Pro-life issues are the ‘untold story’ of 2010 midterm elections

     

While media pundits have focused on economic issues as key in the 2010 U.S. elections, pro-life leaders say abortion is the "untold story" in politics this year. Pro-life concerns determined the victor in many primary races, while opposition to taxpayer-funded abortion in the health care bill is important to many voters.

Americans United for Life (AUL) vice president for communications Matthew Faraci said there is a "convergence" of economic and pro-life issues in the issue of taxpayer-funded abortion.

"Seven out of ten voters are opposed," he told CNA, citing a Quinnipiac poll.

In his view, the Republican Party's pledge to make permanent the Hyde Amendment restrictions on abortion funding makes the pro-life cause prominent "like it hasn't been in a long time."

The Susan B. Anthony List aims to play a role in dozens of races. SBA List president Marjorie Dannenfelser challenged the claim that economic issues are really the deciding factor in the election.

"The people that are saying that the loudest are pundits and folks inside the beltway and in the boardroom of major papers," she commented. "(Political commentator) Dick Morris is usually a pretty brilliant guy, but he's saying some pretty stupid stuff right now. And it shows to me that he just hasn't looked at it very closely yet."

"The truth is that economic issues are an overriding concern in every household in America, but it's also true that people can think about more than one issue at a time, and so should leaders," she told CNA. "This House of Representatives is likely to be among the most pro-life in history. That means it matters."

Being the most pro-life primary candidate has been pivotal in states such as New Hampshire and California "of all places."

"It's the big untold story," Dannenfelser said. "To have been pro-choice would have been a killer."

Noting that record-high primary turnout should carry over into the general election, she claimed that the pro-life vote might be "decisive" in close elections.

She noted four Senate races could place pro-life women in the Senate: Carly Fiorina in California, Sharron Angle in Nevada, Christine O'Donnell in Delaware and Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire. All are Republicans.

The SBA List is also seeking to achieve an "historic moment" of having strongly committed pro-life governors. It favors Arizona's incumbent Gov. Jan Brewer, New Mexico's Susan Martinez, Oklahoma's Mary Fallin, and South Carolina's Nikki Haley – again, all Republicans.

The pro-life group is also targeting pro-life Democrats who voted in favor of the health care legislation. This drew criticism from Kristen Day, president of Democrats for Life of America (DFLA).

Day said a majority of Americans believe in "the sanctity of life" and people are supporting pro-life beliefs even in times of economic distress.

"This is particularly true in areas where the citizens are naturally Democratic because of their values of economic fairness for everyone, such as Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania.  That is why these areas are being targeted by the Republican Party with the aid of Republican pro-life groups which could cause pro-life advocates to lose some of our strongest voices within the Democratic Party.

"Good for Republicans, bad for the pro-life movement," she told CNA.

Day said it was "vitally important" for Democratic pro-life congressmen to retain their seats so that the pro-life movement remains bipartisan and effective and does not become "a wedge issue to win elections." She characterized 2010 as a "watershed year" because of the passage of the Pregnant Women Support Act and the health care legislation that guaranteed health insurance coverage for children and pregnant women while in her view prohibiting taxpayer funded abortion.

The SBA List holds that the health care legislation funds abortions. It is running billboards against pro-life Democrats characterizing their vote for health care as a vote for abortion funding. Backers of an Ohio congressman have filed a complaint in Ohio charging that the claim is false. As of Oct. 25, the claims against SBA List were allowed to move forward by federal judge Timothy Black.

Dannenfelser told CNA many of these candidates had initially agreed with the SBA List that adding pro-life restrictions to the bill was "the most important vote since Roe v. Wade." They later changed their minds.

She claimed it was "politically impotent" to react to a vote for the health care bill by "politically rolling over and praying for breadcrumbs."

"You don't see unions behaving like that, you don't see the NRA behaving like that. Any movement worth its salt doesn't behave like that."

Dannenfelser told CNA that Rep. Dan Lipinski, a pro-life Democrat from Illinois, should be the new standard-bearer for pro-lifers in his party. He resisted party leaders to vote against the health care legislation.

"He's not someone who will cave at the last minute. We want to put wind behind his sails," Dannenfelser said.

Faraci said that this election cycle is the first time AUL Action is participating. It plans to be "very focused" and "very effective" in its tactics. Its ads are active in twelve races, targeting candidates who "supported taxpayer funded abortion as established in the health care law" in districts where the life issue is of particular importance.

"A lot of them ran as pro-life," he said of the candidates, commenting that claims that the law does not fund abortion are "just incorrect."

Asked about the wisdom of targeting pro-life Democrats, he said that a bipartisan pro-life presence is "absolutely" necessary for the long-term success of the movement. However, he explained that AUL Action had made it clear to congressmen that the vote on the health care bill was "extremely important."

"If they didn't stick to their pro-life principles, we were going to hold them accountable," Faraci commented. "I think you will find, after the mid-term elections, that life counts when it comes to elections."

Source: CNA
Publish Date: October 26, 2010

Attempts by Abortion Clinic to Stop Prayer and Pro-Life Speech on Public Sidewalk Foiled

     

On Friday, October 22, 2010, Circuit Court Judge Edward Ramsey for the 10th Judicial District of Jefferson County, Alabama, issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) prohibiting the Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, their founder, Jeff White, and others, from engaging in constitutionally protected activity on the public sidewalk surrounding the New Woman, All Women abortion clinic (NWAWAC) in Birmingham, Alabama. Prohibited activities included prayer, holding signs and oral communication with any other person.
 
The order was issued without notice to White and others based on allegations that they failed to comply with a decades-old injunction issued by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. However, there was no failure to comply because the injunction did not apply to Mr. White or the Survivors.
 
Even though NWAWAC was aware the federal injunction was not enforceable against White or the Survivors, NWAWAC circumvented the district court by obtaining an order from Judge Ramsey of the circuit court. Because there was no notice and no opportunity for White and others to be heard, Judge Ramsey was unaware of the procedural history of the federal case at the time the order was issued.
 
When Mr. White learned of the TRO, a hearing was immediately sought before Judge Ramsey by Birmingham attorney Trenton Garmon on White's behalf, with a request that the order be dissolved. At the end of the business day Judge Ramsey told Garmon that the order would not be set aside and that Mr. Garmon would have to return on Monday, October 25, 2010, for a hearing on whether the order should be dissolved.
 
The injustice of the TRO is readily apparent – earlier the day the order issued Survivors witnessed two women leave the clinic based on information given to them from the public sidewalk. If pro-lifers are not allowed on the sidewalk lives will be lost to abortion.
 
This morning the hearing was held and the TRO dissolved. "Just as the prophet Elijah sent a message to King Ahab we are sending one to NWAWAC – Mr. White and Survivor's are standing their ground. This is America, pro-life citizens have the right to stand on the public sidewalk and freely speak in opposition to abortion, and they will!" says Attorney Garmon.

Contact: Dana Cody
Source: Life Legal Defense Foundation
Publish Date: October 25, 2010

Heavyweight Philosophers Clash at Abortion Conference

     

A baby's cry, piercing the air from the back of an Ivy League academic hall, offered a disquieting counterpoint to a startling argument for abortion rights.

"An infant has no moral status because he is not self-aware," said Peter Singer, a professor of bioethics. 

Singer argued this point at an historic conference he co-organized at Princeton University last weekend, seeking new dialogue on the heated issue of abortion. Remarkably, for a conference examining abortion, there was virtually no discussion about the act of abortion itself.  

"We have to get rid of the idea of evil," said Frances Kissling, an abortion rights advocate turned bioethics scholar, who also organized the conference.

The headline panel featured two heavyweight Australian philosophers – Singer, a bioethics professor at Princeton, and John Finnis, a professor emeritus of philosophy in the University of Oxford.  The two debated the "Moral Status of the Fetus."

Finnis argued that biology and metaphysics determined the status of the fetus, not ethics as suggested by Singer.  Finnis objected to the very use of the term "fetus", saying that it is an "F-word".

"As used in the conference program and website, which are not medical contexts, it is offensive, dehumanizing, prejudicial, manipulative," Finnis said.  "A website describing ultrasound for expectant mothers doesn't talk about her fetus but her baby, and so do her doctors unless they're her abortionists or think she has been or is interested in abortion."

Finnis underscored the point that rights are recognized, not conferred, and rejected Singer's "moral status" approach, which negates the personhood of unborn children.

