Police Take Away Homeless Woman's Newborn

Just discovered this story from CBS2 San Diego:

SAN DIEGO — A homeless teenage woman’s nine-day-old baby was taken away from her after sheriff’s deputies spotted the child in her mother’s shopping cart.

A minister alerted deputies to the 9600 block of Campo Road about 8:50 p.m. Friday to see about the baby, who was traveling with her mother and 52-year-old grandmother, also homeless.

The family was carrying all it owned in two shopping carts, after the 19-year-old woman and baby was evicted from a cheap area motel.

Deputy took the baby to the Polinsky children’s center.

Deputies tried for hours to find shelter for the women but were unsuccessful.

The woman, who cried for the baby’s loss, eventually just continued on their way.

I found the story on an abortion-advocates' blog, where it was upheld as an example of how pro-lifers supposedly put babies above women. The blogger implied that the presumed pro-life deputy's action was self-defeating; it was no use taking the baby when the teen, with no education on contraception or abortion, would simply have more babies.

Knowing the work that pregnancy resource centers and other pro-life organizations do to help poor and homeless moms, I think that assertion is just plain silly.

To me, the deputies' actions reflect a culture-of-death mentality, where poor people are viewed as "human weed crop[ping] up that spread so fast in this sinister struggle for existence, that the overworked [social-services] committee becomes exhausted, inefficient, and can think of no way out."

The baby, in the deputies' eyes, was worth saving because it smelled nice, wasn't addicted to drugs or alcohol, and was salvageable — the air of poverty had not yet stuck to it. It had not yet acquired the ignorance and willful indolence that Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger believed was characteristic of the teeming unwashed masses.

Whatever the deputies' motivation, taking the baby without providing shelter for the mother and grandmother is an utterly despicable act. I think that's something on which we can all agree.

Women's Conscience Shocks Researchers

Despite being told over and over that true freedom is freedom from scruples, women persist in believing that their morality has some connection with how they keep their vessel. From the Daily Mail:

They are apparently more sexually liberated than ever before - but most women still believe one-night stands are immoral, research shows....

The study of women's attitudes towards sex revealed that women of all ages believe that sex outside marriage or a committed relationship is wrong....

Dr. [Sharon] Hinchliff, who found the women's attitudes "shocking," said: "It doesn't fit in with the image we have got of today's independent women who can go out and have sexual freedom without the ties of a relationship.

"It seems much easier for men. The attitude is that it is a bit of bravado for men to sleep around, have many sexual partners and casual sex.

"Women are meant to have had sexual freedom from the Sixties. Now it seems we must question the degree of sexual freedom we have got."

What's in a Name

A must-read article in Der Spiegel sheds light on the hidden lives of Afghanistan's Christians.

One passage about a 36-year-old convert jumped out at me:

Kabar is forced to renounce his core identity every day. There is an Islamic name on his business card, although privately he carries the name of one of the apostles.

It reminds me of Revelation 2:17:

He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.

It's good to know that, at times when we are unable to worship freely, it doesn't matter so much whether the world knows our true name — as long as God does.

Found the Spiegel article through Allahpundit on Michelle Malkin's blog.

They Wanna Be Chador-ed

Ace of Spades discovers a fundamentalist Muslim marriage-match site.

As Alarming News puts it, hilarity ensues.

(Note: Ace of Spades' site includes foul language and may include smutty images as well, though not on the above-linked entry.)

Convert Case Sparks Many Afghans to Explore Christianity

CNS News has an article that suggests the Abdul Rahman case is drawing many Afghans to inquire about the Christian faith. Hat tip: The Banty Rooster.

All in the Game

Today's Big Town, Big Heart, the Daily News feature I edit, profiles Steve Huston, who is one of my favorite kinds of everyday heroes — a late bloomer.

[UPDATE: The above story's now in the archive — click the archive link at the left on the Big Town page.]

The Sincerest Form of Flattery Will Get Him Nowhere

The Raving Atheist claims that it's unlikely that an atheist would ever plagiarize a Christian.

Some of his arguments sound familiar.

Outspokenly Pro-Life Christian Conservative Denied Tenure — at Baptist University

Francis Beckwith is such an accomplished professor and author that it seems rude to downsize him to a "pro-life christian conservative" — it's like calling Bob Dylan a "scruffy Sixties protest folkie." But apparently the powers that be at Baylor University see him in terms of his principles and opinions — and they don't want his kind. Rod Dreher reports:

Sources at Baylor tell me that the well-known Evangelical scholar Francis Beckwith was denied tenure today by Baylor University. This is major news. Dr. Beckwith, a distinguished philosopher, has what academic insiders tell me is a stellar publication record. He is nationally renown. He is also -- and I suspect this is what did him in at Baylor -- openly conservative. The fact that a Baptist university cannot bring itself to award tenure to a scholar of Dr. Beckwith's stature is scandalous -- and will cause shock waves beyond Waco. Watch.

