Saint Vincent of Saragossa - January 22

For gift items related to the Catholic faith
please visit Lynn's Timeless Treasures 

Pro-Life vs Pro-Choice - Roe v Wade Doe v Bolton 41 Years Later - Part IV - 10th Walk For Life West Coast

“We couldn't believe that they
had the nerve to come to San Francisco.” 

Dian Harrison, President 

Golden Gate Planned Parenthood 

San Francisco Chronicle 

January 20, 2005

Walk for Life
Love Wins
Michael John Poirier

Speakers from Past Years
Each with a Great Message 

2010
Abby Johnson

Lila Rose
Live Action
2011
Mary Poirier Prayer Breaks

2012
Dr. Vansen Wong
Alternative Pregnancy Center 

2013
Jennifer O'Neill
Hope and Healing

Though ignored by the press,
Walk For Life West Coast is
ten years and growing.

2005 7,000 walked
2006 15,000 walked
2009 30,000 walked
2011 40,000 walked
2013 55,000 walked
2014 60,000 walked

We took the following video at the
Walk for Life 2012.  At 2:02 we heard from
the other side. It is not censored. 

Walk for Life
with your eyes on Me
Do not worry
I am with you
Mercy concurs
Love wins
(Michael John Poirier, Walk for Life- Love Wins) 

Pro-Life vs Pro-Choice - Roe v Wade Doe v Bolton 41 Years Later Part III The Science of Life

 “You would agree I suppose that one of the important factors that would have to be considered in this case is what rights, if any, does the unborn fetus have? (Justice Bryon White on Roe v Wade)

“The basic constitutional question initially is whether or not an unborn fetus is a person, isn't it? That’s critical to this case. If it were established that an unborn fetus is a person within the protection of the 14^th Amendment you would have an almost impossible case here." (Justice Potter Stewart on Roe v Wade)

Prudent Language 

In 1960, nine years after Margaret Sanger secured a grant from her organization Planned Parenthood for Gregory Pincus to begin work developing a synthetic hormone that could be used for birth control, the FDA approved the "magic pill" Sanger had been dreaming of since 1912.  

Immediately the pharmaceutical industry envisioned a huge market and nine American companies quickly developed a version of the Pill. 

In 1966 the FDA looked into the common side effects of the Pill and though the task force did not find conclusive evidence that the Pill caused negative side effects they had  pill manufacturers lower the hormone levels and put the Pill back on the market with less rules and regulations. 

In 1969 the FDA took another look at the Pill and reported that if the Pill failed to suppress ovulation (its primary role), the second major effect of the Pill was to prevent implantation of the embryo in the wall of the mother's womb.  This was not good news for Planned Parenthood. 

Just six years earlier in 1963, the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare had issued a leaflet that defined abortion as "all the measures which impair the viability of the zygote at any time between the instant of fertilization and the completion of labor." 

Furthermore, until 1972, the three major medical dictionaries defined fertilization (the union of spermatozoon and oocyte to form a zygote) as the moment of conception.  If the Pill prevented implantation of a fertilized zygote, then it would medically be considered an abortifacient.  

What if the definition of conception was changed?  What if successful implantation was defined as the moment of conception?  

Brent Boving a Swedish researcher was way ahead of the curve.  He had already planted that thought in the minds of those gathered at a 1959 Planned parenthood/Population Council symposium when he made this comment:  "The fact of giving implantation control the advantage of being socially considered as conception prevention rather than the destruction of an initiated established pregnancy is simply the habit of prudent language."  

In other words all social engineers have to do is say that conception doesn't begin at fertilization, but it begins at successful implantation.  If enough important people say this enough times, the habit of prudent language will make it the acceptable standard.  Or as Vladimir Lenin stated, "A lie told often enough becomes the truth." 

In 1972, Stedman's became the first medical dictionary to define conception as the "successful implantation of the blastocyst in the uterine lining."  A year later brought the favorable decisions of Roe v Wade and Doe v Bolton.  

As Planned Parenthood celebrated their victory they came to the sudden realization that they now had another definition in need of manipulation.  At what moment does a fetus become a human person?  Having mastered the art of semantic gymnastics to further their cause, Planned Parenthood knew the answer to that question. When a fetus becomes a human person "is simply the habit of prudent language."  

When does a Person Become Human? 

