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	<title>The Engage Family Blog</title>
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	<description>Official Blog of The Family Policy Council of West Virginia</description>
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		<title>The Engage Family Blog</title>
		<link>http://familyvoice.wordpress.com</link>
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		<item>
		<title>Change Came!</title>
		<link>http://familyvoice.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/change-came/</link>
		<comments>http://familyvoice.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/change-came/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:00:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jeremy Dys</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[www.engagefamilyminute.com]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://familyvoice.wordpress.com/?p=1673</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[You might be wondering where everyone went!  Why isn&#8217;t the Engage Family blog updating anymore?  Where is everyone? Not to fear, this blog just became so popular, we had to make it bigger and better.  All the news, analysis, and commentary you are used to reading can now be found at www.engagefamilyminute.com.  You&#8217;d better update [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=familyvoice.wordpress.com&amp;blog=2599200&amp;post=1673&amp;subd=familyvoice&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>7</slash:comments>
	
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			<media:title type="html">Jeremy Dys</media:title>
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		<title>Change is coming&#8230;.10.19.09</title>
		<link>http://familyvoice.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/change-is-coming-10-19-09/</link>
		<comments>http://familyvoice.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/change-is-coming-10-19-09/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:18:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jeremy Dys</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Engage Family Minute]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://familyvoice.wordpress.com/?p=1671</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Just a reminder the change you've hoped for comes Monday.....

We are grateful for the thousands of readers that have made the Engage Family Blog the best pro-family, policy blog in West Virginia. In just two years, the Engage Family Blog has nearly quadrupled in readership.

Because it has become so popular, we are putting the final touches on a new blog that we hope will be bigger and better. Some changes we have planned include a new domain, integrating with familypolicywv.com, and a new podcast link with iTunes.

When we make the change, you'll want to update your bookmark and/or change the RSS feed to which you've subscribed. But don't worry, we'll let you know when to make the adjustments.

Stay tuned - the change you've hoped for comes on Monday.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=familyvoice.wordpress.com&amp;blog=2599200&amp;post=1671&amp;subd=familyvoice&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	
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			<media:title type="html">Jeremy Dys</media:title>
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		<title>The Irony and Hypocrisy that Abortion Creates</title>
		<link>http://familyvoice.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/the-irony-and-hypocrisy-that-abortion-creates/</link>
		<comments>http://familyvoice.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/the-irony-and-hypocrisy-that-abortion-creates/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:21:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Nathan Cherry</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Life]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[abortion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[late term]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[planned parenthood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Salt Lake Tribune]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Villatoro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Washington Post]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://familyvoice.wordpress.com/?p=1667</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[One woman behind bars, one walks free, both attempted to murder their baby.

By Nathan A. Cherry

Martinsburg, W.V. – The irony, rather hypocrisy that exists in our country regarding the life of an unborn child is both striking and angering.

The sentence of Wendy J. Villatoro was just handed down by a Washington, D.C. district judge. According to the article in the Washington Post, Villatoro will be spending the next 13 years behind bars. Her crime? She killed a baby. So where is the irony?

Had Villatoro walked into an abortion clinic and told doctors she was raped and wished to have an abortion the procedure would have been performed and she would have been on her way. But because she did it herself she will now spend 13 years in prison.

What a story like this does is highlight the fact that abortion is about money, nothing more. It is not about women’s health. It is not about women’s rights. It is about money, plain and simple. A late-term abortion can cost thousands of dollars and Ms. Villatoro is a Honduran immigrant who only recently arrived in the D.C. area. Bottom line, she did not have the money for the procedure so she did it herself.

Now for some real irony. A story from the Salt Lake Tribune carries this title: Girl who tried killing her fetus released.

A 17-year old girl paid a man $150 dollars to beat her in an attempt to kill her late-term, unborn child. The judge in the case dismissed charges saying that the “girl's actions constituted a legal attempt at abortion, not murder, and therefore she was not guilty of a crime.”

So here we have the story of two women who attempt the same thing, one is successful and charged with a crime then imprisoned while the other is not successful and goes free. One is charged with murder because she successfully kills her baby while one is cleared of attempted murder charges and set free.

