francis died, but I do know how he died (miscarriage), and more importantly, I know that he lived (albeit briefly). So why do the early miscarried get swept aside? “It’s common to miscarry, especially your first child,” people will say. So what? Why should the fact that the loss is common make us act as though the individual never existed?

“It hurts to bring it up,” others might suggest. That reminds me of a Facebook post by a friend of mine whose child died several days after birth. She shared this quote by Elizabeth Edwards: “If you know someone who has lost a child, and you’re afraid to mention them because you think you might make them sad by reminding them that they died—you’re not reminding them. They didn’t forget they died. What you’re reminding them of is that you remembered that they lived, and…that is a great gift.”

Paul Francis lived, and he deserves to have that acknowledged. If mere mention of a miscarried child’s short life brings indescribable pain and one runs from referencing him or her as a result, burying the reminders not only doesn’t serve those little lives, but it doesn’t serve the grieving heart, whose incapacity to acknowledge is evidence of a need for healing. And we don’t find healing by stuffing—we find healing by releasing, wrestling, grappling, and honouring.

Those who have lost a child to stillbirth or to miscarriage late in pregnancy often—and rightly—memorialize their children with hand and footprints, even photos. But such tangible memories can’t be made with children like Paul Francis, who die as young as 6 weeks post-fertilization; so what can be done?

One website about miscarriage shared this quote from a grieving heart: “The mention of my child's name may bring tears to my eyes, but it never fails to bring music to my ears. If you are really my friend, let me hear the beautiful music of his name. It soothes my broken heart and sings to my soul.”

My sibling can have a name. My parents never knew if Paul Francis was a boy or girl, but if they’d had a son, that would have been his name. Incidentally, Paul means “small; humble” and Francis means “free.”

My sibling can be continually referenced in my life. Now, when asked how many siblings I have, my response is matter-of-fact: “two.” And I leave it at that. If asked, “Brothers or sisters?” and “Are you the oldest?” I casually reply, “My brother is the oldest, and he’s in Heaven; then there’s my sister, then me.”

Sometimes there are no further questions. Other times, there are, and I treat the conversation about the life, and loss, of Paul Francis before birth, as I would if any other sibling of mine lived and died after birth.

My sibling can touch lives. As someone who spends her life advocating for the rights of pre-born humans, I realized my lack of reference to Paul Francis was a betrayal of my beliefs—for if the pre-born are as valuable as the born, if I would reference a sibling who only lived until the age of 2, 10, or even 20 years, why not acknowledge this sibling? Do I really believe Paul Francis was just as human, just as precious, just as unrepeatable as a late-term fetus, infant, toddler, or teen? Would I hide the death of an older sibling? Then why hide the death of a younger sibling?

By referencing my deceased sibling, some people inevitably ask what happened, and when you explain miscarriage, that individual is challenged to look at miscarriage in a different light—to look at it as a great loss, as losing a born child is a great loss. As a result, my deceased pre-born sibling becomes the impetus for a discussion about how we view the pre-born, and an opportunity to normalize treating the pre-born like the born. By not dismissing his death as “oh, well, it was just a miscarriage” but treating it seriously, my example invites others to share their stories of loss, revealing even their own miscarriages. At which point I can ask questions to further healing such as, “Have you named your children? Have you thought about planting a plant in memory of your children to have an object of life to remember them by?” When we do this, we often validate the feelings many women and men have silently felt, but never viewed as legitimate.

In response to this new approach of my sibling count, a friend responded, “If I were to do that, when people ask how many siblings I have, I’d have to say 17 because my mom had 7 miscarriages.”

Well what an opportunity! I say, “Bring it on!” You can be guaranteed my friend will get some kind of reaction to an answer of “17,” and it will open doors to talk about how we view the pre-born and how we work through the heartbreak of losing children. It will also acknowledge each and every one of her siblings as valuable enough to warrant attention.

Had Paul Francis not died, he’d be celebrating his 35^th birthday right about now. And as I think about it, I’m a lifetime overdue on writing him a poem (something I like to do for loved ones) to honour his life:

I do not know what it is like,

To live with an older brother.

But one thing that I do know,

Is that you made our mom a mother.

You were first to grow in her womb,

And in that way we’re connected.

We both spent time beneath her heart,

And with love we were infected.

Would you have written poems like Dad?

Or, like Mom, sing me to sleep?

Maybe like our sister you’d have been a peacemaker,

Or an avid reader of all things deep?

I tell others about you now;

I didn’t do that before.

I pledge to remember your existence.

Telling of you opens a door.

Why, Paul Francis, was your life so short?

Do you have the answer now?
For us we stay in mystery,

Trusting God, to whom we bow.

Somaly Mam: Fighting Sex Trafficking in Cambodia

jvanmaren — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 18:52:59 +0000

by Alanna Gomez

Somaly Mam is a dedicated, courageous, beautiful woman. She is invited to speak on television, at conferences, has been featured in documentaries and receives awards from around the world. Born into a small tribe in rural Cambodia, she has survived extreme poverty, sexual slavery, death threats, and much violence. Despite this, Somaly founded AFESIP (Agir Pour les Femmes en Situation Precaire) in Cambodia in 1996, and then the Somaly Mam Foundation in 2007. Both organizations are dedicated to rescuing and rehabilitating girls who have been forced into sexual slavery, some from the age of only 3 years old.

Cambodia has a shocking rate of young girls trafficked into prostitution, driven by the destruction a deadly genocide and war left on this South Asian country, nestled between Vietnam and Thailand. Soldiers with guns take what they want and peacekeepers buy what they want. Sex tourists from around the world flock to the country with a ceaseless appetite for young, cheap girls. As a result, younger and younger girls are being trafficked. Desperately poor families frequently sell their daughters into brothels.

Somaly was sold by her family at 10 or 11 years old. The man who bought her used her as child labour, and soon raped her. He used her as a sex slave and then sold her to a brothel. She was viciously beaten and forced to take many, many ‘clients.’ Somaly says that while she is soft, she is also very strong. “You can beat me until blood comes out of my skin, [if] I don’t want something, [then] I don’t want it.” When she refused to take clients, she was beaten again. She was forced to see her best friend murdered in front of her by the brothel owner.

She eventually escaped and fled to another country. However, it didn’t take long for her to come back for the girls she left behind. She explains, “The girls and me, we are the same because we have the same life. I am them, they are me…I help them, but they help me too.”

“My dream is to see my girls become me, helping the victims of sex slavery.” Most of the girls do indeed want to be just like her. They help with her work, educate people, visit girls in brothels, share their stories and sometimes assist in raids on brothels, comforting the girls who are being rescued.