One of Beckwith's students, Hunter Baker, writes in Southern Appeal:

By the way, denial was apparently on grounds of collegiality, which if you know Dr. Beckwith is a joke. He’s one of the most winsome and pleasant controversialists you’d ever hope to meet. Members of the political left love to talk about the use of “code words” by closet racists and oppressors. “Collegiality” is the ultimate code word of those with a particular agenda in the academy. It means a colleague is too pro-life, too Christian, too conservative, etc. You wonder why there are so few conservatives in the academy. Here it is. They are systematically weeded out.

Another student, M. Tapie, writes of Beckwith:

He introduced me to the Christian intellectual tradition and taught me that faith is an indispensable guide to inquiry, not an embarrassing crutch.

Please pray for Beckwith and his wife. I don't know him personally, but he is a fellow contributor to Touchstone, for which he wrote an excellent critique of pro-life rhetoric.

Abdul Rahman, the Afghan who faced the death penalty for his conversion to Christianity from Islam, is reportedly being freed, but his life and freedom are not yet safe, as Michelle Malkin reports. Check Michelle's blog for updates.

A Dawn Patrol Guest Poem:'Remembrance of Easter 2005'

Crowd my eyes, you bevies of daffodils,
And you forsythias in throngs of cheer,
Dandelion galaxies and fountains of trees.
Fill my mouth with the breath of hyacinths, you purple air
And you roistering breeze.

And you quince-buds so eager, you swelling seeds,
You squirrels running stitches across the loom
Of woven grasses, inflorescent weeds;
Jasmine-bush, loop me with your lariats of perfume.
Fill me, small birds, with your versicles,
And chuckled replies.

She is bleeding from the mouth and eyes.

Sate me then, Sun, all dapple and spangle
Crowd out all else
Lade me and load me, you skies
With blessings of warmth and breath
Let me see nothing else
But everything springing and skyey.

From the mouth and eyes.

. . . . . . . . .

for Terri Schindler Schiavo

by Juli Loesch Wiley

Thanks to Juli for granting permission for noncommercial use of her poem.

Is Anybody Surprised...

...that a new survey finds that atheists are America's least trusted minority, ranking below Muslims and homosexuals?

Or that "[the] more educated, East and West Coast Americans [are] more accepting of atheists than their Midwestern counterparts"?

Here's more on the survey. The researchers are "diversity"-happy liberals who, in the wake of 9/11, expected Muslims to be America's least trusted minority. They were indeed surprised that Americans would create a "religious/nonreligious distinction" to "exclude" certain members from society.

I can believe that Americans "distrust" atheists. But exclude them? That's highly debatable.

Great news for everyone who's been praying for 2-year-old Evan Hanning, who was fighting an infection after having an aortic-valve transplant. He's doing much better. His grandmother reports that his fever has come down and he is more comfortable. It heartens her to see the effects of prayer and know that her grandson is being prayed for.

Hare-Razing Tale

Those of you who own television sets or listen to talk radio probably know this by now, but those of us who live in a tree and see foreign films have only just now learned that a St. Paul, Minn. official ordered that the City Council office take down its Easter decorations.

What I find interesting is that the official who gave the order says he objected not to the decorations' bunny imagery, but to the actual words "Happy Easter."

Sometimes it takes a bigot to point out the fiber of faith that remains beneath all the secular trappings.

Now it's up to the people who care about that faith to remind the world what and, most importantly, Who "Happy Easter" signifies.

* * *Speaking of secularizing Christian concepts, I notice that the only hint of Christianity on the Marshmallow Peeps Web site, beyond the words "Easter" and "St. Patrick," is the title of one of the site's pages: "Peeps for All Seasons."

Treat Her Like Our Lady

The waggish Raving Atheist just sent me this link.

I think St. Maximilian would appreciate it.

Save Abdul Rahman

CaNN has a good list of blogs commenting on the case of Abdul Rahman, the Afghan who faces a possible death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity. Michelle Malkin is on the story as well.

Afghan Christian Faces New Threat — Forced Institutionalization

The news from Afghanistan is that Abdul Rahman, the man who is facing a possible death sentence for converting to Christianity from Islam, may be able to keep his life — but still may never regain his freedom.

