Peter Breen, Senior Counsel and Vice President of the Chicago-based Thomas More Society Thomas More Society

This pro-life, first-time candidate will be elected, guaranteed

A prominent pro-life, pro-family activist is running unopposed for the Illinois State House after the state's Speaker of the House dropped a lawsuit that would have illegally placed a candidate against him.

Peter Breen, Senior Counsel and Vice President of the Chicago-based pro-life, pro-family Thomas More Society, announced in an e-mail to supporters that Speaker Mike Madigan "voluntarily dismissed his lawsuit" to place a candidate on the general election ballot against him. Madigan had, according to Breen, "asked a judge to ignore [state] law and give a pass" to a candidate of Madigan's liking. Breen is running to represent the 48th District of Illinois in Springfield.

Madigan is a leading Democrat in the state, while Breen is a first-time Republican candidate for office. Madigan's lawsuit came earlier this month, after the DuPage County Election Board took Breen's opponent off the ballot.

Breen has long been known for his strong stand in favour of marriage and life. Last year, he accused the IRS of targeting a client of the Thomas More Society, the Coalition of Life for Iowa after the federal agency questioned them about the content of their prayers and what words were on pro-life signs held outside of Planned Parenthood clinics.

Two congressional committees are investigating the IRS for illegally targeting pro-life, pro-family, and Tea Party non-profits for years. The Coalition is one of the organizations that says it was targeted.

Madigan is a senior Democrat in a state that has a Democratic governor and a supermajority of Democrats in the state legislature. His daughter, Lisa, is the state's Attorney General, and was until recently considered a top candidate to run against Gov. Pat Quinn. Madigan's influence is enormous across the state's political structure, and just last week Breen said about the lawsuit that Madigan "never goes down without a fight."

Breen told LifeSiteNews his campaign has "been able to talk about" the issue of life because he is running in a pro-life district. He said that while he will represent the interests of his constituents, "you've got legislators in assemblies, and Senates, and the Congress, who are very much to the left of their constituencies on the life issue." He said this puts many politicians "out of step with their constituencies."

Breen also discussed the candidate controversy that ended last week. He said that DuPage County Democrats failed to "follow....these simple rules that are laid down by the state of Illinois." Those rules, as Breen explained, allowed Democrats to "slate a candidate," but "for whatever reason, they didn't follow the rules."

After the Election Board unanimously stood with Breen, Democrats appealed. However, the appeal to the Circuit Court "has been dismissed," something Breen called "great news."

Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Contact: Dustin Siggins

Congratulations Amazon, You Sold Out Women’s Health for Money

By Emily Zender - 

Amazon has now wiggled its way in to receive a cut of the abortion industry's multibillion-dollar profits. In January, Amazon began quietly selling Plan B, an abortion-inducing drug taken within 72 hours of unprotected intercourse. Amazon began selling the abortion drug for about $17 – well below the $32 manufacturing cost according to a Princeton research study.

Today, the average price of Plan B on Amazon is about $44. Selling the abortion drug isn't the only way Amazon is making money off of women's bodies. While investigating the ability to purchase Plan B from Amazon, advertisements for a plan… "C" appeared below the product. The advertisements, strategically shown to customers who are viewing Plan B on Amazon, are paid advertisements for Illinois abortion clinics. 

If your $44 Plan B doesn't work, here's your plan C: an abortion that on average costs $421. Couple the advertising income from the abortion industry with the profits from selling Plan B and Amazon has a brand new income stream.

How can Amazon sell Plan B without a minor girl or a woman needing a prescription?

In 2011, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) was about to approve Plan B over-the-counter (without a prescription). In a shocking last minute move, Former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, an outspoken abortion advocate, halted the FDA's attempt. In what some experts called an unprecedented move, Sebelius issued a letter to the FDA challenging the validity of its data that called prescription-less Plan B "safe" for any age. Sebelius called the FDA's data "inadequate to support approval." President Obama supported Sebelius' refusal to legalize prescription-less Plan B saying, "as the father of two daughters, I think it is important for us to make sure that we apply some common sense to various rules when it comes to over-the-counter medicine."