One of these girls, Samana, was sold when she was 13. A family friend had offered her a job in the capital city, Phnom Penh. When she arrived in the city, she was sold to a woman who operated a brothel. They locked her in a basement for a week. When she refused to take ‘clients’, they beat her, starved her, and electrocuted her. She had to see 10-30 men a day. When she got pregnant, she tells how they aborted her baby. “It was painful, there was lots of blood.” One day, the brothel owner stabbed her in the eye. Instead of getting medical help, she had to continue working. Police found out, raided the brothel and took her to get help. Now, Samana says “I am not angry. I’ll stand taller to help other girls.”

There is pain, visible pain in the lives of these young girls, but there is also love and affection. To her great credit, Somaly is able to help these girls receive affection again, from each other and from her. This affection is very healing. Somaly wants her girls to be children again, to wipe off their make-up and to make them laugh. She is often very goofy when interacting with the girls. There are several of her centers around the country and her rehabilitation program focuses on helping the girls be confident, and Cambodian. They receive an education but also do things that regular Cambodian children do, like fish, hunt for crabs and learn traditional dances.

It can be hard for the girls to put their experiences into words, so they create songs out of their stories. The girls know each other’s songs and sing them together. Somaly wants to show the world that these girls have a great dignity. She leads them with her heroism and grace, turning them into remarkable young women. Unfortunately, most of the girls are rejected by their families and society, even after being rescued.

There is a taboo against the victims of sexual slavery speaking out. Somaly shatters those taboos, giving a voice to the voiceless victims. One of her most ingenious ideas is her radio show, which gives the girls a place to speak boldly and bluntly before a wide audience about their terrible victimization, enlightening people in Cambodia of the unspeakable suffering inflicted upon these girls.

The raids themselves are very dangerous. Often the military and local police are complicit in the sex trade, so Somaly relies on the anti-trafficking police. She goes undercover into brothels and documents underage girls being held there. With the documentation complete and a report filed, the raid can get underway. The raids are often very dangerous, and the brothels can be heavily protected. If a raid is successful, Somaly can still face retribution, as the traffickers do not like having their income stolen away.

Somaly is inspiring because she continues to do what she can each day. She takes each step, helps each girl, and loves each one. She has observed that “sometimes people want to do so much and they do nothing. I can’t help you, I cannot [they say]. Everyone can help. Everyone can do one thing. Start with your heart, what it wants.”

Even though it is difficult to see a solution to this heart-wrenching situation, Somaly keeps going. She has created a little army of young women, who are becoming real voices of change. She insists “We are going to change Cambodia. We want you to hear from us; if you don’t listen to us, we’ll keep on talking, we’re not tired at all.”

Kermit's Cutthroats: Abortion on Trial

jvanmaren — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 17:43:52 +0000

by Jonathon Van Maren

In spite of an almost complete mainstream media blackout, details of the murder trial of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell are still leaking out, anecdote by bloody, gruesome anecdote. Some of the stories emerging from this butcher’s clinic defy belief—writer Eric Metaxas (author of the book Amazing Grace) called the unfolding narrative “the Uncle Tom’s Cabin of the abortion movement.” Gosnell, who is accused of killing a patient through overdose of anesthesia as well as killing possibly hundreds of full-term infants by “snipping,” a practice whereby he thrust scissors into the backs of their necks and cut their spinal cords, has expressed confusion as to why he is being charged for ending the lives of these children. In his view, he was just performing abortions—and finishing them a little late.

The testimonies of Gosnell’s workers are highlighting the reality of what becomes possible—I would say, based on the evidence, probable—when our culture whole-heartedly accepts the idea that younger human beings are disposable. The result is unmitigated barbarism against the youngest of our kind. Consider the following:

Investigators found around jars on a shelf in Kermit Gosnell’s office, each containing fetal parts, many of which were severed feet. Other corpses were, for reasons as yet unknown, stored in milk jugs, juice containers, or dumped in the freezer in bags. Assistant DA Joanne Pescatore speculated that these human body parts could constitute Gosnell’s “trophies.”

Clinic worker Sherry West, who says she called the babies “specimens” to make the killing process easier, recalled one incident where an infant was born alive, and she was called over to assist in dispatching the child: “There was this clear glass pan, and I saw it, and I thought, ‘What do you expect me to do?’ It wasn’t fully developed. It didn’t have eyes or a mouth but it was likes [sic] screeching, making this noise. It was weird. It sounded like a little alien…It really freaked me out, and I said call Dr. Gosnell, and I went back out front.”

Clinic worker Lynda Williams, who told the court that snipping the necks of newborn infants was “standard procedure,” described how Gosnell trained her to flip the infants over and then swiftly thrust the scissors into the baby’s neck and snip his or her spinal cord. She recounted one instance where an infant was delivered into a toilet, and she quickly snipped his or her neck—“It jumped, the arm…” she said.

Steven Massof, who worked for Gosnell for nine years, painted a savage picture of routine inside the “clinic”—“it would rain fetuses, fetuses and blood all over the place. I felt like a fireman in Hell. I couldn’t put out all the fires.”

Clinic worker Kareema Cross also testified of the abortion barbarism. According to the grand jury report: “After the baby was expelled, Cross noticed that he was breathing, though not for long. After about 10 to 20 seconds, while the mother was asleep, ‘the doctor just slit the neck,’ said Cross. Gosnell put the boy’s body in a shoebox. Cross described the baby as so big that his feet and arms hung out over the sides of the container. Cross said that she saw the baby move after his neck was cut, and after the doctor placed it in the shoebox. Gosnell told her, ‘it’s the baby’s reflexes. It’s not really moving.’” Gosnell, apparently in an attempt to lighten the mood, joked that the baby was big enough to walk him to the bus stop.

Adrienne Moton, one of Gosnell’s medical assistants, testified that one 24-week-old baby was born alive into a toilet, and she quickly slit “Baby D’s” neck to complete the procedure.

Unfortunately, I could go on. The unfolding saga of death and misery at the hands of Gosnell and his cutthroats seems to have no end.

The civilized response to such revelations, of course, would be to recognize that somewhere, we have gone tragically wrong. Abortion advocates have no intention of taking a look at the obvious (and natural) progression from abortion to infanticide (a Planned Parenthood advocate recently affirming their position that it is, more or less, the same thing.) In fact, when the news of Gosnell’s crimes broke in 2010, the Abortion Care Network responded by asking an extraordinarily (and intentionally) oblivious question: “Why, if over the years, many people came to know something was wrong, no one stopped it?”

