U.S. Catholic Bishops Endorse Permanent Hyde Amendment

     

The U.S. Catholic Bishops are endorsing a bill proposed in the U.S. House of Representatives that would apply permanent Hyde amendment restrictions to abortion funding in federal programs.

Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo, chair of the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops (USCCB) Committee on Pro-Life Activities, urged Congress to support the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act" (H.R. 5939), introduced by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and Rep. Dan Linkinski (D-Ill.) on July 30.

"H.R. 5939 will write into permanent law a policy on which there has been strong popular and congressional agreement for over 35 years: The federal government should not use taxpayers' money to support and promote elective abortion," Cardinal DiNardo stated in an August 20 letter. "Even public officials who take a 'pro-choice' stand on abortion, and courts that have insisted on the validity of a constitutional 'right' to abortion, have agreed that the government can validly use its funding power to encourage childbirth over abortion."

The proposed legislation would make permanent the Hyde amendment, and many other pro-life policies that depend on congressional re-approval every year.

The Hyde amendment prohibits the funding of elective abortions, except in cases of rape, incest, or threat to the life of the mother, through any program funded by the annual Labor, Health, and Human Services Appropriations Act.

The amendment is currently attached to the annual appropriations bill as a rider each year, rendering its continued survival uncertain.

The bill would also make permanent the Helms amendment, the Smith FEHBP amendment, and the Dornan amendment, which respectively prohibit the funding of abortion overseas, the funding of elective abortion coverage for federal employees, and the use of congressionally appropriated funds for abortion in the District of Columbia.

In addition to banning abortion funding, the bill would also codify the Hyde-Weldon conscience clause within the Hyde amendment.  This ensures that recipients of federal funding do not discriminate against health care providers because they do not provide or facilitate abortions.

The bill already has 166 co-sponsors, including 20 Democrat House members.

DiNardo said it was imperative that Congress pass Hyde-like restrictions across the whole gamut of federal programs, since Congress has needed to pass individual legislation in order to address newly discovered gaps or loopholes where federal dollars could go to finance elective abortions.

"While Congress's policy has been remarkably consistent for decades, implementation of that policy in practice has been piecemeal and sometimes sadly inadequate," Cardinal DiNardo said.

He pointed to three aspects in the new national health care reform that contradict the spirit, if not the letter of Hyde, including provisions "directly forcing conscientiously opposed citizens in many plans to fund other people's abortions through their health premiums."

DiNardo said that should Congress pass H.R. 5939, then "federal health legislation could be debated and supported in terms of its ability to promote the goal of universal health care, instead of being mired in debates about one lethal procedure that most Americans know is not about 'health care' at all."

Contact: Peter J. Smith

Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Date Published: August 23, 2010

Obama Administration Reveals All in Major Abstinence Study

     

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has now released the full results of a government study that will give behavioral scientists insight into how parental attitudes and social norms are key to promoting abstinence before marriage, rather than sex ed programs.

Recently the HHS had been criticized for its delayed release of the full results of the study, as only an executive summary of the study's final conclusions were available.

Lisa Rue, Ph.D., a specialist in adolescent behavior, had complained that without the full data of the study, experts such as herself had less material to help teach adolescents to abstain from sexual activity, which would in turn reduce the epidemic spread of venereal disease and the incidence of teenage pregnancy.

"We have to know cultural norms and values before we ever do any kind of research, or develop initiatives," Rue said in a newspaper editorial. "If you ignore that, you're ignoring a premise, a key premise in evaluation science and research."

The 196-page report entitled "National Survey of Adolescents and Their Parents: Attitudes and Opinions About Sex and Abstinence" was funded by the HHS's Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and conducted by researchers with the Cambridge, Mass.-based Abt Associates. The survey examined 1,000 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18 and their "most knowledgeable parent," and examined the impact of parent attitudes, parent communication with adolescents, and peer attitudes on adolescents' choosing to have pre-marital sex or to abstain. 

The report had several findings that appeared to controvert conventional wisdom on teen attitudes and sex education. For example, the report found that "adolescents and parents generally oppose pre-marital sex," adding that adolescents have slightly more permissive views than their parents.

The report found that approximately 70 percent of parents were morally opposed to their teens having premarital sex, while just over 60 percent of teens agreed that only married persons should have sex.

The report also indicated that parental and social attitudes toward sex and abstinence were far more influential than classroom education, even when abstinence-based. Conservative attitudes of parents and peers toward sexual intercourse, reported the researchers, were broadly associated with an adolescent's choice to abstain from sexual intercourse.

While sex education, including abstinence-based, increased levels of communication about sex between adolescents and their parents, the study found that such communication made no measurable difference on adolescent's sexual attitudes. Such communication between teens and their peers were broadly associated with "less conservative adolescent attitudes."

Minority, religious, and low-income households exhibited more conservative views in general about sex and abstinence, according to the report. While black adolescents were more liberal than their parents on sex, Hispanic teens tended to agree with their conservative parents, as did those who attended religious services frequently.

Click here to read the full study. 

Contact: Peter J. Smith

Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Date Published: August 23, 2010

Citizen Action Prompts HHS to Release Abstinence Survey

     

Thanks to a flurry of citizen action, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was prompted to release the National Survey of Adolescents and Their Parents: Attitudes and Opinions about Sex and Abstinence – Final Report to the public late yesterday (8-23-2010).

HHS had previously withheld the survey data, even after a doctor and researcher submitted a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request that the survey be released. It took hundreds of citizens, submitting hundreds of FOIAs before HHS finally relented. This further emphasizes the impact that you, as a citizen, can make! Thank you!

What did this survey find?

Among other important discoveries, about 70 percent of parents agreed that it is "against [their] values for [their] adolescents to have sexual intercourse before marriage" and that "having sexual intercourse is something only married people should do." Adolescents had similar responses.

How interesting, as this is the fundamental message in most abstinence-centered programs. Are you becoming as concerned as I am?

Important Questions

    * Why the lack of transparency from our Administration regarding this survey?
    * Why were the results of this publicly funded national survey being withheld from the public, researchers and policymakers?
    * Would this information have impacted the Obama Administration's – and Members of Congress' – decision to remove federal funding of abstinence education programs?
    * Is our elected, "representative" form of government truly reflecting the desires of its constituents in this instance?
    * Should funding for abstinence education be re-introduced into the next fiscal budget?

You, the citizens of this nation, deserve answers to these questions. But it's likely you'll have to demand answers from this Administration.

Contact: Chad Hills

Source: CitizenLink
Date Published: August 24, 2010

Life Legal Defense Foundation Gets Loitering Charges Against Sidewalk Counselor Dismissed

     

The San Marcos City Attorney's office confirmed yesterday that it has dismissed all criminal charges against Elena Di Ventra that arose out of a loitering citation she received in May 2010. The sidewalk counselor was represented by Life Legal Defense Foundation staff attorney Allison K. Aranda.

Ms. Di Ventra was issued a citation for loitering after she walked into a parking lot adjacent to an abortion clinic to speak with a pregnant girl and offer her life saving information about her baby.  The parking lot is open to the public and Ms. Di Ventra immediately returned to the sidewalk after her brief conversation with the girl.  Despite all this, the police accused her of wandering idle about the property without an apparent reason to be present.

When the matter was brought to LLDF's attention, Ms. Aranda contacted the San Marcos City Attorney's Office and demanded that the meritless criminal charge be dropped at once.  The City Attorney's Office quickly reviewed the matter and agreed to dismiss the case.  "We are grateful for a city attorney who respects the right to freely speak," says Dana Cody, President and Executive Director of LLDF, "particularly since Ms. Di Ventra was facing a $3,870.00 fine in this case."

Contact: Allison K. Aranda

Source: Life Legal Defense Foundation
Date Published: August 24, 2010

Thomas More Society Testifies Against 'Telemed Abortions' in Iowa

     

On Friday, Thomas More Society attorney Tom Brejcha, along with representatives from several pro-life organizations, testified at the Iowa Medical Board hearing to argue against the performance of "telemed" abortions in the state. The Thomas More Society submitted a letter from special counsel Paul Benjamin Linton that outlined the case against this type of abortion, in which a patient is administered an abortion-inducing drug, RU-486, after meeting with a physician remotely via video conference.

"Telemedicine abortions are a clear violation of Iowa law, as an abortion can only be performed by a physician, and the drugs used to induce abortion can only be administered in a physician's office," said Brejcha, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Society, who appeared at the hearing at the request of several Iowa pro-life organizations and leaders. "We hope the Iowa Medical Board will properly honor the law of the state and public health will not be put at risk by allowing remote control abortions."

