Senate kills pro-life amend. on health care, now working to filibuster health care bill

Senate kills pro-life amend. on health care, now working to filibuster health care bill



WASHINGTON - The U.S. Senate voted Tuesday to table -- and thereby kill -- an amendment that would have barred federal funds in health-care reform from paying for abortions.

The 54-45 vote to table the amendment turned back an effort by Sens. Ben Nelson, D.-Neb., and Orrin Hatch, R.-Utah, to revise the Senate health-care bill to prohibit federal funding for abortions in a government-managed program and federal subsidies for private insurance plans that cover abortions.

With the tabling of the Nelson-Hatch Amendment, the bill sponsored by Majority Leader Harry Reid -- the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act -- moves forward without the restrictions on federal funding of abortion that were placed in the measure by the House of Representatives. The pro-life restrictions in the House bill were promoted by Rep. Bart Stupak (D.-Mich.).

Two Republicans -- Susan Collins and Olympic Snowe, each of Maine -- joined 52 Democrats in supporting the table resolution. Opposing the table resolution were 38 Republicans and seven Democrats: Evan Bayh (Ind.), Robert Casey (Pa.), Kent Conrad (N.D.), Byron Dorgan (N.D.), Ted Kaufman (Del.), Nelson and Mark Pryor (Ark.).

Having seen an amendment lose that would have prevented the Senate health care bill from funding abortions, the nation's leading pro-life groups say they'll now urge senators to defeat the overall bill with a filibuster.

Their chances of success are unknown, although they apparently have one Democratic ally -- Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska -- who has said he has "drawn a line in the sand" and would filibuster the bill if it didn't contain language prohibiting tax dollars from paying for abortions. It was Nelson's amendment that was defeated Tuesday when the Senate voted to "table" the proposal, 54-45, essentially killing it. The amendment mirrored language that was added to the House health care bill by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.).

Nelson's support of the overall bill is critical: There are 60 senators in the Democratic caucus and it takes 60 votes to break a filibuster. The pro-life groups say they'll ask their constituents to call their senators and urge a "no" vote on "cloture," which if passed with 60 votes would stop a filibuster and limit debate.

"[T]his is a long way from over," the National Right to Life Committee said in a statement, noting that the bill again must pass the House, where there are a bloc of pro-life Democrats.

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said he found Tuesday's Senate vote both "discouraging and encouraging."

"It's discouraging that the Senate as a whole could not comprehend the need to respect the will of 70 percent of the American people that public funds should not pay for or subsidize the killing of our nation's unborn citizens," Land told Baptist Press. "It was encouraging in that the motion to table got 54 votes, well short of the 60 needed to stop a filibuster. As long as there are sufficient pro-life senators such as Sen. Nelson who are willing to filibuster any health legislation that does not contain these restrictions on abortion, it will be difficult to break the filibuster and pass the entire bill.

"In that case," Land added, "then pro-choice supporters will have to decide between their pro-choice convictions and their desire for a vastly increased government role in health care."

Other groups, including the Family Research Council, Democrats for Life, Concerned Women for America and Americans United for Life, also said they would support a filibuster. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops also said that failure to include pro-life language would "require us and others to oppose this bill because it abandons both principle and precedent."

Americans United for Life said, "We now have no choice but to work vigorously to defeat this bill."

The Nelson amendment would have done two things: 1) prevent a government-run public option from covering abortion, and 2) prohibit federal subsidies for lower-income people from purchasing private plans that cover abortion. Exceptions would be made for cases of rape, incest and to save the mother's life. A woman would be permitted to use her own money to purchase a "rider" that covers abortion.

It is not known, though, whether the public option will remain in the bill. If it is dropped -- as some media outlets reported Wednesday would happen -- then the bill conceivably could pick up the support of one of Maine's two Republican senators (Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins), who are both pro-choice, thus offsetting Nelson voting for a filibuster. Snowe and Collins were the only Republican senators opposing the Nelson amendment and are considered the GOP's most liberal members.

Asked after Tuesday's Senate vote if he was confident the bill would be successfully filibustered, the Family Research Council's Tom McClusky said, "The magic of the Senate is that just about anything can happen.... Sen. Nelson has drawn a pretty hard line when it comes to what type of abortion language he wants to see in the bill."

Seven Democrats joined 38 Republicans in opposing the motion to table the amendment: Nelson, Evan Bayh (Ind.), Robert Casey (Pa.), Kent Conrad (N.D.), Byron Dorgan (N.D.), Ted Kaufman (Del.) and Mark Pryor (Ark.).

Pro-life groups are trying to pressure those and other Democratic senators to support a filibuster if pro-life language isn't added. The Family Research Council says it is calling every household in Arkansas, South Dakota and Louisiana -- all conservative states with Democratic senators -- to conduct a survey on such topics as abortion funding, rationing, higher taxes and the public option. It is also calling pro-life households in Pennsylvania and Virginia. Participants who answer a particular way will be given information on contacting their senators, an FRC release stated. Democratic Sens. Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), Tim Johnson (S.D.), Mary Landrieu (La.), Jim Webb (Va.) and Mark Warner (Va.) all sided with pro-choicers in voting to table the Nelson amendment.

"We're doing everything in our power to make sure that the constituents of those senators know that those senators are voting to expand abortion in this country," Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said.

One concern among pro-lifers is that Democrats in both chambers will avoid the usual House-Senate conference -- where the differences in the two bills normally would be worked out -- and instead simply send the Senate bill straight to the House, which could pass it without changes and send it to President Obama. Such a move would bypass another round of haggling in the Senate and could make the bill easier to pass. House leaders, of course, must agree to such a move and likely would have a say in the final Senate bill.

"I think that's clearly what they're going to do," Perkins said. "We've been hearing that for a little over a week. They know that if … they work on it and send it to conference, it's in great jeopardy."

The challenge for House leaders, Perkins said, would be to get the 64 Democrats who voted for the Stupak pro-life amendment last time to support a pro-choice health care bill.

"They would have to go back on that vote and support taxpayer funding of abortion," Perkins said of the 64 Democrats. "I think it will be a major fight in the House to approve the Senate bill."

Pro-lifers also are anticipating Reid bringing to the floor a "manager's amendment" with supposed pro-life language that would be promoted as a compromise. Perkins said it likely would be "fake" pro-life language.

During debate Tuesday, Nelson told senators he wasn't there "to debate for or against abortion."

"This is a debate about taxpayer money," Nelson said. "It's a debate about whether it's appropriate for public funds to -- for the first time in more than three decades -- cover elective abortions.... Most Americans and most of the people in my state would say, 'No.' ... Some suggest that the Stupak language imposes new restrictions on abortion. But that's not really the case. We're seeking to just apply the same standards to the Senate health-care bill that already exist for many federal health programs.”

A CNN poll in November found American adults are against "using public funds for abortions when the woman cannot afford it" by a 61-37 percent margin. Other polls have found slightly higher or lower percentages, but all show that adults oppose federal funding of abortion.

Contact: Michael Foust
Source: BP
Publish Date: December 8 & 10, 2009
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Evidence of Counseling Abuse at Planned Parenthood Continues to Surface in Undercover Student Video

Evidence of Counseling Abuse at Planned Parenthood Continues to Surface in Undercover Student Video



APPLETON, Wisc. - New undercover footage from an Appleton, WI Planned Parenthood abortion clinic shows clinic staff, including the abortion doctor, lying to two young women about fetal development and encouraging the one who is pregnant to obtain an abortion because "women die having babies."

In the undercover video, when the two women ask a Planned Parenthood counselor if the pregnant woman's 10-week-old unborn child has a heart beat, the counselor emphasizes "heart tones," and answers, "Heart beat is when the fetus is active in the uterus--can survive--which is about seventeen or eighteen weeks." On the contrary, embryologists agree that the heartbeat begins around 3 weeks. Wisconsin informed consent law requires that women receive medically accurate information before undergoing an abortion.

The counselor then says, "A fetus is what's in the uterus right now. That is not a baby." Dr. Polhaska, the abortion doctor, insists, "It's not a baby at this stage or anything like that." Polhaska also states that having an abortion will be "much safer than having a baby," warning, "You know, women die having babies."

The video comes one month after the widely reported resignation of Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson. Johnson left her leadership position at Planned Parenthood in Bryan, TX after watching a 13-week old fetus being aborted in her clinic on ultrasound. She said during a recent interview, "Planned Parenthood really tries to instill in their employees and the women that are coming in for abortions that this is not a baby." In another interview, she noted, "They don't want to talk about when your baby has a heartbeat," because "they don't want to give the woman information that could give her a connection with her baby."

The investigation is organized by Live Action, a nonprofit student group. Lila Rose, the 21-year-old UCLA student and Live Action president, says medical lies and manipulative counseling are routine at Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion chain.

"They will do or say anything in order to sell more abortions to more women, whether it is covering up sexual abuse or lying to women about medical facts," says Rose. "Our team has visited dozens of Planned Parenthood clinics undercover. Planned Parenthood, while claiming to support patient self-determination, operates with an 'abortion-first mentality.'"

The video is the first in Live Action's "Rosa Acuna Project," a multi-state undercover audit documenting Planned Parenthood's abortion counseling. Planned Parenthood has come under fire in recent months after Live Action's investigations found them willing to conceal sexual abuse and accept donations targeted to abort African-Americans only. Videos of abuse cover-up prompted state investigations of Planned Parenthood and diversion of the abortion giant's public subsidies.

"Planned Parenthood is a billion-dollar organization with nearly $350 million of government funding, and stands to gain hundreds of millions more from national health care," says Rose. "Do we really want to subsidize an organization that gives women in need atrocious misinformation and predatory abortion practices?"

Click here to see the new video.

Contact: Lila Rose
Source: Live Action
Publish Date: December 9, 2009
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Abortions jump in Illinois, especially in Chicago area

Abortions jump in Illinois, especially in Chicago area

 

While no one was watching, the Illinois Department of Public Health posted the latest abortion statistics for the year of 2008. Sadly, the numbers establish an upward trend for Illinois abortions since the low point of 2003, thus discounting the slight drop in 2007.

A total of 47,717 abortions were committed in Illinois in 2008, up 5.3% from 45,298 in 2007. Abortions for Chicago area residents jumped at a much higher rate, accounting for more than the statewide increase.  Cook County abortions jumped by 3233 (14.5%) to a total of 25,529. Abortions in some of the counties surrounding Cook, though much lower totals, jumped by even higher percentages as follows:

Kane County  --  up 38% -- from 832 to 1145
Will County   --   up 22% -- from 953 to 1161
Kendall County -- up 73% -- from 112 to 194

In contrast, abortions held steady in three other Chicago area counties: DuPage (-22), Lake (+8), and McHenry (-2).  For the four counties with substantial increases in abortions, the total increase reaches 3836 more abortions.  For the entire state, abortions increased by 2419.  Thus, abortions throughout all of Illinois outside of those four counties actually fell by 2.9%.

What might account for this rather localized increase in abortions.   Could this primarily be the impact of Planned Parenthood's huge abortion fortress in Aurora?  What actions spared DuPage, Lake, and McHenry counties from participating in these large abortion increases? 

About the only good news from the 2008 statistics was the drop from 4042 to 3903 for abortions committed on out-of-state residents.  Interestingly, the number of abortions on women of unknown residency dropped from 1965 to 1111.  Since some of these cases could also have been out-of-state residents, the drop might be even larger.   Even so, these numbers still represent many underage girls who enter Illinois to avoid parental involvement laws in other states.

The unknown residency statistic jumped from only 114 in 2004 to 1683 in 2005, and peaked at 2115 in 2006, possibly reflecting concern about potential enforcement of parental notification.  Is the 2008 drop an indication abortion providers have become convinced it will never be enforced?

Contact: Bill Beckman
Source: Illinois Review
Publish Date: December 8, 2009
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Pro-Lifers Fear Disastrous Decision in "Roe v. Wade of Europe" Case

Pro-Lifers Fear Disastrous Decision in "Roe v. Wade of Europe" Case



STRASBOURG - Pro-life advocates involved in the "A, B and C v. Ireland" case fear that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is preparing to issue "an activist" decision that could lead to the abolition of the pro-life amendment of Ireland's constitution.

The ECHR heard arguments yesterday in the case that has been described as the "Roe v. Wade of Europe." Three women, two Irish nationals and one Lithuanian, who live in Ireland and obtained abortions in the UK, have complained to the Court that had they been allowed to have had abortions in Ireland they could have avoided medical complications, expense and "trauma."

In 1983 the Constitution of Ireland was amended to read, "The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right."

In Court documents, the women have claimed that having to travel to the UK, "made the procedure unnecessarily expensive, complicated and traumatic," and that the "restriction stigmatised and humiliated them and risked damaging their health." They are being supported in their suit by the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA), an affiliate of International Planned Parenthood.

The women claim that Ireland's law on abortion "was not sufficiently clear and precise, since the Constitutional term 'unborn' was vague and the criminal prohibition on abortion was open to different interpretations."

Pro-life advocates fear the ECHR is preparing to issue "an activist opinion" that will "abandon settled jurisprudence, impinge the sovereignty of Ireland, and result in a global assault on the unborn." William Saunders, senior vice president of legal affairs for Americans United for Life and a consultant in the case, wrote on National Review Online that ECHR case law and the European Convention on Human Rights, "would decide the merits of the case in favor of Ireland, but the mere fact that the Court is entertaining arguments is troubling."

The Court, in noting that the women had become pregnant "unintentionally," has dropped a hint that the question has already been decided, Saunders wrote.

"What relevance is the intent to create a human being to Ireland's right to protect its life once created?"

Saunders points out that the Court has bypassed the normal procedures for deciding which cases it will hear, which require that all possible local legal avenues be pursued before making appeals to the ECHR. He notes also that the ECHR has unusually referred the case to the Grand Chamber before waiting for an opinion from the lower chamber.

Other pro-life groups are warning that should the decision go against the Irish law, the case could have far-reaching effects for the other countries of the EU and around the world. John Smeaton, director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, which has filed a brief in the case, has said that the case is part of a larger plan by US abortion lobbyists to install a "right to abortion" in jurisdictions around the world.

Smeaton cited a memo prepared by the New York based Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), that revealed a detailed strategy to distort existing international human rights treaties in cases before international courts and in particular before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

CRR intervened in a case in 2007 in which the ECHR ruled that the human rights of a woman who had been refused an abortion in Poland had been violated under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Smeaton said the claims of the women in the A, B and C case "are not only unfounded, they are an attempt to pervert everything the European Convention originally set out to protect."

"No treaty or convention has ever recognised access to abortion as a human right. Article 2 of the European Convention protects the right to life and while it does not specifically prohibit abortion, it would be turning the convention on its head to argue that it provides a right to kill through abortion," he added. 

Contact: Hilary White
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: December 10, 2009
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Planned Parenthood Partnered in Safe School Czar's "Fistgate" Scandals

Planned Parenthood Partnered in Safe School Czar's "Fistgate" Scandals



BOSTON - Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, was a collaborator in the sex-education scandal now known as "Fistgate" that has enmeshed Obama's "Safe School Czar" Kevin Jennings in recent days.

According to information posted at Andrew Brietbart's Big Government blog, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) in 2000 held its 10 Year Anniversary GLSEN/Boston conference at Tufts University. At that time Jennings was the executive director of GLSEN.

At the 2000 event, which was cosponsored by the Massachusetts Department of Education, a youth workshop was held, specifically targeting 14-21-year-olds, which taught them how to perform a dangerous sexual practice known as "fisting" - a practice so extreme that it cannot be described here.

After the content of the workshop was made public and an uproar ensued, Kevin Jennings, dismissed the event as an aberration. "Like the Parents Rights Coalition and the Department of Education, GLSEN is also troubled by some of the content that came up during this workshop," he said.

"We need to make our expectations and guidelines to outside facilitators much more clear, because we are surprised and troubled by some of the accounts we've heard."

However, despite Jennings' assurances, a similar event happened at the 2001 GLSEN conference the following year, again held at Tufts University, and this time involving Planned Parenthood.

According to Breitbart, a Planned Parenthood booth offered "fisting kits" at the 2001 conference, which was attended by an estimated 400 students out of the 650 attendees.

MassNews, which obtained one of the Planned Parenthood "fisting kits" reported that "they contained a single plastic glove, a package of K-Y lubricant and instructions on how to make a 'dental dam' out of the material."

A label on the package bearing the Planned Parenthood logo and phone number stated, "protects against STD's."

On the day of the conference campus police at Tufts reportedly were out in force to prevent concerned Massachusetts parents from video-taping and exposing the goings-on, as they had done the year before.

Breitbart's Big Government has been cataloguing the different aspects of GLSEN's promotion of hard-core homosexuality to youth during Jennings' tenure. Jennings was tapped by President Barack Obama to run the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools in the US Department of Education, with an emphasis on Jennings' efforts to make "safe schools" for homosexual students.

During the time of Jennings' tenure, GLSEN published a book list of recommended reading for youth grades 7 - 12, which the group had deemed "age-appropriate," but which included sexually graphic language and explicit descriptions of deviant sexual practices. (see coverage at Gateway Pundit here: WARNING: content extremely graphic)

Jennings stepped down as executive director of GLSEN in 2008.

Contact: Peter J. Smith
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: December 9, 2009
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Holdren's guru: Dispose of 'excess children' like puppies

Holdren's guru: Dispose of 'excess children' like puppies

Science chief acknowledges Brown as inspiration for career in ecology


John Holdren

Geochemist Harrison Brown, a member of the Manhattan Project who supervised the production of plutonium, advocated world government in the 1950s to impose mandatory controls over population growth, carried out, if necessary, through sterilization and forced abortions.

White House science czar John Holdren openly acknowledges Brown's writings influenced his decision to devote his career to the science of ecology.

Holdren has echoed Brown's call for global government by advocating the United States should surrender sovereignty to a "Planetary Regime" armed with sufficient military power to enforce population limits on nations as a means of preventing a wide range of perceived dangers from global eco-disasters involving Earth's natural resources, climate, atmosphere and oceans.

