Free Republic

Video at link

Maybe the problem is that the topic has something to do with sex. Fertility is always about sex, although sex is not always about fertility. Maybe that’s what makes everyone so tense when demographics is raised as a possible factor in the economic woes of the nation. Or maybe it’s not sex at all: perhaps there’s something else which keeps economists and financial analysts (except for a small number of specialists) from talking about population issues when they look at economic growth and investment risk levels. After all, we don’t seem reticent about sexually-related topics the rest of the...

* * * * The sounds of liberal and conservative names varied, too. For both boys and girls, liberals tended to pick more feminine-sounding choices, such as Liam, Ely and Leila names that include lots of L sounds and soft-A endings, including popular choices Ella and Sophia. Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to pick names with more masculine-sounding Ks, Bs, Ds and Ts, such as Kurt. A couple of famous national political families demonstrate that pattern, Oliver said: The liberal Obamas named their daughters Sasha and Malia, both names heavy on As and Ls, whereas the conservative Palin family...

Bono, Olivia Wilde and Richard Branson join Matt Damon's "toilet strike" What is the latest celebrity accessory trend? Diapers. In a humorous, but fact-filled PSA, Olivia Wilde, Bono and Richard Branson announce they are joining Matt Damon's toilet strike to raise awareness about the global water crisis. In the definition of promises they can't keep (but it's the sentiment that counts), the three celebs pledge, "We won't go to the bathroom until everyone in the world has access to clean water and sanitation." "I remember when Matt first brought up the idea, it was at a meeting of the illuminati,"...

This week the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals this week struck down Arizona’s law prohibiting abortion at or after 20 weeks of pregnancy – a law that was based on uncontroverted medical evidence that abortion’s risks to maternal health increase dramatically at 20 weeks gestation. It is universally accepted that risks to maternal health from abortion increase as pregnancy progresses. There is no debate on that fact, and peer-reviewed evidence utilized by the Arizona Legislature demonstrated that abortion imposes significant risks of harm beginning at 20 weeks gestation. In fact, in his concurring opinion in this case, Isaacson v. Horne,...

A pro-life Catholic group will hold a memorial service tomorrow to give names to the babies killed via late-term abortions and infanticides at the Kermit Gosnell abortion clinic. Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, told LifeNews today about his plans. As he mentions, he has requested the actual bodies of the babies victimized in the abortion-infanticides at Gosnell and his staff’s hands. “As we await the verdict in the trial of Kermit Gosnell, Priests for Life, which has requested from the Medical Examiner the bodies of the babies retrieved from Gosnell’s clinic so that a funeral and...

At 11:15am or so today, May 2, 2013, I tuned into the WV Statewide Talkline hosted by Hoppy Kercheval. A woman, identified later as being from the state ASPCA, was talking about the tragedy of ten bodies of what appeared to be pit bull puppies being found in a bag along the highway. They were in advanced stages of decomposition. The cause of death was not apparent. She spoke of an official investigation into the whys and wherefores of their deaths. She stated that the bodies had been sent to a Virginia university for necropsy to be performed on each...

When confronted with extravagant, Gosnell-like, Boston-like evil, we should pray that the perpetrators of evil would feel the sword of God’s justice. We should also pray that the wicked men and women involved would experience the incredible, life-changing, sin-forgiving mercy of God.

L.A. County Cites 16 ‘Maternity Hotels’ Serving Asian Visitors LA Times reports the following: Following a flurry of complaints, Los Angeles County inspectors have cited 16 “maternity hotel” owners for illegally operating boardinghouses in residential zones.No major health or safety issues were found at the hotels, where women from Asia stay to give birth to U.S. citizen babies. But some of the facilities, which were in Rowland Heights or Hacienda Heights, were cited for building and fire code violations, according to a report released Thursday.

In the message he issued along with his budget proposal on Wednesday morning, President Barack Obama said he wants to see 4-year-old children in the United States enrolled in public schools. Obama said America needs to start enrolling 4-year-olds to make sure the children are “better prepared for the demands of the global economy” and to help parents save on "child-care costs." After saying the United States needs to “equip our citizens with the skills and training” to fill jobs in manufacturing,energy and infrastructure,Obama said,“And that has to start at the earliest possible age.”

Our major public policies are based on the assumption that America will continue to enjoy growth. Economic growth and population growth. Through most of our history, this assumption has proved to be correct. These days, not so much. Last week, the Commerce Department announced that the gross domestic product shrunk by 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012. And the Census Bureau reported that the U.S. birth rate in 2011 was 63.2 per 1,000 women age 15 to 44, the lowest ever recorded. Slow economic growth and low population growth threaten to undermine entitlement programs like Social Security and...

