"[A]ny of the various procedures … that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation."
Department of Health and Human Services, defining abortion in a draft rule regarding federally funded health services. Critics worry that the definition would include oral contraceptives.
(Source: The New York Times)

* * *

"We understand that casual sex is dear to you, but staying alive is dear to us."
Sam L. Ruteikara, co-chair of Uganda's National AIDS-Prevention Committee. The Anglican clergyman says the country's anti-AIDS- program has been sabotaged by "international AIDS experts [who] said we were wrong to try to limit people's sexual freedom."
(Source: The Washington Post)

* * *

"Because providing a remedy for the very real, but religiously motivated, emotional distress in this case would require us to take sides in what is essentially a religious controversy, we cannot resolve that dispute."
The Texas Supreme Court, dismissing a lawsuit against church members who in 1996 restrained a 17-year-old they feared was suffering demonic oppression. A lower court had awarded a $188,000 judgment to the woman, who says she now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder due to the laying on of hands.
(Source: Austin American-Statesman)

* * *

"There's nothing dishonorable in a person rethinking his or her positions, especially in a constantly changing political context."
James Dobson, who last year said, he would "not vote for John McCain under any circumstances," explaining that Barack Obama's policy positions "force me to reevaluate the candidacy of our only other choice."
(Source: Associated Press)



Related Elsewhere:

Earlier Quotation Marks columns are available from August 2008, July 2008, June 2008, May 2008, April 2008, March 2008, February 2008, January 2008, December 2007, November 2007, October 2007, September 2007, August 2007, and earlier issues of Christianity Today.

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