The answer to that question, of course, is ridiculously simple and well known to the quizzical author: every time anyone points out something amiss in an abortion clinic, abortion advocates become apoplectic and accuse their opponents of “anti-choice thuggery” or some creative and hallucinatory parallel to a totalitarian regime of the past.

The article then notes that the abortion clinic should not have remained open due to the “dangerous and deadly ‘care’” it provided. Their point being, of course, that if you’re going to dismember a pre-born child, it really is best to do it in a clean and sterile environment.

If you’re pro-life, watch this trial closely. Infanticide already happens frequently, if not regularly, and may well be the next human rights battleground. And if you’re pro-choice, I urge you not to look away. Turn on the TV, and turn up the volume. You may not like the storyline, but you helped write the script.

An Interview with Peter Hitchens

jvanmaren — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 19:14:26 +0000

by Jonathon Van Maren

The conservative Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens has humorously described himself as a “minor celebrity” in his home country, Great Britain—“not famous enough to get airline upgrades, but famous enough to have to behave extremely well in public.” Or, as he told me on the phone from his home in Oxford last week: “I am not, in my country, a wholly obscure person.” That’s probably a bit of an understatement. He is certainly at times a “lone voice crying in the wilderness,” but he could be better described as polemicist with a podium, or perhaps even a prophet with a microphone.

On this side of the Atlantic, the name “Hitchens” generally brings to mind the somewhat hedonistic and very atheist Christopher Hitchens, the late writer who enjoyed a wide audience by intelligently and wittily attacking almost everyone with distinctive flair. Christopher was, incidentally, Peter’s older brother, and the brothers had historically engaged in longstanding public feuds on their profound points of difference. Peter’s outstanding tome The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me To Faith was in part a response to Christopher’s polemically fierce but philosophically feeble God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Christopher’s pugnacious anti-theism made him quite famous in North America. On the other side of the Atlantic, Peter is renowned for, among other things, expounding on quite a different worldview. In his view, without God, “Man can in a matter of minutes justify the incineration of populated cities; the deportation, slaughter, disease and starvation of inconvenient people and the mass murder of the unborn.”

Peter Hitchens has had a fascinating and fruitful career. Conforming in some ways to the old maxim, “If you’re not a socialist at the age of 20 you have no heart, and if you’re not a conservative at the age of 40, you have no brain,” as a young man in the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s, he wrote for a time for a Trotskyist newspaper. Subsequently as a journalist, he reported on the collapse of the Soviet Union from Moscow, the fall of the apartheid system from South Africa, documented the US military intervention in Somalia in 1992, and wrote several beautiful pieces undercover from Iran in 2007. That’s to say nothing of his six books, most of which focus on social and cultural decline—the decline of British conservatism (The Broken Compass), the brokenness of the legal system (The Abolition of Liberty), cultural acceptance of so-called “recreational drugs” (The War We Never Fought), and the decline of Great Britain as a nation (The Abolition of Britain.) Hitchens holds nothing back in his cultural condemnations—James Silver of The Guardian accurately describes his style as “molten Old Testament fury shot through with visceral wit.”

Hitchens describes himself as a “Burkean conservative,” but it’s a mistake to see him simply as an advocate for a political ideology. He has, rather, an internally consistent worldview based on his belief that “there is such a thing as truth, and it’s discoverable.” For Hitchens, an Anglican Christian, the very “idea that the universe is discoverable” would be a neutered and irrelevant one without Christianity. If Hitchens’ body of work is viewed from this perspective, it becomes impossible to regard his books and columns as a series of independent and reactive opinions (like so many of his brother Christopher’s were), but rather social critiques stemming from a devout faith in a Higher Power, a moral order, and the necessity of a free society. Thus, my telephone conversation with Peter Hitchens rarely stays on topic—each social issue and political happening is promptly placed in its broader context.

Peter Hitchens is, as anyone who reads his columns knows, a pessimist. He believes Western civilization, especially in Europe, is creaking rather loudly, and uses his column to amplify that fact regularly. “I just say I’m realistic,” Hitchens tells me, “I think the outlook for Christian civilization is currently rather bleak, and I think that anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding himself.” He lists quickly a number of proofs for his assertion: mass divorce resulting in untold damage to a generation of young people, the rejection of marriage by the current generation leading to increased dependence on the state, abortion on demand, and morally (and even ideologically) bankrupt “conservative” politicians.

Even debating such things has become difficult, Hitchens notes, because, “People are taught, almost universally, what to think, and those classes of society who were previously taught to think, no longer are. You actually get people who might be thought to rank as intellectuals or important thinkers who don’t actually think, and who are as ill-accessible to logic as anyone.”

One proof supporting this assertion, of course, is the abortion debate in both Great Britain and Canada. “People deceive themselves because they believe it in their interests to do so,” Hitchens says, “They either want to indulge their own actions, or they want to avoid confronting the actions of others for the private life.” When I ask him what his opinion is on the phenomenon of the Left’s worship of science abruptly ceasing whenever embryology is brought up, Hitchens replies, “The more people shout about science and knowledge and reason, the more likely it seems to me that they will probably be ignoring them in some important part of their lives.”

While restrictions on freedom of speech vary in both Canada and Britain, pro-abortion protestors on both sides of the Atlantic seem to agree that some evidence should never see the light of day. “It is undoubtedly true,” Hitchens notes, “that knowledge of what an abortion does, particularly pictorially, is one of the very few things which is almost totally true to say is completely censored, particularly from mainstream television.”

The rhetorician is quick to admit that supporters of abortion have, up until now, soundly defeated us in the area of rhetoric. “I saw a little bumper sticker in the US: ‘Against abortion? Don’t have one,’” he relates, “I always thought that someone should produce a bumper sticker saying, ‘Against murder? Don’t commit one,’ which is the same logic. The thing is that people don’t realize that it’s the same logic because the recognition of the humanity of the baby is what’s been withdrawn. That’s been the great success of the pro-abortion lobby, to suggest that there is only one human involved in an abortion, when in fact there are two.”

Beyond rhetorical manoeuvrings, Hitchens believes that the battle against abortion was greatly disadvantaged when the Left launched a social revolution to undermine the institution of life-long marriage: “In all Western Christian countries, in the late or middle 1960’s, laws came into place which meant that if two parties had voluntarily agreed to swear a marriage oath and take part in that, if one of those parties decided to dissolve the marriage and the other wanted to maintain the oath that they’d sworn, the state had the power, ultimately backed by police force and prison, to drag out of the family home the person who wished to abide by the oath and support the person who wished to break it. It was an enormous eruption of state power in the private life. Absolutely devastating, revolutionary beyond all measure.”

