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It’s heartening that these leftists are more against the Palestine war than they were for the Ukraine war. On its face, it’s confusing why they would support one war and not the other. But if you study it for a bit, you realize that these people are just baby-level retards, and they think that somehow...

On April 13, Iran responded to Israel’s attack on its embassy compound in Damascus that killed seven Iranian officers, including a very senior military official, General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, by launching over 300 drones and missiles at Israel from Iranian soil. U.S. officials, according to some reporting, say that four or five ballistic missiles hit … Continue reading "This Past Weekend, Iran Changed Everything"

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Rumble link Bitchute link The Intercept reports: The New York Times’ management encouraged its staff to use the word “terrorists” (as opposed to “fighters” or “militants”) when referring to Palestinian military actions such as the October 7 al-Aqsa Storm raid, but never in reference to Israeli massacres of civilians. Like all other US mainstream outlets,...

The following is an edited, amended, and condensed version of a speech I delivered in Zurich’s environs earlier this month. The occasion was sponsored by Zeit–Fragen, a twice-monthly journal that also comes out in French and English as Horizons et débats and Current Concerns. — P.L. What does it mean now, in the spring of...

The Biden Regime is using federal money to bribe the Aggies, Texas A&M University, to come up with ways to advance “race-based hiring” in public schools. Possible you remember or have heard that Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement was about judging “people by their character and not the color of their skin.”...

In the Philippines, the proponents of the trilateral alliance frame it as a response to the “threat of assertive China.” In reality, the unwarranted trilateral alliance seems to be the result of a longstanding US maritime counter-insurgency (COIN) campaign, resting on the work of the US Navy Department and other US interests. The purpose of … Continue reading "Trilateral Militarization: From Missiles to Nukes"

The post Trilateral Militarization: From Missiles to Nukes appeared first on Antiwar.com.

Suddenly, western politicians from US President Joe Biden to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak have become ardent champions of “restraint” – in a very last-minute scramble to avoid regional conflagration. Iran launched a salvo of drones and missiles at Israel at the weekend in what amounted a largely symbolic show of strength. Many appear to have been … Continue reading "The West Now Wants ‘Restraint’ – After Months of Fueling a Genocide in Gaza"

The post The West Now Wants ‘Restraint’ – After Months of Fueling a Genocide in Gaza appeared first on Antiwar.com.

In “Iran Tries To Restore Regional Balance; Israel Continues To Murder And Get Away With Murder,” a HARD TRUTH podcast, ilana and David Vance have a heated discussion about Iran’s response, on April 13 and 14, to Israel’s murder of senior commanders in Damascus, on April 1. Six other Iranian nationals and six Syrian citizens...

I hosted Gilad Atzmon events in Madison, Wisconsin several times. The pushback from the local Zionist kamikazes kept getting worse. The last one, in May 2018, saw the Wil Mar Community Center cancel our room reservation at the last minute. Gilad wound up giving a his talk in the park, then playing saxophone in a...

Like all living creatures, people need to eat to live. Some people, eaten from within by a demonic force, try to deny others this basic sustenance. All across the world people are starving because the powerful and wealthy create economic and political conditions that allow their wealth to be built on the backs of the...

If it wasn’t for racism, black people wouldn’t act like this. If there was some other reason than racism, it would have to be something intrinsic to them, racially, and “genetics” are a debunked hoax like Ivermectin horse paste. The only reason they act like this is racism. Shut up about this “genetics” hoax, or...

“Flood conditions continued to impact Dubai on Wednesday, after two years’ worth of rain fell in just 24 hours, records show. Over a half foot — 6.26 inches — of rain was recorded in the United Arab Emirates city between 10 p.m. local time Monday and 10 p.m. local time Tuesday, according to the Dubai Meteorological Office.”

https://abcnews.go.com/International/dubai-flooding-heavy-rainfall/story?id=109321601

In the 1960's the Jewish philosopher, Hannah Arendt, left, was slandered and ostracized when she concluded that "almost without exception" the Jewish leadership were Zionists who cooperated with the Nazis. The Zionist-Nazis collusion was kept quiet in order to give Israel the moral license to conquer Palestine and the Middle East. 

