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A Winning Argument on Cloning?

“Farming cloned livestock should be banned because the animals suffer too much, EU ethics experts said last night .” Meanwhile, in the USA, there is no restriction—at all—on human cloning, be it for so-called “therapeutic” purposes (i.e. where a human being is . . . . Continue Reading »

A Blessing for an Abortion Clinic

So Planned Parenthood has acquired three clergy persons to bless the abortion wing attached to a hospital in Schenectady, New York. Now, finding three clerks who would do such a thing couldn’t be that difficult. Think virtually any mainline Protestant denomination, or three part-timers at a . . . . Continue Reading »

Art and Pornography

We’ve had an article on transgressive art and one on pornography (subscription required) in the last few issues of First Things . So what should I find when I open up this week’s New Yorker but an article by Calvin Tomkins about an artist who has combined the two, sort of (at this time, . . . . Continue Reading »

Abortion and Obama

I wrote a short essay for The Weekly Standard that describes an encounter Barack Obama had with a group of anti-abortion protestors who disrupted one of his campaign events in New Hampshire. Obama was thoughtful and level-headed. He displayed admirable strength of character in defending the . . . . Continue Reading »

Roe at 35, Part VI

And then there’s this. Writing in the L.A. Times , Frances Kissling and Kate Michelman (former president of Catholics for a Free Choice and former president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, respectively) read the writing on the wall. They lament: “Twenty years ago, being pro-life was . . . . Continue Reading »

Roe at 35, Part V

A surprising result of Roe , of course, is the effect it has had on the Catholic American voter. “It would have required a lot of prescience to predict in 1965 that American politics, for so many decades based on economic divisions, would soon split over social issues and, especially, . . . . Continue Reading »

Roe at 35, part IV

The L.A. Times , too, has an article today about the pro-life youth movement . Three things stood out. The statistics: Today’s students and young adults have grown up in a time when abortion was widely accessible and acceptable, and a striking number are determined to end that era. Pew . . . . Continue Reading »

Roe at 35, part III

There is, of course, some good news to report about abortions: today they’re down by 25% when compared to 1990. Advocates of abortion-on-demand will argue that this is due to changing economic realities and increased access to contraception, but not the results of pro-life legislation or . . . . Continue Reading »

Roe at 35, part II

As I mentioned earlier , today is the 35th annual March for Life —held on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade (and it’s companion case Doe v. Bolton ). Readers might be interested in this interview that First Things board member Robert George did on the legal aspects of Roe . Click on the . . . . Continue Reading »

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