This more or less ceded territory—Hitchens cites the “puny effort” of the church and political conservatives to stand up for marriage--helped pave the way for the destruction of human life championed by abortion activists. “I think that abortion is much beloved by revolutionaries,” Hitchens comments darkly, “because they always like the mob to get their hands in blood and commit some sort of crime of their own.”

All of this being said, Peter Hitchens has no intention of giving up the fight for a better society. “Say not the struggle naught availeth,” he points out, “If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars.” (I haven’t managed to retain as many literary quotations as Hitchens has, and I’m forced to Google the lines—they’re taken from Arthur Hugh Clough’s poem Say not the Struggle naught Availeth.) I mention to him that he once wrote concerning abortion that, “Those who wonder what they would have done had they lived at the time of some terrible injustice now know the answer. We do live in such a time. And we do nothing.” For a moment, Hitchens almost sounds like an optimist: “These things come,” he says, “People achieve them. I can’t see the sight of it, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. We can’t give up. We’re not allowed to despair.”

“The true historian living in actual times is always trying to penetrate the disguises in which history advances itself,” he adds, “Things don’t look at the time you experience them the way they’ll look in the history books…It’s possible that a great revulsion against secularism and the Century of Self is coming.”

Or perhaps Arthur Hugh Clough’s poem says it better:

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,

Seem here no painful inch to gain,

Far back, through creeks and inlets making,

Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

Albert Goering: The Brother Who Fought the Nazis

jvanmaren — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 17:14:48 +0000

by Jonathon Van Maren

The name “Goering” instantly brings to mind the unarguably evil and grotesquely overweight Hermann Goering, founder of the Gestapo, leader of the Luftwaffe, and arguably second in power in Nazi Germany, only to Adolf Hitler himself. However, there is another Goering that has been all but forgotten by history—one who passionately hated Hitler, Nazism, and all that the minions of the twisted cross stood for. He was Albert Goering, Hermann’s younger brother. While Hermann was complicit in the Holocaust in many ways—even sending a memo to Reinhard Heydrich (nicknamed “the man with the iron heart” by Hitler) in July of 1941 ordering him to see to the details of the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question”—Albert tried to rescue as many Jews and dissidents from the inexorable Nazi machine as he possibly could.

It is a testament to the old maxim “blood is thicker than water” that in spite of Hermann’s insidious activities, which ranged from the organization of Kristalnacht (The Night of Broken Glass) to enthusiastically plundering the wealth of European Jewry, Albert and his brother were still close. Indeed, the German newspaper Der Spiegel noted recently that Albert “would have been lost without his brother. Without his support, the Gestapo—which knew exactly what Albert Goering was doing and with whom he associated—would have arrested and executed him.”

Hermann and Albert were always different—as Hermann himself explained to an interviewer during the 1946 Nuremburg Trials: “He was not politically or militarily interested; I was. He was quiet, reclusive; I like crowds and company. He was melancholic and pessimistic, and I am an optimist. But he’s not a bad fellow, Albert.”

The brothers at first had a serious falling out over Hermann’s embrace of Nazism. Hermann was wounded badly in the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, attempting to seize power for Hitler. Subsequently, he became addicted to morphine and went slightly mad, even being institutionalized for a time in Sweden. According to one historian, Albert said often of Hermann during this period that, “I have a brother in Germany who is getting involved with that bastard Hitler, and he is going to come to a bad end if he continues that way.”

Much to Albert’s dismay, his brother’s loyalty to the Nazi cause soon paid off as Hitler rose rapidly to power, and in 1938 Wehrmacht troops were marching into Austria, where Albert was residing. It was then that the brothers met again—Albert being, according to historian William Burke, “an exhausted mess. Ever since the first swastika appeared in Vienna he had tirelessly arranged exit visas and funds for his Jewish friends. He came head to head with Nazi thugs in Vienna, defending elderly Jewish ladies who were mocked and forced to scrub the cobblestone streets on their knees.” Burke relates how an enthusiastic Hermann met with Albert fresh from delivering a vicious anti-Semitic speech—and exuberantly offered each of his family members a gift. “His mood soured,” Burke writes, “when Albert and his sister Olga pleaded for Hermann to intervene on behalf of Archduke Josef Ferdinand…then detained at Dachau.” Nevertheless, Ferdinand was free the following day.

It is perhaps inevitable to compare Albert Goering to Oskar Schindler. Just like Schindler, Goering used his connections in the Nazi party to save Jews and other dissidents almost constantly. Whenever his own substantial finances and influence failed, he headed to his brother’s Berlin office to convince or manipulate Hermann into assisting him. Burke writes that as the war went on, “Albert became ever more audacious in his subversiveness, [and] a mountain of Gestapo reports piled up against him. Four arrest warrants were issued in his name during the war and yet he was never convicted.” Regardless of political ramifications, Albert’s Nazi brother bailed him out each time, even when a death warrant was put out for him in 1944. This, Hermann told Albert, was the last time he would help.

After Germany’s defeat, Hermann was arrested, sentenced to death, and cheated the hangman by biting down on a cyanide capsule. Albert was kept in prison for two years—mainly based on his last name—and upon his release, spent his final years a social pariah, abandoned by all and given to alcoholism. His family tried to help him, and then finally left him. Albert was destroyed by the family name that had kept him safe during the long years of the Nazi reign.

Albert Goering’s final place in history has not yet been decided. At the urging of William Burke, Yad Vashem is preparing a file on Albert Goering for examination by the commission that approves heroes for receiving the ultimate honor of “Righteous Among The Nations.” That file has not yet been completed, but for the first time in decades, Albert’s legacy is being examined once again—this time not by Nuremburg interrogators, but by historians.

Perhaps Albert’s biographer William Burke put it best. At the end of his journey researching Albert’s life, he went to visit Albert’s grave in Munich. “Etched on the grave’s copper base,” he writes, “is the Goring family motto: ‘Wir sind nicht von denen die da weichen sondern von denen die da glauben’—‘We are not among those who yield, but among those who believe.’ I take one last look and realise it was only Albert who held true to that promise.”

