Obama's "Liar" Charge Crumbles

Barack Obama is getting downright testy about those ongoing reports of his outlandish support of abortion. Indeed, his latest flare up has him insisting that the National Right to Life Committee and others who have drawn attention to his votes against the Born Alive Infants are liars.

But the evidence is clear, substantial...and all stacked against Obama. If there's lying going on (and there is), it's not coming from the pro-life advocates but from the Democrat nominee himself. And with his intense rhetoric drawing even more attention to the issue, the problem promises to prove even more injurious to his campaign.

That's why one of Obama's spokesman has now admitted to the New York Sun that Obama did vote exactly as the pro-lifers were saying. But the confession only came with "spin" as to why he did it, not with an apology for calling people liars who were, as the facts showed all along, telling the truth.

But Obama is going to learn that he can't spin away from this matter. For even if the MSM wanted to continue to ignore it, his use of the word "lying" elevated it as a news story and doubles his trouble. No, this has now become a story that not only reveals his abortion record to be particularly heinous, but it also shows him as cowardly, duplicitous and arrogant.

Barack Obama's Slip Is Showing

Here's a couple of important stories about Barack Obama from someone who knows him well, Illinois pro-life activist and popular blogger, Jill Stanek. Both stories present Obama in a much different light than which has come from the fawning press corps.

The first article reveals Barack Obama as a coldly calculating politician -- one who served the interests of the pro-abortion feminists in an extremely rude and obscurantist way.

The second and most recent article concerns not only Obama's actions against the “Born-Alive Infants Protection Act,” but about his misrepresenting (that's what lying is called in political circles) the reasons why he did such a callous and mean-spirited thing.

Another Medical Science Breakthrough -- And It Uses Adult Stem Cells

Here's news of yet another medical science breakthrough in which nobody is hurt, killed, or morally stained -- because the technique involved uses adult stem cells and not cells from a human embryo.

Roger Highfield, Science Editor for the Telegraph, reports on this significant advance that could substantially help researchers discover treatments for Parkinson’s and numerous other dreaded diseases.

...For the first time a research team has managed to take human skin cells from a patient with a genetic condition and transform them into nerve cells. It means they will now be able to create limitless numbers of the diseased cells to help them carry out research in the hope of finding a way to treat the illness.

The research has been carried out by an American team. They took skin cells from two elderly patients with motor neuron disease and turned them into nerve cells so they could study the cause of their nerve degeneration. The cells can now be used to test drugs to treat the condition.

But scientists also hope if they can find a way of altering the cell to make it healthy they will be able to grow a patient’s cells and tissue, free of disease, to transplant back into their body and fight the condition. Research teams would theoretically be able to use the technique to develop treatments for a range of genetic conditions.

The advance is published in the journal Science by a team led by Prof Kevin Eggan of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Prof Eggan said. “Now we can make limitless supplies of the cells that die in this awful disease.”...

Here's the rest of the story.

Labour Party Loses a Sure Thing; Anti-Life Legislation a Key Issue in the Contest

In a most interesting (and hopeful) development, one of the Labour Party's "safest seats" was just lost in a by-election to John Mason, an accountant/councilor who represents the Scottish National Party, in a contest where Parliament's atrocious embryo experimentation bill was a major issue.

Mason, a member of Easterhouse Baptist Church who describes his faith as being very important to him, opposes abortion on demand and so-called “social abortion” and is “extremely uncomfortable” with the unnatural and lethal experimentation to be performed on human embryos if Parliament's bill holds up.

The Christian Institute reports, "The Glasgow East constituency – which was one of Labour’s safest seats in the UK – has large numbers of Roman Catholics. Ahead of the vote, Roman Catholic Bishops strongly criticised the Government’s embryos Bill as 'monstrous' and a violation of 'moral law'. The embryos Bill was not the only issue during the by-election, but it played a significant role in the campaign."