Since the decision of Roe v Wade and Doe v Bolton in 1973 science has made great advances in the study of Embryology and the Human Person.   

Today Planned Parenthood’s answer to the question “When does being a  person begin?” is: “Most medical authorities and Planned Parenthood agree that it starts when a baby takes its first breath…A pregnant woman is a person.  We know for sure that she has morals, feelings, human needs, and a conscience.  Because of this, we know that she is the only one able to make a decision about her pregnancy options.” (since I complied this information, Planned Parenthood has since taken down this question and answer)

In the following video produced by Lila Rose of Live Action, Dr. Carhart who performs Third-Trimester Abortions believes that "life begins when the mother thinks it begins." It is difficult to watch but 1% of abortions are late term.  

Women deserve better answers! 

Maureen Condic gives a more scientific explanation in her 2008 White Paper, When Does Human Life Begin?  A Scientific Perspective. It can be read in it's entirety here.  The following are excerpts: 

“Is a human zygote a human organism?  For developing humans, the behavior and structures associated with adult stages of life are not yet fully manifest (embryos neither look like nor act like mature human beings).  However, developing human beings are composed of characteristic human parts and they exhibit a human pattern of developmental behavior.  The key feature of a human pattern of development is its organization towards the production of a mature human body.

From the moment of sperm-egg fusion, a human zygote acts as a complete whole, with all the parts of the zygote interacting in an orchestrated fashion to generate the structures and relationships required for the zygote to continue developing towards its mature state.  

Everything the sperm and egg do prior to their fusion is uniquely ordered towards promoting the binding of these two cells.  Everything the zygote does from the point of sperm-egg fusion onward is uniquely ordered to prevent further binding of sperm, and to promote the preservation and development of the zygote itself.  The zygote acts immediately and decisively to initiate a program of development that will, if uninterrupted by accident, disease, or external intervention, proceed seamlessly through formation of the definitive body, birth, childhood, adolescence, maturity, aging, ending with death. This coordinated behavior is the very hallmark of an organism...

Based on a scientific description of fertilization, fusion of sperm and egg in the "moment of conception" generates a new human cell, the zygote, which composition and behavior distinct from that of either gamete.  Moreover, this cell is not merely a unique human cell, but a cell with all the properties of a fully complete (albeit immature) human organism; it is an individual constituted to carry on the activities of life by means of organs separate in function but mutually dependent: a living being."  

It is in the defense of the dignity of women, the dignity of human life and the 56 million who have been legally aborted since 1973 that thousands Marched for Life in DC on Wednesday and tomorrow  Walk for Life in San Francisco. Pax

Part IV Walk for Life West Coast

___
Cover of Life Magazine April 30, 1965 - Photo by Lennart Nilsson (fetus 18 weeks)
Lennart Nilsson, A Child is Born: The Drama of Life Before Birth, 1965- a fetus at 7 weeks
Nilsson, 10 weeks
Nilsson, 20 weeks
Life Magazine Photo by Max Aguilera-Heilweg taken in July 1999 of Sarah Marie Switzer at 24 weeks during an operation for spina bifida.  After the operation she was reinserted into her mother;s womb and born two months later nine weeks premature.

Condic, Maureen L., When Does Human Life Begin?  A Scientific Perspective, The Westchester Institute For Ethics & the Human Person, White Paper, Volume 1, Number 1, October 2008, p.  6-7.

Glossary from Maureen Condic White Paper

Fertilization: the process of union of two gametes whereby the somatic chromosome number is restored and the development of a new individual is initiated.  

Gamate: a mature male or female germ cell (sperm or egg) usually possessing a haploid chromosome set and capable of initiating formation of a new dipllid individual by fusion with a gamete of the opposite sex.

Organism:  an individual constituted to carry on the activates of life by means of organs separate in function but mutually dependent:  a living being.

Zygote: a cell formed by the union of two gametes; broadly, the developing individual produced from such a cell. 

Pro-Life vs Pro-Choice - Roe v Wade Doe v Bolton 41 Years Later Part II - Who are Roe and Doe?

Roe v Wade 

January 22, 1973 

Who is Norma (Roe) McCorvey?

