Pro-life doctors banned from presenting scientific evidence at MWIA conference

From the Daily Caller. (H/T Mary)

Excerpt:

A group of pro-life OB/GYN doctors was unceremoniously banned at the last minute from presenting a panel on abortion at an international conference for women in medicine  in South Korea last week.

Dr. Mary Davenport, one of the three pro-life doctors scheduled to speak, told The Daily Caller she was shocked because the group’s presentations detailing the risks of abortion were “straight academic talks.”

“It wasn’t any kind of advocacy position about what any nation’s abortion laws should be or anything like that,” said Davenport. “But we find this all over — that due to political correctness there’s some things you can’t say.”

Davenport and her two colleagues from the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) learned of the cancellation the night before the presentation was supposed to take place.

As to why the group was invited only to have its event cancelled, Davenport said “it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.” She theorized there was a split between the conference’s organizers, the Medical Women’s International Association (MWIA), and its Korean hosts.

“The Korean people wanted to hear what we had to say,” Davenport said. “But I guess they were overruled by the leadership of this particular organization.”

Life News had more about another attempt by the MWIA organizers to shut the scientists down.

Excerpt:

MWIA’s press release emphasizes that the presentations were censored because their conclusions were politically incorrect. The title of the press release is “MWIA is proud to stand for women’s rights.” It “regrets” that MWIA invited presenters “who would deny women their basic right to choice.” For good measure, it throws in some slander, stating that the speakers’ presentations– which were to summarize recent studies from such esteemed journals as the Journal of Reproductive Medicine, BJOG, PLoS ONE, and numerous others– have “no scientific merit.”

The real motivation is clear: these speakers were censored for daring to share data that might show that abortion has downsides for women.

What’s worse, MWIA leaders actively prevented people who wanted to learn more about the topic on their own time from doing so!

With the cancellation of our talks, our host Anna Choi, head of group of 680 Korean obgyn physicians who stopped doing abortions, had decided to set up a radio and newspaper interview for us during the time that we were supposed to present.

When we got to the “radio” interview that Anna had set up, it was actually a television interview, and the newspaper reporter was there also.

They put the three of us up front like a “panel” discussion, and the reporters started asking us questions about our presentation, allowing us an opportunity to talk about what we came to present. About 20 minutes into the interview, the Secretary General of MWIA, a Canadian woman, burst into the room (I kid you not. …and all of this is on camera), and came up to the table and said “What presentation is this? Donna Harrison said “it’s not a presentation”. So she snarled “Why are you being interviewed? At that point, the answers were left to Anna, our host. Anna said that this was a requested interview by the press.

The SecGen then said “Who gave you permission to interview these people?” And the reporters said “We are the press, we don’t need anyone’s permission. We have freedom of the press” And the Sec Gen snarled at Anna and said “Did you arrange this? Did you talk to the organizing committee?” And Anna said “I am on the organizing committee. I don’t need to talk to anyone.” And the Sec Gen stood in front of the camera, and refused to move, and said “The interview is over.” Then the reporters said “You can’t do this. We have the freedom of the press. You are interfering with the freedom of the press.” But the Sec Gen would not move and said “The interview is over.”

We exited to the hall, and a Belgian and German woman were waiting. They started to make fun of the Korean translator, and to snap pictures in her face. And she said “You can’t do this. This is my country. I will call the police.” And they actually grabbed at her, and then one of the Korean reporters put a huge camera in the Belgian woman’s face and started taking photos of her. A fist fight almost ensured between the women, but another of the Koreans stepped in and kept any contact from happening. And all of this was on camera. And then our Korean hosts ushered us down the hall, and down the elevator, along with the reporters and camera crew, and we resumed the interview in the commons area downstairs by the trash cans and the bathroom. We were able to complete the entire interview, and instead of our audience being a few women doctors from the conference, we now have an audience of probably a few thousand.

Wow. This is probably why pro-choice people oppose those laws that require that a woman have an ultrasound before having an abortion. If they actually know what they are aborting, then maybe they wouldn’t do it. The pro-choicers don’t want them to know the facts. Not from peer-reviewed journals, and not from ultrasounds.

William Lane Craig explains the moral argument to Georgia Tech students and faculty

This video has 3 parts, as well as questions and answers in individual clips.

For those who cannot watch the video, you can grab the MP3 file of the lecture, or read this essay by Dr. Craig which covers exactly the same ground as the video.

Part 1 of 3:

Part 2 of 3:

Part 2 of 3:

If you want to show this lecture and Q&A to your apologetics group, you can find the DVD here.

You can also read a debate transcript where Dr. Craig puts his ideas to the test, against Dr. Richard Taylor.

Mark Steyn: Nidal Hasan trial shows we are not serious about national security

From National Review. This one is a must-read. It was hard to even find the “best part” to excerpt.

Excerpt:

On December 7, 1941, the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor was attacked. Three years, eight months, and eight days later, the Japanese surrendered. These days, America’s military moves at a more leisurely pace. On November 5, 2009, another U.S. base, Fort Hood, was attacked — by one man standing on a table, screaming “Allahu akbar!” and opening fire. Three years, nine months, and one day later, his court-martial finally got under way.

The intervening third-of-a-decade-and-more has apparently been taken up by such vital legal questions as the fullness of beard Major Hasan is permitted to sport in court. This is not a joke: See “Judge Ousted in Fort Hood Shooting Case amid Beard Debacle” (CBS News). Army regulations require soldiers to be clean-shaven. The judge, Colonel Gregory Gross, ruled Hasan’s beard in contempt, fined him $1,000, and said he would be forcibly shaved if he showed up that hirsute next time. At which point Hasan went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, which ruled that Colonel Gross’s pogonophobia raised questions about his impartiality, and removed him. He’s the first judge in the history of American jurisprudence to be kicked off a trial because of a “beard debacle.” The new judge, Colonel Tara Osborn, agreed that Hasan’s beard was a violation of regulations, but “said she won’t hold it against him.”

[…]Maybe this Clinton-era directive merits reconsideration in the wake of Fort Hood? Don’t be ridiculous. Instead, nine months after Major Hasan’s killing spree, the Department of Defense put into place “a series of procedural and policy changes that focus on identifying, responding to, and preventing potential workplace violence.”

Major Hasan says he’s a soldier for the Taliban. Maybe if the Pentagon were to reclassify the entire Afghan theater as an unusually prolonged outburst of “workplace violence,” we wouldn’t have to worry about obsolescent concepts such as “victory” and “defeat.” The important thing is that the U.S. Army’s “workplace violence” is diverse. After Major Hasan’s pre-post-traumatic workplace wobbly, General George W. Casey Jr., the Army’s chief of staff, was at pains to assure us that it could have been a whole lot worse: “What happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty.” And you can’t get much more diverse than letting your military personnel pick which side of the war they want to be on.

It’s so depressing. I guess we can only hope that we come to our senses before the next attack.