When the Susan G. Komen Foundation reached out and asked me to post information about the Global Race for the Cure, I promised to help. I had completely forgotten to write about it until I saw their newsletter this morning.

The 21st annual Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in Washington, D.C. will be tomorrow morning. Per the organization’s newsletter, late registration is still open today from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency on the Hill.

The race kicks off tomorrow morning at  7:30 a.m. with opening ceremonies on the National Mall.

Awareness of breast cancer is an interesting topic. Many companies have been accused of pink-washing to get a coveted pink ribbon on their packaging. For example, is it good for KFC to promote breast cancer awareness when obesity increases cancer risks?  It’s also hard to track where all the money goes. So many huge organizations are raising money to fight cancer. How do you ensure accountability?

The Komen Foundation passed on local facts:

Last year, the race raised $4.7 million for local education and community outreach programs that work tirelessly to assist vulnerable populations.  Some organizations that received grants this year include: Whitman-Walker Clinic on 14^th Street, Food and Friends, Georgetown University and Sibley Memorial Hospital.

There has been some controversy over the Komen Foundation funding grants for Planned Parenthood, which is explained here. Given their history and priorities, I would love to see Planned Parenthood close down its doors throughout the country. They are the main source of reproductive health care in many rural and low income neighborhoods and do provide services besides abortion. Quite simply, Christians have neglected to fill this gap in services, so Planned Parenthood stepped in to fill a legitimate need. It doesn’t make the entire organization less reprehensible, but I have no issue with the Komen Foundation fulfilling its mission by funding organizations with the capacity to help.

Unfortunately, there are many murky political issues that surround cancer research. Those should be examined and are important. However, when you watch a relative slowly waste away from cancer that should have been detected early or watch someone struggle through chemo, it changes your perspective. I think the Komen Foundation has tried to address this issue and respect both sides while fulfilling their goal.

Anyone with a loved one facing the Big C understands the need to do something about it. I’m not a research scientist or a nurse. I can’t help patients with cancer or find a cure for the disease, but I can donate money and raise awareness of programs that are helping patients and searching for a cure.

What an accurate description! However, Feministing is one of the more prominent ones in lefty gal world, so people actually get their information and draw their opinions there. (Does that make you cringe, too?)

It makes my day when kick-ass conservative women bloggers, like Lori Ziganto, take on Jessica Valenti, founder of Feministing. Given that Lori actually makes logical arguments and the extent of Jessica’s are typically, “but that’s so f—ing stupid to ME, so THEY are wrong.” (Don’t believe me? Read her books). Apparently Lori ruffled a few feathers, which resulted in Cassy Fiano responding at Hot Air.

What was all the fuss over? A simple ad in NYC subways that states, “abortion changes you.”

For the past few months, I’ve read numerous reports about pro-abortion women angered at the concept that abortion could change you. As John Hawkins described, it’s rather mild. Yet to feminists, this ad was incredibly offensive. No one should dare question their opinion on abortion. As liberal women, they have the final word.

Cassy touches on a subject that I’ve tried to understand:

It’s like they practically salivate over the thought of another woman getting an abortion. I don’t know why, but it’s sickening how much feminists try to actively convince women to have abortions.

I’ve seen that same enthusiasm and find it cold and calculating. Mentally, I’ve started referring to these type of women as the baby killer cheerleaders. You have women reveling in their abortion stories, bowling for abortion, blogging for abortion and tweeting an abortion. It doesn’t quite resonate with the “safe, legal, rare” drumbeat that liberals tried to use in the 90s. I guess the new motto is “YEA! ABORTION!”

As part of the larger liberal movement, feminists completely eliminate the concept of personal responsibility. A group of women doesn’t want to accept responsibilities for their actions and are convinced that women can and should have the same sexual abandon as a frat boy. They don’t want to deal with the consequences, and abortion makes it convenient for them. Don’t want a baby? Poof! Abortion makes the little unwanted mass of tissues disappear.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way, and a majority of Americans agree. Every woman who stands up and says, “this attitude and behavior is not acceptable” only highlights the shallow callousness of pro-abortion women. In order to succeed, they must silence all opposition and bully other women into agreeing with them. That’s the only pro-woman way, right?

