The birth rate in the United States continues to fall -- and that could have an adverse effect on the future of the country.
The birth rate last year dropped to the lowest level in history in the United States, with the heaviest drop among immigrants. The rate dropped eight percent, and Elizabeth Crnkovich of the Population Research Institute discusses the significance of that.
"We already dropped below replacement level," points out the Institute's media coordinator. "And when a country's fertility drops below replacement, the future generations suffer more and more and it's harder and harder for them to support the economy -- and so the economy would keep declining."
According to Crnkovich, that also impacts the aging part of the population.
"The young generations, they're also the ones paying the Social Security taxes," she explains. "And if you don't have as many young people as old people, then they're paying way more than they would need to support their elders."
The drop in the birth rate is not just because many families are opting for fewer children. Other factors include abortion, which has a major influence, as well as the state of the economy, which influences how many children people will have.
Contact: Charlie Butts
Source: OneNewsNow.com
CHOICES4LIFE, founded February 2012 is devoted to bringing awareness to the rape conception issue and has formed a panel addressing the issues of rape pregnancy. This powerful team speaks personally on every aspect of this issue in a private or public forum. One woman speaks on regretting aborting her baby, another was pregnant by her father at twelve, another was conceived in incest, still another mother raised her child and Juda Myers, founder of CHOICES4LIFE was conceived in an eight man gang rape. No longer does society have to speculate what mothers and children of rape conception think or feel. They can hear it straight from the victims.
CHOICES4LIFE, also reaches out to mothers struggling with society's stigma. Mothers who want their babies face rejection. CHOICES4LIFE offers emotional and financial support. Currently pregnant by rape a young woman expresses joy that this organization exists. Contemplating adoption and asked why she said, 'Finances.' CHOICES4LIFE is raising funds to give her a hand up so that she can find a job and raise her much loved baby boy - because no one should have to lose their child for lack of finances, especially in a temporary situation.
When threatened by her rapist, one woman was relocated to a safe place. Rent and food are some of the other ways CHOICES4LIFE has helped mothers. For rape conceived children struggling with value, Juda Myers offers logic as well as a higher purpose. "There's no difference between a human conceived in rape and one conceived in love. We are all created in God's image. You certainly can't pick us out of a crowd. For 48 years I didn't know I was rape conceived but when I found out it was devastating. I almost believed society. But I am no different than any other human."
Myers, having spoken to hundreds of mothers pregnant by rape, knows these women love their babies. Their babies are now doctors, lawyers, teachers, pastors, musicians, chemists, and professors, just like any other child.
Myers, international speaker also hosts a blog talk radio show. She's interviewed over 20 persons with powerful rape conception stories. Some spoke of being suicidal after aborting. Myers believes education will help both the victims and society.
Contact: Juda Myers
Source: CHOICES4LIFE
The United Nations Foundation is bashing American pro-lifers.
The U.N. has a website section called Reality Check, which includes a blog by Jessica Mason Pieklo praising the re-election of President Obama because now Attorney General Eric Holder can continue to prosecute what the author refers to as violent attacks by pro-lifers.
"Holder has been a consistent target of the radical right as DOJ has turned closer attention to domestic terrorism and hate crimes enforcement," writes Pieklo. "And if this last election cycle showed us anything, it's that anti-choice radicals feel both empowered and threatened, which is a dangerous combination for [abortion] providers and women who need reproductive health care."
Dana Cody, head of the Napa, California-based Life Legal Defense Foundation, says Pieklo's statements are far from reality.
"If she would do her homework instead of pandering to the abortion lobby, she'd find out that Eric Holder's record is dismal," Cody tells OneNewsNow. "For practically everybody that he's prosecuted, the evidence shows that they weren't being violent."
Pieklo cites National Abortion Federation statistics to justify prosecution, but if one goes to that organization's training resource guide, it can be seen that the list of alleged "violent activities" is greatly exaggerated.
"It characterizes things like holding signs and handing out leaflets and participating in boycotts and huge posters -- these are their instances of unlawful violent conduct," Cody explains. "I mean, it's ridiculous."
