True to its fealty to left-wing, western pop psychology, the Associated Press thinks it knows one of the principle reasons why roving gangs of Muslims are hacking Christians to death and burning their villages to the ground in Nigeria: It’s “poverty.”
Liberals that struggle to understand why man is often so cruel to his fellows seem always to have assumed that poverty is a key factor in violence and crime, but rarely it is the factor that liberals assume it to be. Poverty is no picnic, but it is not the cause of crime and violence. It is more likely a symptom itself rather than a catalyst.
It’s a chicken and egg question, of course. What came first, the poverty or the crime? But the simple fact of the matter is that poverty is seen in every corner of the Earth, yet crime rates vary wildly from area to area and era to era. So, if poverty is constant and is the catalyst for crime, why doesn’t crime hold at a fairly constant rate? It seems pretty obvious that crime is not directly caused by poverty.
Poverty is caused by a myriad of factors. A lack of education, racism, government oppression, social factors and the like all create poverty. But these same factors also mitigate crime in some parts of the world.
Typically, however, the AP has decided that “poverty” has caused the religious-based violence in Nigeria. While poverty most certainly is a problem in Nigeria, it has changed so little for generations that I find it hard to believe that it could be a cause of this newest wave of violence.
The real cause is both religious and cultural. That poverty abounds in the region is of little difference to the cause of the violence. The clash is between Muslims from the north and Christians in the south. It’s a fight for cultural supremacy. Poverty doesn’t figure into it very much, when all is said and done.
Yet here is the AP presenting “poverty” as a “cause” of the violence as if it is fact. The truth is that “poverty” being a catalyst for crime is a pop psychology trope, not a fact.
Illinois State Senator Dale Risinger (R, Peoria) has offered a bill in Springfield that drives our society further along the path of making parts of the human body a commodity, undercutting the sacred status of human life.
SB 3613, the Presumed Donor bill, amends the Illinois Anatomical Gift Act to define all Illinois patients as “presumed donors” unless they specifically avail themselves of the opt out clause. In other words, unless you tell the government that in the case of your presumed brain death you don’t want your body parts cut out and donated to other patients, they will be cut out and given to others.
As the law stands now a potential donor has to opt in to the organ donor program in order to allow the government to authorize usage of organs in case of brain death. One must inform the state ahead of time that one will agree to donate his organs. This bill would reverse that process of consent. If SB 3613 passes all patients will be assumed to be fodder for transplants unless they’ve specifically told the state that they do not want their body parts to be parceled out to other people.
As the synopsis of the bill states: This bill, “Provides that, on and after July 1, 2012, each resident of Illinois who is of sound mind and who has attained the age of 18 years is presumed, by operation of law, to have given all of his or her body for any organ donation purposes.”
Proponents of this bill say that it will help alleviate the desperate need for donor organs and will help hundreds of patients live that might otherwise die due to their disease and lack of donor organs.
It does sound like a great idea until one begins to look at it all with a bit more logical eye. Laws like a “presumed donor” law could easily cause doctors to care less for the injured when looking to harvest organs for patients waiting transplants. And since the criteria for a transplant includes the donor’s “brain death” one is struck with abuse that such a designation could lead to.
Medical science is replete with cases of patients that were called brain dead and given up as a lost cause but who woke up, healed, and became sentient, active people once again despite the doctor’s negative expectations. Unfortunately, medical science is not always right with its determination of when an injured patient is permanently brain dead.
That being the case, to assume that every patient that is determined to be brain dead is a candidate for organ harvesting could easily put the life of that patient in danger of being given less importance when weighed against people waiting on an organ donor list.
Injured patients have to trust that a doctor has their best interest in mind and must hope that a doctor’s zeal to harvest organs takes a back seat to the welfare of the potential donor. This law, however, would upset that delicate balance and place the need for organs at a higher level of importance than the life of the potential donor.
This all tends to make the human body more of a commodity than a sacred vessel. Doctors could easily begin to see severely injured patients as temporarily breathing organ banks instead of living humans that need their utmost skill to heal them.
