Ruth Institute Blog

There are a few more podcasts up for your listening pleasure–one from our recent “It Takes a Family” conference, and the other two are interviews of Dr J on Issues, Etc.

Dr J gave the opening talk at ITAF 2010; entitled Marriage and Freedom in Society, it discusses what marriage does for society and some of the consequences (especially those relating to children) if we choose to dissolve or weaken it.  Some of the areas she covers include divorce law, state intervention, and parenthood.

The two Issues, Etc interviews discuss the response to Judge Walker’s attitude about the Prop 8 case (Shot in the Arm…or the Foot?) and another group of Mama Grizzlies, this one opposed to Sarah Palin (Sarah Palin vs. Mama Grizzlies).  Dr J’s exposition on the arrogance of both subjects is excellent.

Washington Times Columnist Cheryl Wetzstein interviewed me for this article on the new book Red Families v. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture. Cheryl ably summarizes the basic premise of the book:

In blue states, families tend to be well-educated, have high-paying jobs, be tolerant of diversity and be politically liberal. They marry later in life, have children in wedlock and are dedicated co-parents….

Red-state families, however, seem to be stuck in a time warp — Read more…

by Sheila Liaugminas

For the first time since 2002, the nation’s largest abortion provider has been called to an accounting. How much federal funding do they receive and how much do they spend, and therefore ‘need?’ It took 31 U.S. senators and congressional representatives asking for such a report to get the books opened for review. And what they found was a big discrepancy. Read more…

Ralph Reed declares our Supreme Court Confirmation process to be broken and he is certainly correct. The question is why?
The answer is one word: abortion. Actually, it is abortion and all its ill-begotten progeny, the entire sexual revolution. This is because the abortion rights fanatics are attempting to create something that simply cannot be: an entire society based on the premise that sex is a sterile activity, as I explain in my article at the National Catholic Register. Read more…

Isn’t this nice? I’m so glad Planned Parenthood has found even more ways of using my money to kill babies.

by Sheila Liaugminas

Planned Parenthood is at once a hugely profitable business and a taxpayer-funded non-profit outfit. Now they’re expanding into telemedicine, a new method of delivering abortion. Backed by citizens’ dollars. Read more…

According to Gallup’s recent Values and Beliefs survey, Americans are “sharply divided” on 4 issues: doctor-assisted suicide, homosexual relations, abortion, and out-of-wedlock childbearing.  Close to half of us perceive these activities in particular as “morally acceptable;” close to half disagree and find them “morally wrong.”  (The survey asked about 16 behaviors; these were the most evenly divided among those polled.)  Curious?  Listen in. (Click the POD icon.)

Ruth Institute president, Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, has a podcast on this topic.

When will our media reflect America on abortion?

By WILLIAM MCGURN

During the health-care summit earlier this year, Vice President Joe Biden was roundly mocked for saying, “I don’t know what the American people think.” He was, however, showing a refreshing modesty. Especially when compared with those who believe the American people don’t know what they think—or cannot possibly mean what they say when they tell us what they do think. Read more…

The latest podcast is up–Dr J’s weekly Issues, Etc interview is one day early this week due to San Diego county’s June 8 elections.  She and Todd Wilken discuss judicial activism and how it’s given rise to many of the issues we’re hotly debating today in American government and culture.

Judicial Activism

Dr J’s interview on Issues, Etc. this week deals with Gallup’s annual Values and Beliefs survey.  According to their findings, Americans are most likely to disagree over four issues: physician-assisted suicide, gay/lesbian relations, abortion, and out-of-wedlock childbearing.  (The others on the list we’re more and more likely to agree on, culminating in condemnation of adultery.)

All of the findings are interesting, and some are surprising.  For example–many of us apparently think physician-assisted suicide is okay but suicide (without a physician) isn’t.  If I’m interpreting this correctly, that means that there’s a section of the populace who wouldn’t condone self-suicide but would be fine with a physician ending lives.  Did they assume the question included them, or were they applying it only to others?  Is this some sort of attempt at checks and balances?  It comes across as muddled thinking.

Also, when the respondents were grouped by gender, men tended to be more accepting [of these hot-button issues] than women.  However, there was one category where men were less accepting than women: out-of-wedlock childbearing.  More women viewed this as “morally acceptable” (55%) than did men (52%).

The interview is now up on our podcast page (and iTunes) for your listening pleasure.

Four Moral Issues

Very thorough, well-researched article. Answers questions I’ve been wondering such as, Are some “contraceptives” actually “abortifacient”?

by William E. May, Ph. D., Senior Fellow

Andrew Koppelman and others say “It certainly does!”

Andrew Koppelman, John Paul Stevens Professor of Law at Northwestern University, and others claim that contraception definitely prevents abortion. This April (2010) Koppelman posted a commentary, “How the Religious Right Promotes Abortion,” [1] that was immediately attacked byspokespersons of the “Religious Right” (e.g., Michael New of the Witherspoon Institute). Koppelman judges it to be “astoundingly stupid and tragic” to argue over this. Continuing, he said, “One of the rare areas of common ground between opponents and supporters of abortion rights is that neither side thinks that unintended pregnancy is a good thing. Read more…

Bishop Victor Galeone of St. Augustine tells a story that his mother told him, 30 years ago.  I didn’t know that this kind of pressure was being exerted on the poor as far back as the Great Depression.

[My mother] continued: “I’m going to tell you something that I’ve told no one except your father. It was during the Depression years. The social worker came by to see how things were going. I told her that everything was fine except that I had missed two of my periods in a row.