On page 260 of his 1954 book "The Challenge of Man's Future," Brown concluded "population stabilization and a world composed of completely independent sovereign states are incompatible."        

Writing that "population stabilization" is a goal "with which a world government must necessarily concern itself," Brown advised that "maximum and permissible population levels" for all regions of the world could be calculated by world government authorities using the rule that "individual regions of the world should be self-sufficient both agriculturally and industrially."

Brown even contemplates infanticide as a permissible solution to overpopulation in extreme situations, writing that "if we cared little for human emotions and were willing to introduce a procedure which most of us would consider to be reprehensible in the extreme, all excess children could be disposed of much as excess puppies and kittens are disposed of at the present time."

That Brown considers such a reprehensible reality a possibility is made clear on page 261, when he writes: "And let us hope further that human beings will never again be forced to resort to infanticide in order to avoid excessive population pressure."

'Pulsating mass of maggots'

Imagining a world population growing out of control to as many as 200 billion people, Brown suggested on page 221 "a substantial fraction of humanity" was reproducing as if "it would not rest content until the earth is covered completely and to a considerable depth with a writhing mass of human beings, much as a dead cow is covered with a pulsating mass of maggots."

Believing that there are "physical limitations of some sort which will determine the maximum number of human beings who can live on the earth's surface," Brown argued on page 236 that "there can be no escaping the fact that if starvation is to be eliminated, if the average child who is born is to stand a reasonable chance of living out the normal life span with which he is endowed at birth, family sizes must be limited."

He continues to specify that the limitations in birth "must arise from the utilization of contraceptive techniques or abortions or a combination of the two practices."

Brown openly endorsed putting morals aside.

"The conclusion is inescapable," he continued on page 236. "We can avoid talking about it, moralists may try to convince us to the contrary, laws may be passed forbidding us to talk about it, fear of pressure groups may prevent political leaders from discussion the subject, but the conclusion cannot be denied on any rational basis."

As far as Brown was concerned, government-mandated population control was necessary to prevent overpopulation.

"Either population-control measures must be both widely and wisely used, or we must reconcile ourselves to a world where starvation is everywhere, where life expectancy at birth is less than 30 years, where infants stand a better chance of dying than living during the first year following birth, where women are little more than machines for breeding, pumping child after child into an inhospitable world, spending the greater part of their adult lives in a state of pregnancy."

Ultimately, Brown resolves preventing overpopulation justifies government limiting human freedom, at least with regard to reproduction.

On page 255, Brown announces "it is difficult to see how the achievement of stability and the maintenance of human liberty can be made compatible."

How many births should be permitted?

On page 262, Brown proposes a rule government officials can utilize to mandate birth control measures.

"Let us suppose that in a given year the birth rate exceeds the death rate by a certain amount, thus resulting in a population increase," he postulates. "During the following year the number of permitted inseminations is decreased and the number of permitted abortions is increased, in such a way that the birth rate is lowered by the requisite amount."

Next, Brown insists that in a year in which the death rate exceeds the birth rate, "the number of permitted inseminations would be increased while the number of abortions would be decreased."

Brown formulates his rule as follows: "The number of abortions and artificial inseminations permitted in a given year would be determined completely by the difference between the number of deaths and the number of births in the year previous."

Combining this rule with his desire to implement eugenics, Brown writes on the next page, "A broad eugenics program would have to be formulated which would aid in the establishment of policies that would encourage able and healthy persons to have several offspring and discourage the unfit from breeding at excessive rates."

Brown openly acknowledged population control requires government limitation of human freedom.

"Precise control of population can never be made completely compatible with the concept of a free society; on the other hand, neither can the automobile, the machine gun, or the atomic bomb," he wrote on pages 263-264.

"Whenever several persons live together in a small area, rules of behavior are necessary. Just as we have rules designed to keep us from killing one another with our automobiles, so there must be rules that keep us from killing one another with our fluctuating breeding habits an with our lack of attention to the soundness of our individual genetic stock."

Holdren follows mentor's lead

Holdren's call for a planetary regime dates to the 1970s college textbook "Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment" that he co-authored with Malthusian population alarmist Paul R. Ehrlich and Ehrlich's wife, Anne. The authors argued involuntary birth-control measures, including forced sterilization, may be necessary and morally acceptable under extreme conditions, such as widespread famine brought about by "climate change."

Just as Brown had called for world government to control overpopulation to prevent eco-disasters, Holdren's call for a planetary regime was similarly motivated by ecological concerns.

On page 943, the authors recommended the creation of a "Planetary Regime" created to act as an "international superagency for population, resources, and environment."

Holdren clearly specified the Planetary Regime would be charged with global population control.

On page 943, Holdren continued: "The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries' shares within their regional limits. Control of population size might remain the responsibility of each government, but the Regime should have some power to enforce the agreed limits."

Holdren credits Brown with inspiring him in high school

Holdren openly acknowledges his intellectual debt to Brown's 1954 book "The Challenge of Man's Future."

In 1986, Holdren co-edited a scientific reader, "Earth and the Human Future: Essays in Honor of Harrison Brown."

In one of his introductory essays in the book, Holdren acknowledged he read Brown's "The Challenge of Man's Future" when he was in high school and that the book had a profound effect on his intellectual development.

Holdren acknowledged Brown's book transformed his thinking about the world and "about the sort of career I wanted to pursue."

As recently as 2007, Holdren gave a speech to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in which his last footnote included Brown as one of the "several late mentors" to whom Holdren was thankful for "insight and inspiration."

In the first slide of this presentation, Holdren acknowledged, "My pre-occupation with the great problems at the intersection of science and technology with the human condition – and with the interconnectedness of these problems with each other – began when I read 'The Challenge of Man's Future' in high school. I later worked with Harrison Brown at Caltech."

Contact: Jerome R. Corsi
Source: WorldNetDaily
Publish Date: December 9, 2009
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NEWS SHORTS FOR THURSDAY

NEWS SHORTS FOR THURSDAY
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Federal Spending Bill May Include Abortion Funding in D.C.
 


The Omnibus Appropriations Bill, a massive yearly spending bill, is expected to be considered by the House later this week.  Democrats are adding pro-abortion provisions, including lifting a ban on funding for abortions performed in Washington, D.C.

Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, said lawmakers are trying to make the changes while everyone is focused on health care and other issues.

"They want to ram these through under a fast-track procedure," he told OneNewsNow, "where the Senate would never have even debated or had a chance to vote on these measures."
Click here for the full article.


Full page ad challenges Planned Parenthood to fess up on healthcare kick-back plans

Americans United for Life took out a full-page ad in Tuesday's The Hill, and it's fabulous. Click on the link to see the actual newspaper scan. Here's the letter. Click to enlarge....



americans united for life, planned parenthood, charmaine yoest, cecile richards, The Hill, healthcare 1.jpg

"I'll go first," I love it.

The next obvious question is, "Cecile, what do you plan to use public funded healthcare kickbacks for?"

But we already know the answer: to cover up underage rapes, and to target black babies for abortion, and most recently revealed, to use scare tactics and provide gross misinformation to abortion-vulnerable mothers.
Click here for the full article.


Pro-Life Resolution to Appear on Texas Ballot
 


The governing body of the Republican Party in Texas has voted to include a resolution on the March 2010 primary ballot asking lawmakers to require that women seeking an abortion would be able to see an ultrasound image before they agree to the procedure.

Kyleen Wright, president of Texans for Life Coalition, said they tried to get it passed this session.

"It was a measure that we pushed very hard in the state Legislature," she said.  It passed in the Senate, but died as a result of Democrats running out the clock filibustering on another measure."

Wright said many of the abortion clinics in the state already perform sonograms, but that doesn't mean women are seeing the results.

"Most of the women," she said, "don't know that it's in the package that they're paying for, don't even necessarily know that they are having this procedure and are never offered the opportunity to see the sonogram."
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Belgian Doctor Cleared of Murder Charges after Euthanizing 88-year-old, Non-Terminally-Ill Woman



BRUSSELS - A Belgian judge has decide not to prosecute a doctor specializing in euthanasia after he was accused of murdering a woman who came to him seeking death, but who was not terminally ill.

Dr. Marc Cosyns of Ghent euthanized the 88-year-old woman on January 5, 2008 after her own doctor had opposed the request for euthanasia. It was reported that the woman had an incurable disease that was not terminal and suffered from several other ailments.

The woman's son filed a complaint with the public prosecutor after he learned of Dr. Cosyns part in his mother's death.

Upon hearing of the judge's refusal to hear the charge of murder against him, Dr. Cosyns reportedly said, "I am very pleased that the right of the patient has been secured."
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Dominican nun, former Planned Parenthood escort, continues support for abortion



A Dominican nun who gained national notoriety by working as an escort at a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Chicago has applauded US Senators who voted against a pro-life amendment to the pending health-care reform legislation. Sister Donna Quinn—who quit her volunteer work with Planned Parenthood under pressure from local Church leaders—reports that she has sent thank-you notes to abortion supporters who lobbied their senators against the pro-life amendment. Sister Quinn expressed satisfaction that the amendment was defeated on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, saying that the Virgin Mary was “one of the first women in the New Testament to express ‘choice.’”
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Italy approves RU-486



Italy has granted final approval to the abortion pill RU-486 but, unlike most other nations, will limit its use to hospitals.

“There will be excommunication for the doctor, the woman and anyone who encourages its use,” Bishop Elio Sgreccia said in July, referring to the penalty of automatic excommunication associated with abortion. The retired president of the Pontifical Academy for Life added, “First abortion was legalized to stop it being clandestine, but now doctors are washing their hands of it and transferring the burden of conscience to women.”
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Denominations' support of abortion in health care 'tragic'

Denominations' support of abortion in health care 'tragic'



WASHINGTON - While evangelical and Catholic leaders have been working tirelessly in recent weeks to make sure any health care bill does not include federal funding of abortions, leaders of the nation's mainline denominations have been doing just the opposite, even going so far as calling abortion a "God-given right."

The Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church (USA), United Church of Christ and the United Methodist Church's General Board of Church and Society all are members of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, a pro-abortion rights organization that took part in a Dec. 2 "Stop Stupak" rally in Washington D.C., urging the Senate not to include the pro-life Stupak amendment in its version of the health care bill.

The United Methodist General Board of Church and Society -- the denomination's lobbying arm -- even sent out an alert after the health care bill passed the House, calling the bill itself a "major milestone" but lamenting passage of the Stupak amendment, which it saw as "a tremendous setback for access to comprehensive reproduction health coverage." The amendment passed the House 240-194 and prevents the government-run public option from covering elective abortion and also prohibits federal subsidies from being used to purchase private insurance plans that cover abortions.

The four previously mentioned denominations all have pro-choice positions of varying degrees, but their leaders' stances on abortion in the health care bill have surprised even some seasoned observers.

Mark Tooley, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, said most church members of mainline denominations would know little if anything about the lobbying effort. IRD is a conservative organization working to transform the "churches' social witness."

"They would be very surprised," Tooley told Baptist Press. "At least 90 percent have no idea what happens with the money after it leaves the local church. Certainly, 90 percent or more do not know that their denominations have lobby offices on Capitol Hill.... Most mainline Protestants aren't familiar with what's going on in their name. So, it would be very surprising to the vast majority."

The issue captured attention in the conservative Internet realm when Carlton Veazey, president of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, told a small gathering at the Stop Stupak rally, "Don't let anybody tell you that religious people don't support choice. You not only have a constitutional right for abortion, but you have a God-given right." CNSNews.com reported the comment.

Tooley said Veazey's quote was "in line" with other past comments.

"It's tragic," he said of the coalition's position about federal funding of abortion. "These same church groups were out there supporting Roe v. Wade in 1973.... It's horrifying that groups that are at least in theory parts of the body of Christ are not only defending abortion but demanding that it be funded by tax dollars."

Membership in mainline churches has fallen by a fourth in the past 50 years, according to the research firm The Barna Group.

Meanwhile, the leading evangelical denominations have been working to make sure the Stupak amendment remains in the Senate version. Southern Baptist ethicist Richard Land said "the Stupak-Pitts amendment is the minimum required for any genuinely pro-life person."

"People who claim to be pro-life" and accept anything less "have pro-life views as a preference, not as a conviction," he said.

Following are the four denominations' positions on abortion, according to their websites:



-- The United Methodist Church in 2004 adopted a position opposing partial-birth abortion. But the statement also says the decision to abort "should be made only after thoughtful and prayerful consideration by the parties involved, with medical, pastoral, and other appropriate counsel."




-- The Presbyterian Church (USA) in 1993 adopted a position stating, "The considered decision of a woman to terminate a pregnancy can be a morally acceptable, though certainly not the only or required, decision."



-- The Episcopal Church in 1994 adopted a resolution stating that the "Episcopal Church express[es] its unequivocal opposition to any legislative, executive or judicial action on the part of local, state or national governments that abridges the right of a woman to reach an informed decision about the termination of pregnancy or that would limit the access of a woman to safe means of acting on her decision."



-- The United Church of Christ has been pro-abortion rights since Roe v. Wade was handed down in 1973. It joined a friend-of-the-court brief this decade in trying to overturn the federal ban on partial-birth abortion. The Supreme Court allowed the law to stand.

Contact: Michael Foust
Source: BP
Publish Date: December 7, 2009
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More pro-abortion threats loom in US Congress

More pro-abortion threats loom in US Congress



The push for public funded abortions in healthcare isn't enough. Pro-aborts never sleep in their bloodthirsty quest to advance taxpayer funding and access to abortion. The National Right to Life Committee issued this heads up last night:

    35 senators today warned congressional Democratic leaders against attempting to use omnibus appropriations legislation as a vehicle to overturn longstanding pro-life policies on 3 different issues....

    In a letter delivered today to Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (NV), the 35 Republican senators, led by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), warned that if any of the provisions making pro-abortion policy changes are included, the omnibus legislation will face stiff resistance. "We want to assure you that we are prepared to take full advantage of our rights under Senate rules" to prevent enactment of the abortion-related provisions, the letter states....

    Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the NRLC), commented: "At the same time that congressional Democratic leaders are trying to win enactment of government-funded abortion in their health care legislation, they are also considering using end-of-year omnibus appropriations legislation to try to smuggle in removals of longstanding bans on government-funded abortion in the nation's Capitol, and in their own insurance plans."

    Democratic leaders are currently crafting omnibus appropriations legislation that will encompass most or all of the 7 regular appropriations bills that have not yet been enacted for the current fiscal year.

    The possible abortion-related provisions at issue would:

  # lift a longstanding ban on funding of abortions by the city government of Washington, DC, allowing funding of abortion on demand with funds appropriated by Congress

  # lift a longstanding ban on coverage of elective abortions in the private health plans that participate in the Federal Employees Health Benefits program, which covers over 7 million federal employees and dependents, including most members of Congress

  # permanently prevent any US president from restricting US funding of foreign organizations that are committed to promoting abortion as a method of birth control [JLS note: Mexico City policy]

So add your opposition to these 3 provisions when you call your senators opposing public funding in healthcare.

Contact: Jill Stanek
Source: jillstanek.com
Publish Date: December 8, 2009
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Some Senators Share Holdren’s View That Born Babies Are Not ‘Human Beings’

Some Senators Share Holdren's View That Born Babies Are Not 'Human Beings'



Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, says he believes some of his Senate colleagues share the view expressed by White House science adviser John P. Holdren in a 1973 book that human fetuses do not become "human beings" until sometime after they are born.
 
Holdren co-authored Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions with Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich in 1973.  The book calls for a "massive campaign" to "de-develop the United States" and concludes that redistribution of wealth "both within and among nations is absolutely essential."
 
On page 235 of the book, in a chapter titled "Population Limitation," Holdren and his co-authors wrote: "The fetus, given the opportunity to develop properly before birth, and given the essential early socializing experiences and sufficient nourishing food during the crucial early years after birth, will ultimately develop into a human being. Where any of these essential elements is lacking, the resultant individual will be deficient in some respect."


Click here for the video.

Holdren holds a Senate-confirmed position as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and is the top science adviser to President Barack Obama.
 
CNSNews.com asked Sen. Inhofe in a video interview if he believed that Holdren should come to the Senate and explain whether he still believes these words in his book and what he meant by them. Inhofe, who is pro-life, responded that he believed Holdren's view that a fetus does not develop into a human being until sometime after birth is shared by some members of the Senate.
 
"There are members of the Senate who would probably agree with that," said Inhofe. "I mean, those of us who believe—and, scripturally, we, obviously, we are on solid ground—that life begins at conception. Many members of the Senate don't believe that. And that's why you are getting into the big abortion argument."
 
Inhofe said that he not only thought some of his colleagues did not believe a fetus develops into a human being until sometime after birth, but said he thought some of his colleagues would actually state that this was their belief.
 
"I think they would actually tell you that," said Inhofe.
 
"They would be candid enough to actually say that?" CNSNews.com asked.
 
"I think they would, yes," said Inhofe.

CNSNews.com has asked the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to make John Holdren available for a video interview about his past writings on human ecology, population, and the environment. The invitation has not been accepted.

Source: CNSNews.com
Publish Date: December 8, 2009
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Special Report Shows 'Handwriting On The Wall' for Failing Abortion Industry

Special Report Shows 'Handwriting On The Wall' for Failing Abortion Industry

Pro-life Movement gaining ground: Over two-thirds of all abortion clinics have closed since 1991, resulting in saved lives



WICHITA, Kans. - Operation Rescue has released the results of an extensive research project into the abortion industry showing that the number of abortion clinics continues to dwindle as Americans become more pro-life.

"We now have an accurate listing of every open abortion clinic in the country," said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. "In 1991, it was estimated that there were nearly 2,200 abortion clinics in the country, today there are just 713. The pro-life movement has made significant strides exposing and closing abortion clinics and shifting public opinion toward the pro-life position. This has resulted in lower abortion rates."

