The National Abortion Rights Action League has gathered statements or quotes from each declared Presidential candidate on the life issue.  Check out where your favorite stands before he or she becomes the nominee.

The Vermont House of Representatives killed the state’s “Patient Choice and Control at End of Life” legislation, voting 82-63 against it. Like Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act, the Vermont bill would have allowed doctors to assist patients in killing themselves.

Rep. Harvey Otterman said the bill would have gone “too far in enforcing one group’s preferences on the traditional values of others.”

Pro-euthanasia groups targeted Vermont, considered a bellwether for radical ideas, in an effort to advance their assisted suicide agenda and to “lay the groundwork for the big win: the state of California,” according to National Right to Life.

Oregon is the only state in the nation to have legalized doctor-assisted suicide.

According to a report released by the state yesterday, 46 patients in Oregon ended their lives with the assistance of their doctors in 2006. This is an increase of more than 20% from the previous year. That brings the total number of doctor-assisted suicides in Oregon to 292 since the law was enacted ten years ago.

In an AP interview, Compassion & Choices president Barbara Lee said about the nation’s only law that allows doctors to assist patients in killing themselves, “The practice has settled into a nice, safe, conservative practice.”

The jury is still out, however, on Ms. Lee’s subjective description of the Oregon Law. Oregonians who oppose doctor-assisted suicide see the practice as neither nice, nor safe, nor conservative.
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In related news, a Colorado Springs woman woke up this week after being in a vegetative state for more than six years. Christa Lilly (right), who suffered a heart attack in 2000, awoke for three days speaking to family and media before slipping into a “minimally conscious state.”

There’s another birthday worth celebrating this week: Susan B. Anthony was born 187 years ago today.  This stouthearted Quaker not only fought tirelessly for women’s suffrage, but was also supported the unborn.  She published the following statements in her paper, The Revolution:

“Sweeter even than to have had the joy of caring for children of my own has it been to me to help bring about a better state of things for mother’s generally,
so their unborn little ones could not be willed away from them.”
 
“I deplore the horrible crime of child murder…We want prevention, not merely punishment.”

I’ve been amazed to find out more about the pro-life history of American feminism.  Anthony’s co-worker, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a mother of seven, said “When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit.” 

Today, Feminists for Life continues the work of pro-life feminists like Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, spreading the message that “women deserve better than abortion.”

It’s Black History Month, a time to honor past achievements, and to look forward to the future. It’s also a time to recognize the injustice the African American community has faced, and is facing today. I want to particularly address a growing inequity in the United States: three times as many black babies are aborted as white babies.

In general, abortion numbers are decreasing. But, African American women are almost four times as likely to have an abortion as white women. 70% of abortion providers are located in minority communities. 15 million African Americans have been aborted since Roe vs. Wade. Today, African Americans are the only minority in the country whose numbers are declining.

It’s no secret that Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger, wanted to use abortion to reduce the number of “unfit” in society. In her mind, “unfit” meant poor, mentally ill, or African American.

In 1939 she wrote to a colleague, “The most successful education approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”

It seems that Sanger’s Nazi-esque goal is succeeding.

But, African American ministers, whose influence Sanger once used against their own community, are fighting back. Pastor Clenard Childress is a nationally recognized speaker whose website www.blackgenocide.com gives solid facts about abortion and the African American community, and offers resources for churches.

Pastor Childress is working to unite African American pastors and religious leaders to speak out against abortion, saying “If there’s a devouring force that’s decimating my community, as a shepherd, I must respond with the truth. …the devourer is the abortion industry.”

Bishop Daniel Robertson of Mount Gilead Baptist Church in Richmond, VA sponsored the first annual Pastors for Life Conference focused on reaching African American ministers. In an interview, Bishop Robertson said, “There are a lot of pastors, whether they’re Black or White, they’re just comfortable, they don’t want to stir up anything.”

Yet, he continued, “You can’t stay behind the stained glass windows of your sanctuary, you really have to reach out into your community and make a difference.”

These pastors are not afraid to stir things up, or to face the grim statistics on abortion and race. How can we honor these men and respond to their challenge, not only this month, but throughout the year?