“‘Oh that’s very bad news, Signora Rita! I’ll come back on Thursday afternoon and take you to see this doctor, and he will make your period come.’   Read more…

As mentioned in previous posts, Time Magazine is spotlighting America’s 50 Years on the Pill through somewhat rose-colored glasses.  Really?  No negative effects?  Even sliced bread can’t compete with that prognosis.

As part of Dr J’s series on 50 Years of the Pill, we’ve included a podcast of her interview on Issues, Etc., where she discussed the topic.  Has the Pill accomplished what its defenders promised?  What other effects has it had on the way we view sex, fatherhood, babies, careers, and families?

This podcast is also available on our podcast feed or through iTunes.

50 Years of the Pill

Yesterday’s Dear Abby column inadvertantly highlighted how far the Abortion Culture has advanced. As you read the column, reprinted below, keep these thoughts in mind:
1. An engaged couple of 30 year olds “terminated” a pregnancy. Remember how the “hard cases” of rape and incest were the justification for legalizing all abortions? So much for hard cases.
2. To the pro-life sister in this story, called Nicki, as well as to others in similar situations: I would urge you not to shun your sister and future brother-in-law over their abortion. You have obviously made your point. I would urge you to keep the lines of communication as open as possible. They may need help, like, on the anniversary of the abortion, or on the anniversary of when the baby would have been born, or when your sister wakes up with night terrors, or …. Post-abortion counselors have noticed that the decision to abort is often made in a crisis atmosphere. When the crisis recedes, the conscience returns. You might be ready to provide information about Rachel’s Vineyard or other post-abortion counseling services.
3. I wouldn’t give a nickel for the marriage this engaged couple is creating. Read more…

A few years ago, I lived in a house next door to the house that Paul Hill grew up in.  Paul Hill, if you recall, attained national infamy when he murdered an abortionist. I used to like to creep out the college kids who lived there by telling them that they lived in the childhood home of an executed killer. I would even point out where Hill had carved his name in a tree across the street.  Got ‘em every time.

Just to be clear, I condemn Hill’s actions in the strongest possible terms.

But what puzzles me is that I had never before heard the name of Harlan Drake.  You see, Drake is also a killer.  Drake’s killing was also motivated by the abortion controversy.  And Drake’s victim, is exactly as dead as Hill’s victim.

I wonder what about this case motivated the media to keep mum about it, while that same media trumpeted the Paul Hill case.  What can it be?  I can only wonder.

Evidently, the article Michael New was responding to originally appearred on the Law, Religion and Ethics blog. The discussion there is quite good, at a surprisingly high level of sophistication. The Leftys are still wrong however, as this deeply flawed analysis in the comments by June Carbone illustrates: Read more…

Michael New is just the best at showing that state policy can have an impact on their abortion rates, even in the extremely hostile climate created by the Supreme Court and Roe. IN this article, he is refuting claims made in a book and a deeply pernicious book review that the culture of Red States encourages abortion. Michael New refutes each of these claims, and makes some arguments of his own. Read more…

The pro-choice lobby is finally catching on to the fact that their membership is aging and not replacing itself. We noticed it when we went to the West Coast Walk for Life: the average age was really young. lots and lots of teenagers, college students and babies in strollers (the Under 1 Demographic really lowers the average age of any group!) Duh, the Sex Radicals do not seem to realize that when you kill to avoid parenthood, it is not a surprise that you are not replacing yourself, or that you are unattractive to young people.

Tom Peters, over at the newly revamped American Papist blog and the American Principles Project also mentions

how angry some young feminists are getting because they feel Newsweek (and the leaders of these pro-abortion organizations) are ignoring their very existence and worth.

The quest to make Sex Sterile for everyone all the time cannot be interrupted by the facts!

Melinda Beck, in this article in the Wall Street Journal, tries to answer this question: why is it, 50 years after the Pill, that there are over 3 million “unplanned” pregnancies per year? Her answer is some variation on the Planned Parenthood theme: people don’t use enough contraception, often enough, correctly enough. They need more information (translation: more marketing of Planned Parenthood’s product.) She interviews all sorts of people who promote artificial contraception, but not a single soul on the natural side.

She doesn’t seem to realize that she is asking the wrong question. After all, the truth is that the “reversible” contraceptive methods only reduce the probability of pregnancy. None of them reduce the probability all the way to zero. The right question is, what happens to a society that tries to organize itself around the mistaken idea that sex is an intrinsically sterile activity? The answer to that question is: women are sexually active in situations that cannot possibly support a pregnancy. Since no contraception works perfectly, even when it is “used correctly every time,” some women get pregnant in situations that cannot possibly support a pregnancy and live birth. So, these women believe they need an abortion. Or, they end up having a child without any meaningful support from the child’s father.

And this was called “feminism.”

I would imagine that the Duke University Department of Literature had a big problem with this.  You see, the Duke University Women’s Center went and just killed satire.  Those professors who taught satirical works as part of their curricula are likely out of a job.

To wit:

DURHAM, N.C., March 29, 2010—Duke University’s Women’s Center has canceled an event about motherhood because the sponsor was engaging in pro-life expression elsewhere on campus. A Women’s Center representative told Duke Students for Life (DSFL) that “we have a problem” and an ideological “conflict” with the event, Read more…

by Michael J. New

Published March 15, 2010 in National Review.com.

Ever since the inauguration of President Obama in January 2009, he and his Democratic colleagues have known that abortion would be a key stumbling block to the enactment of health-care reform. There are several reasons for this. First, most Americans oppose government funding of abortion. Second, the Democratic party has recruited many pro-life candidates to run in conservative districts, and these Democrats would find it politically difficult to support health-care reform that includes public subsidies for abortion. Finally, President Obama and other Democrats sound disingenuous when they say they want to reduce the incidence of abortion, but then subsidize it through health-care reform. Read more…