Under current Iowa law, the performance of an abortion by anyone other than a physician is a Class "C" felony. Brejcha adds that "telemed abortions" flout the protocol for administration of the drugs approved by the FDA, Mifeprex and misoprostol.

The chairman of the Board, Dr. Siroos Shirazi, announced after hearing the arguments that the Board will take all comments into consideration and render a ruling, which could come at the Board's October meeting.

Contact: Stephanie Lewis

Source: Thomas More Society
Date Published: August 20, 2010

Treating Unborn as Non-Persons Key to Planned Parenthood Agenda

     

What do serial killers, slave-owners, eugenicists, and abortionists have in common? According to Michael Hitchborn of American Life League, all these groups can only carry out crimes against human beings by first de-personalizing or trivializing the humanity of their victims.

In a new ALL report released on YouTube, Hitchborn makes his case beginning with the famous 1991 film "Silence of the Lambs," where a crazed transsexual killer pursued by an FBI agent (Jodie Foster) continually refers to his latest female victim as "it."

In doing so, says Hitchborn, the killer "depersonalizes his victim, reducing her to the status of an object or animal."

"The thing is, if his victim isn't a person, then in his own mind, there is nothing wrong with what he is about to do," continued Hitchborn.

The pro-life leader explained that a similar process of depersonalization and dehumanization is evident in the way that abortion advocates speak of a child developing in its mother's womb as a "fetus", "fertilized egg", or a "clump of cells."

"The use of terms like these is the first step in reducing humans to the status of non-persons," he added, saying history was replete with such examples.

Hitchborn referred to a clause within the U.S. Constitution prior to the enacting of the 13th amendment, where slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person. The agreement he said was a compromise with a culture that "viewed human slaves as property." Proponents of slavery would claim that slaves were not people, and eugenicists of the 19th and 20th century would do the same thing, referring to those with disabilities or of certain ethnicities as "undesirables."

Taken to its logical conclusion, these ideas led to the forming of the Nazi racial purity movement, which defined certain people as "subhuman" in popular propaganda.

"The excuses, and they are excuses, for denying the humanity or personhood of individual human beings is done for one reason and one reason only: it is the only way to create a class of humans without any rights."

Hitchborn said that Planned Parenthood, just like slave-owners, has to offer similar arguments dehumanizing or depersonalizing the unborn in order to justify their actions, with a motive for profit at the end of the line. Hitchborn told LifeSiteNews.com that "Planned Parenthood's sole agenda is to gain money through the murder of children."

Hitchborn pointed to a Planned Parenthood White Paper written in 1985 and republished in 2002 in response to the pro-life film "Silent Scream." The paper argues that a "fetus" of 12 weeks gestation "cannot be compared in any way to a fully formed functioning person" – arguing that the unborn child's dependency on his mother for survival, its undeveloped organs, and lack of conscious thought, means he does not merit the status of person.

"It is instead an in utero fetus with the potential of becoming a child."

Planned Parenthood said they were responding to Silent Scream, because they feared it could jeopardize the "constitutional right to abortion" as well as "the lives and careers of abortion providers."

"It really is a simple concept," Hitchborn told LSN. "The only people making the argument that a human is not a person are those who want to create a class of subhumans that have no rights."

Hitchborn praised the personhood initiative in Colorado, which is a ballot initiative to amend the State Constitution to recognize the personhood rights of all humans, from their biological beginning to their natural death. The amendment states: "the term 'person' shall apply to every human being from the beginning of the biological development of that human being."

"The personhood initiative out in Colorado ties in perfectly with what [pro-life groups] are doing, because they are working on establishing an amendment that would recognize there is no do distinction between that which is a person and that which is a human," said Hitchborn.

"They are establishing that we are all human, and that we are persons: that we all have a beginning and that beginning takes place in the womb, and not outside the womb, or some random spot on the spectrum by people who have an agenda to fulfill.

 "There is no distinction between a person and a human, and the only people that make that distinction are those that have an agenda."

Contact: Peter J. Smith

Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Date Published: August 20, 2010

Motion Filed Demanding Illinois Supreme Court Rule on Parental Notice Law

     

Exasperated with Illinois' parental notice law going unenforced for 15 years since its initial passage, pro-life attorneys are demanding the state Supreme Court intervene once and for all, so that the law can go into effect.

Attorneys for the Thomas More Society filed a motion with the Illinois Supreme Court Thursday morning requesting an immediate transfer of the legal case, which has embroiled the Illinois Parental Notice of Abortion Act of 1995, from the Appellate Court to their jurisdiction.

"More than fifteen years ago, with overwhelming bipartisan support, parental notice was supposedly made the law in Illinois, but as we sit here today, secret abortions on pregnant minors continue unabated," said Peter Breen, Thomas More Society executive director and legal counsel.

Breen and TMS's pro-life attorneys are appealing to a Supreme Court rule that allows transfer of cases to them directly when the "public interest requires prompt adjudication." Without the Supreme Court's intervention, the case will continue to be litigated in the First District of the Illinois Appellate Court, where they do not expect a decision for at least a year.

"With this motion to transfer, the Supreme Court has the opportunity to immediately and definitively decide the constitutionality of parental notice in Illinois," said Breen.

Judge Daniel Riley of the Cook County Circuit Court dismissed the lawsuit brought against the Act by the American Civil Liberties Union this past March, ruling the Act constitutionally valid. While he viewed the 1970 Illinois State Constitution as including a right to abortion, he said the Act should stand since the Illinois right to abortion is not broader than the federal right, thereby allowing for certain restrictions.
 
However, Riley issued an indefinite stay on his order for the duration of the ACLU's legal appeal.

Breen earlier told LifeSiteNews.com that he believes the state Supreme Court would likely rule in favor of the law. Five years ago, the Supreme Court created a court bypass procedure designed to make the law constitutional in Illinois. However, he said the ACLU has often adopted a strategy of litigating to delay a law as long as possible before dropping an appeal they are in danger of losing.

In November 2009, the ACLU intervened in court to strike down the parental notice law on the very day it was finally supposed to go into full effect. Both the Illinois Medical Disciplinary Board and the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation had decided to enforce the pro-life law without further delay when the ACLU intervened.

Since the passage of the Parental Notice of Abortion Act in 1995, over 50,000 Illinois girls below the age of majority have obtained abortions, more than 4,000 of whom were 14 years old or younger, without any requirement to notify their parents beforehand.

However, Illinois is also an abortion oasis in the Midwest for those looking to transport minors across state lines for abortion without their parent's knowledge or consent. In the Midwest, only Illinois lacks a parental notification or consent law for a minor seeking abortion. 

Contact: Peter J. Smith

Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Date Published: August 20, 2010

UNC pro-lifers call for healthcare investigation

     

Recent revelations have led Students for Life of America (SFLA) to request an investigation into the University of North Carolina (UNC) system, but the pro-life group is now requesting intervention from higher authorities.

The situation arose over mandatory student health insurance, which includes paying for abortion. The pro-life group convinced the school system to give students the choice to opt out of the coverage, but it has recently been discovered that student premiums will not decrease as a result. SFLA executive director Kristan Hawkins tells OneNewsNow her group has taken a further step after not getting straight answers about their concerns. (See earlier story)

A letter has been sent to the state's governor, to North Carolina's U.S. congressional delegation, and also to UNC system president Erskine Bowles. "We've asked them all to investigate this matter and to come back with us with answers," Hawkins explains.

Since student insurance that includes abortion coverage is considered part of the cost of education, the concern is that the inflated amount is being used to qualify students for federal grants -- and that, says Hawkins, has caught the attention of some members of Congress.

"I have staffers on the Hill looking into this," the SFLA executive director reports. "They are concerned this could be abortion funding from the federal government."

While Hawkins is waiting for a clear explanation, she tells OneNewsNow her group's investigation reveals the problem extends far beyond just the University of North Carolina system.

Contact: Charlie Butts

Source: OneNewsNow
Date Published: August 23, 2010

Pro-Abort Law Group Rails against USCCB for Opposing the Pill

     

The National Women's Law Center has taken aim at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for saying that a Medicaid waiver offering free birth control to low-income women embodies "a very dismissive view of women."

In a Wall Street Journal article discussing Wisconsin's implementation of the plan, Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) said that the notion of extending only birth control to a wider swath of women otherwise ineligible for Medicaid is guided by "a very dismissive view of women."

