You know the culture is shifting in a prolife direction when environmental activists use prolife arguments to promote antipollution legislation in Congress.  The Environmental Defense Action Fund is urging restrictions on mercury exposure by pointing out that mercury harms unborn children.  And they use a video reminiscent of Dr. Bernard Nathanson’s video, “The Silent Scream” from the 1980s. Check out the video above!  I don’t know anything about the legislation, but I find it fascinating that the group uses a sonogram of an unborn child to advance its argument for limits on mercury exposure, and placed such a video in an ad on Politicoby explaining mercury’s harmful effect on unborn children.

      I noticed that in the successful  House of Representatives vote to block these restrictions on mercury exposure,  Republicans in the House largely voted to stop efforts  to limit mercury pollution, and the Democrats largely voted in favor of restricting mercury. Again, I know nothing about the pros and cons of this legislation, but I think this is an intriguing way for the environmentalists to appeal to the Republican House members to change their minds.  Many of these Republican House members are prolife on abortion, so the environmentalists are making a prolife appeal to them.  

       (Hat tip to Charmaine Yoest the president of Americans United for Life for pointing out this video).

My colleague David French wrote recently about the rise of the pro-life movement on college campuses.  For those of you in that movement, take note of the following video taken on the campus of Florida State University.

The power of the pro-life message is clear, as illustrated through the young man’s testimony.  But abortion advocates will do anything to silence (or drown out) that message.  I commend the Florida State police officers for allowing the pro-life students the opportunity to speak freely and to change at least one man’s heart.

Dr. Bernard Nathanson, an obstetrician who dramatically converted from a leading abortionist to a high-impact advocate for the unborn, has died of cancer at age 84. His life parallels that of the Apostle Paul or John Newton, in that he turned from a dark past to redemption and then to fight against the very evil he had earlier promoted.  His 1985 movie, “The Silent Scream,” showing an ultrasound of an abortion, galvanized many to the prolife cause.

In the 1960s, Dr. Nathanson helped form the organization now called NARAL Prochoice America to work for legalizing abortion.  During the 1960s and 70s, he worked zealously for the pro-abortion cause by directing an abortion clinic in New York City, by training others in abortion techniques and by performing abortions himself. The National Catholic Register summarized his notorious career as an abortionist:

Overall, Nathanson estimated, he presided over 60,000 abortions as director of the facility, instructed fellow practitioners in the performance of 15,000 other abortions, and personally performed about 5,000 abortions, including one on his own child conceived with a girlfriend in the 1960s.

In 1979,  Dr. Nathanson abandoned abortion and publicly declared himself to be prolife.  As stunning as that ideological conversion was, Dr. Nathanson made a much greater impact for the unborn with his 1985 prolife video, The Silent Scream.  This video is pretty gruesome, because it used the then-new technology of ultrasound to peer into the womb and show the death of an unborn child as his mother undergoes the abortion procedure.  ”The Silent Scream” had an effect on many like the book “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” did to convince many that slavery was morally wrong.   This video showed undeniably the personhood of the unborn child and the graphic horror of abortion.

Wracked with guilt over his long history of promoting abortion and doing abortions himself, Dr. Nathanson later found peace and forgiveness through Jesus Christ.  He was raised Jewish,  and later proclaimed himself to be an atheist while a prolifer, but then joined the Catholic Church.

Like the Saul of Tarsus who once persecuted Christians, and then became a leading evangelist for the Christian faith, and like John Newton, who transported captured Africans to the West Indies to be sold into slavery, and then converted to Christ and worked for the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire, Dr. Nathanson totally turned to fight against the abortion procedure he once promoted.  Dr. Nathanson influenced many with the totality of his life – his passion for the prolife cause, the authority with which he spoke based on his expertise, and his refreshing honesty and humility that he frequently demonstrated by admitting that he had been very wrong on abortion.  Dr. Nathanson will be long remembered as a hero of the prolife movement.

