“What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience? What kind of person and what kind of a society will we have twenty years hence if life can be taken so casually? It is that question, the question of our attitude, our value system and our mind set with regard to the nature and worth of life itself that is the central question confronting mankind. Failure to answer that question affirmatively may leave us with a hell right here on earth” – Jesse Jackson

When Bloomington celebrated Martin Luther King Day, we honored a man who gave his life to defending the oppressed against the injustice of racial discrimination. Dr. King dedicated his life to opposing injustice, and his courage changed the course of history and inspired many to carry on his torch. In the 1970’s, Jesse Jackson understood that defending the oppressed meant defending the life of the unborn, before he sold his soul for political expediency.

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In the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, feminist groups became increasingly hysterical with a planned advertisement by Focus on the Family, which featured Pam Tebow and her son Tim. Mrs. Tebow was advised to abort her pregnancy due to health complications, but decided to proceed and her son became a Heisman trophy winner. The Feminist Majority urged their e-mail list to contact CBS and demand the ad be pulled, with hysterical claims such as:

This is an opportunity to bring people together and should not be used to tear them apart. Especially at this time, with the trial of Dr. George Tiller’s murderer fresh in everyone’s mind, airing an anti-abortion advertisement to a massive audience is both unwise and potentially dangerous.

Think about that for a minute. The FM is actually claiming that the Tebow ad could encourage anti-abortion terrorism and invokes the murder of infamous abortionist George Tiller last summer.

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That’s it? That’s all? This is the ad that the National Organization for Women and the Feminist Majority have been screeching about? This is the ad that the Feminist Majority has said will inspire terrorism? Are you kidding me here?

A critical vote takes place today in Massachusetts, where Republican candidate Scott Brown has surprised everyone by coming close in the polls and actually has a chance of winning the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Ted Kennedy. Republicans are excited about this race and it has drawn national attention. A number of my friends have signed on as supporters of Brown on Facebook, which is what prompted me to take a look at his web site. I was disappointed (though not at all surprised) by what I found on the page stating his position on various issues.

While this decision should ultimately be made by the woman in consultation with her doctor, I believe we need to reduce the number of abortions in America. I believe government has the responsibility to regulate in this area and I support parental consent and notification requirements and I oppose partial birth abortion. I also believe there are people of good will on both sides of the issue and we ought to work together to support and promote adoption as an alternative to abortion.

Ugh.

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This evening, Jesse Jackson will speak in downtown Bloomington, giving the keynote address for today’s Martin Luther King Day celebrations. But Jesse Jackson abandoned Dr. King’s dream of protection for all when he abandoned his opposition to abortion for political convenience. Read what the “reverend” had to say before he sold his soul:

“What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience? … It is that question, the question of our attitude, our value system and our mindset with regard to the nature and worth of life itself that is the central question confronting mankind. Failure to answer that question affirmatively may leave us with a hell right here on earth.” – Jesse Jackson

(Thanks to Jill Stanek for the quote.)

In November the three Republican state Senate candidates in District 17 completed questionnaires from the Allen County Right to Life seeking information about their individual positions on a number of critical pro-life issues.  The questions asked were straightforward and two of the candidates did a solid job of providing clear answers.  Reviewing the final essay question, however, one would probably have to conclude that Jim Banks, an experienced pro-family and pro-life advocate with national experience, provided the most thorough and persuasive explanation of his pro-life philosophy.*

Candidate Tom Wall, currently a Huntington County Commissioner, checked “unsure” in responding to two of the questions on his questionnaire.  Each of the questions he marked this way were very simple questions dealing with two common pro-life issues faced by legislators around the country.  Anyone familiar with the cursory elements of the pro-life position and philosophy would have been able to make a final judgment about his or her support of the position stated in the question.

The first area of uncertainty for Wall was the matter of conscience clause legislation that protects pharmacists from being legally liable for refusing to fill out prescriptions for abortion inducing products.  This issue has come up in several states, including neighboring Illinois, and pharmacists have had to face a choice between violating their conscience and assuming serious liability for their refusal to comply with a consumer’s request.  In Indiana legislation has been introduced in recent sessions of the General Assembly to protect pro-life Hoosier pharmacists from this morally and professionally difficult choice.

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IUPUI professor and columnist for the Indianapolis Star Sheila Suess-Kennedy made a shockingly hate-filled statement on her Facebook account when commenting on the current health care debate in the Senate:

“I hope there really IS a hell, and that people like Joe Lieberman and that Nebraska Senator who would prefer that existing people die in order to prevent the aborting of potential people rot there forever.”

Potential person?  The unborn human baby is not “potentially” a person, as if there is also the potential that he or she will be born a horse or an iguana.  Left to the normal course of nature, a human fetus turns out to be (wait for it…) a human.    The question is never whether or not the fetus is a person, but whether or not that person will be allowed to live or at least have a chance at living.  The question is whether or not our society thinks it is moral to take life from innocents just because they have no voice at the moment.

The irony, of course, is that Sheila Suess-Kennedy evidently feels that it’s immoral and outrageous for people to want to protect innocent life, while at the same time having no scruples about condemning (even in theory) someone to everlasting punishment for having a view of life that conflicts with her own.