The abortion industry immediately sued the Obama Administration and won a ruling from U.S. District Judge Edward R. Korman to sell Plan B to all ages without any restrictions. After the Obama Administration's initial appeal was rejected by a three-judge Court of Appeals, the Administration dropped its defense. Thus, one year ago on June 20, 2013, Plan B became legal to sell to a person regardless if she or he was 11 years old or 51 years old. 

Plan B is a painful, abortion-inducing drug with serious health side effects to girls and women. Side effects (from the Plan B website) include: menstrual changes, nausea, lower stomach (abdominal) pain, tiredness, headache, dizziness, breast pain, spotting, bleeding, and vomiting.

By eliminating a woman's contemplation process: a discussion with her doctor about the risks, side effects, and proper administration, the abortion industry has also effectively removed any thought into the ramifications of the abortion drug. With the click of a button, Amazon delivers to your doorstep the little pill that can end human physical life. Children under the age of 17 cannot be admitted to a rated R movie without parental accompaniment but Planned Parenthood, a child sexual abuser, or now Amazon, can administer a drug to your 11-year-old daughter, niece, or goddaughter without you ever knowing.

If you think teen pregnancy isn't an issue think again. According to the Illinois Department of Public Health, from 1995 to 2011, 67,928 abortions were performed in Illinois on girls 17 years old and younger. That's 11 abortions performed on a minor girl every day in Illinois.

Now, because of Amazon's partnership with the abortion industry, a sexual predator can order Plan B and never have to show his face in public. He can even order ahead and keep the drugs in his medicine cabinet if he'd like.  Just like that, Amazon can claim "innocence" in aiding and abetting a sexual abuser in covering up his crime because of negligent regulations. And not only did Amazon get paid for its "innocent" assistance in the crime, it did so all with the Amazon smile.

Congratulations Amazon on becoming a corporation that places greed above the concern for teenage girls.  Congratulations Amazon, on becoming the latest corporation to throw moral responsibility and ethics to the wind in the interest of "growing profits."

Some things are more important than money. Children and women's health are two of them.           

Emily Zender is executive director of Illinois Right to Life.
Source: Illinois Review

IRS Strikes Deal With Atheist Group to Monitor Content of Sermons

The next time your pastor delivers a pro-life sermon or urges the congregation to stand up for pro-life values in the political or public arena, he could be taken to task by the IRS.

Alliance Defending Freedom asked the Internal Revenue Service Tuesday to release all documents related to its recent decision to settle a lawsuit with an atheist group that claims the IRS has adopted new protocols and procedures for the investigation of churches.

ADF submitted the Freedom of Information Act request after learning of the IRS's agreement with Freedom From Religion Foundation in a press release the group issued on July 17 concerning its lawsuit Freedom From Religion Foundation v. Koskinen, which accused the agency of failing to investigate churches the way the atheist group would like.

"Secrecy breeds mistrust, and the IRS should know this in light of its recent scandals involving the investigation of conservative groups," said ADF Litigation Counsel Christiana Holcomb. "We are asking the IRS to disclose the new protocols and procedures it apparently adopted for determining whether to investigate churches. What it intends to do to churches must be brought into the light of day."

The IRS claims it is temporarily withholding investigations of all tax-exempt entities because of congressional scrutiny of its recent scandals, but no one knows when it will decide to restart investigations based on any new or modified rules that it develops.

According to the Freedom From Religion Foundation press release, "The IRS has now resolved the signature authority issue necessary to initiate church examinations. The IRS also has adopted procedures for reviewing, evaluating and determining whether to initiate church investigations."

The release mentions the ADF annual "Pulpit Freedom Sunday" event as one that promotes activity by churches that violates the Johnson Amendment, a federal law that activist groups often cite in an attempt to silence churches by threatening their tax-exempt status. The Johnson Amendment authorizes the IRS to regulate sermons and requires churches to give up their constitutionally protected freedom of speech in order to retain their tax-exempt status.

"The IRS cannot force churches to give up their precious constitutionally protected freedoms to receive a tax exemption," explained ADF Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley, who heads the Pulpit Freedom Sunday event. "No one would suggest a pastor give up his church's tax-exempt status if he wants to keep his constitutional protection against illegal search and seizure or cruel and unusual punishment. Likewise, no one should be asking him to do the same to be able to keep his constitutionally protected freedom of speech."

