NEWS SHORTS FOR MONDAY
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.
S.D. Judge Upholds 'Human Life' Provision Of Abortion Law, Rejects Other Mandates
U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier on Thursday upheld a provision in a 2005 South Dakota law that requires doctors to inform women seeking abortions that the procedure "will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being," the AP/Seattle Times reports. However, Schreier overturned disclosure provisions that abortion increases the likelihood of suicide and that the woman has an existing relationship with the fetus. The judge also ruled that physicians can provide more information than the language in the bill, such as that the phrase "human being" can be used in a biological and not ideological sense, according to the AP/Times.
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Obama could stop abortion confusion
President Obama, who denied two days in a row abortion will be federally funded under proposed health care reform, could easily clear up the controversy by endorsing efforts to exclude the procedure from such legislation, says Southern Baptist ethicist Richard Land.
In an Aug. 19 webcast call-in organized by left-leaning religious organizations, Obama said abortion would not be underwritten by the government in health care reform. Citing what he described as some "distortion[s]" about health care proposals, the president told listeners, "You've heard that this is all going to mean government funding of abortion. Not true. These are all fabrications...."
Major pro-life organizations responded quickly after Obama's Aug. 19 comments, saying the president's denial misrepresented current proposals. The bill (H.R. 3200) working its way through the House of Representatives explicitly permits a public option to fund elective abortions, they pointed out.
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Q&A: Abortion & the health care plan
On the same day this week that a leading pro-family group released a TV ad claiming the health care plan would lead to government-funded abortion, President Obama spoke to a group of mostly liberal religious groups and called such charges "fabrications."
So, who's right?
Following is a list of frequently asked questions, along with answers, about the controversy over abortion coverage in the health care plan...
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Republicans Have Offered Three Alternative Health Care Reform Bills
President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress -- while pushing their own health care overhauls -- have criticized Republicans as offering only opposition and no ideas for reform, but the GOP, despite the lack of media attention, has introduced three health care bills.
The three Republican bills total almost 400 pages and have been on the table since May and June.
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India welcomes more baby girls for first time
More girls were born in Delhi than boys last year for the first time, according to official figures, after parents were given cash bonuses of £125 for each new daughter as part of a drive to stamp out female infanticide.
Government officials cited the statistics as evidence that India is finally winning its war against the killing of unborn and baby girls, a practice estimated to account for as many as 50 million Indian women having gone “missing”, according to Unicef.
However, experts said that the improvement in Delhi was too sudden to be credible, and was likely to be the result of more families registering daughters to claim the cash benefits, rather than a genuine rise in the numbers of girls being born.
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None of This Stuff Works
Embryonic Stem Cell Research Five Years after Proposition 71
When the campaign for California’s 2004 Proposition 71 was underway, Californians were inundated with claims that stem cells taken from embryos were the magical key to curing any number of diseases and medical conditions. At the time MSNBC reported: “The passage of the measure — designed to get around the Bush administration’s restrictions on the funding of such research — will likely put California at the forefront of the field and dwarfs all current stem cell projects in the United States, whether privately or publicly financed.”
Those who opposed the destruction of human embryos for research, including the Catholic Church, were derided as being “anti-science.” But as advances in the treatment of diseases and medical conditions using adult stem cells multiply daily and the technical limitations of embryonic stem cells remain, it appears that the Church’s morally correct position was scientifically correct. These advances, well known to scientists, have not been given the attention in the mainstream media, although they are having to sit up and take notice. On March 31, 2009 Dr. Mehmet Oz shocked Oprah Winfrey, guest Michael J. Fox , and Oprah’s audience, by stating categorically that “the stem cell debate is dead” and that the future lay with adult stem cells.
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