Kudos to Cassy and Lori. I wish more women on the right would take on Jessica Valenti and others like her.

Those on the pro-life side view the issue from the perspective of the unborn. Thanks to neo-natal medicine, it’s difficult to argue that life doesn’t start at conception or very shortly afterward. As I’ve written before, feminists are becoming more and more comfortable with the fact that abortion is murder. They just de-value the life of the unborn, placing the emphasis on the woman and her education and economic conditions.

It’s a sleight of hand to re-frame the issue since they’ve lost major ground on previous talking points. (i.e. reproductive justice, abortion’s cool!) The economic conditions and education of women likely to get abortion are still huge issues, but it is unacceptable to justify the premeditated termination of a life due to convenience.

But what about the condition of the unborn? Even if feminists are accept that abortion kills a living human, is it humane?

Many people aren’t aware that we have humane slaughter laws in this country. Passed in 1958, Congress stipulated that livestock should not unduly suffer when slaughtered. Animals do feel pain and these laws are right. For example, chickens are stunned before their heads are cut off at poultry plants around the country.

I’ve always wondered if we try to prevent chickens from experiencing pain at death, how come we don’t care about how cruel abortion is to the fetus?

Yesterday, a Red State post highlighted that Nebraska is debating banning abortion after 20 weeks based on evidence that a fetus can experience pain.

Even if you believe abortion should be legal, is it acceptable to barbarically terminate a life? If a 20-week fetus can experience pain, few would argue that abortion is horrific.

Whether it’s a D&C, saline or suction, how can you not acknowledge abortion is inhumane? Abortion isn’t a magic pill that makes the baby go “poof!” Most procedures are invasive to the woman and either cut the fetus apart, burn it alive with saline or suck it apart.

Remember that our society protects chickens from feeling pain, but not a fetus.

Based on precedent of humane slaughter laws and even capital punishment, shouldn’t we re-examine this as a society? Regardless if you think that abortion should be legal or not, commonly used abortion procedures are inhumane. It’s difficult to debate that fact.

(video H/T: Suzy B)

Some may scoff, thinking the pro-life community is dead. Remember that young people are more pro-life than pro-choice.

Also, the pro-abortion community has been vastly out-fundraised in recent years. That’s out-fundraised in years when there hasn’t been a major pro-life battle waged. The appointments of Sotomayor and Sebelius were the biggest ones in recent years. With Stupak there’s an element of betrayal that people will not soon forget. He made it personal.

The grassroots are out for blood. The RNC hit their goal of raising $402,010 in less than 12 20* hours and just upped their moneybomb. Last night on Twitter, people were practically throwing their wallets at anyone who was running against Stupak in MI-1. The path to November will be quite a ride.

Susan B. Anthony List quickly took back the “Defender of Life” award that was promised to Stupak at their event next week. The Susan B. Anthony Candidate List Fund president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, told the press:

“Let me be clear: any representative, including Rep. Stupak, who votes for this healthcare bill can no longer call themselves ‘pro-life.’ The Susan B. Anthony List Candidate Fund will not endorse, or support in any capacity, any Member of Congress who votes for this bill in any future election. Now through Election Day 2010, these representatives will learn that votes have consequences. The SBA List Candidate Fund will work tirelessly to help defeat Members who support this legislation and make sure their constituents know exactly how they voted. We will actively seek out true pro-life candidates to oppose Members who vote ‘yes’ on this bill, whether it be in general or primary elections. For these Members, it will be a quick downhill slide to defeat in November.”