The message sent my such an initiative is that "The reproductive system is the only part of you we're interested in, and our interest is only to make sure it doesn't produce," he said.

But one pro-abortion group retaliated by hailing the "happier, healthier, fuller lives" women lead thanks to birth control.

"Thanks for you concern, Richard. But here's the truth: contraception helps women," retorted Steph Sterling of the National Women's Law Center.

Sterling went on to point out testimonials of how the Pill helped one woman overcome severe menstrual cramps, and helped others make lifestyle choices: one said the Pill helped her "not be kept barefoot and pregnant" and escape an abusive husband, while another rejoiced that the drug allowed her to pursue a career and "have children on my terms." "You know what? It's one thing to oppose birth control. But it's especially galling to oppose birth control and claim that it's for my own good," Sterling concluded. "Enough is enough."

For his part Matt Sande, legislative director of Pro-Life Wisconsin, took issue with the claim that contraceptives, when used as birth control, are essentially health care - and questioned the dismissal of their adverse side effects. "How is that health care? How is that improving the health of your reproductive system?" he asked LifeSiteNews.com.

Pointing out the abortifacient effect of the morning-after pill, he added, "What about the health of the preborn child, that embryonic baby? Are they part of the equation?"

Among Sande's top concerns with the program was the fact that teenagers as young as 15 are able to access contraceptives without parental knowledge: not only are clinics not required to inform parents, but they are disallowed from doing so by federal privacy laws. He said his office had been called by parents bewildered to learn that their children had been accessing contraception without their knowledge.

"Parents are naturally concerned about the sexual health of their kids, not only to protect them physically, but to guide them morally," said Sande. "These programs totally undermine the parent-child relationship. They ought to be reinforcing it, not sabotaging it." Sande's group is continuing a years-long struggle to pass legislation increasing the eligibility limit for the state program to 18 years.

While it already covers the abortifacient morning-after pill, the plan may also soon become the venue for even later-stage abortions thanks to the introduction of the new "ella" drug. The drug, which was recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a contraceptive, operates similarly to the RU-486 abortion drug, and can kill an embryo even after he or she has implanted in the womb.

In addition to the many adverse side effects of contraceptives - Sande pointed to the 22 deaths linked to the Ortho Evra contraceptive patch since its approval by the FDA - Sande affirmed that the programs amounted to a misuse of Medicaid funds.

"This is a lifestyle choice, and as such, the taxpayers certainly shouldn't be funding it," he said. "Medicaid is a health care program to improve health outcomes."

Contact: Kathleen Gilbert

Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Date Published: August 20, 2010

Let Parents Know - Protect Illinois Daughters!

    

We have a huge opportunity to advance Parental Notice in Illinois. This pro-life law was passed in 1995 but contrary to the overwhelming public support, it never went into effect. Minors have been taken across state-lines to evade telling their parents that they were going to abort. This is a dangerous practice and you can help put an end to it.

Parents have a right to know when their daughters are going to undergo a potentially life threatening medical procedure. For the past 15 years, parents have been kept in the dark about underage abortions in Illinois.

We have a great opportunity right now because The Thomas More Society has filed a motion to transfer the parental notice case to the Illinois Supreme Court so that it can finally be decided and this limbo can be put to rest. (Download the Motion here).  Illinois Federation for Right to Life is working with the "Let Parents Know Coalition" to urge Attorney General Lisa Madigan to support this motion and get the case moved to the Illinois Supreme Court! If we can get this law to go into effect, we WILL save lives, protect young girls from coerced abortion, and end secret underage abortions in Illinois.

Join us in calling Attorney General Madigan to ask her to support the Thomas More Society's motion to transfer the parental notice case to the Illinois Supreme Court. Here are the numbers:

Chicago Main Office: (312) 814-3000 

Springfield Main Office: (217) 782-1090 

Carbondale Main Office: (618) 529-6400

"More than fifteen years ago, with overwhelming bipartisan support, parental notice was supposedly made the law in Illinois, but as we sit here today, secret abortions on pregnant minors continue unabated," said Peter Breen, Thomas More Society executive director and legal counsel. "With this motion to transfer, the Supreme Court has the opportunity to immediately and definitively decide the constitutionality of parental notice in Illinois."

Please help us move this life saving law forward! After you call, sign the petition here.

Source: IFRL
Date Published: August 20, 2010

Bill would hinder crisis pregnancy centers

     

The Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission has called on congressional leaders to proceed no further on legislation to regulate advertising by pregnancy help centers.

In an Aug. 19 letter, Richard Land wrote the leading members of two committees to express opposition to the Stop Deceptive Advertising for Women's Services Act. Land is president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC). The bill would direct the Federal Trade Commission to issue new rules banning advertising that intends to give the impression a center provides abortions when it does not.

The ERLC opposes the legislation because "its purpose is to restrict the speech and activities of pregnancy centers throughout the country, opening the door for increased abortions," Land wrote.

"Crisis pregnancy centers have an impact on reducing abortions, as they inform women that there is an abortion alternative," he said. "If is therefore vital that we protect, not inhibit, the speech of these life-affirming pregnancy centers that do not perform or refer for abortions."

Land expressed a concern pro-life advocates have that the bill would require pregnancy centers to advertise they do not provide abortions.

"We do not know of any business that is required to advertise the services it does not provide," he said. "Why should crisis pregnancy centers be required to do so?"

Land's letter went to Sens. John Rockefeller, D.-W.Va., and Kay Bailey Hutchison, R.-Texas, the chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. It also was sent to Reps. Henry Waxman, D.-Calif., and Joe Barton, R.-Texas, the chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee.

The bill is H.R. 5652 in the House, and its companion in the Senate is S. 3554. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D.-N.Y., is the proposal's sponsor in the House; Sen. Robert Menendez, D.-N.J., is the sponsor in the Senate.

In introducing her bill June 30, Maloney said many pregnancy centers are "forthright and respectful" but asserted "some take a more underhanded approach to lure in women seeking abortions by using tactics that should be illegal."

NARAL Pro-choice America, a leading abortion rights organization, has been spearheading the charge against pro-life pregnancy centers. It has accused them of deceptively advertising in online yellow page directories under such headings as "abortion services."

Care Net President Melinda Delahoyde denied the charge when the bills were introduced. Affiliates with her pro-life organization and other national groups, such as Heartbeat International and the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, abide by a document -- titled "Commitment of Care and Competence" -- in which they promise to advertise and communicate truthfully, she said.

"Deception is simply inconsistent with our Christian principles of honesty and integrity," said Delahoyde, whose organization describes itself as "Christ-centered" and serves more than 1,100 pregnancy centers.

The Maloney and Menendez bills are "just another attempt to shut down the competition," she said in a written release.

The legislation, which has been introduced in previous sessions of Congress, has not been greeted with a groundswell of support. It has 25 co-sponsors in the House and none in the Senate.

Its introduction, however, again provides evidence of a tactic being used by abortion rights advocates and their allies at various government levels.

In the last year, the city councils of both Austin, Texas, and Baltimore, Md., have adopted ordinances requiring pregnancy help centers to display signs saying they do not perform or refer for abortions. Enforcement of the Baltimore measure has been put on hold while a lawsuit by organizations representing pregnancy centers is considered in federal court. A judge heard oral arguments in the case Aug. 4.

Many pro-life, pregnancy help centers provide such free services as pregnancy tests, ultrasound exams, prenatal care, childbirth classes, testing for sexually transmitted diseases, abstinence education, post-abortion counseling and material assistance. Abortion clinics typically do not provide some of these services.

In his letter, Land pointed to an "irony" in the Maloney and Menendez proposals.

The ERLC finds "it ironic that [the legislation] targets crisis pregnancy centers for supposed deception in advertising while some affiliates of Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, are under investigation for such practices as offering inaccurate information on unborn child development and advising minors on how to avoid state parental notification laws," he said.

Hidden-camera investigations by Live Action, a student-led, pro-life group, have caught Planned Parenthood employees in Alabama, Arizona, California, Indiana, Tennessee and Wisconsin seeking either to cover up alleged child sexual abuse or providing erroneous information about fetal development.

Land told the members of Congress the Southern Baptist Convention has approved more than 10 resolutions opposing abortion at its annual meetings since 1980. In some of those resolutions, support was expressed for pregnancy centers and counselors.