Norma McCorvey was a self described “simple little old girl from Louisiana,” who wanted an abortion.  Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee wanted to change a law.  Norma signed an affidavit Weddington placed before her on March 7, 1970.  By May 22, 1970, Weddington and Coffee had amended the case to a class-action suit.  Now Jane Roe would represent not just Norma McCorvey but all pregnant women who were “similarly situated.”  This would lead to the 1973 Supreme Court decision invalidating all state laws restricting women’s access to abortions during the first trimester of pregnancy.  Abortion doctors took their shingle off the back alley lamppost and placed them prominently over the front door of their office.  Abortion was now legal in the United States. 

In 1995 while working at an abortion clinic Norma had a change of heart and left the abortion industry to work as a pro-life activist for Operation Rescue.  In 1998 and 2005 she gave testimonies before the Senate Judiciary Committee where she admitted to lying in the affidavit she signed in 1970. 


Norma McCorvey runs her own pro-life ministry Roe No More and is working with The Justice Foundation to reverse Roe v Wade.  

Roe v Wade 

January 22, 1973 

Decision by Justice Blackmun

"This Texas federal appeal and its Georgia companion, Doe v Bolton, present constitutional challenges to state criminal abortion legislation...We forthwith acknowledge our awareness of the sensitive and emotional nature of the abortion controversy...

The constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy.  In a line of decisions...the Court has recognized that a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist in the Constitution...

This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy...

We therefore conclude that the right of personal privacy includes the abortion decision, but that this right is not unqualified and must be considered against important state interests in regulations...

The Constitution does not define "person" in so many words.  Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment contains three references to "persons."...None indicates, with any assurance, that it has any possible pre-natal application...the word "person," as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn...

Texas urges that, apart from the Fourteenth Amendment, life begins at conception and is present throughout pregnancy, and that, therefore, the State has a compelling interest in protecting that life from and after conception.  We need not resolve the difficult questions of when life begins..."

The final summation of Blackmun's augment in layman's terms: In Roe v Wade, the Supreme Court adopted a trimester framework for state regulation of abortion. For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician.  For the stage subsequent to the end of the first trimester the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health.  For the stage subsequent to viability the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of of human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe abortion when necessary to preserve the life of the mother. 

Applying a double standard, arbitrarily giving the word person a narrow definition assuring no equal right of protection for the unborn child, while using a broad definition for the word privacy ensuring that the mother would be the only "person" of concern in the abortion decision, Justice Blackmun and the Supreme Court legalized abortion in the United States.  But Justice Blackmun wasn't done for the day.  He had another case to rule, Doe v Bolton. 

Doe v Bolton

January 22, 1973

Who is Sandra (Doe) Cano?

“The Doe v Bolton Supreme Court decision bears my name.  I am Sandra Cano, the former “Doe.”  Doe v Bolton is the companion case to Roe v Wade.  Using my name and life, Doe v Bolton falsely created the health exception that led to abortion on demand and partial birth abortion.  How it got there is still pretty much a mystery to me.  I only sought legal assistance to get a divorce from my husband and to get my children from foster care.  I was very vulnerable:  poor and pregnant with my fourth child, but abortion never crossed my mind.  Although it apparently was utmost in the mind of the attorney from whom I sought help. ..I did not seek an abortion nor do I believe in abortion.  Yet my name and life is now forever linked with the slaughter of 40 – 50 million babies.  I have tried to understand how it all happened…Doe has been a nightmare…One of the Justices of the Supreme Court said during oral argument in my case “What does it matter if she is real or not.”  Well I am real and it does matter…I want the case which was supposedly to benefit me, be either overturned or retired.  If it is retired, at least I will have an opportunity to speak for myself in court, something that never happened before…“(1) 

Doe v Bolton 

January 22, 1973
Decision by Justice Blackmun

With all the press surrounding the decision of Roe v Wade, the companion case of Doe v Bolton (referenced by Justice Blackmun in his opinion) received very little press.  It is significant that the decision for Doe v Bolton came down the same day as Roe v Wade.  

Doe v Bolton made it possible to have an abortion at any time if it would impair the physical or mental health of the mother.   

"In this appeal, the criminal abortion statues recently enacted in Georgia are challenged on constitutional grounds...In Roe v Wade, we today have struck down, as constitutionally defective, the Texas criminal abortion statues that are representative of provisions long in effect in a majority of states."