This year's Pulpit Freedom Sunday will be held on Oct. 5.

Source: LifeNews.com

What the numbers are telling us about the outcome of the November mid-term elections

Let's put together a Gallup summary of President Obama's popularity over the last three months (which ran yesterday) and an analysis of what might happen this fall, provided today by Josh Kraushaar at the National Journal and see what they tell us.

Gallup's Jeffrey Jones tells us

"President Barack Obama averaged 43.2% job approval during his 22nd quarter in office, from April 20 through July 19. That is a minimal increase from the prior quarter's 42.4% average, but still ranks among the lowest for Obama to date. His worst quarterly average thus far is 41.0% in quarter 11."

Those numbers for the 22nd-quarter are higher than only two presidents, one of whom was Richard Nixon just before he resigned in August 1974.

Jones added

"Obama may be able to keep his ratings above the 40% mark as long as he maintains strong levels of support among Democrats. Although Democrats' approval ratings of Obama are down from earlier in his presidency, they still consistently approach 80%."

Let's move on to Kraushaar's "The Odds of a GOP Wave Are Increasing: This year's political environment is shaping up to be nearly as bleak as 2010, and that's ominous news for Senate Democrats."

A fair portion of his intriguing piece is an explanation/rebuttal over what's constitutes a "wave." As would be obvious, if you make the bar high enough, it's almost impossible for the GOP to secure a wave ("shorthand for a landslide victory for the winning party," as Kraushaar explains).

An important point made early: in the second midterm election, historically, the president's party suffers high loses. "But Clinton's and Reagan's relatively high popularity likely helped mitigate midterm seat losses for their parties in the elections."

With Obama striving to stay about 40% in job approval, vulnerable Democrats don't have that life-preserver to cling to. Especially given "that the right-track/wrong-track numbers [whether the country is on the right track or the wrong track] are near historic lows."

Here are two quick observations.

First, the caveat we always offer. Politics and electoral fortunes can change in a heartbeat. But that turnabout should be less of a problem for Republicans in 2014, given the high caliber of their candidates, including challengers to sitting Democratic senators.

Second, as Kraushaar observes

"If anything, this year's environment for Democrats is shaping up to be as bleak [as 2010]. Sizable majorities oppose the Obama administration's handling of nearly every issue, including the economy, health care, and foreign policy. The administration looks out of its element, lurching from foreign policy crises to domestic scandal over the past year. Even out of the headlines, Obamacare is still a driving force for Republicans and for unfavorable poll numbers. This week, Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg released new data showing Obama's disapproval at a whopping 60 percent in 12 Senate battlegrounds, with half strongly disapproving of his performance. Overall, Republicans held a 2-point edge on the battleground generic ballot, 46 percent to 44 percent."

Please keep that conclusion about ObamaCare in mind. We are constantly told that the importance of this issue has "peaked," and will not play a major role come November. That simply is not true.

In addition, there is the "generic ballot" gap. That is the response when people are asked whether they would vote for a generic Democrat or Republican (as opposed to naming a specific candidate).

Kraushaar informs us in his first paragraph that running even (or in this case, 2 points ahead) "usually translates into a clear GOP edge" when people actually vote.

Please take five minutes and read the analysis.

By Dave Andrusko, NRL News

Senate May Approve Disability Rights Treaty That Could Promote Abortion

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted on the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) this week. While this treaty has a warm and fuzzy name, it could have a dangerous impact on abortion laws in this country.

Pro-life Americans should be especially concerned with the inclusion of the term "sexual and reproductive health" under the list of required areas for which signatory nations must provide "free or affordable health care."

The term "sexual and reproductive health" is not defined. This provides an opportunity for anti-life activists within UN agencies and treaty monitoring bodies to distort its meaning to serve their agenda. Although abortion is not mentioned in the treaty, abortion-activists within the U.N. want this phrase to be interpreted to mean a right to abortion.

The United States already has one of the most radical abortion policies in the world. Our country is in the company of North Korea, China, and Canada as the only four nations in the world to allow abortions through all nine months of pregnancy for any reason.  However, there is a desire on the part of Senate Democrats to further radicalize America's abortion policies—as evidenced by their efforts to advance a new "FOCA" bill, S. 1696–disingenuously named the Women's Health Protection Act.