The Afghan prosecutor is considering having Rahman declared insane.

The news stories are cautiously playing this as though it is an encouraging development. I beg to differ. While life is always better than death, I take no pleasure in the thought that the Afghans may take America's relief at Rahman's being "spared" as a sign that they may institutionalize Christians and other dissidents with impunity.

A few weeks ago, the Virginia Law Web site published an interview with New York Law School Professor Michael Perlin on this very subject: "Human Rights Abuses in Mental Institutions Common Worldwide, Perlin Says." Here are some highlights from that article which, although they were written before the Rahman case, are eerily relevant today:

Michel Foucault first addressed the oppressive use of state-sponsored psychiatry, but the earliest noteworthy modern work was Sidney Bloch and Peter Reddaway’s 1985 “shattering” book, Psychiatric Terror: How Soviet Psychiatry Is Used to Suppress Discontent. In it, Bloch and Reddaway explain how the Soviet Union used an extremely broad definition of schizophrenia and other mental illnesses to label political dissenters as delusional.

“A patient’s conviction that the state must be changed was seen as an indicia of mental illness,” Perlin said.

Placing dissidents in psychiatric hospitals rather than prisons served three points: it avoided the already limited procedural safeguards of a criminal trial, stigmatized people to subordinate them, and confined dissenters indefinitely. By 1989 conditions had begun to improve in the Soviet Union, according to Perlin, but tools of coercive psychiatry still were used in what some call the “criminalization of dissent.” And this practice was not limited to Russia; the expression of political opinions was perceived as delusional throughout the Soviet block.

Furthermore, a study of China authored by Robin Monroe five years ago found “hyperdiagnosis” of dissidents and nonconformists as mentally ill.

“If you protest politically, you demonstrate by that an absence of instinct for self-preservation, or if you pursue a legal complaint against a corrupted or repressive official, that’s a sign of mental illness,” Perlin said.

Perlin goes on to point out that suppressing dissidents by institutionalization violates international law:

Since these studies were conducted, new laws have been passed by nations as well as by international governing organizations. The United Nations adopted the Principles for the Protection of Persons with Mental Illness and for the Improvement of Mental Health Care, called the MI principles, which provide basic international guidelines. The MI principles do not speak specifically to the issue of state psychiatry as used for political suppression, but the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights has been interpreted in that context. For example the Wintwerp case of 1979 found that a person cannot be detained by states because his views or behavior deviate from norms of society, Perlin said.

In other words, if Afghanistan keeps Rahman locked up for his beliefs, it will be in clear violation of international law.

For updates on Rahman's case, visit Michelle Malkin and Persecution.org.

Leave It to Weaver

Today's installment of Big Town, Big Heart, the Daily News feature I edit (which should be up by the time you read this), features Phil Buehler, an "urban explorer" who discovered a lost Woody Guthrie archive in an abandoned building at Greystone Memorial hospital. The print edition of the article includes a copy of a letter written by Guthrie to Mr. and Mrs. Pete Seeger.

U.S. to Afghanistan: Christian Doesn't Deserve 'Severe' Penalty

UPDATE, 4:46 p.m.: President Bush has commented (too mildly, in my view) and this story is developing — Michelle Malkin has updates.

Here's what a third-string U.S. government official had to say yesterday — because my president couldn't be bothered to comment himself — to the Afghan government with regard to Abdul Rahman, who faces death if he does not renounce his Christian faith:

Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns ... said the U.S. government was watching the case of Abdul Rahman closely, but added, "This case is not in the competence of the United States government. It's under the competence of the Afghan authorities."

Mr. Burns and State Department officials were clearly struggling to condemn the prosecution without causing a major break with a vital U.S. ally. Mr. Burns said the administration would demand "transparency" in the trial and noted that Afghanistan's constitution guarantees freedom of religion for all citizens.

"While we understand the complexity of the case and certainly respect the sovereignty of the Afghan authorities, from an American point of view, people should be free to choose their religion and should not suffer any severe penalties, certainly not death, for having made a personal choice as to what religion to follow," he said.

Well, isn't that special. The U.S. believes there should be no "severe penalties" and "certainly not death" for people who choose their religion. I'm relieved — aren't you?

It could be worse, I suppose; the U.S. could have been completely silent. As Michelle Malkin notes, Amnesty International, that champion of global human rights, has so far completely avoided the Rahman case.

In the meantime, Abdul Rahman, according to a fellow prisoner, is "standing by his words."

"He keeps looking up to the sky," says another cellmate, "to God."