Since this is still the first week of the new year, it’s not too late to make some New Year’s resolutions.  Here are some suggestions for college administrators, based on what happened in 2010: 

10.  Surreptitiously confiscating an independent student newspaper’s bins and throwing them in a storage yard next to a dumpster is probably not a good idea.  Giving the independent paper access equal to other student publications is.

 9.  Stop the irrational prejudice against the Future Farmers of America.  You like diversity, remember?

 8.  Remember that forcing a student to change their religious beliefs to stay in school qualifies as indoctrination, not education.

 7.  Make your whole campus a “free speech zone,” as the First Amendment requires.  This would probably only work if you run a university for Smurfs.

 6.  Don’t treat pro-life students like criminals.  Praying on a college campus isn’t a punishable offense either.

 5.  Hire faculty based on their academic credentials.  Being “potentially evangelical” is not a disqualifier.  On that note, spend some time reviewing a little law called Title VII.

 4.  Don’t fire faculty members for teaching their subject matter.  Encourage thin-skinned students “offended” by said subject not to take the class.  Or alternatively, to grow up.

 3.  Repeal your speech codes without waiting to get sued, like the University of Virginia.

 2.  Re-read Supreme Court cases on student fees, especially if you work at the University of Wisconsin.

 1.  Realize that all-comers policies are as dangerous to the marketplace of ideas as Ford Pintos were to the highway.  Not to mention that they would effectively bar single-sex a capella groups, a decidedly huge blow to campus culture.

Ideological conformity has reached new heights at Carleton University in Canada.  The Carleton University Students Association has told the Carleton Lifeline student organization that its pro-life viewpoint violates the university’s policy of supporting a “woman’s right to choose.”  So the Students Association is going to derecognize the group if it doesn’t change its viewpoint.  The letter gives me chills:

From Carleton Undergraduate Students Association Vice President Internal

To Whom It May Concern:

The Carleton University Students Association finds that the following section of the Carleton Lifeline Constitution is in direct violation of the Discrimination on Campus Policy,

“3.2 Carleton Lifeline believes in the equal rights of the unborn and firmly believes that abortion is a moral and legal wrong, not a constitutional right. Therefore, Carleton lifeline shall work to promote the legal protection of the unborn and their basic human rights to life.”

We find this to be in direct violation of the following sections in the Discrimination on Campus Policy (November 27th, 1997),

“5. CUSA and CUSA Inc. respect and affirm a woman’s right to choose her options in case of pregnancy

6. CUSA further affirms that actions such as any campaign, distribution, solicitation, lobbying, effort, display, event etc. that seeks to limit or remove a woman’s right to choose her options in the case of pregnancy will not be supported. As such, no CUSA resources, space, recognition or funding will be allocated for the purpose of promoting these actions.”

By providing a constitution that breaches the above policy Carleton Lifeline fails to meet the following requirements for certification,

“4.1 Clubs and Societies are certified by the Clubs and Societies Commissioner once they have provided the following to the Clubs and Societies Office by the date set by the Clubs and Societies Commissioner:

a. A written constitution, not in contravention of the CUSA Constitution, Bylaws, or Policy Manual, embodying the aims and structure of the Club or Society,

b. A formal budget, including all projected revenues and expenditures,

c. A list of a minimum of 10 (ten) members,

d. An executive list with contact information.”

As a result, the club Carleton Lifeline cannot gain certification in that it had failed to provide a “written constitution, not in contravention of the CUSA Constitution, Bylaws, or Policy Manual.”

We invite you to amend your constitution to create one that respects our anti-discrimination policy as laid out above. If you are able to resubmit a constitution that meets our criteria by Thursday, November 18th we will be able to certify your club for this semester.

Sincerely,

Khaldoon A. Bushnaq

Carleton University Students’ Association

www.cusaonline.com

This letter follows the arrest of pro-life students who displayed Genocide Awareness Project signs on campus.

It seems the “marketplace of ideas” is dead at Carleton.

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