If the United States were to ratify CRPD, a U.S. court could cite the recommendations of its treaty monitoring body as evidence of customary international law in order to further liberalize the abortion policies in this country. There are examples of this happening around the world. In the last decade, courts in Columbia and Argentina have allowed their nations to be pressured by the recommendations of UN treaty monitoring bodies to liberalize their laws in favor of abortion.

The United States is already one of the world leaders regarding legal protections for people who have disabilities. Ceding this nation's sovereignty to an international body will not increase rights for disabled Americans, but it will create a dangerous opening for policy making by abortion activists within UN bodies.

Now that CRPD has passed out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee it will be eligible for a vote on the Senate floor. The treaty will need the votes of two-thirds of the Senate in order to be ratified. Pro-life Americans should be on guard against CRPD and any UN treaty that does not expressly prohibit the agreement from being interpreted to mean a right to abortion.

Legal Group: Planned Parenthood Continues to Commit Fraud, Misuse Taxpayer Funds

A Christian legal group made public today its latest annual report. It shows alleged wastes, abuse and potential fraud by the nation’s largest abortion seller. The report, issued to Congress, urges federal lawmakers to continue investigating Planned Parenthood’s alleged misuse of taxpayer money.

“The government should use American tax dollars responsibly and for the common good,” said Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) Litigation Counsel Catherine Glenn Foster.

“The taxpayers who provide that hard-earned money deserve to know if it’s being funneled to groups that are abusing it.”

The report, “Profit. No Matter What,” reviews audits of the abortion seller and its affiliates for the fiscal year 2013. According to ADF, these audits show a total of more than $115 million in waste, abuse and potential fraud in federal and state family planning funding programs—most of which goes to Planned Parenthood.

The report also highlights other alleged billing violations. Some of them include overbilling for contraceptives and Plan B products.

“When it comes to accountability and transparency, Planned Parenthood’s publicly-funded, billion-dollar abortion empire cannot be given a pass,” Foster explained. “It has to play by the same rules as everyone else.”

Planned Parenthood continues to receive government funds to end the lives of preborn babies. The nation’s largest abortion seller also continues to overlook the safety of women and girls. Ask your lawmakers to stop using our tax dollars in this way.

TV and abortion: "Progress" = more abortions

NBC Entertainment Chairman Bob Greenblatt

As NRL News Today has noted (at length), the controversy over the addle-pated “abortion-themed romantic comedy“” Obvious Child served as a springboard for a number of related discussions.

From our perspective, suffice it to say two things about the film itself. First, director Gillian Robespierre proved once again that there is no depth to which abortion advocates won’t sink to “normalize” abortion. That Robespierre and star Jenny Slate would continue to try to have it both way—milk the abortion angle for all its worth yet insist (wink, wink) that abortion was not the heart and soul of Obvious Child—is pretty much what you would expect.

Second, lead character Donna Stern (Slate’s foul-mouthed night club comic) is a linear descent of Emily Letts, infamous for videotaping her own abortion and putting her child’s final minutes on YouTube for all the world to see.

Pro-abortionists continue to try to make hay out of the controversy over a film that hardly lit up the box office. For example, a few weeks ago (according to the Washington Post’s Alyssa Rosenberg) “NBC found itself the target of criticism after reports surfaced that the network had declined a digital ad for the independent movie ‘Obvious Child.’” (That’s not entirely accurate. See below.)

The headline of Rosenberg’s piece illustrated her conclusion: ”Is TV afraid of abortion? For NBC, the answer is complicated.”

She is basically sympathetic to the answer NBC Entertainment Chairman Bob Greenblatt gave to a colleague of Rosenberg about “whether the controversy reflected a broader timidity about abortion and reproductive health on television.”

Greenblatt alluded to a show that ran 20 or so years ago where a character was considering an abortion. So, too, was the staff, deciding in the end to have her “lose the baby sort of on the way to getting the abortion.”

“I don’t think we cop out like that anymore, but I still think writers and producers are nervous about it because it really does divide people,” Greenblatt said. “But I think we’ve made progress.”