Operation Rescue has listed all abortion clinics along with a map showing their locations. The information shows a general relationship between access to abortion clinics and the abortion rate in each state. With few exceptions, the states with greater access to abortion clinics have higher abortion rates.

The release of the list launches "Project Daniel 5:25", Operation Rescue's latest campaign to expose abortion industry abuses and bring the perpetrators to justice. Project Daniel 5:25 is named after the Biblical story of Daniel, who was able to read the handwriting on the wall and predict the fall of a wicked kingdom.

"The days of legal abortion in this nation are numbered. Pro-life sentiment continues to gain ground as abortion support slips. Abortion clinics continue to close as demand decreases and as abortionists are increasingly exposed and reported to the authorities by pro-life groups," said Newman.

"Project Daniel 5:25 encourages those with pro-life views to establish a presence at their local abortion clinic to pray and offer help to abortion-bound women -- but also to monitor the clinic for criminal violations and other suspicious acts. We have never found an abortion clinic that follows the law. It is up to pro-life activists to serve as the watchdogs of the abortion industry and be the eyes and ears of law enforcement.

"We can do more than simply protest abortion clinics. We can document their illegal and dangerous behavior and work within the law to close them down.

"With a pro-life watchdog group at every clinic reporting what they see to the authorities, we will certainly see more abortionists criminally charged and abortion clinics closed. We know first-hand from having our offices in a closed former abortion clinic, that when clinics close, lives are saved."

Those who wish to participate in Project Daniel 5:25 are encouraged to call Operation Rescue at 1-800-705-1175.

Click here to read the report, view the map and list.

Contact: Troy Newman, Cheryl Sullenger
Source: Operation Rescue
Publish Date: December 8, 2009
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Senator Boxer Compares Viagra Prescription To Abortion in Opposing Amendment to Health Care Bill

Senator Boxer Compares Viagra Prescription To Abortion in Opposing Amendment to Health Care Bill



Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) on the Senate floor on Monday compared a woman’s choice to have an abortion with a man’s choice to privacy when seeking a prescription for Viagra, a drug used to enhance sexual performance. Boxer made her remarks while speaking against an amendment to the Senate health care bill introduced by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.). Nelson’s amendment would prohibit federal funds from paying for any part of any health insurance plan that covers abortion.
 
“The men who have brought us this [amendment] don’t single out a procedure that is used by a man, or a drug that is used by a man, that involves his reproductive health care, and say they have to get a special rider,” Boxer said. “There is nothing in this amendment that says if a man some day wants to buy Viagra, for example, that his pharmaceutical coverage cannot cover it, that he has to buy a rider.”


Click here for the video from C-SPAN.
 
“I wouldn’t support that,” she said, “and they shouldn’t support going after a woman, using her own private funds for her reproductive health care,” Boxer said. “Is it fair to say to a man: ‘You’re going to have to buy a rider to buy Viagra and this will be public information?’”
 
“It could be accessed,” Boxer said. “No, I don’t support that. I support a man’s privacy just as I support a woman’s privacy. So it is very clear to me that this amendment would be the biggest rollback to a woman’s right to choose in decades.”
 
A vote on the Nelson-Hatch amendment is expected as early as today.

Contact: Penny Starr
Source: CNSNews.com
Publish Date: December 8, 2009
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Obamacare: No Friend to People With Disabilities

Obamacare: No Friend to People With Disabilities



I have had great sympathy with the problem Obamacare has posed for people with disabilities. On one hand, many are terribly under-served by the health care system. On the other hand, I believe Obamacare will lead to explicit rationing of expensive patients, which will one day include people with disabilities. It could also one day support assisted suicide, as I reported here.

But now, I don’t see how the disabilities community can countenance this any longer. Democrats  have supported cutting $43 billion from home health care as a way to help pay the huge Obamacare tab.  From the story:

By a vote of 53 to 41, the Senate on Saturday rejected a Republican effort to block cutbacks in payments to home health agencies that provide nursing care and therapy to homebound Medicare beneficiaries. Republicans voted against the cuts, saying they would hurt some of the nation’s most vulnerable citizens. Most Democrats supported the cutbacks, saying they would eliminate waste and inefficiency in home care. The Democrats’ health care bill would reduce projected Medicare spending on home care by $43 billion, or 13 percent, over the next 10 years. The savings would help offset the cost of subsidizing coverage for the uninsured.

This and the projected $400 billion in cuts to be made to Medicare prove that Obamacare is to be financed out of the hides, perhaps literally, of our most vulnerable citizens, most particularly people with disabilities and the eldelry. I don’t see any other way of looking at it.

Oh, right: Afterwards the senate passed a measure–as it did after refusing to delete the wider Medicare–opposing all cuts in home health care. Sorry, you can’t cut $43 billion and also maintain the same quality of services. Either the services will suffer or the cuts won’t be made, meaning this is all a sham to make it fit the CBO cost workup.  I hope it is the latter. Either way, Obamacare may be the most dishonest bill in the history of the United States.

Contact: Wesley J. Smith
Source: Secondhand Smoke
Publish Date: December 8, 2009
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NEWS SHORTS FOR TUESDAY

NEWS SHORTS FOR TUESDAY
(Referral to Web sites not produced by The Illinois Federation for Right to LIfe is for informational purposes only and does not necessarily constitute an endorsement of the sites' content.)

Hearing On Challenge To Okla. Abortion Law Delayed After Change Of Judges



Oklahoma County District Judge Twyla Mason Gray has recused herself from a lawsuit challenging an Oklahoma law that would require women seeking abortions to complete a lengthy questionnaire, the AP/KTUL reports. Before her recusal, Gray issued a temporary restraining order to block the law from taking effect until the suit is resolved. District Judge Daniel Owens will take the place of Gray, who did not provide an explanation for her departure. A hearing scheduled for Friday has been moved to Dec. 18 because of the change.

The questionnaire requires a woman to provide the state with her age, marital status, education level and the nature of the relationship with her partner. It also requires information regarding the number of previous pregnancies; a reason for the abortion; the cost and type of abortion; the method of payment and type of health insurance; and whether an ultrasound was performed. Plaintiffs in the suit argue that the law violates a state constitutional requirement that laws only address a single issue because it relates to four subjects: prohibiting sex-selective abortions, enacting new reporting mandates, redefining various abortion-related terms in state law and creating new roles for multiple state agencies. State attorneys have objected to that argument in court filings.
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Tooth to Bone with Adult Stem Cells



More adult stem cell success to chew on. A new report describes how adult stem cells from dental pulp were used to regrow jaw bone for patients. An Italian research team used stem cells taken from the patients’ own molar dental pulp, mixed with a collagen scaffold, to grow bone in the jaws of patients. For some people, bone in the jaw can shrink away after removal of molars, sometimes leading to loss of other teeth. These patients need a replacement procedure to maintain jaw integrity. Use of the adult stem cells allowed “complete regeneration of bone at the injury site.”

The paper is published in the November issue of the open access journal European Cells and Materials.
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Modern Cannibalism: Company Seeks To Test Human Embryonic Stem Cells for Treating Blindness



WASHINGTON - Advanced Cell Technology, a small Massachusetts-based biotechnology company, said on Thursday it has asked for approval to test human embryonic stem cells in treating a rare cause of blindness. The company said it filed an IND, an investigational new drug application, with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to use the stem cells to treat patients with Stargardt's macular dystrophy. If approved, it would be the second U.S. approval to test human embryonic stem cells in human patients.
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5,000 Teenagers Are Repeat Murderers Every Year



More than 5,000 teenagers had an abortion last year that was at least their second termination. This means that one in 20 of the teenagers who became pregnant ended it with their second or further abortion. It caused further controversy yesterday over the Government's teen pregnancy strategy, which has not only failed to hit its targets but last year also saw numbers of conceptions among teenagers actually increase.
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First 3D MRI Scans of Unborn Babies



A new technique to get the first 3D images of unborn babies from MR (magnetic resonance) scans has been developed by Imperial College Healthcare. A team led by Prof Mary Rutherford, a neonatal neuroradiologist at Hammersmith Hospital, is using the images to find out how foetus' brains develop in the womb. This has been difficult to study before as unborn babies wiggle in the mother's tummy. MR scans require a person to be still as ordered slices are taken continuously through the body. 
Click here for the video.
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Adult Stem Cells Show Vaccine Like Promise in AIDS Fight



Here’s some good adult stem cell news, that has been–as usual–underplayed in the media.  Blood stem cells can be engineered to target the HIV virus. From the story:

    Their study, published Monday in the-peer reviewed online journal PLoS ONE, provides proof-of-principle — meaning a demonstration of feasibility — that human stem cells can be engineered into the equivalent of a genetic vaccine, according to a UCLA statement. “We have demonstrated in this proof-of-principle study that this type of approach can be used to engineer the human immune system, particularly the T- cell response, to specifically target HIV-infected cells,” said lead investigator Scott G. Kitchen, assistant professor of medicine in the division of hematology and oncology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a member of the UCLA AIDS Institute. “These studies lay the foundation for further therapeutic development that involves restoring damaged or defective immune responses toward a variety of viruses that cause chronic disease, or even different types of tumors.”Researchers from the UCLA AIDS Institute and colleagues say they have shown that human blood stem cells can be engineered into cells that can target and kill HIV-infected cells, which potentially could be used against other chronic viral diseases.
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Health care bill’s definition of ‘preventive care’ could be backdoor for mandatory abortion coverage

Health care bill's definition of 'preventive care' could be backdoor for mandatory abortion coverage Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) Washington D.C. - The passage of an amendment requiring "preventive care" for women in the Senate's proposed health care bill could provide a backdoor to make abortion coverage mandatory, pro-life advocates warn. The Mikulski Amendment, passed on Thursday by a vote of 61-39, requires group health plans and health insurance issuers to provide coverage for "preventive care" for women and bars them from imposing cost sharing requirements on such care. Under the amendment, "preventive care" would be defined by the comprehensive guidelines of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). The National Right to Life Committee has reported that some pro-abortion advocates consider abortion to be "preventive" health care. It said the National Abortion Federation co-sponsored a 2009 publication titled "Providing Abortion Care" which explicitly stated that advance practice clinicians are "especially well positioned within the health care system to address women's need for comprehensive primary preventive health care that includes abortion care." The Mikulski Amendment's vulnerability to pro-abortion redefinition has concerned some pro-life leaders. "While this amendment does not explicitly require abortion coverage, it also fails to explicitly exclude it," wrote Mary Harned of Americans United for Life (AUL) at the AUL website. If the HRSA categorizes abortion as preventive care, it would recommend coverage for abortion by all private plans and force them to offer abortion coverage. Harned charged that this would further "the abortion lobby's agenda of mainstreaming abortion as health care." The NRLC said concerns that "preventive care" will include abortion should not be dismissed. But it argued that those who do dismiss those concerns should therefore have no objection to explicitly excluding abortion from that definition. The Mikulski Amendment was sponsored by Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). The Associated Press reports that it was intended to safeguard coverage of mammograms and preventive screening tests for women under a revamped health system. Source: CNA Publish Date: December 3, 2009 Link to this article.   Send this article to a friend.

Embryonic stem-cell funding - an incentive to kill

Embryonic stem-cell funding - an incentive to kill An internationally recognized expert on stem cells and cloning says President Obama's decision to lift restrictions on federal funding of human embryonic stem-cell research is wasting lives and taxpayer dollars when all resources should be going towards adult stem cells. The Obama administration on Wednesday approved 13 new human embryonic stem-cell lines for taxpayer-funded experiments. The 13 lines are the first to be approved under an executive order from President Obama, and the National Institutes of Health says dozens more cell lines will be available soon.   During the Bush administration, federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research was limited to cell lines that were already in existence before August 2001.   David Prentice (FRC)Dr. David Prentice, senior fellow for life sciences with the Family Research Council, says that by approving funding for new lines, the Obama administration continues to push political ideology, not science.   "Embryonic stem cells have not helped any human being.  In fact, [they] haven't helped that many rats and mice in the lab," Prentice notes.  "Only adult stem cells are actually helping patients.  The unfortunate part of this new approval is there are now more incentives for researchers to destroy young human embryos just so they can get taxpayer funds."   Prentice reports that nearly 80 diseases or injuries have been treated successfully with adult stem cells. Contact: Jim Brown Source: OneNewsNow Publish Date: December 4, 2009 Link to this article.   Send this article to a friend.

Life Versus Death, and the Coal Miner’s Daughter

Life Versus Death, and the Coal Miner's Daughter Loretta Lynn's "Coal Miner's Daughter," one of the greatest country-and-western hits of all time, romanticized a young woman's appreciation for her daddy, his hard work, her siblings and the hard times they lived through. Near the end of that lovely song, she sings "I'm proud to be a coal miner's daughter" and closes with the lovely words, "And it's so good to be back home again. Not much left but the floor, Nothing lives here anymore, Just a memory of a coal miner's daughter." The song reminds us that regardless of the times in which a family lives or how they have to sacrifice for one another, family ties are strong even when a home's bricks and mortar have all vanished. That's the wonder of being part of a family, of realizing what a blessing human beings are to each and every one of us. Sadly, the coal miner's daughter in that song is not the same one recently written about by Sheryl Gay Stolberg in the New York Times. Stolberg opens her ode to aborting a child by telling the reader, "In the early 1950s, a coal miner's daughter from rural Kentucky named Louise McIntosh encountered the shadowy world of illegal abortion. A friend was pregnant, with no prospects for marriage, and Ms. McIntosh was keeper of a secret that, if spilled, could have led to family disgrace. The turmoil ended quietly in a doctor's office, and the friend went on to marry and have four children." Stolberg fades to the present by explaining that the McIntosh of old is now Louise Slaughter, a member of Congress from New York, who is 80 years old and works to ensure that abortion is protected. But, as Stolberg explains, after 37 years of decriminalized abortion, there is at least a generation of young women who have grown up with abortion as a legal "right" and therefore do not feel a "sense of urgency" about ensuring that abortion is always and everywhere protected by law. While I think it is a good thing that young people may not be as politically zealous as their forebears, I don't believe for a minute that they are as simple-minded as Stolberg seems to surmise. While it may be true that some young people think of abortion as a personal matter rather than a political one, these happen to be the same people who, for the most part, voted to elect the most committed, zealously pro-abortion president in U.S. history. Mesmerized by his charisma, they support him by the thousands, so please, let's not get into the question of who is more committed to killing. According to Stolberg, women such as NARAL Pro-Choice America's president, Nancy Keenan, age 57, "who came of age when abortion was illegal, tend to view it in stark political terms—as a right to be defended, like freedom of speech or freedom of religion. But younger people tend to view abortion as a personal issue, and their interests are different." Well, not so fast. Let's consider the story of another heroic woman who, while not a coal miner's daughter, is a practicing physician who is under siege because she is pro-life in conviction and practice. Her name is Annie Bukacek. Her state is Montana, and her problem is that she is being investigated by state and federal officials allegedly because of her billing practices for Medicaid reimbursements. Dr. Bukacek is no wallflower and has been an outspoken critic of President Obama. Nor is she someone who has always been pro-life, as she readily admits. Dr. Bukacek, now 51, said that, at age 21, when she was five months pregnant with her first child and felt that baby kicking, "It was one of those life-changing moments—an epiphany if you will." And the result was that for the next 30 years she committed herself not only to her family but to defending the most defenseless members of the human family: preborn children. Some might suggest that she and her practice are being unduly criticized because her political position is not as acceptable to the "mainstream" media as that of Slaughter or Keenan. Dr. Bukacek commented, "I have a very strong constitution and can see the humor of these types of situations," she said. "For some physicians, this kind of thing would be devastating." She said her primary concern was for her patients. Bukacek said the investigators had access to patients' marital history, children's history, drug addictions, sexual orientations, religious preference, medications and illnesses. "These investigations are a huge infringement on patients' rights to privacy," she said. Bukacek said many people have suggested she has been targeted because she is an outspoken president of Montana Pro-Life Coalition and is on the steering committee of the Coalition Protecting Patient Rights. "I have been traveling throughout the state speaking as an individual against Obamacare," she said. She said she finds this difficult to believe because she doesn't consider herself that influential, but the timing seems at least suspect. Bukacek said the cost of these investigations has most likely outstripped the amount her office has billed Medicaid in a little over six years of operating the clinic. She said the recreation-vehicle unit that parked outside her door must have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. "This is your tax dollars at work," she said. Anne Bukacek, M.D., is a woman of courage, fortitude, and the priceless quality of honesty, which are evident in every aspect of not only her medical practice, but also her leadership of Montana's human personhood campaign. She has been a lightning rod for activism and a preacher of truth, even when told, as she was on one occasion, that she must no longer pray with her patients. She left the Kalispell Diagnostic Service after being told that she had to choose between prayer and her employment, because she would not compromise her faith. That is perhaps the defining characteristic of this remarkable woman. It isn't difficult to discern what made Loretta Lynn's "coal miner's daughter" truly a woman of love and life. She appreciated sacrifice, her parents, and all that went into growing up amidst physical poverty while surrounded by emotional riches beyond measure. Dr. Bukacek, one of seven children, has traveled similar roads, but also carved her own path.   Her journey is based on her conviction that knowing the difference between right and wrong, love and hate, and good and evil is more than just a major factor in personal happiness. It determines how one faces life's challenges. It is my opinion that Dr. Annie Bukacek, M.D. of Hosanna Health Care in Kalispell, Montana, will probably not be "honored" in a puff piece published by the New York Times any time soon. But I don't think that matters to her, as long as she remains true to her God, her family and her practice. As federal and state officials engage in an ongoing investigation of her medical practice, I doubt that Dr. Bukacek will be sitting around worrying herself to death about it when there is so much to do for the preborn, for her children and for her patients. I am betting that she will continue to courageously oppose Obamacare, explain how medical practices should be operated and do all she can to carry the standard of human personhood forward in the Big Sky state. Even though Annie is not a coal miner's daughter, I have a feeling she would agree that where there's love and appreciation for life, anything is possible because affirming the human person always brings joy—even during the worst of times. Contact: Judie Brown Source: CNSNews.com Publish Date: December 4, 2009 Link to this article.   Send this article to a friend.

