Various and sundry blogger reactions to Barack Obama’s assertion that an out-of-wedlock baby is a “punishment” to the mother:

Michelle Malkin:

I wonder how pro-life Catholic Democrats will react to Barack Obama’s pregnancy-as-punitive and pregnancy-as-inconvenience-on-par-with STDs rhetoric? There’s a careless callousness in Obama’s phrasing yesterday that’s definitely not going to sit well with the staunch Pennsylvania pro-life voting bloc.

Stop the ACLU:

Regardless of your feelings on sexual education, this statement oozes with animosity. It also reveals the true heart of Barack Obama. Despite his so-called “understanding” of both sides of the abortion issue, any person that could utter such cold, abhorrence when discussing a fellow human being has no intention of displaying any goodwill to pro-lifers.

Sister Toldja:

His squarely leftist view of abortion isn’t surprising, but the phraseology is interesting coming from a supposedly ‘mainstream Democrat,’ and like MM, I’m wondering how this will play with the pro-life Democrats in PA … and beyond. What’s next? Him calling an unborn child a “parasite“? (more…)

David Brody is likewise troubled by Senator Obama’s characterization of an out-of-wedlock baby as a ”punishment”:

I understand Obama was talking off the cuff and these were not prepared remarks. I also know that when you’re on the campaign trail 20 hours a day you will say something you wish you hadn’t. But still. “Punished with a baby?” That just doesn’t sound right. Why use the word punished? I would think that word would be alarming to people and possibly offensive to those who have had babies out of wedlock.

And as I previously noted here, the problem with Senator Obama’s statement is that it is entirely consistent with his radical proabortion views.

Btw, you can see Senator Obama making the statement in question here. 

I’ve submitted this letter to the editor in response to this editoral by the Macon Telegraph: 

It is difficult to comprehend how the Telegraph’s editorial board concluded that “abstinence only” education is the cause of a 25% STD infection rate among young women. As the board itself notes, the data upon which the CDC survey is based was generated in 2003 and 2004. Is the board really arguing that the Bush Administration’s support and funding of abstinence programs during these two years is the sole or primary reason so many young ladies have STDs? This strikes me as a patently silly notion.

It seems to me much more likely that the high STD rate is attributable to a rotting culture that teaches young women from a very early age that their self worth is intrinsically bound to their sexuality. It is simply assumed that teenagers will have sex (after all they are only ”animals” with no “divine spark,” right?), and that parents and educators are powerless to do anything about it. So, instead of attempting to build up the character of our children, we resign ourselves to “reality,” and throw condoms and birth-control pills at our daughters. That is a recipe for disaster, folks.

The brutal truth of the matter is that the sexual revolution has not empowered women; it has harmed them beyond measure. There is nothing uplifting about a culture that views women as mere vehicles for sexual pleasure. Our daughters deserve better than that; much better. 

Hooray for the sexual revolution, the feminist movement, and the widespread acceptance of birth control in American culture!     

If only we had handed out more condoms, we could have reached the coveted one-third mark.

Who continues to mock and denigrate core teachings of the Church he professes to be a member of and love.

That is, when he isn’t mocking and denigrating the religious practices of Mormons.

So very harmless.

(LvC&EI!)

Because the Culture of Death crowd is never satisfied with just killing some babies.

FDA Eases Limits on Plan B Sales

Women may buy the morning-after pill without a prescription - but only with proof they’re 18 or older, federal health officials ruled Thursday, capping a contentious three-year effort to ease access to the emergency contraceptive.Girls 17 and younger still will need a doctor’s note to buy the pills, called Plan B, the Food and Drug Administration told manufacturer Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc. (BRL)

The compromise decision is a partial victory for women’s advocacy and medical groups that say eliminating sales restrictions could cut in half the nation’s 3 million annual unplanned pregnancies. Opponents have argued that wider access could increase promiscuity.

This is, perhaps, the most compelling reason for non-Catholic conservatives to oppose birth control.

Conversely, the aforementioned “fertility gap” between conservatives and liberals ought to, as a practical matter, cause many liberals to pause and reflect as to whether their zealous advocacy of abortion/birth control and hostility to motherhood is ultimately a self-defeating enterprise.  

Christine J. Gardner has an excellent piece in today’s WSJ. Here’s a taste:

Protestants’ acceptance of contraception has a relatively short history. The 1930 Lambeth conference of Anglican bishops was the first Christian church body to authorize the use of contraceptives within marriage, even as it condemned certain motives for using it, like “selfishness, luxury, or mere convenience.” The introduction of the birth control pill in the 1950s and 1960s offered “free love” to society at large; married evangelicals embraced its convenience and effectiveness. The Catholic Church, by contrast, stated in Pope Paul VI’s “Humanae Vitae” encyclical of 1968 that the unitive and procreative aspects of marriage are inseparable.