If you're as ashamed of America's weak response to this terrible injustice as I am, call the White House and leave a message for President Bush: 202-456-1111. E-mail: comments@whitehouse.gov . Also contact your senators and your representative.

For more information on Abdul Rahman, including action tips, visit Michelle Malkin's blog and Persecution.org.

Romancing the Stone

Today's Big Town, Big Heart, the Daily News feature I edit, is by Forgotten NY's Kevin Walsh, who profiles cemetery preservationist Cate Ludlam.

[UPDATE: Story is now in the Big Town archive under "Romancing the Stone" — click the above link and click "archive" at left.]

Off His Chesterton

This is your atheist's brain.*

This is your atheist's brain on Chesterton.

Any questions?

* * *
Going through the RA's archives, I also found this gem: "Book Entitled 'Why I Am A Catholic' Fails to Explain Why Author is Catholic."


*Note: Those sensitive to obscenity and blasphemy would be advised to steer clear of the comments section of RA's entries.

Thou Shalt Not Not KillA Guest Post by The Raving Atheist

What best fulfills "the central Biblical imperative to love and render justice to one's neighbor"? Abortion -- at least according to the scriptures unearthed this week by a clergy task force assembled by Planned Parenthood of New York City. The sacred text, Reproductive Justice in a Just Society, is dedicated to a rabbi who passed away last summer while presumably transcribing it from on high. Judging from the stench of death that permeates the document, they may have forgotten to remove his body from the committee room.

For it appears that the goal of whatever deity dictated this new Word was to transplant the commandment "Do Not Kill" from stone to some more flexible medium. The authors "do not believe that God's vision of a just society is static" and "use the term 'justness' to convey the notion that a theology of justice, including reproductive justice, is inherently a work in progress and that ours are living faiths". What this means is that when it comes to abortion, anything goes:

Each of us has been endowed with free will, together with the capacity and the responsibility to make moral judgements about complex issues. One purpose of religion is to guide people of faith in making good use of these God-given gifts, so that each of us can determine how best to live our lives. Religious teaching on abortion, even among branches of the same religion, varies greatly. Many denominations support a legal right to abortion, even as some of them recognize a conflict between a potential human life and a living human being. But even those religions that recognize this potential conflict assert that it is the right of a woman to make the determination to end her pregnancy, in light of her individual circumstances, guided by her conscience and her faith.

Liberty of conscience in a democratic pluralistic society demands nothing less.

For those who need clearer moral guidance about the potential conflict with potential humans, it is noted that "the decision to end a pregnancy can be viewed as moral or immoral." God apparently doesn't take a position on the issue, other than to approve of whatever is decided. All that matters is that some decision be made -- "[t]his struggle is what it means to be a moral agent." Unless the moral agent is pro-life pharmacist or a nurse or a taxpayer struggling against the culture of death -- neither God's will nor liberty of conscience permit anything less than full participation in the quest for universal "access."

The Holy Pamphlet purports to be written by the "inheritors and guardians of a prophetic tradition." Not necessarily an ancient tradition - the only seer quoted in it is Margaret Sanger, whose genocidal, eugenicist prognostications date back barely a century. Her theology nevertheless forms the core of the updated Gospels, in which the poor and meek inherit little but the right to share in unfettered access to abortion through public financing.

Do the old fashioned concepts of "good" or "bad" ever enter into the new divine morality? Some limitation is suggested: "[a]bortion is a service that a responsible community provides when something goes wrong. But the very first example they provide of something going wrong is "when there is a failure to use birth control or birth control fails." In other words, the "something" that necessarily precedes every pregnancy. So what's "wrong," ultimately, is the pregnancy itself.

The pregnancy, and any measures that might preserve it. The moral relativism which pervades most of the document gives way near the end with a list of very specific no-nos. State-mandated counseling regarding fetal development and waiting periods are wrong because they delay the inevitable "choice." Parental notification laws are bad because a teen might have "reason to fear her parents' reaction." But there are some things we must discuss with our kids: "God commands us to instruct our children so that they will gain understanding and the ability to make wise choices. . . . [m]any faith traditions support comprehensive sex education." Abstinence-only instruction, however, is bad because "[s]uch programs do not discuss birth control except to say, erroneously, that it fails" -- the very failure they previously identified not as erroneous, but as ample justification for an abortion.

The authors conclude that "[a]s human beings, created in God's image, we are entitled to nothing less than full reproductive justice." But the only justice described involves destroying rather than creating. If we are entitled to "nothing less" than that sort of justice, it is only because there is nothing less.

