As anyone living with HIV will tell you, there are days when it seems like you think of nothing else. Starting with just that "how do I feel today" thought when setting foot to floor first thing in the morning, not to mention bearing witness to the ways in which people choose to stigmatize others, cursing people to make themselves feel better or score political points.
In a week where philanthropy was redefined and we bore witness to one of the greatest acts -- investments -- in the health and well being of people challenged by poverty and disease, comes this Reckless Rhetoric from Human Life International:
"Warren Buffett's money has gone to fund the deadly abortion-causing drug RU-486, the production and distribution of portable suction-abortion devices in the developing world, organizations that push abortion on developing countries, and many other radical organizations," Father Euteneuer said. He added that the Gates Foundation, to which Buffett will now make a record donation, has also "given millions of dollars to organizations pushing abortion around the world. Rather than lauding his philanthropy, Father Euteneuer decried Buffett's sense of priorities. "Warren Buffett's philanthropy," he said, "aims at killing preborn children, not curing childhood disease; eliminating the poor, not poverty; and destroying the developing world, not aiding development."
But this quote deserves a box all its own, so representative of the problem with ideological distortions of reality is it:
“Warren Buffett will be known as the Dr. Mengele of philanthropy unless he repents and ceases using tax deductible donations to promote a culture of death and desolation." Fr. Euteneuer.
I'm not sure you want to start a discussion of tax deducitble donations, Father.
Gloria Feldt, longtime reproductive health advocate and former Planned Parenthood president, has an excellent piece on Women's eNews that's definitely worth a look.
She writes about how an "intrinsic and generalized hostility to women--is still getting passed over" by the media in their discussions about attacks on birth control and reproductive rights. Lost in the coverage is the reality faced by women who may have rights, but for whom access is being politically opposed and denied for "moral" reasons.
Two fairly remarkable bits of news ... The Decider in Chief got whacked by the most conservative Supreme Court in U.S. History on his efforts for military tribunals relating to Muslim detainees in Guantanamo Bay. While that case has nothing to do with the issues we cover on this site, it does get to a philosophy of governing that is increasingly being repudiated by voters (responding in polls, the proof comes in the November pudding) and now the court.
The second item yesterday, seemingly unrelated, is that the United States Senate, after two years of holds and blocks by social conservatives, will finally take up the issue of expanding research on stem cells. "Social conservatives liken the research to abortion because the process of extracting stem cells from a days-old embryo results in its death. Bush, who believes the practice is immoral, has threatened to veto the legislation," according to the New York Times. I'm going out on a limb here, a fairly thick one, by prediciting that in this even-numbered year, with his poll numbers, and narrow Congressional majorities on the line .... not to mention social conservatives in Congress caving on their "morals" on this issue, that this bill won't be vetoed.
Cecelia Fire Thunder, president of the Oglala Sioux Nation, has started an uprising. In an effort to build a clinic that would provide abortion to the women of South Dakota, Fire Thunder not only is taking on one nation, but two.
I have never met her. Still, she reminds me a lot of the women I met while working at a reproductive health care center.
Strong. Courageous. Determined.
Today, Fire Thunder faces impeachment -- as a result of her plans to provide reproductive health care to women. While her plan all along, it was her public response to legislation banning abortion in the state that created the much publicized thundery-fire-storm. Because Pine Ridge is under federal jurisdiction and not state, her plan could include abortion services.
It's a move characterized by the Washington Post as a "potentially explosive issue among religious conservatives." Just hours ago, the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices made a recommendation without dissent that young girls receive a newly approved cervical cancer vaccine as a preventive measure.
Seems like a no-brainer, but anti-birth control, anti-abortion, and anti-sex crusaders doth protest.
Is it me, or is the Vatican starting to get a little paranoid? Check out the latest from Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, author of a recent 57-page sweeping indictment of contraception, abortion, in-vitro fertilization and same-sex marriage, but most famous for his personal belief that condoms spread AIDS. Trujillo recently told the Catholic news magazine Famiglia Cristiana, “We worry especially that, with current laws, speaking in defense of life and the rights of families is becoming in some societies sort of a crime against the state.” Uhm, sort of. Or, more like: the reality-based universe is slowly coming around to the notion that illegal abortions are as good at killing and maiming women as they are at ending pregnancies, embryonic stem cell research could potentially save millions of lives, and gay people deserve civil rights—or even human rights!
The plot thickens.Twice in the past few weeks, I have written about some seriousconfusion on the part of a radical right wing group, C-FAM, in the war against human trafficking. It appears that they don’t know the difference (or perhaps, choose not to differentiate) between forced human trafficking and prostitution.In other words: more signs of the right wing’s intense obsession with sex.That thought fueled a hunch that C-FAM might not be the only group in their camp on this page, and it looks like that hunch might have been right.
After looking through materials from Concerned Women for America’s (CWA) and Focus on the Family’s websites, it looks like more of the same.CWA’s Janice Crouse wrote an article with the following title:“Ending Modern-Day Slavery: Some Solutions to Sex Trafficking.”Focus on the Family’s Citizenlink.org features an article, “U.S. Targets Human Trafficking.”The first line of that article?“The federal government is ramping up its war on sex trafficking.”Another from CWA, “Zero Tolerance for Human Trafficking,” begins with the following:“It’s a given: Prostitution co-exists with military bases and installations.”
Hey Daddy-O, tune in to your AM dial for the latest, the greatest, those hits you love from way back when; it's time for the Golden Oldie Parade of Hits, the soothing sound of Beltway summer in even numbered years, mixed in with some the freshest hits of today.
Those hep-kats in the House aren't playing "Guns and Butter" anymore, those were the classics, tunes of a greater generation, the tunes of the Majoritarians now are "Guns and Abortion," an anthem of summer to rally the faithful. But before we play those golden oldies, let me lay on you the tunes you just heard. First, playing louder than its ever been played that old faithful, "Burn Me Once, Shame on You, Burn Me Twice, Shame on Me" rising on the charts this summer to 66 thumbs up.
We couldn’t overlook this one – and those living in the Twin Cities won’t be able to either.
Darcy Pohland, from WCCO news, reports “For the past few days, a plane has flown around the Twin Cities pulling a banner with a picture allegedly of an aborted fetus.”A fly-by was reported over the Minneapolis Stone Arch Festival, downtown, and elsewhere.
Literally creating the buzz, is the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform.They state, "We readily admit where we display these pictures, born children are upset. It must also be said that where we don't show them, unborn children are killed."
