Suit Filed in Case of New York Nurse Forced to Participate in Abortion

Suit Filed in Case of New York Nurse Forced to Participate in Abortion




The Alliance Defense Fund recently responded to a brief filed by Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York that seeks to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a Catholic nurse who was forced to participate in the abortion of a 22-week-old unborn child.

On August 10, attorneys for Mt. Sinai Hospital filed a brief claiming that Cathy Cenzon-DeCarlo, the Catholic nurse forced to participate in an abortion, has no right to sue.

The Alliance Defense Fund, in a suit filed on behalf of Cenzon-DeCarlo, is seeking to prosecute the hospital for violating the "Church Amendment" which "protects the right of conscience of pro-life health care workers employed by recipients of federal Health and Human Services funding."

According to the suit, Cathy Cenzon-DeCarlo was forced to participate in the abortion despite her protests and was told by the hospital it was an emergency procedure. Cenzon-DeCarlo later found out the procedure was deemed a "Category II," meaning the circumstances were not life-threatening to the mother.

She was threatened with charges of insubordination and patient abandonment if she did not go along with the abortion.

Subsequently, when she filed a complaint, the hospital cut her over-time hours and tried to force her to sign a document agreeing to take part in abortions in case of emergency.

Since the incident, Mrs. DeCarlo has said that she cannot sleep and has been having nightmares, requiring her to seek the assistance of a physician.

"It felt like a horror film unfolding," said Cenzon-DeCarlo in an interview with the New York Post.

The Church Amendment "provides that no recipient of federal health funds may discriminate in the employment of privileges of its health care personnel because of their religious objection to abortion."

However, according to Mount Sinai Hospital, the Church Amendment "does not grant individual litigants a private right of action."

In the motion to dismiss, attorneys for Mt. Sinai claimed, "There is simply no basis to infer a private right of action under the Church Amendment."

The ADF, though, responded to this brief by filing its own letter with the court. In it, ADF said, "The law contains no exception letting Mt. Sinai compel assistance based on their unbridled judgment that abortion is an 'emergency.' "

"Mount Sinai's actions are a quintessential example of discriminating in employment and privileges on condition that Mrs. DeCarlo violate her objection to abortion."

Further, the ADF directly addressed Mt. Sinai's claim that Cenzon-DeCarlo is not allowed to sue because the Hyde Amendment does not cover private litigation. The ADF argued that even though the Hyde Amendment did not directly address private litigation, the absence of such a mention has always been understood to thus allow a private right of action.

"The Church Amendment involves all of the factors that the Supreme Court has used to recognize implied private rights and remedies."

"Mount Sinai Hospital is multiplying its injustices against Nurse Cathy Cenzon-DeCarlo," said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman in an ADF press release.

"First it disregarded Cathy's conscience; now it argues she can't go to court to defend her rights.  Mount Sinai Hospital does not have the right to disregard federal law and then refuse to face the consequences of its actions."

ADF is seeking an injunction against the hospital to ensure that it does not attempt to cut Cenzon-DeCarlo's hours during the lawsuit, or force her to participate in any more abortions. Furthermore, they are also suing for mental damages to Mrs. DeCarlo and arguing that Mt. Sinai should not receive any more federal funds under the Church Amendment.

Contact: Matt Anderson
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: August 24, 2009
Link to this article.  
Send this article to a friend.

Court strikes down portions of S. Dakota informed consent law

Court strikes down portions of S. Dakota informed consent law


 
A federal court has upheld portions of South Dakota’s informed consent law which require doctors to tell women considering an abortion that they are terminating a human life. However, the court ruled doctors did not have to inform women they are terminating a legally protected relationship with an unborn human being.

According to the legal definition of the term, the preborn are not “persons,” the judge ruled.

The case concerned the 2005 South Dakota law House Bill 1166, which instated additional informed consent requirements for an abortion procedure.

Planned Parenthood, the operator of the state’s only abortion clinic, challenged the law and secured a court injunction against it.

In June 2008 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled 7-4 to lift the injunction and returned the case to district court.

In an August 20 decision, Judge Karen Schreier of the U.S. District Court for the District of South Dakota, Southern Division, upheld the law’s provision that the doctor must inform a woman that the abortion will “terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.”

However, according to the Alliance Defense Fund, she overturned the law’s provision requiring the woman to be informed of her existing relationship with the unborn child and that an “increased risk of suicide ideation and suicide” is a “known medical risk” of abortion.

Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota celebrated the ruling as a victory, saying that Judge Schreier had "recognized these provisions of the statue for what it is, pure ideology, not medical information... ."

“[I]n the legal context, a pregnant mother cannot have a ‘relationship’ with a ‘human being,’ as that word is defined in the statute,” Judge Schreier ruled.

Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) authored and filed a friend-of-the-court brief defending the law on behalf of the Family Research Council.

ADF Senior Legal Counsel Steven H. Aden commented on the court ruling, saying “A woman’s life is worth more than Planned Parenthood’s bottom line, so we’re pleased the abortion industry failed in its attempt to strike down this law.”

“We agree with the decision of the court to allow South Dakota women to be informed of the indisputable fact that her baby is a human being.

“We find it incredible, however, for the court to determine that the law cannot acknowledge that a ‘pregnant woman has an existing relationship with that unborn human being’ because some human beings are somehow not ‘persons.’

“The court ruled that a woman has more of a relationship with the abortionist than her preborn baby.  All human beings are persons,” Aden said in a press release.

Defenders of the overruled provisions plan to appeal to the Eight Circuit Court.

Source: CNA
Publish Date: August 25, 2009
Link to this article.  
Send this article to a friend.

Washington Feels the Wrath of Pro-Life Voters

Washington Feels the Wrath of Pro-Life Voters



White House press secretary Robert Gibbs stood squirming on NBC’s Today Show, as NBC anchor Matt Lauer posed uncomfortable questions about Obama’s plan for national health care.  Lauer wanted to know why proponents of Obamacare were met by angry, boo-hiss crowds everywhere they went, instead of by the grateful masses that the White House had expected. 

Gibbs blustered that these were rent-a-mobs, conjured up by angry conservative talk-show hosts and Republican activists.

Lauer would have none of it.  “Isn't that underestimating what you're hearing?” he asked.  “I mean there are some people who say, yeah, these people who are getting up and shouting do not represent any grassroots movement. They call them ‘astroturf.’  But don't they give voice, and maybe even in an inappropriate way, to some real concerns out there?”

Gibbs babbled some more, trying to make the rent-a-mob line stick, but to no avail.  He had no real answer for Lauer. 

When even a news-lite anchor like Matt Lauer comes across like a hard-hitting journalist, the administration is clearly in serious trouble.

As I sat and watched that segment, I felt a glow of pride.  Up to the beginning of August, there was virtually no media talk on this issue.  Instead, the news media seemed obsessed with the sensational death of a certain pop icon and a certain Puerto Rican Supreme Court nominee.  The proposed new health care system received scant attention.  The media didn’t seem to realize—or care—that these changes would fundamentally change the kind of health care that Americans received, would mandate federally-funded abortion, and would ration care to the elderly. 

