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When late-term abortion doctor George Tiller was killed in May, the mainstream media covered the issue extensively. There were front-page stories for days and the major papers ran pieces discussing what the murder meant for the abortion rights movement, what types of pregnancies women end late, and whether the pro-life movement bore responsibility for the death.
There have been many stories about the ongoing battle between Scientology and a loose-knit, Internet-based gang of anti-Scientology anarchists known as Anonymous.
Anyone concerned about America’s fertility industry should ponder “21st Century Babies” being posted in installlments on the the New York Times website. Writer Stephanie Saul is doing an excellent job of revealing the moral dilemmas and, frankly, distress and suffering that may occur when potential parents decide to try in-vitro and intrauterine insemination.
The New York Times published a fascinating and deeply troubling story about the plight of Korean women who become pregnant. It begins with the story of Choi Hyong-sook. When she found out she was pregnant by her former boyfriend four years ago, she considered abortion. But when she saw her child’s heartbeat, she couldn’t do it. She put her baby up for adoption but felt so bad about it that she persuaded the adoption agency to let her reclaim the baby five days later:
A reporter friend sent along the following story that appears on BBC. It begins with such a promising headline: “Fighting the ‘contraceptive mentality’.” Unfortunately, the article approaches the topic narrowly.
It’s fair to say that nine-term Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak is not a poster boy for conservatives, even for conservative Democrats. An opponent of the Iraq war, active on environmental issues, watch him being skewered above by radio host Rush Limbaugh for his criticism of advertising by the pharmaceutical industry.
Let me own up to being on the losing side of the great American dialogue about guns. Linked to my pro-life beliefs is a deep skepticism that the answer to violence on American streets is owning guns to use in self-defense. Thus I find it unsettling when pollsters, as Pew did last spring, track a rise in anti-abortion sentiment — and a call for less regulation of guns. Is there a connection?
Earlier this week, Steve looked at media coverage of the American Religious Identification Survey and it’s finding that the percentage of Americans that claim no religious affiliation is on the rise. Commenter Martha directed readers over to the web site of Paul Zachary Myers. He’s the University of Minnesota biology professor who was last discussed here at GetReligion for media coverage he received after asking folks to send him consecrated Hosts in order to publicly desecrate them. And then he posted photos of the desecration.
Anyone who knows anything about the work of the conservative journalist and historian Marvin Olasky knows that he loves the old-fashioned advocacy journalism of America in the early 19th Century.