Since certain Republican presidential candidates have recently distanced themselves from, or outright rejected, pro-life state supreme court decisions in Arizona, Florida, and Alabama, while praising counter-legislation such as that examined here, a closer look at that legislation’s content and actual scope seems worthwhile. Political calculations about toning down the conservative party’s pro-life identity to win elections are being touted at the moment. But if sacrifices or concessions are to be made, one must at least know what is being given up and what is being gained.

The new Alabama Act SB159 grants IVF providers civil and criminal immunity for any “death or damage to an embryo.” This partially reverses the recent Alabama Supreme Court decision that recognized extrauterine human embryos as children and granted tort remedies for their destruction. The new law, and the astounding events surrounding its passage, were the product of intense propaganda and political pressure from the political Left and the artificial reproduction industry to exploit election-year politics, attack yet another pro-life court judgment, and successfully divide Republicans.

The act partially reverses the holding in LePage, Fonde & Aysenne v. Center for Reproductive Medicine & Mobile Infirmary Association, in which the Alabama Supreme Court held that Alabama’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act allows parents of a deceased child to recover punitive damages for the death of extrauterine human embryos created in vitro. The case concludes that IVF embryos are included in the term “minor child” under the statute. 

In this case, the embryos of three married couples—the LePages, the Fondes, and the Aysennes—were destroyed in a bizarre incident at an IVF clinic. A patient entered the clinic’s frozen embryo bank, without authorization or supervision, to remove some embryos (probably their own) and accidentally destroyed the plaintiffs’ five embryos in the process.

As noted by Justice Jay Mitchell, who wrote the majority opinion, all parties to the litigation, including the Center for Reproductive Medicine and the Mobile Infirmary Medical Center, agreed that “an unborn child is a genetically unique human whose life begins at fertilization,” and that an unborn child qualifies as a “human life,” “human being,” or “person” throughout all stages of development regardless of viability. The clinics disagreed, however, arguing that an extrauterine human embryo, who is not physically located in utero, would not be a “child” or “person” and, therefore, would not be within the class of persons protected by the Wrongful Death Act. In contrast, the Alabama Supreme Court found that the physical location of the human embryo, like any other ancillary characteristics, did not exclude him from the act’s protection.

The LePage judgment recognized some measure of accountability against IVF providers that, by wrongful act, negligence, or omission cause the destruction of human embryos. It allowed a private cause of action to parents for money damages for the loss or destruction of their own human embryos in an IVF clinic. The ruling did not prohibit any artificial reproduction procedures or impose any penalties on IVF providers in Alabama. The plaintiffs themselves stated that they had conceived healthy children through IVF before and “did not intend to hinder or impair” access to IVF treatment.

The seed for the distortion of the holding’s scope, and of the subsequent rejection of the ruling, seems to have been planted by Justice Greg Cook, who wrote the sole opinion that dissented in full, siding with the IVF providers in the lawsuit. Despite affirming his agreement that life begins at conception, Justice Cook rejected the idea that the extrauterine human embryo could be included in the legal definition of the terms “child,” “person,” and “minor” under Alabama law. He also referred to the plaintiffs’ deceased embryos as “frozen embryos,” a term suggesting a non-living status for the cryopreserved embryo. This term was later used as the only designation for the deceased embryos by most of the press.

Judge Cook’s dissent directly addressed the Alabama legislature, repeatedly calling it to adopt legislation that would reverse the judgment. The dissent echoed the defendants’ threat that the recognition of “frozen embryos” as children would “almost certainly end the creation of frozen embryos” in the state of Alabama, “lead to fewer newborn babies,” and end “this medical procedure,” creating a “huge impact on many Alabamians.”

In its amicus brief siding with the defendant clinics in the litigation, the Medical Association of the State of Alabama threatened to raise IVF costs to a prohibitive level and make the procedure less affordable to prospective parents by IVF. Apparently speaking for IVF providers in the state, the Alabama Medical Association argued that providers would be held liable for routine treatment of ectopic pregnancies, a proposition that the LePage majority categorically rejected. The association made blanket assertions that treating extrauterine human embryos as children for the purposes of wrongful death liability would “substantially increase the cost of IVF in Alabama,” would “make cryogenic preservation onerous,” and that “costs and storage issues would be prohibitive;” but it presented no evidence whatsoever to that effect. National Review columnist Ed Whelan called such unproven claims a “massive bluff” on the part of IVF providers.