A minority movement within evangelical circles would agree. They oppose contraception not merely on pro-life grounds but also on the grounds that artificial contraception inhibits the possibility of children, in effect, offering a “thanks, but no thanks” (or at least “not right now”) response to God’s blessing to “be fruitful and multiply.” Sam and Bethany Torode, two evangelicals at the center of the movement, put it this way in their book “Open Embrace” (2002): “Pregnancy is not a disease–why vaccinate against it?”

Disgusting.

Note to President Bush and Congressional Republicans: You had better hope that this decision is not made on your watch, or y’all will pay for it dearly in the fall election.

Here’s the video of the speech I referenced earlier this week.

I encourage you to watch it and listen to reaction of many in the crowd. 

This time from Jill Stanek, an RN.

There certainly appears to be a significant shift by many prominent conservative protestants in the direction of Catholic teaching on the issue.

CITPS has an interesting post on the topic.

A little too ironic. Yeah, I really do think . . .

(LvCJ)

This is excellent.

In a case that mirrored a similar one in California, a N.Y. Court rejected claims from religious groups that a state law mandating that they provide their employees in affiliated non-profits with contraceptive coverage violated their associational and religious liberty rights.  The key to the decision, as in the California case, seems to be that the groups were not deemed to be primarily involved in a inculcating a religious view and employed those outside the faith.  Therefore, the claim seems to be, the burdens they suffer aren’t enough to invalidate the law.

Note that the NY legislature had the option of approving a broader opt-out clause for organizations like Catholic Charities, but chose not to.  After all, who can resist sticking it to the Catholics and evangelicals when you get the chance? (Evangelical Baptists also challenged the law).  Perhaps not coincidentally, efforts like this will go some distance, I suspect, in diminishing private efforts (often in cooperation with public monies) to redressing social ills and/or making those efforts more “sectarian”.  Churches who want to run soup kitchens or provide free clinics will, under these sorts of regimes, be much less willing to cooperate with the state in an effort to show that they are distinctively religious and so be exempt from noxious regulations like this.

Lots of political scientists scoff when it’s suggested that the overweening hand of the state tends to drive out non-state associations from civil society.  This may turn out to show why they shouldn’t be scoffing.

From last night’s (and the first) episode of “The Bachelor in Paris“:

The women start hugging goodbye. Allie is terribly upset. She can’t believe he chose some of those women over her — she’s dedicated her life to her career and he didn’t choose that, just like every guy she knows. Outside with the other rejected women, she laments that only reason she came on the show was because conventional methods weren’t working. She’s tried Internet dating, wine dating, dating services — she’s tried it all and has gotten nothing. She says she told Travis she was ready to get the reproductive phase of her life going, because the only reason to get married is to have kids. Ali gently tells her that’s her opinion but Allie is adamant. Travis is in his 30s, therefore he should be ready to proceed with that part of his life. What is he waiting for? Ali reports that Allie kept saying her eggs are old and her clock is ticking, and notes that one really doesn’t want to tell a guy that. Not getting a rose was the worst thing to happen for Allie.

Allie goes off in search of Travis. Angry and hurt, she challenges him to be straight up and tell her why didn’t he choose her — is she too short, her chest too small? Awkwardly, he says the truth is, he isn’t ready to reproduce like she is — he’s not looking for that right now. The others huddled outside in the cold gape at the information that Allie told Travis she wanted “to reproduce.” Allie accuses him of playing around because he doesn’t want reproduction. Travis replies that she doesn’t know him. Allie argues back that he just said he doesn’t want her to be around because he doesn’t want to reproduce, yet he’s on a dating show looking for a partner. Travis says he doesn’t want to put the cart before the horse and in frustration Allie storms off. She thinks she should stop dating, perhaps join a convent. She says he’s like every other “stupid doctor” she knows — intimidated by a professional woman.

I feel sorry for Allie. I really do. She bought into feminism’s big lie: that women can “have it all.” The brutal truth is that it is extremely difficult for a professional woman to pursue/balance a career and marriage/motherhood. Some can do it, and to those who can my hat is off to them. But for most professional women, they must eventually choose between doing their job well (by attempting to reach the heights of their respective professions) or having/raising children.

Allie chose to dedicate her life to a career; but now she is ready to have children, and she deeply resents the fact that she can’t just snap her fingers and make it happen. I also strongly suspect that her “rewarding career” has left her feeling empty, and asking “Is this all there is to life?”

Women are meant to be mothers, and no amount of leftist propaganda can or ever will change this fact of nature.

Finally, dear Allie, there is a reason Travis has no incentive to reproduce: women are (most likely) all too willing to give him what he wants without any strings attached. 

And that bring us to another big lie of the feminist movement (and the sexual revolution): that birth control empowers women. It doesn’t. Birth control facilitates the objectification of women, allowing them to be used as a vehicle for man’s pleasure.

Women deserve better than that. Much better

Update: The always interesting Amber–of the “Prettier Than Napoleon” blog–takes issue with my post. I’ve responded in the comments section to her post.