Pro-Choice — Except for Ob/Gyns

An article on the Planned Parenthood Federation of America's Web site today laments:

"The sad fact is that even though there is a nationwide shortage of abortion providers, most medical residency programs do not even require basic abortion training for ob/gyns."

Hmm. A shortage would mean that not every person who chooses to be an obstetrician or gynecologist wishes to perform abortions. So the way to combat this "sad fact," according to Planned Parenthood, is to force them to learn how to kill unborn children — or stay the heck out of the profession.

This is the face of "pro-choice." It isn't pretty. in fact, it looks a lot like this one.

Pro-Bono

"Some people were under the misconception that Son was a short man, but he was heads and tails taller than anyone else. He could see above the tallest people. He had a vision of the future and just how he was going to build it. And his enthusiasm was so great that he just swept ever body along with him. Not that we knew where he was going, but we just wanted to be there. He was also successful at anything he ever tried. Not the first time he tried maybe, but he just kept going. If he really wanted something, he kept going until he achieved it. Once he told me that, when he was a teenager, he got his nose broken six times because he used to get into fights with guys that were much bigger than him. And he said that they would just be beating the crap out of him and would just be keep going back and going back and going back. I said, 'Well, why?' And he said, 'Because eventually I would just wear them down.' And if you know him, we all got worn down."

If you're as easily moved by stuff like this as I am, you'll want to read the whole thing.

'Retro' Anti-Abortionists Battle 'Magnetic' Planned Parenthood Prez

The inimitable Clay Waters of TimesWatch has an easy job today: finding the slant in the Times piece about Planned Parenthood's president.

While I had noticed that the Times reporter positively gushed over Cecile Richards' attractiveness — comparing her to Eighties gender-bender Annie Lennox — and that the reporter referred to "abortion rights" as a "women's rights precedent," I somehow missed the "retro" insult. Perhaps it's because I always thought the word was a compliment.

Retro Dawn, ca. late 2003

Smells Like Team Spirit

I'm afraid the hottest thing on the News' Web site isn't Big Town, Big Heart. It's the gleefully incendiary new Yankee-fan-vs.-Mets-fan blog, Subway Squawkers.

Defiant Birth

Australian reader Peter Young sends a link to "Born in Defiance," an article that includes mothers' stories from the book Defiant Birth. It's about women who had children against the advice of doctors who told them to abort:

"I have a result sheet issued by the doctor from my 10-week ultrasound on which are written the words, 'fetus 2 not viable'.

"I like to compare this document with the child it refers to – now an 11-year-old, funny, sensitive, gifted, football-playing, blues-guitar-addicted, satin-skinned and perfect little boy, our son."

Read the whole thing.

One for the Books

Today's Big Town, Big Heart, the Daily News feature I edit, should be up by the time you read this. It's about a community-oriented bookseller in Bed-Stuy.

Not-So Fast

If I didn't know better, I'd say religion columnist Terry Mattingly was a fly on the wall at my RCIA class last week. He encapsulates my priest's discussion of Lent perfectly in his latest column, which includes this pop quiz:

During this holy season of penitence and reflection, America's 62 million Catholics are required to:

(a) Go to confession.

(b) Abstain from meat and fast by eating only one full meal on Fridays.

(c) Pray and meditate on biblical accounts of the suffering and death of Jesus, including attending weekly Stations of the Cross rites or an extra Mass.

(d) Increase their efforts to help the needy through volunteer work and donations.

(e) Make a unique personal sacrifice, such as giving up sweets, coffee, soap operas or SportsCenter on ESPN.

(f) All of the above or some combination of the above, depending on the conscience of the individual Catholic.

(g) None of the above.

Read his column for the answer.

By the way, you know that thing about a "strict fast"? "Only one meal a day, with no meat or fish allowed ...[and] small amounts of food at two other times during the day," Mattingly writes.

Well, I got news for you cradle Catholics. That's not a strict fast.

This is a strict fast. Twenty-five hours' worth. Read it and weep.

Janjan, can I get a witness?

Saving the Date

Today's Big Town, Big Heart, the Daily News feature I edit, should be up by the time you read this. It profiles the founder of the No Dating Cafe. I like his observations about what our culture's lost in the age of Internet dating. Best of all, he's got a solution that helps people.

UPDATE: Most likely by the time you read this, the above feature will be in the Big Town archive.

Nail Yale

Yale alumnus Clinton W. Taylor has a suggestion for those offended by the university's admission of a Taliban official. It involves buying some Lee Press-On Nails — but not for yourself.

