Let Lauren Live!

ChristtheKingMaine ^ | May 7, 2008 | Judie Brown

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LAUREN RICHARDSON - YOU CAN HELP!
By Judie Brown

It has been a source of ongoing sadness to read of the difficulties Lauren Richardson’s father has had over the course of the past several months. For those of you who are not familiar with her case, Lauren overdosed on heroin on August 28, 2006. She suffered oxygen deprivation and, as a result of the overdose, is now in a coma and unable to speak out for herself. At the time of the overdose, Lauren was expecting a baby. Her parents honored what they knew would have been her wish and did all they could to keep her healthy and comfortable until the child was born. Today, though Lauren may not be aware of it, she is the mother of Ember Grace, who was born in February 2007.

Since the birth of her daughter, Lauren remains unable to speak of her concerns, but she has a loving father who is doing all he can to protect her from suffering the same fate as Terri Schiavo. However, Lauren’s mother, who has been named her legal guardian, is sadly not of the same opinion and is working with attorneys to pressure the courts to permit Lauren’s starvation.

Lauren’s father has kept hope alive, even at times when there appeared to be no hope in human terms. Lauren’s father is a man of hope in Christ and is dedicated to spending every breath he has on defending Lauren, regardless of what it might cost him in physical exhaustion and worldly goods. The most recent update for those concerned about Lauren tells us the following:

We struggle at times as we seek to share with the public the details of what is happening with Lauren because of the disagreement we have with Lauren’s mother. We cannot understand her reasoning in refusing a path of hope, healing and restoration for Lauren and insisting on causing her death by withholding food and water from her. The issue in Lauren’s case is the eternal truth that all people, no matter what their medical condition, bear the image of God and deserve basic care and an opportunity to be restored to health.

Bobby Schindler, Terri Schiavo’s brother, has written about Lauren in an editorial earlier this year, "False Compassion," and is working closely with Lauren’s father in order to provide expertise that he is uniquely qualified to share during a trying time like this.

There are many links on the Life for Lauren web site that will assist you in tracking this case and learning who is supporting Lauren’s ongoing care and who is opposing it. More importantly, there is something you can do to express your concerns.

ACTION NEEDED NOW

The governor of Delaware, Ruth Ann Minner, is being asked by pro-life Americans across this nation to intervene in this case in order to save Lauren from what many fear is an imminent court order dictating that Lauren be starved and dehydrated to death. I am asking you to be one of those who communicates your passionate belief that Lauren’s life is sacred and deserves to be protected from those who would order her death. The governor’s e-mail address is governor.minner@state.de.us.

Further, it would mean a great deal to Lauren’s father, Randy, if you sent him a copy of your e-mail to Governor Ruth Ann Minner. Randy’s e-mail address is Lifeforlauren@aol.com. 

During a recent visit to Anchorage, Alaska where Bobby Schindler was invited to speak, he told a reporter from The Catholic Anchor, "Once we accept that killing is an acceptable answer to human suffering, we lose any type of parameters. Euthanasia is a form of abandonment. It is not compassion."

Truer words were never spoken. As I frequently tell people who argue that we pro-lifers are being heartless and cruel for fighting to defend the rights of a "hopeless case," "God is the author of every human being’s life, and He has never given permission to a single one of us to arbitrarily rob another human being of life for any reason including disability or illness."

As Flannery O’Connor once wrote on the subject of false compassion, "In the absence of faith, we govern by tenderness. And tenderness leads to the gas chamber."

Lauren Richardson is not terminal – she is severely disabled. Lauren Richardson should not be murdered.

Judie Brown is president of American Life League and a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life.

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Meanwhile, we mark time as Lauren suffers from indifferent care while awaiting the decision of the gods of State who rule whether she is guilty of enough innocence to be executed.

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Check out this thread by Kaslin and also the post # 5 by Joiseydude. It is once more about Karl Marx's little puppet...