Rosenberg offers conclusions from an analysis from a pro-abortion think-tank that concludes abortion has been a more common story line since Roe. “The number of those storylines that end with a character losing the pregnancy has increased slightly, though there has been a greater shift toward characters carrying pregnancies to term and either parenting their children or giving them up for adoption,” she writes. But….

“[J]ust because pop culture has characters consider abortion more often does not mean that fictional characters are actually having abortions or that television has gotten any braver about treating abortion as routine,” Rosenberg writes. “As my former colleague Tara Culp-Ressler reported in February, ‘Between 1973 and 2002, abortion represented about 60 percent of the pregnancy outcomes in pop culture plots. But from 2003 and 2012, that dropped to about 48 percent.’”

So to be clear, “progress” = more women having abortions, not just considering them.

Greenblatt told Rosenberg that he thought “the advertising sales team at NBC had taken ‘the path of least resistance,’ selecting an ad that did not mention the ‘abortion angle’ in ‘Obvious Child’ by choosing the spot out of three potential options.

Jennifer Salke, president of NBC Entertainment, “said they simply could not remember very many story pitches about abortion and unplanned pregnancies during their tenure at NBC.” What about the future? “We would just want to make sure we were smart about it, that it was handled appropriately,” Salke said.

By Dave Andrusko, NRL News

 

Basic dos-and-don'ts men should know when helping women face an unplanned pregnancy

In our culture, equipped with a gazillion cell phone cameras and a multiplicity of recording devices, every once in a while when an unhinged pro-abortionist goes off on a pro-lifer, it’s get captured and makes its way onto the internet.

An opinion piece appearing in an Alabama newspaper over the weekend reminded me of this truism. However what made J. Pepper Bryars’ argument particularly helpful is that he used one of those harangues as a way of addressing the question of men and abortion.

We all know that being the good liberals that pro-abortion feminists are, they insist that the voices of men should be censored. (They are not big on diversity of opinion to begin with.)

And it’s not just that abortion is “a woman’s issue” (as we are told incessantly) and therefore men have no voice. It’s that men have nothing to contribute to the conversation (other than perhaps to affirm that they will go along with whatever her decision is). They are the equivalent of potted plants.

Bryars’ opinion piece reminds us that many, if not nearly all men, who are a party to a crisis pregnancy, have bought this lie. Consequently they say (or imply) that whichever direction she is headed, they will follow.

Which, of course, misses the crucial other reason the Abortion Establishment is so loathe to allow men to utter a peep. Women in the midst of a crisis pregnancy understandably see passivity as a sign either of indifference or (worse) a signal that everyone would be “better off” if she eliminated the “problem.”

But if the man speaks up on behalf of his baby and the mother of their child, it can make all the difference in the world.

“The man has a huge influence in the woman’s decision to choose life,” Susan Baldwin, executive director of the Women’s Resource Center, which operates crisis pregnancy centers in Mobile and Saraland, told Bryars. “If he is 100-percent for the baby and offers to support their child, then we almost never see the woman choose abortion.”

Bryars asked her what if the father resorts to the “I’ll-support-her-decision” line?

“If he says that he doesn’t care what she does, or it’s her decision and he doesn’t want to interfere, she takes that as quite a negative and then the chances are 50-percent,” Baldwin said. “If he wants nothing to do with her or ‘her’ baby…then the woman is extremely vulnerable.”

Bryars then brought up something I’m embarrassed to admit I’d never considered. Let’s say the father wants to do the right thing, not the convenient thing.

What exactly does he say?

“Baldwin said that her counselors and medical staff have observed that men don’t know how to talk to women about pregnancy, birth, their needs as mothers and alternatives such as adoption,” Bryars writes. “Her center’s website shares a list of basic dos-and-don’ts men should know when facing an unplanned pregnancy.”

Kathy Hall is executive director of Choose Life of North Alabama, a crisis pregnancy center in Huntsville, Alabama. They run a program called “MENistry.”

Its target audience is men who are faced with an unplanned pregnancy. A dozen trained men serve as counselors and mentors “to show fathers how important they are in the decision-making process and how they can grow to become the strong men that their situation requires,” Bryars writes. “They also offer post-abortion healing to men who have had a child aborted in their past – an untold yet painful part of the overall abortion tragedy.”

While men are still largely on the outside looking in, an author of a book about men and abortion sees hope.

