Roundup: You Can All Be Shameful Next Year

Jan 5, 2010, 9:33am

NARAL's hall of shame has some anti-choicers thrilled, others peeved, and still more ready to up the rhetoric to make the cut next year. Plus, removing the stigma from sexual health and discussing the big G.

A new year means lots of things — top ten lists, retrospectives, resolutions and some forecasting. For NARAL, it means voting on the 2009 Hall of Fame or Shame. And for some in the anti-choice community, it’s a big deal.

After pushing hard to get Personhood Amendments onto ballots in a variety of states, Personhood USA is ready to celebrate a new victory: being one of the top four finalists for the NARAL Hall of Shame. According to the group, just being nominated is a "badge of honor."

Keith Mason, head of Personhood USA, says, "NARAL Pro-Choice America is
one of the most liberal, rabid pro-abortion groups in the country, and
so we’re excited to be noted as on their Hall of Shame, and we take it
as a true honor."

He believes the acknowledgment gives the personhood movement more
credibility rather than tagging it with the intended negative
connotation.

"If you throw a rock into a pack of dogs, the one that yelps is the one
that got hit. And when we’re working on personhood, the people who are
howling the most are these pro-abortion people," Mason notes. "The
people that look at abortion as a sacrament are the most furious and
[are] going crazy that we would have the audacity to say that every
human being is a person no matter how small."

And yes, by "how small" he does in fact mean 2 cells.

Operation Rescue, on the other hand, is obviously miffed about not being a finalist in the Wall of Shame:

The pro-life activist group Operation Rescue issued a statement on its
Web site after the late-December posting of the nominations, calling
NARAL an "aging feminist group" and recounting the successful efforts
of Operation Rescue and three other pro-life organizations to have
Carhart’s abortion clinics investigated by the Nebraska attorney
general’s office and the State Department of Health.

“It is hard to believe that even radical abortion proponents would do
anything but slink away in shame from Carhart and his disreputable and
shoddy abortion business,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman
in the statement. “It is shameful that NARAL would endanger women by
misleading them about Carhart to advance their political agenda.”

"If they truly cared about women, they should be warning women away from him," Newman said.

Never fear, Mr. Newman! I am certain that you will not have to worry about Personhood USA stealing your thunder for two years in a row. Instead, perhaps you should watch out for American Life League’s Judie Brown, who obviously is shooting to be next year’s contender.

Ms. Brown releases her entire action plan for next year’s Personhood push, with the motto "It’s the Babies, Stupid!"

As a wise merchandising expert once advised us, "The day McDonald’s
decides to run one ad a year to remind the country of what it is all
about is the day American Life League can start mentioning the truth
about the act of abortion once a year. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
Repetition works!"

Along those lines, it has always been my contention that the reason
assisted suicide, infanticide, euthanasia, prenatal genetic diagnosis,
human embryonic stem cell research and the like have increased in
recent years is because abortion has not been discussed nonstop in
terms of the human person who dies from it. The following…examples illustrate this failure.

Pro-life Kansas state senator Tim Huelskamp is proposing a legislative effort to defund Planned Parenthood.
Good for him! When he announced his goal, he said, "Organizations that
perform abortions and fail to report sexual abuse of young girls should
never receive taxpayer subsidies. This flies in the face of basic
Kansas values."

Our educational efforts should eventually convince Senator Huelskamp
that his point would resound with far greater clarity if he replaced
the phrase "perform abortions" with "kill preborn babies." This is why
we believe elected officials need our consistent affirmation and
education. It isn’t that they don’t care; they simply don’t think of
abortion in the proper terms.

Here’s another example: The Bronx News Network
reported on a protest against Pierre Renelique. In the story, pro-life
people themselves refer to Renelique as a "doctor." But doctors take an
oath to protect the lives of their patients, not kill them. Renelique
is a hired killer who executes little children in the wombs of their
own mothers. Pro-life people should never refer to an abortionist as a
"doctor." We must learn to call heinous acts by their proper names and
to use accurate titles for those who perpetrate them.

Who will come out the winner in 2010? With so many possibilities, it’s hard to tell.

Mini Roundup: We’re with the Globe and EnpowHER. Please, let’s make 2010 the year where we stop thinking of sex and especially sexual health as shameful. And on that note, is there really a G-spot?

January 5, 2010

New
Year’s resolution: raising awareness of human personhood now! RenewAmerica

Would
Obama approve paying for abortions with tax money? Youngstown Vindicator

Senior
GP flew pregnant teenage daughter to Spain for late-term abortion Telegraph.co.uk

NARAL
recognition a badge of honor OneNewsNow

Anti-abortion bus
trip to San Francisco planned Visalia Times-Delta

Indian
city of Mumbai hit by condom thefts
BBC News

January 4, 2010