Contact: Tom Strode

Source: BP
Date Published: August 20, 2010

Preserving Human Exceptionalism Necessary to Preserving Humanity

     

Margaret Somerville, the splendid Canadian bioethicist, has a good (and needed) column out defending human exceptionalism.  From "Preserving Humanity:"

    Wrestling with difficult questions is routine work for ethicists. But some are much more difficult than others. Recently, an editor asked me one that falls in the former category: What did I believe was presently the world's most dangerous idea? I replied, "The idea that there is nothing special about being human and, therefore, humans do not deserve 'special respect,' as compared with other animals or even robots."

By George, she's got it!  It really is that important.

But why is human unexceptionalism dangerous? That could take a book–or better stated, books–to fully explain.  But with the space limitations, Somerville hits two points: What would happen to so-called "human nonpersons" and how the logic of denying the unique value of humanity could lead to the destruction of the human race from transhumanist recreationism:

    Following logically on that, these philosophers then argue that some seriously mentally disabled humans and babies, who are among the most vulnerable, weakest and most in need members of our societies, are not persons, and, therefore, do not have the protections personhood brings, for instance, protection of their right to life. And, likewise, they propose that at least some animals should be regarded as non-human persons on the basis that these animals have some of the characteristics of personhood that the humans they regard as non-persons lack. They propose that animals which are self-conscious, intelligent, and have free will and emotions comparable to those of humans, should be treated as non-human persons.

    But this idea that simply being human does not mean one deserves "special respect," rather, the respect owed to a "being" depends on its having certain attributes, is not only a serious danger to vulnerable humans. It could also lead to situations in which robots would be seen to deserve greater respect than humans and ethical restrictions on what we may do to change human life would become inoperative.

And, that could lead to efforts seeking the elimination of human beings altogether (my emphasis):

    If there is nothing special about being human, there is no essence of our humanness that we must hold in trust for future generations. That means we are free to use the new technoscience, as the transhumanists advocate we should, to alter humans so that they become "post-human," that is, not human at all as we know it. In other words, there would be many less or perhaps no ethical barriers to seeking the transhumanists' utopian goal, that humans will become an obsolete model. This would be achieved through our redesigning ourselves using technoscience — or perhaps robots doing so. Instead of our designing them, they could redesign us!

Obviously there is much more that can and should be said about these matters, and why it would be disastrous to eschew our unique value.  F0r example, we already see a resurgence of eugenics thinking ,with all of the tyrannous and nihilistic implications of the first go round–but with better technology.

Good for Somerville for getting this issue into a popular news outlet.  We need much more of that.  Most people are woefully unaware of the threat or its potential consequences.  (See my article on establishing an "undignified bioethics," for more examples.) That is why I believe the more we talk about human exceptionalism, the better we will be able to prevent the dangerous shifts in culture, law, and ethics for which the human unexceptionalists pine.

Contact: Wesley J. Smith

Source: Secondhand Smoke
Date Published: August 20, 2010

Adult stem cells succeed for lethal disease

      

University of Minnesota researchers have used non-embryonic stem cells to treat successfully children with a lethal skin disease.

Another team of researchers, meanwhile, reported Aug. 16 they had used a different form of non-embryonic stem cells to provide therapies for laboratory rats with Parkinson's Disease.

Using adult stem cells from donor bone marrow or donor umbilical cord blood, the Minnesota scientists treated children with recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (RDEB), a severe form of epidermolysis bullosa (EB). EB, which also affects the lining of the mouth and esophagus, causes skin to blister, which can lead to infections and a virulent form of skin cancer. The disease has been regarded as incurable. Most children with EB do not survive their 20s.

The research team, led by John Wagner and Jakub Tolar, has transplanted adult stem cells into 10 children since 2007. The recipients have responded to a variety of degrees, Wagner said.

"This discovery is more unique and more remarkable than it may first sound," Tolar said. "... What we have found is that stem cells contained in bone marrow can travel to sites of injured skin, leading to increased production of collagen which is deficient in patients with RDEB. Bone marrow transplantation is one of the riskiest procedures in medicine, yet it is also one of the most successful. Patients who otherwise would have died from their disease can often now be cured. It's a serious treatment for a serious disease."

David Prentice, senior fellow for life sciences at Family Research Council, posted an Aug. 12 report about the Minnesota research on the organization's weblog. The study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Meanwhile, researchers at the Buck Institute for Age Research in Novato, Calif., used human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to treat Parkinson's in rats, they reported. The iPSCs were derived from skin and blood cells and converted into neurons, then transplanted into rats with mid-brain injuries similar to those in human beings with Parkinson's. The rats demonstrated improvements in their motor skills, they said.

"Human iPSCs may provide an end-run around immuno-rejection issues surrounding the use of human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) to treat disease," said researcher Xianmin Zeng. "They may also solve bioethical issues surrounding [embryonic stem cells]."

The extraction of embryonic stem cells requires the destruction of the tiny human embryos from which they are taken. Extracting iPSCs and other non-embryonic stem cells does not harm the donor.

Contact: Tom Strode

Source: BP
Date Published: August 20, 2010

Pro-Life Groups Agree Nebraska AG Right to Back Down on Abortion Screenings Law

     

The Associated Press reports that Nebraska's attorney general will not challenge a federal judge's order preventing an abortion health screening law from going into effect, and state pro-life organizations are agreeing that may be the best course of action.

Spokeswoman Shannon Kingery told the AP that a U.S. District Judge's ruling against the law means it "will ultimately be found unconstitutional." With little chance of winning the case, Attorney General Jon Bruning did not want to risk having "Nebraska taxpayers to foot the bill for Planned Parenthood's legal fee."

The Women's Health Protection Act was passed by the Nebraska Unicameral on April 12 in a 40-9 vote. The law requires abortionists to prescreen thoroughly women seeking an abortion for potential physical and mental health problems, or face civil lawsuits from women harmed by their failure to obey the law.

The law mandates that abortionists tell a woman 24 hours in advance of abortion all the risks associated with abortion, that no one can make her have an abortion, and that she can withdraw her consent at any time.

But Planned Parenthood of the Heartland challenged the law, and U.S. District Judge Laurie Smith Camp agreed that it made it more difficult for women to obtain abortions, and would potentially expose abortionists to bankrupting lawsuits.

Julie Schmit-Albin, executive director for Nebraska Right to Life, defended Bruning as having made a tactical decision as AG, and said that he was not compromising his pro-life principles by making the decision.

Bruning expressed concerns over the abortion screening law surviving a constitutional challenge in July, saying that while he is "very pro-life," the state had limited resources for litigation.

At the same time, the Nebraska AG has also made no bones about his distaste for abortion, going so far as to call late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart "one sick individual." He also said he hated it "that he's here in Nebraska, and I hate it that he's here in America."

"Any suggestion that Attorney General Bruning is shirking his responsibility to defend pro-life legislation is not shared by Nebraska Right to Life," Schmit-Albin told the AP. She added that her organization is "confident that the attorney general will vigorously defend any attack" on the fetal pain law, which is "based upon medical documentation and testimony."

Sen. Cap Dierks of Ewing, the Act's sponsor, said that he was disappointed with Bruning's decision, and said he would work with pro-life groups to sponsor improved legislation at the next chance.

Like NRTL, the Nebraska Catholic Conference agreed with Bruning that the abortion screening law's chances looked slim, but added they would work to pass better legislation that would survive a constitutional challenge next session.

"We are still absolutely committed to what we believe is an important commonsense informed principle," NCC spokesman Greg Schleppenbach told the AP.

Contact: Peter J. Smith

Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Date Published: August 19, 2010

Abortion patient dies, family sues

     

A lawsuit has been filed against a troubled California abortionist in connection with the death of abortion patient.

In July 2009, 30-year-old Ying Chen suffered a heart attack and died from a reaction to local anesthesia in a strip mall clinic in San Gabriel -- a facility that was not equipped to handle emergency situations that might arise from an abortion, according to attorney Jeff Bell.

"It does not appear that this was a facility that was licensed or set up to do this type of procedure," he reports. "Therefore, it does not appear that they were capable of handling the complication that appears to have occurred."

abortion forcepsHe also tells OneNewsNow the abortion clinic was not the only business operating there as it is also the location of an acupuncture clinic and a general practitioner.

Chen's death was originally ruled accidental, but the coroner's department changed that to homicide after medical board investigators provided more information. The abortionist in the case, Dr. Andrew Rutland, has denied wrongdoing and has called the victim's death an "unpreventable complication to a local anesthetic."