If you stand against this bill and want to see Illinois organ donor law stay as an opt in law instead of one of “presumed consent” you have a chance to voice your disapproval of the law by supplying written testimony to Senator Risinger via email at senatorrisinger@yahoo.com. Unfortunately I am only finding out about this now as a public hearing was held on Tuesday, March 2.
Please do email Senator Risinger with your opposition to this bill.
Mechelle Hall has an incredible story that the mainstream media has completely ignored. She is a young woman who got pregnant and was going to have an abortion. On the way in, she had an altercation with some pro-life protesters:
Reached at her northern Wisconsin home Tuesday evening, Leah Winandy, 21, said she was protesting abortions on behalf of Pro Life Ministries of Duluth and handing out pamphlets on First Street outside the Building for Women when confronted by Hall.
“I was there to ask mothers not to kill their babies at the abortion clinic,” she said. “She [Hall] was walking toward me. She pulled out a knife and waved it at me saying ‘Don’t come near me.’ I said, ‘Please don’t kill your baby. Fear God.’ I came to the edge of the courtyard. I said, ‘Look and listen to your ultrasound.’ She turned around and came back with a knife and held it up to my throat.”
She was arrested and pleaded guilty to assault. But the story takes an unusual turn. Despite her assault against the pro-life protester, she didn’t get the abortion. Now, she’s thankful for Leah and Sarah Winandy’s intervention.
Mechelle Hall dabbed tears from her eyes Tuesday as she pleaded guilty to second-degree assault for brandishing a knife and threatening a woman who urged her not to get an abortion.
Yet, she revealed later, she never got it.
Hall, 26, of Superior, admitted her crime in a St. Louis County courtroom under questioning by county prosecutor Nathaniel Stumme. Public defender Laura Zimm told Judge David Johnson that, under terms of a plea agreement, Hall would receive probation and wouldn’t have to serve any jail time. It was a routine, perfunctory court hearing.
The surprise came when Hall was reached by phone at her Superior home Tuesday evening. She said she never had the planned abortion. Hall said she decided to keep the baby after being confronted by anti-abortion protesters Leah Winandy and her mother, Sarah, on Nov. 24. She said she was stressed out and they made her realize that she didn’t want to end the life she was carrying inside her.
Hall was asked if there was anything she’d like to say to the Winandys.
“Thank you for being there,” she said. “If they weren’t there, I probably would have gone through with it and regretted it for the rest of my life. It probably would have gone the other way. I’m sincerely sorry for doing that to her.”
Leah Winandy has forgiven Mechelle and agreed to her sentence of probation.
Winandy said she was contacted by the St. Louis County Attorney’s Office and asked if she would be agreeable to Hall receiving probation instead of a guideline prison sentence. She agreed.
“I forgive Mechelle for what she did; I do forgive her because God has given me forgiveness in my heart for her,” Winandy said.
All in all, I thought that it was a pretty incredible story. My heart just goes out to Mechelle. What she did in assaulting Leah Winandy was, of course, absolutely wrong. But imagine how she must have been feeling at the time: lost, confused, angry, scared, hurt. Someone tried to tell her she had another option and she lashed out. But Leah forgave her, which certainly defies the stereotype pro-choicers have created of abortion clinic protesters. They’d like you to think that pro-lifers are wild-eyed, crazy, Bible-thumping religious whack jobs. They don’t want people to see the peace and forgiveness that lives in the pro-life movement. They don’t want women contemplating abortion to realize that pro-lifers will be there for you with open arms. They want women considering abortion to think of pro-life activists as mean, crazy people so that the woman will be afraid to talk to them. What feminists and liberals don’t realize — or conveniently ignore — is that pro-lifers tend to be Christians who love God and simply want to protect life. They’ll be there for you if you decide to change your mind and they’ll be there to help you heal if you’ve had an abortion. They don’t judge you, and they don’t hate you.