——– Original Message ——–
Subject: The County Council’s vote to fund Planned Parenthood
Date: Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:54:25 -0500
From: Scott Tibbs <tibbs1973@yahoo.com>
To: vkelson@co.monroe.in.us, cnewmann@co.monroe.in.us, mhawk@co.monroe.in.us, jlesh@co.monroe.in.us, whenegar@co.monroe.in.us, gmckim@co.monroe.in.us, councilorthomas@gmail.com

Planned Parenthood’s finances

♦ Revenue of Affiliates — $966.7 million
♦ Revenue of National Office — $84.7 million
♦ Eliminations – $13.3 Million
♦ Total Revenue — $1.0381 billion

♦ Expenses of Affiliates — $892.8 million
♦ Expenses of National Office — $73.6 million
♦ Eliminations – $13.3 Million
♦ Total Expenses — $953.1 million

♦ Profit of Affiliates — $73.9
♦ Profit of National Office — $11.1
♦ Total Profit — $85.0 Million

Dear Councilors,

I was very disappointed to see that you have chosen to fund a corporation with over $1,000,000,000 in annual revenue when you disbursed social services funds back in October. I was very pleased to see that Planned Parenthood did not even apply for funding from city government over the summer. I was not surprised to see PP ask for funding from county government, with meeting times that are much less open than city government’s meeting times. While I approve of the change that has the County Council disburse these funds instead of the County Commissioners, your meeting time necessarily excludes many concerned citizens.

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Tom Wall, President of the Huntington County Commissioners and Candidate for Indiana State Senate District 17, seems unsure on some of the important pro-life issues facing the state.  In the annual Allen County Right to Life survey sent out to the Indiana State Senate District 17 candidates, Tom Wall’s answers on this survey have to be considered “questionable” at best to pro-life voters.  With the possibility of these important pro-life issues coming before the Indiana General Assembly and even the Huntington County Commissioners, Tom Wall’s answers have to be considered very troubling.  So, let’s take a look:

Do you support conscience clause legislation that would give pharmacists the right to refuse filling prescriptions that may be used to cause abortions?

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Note: I actually wrote this post for my blog on October 20, and decided it was worth revisiting here on HoosierAccess.com now that John Hostettler, who was arguably the most consistent defender of the unborn in Congress, is running for the U.S. Senate. Hostettler’s conviction provides a strong contrast to the lukewarm position of Bates.

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U.S. Senate candidate Don Bates spoke to the IU College Republicans in Bloomington last night about his hope to defeat Evan Bayh and replace him in the U.S. Senate. Bates, who calls himself a Reagan Republican, argued that Evan Bayh’s vote is all that stands between us and socialism and the only way to ensure that 60th vote goes the right way is to replace Bayh. He basically said all the right things about fiscal conservatism and national defense.

I asked Bates about his position on abortion. The content of his response was acceptable, but the tone was not. Bates said if we can get a solid enough Republican majority, we could do something about abortion. He is not encouraged that we can do much about restricting abortion right now.

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Democrats have been trying to claim that abortion isn’t federally funded in the health care bill.  This is despite the fact that there are two amendments that attempt to strip federally funding from abortion (although, let’s be serious, only one does that and it’s the Stupak/Pitts amendment and not the Ellsworth amendment which as been proven to do nothing to change the course).

In the following clip, Mark Souder breaks through the health care bill’s double speak to prove it provides for federal funding of abortion.

It continues to surprise me the gambles that Brad Ellsworth and Baron Hill are taking with the health care legislation.  Now comes this letter from the National Right to Life.

Via Red State:

Speaker Pelosi, Henry Waxman, and the White House are engaged in peddling another phony compromise. This is all theater. The “negotiations” are scripted ad phony. The language being circulated, and loosely associated with Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D-In.), does not mitigate either of the abortion-subsidy provisions contained in H.R. 3962. This language is intended only to wrap the pro-abortion provisions in additional layers of concealment. The latest version of the Democrats’ abortion compromise being circulated contains a money-laundering scheme that is truly laughable. Some of the people involved in this enterprise apparently think that their constituents are simpletons.

The bill explicitly authorizes the federal insurance plan, the public option, to pay for all elective abortions. When the public option pays for abortions, it will be spending federal funds, because that is the only kind of money that a federal agency can spend in the real world. Henry Waxman and his front men can write language in the bill calling the money anything he wants, but we care about the reality, not what they call it.

The “Ellsworth Amendment” has been independently analyzed by experts at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and at the House Pro-Life Caucus. Their conclusions regarding its substantive (non)effect are fully consistent with those reached independently by NRLC. However, my comments here represent only NRLC.

Mr. Ellsworth issued a press release in which he said, “When you’re going into battle, it’s a good idea to have a contingency plan.” I say, when you’re going into battle, it is always unpleasant to be bayoneted in the back by somebody who said that he was on your side. The Ellsworth language serves no purpose except to assist the pro-abortion House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to peel votes away from the authentic pro-life amendment, the Stupak Amendment.

The Ellsworth language about the public option is particularly revealing in demonstrating the utter phoniness of the exercise. They just want to pretend that if the federal agency hires private contractors to handle the money, it is not government funding of abortion. This is already being referred to in pro-life circles on Capitol Hill as “the Ellsworth abortion money-laundering scam.”

They can write in a money-laundering scheme under which the federal agency hires a contractor to deliver the checks to the abortionists, but only a simpleton would think it is not government funding of abortion. Any lawmaker who votes for this scheme is voting to create a nationwide federal agency program that will pay for abortion on demand, with government funds.

You can go here and call your legislator to oppose the Democrats’ health care plan.

If this amendment passes Ellsworth will have a lot of explaining to do. The 8th District may be a swing district, but it is still very pro-life and the voters don’t get the wool pulled over their eyes to often, if at all. So, how will Brad Ellsworth explain his actions now?