But it has been revealed that the California Medical Board is familiar with the abortionist, who admitted negligence in the death of a baby who died after a forceps delivery in 2002.

"His license was suspended and/or revoked [following that], and he applied to get his privileges back," Bell explains. "The medical board granted that request, and now this is what has happened."

The attorney believes Zixiang Hu, Ying Chen's boyfriend, and her two-year-old daughter are entitled to collect damages. Meanwhile the medical board will hold a hearing in February to determine what further action should be taken against Rutland, which could include the permanent revocation of his medical license.

Contact: Charlie Butts

Source: OneNewsNow
Date Published: August 20, 2010

Thomas More Society Files Motion for Immediate Transfer of Parental Notice Challenge to Illinois Supreme Court

     

This morning, Thomas More Society attorneys delivered the justices of the Illinois Supreme Court a motion to immediately transfer the legal case pending against the Illinois Parental Notice of Abortion Act of 1995 from the Appellate Court to the Supreme Court. Arguing that pregnant minors at risk for abortion suffer harm every day that the Act is not enforced, the Society invoked the Supreme Court rule allowing transfer of an appeal when the "public interest requires prompt adjudication." The pending appeal, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), is currently in the Illinois Appellate Court, First District, where a decision is not expected for a year or more.

"More than fifteen years ago, with overwhelming bipartisan support, parental notice was supposedly made the law in Illinois, but as we sit here today, secret abortions on pregnant minors continue unabated," said Peter Breen, Thomas More Society executive director and legal counsel. "With this motion to transfer, the Supreme Court has the opportunity to immediately and definitively decide the constitutionality of parental notice in Illinois."

Earlier this year, Judge Daniel Riley of the Cook County Circuit Court allowed the Thomas More Society to appear as "friends of the court" as he rejected the ACLU's Illinois state constitutional challenges to the Parental Notice Act. However, after the decision, both the ACLU and the Illinois Attorney General's office agreed to an indefinite stay of the law, extending through the duration of the appeal a temporary restraining order entered earlier by Judge Riley.

Since the Parental Notice Act was signed into law in 1995, more than 50,000 abortions have been performed on pregnant minors in Illinois, including almost 5,000 abortions on girls 14 years of age and younger. Illinois is the only state in the Midwest that does not have a law requiring parental notification or consent prior to an abortion, and more than 55,000 abortions have been performed on non-residents in Illinois since 1995, including an unknown number of out-of-state pregnant minors.

While the Act was passed in 1995, it was in late 2006 that the Illinois Supreme Court issued the Act's required "judicial bypass" rules, which allow a minor a confidential bypass proceeding in court in lieu of notifying her parents. Notwithstanding the bypass rules, the Act also allows a minor to forego notification if she declares in writing that she is the victim of abuse. In early 2009, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit rejected the ACLU's federal constitutional challenge to the Act.

It is not yet known whether the Attorney General and the ACLU will support, oppose or remain neutral on the motion to transfer. A copy of the motion to transfer can be downloaded at www.thomasmoresociety.org.

Contact: Stephanie Lewis

Source: Thomas More Society
Date Published: August 19, 2010

Obama Administration Blocks Release of Pivotal HHS Abstinence Study

     

The Obama administration is, once again, entangled in controversy over sex education.

Yet this time, it is not about what the administration is trying to implement, but about what it is withholding – and apparently for political reasons.

A taxpayer-funded study that indicates parental and adolescent support of abstinence education is not being released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), as it does not support the administration's objective – or that of vocal "safe sex" activists – of eliminating all abstinence-education funding.

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), a division of HHS, funded a survey of 1,000 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18 and their parents, in order to measure parent-adolescent communication and adolescent attitudes toward sex and abstinence.

The American Public Health Association's (APHA) website reveals the only is results of the survey:

    "Adjusting for all other factors in the model, parent and peer factors are more consistently associated with differences in adolescent attitudes about sex and abstinence than are measures of adolescent exposure to sex and abstinence topics in a class or program.

    Additionally, parent attitudes are more important in influencing adolescent views than the level of parent communication with their adolescent."

The executive summary revealed that:

    * 70 percent of parents agreed with the statement: "It is against your values for your adolescents to have sexual intercourse before marriage.
    * 70 percent of parents agreed with the statement: "Having sexual intercourse is something only married people should do."
    * Adolescents had similar responses for the two questions.

During an APHA conference, researcher Lisa Rue, Ph.D., who specializes in adolescent behavior, was intrigued by the study and requested the full report. She was summarily denied access.

Rue then resorted to submitting a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, which was also denied because it was "pre-decisional and deliberative" – even though it was presented in public twice.

"We have to know cultural norms and values before we ever do any kind of research, or develop initiatives," Rue said. "If you ignore that, you're ignoring a premise, a key premise in evaluation science and research."

Rue wrote an op-ed piece in her local newspaper, demanding the report be released.

Chad Hills, a social policy analyst with CitizenLink, said it is unfortunate that HHS has chosen not to release this valuable study to researchers – or to the public.

"This information would better inform policymakers concerning the standard which a majority of the public wants them to uphold in public education," he said. "If they are not fully informed, how can they establish good policies?"

Hills also said that social science research demonstrates that the healthiest, highest expected standard for sexual behavior is within the context of a lifelong marriage.

"To undermine this standard by promoting casual sex is to undermine the stability of the family and, ultimately society," he said.

Contact: Catherine Snow

Source: CitizenLink
Date Published: August 18, 2010

Teen sex research aims to debunk abstinence studies

    

An abstinence advocate thinks the liberal media is trying to spin yet another story to give justification for teenagers having sex.

The headline from an Associated Press story on Sunday reads "Teen sex not always bad for school performance." The article quotes research presented at a meeting of the American Sociological Association, stating that teens in committed relationships do no better or worse in school than those who do not have sex.

However, Concerned Women for America's (CWA) Dr. Janice Crouse believes the major point of the study is that there are predictable outcomes when comparing teens who engage in casual sex with virgins. Janice Crouse 2Those include "lower GPAs, more problems in school [or] less attendance at school." Crouse also adds that "they have very predictable kinds of problems, so to say that those who are in a serious relationship don't have those problems...really doesn't pass the common-sense test."

She notes that another focal point of the study is that 14 percent of teens who are having sex have had four or more partners.

"That to me is the headline, and we know from looking at the data that those kids have very predictable problems," Crouse points out. "They are at high, high risk for STDs; they are at high, high risk for all sorts of extra problems when it comes to risky behaviors."

The abstinence advocate concludes that the story about the new research is designed to debunk positive abstinence studies.

Contact: Bill Bumpas

Source: OneNewsNow
Date Published: August 19, 2010

Researchers find that adult stem cells can rebuild heart tissue

     

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic, working together with Belgium experts, have demonstrated in lab tests that adult stem cells from bone marrow can repair and rebuild damaged heart tissue. The discovery was published yesterday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Stem cells that have been isolated from patients generally have a limited capacity to repair heart tissue, explained the Mayo Clinic in a press release.  However, the technology used in this particular study yielded significant results by programming these cells to acquire a profile similar to cardiac cells.

In order to carry out the tests, researchers obtained bone marrow-derived stem cells from patients with heart disease during coronary bypass surgery.

The Mayo Clinic reported that stem cells from two of the 11 individuals demonstrated an unusual capacity to repair heart tissue. The researchers then used techniques to introduce the same molecular signature into the stem cells of the other patients in order to "program" their capacity to repair heart tissue.

These kinds of cells, called Mesenchymal stem cells, were injected into rats with heart disease and resulted in significant recovery of heart function, as well as an improved survival rate after one year, in contrast with rats infused with stem cells not guided by researchers.

According to Andre Terzic of the Mayo Clinic, the main author of the study, "These findings provide proof-of-principle that "smart" adult stem cells have added benefit in repairing the heart."

Source: CNA
Date Published: August 18, 2010

Wisconsin effort to expand Medicaid-funded contraception to minors draws fire

     

The state of Wisconsin is working to expand a program which uses federal Medicaid funds to provide free contraception and vasectomies to poor and low income people. One pro-life leader challenged claims the program saves money, warning it supplies contraceptives to minors no matter their family's income and without parental knowledge.

The program is made possible by the federal health care overhaul passed in March 2010. According to the Wall Street Journal, previously federal funding was conditional and states had to reapply regularly. The new legislation allows states to establish permanent programs and to secure federal funding more quickly.