And a Fetus Is Just a Blob of Tissue

In today's Washington Times:

Democratic lawmakers have changed the word "embryo" to "material" in a bill for embryonic stem-cell research to secure the votes of Catholic senators who did not want to be viewed as supporting abortion-related legislation.

"They didn't want to vote for a bill that had the language embryo in it," said Sen. Paula C. Hollinger, Baltimore County Democrat and the bill's sponsor.

The bill, which appears certain of passage as early as today, calls for the state to spend $10 million for research on cells extracted from human embryos to create treatments for degenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's disease.*

Changing the bill's wording angered Republicans and conservative Democrats, who think that a human embryo is a human life and embryonic research is a form of abortion.

"I'm livid over that issue. Call it what it is," said Sen. James E. DeGrange Sr., an Anne Arundel County Democrat who is supporting a Republican-led filibuster of the bill.

"We're offended by it," said Nancy Fortier of the Maryland Catholic Conference. "It is a cheap attempt to disguise what they're doing. Everybody knows it's about killing human embryos."

Senate Minority Leader J. Lowell Stoltzfus yesterday said the Republican-led filibuster had lost its needed number of Democratic supporters to sustain it.

"It appears that one person we had early on with the filibuster is no longer with us. It appears we fall one short," said Mr. Stoltzfus, Eastern Shore Republican.

Mr. Stoltzfus and other knowledgeable sources said Sen. Roy Dyson, Eastern Shore Democrat, is the swing vote for the filibuster.

Mr. Dyson, a practicing Catholic, likely will vote two or three times for the filibuster but then plans to break off and vote to end debate, sources said.

Mr. Stoltzfus had been confident Friday that the 14 Republicans in the 47-member Senate would be joined by at least five or six Democrats, giving them the 19 votes required to sustain a filibuster.

All six Democrats who supported the filibuster are practicing Catholics. (Source)

Please pray for Dyson and Maryland's other state senators. There is still time.


*The claim of potential cures is a canard. Embryonic stem cells have been found to cause tumors. Successful stem-cell treatments of Parkinson's patients to date have come from adult stem cells, not embryonic ones.

The New York Times on Parents Coercing Daughters to Abort

Emily at After Abortion has the story.

RELATED: LifeNews counters the Times' stats on the effectiveness of parental notification, finding it an effective deterrent against abortion.

Dogma Bites Man

As Tim Graham notes in Newsbusters, a recent article warning breathlessly of "'pro-life' zealots" supposedly waiting in the wings to attack a South Dakota abortion clinic was "angle is just a little nuts, considering that Dr. Barnett Slepian was the last abortion doctor to be killed in America, and that was eight years ago."

Yet pro-abortion violence such as Friday's incident happens every day and only gets mentioned in a couple of dinky little rags out in Podunk.

No offense, Idahoans and Wyomingans; I'm being facetious. But really, how much press do you think the story would get if it were an angry pro-lifer driving her car into a rally of abortion supporters?

How to Seriously Mess Up Your Daughter

"I am the mommy pop star and she is the baby pop star. And I am kissing her to pass my energy on to her."

— Madonna, in the latest issue of Out magazine, explaining how she told her 9-year-old daughter Lourdes that the French kiss she gave Britney Spears on MTV wasn't sexual.

Money for Nothing

An Ohio couple won a wrongful-birth lawsuit Friday in Ohio Supreme Court, successfully arguing that they should be compensated for the birth of their son, whom they would have aborted had doctors told them that he had a birth defect. In a 4-3 decision, the justices agreed that the doctors were liable because the defect should have shown up on the genetic screening that the couple sought during the pregnancy.

The case is being played in the press as a victory for both sides, because the majority were able to agree only that the couple should be compensated for the cost of the birth itself, not for the millions that the couple wanted for the costs of bringing up their son (including the emotional cost to them). However, as Justice Terrence O'Donnell wrote in his dissenting opinon, the case in fact creates a new and highly disturbing area of legality which the Ohio Legislature alone should have power to grant.

I have lately been reading dissenting opinions by justices respectful of life from conception to death, who go against the flow of judicial activism. They tend to come from Christian (particularly Catholic) backgrounds and do a significant significant amount of charitable work. Justice O'Donnell is no exception:

Justice O'Donnell is currently a member of the 2005 Ohio State Bar Foundation Fellows Class, and also serves as an officer of Our Lady of the Wayside, a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving the needs of the mentally and physically challenged. His brother, John, is a group home resident at Fairview House, owned and serviced by Our Lady of the Wayside. He is a past board member of Magnificat High School and the Lawyers Guild of the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland. He currently lectures on topics of professionalism and ethics statewide and continues to promote implementation of a statewide Mentoring Program for new lawyers. He has served as past chair of the Cleveland Bar Association Law Related Education Committee and the Student Essay Contest and is a founding member and past president of the Legal Eagles, a law fraternity of St. Edward High School in Lakewood, Ohio. Justice O'Donnell has also served as chairman of the Ohio Legal Rights Service Commission, which advocates for mentally retarded and mentally ill persons statewide.