National Right to Life:

The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) remains strongly opposed to the Senate-passed health bill (H.R. 3590). A lawmaker who votes for this bill is voting to require federal agencies to subsidize and administer health plans that will pay for elective abortion, and voting to undermine longstanding pro-life policies in other ways as well. Pro-life citizens nationwide know that this is a pro-abortion bill. Pro-life citizens know, and they will be reminded again and again, which lawmakers deserve their gratitude for voting against this pro-abortion legislation.

The Family Research Council released the strongest statement I’ve ever seen Tony Perkins utter:

FRC Action will seek to defeat many of the Members from majority pro-life districts who voted wrong today, and they will have plenty of free time to realize the grave mistake they have committed on the unborn today with their vote.

Americans United for Life have a blog post up explaining why Stupak’s Executive Order still funds abortion.

*I was wrong. The RNC hit their goal after 20 hours via TechRepublican.

This could be a reflection of society growing more pro-life, which Gallup has reported for a while now. However, the generation billed as the most “socially liberal” is far more pro-life than our parents were at our age.

Today, via Feministing, I saw the results of a survey the Girl Scouts released, Good Intentions: The Beliefs and Values of Tweens and Teens today that surveyed the younger members and complements the Gallup survey.  The Girl Scout survey was actually a better sample than Gallup with 3,263 girls and boys in grades 3-12 who were both in and out of scouting (Gallup only had about 1,000 in the 18-29 cohort). The survey revealed similar findings for the school-aged sample as Gallup did:

Another topic of interest in this survey was youth’s attitudes about abortion. The proportion of 7th- to 12th-graders who agree that abortion is all right is lower today than it was in 1989. Fewer youth today (25%) than in 1989 (33%) believe that “abortion is all right if having a baby will change your life plans in a way you find hard to live with.” Six in ten (60%) disagree that “abortion is all right, if having a baby will change your life plans”. Fifteen percent do not know how they feel about the matter. Boys are more likely than girls to agree that abortion is all right (29% compared to 20%), and as youth get older they are more likely to agree. White (28%) and Asian (35%) youth in this age bracket are more likely than African Americans (15%) to agree with this as well. (emphasis mine.)

What has made this generation–and society overall–more pro-life? Is it the constant presence of abortion in the news? The development of neo-natal medicine or the loudly silent population of 52 million missing people that were killed before they were born?

The groups are divided over whether the Senate bill allows for federal funding of abortions. Status quo, as dictated in the Hyde amendment, bans taxpayer funding of the procedure in programs such as Medicaid, except when the life of the mother is at risk or in cases of rape or incest.

Members of the Pro-Choice Caucus say that they don’t like the Senate bill because it requires women who want an insurance policy that covers abortions to pay for the abortion coverage entirely on their own and send two separate checks to cover premiums.

The line, women who want an insurance policy that covers abortions to pay for the abortion coverage entirely on their own and send two separate checks to cover premiums, makes my blood run cold.

The Pro-Choice Caucus infers that there are women out there who pro-actively pay for abortion insurance. Insurance is an economic decision to invest in services that you will possibly need. When you opt into getting a specific policy, you are acknowledging that the odds are against you. For example, if you live on a mountain, are you likely to get flood insurance?

Women who opt for this coverage would make a premeditated decision thinking, “It is likely that I will get pregnant unexpectedly. If I do, I want to abort any child that I conceive.”

Perhaps I’m naive. I’ve always believed that even those who support abortion view it as a worst case scenario. Lately, the left has managed to shock me by endorsing abortion with glee. It’s as though pro-abortion advocates are shouting, “Who cares if abortion is murder? I’m ok with that. In fact,  I’m going to be a cheerleader for it because a woman’s “right” the most important factor. To hell with everything else.”

Just look at Feministing’s response to Mary Ann Sorrentino, former Planned Parenthood executive director in Rhode Island, when she questioned Angie Jackson’s live tweets of her abortion.

Sorrentino’s piece reads like she’s telling Jackson to be ladylike, to be a “good girl.” There are certain things a woman just shouldn’t speak about in public. This isn’t the feminism of a previous generation – it’s an argument that the divides between public and private should be maintained, with women’s experiences kept in the private sphere. It’s an argument for silence, for stigma, and for an appropriate way of being a lady.