At present, women qualify for the program if they make up to $21,600 per year as an unmarried person, twice the federal poverty level. In June the Wisconsin government applied to raise the qualifying limit to $32,490.

Jason Helgerson, Wisconsin's Medicaid director, said the program helps prevent unplanned pregnancies.

Wisconsin spent $18.4 million on the program in 2008. About 53,000 people receive extra "family planning help" under Medicaid, the Wall Street Journal says, with federal Medicaid reimbursing 90 percent of the costs. The state health department estimated that the program prevented 11,064 unplanned pregnancies, claiming savings of $139.1 million which would otherwise have been spent to support the children.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has said it opposes the health care legislation's provision to facilitate such programs and will alert its bishops at the state level.

Richard Doerflinger, associate director of the USCCB's Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, told the Wall Street Journal that providing coverage for family planning and nothing else reflects "a very dismissive view of women" and tells them "the reproductive system is the only part of you we're interested in, and our interest is only to make sure it doesn't produce."

In a Wednesday phone interview, CNA spoke with Matt Sande, legislative director of Pro-Life Wisconsin, whose organization has opposed the program since its inception in 2003.

Sande challenged the Wisconsin health department's claim that the program saves money through preventing pregnancy. He cited the non-partisan Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau's report on the program, which declared "estimates of program costs and savings must be based on a number of behavioral assumptions that cannot be reliably predicted."

"All costs and savings are speculative," the report said, according to Sande.

He explained that Pro-Life Wisconsin holds that government-funded birth control "fuels teen sexual activity and encourages it."

Sande especially objected to the provision of taxpayer-funded birth control at no cost to minors aged 15 to 17 and the law's prohibition of parental notification.

"Parents are naturally concerned about sexual health of their teen children, to protect them physically and to guide them morally. State should be protecting that relationship, not undermining it."

A 15-year-old can enroll in the family planning program and "can literally be receiving hormonal contraceptives that day, including the morning-after pill."

"Their parents don't know. I've had parents call me and just be shocked and saddened that their child was on the morning-after pill."

Sande also claimed that minors' family income is disregarded, so even a wealthy girl could qualify. "Virtually every teen girl in this state is eligible for this program," he charged, later adding, "That should make taxpayer irate."

Opponents of the program have concentrated on raising the minimum eligibility age to exclude minors, but the last legislative effort lost by one vote.

He said that the program is "enticing" to states because federal funds provide 90 percent of costs instead of the typical 60 percent.
 
He also noted that the Wisconsin program was approved under the George W. Bush administration.
 
Pro-Life Wisconsin opposes all contraception, Sande told CNA. "The idea that pregnancy is a disease, that a child is a problem to be taken care of, that fosters the abortion mentality."

Sande thought it was "sad" that so many young girls and boys are enrolling in the program. "Their sexual mores and their thought processes are being guided by the nation's number one abortion provider, Planned Parenthood."

"This is the culture of death in full swing here."

"Constantly pushing contraception … is giving the green light to early teen sexual activity," he remarked. "Planned Parenthood knows that these hormonal contraceptives fail, and they reap the profits when children become pregnant and get abortions."

Source: CNA
Date Published: August 19, 2010

Should Courts or Ethics Committees Decide “Futile” Care Cases?

     

Futile care theory would permit bioethics committees or doctors to refuse wanted  life-sustaining treatment based on quality of life and/or resource husbanding purposes (as opposed to being physiologically useless).

The bioethicist Art Caplan weighs in on the matter in an opinion piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer. From the column "Who Should Decide When Care is Futile?":

    The court [in dismissing a moot futile care litigation] did, nevertheless, understand the importance of the matter, saying: "The issues presented are profound and universal in application. They warrant thoughtful study and debate not in the context of overheated rhetoric in the battlefield of active litigation, such as marked the [Terri] Schiavo debate, but in thoughtful consideration by the Legislature as well as executive agencies and commissions charged with developing the policies that impact on the lives of all."

    State legislatures, bioethics commissions, religious groups, think tanks, and the federal government would do well to heed those words. Although few cases involving medical futility reach court, that doesn't mean doctors don't grapple with them regularly in hospitals and intensive care units. Although nearly every such case is resolved in favor of continuing care, that doesn't mean this is the best use of medical resources or public money. And although this nation is likely to encounter more cases like Ruben Betancourt's, that doesn't mean we should resolve them all in the courts.  What these facts do mean is that it's time to openly and publicly examine what should happen when medical professionals feel they can do no more for patients, but their families, partners, and friends vehemently disagree.

We do need to grapple with these issues, primarily through education, not coercion.

Indeed, the last thing we need is for faceless bioethics committees to be legally empowered to decide behind closed doors to withdraw care that is working by keeping the patient alive–based on a subjective belief that the patient's life is not worth living–as now allowed in Texas.  That kind of power requires significant check and balances, such as the right of cross examination, a public record, an open and discoverable  deliberative process, explicitly stated bases for decisions, and the right to appeal.  This doesn't mean the process needs to start in courts, but it sure is where disputes that cannot otherwise by resolved, should end up.

Moreover, those who wish to cut off treatment based on quality of  life, should bear the significant burden of proof that continuing care is not in the best interests of the patient or what the patient wanted as expressed in an advance directive.  Otherwise, the overarching purpose of medicine–extending life when that is what the patient wants–could be profoundly undermined.

Illustrating the danger, in Culture of Death, I recounted the Baby Ryan case, in which doctors wanted to unilaterally refuse dialysis based on their view that the baby had zero chance of surviving kidney failure.  They were wrong.  The boy was eventually weaned off dialysis and lived for several years, during which time he was a happy child, the apple of his parents' eyes.)

Contact: Wesley J. Smith

Source: Secondhand Smoke
Date Published: August 19, 2010

Most Women Say Abortion 'Too Easy' to Obtain in U.S.: Rasmussen Poll

Pro-life voters twice as likely as pro-choice to consider abortion important voting issue


     

Nearly half of U.S. voters say it's too easy to obtain an abortion in America, while only a fraction say it is too difficult, according to a Rassmussen Reports survey released Monday. In addition, the pollster reported that twice as many pro-life voters as pro-abort voters surveyed said they considered abortion an important factor in casting their ballot.

Only 15 percent of respondents in the August 11-12 telephone survey said obtaining the procedure was too difficult, while 48 percent said getting an abortion was too easy. Twenty-three percent said the level of difficulty was about right, and 14 percent were unsure.

The results showed a slight increase in opposition to the procedure's availability from a survey three years ago, which found 45 percent calling abortions too easy to obtain,  22 percent calling it too hard, and 21 percent calling abortion availability about right.

More women than men in the new survey felt that abortions were too easy to obtain, at 53 percent and 49 percent, respectively. In addition, 58 percent of women say abortion is morally wrong in most cases, while 49 percent of men share that view.

In terms of voting, 33 percent of respondents said the issue is "very important" to how they will cast their ballot; 28 percent said it is "somewhat important," 25 percent "not very important," and 12 percent "not at all important." While 49 percent polled as pro-choice and 43 percent pro-life, the pro-life respondents were twice as likely as their pro-choice counterparts to call the issue important to their voting choice.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, told LifeSiteNews.com that the results mirrored her organization's surveys in the districts of "pro-life" Democrats who voted for the abortion-expanding federal health care legislation - lawmakers the SBA List has been aggressively campaigning against.

The results, she said, also "echo the hunger for authentic pro-life leadership" that the group noticed on its recent "Votes Have Consequences" bus tour.

Contact: Kathleen Gilbert
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Date Published: August 17, 2010

We all have a moral obligation to oppose micro-abortions

     

There have been a number of stories recently about the use of birth control drugs and devices as so-called emergency contraception e.g. Mail on Sunday, Reuters.  I have of course written many times before about the wider implications for the culture of life of contraception, that is, the intentional separation of the unitive and procreative meanings of conjugal relations. Without revisiting that here, I wish to highlight the abortifacient nature of most birth control drugs and devices.

According to the manufacturers of these drugs and devices, one of their modes of action is to prevent the implantation in the womb of newly-conceived human embryos; in other words, to kill unborn children through micro-abortion. It is a simple fact that the killing of unborn children by morning-after pills is just as wrong as, say, killing unborn children through partial-birth abortion. An abortion is an abortion is an abortion. The specific aspects of micro-abortion and of partial-birth abortion may differ. For example, a micro-abortion involves killing:

    * the most vulnerable and dismissed human beings
    * usually by people who deny or are unware of the humanity of human embryos and the abortifacient mode of most birth control
    * in an uneventful, unseen way (at least superficially).

