John Edwards Grows Deaf to the Voices of Unborn Victims.

In 1985, John Edwards "stood before a jury and channeled the words of an unborn baby girl," according to the New York Times (January 31, 2004).

Edwards - - the U.S. senator and vice-presidential candidate, not to be confused with popular television "psychic" John Edward - - was representing parents in a successful lawsuit against an obstetrician who, they claimed, had failed to properly heed indications on a fetal heartbeat monitor that an unborn baby was in trouble, resulting in a serious brain injury.

In his closing argument to the jury, Edwards conveyed what the unborn child, Jennifer Campbell, purportedly had been feeling hour by hour as her distress grew.

"She speaks to you through me," Edwards told the jury. "And I have to tell you right now - - I didn't plan to talk about this - - right now I feel her. I feel her presence. She's inside me, and she's talking to you."

Edwards won the lawsuit. Thirteen years later, he was elected to the U.S. Senate from North Carolina. Judging from his subsequent voting record, it seems that somewhere along the line, John Edwards lost his ability to hear the voices of unborn victims.

Consider first the question of partial-birth abortion.

Nurse Brenda Pratt Shafer was "pro-choice" when her agency assigned her to work at an Ohio abortion clinic in 1993. What she saw shocked her to the core.