What's Wrong with This Picture? An Abortion Enthusiast to Become UN High Commissioner for Human Rights?

Fresh from the "You Just Can't Make This Stuff Up" Department comes word that United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to name as the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights a woman who has throughout her career absolutely and vociferously denied human rights to unborn human children!

As LifeSiteNews reports, "Navanethem 'Navi' Pillay of South Africa is a founding member of the international non-governmental organization Equality Now, a group that has spearheaded campaigns for abortion access in Poland and Nepal. Pillay remains on the board of the organization which receives major funding from pro-abortion foundations, including George Soros' Open Society Institute and the Ford Foundation."

Furthermore, Pillay also supports the "Yogyakarta Principles," which insist that homosexual activities represent natural and binding human rights, including same-sex "marriage," adoption by homosexual couples and state-funded sex change operations.

Planned Parenthood Subsidizes Racism and Barbaric Violence: Chris Smith Illuminates Congress in this Video Clip

Rep. Chris Smith has some straight talk for the Congress about Planned Parenthood. It's an illuminating, alarming presentation -- full of incontrovertible facts that Americans ignore at the peril of their souls.

However, you need not have been in the gallery that day to hear (and see) Smith's challenging presentation. You can check it out right here in this 10 and a half minute YouTube video.

Watch. Pray. And e-mail this post to others as Mary Jane Ziola did for me.

Barack Obama: "Big on Rhetoric, Media Manipulation and Pzazz, Short on Substance."

The Telegraph's Gerald Warner isn't one of those MSM pundits enthralled by Barack Obama -- most definitely not.

...The Obama campaign is Blair writ large: big on rhetoric, media manipulation and pzazz, short on substance. What there is of substance is deeply ominous for America. Obama is so liberal he is off the radar. The National Journal's rating system, based on votes in the Senate, showed Obama was the 16th most liberal senator in 2005, the 10th in 2006 and the most liberal senator in 2007.

He has massive approval ratings from all the harpie pressure groups whose obsession is to maximise the killing of American babies. He opposed the ban on partial-birth abortion - a moral obscenity so grotesque it is prohibited even on this septic isle - and even opposed a bill in the Illinois State Senate to prevent the killing of infants accidentally left alive by abortion.

The impetus behind the Obama phenomenon is the recognition that at some point there will be a black president and it will be a holistic moment for America. On this basis, the liberal media have set a bandwaggon rolling, without regard to the quality of the candidate, who increasingly displays naivety on foreign policy and economics.

The truth is that a white candidate with Obama's liberal agenda would have been shunted off to join George McGovern in the dustbin of radical history round about the stage of the New Hampshire primaries. America does not do liberal. In terms of healing racial wounds, it would have been preferable if the first black contender had been a Republican or conservative Democrat, rather as Margaret Thatcher became our first woman prime minister owing nothing to the feminist sisterhood.

Obama's agenda fuels the paranoia of nocturnal cross-burners in Mississippi, just as his lack of originality inspires wider distrust. In America's current crisis, a JFK re-enactor is as useful as an Elvis impersonator.

Progress in the 8th Circuit Court on Life Issue?

In the Americans United for Life blog, Mailee Smith (staff attorney for the AUL) describes some encouraging elements of last week's 8th Circuit Court decision about South Dakota’s informed consent law. Check it out.

In a decision issued last week by the Eighth Circuit (sitting en banc), the Court reversed a preliminary injunction that had blocked the enforcement of certain provisions of South Dakota’s informed consent law.

The provisions require that a woman be informed that “the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being,” and that the woman has an existing, Constitutional relationship with her unborn child. Planned Parenthood had challenged the law, and initially obtained the now-overturned preliminary injunction from the lower court.

The effect of this ruling remains to be seen. Because the decision involved only a preliminary injunction, the actual merits of the case—and the constitutionality of the informed consent provisions—have not been decided. However, a few positive developments must be noted.

