Pro-life leader Charmaine Yoest has charged that a compromise now being considered for health care reform legislation would mark a "radical departure" from the past by sidestepping pro-life funding provisions and requiring every area of the country to have at least one health insurance plan that covers abortions.
Yoest, President of Americans United for Life, on Wednesday wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion essay that provisions which would have explicitly prevented federal dollars from being used for elective abortions were "killed" by all five legislative committees that have handled health care reform bills.
"Instead, the abortion compromise in the works is a provision modeled on an amendment Rep. Lois Capps (D., Calif.) added to the House bill," she reported, calling the amendment a "radical departure from the status quo."
According to Yoest, at present the federal government does not pay into health care plans that cover elective abortions, nor are government health benefits used for such purposes.
Though 17 states presently pay for elective abortions, the Hyde Amendment prohibits states from using federal Medicaid matching funds to pay for abortions.
"The status quo now is that no dollar—federal or state—associated with Medicaid may pay for elective abortions," Yoest wrote in the Wall Street Journal.
She charged that the Capps Amendment would sidestep the Hyde Amendment and other federal laws.
"It would make abortion coverage a part of the public option, funnel tax dollars to private health plans that cover abortion, and ensure that every area of the country will have at least one health insurance plan that covers elective abortion," Yoest explained. "If this should happen, for the first time in more than 30 years the federal government would be in the business of funding the destruction of unborn human life."
She dismissed as "a dodge" the Capps Amendment's accounting mechanism that will supposedly ensure that federal dollars do not directly pay for elective abortions. She wrote that the amendment is being misrepresented to avoid the objections of Americans, only 13 percent of whom reportedly want health care reform legislation to fund abortions.
"The only honest way to maintain the status quo is to add a provision modeled after the Hyde Amendment to any health-care reform that becomes law," Yoest added.
"If Democrats really want to maintain the abortion status quo, they would drop the Capps Amendment and add a Hyde Amendment to explicitly exclude funding abortion," Yoest's column concluded. "The Capps Amendment takes us toward a new era of unprecedented federal abortion funding."
Video Explains Perils of Abortion in Health-Care Reform
Americans United for Life (AUL) has released a video explaining the inclusion of abortion funding in health-care reform.
"Don't Be Fooled: Abortion Is In Health Care" cites President Obama's promise while addressing a joint session of Congress.
"Under our plan," he said, "no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions."
Mary Harned, staff counsel with Americans United for Life, said the facts offer a different picture.
"These health-care reform bills that are being considered on the Hill still explicitly include abortion funding and coverage," she said, "and do not have language explicitly prohibiting such abortion funding and coverage."
Tomorrow morning students from thousands of schools around the world will refuse to speak as a protest against the killing innocent children. Every day in America almost 4000 human persons are killed by surgical abortion. The Pro-life Day of Silent Solidarity, a project of Stand True, Christ-Centered Pro-life is observed by hundreds of thousands of students who will lose their voice in solidarity with their brothers and sisters who will never have a voice. Last year Stand True heard back from participants about 59 girls who canceled their abortions on the day of the event due to the efforts of the students.
"By refusing to speak the students create a huge buzz and abortion will be the most talked about subject on campus," said Bryan Kemper, President of Stand True Ministries. "This generation is fed up with the senseless violence of abortion as is determined to bring an end the abortion holocaust."
Students will not only remain silent; they will also wear red armbands and/or red duct tape on their mouths, and distribute educational flyers to anyone who asks why they are silent. Many home-schooled students will also participate in the event by visiting local malls and other public areas to distribute flyers.
Students are instructed to be respectful to teachers and other officials and to speak with them when required.
"Thousands of American babies are permanently silenced every day by the violent act of abortion," said Kristan Hawkins, Executive Director of Students for Life. "This is a day for pro-life students to honor those children as they stay silent as an act of solidarity with these innocent victims."
Over the past few years many schools have tried to stop students from participating and have tried to quash their First Amendment rights. Every year, attorneys from the Alliance Defense Fund defend these students and file lawsuits to protect their rights.
Legal help for students involved is available from the Alliance Defense Fund (1-800-TELL-ADF) or click here for more information You can also download a flyer stating your rights by clicking here.
A new Center for Disease Control (CDC) report shows that the pregnancy rate in America dropped drastically between 1990 to 2009, by a margin of 11%.
(Editor's Note, except for the 115 Girls Are Pregnant At One Chicago Gov't High School) The CDC reports that in 2005 there were about 6.4 million pregnancies in the U.S., or 103.2 pregnancies per 1,000 women between the ages of 15-44, compared to 115.8 pregnancies per 1,000 women in the same age range in 1990.
In 2005, the pregnancy rate dropped to near the rate recorded for 1976 - the year the government branch began collecting pregnancy data. The drop in pregnancies was less steep among married women, who saw an 8% decrease in pregnancies between 1990-2005. Younger teens, between the ages of 15-17, saw a greater decline in pregnancy rate than older teens.
Abortion rates also fell during this time period, according to the CDC - with 7 out of 1,000 pregnant women aborting their child in 2005, as opposed to 11 out of 1,000 in 1990. Among unmarried pregnant women, 31 per 1,000 obtained an abortion in 2005 whereas 48 per 1,000 did so in 1990.
Of the 6.4 million U.S. pregnancies in 2005, the CDC report said 4.14 million ended in live births, 1.06 million in fetal losses, and 1.21 million in induced abortions.
A recent report by the Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of Planned Parenthood, also indicated a reduction in abortion rates across the world from 1995-2003. In 2003, the Institute reports that about 41.6 million children were killed by abortion across the globe, down from the mid-90s.
President Barack Obama spoke October 16 at a volunteerism forum hosted by former President George H. W. Bush at Texas A&M University.
During his remarks, Obama plugged his new government program, serve.gov:
And that's the point I want to emphasize today: that service isn't separate from our national priorities, or secondary to our national priorities - it's integral to achieving our national priorities. It's how we will meet the challenges of our time....
That's why this summer we launched United We Serve, a nationwide effort calling on all Americans to make service part of their daily lives. And we partnered with more than 400 organizations; made more than 250,000 service opportunities available on serve.gov; and watched as nonprofits, and foundations, and corporations, and individuals spent hundreds of thousands of hours serving their communities....
In Obama's world what service is "integral" to our "national priorities? And what is one organization has he at taxpayer expense linked volunteers to for "service opportunities"?