Singer defended his support for infanticide, stating that self-awareness confers moral status, and not species membership.  Abortion is the killing of a human being, but is not immoral because the child does not meet the self-awareness test, said Singer.

In his utilitarian view, Singer believes that there can even be a moral duty to kill humans lacking self-awareness, including the disabled, which he has been criticized for not following in the case of his mother.

The conference sought a new approach to talking and thinking about abortion. With one or two notable exceptions, it succeeded in its goal of conducting a civil debate between people on opposite sides of the issue.

Another conference goal, finding common ground between the two sides, proved more elusive.  The opening session took up this topic, and included a former general counsel for Planned Parenthood, a self-described pro-life progressive evangelical professor, an independent bioethicist, and Kissling.

Many pro-life participants complained about the composition of some panels, including the opening session, and two panels on pregnancy issues as lacking balance and speakers who could properly articulate a strong pro-life position.

Kissling shocked the audience in the last session by saying, "I don't care how you accomplish it [the right to abortion], whether through a constitution, the UN, state laws or federals laws, or by the Taliban."   The University of Pennsylvania, where Kissling is a visiting bioethics scholar, has drawn criticism for appointing the long-time abortion activist who lacks significant academic credentials.

Charles Camosy of Fordham University and Jennifer Miller of Bioethics International also organized the conference.  Other notable speakers included Helen Alvare, Sunny Anand, Christian Brugger, Eleanor Drey, David Garrow, Richard Garnett, William Hurlbut, Dawn Johnsen, Eva Kattay, and Robin West.

Contact: Terrence McKeegan, J.D.
Source: C-FAM
Publish Date: October 22, 2010

Abstinence ed. critical in reducing teen birth rate

    

Though the teen birth rate in the U.S. is once again on the decline, an abstinence education advocate explains why problems still remain with the approach taken on sex education.
 
With the exception of a two-year increase from 2005 to 2007, the teen birth rate has been declining since 1991. But despite the falling numbers, the rate continues to vary greatly by state. For example, New Hampshire has the lowest teen birth rate at 19.8 births per 1,000, while Mississippi averages 65.7 per 1,000.

Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA), believes it is critical that teaching abstinence -- "not just the information about it, but providing young people the skills to abstain" -- be made a high priority.

 While she notes that American tax dollars have been going toward sex education and contraceptives, Huber points out that a number of problems remain unattended. "We know [teens are] not reliable contraceptive users. And not only that, there's an inherent risk when this is the best message that we offer," she suggests.

 The NAEA executive director adds that the Obama administration's decision to remove virtually all funding for abstinence education has not helped her cause. "This past September 30, almost 170 organizations lost all funding for abstinence education," she laments.

 Prior to the loss of funding, Huber estimates that at least one million students had been getting the message "to wait."

Contact: Chris Woodward
Source: OneNewsNow
Publish Date: October 25, 2010

Students' silent stand for unborn successful

    

As students from all over the world participated in the Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity and took a stand for the unborn on Tuesday, the event founder shares about the life-saving effects.

Bryan Kemper, founder of the event and president of Stand True Ministries, reports that students overcame opposition at schools for the sake of convincing young mothers to cancel their abortions and preserve the lives of their unborn babies. He tells OneNewsNow about what they endured for taking a vow of silence, putting red tape over their mouths, and handing out pro-life literature.

"They're being called names all day; they're having food thrown at them, [and] they're pushed in the hallways," Kemper laments. "People will rip the tape off their face and laugh at them, yet these kids stay strong. In fact, they tell me how much more that they want to stand for their faith now that they've seen that persecution."

 He admits feeling blown away by young people who desperately want to live in a world where unborn babies are not dying at the hands of abortionists.

 "My generation failed; my generation passed down a legacy of 38 years and 52 million dead children -- [but] these kids, they don't want to pass that down; they want to end it, and they truly believe that they can do that," the Stand True Ministries president shares.

 Considering the success of this year's event, Kemper is already looking forward to next year's Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity on October 18.

Contact: Bill Bumpas
Source: OneNewsNow
Publish Date: October 25, 2010

The Moral Implications of IVF

    

If life begins at conception, then the practice of in vitro-fertilization (IVF) is morally questionable.

The debate rages on as to whether an embryo (a fertilized egg) is a human being or merely a "potential" human being, but putting all opinions aside, the scientific truth of the matter is that a unique human being comes into existence at the very moment of fertilization. As pro-life author, Randy Alcorn, says, there is only one moment in time when there isn't a human being and when there is: conception.

"But," many will argue, "you can hardly compare a cluster of cells to a full-term baby. The embryo doesn't even look like a human being yet; therefore, it isn't." This is a moot point. Why? Because human beings aren't fully developed at birth either. The sexual organs do not finish developing until puberty and the brain doesn't finish developing until late adolescence. It literally takes a human being a good 18 years to finish growing and developing.

It is often argued that "just because an embryo has human DNA, it doesn't mean it is a human being. A sperm has human DNA, too." Anyone who says this is missing the crucial difference: While the sperm and the egg do individually contain human DNA - the DNA of the father or the mother - there is no new human being involved. It is thus scientifically inaccurate to compare sperm to embryos because "they both have human DNA." To do so is no different than comparing a human being to a body part, such as a finger (which like the person, has human DNA). If you were to place a sperm inside a uterus, nothing would grow/develop, because a sperm is only half the equation. 

When a sperm and egg join at conception, however, the human DNA is no longer that of the father or mother - the DNA is now unique to the embryo, and is, in fact, the embryo's DNA. This is because an embryo is a brand new human being in the earliest stage of development; which, if left uninterrupted, will continue on through childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age.

Therefore, an early miscarriage is the death of a human being, just as the death of a toddler, a teenager, or an elderly person, is also the death of a human being - each at a different stage of life/development.
So, how does this all relate to IVF?

In the IVF process, several eggs are removed from a woman's ovaries (drugs have been taken in advance to create more eggs than would normally be produced in one cycle). The eggs are then placed in a petri dish along with a man's sperm. Fertilization will occur in the dish as sperm and eggs join up or the sperm may need to be injected directly into the eggs. Either way, multiple eggs are fertilized and are soon embryos. 

According to Dr. Leon Speroff (Clinical Gynecologic Endocrinology and Infertility, Williams and Wilkins, 5th ed., 1994, 937-39) 3 to 6 embryos will then be inserted into the woman's uterus with the hope that at least 1 of them will implant; but the success rate is extremely low. This means that for every failed IVF, at least 6 embryos have died. For every "successful" IVF in which one or 2 embryos survive, at least 2 to 4 others have died. Multiply this by repeat attempts over several months and the number of embryos who have died or been frozen numbers in the dozens.

This means that a woman who chooses to have IVF performed is willingly creating embryos in a petri dish (each of which is a new human being) while fully acknowledging that the majority of these embryos, if not all of them, are going to die. She is deliberately sacrificing the lives of several children in the hopes of having just one or two children.

Randy Alcorn, author of Pro-life Answers to Pro-choice Arguments says, "To the argument 'You can't seriously believe a frozen embryo is a human being,' the proper response is, 'Both scientifically and theologically we can't seriously believe a frozen embryo is anything other than a human being.' "

Contact: Bekah Ferguson
Source: Pro-Life Blogs
Publish Date: October 23, 2010

It Takes a Long Time to Starve a Severely Disabled Infant to Death by Withdrawing Medically-Supplied Nutrition

    

Tube supplied hydration and nutrition is deemed a medical treatment, like aspirin, surgery, or chemotherapy, and hence, can be denied or withdrawn under the law. 

Normal receipt of food and water, is not allowed to be withheld when it can be taken, since that isn't medical treatment. Still, take away either form of sustenance from infants (or adults) and they will die.

 A disturbing study has come out about how long it takes to starve an infant to death, I assume by withdrawing tube-supplied sustenance. (I hope so!) From the study (may need to register, my links to the conditions mentioned):

 Neonatal survival after withdrawal of artificial hydration and nutrition can last up to 26 days, according to a case series presented here at the 18th International Congress on Palliative Care. Although physical distress is not apparent in the infants, the psychological distress of parents and clinicians builds with the length of survival, said Hal Siden, MD, from Canuck Place Children's Hospice in Vancouver, British Columbia.

 "These babies live much, much longer than anybody expects. I think that neonatologists and nurses and palliative care clinicians need to be alerted to this," he said. "The time between withdrawal of feeding and end of life is something that is not predictable, and you need to be cautioned very strongly about that if you are going to do this work." He presented a series of 5 cases that clinicians at his hospice had overseen over a 5-year period. Two infants had severe neurologic impairment, 2 had severe hypoxic ischemia, and 1 had severe bowel atresia.

