Thread by me.
August 15, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Unlike aborting a child conceived naturally, ending the life of an unborn child conceived by in-vitro fertilization (IVF) feels like just another choice in an already consumerish process, one IVF mom confessed in an article for the New York Times.
If I had conceived these twins naturally, I wouldnt have reduced this pregnancy, because you feel like if theres a natural order, then you dont want to disturb it, the mom, Jenny, told author Ruth Padawer.
But we created this child in such an artificial manner in a test tube, choosing an egg donor, having the embryo placed in me and somehow, making a decision about how many to carry seemed to be just another choice.
The pregnancy was all so consumerish to begin with, and this became yet another thing we could control.
Padawer explained in the article that the couple decided to abort the twin because they felt that, at best, she could give each one only half of her attention and, she feared, only half of her love. The couple had to fly in a doctor from thousands of miles away because local physicians refused to abort their twin.
While initially a remedy for IVF megapregnancies (when numerous embryos unexpectedly survive the implantation process), so-called selective reduction abortions have became an option for pregnancies as common and normal as twins.
But aborting a twin has proven difficult to swallow even for the pro-abortion IVF business culture, and many doctors, while allowing other abortions, still refuse to commit them on a twin. One expert quoted in Padawers article recalled how, when the question of killing one twin was put to his clinic staff in the late 1990s, every one of them - the sonographer, the genetic counselors, the schedulers - supported abortion rights, but all confessed their growing unease with reductions to a singleton.
Padawer ended the article with the story of two anonymous lesbians who both learned they were pregnant with twins through IVF on the first birthday of their son, who was also conceived by IVF. One woman miscarried, and the other aborted one of her unborn children.
While grateful that the abortion was possible, the latter woman, who is due in December, said she still wondered if she chose the right one.
Even as it was happening, I wondered what the future would have been if the doctor had put the needle into the other one, she said.
Thread by markomalley.
A new billboard in downtown Atlanta aims to expose the horrific impact that abortion has had on the black community and to hold political leaders accountable for supporting abortion.
We are specifically asking our black leaders to take a look at this issue, because we feel that something is terribly wrong, said Catherine Davis of the Restoration Project, a co-sponsor of the billboard. Black women are aborting children at two, three, sometimes five times their presence in the population.
Other pro-life leaders involved in producing the Atlanta billboard include Day Gardner of the National Black Prolife Union, Star Parker of CURE, and Dr. Alveda King of Priests for Life.
The billboard shows an anguished black woman on a black background with the word Betrayed! in blood-red print. It lists the address of the website www.AbortionInTheHood.com, which examines the effects of abortion in the black community and criticizes abortion rights supporters such as Rev. Jesse Jackson, and members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
They wont talk about the fact that almost 60 percent of the abortions in this state are done on black women, when were only 30 percent of the population, Davis told EWTN News on Aug. 16.
She said abortion is so affecting the black community that it risks causing black depopulation in some areas. She said that for every 1,000 black babies born alive in New York City, 1,489 die by abortion. In Washington, D.C. for every 100 black babies born alive, 165 are aborted.
Abortion hurts women. Thats the other thing that women dont talk about, Davis added.
Americans dont know how many women have gone to an abortionist and suffered severe or fatal injuries, she said. For instance, Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell is now charged with killing children born alive and with using unsterilized medical instruments after an investigation revealed incompetent and unsanitary conditions at his office.
The billboard campaigns website also criticizes leaders like Rev. Jesse Jackson.
In 1977 he authored an opinion piece in National Right to Life News which called life a gift from God which no one has the right to take away. However, he later said he supported legal abortion based on freedom of choice.
Rev. Jesse Jackson used to be pro-life, Davis said, until he decided that he wanted to run for political office.
Members of the Congressional Black Congress say they are watching out for the interests of their constituents, but they have not examined abortions impact.
Instead, you see them repeatedly speaking for and promoting abortion, Davis said, noting Georgia Rep. Hank Johnsons opposition to defunding abortion provider Planned Parenthood.
Its time that they stopped that.
Davis believes that these political leaders take their position because they receive political contributions from Planned Parenthood, NARAL and other pro-abortion rights groups.
And they just refuse to look at the evidence that is very clearly before their eyes.
The history of abortion in America also includes a racist, eugenicist past, according to Davis. She praised the Life Dynamics documentary Naafa 21 and recounted efforts of eugenicists like Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger.
We know that they want to control the black birth rate in particular, because Margaret Sanger told us when she launched her Negro Project. She paid black leaders to begin to teach and preach from the pulpit birth control. Later on her organization moved into abortion.
I think this racism is still ongoing, Davis said, charging that abortion supporters deliberately use black spokespersons to sidetrack objections.
We are not stupid, and they think were too stupid to notice it, she told EWTN News. Theres no other ethnic group that has this kind of horrific impact from abortion.
She said people from traditionally pro-life groups should confront their political leaders of whatever party who are defending abortion.
We must stop sending these men and women back into elected office, if they are not going to live up to what they tell us.
We have to stop allowing the culture to dictate the standards. We say, whether were Catholic or Protestant or whatever our religious denomination, that we serve a living God.
We must begin to proclaim the moral standards that God gave us, not what the politically correct culture is dictating.
Other ad campaigns on race and abortion have proved controversial. One billboard campaign said that Black children are an endangered species because of the high abortion rate. The billboard was taken down in New York City because of criticism from local political leaders, harassment and fears of violence.