Then a massive coalition of highly active pro-life groups including PRI, called Stop the Abortion Mandate (www.stoptheabortionmandate.com), swung into action.  Led by Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America, Stop the Abortion Mandate has led a PR blitz that has helped make Obamacare so astronomically un-cool. 

By mobilizing their bases, pro-life and other grassroots groups have almost overnight made this into the biggest issue of the year.  We have shown the administration that, when it comes to the life issues, America still cares deeply. The results are already evident.  This bill that would otherwise have waltzed through Congress and landed, on schedule, on the President’s desk, has become a political liability.  We—all of us—have turned Obamacare into a political albatross.  

Still, while these developments have bought us time, they have not won us a clear victory.  Instead of backing away from Obamacare, we find Robert Gibbs insisting that the president will not pass “health-care reform ‘lite,’”  And we find White House officials, including the President himself, resorting to a strategy of evasion and deception that is truly alarming.  Rather than meeting real concerns with factual answers, the administration scoffs at our fears, and lies about the bill’s dangers.  This needs to stop. 

For instance, during a press conference in Guadalajara, Mexico, the president ridiculed those who compared his plan to the Canadian system, joking that he didn’t “find Canadians particularly scary.”  Laughingly, he accused “some of the opponents of reform” of thinking that “they make a good bogeyman.”

We in the pro-life movement don’t find Canadians particularly scary, either.  But Canadian health care, on the other hand, with its deadly rationing and abortions, is a frightening prospect to those of us who believe in the sanctity of life.

The President also falsely claimed that the AARP had endorsed his plan, hoping that this would put to rest the fears of seniors that they would be targeted in an effort to cut costs.  The seniors’ organization shot back with a statement making it clear that “while the President was correct that AARP will not endorse a health care reform bill that would reduce Medicare benefits, indications that we have endorsed any of the major health care reform bills currently under consideration in Congress are inaccurate.”  The White House later admitted that the President had “misspoken,” which is the same weasel word that Clinton resorted to when he was caught in a lie.

At this town hall, Obama smilingly insisted that he does not want to “pull the plug on Grandma,” as if this were something that Americans could simply take for granted.  The trouble is, we honestly cannot.  One has only to look as far as the Department of Veterans’ Affairs’ end-of-life planning document, entitled "Your Life, Your Choices."  Nicknamed the “death book,” this document discusses various scenarios in which patients lives would no longer be “worth living,” ranging from not being able to "shake the blues,” to being an undue “financial burden” on the family.  Small wonder that, upon review, the document was suspended under the Bush administration.  That it has found its way back to use under the current President is, we believe, sufficient cause for suspicion.

Obamacare proponents have also continued to throw blame at enemies real and imaginary, including insurance companies, “blue dog” Democrats, underground Republican cabals, and, of all things, the media.  They have done everything and anything but actually meet our arguments against Obamacare head-on. 

To us, this looks—to borrow the President’s own terminology—“fishy.”  This is why we refuse to take seriously the suggestion that the President, as well as top officials like Kathleen Sebelius, are wavering in their commitment to the “public option,” that is, to socialized medicine where the government calls all the shots.  It is also why we believe that “health care cooperatives” are just Obamacare by another name.  If the government sets the rules, and pays the costs, then such “cooperatives” are just another name for government-run healthcare.  Now, if the government would give tax credits to such cooperatives, and step aside while people banded together to reduce costs and provide for their own health care, it would be a different matter.

With all of its backing and filling, the administration seems to forget that the health care bill is available in its entirety online.  We in the pro-life movement have read it, and we don’t like it. We have real questions; we need real answers.  Instead, we get evasion and secrecy. 

Obama needs to drop this bill like a bad habit, if he places any value on health care that respects the sanctity of life, or even on his own political career.  As a result of the solid, continuing effort put forward by so many pro-life groups, he just might. 

Keep up the good work.

Contact: Colin Mason and Steven Mosher
Source: Population Research Institute
Publish Date: August 25, 2009
Link to this article.  
Send this article to a friend.

A Peek into Fetal Memory

A Peek into Fetal Memory

Learning in Utero



Pregnant mothers the world over can often be found talking or singing to their babies in the womb. But as tender as those moments may be, is anyone besides Mom and Dad actually remembering them? New research says yes.

A team of medical researchers in the Netherlands combined sonogram technology with sound and vibration stimulation to discover that 30-week-old fetuses demonstrate short-term memory. By 34 weeks, these babies in utero are able to store and retrieve that information up to four weeks later, according to the study published in the medical journal Child Development.

This research follows on the heels of similar studies conducted to determine if a fetus can remember its mother’s voice. One such study had mothers read Dr. Seuss’ famous Cat in the Hat twice a day to their babies six weeks before birth.

Three days after birth, scientists were able to determine that not only did the babies prefer the sound of their own mother’s voice, they also preferred the sound of the story they had heard in utero to a new story.

Still other studies have found that fetuses exposed to theme songs or other music tend to show recognition of those same songs shortly after birth. Other studies show that newborns prefer the sound of the mother’s native tongue to other languages.

The life of twins has also opened some unexpected vistas in the exploration of learning and memory in the womb. In the National Geographic special In the Womb: Twins, Triplets, and Quads, a twin brother and sister were spotted through ultrasound technology playing cheek-to-cheek on either side of the placenta. A year after birth, their favorite game was to take positions on opposite sides of a curtain, laughing and giggling as they touched and played through the divider.

In another case of twins, one baby showed more aggressive behavior in utero. Kicking, pushing, and hitting the other, who would retreat to the far side of the womb. Four years later, whenever a fight breaks out between the twins, the quieter one still retreats to his room and closes the door.

Negative emotional states of the mother may also tell us something about learning and cognition in utero. One Australian study found the babies of pregnant mothers watching a 20-minute video of a disturbing Hollywood movie also experienced emotional upset. When three months after birth, the infants were briefly shown clips of the same film, they showed recognition of prior exposure.

>From thumb sucking, to cry-like behavior, to dreaming, and smiling, new four-dimensional ultrasound technology has shown us more than we ever imagined possible about human life in the womb. Now as studies continue to unfold the mysteries of life in the womb, discoveries in learning and memory are changing the way many see the fetus. These are stunning reminders of the capabilities of the unborn—precious souls who are so often denied their right to life.

Share these findings with those you know, and if they support abortion, encourage them to revisit the issue. Each day science shows us more and more to confirm what we already know—that the unborn are indeed “fearfully and wonderfully made.”

That’s something all of us should remember.

Contact: Mark Earley
Source: BreakPoint
Publish Date: August 25, 2009
Link to this article.  
Send this article to a friend.

NEWS SHORTS FOR TUESDAY

NEWS SHORTS FOR TUESDAY

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.

Personhood Amendment Launches State's First All-Volunteer Initiative

Today's press conference will launch the 2010 Personhood Amendment petition drive with a request to re-activate a thousand volunteer petitioners from 2008. The Colorado Secretary Of State title board has given the unanimous go ahead for the new Personhood effort to begin gathering the 76,047 signatures required to place the amendment on the November 2010 ballot. The press conference, at a post office, will announce that the campaign will strive to become the first initiative campaign in Colorado to be run completely by volunteers.
Click here for the full article.