As soon as the ruling was issued, Alabama IVF providers, including unlikely institutions such as the University of Alabama at Birmingham, voluntarily suspended their IVF services. They blamed the Alabama Supreme Court decision in LePage, which did not remotely suggest such action. Providers and Democratic politicians also blamed the Dobbs decision, which had no relation whatsoever to IVF access, as correctly pointed out by Ed Whelan.

The Associated Press reported that IVF providers “traveled to Montgomery to urge lawmakers to find a solution,” promising to resume their activities as soon as the state legislature passed a law reversing the ruling. In the mainstream press, Alabama providers who admittedly maintained low standards for extrauterine embryo care and preservation, claimed that they would be victimized by the LePage ruling and forced either to close down, or to increase the already high costs of their operations. The judgment would also harm thousands of individuals and couples who would lose access to biological parenthood, especially those identifying as LGBT, the progressive media claimed.

Hit pieces were published against Alabama Chief Justice Thomas Parker in leftist media such as NPR, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, and the New York Times. Even though he did not write the majority opinion, Justice Parker was targeted and subjected to ad hominem attacks against his person and his faith. Leftist journalists deplored his pro-life concurring opinion; they also took the opportunity to condemn his conservative stance on same-sex marriage and his legacy of pro-life decisions during his tenure as Chief Justice and as Supreme Court judge. That legacy includes Hamilton v. Scott II (2018) and Ex Parte Phillips (2012), which attacked Roe v. Wade and recognized the personhood of unborn children; it also includes Stinnett v. Kennedy (2016), in which he argued that unborn children are entitled to equal protection of the law under the constitutions of the United States and Alabama. Likewise, in Ex Parte Hicks, a 2014 judgment, he pointed out the logical fallacy of treating the unborn child as a distinct person in some respects and yet denying them full personhood in abortion cases, a principle that he applied in protecting the unborn child’s rights in chemical endangerment cases such as Ex Parte Ankrom and Kimbrough.

Justice Parker’s powerful concurrence in LePage made relevant references to multiple Christian theologians of various denominations to explain the meaning of the Sanctity of Unborn Life Amendment to the Alabama Constitution. His references to the Christian origins of the constitutional amendment were ridiculed with special viciousness and characterized as Christian nationalism by the leftist press, an idea that Ryan Anderson refuted in First Things.

Astonishingly, President Joe Biden used his State of the Union Address to specifically condemn the LePage ruling. He and U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer invited as guests to the event two female IVF users whose embryo transfers had been unilaterally canceled by their IVF providers. The women were presented as victims of the Alabama Supreme Court, rather than victims of their own IVF providers who unilaterally halted services and exerted unethical, undue pressure on their patients to protest the ruling on their behalf. As a result, in Alabama, parents who had conceived children by IVF unwittingly protested against parents’ rights to compensation for the wrongful death of their embryonic children and their right to render IVF clinics accountable for their destruction, perhaps without truthful knowledge of the court’s actual holding.

The majority Republican legislature yielded in less than fifteen days after the February 20 judgment. It approved the act and the Republican governor signed it into law on March 6, apparently intimidated by election year considerations, political pressure from the Left and mainstream media, and the Alabama IVF providers’ strike over the recognition of human embryos as children. The new law’s affirmative grant of civil and criminal immunity for IVF providers who fail to properly handle and preserve human embryos, however, does not benefit parents who use IVF or children conceived in it; it solely benefits the IVF industry, as pro-life leaders have pointed out. These leaders include people like Marjorie Dannenfelser of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, along with representatives of the Southern Baptist Convention, March for Life Action, and Family Research Council, who urged the Alabama governor to veto the legislation.