Cody says that means the government would actually like to see the free speech and civil rights of peaceful pro-lifers suppressed.
In one case in Florida, prosecuted by Holder's Department of Justice, the judge scolded federal prosecutors for taking the case to court in the first place and even awarded the pro-life demonstrator damages. There was a similar case in Denver.
Contact: Charlie Butts
Source: OneNewsNow.com
Students for Life of America announced today that it will honor Father Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, with its 2013 Defender of Life award.
The award will be bestowed Jan. 26 during SFLA's annual National Youth Conference in Bethesda, Md.
"Throughout Father Frank's ministry he has been a leader, a visionary, and a courageously outspoken voice for the preborn," the organization said in a statement announcing the award. "His ground-breaking work exposing the true horrors of abortion through images of the aborted child, his countless hours standing and praying outside of abortion facilities offering women in crisis real help, and his great compassion for the women and men left with the heartache of abortion have inspired a generation to enter into the pro-life movement."
Father Pavone has been the National Director of Priests for Life since 1993. He is also the president of the National Pro-Life Religious Council. The New York native was ordained by Cardinal John J. O'Connor in 1988. After serving five years in parish ministry, the Cardinal released him to do pro-life ministry full-time. He has been involved in the pro-life movement since he was a teenager and attended his first March for Life in D.C.
"I am so honored and so happy to be receiving this award," Father Pavone said. "We know that youth are not only the future of the pro-life movement, they are vital to its work right now. I have met so many of the Students for Life across America, and they inspire me! Priests for Life and our Youth Outreach Director Bryan Kemper have been working closely with Students for Life and we expect this partnership to grow and flourish."
Contact: Leslie Palma
Source: Priests for Life
Marie Freyre was born with cerebral palsy and fluid surrounding her brain. She suffered from life-threatening seizures. [Family photo courtesy of Miami Herald]
Even after Marie Freyre died alone in a nursing home 250 miles from the family in North Tampa that loved her, Marie's mother had to fight to bring her home.
In March 2011, state child protection investigators took 14-year-old Marie from her mother, Doris Freyre, claiming Doris' own disabilities made it almost impossible for her to care for Marie, who suffered from seizures and severe cerebral palsy. But a Tampa judge signed an order that Marie be returned to her mother, with in-home nursing care around the clock.
Florida health care administrators refused to pay for it, although in-home care can be demonstrably cheaper than care in an institution. Child welfare workers ignored the order completely.
Two months later, Marie was strapped into an ambulance for a five-hour trip to a Miami Gardens nursing home, as her mother begged futilely to go with her.
Marie died 12 hours after she arrived.
"Since the state of Florida took custody of my daughter, I would like the state of Florida to bring me back my daughter," Freyre, 59, said at a May 9 court hearing, 12 days after her daughter died.
"They kidnapped my daughter. She was murdered," said Freyre. "And I want my daughter back."
The last days of Marie Freyre, chronicled in hundreds of pages of records reviewed by the Miami Herald, are a story of death by bureaucratic callousness and medical neglect. The episode sheds significant light on an ongoing dispute between Florida health care regulators and the U.S. Department of Justice. Though the state claims that the parents of severely disabled and medically fragile children have "choice" over where their children live and receive care, federal civil rights lawyers say Florida, by dint of a rigged funding system, has "systematically" force-fed sick children into nursing homes meant to care for adults — in violation of federal laws that prohibit discrimination against disabled people.
Civil rights lawyers are asking the state to allow a federal judge to oversee Florida's Medicaid program, which insures needy and disabled people. It pays as much as $506 a day to put a child like Marie in a nursing home, but refuses to cover lesser or similar amounts for in-home care.
Late Friday, state health regulators wrote their final letter to the Justice Department in response to a deadline. The state, they wrote, "is not in violation of any federal law" governing the medical care delivered to needy Floridians, and cannot "agree to the demand … that a federal court take over the management of Florida's Medicaid service-delivery system."
Without doubt, Marie Freyre was a fragile, sickly child. Born with cerebral palsy and fluid surrounding her brain, Marie had a shunt in her skull to drain the fluid and suffered from life-threatening seizures. One of her hips was permanently displaced, causing sometimes excruciating pain. Marie could smile, though she could not speak.