And if the mere facts of these two cases are not enough irony for you, here is the kicker: both women could have paid Planned Parenthood or another abortion clinic to do the same thing and it would have been successful and legal, no questions asked.

What is wrong with the lawmakers in this country? How can one judge sentence a woman to 13 years in prison for killing her baby while another is cleared of attempted murder after trying to beat her baby to death? In what way is this justice or equity? And where exactly is the law that states only a doctor at a clinic is allowed to perform the “legal procedure that ends a baby’s life?

Two facts present themselves in light of these cases. One, as long as abortion is legal the definition of life, viability, personhood, and all the rights surrounding it will always be in question. And as long as these questions remain as part of a legal battle we can expect to see more hypocritical stories such as these. Two, abortion is nothing more than a business. Abortion is not healthcare, it is not about choice or women’s rights and health; abortion is about money. The billions profited and then spent on political endorsements and campaigns is the underlying foundation for why lawmakers will not allow America to vote on the issue of abortion; despite overwhelming numbers that say Americans want to tighten abortion laws. (Incidentally, this is also why lawmakers are refusing to remove the public option from the health reform bill, there’s just too much money involved.)

Until every citizen of this country is protected we will never be able to claim equality, justice, and freedom exist.
<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=familyvoice.wordpress.com&amp;blog=2599200&amp;post=1667&amp;subd=familyvoice&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	
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			<media:title type="html">nacherry</media:title>
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		<title>AARP Shills for Planned Parenthood</title>
		<link>http://familyvoice.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/aarp-shills-for-planned-parenthood/</link>
		<comments>http://familyvoice.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/aarp-shills-for-planned-parenthood/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:14:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jeremy Dys</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Life]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://familyvoice.wordpress.com/?p=1660</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[From Big Hollywood comes this incredulous incredible story about how AARP, the White House, and Hollywood are conspiring to encourage your kids to volunteer for Planned Parenthood - and, to boot, pass health care reform.  

The "Create the Good" campaign seems like a kitchy idea, until you see the life-ending, political motivations behind it.  WATCH THE VIDEO! (Video link takes you off blog to our main website):

If your 12 year-old hears about this volunteer initiative and follows the lead of her favorite TV star, she will go to www.createthegood.com and type in her favorite cause.  If she’s been paying attention to the news these days (or listening to the lectures from most public school teachers) she will know that “Health Care” is a big deal these days.  All she has to do is type “Health Care” into the search engine with her zip code (let’s say 90210 cause we love those adorable Beverly Hills high school kids) and she’ll get a whole host of opportunities to serve.
Go ahead… open that link and you’ll see twelve opportunities to serve.  Look at items “H”, “I” and “L.”  All are from Planned Parenthood:
“With President Obama’s focus on health-care reform, now is an exciting and crucial time for us to broaden our support and make sure that the new health-care plan includes women’s health. We’re holding a series of phone banks to identify new people who share our commitment to reproductive freedom.”
When I clicked for more info I found out that the phone bank listing was a month old, but there was a handy link for other opportunities to serve Planned Parenthood, like this one:
“Planned Parenthood Los Angeles is currently seeking adults to volunteer as our High School Speakers.”
(Make this reason #724 why I home school my kids).
While we’re looking at all those volunteer options on www.createthegood.org, we should also take a look at that really nifty video listed second from the top.  No matter where you are in the country, if you type “health care” as the subject you want to volunteer for, this video called: “How To Spread The Truth About Health Care Reform” pops up for your viewing pleasure:
<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=familyvoice.wordpress.com&amp;blog=2599200&amp;post=1660&amp;subd=familyvoice&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	
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			<media:title type="html">Jeremy Dys</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">Click to watch video</media:title>
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		<title>&#8220;Gifted Hands&#8221; Kindly Rebuffs President Obama</title>
		<link>http://familyvoice.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/gifted-hands-kindly-rebuffs-president-obama/</link>
		<comments>http://familyvoice.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/gifted-hands-kindly-rebuffs-president-obama/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:25:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jeremy Dys</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Life]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Religious Freedom]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ben Carson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[health reform]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Med Mal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medical Paternalism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://familyvoice.wordpress.com/?p=1657</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Ever since the pep rally that was the white coat ceremony in the backyard of the White House, I've been waiting to see what the doctors who I hold in highest regard have to say on the issue of health reform.