The act gives IVF providers absolute legal immunity from any civil or criminal action against embryo tampering or destruction. It prevents parents from seeking any remedies other than limited reimbursement from some IVF equipment manufacturers and requires no minimum due care for the lives of human embryos. The act’s broad and imprecise language suggests that Alabama IVF providers are now free to damage, manipulate, dispose of, or otherwise destroy any human embryos, whether cryopreserved or in vivo, intentionally or negligently, with or without parental consent, and in complete impunity.

If unchallenged, the law would reverse the portion of the LePage decision that grants parents a right of action against IVF providers for the wrongful death of their own embryos. The act’s retroactivity provision, which applies to any actions or omissions resulting in embryonic death or damage before the passage of the law, would also preempt enforcement of the judgment by the three married couples who were plaintiffs in the lawsuit and foreclose their option of obtaining wrongful death remedies for the death of their embryonic children.

The act did not, however, explicitly overturn the decision in its entirety or adopt any provisions contrary to the finding that extrauterine human embryos created in vitro are children, whether cryopreserved or not. Alabama Supreme Court precedents holding that unborn children are “children” for the purposes of Alabama’s Wrongful Death of a Minor statute (e.g. Mack v. Carmack and Hamilton v. Scott) are not affected by this law, either.

Alabama, a pro-life state with a pro-life constitution that specifically recognizes the sanctity of unborn life and ensures “the protection of the rights of the unborn child in all manners and measures lawful and appropriate” (Art. I, §36.06) will continue to prevail over legislative acts such as SB159. Alabama’s fetal homicide statute, the Brody Act, will continue to outlaw the killing of an unborn child in utero, even in capital murder cases such as Ex parte Phillips. Under Boone v. Mullendore, Alabama will continue to reject “wrongful birth” actions because of its Sanctity of Unborn Life Amendment.

The passage of Act SB159, however, undermined an important pro-life state supreme court judgment, setting a negative precedent for the finality of other pro-life judgments and even pro-life legislation in general. Immediately after Act SB159’s passage, the IVF industry in Alabama, supported by Democrats, seized momentum and tried to destroy Alabama’s recognition of the unborn child’s personhood. Alabama House Democrats proposed legislation declaring that an extrauterine human embryo cannot be considered an unborn child or human being under state law, arguing that it was the most “direct way” to deal with the issue. Republicans reportedly prevented the proposal from being brought up for a vote.

Republican confusion about the actual holding in LePage led to unfortunate consequences for party unity on pro-life issues. Notably, former president Donald Trump released a video statement on abortion and IVF rejecting a hypothetical nationwide ban on abortion and condemning an IVF ban that the Alabama Supreme Court never ordered. In it, President Trump congratulated the Alabama legislature for acting “very quickly” in passing the IVF provider immunity law and doing a “really great and fast job,” stating he “strongly support[s] the availability of IVF for couples who are trying to have a precious baby,” apparently under the incorrect assumption that the Alabama judgment had somehow banned it. 

Curiously, such statements seem to heed President Biden’s call to Republicans in his State of the Union to support legislation that would “guarantee the right to IVF nationwide.” In addition to the presidential nominee, other Republicans seem to agree: U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, for instance, proposed a nonbinding federal resolution treating IVF as a reproductive right, and U.S. Rep. Marc Molinaro co-sponsored one of three bills recognizing a legal right to IVF proposed by Democratic congresswomen.

Whether supporting the creation of a right to IVF will help Republicans win votes remains unclear; the next federal and state elections may give an inkling of it. In the meantime, conservatives can nevertheless choose not to react to every provocation that the Left throws their way, or to be sidelined by distracting debates and ideological traps that will force them to make concessions on pro-life or other critical political issues. In particular, as noted by policy analysts like Patrick T. Brown, conservative politicians need not side with the Left on IVF or support liberal agendas.

 

Conservative lawmakers can certainly agree that the IVF industry needs legal regulation. In LePage, both Chief Justice Parker and Justice Mendheim pointed out that legal scholars consider the United States a Wild West for reproductive technologies, which have gone largely unregulated since their inception in 1978. All justices, including Justice Cook, agreed on “the need for comprehensive regulation” of the IVF industry. In practice, that could mean, for instance, supporting legislation to substitute embryo freezing for gamete (ova or sperm) freezing; this is a more ethical alternative to mass embryonic cryopreservation, according to the Catholic University of Valencia’s Bioethics Observatory.

