episode 1

http://www.facinglife.tv/episode/season_4/episode_20/episode_420.html

episode 2

http://www.facinglife.tv/episode/season_4/episode_21/episode_421.html


Melissa Ohden’s tale of surviving an abortion is remarkable. In part one of this two-part series, we’ll hear her tale of survival, learn the details involved in a saline abortion, and find out how Melissa’s tragic history turned into a story of love and adoption.

In the summer of 1977, Melissa’s mother was admitted to St. Luke’s hospital in Sioux City, Iowa with the intention of aborting her unborn daughter.  But the saline abortion attempt failed and baby Melissa was delivered alive, unbeknownst to the abortionist.  A few doctors and nurses finally noticed that Melissa was making small movements and noises and they quickly went to work on saving Melissa’s life.  Having survived the abortion attempt on her life, baby Melissa still required intense medical care.

Linda and Ron Cross were already the parents of one adopted daughter when they decided the time had come to have another child.  They first saw Melissa when she was only one month old.  According to Linda, it was love at first sight.  Linda and Ron adopted Melissa and were able to take her home only a couple months later.  Despite initial concerns regarding her future, Melissa thrived in the loving home of her new family.

Melissa’s story of survival is remarkable, considering the damage a saline abortion inflicts on an unborn child. Dr. Jonathan Taylor is a Doctor of Osteopathy with Creighton University and a former OB/GYN.  He describes the saline abortion procedure and outlines the effects the chemical solution has on unborn children.  Due to the amount of survivors, saline abortions are no longer practiced.  But that hasn’t stopped abortionists from inventing new late-term procedures.
 

1. Attend the San Diego "Friends of Fair Trade" monthly meeting

San Diego Friends of Fair Trade is a coalition of non-profit organizations and congregations attempting to advance the cause of fair trade.  They work to insure that all individuals who toil, both at home and around the world, to provide consumers with commodities are paid a living wage, one that can sustain a life with dignity. 

The next SD Friends of Fair Trade meeting will be on Wednesday, October 13, 2010, at 6:30 p.m. at the Open Door Book Store on 4761 Cass St., Pacific Beach - For more information, please contact Carolyn Lief at fairtradesandiego@gmail.com.  To sign up for the Fair Trade San Diego newsletter, send a request to fairtradesandiego@gmail.com 
 

2. Get Acquainted with Detention Ministry in the Diocese of San Diego

Join Deacon Jim Walsh each month for an Information and Training Seminar on detention ministry and restorative justice at the Diocesan Pastoral Center, 3888 Paducah Drive, San Diego, 92117

Visit the OSM Restorative Justice Web site: www.diocese-sdiego.org/restore

For the month of September, ...

- Tuesday, September 21, 2010, 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., or Wednesday, September 22, 9:00 a.m. to Noon

Sorry, no walk-ins.  Contact Deacon Jim Walsh for reservations or questions: 858-490-8375 or e-mail Deacon Jim at jwalsh@diocese-sdiego.org

 

3. North-County prayer witness at the Carlsbad Planned Parenthood Clinic

North County parishioners meet the third Monday of every month from 10:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. to peacefully pray the rosary in front of the Carlsbad Planned Parenthood Clinic.  The clinic is located at 1820 Marron Rd. (in the shopping center just west of Plaza Camino Real Mall).  For more information, contact Jahna White of St. Margaret Parish at 760-586-6356.
 

4. Prayerful witness for life at two locations (7340 Miramar Road in San Diego and 15546 Pomerado Road in Poway) in San Diego County

Helpers of God’s Precious Infants weekly rosary prayer vigil from 8:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. every Saturday and Wednesday at 7340 Miramar Road, directly above Metro Flooring in the complex with the Pyramid Building, adjacent to Carroll Road.  Prayer warriors also needed as early as 7:30 a.m.

Call Roger Lopez at 619-276-7525 for more information.
 
Second Saturday of the month:  20 decades of the Rosary are prayed in procession past 4 clinics following the 7:30 a.m. Mass, 15546 Pomerado Road, Poway.  For more information, call 858-748-2109. 

5. St. Dismas Guild sponsors two weekly hours of prayer for the unborn in North County

Join members of St. Dismas Guild for a rosary picket at North County Women's Medical Clinic, 120 S. Craven Way, San Marcos, (across from Cal State San Marcos), Tuesdays, 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.

The Guild also sponsors prayer (the rosary) in front of PayLess at Mission Avenue and Escondido Blvd., 347 W. Mission, on Thursdays, 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.  For information on these prayer vigils, call 760-751-8541. 


6. St. Elizabeth Seton Parish in Carlsbad has a tri-weekly prayer ministry in front of the North County Women's Medical Clinic on Craven Way - San Marcos on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays

Please join the St. Elizabeth Seton "Life Matters" Culture of Life prayer vigils at 10:00 a.m. to Noon every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday morning at "North County Women's Medical Clinic": 120 Craven Road, San Marcos - http://www.womensmedicalclinic.com/.  Those interested can carpool from St. Elizabeth Seton's upper parking lot at 9:30 a.m.  Those who do not want to carpool, please feel free to meet us at the Abortion Center at 10:00 a.m. or at any time between 10:00 a.m. and Noon.  These vigils are not confrontational.  We give witness by being present in prayer and entrust our message to the Blessed Mother.  Contact Gene: ejzoval@yahoo.com or 760-804-9656 for more information.


7. St. John the Evangelist Parish in Encinitas Pro-Life Mass and Rosary held on the first Monday of each month

The first Monday of every month is designated Pro-Life Monday at St. John the Evangelist Church, 1001 Encinitas Blvd, Encinitas.  The 8:00 a.m. Mass will be followed by a Rosary for Life.