It is one of life's great mysteries that so many liberal people are so callous when it comes to aborting fetuses. I mean, the Democratic convention last summer was almost a pro-abortion pep rally, as a variety of pro-choice speakers, including the self-proclaimed "Catholic woman" Caroline Kennedy, knelt at the altar of "reproductive rights." Recently, another woman who calls herself a Catholic, Mary Elizabeth Williams, wrote a shocking article for Salon. Entitled "So What if Abortion Ends Life?" Williams starkly states: "I believe that life starts at conception. And it's never stopped me from being pro-choice." In the body...

Is the pro-abortion left beginning to have second thoughts? Could that be the impulse behind a campaign being conducted by Chicago NPR affiliate WBEZ?  Anne Sorock of Legal Insurrection highlights the curious appearance of this Facebook-based ad:One of the principal features of life in the richest countries is the collapse of natality. Simply put, when people get rich, they tend to focus on themselves, and lose interest in having babies, which are expensive, and require a focus on something other than personal pleasure. The ready availability of contraception and abortion certainly keeps birthrates down, and the rising numbers of...

The Obamacare legislation contains no safeguards to stop taxpayer funding of abortions or abortion businesses. Now, a Pennsylvania hospital has indicated it will stop delivering babies thanks to Obamacare. The Obamacare law is causing physicians to cut the number of patients they see or leave their practices entirely — resulting in problems like this one. As AP reports: A southwestern Pennsylvania hospital will stop delivering babies after March 31 because its obstetricians are either leaving or refocusing their practices, and because hospital officials believe they can’t afford it based on projected reimbursements under looming federal health care reforms. The Windber...

An Australian toddler had a lucky escape after being attacked by a python which wrapped itself around the sleeping child's arm and then began constricting and biting the infant. Snake handler Tex Tillis said the two-year-old girl's mother woke at 3:00 am on Saturday to find the 1.85 metre (six foot) reptile attached to her child as they lay in bed in Lismore, about 600 kilometres (370 miles) north of Sydney. "She saw three coils of what looked like a snake around her baby's arm. She naturally freaked, but with presence of mind... she went for what she thought was...

Here are twelve comical but true resolutions that every liberal should make for 2013: 1.) Resolve to spend time with gun-owners. I have a liberal friend who says she would rather be in the same room as a cobra snake than a gun, even an unloaded gun. Guns really, really scare her. But guns don’t kill. People kill. Whether the tool is a gun or a knife or a baseball bat, unconscionable people kill, not the inanimate objects in their hands. Banning all tools and machinery will not turn bad people into good people. Doing so would make us more...

FERTILITY IN AMERICA has been declining for years. According to the Pew Research Center, the nation's birth rate hit an all-time low in 2011 – just 63 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age. It was almost twice as high – 123 births per 1,000 women – at the peak of the Baby Boom in 1957. As babies and children disappear from a society, what takes their place? One answer, as journalist Jonathan V. Last observes in a forthcoming book, "What to Expect When No One's Expecting," is pets. In surveys taken from the 1940s to the 1980s, fewer...

The old adage "be careful what you wish for" is an apt reminder in light of this week's news that the U.S. birthrate has dropped to its lowest level on record. For years, population hysterics have tried to convince Americans to aim not just for zero population growth in the U.S. but its complete reversal. Many of the groups pushing this view have also been in the forefront of the anti-immigration movement -- NumbersUSA, Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and Negative Population Growth (NPG). They don't like immigrants -- even legal ones -- because immigrants, especially Hispanic immigrants, traditionally...

Sick children are being discharged from NHS hospitals to die at home or in hospices on controversial ‘death pathways’. Until now, end of life regime the Liverpool Care Pathway was thought to have involved only elderly and terminally-ill adults. But the Mail can reveal the practice of withdrawing food and fluid by tube is being used on young patients as well as severely disabled newborn babies.

... While some researchers have suggested that fetuses yawn, others have disagreed and claim it is simple mouth opening. But the new research clearly distinguished 'yawning' from 'non-yawn mouth opening' based on the duration of mouth opening. The researchers did this by using the 4D video footage to closely examine all events where a mouth stretch occurred in the fetus. Using their newly developed criteria, the research team found that over half of the mouth openings observed in the study were classed as yawns. The study was carried out on eight female and seven male fetuses from 24 to 36...