Then this came to my attention. It is the strong, yet characteristically kind, words of Dr. Ben Carson. And, he appears to be more in the mainstream of physicians than not:

[W]ith credibility and acclaim the world over for the pioneering surgeries he has and his personal story of overcoming hardship, recently ripped the dominant health care legislation before Congress in a critique similar to that of conservatives and libertarians. Benjamin Carson, director of pediatric neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, Md., and recipient of numerous awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, criticized in a recent interview the approach of the current bills for their mandate, creation of a “public option,” and lack of malpractice liability reform.

“My biggest problem is I feel it’s going in the wrong direction,” Carson told reporters at TV station WLOS in Asheville, N.C. (Video here.)“It’s giving us more government and less autonomy. And I think we should be going in exactly the opposite direction. We should be having more autonomy and less government. And that is the kind of thing that brings the prices down.”

Considered one of the best neurosurgeons in the world, Carson gained acclaim in the ’80s and ‘90s for his pioneering operations separating conjoined twins joined at the head and other procedures that have saved children from epilepsy and brain cancer. But Carson is also celebrated for his personal story of overcoming poverty and prejudice. An African-American, Carson grew up in a single-parent home Detroit ghetto, but his mother pushed him and his brother to achieve excellence. He is the author of the popular autobiography “Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story,” which was made into a TV movie this year with Cuba Gooding Jr. portraying Carson. And he does much philanthropic work through charities such as his “Carson Scholars” fund.

via Big Government » Blog Archive » “Gifted Hands” Surgeon Rips Into Obamacare.

I included that last paragraph because I wanted to give kudos to Cuba Gooding's potrayal of Dr. Carson - you really ought to watch it sometime. Dr. Carson's story is among the most inspiring in our nation's history.

But I digress, or do I? You see, what Dr. Carson is reacting to is the force medical paternalism that squelches the freedom to succeed, to exceed, and to advance medical breakthroughs and life-saving, life-affirming techniques for which he is renown. Imagine the conjoined twins he separated receiving the "gifted hands" of Dr. Ben Carson under health reform. Weighing the costs and benefits, wouldn't it be more likely that these unique creations would have had their resources allocated elsewhere?

What is more encouraging from Dr. Carson is his rational approach. His is not an empty complaint, he offers a solution:



As his main “fix”, Carson proposes a system of patient empowerment in which “individuals and families can own their own insurance; it doesn’t have to be through their employer.” Not all of Carson’s ideas expressed in the interview were free-market, though. He did propose that the government set insurance rates, and cover patients’ catastrophic costs above $250,000

Above all, Carson was adamant that there transparency and deliberation, rather than a rush to force through a health care bill that no one had read. In fact, he proposed bringing health care to a national vote of the American people “I would say we should have a national referendum on it. People should be able to vote. That would really work, because now, people would have to explain it. They would have to know what was in it. When we do these big sweeping national things and just sort of jam them through and nobody even knows what’s in it, that’s not democracy. At some point, someone has lost their ideal of what democracy is.”

Interesting. Asking the people of, "We the people" what they think? How novel!

But he doesn't end there. One of Carson's chief concerns is the lack of medical malpractice protection that is present in the current iteration of health care reform:

“We have to bring a rational approach to medical litigation,” he said. “We’re the only nation in the world that really has this problem. Why is it that everybody else has been able to solve this problem but us? Simple. Special interest groups like the trial lawyers’ association. They don’t want a solution.”

So what do you think? Are we to believe a photo-op, politicians known more for working to their own political advantage than advancing brilliant ideas with real solutions, or a doctor who has pioneered life-saving medical procedures through his entire career within the current system - whether or not that system is broken.
As a final thought, Dr. Carson practices at Johns Hopkins. I could be wrong, but my guess is that the parents of those conjoined twins probably could not afford the small army of surgeons, doctors, and nurses that saved the lives of their daughters. How does President Obama's plan account for that generosity when painting the medical and insurance communities with the wide brush of corporate greed?
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			<media:title type="html">Jeremy Dys</media:title>
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