Disclaimer: The linked items below or the websites at which they are located do not necessarily represent the views of The Illinois Federation for Right to Life. They are presented only for your information.
IRS Demands that Coalition for Life of Iowa Swear It Will Not Oppose Planned Parenthood
Thomas More Society Attorneys Request that IRS Stop the Harassment and Violation of Coalition's Constitutional Rights to Prayer and Legal Protests Outside Planned Parenthood
Today, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was put on notice that the Thomas More Society in Chicago stands ready to defend the Coalition for Life of Iowa against the prejudicial questioning by the IRS, which has delayed granting tax exemption to the non-profit religious organization. After questioning the "educational" nature of the Coalition's materials, prayer meetings, talks and other Pro-Life activities, the IRS stated that it would not grant tax exemption until the Coalition swore to limit its "picketing" and "protesting" of Planned Parenthood.
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Alabama Attorney General Calls Undercover Video of Planned Parenthood Ignoring Statutory Rape 'Extremely Troubling', Seeks Investigation
Alabama Attorney General Troy King has called a new undercover video released last week showing Planned Parenthood of Alabama apparently breaking state mandatory reporting laws for sexual abuse "extremely troubling" and requested the full recordings. The student-led nonprofit responsible for the recordings, Live Action, immediately sent the full footage, which the Attorney General's office received yesterday.
The video shows a Planned Parenthood staffer, identified as "Tanisha," telling a purportedly 14-year-old girl with a 31-year-old "boyfriend" that Planned Parenthood "does sometimes bend the rules a little bit" when it comes to reporting statutory rape to state authorities. Despite strong parental consent laws in Alabama, "Tanisha" also explains that a person with the "same last name" as the 14-year-old would suffice as a guardian or parent to sign off for the minor's abortion. In an interview last week, King said, "If that tape is an accurate depiction of what's happening, that's very troubling," and "if that video is true and accurate and correct, it's extremely troubling from a legal and moral point of view."
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ACLU Challenges Arizona Over Sheriff Preventing Inmates' Abortions
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is again asking an Arizona court to stop Maricopa County Sheriff Joseph Arpaio from preventing female inmates from accessing abortion services. A 2005 lawsuit struck down the Sheriff's policy of prohibiting jail officials from transporting a prisoner for an abortion without a court order. However, Arpaio allegedly began requiring women to pre-pay for security and transportation costs associated with acquiring an abortion.
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Wisconsin Gov. Signs Bill to Expand Birth Control, Chemically Induced Abortions 'At Taxpayer Expense'
Not many people seem to have noticed yet, but buried among the new measures signed into law last week as part of Gov. Jim Doyle's budget is a trio of family planning initiatives that are expected to expand access to birth control and contraceptive education in Wisconsin. Advocates who had fought for previous versions of the controversial measures over the past years, only to see them get beat back repeatedly by the Republican-controlled Legislature, are thrilled at the relative ease with which the measures passed this year.
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Pro-life pamphlet series provides plain talk in defense of life
The pro-life group Human Life International (HLI) has introduced a new series of online pamphlets titled Pro-Life Talking Points (PLTP) addressing claims about the necessity of abortion, the effect of welfare on the abortion rate, and the distorted claims surrounding abortion-related violence and the promotion of condom use.
PLTP titles also discuss the beginning of human life and the issue of men and abortion.
"From fertilization to natural death, there exists an unbroken and smooth continuum of human development during which the person needs only oxygen, water, and nutrients to live and develop physically," says HLI's pamphlet on fetal development.
Click here to view or download the pamphlet series.
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Dems' Health Care Reform Plans Would Include Abortion Coverage, Washington Times Opinion Piece States
As lawmakers work to pass health reform legislation, "few are talking about" the "essential question" of whether "health reform will force taxpayers to pay for abortions for the first time in 30 years," Family Research Council President Tony Perkins writes in a Washington Times opinion piece. According to Perkins, "the short answer is yes" because there is no "explicit provision" in any Democratic health plan that would "[p]revent taxpayer funding of abortions as part of the health care benefit Congress is considering"; avert "delays in health care services that result in the death of the patient waiting for care"; or allow health care providers "to refuse to participate in health care-related action that violates their conscience." Perkins continues that the House's reform proposal would provide federal coverage for "'family planning,' the well-worn buzz word that includes abortion unless specified to the contrary." He adds that "it would be naive to assume, unless there is an explicit prohibition in the bill, that [HHS] Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will not use her discretion to fund abortions with taxpayers' money." Perkins also writes that the Democratic reform plans, "in short, ... attempt to be silent on the key question of whether or not to allow the U.S. government to fund abortions with taxpayers' money," and also give the HHS secretary "the power to allow taxpayer-funded abortions."
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Abortion Has Greater Impact on Parenting than Other Forms of Pregnancy Loss, New Review Finds
A new review of studies examining various types of prenatal loss and the effects on subsequent parenting has concluded that abortion may be "particularly damaging to the parenting process."
The article, published in Current Women's Health Reviews, looks at already published studies on miscarriage, induced abortion and adoption. The author, Priscilla Coleman of Bowling Green State University, focuses on psychological reactions to these various types of loss and discusses how they might affect a mother's relationship with children born after the pregnancy loss.
It is now known that women usually begin feeling maternal attachment in the early stages of pregnancy. The paper notes that despite the increased responsibilities and stress involved in raising children, "numerous studies have documented positive psychological characteristics associated with motherhood including increases in life satisfaction, self-esteem, empathy, restraint, flexibility and resourcefulness in coping, and assertiveness." Losing a child before or at birth, for any reason, however, "can be a profound source of suffering."
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Commentary: How the WHO Skewed Maternal Mortality Data to Advance Abortion Agenda
In its recently released annual report on the state of global health, the World Health Organization (WHO) presents statistics that misleadingly appear to place maternal mortality on par with other global killers like malaria and HIV/ AIDS. This new approach contradicts other WHO reports where maternal mortality does not even make the top ten of global killers, ranking somewhere lower than car accident fatalities.
The confusion first arises in the second table of the new report, which provides data about mortality due to maternal causes, HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and injuries. All of these causes of death, except maternal mortality, are among the top ten causes of death globally; yet maternal mortality is shown in the same statistics table, as if it were comparable to the others.
Even more confusing to the casual reader is that the statistics in the table for maternal mortality actually appear to be a greater cause of death than the others. The table shows that maternal mortality has a "mortality rate" of 400 while coronary heart disease, considered the number one killer in the world, has a mortality rate of 301. While the WHO itself says maternal mortality kills 536,000 per year and coronary heart disease kills 7.2 million, this seeming parity is achieved by showing maternal mortality numbers as a function of total live births while the others are shown as a function of total population - a mixing of apples and oranges.
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