Child (at right) looks at abortion photos on Market Square.

The  WBIR story on our Urban GAP at Market Square created a flurry of online comments.  A common theme was the fear that small children would see the abortion photos.  In fact, many did.  We saw a few parents who prevented their children from seeing the photos, but most took it all in stride.  One commenter on the WBIR story wrote:

I would never subject a young child to the images of abortion no matter what. Yes, the images are reprehensible and beyond belief, but to show a child these images borders on being reprehensible as a parent and as a human being it would be deplorable. This is not the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s where abortion was considered against the law. Today, it is a woman’s choice. There are medical reasons that abortion is needed. Also, its one thing to protest but Dr. Armstrong and the rest need to keep it decent and clean when in a public place with children around. If you choose to show these images to your children then go ahead but give the parents of other children the right to do the same and show those images to their children if they so choose. You took away the parents right to decide if they wanted to show their children or not.

He actually confirmed, again, whey we show the pictures when he wrote that they were  “reprehensible and beyond belief.”  People don’t believe how bad abortion really is until we show them.

I responded:

On February 23, 1997, Schindler’s List was broadcast by NBC during the family viewing hour. A mini-controversy arose when Congressman Tom Coburn complained that large numbers of unsupervised children would undoubtedly see the very violent video sequences contained in that movie, including the violence of multiple gunshot head wounds.

NBC West Coast President Don Olhmeyer defended their decision, “I just wonder if Congressman Coburn is aware that there was a Holocaust, that millions of people died and it’s not something anybody should ever forget. . . . NBC is extremely proud of its presentation of this unique award-winning film. We think that Congressman Coburn’s statement should send a chill through every intelligent and fair-minded person in America.”

The overwhelming consensus was that NBC was right to show the movie, including all the scenes of violence, so that people could know the truth about what happened in the death camps, and so that people would commit to preventing such a human catastrophe from ever happening again.

We agree. That is why we show pictures of abortion.

We will not submit to a double standard that says (1) it is OK to show violent images that expose an injustice that happened in another place, at another time, perpetrated by other people, even though children might see those images, but (2) it is not OK to show violent images that expose injustice happening here, and now, and perpetrated by our own people, because children might see them.

Song written by John Lopker and Eileen Lopker.  He is her little boy.

Perhaps this can be a reminder for all of us of why we work so hard.

This flight, now known as the Gimli Glider, is the most amazing airplane flight ever.  This story was an episode of the Mayday / Air Crash Investigation series.  The video (link below) is about 47 minutes long.

In subsequent simulations of this flight scenario, every crew crashed the plane.

Embedding not available.  Click here to go directly to video on YouTube.

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w5LqlTwbhs

A group of young women learn the two facts that are most important to abortion attitudes. They are (1) the humanity of the preborn child and (2) the inhumanity of abortion.

We returned to Market Square in Knoxville earlier this week for another edition of Urban GAP.  It was hot hot, with a temperature in the 90s and a wind-chill of nearly 100 degrees.

Media coverage.  All day long, passersby studied the abortion photos intently.  WBIR-TV ran a story on TV.  The video version is not available online, but you can read the text version here.  There were a number of comments, and you can see that I have responded to many of them.

Monument to Motherhood.  My favorite part of Urban GAP at Market Square is to go over to the monument to leaders of the woman’s suffrage movement in Tennessee (story here).  I figure that the ACLU will have it removed the first chance they get, but for now, we get to enjoy Knoxville’s very own City-owned, pro-life, pro-family, pro-God monument.  On it, you can read the words of suffragette Lizzie Crozier French (1851-1926):

Thanks be to God that in giving Woman the crown of motherhood He made her the giver not the taker of life.  Woman has no greater claim to the rights of the ballot than that she is the producer not a destroyer of life.

Is that awesome or what?  My interest in motherhood is not just professional, but  personal as well.  I’m not a mother myself, but I have one and so does my son.  I’ve watched them both work and they’re pretty good.

Fr. Frank Pavone just issued this urgent video message about our Key States Initiative (KSI), which aims to educate voters in key states for the upcoming elections.  You don’t need a special license to drive; anybody can do it.  Fr. Pavone says:

We want to elect public servants who know the difference between serving the public and killing the public.

To volunteer for KSI, click here.  Here’s Fr. Pavone:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwINEFYf0f0

Adam Smith writes about the overconfident legislator (i.e., the Obamacrat):

The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamored with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it.

He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might choose to impress upon it.

If those two principles coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human society will go on easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and successful. If they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably, and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder.

Any of this sound familiar?  How did he know?  Read entire op-ed piece by Yuval Levin.

Great column by Charles Krauthammer.  Excerpts:

Absurd. We don’t credit the Swiss postal service with the Special Theory of Relativity because it transmitted Einstein’s manuscript to the Annalen der Physik.

***

The argument between left and right is about what you do beyond infrastructure. … It’s about endless government handouts that, ironically, are crowding out necessary spending on, yes, infrastructure.