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It’s a piece of political conventional wisdom that’s been repeated many times: The cover-up is usually worse than the crime. A series of votes by Barack Obama in the Illinois Senate, however, turns that famous statement on its head. As a state legislator, Obama spoke out against, and voted down, a bill that would have explicitly extended legal protections to born-alive premature infants. In other words, he cast a vote against banning infanticide. Making matters worse — if such a thing is possible — the explanation Obama has peddled over the years to justify his vote has recently been exposed as untrue.

Average Americans, many of whom hold complicated views on the issue of abortion, may wonder why such a bill would even be necessary in the first place. Once a child is born, she becomes an independent human being who's entitled to the same rights and legal protections afforded to all citizens, right? Wrong, said State Senator Obama. Earlier this decade, the Born Alive Infant Protection Act was introduced in the Illinois state legislature after a Chicago area nurse named Jill Stanek blew the whistle on a practice she personally witnessed at her hospital. Babies who managed to survive late term abortions were being abandoned in soiled linen closets and left to die.....

Obama's Infanticide Disgrace

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[8mmMauser]

From Denver.................

Thanks, Leslie.

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Lori and Jon Driscoll of Colorado Springs hold photos of their son, Liam, left, and Annika Pruet of Montana. The heart belonging to Liam, who was taken off life support after seven days, was transplanted into Annika. The girl's life "helps us a lot," Lori Driscoll says. (RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post )

The hardest decision Lori and Jon Driscoll made was to remove life support from their terminally ill newborn son.

The next decision, they say, was the easiest. Liam's heart would be removed and donated to an infant girl.

"There was no doubt in our minds whatsoever," 36-year-old Lori Driscoll said. "It's the ultimate opportunity to give life."

There is doubt in the minds of some ethicists and doctors that the transplant procedures used at Children's Hospital for Liam and two other sets of children between 2004 and 2007 satisfied legal and ethical requirements.

The hearts of three severely brain- damaged newborns were removed soon after they first stopped beating, in just over a minute in two of the cases. The widely accepted protocol is five minutes. The Children's Hospital team was studying whether saving these minutes would improve the chances for organ recipients.

The hearts were immediately transplanted into three infants whose brains were healthy but whose hearts were not. The three are all alive and thriving.

Yet critics ask whether those once-still hearts, so quickly restarted in these other children, had really met the legal definition of irreversible cardiac death.

"We don't take organs from the near-dead to save other lives," said Robert Veatch, a Georgetown University bioethicist critical of the procedures.

Belief in hospital's actions

At least two families believe in what Children's Hospital did.

Liam Driscoll was born March 28, 2007, in Colorado Springs to parents expecting a completely normal birth. About the time his head was crowning, the doctor learned the oxygen supply through Liam's umbilical cord had been cut off. A doctor performed an emergency cesarean section to deliver him.

Liam's heart wasn't beating.

"They went through extraordinary measures to resuscitate him. And they did resuscitate him — after 19 minutes," Lori Driscoll said.

Medical personnel rushed Liam to Children's Hospital, where doctors used cutting-edge treatments to try to heal the devastating damage to Liam's oxygen-starved brain. They couldn't.

Jon and Lori spun out the rest of their lives in their minds. They planned how to care for a son with severe cerebral palsy. Jon, now 35, would quit his job so he could stay home with Liam. They would get a smaller house.

Even this downsized dream would vanish.

"He never opened his eyes. He never cried," Jon Driscoll said of his only son. "He never moved except during seizures. He couldn't breathe on his own. I still can't get my head around what happened to my son."

The Driscolls told doctors to remove Liam's life support.

"There was never any hope he could sustain his life on his own," Lori Driscoll said.

Liam and his parents spent the last night of his life together in the hospital. Some apparatus had been removed from their son so they could touch and hold him for the first time.

"We said goodbye," Lori Driscoll said. "It's the hardest thing we've ever done."

Liam's lifetime was seven days. It ended April 3, 2007.

"Liam was a beautiful little boy," his mother said. "He was active inside me. He moved around a lot. He kicked Jon in the ear once when he was listening to him."

