I know it's been a while. I have been doing productive things with the time, though. Like graduating college (finally!) and now (slowly) embarking on a career. But now I have a few moments and I can come back to this blog, and my long-interrupted series.

My next point was...not going to be this one. To be honest, this one was going to go at the end, and be all conciliatory about things the pro-life movement could improve on, in terms of how we communicate and such-like. But the truth is, I've seen enough evidence lately to realize that the problem is, unfortunately, much more severe than just us needing to be better at explaining ourselves. Not because we don't need to do that, but because the other side not only isn't listening, they're literally making stuff up. So I'm bumping this point up and coming at it from a new angle, 'cause this really does merit pointing out.

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No, I haven't forgotten about this blog. However, real life intervened for a while and when I was able to come back, I felt like going back to a thread that was so old and likely dead would be a bit counterproductive, so I wanted to wait for something more current.

And thankfully, something did just happen on the same community (which is still really image-heavy) as the previous posts came from last night which touches exactly the next point that I want to make next in this little series.

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After a brief hiatus, I think it's time for the second entry in this series, and so, having laid the groundwork for what I'm talking about in the first entry, I'm going to dive right in with the second thing I learned.

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Still, I'll leave things on an upbeat note. This video was created by Students for Life of America (a wonderful organization), and is so hopeful and celebratory (with some great shots of the March for Life, too) that it can't fail to lift your spirits.

I have been wondering what to do my next entry on and then what should come along but a Fandom!Secrets thread about abortion.

Okay, first off, why should anyone care? Well, maybe you shouldn't. Fandom is, to be honest, the internet dork sanctuary. All the TV/movie/book/anime geeks and all their fannish glee all hang out and geek out and squee and swap fanfic and...yeah. Bunch of nerds all being nerdy. But fandom also gives insight to the "average abortion defender." The people represented in fandom, most of them, are not pro-abortion activists. This is not the group with all the newest talking points, this is not the group with the direct line to Cecile Richards or Nancy Keenan. These are average people doing average things.

Second, what is Fandom!Secrets? It is, essentially PostSecret for fandom. People create images to do with various fandom things and attach to them secrets and submit them anonymously to this LiveJournal community. Some of them are frivolous. One of yesterday's was someone saying they think most Transformers fans are morons or trolls. Some of them are serious. Also one of yesterday's was someone saying that they were raped the week before The Dark Knight came out and that that film had helped them recover. There's a spectrum.

So this thread (WARNING: Very, very image heavy.) came along and I thought I would see what could be learned for it, and I will be blogging on the conclusions I've drawn for a few entries, since even this one turned out to be longer than I expected.

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Today is the 38th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions made in the Supreme Court in 1973, which together essentially legalized abortion on demand throughout an entire pregnancy. Thankfully, today, some progress has been made in reversing the effects of those decisions, but until the decisions themselves are reversed entirely and new legislation put into place that protects all human life from conception forwards, we will not be done.

It is the pro-life position that all human beings have a basic right to live, free of the murderous intentions of others, from the moment that their life begins onwards.

Now, those of you who are pro-life are going to be reading all this going, “We know all this, already. Get to the good bit!” But it’s important to bear in mind that the foundation of the pro-life movement is one of the respect for the rights of all human beings as you read the rest of this entry. And, conversely, that abortion is—by its very nature—the deliberate dehumanization of the smallest and most helpless members of the human family for the express purpose of taking their most basic right away from them. And that abortion supporters want, more than anything else, not to be made to feel they are wrong for trampling on the rights of these people. Because I found a webpage the other day that has made me amused and infuriated by turns ever since I saw it.

The Abortion Provider’s Declaration of Rights

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I wish I could say I was surprised, but I had a feeling that this would happen. Of course, I'd hoped it would take a little longer, but even that is not surprising really. Just disappointing.

Two days ago Kermit Gosnell, the abortionist, was arrested on eight counts of murder. One of a grown woman, and seven for children he had delivered alive and then stabbed to death. Predictably the abortion apologists--desperate not to be required to admit that this man is actually doing something they support just doing it the wrong way--are quick to blame the pro-life movement, claiming that it was "limited access" that caused this situation.

The Grand Jury report does not bear this out.

The first line of defense was the Pennsylvania Department of Health. The department’s job is to audit hospitals and outpatient medical facilities, like Gosnell’s, to make sure that they follow the rules and provide safe care. The department had contact with the Women’s Medical Society dating back to 1979, when it first issued approval to open an abortion clinic. It did not conduct another site review until 1989, ten years later. Numerous violations were already apparent, but Gosnell got a pass when he promised to fix them. Site reviews in 1992 and 1993 also noted various violations, but again failed to ensure they were corrected.

But at least the department had been doing something up to that point, however ineffectual. After 1993, even that pro forma effort came to an end. Not because of administrative ennui, although there had been plenty. Instead, the Pennsylvania Department of Health abruptly decided, for political reasons, to stop inspecting abortion clinics at all. The politics in question were not anti-abortion, but pro. With the change of administration from Governor Casey to Governor Ridge, officials concluded that inspections would be “putting a barrier up to women” seeking abortions. Better to leave clinics to do as they pleased, even though, as Gosnell proved, that meant both women and babies would pay.

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I've been toying with the idea of making a blog dedicated to pro-life thoughts and observations and commentary for a while now. My original blog, on LJ, has no focus whatsoever, so mixed in with the pro-life commentaries are fandom ones, and personal ones, and quizzes and memes... Not an ideally focused blog, really. Two things make today an ideal day to start.

First, tomorrow is the annual "Blog for Choice" day which, as usual, the abortion apologists are expecting to set the blogosphere humming with since Saturday is the anniversary of Roe. This is usually a shameless celebration of death that tries to dress abortion up as if it weren't a bad, disgusting thing, and so, in response, a number of pro-life bloggers decided to get together and create the "Ask Them What they Mean by 'Choice' Blog Day."

The idea is simple. Any time any of us reads pro-aborts spouting their obscure “choice” rhetoric on a blog, website, Facebook, or Twitter, we call them out on it. We ask them to explain what the “choice” is.

Is it to eat carrots rather than broccoli? To wear red instead of blue? No, of course “choice” is code for killing babies. What’s their problem with the A-word?

While I'm not quite sure yet what direction I want this blog to take, this will open up a number of directions in which to go.

Second, yesterday, abortionist Kermit Gosnell was arrested on eight counts of murder. Seven of those for children he delivered, then stabbed to death with scissors. Since that time, the abortion apologists have been trying, as they always do whenever this happens, to blame pro-lifers for his actions.

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