Free Republic

"We've been wandering in the desert for 40 years," declared Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley. It was an ever-present reflection during the week that marked four decades of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that established a woman's right to an abortion. Last week, Cardinal O'Malley led a Mass that began at least 24 hours of prayer and protest for thousands of people gathered at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in our nation's capital. Are you, dear reader, sick of abortion, of the poverty of the discourse about the issue, the twisted politics that accompany it and where...

The Destroyer of Peace W. Ross Blackburn Every election addresses issues crucial to the life of the nation. Typical of years past, the economy, national security, and health care commanded the attention of voters in 2012, and the candidates were expected to propose solutions for each issue. Yet, our economy is not going to be saved simply by changing our tax policy or spending habits, nor is our nation going to be secured by tougher policies toward Iran or Russia. Although neatly (and with great reductionism) framed as a “women’s rights” issue, abortion will have far more power over the...

BAMAKO, Mali — Isolated for centuries by the harsh desert that surrounds it, Timbuktu now finds itself even more cut off from the rest of the world. Rebels who captured the city in northern Mali in April have imposed a form of hard-edged Islamic rule, prompting many residents to flee in fear and changing the face of what had been a tolerant and easygoing destination that drew tourists from around the world. Women are now forced to wear full, face-covering veils. Music is banned from the radio. Cigarettes are snatched from the mouths of pedestrians. And the look of the...

“When it was my turn, they took me blindfolded,” the thief said. “Suddenly I felt a pain in my right hand that was out of this world. My hand had just been chopped off.” This is Gao, once the seat of an empire, and then a glorified village, and now a city the size of Scranton under the boot of its Islamist conquerors. Gao has become a place where thieves have their hands cut off, where women are forced to wear the stifling Hijab in 113 degree heat or be lashed and where unmarried couples are stoned to death. Borders...

“What I want to say is that he was never an extremist, neither in his private nor political life. He believed that a modern moderate Islam could work in Afghanistan. He said that the extreme left or right failed in Afghanistan, since both had neglected the needs of the people. Therefore, we could not govern Afghanistan like any traditional Muslim country.” -Ahmad Wali Massoud regarding Ahmed Massoud Shah of the Northern Alliance. In 1996, funded financially and backed morally by their allies in Pakistan, the Taliban (”Students of Islamic Knowledge Movement”) emerged as the prominent force in Afghanistan after the...

Massoud's Letter To The People Of America Date: 1998 A Message to the People of the United States of America I send this message to you today on behalf of the freedom and peace-loving people of Afghanistan, the Mujahedeen freedom fighters who resisted and defeated Soviet communism, the men and women who are still resisting oppression and foreign hegemony and, in the name of more than one and a half million Afghan martyrs who sacrificed their lives to uphold some of the same values and ideals shared by most Americans and Afghans alike. This is a crucial and unique moment...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Hide your children. This is what the progressive left's idea of women's empowerment looks like: For the past two weeks, radical feminists from the group Code Pink have paraded across the fruited plain in giant female reproductive organ costumes. The goal is "respect" for women's bodies and women's abortion rights. It's part of the coordinated campaign to fight the right's purported "war on women." The Vagina Puppets' Democratic Party sympathizers, from professional birth control freeloader Sandra Fluke to first lady Michelle Obama, dog-whistled the same messages of "choice" and "freedom" from the convention stage. "We are ......

Anne-Marie Slaughter's eye-catching Atlantic article, "Why Women Still Can't Have It All," is being greeted with a certain reverse snobbery. We've been reminded that the choices and challenges of women with advanced degrees are hardly typical and not the sort of thing that should divert us from the problems of the middle class. Perhaps. But there are millions of women in the upper middle class and the culture they create and reflect affects everyone. Besides, Slaughter deserves some credit for honesty. As she recounts in the piece, when she mentioned to a friend that she was considering writing that women...

Egyptian beats pregnant wife to death for not voting for Mursi Sunday, 24 June 2012 An Egyptian plumber has been accused of beating his pregnant wife to death because she did not vote for Muslim Brotherhood presidential candidate Mohammed Mursi. (File photo)   By YASMIN HELAL  AL ARABIYA An Egyptian plumber in Alexandria beat his pregnant wife to death upon learning that she had not voted for Muslim Brotherhood presidential candidate Mohammed Mursi, reported the Egyptian daily al-Wafd on Sunday. According to police reports, the initial argument between the couple who was not named escalated into violence, despite her pleas....