"It was a good kick," Jon said.

"He looked like Jon," Lori said, "except he had my ears that stick out. He had what we call fancy hair, reddish blond.

"He was, and is, everything to us."

Dr. Biagio "Bill" Pietra, head of Children's transplant team, said he is stunned by what he calls the knee-jerk reaction of some ethicists critical of the protocols used in the three transplant cases.

"We felt unequivocally that the donors were dead before we removed their hearts," Pietra said.

Veatch, the Georgetown bioethicist, said the team compromised the dead-donor rule, which requires that a donor's heart, brain or respiratory function must irreversibly cease before any donor organs are harvested.

"They said cardiac function was irreversibly lost and then reversed it," Veatch said of Children's doctors.

Pietra said other teams of physicians cared for these infants and determined they were terminal patients.

"An individual isn't going to survive just because he or she has a good heart," Pietra said.

They had brain damage, he said. Life support was withdrawn. The infants stopped breathing. Their hearts eventually stopped.

Pietra said that brain death is difficult to determine in infants because the neurological tests for it were developed for mature brains. Delays could make a significant difference in organ health and the recipient's outcome, Pietra said.

On April 3, 2007, Annika Pruet received Liam's heart. She was 4 months, 3 days old.

"It helps us a lot"

"When our pager beeped — the first time we ever heard it — our hearts stopped," said her mother, Cam Pruet, 20, of Billings, Mont., recalling the day she was notified of a donor.

Annika, who was near death because her heart was too weak to move oxygen throughout her body, is now a skinny little dynamo who never stops moving.

Three months after Annika received Liam's heart, the Pruets received a letter from the Driscolls.

"They wanted to know about Annika and how she was doing," Cam Pruet said. "I cried. I can never thank them enough."

The families met for the first time in May in Denver.

"There was a little crying at first, but it was very comfortable," Cam Pruet said. "It was like we'd known them our whole lives."

Annika's life comforts the Driscolls.

"It helps us a lot," Lori Driscoll said. "The message we have is that people need to open their hearts and minds to what the gift of organ donation means."

Electa Draper: 303-954-1276 or edraper@denverpost.com

Making a heart-rending choice... Amid bioethicists' complaints over a quick transplant case, parents express "no doubt."

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[Kaslin]

What a pretty woman and a sad story

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The evidence so overwhelms, in process it unmasks the intent behind. Embryonic Stem Cell Research just doesn't produce any significant result. The continuance of some on the path of continued research simply shows their goal is different, to play gods with human life, not merely to do some good.

Thread by wagglebee.

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Does the path we take require us to take unethical actions? In addressing the issue of destructive embryonic stem cell research (ESCR), how congressional members answer this question matters a great deal if they want to make a compassionate and ethical decision regarding ESCR. Embryonic stem cell research requires the creation of a human embryo — and its destruction — in order to use the cells to do research that may or may not lead to treatments.

Having lost ground on the ethical debate over the appropriateness of ESCR, proponents argue for the ability of ESCR to yield positive results. There’s only one problem: ESCR hasn’t yielded positive results. However, adult stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) are already yielding positive results. Mounting evidence for the effectiveness of adult stem cells iPS have highlighted the reasons to raise the standard for stem cell research. Positive and negative legislative developments reflect this.

At the first major hearing on stem cell research in this Congress, Rep. DeGette announced that she, along with lead co-sponsor Rep. Michael Castle (R-Delaware), plan to introduce a bill which lifts the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Despite the lack of evidence for the need for such a measure, Rep. DeGette states that, in light of all the new stem cell research advancements, this is the best legislative plan of action for Congress to take................

ESCR: By Whatever Means Necessary? (Embryonic Stem Cell Research)

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[8mmMauser]

Underwhelming surprise in this thread by wagglebee. Maybe I am only whelmed.

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New York City is proof positive that the "safe sex" message is not generating positive results.

