Ron Paul, a Pro-Life Libertarian

Chelsea2008 Election, Abortion, Politics4 Comments

I once told a friend of mine that a politician I knew, a Republican, was very Libertarian in his political views. Knowing that Republicans are typically pro-life she immediately shot back, “well what are his views on abortion, then?” because, “a pro-life/Libertarian view does not fit together.” She said this because Libertarians believe in personal and economic liberty. From Libertarianism.com:

Libertarians believe that each person owns his own life and property, and has the right to make his own choices as to how he lives his life – as long as he simply respects the same right of others to do the same.

For many Libertarians this extends to abortion: women are free to do with their bodies as they see fit and no one should tell them otherwise, i.e. by outlawing abortion. However, it seems that the Libertarian party is pretty evenly split between the pro-life and pro-choice side (Source: Libertarian perspective on abortion).

Ron PaulRepublican presidential candidate Ron Paul, in an interview with South Carolina’s Spartanburg Herald-Journal, Ron Paul explains the pro-life view of abortion and the right to privacy:

“You have a right to privacy in your home – I don’t want any cameras or any invasion in the home. Your home is your castle in a free society. That doesn’t give you the right to kill a baby in the bed…If there is another life involved, and that crib happens to be the uterus, the issue is not telling the woman what to do. The issue is whether there’s another life…I tell my libertarian friends that if you have a live fetus, and it’s 4, 5, 6, 7 pounds, and it has a heartbeat, and brainwaves, moves and sucks its thumb, and you kill him, you’re committing an act of violence…So, it’s a little more complicated than saying a woman can do what she wants with her body, and that’s why it’s been difficult for a lot of people to sort this out.”

HT: Life News

Unborn U.S. Citizens Have a Right to Life

ChelseaAbortion, ActivismLeave a Comment

Tiny American

I Am An American

I am endowed by my Creator
With the inalienable right to life
Just like you, and every other American.
You know who I am.
Now that you can see my face,
Will you use your voice?
Please tell America,
I am an American, too.

America, it’s time to protect your children again.

That is a poem I have on one of my pro-life t-shirts and it fits very nicely with the 4th of July. As we celebrate our freedom this Independence Day we would do well to remember the millions of Americans whose freedom has been taken away in this country and pray for its restoration.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Happy 4th of July!
God Bless you all!

CWA’s ESC Research Talking Points

ChelseaEmbryonic Stem Cell ResearchLeave a Comment

Some quick points to remember when talking about embryonic stem cell research. From Concerned Women for America:

• Embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) destroys human lives to “advance science.” The process of extracting stem cells from the embryo destroys it. An embryo is a human being at its earliest stage of life.

• ESCR is utilitarian, not humane. It is immoral to kill human embryos for their stem cells just as it is unethical to kill human babies for their organs. Civilized people do not do such things.

• The debate is over funding, not banning. The political debate raging over ESCR is not over whether to allow it but over who should fund it. Destructive ESCR, though grossly unethical and immoral, is already legal. Federal legislation attempts to force tax payers to fund research that is ethically unsound and medically unproven. American taxpayers should not be forced to fund unethical research, just as they should not be forced to fund abortion.

• The federal government should not create a direct incentive to destroy human embryos. Federal funding will encourage researchers to destroy human embryos for their stem cells or to purchase those cells from researchers who destroyed embryos to obtain them.

• Destructive ESCR has had no medical benefits to date. Touted as the best way to find dramatic medical cures, destructive ESCR has produced zero medical successes while destroying human life. In addition, embryonic stem cells have proved unstable in medical experiments and are difficult for scientists to control and preserve.

• Destructive ESCR is massively overhyped. Not one person has been treated with embryonic stem cells (ESC). Despite extravagant claims that ESC will treat nearly every disease or injury known to mankind, ESC have proven too dangerous in animals—becoming deadly tumors—to even attempt clinical trials in humans.