Judge on Notre Dame 88 case allows appeals court to decide recusal issue

Judge on Notre Dame 88 case allows appeals court to decide recusal issue South Bend, Ind. - In a hearing today, the judge assigned to the case against the 88 pro-life protesters arrested for trespassing at Notre Dame's commencement exercises last spring, has allowed the request for her recusal to move to an appeals court. St. Thomas More Society attorney Thomas Dixon, who is representing the protesters, argued that Judge Jenny Pitts Manier has "an actual or perceived bias based on her prior rulings, her husband's outspoken criticism of Catholic pro-life teachings as a philosophy professor at Notre Dame and other factors." Judge Manier, the wife of a retired pro-abortion Notre Dame professor, is markedly pro-abortion herself, Laura Rohling, one of the Notre Dame 88, told CNA in an October email. In an October statement, Judge Manier denied any personal or judicial bias in the case and refused to recuse herself. She has also stated that her husband doesn't have a personal or professional interest in the case. However, after a more than two-hour hearing during which Dixon again presented his case against Manier, the judge granted Dixon's request that the final opinion on the recusal be settled in the Indiana claims court. "We're very pleased that Judge Manier has allowed this immediate appeal as it is critical that these vital issues be heard before a fair and impartial tribunal," said Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Society. "Universities are supposed to be a place where free speech is welcomed and not silenced," Brejcha continued. "The pro-life movement is the next stage of America's civil rights movement. Notre Dame should not go down in history as another Birmingham, infamous for suppressing demonstrators for exercising their Constitutional rights." The defense of the protestors, who are being charged with trespassing by the university of Notre Dame, is based on the argument that the free speech rights of the pro-life protesters were violated by their arrest by campus police while demonstrating Obama supporters stood by watching. Though representatives of the university claim that the issue is out of their hands, Brejcha expressed hope "that Notre Dame will intervene and ask that the charges be dropped." Source: CNA Publish Date: December 3, 2009 Link to this article.   Send this article to a friend.

UNFPA Pushing for Hundreds of Billions for Family Planning

UNFPA Pushing for Hundreds of Billions for Family Planning NEW YORK, NY - At the United Nations this week, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) organized a commemorative seminar on the 1995 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and, in a look ahead, urged states to renew their commitment to the program, calling for over $200 billion (US) in funding for "sexual and reproductive health and family planning" alone. UNFPA's Ann Pawliczko gave a financial perspective of the ICPD Program of Action and presented a "revised ICPD Global Cost Estimate" for 2009 through 2015, when the ICPD program is scheduled to end.  Apart from $212 billion (US) for "sexual and reproductive health / family planning," UNFPA estimates that another $22.5 billion would be needed for "family planning direct costs" for the same time period. At the seminar, attended by less than 80 individuals representing government delegations and civil society, panelists presented a retrospective of the "groundbreaking" ICPD conference and sought to outline a way forward. Claiming that with only five years left to fulfill the commitments made at the ICPD and achieve the interrelated Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), "governments are called upon to redouble their efforts toward the integration of population and development policies." Opening the seminar, Dr. Werner Haug, UNFPA's Technical Division director, acknowledged that population has always been a "thorny and difficult" topic and that countries must now decide how to proceed after the Cairo Program of Action expires at the end of 2014. Dr. Stan Bernstein, a UNFPA senior policy advisor, called the Cairo consensus "novel" for its person-centered approach rather than just on numbers and demographics and praised the Cairo's reframing of population programs to a "customized approach" which seeks to provide couples and individuals with the means to achieve a smaller family size. Hania Zlotnik of the UN Population Division emphasized the alleged benefits of population reduction, touting that declining fertility "has potentially positive effects on economic growth" such as a reduced number of dependents, an increased number of workers, particularly more women workers since they are having less children.  Zlotnik lamented that funding for family planning was on the decline and warned that "the reproductive health of women and couples cannot be assured if women don't have the means to control their fertility." Laura Laski, another UNFPA representative, focused solely on "reproductive rights and universal access to sexual and reproductive health."  Laski lauded the progress made since the Cairo conference and highlighted the linkage to the MDGs. Laski pointed to the controversial MDG target on "universal access to reproductive health by 2015" as the new "center point" for future work on "sexual and reproductive health." (Pro-life critics note that states rejected a separate goal on "reproductive health" in 2001, only to see it reappear as a "target" in the annex of a Secretary-General's report in 2007.) Panelists concluded that the "chief constraint" to realizing the Cairo program of action is the "lack of adequate funding" and urged states to increase their political will, renew their Cairo commitment and "increase allocations for population activities" as a matter of priority. The UNFPA seminar was co-organized by UNITAR, the UN Institute for Training and Research, as part of the UN's celebration of the ICPD 15th anniversary. This article reprinted by LifeSiteNews.com with permission from www.c-fam.org. Contact: Samantha Singson Source: C-FAM/LifesiteNews.com Publish Date: December 3, 2009 Link to this article.   Send this article to a friend.

Pro-Life Policy on the Chopping Block

Pro-Life Policy on the Chopping Block   A Senate committee recently passed an amendment to the State and Foreign Operations appropriations bill, sponsored by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., which would prevent any future president from reinstating the Mexico City Policy.  The policy prohibits U.S. tax dollars from going to groups that perform or promote abortions overseas.  And now the Senate is considering an omnibus bill to roll all of its fiscal year 2010 spending bills into one large bill, including the Lautenberg Amendment. Joy Yearout, communications director for the Susan B. Anthony List, said it's just an extension of President Obama's extreme pro-abortion agenda – an agenda that doesn't sit well with most Americans. "That definitely is in contrast with the public, which does not want to see their money used to fund abortions anywhere," she said. But public opinion has not deterred President Obama, according to Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J. "This administration has been shameless in its abortion promotion," he said. It's possible the Lautenberg amendment may be included in an omnibus bill – several bills rolled into one large bill – or voted on separately.  In either case, there are efforts to exclude the Lautenberg amendment from the omnibus bill. Source: CitizenLink Publish Date: December 3, 2009 Link to this article.   Send this article to a friend.

NEWS SHORTS FOR FRIDAY

NEWS SHORTS FOR FRIDAY (Referral to Web sites not produced by The Illinois Federation for Right to LIfe is for informational purposes only and does not necessarily constitute an endorsement of the sites' content.) Judge: State can take, keep newborns' data 'Blood samples are biological, not genetic, information' A judge in Minnesota has ruled the state can routinely collect, analyze, store and retrieve biological samples that include DNA from all newborns even though a state law specifically requires prior written authorization. The decision from Hennepin County District Judge Marilyn Rosenbaum dismissed a case brought by members of nine families who alleged the state was going beyond what it was authorized to do. Although not part of the lawsuit, Twila Brase, president of the Citizens' Council on Health Care, has been monitoring the dispute since its beginning, battling the state Department of Health, which reportedly has been taking and warehousing newborns' genetic makeup for years but not following "written consent requirements." Click here for the full article. Unborn Human Rights Bill Introduced in Italian Senate While technically recognizing the "human rights" of the unborn, the bill would not change abortion law A bill that would legally establish the human rights of unborn children, but would not alter abortion laws, has been introduced into the Italian Senate, the Italian news agency ANSA reports. Maurizio Gasparri, a Member of the Italian Parliament for the Alleanza Nazionale party, said, "What we want is to establish limits against new abortion techniques that violate the law's original intent." Donatella Portetti, a senator representing the largest opposition group, the Democratic Party, said the law is ''the government's latest assault on Italians' freedom to decide whether they want to live, die or have children.'' Click here for the full article. Challenge to Ireland's Pro-Life Laws Goes to European Court of Human Rights Irish abortion laws and sovereignty stand in the dock next week when the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) hears a challenge to Ireland's constitutional protection of life "from conception." Three petitioners in the case A, B & C v. Ireland allege that they were forced to travel overseas to obtain abortions, undergoing unnecessary expenses and hardship due to the nation's pro-life laws. They claim violations of various rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.   Third-party interveners Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), the European Center for Law and Justice and the Alliance Defense Fund (on behalf of Family Research Council), contend that it is "Ireland's sovereign right to determine when life begins" and what rights attach to pre-natal life. They also claim that domestic remedies have not been exhausted, and that therefore the ECHR lacks jurisdiction to hear the case. Click here for the full article. Michigan Abortion Facility Advertizes Abortion as "Sacred Work" DETROIT - Northland "Family Planning Centers" of Michigan are now advertising their services with a video calling abortion "sacred work."   Set to soft, upbeat piano music and themed with pink pastel shades, a recently uploaded video entitled "Every Day, Good Woman Choose Abortion," assures prospective customers that deciding "to have an abortion is a normal experience," and that the decision is a good decision.  The video's spokeswoman continues:  "Goodness is courage, honesty, wisdom, risking for what you believe is right for you, making choices that are good for yourself." Click here for the video. Click here for the full article. British couple chooses to cut life support for child Life or death dilemma: Judge Justice McFarlane listens to the case as Baby RB's father (centre) and mother (centre-right) look on Rome, Italy - A British couple elected on November 10 to discontinue medical care for their son of 13 months of age.  "RB" suffered from congenital myasthenic syndrome and, his doctors said, would only live a short life on artificial respiration and feeding tubes. Irene Gemeno, of the Scottish Edinburgh Napier News, reported that "RB", as he was referred to in order to protect his identity and that of his parents, could barely, if at all, move his limbs or breathe due to limitations resulting from the neuromuscular condition, but his brain appeared to be healthy. Doctors, however, advised that he wasn't expected to live beyond three years of age and would never shed the artificial support for basic body functions. According to the boy's father, the child was able recognize relatives and made an effort to play, but his doctors said it was impossible to know if these responses were involuntary or a result of the child's will. Click here for the full article.

Senate Passes Amendment that Could Mandate Abortion Coverage in Insurance Plans

Senate Passes Amendment that Could Mandate Abortion Coverage in Insurance Plans The Senate on Thursday approved the Mikulski amendment by a vote of 61-39.  All Republicans except Senators Vitter, Snowe and Collins voted against the amendment, and all Independents and Democrats except Senators Nelson (NE) and Feingold voted for it. Pro-life leaders opposed the amendment over concerns that it provides authority that could be used to mandate abortion coverage in private insurance plans. Specifically, the amendment states that anything classified as preventive care or screenings for women by the Health Resource and Services Administration (HRSA) would become a mandated covered service.  However, if the HRSA were to recommend abortion as a preventive care, insurance plans would have to cover abortion. In a letter to Congress before the vote, the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) explained its opposition to the Mikulski amendment: "If Congress were to grant any Executive Branch entity sweeping authority to define services that private health plans must cover, merely by declaring a given service to constitute 'preventive care,' then that authority could be employed in the future to require all health plans to cover abortions." "Our concern on this point is not hypothetical," urged the NRLC letter. "Prominent pro-abortion advocates are already on record discussing abortion as a category of 'preventive health care.'" In fact, as NRLC points out in its letter, a similar amendment that was proposed in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pension was backed by a gamut of pro-abortion groups, including Planned Parenthood and NARAL. "A July 8, 2009 letter from these groups asserted that by allowing the Health Resources and Services Administration to issue binding guidelines on preventive services, the 'unique preventive health needs of women' would be addressed," said NRLC.   Pro-life organizations had proposed that the amendment should be modified to ensure that abortion coverage would not be mandated. Americans United for Life (AUL) attorney Mary Harned wrote that while her group "strongly supports preventative care for women," "the Mikulski Amendment should be amended to include language prohibiting abortion from being included in the HRSA guidelines." However, no such changes were made before the amendment was passed. Contact: John Jalsevac Source: LifeSiteNews.com Publish Date: December 3, 2009 Link to this article.   Send this article to a friend.

Motion to Dismiss Charges against Notre Dame 88 to be Heard Thursday

Motion to Dismiss Charges against Notre Dame 88 to be Heard Thursday Lawyers for the 88 pro-life protesters who were arrested on the University of Notre Dame's campus earlier this year will be heading to court Thursday in St. Joseph County, Indiana, to argue in favor of a motion to dismiss the charges against the pro-lifers. Currently trespassing charges are pending against the 88, who were arrested on Notre Dame property while protesting the commencement speech and honorary law degree given to pro-abortion President Barack Obama in May. If convicted, the pro-lifers could face up to 1 year in jail and a $5,000 fine. Despite repeated requests from lawyers from the Thomas More Society, who are representing the pro-lifers, that Notre Dame request that the charges be dropped, University President Fr. John Jenkins has continued to refuse to do so. In response to those who have contacted Jenkins expressing concern about the charges, Fr. Jenkins has responded by saying that Notre Dame doesn't have the power to drop the charges against the 88. However, while this is technically true, Thomas More Society Chief Counsel Tom Brejcha told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) that "it's almost frivolous" for Jenkins to suggest that Notre Dame's asking that the charges be dropped wouldn't have "decisive influence" on whether the prosecutions go forward or not. Notre Dame's "own security forces would be indispensible witnesses in these cases," Brejcha pointed out. "Their active cooperation is required for the cases to go forward." "To say that Notre Dame has no power is flatly wrong," Brejcha stated. "They always have the power to ask. And their asking would, in our view and based on our many years of practicing law in Indiana and elsewhere, would have great weight with the prosecutor." Jenkins has also responded to concerned pro-lifers by saying that the university has already requested leniency by offering "pre-trial diversion" to the protesters. Accepting the offer of "pre-trial diversion" would mean that the defendants would have to pay court costs of several hundred dollars, avoid any trouble with the law for 1 year, and promise to stay off Notre Dame property for a certain period of time, in exchange for the charges being dropped after a year, pending satisfactorily meeting the conditions. But Brejcha told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) that while some of the arrested protestors have accepted the offer "because of the coercive impact of the fact that they have to pay for expenses and have this thing hanging over their heads," the rest have refused to do so because "they don't think they did anything wrong." Brejcha said that he recently encountered Fr. Jenkins in Chicago, where he asked the priest why he hasn't asked that the charges be dropped. Jenkins countered that he had already asked for leniency, and asked, "Why won't they (the protesters) take this pre-trial diversion?" Brejcha said that he responded, "Well, Father, like Dr. King, whose relation with Fr. Hessburgh you celebrated at the commencement … like Dr. King these folks don't think they did anything wrong." There is also the complicating factor that the offer of pre-trial diversion only extends to those who have had no prior involvement with the criminal justice system. But, "of course, some of these pro-lifers do," said Brejcha. They "are up in years and were active in the rescue movement back in the 80s and early 90s," and have been arrested in the past for pro-life activities. Brejcha also said that, based on his conversation with the university president, the irony of the situation - of the pro-lifers being "arrested by Our Lady's university which professes to espouse pro-life values" - seemed "to be lost" on Jenkins. "Jenkins intends to march in the March for Life on Jan 22," said Brejcha. "Yet, one of the people who is being prosecuted is Norma McCorvey. The whole purpose of that march to advocate for the overturn of Roe v. Wade regime. And of course Jane Roe is Norma McCorvey and she'll be facing prosecution in St. Joseph County before an Indiana jury for marching on Notre Dame. So the irony of that is also lost on him." UPDATE: The judge hearing the case of the 88 pro-life protesters who were arrested for trespassing on Notre Dame property earlier this year granted a motion to stay the charges pending an appeal into the question of whether she should recuse herself from the case due to bias. Judge Jenny Pitts Manier, who is assigned to the case of the 88 pro-lifers who were arrested while protesting President Obama's commencement address at Notre Dame in May, is married to Notre Dame Professor Edward Manier. In addition to several writings revealing his pro-abortion beliefs, the Professor Manier donated "a significant sum of money" to Barack Obama's Presidential campaign in 2008, as well as additional donations to other pro-abortion candidates in the U.S. Click here for more... Source: LifeSiteNews.com Publish Date: December 2, 2009 Link to this article.   Send this article to a friend.

Army's 32 additional charges against Ft. Hood shooter exclude preborn baby's murder

Army's 32 additional charges against Ft. Hood shooter exclude preborn baby's murder According to the Examiner.com, the Army yesterday issued 32 additional charges against Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, but they did not include the charge of murder against Pvt. Francheska Velez's preborn baby, killed when she was killed...     On Wednesday... Hasan was charged with 32 additional counts of premeditated attempted murder on the lives of 30 members of the military and 2 civilian police officers.     These charges are in addition to the 13 counts of murder he has already been charged with in last month's shooting spree in Killeen, TX. Recall Velez was only at Ft. Hood to begin with because of her baby. According to Fox News...     Velez... recently had returned from a tour of duty in Iraq.     According to family members, Velez had been back for just 3 days before the incident. She returned home early because she was 3 months pregnant. She happened to be in the building filling out paperwork due to her pregnancy when the gunman opened fire....     Velez was expecting a baby boy in May. The Army dishonors not only Velez's baby but Velez by ignoring his murder. And the Army ignores the law by doing so, namely the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, a federal law passed in 2004 that also codified the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Contact: Jill Stanek Source: jillstanek.com Publish Date: December 3, 2009 Link to this article.   Send this article to a friend.