To expect the IVF industry to regulate itself or to curb its own destruction of embryos in any way seems especially unreasonable as a conservative position. The billion-dollar industry of artificial reproductive technologies creates and destroys more embryos than can possibly be implanted in human wombs, as IVF providers openly admitted in LePage and the publicity campaigns against it. Ordinary IVF processes in the United States today require not only surplus embryo creation but also embryo screening, selection, freezing, eventual disposal, and destruction or donation to embryo-destroying research. Providers’ economic interest in preserving the status quo includes an economic interest in allowing millions of human embryos to be created and destroyed by IVF providers for profit, with no legal consequences.

The new Alabama law can ironically be a good starting point for a consensus that conservatives should not promote broad immunity and impunity for embryo destruction, nor support the abolition of a parental right of action against IVF providers. The law’s passage is a proper illustration of why conservatives need a principled approach to defend rather than attack pro-life judgments, especially not without careful legal study. Conservatives can choose to coalesce around pro-life courts and support their rulings, to give them the benefit of the doubt rather than distance themselves from them. The Left certainly seems to have greater consensus on that strategy.

Image by nevodka.com and licensed via Adobe Stock.

Today, I welcome back David Rodgers Webb, Author of “The Great Taking”.  For me, this journey began after an initial reading of David’s book, and a weekend down the rabbit hole, followed by my first interview with David last November.    Nearly a thousand hours of research later, and a complete series of deep dives […]

We continue with our regular series of photoposts of your liturgies of the Triduum. As is usually the case, it’s a slow process to gather all the albums together, select the photos among the larger albums, size them down, etc., which means there is plenty of time to send more in to photopost@newliturgicalmovement.org, remembering to include the name and location of the church, and any other Gregory DiPippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13295638279418781125noreply@blogger.com0

Coffee and a Mike conducts a wide-ranging interview with PCR

Americans don’t understand that their rights have been confiscated across the board.

Listen to this video if you care to understand reality

https://rumble.com/v4puwql-coffee-and-a-mike-with-paul-craig-roberts-people-dont-realize-they-dont-hav.html

Audio only: https://coffeeandamike.libsyn.com/paul-craig-roberts-802

 Yeah ... Tunisia ... I'm not making this up ...English Catholics regarded 'Mary Queen of Scots' as their lawful Queen; at least plausibly so, since she was at the head of the female line of the House of Tudor. They naturally wondered who in Europe was fittest to be her King Consort. Often they thought of Don John of Austria. They made clear to the King of Spain at the end of 1573 that, if Fr John Hunwickehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17766211573399409633noreply@blogger.com0

In Wednesday’s reading, the Acts of the Apostles sets forth an event that amounts to a tale of one Church in two cities or regions. It illustrates well a couple of points: that the Church is always in need of reform and that our lives are not merely about us and what we want. Let’s look at the event in two scenes.

Scene 1: The Church in Jerusalem –

There broke out a severe persecution of the Church in Jerusalem, and all were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria, except the Apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made a loud lament over him.
Saul, meanwhile, was trying to destroy the Church; entering house after house and dragging out men and women, he handed them over for imprisonment. (Acts 8:1-4)

Up until now the Church in Jerusalem has experienced steady growth. To be sure there has been some persecution, but mainly of Peter, John and the other apostles. A passage from earlier in Acts describes a kind of springtime for the Church in Jerusalem following Pentecost: 

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. A sense of awe came over everyone, and the apostles performed many wonders and signs. …With one accord they continued to meet daily in the temple courts…sharing their meals with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (Acts 2:42-47)

And yet, just at this moment of growth the Lord permits a persecution that, in many ways devastates the young community. There is the first martyrdom, a widespread arrest of Christians (led by Saul) and a scattering of “all” the community.  A worldly perspective may ask, “Why O Lord?! This is bad timing. The Church was just getting her feet on the ground in Jerusalem and you have permitted her to be all but destroyed!”