Pregnancy Testing Kits Encourage Promiscuity

A bargain shop has been accused of encouraging underage sex by selling pregnancy testing kits at the ‘pocketmoney price’ of 99p. Dozens of girls - many below the age of consent - have been snapping up the tests from the store. Chemists charge up to £10 for pregnancy testing kits. But mothers living nearby say bargain basement prices will see teenage pregnancies soar.
Click here for the full article.


Obama Not Being 'Straight' With Voters On Abortion Coverage In Health Reform, Washington Times Editorial Says

A Washington Times editorial claims that President Obama "isn't being straight" with voters when he says the current health care reform proposals in Congress "don't provide government funding for abortion." The editorial says, "If Democratic plans are passed, your taxes will pay for abortions." During a conference call with religious leaders last week, Obama said, "'You've heard that this is all going to mean government funding of abortion. Not true.'"

The editorial calls this Obama's "most demonstrably false statement." The editorial cites an Aug. 5 Associated Press article reporting that the Senate version of health reform legislation is "'still largely silent on the abortion issue.'" The editorial also claims that the House Energy and Commerce Committee's version (HB 3200) includes an amendment that "specifically provides for abortion coverage," the editorial says.
Click here for the full article.


Half Of Doctors Will Refuse To Take Swine Flu Shot

Healthcare workers revolt against vaccination while government plans mass immunization programmes

Two separate polls of GPs in Britain have revealed that one in two doctors have severe reservations over the safety of the forthcoming H1N1 flu vaccine, raising serious questions over the government’s planned mass vaccination programme.

A poll of doctors for Pulse magazine found that 49% would reject the vaccine with 9% still undecided.

56 of the 115 GPs surveyed said they did not intend to receive the jab, according to the UK’s leading medical weekly publication for health professionals.

A second poll conducted by GP magazine reveals that Up to 60% of GPs have severe doubts over the proposed vaccine. Of 216 GPs surveyed, 29% say they will outright refuse to be vaccinated, while a further 29% remain unsure. Only 41% of doctors said they would definitely take the shot.
Click here for the full article.


Controversy surrounds ‘guilt inducing’ Veterans Affairs booklet on end-of-life issues

A booklet from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) on end-of-life issues asks its veterans to consider under what circumstances their life might not be “worth living.” One critic says the booklet is “guilt inducing” and sends a “hurry-up-and-die” message, while a U.S. Senator has called for hearings on its contents.

The booklet “Your Life, Your Choices” says it is intended to help plan for future medical decisions and for the preparation of a personalized living will.

The 52-page document includes a checklist asking “What makes my life worth living?” The reader is asked to rate scenarios on the checklist by quality of life.
Click here for the full article.


That’s Where the Money Is

Geezers beware Obamacare.

When famed bank robber Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, he said: “Because that’s where the money is.”

For the same reason, it is as predictable as the sunrise that medical care for the elderly will be cut back under a government-controlled medical system. Because that’s where the money is.

My experience is probably not very different from that of many other people in their seventies. My medical expenses in the past year have been more than in the first 40 years of my life — and I did not spend one night in a hospital all last year or go to an emergency room even once.

Just the ordinary medical expenses of keeping an old geezer going along in good health are high. Throw in a medical emergency or two, and the costs go through the roof.

So long as my insurance company and I are paying for it, it is nobody else’s business what my medical expenses are. But once the government is involved, everything is its business.
Click here for the full article.

Freedom of Conscience for Pro-Life Taxpayers

Freedom of Conscience for Pro-Life Taxpayers



Now that Barack Obama has decided to push for a hyper-partisan healthcare bill, the issue of taxpayer-funded abortions is front-and-center. The current proposals would lead to this taxpayer mandate, and could even drive conscientiously objecting doctors out of medicine.

The New York Times wrongly reported that Mr. Obama has decided to go it alone with Democrats in Congress, passing a bill without Republican support. That's untrue. The decision they're making is to pass a bill without any moderate Democrats -- in other words, a bill of the Far Left.

The liberal officials and activists comprising the Far Left make perfectly clear that their highest social priority is abortion. More than same-sex marriage or gun control, abortion is their defining social issue. So legislation for Obamacare written exclusively by liberal Democrats will protect their agenda.

That means one thing: Obamacare will mandate taxpayer-funded abortions.

Ever since 1976, the Hyde Amendment has prevented most federal taxpayer dollars from funding abortions in America. The late pro-life stalwart, Congressman Henry Hyde, inserted the amendment (that must be renewed each time) into the law funding Medicaid to prevent taxpayer money from paying for Medicaid recipients' abortions.

But the Obamacare proposals being debated would change that in one of two ways. First, if the legislation does not expressly refuse funding for abortion, then under normal rules of statutory interpretation it would be presumed that funds could be used for that purpose.

Second, Obamacare would eventually lead to abortion funding, even if it excluded it for several years. Once Obamacare is in place, it would fund healthcare at prices below what private insurers could offer. The government's deficit each year would be paid by tax revenues. Insurance companies would either lose business because they were more expensive, or they would go into the red if they tried to compete at the same price. Either way, private insurers would go bankrupt, and everyone will be on the government plan.

Once the government plan was the sole source of money to healthcare providers, government protocols as to what conditions providers must meet to be eligible to receive federal money would directly dictate treatment decisions. (Obamacare could even exert that influence beforehand, because at some point it will be the single largest payer for every provider, money the provider couldn't do without.)

This danger goes beyond forfeiting reimbursement for individual treatments. The federal government will have criteria that a provider must satisfy to be eligible for federal funds. The government would make abiding by its treatment protocols a condition to remain eligible. These protocols would include who gets what treatment, in what order patients are treated (this is government rationing), and providing abortions on demand. Violating these protocols would make that provider ineligible for funds.

Once Obamacare becomes the sole source of funds, becoming ineligible means going bankrupt. Distressed over losing their entire careers and aware of how their closure would cause more deaths and suffering by leaving people without care, most providers would rather cave on this narrow issue than close shop.

Talking heads on the Far Left openly say that they believe it's okay for the government to yank someone's medical license for refusing to perform abortions. Some, such as Alan Colmes on Fox News, said that this amounts to denying needed care to a person that the person is entitled to, and that it's not wrong for a provider refusing to perform abortions to be shut down.

The reason they're so militant on this issue is because the Far Left believes that taxpayer-funded abortions are a constitutional right. Everyone's heard of Roe v. Wade. Fewer have heard of Harris v. McRae, where the Court held in 1980 that the right to an abortion does not include the right to force taxpayers to fund that abortion.

Most people don't appreciate how close the Supreme Court is to simply declaring a right to taxpayer-funded abortions. Harris v. McRae was a 5-4 decision; four liberal justices wrote that everyone has such a right.

The current Supreme Court is likely only a single vote from overturning this decision, and declaring taxpayer funding to be commanded by the Constitution. Barack Obama may yet have the chance to change that balance on the Court.