“Today, many fathers facing an unplanned pregnancy are still shrugging their shoulders,” Kirk Walden wrote. “But…at pregnancy help centers everywhere, dads are making a comeback.”

By Dave Andrusko, NRL News

 

Does Your Senator Support Abortion Up to Birth With No Limits?

Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on a radical pro-abortion bill (S.1696) sponsored by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Ct.) and promoted by major pro-abortion advocacy groups.

If enacted, the law would nullify virtually all limits on abortion nationwide, including protective measures that enjoy broad public support, including informed consent laws, waiting periods and laws that protect pain-capable unborn children from excruciating abortions late in pregnancy.

The bill, which has been characterized as the “Abortion Without Limits Until Birth” Act, currently has 35 co-sponsors, all Democrats.

With nearly two thirds of Senate Democrats on board with Blumenthal’s plan to expand abortion, the question must be asked: Where do the Democratic candidates running for Senate this fall stand on this legislation?

In the competitive race for Senate in Alaska, incumbent Sen. Mark Begich’s position is clear. He supports tearing down virtually all limits on abortion nationwide as indicated by his signing on as a cosponsor.

Congressman Bruce Braley, who is running for the open Senate seat in Iowa, is a cosponsor of the House version of the bill.

In Kentucky, Democratic nominee Alison Lundergan Grimes told the Huffington Post’s Howard Fineman in 2013 that she was “pro-choice down the line on abortion.”

EMILY’s List, a pro-abortion PAC that backs only female Democratic candidates who embrace abortion-on-demand, is one of Grimes’ biggest financiers, according to the Washington Post.

EMILY’s List is also investing heavily in Michelle Nunn’s candidacy in Georgia. Nunn ran sponsored Facebook posts touting the endorsement from the pro-abortion PAC.

However, as noted in the Wall Street Journal, Democrats running in traditionally red states, like Georgia, have deliberately downplayed their positions on abortion.

Nunn’s campaign has only offered the tired platitude that she would like to see abortion “safe, legal and rare.”  Voters in Georgia deserve to know where she stands on this bill.

Like Nunn, Sen. Kay Hagan in North Carolina is abiding by a similar playbook on abortion. She has not commented on Blumenthal’s bill and has generally dodged the abortion issue.

However, it’s not difficult to draw conclusions based on her record. Hagan, another EMILY’s List beneficiary, has a 0% rating from the National Right to Life Committee, indicating solidly pro-abortion voting record. Most recently, Hagan joined Planned Parenthood in advocating for a bill taking aim at pro-life conscience protections.

Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas, another Southern Democrat facing a tough reelection in 2014, has come under fire for saying one thing on abortion and doing another. Pryor’s opponent, pro-life Republican Tom Cotton, has put the issue front and center in the campaign.

Cotton spokesman David Ray said, “Senator Pryor says one thing in Arkansas, and votes the opposite way in Washington. He says he’s pro-choice, then he says he’s pro-life. He says he’s against late-term abortion, but he won’t do anything about it. He says he’s against taxpayer funding of abortion, but he’s voted for it repeatedly. Senator Pryor simply can’t be trusted on this issue.”

Thus far, Sen. Mary Landrieu in Louisiana has avoided discussion of Blumenthal’s “Abortion Without Limits Until Birth” bill. But she has been in the hot seat after indicating she would not support legislation to protect unborn children who are capable of experiencing pain.

Republican Congressman Bill Cassidy, who is running to challenge Landrieu, said she is “clearly pro-abortion rights.” It’s time for Landrieu to inform voters how she would vote on Blumenthal’s bill if brought to a full Senate vote.

In Colorado, Sen. Mark Udall, who is engaged in a tough race against pro-life challenger Rep. Cory Gardner, has not signed on as cosponsor of Blumenthal’s legislation. Udall has repeatedly hit his opponent on abortion in the campaign, attempting to characterize him as extreme on the issue. Voters should demand to know where Udall stands on his colleague’s extreme bill to invalidate longstanding protective measures for unborn children and their mothers.

Sen. Blumenthal told Roll Call in a November interview, “As the election approaches, I think the voters are going to want to know where legislators stand on these issues.”