Justice Blackmun's opinion then defined a noncriminal abortion as "an abortion performed by a physician duly licensed in Georgia when based upon his best clinical judgment...an abortion is necessary because: (1) A continuation of the pregnancy would endanger the life of the pregnant woman or would seriously and permanently inure her health; or (2) The fetus would very likely be born with a grave, permanent, and irredeemable mental or physical defect; or (3) The pregnancy resulted from, forcible or statutory rape."  

Justice Blackmun's opinion went on to mention that the Appellants (Doe's) argument that "it would be physically and emotionally damaging to Doe to bring a child into her poor, fatherless family, and because advances in medicine and medical techniques have made it safer for a women to have a medically induced abortion than for her to bear a child, thus, a statue that requires a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term infringes not only on a fundamental right to privacy, but to the right to life itself."  

Justice Blackmun then painted a rather broad definition of "health" as in the words of the Georgia statue, " an abortion is necessary" is a professional judgment that the Georgia physician will be called upon to make routinely.  "We agree...that the medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors - physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age - relevant to the well being of the patient.  All these factors may relate to health. This allows the attending physician the room he needs to make his best medical judgment. And it is room that operates for the benefit, not the disadvantage, of the pregnant woman."  

With this Justice Blackmun's ruling in Doe v Bolton effectively nullified any limitations or conditions he had place on his abortion ruling in Roe v Wade.  Justice Blackmun essentially defined the term "health" so broadly in Doe v Bolton that abortion could be legally performed through all nine months of pregnancy for almost any reason.
  

Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood have won for now, but this whole "person" thing is going to be an issue. 

Pro-Life vs Pro-Choice - Roe v Wade Doe v Bolton 41 Years Later Part III - The Science of Life

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Contemplation of Justice - US Supreme Court Building
Wisdom - US Supreme Court Building
(1) US Senate Committee on the Judiciary June 23, 2005, Testimony of Sandra Cano 

Pro-Life vs Pro-Choice - Roe v Wade Doe v Bolton 41 Years Later Part I - Margaret Sanger

41 years ago, the Supreme Court delivered the Roe v. Wade decision, along with companion case Doe v. Bolton. Today marks 41* years of over 56 million legalized abortions.(1)  Commemorating today's 40th March for Life Washington, D.C and the days preceding the 10th Walk for Life West Coast  lets us review how we got here. 

Margaret Sanger
In Her Own Words

Margaret Sanger spent her entire adult life defending her beliefs.  She was the founder of Planned Parenthood, who today touts her as one of their movement’s great heroes.  What were her beliefs?

“Marriage laws abrogate the freedom of woman by enforcing upon her a continuous sexual slavery and a compulsory motherhood.” (2) 

“For centuries she [woman] has populated the earth in ignorance…she has become not the mother of a nobler race but a mere breeding machine grinding out a humanity which fills insane asylums, feeble-minded institutions, hospitals and penitentiaries…The world is full of undesired babies and every undesired baby represents a terrible infringement of the personal rights of a mother…”(3)

“The great majority of mental defectives are not in institutions, but are at large in the community.  No defective can produce normal offspring…The supply of defectives should be cut off at the source.  Mere governmental economy demands this…To use public funds needlessly for the care of the unfit instead of for education and opportunity for the normal is criminal stupidity…” (4)

“Birth control itself, often denounced as a violation of natural law, is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of those who will become defectives.  So, in compliance with nature’s working plan, we must permit womanhood its full development before we can expect of it efficient motherhood.  If we are to make racial progress, this development of womanhood must precede motherhood in every individual woman…” (5)

“Today Eugenics is suggested by the most diverse minds as the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial political and social problems…The Eugenic and civilization value of Birth Control is becoming apparent to the enlightened and the intelligent…As an advocate of Birth Control, I wish to take advantage of the present opportunity to point out that the unbalance between the birth rate of the “unfit” and the “fit,” admittedly the greatest present menace to civilization, can never be rectified by the inauguration of a cradle competition between these two classes.  In this matter, the example of the inferior classes, the fertility of the feeble minded, the mentally defective, the poverty stricken classes, should not be held up for emulation ...the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over fertility of the mentally and physically defective.”  (6) 

“The campaign for birth control is not merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical with the final aims of Eugenics.” (7)