NIH approves first human embryonic stem cell research under new rules

NIH approves first human embryonic stem cell research under new rules Washington D.C. - The National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Wednesday approved the first experiments on human embryonic stem cells under the Obama administration's new research policy. The NIH authorized 11 stem cell lines produced by scientists at the Children's Hospital in Boston and two cell lines created by researchers at Rockefeller University in New York, the Washington Post reports. The cell lines were obtained from embryos "left over" by couples who sought fertility treatments. "This is a real change in the landscape," NIH Director Francis Collins said, according to the Washington Post. He characterized the move as a "first down payment" that will "empower the scientific community to explore the potential of embryonic stem cell research." Collins, who is an evangelical Christian, claimed there is an argument that the research is ethically acceptable "even if you believe in the inherent sanctity of the human embryo." Proponents of stem cell research hope to use adult or embryonic stem cells to create better treatments for ailments ranging from diabetes to spinal cord injuries. Human embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) requires the destruction of human embryos. Richard M. Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) criticized the NIH action. "Ethically, we don't think any taxpayer should have to fund research that relies on destroying early human life at any stage," he told the Washington Post. "But the tragedy of this is multiplied by the fact that no one can think what the problem is that can only be solved by these cells." Collins reported that the 13 cell lines approved on Wednesday met the requirements finalized by the NIH in July. Another 96 lines are awaiting approval, including 20 that will be considered by the advisory committee on Friday. At least 254 more will be submitted for approval. The NIH has authorized 31 grants totaling about $21 million for research on human embryonic stem cells pending their approval under the new guidelines, the Washington Post says. Many embryonic stem cell researchers hope to use the $10 billion the NIH received as part of the U.S. government's economic stimulus package, Collins reported. President George W. Bush had funded embryonic stem cell research on cell lines created before August, 2001 but barred funding on research which used cell lines created afterward. President Obama overturned the Bush policy in March 2009. The new NIH rules allow the funding of research which uses stem cells harvested from fertility clinic embryos and also outline informed consent standards for women or couples who donate their embryos. In May Msgr. David Malloy, then the General Secretary of the USCCB, criticized the NIH guidelines for ESCR. He said they were "broader or more permissive" than previous policy in key respects. "We are testing the limits of our obligation to treat all fellow human beings, of every age and condition, with basic respect," he commented, saying it is a human right not to be subjected to harmful experimentation. In a Wednesday statement, U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell noted that the announcement "marks an historic departure from our nation's longstanding position of neutrality on embryo-destructive research." "For the very first time in U.S. history, the federal government will now use taxpayer dollars to pay for research that relies on and promotes the destruction of human life at its earliest stages. Americans may disagree about the morality of embryo-destructive research. But one thing we should all agree on is that taxpayers should not be compelled to pay for it." Source: CNA Publish Date: December 3, 2009 Link to this article.   Send this article to a friend.

Harry Reid Responds to Critics of Abortion Funding in Senate Health Care Bill by Saying He Opposes Abortion

Harry Reid Responds to Critics of Abortion Funding in Senate Health Care Bill by Saying He Opposes Abortion Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), author of the Senate health-care bill that permits taxpayer dollars to go to insurance plans which cover abortion, responded to letters protesting the abortion funding in the bill with a letter of his own saying that he opposes abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or when there is a threat to the life of the mother.   A part of the letter Reid's office recently sent to critics objecting to the abortion funding in his bill reads: "Thank you for contacting me about health care reform and abortion. I appreciate hearing from you."   "I noted your specific comments related to health care reform and abortion. I oppose abortion except in the cases of rape, incest, and when the life of the mother is at risk."   "As the Senate Majority Leader and the senior senator from Nevada, I am committed to working to find common ground that brings our nation together while respecting both the views of those who differ as well as the values many of us hold deeply. Please know that as we move forward, I will keep your ideas and concerns in mind. It is my hope that we can make affordable, comprehensive health care coverage a reality for so many Americans who are currently struggling to pay their medical bills, and make ends meet."   Reid's health-care reform bill, which he released Nov. 18, allows the public option to include abortion coverage, permits federal subsidies to go to private insurance plans that cover abortion, and even mandates that the secretary of health and human services make certain that at least one insurance plan available in the insurance exchange where people will buy insurance with federal subsidies covers abortion.  The abortion language in Reid's bill mirrors the abortion language that was in the House health care bill before it was superceded by an amendment sponsored by Rep. Bart Stupak (D.-Mich.) that prohibits any tax dollars from going to health insurance plans that cover abortion.   In an interview with CNSNews.com on Nov. 1, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said that Reid was aware of a pro-life amendment that Hatch has proposed adding to the bill, and that he believed Reid would "be on our side on this."  Hatch's Senate amendment mirrors Stupak's amendment in the House. Click here to view the interview. CNSNews.com: Have you spoken to Senate Majority Leader Reid about your amendment?   Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah): Yes, he knows about it, and I believe Harry Reid would be on our side on this.   Reid's office did not respond to inquires from CNSNews.com about whether the majority leader supports the Hatch amendment and if he does--as his letter and Hatch's response indicate--why Reid authored a bill that permits taxpayer funding of abortion.   Hatch's amendment would prohibit federal dollars from funding abortions except in the cases of rape, incest, or to protect the life of the mother.   The amendment was defeated both in the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (on a 12-11 vote) and in the Senate Finance Committee (13-10).   Copy of Letter Over Signature of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid:   November 26, 2009   Dear ___________:   Thank you for contacting me about health care reform and abortion. I appreciate hearing from you.   In America today, concerns about our health care system have been rightly brought to the forefront of the national consciousness. Many of us are familiar with the reports of 47 million uninsured Americans, escalating prescription drug prices, and declining health insurance benefits. Unfortunately, for too many across Nevada and the country, these facts and statistics are not anonymous findings removed from daily life. As a fellow Nevadan, and as the Senate Majority Leader, I know that millions are struggling with the reality of America's health care crisis.   Amid our health care crisis, however, I believe there are opportunities for members of Congress, the President and his Administration, the private sector, and other stakeholders to work together for the benefit of the American people. It is my hope that the solutions we develop and enact will ensure quality, affordable health care coverage for all Americans-regardless of their age, income, employment, or health status.   I noted your specific comments related to health care reform and abortion.  I oppose abortion except in the cases of rape, incest, and when the life of the mother is at risk.  As the Senate Majority Leader and the senior senator from Nevada, I am committed to working to find common ground that brings our nation together while respecting both the views of those who differ as well as the values many of us hold deeply.  Please know that as we move forward, I will keep your ideas and concerns in mind.  It is my hope that we can make affordable, comprehensive health coverage a reality for so many Americans who are currently struggling to pay their medical bills, and make ends meet.   Again, thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with me. I look forward to hearing from you in the near future. Contact: Karen Schuberg Source: CNSNews.com Publish Date: December 3, 2009 Link to this article.   Send this article to a friend.

NEWS SHORTS FOR THURSDAY

NEWS SHORTS FOR THURSDAY (Referral to Web sites not produced by The Illinois Federation for Right to LIfe is for informational purposes only and does not necessarily constitute an endorsement of the sites' content.) Bill Regulating Crisis Pregnancy Centers Ignites Abortion Debate A bill before the Montgomery County Council that would place restrictions on some county crisis pregnancy centers drew more than 250 people on both sides of the abortion debate to a public hearing Tuesday night. The bill would require most "limited service pregnancy centers" — those that do not provide or refer for abortions — to post disclaimers that the information they provide to clients is not medical advice. They also would have to tell clients that the information does not establish a doctor-patient relationship. Click here for the full article. Property Taxes Funds Abortions AUSTIN, Texas - For the past several years property taxes n Travis County have been funding abortions through the Travis County Health Care District. Some taxpayers, including the Catholic Diocese of Austin, want the practice to stop. The Diocese only recently discovered that their property tax dollars were paying for abortions that are funded through the Travis County Health Care District. "The Travis County Health Care district inherited these contracts from the city of Austin and they've been renewed since the district's inception," says Christie Garbe with the Travis County Health District. Click here for the full article. Coat Hangers and 'Common Ground' Double Talk WASHINGTON - Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser published a commentary this week at Townhall.com that examines how the radical feminist lobby is attempting to bully the pro-life members of the House and Senate to reject authentic, pro-life Stupak language in the health care bill. Selected excerpts follow:       "If there were a Political Olympics, the messaging gold medal would go to President Obama, with a silver awarded to Illinois Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL). Since even before his inauguration, President Obama overlaid his daily march to implement strident abortion policy with a palatable 'need for common ground' theme. Click here for the full text of the piece on the Townhall.com website. Click here for the full article. Former Dutch Health Minister Admits Error of Legalizing Euthanasia The former Dutch minister who successfully promoted the legalization of euthanasia has now admitted that the government's move was a mistake, and says that they should have first focused on palliative care. Els Borst, who served as Health Minister for the Netherlands from 1994 to 2002, proposed the country's infamous euthanasia bill.  When it passed in 2001, the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalize euthanasia.  In 2008 alone, Dutch doctors reported 2,331 cases of euthanasia and assisted suicide. Borst drew criticism from some Christian political parties shortly after the passage of her bill for comments she made in an interview.  Echoing the Christ's final words on the Cross, Borst exclaimed: "It is finished!" Click here for the full article. New stem cell lines approved for tax-paid research WASHINGTON - Scientists can start using taxpayer dollars to do research with 13 batches of embryonic stem cells -- and the government says dozens more cell lines should be available soon. President Barack Obama lifted eight years of restrictions on the master cells last spring. But new projects were on hold until the National Institutes of Health (NIH) determined which of hundreds of existing stem cell lines were ethically appropriate to use.   Thirteen stem cell lines -- created by Children's Hospital Boston and Rockefeller University -- are first on that list. Click here for the full article.

Identical Stupak Amendment to be Introduced & Schaumburg Planned Parenthood Express clinic will be closing

UPDATE: Identical Stupak Amendment to be Introduced The Stupak abortion coverage ban that passed the House of Representatives last month is headed for the Senate. Republican Senator Orrin Hatch and Democratic Senator Ben Nelson are planning to introduce an amendment to the Senate health care reform bill that is virtually identical to the Stupak amendment. With both Republican and Democratic support for this damaging amendment, it is entirely possible that the resulting health care reform legislation will eliminate access to private health insurance coverage of abortion.  See article: Sen. Nelson: I Won't Support a Health Bill Without Stupak Language for more information.  Today, pro-choice activists from around the country are gathering on Capitol Hill to lobby against the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, which as you know bans government money from funding abortions in the  U.S. House passed version health care reform legislation. The event is being sponsored by the Feminist Majority Foundation and co-sponsored by the usual suspects: Planned Parenthood, NOW, NARAL, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, ACLU, and many others. You see, the other side is scared. They know that passing pro-life amendments like Stupak-Pitts in health care reform legislation will take money out of the pockets of the abortion industry giant, Planned Parenthood. And as abortion facilities continue to close and the number of Americans who oppose abortion rises (a recent CNN poll reported that 63% of Americans oppose abortion), Planned Parenthood knows they are going to need federal funding of abortion to keep afloat. Today, we need Capitol Hill to hear your pro-life voice now more than ever.  Please call your senators TODAY and tell them that government funding of abortions is NOT healthcare and they should oppose it at all costs.  Click here for contact information on your senators. Also: Schaumburg Planned Parenthood Express clinic will be closing STOPP researcher Marie Hahnenberg has discovered that the Schaumburg, Illinois, Planned Parenthood express facility will be closing January 14, 2010, after six years in business.   Phone:  847-839-1600 to hear this message."Closing this facility was a difficult decision, but one we had to make to ensure we are able to serve the needs of all patients in the Chicagoland area," says the facility's recorded message. In an apparent frenzy to reduce its inventory and make some quick money, the facility is offering a buy-one, get-one-free deal on birth control pills, emergency contraception, the NuvaRing, the patch and condoms. Since PP increases the cost of its contraceptives fourfold, the affiliate still stands to reap a hefty profit from its two-for-one sale.

Sen. Nelson: I Won't Support a Health Bill Without Stupak Language

Sen. Nelson: I Won't Support a Health Bill Without Stupak Language WASHINGTON, D.C. - One Democrat senator has thrown a critical wrench in President Obama's health care plans by stating he will not support the measure unless it includes Hyde-amendment restrictions like those introduced by Rep. Bart Stupak in the bill's House counterpart. Democrat Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska says he intends to introduce a Stupak-like amendment for his chamber's bill.  The Huffington Post reports that when asked by reporters if he would support a bill that lacked his amendment, Nelson replied, "No." Nelson's stand against the abortion-funding bill could prove fatal to the already-struggling legislation: Democrats are already scrambling for votes after Independent Senator Joe Lieberman vowed to staunchly oppose any bill with a public option, considered by many liberal Democrats an essential part of the plan.  The bill would need support by all 60 lawmakers who caucus with Democrats to defend against a GOP filibuster attempt. Nelson's amendment, which he said is "as identical to Stupak as it can be," has yet to be unveiled.  Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah is at least one co-sponsor of the amendment. Sen. Bob Casey, another Democrat who often votes pro-life, said that his own negotiations on the abortion funding are "ongoing." While pro-abortion lawmakers tout the Senate health care bill as maintaining the "status quo" on abortion policy, leading pro-life analysts have decried the bill's supposed ban on federal abortion funding as little more than an accounting gimmick. The Senate bill, like the defunct "Capps amendment" of the House bill, allows a government-run insurance option to cover abortions, and allows taxpayer subsidies to fund private insurance plans that cover abortions. The Hyde-amendment restrictions won an upset victory in the House last month after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, seeking votes from conservative Democrats, made a sudden about-face and allowed a vote on the easily-passed Stupak amendment.  Pro-abortion lawmakers have since promised that the pro-life language would never make it into the final version of the bill. Contact: Kathleen Gilbert Source: LifeSiteNews.com Publish Date: December 1, 2009 Link to this article.   Send this article to a friend.

Breathing Easier with Adult Stem Cells

Breathing Easier with Adult Stem Cells Several recent reports, using animal models, provide evidence for treating lung disorders with adult stem cells. Premature babies are often placed on ventilators to deliver oxygen and expand underdeveloped lungs, but the high oxygen and mechanical ventilation can lead to lung inflammation, inhibit proper lung growth, and lead to long-term complications. Work out of Children's Hospital in Boston found that bone marrow stromal cells, a type of adult stem cell, can reduce inflammation in lung tissue. Using newborn mice as a model, the researchers injected adult bone marrow stem cells intravenously. The cells migrated to the lungs and prevented inflammation. The cells seem to work by secreting protective and stimulatory factors that help the lung cells and blood vessels; the same effects could be obtained by injecting the growth medium in which the adult stem cells had been grown. The results are published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Similar results have been published by an international team, led by Canadian scientist Dr. Bernard Thébaud at the Stollery Children's Hospital, Edmonton, Alberta. Using a rat model, the scientists found that adult stem cells from bone marrow could repair lung damage in newborn rats as well as prevent further damage. According to Dr. Thébaud:     "The really exciting thing that we discovered was that stem cells are like little factories, pumping out healing factors." These results are also published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. More breathable news comes from a team in South Korea led by Dr. Won Soon Park from the Samsung Medical Center. Using newborn laboratory rats with oxygen-deprived lung injury, the researchers found that mesenchymal stem cells, a type of adult stem cell from umbilical cord blood, had a protective effect against low-oxygen-induced lung injury. They noted that their findings could have important therapeutic potential for the currently untreatable hyperoxic neonatal lung disease, or bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), in premature human infants. The easy availability of umbilical cord blood is also an associated benefit. The results are published in the journal Cell Transplantation. And in a final breath of adult stem cell fresh air, a team at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine identified adult stem cells in the bone marrow of mice that could prevent and treat acute lung injury. The researchers discovered a way to grow and stimulate the adult stem cells, and when injected into mice with acute lung injury, the cells repaired the lung injury, prevented fluid build-up and improved survival of the mice. Results were published in the journal Stem Cells. So take a deep breath in appreciation of adult stem cells. Contact: David Prentice Source: FRCBlog Publish Date: December 2, 2009 Link to this article.   Send this article to a friend.

Research abandoned on contraceptive vaccine to ‘immunize’ women against pregnancy

Research abandoned on contraceptive vaccine to 'immunize' women against pregnancy Washington D.C. - A leading contraceptive researcher has abandoned her attempts to create a vaccine that would render a woman "immune" from pregnancy. The Population Research Institute lauded the end of the research, which it said tried to make a woman's body treat pregnancy as a disease. Based on research into women who are infertile because of antibodies that inhibit sperm from fertilizing the egg, Dr. Donnie Dunbar had hoped to develop a vaccine that would trick a healthy woman's immune system into a hostile reaction to her own eggs. She intended the vaccine to help combat what she saw as the "world population problem." Tests which injected rabbits with pig proteins caused an autoimmune response, but it completely destroyed the ovaries. "Unfortunately, we weren't just looking at preventing fertilization now; we generated a complete autoimmune disease, which is also known as premature ovarian failure," Dunbar said, according to the Population Research Institute. "I am responsible for killing this vaccine for further human research, and I made some people in my biotech company and some other people very unhappy." The Population Research Institute (PRI) described her vaccine as "an insidious attempt to make the body treat pregnancy as a disease." However, the organization said her refusal to develop the vaccine for humans showed "an integrity often absent among anti-fertility researchers." The former contraceptive vaccine is now being developed for possible use as a sterilizing agent for dogs and cats and for the culling of the African elephant population. Source: CNA Publish Date: December 1, 2009 Link to this article.   Send this article to a friend.

