BY JOHN JALSEVAC

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January 3, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – When the Canadian Celtic family band Leahy debuted the new pro-life song written by their pianist Erin several years ago at a show in Colorado, it felt as if “chains were being released” from audience members, according to Erin.

And wherever else the band has performed the song, the reaction has been the same: women come up to them after the shows, she says, and “will just fall into tears.”

While Erin, like the rest of her siblings who are part of the band, has always been pro-life, she admits that she never gave much thought to the issue, with the result that, until relatively recently, she had “never actually felt the emotion” that goes along with the conviction.

It wasn’t until 2008, the year that Canadian arch-abortionist Henry Morgentaler was awarded the Order of Canada, that Erin took a close look at what actually happens during an abortion.

That year, at the urging of a pro-choice friend, Erin spent some time while on tour reading the website of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada. What she found there disturbed her so much that she continued to research abortion.

“And that’s when it all hit me as far as how really sad the whole situation is,” she told LifeSiteNews.com during a recent interview.

One day, shortly after returning home from that tour, Erin was sitting at her piano, improvising, when a melody began to emerge that she found compelling. Without paying any attention, she began to sing the first words that came into her head.

Those words happened to be “calling all people to life,” the title of the song. Then, as she continued to sing, a second voice began to emerge, that of a pregnant mother, and then a third, of an unborn child.

“Mother, mother / Hold on to me,” this baby cries out in the completed song:

Give me the chance to be
All I was meant to be
‘Cause there is a plan for me
For all of eternity
And when the days are cold
I’ll be in your arms to hold
Then when your eyes grow old
I’ll be the one to take you home

At no point, says Erin, did she ever decide to “write a song about this issue or this idea.” Instead the song emerged organically from an overflowing of emotion that had taken hold of her after looking abortion directly in the face and seeing it for what it is.

Even she finds it interesting that the unborn child’s voice became such a prominent part of the song.

“It’s intriguing that it happened that way, because it’s a voice that you don’t really hear,” she says. “We hear people speaking on behalf of the unborn child, but we don’t hear the unborn child’s voice. How can we? We can’t.”

Erin says she has no real expectations for what the song will accomplish. However, when pressed, she admits that she hopes that “people would listen to that voice [of the unborn baby].

“It’s not a voice that is really saying anything other than ‘I want to live.’ And there’s no judgment.”

Erin is considering releasing the song to wider release.  But in the meantime it is available on iTunes, and is being played on Christian radio stations across North America.

To buy the song on iTunes, click here.

Read LifeSiteNews.com’s 3-part series about the Leahy family:

A Most Unusual Family: International Music Stars Leahy Talk about Growing Up, Family, Fame, and Religion

A Most Unusual Family: International Music Stars Leahy Talk about Growing Up, Family, Fame, and Religion – Part II

A Most Unusual Family: International Music Stars Leahy Talk about Growing Up, Family, Fame, and Religion – Part III
The complete lyrics of Calling All People to Life:

Calling all people to life
I am calling all people to life
Giving all people my life
To be loved by me
To be loved by me

Sharing the blood of my heart
I am sharing the blood of my heart
Giving the blood of my heart
To be one with you
To be one with you

Mother, mother
Hold on to me

Give me the chance to be
All I was meant to be
‘Cause there is a plan for me
For all of eternity
And when the days are cold
I’ll be in your arms to hold
Then when your eyes grow old
I’ll be the one to take you home

Calling all people to life
I am calling all people to life
Giving all people my life
To be loved by me
To be loved by me

Mother, mother
Hold on to me

Look at the flowers grow
The colours are beautiful
But some seeds they never grow
They’re buried in sorrow
Inside these walls of you
I am a part of you
I already love you
And I’d even die for you

I am alive
I’m breathing inside
Forever alive

Mother, mother
Hold on to me

Unveil the mystery
Of all that comes after me
For I do long to see
The children inside of me
The shape of my bones was formed
In heaven by my Lord
And I belong to him
From whom all life begins

So if you don’t hear me cry
I hope you’ll be by my side
And together we’ll be again
Where life will never end

LEARN MORE:

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/mother-hold-on-to-me-pianist-from-celtic-family-band-leahy-releases-pro-lif

Published: January 29, 2014 9:16 pm

by Lauren Enriquez

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The “Kid President,” of YouTube fame, releases periodic speeches to boost the morale of humanity in general. Sometimes, his messages are directed at specific groups. Here, you can see what he has to say to moms in his Open Letter to Moms (and if you are one, watch it; the kid knows what we need to hear). A few days ago, Kid President released a speech with a target audience of tiny humans: it’s a message to babies on the day of their birth, Kid President’s Letter to a Person on Their First Day Here. ”Today, over 360,000 babies will be born. And you are one of them. Welcome, this is the world!”