“Have Congress set up a special department for the study of population problems…the main objects…to raise the level and increase the general intelligence of the population…to keep the doors of immigration closed to the entrance of certain aliens whose conditions is known to be detrimental to the stamina of the race…to apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted, or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring…to insure the country against future burdens of maintenance for numerous offspring as may be born of feebleminded parents…give certain dysgenic groups in our population their choice of segregation or sterilization…to apportion farm lands and homesteads for these segregated persons where they would be taught to work under competent instructors for the period of their entire lives…Take an inventory of …illiterates, paupers, unemployables, criminals, prostitutes, dope-fiends, classify them in special departments under governmental medical protection and segregate them on farms…With the future citizen safeguarded…we could then turn our attention to the basic needs for international peace.”  (8) 

In 1939 Margaret Sanger established the Birth Control Federation of America which became Planned Parenthood in 1942. In 1951, Margaret Sanger secured a grant from Planned Parenthood for Gregory Pincus to begin work on the creation of her “magic pill,” a hormone that could be used as a contraceptive. 

Margret Sanger
Laws that needed Challenging

At the same time Margret Sanger was writing about her philosophy she was challenging what she considered archaic and inhuman laws.

In the June 1914 issue of her new magazine, The Women Rebel, Margaret Sanger wrote that she dreamed that someday there would be a “magic pill” as easy to take as an aspirin that could be used as birth control.  Her use of the term “birth control” in a magazine available to the general public was a decisive challenge by Sanger to the Comstock Act of 1873. 

In an act of civil disobedience, Sanger again challenge the Comstock Law by opening a birth control clinic in Brooklyn New York in 1916.  For ten cents each woman received Sanger’s pamphlet, What Every Girl Should Know, which explained the female reproductive system and had instructions on various forms of contraceptives.  Ten days later the clinic was closed and Sanger arrested.  Offered a suspended sentence if she promised not to repeat her crime, Sanger refused and spent thirty days in jail.

“No other country in the world except the United States makes it a crime to impart information to prevent conception… My experience as a trained nurse convinced me that these laws are the most outrageous piece of legislation on the statue books today...” (9)

In 1918 Jonah Goldstein represented Sanger in her appeal.  Goldstein argued that the Comstock Act violated both the federal and state Constitutions, by preventing the dissemination of information to all persons.  The New York Court of Appeals sustained her conviction - However, Sanger’s upheld conviction led Judge Frederick Crane to include in his decision “a more liberal interpretation of New York State’s “Little Comstock” law, enabling physicians for the first time to legally prescribe contraception for general health reasons.”  (10)

“When we realize that each feeble minded person is a potential source of an endless progeny of defect, we prefer the policy of immediate sterilization of making sure that parenthood is absolutely prohibited to the feeble minded.”  (11)

Margaret Sanger’s idea of a “policy of immediate sterilization” became law when Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes affirmed Buck v Bell in 1927. “With the Supreme Court endorsement [of Buck v Bell] the Virginia law provided authority for sterilization of more than 8,300 inmates of state mental institutions between 1927 and 1972, setting the stage for the passage of laws that would sanction sterilization operations performed on another 60,000 Americans.” (12) 

On a side note, the law under which Hitler sterilized millions during World War II contained much of the same language found in the Virginia sterilization law endorsed by the US Supreme Court in Buck v. Bell.  Also at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials of 1945 – 1946, the Nazi defendants of Hitler’s Third Reich, testified that their eugenics laws were based on Virginia’s precedent.  (13)

In 1936, in another act of civil disobedience, Margaret Sanger was arrested after leaking information to postal authorities that she illegally ordered birth control products through the mail.  This led to a victory for  Sanger and the birth control movement in United States v. One Package, and another crack in the Comstock Law.

After Sanger established Planned Parenthood in 1942, she used the power of her organization to continue to go after the law with the favorable decisions of Poe v Ullman in 1961 and Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965.

In Griswold v Connecticut, Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut Executive Director Estelle Griswold and their Medical Director C. Lee Buxton were arrested and fined $100 for giving information, instruction and medical advice to married persons regarding birth control. When this case was brought before the Supreme Court, the decision found that though the right to privacy is not specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights “specific guarantees in the Bills of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations,” that protect a right to privacy in this case.

Say what, dictionary please.  A penumbra is an opaque shadow and emanations emit a product.  So the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Griswold and Planned Parenthood not because the right to privacy is in the Bill of Rights, but because guarantees in the Bill of Rights emit opaque shadows that protect the right to privacy in this case.  Or something like that. 