Harper's So-Con Problem

jvanmaren — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 14:27:35 +0000

By Jonathon Van Maren

For better or for worse, it would appear that the last week’s “backbench revolt” has definitively proven that Canadians who hold social conservative, and specifically anti-abortion, views, have no political party to vote for that holds the slightest bit of sympathy for their worldview. Mr. Harper has made it crystal clear that his brand of “conservatism” (which seems to elude definition) does not involve the “conservation” of human life, or even, it seems, of his sizeable so-con voting base. His “conservatism” even precludes a discussion of issues carefully selected by pro-life MPs for their reflection of a Canadian consensus (aka sex-selection abortion).

The problem of the systematic disenfranchisement of social conservatives is one that is not uniquely Canadian. It’s not much of an American problem, certainly, but the Tories in our “parent” country Great Britain has certainly reacted to social conservatives in much the way that Mr. Harper has. I had the opportunity recently to interview the British Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens, and our conversation wandered over to today’s neutered and managerial brand of conservatism that seems to have replaced the conservatism that recognized that its success was inextricably linked to that of social conservative values.

The term “conservative,” Hitchens noted, “isn’t meaningless, but it’s misapplied to political parties who claim to represent it. The difficulty is that voting in universal suffrage tends to be tribal rather than rational. People vote for the party that calls itself conservative long after it’s ceased to be so, and as a result they do themselves great damage because they perpetuate a party that is in fact their enemy. Canada had sort of a revulsion against that when their Conservative Party more or less collapsed, but somehow it seems to have pulled itself together again. That’s partly because the substitute party didn’t really have any ideological coherence of its own. A revolt against rather than a revolt for, I think.”

This, of course, is what Mr. Harper is banking on: That anti-abortion voters will keep on marching to the polling booth and putting their x next to the big blue C, with a few tightly muzzled pro-life candidates to vote for to ensure Stockholm syndrome. Meanwhile, Harper’s opposition to any discussion on abortion is, unbeknownst to most, written right into his party platform (page 19, point 62) and enforced by the PMO. Even a motion with as much public support as Langley MP Mark Warawa’s request for a verbal condemnation of sex selection abortion doesn’t make it past the draconian anti-so-con Conservative gate-keepers.

Rather than keeping his base somewhat sated, Harper is instead earning the kudos of bloggers like Warren Kinsella, a Liberal Party loyalist who wrote happily that Harper, “has ruthlessly crushed any and all attempts to kickstart the abortion debate. Harper has been more resolute on the abortion issue, in fact, than any prime minister in a generation.” Kinsella’s enthusiastic advice for Harper is to “Throw a few of the nobodies overboard and make everyone watch as the sharks tear them to pieces.” Except, of course, Kinsella has not thought of the percentage of Harper’s voting bloc that those “nobodies” and their views represent. Then again, considering his loyalties, perhaps he has.

Pro-lifers aren’t stupid. We realize that Canada’s cultural attitudes towards abortion will have to change before tight abortion restrictions are possible. But we’re still about a quarter of Mr. Harper’s voting base—and if he will not even allow the minutest of discussions, if he prefers to kowtow to Canada’s aging feminist “movement” (none of whom are ever going to vote for him, anyway), then he leaves us in the uncomfortable position of not having any reason to stay in his party. Canada’s so-called pro-choice movement is almost completely dead—at this point it doesn’t constitute much more than a stagnant pond with a few bullfrogs letting off the occasional televised relativistic ribbit. Canada’s pro-life movement is young, growing rapidly, and dedicated to long-term strategies that are already shifting public opinion. As William Sprague once said, “Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.”

Mr. Harper may soon find it quite a bit warmer than he finds is comfortable.

Apply for CCBR's NEW High School Summer Internship!

jvanmaren — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 23:49:15 +0000

Are you passionate for pre-born babies and want to spare them death from abortion? Do you want to EndtheKilling in your lifetime? Do you want to make money—and make a difference with your summer? Consider CCBR's NEW high school summer internship program--a life-saving and life-changing experience--for you and for those you impact!

The program will run from Tuesday, July 2 to Friday, August 30. It will consist of daily “Choice” Chain in downtown Toronto along CCBR staffers, where you will get the opportunity to meet hundreds of people and dialogue with them on the issue of abortion, exposing what is going on within our nation and reaching out to a wounded culture. Applicants are responsible for their own transportation to downtown Toronto each day.

You should view this program as a part-time job—and we will pay each member a stipend of $2,000, to be paid at the end of the program.

To apply for this program, please send a cover letter and resume to Francisco Gomez at fgomez@unmaskingchoice.ca. Each resume should have three references.

Application deadline: Friday, April 26.

This summer, work at more than just a part-time job. Work at changing our culture for the better!

Radio Teopoli with Stephanie Gray March 28, 2013

jshaw — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 21:25:20 +0000

This week Stephanie interview author Leticia Velasquez. Tune in to this enlightening podcast!

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Radio Teopoli with Stephanie Gray March 21, 2013

jshaw — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 21:12:37 +0000

This week Stephanie Gray speaks with Rebecca Richmond, Executive Director of NCLN, and discusses censorship on Canadian Universities.

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Radio Teopoli with Stephanie Gray March 7, 2013

jshaw — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 18:56:15 +0000

This week Stephanie talks about surrogacy and the case of Crystal Kelley.

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Against Stephen Harper: A Pro-Life Manifesto

jvanmaren — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 13:50:42 +0000

by Jonathon Van Maren

In January of 2006, shortly after Stephen Harper’s election as the first Conservative prime minister since Brian Mulroney, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation aired a biography of Stephen Harper. With accusations of a hidden so-con agenda regularly airing on most Canadian networks, CBC reporter Gillian Gindlay asked Harper biographer William Johnson how the new prime minister would deal with the fact that a substantial portion of his base held socially conservative views. Harper was aware of that, replied Johnson. But the new prime minister wasn’t worried. Why? “They knew all they had to do,” revealed Johnson, “was control these people.”

Since the beginning of his political career, Stephen Harper has tried—quite successfully—to distance himself from and silence the socially conservative contingent in both the base that elected him and within his own caucus. Last week, it would appear that he has finally gone too far.

Desperate to stomp out any discussion around the abortion issue, even a motion as both benign and banal as Langley MP Mark Warawa’s Motion 408, “That the House condemn discrimination against females occurring through sex-selective pregnancy termination” was, in an affront to democracy increasingly typical of the allegedly conservative Harper, deemed non-votable. Granted, the motion was spiked by a sub-committee, not by Harper himself, but all the evidence suggests that there has been enormous pressure from the Prime Minister’s Office to dispense with any annoying discussion on abortion—even a verbal condemnation of a practice which 92% of the Canadian public disapproves of.