In her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the bill, National Right to Life President Carol Tobias urged the Senate’s Democratic leadership to agree to a proposal by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) that the Senate hold two votes, one on Blumenthal’s S.1696 and one on Graham’s S.1670, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.

“We challenge you, and the leadership of the majority party, to allow the American people to see where every senator stands on both of these major abortion-related bills. Let the American people see which bill reflects the values of each member of the United States Senate—life or death for unborn children?,” said Tobias.

As Americans in key states prepare to elect lawmakers to be their voice in Washington, it’s vital that candidates engage in an honest discussion of where they stand on important issues. No candidate running for Senate should be given a free pass to dodge answering where they stand on Blumenthal’s “Abortion Without Limits Until Birth” bill and Graham’s Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.

Source: LifeNews.com

Kirk votes with Democrats to reverse Hobby Lobby Decision

 

 

 

 
Wednesday, Illinois U.S. Senator Mark Kirk, along with two other Republican senators, supported a failed Democrat-backed measure that would have manuevered around the recent Hobby Lobby Supreme Court decision.
 
The act, sponsored by Senate Democrats Patty Murray of Washington and Mark Udall of Colorado would have kept for-profit businesses from dropping birth control coverage. The "Not My Bosses' Business Act" would have clarified that no federal law allows companies to refuse follow Obamacare's contraception mandate - even if the owners have strong religious convictions against abortifacients.
 
All Senate Republicans - except for Illinois' Kirk, Alaska's Murkowski and Main's Collins - voted to block the bill, keeping the legislation from advancing.
 
Source: Illinois Review

Senate rejects bill to end employer conscience protections

 

 

 

 
The U.S. Senate on Wednesday rejected a bill that opponents warned would have stripped conscience protections for businesses, drawing a response of cautious relief.

"While the outcome of today's vote is a relief, it is sobering to think that more than half the members of the U.S. Senate, sworn to uphold the laws and Constitution of the United States, would vote for a bill whose purpose is to reduce the religious freedom of their fellow Americans," said the U.S. bishops' director of government, Jayd Henricks.

The procedural motion to move the bill along fell four votes short of achieving the 60-vote majority needed to continue. Sponsored by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the bill would have forced employers with group health plans to provide all "health items" mandated by federal law, including all FDA-approved contraceptives under the Affordable Care Act.

This would counter the Supreme Court's recent decision that closely-held businesses like Hobby Lobby are protected by federal law from the federal birth control mandate, given their religious objections.

The controversial mandate requires employers to offer health insurance covering contraception, sterilization and some drugs that can cause early abortions. It has been the subject of religious freedom lawsuits from more than 300 plaintiffs across the country.

Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore and Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley of Boston – heads of the bishops' religious freedom and pro-life committees, respectively – had cautioned against the proposed legislation in a letter to all U.S. Senators. They said that it "does not befit a nation committed to religious liberty. Indeed, if it were to pass, it would call that commitment into question."

The bishops had argued that the bill would go far beyond the Hobby Lobby decision. If health care mandates were expanded in the future to include the abortion pill RU-486 or late-term abortions, employers would be forced to cover those and would have no recourse to conscience protections, they said.
 
Source: CNA/EWTN News

U.S. Senate Democrats launch push for “the most radical pro-abortion bill ever considered by Congress”

 

 

 

NRLC President Carol Tobias was one of two non-congressional witnesses who testified against the so-called "Women's Health Protection Act" (S. 1696)

 
WASHINGTON – Four months before the mid-term congressional election, Senate Democrats are pushing into the national spotlight "the most radical pro-abortion bill ever considered by Congress," said Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of state right-to-life organizations.
 
Tobias was one of two non-congressional witnesses who testified against the so-called "Women's Health Protection Act" (S. 1696), at a hearing before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee this morning.
 
"This bill is really about just one thing: it seeks to strip away from elected lawmakers the ability to provide even the most minimal protections for unborn children, at any stage of their pre-natal development," Tobias told the committee. "Calling the bill the 'Abortion Without Limits Until Birth Act' would be more in line with truth-in-advertising standards."
 
The bill has been heavily promoted by pro-abortion activist groups since its introduction last November, although it has been largely ignored by the mainstream news media. The measure has 35 Senate cosponsors, all Democrats, including nine of the 10 Democrats on the Judiciary Committee. The chief sponsor of the bill, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), chaired today's hearing.
 
