Category: Politics

Hearts of Stone Out of Touch on the Question of Human Life

On By Donna F. G. HailsonIn Children, PoliticsLeave a comment
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This is the image that was shared in 2013 when the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Act was before the Senate.

I cannot begin to fathom how the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Bill once again failed to pass in the Senate! No one can look at a sonogram image and deny the presence of a life, a human life, a unique and separate being. Only an individual with a seared conscience and a heart of stone could have voted to continue legally and lethally injecting and dismembering highly developed, viable or near-viable fetuses.

In 2013, when the bill was first raised, I posted an article in which one commentator for Salon, Mary Elizabeth Williams, shared her belief that “life starts at conception” but she added, “that hasn’t stopped me one iota from being pro-choice… Here’s the complicated reality in which we live: All life is not equal. That’s a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about, lest we wind up looking like death-panel-loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-precious-baby storm troopers. Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always…the fetus is indeed a life. A life worth sacrificing.” I was reminded of Orwell’s Animal Farm here: All are equal, but some are more equal than others. A seared conscience. A heart of stone. Only a culture of death and deeply imbedded selfishness could support such cruelty, such an abomination! God help us!

Here is the article from 2013: https://donnafghailson.com/?s=seared+conscience

A dear and much respected friend Charmaine Yoest, who once headed Americans United for Life, had the words of Thomas Jefferson, scripted in large letters on her wall: “The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.” Charmaine’s conclusion: “You lose true north if you can’t defend innocent human life.”

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Following is a video of Sen. Ben Sasse’s (R. Neb.) motion to proceed with S. 2311, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Bill. Please take the time to listen to his words. I cannot understand how 46 human beings could have failed to be moved by his impassioned plea that 20-week old unborn babies–having been carried by their mothers for five months–might receive legal protection against abortion.

Sasse said, in part: “We all oooh and aaah over sonogram pictures of children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews — even sonogram pictures from a stranger on a bus or plane. We all look at those pictures and we love. We don’t have to be taught or conditioned to love. We don’t love because of economics. We don’t love because of politics. We love because they’re babies. You don’t need me to explain something that we’ve all experienced. But we should note that this love is backed with facts. The science is clear. No one seriously disputes that that little girl in that image is alive. We all know and understand that that little baby in that sonogram image is a unique and separate being.”

Sasse asked of his colleagues as they prepared to take the vote on the Senate floor: “Where will we draw the line? Have our hearts grown cold to truth? Beauty and compassion can stir our hearts. Science and facts still confirm the truth. These beautiful lives deserve our protection.” Forty-six Democrats and two Republicans would fail to draw the line.

 

“Two-thirds of Americans support a 20-week abortion ban, including more than half of Democrats and more than half of self-described pro-choice Americans. Though the Pain-Capable bill didn’t pass, the vote forced pro-abortion Democrats [and two Republicans] to show Americans how out of touch they continue to be on the question of human life — even as science and technology prove them wrong.” [Source: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/455883/abortion-ban-senate-vote-fails-pass-pain-capable-unborn-child-protection-act%5D

Compilation of 4D ultrasound videos at 20 weeks:

 

Ben Carson, the Media, and Word Pretzeling

On By Donna F. G. HailsonIn PoliticsLeave a comment

Some media outlets and some of my friends on Facebook have been in an uproar over comments made by Ben Carson at a Monday meeting with Housing and Urban Development employees. They have expressed outrage over Dr. Carson’s use of the word “immigrant” to refer to slaves brought, in cargo holds, to the United States.

“There were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships, worked even longer, even harder for less,” Carson, the new HUD Secretary, said. “But they too had a dream that one day their sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, great-grandsons, great-granddaughters, might pursue prosperity and happiness in this land.”

The dictionary defines “immigrant” as “a person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country.” No choice is indicated in this definition. According to Henry Louis Gates, in his 2009 book, In Search of Our Roots: How 19 Extraordinary African Americans Reclaimed Their Past, Carson has at least one ancestor who was abducted from Africa. Carson certainly understands the difference between an “involuntary immigrant” and a “voluntary immigrant.” He was not suggesting that slaves came to this country of their own free will. I read his comments before HUD in this way: once here, those who came to this country not by choice, as well as those who came to this country of their own volition, all hoped and prayed for better lives for their progeny.

In fact, Monday night, Carson expounded on his remarks saying, “You can be an involuntary immigrant. Slaves didn’t just give up and die, our ancestors made something of themselves.”

It should be clear to anyone, who cares to look, that the majority membership of the media in the United States didn’t actually report on the HUD meeting. Instead, like heat-seeking missiles, they went in search of a word or a phrase that could be twisted into something vile, something damaging. Sad to say, this intentional mangling has come to characterize much of what the industry is putting forth as journalism. It’s all a matter of capturing readers. And, sad to say, much of the American populace has been eating up these manufactured pretzels without taking a moment to question what they’re ingesting. They do so at their peril.

Accompanying image taken from “Notices of Brazil in 1828 and 1829” by Robert Walsh, published 1830, in public domain

I’ve Finally Started Tweeting

On By Donna F. G. HailsonIn Arts and Culture, Christian Faith, Nature, Poetry, Politics, Social Media, Societal Issues, Travel, Wildlife and EcologyLeave a comment
This image by an Ethiopian artist of the biblical figure Ruth is in my collection.
This image by an Ethiopian artist of the biblical figure Ruth is in my collection.

I’ve finally opened a Twitter account. I’ve begun posting there on Christian spirituality, wildlife, wild places, art, travel, photography, companion animals, poetry, literature, soundscapes, habitats, books, writing, politics, social issues and…

You’ll find me under D.F.G. Hailson. I hope you’ll look for me and will connect with me there. Of course, I’ll still be blogging at this address.

Photos by Donna Hailson.