The answer to question #1 is abortion, and the answer to #2 is Planned Parenthood, the United States' largest abortion provider.
Earlier this week, Breitbart's BigGovernment site outed Serve.gov as promoting volunteer opportunities at the beleaguered ACORN. Those posts have since been scrubbed, but I wondered what other opportunities this administration might be promoting.
Typing in the keyword "health" and selecting "Houston" [on the serve.gov site] brought up Planned Parenthood's need for volunteers to protect clients from the 40 Days for Life prayer vigil participants [currently "C" on page 7 of the AllForGood website, which links back to serve.gov]. Their job? Make sure pro-life protesters don't speak or give any information to women seeking abortions at the clinic.
40 Days founder David Bereit, who alerted me of this, wrote, "So taxpayers are being forced to fund the abortion industry's recruitment efforts to counter 40 Days for Life. Amazing. Or should I say, SICK."
Here's a screen shot of the Planned Parenthood "Opportunity sign-up" to thwart 40 Days in Houston currently on serve.gov.
I also found a volunteer sign-up for Planned Parenthood of Central Ohio on serve.gov.
And this 1 sounds so pleasant! Sign up thru serve.gov to help Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin peddle abortions at the Madison Farmers Market!
I'm sure I'd find more if I kept looking but you get the drift. You're paying for Planned Parenthood to snag volunteers, sometimes to directly combat our pro-life efforts.
NEWS SHORTS FOR MONDAY (Referral to Web sites not produced by The Illinois Federation for Right to LIfe is for informational purposes only and does not necessarily constitute an endorsement of the sites' content.)
CHICAGO -- It is a Chicago public school full of energy and spirit. It has about 800 girls, and 115 of them have something in common. All those young ladies are moms at Paul Robeson High School. It's not a school for young mothers, it's a neighborhood school. And all of the pregnancies have happened, despite prevention talk??? Click here for the full article.
The elderly, the young, and the frequently exposed are being advised to get vaccinated against H1N1 flu virus this year, due to predictions of a possible influenza epidemic. A new law in New York requires nurses and doctors to receive the vaccination by the end of November. A band of four nurses in Albany, however, is taking a stand against mandated vaccination. Click here for the full article.
A couple of weeks ago Lucy Johnson wrote an excellent article in the Sunday Express on the Cervarix vaccine entitled HPV vaccine 'As deadly as the cancer'. In her article she wrote 'The cervical cancer vaccine may be riskier and more deadly than the cancer it is designed to prevent, a leading expert who developed the drug has warned' she preceeded to give the views of expert Diane Harper, who had been ,she wrote,'involved in the clinical trials of the controversial drug Cervarix', Dr Harper had said according the Express, 'the jab was being "over-marketed" and parents should be properly warned about the potential side effects. A few days later Ben Goldacre, a GP and journalist for the Guardian attacked her well written piece on his blog Bad Science and in a Guardian article. Click here for the full article.
Bishop Demetrio Fernandez of Tarazona, Spain, described the acceptance of abortion as "a true ecological disaster," and noted that the death of 50 million children in the womb has left Europe "prematurely aging and dying of sadness and despair." In a pastoral letter marking the March for Life in Spain this week, Bishop Fernandez said that the result of abortion is a "continent of death." Click here for the full article.
Access to food is "a concrete expression of the right to life," Pope Benedict XVI says in his annual message for World Food Day. The Pope goes on to say that this right, "though solemnly proclaimed, all too often fails to be fully implemented."
The Pope's message, addressed to Jacques Diouf, the director general of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, acknowledges that the current worldwide economic crisis has a particularly damaging effect on agricultural production, especially in impoverished societies. He argues that providing adequate food for all of the world's people "calls for a modification in lifestyles and ways of thinking." Click here for the full article.
The UK government has been ordered to publish data about the number of late abortions carried out because of disability. The ruling has been made by the Information Commissioner. Ministers have been told to release the data for England and Wales within the next month. This is the latest stage in a complex legal battle which began six years ago over a late abortion carried out because of a baby with a cleft palate. Click here for the full article.
Britain could move a step closer to the US-style targeting of doctors who carry out abortions after a ruling by the information tribunal that the government must publish data on late terminations, family planning groups warned today. They said the ruling could enable anti-abortion campaigners to identify and put pressure on women who seek late terminations, as well as their doctors, and urged the government to challenge the decision in the high court. Click here for the full article.
A new report by the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, entitled "Abortion Worldwide: A Decade of Uneven Progress," shows that over a billion abortions have been committed since 1970.
The report says that the annual number of abortions have declined over the period from 1995 to 2003. Nevertheless, in 2003 approximately 41.6 million abortions were committed worldwide.
On average, this works out to more than one death by abortion for each second of the year. Alternately, one might visualize the number of deaths occurring each year as a number significantly larger than the number of people who live in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Diego, San Jose, Detroit and San Francisco.
"There simply isn't anything close," said Stephen Phelan of HLI. "Over the many years since this has become a practice, even legalized in many countries, you're over a billion."
"There's definitely nothing to compare," he continued. "The closest thing you'd get to it would be the atheist, socialist dictators of the 20th century; and even they, in their gruesome efficiency, were only able to kill somewhere between a hundred and a hundred-seventy million people. ... There's no comparison."
The Guttmacher Institute report also mentions the "high degree of safety" of abortions in communist China, but neglects to condemn China's one-child policy or the forced abortions that occur there. It nevertheless refers to the "woman's right to make her own childbearing decisions" and couches the report in the language of "choice." According to the report, 8.8 million "safe" abortions occur in China each year, approximately 1 in 5 of all abortions worldwide.
Georgia Froncek, a veteran pro-life sidewalk counselor from California, has agreed to publish her experiences with a cancer-stricken woman who was nearly coerced by her insurance company into aborting her child in order to obtain treatment.
When I pulled up to the Long Beach Family Planning Associates Abortion mill at on February 3, 2009 at 8:30 a.m., I saw my fellow street counselor Charlotte talking to an Hispanic man named Carlos, who was visibly very upset. As soon as I exited the car, Charlotte motioned me to come over to join the conversation.
Carlos explained to me that his wife and mother of five children, named Nereyda, was in the abortion mill because their H.M.O. insurance company would not treat her for her serious stage 4 sarcoma cancer - unless she aborted her 5-month-old unborn child. I replied in Spanish that this was illegal, and that we could help them obtain care without having an abortion.
