Today's edition will briefly talk about a number of issues. It's the kind of TN&V that is fun to write and correspondents tell me is a pleasure to read.

By way of catching up, last week I asked our faithful readers to pretend they were writing an inaugural speech for pro-abortion President-elect Barack Obama. (http://www.nrlc.org/News_and_Views/Jan09/nv010609.html). Some of the ones I have already received are particularly hilarious/insightful/debunking. Send me yours by Wednesday; I will be running samples on Monday, the day before the actual inauguration.

Yesterday, Washington Times columnist Julia Duin wrote an excellent piece titled "Ignoring issue of black abortions." She'd received an email press release about a conference where journalists would be talking about the mortality rates for black Americans. "I looked at the conference description," she wrote, "but there was nothing there about black abortions. "

Although blacks make up only an eighth of the population, African-American women have more than a third (37%) of the 1.2 million abortions performed in the United States.

The two greatest unrecognized truths about abortion may be (1) that it is essentially legal for any reason, or no reason, throughout a woman's entire pregnancy, and (2) minorities have a hugely disproportionate number of abortions. Duin notes that although blacks make up only an eighth of the population, African-American women have more than a third (37%) of the 1.2 million abortions performed in the United States.

To give readers a sense of the enormous disproportionality, Duin quotes from the work of the Guttmacher Institute (GI), whose pro-abortion connections and sympathies are well known, but whose data is still reliable. According to GI, "[B]lack women abort their children at five times the white rate and twice the Hispanic rate," Duin writes. Specifically that means, "11 abortions per 1,000 white women, 28 for every 1,000 Hispanic women and 50 for every 1,000 black women."

To borrow from the Marxists, it is no accident that Planned Parenthood plants so many of its "clinics" in urban areas peopled by blacks and Hispanics. But it is tragic that the first African-American president would be the best of buddies with PPFA, whose primary "growth market" is vulnerable black girls.

Several people today forwarded a story written by a pro-abortion blogger, talking about the impact of the Madoff investment scandal on funding for "progressive women's causes," including abortion. One of Madoff's "clients" was the Picower Foundation.

"Picower was one of a handful of foundations willing to stick their necks out and significantly fund the three organizations that handle virtually all major reproductive rights-related litigation and legal advocacy in the United States," writes Nancy Goldstein. "Now the Center for Reproductive Rights needs to make up a $600,000 shortage in 2009; Planned Parenthood is out $484,000; the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project is off $200,000."

Goldstein quotes Vivian Lindermayer, who is director of development for the Center for Reproductive Rights. Lindermayer says of Picower, "They understood the critical role litigation and legal advocacy play in securing women's equal access to quality reproductive healthcare. Picower's closing will have a major impact on CRR and organizations like us."

Well, we can only hope so.

One other very belated note, which again just came across my desk. Rowan Williams is the Archbishop of Canterbury. His Christmas message to the Anglican community is fascinating on a number of levels. Of direct interest to pro-lifers is what followed his observation that Christianity "introduce[d] the world to the idea of God in the form of a baby: in the form of complete dependence and fragility, without power or control."

Archbishop Williams wrote, "Hence the reverence which as Christians we ought to show to human beings in every condition, at every stage of existence. This is why we cannot regard unborn children as less than members of the human family, why those with disabilities or deprivations have no less claim upon us than anyone else…"

The importance of this truth is paramount whether we are Christians or Jews or members of another other faith community (or none at all). We are in this together and when the most vulnerable are tossed aside, as human beings we are all very much poorer.

Your thoughts and comments are very much appreciated. Write to daveandrusko@gmail.com.