A partial-birth abortion involves killing:

    * babies who are clearly identifiable to the naked eye as babies
    * often by people who know and accept the humanity of late-term unborn children and the homicidal nature of late-term abortion
    * through the most horrific dismemberment.

These things are different aspects of the respective abortion techniques, but not differences in the fundamental nature and objective wrongness of those techniques, which are equal.

It is therefore clear that:

    * parents
    * teachers
    * medics
    * pharmacists
    * clergy

all have a moral obligation:

    * not to be complicit in any way in the distribution, promotion or use of
    * to exercise conscientious objection to
    * to act and warn against the use of

the morning-after pill and all other birth control drugs and devices which may have an abortifacient mode of action

Contact: john Smeaton
Source: SPUC
Date Published: August 18, 2010

ObamaCare Rationing Faces Its First Test

     

Throughout the health care debate, conservatives warned what a government takeover of our health care would mean for America's health care system. Conservatives said government intervention would restrict access to affordable and quality care, government spending and premiums would skyrocket and Americans would be forced out of their current health care plans. Important decisions would not be made by doctors and their patients but through bureaucrats in Washington who would put cost above quality care in their decision-making.

President Obama and Democrats rejected these conclusions. The President promised "you will have not only the care you need, but also the care that right now is being denied to you -- only if we get health care reform." But last month President Obama nominated Dr. Donald Berwick to head of Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. A strong advocate for U.K. socialized health care system and rationing health care, Dr. Berwick has said, "it's not a question of whether we will ration health care. It is whether we will ration with our eyes open." As head of the CMS, Berwick will oversee health care of over 100 million Americans with a budget of $800 billion annually. President Obama had to circumvent the Senate and use a recess appointment in order to try to hide Dr. Berwick's radical views.

In the coming months, there will be a big test on rationing care. Medicare may end its coverage of two successful anti-cancer drugs, Provenge and Avastin. Provenge is used to extend the life of patients with prostate cancer, while Avastin, the world best selling anti-cancer drug, helps to prevent the spread of breast cancer in late stages.

CMS is currently reviewing Provenge to see whether they will cover the drug. The reason: it costs $23,000 per month and on average costs $93,000 in total. Instead of looking at the track record of the effectiveness of the drug, the government has decided to determine whether it is worth the high cost. All of this comes after the President has said he does not "want government bureaucrats meddling in your health care." The American Society of Clinical Oncology, representing 28,000 cancer doctors, has sent a letter to CMS urging them to continue their 80% reimbursement rate of the drug.

Avastin is under similar review, but this time by the FDA. The FDA advisory panel just voted 12-1 to stop backing the drug. The FDA says they reviewed the drug effectiveness
given recent studies that have shown it has little effect on extending the life of women with breast cancer but possibly high side effects. But the Washington Post noted on August 16th:

    "Federal regulators are considering taking the highly unusual step of rescinding approval of a drug that patients with advanced breast cancer turn to as a last-ditch hope. The debate over Avastin, prescribed to about 17,500 women with breast cancer a year, has become entangled in the politically explosive struggle over medical spending and effectiveness that flared during the battle over health-care reform: How should the government balance protecting patients and controlling costs without restricting access to cutting-edge, and often costly, treatments?... The FDA is not supposed to consider costs in its decisions."

A spokesperson for the FDA said that the drug should remain an option for cancer patients but their actions will most likely lead to insurers to stop coverage of the drug, making it extremely difficult for it to remain as a legitimate option for cancer patients.

Clearly the FDA has now made cost a factor in its review of drugs, even though the FDA clearly states on their web site they are only "responsible for protecting the public health by assuring the safety" of drugs. According to the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Medicare statute section 1861(t)(2)(A) states Medicare must cover any drug that is approved by the FDA. This is completely unprecedented. It would be the first time Medicare would not provide coverage for a cancer treatment drug approved by the FDA.

Susan G. Komen and the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, have co-authored a letter to the FDA asking them to continue support of the drug and warning that rescinding their approval would inevitably lead to a decline in its use by patients and coverage by insurance companies.

According to the UK Telegraph, the UK NHS health system is also currently reviewing Avastin, Republican Senator David Vitter of Louisiana responded to the news saying, "I shudder at the thought of a government panel assigning a value to a day of a person's life," he said. "It is sickening to think that care would be withheld from a patient simply because their life is not deemed valuable enough…I fear this is the beginning of a slippery slope leading to more and more rationing under the government takeover of health care that is being forced on the American people." According to the American Cancer Society, 40,170 women lost their life to breast cancer in 2009.

Rationing care is exactly why government should not have control over our health care system. They should not make decisions for individuals, but rather decisions like this should remain between the doctor and his or her patient. The pattern of putting cost above high quality care is dominant in Europe, which is why the US currently has a higher cancer survival rate than any European country.

We encourage Dr. Berwick to refrain from forcing rationing on the American health care system. Rationing is a recipe for disaster that will lead to higher mortality rates and lower quality health care. ObamaCare should be repealed and replaced with real reforms that cut costs, lower premiums and expand coverage for the uninsured.

Source: American's for Prosperity
Date Published: August 17, 2010

Patients win, abortionist loses

     
An abortionist's challenge against the Patient Safety Ordinance in Allen County, Indiana, has failed.
 
A federal judge in The Hoosier State has ruled that Allen County can regulate itinerate medical providers, including an abortion clinic in Fort Wayne.

"The Allen County Patient Safety Ordinance requires that out-of-town doctors obtain a physician designee -- a backup doctor -- to take care of their patients when they have gone home and the patients are in emergency situations and have to go to emergency rooms," reports Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorney Steven Aden.

Steven Aden (ADF)The abortion patient must be given the backup information 24 hours in advance of the operation. The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit to block the ordinance on behalf of abortionist Ulrich Klopfer, who argues the regulation will prevent him from performing abortions because he cannot find a doctor in the area who is willing to associate with him as his designated physician.

"The county recognized that their patients' health is more important than the bottom line of an out-of-town medical provider, including an abortionist," Aden explains. "The county simply can't put the health and safety of patients at risk because one man wants to perform abortions without a sensible safety precaution that applies to all out-of-town physicians -- not just abortionists."

The court has issued a preliminary injunction, allowing most of the provisions to go into effect while litigation continues.

Contact: Charlie Butts
Source: OneNewsNow
Date Published: August 18, 2010

U.S. Inspector General Audits Reveal Fraudulent Billing By Planned Parenthood

    

New Jersey Right to Life (NJRTL), released on Friday three separate audits conducted by the U.S. Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services, which show that state Planned Parenthood providers have been over-billed the federal government of millions.

The audits, conducted between 2001 and 2005, found that nearly $3 million should have been refunded to the government.

NJRTL's report comes just a few weeks after New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie vetoed an effort by abortion-backed elected officials from restoring $7.5 million in tax dollars to family planning clinics.

Marie Tasy, the executive director of New Jersey Right to Life, said this is a systemic problem with Planned Parenthood. According to the audits, clinics improperly billed everything from prescription medications to outpatient services.

"They have a history of abusing the system. They should not be getting funded by the state or federal government, "she said. "All money is fungible, and we know that the money is being used and directed for abortion – even though they claim it's not."

Len Deo, executive director for the New Jersey Family Policy Council, said it's up to the government to decide where our money is best spent.

"These types of abuses in billing serve to underscore the increased scrutiny that these clinics should be subject to."

Source: CitizenLink
Date Published: August 16, 2010

Operation Rescue Will Join Iowa Coalition Friday in Opposing Telemed Abortions

Public invited to attend Iowa Medical Board session to speak out against push-button abortions


     

Operation Rescue will participate in a press conference with a coalition of pro-life and pro-family organizations on Friday, August 20th, at 12:00 Noon prior to the afternoon session of the Iowa Board of Medicine where public comments will be heard regarding Planned Parenthood's remote-controlled push-button abortion pill distribution scheme, known as telemed abortions.

The Iowa Board of Medicine (IBM) will be meeting at 400 SW 8th Street, Suite C in Des Moines. The press conference will be held on the area just south of the building between Murphy Street and SW 8th Street. It is being led by Iowans for Life.

After the press conference, Operation Rescue plans to attend the public comment portion of the IBM meeting and voice strong opposition to the misuse of telemedicine by Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, which conducts abortion by pill without a licensed physician present or physically available to the patient, even in the event of an emergency.