Please pray for America's judges, especially that God may strengthen the hearts of ones like Justice O'Donnell and cause more like him to enter the profession.

Here are highlights of Justice O'Donnell's dissenting opinion, the full text of which may be read on the Ohio Supreme Court's Web site (PDF file). I've bolded certain passages for emphasis:

{¶65}Moreover, the allowance of damages requires a legal determination that life — albeit "unhealthy," as the lead opinion characterizes it, or genetically defective — can constitute an injury cognizable at law. To my mind, life, in any form, cannot constitute an injury at law.

{¶66} As observed in Azzolino, "'Although courts and commentators have attempted to make it such, wrongful birth is not an ordinary tort. It is one thing to compensate destruction; it is quite another to compensate creation. This so-called "wrong" is unique: It is a new and on-going condition. As life, it necessarily interacts with other lives. Indeed, it draws its "injurious" nature from the predilections of the other lives it touches. It is naive to suggest that such a situation falls neatly into conventional tort principles, producing neatly calculable damages.'" Id., 315 N.C. at 112-113, 33 S.E.2d 528, quoting Burgman, Wrongful Birth Damages: Mandate and Mishandling by Judicial Fiat (1978), 13 Val.U.L.Rev. 127, 170.

... {¶70} During oral argument before our court, the Schirmers urged recovery of damages for denial of their right to obtain an abortion; a thorough examination of the record reveals, however, that no such denial occurred. Rather, at best, the evidence demonstrates only two of the four elements of a medical negligence claim, i.e., an existing duty of a medical professional and a breach thereof. No evidence exists to support a legal conclusion that the breach of duty by the medical professional either proximately caused the loss of an opportunity for an abortion or proximately caused the genetic defect.

{¶73} In Ault v. Jasko (1994), 70 Ohio St.3d 114, 637 N.E.2d 870, the court announced a rule of law allowing claimants to bring a cause of action for alleged sexual abuse at any time between the date of the alleged abuse and the revived memory of it. In his dissenting opinion, Chief Justice Moyer stated, "If that is to be the law of Ohio, it is the General Assembly that should declare it as such rather than this court." Today, however, it is this court which has created an entirely new cause of action in medical malpractice with its attendant problems of proximate cause and the scope of damages.

{¶74} The foregoing confirms my view that such a cause of action should not become a cognizable claim at law under traditional tort analysis absent legislative authorization, because it involves important matters of public policy better left to the General Assembly.

Faith and Morality

My priest last night after RCIA said to me (apropos of something) words to the effect that Catholics believe morality is measured by faith, whereas Protestants believe it is measured by action. Both beliefs, he added, lead to the same place, but there is a fundamental difference in the approach.

I said that was surprising, because most people think Catholics measure morality by works and Protestants do so by faith.

"Yes," he said.

I'd be interested to learn what Catholics have to say about this. It impressed me because it provided a foundation for the Church's warning against scrupulosity. I don't think non-Catholics always realize how important it is for observant Catholics that their actions, inside and outside the church, be founded upon faith and not blind obedience. (This goes back to the quote that Fr. Neuhaus uses — I forget who originated it — that thinking with the church [sentire cum ecclesia] starts with thinking.)

For non-Catholics who wish to comment, I would stress that my priest was referring to morality, not salvation itself; this is a bit different from the conventional faith-vs.-works discussion.

* * *

For Catholic readers who like the inside-baseball stuff, I also learned last night some more details about how I will enter the Church. On Holy Thursday, there will be a short ceremony that will bring me into communion with the Church. (I am already baptized.) Then I will go to my first confession, and then Mass, where I will receive my first Communion. On Holy Saturday, I will be confirmed. I asked my priest which ceremony is the one to which I should invite friends and family, and he said the Saturday one.

I'm still a bit confused as to why the process has so many different stages. I believe it has to do with that I have to receive confession before Communion, and I have to receive first Communion before confirmation.

I know that one of my readers has been waiting for this. (I haven't.)