This goes against the approach to destigmatizing abortion that I learned from pre-Roe organizers. The Redstockings Abortion Speakout in 1969 began a traditional of women telling their abortion stories publicly to humanize the procedure, to bring it into the public sphere, and to remove shame. These women didn’t listen when they were told their stories should be kept private. Jackson used new technology to share the experience as it was happening, a new twist on an old consciousness raising technique.

In removing the stigma of abortion, feminist forces aren’t justifying this debate, they’re celebrating it. They are reveling in this legal right regardless if it is good for women. Forget the gory details and pain that Angie Jackson’s tweets revealed. She’s raising the collective consciousness of womankind! To hell with anything else. As long as the feminist agenda is advanced, nothing else matters.

Anyone else sickened by this?

Susan B. Anthony List also has more information about abortion and the Health Care Summit last week. This is a major problem. Americans should not be required to fund abortions with tax dollars.

Not anymore.

I don’t know if life has been devalued so much that the brutal shock of abortion isn’t chilling, or if pro-choice forces are so backed into the corner that they’ve become stubbornly entrenched into their talking points. Today, I saw two things from feminist sources on the web that truly disgusted me.

A woman is now tweeting her abortion. Four weeks into her pregnancy, she decided to obtain the RU486, the “abortion pill” and is chronicling it for the internet masses. Broadsheet writes:

Instead, she explains in a YouTube video pasted below, her aim is to remove the shame and “demystify” the experience of terminating a pregnancy, “so that women know, hey, it’s not nearly as terrifying as I had myself worked up thinking it was.” She says, “It’s not that bad, it’s not that scary. It’s basically like a miscarriage.” (Remember, we’ve already written about a woman who tweeted her miscarriage.) In her Twitter feed, she talks spotting, nausea, cramps and Vicodin. She doesn’t make it sound like a walk in the park — and of course it isn’t, her body is working to expel the embryo from her uterus — but there is something reassuring about how she matter-of-factly walks us, and herself, through the whole process. It’s as though she’s live-tweeting the aftermath of a routine medical procedure, like a wisdom tooth extraction.

Tracy Clark-Flory, who’s quickly surpassing Jessica Valenti levels of callous idiocy, likens abortion to having a tooth pulled:

In fact, before I went in for what felt like terrifying oral surgery to remove a backasswards tooth from my sinus cavity — freaky, right? — I went on YouTube and watched footage of similar procedures and video blogs of people’s recovery process. It replaced all of my far-fetched nightmarish visions with concrete, factual information. Without that, I might have gone running for the hills — or at least passed out in the waiting room. Considering that abortion is so prone to politicized distortions and outright lies, Jackson is doing women a real favor. This isn’t another case of overshare-itis, it’s an example of how amid all the frivolous cacophony of Facebook, Twitter and the like, some folks are, like, actually doing good. Oh, Internet, you enigma you.

Babies. troublesome teeth. They’re all the same, right? Having a dentist pull a tooth with Novocaine is so similar to having saline shot into your uterus until it burns a fetus alive or a giant vacuum suck out the live fetus because that’s the reality of abortion. I doubt the baby being aborted would tweet such a pleasant experience if it were possible.

It’s also not like footage of abortions hasn’t existed before now. When did Silent Scream come out…1984? It’s been online since the concept of online video was around, long before YouTube. “Facts” just don’t exist to abortion supporters until it suits their needs.

Secondly, one of the feminists I follow on Twitter linked to ImNotSorry.net, a web site dedicated to women sharing “positive” experiences with abortion. My stomach turned when I read this. I wish this was just denial, but it goes deeper. This is callous and cruel. I imagine a serial killer message board would be similar.

