Posted on 07/05/2013 2:12:24 PM PDT by NYer
Washington, DC (LiveActionNews) – A national pro-life organization is outraged after three major American newspapers rejected a pro-life ad as too controversial.
The Chicago Tribune, USA Today, and the LA Times refused to run an advertisement created by Heroic Media.
The ad features a hand holding a 20- to 24-week-old baby with the quote, This child has no voice, which is why it depends on yours. Speak Up.
Heroic Media Executive Director Joe Young said he was shocked and angered that the media outlets were willing to talk about the issue but were unwilling to show the reality of life at 20 weeks.
I am disturbed that these papers would run article after article promoting the notion that abortion is a victimless act without consequences, Young said. The fact remains, children who are unique individuals never again to be duplicated are being killed in the most violent way imaginable and they feel the excruciating pain of that death.
The newspapers took issue with the image of the baby.
It seems as though it is okay to talk about the issue in general, but when you actually put a face to the discussion, then it becomes controversial, Young said.
Last week after the House passed the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, Heroic Media put out a statement requesting that the pro-life community contact their senators and encourage them to consider and support the Act.
Americans deserve to know the truth about the children sentenced to die for no fault of their own and that we have a chance to spare some of them through this legislation, Young said.
The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act prevents an abortionist from performing an abortion at or after 20 weeks, based on empirical scientific medical evidence that proves that unborn babies can feel pain. Science shows that at eight weeks after fertilization, the unborn child reacts to touch, and at 20 weeks, the unborn baby responds to what would be felt as pain.
The image shows a 20- to 24-week-old baby in a persons hands. Heroic Medias goal was to show what life looks like at 20 weeks. The non-profit organization has resubmitted the ad with a different image, now one of a 20-week-old baby in utero.
The Chicago Tribune has now agreed to run the ad with the second image as long as Heroic Media indicates that it is an advertisement.
Our hope is that the American public begins to advance this debate with both the mother and child in mind, Young said.
Heroic Media is a non-profit whose mission is to educate the public in general and reach women facing unplanned pregnancies with life-affirming alternatives through the use of mass media, such as television commercials, internet outreach, and billboards.
This issue, the late-term killing of developing children, is one that should be addressed in the U.S. Senate, and we encourage our fellow citizens to let their Senators know our desire to see that happen, Young said.
The fact that after 50 years of reliable contraceptives and 40 years of legal abortion there are still “unintended” pregnancies leads me to believe that something else is going on. Perhaps the biological imperative to procreate is so strong that women subconsciously allow themselves to get pregnant even, when they claim they don’t want to.
And, although the Alan Guttmacher Institute was founded as the research arm of Planned Parenthood, they are still regarded as the most complete and accurate source of contraceptive and abortion-related data: more reliable than the NIH, the CDC, or the World Health Organization. In fact, much of the damnable stuff we know about PP, we know from analyzing AGI data.
Various forms of contraception have widely varying levels of effectiveness. All of the barrier and spermicide methods have high rates of user-failure, which is why the spaying industry is trying to herd as many females as possible onto the long-acting hormonal implants and injections, the endocrine disruptors.
Much of the information people "think" they know is inaccurate: for instance, the idea that the majority of abortion clients are young teens. Not so. Only eighteen percent of U.S. women obtaining abortions are teenagers; those aged 1517 obtain 6% of all abortions, teens aged 1819 obtain 11%, and teens younger than age 15 obtain 0.4%.
Women in their 20s account for more than half of all abortions. This age group centers on college students, and women in entry-level employment.
Anecdotal information is worth -- well, whatever it's worth. Every woman I know who has had an unexpected pregnancy --- that is of those whom I know well enough to know such an intimate thing about them --- was a contraceptive user. Whether she was a careful, methodical, defense-in-depth, doubled-down jellies-jams-plugs-rubbers user or not, I must leave unanswered.
I will say that without serious endocrine disruption, it's pretty hard for a sexually active woman in her 20's not to get pregnant. Think of it: every single one of our ancestors, without exception, over 10,000 generations, 100,000 generations, was fertile and gave birth. It's a force of nature so strong in young women, you have to sabotage her normal physiological function pretty comprehensively if you want her barren as a brick.
What a disaster for women, this repugnant so-called Sexual Revolution.
Here's a way to hurt them: tell the hotel or motel you are not interested in receiving "USA Today" and to deduct the cost of providing it to you from your bill. I understand that this can be done.
Better yet, make the baby “gay” ; - )
So Trib readers are so stupid they’d look at that photo and think it was a Trib article?
Considered by whom?
In medical research publishing, all authors must declare whether they have a conflict of interest in the study they want to publish. That's because the introduction of a money motive does influence the conduct and interpretation of research. In the case of Guttmacher Institute, the money motive is so strong that barely any reliable research comes out of that place. Their studies are designed to give pro-abortion results.
Whenever I look at studies involving any aspect of abortion, the first thing I look at is the source of the study. Most of these studies originate from some abortion associated group; those studies can be discounted without bothering to read past the abstract.
Much of the information people "think" they know is inaccurate: for instance, the idea that the majority of abortion clients are young teens. Not so. Only eighteen percent of U.S. women obtaining abortions are teenagers; those aged 1517 obtain 6% of all abortions, teens aged 1819 obtain 11%, and teens younger than age 15 obtain 0.4%.
I was not sure whether to include young 20 somethings among the frequent abortion customers. The salient point is that the rates of abortion are highest among those who are *not* in steady relationships. Women in long-term relationships are more likely to use contraceptives; it is not unusual for a woman to go decades without getting pregnant after she has had as many children as she wants (which is less than 2, these days). If we were to take various estimates of contraceptive effectiveness at face value, we'd expect a much higher pregnancy rate than is actually seen.