More changes would be needed to get to Margaret Sanger's ultimate goal:  the facilitation of "weeding out the unfit by ridding the world of the "undesired babies" that are an "infringement on the personal rights of the mother."  Margaret Sanger's life mission would come to fruition when every woman was free to privately make her own decision on birth control, on when or if to bear or beget a child.  Margaret Sanger died in 1966, seven years before her goal would be achieved on January 22, 1973 in companion cases Roe v Wade and Doe v Bolton. 

In November 1972 Hollywood joined hands with Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood with the Golden Girls two part episode, Maude’s Dilemma telling women “There’s only one sensible way out of this [pregnancy], you don’t have to have the baby. (2:40 minute mark)... It's as simple as going to the dentist.(7.46)”

It is not as simple as going to the dentist - numerous men and women have come to this realization. If you are in need of help or guidance because you feel regret from your abortion please visit Rachel's Vineyard healing the pain of abortion one weekend at a time. Pax. Pro-Life vs Pro-Choice - Roe v Wade Doe v Bolton 41 Years Later Part II Who are Roe and Doe?

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* Today January 22, 2015 marks 42 years of legalized abortions.  Commemorating today's 41th March for Life Washington, D.C and the days preceding the 11th Walk for Life West Coast 


(1)The State of Abortion in the United States, January 21, 2014
(2) Margaret Sanger, The Women Rebel, No Gods No Masters, March 1914
(3) Margaret Sanger, Voluntary Motherhood, March 1917
(4) Margaret Sanger, Birth Control: Yes or No?, September 1919
(5) Margaret Sanger, Woman and the New Race, 1920, Chapter 18, The Goal, page 229
(6)Margaret Sanger, “The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda”, The Birth Control Review, October 1921, page 5
(7)Ibid.
(8)Margaret Sanger, A Plan for Peace, The Birth Control Review, April 1932
(9)Margaret Sanger, “Voluntary Motherhood, March 1917
(10)Margaret Sanger, Papers Project
(11)Margaret Sanger, Pivot of Civilization, 1922, pg 101-102
(12)Lombardo, Paul.  Three Generations, No Imbeciles:  New Light on Buck v Bell, New York University Law Review, April 1985
(13)Thirteen Ways of Looking at Buck v Bell, Michelle Oberman, SCU School of Law, 3/20/09, page 21
Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut Executive Director Estelle Griswold outside Planned Parenthood Center of New Haven

West Coast Walk For Life 2012

Due to a scheduling conflict (the West Coast Rally for Reproductive Justice had reserved our usual location) our Walk for Life was moved. The West Coast Rally for Reproductive Justice was very helpful though; this new venue provided better access to BART and granted us much more distinction as we walked down Market Street. So thank you.

Walk For Life West Coast 2012

Saturday morning after our first storm of the New Year and under cloudy skies we boarded BART setting off for San Francisco and the 8th Annual Walk for Life West Coast. As we exited the station at UN Plaza and Civic Center the sky was blue and the air crisp, a perfect day for a walk down Market with 40,000 or so other like minded people united for life.

By 11AM the square in front of City Hall began to fill, Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life gave the pre-opening blessing and the side stage filled with women from Silent No More started the day’s events by sharing their testimonies. They courageously told stories, they had for years held secretly in their heart. They shared the stories of their abortion experiences, the sights, sounds and smells that had been imprinted in their brain and stamped forever in their heart, and they would be Silent No More.

At noon under very cooperative clear skies and a continuing bulging crowd we turned our attention to the main stage. We listened to Dr. Vansen Wong, a former abortionist ask the crowd, "If you have taken the life of another human being, raise your hand." Then he proceeded to admit that he had performed over a hundred abortions. Thankfully he had a change of heart and now believes “Abortion is intolerable, abortion is irrational and abortion has no place in civilized society."

There were two more testimonies from Lori Hoye and Jacquie Stalnaker that would touch even the hardest of hearts. And finally an enthusiastic presentation from Pastor Clenard Howard Childress, Jr of Black Genocide.org  before we were on our way.

Flanked by SFPD on bicycles and motorcycles we left the square in front of City Hall and headed toward Market.

Though we didn’t warrant as much press as the Occupy demonstration, the Chronicle did post some nice pictures on their web site. And ABC did a cover the event - thank you. 
 