Operation Rescue filed a complaint with the IBM against Planned Parenthood of the Heartland in an effort to stop the dangerous practice of the push-button telemed abortions. That complaint launched an investigation that is ongoing.

"We encourage everyone who can to attend the press conference and IBM meeting to voice concerns about Planned Parenthood's dangerous misuse of technology that kills innocent babies and endangers the lives of women," said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. "Now is the time for us to stand up and speak on behalf of those who have no voice."

Operation Rescue will also be commenting on our interactions with the Iowa Attorney General's office regarding requests for a criminal investigation and audit of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland for alleged violations concerning the dubious practice of telemed abortions.

Contact: Troy Newman, Cheryl Sullenger
Source: Operation Rescue
Date Published: August 18, 2010

Voters Say No to Abortions on Military Bases, Repealing DADT

     

A new survey commissioned by the Military Culture Coalition (MCC) indicates that American voters would prefer to keep in place the 1993 law banning homosexuals serving in the military. The poll also indicated that U.S. voters oppose allowing abortion on military bases.

The MCC survey of 1000 likely voters nationwide found that 48 percent said they would prefer to keep the 1993 law, with 45 percent favoring repeal.

A plurality (48 percent of voters) said Congress should give more weight to the testimony of the four service chiefs than advocates of overturning the law, which is often conflated with a corresponding Pentagon policy known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT). Forty-one percent said that Congress should heed the advice of advocates for repeal of the law and DADT.

But voters also gave strong signs they did not want the acceptance of homosexuals to turn the military into a training camp for social experimentation.

Fifty-five percent of voters disagreed with the statement that the "military should modify training programs to promote acceptance of openly lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons in all military colleges, training programs, and schools run by the U.S. Defense Department." Just 40 percent voiced agreement.

Voters also held that politics, not principle, motivated President Barack Obama's promise to overturn the 1993 law by a full 26 percentage points (57 percent - 31 percent).

Only one percent of likely voters said repeal of DADT and the 1993 law should be a priority for the Congress and President Obama.

However, the poll also indicated that Congressmen would receive more voter blowback for repealing the 1993 law than they would for maintaining the status quo. Thirty percent said they would be less likely to vote for their Member of Congress for changing the status quo, while 21 percent said they would be more likely.

Elaine Donnelly, President of the Center for Military Readiness (CMR), which also sponsored the MCC survey, told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) Friday that Americans "prefer the status quo. They prefer the law stay where it is."

She said that the poll contradicts the narrative of many civilian surveys, which have simply polled adults, as opposed to likely voters - something that the MCC survey avoids.

"They don't explain what the law actually says. Ours is different: it does ask about the law itself, it even asks the respondents to comment on statements right out of the current law," explained Donnelly.

Donnelly pointed out that the 45 percent of respondents supporting repeal of the law is a full 30 points less than the February 2010 ABC/Washington Post survey showing 75 percent of surveyed adults favored inclusion of professed gays in the military.

"So it calls into question a lot of the civilian surveys that have been done up to today."

The U.S. House of Representatives has already voted to repeal the law behind DADT. The matter will be decided in the Senate where Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is trying to cobble together a filibuster to prevent a September vote on the repeal, which is included in a military appropriations bill.

Also in the bill is a measure to repeal the ban on abortions being performed on U.S. military bases that was submitted by Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.).

According to the MCC poll, voters were more decidedly opposed to allowing abortion in U.S. military medical facilities, by a margin of 49 percent to 41 percent. Also the political ramifications were greater, as 43 percent of voters said they would be less likely to vote for lawmakers who approve tax-funded abortions at military bases, while just 21 percent said they would be more likely.

Contact: Peter J. Smith
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Date Published: August 16, 2010

Obama Administration Spending $63 Billion on ‘Woman-Centered’ Global Health Care Program

     

The Obama administration is focused not just on health-care reform in the United States – but also on improving health care systems around the world, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced on Monday.
 
The new plan has a "woman- and girl-centered approach," according to an administration fact sheet.
 
Speaking at Johns Hopkins University, Clinton outlined the six-year, $63-billion Obama administration initiative to bring global health care services "to more people in more places." The administration's Global Health Initiative has "everything" to do with foreign policy, she said.
 
"This is a signature of American leadership in the world today, Clinton said. " It's also an issue very close to my own heart."
 
Clinton said in her world travels, she's met "countless people who are proof of what successful global health programs can do." She mentioned HIV-positive farmers in Kenya who are able to continue farming, thanks to antiretroviral drugs; children in Angola who now sleep under bed nets to ward off malaria; mothers of healthy babies who were delivered by trained midwives; and people who survived into adulthood because of childhood immunizations.
 
Clinton then outlined the "new approach" to global health care, which is aimed at "saving the greatest possible number of lives" by expanding existing health programs "to help countries develop their own capacity to improve the health of their own people."
 
Clinton said the administration's Global Health Initiative (GHI) would build on the groundbreaking work of the George W. Bush administration's PEPFAR program (President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief). The Obama administration, Clinton said, will expand the PEPFAR program to provide anti-AIDS retroviral drugs to more people in developing countries.
 
The new GHI programs will have what the Obama administration describes as a "woman-centered" approach, providing funding for neonatal care, family planning services, and infant health care.
 
Making global health care local
 
The centerpiece of the Obama administration's Global Health Initiative will be to encourage and help developing countries run their own health care systems instead of relying on foreign aid workers. This part of the plan will have U.S. aid workers and diplomats work with foreign governments to design locally administered health care systems that – while funded through international aid networks – will be run by local governments.
 
Clinton explained that this aspect of global health addresses not just a humanitarian concern but a geopolitical one as well, since poor, weak states often are crippled in part because of poor public health.
 
"We invest in global health to strengthen fragile or failing states," Clinton said. "We have seen the devastating impact of HIV-AIDS on countries stripped of their farmers, teachers, soldiers, health workers, and other professionals."
 
Clinton said improving health care in developing countries also fulfills other foreign policy goals – such as promoting social and economic progress in countries that may be able to help the U.S. solve regional and global problems. Investments in global health protect U.S. national security, including the threat posed by disease outbreaks; and those investments also serve as a tool of public diplomacy, boosting the U.S. image in the eyes of people who receive health care they might otherwise go without.
 
The Obama administration's GHI will develop data-tracking systems to measure the efficacy of U.S. foreign health aid. Part of the $63 billion in new funding will go toward developing ways to test and evaluate existing global health programs to determine which ones are effective and which are not.
 
Clinton said these initiatives would take U.S. aid programs "to the next level" by making them more efficient and effective and less reliant on foreign workers.
 
"We're shifting our focus from solving problems one at a time to serving people by considering more fully the circumstances of their lives and ensuring they can get the care they need most over the course of their lifetimes," she said.
 
Family planning
 
Clinton highlighted the expansion of family planning services, saying that the administration would pressure other countries to reform child marriage laws and would also work to expand access to contraceptives and family planning education.
 
According to the government's fact sheet, one of GHI's goals is to "prevent 54 million unintended pregnancies by meeting unmet need for modern contraception."
 
Clinton said family planning – including pregnancy prevention – not only will improve women's health but also will reduce the poverty that often afflicts large families in poorer countries. She said women must be given more control over when they become pregnant.
 
"We are scaling up our work in family planning and maternal and child health, areas in which the United States can and must lead," Clinton said. She noted "Every year, hundreds of thousands of women die from complications related to pregnancy or childbirth – nearly all of them in the developing world."
 
 "Family planning represents one of the most cost effective public health interventions available in the world today. It prevents both maternal and child deaths by helping women space their births and bear children during their healthiest years and it reduces the deaths of women from unsafe abortions."
 
Clinton said that GHI will be "making up for lost time" in funding family planning services – boosting existing programs whose funding has diminished in recent years.
 
Clinton also said the administration was "moving beyond" the ABC (Abstinence, Be faithful, Correct contraceptive use) anti-AIDS approach adopted during the Bush years to an "A to Z approach to [HIV] prevention" that includes measures such as "male circumcision [and] the prevention of mother-to-child transmission" as well as better HIV screening and education.
 
The administration's Global Health Initiative also will address lesser known tropical diseases such as guinea worm as well as increase funding for child nutrition programs and malaria and tuberculosis treatment and prevention.

Contact: Matt Cover
Source: CNSNews.com
Date Published: August 17, 2010