Doris Freyre — who worked at a family store in Puerto Rico before becoming disabled herself— cared for her daughter well for 14 years, and Marie had suffered no seizures in recent years, records show.
"Doris spent every day of 14 years of her life giving everything she had to Marie, guaranteeing that Marie lived as healthy and wonderful a life as God allowed her," said the family's Tampa lawyer, Peter Brudny.
But in March 2011, one of the family's in-home nurses reported several concerns about Doris Freyre's parenting of Marie to the Department of Children and Families, setting in motion a disastrous chain of events. Hillsborough Circuit Judge Vivian Corvo began a hearing on the case on March 30, 2011, by praising Freyre for her care of her daughter.
Corvo wanted to help Freyre — not punish her. The greatest challenge was Freyre's own health: Freyre suffers from six herniated discs, as well as carpal tunnel syndrome in her wrists.
"The doctor told me to do surgery," Freyre said in court. "I told him no, because I have to take care of my daughter."
Freyre had asked the Agency for Health Care Administration to provide her with 24-hour nursing aides. As it stood, Freyre had a gap between midnight and 7 a.m. where she needed help to reposition Marie and change her diapers. "It's not easy," Freyre told the judge. "I'm human."
But AHCA administrators refused to pay for the additional hours. Corvo wanted to know why. "This is a nonverbal child, with all of these issues," the judge said. "Why would this mother not qualify for 24-hour care?"
From the beginning, state child protection administrators wanted to send Marie to a nursing home. Freyre's attorney suggested such a move could kill her.
"With this type of child, when you institutionalize them," attorney Steve Zucker said, "they never do well. And I'm very concerned."
"Can the (state) do better than this?" he asked the judge.
At the end of the hearing, Corvo required child welfare administrators to do better. She wrote an order that Marie be returned to her mother, with additional nursing care through the night.
It was an order the state simply ignored.
Records show state child welfare workers disregarded Corvo's order that Hillsborough Kids, which was under contract with the DCF, pay for the extra nursing hours while caseworkers looked into additional dollars from Medicaid.
Two weeks later, the state Attorney General's Office and Hillsborough Kids appeared before a different judge, Emily Peacock. AHCA, which runs Medicaid, had refused again to pay for 24-hour care, a lawyer said. With no permanent solution in sight, the state said, a nursing home was the only option.
"The best placement for the child right now is a … nursing home where she can get that 24-hour supervision and care that she needs," said Angeline Attila, an assistant attorney general.
The new judge, who never asked why the state ignored a prior judge's order, agreed — though she granted Freyre the right to visit with her daughter all she wanted. But even that kindness proved meaningless.
A DCF review of Marie's death said the only nursing home willing to take her was Florida Club Care Center in Miami Gardens.
At first, the state Attorney General's Office, which was representing Hillsborough Kids, asked that the long trip be delayed so lawyers could seek permission from a judge to move Marie.
But they were under significant pressure to get Marie out of Tampa General Hospital, where she was placed after child protection workers took her into state care. Records show the hospital complained bitterly that it was losing money on her care. A hospital social worker, records say, "was adamant about the child leaving the hospital today."
So, at 11:30 a.m. April 25, 2011, workers at Tampa General Hospital loaded the teen onto a stretcher in a private ambulance — as her mother and grandfather begged them to stop. Even as caseworkers were packing Marie's belongings, her grandfather was frantically filing hand-written emergency motions in court to delay the trip, Brudny said.
Doris Freyre, case notes say, "stated that no one knows my child like me," and that Marie's dislocated hip would cause her great pain if she were strapped to a stretcher for hours. She added: "If something happens to my daughter I am holding all of you responsible for it."
Freyre had no car — and the private ambulance refused to allow her to join Marie — so Marie made the trip to Miami-Dade County alone.
Records show the two ambulance workers refused to take Marie's seizure drugs with them; under the company's policy, they were not allowed to administer medications in any case. According to a report detailing Tampa General Hospital's care of Marie, the hospital neglected to ensure she was properly hydrated before she left. During her five-hour ambulance ride, she was given no water or food.