Honestly, pro-choicers remind me of two-year-olds in mid-tantrum. They know that their parents are right, but they’re going to dig into their fit and scream as loud and long as possible. It is impossible to argue with them because all rationality is gone. They don’t care if the “political right” that they argue for is unbelievably violent and cruel. (Were livestock treated as an aborted fetus, it would be deemed animal cruelty, but that’s our screwed up world. Read the Humane Slaughter Act if you don’t believe me.) The point is that they want it available. All other truths and consequences be damned. Every sick woman who tweets or blogs works to further desensitize the horrors of abortion. This helps them achieve their goal of devaluing life. That’s their end game.

We teach our kids in history about the Holocaust and wonder how it happened. Yet, we sit back and allow abortion to continue in our society, while increasingly-sick pro-choice groups revel in their ability to systematically murder our young. How can you read these sites and not be utterly ashamed at what our society allows?

Once upon a time even pro-choice supporters admitted that abortion was a terrible thing and should be limited. Not anymore. Now they celebrate it.

Update: Since my friend, “usuck” had such issues with my comment policy, I decided to post his/her comment. I don’t even think it makes sense. It is completely unedited, grammar and all.

There are anti-choice people that blow up abortion clinics, kill doctors and women, but only someone with two brain cells would say they represent all anti-choice people. When focus on extreme or idiotic pro-choice people then make blanket statements about all pro-choice people, contrary to your belief, is not rational and intelligent thought. I’m pro-choice because I believe women and girls have the right to determine if they want to sacrifice their body for 9 months. It’s a woman’s choice and hers alone. The only uterus you have domain over is your own, not anyone else.

And abortion is not murder. They are two entirely different legal concepts. Read a book

It’s not heart disease. It’s not cancer. It’s abortion.

40% of pregnancies among African-American women end in abortion. Minorities make up just 13% of the US population but account for 36% of all abortions conducted. Last fall, CNS reported on a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

Abortion killed at least 203,991 blacks in the 36 states and two cities (New York City and the District of Columbia) that reported abortions by race in 2005, according to the CDC. During that same year, according to the CDC, a total of 198,385 blacks nationwide died from heart disease, cancer, strokes, accidents, diabetes, homicide, and chronic lower respiratory diseases combined. These were the seven leading causes of death for black Americans that year.

Today, Ericka Andersen wrote an article at Smart Girl Nation about abortion and the black community. She reminded me of a documentary that I saw several months ago about the black genocide in America, Maafa 21. The entire documentary can be viewed on YouTube.

What abortion fans have hidden is the devastating effect of abortion on the black community. I think it’s pretty well known that Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, viewed abortion as a way to eliminate African-Americans, the poor and disabled from society. It was only after WWII and the connection between Hitler and eugenics that leaders changed the name from the American Birth Control League to Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers disproportionately target the black neighborhoods. It’s encouraging to see the Black community fight back. Across the country, Maafa 21 is being screened at college campuses this month at Black History Month events.

This week, abortion fans revealed their true colors with the Tim Tebow ad in the most overblown “crisis!” ever. Their reaction shows that they don’t want a true and honest debate about abortion or even proactive discussions on how to decrease it. For inexplicable reasons, these women will not even tolerate the briefest hint that life is an option when it comes to unplanned or high-risk pregnancies and blindly fight to ensure that women only abort.

It’s time for Christians, regardless of race, to band together and fight this genocide. I don’t care what political party you belong to. Watch Maafa 21 online and tell me that you aren’t disgusted by what has happened to the black community.

1) NOW doesn’t represent all women, just women who support abortion without restrictions. Jenkins writes:

I’m pro-choice, and Tebow clearly is not. But based on what I’ve heard in the past week, I’ll take his side against the group-think, elitism and condescension of the “National Organization of Fewer and Fewer Women All The Time.” For one thing, Tebow seems smarter than they do.