The Big Apple has been at the forefront of providing free or low-cost birth control, but it has not reduced pregnancies or abortions. Chris Slattery, founder of EMC Frontline Pregnancy Centers, says abortion has been higher in New York for four decades. He cites the most recent figures for abortions are "90,000 for the city limits in the last reported year – rates that approach 50 percent of all non-miscarried pregnancies ending in an abortion here.".......

The myth of 'safe sex'

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Did I ever give the impression I don't like the presumptive Democrat Candidate?

I have been trying to figure out who the critter really is. It appears he is some combination of the following monikers. Perhaps more abound and I haven't heard them yet. I know about Barry Barack Soetoro Hussein Muhammad Dunham. Growing up with all those aliases, he either has multiple personalities or suffers from I.D.D, Intention Deficit Disorder.

In this thread by cpforlife.org, Phil Dragoo did another fine job of a graphic on this scary critter. See post # 67.

Obama says pointed abortion query “above his pay grade”(POTUS then is certainly above)

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[exDemMom]

“This case shows that so-called ‘futile care theory’ needs to be seriously discussed on a national level,” Brahm said. “Some doctors believe that when a patient reaches a certain stage of illness, age or injury, any treatment other than comfort care is ‘futile’ and should be withheld or withdrawn, even if a patient wants treatment because of deeply held values or a desire to live."

I dunno, but I certainly feel more comfortable when I'm not starving and thirsty. Since when is basic food and drink considered "extraordinary medical treatment"?

[exDemMom]

New York City is proof positive that the "safe sex" message is not generating positive results.

The Big Apple has been at the forefront of providing free or low-cost birth control, but it has not reduced pregnancies or abortions. Chris Slattery, founder of EMC Frontline Pregnancy Centers, says abortion has been higher in New York for four decades. He cites the most recent figures for abortions are "90,000 for the city limits in the last reported year – rates that approach 50 percent of all non-miscarried pregnancies ending in an abortion here.".......

When I was in high school, a representative from Planned Parenthood came to talk to our biology class.

I remember that she stressed the dangers of various forms of contraceptives. In the case of "safe" contraceptives (condoms, diaphrams), she stressed how unreliable they are. Abortion, OTOH, she told us, is "perfectly safe."

In a long talk (she was there the whole class period), she said nothing but lies and misinformation--even at the age of 15, she didn't sound to me like she was genuinely trying to prevent pregnancy (as she had stated up front); she was selling abortion.

That was in the 70s. If anything, Planned Parenthood's "sex education" has probably become even more dismissive of contraceptives and more adamant on pushing abortion since then. It's not surprising that in a place like NY, with abundant "sex education", the abortion rate is so high.

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>>Since when is basic food and drink considered "extraordinary medical treatment"?

Amazing how they can stretch definitions to the point of ridiculousness and still some people swallow it.

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An amazing story of the power of life...

Thanks, Leslie and FV, for the tip!

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A couple from Kafr Yasif in the Galilee received the shock of their lives Monday when the wife's miscarried 610-gram fetus, which had been declared dead five hours earlier, was found to be breathing.

Photo: Channel 2

The baby girl, born during the 23rd week of gestation, still has an uncertain future. Hospital spokesman Ziv Farber said that any premature infant of that weight and age had only a 10 percent chance for survival. But five years ago, he added, "we had a baby weighing only 580 grams, and she survived."

The 26-year-old mother and her husband have a five-year-old son at home. When she gave birth after going into premature labor , the doctor on the scene pronounced it dead and it was taken to the morgue.

The father, Ali Majdub, told Channel 2 that his wife realized the child was alive after asking to see her dead daughter one last time.

"When we unwrapped the baby to see her, she realized it was moving. I began screaming and ran with it toward the doctors," he said.

She was then rushed to the neonatal ,
where doctors are fighting for her life. 

"I was in shock," the mother told Channel 2 last night. "I thought I wasn't hearing it right when they said she was still alive."

Dr. Moshe Daniel, the hospital's deputy director, said that in his 35 years as a physician, he had "never heard of such a case. It was like a medical miracle."

