Paul Ryan is solidly pro-life, and has a 100% pro-life voting record according to National Right to Life.

Granted, he, like many other Republicans — and even many other pro-lifers, including Rick Santorum — voted to continue funding for Title X, which covers “family planning.” Personally, I regard all contraception as evil, and so should Ryan and Santorum if they are faithful Catholics. But in my experience, very, very few Catholics” think with the Church” on this issue. Some of that lack of understanding comes from letting one’s selfish interests block any understanding of things that might upset one’s preferred lifestyle. Some of it is the overwhelming pressure, permeating the very air we breathe, of a completely sex-saturated culture. And some of it is the fault of bishops and priests who have been silent on this issue — if not outright supportive of contraception — ever since the 1960s, despite clear teaching from the Popes.

Interestingly enough, Mitt Romney, of all people, has said he would eliminate funding of Title X.

But back to the original point: Except for Title X funding — which evidently the National Right to Life Committee did not include in its scoring (probably because many if not most NRLC members themselves support and use contraception) — Paul Ryan has been pro-life for his entire career. Indeed, some of the leftists are freaking out because Ryan does not allow exceptions for rape, incest and fetal deformity. And the Left is even more freaked out at Ryan’s support of the Protect Life Act, which recognizes the biological fact that every human life begins at conception. (The reason for the leftie freak-out is that some birth-control methods, ncluding the Pill, work all or some of the time NOT by preventing ovulation, but by preventing implantation of an embryo AFTER conception takes place.)

Since many doctors (and most Pill users) don’t even know this, I would not be surprised if Paul Ryan doesn’t know it.

…. even some atheists and die-hard civil liberties advocates, such as the great Nat Hentoff, are passionately pro-life. That’s because they see it as a HUMAN RIGHTS issue. The big and strong should not be allowed to kill off the small and weak just because they don’t want them around.

Dr. Bernard Nathanson, one of the three co-founders of NARAL and former head of what was at the time the largest abortion clinic in the world, eventually became pro-life because of the irrefutable scientific evidence of the humanity of the unborn child. Advances in ultrasound imaging were key to his conversion to the pro-life position. (See his book Aborting America.) However, he was an atheist at the time of his change of heart, and for many, many years afterward. (He eventually became a Christian many years later.)

My best friend in high-school, who helped me start a pro-life club, was a vehement, vocal atheist. She said that her conviction that there was no afterlife made the abortion issue even more urgent for an atheist — because once those lives were snuffed out, they were annihilated forever, since there was no heaven for them to go to.

I was a non-church pro-lifer for many, many years. Indeed, it was my lifelong pro-life convictions that actually led me to investigate the Catholic Church. I did not become Catholic just because of the pro-life issue — but that issue certainly played a huge part in leading me there and giving the Church a look.

My point is that one need not be religious to be pro-life. It is a human-rights issue.

…everyone within your reach sees this 5-minute video that was made in 2008. If it doesn’t move them, nothing will: “Born Alive” True stories, real people.

And for those who are willing to put 5 or 10 minutes into reading an exceptionally well-written essay, give them Robert George’s “Obama’s Abortion Extremism..”