First, the Court concluded that, in a preliminary injunction proceeding involving government action, plaintiffs such as Planned Parenthood must meet a higher standard. It is not enough that Planned Parenthood show that it might succeed on the merits of the case; it must show that it is likely to succeed. This heightens the standard that district courts in the Eighth Circuit will use when considering preliminarily enjoining abortion related laws.

Second, this Court more accurately balanced expert witness testimony than it has in the past. For example, in Carhart v. Gonzales, one of the partial-birth abortion cases, the lower court and Eighth Circuit took abortionist testimony as fact, completely dismissing the accuracy and strength of the government’s expert witnesses.

Here, however, the Court emphasized that Planned Parenthood did not have enough medical and scientific evidence that the informed consent provisions were unnecessary or inaccurate. The Court did not take as fact a plaintiff abortionist’s own affidavit. Instead, it balanced the legislative history and multiple expert witnesses testimonies given by the government. In other words, the Court did not take abortionist testimony as fact, as it has done in the past.

Finally, the Court indicated that the question of when life begins is a scientific, and not necessarily ideological, fact. It demanded scientific evidence from Planned Parenthood. And because Planned Parenthood did not produce, it lost at the preliminary injunction stage.

What happens next with this case remains to be seen. The informed consent provisions are not in the clear yet—the preliminary injunction stage is just one hurdle in the battle of constitutionality. But at least as the lawsuit proceeds, the provisions will be in effect.

"According to Barack Obama, Gianna Jessen Shouldn't Exist."

That's the provocative (but fair) opening of Daniel Allott's Wall Street Journal article exploring Barack Obama's record on not only abortion, but also on what surgical room procedures are proper following the abortion. As in "Uh oh. We tried to terminate this pregnancy but here is the baby, alive and kicking! What on earth do we do now?"

That's exactly the question which draws Gianna Jessen into Mr. Allott's excellent article. For Gianna, a delightful woman who I was honored to have as a guest on "Vital Signs" radio a couple of times, is a vivacious, pretty, talented, smart, tough and highly principled young lady...a blessing to everyone around her.

But the scene of her birthday created in the minds of a medical team the very question mentioned earlier because Gianna was an abortion survivor. Targeted by an abortionist utilizing a poisonous saline, Gianna yet "made it out alive" where the nurse on hand had her rushed to a hospital. Gianna weighed only a couple of pounds and had been severely hurt by the deadly chemicals, but she was alive. And because of proper medical attention ("Physician, Do No Harm!"), she stayed alive, thrived and grew into the lovely young woman whose personality, talent and spirituality now graces the world.

Remarkably, there are many others like Gianna who have somehow survived abortion and, like any healthy full-term newborn, need immediate and comprehensive medical care. But Barack Obama has voted not once, but twice to deny abortion-surviving babies their right to such medical care. In effect, he has voted against their very right to life.

Writes Mr. Allott:

As an Illinois state senator, Barack Obama twice opposed legislation to define as "persons" babies who survive late-term abortions. Babies like Gianna. Mr. Obama said in a speech on the Illinois Senate floor that he could not accept that babies wholly emerged from their mother's wombs are "persons," and thus deserving of equal protection under the Constitution's 14th Amendment.

A federal version on the same legislation passed the Senate unanimously and with the support of all but 15 members of the House. Gianna was present when President Bush signed the Born Alive Infants Protection Act in 2002.

When I asked Gianna to reflect on Mr. Obama's candidacy, she paused, then said, "I really hope the American people will have their eyes wide open and choose to be discerning. . . . He is extreme, extreme, extreme."

The rest of this enlightening, challenging piece is right here.

Baby Survives Abortion Attempt...Twice

This Telegraph (U.K.) report about a baby surviving abortion actually has several noteworthy storylines. The first, of course, is the wonderful news that the baby lives. Despite the intentions of the parents and the hospital abortion system to kill the child, he miraculously made it.