He smiled and called his wife's cell phone inside the clinic and told her to come out immediately. She came out within thirty seconds, crying and very upset. She explained that the HMO had called her for fourteen days in a row, pressuring her into the appointment at the Long Beach Abortion mill. After consoling the couple, I called an adoption counselor to help us find a sympathetic social worker, who met the three of us for breakfast to discuss a plan to keep the baby.
Next, we called a Spanish speaking social worker who again insisted that Nereyda could not be treated for her aggressive stage-four cancer without getting an abortion before her consultation, ten days away. We told the social worker that Carlos and Nereyda had the right to medical treatment because she was paying for her insurance through her employment. I told the social worker that I would go with the couple to the consultation, which made Carlos and Nereyda feel better. I was happy to go with them.
At the consultation, there attended one thoracic surgeon, one internal medicine cancer specialist and one high risk obstetric doctor. The thoracic surgeon displayed Nereyda's MRI scan - revealing a huge tumor spreading tentacles around her heart, lungs, and other vital organs. I had never seen a tumor like that! I turned my head away from Carlos and Nereyda so they would not see that I was weeping.
I asked God for healing as I watched Nereyda holding her womb - concerned not at all for herself, but only for her unborn baby. The doctors said that this was one of the worst and fastest spreading cancers they had ever seen, and that without being able to shrink it with radiation and chemotherapy, it was inoperable, and Nereyda would die within two months. The high risk OB-GYN doctor us that Nereyda would have to abort the baby as soon as possible so she could begin the most aggressive therapy to prolong her life.
Carlos and Nereyda once again insisted they would not abort the unborn baby. With my background as a former pharmaceutical representative, I asked the doctors if they could use a drug called Adriamycin, which would not harm the baby in utero. The doctors said that they could use Adriamycin, although it would not provide the best or most aggressive therapy. I explained this to Carlos and Nereyda, who said that after the birth of the baby they would permit the use of stronger drugs. The doctors finally agreed, prescribing some very potent synthetic pre-natal vitamins, and reluctantly writing the couple's wishes in Nereyda's chart.
When the doctors asked us if we wanted the insurance company to provide us with an advanced health care directive, I answered that we would produce one. Later I explained to the couple that, had we not taken the initiative, the directive supplied by the HMO would have almost certainly reinforced the original decision to abort the child in case Nereyda took a turn for the worse. With the providential help of a doctor, a lawyer and a former corporate attorney - all strongly pro-life - I was able to draft a health care directive that ensured the baby would be safe from abortion.
Later that month, I sent emails out to many people requesting their prayers for Nereyda's health and for the birth of a healthy baby.
While Nereyda's cancer remains, she was able to deliver a boy by caesarian section on May 18, 2009 - three months after the doctors said she had two months to live. I was overjoyed to visit three days later to meet their new son, Angel Jesus Candalario.
Since then, the tumor has shrunk from chemotherapy - but Nereyda still needs our prayers.
This is a wonderful miracle and a touching testimony of one woman's faith and obedience to God, despite the consequences to herself. I know Nereyda is a living saint!
According to information gleaned from (where else?) the Internet, in the month of July 2009, almost 370 million people worldwide visited the social networking site Facebook, "up 155% from July 2008." Fred Wilson describes Facebook as the "fourth most popular web site in the world after Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo," so it's not surprising he calls it a "global juggernaut."
>From my correspondence, more and more pro-lifers of all ages have Facebook pages of their own for fun and for keeping in touch with friends.
But what they may not know is that Facebook may be the single most powerful new tool available to the pro-life movement. Other mediums (blogs, YouTube, Twitter, etc.) have considerable value, but Facebook has a key advantage--for lack of a better word, its personality.
To understand its enormous potential for pro-lifers, let me offer a little background for those unfamiliar with Facebook. Users register to create a profile page of themselves. They connect to other users by "friending" each other. You can actively seek out friends. You also get to decide when people contact you whether they are allowed on your friend list.
Profiles are customizable, complete with a picture of the user, and (if you wish) personal information such as educational/professional background, church affiliation, and character descriptions (favorite movies, music, books, hobbies, etc.).
Users interact with their online "friends" by sending messages (similar to e-mail), posting on each other's profile pages, and updating their status. That can be a short message displayed at the top of the user's profile page, anything from a funny anecdote, thought of the day, or what that person is doing at the moment. Users can also create or join group pages geared towards a specific issue or organization, or just for fun.
While an ever-greater number of people are using Facebook for business purposes, most people simply use it to communicate with friends, and share items that they find interesting. In other words, they use Facebook to discuss the same topics they would in person.
Why is all this enormously helpful to the pro-life movement? For starters, it is much easier to connect with other pro-lifers than ever before. The majority of users on Facebook interact with people they already know in real life, at least when they first begin.
Because they will be "friending" people they know, pro-lifers will be connecting with other pro-lifers on Facebook. Consider how many pro-lifers came into the Movement through the happenstance of a conversation with a friend or a casual perusal of a pro-life news article. One's Facebook profile significantly enhances the reach of the pro-life message.
In addition, each one of your friends has friends you don't know. When you allow these others in on your Facebook page as friends, it is almost always because of something you have in common, such as a mutual acquaintance or a mutual cause. As a result, Facebook fosters the spontaneous organization of like-minded individuals.
There's more. Posting links to news stories, videos, and notices about pro-life events provides a forum for the uneducated to learn the truth about abortion. Pro-lifers believe fervently that they can bring most people over to their side if given half a chance. Because Facebook profiles are customized and are designed to reflect the real world personality of the user, individuals will relate to each other person to person, not as faceless usernames in cyberspace.
When an interesting tidbit is posted to Facebook, other users will see that this person considers it important and worthy of attention. Just as you're more likely to take the advice of a close friend than a complete stranger, individuals on Facebook will be more likely to read an interesting article or compelling argument against abortion if it's someone they know trying to persuade them. Putting a human face behind the information can establish common ground with the uninformed or opposed. Facebook provides all that, and much more.
Pro-lifers work tirelessly to educate others about the beauty and complexity of the unborn and to explain how abortion is an unconscionable attack on an innocent passenger. Recruiting new individuals to our cause becomes second nature.