The hospital informed the Health Ministry, which will now decide whether to set up an internal or external investigating committee. Daniel speculated that the cooling effect of the morgue slowed the infant's metabolism, causing her oxygen consumption to be very low. There have been rare cases of people who nearly froze under snow "coming back to life," but there have been no reports of babies doing so.

Premature baby 'comes back to life'

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[8mmMauser]

The best we can do is post excerpts from World Net Daily, as Janet Folger really has a powerful commentary on the recent babble from the Obama Nation. (Note: I didn't borrow that term from Jerome Corsi. You saw it first here on Terri Dailies long ago...) Anyway, here is a sampling...

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Obama said he opposed Justice Clarence Thomas because he didn't have enough "experience." Rather ironic for a guy that's served all of 143 days in the U.S. Senate, don't you think?

Then, Obama paraphrased Matthew (25:40): "Whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me." Also ironic considering that Obama has turned his back on the all those who reside in the womb, those living, kicking half-born babies, infants who are completely born, and those disabled and dependent on our help to provide them food and water, the Terri Schiavos of the world. (Obama said his greatest regret was voting with the Senate to give Schiavo water). So much for his interest in protecting the least of these.

When claiming to be a Christian, Obama himself said we should express our faith with more than just words but "deeds." Really? Another verse comes to mind: Mark 7:6:.....

The night the election turned

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[8mmMauser]

Oh really?

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The Democratic National Committee is hoping to drive a rift between John McCain and voters with disabilities.

It's a group whose size is difficult to quantify, but one that both candidates have deemed important enough to devote time to courting.

While McCain and Barack Obama both support the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and a current bill in Congress that would strengthen its implementation, a key selling point for advocates for the disabled, they disagree on the Community Choice Act.

~Snip~

The poll, though, did not ask how this concern compared to more mainstream ones, such as the economy or the war in Iraq, or break down what respondents took the phrase "an issue that impacts disabilities" to mean.

To many it may be funding for research of their own condition or for embryonic stem cell research. Many disability rights activists oppose assisted suicide for the severely disabled, and spoke out against it in the case of Terri Schiavo. ...............
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Obama May Have Edge with Disabled

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Of all my favorites in the heroism department, Dr. Alveda King ranks near the top. Thread by wagglebee.

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DENVER, August 18, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - On August 25th, Archbishop Charles Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., Auxiliary Bishop of Denver the Most Rev. James Conley and leaders of other Christian denominations will join Dr. Alveda C. King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Director of African American Outreach for the Gospel of Life Ministries for a peaceful prayer vigil in front of the new Planned Parenthood Clinic in Stapleton.

The "Light in the Darkness" vigil, organized by the Denver Archdiocese's Respect Life office and the Office of Black Catholics, will begin at 7:30pm in Martin Luther King Park (E.38th St.), one block from the Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains abortion clinic, and will end with a candlelight procession all around the perimeter of the new clinic...........................

Niece of Martin Luther King Jr. to Lead Prayer Vigil Outside Largest U.S. Abortion Centre

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RU 486? Not me, I'm against it...

Thread by wagglebee.

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Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- In the waning days of the Clinton administration, pro-life advocates say FDA officials rushed through approval of the dangerous abortion drug RU 486. A new report claims the agency did not rush the drug through the approval process, even though it has resulted in the deaths of at least 13 women worldwide.....

Govt Report Claims Clinton Administration Approved Abortion Drug Properly

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[8mmMauser]

Oh, Really?

Thread by Man50D with thanks to narses for the ping.

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Women who have had abortions, scientists, and pro-life advocates are joining forces to refute the findings of an American Psychological Association (APA) task force that claims women who have one abortion do not experience any more mental problems than women who decide to give birth.

“The best scientific evidence published indicates that among adult women who have an unplanned pregnancy, the relative risk of mental health problems is no greater if they have a single elective first-trimester abortion or deliver the pregnancy,” said Brenda Mayor, lead psychologist on the APA task force, in a press release about the report, which was released last week.....