But if you’re pro-abortion, you’ve always got to find a way to poke holes in the decision of a woman to choose life. And the feminists are already coming out of the woodwork to howl in anger about this story. Amanda Marcotte tweeted about it, calling Mechelle Hall crazy and unstable:
Convincing unstable, violent women to have children, one crazy incident at a time. Good work, antis!
I didn’t see Mechelle Hall as unstable and violent. I saw her as scared and angry. I saw her as someone who knew that Leah Winandy was speaking the truth but was afraid to listen. So many women who are facing abortion feel helpless and terrified. It doesn’t make them crazy. And Mechelle Hall had probably been filled with warnings about the crazy anti-abortion protesters who would yell and scream at her, who would try to stop her from having her abortion. When someone feels defensive, scared, and helpless, it’s not a surprise when they lash out.
And what is Amanda Marcotte’s point, anyway? That certain people shouldn’t be allowed to have children and should have mandated abortions if they get pregnant? Does that really sound like someone who is fighting for choice?
Salon also chimed in on this one, with a rather strange argument against this story. The writer, Tracy Clark-Flory, didn’t like how this story went. So she decides that it was just all made up. Seriously:
It’s a total anti-choicer’s wet dream. Much like Abby Johnson’s incredibly unreliable tale of converting from Planned Parenthood clinic director to antiabortion protester, this story plays to the anti-choice mythology that pro-choicers will convert if only they’re exposed to the reality of abortion. Activists believe themselves to be preaching the truth and many will take whatever means necessary to spread the word. This just serves as a dangerous message: Take things far enough, push women to their breaking point, and you’ll change their minds! This is already a favored tactic — the picket lines at besieged clinics can resemble a ghastly Halloween procession, what with the grim reaper costumes and gruesome images of aborted fetuses — and Hall’s about-face just offers further reinforcement.
After the Abby Johnson yarn, any “pro-life” conversion story should be met with a healthy dose of skepticism (and I’ve got plenty of extra doses, if anyone is lacking). I would love to pull at the pretty little bow that has been metaphorically placed on this case, but, unfortunately, Hall hasn’t returned my calls for comment.
Right. There’s definitely some kind of problem with this story, and it just must be a fake. Why would anyone change their mind about murdering their baby?
It’s interesting how angry pro-choicers get when someone actually exercises the right to choose that pro-choicers claim to be fighting for… and don’t choose what pro-choicers want them to choose. A woman decides to cancel her abortion, and feminists scream with outrage. It doesn’t really seem to me that giving women a choice is what they’re after. They want women to make their choice… which is, to always choose an abortion.
Mechelle Hall made a terrible choice in assaulting Leah Winandy. But I don’t know that it makes her some kind of violent, unstable person. If she had a history of violent behavior, then clearly she wouldn’t be sentenced to just probation with no jail time served. I’m glad she chose to give her baby a chance at life, and hopefully, she’s been able to find peace.
A pro-life billboard from Georgia Right To Life has liberals and feminists hopping mad, angry about being confronted with an uncomfortable truth. The billboard looks like this:
The billboards are clearly meant to catch your attention, and draw attention to the fact that minorities get a disproportionately large number of abortions, and especially in Georgia. Even the New York Times, which writes about the controversy with sentences dripping with disdain, is forced to admit the troubling statistics are real.
In 2006, 57.4 percent of the abortions in Georgia were performed on black women, even though blacks make up about 30 percent of the population, according to the most recent figures from the federal Centers for Disease Control. Of the 37 states that reported abortion data by race, Georgia was second only to New York and Texas in the number of abortions performed on black women. Only Mississippi and Maryland reported a higher percentage of abortions going to black women than Georgia.
The Census Bureau reported similar numbers for African-Americans nationwide. In 2005, black women had a rate of 49.3 abortions for every 1,000 performed as opposed to 13.6 for white women. Hispanic women came next at 26. Does this make black children “endangered”? Hardly. The fertility rate for black women is also higher, so of course black children are not literally in danger of becoming extinct. But I think it seems clear the the billboards are part of a shock campaign designed to get the attention of black women. Feminists and liberals know this, I’m sure, and are feigning outrage because Heaven forbid the public is exposed to any kind of pro-life messaging.