Facebook allows for that process to continue, simply in a new setting. By contrast, other social media such as blogs, YouTube, and Twitter are designed to streamline the sharing of pure information. Establishing a pro-life Facebook presence demonstrates our efforts to permeate the larger culture with an ongoing life-affirming message.
For pro-life chapters, a Facebook group can help with many activities. A group page can enable quick messaging to members and posting of events, photos, and video. It can even act as free advertising for individuals looking for a group in their area. Urging people to join the group on Facebook is easy, and because it requires only a small commitment on their part, is something people can readily agree to doing. Once they've joined the group, you have a record of them, contact info, and can send them messages, just as you would with a traditional e-mail or phone tree. Pro-lifers have preached the necessity of list growing and maintenance from the very beginning; a Facebook group is a contact list at your fingertips.
For all its potential Facebook is not some sort of magic cure-all for pro-lifers. Indeed, because you have the opportunity to have your information distributed far and wide, it is more important than ever that we check our facts rigorously and exhibit the kind of decorum we use in real life. We should always keep in mind that Facebook is a tool, not a wonder weapon, and that what is posted for the world to see is posted for the world to scrutinize.
At the end of the day, there is no substitute for the honest work of face-to-face meetings and events to spread our message. But that one-on-one interaction can be beautifully supplemented by social networking, particularly Facebook.
In a speech last week at Howard University Law School, United States (US) Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Susan E. Rice recapped the Obama Administration's foreign policy departures from previous Bush Administration policy. Rice also subtly redefined terms used in UN documents to mark a substantive policy shift on abortion.
Reviewing the new Administration's first nine months in office, Rice touted Obama's reversal of the "Mexico City policy" that had prevented US funding of organizations engaged in abortion overseas and his decision to fund the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). The Bush Administration had cut aid to the UN population control agency after the US State Department under Colin Powell determined that the UNFPA was complicit in China's forced abortion policy.
Although in her Howard University speech Rice never uttered the word "abortion," she claimed that the Bush Administration's Mexico City policy had "barred U.S. assistance to programs that support family planning and reproductive health services," and that now members of Obama's UN team "no longer reflexively oppose mentions of reproductive health."
William Saunders, Senior Vice President of Legal Affairs for Americans United for Life, noted however that the Bush Administration "did not oppose family planning or reproductive health care" per se, but "only opposed terminology or practices that promoted abortion."
Addressing Rice's subtle semantic shift, Saunders called Rice's remarks "a return to euphemism" similar to what existed in the Clinton administration. He told C-Fam's Friday Fax that Ambassador Rice "appears to be saying that the Obama administration is determined to promote abortion, but will do so while hiding under euphemisms."
Administration watchers note that Rice's apparent equation of abortion with "reproductive health" follows that of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's redefinition of the term to include "access to abortion" when questioned by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) before the US House Foreign Affairs Committee. UN member states have never agreed to such a definition, however, although pro-abortion UN agencies and advocacy groups routinely use it that way.
The linguistic shift could impact debate on US ratification of the Disabilities Convention. Although the Disabilities Convention is the first binding treaty to mention "sexual and reproductive health," the official report of proceedings noted that inclusion of the term was "not intended to alter" pro-life policies of ratifying states, and at least 15 nations made statements in the General Assembly at the time interpreting "sexual and reproductive health" as excluding abortion. The Bush administration delegation affirmed that the phrase "cannot be interpreted to constitute support, endorsement, or promotion of abortion."
The linguistic shift by Rice and Clinton gives ammunition to pro-life critics wary of US ratification of new treaties such as the Disabilities Convention.
Before assuming her post, Ambassador Rice lacked an obvious paper trail on contentious social issues. Criticism centered instead on her approach to Rwanda's genocide while serving on Bill Clinton's National Security Council and then as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs.
Conservatives note, however, that Rice previously worked closely with former US Senator Tim Wirth, who advocated population control policies while serving as Undersecretary for Global Affairs during the Clinton administration and heading the US delegation at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo.
Utah's legislature will be asked to deal with a loophole in homicide law that allowed a teenager to be set free after hiring someone to beat her to cause a miscarriage.
State Representative Carl Wimmer launched the move in the legislature after the law was used by a judge to release the 17-year-old. "[The judge] made a comparison to a medical procedure abortion," says the state lawmaker. "And [as far as] hiring this thug to beat her until the baby died, he said there's no difference -- which is absolutely absurd."
Wimmer is convinced the law was not interpreted correctly, but a bill is being filed to make sure that type of ruling is prohibited in the future. Currently law states that if a pregnant woman is beaten and loses her child, a homicide has occurred.
What is even more stunning, notes the lawmaker, is that the child was born alive -- and now, the teen has applied for custody of the baby.
"The fact that she wants to get custody now of this child who she tried to murder, it makes it that more absurd," he remarks. "...I don't even have the vocabulary to explain how sad of a situation it is and what an outrage it is that she is going free after doing such a barbaric thing."
A New York pro-life feminist organization filed suit last Friday in New York State Supreme Court (Albany) to block the use of taxpayer funds to pay women recruited to “donate” their eggs for embryonic stem cell research.
New York State is the first governmental entity anywhere in the U.S. to approve taxpayer money to pay women to undergo an invasive procedure to harvest eggs for embryonic stem cell research.
In 2007, the New York State Legislature enacted a new Title V-A to Article 2 of the Public Health Act, committing $600 million for stem cell research. On June 11, 2009, the Empire State Stem Cell Board (ESSCB), which was given the responsibility for administering the funds, passed a resolution authorizing significant taxpayer monies of up to $10,000 per donation to be used to compensate young women who donate their eggs for research.
Feminists Choosing Life of New York (FCLNY) Executive Director, Wendy McVeigh stated: “New York State has the responsibility to protect women. Instead, the state is using taxpayers’ dollars to entice young, economically vulnerable women to experiment in this medically risky procedure.”
The legal complaint was filed on October 9, 2009 in Feminists Choosing Life of New York v. Empire State Stem Cell Board. In part, the complaint states, “The Payment for Eggs Program provides significant monetary inducements to women to engage in this painful and risky procedure, which in part disproportionately appeals to economically vulnerable women.... (it)… fails to satisfactorily provide for informed consent and other safeguards to ensure adequate disclosure to women of the risks of egg harvesting.”