So both legislatively and judicially, taxpayer-funded abortions teeters on a knife's edge. Doctors' rights of conscience, whether religious or otherwise, are in critical danger, and Americans should rally to doctors' sides to stop this outrageous aspect of Obamacare from becoming law.

Contact: Ken Klukowski
Source: The American Spectator
Publish Date: August 24, 2009
Link to this article.  
Send this article to a friend.

Pro-life groups organize prayer and protest in response to 'abortion mandate'

Pro-life groups organize prayer and protest in response to 'abortion mandate'
 

Wendy Wright / Fr. Frank Pavone

Responding to President Barack Obama’s efforts to rally sympathetic religious groups to back his proposed health care legislation, pro-life groups have organized prayer campaigns and issued protests of the proposal’s “abortion mandate.”

During a Wednesday teleconference sponsored by the left-leaning religious organizations Catholics United, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Faith in Public Life, both White House Director of Domestic Policy Melody Barnes and President Obama denied that the health care bill would allow for federally funded abortions.

Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), charged that Obama "brazenly misrepresented the abortion-related component of the health care legislation that his congressional allies and staff have crafted.”

The NRLC said that the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Capps-Waxman Amendment explicitly authorizes the government plan to cover all elective abortions.

In response to the situation Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, has announced an effort to build the “largest prayer group in history” by promoting membership in a “Pray to End Abortion” cause on the social network site Facebook.

At present the effort has posted a special prayer regarding the health care reform debate.

The prayer, addressing Jesus as the “Divine Physician,” intercedes for elected officials and asks that they have both “the humility to know that they are servants, not masters” and also “the wisdom to realize that every life has equal value.”

“Let every reform in our public policy be based on the reform of our hearts and minds,” the prayer concludes.

The prayer site is accessible at http://www.ProLifePrayers.org

The group Concerned Women for America has joined the large coalition known as Stop the Abortion Mandate, which opposes the coverage of abortion in proposed federal health care legislation.

Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women for America, claimed that “liberal religious leaders” of a dwindling population are siding with the dwindling numbers of those who support the “Obama/Reid/Pelosi government takeover of health care” that she says would require Americans to fund abortions.

Wright noted liberal Evangelical leader and Obama supporter Rev. Jim Wallis’ July 22 statement in which he said that the prohibition on federal abortion funding should be maintained.

“This last-minute rally for legislation that includes taxpayer funding for abortion and special privileges for abortionists to have access to school children (with Planned Parenthood in position to run school-based clinics) reveals that liberal religious leaders and Obama are not sincere in their claim to 'reduce abortions' and 'find common ground',” she charged.

“The vast majority of Americans, even those who call themselves pro-choice, do not want to fund abortions because they know that what the government funds, we get more of," she said.

The Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM) was also critical of the health care legislation.

"Nationalized health care is a recipe for disaster, for our country, for the unborn and for the elderly. The Party of Death cannot be trusted with such profound life decisions," C-FAM told CNA in an e-mail.

Source: CNA
Publish Date: August 23, 2009
Link to this article.  
Send this article to a friend.

Women in SD Must be Told Unborn Child is a Human Being: Federal Judge

Women in SD Must be Told Unborn Child is a Human Being: Federal Judge



A Federal Court has upheld the constitutionality of a South Dakota law requiring doctors to inform patients that abortion kills a human being. U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier handed down the ruling on Thursday in a lawsuit against the state filed by Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota objecting to the 2005 law requiring that full information be given to women seeking abortions.

Judge Schreier said that although doctors must use the term 'human being,' it can be used in a "biological sense" and not an "ideological" one. The law specifies that a woman must be told that abortion "will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being."

In the same ruling Schreier, who had issued an order in 2005 preventing the law from coming into effect, overturned a requirement that women be informed that abortion increases the risk of suicide
and suicidal thoughts. Schreier called these disclosure provisions "untruthful and misleading."

Also struck down was a provision requiring doctors to tell a woman that she has an existing legally protected relationship with her unborn child. Schreier ruled that "in the legal context, a pregnant mother cannot have a 'relationship' with a 'human being,' as that word is defined in the statute."

Both Planned Parenthood and the state of South Dakota are considering whether to appeal. "I think the most important part of the statute has been upheld," Assistant Attorney General John Guhin said.

Sarah Stoesz, CEO of Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota said, "We're thrilled. It's a major victory for women in South Dakota and doctors who want to be free" from having to make ideologically charged statements.

Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) who had authored and filed an amicus curiæ brief on behalf of the Family Research Council, said, "A woman's life is worth more than Planned Parenthood's bottom line, so we're pleased the abortion industry failed in its attempt to strike down this law."

In a statement, ADF Senior Legal Counsel Steven H. Aden commented, "We find it incredible, however, for the court to determine that the law cannot acknowledge that a 'pregnant woman has an existing relationship with that unborn human being' because some human beings are somehow not 'persons.'"

"The court ruled that a woman has more of a relationship with the abortionist than her preborn baby. All human beings are persons," Aden added.

Leslee Unruh, founder of the pro-life Alpha Center pregnancy counseling centre in Sioux Falls, an intervening party in the suit, said the ruling is a "huge, fatal blow" to the abortion lobby and a step forward in the "unraveling" of Roe v. Wade. Unruh told the New York Times that her organization will appeal the decisions on the suicide and relationship provisions.

"We take the human being part and go to the Supreme Court and put the human relationship in. That knocks out Roe v. Wade," she said.

South Dakota recently attempted to ban abortion within the state entirely. In 2006 the state Legislature passed a bill that prohibited all abortion except in those cases where continuing a pregnancy would pose a medical threat to the mother's life. This measure was overturned by voters in the 2006 election by a margin of 56-44 per cent after abortion lobbyists ran a campaign focusing on the bill's exclusion of exceptions in cases of rape.

Another measure was attempted by the state that included the exceptions for pregnancy resulting from rape or incest as well as when there is "substantial risk" of serious permanent injury or death to the mother. This second attempt, Measure 11, was defeated in the November 2008 election after pro-life advocates were split over support for the measure.

Leslee Unruh, a leading supporter of Measure 11, said at the time it was a victory for abortion advocates whose only interest, she said, was not in the health of women but an ideological devotion to abortion on demand.

Contact: Hilary White
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: August 24, 2009
Link to this article.  
Send this article to a friend.

Kourtney Kardashian is Singing Our Song

Kourtney Kardashian is Singing Our Song



Dr. Alveda King, Director of African American Outreach for Priests for Life and Day Gardner, President of the National Black Pro-Life Union says, "Thank you Kourtney Kardashian, for saying what we've been saying all along. We don't have to kill our children to have better lives."
 
"Kourtney's singing our song, she found messages from post-abortive women like myself on the internet, and realized that abortion can cause a lot of pain and grief," said Dr. Alveda King.
 
According to People Magazine, Kourtney looked online and read stories of women who had abortions.  "I was sitting on the bed hysterically crying, reading these stories of people who felt so guilty from having an abortion," she recalls. "I was reading these things of how many people are traumatized by it afterwards."
 