We were an unusually cooperative crowd for a San Francisco demonstration as we marched down Market Street to Justin Herman Plaza. We met with some protesters along the route who let us know with signs and gestures our message was not appreciated, but the City of San Francisco needed no one to oppose us, for she had made her position clear with Silver Ribbon poll flags lining both sides of Market Street imploring all to Trust Women with messages such as the so 60’s mantra - U.S. out of our uterus. The banners were in commemoration of Trust Women week which coincidentally fell from January 20 – 27.

At Market and Powell we had a minor altercation that stopped our walk when some protestors (possibly members of West Coast Rally for Reproductive Justice walking from Justin Herman Plaza) attempted to stop us from continuing down Market by placing orange plastic fencing decorated with hangers across the street. The SFPD raced, they took this very seriously, to the center of the intersection and had the whole thing (one person) flex cuffed. No arrests were made just restrained. The other side had a right to be there. It was a perfect display of our First Amendment Right to freedom of speech and to peaceably assemble. God bless the U.S.A.

It was a beautiful day in the city. Looking forward to the day when the Walk for Life and March for Life will not be necessary because all human life will be protected and valued from conception to natural death. Pax

We put together a montage of pictures and video from our outing.  Please be advised that at 2.02 there will be cuss words and other vulgar demonstrations. Turn off the video at this time if you would rather not hear from the other side.   

January 22, What is an Apple?

January 22, 1973 - January 22, 2010

Roe v. Wade

37 Years

What does abortion do? Or rather, what is abortion? Peter Kreeft wrote an article entitled The Apple Argument Against Abortion. I am not a student of philosophy, debate, nor logic. But from my feeble attempt to understand this article, which can be found here http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/abortion/ab0045.html, if we know what abortion is, Roe v. Wade must be overturned. So the question is, can we really know what abortion is?

Mr. Kreeft starts with, can we know what an apple is? No, REALLY know? Do we REALLY know what an apple REALLY is? If I was a student of philosophy, debate or logic, I would now reason, obviously, that if I denied that I really know what an apple really is, then I know, but not really, what an apple is, but not really. Or something like that.

Now when I look at an apple without all the analysis, philosophy, yes logic, etc, I think I can be pretty sure the I really know what an apple really is, no really.

Now I turn to a human being, can I know what human beings are? This is a much bigger question, maybe. Mr. Kreeft boils this down after 6 pages to this:

Case 1. The fetus is a person, and we know that.

Case 2. The fetus is a person, but we don’t that.

Case 3. The fetus isn’t a person, but we don’t know that.

Case 4. The fetus isn’t a person, and we know that.

What is abortion in each of these four cases?

Case 1, if the fetus is a person and we know that and we participate some way in an abortion, this is first-degree murder, the deliberate killing of an innocent human being.

Case 2, if the fetus is a person but we do not know this then participation in an abortion under these circumstances would be manslaughter. Mr. Kreeft describes this as driving over a man-shaped overcoat in the street, you’re not quite sure that there is a person there, but you are not altogether sure that there is not. There turns out to be a person in there which, of course you didn’t know that, nor did you know there wasn’t, kind of iffy.

Case 3,the fetus isn’t a person, but we don’t know that and we still drove over the man-shaped overcoat in the street. Now, if you didn’t care or didn’t take care to make sure there wasn’t a person under the man-shaped overcoat in the street and you still drove over the man-shaped overcoat in the street, this could be called criminal negligence if there did in fact turn out to be a human being under the man-shaped overcoat in the street and this human did not survive being run over.

Case 4 the fetus isn’t a person and we know that. This is the only case where abortion may be permissible. What makes it permissible is not the fact that the fetus is not a person, but that ones KNOWS it is not a person. Or as Mr. Kreeft concludes, we can pretend we do not know what an apple is and if so we have an excuse for pleading our case that we don’t know what an abortion is.

On the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, on the heals of the 37th March For Life on Washington, D.C. I offer Exhibit A from the Endowment for Human Development www.ehd.org a beautiful human being 4 weeks in gestation, a little more than 1/8th of an inch, with a heart beating 113 times per minutes please witness the heart changes color as blood enters and leaves its chambers with each beat.








Do we REALLY know what an apple REALLY is? Do we REALLY know what a human being is? REALLY know? If we truly know, then abortion stops a beating heart……………….

For all those who have suffered because you did not REALLY KNOW, because you were not given the facts. You are not to blame, but those that REALLY have known all along have much to account for.