Latest Sighting of Out of State Money

The random blogger gods have decided to let me in without explanation or apology, so I will share the view we have all been watching for the last several days minus the bright yellow airplane that has been flying it around the north end of town for hours on end. I am an avowed people watcher and it is very interesting to see how people's initial positive hopefulness about this banner turns into an annoyance about the intrusion when they figure out what it is.

Of course I wanted to know who is behind this expensive endeavor so I started asking questions. It turns out that I wasn't the only person who wanted to know what the devil was going on; when I asked enough people a photo showed up with a story about the same banner flying over Tampa in April of this year

(12 Apr 2006) Around noon today, two planes flew above USF's Tampa campus,
each one towing a sign. One plane's sign said "STOP THE WAR," and includes
some smaller text that said "10 week abortion," with the phone number
888-234-9292. This sign also had a picture of an aborted fetus' face. The
other plane's sign said "10 WEEK ABORTION," had the same phone number and a
picture. Mike Schrimsher, Florida Regional Director for the Center for
Bio-ethical Reform, said it was a picture of "A baby's arm that had been
torn off at the shoulder and wrapped around a dime."

The phone number led to a recording that identified the group as the
Reproductive Choice Campaign which, according to the message, "provides
alternatives to abortion or assistance with post-abortion grief." It lists
another toll-free number, 800-848-LOVE, and the website
http://www.abortionno.org. If you visit the website, be prepared for
gruesome pictures of aborted fetuses.

I learned that some women don't understand the difference between abortions and potato chips

October 22, 2005

When I was a young girl i had a friend who convinced me to have a few abortions. I never realized what they did and regret it. They should show these pictures before you have one.

Age: 30

They tell us why abortion is genocide, but not to worry about the mother because

The practice of abortion was revolutionized at virtually the same moment that the laws were revolutionized, through the widespread introduction of suction curettage in 1970. (Even before this, antibiotics and other advances had already dramatically lowered the abortion death rate.) Instead of scraping the soft wall of the pregnant uterus with a sharp instrument, the operator vacuums it out with a plastic suction curette. Though it is preferable that this be done by a licensed physician, one can expect that if abortion is ever driven underground again, even non-physicians will be able to perform this procedure with remarkable safety…. Even without a suction machine, a simple combination of catheter and syringe can produce enough suction to carry out a safe early abortion.

As for the self-induced abortion, by thrusting a coathanger or other dangerous object into the womb, this will also be a thing of the past.

Could it be that this out of state special interest group decide to take up residence in the Big Sky a mere ten weeks before the November election has an alternative agenda, and dare I look to the greatest Christians of all at Agape Press for the answer?

Is the Republican Party committed to pro-life causes? To many pro-lifer advocates, it is clear that the GOP is less pro-life than it has been in the past. Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List has an idea why this is the impression being given. "I think the problem is a tremendous lack of education, combined with a boatload of cash by big, corporate bioethics firms," the pro-lifer leader offers. But even pro-lifers themselves, she points out, have trouble with some of the issues that have arisen from a high-tech society. "This bioethics [issue], this stem-cell research is new," she comments. "It kind of blindsided us a couple years ago, and it is complicated. It's very hard for a lot of people to weave in and out of the intricacies of it." But Dannenfelser says she still has faith in most members of the Republican Party. "I think we can say we are a pro-life party, we still have a pro-life plank," she says. "That isn't going to be going anywhere." She wants to see more education on issues such as stem-cell research so people will be able to make more-informed decisions in the future -- and she would like to see more pro-life action from the GOP and the White House. [Bill Fancher]