Dr. Alveda King, Director of the African American Outreach at Priests for Life said, "I am a member of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, which posts the largest collection of such testimonies on the internet precisely for the purpose of exposing the truth about abortion."
Lorey Carter, Director of Underserved Outreach for the CareNet said, "Kudos to Kourtney! She will experience first-hand that an unplanned pregnancy does not mean an unwanted child. Her doctor advised her well saying she would not regret having her baby."
 
Carter added, "Motherhood does not deny a woman her full potential but helps her to embrace it. Many women became much more responsible and focused because they have a child depending on them."
 
Shealeta Reed Executive Director of Atlanta CareNet Center agreed, "Those insisting on abortion cry out because of the lack of access to resources to sustain life. The answer is not funding legalized abortion but rather funding more jobs and accessible resources, education and job training."
 
Day Gardner of National Black Pro-Life Union adds, "Children are a blessing and a gift--that doesn't change if a child is unplanned or unwanted. Every gift of life should be welcomed with joy by his or her natural parents and if not, by adoptive parents."
 
"Women's procreative reproductive rights protect a woman's health for, if and when she is ready to be a mother," said Dr. King.
 
Kourtney Kardashian recently told People Magazine why she is keeping her baby, "For me, all the reasons why I wouldn't keep the baby were so selfish: It wasn't like I was raped, it's not like I'm 16. I'm 30 years old, I make my own money, I support myself, I can afford to have a baby. And I am with someone who I love, and have been with for a long time."
 
For more information go to www.silentnomoreawareness.org and www.rachelsvineyard.org

Contact: Margaret & Dr. Alveda King, with Day Gardner
Source: Priests for Life for Life & National Black Pro-Life Union
Publish Date: August 24, 2009
Link to this article.  
Send this article to a friend.

Will court enforce rules about RU-486?

Will court enforce rules about RU-486?



An Ohio law dealing with the abortion drug RU-486 will see even more court action.

The law simply requires abortion facilities administering the drug to do so according to federal guidelines, rather misusing it. An abortion business filed a lawsuit in 2004, saying the statute was ambiguous. The case has been in the courts since then, but Mark Lally of Ohio Right to Life tells OneNewsNow the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling.
 
"And they sent the case back down to the federal district court to reconsider their decision, which had struck down the statute," he notes.
 
The drug is to be used up to 49 days into a pregnancy, but Planned Parenthood went beyond that. "And they were administering them in different manners," Lally adds, which could put women at risk of serious consequences.
 
In fact, that method, according to experts, could be responsible for the deaths of four women in California. Lally says they are looking forward to the lower court reconsidering the case.

Contact: Charlie Butts
Source: OneNewsNow
Publish Date: August 22, 2009
Link to this article.  
Send this article to a friend.

NEWS SHORTS FOR MONDAY

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.
Click here for the full article.


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.
Click here for the full article.


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...
Click here for the full article.


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.
Click here for the full article.


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.
Click here for the full article.


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.
Click here for the full article.

In reducing abortions, House bills diverge

In reducing abortions, House bills diverge Two proposals in Congress are being promoted as abortion-reduction measures, but one actually would increase the number of unborn children killed by the procedure in the United States, according to major pro-life organizations. Democrat Reps. Tim Ryan of Ohio and Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut rolled out July 23 a bill publicized as a "common ground" approach to reducing abortions. Some fanfare accompanied their reintroduction of the legislation, with a diversity of organizations and spokesmen endorsing the proposal. The supporters ranged from some evangelical Christians to the country's leading abortion rights advocacy organizations, NARAL Pro-choice America and Planned Parenthood Federation of America. The Ryan-DeLauro bill, however, is not "common ground" but a "compromise for the pro-life community" alone, said Southern Baptist public policy specialist Barrett Duke. It is a compromise that "provides federal funding and stipulations that will result in more abortions," Duke said. Meanwhile, Rep. Lincoln Davis, D.-Tenn., continues his less publicized effort to build support for his abortion-reduction bill, one many pro-life advocates support. His Pregnant Women Support Act, H.R. 2035, would provide information and aid to women during and after their pregnancies without opening up the government's purse for abortion providers. Davis' proposal is a legislative outgrowth of the 95-10 Initiative promoted by Democrats for Life of America. That initiative seeks to reduce the number of abortions by 95 percent in 10 years. Sen. Robert Casey, D.-Pa., has a companion measure in the other chamber. The Pregnant Women Support Act (PWSA) is a multi-pronged approach that includes such proposals as: Informed consent by a woman before undergoing an abortion; federal grants for ultrasound equipment in health centers; a toll-free phone number for access to support services for women during and after pregnancies; programs to aid pregnant and parenting high school and college students; elimination of pregnancy as a pre-existing condition in health care; and an increase of the adoption tax credit. Ryan and DeLauro's bill -- the Preventing Unintended Pregnancies, Reducing the Need for Abortion, and Supporting Parents Act, H.R. 3312 -- includes some similar measures, but, unlike Davis' proposal, it does not require abortion providers to obtain informed consent from a woman before performing an abortion on her. It also addresses pregnancy prevention through comprehensive sex education, expanded access to contraceptives and more money for "family planning." The result of the Ryan-DeLauro proposal, pro-life leaders say, would be more abortions, increased federal funds for abortion and abortion providers, and greater access to a "morning-after" pill that is not only a contraceptive but an abortifacient. In a four-page analysis for the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), Duke said the Ryan-DeLauro bill would: 1) Increase funding for Planned Parenthood, the country's No. 1 abortion provider; 2) expand access to and coverage for "family planning services," which include abortion, and 3) train teenagers about and encourage their use of Plan B, a "morning after" pill that is labeled as a contraceptive even though it can cause an early abortion. The Ryan-DeLauro bill would more than double funding for Title X, the federal government's family planning program. Planned Parenthood is the largest recipient of Title X funds. Though Title X recipients are barred from using federal grants for abortions, Planned Parenthood affiliates are "able to use these funds for their other activities and administrative costs, freeing up money from other sources, including from the states, to fund their abortion-related activities," wrote Duke, the ERLC's vice president for public policy and research. The Ryan-DeLauro legislation proposes the establishment of "campus-based family planning services" for community college students and requires states to include "family planning" coverage for Medicaid patients, Duke said. The inclusion of abortion in "family planning services" is an "established fact," he said. At least seven federal courts of appeals have determined Medicaid covers abortion under "family planning" unless specifically excluded, according to Americans United for Life, a pro-life legal and policy organization based in Chicago. The Ryan-Delauro bill "takes away the flexibility that the states have had in designing their plans, by mandating that 'family planning' -- which federal courts read to include elective abortion -- be included," said Americans United for Life Senior Counsel Clarke Forsythe in a written statement. "Under Ryan-DeLauro, states can no longer opt out from paying for elective abortion." Plan B is a heavier dose of birth control pills. Under the regimen, a woman takes two pills within 72 hours of sexual intercourse and another dose 12 hours later. The drug, also known as "emergency contraception," works to restrict ovulation in a woman. It also can act after conception, thereby causing an abortion, pro-lifers point out. This mechanism of the drug blocks implantation of a tiny embryo in the uterine wall. A previous version of the Ryan-DeLauro bill excluded Plan B and other abortion-causing drugs, but the new bill does not, Duke said. "The absence of this qualifying language from [Ryan-DeLauro] means that the writers intend to allow federal funding of abortion-inducing drugs and other abortion-related devices and services," he wrote. The Ryan-DeLauro proposal provides "some helpful safety net services" for women in crisis pregnancies, but it "is an abortion bill," Duke said. "While it is promoted as a compromise bill that people on all sides of the abortion debate can support, in reality it is not. It is only a compromise for the pro-life community. The pro-abortion community has not given up anything in this bill." Ryan defended his bill in an Aug. 7 letter to the editor of the Youngstown (Ohio) Vindicator, saying its focus is on both "preventing unintended pregnancies and providing support for women who do become pregnant." He is convinced in order to have "meaningful reductions in abortion, there must be a contraception component included to prevent unintended pregnancies," Ryan wrote. "[W]e can't reduce abortions without preventing unintended pregnancies and providing support for low-income women. My legislation does both." In this legislative effort, Ryan describes himself, and is described by his allies, as a pro-lifer. He has not cast a pro-life vote in the House since 2006, however, according to the National Right to Life Committee. In that time, the fourth-term congressman's votes have included support for funding embryonic stem cell research, as well as opposition to bans on both Title X money for Planned Parenthood and funds for organizations that perform or promote abortions overseas. The Ryan-DeLauro legislation has 41 cosponsors, but none of the House's pro-life leaders have signed on. No Republicans are cosponsors. "Having a bill that is solely Democratic with solely pro-choice [congressional] support to me is not common ground," said Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats for Life of America, which supports the Pregnant Women Support Act but not the Ryan-DeLauro proposal. There are a "lot of problems in the Ryan-DeLauro bill for the pro-life side," she told Baptist Press. The Pregnant Women Support Act has 39 cosponsors, including pro-life leaders from both sides of the aisle. It has 12 GOP members among its cosponsors. Davis is "going to keep working on his bill and drum up as much interest as possible," said Jon Boughtin, his legislative assistant. The Southern Baptist congressman believes his bill "has the most potential to draw real consensus on the issue," Boughtin told Baptist Press. It also has a genuine chance to reduce the number of abortions, he said. "That's Mr. Davis' goal." President Obama, who has worked to rescind various pro-life policies since taking office, has called for reducing abortions or the need for abortions but has not proposed or endorsed a legislative approach to such an effort. Also read: Both Ryan & his bill not pro-life Contact: Tom Strode Source: BP Publish Date: August 20, 2009 Link to this article.   Send this article to a friend.

