LifeNews.com, by Steven Ertelt, Editor, December 17, 2007 -- Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Mitt Romney participated in a weekend interview with Tim Russert of the NBC program "Meet the Press" and he restated, as he has countless times before, why he changed his position on abortion. Romney also reiterated his position allowing researchers to destroy human embryos from fertility clinics for scientific studies...

...Romney said he now believes that life begins at the point of conception.

"I do. I believe, I believe from a, from a, a political perspective that life begins at conception. I, I don't, I don't pretend to know, if you will, from a theological standpoint when life begins," he explained.

The former Massachusetts governor also restated his position that his supports a human life amendment and overturning Roe v. Wade but doesn't think Americans are ready for the amendment yet...

...He said that abortion bans would not punish women but hold abortion practitioners accountable in the same way the partial-birth abortion ban does with fines, loss of medical license and prison terms.
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On the issue of stem cell research, Romney again said he opposes the purposeful creation and destruction of human life.

However, he also would allow the destruction of human life by letting scientists destroy human embryos from fertility clinics for experiments.

Russert followed up on that point.

"But to be clear, the embryos that are so-called surplus in vitro clinics are destroyed for research, and you support that?" the MSNBC host asked.

"The term support is perhaps not the exact word I'd choose," Romney replied. "I would not outlaw it. I would allow, I would allow private laboratories and private institutions--as we currently do, and as the president does as well--to use these so-called surplus or embryos to be discarded."

Read the entire article.

Labels: abortion rights, embryonic stem cell, in vitro, Roe v. Wade

...and forms a picture eerily symmetrical with America's leaky borders.

DeLay, former GOP Congressman and House Majority Leader from Texas, has noticed what he believes to be a non-coincidence -- one which I bet has not been pointed out by your local baby-killing professor of statistics, no sir: a rough correspondence in the number of abortions since Roe v. Wade, and the number of "illegal" immigrants to the US in that same period. In an address to the recent National Convention of the College Republicans organization, DeLay said:

If you believe abortion, if you believe that doesn't affect you... I contend it affects you in immigration. If we had those 40 million children that were killed over the last 40 years, we wouldn't need the illegal immigrants to fill the jobs that they are doing today. Think about it.

I have thought about it, Tom, although it took your asking the question to open my eyes. Also hauntingly corresponding to that 40 million figure:

• Estimated number of classmates.com users as of February, 2006. Also the number of subscribers to the Xanga "social networking" service as of July 2005.
• Estimated number of deaths required for the Communist Party of China to seize power, according to the late Wáng Zhèn (one of the "Eight Immortals" of the Communist Party there, and presumably a knowledgeable source if perhaps inclined to inflation of the Party's ego).
• Estimated number of deaths in developing countries due to wars and other state-sponsored violence in the post-World War II decades (according to historian Robert McNamara's 1991 paper, "The Post-Cold War World: Implications for Military Expenditure in the Developing Countries," and also according to a 2003 study by Milton Leitenberg of the Center for International and Security Studies).
• Number of stars "in our galactic neighborhood" to be studied by NASA's proposed, but never launched, Full-sky Astrometric Mapping Explorer (FAME) astrometric satellite.
• Number of credit-card holders whose identities were potentially compromised by the hacking of CardSystems Solutions, discovered in June 2005.
• Number of crossings per second made by "bunches" of protons in the beam produced by the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider.
• Estimated minimum number of speakers of Low Franconian languages such as Dutch, Afrikaans, and Flemish.
• Estimated number of people who viewed performances in 2006 by "neo-burlesque" stripper Michelle "Toots" L'Amour, thanks in significant, er, part to her appearances that year on NBC's "America's Got Talent" and the Showtime network's "Sexual Healing."
  
• In perhaps the most sinister -- bordering on the precognitive -- coincidence, the 1995 debut album of rock group The Bogmen was titled Life Begins at 40 Million.
  