But there are other elements of this story that are anything but wonderful. Take a look:

1) The child was conceived even while his mother was taking contraceptives. This dramatically emphasizes the medical fact that "breakthrough ovulation" occurs despite the contraceptive intent of birth-control pills and devices. And with ovulation comes the possibility of conception. However, these drugs and devices also act post-conception; that is, they negatively effect the cervical lining of the womb, making it unable to support a newly-conceived child. These abortifacient properties of the "pill," Depo-Provera, Mirena, the I.U.D., and so on are not openly discussed but, count on it, they are quite real. The Physician's Desk Reference and even the drug manufacturer's descriptions of their product spell it out.

Therefore, the story of this infant is even more dramatic than it seems upon the first reading for the tough little guy cheated death not once, but twice! For before he could escape the brutality of the hospital abortionist, he had to first survive the "backup" abortifacient effects of the pill.

2) Another noteworthy detail of the story is that the parents of the baby are not married. Indeed, they were not married when their two other children were born. This situation, of course, is common enough in our day but mere commonality cannot dispel the negative spiritual, psychological, economic, and social consequences that have resulted from Western culture's abandonment of traditional marriage.

3) And finally, the mother's own words must be carefully observed for what they reveal about the sheer irrationality of abortion, a distortion of logic and natural emotion that makes the deliberate "terminating" of one's child somehow more acceptable than "losing" it.

Miss Percival said: "Deciding to terminate at eight weeks was just utterly horrible but I couldn't cope with the anguish of losing another baby. "I couldn’t believe it when the doctor said I was still pregnant, this was the baby I thought I'd terminated.

"At first I was angry that this was happening to us, that the procedure had failed. I wrote to the hospital, I couldn't believe that they had let me down like this. They wrote back and apologised and said it was very rare."

England's Catholic Church Supports Ethical Science Research: Dramatic Contrast to Parliament's Recent Irresponsibility

In the wake of the British Parliament's remarkable irresponsibility in passing a Human Fertility and Embryology bill that not only failed to restrict abortion but actually made legal the freakish experimentation on human/animal hybrids, England's Catholic Church is trying to help society understand that science and morality need not be strangers.

In particular, with a grant of £25,000 to Novussanguis, an international research consortium using cord blood and adult stem cells for therapeutic aims, the Church is bringing some much-needed attention to the fantastic successes that life-affirming scientific research is achieving.

By this action, modest though it may be, the Church stands in dramatic contrast to the immoral and inhumane actions of the British government.

Novussanguis is a new international research consortium investigating cord blood and adult stem cells for therapeutic aims. It was created by Professor Colin McGuckin and the research group on cord blood at Newcastle University and the Fondation Jérôme Lejeune in Paris. Unlike embryonic stem cells, cord blood and adult stem cells continue to produce medical cures because of their high differentiation and expansion potential. Indeed, over 80 diseases are already being effectively treated with cord blood stem cells, mostly linked to the blood system or the immune system. However, victims of other diseases affecting the bone marrow, nervous system, heart or metabolism such as juvenile diabetes, are also being helped through adult stem cell procedures.

Adult stem cells can be harvested from several human tissues including the brain, bone marrow, skin, peripheral blood, liver, eyes, pancreas and cord blood.

"We support scientific research that seeks to cure disease and suffering" states the letter announcing the gift and signed by Sean Cardinal Brady (Archbishop of Armagh, president of the Bishops, Conference of Ireland), Cormac Cardinal Murphy-O,Connor (Archbishop of Westminster, president of the Bishops, Conference of England & Wales, shown in photo above), and Keith Patrick Cardinal O,Brien (Archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, president of the Bishops, Conference of Scotland).

"The HFE Bill has focused on embryonic stem cell research. In fact, much greater progress has already been made towards clinical therapies using adult stem cells. Other emerging techniques hold potential for good, without creating and destroying human embryos. We are making this donation as a sign of the Church's commitment to science and human good.