Vatican daily reminds Obama that U.S. is increasingly pro-life

Vatican daily reminds Obama that U.S. is increasingly pro-life Vatican City - L'Osservatore Romano (LOR) published an article last week reminding U.S. President Barack Obama that the number of Americans who oppose abortion continues to be on the rise. This was recently demonstrated by the nearly 200,000 signatures to the "Manhattan Declaration," a document drafted by various Christian leaders in defense of life, marriage, the family and religious freedom. LOR said: "The political and spiritual weight of the Manhattan Declaration is thus evident" as "this is a crucial moment for the Obama administration since the president's credibility is at risk over promises made during the campaign season, considering the not-so-encouraging results of the latest polls on the president's popularity." In recent days "the spotlight is on health care reform," which is currently being debated in the Senate, with a bill that is "quite different from the one approved only weeks ago by the House of Representatives." That bill prohibited the use of federal funds for abortion and established conscience protections through the Stupak amendment, which was lauded by the U.S. bishops. LOR pointed out that the difference in between the two bills cannot be considered an accident. "In fact it was Obama himself, in a recent interview, who said that the Stupak Amendment introduced unbalanced language in the health care reform and that "women's choices" should not be restricted. Thus, LOR argued, Obama is moving between two contrary positions: that of keeping his campaign promises "not to use federal funds for abortion and that the right to conscientious objection be respected," and that of "influential pro-choice groups who demand an ultimate liberalization of abortion practices." After noting that the Manhattan Declaration clearly defends life and opposes abortion, LOR explained that "polls in recent months show that the number of those who are pro-life continues to rise and is now larger than the number of Americans" who think unrestricted abortions should be allowed during the course of pregnancy. LOR said the change in public opinion in the U.S. is made evident by the Manhattan Declaration, which reads: "no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence. It is our duty to proclaim the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in its fullness, both in season and out of season. May God help us not to fail in that duty." Among the signers of the declaration are "Jonah Paffhausen, primate of the Orthodox Church in America, and Robert Duncan, Anglican Primate of North America, as well as the Rev. William Owens, president of the Coalition of African American Pastors. Signers such as these could make Obama campaign staffers recalculate," LOR said. Source: CNA Publish Date: November 30, 2009 Link to this article.   Send this article to a friend.

Compassion and Choice’s Elastic Definition of “Terminal Illness” and “Intolerable Dying Process”

Compassion and Choice's Elastic Definition of "Terminal Illness" and "Intolerable Dying Process" The assisted suicide ideologues at Compassion and Choices–formerly the Hemlock Society–pretend that their agenda is very limited and constrained, merely a teensy-weensy safety valve for use when nothing else can be done to relieve suffering. That's all phony, baloney of course. The ultimate agenda is expansive, well beyond the actively dying. Proof of this is found in answers to interrogatories C & C filed in connection with its Montana lawsuit, that asked its definition of a "terminally ill adult patient," who the complaint claimed had a state constitutional right to assisted suicide.  Usually, as in Oregon, this means 6 months or less to live regardless of the medical treatment available to the patient. But C & C's definition for Montana turns that more precise definition on its head. From its interrogatory answer # 4 (no link, my emphasis):     The term "terminally ill adult patient," as used in the complaint, means a person 18 years of age or older who has an incurable and irreversible condition that, without the administration of life-sustaining treatment, will in the opinion of his or her attending physician, result in death within a relative short time. The definition is not limited to any specific set of illnesses, conditions or diseases… In other words, the patient won't die even if he or she receives life sustaining or curative care, but if no such care is rendered. That's a very elastic definition.  Think about it: If a 20-year-old diabetic refuses insulin, he will die within "a relatively short time," but if he takes insulin, could live for decades, a full life span. Ditto, AIDS patients taking the viral inhibitors, cancer patients receiving chemotherapy, patients on kidney dialysis, perhaps even psychiatric patients who are not suicidal only because of anti depressants, etc. Also, get their description of "intolerable dying process," for which assisted suicide is the supposed remedy:     This is a subjective determination made by the individual patient based upon his or her medical condition, and circumstances, symptoms, and personal values and beliefs. In other words, it is whatever a patient says it is at the time he/she wants to commit suicide.  Such looseness over who qualifies makes impossible any meaningful controls over assisted suicide–which of course is the point. C & C are very cagy.  But in Montana, they have shown more of their true colors, for example, disdaining the kind of "protective guidelines" put into Oregon and Washington law.  So be very clear, the assisted suicide agenda is not narrow.  It is very broad.  Activists here–unlike their counterparts overseas–just generally lack the candor that would permit us to have a true debate about the means and ends of the ultimate assisted suicide/euthanasia agenda. Contact: Wesley J. Smith Source: Secondhand Smoke Publish Date: December 2, 2009 Link to this article.   Send this article to a friend.

NEWS SHORTS FOR WEDNESDAY

NEWS SHORTS FOR WEDNESDAY (Referral to Web sites not produced by The Illinois Federation for Right to LIfe is for informational purposes only and does not necessarily constitute an endorsement of the sites' content.) Abortions of Down Syndrome Babies 'Double Official Level' As Doctors Spare Women's Feelings But Not Babies' Abortionists in the UK are aborting twice as many unborn babies because the children have Down Syndrome (DS) as official figures suggest, an independent body has revealed. Doctors are trying to spare women's feelings at aborting disabled children by failing to classify the abortions as Down abortions, it was claimed. Instead, they record them as "social" abortions, which make up most abortions in the UK. Click here for the full article. Strip Mall Abortions: Upgraded Planned Parenthood Opens In Revamped Mall MADISON, WI - When it was time to get a urine sample from patients at the old Planned Parenthood facility on Park Street, staff members would put a collection cup inside a brown paper bag and escort the patient down a long hallway outside the clinic to the nearest bathroom. They tried to make the process as discreet as possible, but the setup was far from ideal, notes Deborah Hobbins, regional vice president of Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin. "It put the miles on," she notes dryly. Click here for the full article. March for life attracts 50,000 in Costa Rica San José, Costa Rica - Some 50,000 people participated in the "Costa Rica March for Life and the Family" on November 28, which concluded with an address calling on officials to reject any law that would attack these fundamental values. The address commits participants "to defend all human life" from conception to natural death. It also urges that marriage and the family be protected, "and for this reason we oppose, and we call on our representatives in the executive branch, legislative assembly and municipalities to reject any bill, policy or institutional activity" to the contrary. Click here for the full article. ACLU Sues to Block Alaska Personhood Initiative ANCHORAGE, Alaska - In the latest in a string of court proceedings against personhood initiatives nationwide, the Alaskan branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is backing a lawsuit against state officials for giving voters an opportunity to decide on a ballot initiative that would declare all human beings "persons." The suit alleges that the proposed language does not adequately present to voters the possible consequences of its enactment, such as the outlawing of abortion, and thus Lieutenant Governor Craig Campbell should not have approved it.  Plaintiffs, including Vic Fisher, a former Alaska Democratic legislator, argue that the signature-collecting process should be halted immediately. Click here for the full article. Adult Stem Cells Heal Human Hearts In a newly-published study, scientists from several institutions across the country report that use of adult stem cells can repair hearts damaged from heart attack. The researchers say that it's some of the strongest evidence yet that adult stem cells can turn into new heart cells to repair damaged tissue. The study suggests that adult stem cells, in this case derived from bone marrow, are more flexible than previously thought. The published study looks at 53 patients who had heart attacks within the previous ten days. Patients were injected intravenously with mesenchymal adult stem cells; the cells migrated to the damaged heart and began repair. Patients who received the adult stem cells showed improvement over those who did not receive the cells. According to Dr. Joshua Hare, a University of Miami cardiologist and lead author of the 10-university study... Click here for the full article.

'60 Minutes' Segment Explores the Ideas of Rationing, 'Pulling the Plug on Grandma'

'60 Minutes' Segment Explores the Ideas of Rationing, 'Pulling the Plug on Grandma'



"60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft took an in-depth look at one of the most expensive aspects of modern health care - the cost of end of life care. However, he didn't highlight the federal government's culpability in driving up those costs, or what it might mean for health care reform. "Every medical study ever conducted has concluded 100 percent of all Americans will eventually die," Kroft said. "This comes as no great surprise. But, the amount of money being spent at the end of people lives probably will. Last year, Medicare paid $50 billion just for doctors' and hospital bills during the last two months of patients lives. That's more than the budget of the Department of Homeland Security or the Department of Education. And it's been estimated that 20 to 30 percent of these medical expenditures may have had no meaningful impact." 

Click here for the video.

Click here for the full article.

CDC Abortion Data Reveals Small Uptick in 2006, but Overall Decline over Past Decade

CDC Abortion Data Reveals Small Uptick in 2006, but Overall Decline over Past Decade



WASHINGTON, D.C. - The US Center for Disease Control (CDC) has released its latest available figures on abortion submitted to the federal agency, which shows an overall decrease in the number of abortions for the ten years between 1997 and 2006, but with a small uptick in abortion rates and ratios between 2005 and 2006, which CDC analysts believe may be attributable to an accompanying rise in fertility rates.

While the CDC report provides an analysis of trends in abortion patterns, it qualifies that its data reflects approximately 65 to 69 percent of the actual total numbers of abortions in the US: three states - California, Louisiana, and New Hampshire - do not submit any abortion data to the federal health agency, and not all reporting areas use the CDC forms for data collection. CDC data on the rate of abortions consistently remains 11 percent lower than those figures recorded by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of Planned Parenthood, which solicits data directly from abortion providers.

Forty-nine reporting areas show that in 2006, a total of 846,181 abortions were documented. Between 1997 and 2006, the total number of abortions declined 5.7 percent, the rate of abortions (abortions per 1000 women aged 15-44) declined 8.8 percent, and the ratio of abortions (abortions per thousand live births) also fell 14.8 percent.

The CDC showed that the greatest rate of decline occurred in the years between 1996 and 2000, when total abortions fell on average by 20,605 per year. For the years between 2001 and 2006, the number of abortions fell by a much smaller margin, decreasing an average 2,163 abortions per year.

But 2006, the last year of available collected data, showed a small uptick in abortion that diverges from this downward trend. The total number of abortions in 2006 increased from 2005 levels by 3.1 percent: 820,151 abortions up to 846,181 abortions; the abortion rate rose by 3.2 percent from 15.6 to 16.1 (abortions per 1000 women aged 15-44), while the ratio of women aborting their unborn children remained the same in both years (236 abortions per 1000 live-births).

However, the CDC surmised that the abortion rate remained stable, and a rise in overall fertility for 2006 may serve as a likely explanation for the increase. For that year, the CDC found that the number of live births and the fertility rate (live births per 1000 women aged 15-44) increased by three percent, which the CDC said was the "largest single-year increase in more than 15 years."

The federal agency said that additional surveillance data would be necessary over the next few years to establish conclusively whether abortions are increasing without an accompanying increase in fertility.

Women in their twenties accounted for the majority of all abortions, at 56.8 percent. Abortion rates were highest in the 20-24 age demographic, with 29.9 abortions per 1000 women in that range, and 22.2 abortions per 1000 women in the 25-29 age group.

Among adolescents, CDC analysts noted that while abortion rates among adolescents (15-19 years) increased between 2005-2006, the number of live-births increased by an even greater proportion, which they stated "might be attributable to an increasing tendency for adolescents to continue their pregnancies." This is suggested by data that shows the ratio of abortion continued to decline in that period, despite the increased abortion rate.

Marital status also had an impact on those who were likely to seek abortions. Approximately 83.5 percent of women aborting their children were unmarried in the 43 areas that reported marital status.

In terms of race and ethnicity, whites (including Hispanic whites) accounted for 55.8 percent of the total number of abortions, with a rate of 10.8 abortions per 1000 women and 162 abortions per 1000 live births.

Breaking those values down further: data showed that Hispanic women account for 20.1 percent of the total number of abortions, a proportion that has increased over the 10 years between 1997-2006. In 1997, Hispanic women accounted for 17 percent of abortions.  The CDC surmised this increase could be attributable to the fact that Hispanics now constitute a greater proportion of the resident US population.

Nevertheless, the overall rate of Hispanic women seeking abortion is down 19.1 percent from 1997: 28.7 to 23.2 abortions per 1000 women in that group, along with the abortion ratio: 292 to 223 abortions per 1000 live-births.

However, black women bear a staggeringly high proportion of abortions, accounting for 36.4 percent of the total number of abortions. Black abortion rates (33.9 abortions per 1000 women) and ratios (459 abortions for 1000 live-births) were higher than all the other reported racial groups. Nevertheless, only among black women did the abortion rate decline in 2006, in opposition to the general uptick in abortion that occurred that year.

Click here to see teh full CDC abstract with accompanying data, including tables and figures.

Contact: Peter J. Smith
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: November 30, 2009
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New Presidential Bioethics Commission

New Presidential Bioethics Commission



The previous President's Council on Bioethics was terminated before its time by President Obama back in June. Its charter was scheduled to expire in September, and there was some thought it was booted early to clear the deck for a new bioethics group aligned with the president. But no new bioethics council was formed to fill the void. Seems likely the old bioethics council was just giving contrary signals to the President (10 of the 18 members criticized the President after his March 9 speech where he opened the possibility of using more human embryos for research, including creating cloned human embryos for experiments.) Given that the NIH was preparing to promulgate new guidelines for using human embryos, including the steps to take for their destruction to allow federal taxpayer funding of their harvested cells, the "President's" bioethics council presented an official unwelcome burr under the saddle.

Finally, well after the old council's term would have expired, we now have the announcement that a new Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues will be established (Executive Order 13521). The announcement actually was made a week ago, on November 24. However, as of this writing the Executive Order still does not appear on the White House website (they must have been in a hurry to get to the state dinner.) However, the Executive Order was finally published in the Federal Register on Monday, November 30. The press release names the chair (Amy Gutmann, President of the University of Pennsylvania) and vice chair (James Wagner, president of Emory University) but does not name the other members of the commission (not more than 13 members total.) An interesting part of the Executive Order states that "at least one and not more than three of whom may be bioethicists or scientists drawn from the executive branch, as designated by the President." So, there is a chance to seed the commission with like-minded folks. Nature notes that the new group is "explicitly charged with recommending legislative and regulatory action and promises to have more influence on policy." The article also quotes George Annas opinion that the previous bioethics council had a "narrow, embryo-centric agenda". Nothing could be further from the truth, as evidenced by the range of topics covered by the previous council, including aging, genetic screening, and determination of death (the council's archived website should soon be available from the National Reference Center for Bioethics Literature).

It will be interesting to see the final composition of this new presidential bioethics group, and whether they can live up to the openness, education of the public, and representation of diverse views seen with the last bioethics council. If not, it will just be a rubber stamp for presidential policies.

Contact: David Prentice
Source: FRCBlog
Publish Date: December 1, 2009
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New York magazine asks, "Just how pro-choice is America?" and answers, "Not so much"

New York magazine asks, "Just how pro-choice is America?" and answers, "Not so much"



I'm surprised NARAL linked to this piece yesterday in New York magazine, calling it a "[t]hought-provoking piece." It's no-spin depressing for the other side, actually. The article is long but a good read. And, with a reminder that this was written by a pro-abort, it makes quite the convincing case for incrementalism. Stay strong, pro-lifers, we're winning. Here are some "choice" excerpts...

Most New Yorkers hadn't heard of Bart Stupak before he attached his devastating anti-abortion amendment to the House's health-care-reform bill 3 weeks ago....

And the results sent chills through the pro-choice world.... But... [w]as Stupak's truly the minority view?

According to a Gallup poll from July, 60% of Americans think abortion should be either illegal or "legal only in a few circumstances."... Just 2 months before the health-care bill's passage in the House, a Rasmussen poll found that 48% of the public didn't want abortion covered in any government-subsidized health plan, while just 13% did....

"Because there's a Democratic majority in Congress and the president is pro-choice," says Nancy Keenan, the current director of NARAL, "it sometimes gets lost how truly numerically challenged we are."...

The idea that a bunch of pro-life rogue wingnuts have hijacked the agenda and thwarted the national will is a convenient, but fanciful, belief. Even with an 81-person margin in the House, and even with a passionately committed female, pro-choice Speaker, it was the Democrats who managed to pass a bill that, arguably, would restrict access to abortion more aggressively than any state measure or legal case since the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade....

From the moment abortion was legalized nationally in 1973, the American public wasn't especially comfortable with it.... As Jeffrey Rosen, the legal scholar at George Washington University, wrote in The Atlantic 3 years ago, Roe v. Wade was one of the few Supreme Court decisions that was out of step with mainstream public opinion....

If forced to choose, Americans today are far more eager to label themselves "pro-life" than they were a dozen years ago. The youngest generation of voters - those between the ages of 18 and 29, and therefore most likely to need an abortion - is the most pro-life to come along since the generation born during the Great Depression, according to Michael Hais and Morley Winograd, authors of Millennial Makeover, who got granular data on the subject from Pew Research Center.

Crisis Pregnancy Centers... now outnumber the country's abortion providers, who themselves are a rapidly aging group (2/3 are over 50, according to a National Abortion Federation study from 2002). In the wake of the murder of Dr. George Tiller this year, the Senate couldn't even pass a resolution condemning violence against abortion providers.

Abortion counselors will also tell you that the stigma attached to the procedure is worse than it's been in years....

One could say, in a sense, that the pro-choice movement has always had the harder job. The choice argument is an analytical one, grounded in theories of privacy and the rights of the mother; the pro-life side has the case with instant visceral and emotional appeal: This is life we're talking about. Things were also bound to get worse when the national tide turned Democratic; whenever a pro-choice person occupies the White House, those who fret about the issue stop giving money to NARAL and the pro-life side reasserts itself (indeed, says Cecile Richards, the head of Planned Parenthood, protests at her clinics are up, up, up).

But these explanations alone can't fully account for the shift in tide. Rather, it's a confluence of things--starting, I'd argue, with technological advances. Generally, science is the friend of progressive political causes. Not this one.

As fetal ultrasound technology improved during the nineties, abortion providers, conditioned to reassure patients that the fetus was merely tissue, found it much harder to do so once their patients were staring at images that looked so lifelike.... [O]rganizations like Focus on the Family began to use this technology to their advantage, sending ultrasound machines to CPCs....

Perhaps just as important, the pro-life movement got very shrewd about its politics, realizing that it had a highly conflicted electorate on its hands. As William Saletan shows with depressing cogency in Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War, the pro-choice movement was never going to win its case on the basis of women's rights. Men, especially southern white men, didn't care. The most persuasive argument it had was an old American standby: The government has no right meddling in your business.

It didn't take long for the pro-life movement to use this argument to its own advantage, realizing that if the public didn't like the government making decisions about abortions, it could force pro-choice legislators to admit that the public wouldn't like the government funding them either. They were right. Soon, pro-choice candidates were running away from public funding and toward parental consent - another constraint the public overwhelmingly prefers, as well as 24-hour waiting periods - and a more libertarian Supreme Court upheld these restrictions in landmark cases in 1989 and 1992.

