Pelican Project Pro-Life

A version of the anti-abortion initiative soundly defeated by Colorado voters in 2008 is making its way to the 2010 ballot, this time reworked as an “egg-as-a-person” initiative. This new version would move the legal definition of a person further back into the reproductive cycle, granting cells the full spectrum of citizen rights. Opposition groups, including Colorado genetic and fertilization researchers, say the law would have spiraling consequences, that it would put women at risk and fr

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Randall Terry , the founder of fanatical anti-abortion group Operation Rescue , is sending around an email to supporters asking them to burn Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in effigy as part of a national Halloween protest and video contest. The email and video rallying supporters is characterized by an ironic tone that serves only to heighten the threatening factor that has come to characterize the organization and its actions. What we want you to d

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To care about women’s issues is to move beyond biology and reproduction. Women want more than that. At least that is what Kathleen Parker believes. In her recent syndicated column , Parker asserts that to isolate women voters strictly to the abortion debate is to cheat women out of their real concerns these days - job security and the economy. There is a heated debate going on surrounding the Virginia Governor’s race. One candidate is pro-life and has written on the familial effects of women wo

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A new Oklahoma law that forces women who have had abortions to post details of the procedure online is being sharply criticized by women’s rights groups, and is now being challenged in court by two Oklahoma women. As of November 1, doctors in Oklahoma will be compelled — under penalty of criminal prosecution — to post the details of each abortion they perform online. Among the details to be posted for every abortion is the patient’s age, marital status and race; her financial condition; her ed

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A national anti-abortion campaign has declared October 9 th National Pro-Life Cupcake Day. Called Cupcakes For Life , the organization is spreading their pro-life message by encouraging supporters to hand out 50,000,000 cupcakes across the country to represent the “50,000,000 children who weren’t allowed to be born” because of abortion. Sadly, this event happens to coincide with the decline of clinics and hospitals in Massachusetts with doctors that provide abortions. In a state so immediatel

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According to a poll conducted this month by Belden Russonello and Stewart for the group Catholics for Choice, churchgoing Catholics support both a public option in health reform and a national plan that would include funding for abortion. Catholics for Choice president Jon O’Brien said the poll results suggest the views of Catholics on health reform have been seriously misrepresented by outspoken Catholic leaders like Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput. “It is telling that the U.S. bishops

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Despite its puny 140-character-count, the tweet packs an emotional punch: “I’m in a board meeting. Having a miscarriage. Thank goodness, because there’s a fucked-up 3-week hoop-jump to have an abortion in Wisconsin.” It appeared in my Twitter feed earlier this week and stopped me in my page-skimming tracks. It was startling given the intensely personal subject matter and matter-of-fact tone — and even more so because it wasn’t broadcast by an anonymous someone hiding behind a screen name. It

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Dominican Republic approves complete ban on abortion As reported by Catholic Exchange, lawmakers in the Dominican Republic gave their final approval last week to a “pro-life constitutional change” stating that “the right to life is inviolable from conception until death.” The Dominican Republic’s National Assembly easily ratified a revision of Article 30 in a vote of 128 in favor with 32 opposed. While the measure was widely supported by Dominican parliamentarians, it met with sta

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Irene Vilar is a self-described “abortion addict.” In her forthcoming memoir, “Impossible Motherhood,” she claims to have had 15 procedures. An excerpt of her book , available online, promises “an account of my addiction, a steady flow of unhappiness” — oh, goody! — “and ultimately, the redeeming face of motherhood.” The redeeming face of what , now? You don’t need to be a pro-choice absolutist to be put off by this language; for one thing, it’s dispiritingly similar to the countless other

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Catholic leadership has worked to block health care reform mostly by arguing that Democratic plans fail to guard against public funding for abortions. Money paid into a government plan would be “fungible,” argued Cardinal Justin Rigali (pdf), chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Pro-Life Activities, in an August letter to Congress. Taxpayer money, therefore, would end up “subsidiz[ing] the operating budget and provider networks that expand access to abortions.” De

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