A September 2011 investigation by AHCA of how Tampa General discharged Marie to the nursing home faulted the hospital for a number of violations, including failing to ensure the child had enough fluids and was properly medicated. The hospital's lack of "concern" for Marie, the report said, left her "in danger."
The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services placed the hospital under the status of "Immediate Jeopardy" following the review, the highest penalty under federal health regulations, said an AHCA spokeswoman. The following October, the federal agency removed the designation after Tampa General implemented a corrective action plan. AHCA also is seeking to fine the hospital $5,000 in the case, and a hearing is scheduled for Jan. 14.
Marie arrived in Miami Gardens the way she left Tampa: screaming. AHCA records for the next 12 hours mention only four notations in the nursing home file, and two of them document Marie "screaming."
By 5:40 a.m. April 27, 2011, Marie was described as having "labored" breathing. Five minutes later, she was unresponsive. The AHCA investigation concluded she had been given none of her life-sustaining anti-seizure drugs, required three times each day.
Marie was pronounced dead at 6:54 a.m. Cause of death: heart attack.
Two weeks later, on May 9, 2011, Doris Freyre appeared one last time before a judge in Tampa — Peacock, who declared herself "terribly sorry" for Freyre's loss.
"I don't accept your excuse," the mother replied. Freyre said she was in court to get her daughter's body back from the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner's Office. With no trust left for state officials, Freyre was seeking a private autopsy.
"It's the mother's position that the (state) had the child removed without proper authorization," said her attorney, Laguerra Champagne. "She objected to the child being physically removed from Hillsborough County and transported to Miami. No court hearing was held and, unfortunately, we're here today, dealing with a dead child instead of a living child."
Attila, the prosecutor who, weeks earlier, had fought so hard to get Marie to the nursing home, no longer wanted to discuss the matter. She told Peacock that a child welfare judge had no "jurisdiction" over a dead child and prosecutors would file a court motion saying so.
"Not to seem insensitive; I understand the mother is quite frustrated and I understand that she's grieving," Attila said, "but the information that she's providing to the court is moot at this point in time."
Despite Attila's protestations, Freyre had the last word.
"I had her for 14 years — cared (for) and loved her," Freyre said. "And you have her … in prison, in the hospital, without going out in the sun, without being with other people, in prison.
"Then, in (12) hours, you took her down to Miami and she died," Freyre added. "And I want the truth of this to come out. I want justice."
Marie's body remained in storage for nine months while the medical examiner's office completed its autopsy, and Freyre held a memorial with no body.
In the end, Marie's body was cremated in Tampa. Her ashes then were sent to Puerto Rico for a private family funeral.
Contact: Carol Marbin Miller
Source: Miami Herald/Illinois Review
"In its quest to move abortions into rural Wisconsin, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin is challenging Wisconsin's new law which requires that a woman seeking an RU 486 abortion be seen 'in person' by the individual performing the abortion and that in-person administration of the RU 486 abortion pill take place," stated Barbara Lyons, Executive Director of Wisconsin Right to Life. "Planned Parenthood would rather expand its abortion empire by having women talk to an abortionist over a web cam. This is not good medicine and not good protection for women."
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), and the National Abortion Federation (NAF) guidelines for administration of RU 486 abortions call for a physical exam as step one prior to obtaining this type of abortion. The guidelines also recommend follow-up after 14 days to the abortion provider to ensure that the abortion is complete.
The FDA reports 14 maternal deaths and over 2,200 adverse incidents from use of RU 486 since 2000. Adverse incidents include 612 hospitalizations, 58 ectopic pregnancies, 339 blood transfusions, and 256 cases of infection.
"The two-drug RU 486 abortion process is neither simple nor without significant risk to women. The least we can do, as the State of Wisconsin has done, is to require that the woman be seen in person before these dangerous drugs are administered. We are confident that this law is clear in its intent and will be upheld," continued Lyons.