Embryo-Adoption Agency Sues Federal Government

Embryo-Adoption Agency Sues Federal Government Nightlight Christian Adoptions, which specializes in frozen-embryo adoption, and the 16,000-member Christian Medical Association (CMA) are seeking to overturn controversial guidelines that may result in taxpayer-funded destruction of human embryos.   The Dickey-Wicker Amendment, passed by Congress in 1995, prohibits the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from making taxpayer money available for the creation or destruction of human embryos.   However, under direction from the Obama administration, the NIH has approved of taxpayer money going to everything but "harvesting," or the killing of the embryo.    Dr. Gene Rudd, senior vice president for the CMA, said he wants to hold the government accountable for breaking its own law.   "Certainly they are fostering an industry that Congress intended to prohibit," he said, "by using semantics to try to get around what they are actually doing, which is promoting the destruction of human embryos." Contact: Josh Montez Source: CitizenLink Publish Date: August 20, 2009 Link to this article.   Send this article to a friend.

Bowling for Death Panels: Euthanasia Group Behind "End-of-Life" Counseling

Bowling for Death Panels: Euthanasia Group Behind "End-of-Life" Counseling Although President Obama and liberal Congressional Democrats have denounced claims that the health care reform establishes "death panels," it does not help reassure the American public that the nation's foremost pro-euthanasia group is actively pushing "end-of-life counseling" as a centerpiece of health-care reforms. Compassion & Choices, a rebranding of the former Hemlock Society, aggressively lobbies to legalize euthanasia as a "human right" by means of legislation and the judicial system. But the group has revealed that it is a major player behind incorporating a measure (sec. 1233) of the "American Affordable Choices Act of 2009" (HR 3200) that would pay doctors and medical professionals to offer "end-of-life" consultations every five years with elderly patients or those suffering from chronic or terminal illnesses. "As Congress debates health insurance reform, Compassion & Choices is leading the charge to make end-of-life choice a centerpiece of any program that emerges," the euthanasia society declares on its website. "We are working hard to reach our goal to make end-of-life choice a centerpiece of national health insurance reform." An e-mail alert sent by the organization's president Barbara Lee Coombs asked members to join in a telephone call-in with President Obama and faith-based groups asking them to "please encourage him to be vocal and steadfast in his support of the voluntary end-of-life consultation provision for Medicare patients" if they had the opportunity to ask the President a question.    "Compassion & Choices was the number one organization behind pushing for assisted suicide in Washington State.  They've made no secret that this is something they would like to replicate on a national scale," said Dan Kennedy, CEO of Human Life Washington in an e-mail to LifeSiteNews.com.  Since Oregon passed laws legalizing physician assisted suicide in 1997, two other states have also legalized assisted suicide: Washington and Montana through the efforts of Compassion & Choices. In Montana, the euthanasia-promoting group had assisted suicide foisted on the state through the edict of a district court; however Montana physicians and the Montana Medical Association refused to participate, saying killing their patients violated physician ethics rooted in the Hippocratic Oath. Although the White House and its allies in Congress have insisted that talk about sec. 1233 of HR 3200 would lead to "death panels" - a term coined by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to frame how involving government bureaucracy in health care would lead to low-quality care or denied care - has no foundation in fact; but the reality is that euthanasia advocate Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) had a powerful impact upon shaping the legislation, which Compassion & Choices has aggressively promoted. "I'm certain that they see themselves as the go-to community organization that would partner with the Federal government in end of life counseling," said Kennedy. "Given that the President has made some disturbing statements on end of life economics, and has listened to their input on health care legislation, we can't pretend we don't know what the end-game is." Rep. Earl Blumenauer, an advocate of Oregon's assisted suicide law, wrote the "Life Sustaining Treatment Preferences Act of 2009" (HR 1898), which is considered the primary source of the "advance care planning" sec. 1233 of the health-care reform bill, HR 3200. Both bills incorporate what the euthanasia-promoting Compassion & Choices calls a "Physician Order for Life Sustaining Treatment" (POLST) and pay physicians to initiate conversations with their patients about "the reasons why the development of such an order is beneficial to the individual and the individual's family and the reasons why such an order should be updated periodically as the health of the individual changes." Such advance orders not only include the establishment of living wills, and health-care proxies, but they also delineate for medical professionals under what conditions a patient would wish to refuse treatment, including cardiac or pulmonary resuscitation, going to the hospital, using anti-biotics, and even when to continue "the use of artificially administered nutrition and hydration." A number of analysts, and not all conservative, have expressed concern that sec. 1233 could lead to senior citizens being pressured into accepting lower quality care from a doctor who is reimbursed to talk with a patient about refusing treatment. In fact Obama himself has emphasized cutting medical costs through end-of-life counseling. In an April New York Times interview, Obama mentioned how the "chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here." Obama stated that the nation must have "a very difficult democratic conversation" about dealing with those costs and advocated the creation of "some independent group that can give you guidance" on the matter. Such an independent group under HR 3200 would be a board for "Comparative Effectiveness Research" established under the executive branch, and independent of Congressional oversight. But the White House is pushing for the creation of an Independent Medical Advisory Committee, also under the sole direction of the President, that would have the power to completely rewrite Medicare reimbursements without input from Congress. According to a new NBC News poll, Americans have become increasingly alarmed about the proposed government involvement in the health-care of their loved ones. About 45 percent believe that the government will likely decide when to stop care for the elderly, while 50 percent say it is not likely. 54 percent of respondents also believe the government reforms will lead to a government takeover of health care, while 39 percent disagree. However, Americans could have a greater cause for alarm to know that not only are euthanasia groups promoting this aspect of health-care reform, but that the Obama Administration has already included them as a resource for "end-of-life counseling" in its Veterans Affairs Department. Contact: Peter J. Smith Source: LifeSiteNews.com Publish Date: August 20, 2009 Link to this article.   Send this article to a friend.