Egg stimulation and extraction carries significant health risks, including ovarian hyper-stimulation syndrome, clotting disorders, kidney damage, ovarian twisting, pulmonary embolism, damage to future reproductive ability, and stroke.
FCLNY also argues that research on adult stem cells, which are plentiful and don’t involve the ethical and medical concerns of embryonic stem cell research, have produced positive results that make the egg donation program funded by taxpayer monies excessive spending.
The National Institutes of Health does not permit federal dollars to be spent on stem cell research that uses embryos derived from procedures that "require women to donate oocytes [eggs]," due to the "health and ethical implications, including the health risk to the [egg] donor." The National Academies of Sciences agrees: “No cash or in kind payments should be provided for donating oocytes (eggs) for research purposes.”
NEWS SHORTS FOR FRIDAY (Referral to Web sites not produced by The Illinois Federation for Right to LIfe is for informational purposes only and does not necessarily constitute an endorsement of the sites' content.)
"Aggressive negotiations are under way" over funding for health insurance coverage of abortion services in the various health reform proposals in Congress, Americans United for Life President and CEO Charmaine Yoest writes in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece. Yoest claims that although Democratic leaders have said they want to "maintain the 'status quo'" on abortion coverage, the "reality" is that "maintaining what we have now isn't even on the table."
According to Yoest, to maintain the status quo, "a health care bill would have to explicitly prevent federal dollars from being used for elective abortions," but such provisions "were killed by all five committees that have handled health care reform bills this year." The "compromise in the works" on abortion coverage is a provision authored by Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) that was included in the House Energy and Commerce Committee's health reform bill, she says. Yoest argues that the Capps amendment is "being sold on the false premise that it would maintain the status quo" because "otherwise the American people would not go along with it." Click here for the full article.
Ireland completed its ratification of the EU's Lisbon Treaty, intensifying the pressure on the Czech Republic to overcome its objections and become the final member state to pass the treaty. Irish President Mary McAleese announced she had signed a special legal instrument following a Yes vote in this month's referendum. A statement from the president's office said she had "signed the Twenty-Eighth Amendment of the Constitution (Treaty of Lisbon) Bill 2009". Click here for the full article.
Last month the United States attended the UN Human Rights Council as a member for the first time, and not a moment too soon for girls in India. Though female infanticide and gender-selective abortion have been on the radar of human rights groups for decades, the situation is worsening in most areas of India, says the United Nations Population Fund. As the number of women seeking abortions worldwide has declined dramatically in the past decade, according to a new report. This is not the case in India, where the demographic imbalance of gender in India has reached epidemic proportions – due in large part to abortions. Click here for the full article.
The state's first facility to collect stem cell-rich umbilical cord blood from hospitals in Arizona is nearing completion in Gilbert. The Celebration Stem Cell Centre, under construction adjacent to Mercy Gilbert Medical Center at Val Vista Drive and Loop 202, will serve as a cord blood donation bank and research facility that will offer genetic counseling, officials say. The center will also store cord blood for paying clients who want to preserve it for later use. Click here for the full article.
A fight erupted over a $50,000 grant to Planned Parenthood for teen sex education at the Franklin County Board of Commissioners meeting yesterday. It's likely the first skirmish in a larger battle, previously aimed at state and federal lawmakers. "Our board wants us to be more engaged at the local level of government, more of a thermostat and less of a thermometer," said Michael Gonidakis, executive director of Ohio Right to Life. "My daughter is not yet 3, but I certainly don't want her learning from the nation's largest provider of abortion about how to use condoms at age 12. It shocks the conscience." Click here for the full article.
The Swiss government is linking a woman’s death to popular birth control product Yaz made by Bayer Pharmaceuticals. The woman died of a pulmonary embolism in June, just 10 months after starting the hormonal contraceptive. Last month American Life League reported that Patti Kelly, 28, of Austin, Texas was diagnosed in August with multiple blood clots in both lungs. Her doctor told her that if she hadn’t come into the emergency room when she did, she “could have died instantly.” Her doctor attributed the blood clots to her use of hormonal contraceptives. Click here for the full article.
In a development that reopens the whole controversy surrounding Planned Parenthood's deceptive arrival in Aurora in 2007, it has recently been disclosed that Planned Parenthood is planning an expansion in that city. They are seeking approval from the City of Aurora to boost their parking by 27 spaces, an increase of nearly 40 percent.
On October 15, the Planning and Development Committee will vote on Planned Parenthood's request for additional parking. Pro-life advocates plan to attend the meeting and urge the committee to deny Planned Parenthood's request.
Eric Scheidler, executive director of the Pro-Life Action League asked, "Why would Planned Parenthood need additional parking? We've got people out there all the time, so we know they haven't been overflowing their existing parking lot."
According to documents obtained by Scheidler through Freedom of Information Act requests, Planned Parenthood cites "security" as the reason for seeking more parking spaces. In the "Explanation of Project Needs" submitted by Tim Dutton of McAdam Landscape Inc., who is managing the project for Planned Parenthood, "Our staff and patients are being constantly harassed by the protestors." Dutton even goes so far as to say it's "only a matter of time" before Aurora sees an act of violence like the killing of abortionist George Tiller in Kansas.
"Sadly, the City of Aurora has accepted this explanation and scare tactics at face value. At no point has any city staff member, appointee or elected official ever questioned Planned Parenthood's allegations," said Scheidler. "But the truth is that the pro-life presence at Planned Parenthood's Aurora facility has been a model peacefulness and cooperation with law enforcement."
Scheidler believes the real reason Planned Parenthood wants more parking is a shortage of 26 spaces alleged in a zoning case against the organization going before a state judge later this month. Scheidler also pointed out that research by Pro-Life Action League attorneys has found that Planned Parenthood's existing parking violates Aurora's zoning ordinance as follows:
1. While the zoning ordinance requires 10-foot-wide parking spaces, Planned Parenthood's spaces are only 9 feet wide.
2. While the zoning ordinance requires a 35 foot setback for parking spaces, Planned Parenthood has only 30.
"Once again, Planned Parenthood is trying to demonize their pro-life opponents to avoid scrutiny of their nefarious business dealings," Scheidler said. "They came into Aurora under a cloud of deception, and now they're trying to paper over their misdeeds by pretending that they're threatened by our peaceful presence there."
"The City of Aurora should deny Planned Parenthood any further opportunity to expand in this community where they are already unwelcome," Scheidler concluded.