• Ethical alternatives to destructive ESCR exist in the triumphs of adult stem cells. In contrast to the failure of destructive ESCR, adult stem cells provide nearly miraculous results. Adult stem cells from blood, bone marrow, cord blood, and other sources are already treating a wide array of diseases, including juvenile diabetes, lupus, bladder disease, heart disease, liver disease, sickle cell anemia, Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injury, and stroke damage. Seventy-three diseases or disorders have been successfully treated with adult stem cells thus far.

Hurray for Facebook Pro-Lifers

ChelseaAbortion, Activism, videoLeave a Comment

One this is certain, pro-lifers know how to mobilize. The CBC launched the “Great Canadian Wish List” on Facebook to help celebrate Canada’s 140th birthday. The goal was for individuals and groups to make a wish for the future of the country and invite friends to join. To be clear, this was done as a contest, not a poll, that ended on Canada Day, yesterday. The winner: “Abolish Abortion in Canada” which right now has 9654 supporters – second place, naturally: “I Wish That Canada Would Remain Pro-Choice” with 8155 supporters. Rounding out the top five: “For a spiritual revival in our nation”, “Restore the Traditional Definition of Marriage” and “I wish tuition fees would be either lowered or eliminated”.

My favorite quote from that video comes from the girl in charge of the pro-choice wish who says, “I hate to think that anyone out there would think that the youth of Canada were only pro-life.” Gosh, that would be troubling, wouldn’t it? After all, this is what the generation before us fought for, right?

But youth everywhere are decidedly pro-life. All one needs for proof of that is to attend any given pro-life march, like the one in DC every January, and you will see that it’s crawling with youth from high schools, universities, even grade school youth groups. Every year I put together a pro-life display at our downtown 4th of July festivities and am accompanied all day by a group of about 10 home schooled youth in our area. This year some teens from our local Catholic high school will be helping out as well. Why are so many youth eager to stand up and fight for the rights of the unborn? Obviously they have a tremendous respect for all human life, but where does the zeal come from?

Consider this. Most of us who were conceived post Roe v. Wade realize that that any one of us could have suffered the same fate as that child being torn from its mother’s womb today. We were all conceived without a right to life, a right endowed to us by our Creator as it is enshrined in our Constitution, yet taken away by a handful of unelected judges. We’ve lost siblings, cousins, neighbors and schoolmates through the legally sanctioned murder of unborn children. One out of every three pregnancies ends in abortion, and it is the leading cause of death among African Americans. We’re fighting for the future of our generation. So we mobilize, we make our voices heard and we strive for a culture that accepts all human life.

You will not silence my message
You will not mock my God
You will stop killing my generation

~motto of Rock for Life

HT: The Dignity of Human Life

Pope Endorses Stem Cell Research

ChelseaAdult Stem Cell Research, Religion, Stem Cell ResearchLeave a Comment

What?! I thought the Catholic church, among others, was supposed to be “anti-stem cell research”. Of course if you’re only referring to stem cell research that involves the destruction of innocent human life, which the media and many on the left generally are when they use the term “stem cell research”, then we are. But we’re smart enough to recognize that there are other forms of stem cell research that do not destroy human life in the process which are also just as, if not more promising than their embryonic counterpart.

pope-benedict-xviedit.jpgSome of his comments:

“On this matter the position of the Church, supported by reason and by science, is clear,”

“Scientific research must be encouraged and promoted, so long as it does not harm other human beings, whose dignity is inviolable from the very first stages of existence.”

“In the face of the frequent and unjust accusations of insensitivity directed against the Church, I would like to underline the constant support she has given over the course of her two thousand-year history to research aimed at the cure of illnesses and at the good of humanity.”

“If there has been – and there still is – resistance, it was and is against those forms of research that involve the planned suppression of human beings who are already alive, though they may not yet have been born.”

“In the face of the direct suppression of human beings,” he continued, “there can be no compromise or prevarication; it is inconceivable for a society to fight crime effectively when it itself legalizes crime in the field of nascent life.”