Tebow’s 30-second ad hasn’t even run yet, but it already has provoked “The National Organization for Women Who Only Think Like Us” to reveal something important about themselves: They aren’t actually “pro-choice” so much as they are pro-abortion. Pam Tebow has a genuine pro-choice story to tell. She got pregnant in 1987, post-Roe v. Wade, and while on a Christian mission in the Philippines, she contracted a tropical ailment. Doctors advised her the pregnancy could be dangerous, but she exercised her freedom of choice and now, 20-some years later, the outcome of that choice is her beauteous Heisman Trophy winner son, a chaste, proselytizing evangelical.

Now, where have I heard that before? Possibly here?

Many have complained that this isn’t fair because CBS has apparently changed a policy. Get over it. Do you really think they’re going to favor a fervently conservative organization? CBS is in the business to make money not win brownie points with Christians. If Focus was the first group to benefit from a policy change, that leaves feminist groups looking like whiny kids. At some point in women’s history, the “It’s not Fair!” charge has to end.

2) Free speech works both ways.

This is a lesson that both liberals and some right-wing groups could learn. Just because someone says something that you don’t like, you can’t silence them. Free speech is still a right in this country. As an organization, it is your job to ensure that your message is strong enough to withstand attacks from the other side. Clearly, NOW has issues with the validity of their message when they won’t even allow it to be debated. Jenkins explains:

Let me be clear again: I couldn’t disagree with Tebow more. It’s my own belief that the state has no business putting its hand under skirts. But I don’t care that we differ. Some people will care that the ad is paid for by Focus on the Family, a group whose former spokesman, James Dobson, says loathsome things about gays. Some will care that Tebow is a creationist. Some will care that CBS has rejected a gay dating service ad. None of this is the point. CBS owns its broadcast and can run whatever advertising it wants, and Tebow has a right to express his beliefs publicly. Just as I have the right to reject or accept them after listening — or think a little more deeply about the issues. If the pro-choice stance is so precarious that a story about someone who chose to carry a risky pregnancy to term undermines it, then CBS is not the problem.

Tebow’s ad, by the way, never mentions abortion; like the player himself, it’s apparently soft-spoken. It simply has the theme “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life.” This is what NOW has labeled “extraordinarily offensive and demeaning.” But if there is any demeaning here, it’s coming from NOW, via the suggestion that these aren’t real questions, and that we as a Super Bowl audience are too stupid or too disinterested to handle them on game day.

3) The abortion debate should be about eliminating the need for abortion not destroying the other side. I absolutely agree with Jenkins here, and believe that pro-lifers could learn a thing or two.

There’s not enough space in the sports pages for the serious weighing of values that constitutes this debate, but surely everyone in both camps, pro-choice or pro-life, wishes the “need” for abortions wasn’t so great. Which is precisely why NOW is so wrong to take aim at Tebow’s ad.

A liberal friend of mine noted on Facebook that no one is winning the culture war. I agree. Rather than proactively working to reduce the number of abortions or the need for them, both sides just take pot-shots at each other and struggle to have the final word.

This is a touchy subject within the pro-life community. Perhaps I’m a pragmatist, but I believe that under any circumstance abortion is murder, so we should work to build a society where it is not accepted. Part of this is restoring the sanctity of human life, which pro-life groups work towards. It also involves practical public policy decisions regarding access to contraception and sex education. The jury is still out on what type of sex ed works (there’s a new study out today that shows abstinence does work). Even though I used to write grants on reproductive health programs at a nonprofit, I’m still unclear what works best, and I’m familiar with the data. However, I believe that pro-lifers need to be a little more willing to work on these issues.

Conversely, anti-lifers need to face facts about how terrible abortion is. There’s nothing wrong with parental notification or requiring a woman to have a sonogram before aborting. If you are willing to end a life that you created, you should have to face that life. Convicts facing the death penalty at least get to face their victims or families of victims. The unborn do not receive that right. Instead, the anti-life movement makes it appear that abortion is some magic pill that makes a baby go “poof!” I think they’d get a lot further with their “choice” argument and feeble attempts to claim that they want to “reduce” abortions, if they came clean about the horrors of the medical procedure.