 This means that these infants did not die from the underlying conditions:

 Despite this, there is one factor that medication cannot alleviate, and that is the visual signs of emaciation, said Ms. Keats. "The longer a child lives, the more emaciated he or she becomes. This is something that we as clinicians need to anticipate. You can alleviate some of the physical symptoms, but this is one symptom, or result of our action, that we can't relieve. A critical factor for counseling is to anticipate the kind of suffering that comes with witnessing the emaciation. It isn't something people can prepare themselves for."Autopsies are often encouraged in such neonatal palliative care cases to help both parents and medical staff gain a better understanding of the reasons for the death, said Dr. Siden. Parents should be warned that the report will document the technical cause of death as "starvation" — a loaded word for all concerned. It is important that parents separate this word from any notion of suffering, he said.

 The study wants infants being dehydrated to become research subjects on the physiological processes of being starved:

 "All of the children we've cared for have been in a very quiet, low metabolic state — not an agitated state — with no overt signs of hunger behavior. Whether they are neurologically capable of hunger behavior is another question, and I don't know the answer. That's why I am trying to understand better what they are going through, because I don't want them to suffer," Dr. Siden explained.

 He emphasized the importance of more research into the physiologic processes that occur after withdrawal of fluids and nutrition so that clinicians can both inform and reassure parents. "There's an ethical component to doing research. If you don't do research yourself, you need to support those who do, because we desperately need to know more," Dr. Siden asserted. "There's a technical aspect to what we do, and we need to become really good at that because we need to be able to say to people, without a doubt, that we are going to do this and there is not going to be any kind of suffering. You've got to be very on top of your game."

 Perhaps it shouldn't be deemed ethical and acceptable to take the extra step of withdrawing sustenance when the child can assimilate nutrition. Indeed, I think higher ethical standards should apply when deciding to starve or dehydrate any human being to death as a matter of refusing treatment than when withdrawing other interventions.

 Maybe I am just too unsophisticated to not find this study very disturbing.

Contact: Wesley J. Smith
Source: Secondhand Smoke
Publish Date: October 21, 2010

The Card to Protect You from “Presumed Consent” Organ Harvesting

    
As the push for organ harvesting gets increasingly aggressive, and more and more cases of abuse by transplant teams surface, one pro-life leader has developed a card to ensure doctors respect one's wish to live a natural lifespan.

"The card documents that they want to live as long as God gives them," said Dr. Paul Byrne of the Life Guardian Foundation, who is a pioneer in the field of neonatology and a leading opponent of the notion of "brain death," which is often used as the point where doctors can begin harvesting organs from dying patients. 

Dr. Byrne argues that brain death is not in fact real death, but rather a set of criteria that were developed in order to be able to harvest healthy organs, including vital organs, thereby causing the patient's true death.
 
"The fact of the matter is all organs that are transplanted are healthy organs and they always come from a living person," he explained. "After they take the organ, the living person is either dead, when it's a beating heart, or weaker if it's one of two kidneys."

Dr. Byrne told LifeSiteNews that it is essential to protect oneself from the presumed consent laws that have already been passed in 40 states, and are being promoted in the other states as well as Canada. Under these laws, a patient is presumed to have consented to organ donation unless he specifically opts out.

"The only way to stop what they do is to have some documentation of refusal," he said. "This medical card gives the way to document refusal so far as being an organ donor is concerned."

But even more importantly, he explained that the card gives life support directions. "It documents that they don't want anybody to shorten their life or hasten their death," he said.

The card also says that the patient does not consent to an apnea test, which doctors use to declare "brain death." Dr. Byrne explained that because this test involves removing a person's ventilator for up to ten minutes - increasing carbon dioxide, and thus causing brain swelling – it actually causes the patient's condition to worsen.
Further, the card allows the patient to designate someone else to speak for him, who can ensure the person is properly treated. That person can only do what the card says and cannot take away treatment. It also allows the patient to indicate that they want a priest, minister, or rabbi to be contacted in the event of an emergency.
"Carry it with you. Have more than one. Give it to your relatives," said Dr. Byrne.

Cards can be obtained from the Life Guardian Foundation (click here).

Contact: Patrick B. Craine
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: October 19, 2010

Teen decides against abortion, thanks to texting

     

A text message from a pro-lifer in New Mexico has saved the life of an unborn baby.
 
Tara Shaver of Project Defending Life in Albuquerque received a call from a grandmother about the impending abortion when the expectant girl, her stepmother, and father were already at the abortion clinic. After obtaining the girl's cell phone number, Shaver sent a text message that read, "Jane, you're a mom today and I just wanted to encourage you today to choose life and be courageous."

She learned in subsequent exchanges that Jane's parents were pressuring her into aborting the six-week-old baby, but she shares, "I got the impression that she didn't want to go through with it at all."

 So the pro-lifer continued to encourage the teen, stressing that it is illegal for anyone to force a girl or woman into having an abortion and insisting she look at the ultrasound of the baby. She then asked the girl to come outside, which she and her parents did. Although the conversation was a bit hostile at first, Shaver eventually made her point.

 "After maybe...ten minutes, they all just got in their cars and left," she reports. "So as they left, I just waved...gave them a thumbs-up and just said, 'You guys have made the right decision.'"

 The mother later called Shaver to ask for help, which she has been happy to provide. Meanwhile, she continues to text the teen and encourage her during her pregnancy.

Contact: Charlie Butts
Source: OneNewsNow
Publish Date: October 23, 2010 

Combative press conference highlights continued dispute on abortion in health care bill

   

Persistent questions about abortion funding in President Obama's Affordable Care Act arose again on Oct. 20 in a telephone press conference hosted by the bill's supporters at Catholics United. Heated discussion ensued between the organization's executive director Chris Korzen, and Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee over a controversial ad campaign targeting a Democrat who supported the bill.

Representative Steve Driehaus (D – Ohio) previously filed a complaint to the state's election commission due to a proposed billboard campaign by the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List. He claimed that the campaign would have illegally misrepresented his voting record by stating that "Driehaus voted FOR taxpayer funded abortion." With a full hearing by the state's election commission scheduled for October 28, SBA List has filed its own lawsuit, alleging that Ohio's regulations of electoral advertising violate their right to free speech.

On Wednesday, Korzen accused the SBA List of "lying" to voters. The Catholics United leader reiterated his group's position that the bill "maintains current restrictions prohibiting taxpayer funds for abortions," alongside the executive order of President Obama intended to prevent such funding.

But Johnson, the legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), said Korzen's defenses of the bill ignored a series of omissions and loopholes that exist alongside those "current restrictions."

By those alternate routes –such as federal funding for community health centers and payment of premiums for plans that include abortion-- Johnson said that the Affordable Care Act clearly authorized abortion funding.

While some participants in the telephone conference challenged his assertive participation, Johnson  noted that he represented "over 300,000 readers" of his organization's National Right to Life News.

NRLC's director referred all participants in the conference call to the 23-page affidavit he filed with the Ohio Elections Commission on October 11, in support of the SBA List. He stated that the document, available on his organization's website, exhaustively vindicated the SBA List's attack on Driehaus.

That affidavit incorporated the objections of both the General Counsel of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and its Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities. The secretariat stated in April 2010 that the Affordable Care Act both "uses federal funds to subsidize health plans that cover abortions," and offers other funds that "can be used for elective abortions."

The general counsel has similarly maintained that President Obama's executive order is selective and limited in its restrictions on abortion funding.

A group supporting Driehaus and his legal challenge, Democrats For Life of America, also stated on October 15 that it had filed an affidavit with the Ohio Elections Commission, although it had not made the document available as of Wednesday evening. A federal judge is expected to rule on SBA List's counter-suit this week, to determine the constitutionality of Ohio's laws on political advertising.

Source: CNA
Publish Date: October 21, 2010

Why the pro-life movement must tackle contraception head on

   

44 years ago when SPUC was founded to fight against abortion legislation, we could never have imagined what the scope of our campaign would be at the beginning of the 21st century. In late 1966 the first pro-life campaigners had little idea that condom use would demand the attention of SPUC.

Yet here we are in 2010 running a petition against advertising condoms on prime time television. People may wonder why we are doing this. They may protest that contraception is not part of SPUC's remit. But the question is not so much "Why is SPUC campaigning against television advertisements for condoms which target children?", as "How can SPUC ignore this?"