[Above items all courtesy of Wikipedia]

(Creepily, DeLay has not been the first -- let alone only -- speaker on the right to make the connection between abortion and illegal immigration. He was preceded a few months back by Zell Miller, former Georgia governor and one-time Democrat. Miller, however, also credited Roe v. Wade for its negative effects on US military strength and the Social Security System, and hence diluted his message somewhat. Miller used a figure of 45 million abortions rather than DeLay's 40 million, and maybe it was the additional 5 million who could have been in Iraq or Afghanistan and/or paying into Social Security -- if only their mothers had cared about them!)

It's possible, we would contend, to discuss reasonably the question of whether there might or might not have been too many abortions (legal or otherwise) in the last 40 years. But tying that discussion to random hot-button issues like "illegal" immigration is cheap, unconstructive, misleading, and flagrantly inflammatory. Not to read too much into the former Congressman's words, but the least stupidity with which we can credit him is to imply that 40 million aborted fetuses might have grown up to occupy the cheap-labor jobs held by so many "illegal" immigrants. They sure wouldn't have grown up to become College Republican keynoters forced out of their elected positions because of finance scandals, eh, Tom?

(By the way, DeLay's "40 years" isn't quite right; it's been only 34 years since Roe v. Wade. Perhaps DeLay's loosey-goosey way with numbers led to some of his off-camera troubles.)

For the record, here's a YouTube video of DeLay's address; advance the time slider to around 3:45 unless you want to see all the stuff that precedes it:

Labels: Abortion, DeLay, illegal immigration, Roe v. Wade, statistics

According to LifeNews.com (and I'm sure they're not happy about this): In a speech to a pro-abortion conference on Monday, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer vowed to continue his track record as one of the strongest pro-abortion governors in the nation. Spitzer has come under fire for attacking pregnancy centers and promoting embryonic stem cell research funding with tax dollars.

Spitzer spoke at the annual Family Planning Advocates Conference in Albany yesterday.

He told attendees he was worried about the judicial appointments President Bush has made and said he's concerned they will overturn Roe v. Wade -- saying "we are on the cusp of losing" the landmark case.

He pledged to update state abortion laws to make sure abortion is legal if the Supreme Court ever overturns the decision.

"They do not go far enough and so we will make it our vision this term, this year to expand New York's law to give us all the protections that are necessary," he said.

The governor also told abortion advocates his administration would do more to promote the morning after pill and promote sex education that promotes it instead of abstinence education.

"The best thing we can do for our kids to avoid unwanted pregnancies is educate them," he said. "Education that's based on science, not politics."

Read the entire article.

Labels: Abortion, Roe v. Wade, Roe vs Wade

From the AP:
JACKSON, Miss. — Mississippi governor Haley Barbour signed a bill Thursday that would criminalize abortion in the event that the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the 1973 decision that legalized the procedure.

The measure would ban nearly all abortions in the state if the court were to overturn Roe v. Wade. In that event, anyone performing an illegal abortion in Mississippi would face one to 10 years in prison. The bill also tightens consent laws for minors and requires abortion providers to perform a sonogram and give the pregnant woman an opportunity to listen to a fetal heartbeat.

The only exceptions to the state ban would be in cases of rape or if the pregnancy threatened the woman's life. The bill has no exception for pregnancies caused by incest.

Proponents of the bill say the ultimate goal is to one day challenge Roe v. Wade. Anti-abortion activists and some lawmakers believe that with the recent appointments of new, conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade could be overturned.

Mississippi is one of many states revisiting the abortion debate. South Carolina lawmakers are considering a bill that would require women to view ultrasound images of their fetuses.

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Boy, things are looking pretty gloomy when states start positioning themselves for "in the event" that Roe vs Wade is overturned. This would never be happening if Roe vs. Wade was not in some serious trouble. Let's all take a GIANT step backwards, why don't we?"

Labels: Abortion, Mississippi, Roe v. Wade, Roe vs Wade