As Thanksgiving approaches, I am thankful for Brendan Foster, who lived a life (however brief) of dignity and honor:

(LvMark)

I don’t expect to see anything like this coming out of the Obama Administration.

I think this letter to President-elect Obama is a good first step in engaging him (as well as his administration) on certain issues of life (e.g., abortion, ESCR), and I am happy to lend my support to the cause.

You can read the full text of the letter below the fold. (more…)

Michael J. New has today’s must-read piece.

Excellent. Contrary to what some might think, I would love nothing more than for both major political parties to fight for the votes of prolifers.

(LvJeffH)

Matthew Mehan reviews M. Night Shyamalan’s film The Happening.

This may just be the post of the year.

For airing this prolife radio ad in several states.

For this excellent pastoral letter.

It’s not going over well with the CINOs, but that’s to be expected, I suppose.

This is huge:

In November of last year, researchers in Wisconsin and Japan announced that they had successfully transformed regular adult cells into the equivalent of embryonic stem cells without the need for embryos. The advance (involving so-called induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells) pointed to a potential path around the moral and political debate over embryonic stem cell research, but some advocates argued that because the technique relied on retroviruses, which might be connected to some risks of cancer, they might not be safe for clinical use.

Today in the journal Science, a group of Harvard researchers reports successfully reprogramming adult cells into the equivalent of embryonic stem cells without the need for such retroviruses, and so without the cancer risk . . . . 

More then ever, it appears that the promise of such pluripotent cells can be explored—all the way from basic science to the clinic—without the need to use or destroy human embryos, and so without political or ethical controversy. As President Bush put it back in 2006, in defending his approach to the issue and describing the iPS technique (which was then still largely theoretical), science and ethics need not be at odds; with the right policies and the right scientific techniques, they can be championed together. Here’s hoping.

Sarah Palin has already done so much to promote a “culture of life” in this country.

God Bless her for that.

Michael Gerson at his best:

The wrenching diagnosis of 47 chromosomes must seem to parents like the end of a dream instead of the beginning of a life. But children born with Down syndrome — who learn slowly but love deeply — are generally not experienced by their parents as a curse but as a complex blessing. And when allowed to survive, men and women with an extra chromosome experience themselves as people with abilities, limits and rights. Yet when Down syndrome is detected through testing, many parents report that genetic counselors and physicians emphasize the difficulties of raising a child with a disability and urge abortion. (more…)

Have I mentioned just how much I love Sarah Palin?

Senator Brownback–my first choice for president–nails it:

I want to say, (Democrats) are wrong on life and marriage, and here is our social justice agenda. We haven’t gone that distance. We’ve said, you get the social justice agenda, we get the life and marriage agenda. And I’m pushing at this cloth of being pro-life and whole life, and that applies to the immigrant, the person in prison, to those is poverty and those in Darfur.

Exactly.

(LvJay)

An on the money blog post by Jonathan V. Last at First Things:

There are reasonable criticisms that can be made of Sarah Palin, both as governor and a vice presidential selection. Yet little of what we have seen in the last six days has been either reasonable or critical (in the traditional sense of the word). Instead, much of the left and many in the media simply lashed out at Palin, particularly at her family.

And not only the fringiest parts of the political fringe: A writer at the Washington Post attacked Palin for the fact that her seventeen-year-old daughter was going to have a baby. A writer for The Atlantic openly questioned whether or not Palin’s four-month-old baby, who has Down’s Syndrome, was actually hers. The utterly unfounded suggestion was that the baby was Palin’s daughter’s and that the governor had faked her pregnancy. Proof of the baby’s birth was demanded.

(more…)

Over at the Corner at National Review Online there is this post, which is not good news

NR has learned that the McCain campaign has been calling key state GOP officials around the country the last couple of days and sounding them out about the consequences of a pro-choice VP pick. The campaign is asking about the reaction of conservative grass-roots activists to such a pick and whether a pro-choicer can be sold to them. This is an indication that the McCain campaign is serious about the possibility of a pro-choice VP nominee and that McCain leaving the door open to Tom Ridge last week may not have been merely a friendly nod to a longtime supporter. In this scenario, McCain’s emphatic pro-life statements Saturday night and his pledge that he’ll run a “pro-life administration” would have been partly an attempt to reassure conservatives in the event of a pro-choice pick. Here is NR’s take today on why going with a pro-choicer would be a mistake for McCain.