"We also welcome the positive engagement with scientists and ethicists last Friday, which identified the need for continued dialogue. This meeting re-enforced the fact that there are profound questions both about the scientific efficacy of proposed techniques and their ethical justification.

"In particular, we would ask: What ethical considerations should limit bio-medical research? Should the government be taking the dramatic step of legalising research on cybrid or hybrid embryos just as new techniques are emerging which would make the use of such hybrids in research redundant? To what extent is the UK in danger of neglecting more promising therapies by focusing too much on embryonic stem cell research?

"Not nearly enough time has been given to discussing these issues and these questions require answers before and not after legislation."

The Only Pro-Life Pharmacy Business in California Celebrates an Anniversary

Yes, Virginia; there are still a few Christians around who take their religion seriously, seriously enough to let it rule their business instead of the other way round.

So, here's my heartiest congratulations to Brent Watson, pharmacy director and owner of Central Coast Pharmacy Specialists in Templeton, California, whose business just celebrated its one-year anniversary as the only pro-life pharmacy in the state!

Watson's business "made the decision – in open defiance to Big Drug and Insurance Companies – to stop issuing birth control pills, the so called 'morning after pill,' and other medication that could be used for an abortion."

"It's not good medicine,” Watson said.

Watson explained that contraceptives are harmful to patients and “block the implantation of early human life. This puts pharmacists in direct conflict with their profession when forced to dispense against their conscience and professional promise to ‘do no harm’ to patients. We want patients to know we are a pro-patient, healing only pharmacy that provides compounded medications individually made to fit the specific needs of each patient one prescription at a time."

According to Watson, the harmful effects of contraceptives are noted even by the FDA, which requires patients to sign a disclosure before taking oral contraceptives.

Watson said that he was proud that his pharmacy could be among the few openly pro-life pharmacies in the nation while many other pharmacists continue to face persecution by employers because of their pro-life views...

Just the Facts...on Birth Control Pills

Just when will doctors begin to tell their patients, ministers begin to tell the young couples in their congregation, and journalists begin to tell the general public about "the clear and present dangers" represented by the tragically misnamed "birth control" pill?

Particularly, and most important, when will the truth surface that this supposed contraceptive also acts as an abortifacient drug?

We at Vital Signs Ministries have for over 25 years been asking people to investigate the basic science involved in contraceptive chemicals and devices. For the scientific facts reveal conclusively that, even when using these drugs and devices, "breakthrough ovulation" occurs much more frequently than is generally believed. And with ovulation, of course, comes the possibility of conception. However, these very drugs and devices (though commonly called mere contraceptive) will then act against the tiny human being to cause early abortions.

That is not contraception. That is abortion. And we have no right whatsoever to gamble with human life.

Thus people in positions of responsibility should take special care before God to give people the truth about how these drugs and devices work, especially sounding the warning about the post-conception deadliness they present.

Addressing this very serious matter is a sensitive and sound article, "The Birth Control Pill: Abortifacient and Contraceptive" written for the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists by Dr. William F. Colliton, Jr. (former Clinical Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at George Washington University Medical Center) and co-signed by many others.

I also encourage you to view this brief but remarkable video clip which demonstrates the basic scientific facts involved in the issue. The clip, which is very helpful in clarifying both the science and morality involved, was developed by Rich Seng, Tom Lerner, Zoe Asta and Nell Andrzejewski.

And finally, we have long been keen on recommending Randy Alcorn's Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions? It is an excellent study -- thorough, balanced and compassionate. In it, Alcorn (an extensive researcher, international speaker, and a best-selling author in several genres) examines the question from all sides. He talks to the doctors, the scientists and the drug manufacturers themselves. He reiterates the basic information already available (but rarely discussed) from the Physicians Desk Reference. And his conclusions are as sound biblically as they are scientifically.

It is an extremely important study. And we are pleased to offer it to you for no charge. Just contact us at vitalsigns@vitalsignsministries.org with where to send it.