Anecdotal information is worth -- well, whatever it's worth. Every woman I know who has had an unexpected pregnancy --- that is of those whom I know well enough to know such an intimate thing about them --- was a contraceptive user. Whether she was a careful, methodical, defense-in-depth, doubled-down jellies-jams-plugs-rubbers user or not, I must leave unanswered.
I do not know why, but it seems like every woman I've known who has had abortions feels a need to tell me about it. I don't even have to know them all that well--they just tell me. Also, I read a lot--it is not difficult to find some hyper-defensive woman writing a blog or article about why her abortions were perfectly justified. Among probably dozens of these accounts, I have *never* seen anyone volunteer that they were using contraceptives at the time they got pregnant, even if they give a fairly detailed account of how they got pregnant. That is a pretty clear indication that they were not. You don't need a study to figure this out: you just need to understand human nature. There is a stigma associated with abortion, which is even greater if the woman didn't bother to try to avoid pregnancy. Therefore, women who are asked point-blank if they were using contraceptives will very often lie and say they were, especially if they sense that the person asking will judge them negatively if they tell the truth.
You don't need to have intrusive medical tests to verify whether a woman is using contraceptives or not, in order to design a study that can accurately determine contraceptive effectiveness. The study does need to be prospective. If I were designing such a study is to include a survey on attitudes towards abortion. I think a prospective study on contraceptive effectiveness, coupled with attitudes towards abortion, would be extremely powerful. There is every reason to think that contraceptive efficacy would be highest among those who have a strong desire to not get pregnant and who will NOT use abortion as a backup under ANY circumstance.
Richard Doerflinger of the USCCB Pro-Life activities committee (and a way-back-when colleague of mine) points out that Guttmacher is always more accurate than the Centers for Disease Control Abortion Surveillance System, since AGI depends on detailed interviews and questionnaires of the abortion industry and the contraception-abaortion population, whereas CDC relies on legal reporting. There is no uniform abortion reporting requirement across all states in the U.S., and California hasn't reported to the CDC for years. That's why CDC's figures are always significantly less accurate than AGI's --- because CA, the #1 abortion state in the USA, does not report to CDC.
It is factually baseless to say that abortion-associated group' studies "can be discounted without bothering to read past the abstract." I don't know of a single pro-life, profamily or conservative group that takes that approach. In fact, exactly the opposite: they would mine the study for data, and forget the "abstract", which is likely to be a summary of their own tendentious "conclusions" cooked for abortion-friendly editorial writers and policy makers.
Abortion rates are comparatively low among married women, because, by far, married women's #1 form of "contraception" is in fact surgical sterilization, i.e. tubal ligation. Their #2 form is long-term endocrine disruption, i.e. hormone-based patches, inserts, and injections which impair normal physiological function (Ovarian follicle and corpus luteum).
Naturally anybody who's achieved long-term surgical or chemical sterilization is going to have fewer "omigod" surprise pregnancies, than some first-year college student who's still fumbling around with foams, sprays and rubbers. You can't can get past the slip, rip and drip factor, plus "I was away for the weekend and I left my Trojans in my other purse."
I hope this information is useful to you.
I know it’s been a while, and I’m not going to take the time now to fully address your post. I’m sure the same issues will arise in future discussions.
However, I will say that what you said there clarifies a lot. I have often wondered why pro-lifers promote the message that contraceptives are ineffective just as avidly as pro-aborts do, because it makes no sense. It is clear why pro-aborts promote that belief—abortion is exceedingly profitable—but not why pro-lifers would promote that exact same belief, because preventing pregnancy eliminates abortion. But now that you have informed me that the major pro-life organizations get their info from Guttmacher—well, that explains a lot. That is a serious problem for the pro-life movement. I will research this connection some more and think about it... as pro-lifers, we cannot afford to keep spreading the pro-abort profit-motivated message.
Think of this: most women who get abortions are not deliberately pregnant. True, they are deliberately cooperating in baby-making acts by their husbands or boyfriends (having live sperm injected into their genital tracts) --- but they have psychologically suppressed what should have been an overwhelming and lasting awareness: that this could get them pregnant.
That's the disconnect. That's why contraception triggers more abortions than it prevents. Contraception has two effects: the pharmaceutical one, and the psychological-behavioral one. The pharmaceutical one reduces the likelihood that any individual act of intercourse will result in pregnancy. The psychological-behavioral one vastly increases risk-taking by both males and females, by creating a cognitive disconnect between sex and fertility.
The second effect overwhelms the first effect.
Thus contraceptives increase unwanted pregnancies. This can be verified by the fact that whenever a new group of females become contraceptive acceptors, their unwanted pregnancy rate, nonmarital childbearing rate, and abortion rate goes up -- not down.
The first Birth Control clinics were set up in New York City approx. 90 years ago. At that time, the abortion rate was 17 per 100 live births.
Now, 2013, in New York contraceptives are available in every grocery store, every drug store, every corner bodega, approx. 25-33 cents apiece for latex, or $9 a month for the classic oral endocrine disruptor; free from all the the Borough health centers; free from the Student Health and Wellness office; urged upon them since they were 5th graders; exhorted upon female commuters by posters in the bus stops and subway platforms; couldn't be more available if they came with M&M's -- and the abortion rate is 70 per hundred live births.
While at the same time, the nonmarital birth rate is 70% of all births.
Yes, there are other factors. But this one fact is undeniable: the contraceptive mentality has been part of the problem, far more than part of the solution.
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