Source: ProLifeBlogs
There has been much talk recently in "reproductive rights" circles about the over-the-counter (OTC) status of emergency contraceptives (EC's) and hormonal contraceptives, in general. Much of the debate has centered on a December 2011 decision by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius not to extend OTC status to Plan B One-Step, an emergency contraceptive, to girls less than 17 years of age. In defense of her decision, Secretary Sebelius stated, "the data provided as part of the actual use study and the label comprehension study are not sufficient to support making Plan B One-Step available to all girls 16 and younger, without talking to a health care professional."
Now, one year later, "reproductive rights" advocates such as RH Reality Check and Reproductive Health Technology Project are determined to push the Obama Administration for wider access to all emergency contraceptives to all women and girls of reproductive age, according to a Washington Times story. These advocates see prescriptions as "barriers to care" and claim that emergency contraceptives have been proven safe enough "to be on the shelf — right between the condoms and the pregnancy-test kits." (See President of Reproductive Health Technology Project Kirsten Moore's statement).
Even the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has recommended that prescription-only age restrictions for EC's be removed "to create true over the counter access to emergency contraception for all women." (Committee Opinion Number 542, November 2012, Committee on Health Care for Underserved Women). In their committee report, ACOG claims that making emergency contraception easily available to teens will not increase the incidence of risky sexual behavior or unintended pregnancy, and that physical examination is not needed prior to the prescription of contraceptives. However, the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) refutes ACOG's findings.
AAPLOG addressed myriad problems with the decision to allow EC's over the counter. Most significantly, AAPLOG noted in a news release that abortion rates and unintended pregnancy rates in places with OTC status for EC's has not decreased (and, in fact, has increased in the UK), and since women will not need to be seen by a doctor before obtaining emergency contraceptives, they will bypass screening for STDs that they would normally receive at their doctor visits. AAPLOG also emphasizes the danger of easy access to EC's for male sexual predators who wish to cover up their abuse.
Likewise, the American College of Pediatricians notes in its December 3, 2012 press release that there is no association between wider access to emergency contraceptives and lower incidence of unintended pregnancy, and in fact, access to EC's is associated with a increased incidence of STD's. The American College of Pediatricians also says that despite arguments to the contrary, EC's are related to increased sexual activity among minors, "which is a risk factor for depression and suicide, poor school performance, more lifetime sexual partners, and an increased divorce rate."*
The American College of Pediatricians emphasizes the fact that the adolescent brain has not reached full maturity — a fact to which any parent or school teacher can attest — and, thus, teens need guidance in decision-making from parents. The College recommends the more responsible, common sense position that doctors "encourage good adolescent-parental communication, teach adolescent patients the benefits of delaying sexual activity until marriage, and teach them how to avoid premature/promiscuous consensual sex and situations resulting in coerced sex."
Protecting young women should be our foremost concern. Advocates of increased access to EC's for teens want to push children into making serious, adult decisions in the name of "removing barriers." As adults, it is our job to protect, not to endanger, children. If even a few of the concerns mentioned in relation to providing Plan B and other EC's over the counter are valid, then the proposal to provide them to all girls of reproductive age should be suspended indefinitely.
Contact: Anna Higgins
Source: FRCBlog
Religious liberty advocates are hailing the end of a seven-year legal battle over the required provision of abortion drugs in Illinois pharmacies as a major triumph for conscience rights.
"This decision is a great victory for religious freedom," said Mark Rienzi, senior counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which has represented the pharmacists in the case for several years.
"The government shouldn't kick business owners out of the market just because it dislikes their religious beliefs," he said in a statement.
"Over seven years of litigation, there was never a shred of proof that a religious objection at a pharmacy harmed anyone," Rienzi explained. "These pharmacists do a wonderful job serving their communities, and the state's decision not to appeal lets them get back to that important work."
On Dec. 10, the Illinois Attorney General announced that it would not appeal a court decision upholding the conscience rights of pharmacists against a state mandate requiring the dispensation of abortion-inducing drugs.
After seven years in court, the decision secures a victory for two Illinois pharmacists and the pharmacies they run.
