Three Cheers for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Mike Leavitt and Bush who appointed him!!!  The American College of Obstretrics and Gynecology has been including threatening language in its licensing procedures, which would censor physicians who will not perform abortions.  Mike Leavitt advised them against this language, but they would not listen, and insisted they meant no harm to anyone (muwaaahahahaaaaaaaa).  So Mike asked for regulations to be drafted which enforce the three separate federal laws protecting a physician's right to follow his/her conscience!  Woo hoo!  You can read about it here!  A copy got leaked to the press before it was finalized, which caused a big brouhaha (in his previous post), but his clarity is refreshing.  Please write him an encouraging line, as many pro-abortionists are weighing in on the conversation.

I did weigh in myself, with the following letter in response to some of the negative posts:

This is not about preferences.  It is about morals.  Murder, to be exact.  Abortion to a pro-life conscience is the same as if the government forced physicians to terminate the life of any child three-years-old or less upon demand of his or her mother.  It would be an unconscionable, abominable, egregious breach of justice against the physician's conscience.  Not to mention that it would be an unconscionable, abominable, egregious breach of justice, period. 

We pro-lifers value life in all its stages, shapes, and sizes.  We believe human life is intrinsically valuable, not based on extrinsic traits accomplishments and the whims of the powerful. 

It is a fallacy to assume that abortion, per se, will actually bring the mother the happiness she pursues (beyond the initial sex act).  Countless women and men have suffered depression and grief over the loss of their babies through abortion, not to mention future infertility and other medical complications. 

There should be no debate about when life begins.  It clearly begins, sex/complete DNA at conception.  Is there anybody who really believes that a zygote is dead--that the little life has not inexorably begun, and will continue unless snuffed out by natural or unnatural means?  The question that people really  want to ask, is "When does personhood begin?"  Is it when we have consciousness?  When we can speak?  When we can respond? When we are wanted?  As you can see if we define personhood by traits or accomplishments or more dangerously by the desires of those in power, this is a very slippery slope, which brings many of our most inspiring and humanizing citizens in danger of extermination.

Pro-abortionists must come to the conclusion that either the human embryo is not a human being, which is debatable (because s/he is human and s/he "is").  If an embryo is a human life, then they have the uncomfortable position of saying that  mothers may kill their children wtih impunity, before a certain developmental stage.  Already, the idea that mothers should be allowed to kill their babies up to 40 days after birth is being discussed and disseminated in academic halls, which would have been unthinkable 40 years ago.  What unthinkables today will be reality 40 years from now, thanks to our current legal system and cultural environment?

History has shown us that any time a more powerful group decides that another less powerful group is not human or less than human, a travesty of justice on a massive scale occurs.  Look at Nazi Germany, which decided that Jews were not equal to other humans.  Look at our own country, when we decided that people of African descent were only worth 3/5ths of a human.  The biggest problem for unborn people is that they cannot speak up for themselves.  They are not seen.  Their dismembered and saline-burned bodies are buried in trash cans, and scurried away from public view.  At least a newborn can cry and look cute in a pruny sort of way.  The law has abandoned unborn people, and the medical field is power-reaching to demand that even every single physicians may not abstain from the blood bath! Who will speak up for the helpless?

If mothers, being more powerful than their unborn children, are legally able to exterminate their children from their wombs, and doctors are required by law and professional pressure to silence their consciences on the behalf of the powerful agenda of the pro-abortionists because of the weight of rearing children is too heavy for mothers to bear if they don't want to, it is only a matter of time before other care-givers will be given legal impunity for exterminating their dependents whose needs exceed their desires to care for them, starting with the elderly and infirm (such as Terri Schiavo, but I suspect it won't stop there). 

I understand that we people who love human lives in all its sizes and stages, have lost the legal battle to protect these little tiny people, and that people who love and inexorably pursue and applaud abortion have won the right to exterminate lives in the womb.  I am pleased, however, that Mike Leavitt has seen fit to promote the legal freedom of conscience for physicians who love life and do not wish to do any harm to our innocent members.

As a woman, who has delivered two children and is raising them (with my husband), I have had many OB/Gyn doctors, due to legislatively irresponsible liability insurance costs, and moving.  I have always looked for pro-life docs.  When I'm not able to find them, am sick and tired of being pressured to take invasive, risky tests to determine genetic diseases, for which there is no in-utero cure (except for a so-called "cure" of abortion).  It is offensive and rude to have a baby be 'welcomed" into this world by a physician who thinks that any child with a possible (not even real) defect would be better of dead.  Kudos to Secretary Mike Leavitt!