In the video, he explains that life, in general, is awesome. Acknowledging that there are some bumps in the road of life, he sagely advises that little people not to take the mean people too seriously. Most importantly, he wants the babies to know that “we’re glad you’re here.”  Here are a few morsels of wisdom from the young man to newborns, but be sure to watch the whole video.

“Just treat everybody like it’s their birthday. Even if they don’t deserve it sometimes. Because we all mess up sometimes. The biggest mess up? Not forgiving each other’s mess ups.”

“Maybe you’ll be a teacher. Maybe you’ll be the president. Maybe you’ll cure every disease ever… this is so much. It’s a lot. Try to take a breath.”

“Some days gross things will happen. Some days awesome things will happen. Some days you’ll get ice cream. Some days you won’t.”

“Being a person is hard sometimes. You should give people high-fives just for getting out of bed.”

“You, you’re awesome. You’re made that way. You’re made from love to be love to spread love. Love is always louder, no matter what. Even if hate has a bullhorn.”

“I don’t think I told you this yet. We’re really glad you’re here. We don’t say that enough to each other here. Because, well, life gets busy. You’re gonna be important. And you’re gonna do a lot, and you’re gonna smell great. But don’t get too busy. Remember to let everybody know you’re glad they’re here. You don’t have to remember all this right now. You’re gonna need a pep talk sometimes, and that’s OK. For now, remember this: You’re awake. You’re awesome. Live like it.”

Kid President made this video for his nephew, Miles. “I’m trying really hard to teach him to be a person. An awesome person.”

WATCH VIDEO & LEARN MORE:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5-EwrhsMzY

http://liveactionnews.org/kid-presidents-surprisingly-accurate-speech-to-a-baby-on-the-day-of-its-birth/

BY WESLEY J. SMITH

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Euthanasia and the Culture of Death are like the man-eating plant in Little Shop of Horrors: No matter how much you feed it, the beast always wants more!

The Netherlands has been expanding the categories of the killable caste for decades. Back in 1991, a psychiatrist named Boudewijn Chabot assisted the suicide of a woman whose two children had died to fulfill her obsession to be buried between them.

The Dutch Supreme Court ruled logically that was just fine because suffering is suffering, and it doesn’t matter whether it is physical or emotional.

Now clinics are assisting the suicides of depressed patients whose own doctors won’t kill them. From the Daily Beast story:

In early 2012 a group called the Life-Ending Clinic went into operation for people whose personal physicians refused to terminate their lives or assist their suicides. The clinic has since tested the boundaries of “unbearable suffering.” Among those it has helped to die: people with chronic depression and those who have signed their own euthanasia declaration in the early stages of dementia.

“We consider it self-evident that someone who is terminal can turn to euthanasia,” Life-Ending Clinic Director Steven Pleiter told The Daily Beast. “Now we are entering a phase in which there will be more debate about patients who are not terminally ill, among them psychiatric patients and those with dementia.”

Even Chabot is worried:

Psychiatrist Boudewijn Chabot, seen as a pioneer of the euthanasia movement after his conviction in 1991 for helping a female patient die, told the Dutch TV program Nieuwsuur that the law “has gone off the rails.”…

Chabot warned that the emphasis on a long-term doctor-patient relationship is paramount when it comes to evaluating psychiatric problems. “There are a 100,000 chronic psychiatric patients” in the Netherlands, according to Chabot, and of those “a large segment struggles with and against a death wish.” If the Life-Ending Clinic wants to take on such a responsibility, he said, then it better “get ready.”

Hypocrite! Chabot knew the suicidal woman he infamously assisted only briefly, having met her at a Voluntary Euthanasia Society meeting. He helped kill her after meeting with her only 4 times over about 5 weeks, with no treatment every attempted.

If Chabot is upset, you know things are really getting bad! Here’s an example from the story:

In one highly publicized example last year, the clinic helped a 63-year-old man with severe psychiatric problems to end his life. After a very active career working for government, the patient in question could not face his upcoming retirement. In an interview with the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad the clinic’s psychiatrist, Gerty Casteelen said the man “managed to convince me that it was impossible for him to go on. He was all alone in the world. He’d never had a partner. He did have family but he was not in touch with them. It was almost like he’d never developed as a person. He felt like he didn’t have the right to live. His self-hatred was all consuming.”

