Breaking a Campaign Promise

1. The President is backing away from the Freedom of Choice Act, says he wants to work on ways to reduce abortions. Here's his answer at the press conference last night. That's one campaign promise we're glad he's willing to break. Sure would be nice, though, if he supported the Pregnant Women's Support Act or pledged to keep abortion out of his health insurance plan.

2. Another take on waterboarding and torture, this time from a contributor to National Review Online. Mary DeTurris Poust points out the obvious but unspoken truth -- the corrosive attitude towards human life didn't start with torture, it started with abortion.

3. Ambassador Glendon's daughter explains her mother's decision to decline the NDU award, in response to the typical and expected character attacks. Meanwhile, NDU apparently couldn't find anyone willing to accept their medal this year. Instead a past recipient will give a speech. Here's what the President will wear that day -- NDU robes with the crest of the University, including a cross, an image reflecting Mary's title as "Star of the Sea", and words "Vita, Spes, Dulcedo" from the Salve Regina. Nice.

4. Abortion is a principal American export these days.

5. New Hampshire moves towards same-sex "marriage". Apparently virtually no religious liberty protections in the bill, beyond an exemption for clergy who don't want to officiate (not much of a protection -- the First Amendment would certainly cover that already). Meanwhile, see this hard-hitting new video ad from the National Organization for Marriage.

6. More verbal engineering on cloning and stem cell research.

7. I'm just mystified by some parts of the "Catholic press". Here's Catholic News Service's re-telling of a Observatore Romano editorial, in which they claim that the new Administration's first 100 days have brought "no radical changes" (original editorial translated here). They claim that the new stem cell policy is not the radical change that was feared, and don't even mention the Mexico City Policy, the huge increases in "family planning" funding in the budget, or the uniformly and radically pro-abortion appointments to policy positions. The worst part is that they claim to see a positive note in the introduction of the Pregnant Women's Support Act -- apparently not aware that the Administration did not introduce it, has not supported it, and the President voted against key parts of the bill when he was a Senator. So, give him credit for things he didn't do, and assign no responsibility for things he did do. Not only bad journalism, but how is that "Catholic" journalism?

8. On the other hand, CNS does a nice job describing the Holy Father's visit to the earthquake victims in L'Aquila.