Ann Coulter writing in Human Events: “The party formerly known as ‘the Democratic Party’ will henceforth be doing business under the name ‘the Abortion Party.’ That would have the virtue of honesty. Love of abortion is the one irreducible minimum of the Democratic Party. Liberals don’t want to go to war with Saddam Hussein, but they do want to go to war to protect Roe v. Wade” … Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak reports that PresidentGeorge W. Bush might include a call for the abolition of partial-birth abortions in his 2003 State of the Union address … The U.S. Senate defeated an attempt by pro-abortion senators to allow abortions at U.S. military hospitals, after Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfield said the president would veto the entire bill unless the provision was dropped.

The story of a nine-year-old British girl having an abortion appears to be false. The Express & Star reports there is no evidence that such an abortion took place … After the British government admitted that 25 unborn babies were killed by abortion over the past six years because of a suspected cleft lip or palate, pro-life MP and doctor Bob Spink said there was a need to change the law to ban abortions up to birth on the basis of cleft lips: “The judicial killing of an innocent and viable baby, particularly after 24 weeks, demonstrates a disgusting contempt for the dignity of human life” … Conservative Welsh national assembly memberDavid Davies likened abortion to murder, saying “I have never understood the argument that says while it is a serious criminal offence to kill a child while it is outside its mother’s womb, the state is prepared to condone the killing of a child which lies within the womb. It is a tragedy that thousands of lives are deliberately terminated in this fashion each year. It is particularly sad for the mothers involved and for the medical staff who have to carry through these unpleasant procedures.”

Malta Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami has negotiated a “special ad hoc protocol” with the European Union so that the Mediterranean country would not be forced to abandon its protection of the unborn if the EU confirms full membership … Filipino Fr. Joseph Schwegmann refuses to give communion to women who are using abortifacient intra-uterine devices. The Catholic priest’s principled stand has led at least 24 women to heed him.

The Moncton Times & Transcript reports that abortionist Henry Morgentaler will not open up another abortuary in New Brunswick – despite the fact the Moncton hospitals will no longer routinely commit abortions – because the one in Fredericton is already a money-losing venture … New Brunswick Right to Life Association president Elizabeth Crouchman on the issue of taxpayer-funded abortion: “We are certainly fools if we allow Morgentaler to not only kill our children with impunity but to do it with our tax dollars” … At the beginning of the International Parliamentarians’ Conference in Ottawa, Thoraya Obaid, executive director of the United Nations Populations Fund, said, “Access to reproductive health care is a matter of life and death.” It certainly is … Openly homosexual Tory MP Scott Brison says he will run for his party’s leadership.

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine declares that destructive research on human embryos is ethically acceptable as long as it “will benefit human health” and is “conducted in ways that accord the embryo respect.” It is hard to imagine how destroying an embryonic human can be carried out in a respectful way … The Holy See’s United Nation’s representative, Archbishop Renato Martino, said that so-called therapeutic cloning is worse than cloning for reproductive purposes. Although the Catholic Church opposes all forms of human cloning, Archbishop Martino said therapeutic cloning is “an even more serious offence against human dignity and the right to life, since it involves human beings (embryos) who are created in order to be destroyed.”

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, in First Things, about the first same-sex “wedding” announcement, now listed on the “Celebrations” page in the New York Times: “People who publicize the private details of their lives used to be called exhibitionists. Mr. Leonard and Mr. Lione, along with the editors of the Times, seem to think that an item about two gay guys living together, when it appears in a section that used to be called ‘Weddings,’ is about something other than two gay guys living together. It is very poignant.”