My only hope is that the fact that the calls are even being made is a recognition of the problems that this will cause and that the calls will result in Senator McCain not going down this road.

Michael J. New has today’s must-read piece over at NRO.

I am not sure I agree with all of New’s points, but it is a thoughtful piece and well worth your time.

Today, conservatives across the country will (rightly) celebrate the twentieth anniversary of Rush Limbaugh’s syndicated radio program. Rush is many things to many people. He is smart, funny, quick witted, insightful, charming, always entertaining, and even his detractors are forced to concede that he does indeed have “talent on loan from God.” The man is the best at what he does. There is simply no disputing that.

Most importantly, Rush has been the voice of the conservative movement for quite some time now. And while his unwavering committment to limited government, free-market principles, and national defense are often the first things that come to mind when one thinks of Rush Limbaugh, he has also been a crucial proponent of a ”culture of life” in this country. In taking up this mantle, Rush–perhaps more than anyone else–exposed just how radical the feminist movement is on the issue of abortion. For these things, I am eternally grateful.

Rush, when you look back on your wildly successful career, I hope you will remember that in addition to all of the fame and fortune, you played a significant role in defending the most innocent and vulnerable members of society. You have been, and continue to be, a voice for the voiceless; and I can think of no greater honor than being remembered as a man who used his power to promote the inherent dignity of all life from conception until natural death.  

God Bless you, Rush. I pray that you will have many more years behind the golden EIB microphone.

This is a debate worth having.

And it looks like the tide is finally turning in the right direction thanks to the hard work of groups like the American Life League.

This is today’s must-read post.

Americans United for Life Blog.

Check it out!

Here is today’s must-read, courtsey of Marjorie Dannenfelser. This excerpt is especially powerful:

Contrast the perspective of baby-as-expendable-burden and punishment with the rarely repeated story of John and Cindy McCain’s “surprise” child . . . .  (more…)

I just finished watching Bella, and I absolutely loved it. I’ll have more to say about this movie later, but for the time being I simply want to encourage y’all to go out and purchase or rent Bella ASAP (preferably the former).

Courtesy of Yuval Levin.

This recent speech by Senator John McCain is nothing less than outstanding. Here’s a taste (but please do read the entire speech):

There is a tendency in our age to accede to the spurious excuse of moral relativism and turn away from the harshest examples of man’s inhumanity to man; to ignore the darker side of human nature that encroaches upon our decency by subtle degree. There are many reasons for this. Blessed with opportunity, and intent on the challenges of work and family, our own lives often seem too full and hectic to take notice of offenses that seem distant from our own reality. There is also the threat in a society passionate about its liberty that we can become desensitized to the dehumanizing effect of the obscenity and hostility that pervades much of popular culture. It is in our nature as Americans to see the good in things; to face even serious adversity with hope and optimism. And yet, with so much good in the world, for all the progress of humanity, in which our nation has played such an admirable and important role, evil still exists in the world. It preys upon human dignity, assaults the innocence of children, debases our self-respect and the respect we are morally obliged to pay each other, and assails the great, animating truths we believe to be self-evident — that all people have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — by subjecting countless human beings to abuse, persecution and even slavery.

Confronting evil has never been easy — in our age or any other. But the failure to do so affects even those who are complacent with our own blessings and secure in our human rights. Accepting the degradation of values we believe are universal is to relinquish some of our own humanity. America was founded on the belief in the inherent dignity of all human life and that this dignity can only be preserved through shared respect and shared responsibility. We can retain our own freedom when others are robbed of theirs, but not the sense of virtue that made our revolution a moral as well as political crusade, and which recognizes that personal happiness is so much more than pleasure, and requires us to serve causes greater than self-interest.

That is beautiful and powerful prose, my firends. I am very impressed with both Senator McCain and his speechwriters. Well done, gents. 

Because there are some things that are much more important than politics.

Please pray for the people of Burma.

I’ve had a few requests for the links to my appearance on Hardball that took place during my sabbatical from SA (May 30, 2007). There were two segments, and you can watch them here and here.

I cannot think of any actor that deserved to play the role of Jesus more than Jim Caviezel.

(LvC&EI!)

LifeNews has this report.