LEARN MORE: 

http://www.lifesitenews.com/blog/feed-me-the-culture-of-death-always-wants-more

BY BEN JOHNSON

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WASHINGTON, D.C., January 31, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The highest-ranking Catholic Democrat in the House of Representatives will receive an award from the nation’s largest abortion provider.

On Friday morning, Planned Parenthood announced it would be awarding House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi its Margaret Sanger Award, the group’s “highest honor.”

Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards said it gave her “great pleasure” to bestow “our highest recognition of leadership, excellence, and outstanding contributions to the reproductive health and rights movement” to the former House Speaker.

“No one is more deserving of this honor than Leader Pelosi, who has fought tirelessly throughout her career to protect and expand women’s access to health care.”

Chief among the reasons for granting the award is Pelosi’s “leadership in passing the Affordable Care Act,” conventionally known as ObamaCare, which Richards called “the greatest advancement for women’s health in a generation.”

Planned Parenthood said in a press release that Pelosi would join such “distinguished company” as Hilary Clinton, Roe v. Wade author Justice Harry Blackmun, ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero, lesbian congresswoman Bella Abzug, Alan Guttmacher, Democratic Socialists of America honorary chair Dolores Huerta, and Martin Luther King Jr.

Critics have said Margaret Sanger is not very “distinguished company,” given her support of eugenics. Sanger referred to certain people as “human weeds” and partnered with the Ku Klux Klan to reduce the growth of “undesirable” populations.

The website Twitchy.com likened the prize to being named “Eugenicist of the Year.”

This is not Pelosi’s first award from the nation’s largest abortion provider.

As LifeSiteNews reported, she received Planned Parenthood’s Champion for Women’s Health award in 2010. The activist group selected Pelosi because she was “instrumental” in leading “her female colleagues in Congress as they stood strong against attempts to insert the Stupak abortion ban into” ObamaCare.

Former Congressman Stupak has said the president is violating the law’s prohibition against funding abortion with taxpayer dollars.

In 2011, Pelosi said defunding Planned Parenthood was only one of “the horrors” Republicans might perpetrate.

In 2012, she described the Girl Scouts of America’s relationship with Planned Parenthood as “very valuable.” When the nation’s Catholic bishops opposed the HHS mandate, she dismissed them as “lobbyists.”

That has not kept the congresswoman, who represents San Francisco, from brandishing her Catholicbona fides in a public manner. Last June, she invoked her Catholic faith to say abortion is “sacred ground.” Calling herself “an ardent, practicing Catholic,” she previously stated in error that the Catholic Church had no position on the morality of abortion until “like maybe 50 years” ago.

Pelosi will receive the award at Planned Parenthood’s “Stronger Together” annual gala in Washington, D.C., on March 27.

LEARN MORE:

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/nancy-pelosi-to-receive-margaret-sanger-award-from-planned-parenthood

I have long argued that the difference in humans is moral in nature, not merely biological. But that doesn’t mean that some or all of what makes us unique doesn’t arise out of unique biological differences between us and all other known life.

Scientists have apparently discovered a region in the brain that may help direct the inherent human trait of judging right from wrong.. From a John Walsh column in The Independent:

Scientists at Oxford University have made a startling discovery: they’ve found a region of the brain that makes you wonder if you’ve done something wrong, and whether you’d have been well advised to do something better. There are several things that you should know about this region, which is inside your head, and the head of the lady sitting beside you on the Tube, and the heads of David Cameron and Lady Gaga and Rouge Dragon Pursuivant of the Royal College of Heralds.

That sounds portentous:

This is about good and bad, right and wrong. This is about the brain’s connection to morality. This means that the Oxford scientists, without apparently realising what they’ve done, have located the conscience.

One, it’s called the lateral frontal pole. Two, it’s unique to humans – they ran tests on monkeys in the course of the research at Oxford and, nope, they don’t have it. Three, it’s the size of “a large Brussels sprout”. And four, it’s a leap beyond current scientific knowledge into realms that can only be described as spooky.

A lot about us is.

This is the bottom line: Whether we evolved, were intelligently designed, were created–or a combination of the above–humans are the only known moral agents in the universe with a sense of “ought,” of right and wrong.

That makes us exceptional! And now, as Walsh posits, scientists may have discovered a biological component that makes that exceptional attribute possible.

LEARN MORE:

http://www.lifenews.com/2014/01/30/researchers-find-human-conscience-part-of-brain-differentiating-right-and-wrong/