Post-Abortion Women Challenge Psychologists’ Claim of ‘Harmless’ Abortions

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[syriacus]

Premature baby 'comes back to life'

That is an amazing story!

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Haleigh Poutre update...

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SPRINGFIELD - An Oct. 1 competency hearing has been set here for the girl who was at the center of a storm of controversy and concern after she was hospitalized at age 11 with a serious head injury.

After Haleigh Poutre was brought to Noble Hospital Sept. 11, 2005, with a severe head injury, her adoptive mother and stepfather were charged with abuse. The state Department of Social Services at one point sought to have a feeding tube that was keeping her alive removed, saying the girl had no brain function. In February it was reported she had recovered enough to possibly testify in the criminal case.

Hampden Superior Court Judge Judd J. Carhart on Tuesday set the date for a competency hearing for Haleigh as requested by the lawyer for her stepfather, Jason D. Strickland. 

~Snip~

In February, defense lawyer Alan J. Black said in a motion he filed that he had been told Haleigh had recovered to the point that she could testify against Strickland, 34. He immediately began raising issues of her competency to Carhart, who is specially assigned to the criminal case.

Black said he has not been allowed to see the girl by the state Department of Social Services, which has custody of Haleigh, nor the Franciscan Hospital for Children in Boston where Haleigh is hospitalized.

He said he has an expert reviewing Haleigh's medical records. "My expert would like to have access to the victim," he said.

In order to have Haleigh in Carhart's courtroom here for a competency hearing, Black will give her notice to appear, he said.

Court to assess girl's competency

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[8mmMauser]

The Democrat Party, (I should say "democratic"..., friends tell me.) O.K., the democratics are a providing a nice illustration/example of the meaning of the word, "quandary" to the pool of world knowledge. Who says killing the unwanted is an easy job? Who would even want to be in their platform shoes?

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The Democratic Party is busy digging itself into a hole that will be difficult to climb out of. The party’s official platform has always called for American taxpayers to fund abortion along the lines laid out in Roe v. Wade. In other words, the party wants money withheld from your paycheck transferred to businesses that perform abortion on-demand throughout all nine months of pregnancy.

The new platform still calls for that: “The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right,” it says.

But now it adds another thought: “The Democratic Party also strongly supports a woman’s decision to have a child by ensuring access to and availability of programs for pre- and post-natal health care, parenting skills, income support, and caring adoption programs.”

The natural question arises: Why do you strongly support a woman’s decision to have a child? If the answer is, “Because that’s a legitimate right of hers, and a woman does a noble thing when she keeps her child,” then a follow-up question is in order.

If you believe that a pregnant woman is carrying a child, what makes it okay for some women to kill theirs?

In fact, the new language, by admitting that women are carrying children, actually makes the party look worse.

~Snip~

Barack Obama started out deciding that unborn children didn’t have the right to life, and it wasn’t long before he added “accidental” newborns to his list. Next came the unwanted wife, Terri Schiavo. The Senate tried to save her when a court allowed her husband to starve her to death in the hospital. Obama called the Senate’s attempt a mistake.

Once you say that some people don’t have a right to life, where do you stop?

Platform Games

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[8mmMauser]

Some perceive a quandary on the other side of the house, as if there really is an other side, and bemoan the Republican Party just not being moderate enough to attract the milquetoasts of the country. They may even find the opinion from Emory abrasive.

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"The Republicans' difficulty is they have a small-government philosophy and they use the rhetoric of limited government, but when they become the majority party, it's very difficult to hold to that philosophy," said Emory University political scientist Merle Black, who has written extensively on the party.

Republicans face philosophical dilemmas elsewhere, too. For years, social conservatives provided a bulwark of votes and energy, driving the party's opposition to abortion, gay marriage and flag desecration. But many moderate voters felt the party went too far, especially when GOP leaders tried to prevent the husband of Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman in a persistent vegetative state, from allowing her to die in 2005......

GOP faces hard choices in bid for revival

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