SPUC cannot ignore this. Promoting contraception to children is priming them for teenage sex. Teenage sex leads to unintended conceptions and abortions. Southern Cross Bioethics Institute explains how this is so in the briefing prepared for the Society in connection with our petition.

We are running this petition to alert people to the dangers of advertising condoms to children and young teenagers. We can't shy away from this because condoms are an indelicate subject or because we think that these advertisements won't affect our children. The risks are real to all children, including the unborn.

These advertisements pose a long-term threat to the culture of life. As increasingly explicit sexual messages are being thrust at our children, their hearts and minds are closing to the pro-life message. As sex is robbed of its special and intimate role in creating new human life, the sense of anything special about an unborn baby is lost too. From the generation of children whose minds have been poisoned about the true meaning of sex and the dignity of new life, who will be left to take up the pro-life cause?

In our struggle to build up a culture of life, one of the most upsetting things we are witnessing is the way in which those who are pursuing an ever more liberal abortion culture, are using children to achieve their ends. Their methods are to subject primary school children to explicit sex education in the classroom where their natural reticence about sexual matters will be broken down, to fill secondary schools with promotional messages about contraception and abortion and to screen condom advertisements in their homes. Our children are in the front line of this anti-life onslaught. We cannot leave them exposed and unprotected.

Contact: John Smeaton
Source: SPUC
Publish Date: October 21, 2010

Heartrending YouTube Video Shows Personal Tragedy of China's Cruel One-Child Policy

   

A YouTube video of the harrowing ordeal of a Chinese couple forced to abort their unborn son at eight months shows the heartrending personal tragedy caused by the brutal enforcement of China's one-child policy, according to the founder of the advocacy group All Girls Allowed.

The story was reported by the Al-Jazeera Network, which posted its eight-minute interview with the distraught father, as well as its news report on the incident in the coastal city of Xiamen.  Click here for the video.

In the interview, which was posted with English subtitles, the father painfully recounts the four-day ordeal during which his wife, who was in her eighth month of pregnancy with their second child, was beaten and kicked in the stomach and then forcibly taken to an abortion clinic, where her unborn child was killed by lethal injection.

The traumatized mother would not allow herself to be shown on camera, and the Al-Jazeera report showed only her pregnant belly as she waited in the hospital to deliver her dead baby.

"I don't know how I can possibly explain to her what has happened," the father said of their 10-year-old first-born, who has been eagerly awaiting the birth of her baby brother.

"Our hearts are broken again," said AGA founder Chai Ling, "for this family, for the suffering mother, father, and their innocent daughter, who is about to learn the cruel truth of the one-child policy through the fate of her baby brother whom she will never meet."

This is not an isolated incident. According to China's own official statistics, at least 35,000 abortions are performed every day, or about one every 2.5 seconds.

"We urge all people and leaders of the free world to view this video and hear the cries of the parents and this unborn child who was simply murdered," said Chai. "How long will the world turn a blind eye to this inhumane policy?"

Chai, who was a top student leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy movement, founded AGA in June 2010 to fight for an end to the 30-year-old family planning policy. The Boston-based group's mission is to restore life, value and dignity to girls and mothers in China, and to expose the cruelty of the one-child policy. More information, including how to get involved, can be found at the AGA website: www.allgirlsallowed.org.

Contact: Tessa Dale
Source: All Girls Allowed
Publish Date: October 21, 2010

Require Parents to Opt Into Controversial Sex Education Topics Not Out

   

When the Wisconsin Assembly passed a comprehensive sex education bill that was signed into law (the "Healthy Youth Act") last February by Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle; it mandated kids be taught about contraceptives, how to use them, and how to prevent sexually transmitted diseases.  Parents were still given the option to allow their students to opt-out and schools could decide to eliminate sex education all together with parental notification (probably the only good aspect of that bill).  The result of the bill was that abstinence-only sex education programs were ended.

Enter the Cedarburg (WI) School District, they decided rather than making parents go out of their way to opt-out they are making parents opt-in with subjects like contraception, intercourse, homosexuality, abortion and masturbation.

So the default is if the parents don't sign the releases their children are not allowed to attend those sessions.  Before the default was their children to have to attend if they didn't

Makes a huge difference, it makes parents who really want their child to learn to put a condom on a banana to sign-on.  It also helps parents be better informed about what is in the curriculum which is one of the intents of the policy.

Novel concept I know –to  actually inform parents what they are teaching.

You would think that proponents of the law who offered parental choice would be happy about this common sense way of implementing the law.  Sadly no.

    A state legislator who co-authored the Healthy Youth Act that went into effect this year says the board's policy amounted to a creative dodge around the goal of the law.

    "The intent of the bill, which is a bill I have been working on since I've been elected, was to make sure that any school district that taught human growth and development included a curriculum that was comprehensive," said Rep. Tamara Grigsby (D-Milwaukee), one of the bill's co-authors and a legislator since 2004….

    …Reorganizing the curriculum so certain topics, such as contraception, are not part of the required human growth and development instruction could be challenged if a citizen complaint is filed with the Department of Public Instruction, department spokesman Patrick Gasper said.

    "It doesn't seem like (an opt-in policy) would meet the letter of the law," Gasper said.

The school district wanted to make sure parents didn't have to have their students miss out on the entire course if they only objected to some of the content.  Again providing more choice for parents.

But that wasn't really the intent of the new law.  Since this policy is being criticized it is basically giving lip service to parental choice saying – well, you can opt out, but you really shouldn't.  Because how can one really argue against this unless they don't believe parents should have the final say.

In 2008 State Representative Mary Mascher (D-Iowa City) sponsored a bill, that was later passed by the Iowa General Assembly and signed into law by Governor Chet Culver, that required human growth and development be "research-based" and "age-appropriate" (this was after her attempt to get a blatant comprehensive sex ed bill like Wisconsin's was shot down).  The list of organizations that can determine what is "research-based" and "age-appropriate" are ones that aren't friendly to abstinence-only sex education so she essentially got her way.  With Planned Parenthood pitching their curriculum to school districts state wide wouldn't it make sense for school districts in Iowa to implement policies like Cedarburg has?

I think so if they really want parents to have a choice.

Contact: Shane Vander Hart
Source: Caffeinated Thoughts
Publish Date: October 21, 2010

13-year-old injunction gets old for pro-lifers

     

Pro-life prayer warriors are conducting a prayer vigil after a 13-year absence at an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama.

A federal injunction issued 13 years ago has blocked pro-life prayer and counseling efforts, but the California-based Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust is sponsoring a week-long event called "The Birmingham Letter Project" and is encouraging pro-lifers to join the three-day prayer vigil, irrespective of the injunction.

"We were convinced that the federal injunction was being falsely applied, and so about 15 Christians crossed the street, challenging the federal injunction and re-establishing presence of the church of Jesus Christ out on the sidewalk in front of the clinic," reports Jeff White, co-founder of Survivors.

But as the event kicked off on Wednesday, workers at the abortion clinic quickly grew defensive and "were trying to intimidate [by] saying on their phones that we're violating court injunctions and that we'll be going to jail." White says it is "an interesting scene to see the soft-spoken Christians praying and to see the clinic workers yelling, 'Bullies, bullies, bullies!'"

He finds the anger expressed by clinic workers is stunning, but he is hopeful the demonstrations will revive local interest in resuming sidewalk counseling and prayer.

Contact: Charlie Butts
Source: OneNewsNow
Publish Date: October 21, 2010

Fetal pain law called historic

   

A new law in Nebraska could prove to be historic in the battle against legal abortion in the United States, some pro-lifers are predicting.

The Nebraska law -- the Pain-capable Unborn Child Protection Act prohibiting abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, with narrow exceptions, -- took effect Oct. 15.

The law establishes a new standard in abortion bans: Rather than setting the benchmark at fetal viability, which can be 22 to 24 weeks, Nebraska's law utilizes evidence that an unborn child experiences pain at 20 weeks for its guideline.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, described the new law's enforcement as "a historic and celebratory moment for those who work to protect mothers and unborn children. This is the first time in history that a law recognizing fetal pain has been enacted. This new law represents the next wave of momentum for the pro-life movement and is a major step toward a post-Roe future.

"The abortion industry tries to discredit efforts like this because the concept of fetal pain destroys their strategy of depicting a developing baby as a blob of tissue," Perkins said. "Acknowledging the truth of fetal pain recognizes the truth that a baby is an unborn person."