Yes, the Lord had summoned the Church to the cross. And why? God alone knows the full reason, but we can speculate as to some reasons.

In the first place, the idyllic picture of Acts 2 has already been marred by squabbles and injustice of ethnic origin. The Greek-speaking widows were being neglected, it would seem (Acts 6:1). This may also point to other internal struggles that give the impression that the Church may be losing focus on essentials and that the outward priority of evangelizing is giving way to inward squabbles.

Further, there is the emerging picture of a Church rather settled in Jerusalem. But had the Lord not summoned them to go into all the world teaching, evangelizing, saving and drawing people to the sacraments? (see Matthew 28:19-20; Luke 24:47). There is no mention to this point of that taking place, or of any plans for it. So, perhaps the Lord permits this persecution to give the Church a nudge out of the nest. In saying they were scattered, we get the image of seed being sown. The blood of martyrs is seed for the Church and persecution fires up the faithful and distinguishes them from the merely fair-weather friends of the Lord. Ecclesia semper reformanda (the Church is always in need of reform).

The upshot of the whole episode is evangelical, for the faith now spreads north to Samaria and into Judah.

Scene 2:  The Church in Samaria (The Church and Mission are Bigger than Us) –

Now those who had been scattered went about preaching the word.
Thus Philip went down to the city of Samaria
and proclaimed the Christ to them.
With one accord, the crowds paid attention to what was said by Philip
when they heard it and saw the signs he was doing.
For unclean spirits, crying out in a loud voice,
came out of many possessed people,
and many paralyzed and crippled people were cured.
There was great joy in that city. (Acts 8:4-8)

Here is a very different picture! Having been prodded by the Lord through a permitted persecution, the tears and suffering in one city, in one part of the Church, benefit others in a new and different part of the Church. Demons are being cast out, healings are taking place, the lame are walking, and there is great joy!

The seeds of faith are being sown by the suffering of some and watered by their tears that others be saved and come to joy. A psalm comes to mind: He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him. (Psalm 126:6)

So, the Lord had to prod the early Church to get moving. But this is only so that the work may become more fruitful and many more be saved. 

And this points to two hard truths that, if accepted, are liberating:

1. Your life is not (only) about you.
2. You are not THAT important.

If we are not careful, we are very prone to become self-absorbed and think that our situation is the only thing on God’s radar. But the truth is, God has everyone’s needs in mind. My life is not simply about me and what I want and need and think and see. My life is also about what others need, and what others see and can contribute. I am not so important that God will sacrifice everything and everyone else just to answer my needs. God might actually ask me to suffer and sacrifice so that others may thrive. Our lives are intertwined with the lives of others. I have surely benefited from the sacrifices others have made, and I am called at times to sacrifice that others may come to know God and thrive. Thus, the Church at Jerusalem was permitted by God a persecution and a suffering so that others in Samaria and throughout the world would come to hear the Gospel and be saved. Scripture says elsewhere:

He who has an ear, let him hear.  “If anyone is destined for captivity, into captivity he will go; If anyone is to die by the sword, by the sword he must be killed.” Here is a call for the perseverance and faith of the saints. (Rev 13:9-11)

In our times of self-esteem, we can go too far and presume that my life is all about me and nothing and no one is more important that me and I what I and my family need. Or we can become very focused on the issues that preoccupy us in the Church in America or think that everyone sees what we see, or experiences what we do. This is myopic. The Church is bigger than me or my parish or my country. The Church is in every land, speaks every language and extends back in time and forward as well. God has a little more on his radar than “me” or our small and temporary group.  

This small story from Acts reminds us that the Church is always in need of reform. It also reminds us that the Church is more than me or us. Here is one Church with two scenes. In Jerusalem there is weeping, but in Samaria there is joy. My life is not about me alone. I both benefit from the sacrifices of others and am called to make sacrifices for others. The blood of martyrs is seed for the Church, the tears of the persecuted will often water those seeds. It is a hard but a freeing truth. In heaven we will see what our sufferings accomplished. For now, we must accept whatever the Lord decides, be it suffering or joy, or some combination of both. My life isn’t just about me or what I want. It’s also about you and what you need. 

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