It is always crucial to get all the facts so that our life decisions are based in truth and are sincerely, honorably performed. The links I've listed here all provide just such enlightening, liberating facts as the ones we all need. Check 'em out, okay?

Don't Miss Michael Gerson's "A Phony 'War on Science'"

Michael Gerson's Washington Post article, "A Phony 'War on Science,'" is certainly one of this week's must reads.

There are few things in American politics more irrationally ideological, more fanatically faith-based, than the accusation that Republicans are conducting a "war on science."

According to Hillary Clinton, the Bush administration has declared "open season on open inquiry." "When I am president," she promises, "scientific integrity will not be the exception; it will be the rule."

The exceptions, in this case, are pretty exceptional: Elias Zerhouni, who has reformed the National Institutes of Health with widely praised efficiency; Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who helped set in motion large-scale AIDS treatment in Africa; Francis Collins of the National Human Genome Research Institute, who led the effort to map the human genome. The "war on science" recently has allowed some extraordinary achievements.

For the most part, these accusations are a political ploy -- actually an attempt to shut down political debate. Any practical concern about the content of government sex-education curricula is labeled "anti-science." Any ethical question about the destruction of human embryos to harvest their cells is dismissed as "theological" and thus illegitimate.

Liberal views are "objective" while traditional moral convictions are "biased." Public scrutiny of scientific practices is "politicizing" important decisions.

These arguments are seriously made, but they are not to be taken seriously. Does anyone really believe in a science without moral and legal limits? In harvesting organs from prisoners? In systematically getting rid of the disabled?

This last question, alas, does not answer itself. In America, the lives of about nine of 10 children with Down syndrome are ended before birth. In Europe, about 40 percent of unborn children with major congenital disorders are aborted.

All of which highlights a real conflict, a war within liberalism between the idea of unrestricted science in the cause of health and the principle that all men are created equal -- between humanitarianism and egalitarianism...

Good stuff. And that's not all. Finish reading Gerson's "A Phony 'War on Science'" right here.

National Catholic Register: "How Could Obama Be So Opposed to the Right to Life?"

It’s important for Americans to know exactly where Barack Obama stands on abortion, because abortion is more than just a "Catholic issue." It's one of the fundamental issues Americans should be most concerned about.

The United States was founded on the rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” and Americans have spent the past two centuries since trying to live up to those founding principles. First came disagreements over the pursuit of happiness — religious and economic liberty. Then, over slavery. Today’s big battle is over the most important right: the right to life.

Obama’s votes and official positions deny the right to life to three categories of human beings: the unborn, the “accidentally” born and, at least in one case, the adult “unfit.” Let’s look at each...

And this editorial of the National Catholic Register proceeds to do just that.

Intelligent Design? An Argument from the Womb.

The May LifeSharer letter from Vital Signs Ministries is now available online right here. In it, there's an enlightening calendar of a person's first ten weeks of life, a very exciting example of the creative power of God.

Canada's First Cord Blood Bank to Open?

A newborn baby can save another child's life -- if its mother is willing to donate the blood from its umbilical cord to a new umbilical-cord blood bank.

Canada's first cord-blood bank, expected to be approved by provincial governments in June, wants 10,000 new mothers to donate their babies' stem-cell rich blood.

Once thrown away as medical waste, cord blood is now used to fight leukemia, inherited blood disorders and even diabetes. The stem cells in healthy cord blood help regenerate blood cells and rebuild immune systems. The national bank will also link up with donor registries worldwide in a reciprocity agreement.

Umbilical-cord blood is already being used in medical treatment, but the samples are obtained internationally. Canada is one of the few industrialized countries without its own cord blood bank.

(Canwest News Service)

Of Ideology, Science and Moral Ethics: The Nebraska Coalition for Ethical Research Embraces Them All

Certainly, the challenges facing the Nebraska Coalition for Ethical Research are many and daunting. After all, they are a small, severely underfunded group. And their efforts both to defend the sanctity of human life and to promote humane standards of scientific research and medical care are stridently opposed at every turn.