Quote(s) of the Day

"Beyond the blue horizon
Waits a beautiful day
Goodbye to things that bore me
Joy is waiting for me

"I see a new horizon
My life has only begun
Beyond the blue horizon
Lies a rising sun

"Memorize this song. It's simple enough that when you're in real trouble, you'll still be able to remember it. If you're a Christian, you can substitute 'Rising Son' for 'rising sun' and nobody will know the difference when you sing it."

— Tom McMahon, from his must-read post "What I Have Learned in 15 Years". (Thanks to reader Joseph for the link.)

Apple to the Core

Today's Big Town, Big Heart (which should be online by the time you read this) celebrates my friend Kevin Walsh, who is a hero to many in New York City and beyond for his beautiful, exhaustively researched Web site Forgotten NY.

Lent and the Carnival

[Link below has been fixed — sorry for the inconvenience.]

John Bambenek, a k a Part-Time Pundit, sets out to contrast feminist notions of female sexuality with that held by the Roman Catholic Church. The language is graphic and the rhetoric's ultra-sharp. Think Jonah Goldberg meets Richard John Neuhaus meets the Weekly World News' Ed Anger. In other words, well done — and not for the squeamish.

What Are You Giving Up for Lent?

Take a Good Book

I'm honored to be included in the National Review Online symposium of Christians who suggest good reading material for Lent.

The book I suggest was sent to me by Dennis Schenkel — thanks, Dennis. Fr. Shane Tharp also sent me some great books on the same subject — thanks to him too. To borrow from C.S. Lewis' quote about discovering G.K. Chesterton, a woman who wishes to remain a sound Protestant cannot be too careful in her reading. Especially when the subject of the book is the Saint of Auschwitz.

Prayer Request

Reader John Simmins writes:

The House of Delegates in Maryland is about to pass HR1 which provides $20M for embryonic stem cell research. The Senate will soon take up their version of the bill. We have pledges from the Senators below to filibuster the bill, killing it for another year. They need lots of prayers as there is lots of dirty politics afoot (hey, it’s Maryland after all). The President of the Senate is threatening to force the filibustering Senators to work through the weekend. This is specifically aimed at forcing the Catholics on the list to miss their Sunday obligation.

From the Washington Post:

[Senator Mike] Miller also cautioned those planning to filibuster that he is considering scheduling debate to start on a Friday and run all weekend.

"People who screw with the business of the Senate are going to feel the pain," he said.

Please pray for these Senators:

Sen. Norman Stone, Jr.
Sen. Andrew Harris
Sen. John Hafer
Sen. Janet Greenip
Sen. Roy Dyson
Sen. Nancy Jacobs
Sen. Richard Colburn
Sen. Donald Munson
Sen. Alex Mooney
Sen. David Brinkley
Sen. Larry Haines
Sen. John Giannetti, Jr.
Sen. Leo Green
Sen. Philip Jimeno
Sen. James Degrange
Sen. J. Robert Hooper
Sen. J. Lowell Stoltzfus
Sen. E.J. Pipkin
Sen. Allan Kittleman
Sen. Sandra Schrader

To learn more about the embryonic stem-cell debate, read "The Wrong Tree," by Wesley J. Smith on National Review Online.

Ash Wednesday

The Religious Teachers Filippini of Morning Star House of Prayer are putting an audio meditation on their Web site each week during the season of Lent.

I love Sr. Geraldine Calabrese's comforting voice. She has a gift for distilling biblical truths into gently thought-provoking readings. While you're on the sisters' site, check out the prayer house's main page as well, which streams the music that Sr. Geraldine writes with Sr. Josephine Aparo.

Sisters Gerry and Jo are two of my favorite people and I'm thankful they're sharing their devotional words and music with the world. I took the photo of the Delaware River, which is near the prayer house, when I stayed at Morning Star last September.

Unintended Joy

The Unaborted Atheist features in his "Voices of Life" post a must-see video of a woman who sought an abortion and changed her mind.

He writes:

Last December I posted about a pro-abortion group which runs an "underground railroad" to New York to coordinate late second-term abortions and provide overnight housing for women who cannot find a clinic in their own states willing to perform the procedure. Had Maribel been delivered into their "non-judgmental" hands instead of [pro-life volunteer] Ashli's, she would have been housed, and comforted and reinforced in her original decision to abort. Please watch the video again and consider whether that would have been a happier ending -- or if what Ashli did was "wrong" in any sense of the word.

Read the whole thing, watch the video, and comment at the Unaborted (a k a Raving) Atheist's blog.

The Chill of the Chaste

Here's the other photo by Tony Carnes from my publicity-shot session that I especially liked. Actually, I like this one best — it's kinda fun to be a Mona Lisa ice queen. This too has the "50% retouching" on my dark circles.