Source: Life Site

Tiller Charged, but for Different Reasons

ChelseaAbortion2 Comments

Kansas Attourney General, Paul Morrison, formerly charged the abortionist George Tiller “the Killer” on 19 misdemeanor counts for obtaining second opinions for late-term abortions from a doctor who was connected to him financially and legally. This is a welcome indictment, but it is a far cry from the 30 counts against him by former AG Phil Kline which involved the abortion procedures themselves and the girls (as young as 10) who may have been victims of sexual abuse. It is a nice guesture by the new AG, who has been under heavy pressure to do something about this abortion criminal in his midst, but I think he could do much better than that. More serious crimes were committed by Tiller than what Morrison is charging him with.

Read an interview with Dr. Paul McHugh, who reviewed over 30 medical records subpoenaed from Tiller’s clinic in which he, “saw no file that justified abortions”.

Patients First

ChelseaAdult Stem Cell Research, Politics2 Comments

Since President Bush vetoed legislation aimed at expanding funding for embryonic stem cell research an Illinois Democrat and a Virginia Republican have introduced HR 2807, also known as the Patients First Act. The purpose of the bill is to:

(1) intensify research that may result in improved understanding of or treatments for diseases and other adverse health conditions;

(2) promote research and human clinical trials using stem cells that are ethically obtained and show evidence of providing clinical benefit for human patients; and

(3) promote the derivation of pluripotent stem cell lines without the creation of human embryos for research purposes and without the destruction or discarding of, or risk of injury to, a human embryo.

Full text of the bill can be found here.

Patients First is a fitting name for a bill of this nature since the stem cells that have been effective in treating patients so far have not come from human embryos. Most of them come right from the patients’ own bodies. They’re in blood, the heart, muscles, even in the nose! They come from bone marrow transplants and have even been taken from umbilical cord blood. They’ve been used to treat Spinal Cord Injury, Heart Disease, Parkinson’s Disease and Diabetes among others.

For more visit:
Adult Stem Cell Research archives

Stem Cell News

ChelseaAdult Stem Cell ResearchLeave a Comment

Can You Hear Me Now? Stem Cells Enhance Hearing Recovery: Researchers have shown that bone marrow stem cells injected into a damaged inner ear can speed hearing recovery after partial hearing loss.


Cord Blood May Preserve Insulin Levels In Children With Type 1 Diabetes: Umbilical cord blood may safely preserve insulin production in children newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, according to findings from a small national pilot study presented June 25 at the American Diabetes Association’s 67th Scientific Sessions in Chicago.

Transplanting Angina Patients’ Stem Cells Shows Safety, Symptom Relief: The first U.S. study to transplant a potent form of purified adult stem cells into the heart muscle of patients with severe angina provided evidence that the procedure is safe and produced a reduction in angina pain as well as improved functioning in patients’ daily lives, reports the lead researcher at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine

Source: Science Daily

Brownback on Adoption

Chelsea2008 Election, Adoption, Family, PoliticsLeave a Comment

One of the interesting things about Brownback’s You Tube page is that people can submit video questions, which the Senator will answer. Here is a question on international adoption followed by Sen. Brownback’s response (Brownback and his wife have themselves adopted two children internationally, a girl from China and a boy from Guatemala):

Brownback for President

Abortions in England, Cont.

ChelseaAbortion, ContraceptionLeave a Comment

Yesterday I posted about the rise in abortions in England and the health professionals’ call for greater access to contraception in order to prevent these unintended pregnancies. Life News has an article this week about PM Tony Blair’s meeting with Pope Benedict in which they offered some numbers regarding abortions in England. The most interesting number mentioned in the article was 50 million. 50 million represents the amount of money, in US dollars, that the British government spent promoting contraception in 2006. Yet despite this incredible advertising effort not only did abortions rise by 4%, but the percentage of women getting abortions after having previous abortions remained unchanged. This corresponds precisely with what I was saying yesterday. More education and greater access to contraception will NOT prevent unintended pregnancy and, as this report has proven, it may actually lead to an even greater number of abortions.

Check out:
Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI’s haunting and prophetic encyclical on the use of artificial contraception.