[The following is copied here by request:]

What do LeRoy Carhart, Warren Hern, and George Tiller have in common? They are among an unknown number who perform abortions in the third trimester of pregnancy (the third trimester being the seventh, eighth, and ninth month!)

For two decades I have been proclaiming from the pulpits of America that abortions happen in the third trimester. Many Americans find it hard to believe. Now, in the aftermath of the death of George Tiller, this fact is getting a bit more attention.

The Associated Press reported on June 2 in an article by Eric Olson that physician LeRoy Carhart of Nebraska wants to continue performing abortions at this late stage, but he, as well as Warren Hern, also want to make sure enough physicians are trained in how to do so.

How many are we talking about? The AP story reported, "Carhart said 75 to 100 of the "several thousand" abortions he performs annually are in the third trimester."

Stanley K. Henshaw, a senior fellow at the Guttmacher Institute, the research division of Planned Parenthood, and the best source of these statistics, is quoted in a June 5 Washington Post article as saying, "The information just isn't available...This is an area that we just don't know much about."

The Guttmacher Institute does report in its official statistics, however, that some 13,310 abortions each year are at 21 weeks or more of pregnancy (that is, 1.1% of the 1.21 million abortions per year). Of the 40 states that reported in 2005 to the Centers for Disease Control, 32 states reported abortions of babies 21 weeks or older.

This means that every day, 37 babies the size of a large banana are dismembered and decapitated - and these include healthy babies of healthy mothers...and it's happening legally.

These are babies that the mother can already feel moving. According to MedlinePlus, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health, these babies are storing fat on their bodies, their heartbeat can be heard with a stethoscope, they can hear, they have eyebrows, eyelashes, fingernails and toenails. Incidentally, MedlinePlus calls them "babies." (See www.nlm.nih.gov/MEDLINEPLUS/ency/article/002398.htm ).

Many people wonder how they can get some traction in the seemingly intractable abortion debate. How can they get people to listen, or make pro-choice people believe that pro-life people have good reason to be against abortion?

My suggestion: start by discussing the facts I just mentioned.

It's morally legitimate to focus on late-term abortion; that doesn't deny that all abortion is wrong; it's simply a way to get the ball rolling, a pedagogical method of going from the most obvious to the less obvious, of starting with what people know and leading to what they don't know.

When people are astonished by these facts, as they will be, they are forced to re-evaluate just how much priority "privacy" and "choice" have over life. If they are "pro-choice," they are forced to figure out when in pregnancy the line is drawn - and why.

And now you're talking.

The text and audio of this column can be found online at www.priestsforlife.org/columns/columns2009/09-06-15-pro-choice-crisis.htm

Fr. Frank's columns are podcast. Click here for more information.

Barack Obama, candidate for USA President, has decided to face a grave danger. Maybe he’s not fully aware of the danger and its implications. Maybe he is. Probably, the USA is not fully aware of the implications. The discussion hasn't started!

1. Significance.

2. Facts.

Regardless of anything related to Mr Obama’s own choosing, objective reality is that he is the son of an African Muslim. 

 - To Christian and secular ears, that last phrase elicits “So what?”. But not to Muslim ears. Islam holds that all descendants of a Muslim are also Muslim, without choice. (This bit of Islamic doctrine helps explain why countries, once Islam arrives, have almost never changed to any other religion, and never without significant bloodshed.)   

3. Implications.

a. Apostate, under death sentence, in the White House.

Mr Obama’s religious choice also gives the USA certain inseparable uncertainties. Every president faces certain assassination risks, with resulting Secret Service costs, and personal movement restrictions. We contain & guard our presidents and, to lesser extents, their family members and friends. USA citizens accept the cost, and presidents accept the restrictions on their freedoms of movement, since the president fills a singular elected office that is critical to the continuing functioning of the U.S. government. But … 

 - What is the cost, Secret Service and the rest, of protecting a president and his family from Islamic apostasy’s automatic death sentences?   

 - What would be the cost of Islamic terrorists successfully assassinating somebody close to a President Obama?   

 - What would be the international and propaganda cost of radical Islamic terrorists successfully carrying out the death sentence on a USA president and/or family member(s)?  

b. Secrets.

There is another option. A President Obama could chose (or could have already chosen) to be a secret Muslim. This could save his life, and the lives of his girls. But this option would still spell certain grave difficulties for the USA. The difficulties would be real, whether the difficulties resulted in actual problems or not, with an Obama presidency during a war against Islamic terrorists.   

 - Having non-public associations or actions, that one wishes to remain secret, usually will prevent a military individual or civil servant from obtaining (or keeping) a security clearance. Extortion has been proven a powerful tool against citizens entrusted with national security. Thus the White House should also have no secrets that ‘bad guys’ can leverage for extortion.

 - The War Of The Reconquest (France, Spain, & Portugal, 660s AD thru 1492 AD) holds many examples of how secret Muslims left varying levels of havoc within Iberian cities & countrysides.  Most cities in central Iberia changed hands many times. Often, the secret Muslims would be simply awaiting the arrival of the next Muslim army, then become active 5^th Columnists (albeit centuries before the term was coined).

Would a secret Muslim in the executive office … 

 - be a conflicted mind, and thus pose a low-level threat to the nation from within?   

 - be coerced or co-opted into actions harmful to the USA? 

4. Conclusion: 

Again, this post only raises a question.   The question's worth noting, and discussing, and resolving

 - It’s proven that Mr Obama, and his girls, are apostate Muslims, whether they (or we) would wish it to be, or not.   

 - What is NOT clearly proven is whether the automatic Islamic death sentences are a burden unwise for the USA to accept in the Oval Office.  Maybe it’s unwise. Maybe it’s actually wise. And, maybe it just doesn’t matter. But if it does matter, we’d better go into it with full awareness …   

 - The ‘death sentences’ point is worth a little discussion, since ‘we the people’ have to know what we’re getting with our vote, or else democracy turns into dictatorship…