Mr. Warawa, however, has had enough, and is promising to fight the subcommittee’s decision as far as he needs to—in the process, we hope, embarrassing Mr. Harper far more than any vote could have done. The prime minster wants the social conservatives whose votes he needs to maintain his majority to go away, while showing up every few years to vote his government back into power. It’s time Mr. Harper realized something: We now know what he’s all about. We know he doesn’t like us. And guess what? We don’t much like him, either. And this isn’t his grandfather’s pro-life movement anymore. We’re young, we’re numerous—and our voices aren’t even close to hoarse yet.

I’ve made this point before, but I think it’s really important that everyone—and I mean everyone—who values human life be aware of what Stephen Harper has done and is attempting to do to the pro-life movement. Many of us were holding out for the hidden agenda that never existed, and many of us still cling to the idea that Harper is “biding his time,” being a “smart politician” or is simply (and is there really any such thing?) a “secret pro-lifer.” This is a man who is completely unconcerned with the systematic gutting and decapitation of hundreds of pre-born Canadians per day. He’s just concerned that we keep bringing it up.

Just to ensure that you don’t think I’m engaging in hyperbole, let’s review Harper’s record on abortion:

In 2002, Stephen Harper used the abortion issue to attack pro-life candidates in the Canadian Alliance leadership race, while attempting to claim that he was simultaneously somehow “pro-life.” However, he ran against candidates Stockwell Day, Grant Hill, and Diane Ablonczy in part by attacking the social conservatism and specifically their stance on the abortion issue.
In 2004 as leader of the newly formed Conservative Party, Stephen Harper begrudgingly said he would allow a “free vote” on the abortion issue (something the federal Liberals do as well), but referred to abortion as “a woman’s right to choose,” clearly highlighting his pro-abortion views on the matter. During the English Election debate on June 15 of the same year, Harper declared that, “I will not have legislation limiting a woman’s right to choose.”
At the March 2005 Conservative policy convention, Stephen Harper noted in his speech that “as prime minister, I will not bring forth legislation on the issue of abortion.” According to LifeSiteNews: “This speech…is said to have produced a successful, although narrow passage of the motion that officially shut down abortion debate in the party and which has been used as a club to silence pro-life candidates and members of caucus.”
On December 11, 2005, Harper wrote a letter to the Washington Times. He writes toward the end of the letter that, “a new Conservative government will not initiate or support any effort to pass legislation restricting abortion in Canada.”
On March 1, 2006, shortly after his election, Harper told Maclean’s Magazine that, “In my entire career, I’ve made it clear that I have no intention of getting into the abortion issue. It has not been my issue in my entire career. And it won’t be in the future.”
In 2008, LifeSiteNews reported that, “Harper’s Justice Minister, Rob Nicholson, effectively scuttled a private members bill that sought to protect unborn victims of violence, by pledging to introduce his own gutted version that would merely list pregnancy as an aggravating factor at sentencing. Nicholson alleged that protecting wanted babies would risk ‘instilling fetal rights.’”
On December 15, 2010, Harper voted against Roxanne’s Law (Bill C-510), a bill that would ban Canadians from coercing women into an abortion.
On April 4, 2011, Harper assured a reporter asking about the abortion issue that, “Our agenda is the same agenda with a majority government or a minority government.”
In April of 2012, Harper not only promised to vote against MP Stephen Woodworth’s Motion 312 to examine when life begins, but noted during Question Period that it was “unfortunate” that the motion had even been deemed votable.
In response to a letter to the RCMP by three Conservative backbenchers requesting an investigation into the discovery that between 2000 and 2009, 491 babies had been born alive following abortion procedures and left out to die, Harper stated in the House of Commons that; “All members of this House, whether they agree with it or not, understand that abortion is legal in Canada and this government, myself included, have made it very clear that the government does not intend to change the law in this regard.”

There’s more, of course, but I think I’ve made my point. Stephen Harper is in no way a friend of the pro-life movement, and is fond of telling us that he is our enemy. He has given us not the slightest reason to support him. Since he became prime minister in 2006, it’s been all sticks and no carrots. Yet, like a battered wife who feels she has nowhere else to go, social conservatives limp to the voting booth to give Harper his much-abused power back whenever election time rolls around. Now he’s telling members of his own caucus that they can’t present anything that even remotely resembles human rights for the pre-born—even if a massive percentage of the Canadian public is supportive.

Harper has tragically underestimated the size, youth, tenacity, and dedication of the newly emerging pro-life movement. We’re in this full-time, and for the long haul. Even the lowest polling numbers say that nearly ten percent of Canadians are against abortion in all cases, with polling for abortion restrictions being much higher (some polls placing it at over 70%). Harper won his majority government with only 39.6% of the popular vote. He may want to be a bit nicer to a constituency that he has definitively lost control over, and that he depends on for political survival. The Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform recently launched a political awareness campaign called “Face the Children.” Mr. Harper can be assured that we do not plan to go away, we do not plan to be quiet, and we plan to inform disenfranchised voters of precisely what he stands for.

Because we don’t particularly care whether or not Mr. Harper keeps his job. We’re far more concerned with ensuring that pre-born Canadians keep their lives.

Dr. Halima Bashir: Doctor of Darfur

jvanmaren — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 20:16:46 +0000

by Alanna Gomez

Born into the Zaghawa tribe of the Sudanese desert, Halima Bashir grew up as a beloved oldest child and only daughter. Her father, a cattle herder and wealthy man in their village, treated her like his little princess. Her strict grandmother kept her on the straight and narrow.

The first real struggle in young Halima’s life was being sent to live with her uncle’s family in a town hours away from her family at the age of eight years old. Unlike many men in the tribe, Halima’s father understood the importance of education for his daughter. He had hope that the intelligent young girl would become a doctor. Halima thrived on learning and eagerly anticipated the adventures school would bring, even though it meant separation from her family.

However, this was also the first time Halima realized that people wouldn’t like her because she had dark skin. In Sudan, there are the black African people and the Arabs, who have much lighter skin. The Arabs were the ones mainly in power in the country. Her school taught classes in Arabic, but Halima had only been taught very basic Arabic by her father before coming to school.

At lunch time on the first day of school, Halima made friends with a little girl named Mona, also from her tribe. As they were speaking together in Zaghawa, they felt sharp blows to the tops of their skulls. It was the headmistress and her big stick. She angrily informed them they were only permitted to speak Arabic. It was the beginning of Halima’s troubles at school.