Yet that still wasn't the worst of it. Until the mid-90s, the political debate over abortion remained mostly in the theoretical realm, with the role of government at its center. Had it stayed there, it's possible we'd be in a different place today.

But in late 1995... FL Republican congressman... Charles Canady had a stroke of insight that would shift it to the realm of both the metaphysical and brutally physical, which is precisely where the pro-life movement wanted it all along.

On the floor of the House, he introduced a bill that would ban so-called "partial-birth abortions".... The procedure was extremely upsetting to behold. In it, the fetus - or is it a baby? - is removed from the uterus and stabbed in the back of the head with surgical scissors. It's a revolting image, one to which the public was ritualistically subjected on the evening news as the debate raged on the House and Senate floors. Defending it was a pro-choice person's nightmare....

Clinton still vetoed the ban in 1996, but it was eventually signed into law in 2003 and withstood a Supreme Court challenge in 2007. More important, women were spooked. "A lot of our patients started asking whether or not the fetus felt pain after that, even if they were early along in their pregnancy," says Albert George Thomas, who until 2 years ago had spent 18 years as the head of the family-planning clinic at Mt. Sinai....

[I]f you want to hear honest talk about the realities of abortion, go speak with... abortion counselors and providers. Even the most radically pro-choice will tell you that the political discourse they hear about the subject, with its easy dichotomies and bumper-sticker boilerplate, has little correspondence to the messy, intricate stories of her patients. They hear about peace and guilt, relief and sin. And it is they who will acknowledge, whether we like it or not, that the rhetoric and imagery of the pro-life movement can touch on some basic emotional truths. Peg Johnston, who manages Access for Women in upstate NY, remembers the 1st time her patients unconsciously began to co-opt the language of the protesters outside. "And it wasn't that these protesters were brainwashing them," she says. "It's that they were tapping into things we all have some discomfort about."

This is quite a brave confession for Johnston - or any pro-choice person - to make. It means making oneself vulnerable to opportunist pro-life activists, who'll happily take those words about uncertainty or moral qualms and repurpose them for their own ends....

But Harris raises a very real and terrible dilemma for those of us who are pro-choice: Engage these questions and you play into the hands of the pro-life movement; refuse to engage in them and you risk living in a political vacuum....

NARAL's Nancy Keenan likes to say that abortion's biggest defenders right now are a "menopausal militia" - a rueful, inspired little joke. These baby-boomers, whose young adulthoods were defined by the fight over the right to choose, will soon be numerically overtaken by a generation of twentysomethings who is more pro-life than any but our senior citizens. As GOP strategists Christopher Blunt and Fred Steeper have pointed out, this group came of age during the partial-birth debate and was the first to grow up with pictures of sonograms on their refrigerators. The major development in reproductive technology during their lifetimes wasn't something that prevented pregnancies but something that created them: IVF....

Given this demographic shift, plus the Stupak Amendment, plus the unavoidable fact that abortion's essential nature is unchanging - it will always involve some brutal nexus of the heart and the mind - it's hard for a pro-choice person like myself to see how the ball rolls forward.

Perhaps Obama will help. This is, after all, a president who went to Notre Dame, a school with a 167-year history of Roman Catholic orthodoxy, and dared to give a speech about abortion.

But what he said was hardly his usual optimistic, paradigm-shifting oratory. All it was was a sober recitation of the problem, one that all-too-painfully explained why public opinion on the subject hasn't budged in 36 years. "I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away," he told his audience. "No matter how much we may want to fudge it - indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory - the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable."

Contact: Jill Stanek
Source: jillstanek.com
Publish Date: November 30, 2009
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NRLC Leter to the Senate Re: Mikulski Amendment

NRLC Leter to the Senate Re: Mikulski Amendment



The U.S. Senate yesterday (November 30th) began the process of considering amendments to Senator Reid's health care legislation.  The first amendment offered was Mikulski Amendment No. 2791, dealing with federally mandated coverage of "preventive care."   Late today, the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) sent senators a letter opposing the Mikulski Amendment, unless it is revised.  A copy of the letter is below.  It is not yet known when the Senate will vote on the Mikulski Amendment.

To the Honorable Members of the U.S. Senate:

The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), representing affiliated right-to-life organizations in all SO states, is opposed to the pending Mikulski Amendment No.2791, unless the amendment is modified in the manner discussed below.

Section 1001 of Senator Reid's pending substitute, the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act," would create a new Section 2713 of the Public Health Services Act, dealing with "Preventive Health Services." Under this provision, all private health plans would be mandated to cover, without cost-sharing, "(1) evidence-based items or services that have in effect a rating of 'A' or' B ' in the current recommendations of the United States Preventive Services Task Force."

The Mikulski Amendment No.2791 retains that mandate, but further specifies that all health plans would also be mandated to cover "with respect to women, such additional preventive care and screenings not described in paragraph (1) as provided for in comprehensive guidelines supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration for purposes of this paragraph." In short, the Reid language makes the "recommendations" of the United States Preventive Services Task Force, regarding "preventive services," into mandates that will bind all health plans. The Mikulski Amendment No.2791 would further empower political appointees at the HRSA to issue mandates that all health plans cover any service "with respect to women" that is declared to constitute "preventive care."

If Congress were to grant any Executive Branch entity sweeping authority to define services that private health plans must cover, merely by declaring a given service to  constitute "preventive care," then that authority could be employed in the future to require all health plans to cover abortions. Therefore, NRLC opposes both the Mikulski Amendment No.2791, and the underlying language of Section 1001, unless additional language is added to explicitly exclude abortion from the universe of services that might be mandated as "preventive care."

Our concern on this point is not hypothetical -prominent pro-abortion advocates are already on record discussing abortion as a category of "preventive health care." For example, a 2009 publication cosponsored by the National Abortion Federation, Providing Abortion Care, explicitly stated that " APCs [ Advanced Practice Clinicians] are especially well positioned within the health care system to address women's need for comprehensive primary preventive health care that includes abortion care." (emphasis added).

It is also noteworthy that when Senator Mikulski offered a similar amendment in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, it was backed by a long list ofproabortion advocacy groups, including NARAL Pro-Choice America, Catholics for Choice, Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and Medical Students for Choice. A July 8, 2009 letter from these groups asserted that by allowing the Health Resources and Services Administration to issue binding guidelines on preventive services, the "unique preventive health needs ofwomen" would be addressed.

Moreover, when a constituent wrote to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca..) earlier this year to urge that abortion be excluded from pending health care legislation, he received an e-mail response dated August 3,2009, in which Sen. Feinstein wrote: "Thank you for writing to me to express your support for proposed restrictions on private coverage of preventative services for reproductive care in health reform legislation. ...I understand your opinion that private coverage of abortion services should be restricted in health reform. However, I believe that reproductive health services should be treated no differently than any other health care service or benefit."

There will be some who endeavor to dismiss our concern that the term "preventive care" could be construed to encompass abortion. However, anyone who genuinely believes that abortion properly will remain outside the scope of future "preventive care" mandates should have no objection to explicitly writing such a rule of construction into the legislation.

In summary: The National Right to Life Committee opposes the Mikulski Amendment No. 2791, unless it is revised to explicitly remove abortion from the universe of services that could be defined as mandated "preventive care" by either the Health Resources and Services Administration or the United States Preventive Services Task Force.

Thank you for your consideration of the concerns of the National Right to Life Committee on this
subject.

Source: NRLC
Publish Date: November 30, 2009
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Obama Education Czar + Planned Parenthood Sex Education = High Teen Pregnancy Rate

Obama Education Czar + Planned Parenthood Sex Education = High Teen Pregnancy Rate



How many times and how many ways can Planned Parenthood say that it is reducing teen pregnancy with its horrifyingly graphic, immoral sex education, when evidence shows quite the contrary to be true?

With Planned Parenthood's own Guttmacher Institute conducting all of the studies on the efficacy of its programs, and Planned Parenthood supervising its own programs in schools, it sometimes appears our teens are doomed to never-ending abuse by the abortion-mongering, sex-hawking organization that exists to "liberate" our society from sexual mores and kill any preborn babies that may get in the way of its push toward "sexual rights" for all, including children.

One case in point is Robeson High School in Chicago. The school made headlines recently because of a revelation that one in seven of its female students is pregnant.

Some media outlets jumped on the opportunity to blame the high pregnancy rate on the fact that the parents are not doing enough at home and that the school is encouraging pregnancy by helping pregnant teens continue with their education.

No mention was made of the fact that Planned Parenthood has been a highly paid consultant with the Chicago public school system for years.

From February 27, 2001, through August 31, 2004, Planned Parenthood was awarded $1,608,100 in consulting fees by Chicago public schools "on a non-competitive basis because of Consultant's unique qualifications to provide a teen pregnancy prevention program." (Emphasis added.) The money emanated from the school's operating fund.

In return, Planned Parenthood was to provide a teen pregnancy prevention program for seventh and ninth graders in 45 Chicago public schools. Students were also given special times to access Planned Parenthood's places of business "for support and guidance."

Incredibly, Planned Parenthood was given authority to oversee itself and "assess the program's efficiency and evaluate participating students' progress in the program."

From September 1, 2004, through August 31, 2006, an additional $1 million was awarded to Planned Parenthood for the same "services." It continued to allow the group to monitor itself and left open the option of renewal for two more time periods.

In 2006, the Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health, which includes Planned Parenthood, led the charge to remove any vestiges of "abstinence-only" education from Chicago public schools by holding a fundraiser at the headquarters of Playboy Enterprises.

The Chicago Board of Education adopted a requirement that "students in sixth grade and beyond" take a comprehensive sex education program (of the Planned Parenthood type) beginning in 2007. (Emphasis added.)

According to a 2006 news report from the Chicago Tribune,

The new program ... [will] provide "age-appropriate and medically accurate information concerning the emotional, psychological, physiological, hygienic and social responsibility aspects of family life."

The courses will be taught in Grades 6 through 12 and include instruction on how to prevent pregnancy through abstinence and contraception, as well as the emotional and psychological consequences of premarital sex and pregnancy.

And who was overseeing the Chicago public schools from 2001 to 2008, when Planned Parenthood was paid in excess of $2 million to reduce teen pregnancy?  None other than Arne Duncan, who was appointed U.S. Secretary of Education in January of this year.

It's enough to make a grown woman cry. But instead of crying, it's time to shout.  Planned Parenthood must be removed from our schools and our communities. Parents must educate their local school board members about the immorality of Planned Parenthood programs and the dangers they pose to our children.

STOPP's proven plan for defeating Planned Parenthood includes a strategy for defeating its sex education programs. Time and time again, when parents have followed this plan, they have been successful in getting Planned Parenthood removed from local schools. Don't wait for someone else to do it. Act now to protect our children from the hellish vice of Planned Parenthood that holds our children hostage to the slavery of unbridled sex and its consequences, and steals their very souls.

Contact: Rita Diller
Source: American Life League via LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: December 1, 2009
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Around the World

Around the World



Pro-Life Victory as Northern Ireland

Pro-life advocates in Northern Ireland are celebrating a major court victory today as the Belfast High Court has ordered the recall of health guidelines that they said would have undermined and effectively overturned the province's pro-life laws.

Lord Justice Girvan found that the guidelines failed to deal properly with conscientious objection to abortion and counseling on abortion. The judge said the guidelines were open to misinterpretation, saying the language was "ambiguous" and left doctors and staff unclear as to what was expected of them. The judge said the guidelines needed to be absolutely clear, otherwise they represented "a trap to the unwary."  Click here for more.

Italy Delays Sale of RU 486

The Italian Senate has blocked the sale of RU 486 in the country pending investigations into the abortion drug's safety. Antonio Tomassini, the leader of the committee studying the issue cited the "many doubts" surrounding the drug and the panel voted to postpone its distribution.

This summer the Italian Pharmaceuticals Agency (AIFA) approved the drug, stipulating that it must be administered by physicians in hospitals up to the 49th day of pregnancy, but not sold over the counter in pharmacies. This decision came despite AIFA documentation that noted the deaths of at least nine women who had taken it. In 2008, the Italian Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics reported 16 maternal deaths associated with RU 486.

The committee said it is also concerned with the drug's compatibility with Italian law that allows abortion on demand up to 90 days of pregnancy. Maurizio Sacconi, the Welfare and Health Minister, said, "Italy's abortion laws were not conceived with a pharmaceutical solution in mind." Click here for more.

France Rejects Euthanasia

The French National Assembly has rejected an attempt to legalize euthanasia in a 326 to 202 vote.

"Euthanasia is not a medical act. The right to die is not a medical act," said Union for a Popular Movement party deputy Jean Leonetti, author of a 2005 law on dying that promotes the use of palliative care.

The Alliance for Human Life welcomed the vote, saying that the bill "played on the ambiguity of the word 'dignity'" and "contributed to the confusion on a difficult topic."

Xavier Mirabel, president of the Alliance said, "The French do not want aggressive treatment. When they understand that aggressive treatment does not include euthanasia, most of our citizens are reassured. We therefore ask that the Leonetti law be known and more fully implemented, which requires a more proactive promotion of palliative care."  Click here for more.

Drive Starts to Make Dutch Psychiatrists Justify Not Killing Suicidal Patients!

Of the 2,331 cases reviewed by the regional euthanasia review committees in 2008 only two involved psychiatric patients. All doctors are obligated to report assisted suicides to the committees, who then investigate if all the legal requirements were met. [Me: Studies show that about half are not reported.] "Psychiatrists have a holier-than-thou attitude," Hans van Dam, a nurse and a teacher, said at a symposium organised by the Right to Die-NL foundation in the Dutch town of Ede on Monday. The taboo on assisted suicide for mental patients needs to be broken, Van Dam argued. "To put it bluntly: cancer will kill you in a matter of years, but schizophrenia is forever. The suffering of psychiatric patients can be just as intolerable as many forms of physical suffering," said Eugène Sutorius, a professor of criminal law and a former president of the foundation.  Click her for more.

Objections to abortion could be overruled

The Council of Europe, which is larger than the European Union, is considering a draft resolution that would deny the right of hospitals to opt out of doing abortions.
 
The title of the resolution is "The Women's Access to Lawful Medical Care -- the Problem of Unregulated Use of Conscientious Objection." Joseph Meany of Human Life International tells OneNewsNow that the Council is not concerned about ethics or religious beliefs.  Click here for more. 

Sources: LifeSiteNews.com, Secondhand Smoke, OneNewsNow
Publish Date: November 30, 2009, December 1, 2009
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NEWS SHORTS FOR TUESDAY

NEWS SHORTS FOR TUESDAY
(Referral to Web sites not produced by The Illinois Federation for Right to LIfe is for informational purposes only and does not necessarily constitute an endorsement of the sites' content.)

Cord Blood Stem Cells may Help Treat Heart and Lung Disorders



Two new studies in animals suggest that stem cells from transplanted human-derived umbilical cord blood could help treat some lung and heart disorders. Scientists already know that such stem cells can differentiate into a long list of different kinds of cells in the laboratory, Dr. Won Soon Park of the Samsung Medical Center in Seoul, Korea, co-author of one of the studies, said in a news release. But it's not clear if they can develop into lung-specific cells in the body, he added.
Click here for the full article.


Mother Gives Birth to 15-Pound Baby



Some numbers are just too big to register. It was like that when Wendi Dolton heard a doctor say the number '15.6' moments after giving birth to her third child on Monday. She thought at first he was referring to the time. "And he goes, 'weight.' "And I said, 'wait for what?'" "And he goes, 'no, the weight." Wendi's next response: "Are you kidding me?" No kidding. Wendi had given birth to a baby boy weighing 15 pounds, 6 ounces. "There's been doctors and nurses that have been around here a fair amount of years and they've never seen one that big," says Mike Dolton, Wendi's husband. The Racine, Minnesota parents named their baby boy Axel LaVerne.
Click here for the full article.


Legislation Prompts Vermont Abortion Debate



A state senator is poised to introduce a bill in response to an August car crash that claimed twin fetuses a Bennington woman was carrying. Before the legislation comes off the printer, Patricia Blair knows it doesn't go far enough to recognize the lives she lost. Blair was injured when her van was struck by another car in Bennington on Aug. 10. Her 6-month fetuses — a boy and a girl — died as a result of the crash, which also seriously injured her husband, Randy Blair, leaving him unable to walk. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Richard Sears, D-Bennington, bill would enhance penalties for assaulting a pregnant woman, wording that he believes walks a careful line: creating consequences for harming an unborn child without unfurling a debate about abortion.
Click here for the full article.


Unborn Vitcims Bill to seek Tougher Penalties for Those who Kill a Pregnant Woman



BAYSIDE, NY -- An Arverne woman whose daughter and unborn child were killed on the daughter's due date is going to Albany this week to ask for tougher penalties for those who kill a pregnant woman. Towanda Wimms is seeking support for the Unborn Victims of Violence Act in Albany, which would treat the act of killing a pregnant woman as two murders. Wimms' daughter, Niasha DeLain, a 25-year-old who worked in customer service at a Rockaway Capital One Bank branch, was killed in Ozone Park on her due date and on her father's birthday -- Oct. 25, 2008. She was also pursuing a bachelor's in accounting from the College of New Rochelle.
Click here for the full article.


Many Pregnant Women take Drugs that are Harmful to their Baby



NEW YORK -- With the help of their doctors, women planning to become pregnant should take an inventory of the medications they take, researchers from Canada advise. In a study, they found that many pregnant women still take medications long known to cause birth defects. Some medications with known fetal risk, such as drugs that control epilepsy, are essential during pregnancy, Dr. Anick Berard, at the University of Montreal in Quebec, noted in an email correspondence to Reuters Health. Other medications, such as those that treat severe acne, anxiety and psychiatric drugs, antibiotics, and many drugs prescribed for heart disease and medical conditions, "can and should be avoided," according to Berard.
Click here for the full article.