Abortion-rights advocates oppose the law, and American doctors appear divided on when unborn children can feel pain.

Mary Spaulding Balch, the National Right to Life Committee's director of state legislation, said, "At and after 20 weeks, unborn children have pain receptors throughout their body and nerves linking them to the brain. Continuing medical research has shown that the cortex is not essential to experience pain."

The law permits exemptions only for serious physical, not mental, threats. According to the law, it must be determined that "the pregnant woman had a condition which so complicated her medical condition as to necessitate the abortion of her pregnancy to avert her death or to avert serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function, or the basis of the determination that it was necessary to preserve the life of an unborn child."

Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman, a Republican, signed the legislation into law in April after the legislature approved the bill in a 44-5 vote.

Sen. Mike Johanns, R.-Neb., and Rep. Chris Smith, R.-N.J., have introduced similar, though not as far-reaching, bills in Congress.

Contact: Tom Strode
Source: Baptist Press
Publish Date: October 20, 2010

1st Black Female Harvard Med Grad and Leading Pro-Life Activist Passes Away

     

Dr. Mildred Jefferson, a civil rights pioneer who aggressively dedicated her life and talents to defending the rights of unborn children, died Friday at the age of 84 at home.

Anne Fox, President of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, broke the news of Jefferson's passing to the media. While no cause of death has been specified, Fox said that Jefferson's health had been declining for the past few weeks.

Jefferson is an important figure for her accomplishments both as a black American and as a woman during the civil rights era. She broke the barriers of her day when in 1951 she became the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School and then the first female surgical intern at Boston City Hospital. She later became the first female doctor at Boston University Medical Center.

But a turning point in Jefferson's career from accomplished surgeon to pro-life leader came when the American Medical Association in 1970 resolved that member physicians could perform abortions ethically in states where the procedure was legal. According to the Boston Globe, the 2004 book "African-American Lives" said that this profoundly disturbed Jefferson, who saw the AMA's position as an abandonment of the Hippocratic Oath which admonishes doctors to "do no harm."

Jefferson would lend her mind and voice to advocating the pro-life cause with exceptional passion, intelligence, and rhetorical excellence.

These gifts could be seen in her famous explanation to the American Feminist magazine in 2003 for why she dedicated herself to the fight for the right to life.

"I am at once a physician, a citizen and a woman, and I am not willing to stand aside and allow this concept of expendable human lives to turn this great land of ours into just another exclusive reservation where only the perfect, the privileged and the planned have the right to live," she said.

Jefferson was a co-founder of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), and served as vice-chairman of NRLC's board in 1973, then as chairman. She held the post of president from 1975 – 1978, providing leadership in those critical years for the pro-life movement, as it struggled to coalesce into an effective political force in response to the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

"The right-to-life movement has lost a champion and a pioneer. And we have lost a dear friend," said Darla St. Martin, NRLC co-Executive Director, in a statement. "Mildred Jefferson was a valued colleague in our fight for the most vulnerable members of our society and she will be greatly missed."

Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey, co-chairman of the congressional Pro-Life Caucus, recollected that Jefferson was a "trailblazer" who was "always graceful" and "embodied compassion."

"Poised and passionate, always focused and extremely devoted, she made history and inspired an entire generation of pro-life leaders," said Smith.

"It was an honor to work alongside Dr. Jefferson on critical pro-life issues, and I know her legacy and memory will live on in the lives of the unborn children she helped save."

NRLC noted that Jefferson during her tenure as president stressed the necessity for the pro-life movement to be a broad-based coalition in defense of life.

"We come together from all parts of our land," Jefferson wrote in the 1977 NRLC convention journal. "We come rich and poor, proud and plain, religious and agnostic, politically committed and independent ... The right-to-life cause is not the concern of only a special few but it should be the cause of all those who care about fairness and justice, love and compassion and liberty with law."

Massachusetts Citizens for Life announced that Jefferson was a former director, and actively involved herself with pro-life groups such as the American Life League, Americans United for Life Legal Defense Fund, Black Americans for Life, and others.

"Mildred Jefferson used every forum available to educate America and encourage people of all ages to become active in the right-to-life movement," said NRLC's St. Martin. "Her legacy will be the countless people - most especially young people - that she brought to the movement by her constant presence and tireless dedication to the cause of life."

Contact: Peter J. Smith
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: October 19, 2010

ACLU backs up pro-life group against Democrat’s attempted censorship

    

In an amicus brief filed today, the ACLU took the side of the Susan B. Anthony List in a federal lawsuit it filed on October 18.

SBA List's lawsuit attempts to stop the Ohio Election Commission from blocking billboards it planned to erect in Democrat Congressman Steve Driehaus's OH-1 District stating he supports taxpayer funded abortions, this because he voted for Obamacare.

The ACLU agrees with SBA List that OH's election law is unconstitutional:

RC 3517.21(B) is vague and overbroad, and it cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny…. The people have an absolute right to criticize their public officials, the government should not be the arbiter of true or false speech and, in any event, the best answer for bad speech is more speech.

For all of these reasons, Amicus ACLU of Ohio urges this Court to hold RC 3517.21(B) unconstitutional and grants Plaintiff's motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction.

Contact: Jill Stanek
Source: JillStanek.com
Publish Date: October 20, 2010

Newly Released Documents Show Iowa Telemed Abortion Corruption Scandal Reaches Highest Levels of Government

    

Operation Rescue has released a 906-page packet of public documents that was obtained from the Iowa Attorney General's office through the open records act that reveals an effort by Attorney General Tom Miller and his staff to hinder OR's efforts to obtain a criminal investigation of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland and their "telemed" remote-controlled abortion pill distribution scheme. The documents were sent to Operation Rescue from an anonymous source.

The packet of documents contains a collection of e-mail communications from January, 2008, through July, 2010, between members of the Iowa Attorney General's office and staff members for Planned Parenthood of the Heartland.

The documents reveal that the Attorney General's office attempted to head off Operation Rescue's request of ten county prosecutors for a criminal investigation of PPH's webcam abortion pill distribution scheme that deprives women seeking medical abortions access to physical examination by a licensed physician by alerting county prosecutors to the expected requests.

"Miller's staffers and PPH employees attend the same parties, they ask about each other's surgeries or how the grandkids are. Some AG staffers subscribe to Planned Parenthood's e-mail distribution list. Planned Parenthood staffers have alerted the AG's office to potential negative information about political opponents and even forward some of our press releases to Miller's people. Miller's office has aided PPH staffers in pursuing employment opportunities in the AG's office," said Newman.

"Now that we have seen the cozy nature of the relationships between everyone involved, we are more concerned than ever that an obvious bias in favor of Planned Parenthood exists in Iowa governmental agencies. That presents a grave conflict of interest. Will that bias effect the Iowa Board of Medicine's judgment when it comes to investigating Planned Parenthood as it has adversely affected the county attorneys that were influenced? It very well may have already, and that is troubling. There is a very real possibility that political and personal affiliations are being placed above the health and safety of women in Iowa. That is the very definition of corruption."

Contact: Troy Newman
Source: Operation Rescue
Publish Date: October 20, 2010

Jail for pro-life chief over campaign billboard?

Hearing set after Democrat congressman files criminal complaint

    

Does Obamacare allow for federal funding of abortion? That's the question at the heart of a criminal complaint by an Ohio congressman that could send the president of a major pro-life group to jail.

Rep. Steve Driehaus, D-Ohio, filed a complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission after the Susan B. Anthony List, or SBA, planned to place four billboards telling voters the congressman backed taxpayer-funded abortion because he voted for President Obama's landmark health-care reform bill.

"Shame on Steve Driehaus. Driehaus Voted for Taxpayer-funded abortion," the signs say of the freshman congressman, who trails former six-term Republican Rep. Steve Chabot.

Driehaus, who edged Chabot two years ago for the Cincinnati-area district seat, charged the pro-life group violated two Ohio laws against making false statements about candidates. A probable-cause panel of the commission voted 2 to 1 to hold a full hearing. 

In turn, SBA has filed a lawsuit asking a federal court to order the panel to stop its investigation until the court decides whether Ohio's "false statement" laws are constitutional. The judge is considering a temporary restraining order against the Ohio Elections Commission proceedings and is expected to rule this afternoon.

Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser said in an e-mail appeal to supporters she is "outraged that a single member of Congress can use criminal statute in an attempt to intimidate a pro-life organization and take away our constitutionally-protected right to freedom of speech."

SBA's lead attorney, James Bopp Jr., called Driehaus's complaint "politically motivated," saying the congressman "calls himself a 'pro-life Democrat,' yet he voted for Obamacare, a law authorizing funding for abortion."

"Now he is using Ohio's unconstitutional law to silence his political opponent, because he doesn't want it to tell the voters what he did," Bopp said. "This is a last gasp effort from a politician who doesn't want to be held accountable."

Bopp argued "the government has no right to act as 'speech police' and tell us what we can and cannot say, or decide what is true, and what is false."

"They especially cannot do so with regard to the type of issue advocacy that SBA engaged in," he said. "The Founders deliberately took that right away from government when they crafted the First Amendment."

Driehaus' communications director has not responded to WND's request for comment. The congressman has insisted the health care law does not allow for abortion funding and points to President Obama's executive order in March that bars using taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions in the health care exchanges created by the new bill. Driehaus' campaign also points to the Hyde Amendment, which bans the use of taxpayer dollars for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is at risk.

Responding to Driehaus' arguments, SBA spokeswoman Kerry A. Brown told WND "the fact that the president had to issue an executive order at all means he recognized that there was room in the bill to allow for taxpayer funding of abortion."

Brown said the executive order does not address all pro-life concerns in the bill and contends it would not hold up in court.

"It also does not speak to the fact that if the administration includes abortion as a preventative service, every individual and group health plan will be required to cover it," she said.

In addition, Brown cited a Congressional Research Service assessment commissioned by Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., that concluded the language in the health care bill and the executive order is not sufficient to prevent taxpayer-funded abortions.

The report concludes Obamacare allows federal funding of elective abortions for people purchasing plans in high risk pools. Department of Health and Human Services guidelines for the operation of the high-risk pools, the report says, "neither explicitly provide the authority to cover elective abortions with federal funds, nor do they specifically prohibit the use of federal funds."

Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., inserted language into the health-care bill that prohibits federal money from being spent on abortion in circumstances beyond the Hyde Amendment exceptions of life, rape and incest. But the prohibition applies only to plans operating in insurance exchanges. There is nothing in the new law to prevent the use of federal and state money for abortion in the newly created Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan.

'Caved when it counted'

Driehaus is one of six pro-life Democrats targeted by SBA who initially were opposed to Obamacare because they said the legislation didn't guarantee it would not fund abortion.

SBA said the pro-life Democrats, who personally were courted by President Obama to vote for the bill, "caved when it counted."

Driehaus, SBA notes, changed from a "no" vote to a "yes" vote at the last minute despite the fact that there was no substantive change in the bill.

In an interview with Fox News, Dannenfelser said that "even if the commission prevents us from putting up these particular billboards, we will double down and make sure that our message floods his district."

The group already has radio ads flooding Driehaus' district, she said.

"We will simply not be intimidated into silence."

Recent polls show Driehaus down by double digits, and the Democratic National Campaign Committee has pulled funding from his race. Other pro-life Democrats also are struggling.

Source: WorldNetDaily
Publish Date: October 19, 2010

Houston Pro-Lifers Unite for Massive March to Planned Parenthood Megacenter

    

Nearly a dozen Houston-area pro-life organizations have come together to plan and promote a march against the city's new Planned Parenthood megacenter on October 23, part of a larger event called "Unite for Life - Houston" that will feature movie star and pro-life advocate Eduardo Verastegui.

The event, which is free, will kick off at the Catholic Charismatic Center with a morning full of inspiring messages from leading pro-life advocates, including Verástegui, and will culminate with the prayerful march to the new Planned Parenthood.

The new Houston Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion facility in the Western Hemisphere, and commits abortions up to the 25th week of pregnancy.

Organizers of the event say that they are concerned by the ever-growing number of abortions nationally and especially in Houston.

Local Houston pro-life organizations, including Houston Coalition for Life, Texas Right to Life, Silent No More Awareness Campaign and Catholic Organization for Life, will be attending the event to provide information and welcome new members.

President of Health Care Professionals for Life and Chairwoman of Unite for Life - Houston 2010, Mary Catherine Maxian, MD, says she has learned through her work that there are many pro-lifers in the community that have an earnest desire to help the pro-life cause but don't know where to start.

"Unite for Life - Houston is designed to not only be motivational, but action-oriented," she said. The event "allows people the opportunity to learn about the many different areas of the pro-life movement so that they can pick a niche that fits them.  When we get all of the pro-lifers working together, praying together, voting together, and uniting our efforts with the will of God, the abortion industry will not stand a chance against us."

International pro-life speaker Eduardo Verástegui, also well-known for producing, directing and starring in the pro-life film, Bella, will serve as the keynote speaker. Verastegui has created the Bella Hero project, a project that seeks to equip pregnancy care centers around the world with copies of Bella for women discerning abortion.

For more information, visit www.uniteforlife2010.org.

Unite for Life - Houston is a joint effort of Abstinence America, Catholic Organization Of Life, Family Life Congress, Health Care  Professionals for Life, Houston Coalition for Life, Life Is For Everyone, Pray 4 Holy Spirit, Silent No More Awareness Campaign, Texas Right to Life, Holy Rosary Crusade and Precious Blood Apostolate.

Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: October 19, 2010

Prosecution of Planned Parenthood OKed

    

The Kansas Supreme court is allowing a 107-count indictment against Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri to go forward.
 
It is a criminal case that began two district attorneys ago, the latter one being forced to resign amid a sex and abortion corruption scandal. Operation Rescue president Troy Newman is pleased with the final decision, but points out it has been six years since the investigation that led to the charges against the taxpayer-supported abortion provider.
 
"We're hoping that once and for all, the respectability façade that Planned Parenthood has enjoyed over the years will be stripped from them and that they will be prosecuted for their crimes," says the pro-life leader.
 
Newman says the charges are extremely serious. "The files that the district attorney obtained contained [records on] many underage women, some as young as 14 years old, who were getting abortions and even illegal late-term abortions in the state that did not allow them," he explains. "And then, Planned Parenthood attempted to cover it up by falsifying the records."
 
Operation Rescue is calling on the Johnson County district attorney to prosecute the case to the fullest. Operation Rescue, says Newman, will accept nothing less.
 
Anything less, he adds, "will only reinforce the belief that political corruption is alive and well in the State of Kansas."

Contact: Charlie Butts
Source: OneNewsNow
Publish Date: October 20, 2010

Majority of Illinoisans prolife, Simon Institute finds in survey

   

The Paul Simon Public Policy Institute found in a poll taken September 30 to October 10 that an overwhelming majority of the 1000 registered voters surveyed were decidedly prolife.

Less than 1 in 3 are in favor of unrestricted abortions, the press release says, and 2 out of 3 supported limiting abortions either some of the time or in all situations:

There were 31.5 percent who said abortions should be legal in all circumstances, 19.1 percent who said they should be illegal in all circumstances and 45 percent who said they should be legal only in certain situations. There were 4.4 percent who said they didn't know.

Other topics such as capital punishment and gay marriage were also discussed in the poll.  56 percent favored continuing the moratoriam on executions and only 28 percent disapproved of civil unions.

Click here for the fulll press release.

Click here for the poll results.

Source: Illinois Review
Publish Date: October 28

Planned Parenthood Admits Defeat: No Abortion as a Human Right in UN Summit Document

   

Pro-life and pro-family advocates have scored two major political victories in the same month in two different international organizations. Following the defeat of the McCafferty Report – which attempted to abolish the rights of European doctors to refuse to commit abortions – at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, pro-life advocates are now declaring a victory over the International Planned Parenthood Federation at the UN.

Carmen Barroso, regional director of International Planned Parenthood Federation for the Western Hemisphere Region, recently complained to pro-abortion lobbyists that a UN Summit Outcome Document "neglects any reference to safe abortion, comprehensive sexuality education ... indicating that there is still much work to be done."

The Outcome Document was officially adopted by the General Assembly on the 22nd of September.

Pro-abortion NGOs had been pushing during the September Summit for the adoption of a report that was described by pro-life advocates as an "extreme" and "ideologically driven" effort to establish abortion as a "universal human right" for the purposes of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The report by Navanethem Pillay, the UN's High Commissioner on Human Rights, and endorsed by the Secretary General, proposed that the MDGs should include abortion as a human right under MDG number five, which calls on governments to "improve maternal health." The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, (SPUC) issued a worldwide alert in June urging pro-life people around the world to contact their relevant government officials to stop the adoption of the report at the UN's Summit in September.