May 11, 2012 (YouthDefence) - I am a young, independent woman. I can vote, go to college, drive a car, even run for President if I want (once I’m over 35)! I can do anything that my male colleagues can do. But there is one thing that I can become that’s denied to my male friends…a mother. Motherhood is the most amazing thing that a woman can do in this world. Just think about it: we can nurture and protect another human life. Every single person in the world had a mother; we all spent nine months in the comfort...

The blind Chinese human-rights activist Chen Guangcheng, who escaped from house arrest on April 22 and may be under the protection of the U.S. Embassy, was initially detained for exposing the massive abuse of Chinese women under China’s one-child policy. His documentation of forced sterilizations and abortions landed him in jail for four years, followed by a year and a half of house arrest. His daring escape has now triggered renewed attacks on organizations engaged in helping Chinese women keep and feed their infants. Since April 28, the Family Planning Commission of Susong County in China’s Anhui province has been...

ACHXOY-MARTAN, Chechnya — Chechnya's government is openly approving of families that kill female relatives who violate their sense of honor, as this Russian republic embraces a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam after decades of religious suppression under Soviet rule. In the past five years, the bodies of dozens of young Chechen women have been found dumped in woods, abandoned in alleys and left along roads in the capital, Grozny, and neighboring villages. Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov publicly announced that the dead women had “loose morals” and were rightfully shot by male relatives. He went on to describe women as the property...

Hillary, our dear friend. A few days ago, you expressed your deep concern about harm to the status of women in Israel, which you said reminds you of the events in Iran. The truth is you surprised us. Really. We did not think that in the midst of a range of international disputes, along with the reversal of the Arab Spring that now turns out to be winter, Iran’s development of nuclear weapons and other real and tangible threats, you would still manage to find time to deal with the status of women. But we certainly agree with you –...

The woman of Afghanistan are facing a crisis which threatens to roll back many of the advances in equality and human rights that the West promised after the fall of the Taliban. Brothels in Kabul continue to service NATO officials and contractors, burkas are once again becoming the norm, and Afghan women continued to be legally viewed as mere property of their families and husbands, with criminal penalties for failing to act as property. As one of her supporters, this author expected more from First Lady Michelle Obama. While she has won praise for her excellent fashion sense and her...

When Shehlla Khan's husband became ill, it fell on her to take their three children to the pool. But for Khan, who is Muslim, the task was difficult. The Columbia resident said she was concerned about people watching her swim in the conservative, cover-all dress required by Islamic dress codes, and thinking: "What's wrong? Why can't you take it off?" So Khan, 39, brought the issue up with members of her Dar Al-Taqwa mosque in Ellicott City. The mosque, along with members of a faith-based county group, People Acting Together in Howard, met with the Columbia Association to create a...

Our mainstream media have discovered a new issue: inequality in America. The gap between the wealthiest 1 percent and the rest of the nation is wide and growing wider. This, we are told, is intolerable. This is a deformation of American democracy that must be corrected through remedial government action. What action? The rich must pay their fair share. Though the top 1 percent pay 40 percent of federal income taxes and the bottom 50 percent have, in some years, paid nothing, the rich must be made to pay more. That's an appealing argument to many, but one that would...

"Women's activist Mavis Leno and CNN Muslim producer dialogue in Dallas," by Dina Malki for the Examiner, October 24: At the 26th annual Dallas Women’s Foundation’s luncheon, Mavis Leno, wife of talk show's comedian Jay Leno, shared with the audience accounts about her journey into activism to help empower Afghani women and girls under the Taliban regime.... When asked about the role of Islam in the status of women in Afghanistan, Leno confirmed that “the Quran is more liberal with women than the Bible.”

Women are to be allowed to vote in Saudi Arabia. K ing Abdullah bin Abdulaziz announced the change yesterday and also said women would be allowed to run in elections. However, the new law will not come into force until 2015. In a speech, the king said the move was in accordance with sharia law.

A Look at the Burqua: Simple Yet Controversial, Repressive Yet Expressive, Modest Yet So Revealing.

Population: The vice president gives a thumbs up to Beijing's policy of sustainable growth through forced population control. This is no gaffe. The White House endorses this policy. Just ask the president's science adviser. We are used to the "mouth that roared" putting his foot in it. But Vice President Joe Biden's remarks at Sichuan University in China clearly embrace the progressive belief that people are a plague on the Earth — not its greatest resource. "Your policy has been one which I fully understand — I'm not second-guessing — of one child per family. The result being that you're...