Obama: 'We are God's Partners in Matters of Life and Death'

Obama: 'We are God's Partners in Matters of Life and Death' Pro-Obamacare groups launch "40 Days for Health Reform" A sudden shift towards religiously-charged rhetoric in President Obama's stumping for health care reform continued yesterday in a telephone conference, in which the president said that "we are God's partners in matters of life and death." Obama told the virtual gathering of Jewish rabbis - as many as 1000, according to the Washington Jewish Week news service - that he was "going to need your help in accomplishing necessary reform." Washington, D.C. Rabbi Jack Moline posted some of the president's statements in a series of live tweets, which went viral on the Internet before Moline deleted almost all the posts hours later.  A handful of other Jewish clerics tweeted the event, which was not publicized by the White House. In a conference call with largely left-leaning faith leaders yesterday, Obama also used religously-charged terms to dismiss the notion that the government would fund abortion through the new legislation.  "These are all fabrications that have been put out there in order to discourage people from meeting what I consider to be a core ethical and moral obligation - and that is that we look out for one another, that I am my brother's keeper and I am my sister's keeper," he said. He also accused opponents of his healthcare plan of spreading "misinformation" and "bearing false witness." Pro-life leaders immediately blasted the president for the comment, pointing out that the House version of the bill now explicitly calls for the funding of abortion in the government plan, as well as taxpayer subsidies of plans that cover abortions. The social justice groups sponsoring the conference claim that 140,000 individuals attended the call.  The same groups - PICO National Network, Sojourners, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, Faith in Public Life, and Faithful America - are now hosting a "40 Days for Health Reform" campaign to tell lawmakers "that quality, affordable healthcare is a moral issue for people of faith." The site's attitude toward the arguments opposing the health care overhaul is remarkably similar to the White House's own "Reality Check" Internet campaign. Visitors are encouraged to sign a petition that reads: "As a person of faith, I support health care reform, and I'm tired of shouting, disruptions and distortions preventing an honest debate.  Over the next 40 days, I commit to doing my part as a person of faith to promote health care reform. I commit to taking actions like writing my representatives, attending events, and telling my friends about our efforts to make the faith community a positive force for health care reform." 40 Days for Life, an international movement encouraging prayer, fasting and advocacy for the end of abortion that has exploded in popularity in recent years, accused the health reform campaign of mimicking its pro-life counterpart, but with the opposite result. "Who would have ever believed that the President of the United States would copy a page out of the 40 Days for Life playbook as a way to push abortion?" mused 40 Days for Life national director David Bereit in an email to members.  In Judaeo-Christian tradition, forty days is a spiritually significant length of time, often dedicated to sustained prayer and purification. Meanwhile, strong warnings against the legislation in its current form have gone out from faith groups that oppose the killing of the unborn, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Focus on the Family, the Catholic Medical Association, the Christian Medical and Dental Association, and the Southern Baptist Convention.  While many of the groups express eagerness for genuine health care reform, they say that the current bill would amount to a vast expansion of abortion, among other troubling aspects, and therefore should not be accepted. Christians Reviving America's Values president Don Swarthout questioned the President's apparent moralizing in favor of his own health care reform plans. "I thought the use of religion in order to convince the people to follow anything political was prohibited by the U.S. Supreme Court's rulings," said Christians Reviving America's Values president Don Swarthout in a statement.  "Now the President of the United States is using religion to convince people to follow his political position." He continued: "As a Pastor I may understand the Bible a little better than the average person.  Apparently, the President thinks the Bible says government should help the poor instead of the Bible calling upon Christians to give to the poor. "The truth is our very salvation may depend upon helping those in need.  However, there is no place in the Bible which tells us that the government is supposed to do these things for us." Contact: Kathleen Gilbert Source: LifeSiteNews.com Publish Date: August 20, 2009 Link to this article.   Send this article to a friend.

Lead Into Gold: IPSCs Already Being Used In Drug Testing

Lead Into Gold: IPSCs Already Being Used In Drug Testing For all of the talk about ESCR and therapeutic cloning, in just two short years, induced pluripotent stem cells are already achieving what remains only a theoretical possibility in ethically problematic approaches: Tailor made, disease specific, stem cell lines have been created which are being used to learn disease mechanisms and test potential drug treatments. From the story: Stem cells generated from patients with a rare neurological disorder are helping scientists dissect the underlying mechanism of the disease and test several candidate drugs. The study, published today in Nature, is the realization of one of the major goals in stem cell research: using induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells–stem cells derived from reprogrammed adult cells–to study the effects of disease in a patient's own cells, which are otherwise impossible to access… The idea is simple: Take skin cells from patients with a particular disease, turn those cells into stem cells, direct those stem cells to become a cell type of interest–for instance, the dopamine-releasing neurons that are affected by Parkinson's disease–and see how those cells behave and react to different drugs. A spate of recent papers has demonstrated the development of disease-specific stem cells for conditions such as Down syndrome, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, spinal muscular atrophy, and Parkinson's disease. The new study is the first to use cells derived from iPS cells to test drugs for their effect against a disease. What a shame that President Obama revoked President Bush's executive order requiring the government to fund research into pluripotent stem cell "alternatives," such as the IPSC.  As I wrote at the time, the Bush policy was the very kind of bridge that our president said during the campaign he wanted to enact.  Perhaps if he'd kept to that approach, his poll numbers wouldn't be dropping like a stone. Contact: Wesley J. Smith Source: Secondhand Smoke Publish Date: August 20, 2009 Link to this article.   Send this article to a friend.