Pat Buckley, SPUC's chief lobbyist at the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva, said at that time that the report's promoters were "blatantly ignoring any evidence which disputes its conclusions and deliberately avoiding debate." SPUC described the progress of the report through the debate process as "carefully stage-managed" in which the Holy See and SPUC, the only pro-life NGO present at the June Session, "were excluded from making an intervention," despite a call from the High Commissioner for submissions from interested parties.

In its presentation prepared for the Geneva meeting, SPUC denounced the report as promoting an agenda "advocated by groups with a history of the racist and eugenic ideology, which is inconsistent with genuine human rights." While promoting the liberalization of abortion laws, the report "largely ignored" means of improving maternal mortality rates such as improving access to antibiotics, drugs to prevent hemorrhage, blood transfusions, clean facilities and properly trained health professionals.

SPUC challenged the assertion by the abortion lobby that liberalization of abortion law improves maternal survival rates. They cited the experience of Poland, where legal restrictions were placed on abortion in 1993 and maternal mortality has dropped by 82 per cent in the last 20 years.

Contact: Hilary White
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: October 18, 2010

Moms Who Chose Life Over Abortion Become Activists on Capitol Hill

   

On a recent summer afternoon, Danica Fountain was spending time with her eight-year-old daughter, Aaliyah Sanchez, but the pair was not relaxing at home or shopping at a nearby mall. Fountain and her daughter were on Capitol Hill lobbying members of Congress about the work done by pregnancy resource centers across the nation.

The visit came in the wake of the release of a report by NARAL Pro-Choice America's California affiliate that accuses pregnancy resource centers of convincing women not to have an abortion by apparently using inaccurate medical information and untrained volunteers who use intimidation techniques. (NARAL was formerly called the National Abortion Rights Action League and, originally, the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws.)

"I really didn't realize how much people do not know about pregnancy centers," Fountain told CNSNews.com. "And now that they are under attack, I really do want the senators and members of Congress to know the truth and to continue to support them."

"There are so many women out there who are making the decision to abort because they don't know there are other options and no one is supporting them with those other options," said Fountain, who considered aborting her daughter because of the pressures of an unplanned pregnancy.

The NARAL report, "Unmasking Fake Clinics: The Truth About Crisis Pregnancy Centers in California," is the fourth released by the abortion advocacy group in recent years. NARAL previously published reports in three other states: Maryland (February 2008), Texas (July 2009) and Virginia (January 2010).

In the latest report, NARAL claims to have investigated 32 of the approximately 200 pregnancy resource centers in California by having unpaid volunteers visit or telephone the centers for advice on their "unplanned pregnancy."

Fountain recalls distinctly her first visit to a pregnancy resource center near the home where she lived with her grandparents in Arizona. She was 18 and had just graduated from high school.

"I remembered driving by this house several times before and seeing the free pregnancy test sign," Fountain told CNSNews.com. "So I went there so that no one could see me and I wouldn't have to hide tests when I got home."

Fountain told the woman at the center that if she was pregnant, she planned to get an abortion.

"She was so nice," Fountain said. "She did not judge me at all."

The woman asked Fountain if she would consider options other than abortion and if she wanted to see the developmental stages of the fetus in the first trimester.

"She showed me a picture of this baby that had arms and legs and a head," Fountain said. "I couldn't believe it because everyone referred to that as 'tissue,' that it was not a baby, which is why I was comfortable going through with an abortion."

"I was shocked" by the picture, Fountain said.

Still, she believed abortion was the only option for an unmarried 18-year-old with only a high school education and no livelihood. Fountain's boyfriend wanted her to have an abortion and even a trusted relative convinced her it was the only option if she wanted to go to college and achieve other goals she had, such as dancing professionally and traveling around the world.

So Fountain and her relative went to a Planned Parenthood clinic where she was advised in the waiting room as she spoke to a receptionist.

"Everyone in the room heard everything we were talking about," Fountain said. "I was ashamed. I didn't want everyone to know why I was there."

The receptionist informed Fountain that the longer she waited, the more expensive an abortion would be, and the receptionist did not talk to her about adoption or parenting before the abortion was scheduled.

"That was it," Fountain said. "I had a card with a date and a time, and that's how we left."

Fountain remembered that the woman at the pregnancy resource center said she could come back anytime she wanted to talk about alternatives to abortion.

"I went back for the ultrasound, and I saw her heart beating," Fountain said of her unborn daughter, Aaliyah. "That made it so real to me, that it wasn't just tissue.

"It wasn't something they could get rid of, that it was a baby," Fountain said.

Today, Fountain's daughter is a happy and beautiful child who was very aware of why she was in the nation's capital with her mom and other parents and children who credit pregnancy resource centers for not only saving the life of their child, but for their own well-being.

"She knows how much I love her, and she thanks me for keeping her," Fountain said.

    

Nikki Payne also joined Heartbeat International's annual "Babies Go to Congress" event on Capitol Hill in July. Payne juggled a stroller, diaper bag, and her active toddler son, Zuri, as she marched up and down the halls to visit members of Congress.

Heartbeat International is an umbrella organization that serves 1,100 affiliated pregnancy help centers.

Payne said she was 19 and not in a relationship when she became pregnant. She decided that rather than confide in family and friends, she would just get an abortion on her own.

"I was worried about the judgment of family and friends because of the goals I had in mind," Payne told CNSNews.com. "So I tried to make the decision to terminate my pregnancy alone without anyone knowing."

She described her visit to Planned Parenthood as an "awful experience."

"It was very impersonal and very robotic, and I didn't feel right," Payne said. In contrast, she said that when she visited the pregnancy resource center in the city where she lived in Virginia, a counselor spent several hours talking to her about alternatives to abortion.

"So it's just a huge turnaround from going somewhere where I was just a number to actually wanting to inform me so I could make an informed decision and know the repercussions or the rewards of the decision I was going to make," Payne said.

As she held her wiggly son in her arms, she said she could not imagine having made the decision to go through with an abortion.

"It's not possible to see him not in my life," Payne said. "They gave me an ultrasound, which made everything so clear – that Zuri is going to be that blessing in my life."

"And there is no way I could choose whether he lives or dies," Payne said. "It's not my place to choose to take a life away."

Melinda Delahoyde, president of Care Net, which oversees a network of more than 1,000 pregnancy resource centers around the United States, said that NARAL's attempts to discredit the work that centers do through these kind of reports, and also in court cases it has brought against centers, actually can work in their favor when people hear the stories of women like Fountain and Payne.

"When we go in front of state legislators and tell what we do, it's not working to [NARAL's] good," Delahoyde said. "It works for our good because they hear from women themselves.

"We have a chance to educate the media, community leaders, public health officials – everyone who is there in that room," Delahoyde said. "Here are the stories from women. Here is what actually happens: what do pregnancy centers do and how we're connected in our local communities.

"That this isn't some big, top down, nationalized thing," Delahoyde said. "This is people in their local community, working with other people in their community to help women who need it."

"That is what it is all about," she said. "And when that story comes out, it works to our benefit."

Contact: Penny Starr
Source: CNSNews.com
Publish Date: October 18, 2010

Why It's Absurd to Deny Obama's Healthcare Bill Contains Abortion Funding

   

With the decision of the Ohio Elections Commission to allow a hearing  to decide whether the Susan B. Anthony List has falsely represented the voting record of Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-OH), the question is again raised: Was abortion funding authorized by the health care legislation signed into law by President Barack Obama?

The complaint arose from the SBA List's use of billboards declaring that Representative Driehaus of Ohio's 1st Congressional District had voted for taxpayer-funded abortions by voting for the health care bill. If Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA, is found guilty, she could go to jail. Supporting Driehaus's effort to imprison Dannenfelser are James Salt, policy director of Catholics United, and Kristen Day, president of Democrats for Life of America.

Driehaus, by the way, had made essentially the same characterization of the health care legislation as made by Dannenfelser. On March 19, Driehaus was an original co-sponsor of H. Con. Res. 254, an "enrollment correction," introduced by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI). That resolution would have removed abortion funding from the Senate version of the health care bill.

The language of the final health care bill -- "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" (PPACA) -- had not changed when both Stupak and Driehaus voted for it and Obama signed it into law. Now, Driehaus is trying to send Marjorie Dannenfelser to jail for precisely the same view of the health care bill as expressed in his support for H. Con. Res 254 -- that it authorizes federal tax dollars to be spent on abortion.