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but for more than fifty years Lennart Nilsson has taken photographs that the pro-life movement has found priceless: the earliest and most compelling visual images that give intimate detail and clarity to the humanity of unborn children in the womb.
The Swedish photographer is eighty-seven years old, and was the first to open up the secret world of the unborn - from conception up to birth - by way of macro-lenses and endoscopes (tiny instruments - including camera lens and case - that measure less than eight-tenths of a millimeter in diameter).
Nilsson's photographic explorations of the unborn child's life in the womb were revealed to the world first in 1965 as the cover-story for the April 30, 1965 edition of LIFE magazine, entitled "The Drama of Life before Birth." But his photographs made their chief debut in that same year in a book called, "A Child is Born."
The stunning images published in 1965 have now been remastered with the help of the latest photographic technology and "A Child is Born" has been republished in a fifth and final edition. Nilsson says this final edition of his book is meant for the reader of the 21st century to enjoy, so that they might appreciate the mystery of a human being's beginnings. Nilsson has cut away most of the scientific text of previous versions, and largely lets the photos speak for themselves.
In a question-and-answer session with fellow Swedish photographer Hasse Persson, Nilsson remarked that although he has not photographed God directly through his microscopic cameras, "I've seen what He does."
The photographs taken by Nilsson are credited with benefitting science in myriad ways, including helping pave the way to 4-D ultrasound technology; but they have also been of invaluable assistance to the pro-life movement, helping to make its case for the humanity of the unborn.
"Images such as those created by Lennart Nilsson absolutely reaffirm the humanity of unborn persons, which is why they are so unpopular with pro-abortion forces," Rev. Thomas Euteneuer, President of Human Life International, told LifeSiteNews.com. "It is worthwhile to note that it is pro-lifers who call attention to the latest scientific and technological advances in fetal development research, not pro-abortionists, who seek to deny the obvious humanity of the unborn."
Nilsson himself withholds his opinion on abortion, saying that individuals must come to their own opinion. But service to truth also means service to life, and for that, Euteneuer told LSN, the pro-life movement is grateful for the contributions made by scientists and photographers like Nilsson.
"The facts are themselves on the side of life," said Euteneuer. "In utero photos, 3-D ultrasounds, more accurate knowledge of the stages of fetal development - all these glimpses of the truth just demolish the view that the unborn child is just tissue."
Nilsson's photographs have undeniably helped those on the front lines of the pro-life movement. These images have figured prominently on pro-life billboards and signs that say "Choose Life!" They are especially critical for those who reach out to teenage girls and women in front of abortion clinics and give them the chance to think of their baby as a real human person - not an abstract thing or ball of tissue.
Chris Slattery, the director of Expectant Mother Care (EMC) FrontLine Pregnancy Centers in New York City, the "abortion capital of America," says photos that depict the humanity of the unborn child in the womb have been "invaluable" in changing hearts and minds on abortion and "bringing to life the humanity of the unborn."
Slattery told LSN that EMC volunteers work with pregnant women in need of help and offer counseling outside abortion facilities. The photographs of the unborn child really help get the message across, he said.
Images of the unborn have advanced rapidly since Nilsson took his first photographs of life in the womb. Although Nilsson's endoscope allowed him to take intra-uterine photographs of a developing child, constraints on the technology in 1965 meant that in the early embryonic stages he had to photograph the unborn who had miscarried due to extra-uterine or ectopic pregnancies.
Now, Slattery says the pro-life arsenal has rapidly increased through images from 3D/4D ultrasound technology, which gives images of the baby in three dimensions and allows the mother to see real-time movement of her baby in the womb. These capture the facial expressions of the unborn, revealing personality.
"Photographs are a stock in trade tool," said Slattery. "We have used these successfully on the streets and in crisis pregnancy centers for decades."
Slattery said that he was looking forward to "A Child Is Born" making its way to the United States in the fifth version. "I'm always looking for new tools," he said.
The fifth edition of "A Child Is Born" made its European debut in autumn, and an English language version is published in the United Kingdom. LSN sent a message to the book's publisher about the book's debut in the United States and Canada, but did not receive a reply by publication time.
"There was a leg and foot in my forceps, and a 'thump, thump' in my abdomen. Instantly, tears were streaming from my eyes." So writes abortionist Lisa Harris in a disturbing article relating her experiences as an abortionist, particularly her anguished and "brutally visceral" experience of dismembering an 18 week gestation unborn child, while 18 weeks pregnant herself.
In the article, entitled "Second Trimester Abortion Provision: Breaking the Silence and Changing the Discourse," Harris, an abortionist and assistant professor at the University of Michigan, explains the ethical position that she says helps her and other abortionists continue practicing despite the moral and psychological hurdles involved in what she describes as an undoubtedly "violent" procedure.
"Abortion is different from other surgical procedures," Harris writes in her candid article. "Even when the fetus has no legal status, its moral status is reasonably the subject of much disagreement. It is disingenuous to argue that removing a fetus from a uterus is no different from removing a fibroid."
Harris says that there is a need to "cross borders and boundaries (including seemingly inflexible ones like 'pro-choice' and 'pro-life')" in order to "reflect seriously on the question of how providers determine their limit for abortion," and warned that the issues surrounding the question "may frankly be too dangerous for pro-choice movements to acknowledge."
Harris then describes how she once performed an abortion on a woman whose fetus was at 18 weeks gestation. Ironically, Harris herself was pregnant at the time, and her baby was also at 18 weeks gestation.
Consequently, she explains how she was "more interested than usual in seeing the fetal parts when I was done, since they would so closely resemble those of my own fetus."
"I went about doing the procedure as usual," she writes. "I used electrical suction to remove the amniotic fluid, picked up my forceps and began to remove the fetus in parts, as I always did. I felt lucky that this one was already in the breech position - it would make grasping small parts (legs and arms) a little easier."
With my first pass of the forceps, I grasped an extremity and began to pull it down. I could see a small foot hanging from the teeth of my forceps. With a quick tug, I separated the leg. Precisely at that moment, I felt a kick - a fluttery "thump, thump" in my own uterus. It was one of the first times I felt fetal movement. There was a leg and foot in my forceps, and a "thump, thump" in my abdomen. Instantly, tears were streaming from my eyes - without me - meaning my conscious brain - even being aware of what was going on. I felt as if my response had come entirely from my body, bypassing my usual cognitive processing completely. A message seemed to travel from my hand and my uterus to my tear ducts. It was an overwhelming feeling - a brutally visceral response - heartfelt and unmediated by my training or my feminist pro-choice politics. It was one of the more raw moments in my life. Doing second trimester abortions did not get easier after my pregnancy; in fact, dealing with little infant parts of my born baby only made dealing with dismembered fetal parts sadder.