Most people, with the exception of strong pro-lifers, don’t know that black women get a disproportionate number of abortions. They also don’t know the disturbing background of Planned Parenthood… and that its founder, Margaret Sanger, was a racist who was a proponent of eugenics. This video from the American Life League, for example, details how deep racism and eugenics ran in Margaret Sanger.
So while this ad campaign may be shocking and a little over-the-top, it’s certainly making a valid point. The website featured on the billboards, www.toomanyaborted.com, exposes Planned Parenthood’s racist past and the sad statistics for abortions black women get in Georgia and across the country. Did you know, for example, that 94% of all abortion clinics are located in urban areas? Nationwide, blacks make up 12.8% of the population but account for 36.4% of all abortions. 43% of all black pregnancies end in abortion. Who can look at those statistics and feel their heart swell with pride? I doubt that there’s a vast racist conspiracy going on to exterminate the black race. I do think that Planned Parenthood happily profits off of underprivileged black women without ever giving them a chance to explore other options.
Once again, I can’t help but notice how “pro-choice” really means pro-abortion. Feminists and liberals howl with outrage whenever anything negative about abortion is even so much as mentioned. Why? Is the pro-abortion position really so fragile that they cannot handle the thought of Americans being informed about the gruesome nature of abortion? Most Americans don’t cheer the idea of a baby never getting the opportunity to live their life. They see it as a tragedy. But pro-choicers can’t handle that tragedy being brought to light… which, again, leads me to believe that it isn’t that they are for women making their own choice about their bodies. They want women to have abortions.
The abortion lobby, and especially Planned Parenthood, shows itself over and over again to be evil, out for blood and money. Black women deserve to know the truth about how they are being targeted.
Cross-posted from Cassy’s blog. Stop by for more original commentary, or follow her on Twitter!
One indication that moonbattery is not just misguided but evil is that progressives have an obsession with corrupting children. This is why, under our Hopey Changey regime of pure moonbattery, our federal “Safe Schools Czar” is a militant pervert associated with NAMBLA. It’s also the reason for this:
A new report by the International Planned Parenthood Federation is advocating that children as young as 10 be given extensive sex education, including an awareness of sex’s pleasures.
This latest push to sexualize 10-year-olds provides yet another opportunity for moonbats to open fire on Christianity, which they once again equate with Islam. Complains the federally funded abortion mill’s report (PDF):
Young people’s sexuality is still contentious for many religious institutions. Fundamentalist and other religious groups the — Catholic Church and madrasas (Islamic schools) for example — have imposed tremendous barriers that prevent young people, particularly, from obtaining information and services related to sex and reproduction. Currently, many religious teachings deny the pleasurable and positive aspects of sex and limited guidelines for sexual education often focus on abstinence before marriage…
Understandably, since abstinence does not produce costumers, Planned Parenthood disapproves of it — even among children.
According to PP, their 10-year-old potential customers are “sexual beings” in need of “comprehensive sexuality education.” Therefore sex ed should present sexuality as a “positive force for change and development, as a source of pleasure, an embodiment of human rights and an expression of self.”
Michelle Turner, president of the Maryland-based Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, notes that once again progressives are trying to shove parents out of the picture, the better to impose their social engineering. Ed Mechmann, spokesman for New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, observes that PP is attempting to undermine traditional values — and that PP makes money selling contraception and abortion.
Remember when moonbats launched a jihad against Joe Camel for allegedly tempting children to become smokers? Maybe old Joe should be brought back to advance a cause liberals seem to believe in — indiscriminate premature sex. The sooner kids get started, the more abortions they can have — and that means more profit for Planned Parenthood.
True to its fealty to left-wing, western pop psychology, the Associated Press thinks it knows one of the principle reasons why roving gangs of Muslims are hacking Christians to death and burning their villages to the ground in Nigeria: It’s “poverty.”