Being a very bright girl, Halima did exceptionally well in her studies. It took time to overcome the initial obstacle of learning Arabic, but within a month she was competing for the top of her class. This brought her back onto the radar of the headmistress and the other Arabic teachers. She found herself being ostracized unfairly punished and beaten. A natural sense of justice caused Hamila to stand up for herself, which didn’t go over well with her teachers.

At the end of the first term, her father picked her up to go home for the holiday. She had earned top marks in all her classes but Arabic. Eventually, Halima had to unburden herself of all the misery she was experiencing at school, and begged to stay home. Her father responded to her story by telling her that the Arabs would never make anything easy for their people in Sudan. He told her “I’m glad you stood up to them. I’m proud of you…if you want to get a proper education and challenge the Arabs in this country, it’s the only way.” Halima promised him she would persevere.

Many years later, Halima finished school and earned a place at medical school. She moved far away from her family, to the big city of Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. All went well until midway through her first year of study. A state of national emergency had been declared and the National Islamic Front was recruiting for the jihad in the south of the country. The students were told that if they volunteered for a year, they would be put on a fast track to graduate with good marks. The university would be closed for the time being. Very few students wanted to join the jihad, as they understood the rebels in the south were only fighting for the return of democracy. Halima rallied her dorm-mates and they quickly left for home.

When the university eventually reopened, Halima returned. She knew her country was in a state of turmoil, but decided to keep her head down and focus on her studies instead of getting involved. The years past and she graduated with her medical degree. Her first assignment from the government was in the accident and emergency ward in a town several hours from her family village.

She soon realized that the traumatized patients that were streaming in were victims of the conflict that was rapidly spreading across Darfur. Patients had to fill out forms and were carefully screened by the police in an attempt to identify Darfuri rebels. Some patients arrived with police escort. These patients were part of the Janjaweed ("devil horsemen"), an Arab tribe that was given arms by the government and sent to attack villages.

Halima soon earned a reputation as a good doctor who would treat any patient. The injured Darfuri began travelling to see her. In this way, Halima’s eyes were opened to the reality of the war, as she could speak her language with the villagers and know that the other medical staff could not understand them.

For months, Halima’s life only consisted of eating, sleeping, treating her patients and worrying about her family’s safety. One day, a reporter showed up at the hospital and started asking questions about the conflict in the region. She knew that she couldn’t be completely open without facing serious retribution from the government, so she tried to give vague answers that hinted at the truth. Even that was too much. Two weeks after the article was published, a group of plain-clothes policemen came to the hospital for her. They took her to a ghost-house--a secret detention centre--and interrogated her in the dark. They screamed at her, to instil a sense of their power and give her a taste of their hatred. They forced her to sign a document stating that she wouldn’t speak to reporters again.

After she was released, Halima firmed her resolve to continue helping people. She wanted to continue treating any patient who came to her, but knew she would have to be more careful and avoid the suspicion of the government. A few weeks later, a letter came from the Health Ministry, sending Halima to run her own clinic in a small village in a faraway region of the country. This shocking news, removing a not yet fully trained doctor to run her own clinic, could only have been the result of someone trying to keep her quiet.

Halima moved to the village and started to enjoy her work there. The people were Zaghawa and friendly towards her. She soon began secretly treating rebel soldiers at night and had her first encounter with the village police. They demanded a list of all the Zaghawa men who came to be treated. She refused.

A few weeks later, Halima was on the porch of the clinic when a crowd of people came running towards the clinic. They were all carrying little girls. The Janjaweed had attacked a local girl’s school and gang-raped dozens of them. Government soldiers had surrounded the school and prevented anyone from helping the girls.

Amidst the horror, Halima stayed focused and gave instructions to the parents to help her treat the girls. She treated forty little girls that day, and knew many more had not been brought to her clinic because of the shame some families believed that being victimized brought upon the victim and her family. UN workers showed up a few days later to investigate. Halima told them everything she knew, under the condition of anonymity.

It wasn’t enough. A week later, soldiers showed up for Halima. They took her to a military camp on the far side of the village. They brutally beat her and left her on the floor tied up. The next day, three soldiers returned and raped her. The third day, they did the same. Then, instead of killing her, which at that point Halima desperately desired, they released her. Friends in the village helped her escape to her parent’s home.

What happened to his daughter firmed Halima’s fathers resolve to join the rebels. He knew that there was no staying out of the conflict. Meanwhile, Halima spent the months at home slowly recovering from her ordeal. She hid at home with no desire for anything more. Eventually, with her family’s love and patience, she slowly returned from death back to life.

The peace that was returning to Halima’s life was not to last. Her family’s village was attacked by the Janjaweed a few short months later. Helicopters flew overhead and started shooting at the villagers as well. Many men sent their families to run for the cover of the jungle, and stayed behind to give them time to escape. They were all killed, including Halima’s father.

For weeks, the survivors struggled to exist in the ruins of their village. Many left to try and find refuge in other villages, or the neighbouring country of Chad. Soldiers showed up one day, looking for Halima. To protect her, her mother lied and said she didn’t know her. Her family fled soon after and left word for Halima to do the same.

Halima did escape. She travelled to Khartoum and with good fortune, met people who helped her escape the country. She was put on a plane to England, and was eventually granted refugee status there. It wasn’t easy, and her troubles didn’t end by leaving Sudan. She still doesn’t know where the rest of her family is.

Despite the danger, and the struggles of living in a new country, Halima is speaking out about the genocide occurring in Darfur. There are not many voices telling the world exactly what is taking place in Sudan and her story is needed to help the world pay attention and commit to end this ongoing conflict. Despite what she has been through, Halima gives us hope with her courage in speaking up.

In our lives, in our country, when we find it difficult to speak up, to share the truth about injustice--like abortion--we can remember people like Dr. Halima Bashir. For her, the price of speaking up was brutal violence and torture. If she can endure such suffering, and still share her story to help others, then we can face the persecution, rejection and hostility that come from refusing to participate in the cover-up of abortion. Be brave and be bold in the truth.

Radio Teopoli with Stephanie Gray March 14, 2013

jshaw — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 18:05:30 +0000

This week Stephanie talks with fellow colleague, Devorah Gilman, about pro-life activism in Toronto.

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How to Change the World

jvanmaren — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 18:05:13 +0000

By Stephanie Gray

The following are snippets of conversations from the Genocide Awareness Project’s international mission trip in Florida last month. These give glimpses of how ordinary people can reach out to wounded people in a twisted culture:

A man was looking in shock at the pictures of aborted babies and Nicole, a volunteer, asked if he had questions. He said, “No, no this enough; my eyes are opened now.”