The case stems from a 2005 executive rule issued by then-Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich to require all pharmacists and pharmacies in the state to dispense Plan B, also known as the "morning after pill."
While it is commonly called "emergency contraception," the drug can cause an early abortion by ending the life of a newly created human embryo.
Pharmacists who did not comply with the rule were threatened with fines and the loss of professional licenses.
The governor did not allow a religious exemption to the rule, saying that pharmacists who were morally opposed to the drug should find a different profession.
Several pharmacists and pharmacies that morally object to cooperating in the destruction of human life filed a lawsuit challenging the rule.
The suit argued that the rule violated state religious liberty laws, health care conscience protections and the religious freedom guarantees in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
It charged that the rule unfairly discriminated against health care professionals seeking to contribute to society according to their principles by forcing them to choose between their constitutionally protected rights and their livelihood.
In April 2011, an Illinois trial court granted a permanent injunction blocking the rule from applying to the pharmacists. The court found no evidence that anyone had been harmed by a pharmacist's religious objections to providing the drugs. It also noted that the law allowed pharmacies to refuse to sell drugs for many other business reasons, but not religious ones.
A state appellate court affirmed the injunction in September 2012, finding that the rule amounted to "discrimination in licensing" against those with religious objections to early abortion drugs.
Dr. Charmaine Yoest, president and CEO of Americans United for Life, hailed the decision as "a tremendous victory."
Americans United for Life, which filed the original lawsuit in the case, noted that many individuals throughout the country face similar dilemmas due the Obama administration's recent federal mandate requiring employers to offer health insurance plans covering contraception, sterilization and early abortion drugs.
Yoest said that the victory in Illinois "has dramatic implications for all people of faith who object to being forced to throw aside their convictions to support an anti-life agenda."
Source: CNA
For the first time a federal appeals court has issued an order against the Obama administration's abortion/contraceptive mandate.
The one-page order Wednesday (Nov. 28) from a three-judge Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals panel prevents the government from forcing a Missouri business -- O'Brien Industrial Holdings, LLC -- to cover contraceptives and abortion-causing drugs in its employee health care plans as the appeals process is completed. The panel's temporary injunction came two months after a lower court tossed out the lawsuit.
It marks the fourth time this year that a federal court has issued an order or ruling against the mandate, which applies to businesses and religious organizations. There are about 40 cases nationwide seeking to overturn the mandate, which was implemented by the Department of Health and Human Services after President Obama signed the landmark health care bill into law.
The lawsuit by the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) says the mandate would force Frank O'Brien -- the business owner -- to violate his "religious beliefs and company policy." The mandate violates two federal laws as well as the First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom and free speech, the suit states. If the court does not intervene and O'Brien does not follow the mandate, he would face steep fines. O'Brien's company and its subsidiaries employ about 85 people.
"O'Brien is a Catholic who has the religious duty to conduct himself and his business in a manner consistent with the Catholic faith," ACLJ stated in an appeal to the Eighth Circuit. "Pursuant to these beliefs, O'Brien has 'established as company policy that [it] cannot pay for and provide coverage for contraceptives, sterilization, abortion or related education and counseling.'"
O'Brien's business operates a number of businesses that explore, mine and process refractory and ceramic raw materials, according to ACLJ.
"The order sends a message that the religious beliefs of employers must be respected by the government," said ACLJ attorney Francis Manion. "We have argued from the beginning that employers like Frank O'Brien must be able to operate their business in a manner consistent with their moral values, not the values of the government. We look forward to this case moving forward and securing the constitutional rights of our client."
The panel split 2-1 on the order, although all three judges were nominated by Republican presidents. The two justices in the majority were Raymond W. Gruender and Bobby E. Shepherd, each nominated by George W. Bush. Dissenting in the order was Morris Sheppard Arnold, who was nominated by George H.W. Bush.
The ACLJ suit involves a private business, but many of the 40 suits against the mandate involve religious organizations. Tyndale House Publishers, which publishes Bibles and Christian books, won in federal court in November when a judge issued a temporary injunction preventing it from being forced to follow the mandate.
Contact: Michael Foust
Source: Baptist Press