Harris concludes that the "visually and viscerally different" component of a second-trimester abortion, as opposed to a first-trimester one, leads to questions such as: "What kind of dissociative process inside us allows us to do this routinely? What normal person does this kind of work?"
To answer the questions, Harris notes that the "violence" of abortion must be acknowledged, and relates a "bizarre" experience she once had of observing a premature baby struggling to survive immediately after dismembering an unborn child the same age:
The last patient I saw one day was 23 weeks pregnant. I performed an uncomplicated D&E procedure. Dutifully, I went through the task of reassembling the fetal parts in the metal tray. It is an odd ritual that abortion providers perform - required as a clinical safety measure to ensure that nothing is left behind in the uterus to cause a complication - but it also permits us in an odd way to pay respect to the fetus (feelings of awe are not uncommon when looking at miniature fingers and fingernails, heart, intestines, kidneys, adrenal glands), even as we simultaneously have complete disregard for it. Then I rushed upstairs to take overnight call on labour and delivery. The first patient that came in was prematurely delivering at 23-24 weeks. As her exact gestational age was in question, the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) team resuscitated the premature newborn and brought it to the NICU. Later, along with the distraught parents, I watched the neonate on the ventilator. I thought to myself how bizarre it was that I could have legally dismembered this fetus-now-newborn if it were inside its mother's uterus - but that the same kind of violence against it now would be illegal, and unspeakable.
Harris then goes on to explain that she rationalizes the bizarreness of the situation by the "location" of the baby, whether it is "inside or outside of the woman's body," and "most importantly, her [the mother's] hopes and wishes for that fetus/baby." However, she says, "this knowledge does not change the reality that there is always violence involved in a second trimester abortion, which becomes acutely apparent at certain moments, like this one. I must add, however, that I consider declining a woman's request for abortion also to be an act of unspeakable violence."
Harris points out that the abortion lobby's discomfort with "the violence and, frankly, the gruesomeness of abortion" has led to a pro-abortion discourse that she says "contradicts an enormous part of" the abortionist's experience. While pro-abortion activists may claim abortions "don't really look like" the graphic images often displayed by pro-life protesters, Harris notes, "to a doctor and clinic team involved in second trimester abortion, they very well may."
"Of course, acknowledging the violence of abortion risks admitting that the stereotypes that anti-abortion forces hold of us are true - that we are butchers, etc.," she adds.
Harris also touches upon the psychological burdens second trimester abortion care lays upon its providers, including "serious emotional reactions that produced physiological symptoms, sleep disturbances (including disturbing dreams), effects on interpersonal relationships and moral anguish."
Harris tackles the "ethical and moral positions that allow for grey areas" in abortion provision by advocating the "gradualist perspective" - stating that "the respect owed to a fetus increases as pregnancy advances and the fetus becomes more like a born person." This, she says, serves to "close the gap between pro-choice rhetoric and the reality of doing a second trimester abortion," and "allows us to simultaneously acknowledge the value of early human life and be woman-centred, an ideal position for a second trimester provider."
While the "gradualist" approach raises the spectre of later abortions being "more serious" than early abortions, says Harris, the concern is allayed by the fact that "women have all sorts of compelling and legitimate reasons for choosing abortion" - particularly, she says, in second trimester abortions.
Still, for Harris, there remains the problem of abortionists "caught between pro-choice discourse that, while it reflects our values, does not accurately reflect the full extent of our experience of abortion and in fact contradicts an enormous part of it, and the anti-abortion discourse and imagery that may actually be more closely aligned to our experience but is based in values we do not share."
Harris conjectures that the needs of abortionists in this regard are not met because "frank talk like this is threatening to abortion rights." "While some of us involved in teaching abortion routinely speak to our trainees about the aspects of care I've described, we don't make a habit of speaking about it publicly. Essays like this bring the inevitable risk that comments will be misinterpreted, taken out of context and used as evidence for further abortion practice restrictions," she writes.
"We might conclude at this point that a provider who feels that abortion is violent is simply ambivalent, conflicted, is not really committed to women's abortion rights, and just shouldn't be doing this work," Harris writes. "'Pro-life' supporters may argue that the kind of stories and sentiments I've relayed spell the end of abortion - that honest speech acts regarding the reality of abortion will weaken the pro-choice movement to the point where it cannot sustain itself any longer.
However, she contests the point, arguing that, rather than weakening the argument for abortion, facing abortion with "honesty" can "be the basis for a stronger movement - one that makes it easier for providers and the teams they work with to do all abortions, especially second trimester abortions."
Does President Obama support or oppose an amendment sponsored by Rep. Bart Stupak (D.-Mich.) that would explicitly prohibit federal funding of abortion in the health-care bill now being considered in Congress? As of now, the White House isn't saying.
On Wednesday, the White House did not respond to CNSNews.com's direct written question on the matter. At Tuesday's White House press briefing, spokesman Robert Gibbs declined to specifically address Stupak's amendment. Click here for the video.
The amendment says: "No funds authorized under this Act (or an amendment by this Act) may be used to pay for any abortion or to cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion, except" in the cases of rape, incest and threat to the life of the mother.
The amendment is co-sponsored by Rep. Joe Pitts (R.-Pa.), and mirrors the language of the Hyde amendment, which is included in each year's Health and Human Services appropriation bill to prohibit abortion funding in programs funded by that particular appropriations bill in that particular year. Stupak's amendment would permanently bar abortion funding in the new programs that would be created by the health-care bill. These new programs will not be funded through the annual HHS appropriation that carries the Hyde amendment.
Stupak told CNSNews.com in a statement last week that he and other pro-life Democrats would try to block the health care bill itself if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not allow a vote on his amendment in the full House when the health care bill comes up for consideration.
"There are many of us Democrats in the House who are philosophically, legally, and morally opposed to public funding for abortions," Stupak told CNSNews.com in a statement last Friday.