Monthly Abortion Fee in Senate Health Plan



Although its illegal to use federal money to pay for abortions, the gargantuan healthcare bill presented this week by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will levy a new "abortion premium" fee on Americans in the government-run insurance plan. The much-ballyhooed 2,074-page bill (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) that will start being debated this weekend in the U.S. Senate includes a monthly abortion premium charged to all enrollees in the government-operated health plan. The $848 billion overhaul package is being touted by Reid as a measure that will "save lives" even though it covers a procedure that ends them.
Click here for the full article.


Fourteenth Fort Hood victim forgotten



Washington D.C. - Last week, Maj. Nadil Malik Hasan was indicted on 13 counts of murder for the shootings at Fort Hood which took place on Nov. 5. Missing from the list of victims is the three-month-old unborn child of Private Francheska Velez. The Alliance Defense Fund, a legal alliance of Christian attorneys, has sent a letter to the Office of Staff Judge Advocate at Fort Hood requesting that the murder of Velez's child be included in the case against Malik.

"It would cause a severe and negative impact on morale if Army women were made to believe that the Army valued their children less than they did adult victims of crime. We respectfully request that you enforce UCMJ Article 119a against the suspect," the ADF's letter stated.
Click here for the full article.

Senate to Begin Debate on Obamacare

Senate to Begin Debate on Obamacare



WASHINGTON - The U.S. Senate opens debate on a broad healthcare overhaul on Monday with senators seeking an elusive compromise on thorny issues like a government-run insurance plan, abortion coverage and holding down costs. The debate on President Barack Obama's top domestic priority, which opens at 3 p.m. EST (2000 GMT), is expected to last three weeks or more. Republicans have vowed to do whatever they can to block or delay the bill. The Senate plan is designed to rein in costs, expand coverage to about 30 million uninsured Americans and halt industry practices such as denying coverage to those with pre-existing medical conditions. In a report that offered ammunition to both sides, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated on Monday that insurance premiums could increase by 10 percent to 13 percent by 2016 for those buying coverage independently under the new bill.
Click here for more...

Flyover Tells Notre Dame President Jenkins: Free the ND 88

Flyover Tells Notre Dame President Jenkins: Free the ND 88


   
SOUTH BEND, Indiana - An anonymous advocate for the 88 Obama protesters who were arrested on the University of Notre Dame's campus in May sent an aerial message this month to remind University President Fr. John Jenkins of the arrestees' plight for witnessing to life.

The 88 individuals arrested on the university's campus while protesting President Obama's commencement address and honorary law degree May 17 are still facing charges of trespassing in St. Joseph County court.  While witnesses say pro-Obama protesters were allowed to roam free, the arrested individuals were singled out for displaying any pro-life message - including slogans on the sanctity of life, photographs of aborted children, a large wooden cross, and images of Mary.

While the case is technically out of Notre Dame's hands, Fr. Jenkins has ignored repeated requests from advocates to request leniency for the witnesses, who face up to one year in jail and a $5,000 fine if they are convicted. In a recent interview with LifeSiteNews.com, Thomas More Society President and Chief Counsel Tom Brejcha, who is representing the Notre Dame 88, said that Notre Dame's decision on the case, "would have decisive influence over whether the prosecutions went forward." Brejcha said that were Fr. Jenkins to ask for leniency, his request would "have great weight with the prosecutor."

Thus far, however, Notre Dame has not requested that the charges be dropped.

Thomas Uebbing, a freelance journalist and Notre Dame graduate, photographed a plane carrying the message "Fr. Jenkins ... Free the ND 88" circling the campus grounds just prior to a Notre Dame-Connecticut football game November 21.

Uebbing told LSN that the individual sponsoring the flyover wished to remain anonymous.  In a statement, the sponsor denounced Fr. Jenkins for planning to attend January's March for Life in Washington D.C. while refusing to help the arrestees, saying the attendance would be "empty" and that Jenkins should "do the right thing" by seeking leniency.

Click here for more information on the Notre Dame 88.

Contact: Kathleen Gilbert
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: November 30, 2009
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Abortion giant gives up on case against ex–clinic director

Abortion giant gives up on case against ex–clinic director

'Like so many Planned Parenthood lawsuits, this was baseless'



Former Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson with Coalition for Life Director Shawn Carney (photo: Coalition for Life)
Planned Parenthood, the American abortion industry's leading player, "quietly" has dropped its lawsuit against a former clinic director who quit her job after watching an abortion.

The news comes from the Alliance Defense Fund, which had been assisting former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson.

"This was the latest in a series of national Planned Parenthood scandals," said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Steven H. Aden.

"It wasn't about one woman or one clinic. Planned Parenthood is a national organization that has been kept afloat by hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funding. The American people need to understand that this organization has been involved in scandal after scandal and has never owned up to them. Like so many Planned Parenthood lawsuits, this lawsuit was baseless, so we are pleased that it has been withdrawn," he said.

Among other accusations, Planned Parenthood falsely claimed Johnson violated a confidentiality agreement and breached an employment contract, even though she never had one, according to the ADF.

WND reported earlier when a judge refused to grant Planned Parenthood's demand for an injunction against Johnson.

The judge also rejected the abortion company's demand for an injunction targeting the Coalition for Life, an organization whose members oppose abortion in the College Station, Texas, area where Johnson had worked.

The ruling from Judge J.D. Langley concluded Planned Parenthood did not offer reasons that would convince him of the need for "the extreme remedy of injunctive relief."

The company had sought court intervention to block disclosure of confidential patient information, which Johnson said she never considered doing anyway.

The ADF confirmed the order withdrawing the lawsuit was issued by the Brazos County District Court.

In its request, Planned Parenthood admitted, "Plaintiffs no longer desire to pursue this cause of action against Defendants, Abby Johnson and the Brazos Valley Coalition for Life."

The request, dated Nov. 13, was signed by the court Nov. 17. Marc Hamlin, district clerk, said, "In accordance with Rule 306A Texas Rules of Civil Procedure you are hereby notified of the entry of the Order on Motion for NonSuit."

WND reported when Johnson was interviewed by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on his Fox News Channel show:


Click here for view the video

And in an earlier interview with WND, Johnson told of Planned Parenthood's abortion quotas, which she said were needed to generate revenue for the organization.

"We'd have a goal every month for abortion clients and for family planning clients," she said.

Johnson, 29, said the Bryan, Texas, Planned Parenthood clinic performed surgical abortions every other Saturday, but it began expanding access to abortion to increase earnings. She said her turning point came when she was told to assist with an abortion.

"For whatever reason I was called in to help. My job was to hold the ultrasound probe on the abdomen," she said. "When I looked at the screen, I saw a baby on the screen. She was about 13 weeks pregnant at the time. I saw a full side profile. I saw face to feet on the ultrasound.

"I saw the probe going into the woman's uterus. At that moment I saw the baby moving, trying to get away from the probe," she continued.

"I thought, 'It's fighting for its life.' I thought, 'It's life. It's alive.'

"I dropped the ultrasound probe. I scrambled and put [the probe] back in place. So many things were going through my mind. I was thinking about my daughter, who's three," she said.

"I was just thinking, 'What am I doing here? What am I doing here? There was life in here and now there's not.'"

Johnson later was mentioned by name during the U.S. House debate over an amendment designed to limit taxpayer funding of abortions.

In remarks on the House floor, Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., said, "Self-described as 'extremely pro-choice,' but now pro-life, Abby Johnson said she watched an unborn child 'crumple' before her very eyes as the infant was vacuumed and dismembered by a suction device 20-30 times more powerful than a household vacuum cleaner. 'I could see the baby try to move away … I just thought what am I doing … never again.'"

Contact: Bob Unruh
Source: WorldNetDaily
Publish Date: November 26, 2009
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Formal Complaints Ask Michigan AG for Criminal Investigation of Abortionist Hodari

Formal Complaints Ask Michigan AG for Criminal Investigation of Abortionist Hodari


 
LANSING, Mich. - Operation Rescue has filed formal complaints against abortionist Alberto Hodari with the Michigan Attorney General's office and with the Michigan Department of Community Health, asking for investigations in to criminal misconduct in the alleged forced abortion of Caitlin Bruce last year.
 
Ms. Bruce filed a civil suit against Hodari in June. In her suit, she says she withdrew her consent for an abortion after seeing her baby on an ultrasound. She accuses Hodari and his assistant of holding her down and covering her mouth to muffle her screams while Hodari viciously forced an abortion upon her.
 
"We have filed the appropriate complaints to insure that the correct authorities are also investigating possible criminal charges and causes for discipline against Hodari's medical license," said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman.
 
Judy Climer, director of Flint Right to Life, has also filed a separate, similar complaint with the Michigan Attorney General.
 
Bruce never filed her own criminal complaint because "she was young and knew it wouldn't bring her baby back," according to a story that appeared Sunday in the Flint Journal.
 
"While these complaints are too late to help Ms. Bruce, they may serve to prevent this horror from being inflicted upon other women," said Newman. "In fact, evidence shows that Hodari has likely forced abortions on women for at least two decades."
 
The Flint Journal article indicated that an abortion clinic employee present during Bruce's abortion said in a statement that was filed with the suit that Hodari told Bruce that he would not do her abortion and was sending her home, but instead forced the abortion on her. He then grinned as he completed the abortion.
 
Another woman recently told of a similar experience with Hodari in 1988. Jennifer McCoy never considered abortion and had been taken to Hodari's clinic at age 16 under the pretence of receiving a routine obstetrical examination. Hodari assured her that he was only examining her to determine how far along she was, when suddenly Jennifer felt the sharp pain of the abortion.
 
"These two accounts are far too similar to be a coincidence," said Newman. "Even though Hodari denies any wrongdoing, he has also made it clear that he believes abortionists have a 'license to lie.' We are convinced that he lied to Mrs. McCoy, he lied to Ms. Bruce, and now he's lying about his culpability in these horrific crimes. Hodari's behavior is that of a maniac that has likely been abusing women for at least 20 years. It is time that the legal system brings his reign of terror to an end."

Contact: Troy Newman, Cheryl Sullenger
Source: Operation Rescue
Publish Date: November 30, 2009
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Pro-lifers reach protesting settlement

Pro-lifers reach protesting settlement



Pro-life counselors and demonstrators have settled their disagreement with Aurora, an Illinois city, concerning pro-life protests at the city's Planned Parenthood facility.
 
Picketing began with the construction of what became the second-largest Planned Parenthood abortion facility in the U.S. Pro-Life Action League spokesman Eric Scheidler tells OneNewsNow they ran into a serious snag during the protest.
 
"From the very first hour, we had trouble with the police," Scheidler explains. "The police chief at the time came over and was throwing his weight around and really made me feel a sense of hostility from the city, and we were getting contradictory orders right from the get-go." The pro-life advocate says law enforcement officers uttered conflicting instructions like, "You can't stand on the sidewalk; you have to stand on the grass; you can't stand on the grass; you can have signs; you can't have signs; you have to keep moving; you can stand still."
 
It became increasingly apparent to Scheidler that the group of pro-lifers had to fight for their rights.
 
"We filed a lawsuit early on to secure our rights with the city of Aurora," he accounts. "And as city officials realized that they had a problem on their hands because they had not been handling our protests appropriately with respect for our rights, they asked if we would try to come to some kind of settlement."
 
A settlement was reached, and all parties are now on the same frequency as protesters' rights are securely protected when speaking out against abortion facilities. In return, the pro-life group has agreed to a number of provisions and plans to drop its federal lawsuit against Aurora. Demonstrators are no longer being harassed, and this agreement ends the two-year dispute between the city and pro-life advocates.

Contact: Charlie Butts
Source: OneNewsNow
Publish Date: November 26, 2009
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Planned Parenthood pauses personhood effort

Planned Parenthood pauses personhood effort

Pro-life forces are preparing for a court battle to decide whether voters can decide on a Personhood amendment in Missouri.
 
The measure would declare that a human is a person at the biological beginning of life. Personhood Missouri went through all the obstacles in order to launch a petition drive and get a slot on a future election ballot. Personhood Missouri spokesman Dr. Gregory Thompson tells OneNewsNow that a lawsuit has brought the effort to a halt.
 
"Planned Parenthood is the number-one murderer of babies in our country and is being represented by the ACLU, which takes on every perversion that's against God, family and country," the spokesman reports. "They're coming against the secretary of state and the state auditor because they don't like the language of the ballot title."
 
Thompson says Planned Parenthood wants to manipulate and step on the right the people of Missouri have to vote on the issue.
 
"They make hundreds of millions of dollars off of the taxpayers and they're using some of that very money to sue the state to keep us from our constitutional rights of being able to address grievances and [being] able to voice what we decide is best for our families and our nation," Thompson contends.
 
If the election were held and Planned Parenthood lost, the end result, according to Thompson, would take away abortion, which is the clinic's greatest financial resource.

Contact: Charlie Butts
Source: OneNewsNow
Publish Date: November 27, 2009
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Pro-life conference sells out months early

Pro-life conference sells out months early


Pro-life students standing in front
of a Planned Parenthood clinic

Washington D.C. - The National Conference of Students for Life of America, scheduled to be held on Jan 23, 2010, has already sold out.

"I was amazed to see our national conference sell out so quickly this year. It is a true reflection of what my staff has been witnessing on college campuses for the past several months," Kristan Hawkins, the Executive Director of Students for Life of America, told CNA.

The conference will be an opportunity for students across the U.S. to receive training on how to be effective advocates for life, be educated on all of the current issues affecting the pro-life movement, and meet and network with other pro-life students from across the country. It will be held at the Catholic University of America on January 23, the day after the March for Life in Washington, D.C.

"Pro-life students are tired of the some old politics as usual in Washington, D.C. and on their campuses. They are activating like never before to provide resources to women facing unplanned pregnancies in their communities and are standing up to the culture of death policies of Congress and the current presidential administration," Hawkins added.

The conference's website assures readers that next year's conference will be held in a larger venue. But for the 778 participants lucky enough to be registered, the day itself  will feature talks on "Knowing Your Rights on Campus" and "How Abortion Affects Real Women and Men."

The afternoon will host a number of  breakout sessions aimed at helping students become better and more effective ambassadors to their campuses. The sessions will discuss a variety of topics ranging from stem cell research and bio-ethical reform to sidewalk counseling and breaking through apathy on their campuses.

Click here for more information on the conference and the host organization.

Source: CNA
Publish Date: November 28, 2009
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NEWS SHORTS FOR MONDAY

NEWS SHORTS FOR MONDAY
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County Judge in Illinois Delays Parental Notification Regulation



Enforcement of a parental notification law for minors seeking an abortion in Illinois remains on hold, probably until sometime early next year. During a Nov. 19 hearing, a Cook County Circuit Court judge sustained a temporary restraining order against enforcement despite the arguments of three attorneys from the Thomas More Society, an anti-abortion, nonprofit law firm, who support the law. The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, Hope Clinic for Women and Dr. Allison Cowett of the clinic were granted a temporary restraining order earlier in November against the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.
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Researchers seek to prevent unborn deaths in car crashes



Ford Motor-funded research at Virginia Tech and Wake Forest universities is near completion on mathematical models that measure how crash forces affect pregnant women and fetuses.

States are not required to report fetal deaths in data sent to the federal fatal accident system -- some do, and some don't. But researcher Stefan Duma of Virginia Tech says reliable studies show from 300 to 1,000 fetal deaths because of car accidents each year.

Duma says the fatality rate of unborn babies in crashes is about four times the rate for infants to 4-year-olds....

Duma says the mathematical models are a step in the process and that the auto industry could be 15 years away from new technology to help protect fetuses.
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Baby Gabriel - No one should be allowed to decide that an innocent life is not worth saving



KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed an emergency motion in court Monday to save the life of nine-month-old Gabriel Palmer. East Tennessee Children's Hospital says it may abandon his medical care and thus cause his death even though the child is stable and a doctor says he could live for a long time.

The hospital did not change course after a letter sent Friday by an ADF-cooperating attorney on behalf of Baby Gabriel's mother which urged hospital officials to continue his medical treatment. Hospital staff told Catherine Palmer that they will no longer provide medical care for her baby despite her objections. The boy is on a respirator and medications to treat pulmonary vascular problems he developed after procedures that the hospital performed on him in October.
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Where Are the Pro-Choicers to Defend the African American Teen Who Says She Suffered a Forced Abortion, Asks Dr. Alveda King



ATLANTA - Dr. Alveda King, Pastoral Associate of Priests for Life, reacted today to the case of an African American teenager who is suing a Michigan doctor for an alleged forced abortion.

"I can't help but notice that no so called 'pro-choice' leaders are rushing to the aid of a black Michigan teenager who says she was held down on an operating table while an abortionist took her baby without consent," said Dr. King.  "The silence of the pro-abortion 'champions' is deafening, but the silence of the lambs slaughtered in the clinics is heart wrenching.  Once again, it's clear that the abortion lobby supports only one choice."
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Swim Coach Impregnated 14-year-old Girl who then Murdered Baby by Abortion



A former swim coach who pleaded no contest to felony child molestation impregnated one of his victims when she was 14 years old and was investigated in two other areas before he finally was charged in San Jose this spring. The girl, who lived in the East Bay, had an abortion and never told anyone until she was interviewed by police earlier this year as part of the case here, according to court documents released Thursday. Andrew King, 61, former head coach at San Jose Aquatics, who often worked with elite swimmers hoping to make the Olympics, remains in jail in lieu of $3 million bail. He awaits sentencing on charges that could keep him in prison for the rest of his life.
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Abortion Drug May Cause Complications



20 Percent of NZ Schoolgirls using RU486 Abortion Drug may face Complications: Parents needn't be told. A new study in Finland published in the October issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology, has found that 20 percent of women using the abortion drug RU486 suffer at least one significant complication. Nearly 4 percent reported two or more complications. NZ parents should be concerned about this Finnish study, says Catherine Gillies, Voice for Life national president. Family Planning in Hamilton has applied to the Abortion Supervisory Committee for a license to provide RU486 medical abortions at their clinic.
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