New Jersey Governor Chris Christie vetoed a bill that would have given $7.5 million to family planning facilities (read: Planned Parenthood). Socially conservative ends to fulfill fiscal conservative promises.
It has been busy here in the office this week. Production week. A funeral. Meetings. Blogging will continue next week.
Thirty-two conservative leaders have urged the rejection of Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court. Among those signing the call to defeat Kagan because she is radically pro-abortion, would do violence to the constitution as a judicial activist, would give disproportionate weight to foreign law, and is likely to invent a right to same sex marriage, are Gary Bauer, president, American Values; Kristan Hawkins, executive director, Students for Life of [...]
The World Bank twitter feed has this comment: "250 people become newly infected for every 100 that go on AIDS treatment, the world desperately needs new prevention strategies." E-Health MD notes that to prevent the spread of AIDS, people must use "protection" when having sex and "minimize" exposure to the disease by not sharing needles shooting up drugs. This has been the [...]
Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, says that news reports that South Korea has legalized South Korea are incorrect. He notes: Today I received the South Korean – End-of-life guidelines from a Korean physician. It is clear that S Korea did not legalize euthanasia. The guidelines concern the rules that must be followed before a physician can withdraw or withhold [...]
A must-read short essay at MercatorNet on the issue of euthanasia by Erik Leipoldt. A sample: Legalising euthanasia fails to address the suffering that underlies patients’ requests for it. Often cited are: dependence on others, pain, and loss of dignity. All of these can be ameliorated through good care. Dependence on others is only undignified in the absence of caring support. Of course there [...]
From "Zombie" at Pajamasmedia: I think both sides of the abortion debate are lying and have been lying since the argument first arose. Anyone who wants to forbid abortion “except in cases of rape or incest” is, frankly, full of crap. And here’s why: If you truly are “pro-life” in that you believe abortion is murder because the unborn child is a [...]
This has nothing to do about pro-life but I found this story interesting. Fr. Philip Kennedy of Catholic Missions in Canada was preaching about the organization at a church in Etobicoke. A man gave the priest a wallet with money in it from South Africa and in it there was a 1975 gold-mint Krugerrand coin. Fr. Kennedy looked up the value of the [...]
The Trouble with Canada ... Still: A Citizen Speaks Out by William Gairdner is coming out October 1. The author is updating his classic 20 years after the original became an unlikely bestseller. He told me last month that it is a substantially re-written book with mostly new material. We will be interviewing the author and reviewing the book in either the October [...]
Senator Orrin Hatch (R, Utah) makes the case against confirming Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court: In a 1997 legislative-strategy memo after President Clinton vetoed the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, Ms. Kagan urged him to support substitutes offered by Democratic senators. This tactic was intended to siphon votes away from a veto override, and, because the substitutes would not pass, [...]
Interim columnist Michael Coren sums up his post-World Cup thoughts on the tournament and soccer over at MercatorNet. An excerpt: The German squad included ten players who are of non-German background – Turkish, Polish, Serbian and so on – and a third of the team would not have been accepted in the Kaiser’s Germany, let alone in that of the little corporal [...]
Jill Stanek has ten tips for pro-life bloggers. All very good. Especially useful for campus pro-life groups.
Stephen Taylor notes that Liberal MP Hedy Fry 1) called the Canadian ambassador to Poland the "Polish ambassador" and 2) elevated refusing to fly the rainbow flag abroad to an affront to the Charter of Rights. From Fry's letter to Ambassador Daniel Costello and Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon: The refusal of the Canadian Embassy in Poland to fly the rainbow flag [...]
The Weekly Standard has an article this week on that most endangered of species, the pro-life Democrat. John McCormack goes over familiar territory: Al Gore, Jesse Jackson, Dick Gephardt, and numerous other Democrats were pro-life until they ran for the party's presidential nomination; more recently, Bart Stupak and a bunch of his ostensibly pro-life colleagues voted for Obamacare once it came with a dubious gimmick -- an [...]
In the wake of the G20 summit and the police reaction, Rod Breakenridge writes in the Calgary Herald how conservatives, who usually are skeptical of state power, are very often supporters of the police. (See, for example, Michael Taube's column in the Toronto Star today.) It certainly is curious. Breakenridge notes that all too often the possibility of violence or the use [...]