"We want the chance to offer our amendment, the Hyde Amendment, on the floor of the House. If our amendment is not made in order we will try to shut down the rule, preventing the health care bill from coming to the floor for a vote," Stupak stated. "If the speaker believes that abortion funding is not in the bill then she should let me have my amendment, because if anything it would just be redundant."
At Tuesday's press briefing, CNSNews.com asked Gibbs about Stupak's plan to stop the health care bill if his amendment does not get a vote in the full House. In responding, Gibbs did not address Stupak's amendment itself but pointed to answers he gave at press briefings last Wednesday and Friday.
CNSNews.com asked Gibbs on Tuesday: "Robert, just want to revisit an issue from last week. Congressman Bart Stupak has talked about possibly holding up the bill, unless there's Hyde-like language--
Gibbs: "I know you asked this question twice last week, so we're on like--"
CNSNews.com: "This is a different question, this is a different question."
Gibbs: "I'm sure it is."
CNSNews.com: "If Hyde-like language is already in the bill, would there be any reason for Democrats not to support this language if it's"--
Gibbs: "I have not seen what Congressman Stupak said most recently. I would refer you to the answers I gave you on this question just twice last week."
Gibbs was referring to questions CNSNews.com had asked him last Wednesday and Friday about two letters that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had sent to Congress in which the bishops stated and then restated that no current version of the health care bill prohibits abortion funding and that without such a prohibition the bishops would oppose the bill.
Gibbs had contradicted the bishops, saying that the current law barring federal funding of abortion (the Hyde amendment that is attached to each year's Health and Human Services appropriation) would also apply to the health-care bill and that the bishops had misinterpreted the law.
Yesterday, Gibbs did not respond to a written question from CNSNews.com asking: "Does the president support, does he oppose or does he not have a position on the Stupak amendment?"
Gibbs's argument that the Hyde amendment would prohibit abortion funding in the health care bill is rejected not only by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops but also by National Right to Life. Analyzing President Obama's claim that the health care bill does not fund abortion, the independent group FactCheck.org concluded: "Despite what Obama said, the House bill would allow abortions to be covered by a federal plan and by federally subsidized private plans."
Stupak wants to attach the language of the Hyde Amendment to the health care bill itself so abortion funding explicitly prohibited under taxpayer-subsidized insurance plans. If the rule that would govern debate on the health care bill and stipulate which proposed amendments are eligible for votes on the House floor is defeated by a vote of the House, the health care bill itself would die.
Stupak told Fox News last month he believed he had enough votes lined up to defeat the rule if Speaker Pelosi does not agree to allow a vote on an amendment to explicitly bar abortion funding through the bill.
Africa has the highest number of pre-term births, but surprisingly, North America, with its sophisticated neonatal intensive care units, is a close second. The statistics are alarming enough that experts are looking into the problem of premature births around the world.
Dr. Gene Rudd with the Christian Medical & Dental Associations says the culture of abortion-on-demand may be a cause because some scientific information exists showing an abortion can cause premature births in later pregnancies.
"There'll be lots of people wanting to deny that data," Rudd says, "but right now the data is concerning enough that women ought to be counseled that abortion does predispose them, or at least appears to be predisposing them, to prematurity with subsequent pregnancies."
premature baby adult handDr. Rudd says prematurity exists though in cultures, like Africa, where abortion is not common but it is caused by compounding variables, like poor health, poor nutrition, and poor prenatal care.
"It certainly increases with women who have their own health complications," he says, "and there are certain racial groups that have higher incidences of premature birth."
Dr. Rudd concludes that what can be done to help these women and babies should be done. Premature babies, he points out, can have lifelong problems, including cerebral palsy, blindness, and learning disabilities.
NEWS SHORTS FOR THURSDAY (Referral to Web sites not produced by The Illinois Federation for Right to LIfe is for informational purposes only and does not necessarily constitute an endorsement of the sites' content.) Americans Favor Embryo Adoption
A majority of Americans from various backgrounds told Nightlight Christian Adoption they prefer human-embryo adoption over donating them for destructive stem-cell research.
Ron Stoddart, executive director of Nightlight, said the trend that appeared in the survey has positive implications for the life issue.
“It is because we have been successful at making people aware that the embryos are there,” he said, “and people have been thinking more about this dilemma and what to do about it.” Click here for the full article.
Cass Sunstein, who was recently confirmed to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, has argued for stronger efforts to enlarge the pool of organ donors, including policies that would require citizens to consent to organ donation in order to obtain driver's licenses. Sunstein argued that a policy of "routine removal"-- in which vital organs are taken from terminally ill patients even without their consent-- could be defended legally and morally. Click here for the full article.
A judge in Utah has concluded a bizarre legal case by finding that a 17-year-old girl did not violate state law by hiring a man to beat her, hoping that it would prompt a miscarriage. The judge concluded that while the incident was "shocking and crude," the girl was not subject to prosecution because an effort to end a pregnancy was covered by the state's law allowing abortion. Click here for the full article.
A new report by the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute-- named after a president of Planned Parenthood-- has found that the worldwide number of abortions fell from 45.5 million in 1995 to 41.6 million in 2003, a decline of 8.6%.
The report found that over one in five of the world’s abortions-- 8.8 million in 2003-- occur in China. Observing that “China imposed an urban population policy of one child per family in the 1980s,” the Guttmacher Institute did not condemn the one-child policy or reports of forced abortions, but instead praised the “high degree of safety” with which abortions are conducted in the Communist nation. Click here for the full article.
In recognition of October as National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Planned Parenthood of Delaware (PPDE) and the Philadelphia Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure® are partnering together to offer free breast exams at all PPDE health centers on October 20, 2009. Women who do not have health insurance are more likely to postpone care and delay or forgo important preventive care such as cancer screenings, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation report. And women below the poverty level are less likely than women with higher incomes to have had a mammogram within the past two years. Click here for the full article.
It was barely reported in the media, but a lawsuit was filed in federal court (Sherley et al. v. Sebelius et al.) on August 19 to reverse the guidelines put out by NIH that open federal funding to more human embryo destruction.
In further developments, a hearing was held Wednesday, October 14 in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on a preliminary injunction to block implementation and federal funding under the NIH guidelines. Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth listened to oral arguments, and will likely issue a decision by November 1 (in the meantime, NIH has indicated that it will not permit the expenditure of any funds for human embryonic stem cell research before that date.) Click here for the full article.
