Wendy Davis, a confirmed supporter of late-term abortion, has come in for severe criticism from Texas Republicans, who argue that late-term abortion presents a menace to women and the unborn. The measure, stipulating that doctors performing abortions have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, is being hotly debated by the Supreme Court. This measure calls into question Texas Republicans’ self-proclaimed benevolent humanism, which is unmistakably redolent of hypocrisy. T

BY MARY KRANE DERR Have you ever been slut-shamed -- that is, cast as a sexually disordered, out-of-control woman? Take heart. You are in excellent company. Name any independent, outspoken woman from history, and you can probably find feverish, unreality-based, perverted fulminations against her sexual character. Even the nineteenth-century suffragist leader Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906), a seventh-generation Quaker and confirmed temperance advocate whom no one ever knew t

BY ANTHONY BEDOY Angels and Airwaves is a band not largely appreciated by the general public, mostly due to the whiny voice and poppy feeling to their music. Whatever one feels regarding such types of music is largely irrelevant to the powerful message conveyed in their first full-length film, Love. This independent film, released in 2011, won awards at countless film festivals and shocked and awed viewers with scenes of colors, lights, and sounds unlike any other. As an i

BY CAROL CROSSED Here is a conversation I had with a tourist guide in the country of Greenland. I went to the Arctic Circle for some R & R and to learn about polar explorations. I fell in love with a pair of child's sealskin slippers. I was poised to buy them. "You are from the United States, no?" she asked in her nicest ever tourist voice. "It is one country you cannot bring in the skin of the seal." Seeing my confused look, she explained, "It is how you say, a populist l

BY LISA GROVES Sixty-seven days ago I discovered the utility of making major life decisions in a cemetery. Ripe ground for an epiphany, indeed. Surrounded by people crammed into little boxes, I rapped on the walls of my own. Itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny little boxes housing all I hold dear - my empire - lined up neatly like the soup cans in my grandma's pantry. Until sixty-seven days ago, that is. I suppose it doesn't much matter what particular transaction drove me to seek clarit

BY EVELYN FENNELLY Ireland remains one of the only countries in the world without abortion, embryonic stem cell research, or the death penalty. Its armed forces are neutral in wartime, and are only ever sent on peacekeeping missions. Pro-life student groups at Ireland's colleges and universities have a vital role to play in educating the next generation of Irishmen and Irishwomen about the importance of maintaining the country's pro-life ethos. Life Society at the National

BY AIMEE BEDOY As an avid pro-life activist, I really wanted to love this film. I looked forward to it for months and months, and the preview actually looked decent. Upon sitting down for a pre-screening at the Students for Life of America Conference this year, I was so ecstatic to get the chance to go back to my friends and sing its praises. But within the first five minutes, my hopes for a truly good-quality film that I could take back to my friends were dashed. It is a

BY JULIA SMUCKER As explosive a combination of topics as the subject of this article appears to be, I am aiming here to address a systemic problem in a way that can hopefully cut through the usual polemics. The particular problem I am referring to is the disproportionately large representation of racial minorities in both abortion rates and military recruitment in the United States. I am using this problem as both a concrete example of how life issues interpenetrate and a j

BY AIMEE BEDOY Photo by Krystal T; some rights reserved. As you may know from reading my Letter from the Editor, I attended the Consistent Life conference at the beginning of March. It was a good, fruitful experience and I can gladly say that I learned a lot and felt bolstered by much of the weekend. I heard one idea there after my presentation on youth and the consistent life ethic that struck a chord within me and helped me to come to terms with some criticisms I had rece

BY MARY KRANE DERR for the Consistent Life 25th Anniversary Conference Never mind and never heart the prearranged war that splits and splits the literal cord of one lifebody from the quite familial other & smaller one. Instead, why not negate either into an insensate clump of merest cells, why not create both utmost sanctuary: the woman-with-child, the child-with-woman, who subsist not singly but doubly human, whose joint faces call, the invisible smaller nested wi