8. Prayer Vigil at Planned Parenthood - First and Grape Street, San Diego – Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.

Prayer vigil contacts: Luis Mendoza 619-259-3906 or Roger Lopez 619-276-7525.   Rosary processions the first Saturday of every month from Our Lady of the Rosary, Date & State St., after the 7:30 a.m. Mass.             


9. Most Precious Blood Parish Rosary Prayer Vigils held on Wednesdays each week 

The Pro-Life Prayer Group from Most Precious Blood sponsors a Rosary Prayer Vigil in front of "A Woman's Choice" Clinic abortion facility at 1550 Broadway, Chula Vista, every Wednesday at 8:45 a.m.  For more information, please call Shirley Henry at 619-420-7096 or Luis Mendoza at 619-259-3906.
 

10. Prayer partners are needed at the office of Feliciano Rios M.D., 1079 Third Ave., suite 3, in Chula Vista - Dr. Rios performs abortions at his medical facility - Meet each Wednesday from 8:45 a.m. to 10:45 a.m.

Please contact Luis Mendoza, a Missionary of The Gospel of Life Lay Associate, at 619-259-3906, with questions or to share interest in this prayer ministry.


11. Pray in front of the Planned Parenthood facility located at 1685 East Main, just off the Greenfield Drive exit in El Cajon - join friends and neighbors

According to the PP website, chemical (RU-486) abortions only are done at this location - not surgical abortions.  They do refer women for abortions to their surgical center on First Ave.  Join the group each Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. and Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Contact: mfowler@nethere.com


12.   The Goretti Group offers chastity prayer and speaker training monthly

Every First Friday of the month, the Goretti Group will celebrate a St. Maria Goretti Mass at Our Lady of the Rosary, 1654 State Street, at 6:15 p.m.

Even some who support same-sex marriage worry that, in striking down California's voter-approved proposition defining marriage as between one man and one woman, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker went too far. They are right -- and not the only ones who should be concerned. Walker's ruling is indefensible as a matter of law wholly apart from its result.

By refusing to acknowledge binding Supreme Court precedent, substantial evidence produced at trial that was contrary to the holding and plain common sense, the ruling exhibits none of the requirements of a traditional decision. This opinion is arbitrary and capricious, and its alarming legal methodology and overtly policy-driven tenor are too extreme to stand.

Regardless of whether one agrees with the result, structurally sound opinions always confront binding legal precedent. Walker's is a clear exception because the U.S. Supreme Court has spoken on whether a state's refusal to authorize same-sex marriage violates the equal protection and due process clauses of the 14th Amendment. In 1972, Baker v. Nelson, a case over whether Minnesota violated the Constitution by issuing marriage licenses only to opposite-sex couples, was unanimously thrown out on the merits, for lack of a substantial federal question. The Supreme Court's action establishes a binding precedent in favor of Proposition 8. But Judge Walker's ruling doesn't mention Baker, much less attempt to distinguish it or accept its findings.

During a trial, litigants from both sides introduce various types of evidence, including witness testimony, documentary evidence and legal opinions that involve "judicial notice" of certain well-known or legally controlling facts. Sound judicial opinions consider the facts and evidence on both sides of an argument, apply them fairly to the dispute at hand and determine which legal cases are on point.

Yet Walker's opinion pretends that the voluminous evidence introduced on the side of Proposition 8 does not exist. It neither acknowledges nor attempts to distinguish the writings of renowned scholars presented at trial in support of Proposition 8, including that of anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, history professor Robina Quale and social scientist Kingsley Davis. It ignores the writings of legal giant William Blackstone and philosophers John Locke and Bertrand Russell. It even refused to address the fact that Congress, in the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, defined marriage as the "legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife."

Despite ample evidence introduced into the record that only a union of a man and woman can produce offspring (as if that needs proof), Walker's opinion denied the relevance of that biological fact. That difference has been the main reason civilization recognized the uniqueness of marriage as between a man and woman, and why courts have repeatedly relied on that common-sense truth.

Despite voluminous evidence and common sense pointing to the contrary, the judge also declared that opposite sexes were never part of the "historical core of the institution of marriage"; "evidence shows conclusively that moral and religious views form the only basis for a belief that same-sex couples are different than opposite-sex couples"; traditional marriage is an "artifact"; and, also without reference to the monumental evidence to the contrary, that it is beyond "any doubt that parents' genders are irrelevant to children's developmental outcomes."

These assertions appear in the opinion's "findings of fact" section, yet they are not facts. These "findings" derive from arbitrary and capricious non-analysis and are forcefully contradicted by evidence in the court record. No appellate court should allow the ruling to stand.

Having ignored everything courts typically rely on in making sound judgments, Walker concluded that Proposition 8 was enacted "without reason" and demonstrates "a private moral view that same-sex couples are inferior to opposite-sex couples [and are] . . . not as good as opposite-sex couples." Nothing in Proposition 8 supports such conclusions, particularly since California law grants same-sex couples all the benefits and protections that apply in traditional marriage.

People can differ on whether, as a matter of policy, states should allow same-sex marriage. The robust debate on that topic should not be short-circuited by judicial fiat.

Yet, according to the federal district court, Americans such as President Obama, Vice President Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the majority of members of Congress and the 7 million Californians who voted for Proposition 8 are all bigots who have "no rational reason" to oppose gay marriage.

Even the usually liberal U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has reservations about immediately implementing Walker's exercise in judicial social engineering. A three-judge panel of the court issued a stay late Monday to prevent California's law from being cast aside before a panel can fully review the matter. It was right to do so. The rule of law demands more careful consideration of this important issue than Walker's decision delivered.