A student walked past and exclaimed, “Those pictures! They’re so shocking!” He was overcome by the powerful impact of seeing shattered abortion victims.

Renee, a volunteer, asked a girl how she was doing today; the girl said “Successfully disturbed.” She was against abortion, she said, but the display had put it in a new light for her. She asked about how the abortion procedure worked, and her eyes were opened.

Alanna, CCBR’s outreach director, spoke to a girl who wasn’t sure if abortion should be legal or illegal. After they talked for a bit she said, “Looking at these pictures now, I’m really leaning more towards it being illegal.”

Blaise, a volunteer, spoke to one guy with dred locks who looked like Bob Marley. “Why they all callin’ you gross?” he asked Blaise. Looking at the pictures, he said, “Man, I didn’t know it looked like that. That’s horrible.” One of his friends, standing with the pro-choice protestors, called over to him and asked what he was doing. “I’m getting’ educated, yo,” he responded. His friend then said, “Naw, you’re getting misinformed!” The student with Blaise then responded to his friend, “I’m keeping an open mind.” After speaking with him, knowing the truth prevails, Blaise encouraged the guy to go over and see what the abortion advocates had to say. When the guy went over there, one of the abortion advocates said, “It’s just a clump of cells” to which the guy Blaise spoke with responded, while pointing to the signs, “That’s a pretty organized clump of cells!”

One guy said that he and his girlfriend had had two abortions, including one only two weeks ago. He came up to our volunteer, Alice, quite hostile. He justified his child’s abortion by saying that he thinks in a society where some families or people can’t handle kids, abortion is required. Alice listened to him and then mentioned the option of adoption. A curtain lifted—he said, “You know, I never thought of that. That solves all the problems I talked about.” He and Alice read through an adoption pamphlet, and he told her that he was a bit sad as he realized he had been ignorant—but now was 100% for adoption. “You can’t change your past,” she told him, “but you can change your future.” The formerly-hostile student had become quite pensive and friendly. He said, “You know, you have a really cool vibe. I gave you bullets and a gun [with my poor arguments] and you didn’t even shoot me.” [I would agree with the student that Alice does have a really cool vibe, but she also has a really cool British accent and I think that helped endear her to many J].

Yvonne, a volunteer, spoke to one young man who told her, “I’m going to tell you that I’m an atheist, and this is the first time I’ve heard something that is explained scientifically. This makes sense.” First he was pro-choice—but he left reconsidering his position, and taken aback by the respect with which he was treated. He thanked us for taking the time to talk to him.

Alanna spoke with one man who didn’t believe the pre-born were human beings—and would get very upset when she used the word “kill.” However, after discussing it further he couldn’t deny that the word was accurate. At the end of their discussion, he signed up for the pro-life club so he, too, could do something about abortion.

Dozens of pro-lifers who thought abortion was permissible in the case of rape were swayed to become completely pro-life due to the pictures and simple analogies.

One angry girl approached Jenna, a volunteer, and said, “You people are sick. These images are fake.” Jenna replied, “Hypothetically, if these images aren’t fake, would you agree that abortion is a barbaric act that kills a human?” She responded, “Well, yes, but these aren’t real images.” Jenna then showed her the signed legal affidavit proving the authenticity of the imagery. After reading, the girl responded, “Alright, I guess abortion is a very bad choice.”

A few facts, some basic science, a pleasant disposition, a kind heart, a listening ear, and a Socratic approach—these are the ingredients to make fruitful dialogue on abortion. These encounters are just a few of many which prove true the words of Nelson Mandela: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper: Power Without Principle

jvanmaren — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 00:52:56 +0000

by Gregg Cunningham

The Vancouver Sun, September 9, 2012, reported a story titled “Stephen Harper takes calculated risk citing: ‘My Christ.’” It contends that “Prime Minister Stephen Harper took the political risk of making a rare public

reference to his evangelical Christian beliefs while criticizing an American pastor’s plans to burn 200 copies of The Koran on Sept. 11th.” The writer quotes Harper as saying “I don’t speak very often about my own religion but let me be very clear: My God and my Christ is a tolerant God, and that’s what we want to see in this world.”

Mr. Harper seems to think “his Christ” is outraged by the prospect of Americans torching Korans but “tolerant” of Canadians killing full-term newborns. CTVNews.ca, January 31, 2013, posted a story headlined “No intention of reopening abortion debate, Harper says.” The article reports that “… MPs from Saskatchewan, Alberta and Ontario made the request [for an infanticide inquiry] on House of Commons letterhead to RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson.” The MPs “call the abortions ‘possible murders’ that require a thorough police investigation.” Their contention is that “From 2000 to 2009 in Canada, there were 491 abortions of 20 weeks gestation and greater that resulted in live births …. This means that the aborted child died after it was born.”

Mr. Harper remains unmoved by the allegation that newborns are being butchered on his watch.

“'I think all members of this house, whether they agree with it or not, understand that abortion is legal in Canada and this government, myself included, have made it very clear that the government does not intend to change the law in this regard,’ Harper said Thursday.” Perhaps Mr. Harper doesn’t understand that this particular debate isn’t about making new law to protect a fetus from abortion. It’s about enforcing existing law to protect a neonate from murder. To paraphrase theologian Francis Schaeffer, if slaughtering newborns doesn’t prick the P.M.’s “Christian” conscience, the world has the right to ask whether Christ is real -- or at least whether Mr. Harper’s faith is genuine. Huffington Post Canada, August 16, 2012, questioned the character of Mr. Harper’s faith in a story headlined “Stephen Harper's Religion: John McKay, Liberal MP, Defends PM From Charges His Faith Influences Policy.” Straight.com, June 7, 2012, “Elizabeth May sees no evidence that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a practising Christian.” Based upon his governing philosophy, “… Green Party of Canada Leader Elizabeth May caused an uproar in the comments section by saying she has seen no evidence that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a Christian.” Nor do we.

And Canada isn’t the only country in which defenseless, newborn babies are being remorselessly dispatched. CNN.com, posted a March 4, 2013, story headlined “Dr. Kermit Gosnell 'house of horrors': Philadelphia physician accused of severing babies' spines.” It quoted the scandalized prosecutor in a case involving an abortionist who tortured to death late term and full term babies -- born alive -- because he allegedly lacked the training required to kill them in the womb. So he merely induced labour, delivered them alive, and summarily executed them. “A doctor who cuts into the necks severing the spinal cords of living, breathing babies, who would survive with proper medical attention, is committing murder under the law,” Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams said.”

But who cares? Not Messrs. Obama or Harper.