Obama: 'No taxpayer-funded abortions in health bill'

Obama: 'No taxpayer-funded abortions in health bill' Pro-life group calls president dishonest on coverage of procedure In a conference call with his supporters Wednesday evening, President Obama accused critics of his health care "reform" of spreading falsehoods when they claim the plan would result in "government funding of abortions." "You've heard that this is all going to mean government funding of abortion. Not true," he told at least 140,000 people. "These are all fabrications that have been put out there in order to discourage people from meeting what I consider to be a core ethical and moral obligation – and that is that we look out for one another, that I am my brother's keeper and I am my sister's keeper. And on the wealthiest nation on earth right now, we are neglecting to live up to that call." Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, or NRLC, said Obama brazenly misrepresented the abortion-related component of the health care legislation. Abortionists admit killing babies, call it 'absolute evil.' Get the culture-war classic 'The Marketing of Evil' – autographed at WND! Johnson noted that according to the Capps-Waxman amendment passed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee on July 30, H.R. 3200 explicitly authorizes the government plan to cover all elective abortions. "Obama apparently seeks to hide behind a technical distinction between tax funds and government-collected premiums," Johnson said in a statement. "But these are merely two types of public funds, collected and spent by government agencies. The Obama-backed legislation makes it explicitly clear that no citizen would be allowed to enroll in the government plan unless he or she is willing to give the federal agency an extra amount calculated to cover the cost of all elective abortions – this would not be optional. The abortionists would bill the federal government and would be paid by the federal government. These are public funds, and this is government funding of abortion." Johnson noted that when Obama was a presidential candidate, he specifically pledged to Planned Parenthood that his plan would cover abortions in 2007. An NRLC video of that promise follows: (click here) While some news outlets claim Obama has "backed off" his pledge in a July 21 interview with Katie Couric, Johnson said, the president simply avoided directly addressing his goal and stated, "we also have a tradition of, in this town, historically, of not financing abortions as part of government funded health care." "It is true that there is such a tradition – which Obama has always opposed, and which the Obama-backed bill would shatter," Johnson said. The White House "reality check" website has not addressed the issue of abortion coverage in Obama's health plan. Obama's Organizing for America website quotes a false factcheck.org statement that "In fact, none of the health care overhaul measures that have made it through the committee level in Congress say that abortion will be covered." NRLC has released an 11-page detailed explanation of provisions in pending health bills that would impact abortion policy. As WND reported, Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, has had his organization analyze the plan. He confirmed it contains health care rationing, a national health ID card complete with government access to personal bank accounts, government decisions on what health care benefits are available and mandatory taxpayer support for abortion. The Liberty Counsel analysis said under Section 1308, the government will dictate marriage and family therapy as well as mental health services, including the definitions of those treatments. Under Section 1401, a Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research would be set up, creating a bureaucracy through which federal employees could determine whether any treatment is "comparatively effective" for any individual based on the cost, likely success and probably the years left in life. It also, according to Staver, "covers abortions, transsexual surgeries, encourages counseling as to how many children you should have, whether you should increase the interval between children." Contact: Chelsea Schilling Source: WorldNetDaily Publish Date: August 20, 2009 Link to this article.   Send this article to a friend.

NEWS SHORTS FOR FRIDAY

NEWS SHORTS FOR FRIDAY 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. Gynecologists in Spain plan to choose jail before performing an abortion Dr. Esteban Rodriguez, spokesman for the organization Right to Life (Derecho a Vivir) in Spain, responded yesterday to comments by the country's Minister of Justice, Francisco Caamano, who said there was no room for a conscience clause in the new law on abortion.  "We are willing to go to jail rather than following a criminal law, Rodriguez said, "and we are willing to commit the supposed crime of disobedience before the crime of abortion."   "We will not kill our patients, nor will we commit a crime against the public health deliberately harming the heath of women, no matter how much the Minister of Justice threatens us and abuses his power," the doctor said.   "We doctors are not soldiers, nor policemen, nor executioners. There is no civil disobedience in the refusal to kill a human being, but rather the fulfilling of our professional obligation," he added. Click here for the full article. Planned Parenthood Worries SD Clinic May Shut Down Planned Parenthood is raising red flags that the state could close the only abortion clinic in South Dakota in a matter of days, according to the latest filing in a court battle over a 2005 law that requires doctors to tell women an abortion ends a human life.   The clinic in Sioux Falls could lose its license if it doesn't conform with the law. State attorneys say there's no immediate plans to close the facility and even if South Dakota decides to shut it down, that administrative process likely would take weeks. Click here for the full article. Operation Rescue Lodges Complaint About Conditions At Carhart's Clinic The antiabortion-rights group Operation Rescue recently lodged complaints with Nebraska officials about what it claims are unsafe conditions at abortion provider LeRoy Carhart's clinic in Bellevue, Neb., the AP/Sioux City Journal reports. The group is planning protests at Carhart's clinic from Aug. 28-29. A letter from the state attorney general's office says that the group's concerns were forwarded to the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. Nebraska HHS spokesperson Marla Augustine said that under state law, complaints against physicians and medical facilities are kept confidential, meaning such investigations are confirmed only when action is taken. Click here for the full article. Obama Calls Health Care a 'Moral Obligation,' But Pro-lifers Say Tax Money for Abortions Is 'Moral' Issue President Barack Obama, in an online conference call with BlogTalkRadio on Wednesday, urged liberal religious groups to "spread the facts and speak the truth" about health care reform. Obama said it's "not true" that health care reform will allow government funding of abortion. But pro-life leaders responded to the conference call by noting that health care reform plans in both chambers of Congress would allow federal funds to pay for abortions. Click here for the full article. Catholic Bishops Tell House: Health-Care Bill is 'Unacceptable' Due to Pro-Abortion Mandates The nation's Catholic bishops have told Congress that they oppose H.R. 3200, America's Affordable Health Choices Act, as it currently stands, because the health-care reform bill would mandate funding and insurance coverage for abortion.   In an August 11 letter to members of the House of Representatives, Cardinal Justin Rigali, chairman of the pro-life committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (U.S.C.C), told lawmakers that health-care reform must "respect human life and rights of conscience in the context of abortion." Click here for the full article.

Health Care Townhall Meeting & Rally Saturday at Noon on Federal Plaza in Chicago

Health Care Townhall Meeting & Rally Saturday at Noon on Federal Plaza in Chicago (outside Sen. Durbin's Downtown Office) Popular Chicago radio host Cisco Cotto will "Moderate" a Townhall Meeting & Rally outside Senator Durbin's offices, in response to his refusal to hold a forum on ObamaCare Thomas More Society proud to obtain permits and sponsor forum on pro-abortion features of ObamaCare Springing into action at the request of local radio host, Cisco Cotto, Thomas More Society Executive Director Peter Breen recently secured permits for a Health Care Townhall Meeting & Rally outside Sen. Dick Durbin's Chicago offices. The event will occur this Saturday at noon on Federal Plaza at 219 S. Dearborn. Let your voice be heard loudly and clearly on the troubling features of the Obama Health Care package. Your presence will speak volumes to Sen. Dick Durbin, who recently refused to publicly address the voters about their concerns over ObamaCare. In particular, we need you there to defend the elderly against death panels and the unborn against taxpayer-funding of abortions! This family-friendly event will go for just an hour or two, so that you can bring your family to the Meeting & Rally and still have plenty of time to enjoy a great day in Chicago. The weather is predicted to be sunny with temperatures in the mid-70's.