Three members of the Ohio Elections Commission voted 2-1 to find "probable cause" to send the Driehaus complaint to a full hearing of the seven commissioners. The date has not yet been set.

The evidence supporting the SBA List is undeniable. In addition to the witness of Driehaus himself (and Stupak), there are the multiple provisions of the legislation itself that authorize the funding of abortions. The best summary is found in the affidavit submitted for last week's meeting of the Ohio Elections Commission by Douglas Johnson, legislative director of National Right to Life.

As Johnson points out in his affidavit, the provisions of the Senate version of the bill, ultimately signed into law, contained many of the same abortion funding mechanisms that the Stupak-Pitts amendment of the House bill removed. (There were new, additional problems in the Senate bill.) Stupak, Driehaus, and all those who supported the Stupak-Pitts amendment in the House had full knowledge that those provisions had not been removed. Driehaus and Stupak also knew of a similar amendment, offered by Sens. Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT), which was defeated soundly in the Senate. Interestingly enough, when the Senate bill passed (without removing the abortion authorizations), Stupak and Driehaus, along with Kristen Day, fought hard against its passage in the House. They worked diligently from the time Congress returned in January until March 19th when their objections suddenly, and inexplicably, vanished.

Here, Johnson provides an overview of the abortion funding in the 906 pages of PPACA:

    It contained multiple provisions that authorize new programs or expand authorizations for existing programs that are authorized to cover abortion, either explicitly or implicitly. Some of these provisions are entirely untouched by any limitation on abortion in existing law or in the PPACA itself, and others are subject only to limitations that are temporary or contingent.

Those who deny this characterization must have been surprised when three states -- Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and Maryland -- began the implementation of Section 1101 (42 U.S.C. § 18001) creating the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP), also known as the "high-risk pool" program. Abortion coverage was explicitly included by these three states in this $5 billion program that provides coverage for up to 400,000 people.

After National Right to Life publicized the abortion coverage, it was determined that the coverage was not excluded either by the president's executive order or the Hyde Amendment. On July 14, the Department of Health and Human Services released a statement:

    Abortions will not be covered in the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP) except in the cases of rape or incest, or where the life of the woman would be endangered.

Nothing in the HHS statement suggested that abortion funding contradicted anything in the executive order, the PPACA, or any pre-existing law, including the Hyde Amendment. In other words, the implementation of PCIP by these three states to include abortion funding had been authorized.

Johnson's affidavit provides three other examples of abortion authorization in the PPACA, and even these are not exhaustive. In addition to the program of pre-existing conditions, there are federal subsidies for private health plans that cover elective abortions, authorization for abortion funding through Community Health Centers, and authorization for inclusion of abortion coverage in health plans administered by the federal Office of Personnel Management.

Defenders of the bill say that under the premium subsidy program only private money will be utilized to pay for abortions. This is merely an accounting trick that still violates the Hyde Amendment. But there is a much bigger problem: The bill states that on the same day the Hyde Amendment is no longer attached to HHS appropriations, federal dollars may be used to fund abortions. This is an explicit authorization of abortion funding, which creates a huge incentive for Congress to put an end to the Hyde Amendment.

Johnson argues that any one of these four examples is sufficient to prove the SBA List was not falsely representing Driehaus's voting record.

The biggest issue with the legislation, according to Johnson, is not the individual provisions authorizing taxpayer funded abortions, but "the absence of any bill-wide restriction on federal funding of abortion." In other words, what's missing is the very amendment offered to the House bill by Stupak, and co-sponsored by Driehaus -- the amendment that never became a part of the final legislation.

Those who point to the protections of the Hyde Amendment or the president's executive order, as does Driehaus, ignore the fact that they were already found inapplicable to abortion coverage in the PCIP. Hyde protections, which must be renewed annually by Congress, are limited to funds appropriated to HHS by the annual appropriations bill, and the health-care legislation contains many new authorizations and direct appropriations entirely unrelated to the restrictions of the Hyde Amendment.

Let's be clear: Those who look at the evidence of abortion funding in the healthcare bill and still demur need to ask themselves if they want to remain guilty of the same political partisanship they so often attribute to others.

Contact: Deal Hudson
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: October 18, 2010
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Silence - the sound of the aborted

   

It's Pro-Life Solidarity Day at many schools throughout the world -- and there's a special objective in the observance.

Today marks the seventh year that students are taking a vow of silence and distributing literature about abortion and letting babies live. Bryan Kemper, who heads Stand True Ministries, notes that 4,000 babies per day die from abortion in America -- and that participation in Pro-Life Solidarity Day is widespread.
 
"Last year we had students from over 4,000 campuses in 25 countries participate in this event," he shares. "And we heard back from at least 80 girls who cancelled abortions on one single day."
 
Bryan Kemper (Stand True Ministries)Kemper notes some notable examples. "One [participating] student who walked into her classroom...ended up talking to her teacher, and the teacher confessed to her that she was going to have an abortion the next day," he recalls. "This student was able to talk her own teacher out of having an abortion and help save that teacher's child's life."
 
Another student's mother confessed to her daughter that she was going to have an abortion the next day, and the result was saving her own sibling's life.
 
Kemper stresses students are not rebelling through silence, but just making a lifesaving point.

Contact: Charlie Butts
Source: OneNewsNow
Publish Date: October 19, 2010

Pro-Life Display at La Crosse University Vandalized

       

After placing more than 1,100 crosses on display Sunday night, the Pro-Life Students of La Crosse this morning found their Cemetery of the Innocence Display on campus in piles.
 
A slew of pro-abortion signs were found on the fence close to the vandalized Cemetery, which is erected annually by pro-life students.

Alyssa Gebel, president of the UW-L Pro-Life Students of La Crosse, told the student newspaper The Racquet that she held little hope of finding the vandals. "The chances of finding whoever did it are slim to none," she said.

The group reported the incident to the Office of Student Life and University Police, and filed a hate incident report with the Office of Campus Climate, according to the newspaper. Assistant Dean of Students John Palmer said the incident was in the hands of University Police and that the Office of Student Life will "take action and will hold [the vandals] responsible." Palmer called the vandalism "completely inappropriate."

Students for Life of America issued a statement of support for the Pro-Life Students of La Crosse Monday, and thanked the school's administration for their swift response with an investigation. SFLA hopes the Administration will bring the vandals to justice.

"Vandalizing the Cemetery of the Innocence not only shows a lack of respect for property, but also for the students of the University," said SFLA executive director Kristan Hawkins. "It is a sad day when there can no longer be an open academic discussion on a university campus, but rather vandalism and hate."

Contact: Kathleen Gilbert
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: October 18, 2010

Abstinence America Founder Challenges Parents

   

Mike Goss, President and founder of Abstinence America, is challenging parents to recognize the power they have to influence their children and to use that influence to help kids avoid the devastating consequences of early sexual experimentation. Goss has spent the last seven years talking to more than 30,000 young people about character, responsibility, relationship intelligence and smart sexual choices. Now he is speaking to their parents. He is launching a new program called Sex-Ed for Parents.

Goss says, "If we are going to change these numbers, - 900,000 teen pregnancies and six million cases of sexually transmitted disease -- parents must be equipped, motivated and ready to engage kids in meaningful dialogue about sex."

Research demonstrates that when it comes to sex, kids still rely most heavily on the advice of their parents, but unfortunately many parents don't know where to start, what to say or how to communicate effectively with kids. That's where Goss comes in. He sees his role as a trusted delegate coming along side to guide and educate, but acknowledging the parents' role as the primary authority.

Sex-EdforParents.org. is a video web blog that offers parents a free membership where they can receive videos and an e-newsletter with up-to-date news in the world of adolescent sexuality as well as age appropriate resources to help jumpstart the conversation with kids from elementary age through college.

Goss will soon be introducing another revolutionary communications resource . "This is a whole new approach to sexuality education and it surpasses anything that has been done before," says Goss. Parents who are looking for help will now have an extraordinary resource."

Mike Goss has talked to more than 30,000 students in the last seven years, teaching them to make smart sexual choices. Abstinence America, a non-profit corporation, has been established as the undisputed leader in the Houston Metropolitan area in character-based sex education. Students have written Mike over 1,000 letters validating the impact of his work.

Contact: Mike Goss
Source: Abstinence America
Publish Date: October 18, 2010

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