BY NICHOLAS NEAL Before I make the case for why we should not attack Iran, I would at first like to apologize. When I was in high school, I, like many conservative Christians, had supported the Iraq war. Like many Christians I had fused my religion with neoconservative ideology thus blinding myself to the evils of war with "patriotic" rhetoric, and a messianic faith in the American state. When I went to college I had delved deeper into the pro-life philosophy and discovere

BY SARAH TERZO It was a dull, gray morning when Marjorie Walker drove into the parking lot of North Ridge Women's Center and parked her car. She saw that the clinic manager was already there, her red BMW parked in the employee section of the parking lot. The sky was overcast, and it was cold, and she felt a little bit thankful for that, because it meant that fewer protesters would show up at the clinic. They had their regulars, most of whom stayed pretty quiet, only holding

BY NATHAN WILL SHEETS Photo by Ben Husmann; some rights reserved. The noise is what I remember the most. The noise itself was not deafening in a literal sense; however, my mind remembers it as such. When I have flashbacks, it is the thought of the noise that triggers me first, putting me into a state of anxiety or apprehension. Music is constantly flooding my mind: a song from this musical, or a classical piece by that person or even something that I have made up; I typi

BY JEN ROTH Most of the talk of reproductive rights in mainstream politics and media in the United States revolves around not bearing children. Family planning advocates, ourselves included, argue for sex education and access to contraception to prevent unintended pregnancy. Pro-choice advocates argue for a right not to bear children who have been conceived. What is too often neglected in the mainstream discourse is the right to have children, and to raise them safely and w

BY MARY STROKA There's a problem that plagues many campuses across the nation and around the globe. It's not an issue of low-quality food in the cafeteria, but something much more serious: violence -- specifically date rape. Statistical information about rape is unreliable, partly because of the sensitive nature of the issue, but the prevalence of rape is certainly a problem, even if it is not as high as statistics suggest. The National Center for Victims of Crime states o

BY MARY KRANE DERR The right to access the full range of voluntary family planning methods is often neglected or actively undermined in the name of prolife, especially but not exclusively in the United States. Yet there are nine good reasons -- at least -- why fostering this right is essential to respect in practical deed for all human lives, already born and unborn. 1. Family planning freedom prevents millions of human deaths every year. Voluntary access to modern methods o

BY LILIANNA SERBICKI Swollen, a dream on its way to fruition; Nothing romantic. Lense (soft-focus) gone. Real fruit bruises; a real fruit stays the motion We make ourselves. Our unkempt pieces drawn Into alignment; some beings are too real To smudge with soft words. Some beings delight In waking up the small pith in the chest With beating limbs. It is a sudden sleight Of soul, not hand; the itch will soon persuade Myself to love my stippled skin far more Than when it held jus

BY AIMEE BEDOY I am writing this ten years to the day that those towers fell. And ten years later, I want us to discuss what we have learned from September 11, 2001, and where we as a nation must continue to grow. I am speaking as someone who grew up in this culture, immersed in it wholly from the time I was 12 years old. Perhaps I am not the wisest, or the most sage member of society to speak on these points, but this is what I have learned from my childhood to the present

BY NICHOLAS NEAL The abolition of the death penalty in Illinois began when Governor George Ryan placed a moratorium on capital punishment in the state in 2000, after seeing an alarming number of death row inmates being exonerated. Eleven years later, the Illinois General Assembly passed a bill officially abolishing capital punishment in Illinois. It was then up to Pat Quinn to sign it. Now, although Governor Quinn is a Democrat, he had previously spoken in favor of capital

BY AIMEE BEDOY & STEVEN OETJEN A quandary of major proportions faces our nation in this day and age. It could be a matter of life and death for countless persons -- we cannot truly be sure. This paper seeks to examine abortion through the lens of Constitutional law, science, and justice, and lastly to apply these faculties to the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act recently passed in Nebraska. In brief, our recommendation is always to stand for justice and ultimately