Nevertheless, NCER has several reasons to be encouraged and the April issue of the NCER (available online right here) clearly shows a few of them.

But the primary foundation for confidence and hope is because the academicians and activists of NCER fight on the side of the angels. They love life and cherish the Creator of life. They embrace truth and, unlike their ideological foes, they do not need to twist facts, obfuscate or distort the science, play word games, or otherwise hide from the plain truths.

The men and women affiliated with the Nebraska Coalition for Ethical Research know that good science, progressive science, is thoroughly compatible with the great ethical traditions of Western civilization, traditions that rationally, justly and compassionately protect innocent human life as well as such irreducible values as freedom of conscience and the morality of the Hippocratic Oath.

They would deeply appreciate whatever help like-minded citizens could contribute. Financial assistance is very important as are opportunities to speak. And regarding the latter, former Nebraska State Senator and now NCER Executive Director Chip Maxwell is an engaging speaker who offers enlightening, non-threatening presentations on the issues of cloning, stem cell research, genetic engineering and so on. He frequently does these presentations alongside Dr. Sheryl Pitner, Greg Schleppenbach and other top-notch speakers.

Here's the appropriate contact info:

Nebraska Coalition for Ethical Research, Inc.

PO Box 3463
Omaha, NE 68103-0463
402-690-2299
www.ethicalresearch.net
info@ethicalresearch.net

"The Most Dogged Foe of Unborn Human Life in the U.S. Senate”

Paul Kengor, in this exceptional NRO piece, considers various candidates for the “most dogged foe of unborn human life in the U.S. Senate.” There are plenty of possibilities including Teddy Kennedy, John Kerry and the two people who are running for the Democrat Party nomination for President.

But Kengor eventually decides that there really isn't that much of a contest after all.

California Senator Barbara Boxer, "for all-around crassness and truly breathtaking statements" in her stubborn (even when irrational) promotion of abortion, wins going away.

Take a look.

Embryo: A Defense of Human Life Reviewed

Peter Lawler, author, Professor of Government at Georgia's Berry College, and a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics, has written for City Journal a penetrating review of Embryo: A Defense of Human Life, by Robert P. George and Christopher Tollefsen (Doubleday). It is a fine piece, one that does admirably what a book review should do; namely, give an accurate evaluation of the book's theme and quality while also giving insight into the values and opinions of the reviewer.

Lawler likes the book a lot. He writes, "This stunningly able and very important book, I predict, will grow in influence." But he goes further to show just why he likes it: the philosophical penetration into Aristotle and Kant, the sound scientific foundations, the logical reasoning, the measured argument, and the courageous convictions of the authors to apply their conclusions to social policy.

In their bold new book...philosophers Robert P. George and Christopher Tollefsen defend the proposition that the embryo—the organism that comes into being as the result of fertilization, the union of sperm with oocyte—is in fact a human being. And that means that an embryo has “absolute rights.” An embryo should never be used as a means to pursue someone else’s ends, however laudable or life-saving, they say. Certainly, embryos shouldn’t be killed to assist frustrated parents attempting in vitro fertilization (IVF), or even to further pathbreaking medical research.

The authors stop well short of recommending all of the potential changes in law that would necessarily follow from their argument. All they ask is that scientific research that involves the killing of embryos be outlawed—or, at the very least, that it be denied public funding, and that future IVF procedures be practiced in such a way that they do not produce surplus embryos that are ultimately discarded. The authors oppose what they see as brutality motivated in part by good intentions—brutality they hope to correct with moral reasoning based in scientific knowledge. Open-minded readers should find their case powerful.

There are disagreements between Lawler and the authors of Embryo but they are stated cleanly and without ego. That too is always nice to find in a book review. Again, Dr. Lawler's engaging and very helpful review was published by City Journal and can be read in its entirety right here.