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Dems’ abortion machinery rolls forward
FROM WND
Pro-life protests surround Denver convention scene
By Bob Unruh
 A wilted rose hangs on the steel security fence at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, in honor of the victims of the nation’s abortion industry (WND Photo) |
DENVER – Outside the security perimeter at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, pro-life advocates have assembled a 600-foot long protest sign, held rallies in front of Planned Parenthood and quietly slipped roses – in honor of the victims of abortion – into the protective metal mesh surrounding the Pepsi Center, but inside, the abortion advocacy continues undeterred.
The party states that it “strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.”
Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama fits that agenda perfectly, with his documented opposition as a state lawmaker even to a requirement that abortionists provide necessary medical care to a baby who survives an abortion because it would be too much of a burden.
Further, the DNC has featured a series of speakers who move beyond just a pro-abortion stance to actively participating in the industry, including Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, the largest player in the nation’s billion dollar abortion cartel.
As LifeNews.com reported, she told delegates, “I’m proud that for only the second time in our history, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund has endorsed a candidate for president, Barack Obama.”
Obama, who has supported abortions in situations where even the National Abortion Rights Action League has been neutral, is being joined on the Democratic ticket by another abortion advocate, Sen. Joe Biden.
Earlier in the convention, it was NARAL chief Nancy Keenan speaking to DNC delegates about the benefits of abortion.
“I’m proud to say that my party – the Democratic Party – is united behind and supports a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion.”
“This is appalling,” Leslie Hanks, vice president of the Colorado Right to Life, told WND. “To see millions of innocent human lives extinguished and then to celebrate that is very disappointing.”
Estimates for the death toll since the 1973 Supreme Court ruling struck down state abortion bans range from 40 million to 50 million Americans.
Hanks said it’s especially disturbing to see that a black man like Barack Obama “doesn’t understand his race is being decimated by abortion.”
The issue of Planned Parenthood locating many of its abortion businesses in minority neighborhoods, as it has in the past year with its new Denver abortion provider, reportedly the largest abortion megaclinic in the nation, was the subject of a rally in Denver during the DNC.
 Pro-life protests retrieve their signs from security at Denver’s Planned Parenthood megaclinic (Photo courtesy Colorado Right to Life) |
According to a report on American Right to Life, Ambassador Alan Keyes and other pro-life leaders condemned the fact that black women have a disproportionate share of abortions. The Power in the Park also featured officials decrying was what described as “black genocide.”
The rally included a march to the Planned Parenthood megaclinic and a conflict with security guards there, who were accused of taking and trying to keep pro-life protest signs brought by the marchers.
Keyes actually chased the security guards down the street, shouting, “Return those signs,” confronting the guards and retrieving the signs, the report said.
Keyes, who is running for president too, has told WND in several interviews that one of his highest priorities in office would be to restore to America the focus on the fundamental right to life that the nation’s founders outlined.
WND also reported when the American Right to Life Action organization captured a Guinness world record by displaying a 530-foot tall and 666-foot wide abortion protest sign weighing more than 2,700 pounds, sewn together with four miles of stitching linking 2,400 twin sheets.
 American Right to Life Action displays message on mountain outside DNC |
And WND reported when Denver Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput said Democrats simply don’t understand Christianity if they support abortion, which has been condemned by the faithful for millennia because it is considered homicide.
A protest staged by a pro-life organization from Kansas had members put roses in the metal mesh surrounding the Pepsi Center, which protects delegates from anyone who may want to disrupt DNC events.
Steve Curtis, American RTL Action chief, said the DNC, in nominating Obama, “even supports killing kids in the womb old enough to know their mother’s voice, sleep and dream, suck their thumbs and play with their toes.”
Another organization officer, Brian Rohrbough, lost son Daniel to the mayhem in 1999 at Columbine High School, only a few miles from the site where the DNC now is meeting, .
“When we tell kids that unborn children can be killed if their parents don’t want them, we rob them of the knowledge of the God-given right to life and we destroy their moral foundation. Abortion is wrong because it’s a baby; it’s always wrong to intentionally kill an innocent baby,” he said.
Coloradans give Al Jazeera negative reaction
FROM WND
Middle East network covering DNC from office in Denver suburb
Residents of suburban Golden, Colo., say they don’t want the Middle East television network Al Jazeera setting up a broadcast office in town for the coming Democratic convention, forcing the city manager to withdraw an invitation to network officials to join him for a picnic.
According to the Denver Post, Golden City Manager Mike Bestor withdrew an invitation to the crew for the news channel known for broadcasting updates from al-Qaida.
The controversy arose when area residents discovered the network was setting up a base of operations from which to cover the DNC in the Denver suburb.
Bestor said he issued the barbecue invitation to Al Jazeera English officials as a private citizen after the network said it wanted to do interviews at the gathering. The network had contracted with a local bar, the Buffalo Rose, to use as a base for its operations during the DNC.
But residents took their complaints to the city council, demanding officials not allow the network to broadcast from town.
“I am not happy about Al Jazeera infiltrating our small town and portraying us however they see fit,” resident Dawne Montoya told KWGN-TV.
City officials said the Arab network approached them about broadcasting from Golden and no city money would go towards the project. They stand by their decision, even though residents are objecting.
“We treated them like any other news organization, we believe in the First Amendment, freedom of speech, freedom of press is so vitally important,” Bestor told the station.
Al Jazeera representatives contended their network is misrepresented in America and has no agenda but to show the world what American politics are all about.
“I think it’s unfortunate when people try to stifle different voices when people don’t want to hear or allow other people to hear what is being said,” spokesman Rob Reynolds told KWGN.
In a statement on the city’s website, officials said the city council “listened to a large volume of public comment” regarding Al Jazeera during its city council meeting Aug. 21.
The city concluded it “doesn’t have the right to restrict or prohibit Al Jazeera or any other news agency from broadcasting out of the city, whether we approve of their coverage or not, whether we share their perspectives or not, whether we find their coverage offensive or not.”
The city statement said Bestor had offered the invitation to Al Jazeera to his barbecue “believing that doing so would enable him to ensure that a representative group of Golden citizens were interviewed and that Golden would be “fairly represented.”
But he apologized for the “divisiveness” his actions had brought about and confirmed he did not mean any disrespect for “the many brave veterans and men and women currently serving this country in the Armed Forces.”
Al Jazeera English, a division of the parent Al Jazeera, debuted in 2006 and claims 100 million viewers worldwide. The parent, an Arabic language network, has been controversial for its broadcast of videos showing Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders.
Just weeks earlier, the parent company admitted to “unethical” behavior in its coverage of Israel’s release of convicted Lebanese terrorist Samir Kuntar.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz said Israel’s government press office raised the issue of the network’s coverage of the welcome-home festivities for Kuntar in which the head of Al Jazeera’s Beirut office, Ghassan bin Jiddo, praised the terrorist, calling him a “pan-Arab hero.”
Kuntar was convicted of murdering four Israelis, two adults and two children, during a 1979 terrorist attack. He was released last month as part of a deal with Hezbollah. In exchange, Israel received the bodies of kidnapped soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.
Haaretz reported bin Jiddo previously was awarded Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s first interview of the Second Lebanon War. But bin Jiddo also told Syrian television officials he never would agree to interview Israelis.