***

Julia’s world is totally atomized. It contains no friends, no community and, of course, no spouse. Who needs one? She’s married to the provider state. Or to put it slightly differently, the “Life of Julia” represents the paradigmatic Obama political philosophy: citizen as orphan child. For the conservative, providing for every need is the duty that government owes to actual orphan children. Not to supposedly autonomous adults.

Entire piece here.

What’s the difference between the Obamacrats and the Borg?

One says

“Your life, as it has been, is over.  You will service us.  Freedom is irrelevant.  Self-determination is irrelevant.”

The other is a fictional tyrant from outer space.

Listen bolow to the Obamacrats telling us that it was Government programs that made America great.  We owe them and they own us.

The Government built roads for us (that we paid for) and educated workers that we could hire (in schools that we paid for).  And because Government built roads and schools, they are now entitled to take whatever they want from us and give it to people who vote for them.

How do roads and schools that we paid for … at the state and local level, by the way … entitle Washington to get more and more of our money?  How do roads and bridges entitle Government to give our money to people like Solyndra and Planned Parenthood and millions of people who have been trained to be dependent on Government handouts?

Hear Ms. Elizabeth Warren (0:47 – 0:28) and Pres. Barack Obama (3:50 – 4:40) on this clip:

We send money to Washington; this is what they do with it. (Photo shows abortion at 10 weeks.)

LifeNews.com has reported that the Obama administration has sent a family planning grant of $395,000 to a Planned Parenthood abortion business in Memphis, Tennessee.  (Story here.)

In a related story, we constantly hear that we have a humougous federal deficit because the working people who create wealth in this country are too stingy and won’t send enough of their money to Washington.  That money is needed in Washington, they say, so the political class can claim to be compassionate to America’s poor people.  (They love to be compassionate with somebody else’s money.)

Anyway, as long as they take our money and give it to baby-killers, their faux compassion for America’s poor will remain unconvincing, to say the least.

From CBR’s Seth Gruber:

ANSWERED PRAYER!  We made a mocking parody (watch video here) of Northland Family Planning Centers infomercial and they sued us for copyright infringement.  The judge just issued a final ruling in our favor, holding that our Fair Use defense was so strong that he was granting us a Summary Judgment victory without even allowing the case to go to trial! He wrote that “Though Northland [abortion clinics] may have suffered pecuniary or reputational losses as a result of the accused [CBR] Videos, those injuries are not recognized under the Copyright Act. On balance, Defendants’ use of the Northland Video was fair.”  The order itself read “For the foregoing reasons, Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment is GRANTED, and Northland’s Motion for Summary Judgment is DENIED.

In an email message we forced Renee Chilean, owner of Northland abortion clinics, to release pursuant to her lawsuit against us, she told another abortionist that “I know that they [CBR] preach to their own choir but I am worried about this

.” Then she admits that the source of her worry is the possibility that we will use our video to lobby for “… anti-D&E legislation.” The term “D&E” refers to dilatation and extraction (or evacuation) abortions in which the arms and legs of babies are torn off and removed one appendage at a time. The baby goes into shock and bleeds to death. She explains that “They [anti-abortion activists] are looking for new ammunition since PBA [partial-birth-abortion] is pretty much done.”

We thank God and our two stellar lawyers, Rob Muise and David Yerusalmi, for this win, which is an important victory for the entire pro-life movement.  We plan to make a lot more videos of this sort!  Northland will most likely appeal this ruling and God willing we will crush them on appeal as well!

CBR press release here.

Watch video here.

Register and vote pro-life

CBR is at it again!  We are launching our 2012 Key States Initiative (KSI) for 2012, perhaps the most dramatic and effective pro-life voter education project every conceived!  And you can be a key part of this historic event!

VOTER EDUCATION FOR 2012

The media describes pro-life candidates as “ultraconservative” and “extreme,” but they describe pro-abortion candidates as “moderate” on abortion. We will show voters the truth, so they will know that killing babies is extreme.  Saving them is not extreme; it is compassionate.

DRIVER QUALIFICATIONS NEEDED

No special license required.
Must have a good driving record.
Must be 21 years old.

COMING TO A STATE NEAR YOU

Must be available to travel to a nearby state, teeming with voters who need to know what abortion is and does. Immediate need for drivers willing to go to Florida, Virginia, Colorado, and Iowa.  Wisconsin and other states may also be targeted later this year.

INTERESTED IN JOINING US?

Contact Leslie Sneddon
Call 207-607-3488
lsneddon@cbrinfo.org

Pro-life activist and CBR operative Todd Bullis is at it again!  The founder and perveyor of Pro-LifeTube.com has now launched ProLifeBook.com, a social networking site for pro-life people!  Story in WorldNetDaily here.

As of today, ProLifeBook has more than 3200 members, including yours truly!  I was one of the very first.  Of course, I never understood Facebook … and ProLifeBook works a lot like Facebook.  Yikes!  All of a sudden, with this one new invention, I reckon I’m twice as far behinder as I was before!  Woe is me.