The bill would invalidate nearly all existing state limitations on abortion, and prohibit states from adopting new limitations in the future, including various types of laws specifically upheld as constitutionally permissible by the U.S. Supreme Court. Among the laws that the bill would nullify are requirements to provide women seeking abortion with specific information on their unborn child and on alternatives to abortion, laws providing reflection periods (waiting periods), laws allowing medical professionals to opt out of providing abortions, laws limiting the performance of abortions to licensed physicians, bans on elective abortion after 20 weeks, meaningful limits on abortion after viability, and bans on the use of abortion as a method of sex selection. These laws generally have broad public support in the states in which they are enacted, including support from substantial majorities of women.
 
The bill would also invalidate most previously enacted federal limits on abortion, including federal conscience protection laws and most, if not all, limits on government funding of abortion.
 
"We believe that many voters will be appalled to learn that nearly two-thirds of Senate Democrats have cosponsored a bill to impose nationwide the extreme ideological doctrine that elective abortion must not be limited in any meaningful way, at any stage of pregnancy," Tobias said.
 
However, in her testimony Tobias also issued a surprising challenge, calling on the leadership of the Democrat-controlled committee, and the Democrat leadership of the full Senate, to allow a floor vote on the bill – but at the same time, to allow a vote on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (S. 1670), sponsored by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) "In the spirit of 'pro-choice,' why not give the Senate a choice as well?," Tobias said to Blumenthal.
 
"We challenge you, and the leadership of the majority party, to allow the American people to see where every senator stands on both of these major abortion-related bills," Tobias said. "Let the American people see which bill reflects the values of each member of the United States Senate."
 
The Graham bill, which has 41 Senate cosponsors, duplicates legislation that has already passed the House of Representatives (H.R. 1797). The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act would generally protect unborn children in the sixth month and later (20 weeks), by which point they are capable of experiencing great pain during abortions.
 
Video from today's hearing is available on C-SPAN's website here.
 
The complete text of the opening statement and challenge by Carol Tobias is posted here.
 
The written testimony of Carol Tobias, which includes detailed discussion of the radical scope of the "Women's Health Protection Act," with numerous citations, is posted here.
 
Source: NRLC

Democrats Push Vote on Bill to “Overturn” Supreme Court Decision Protecting Hobby Lobby

The Senate Democrats, led by Patty Murray, have called for an immediate vote on S. 2578, disingenuously titled the Protect Women's Health from Corporate Interference Act.  It should be known for what it is, the Anti-Religious Freedom bill.

 

 

 

 

S. 2578 seeks to override the Supreme Court's decision in the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood cases.  Unhappy with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act's (RFRA) standard that the government cannot substantially burden our Constitutionally-recognized religious freedom without showing a compelling interest and using the least restrictive means, these Senate Democrats want to create a right for the abortion industry to use the coercive force of government to trample pro-life Americans' rights.

 

The bill mandates that employers cannot "deny" insurance coverage of any item required by federal law or regulation. Effectively, this writes a blank check to the Obama Administration (or future administrations) to force employers to pay for insurance coverage of any drugs, devices, and services—even if that employer has a religious or consciences objection.

 

Notably, the Anti-Religious Freedom bill is not limited to "contraceptive services." There is nothing in this bill to preclude the federal government from forcing an employer to cover even late-term abortion.

 

The HHS Mandate already seeks to force conscientious employers to pay for life-ending drugs and devises misleadingly labeled as "contraception"—including ella, a drug which can end a young human life even after implantation.  HHS might, in the future, issue a regulation adding RU-486, or even surgical abortion, to its list of required "preventive services" under the Mandate.  If this were combined with the enactment of the Anti-Religious Freedom bill, no law would be able to protect pro-life Americans from being coerced to provide such objectionable services.

 

This bill is a clear illustration of the way the tactics of the abortion lobby are publicly moving from Choice to Coercion. The abortion lobby no longer hides behind its 'freedom to choose' facade—it openly seeks to force conscientious Americans to pay for coverage of life-ending drugs, devices, and services.

 

Rather than use any number of less restrictive means at its disposal to achieve its stated goal, Senate Democrats are pushing this Anti-Religious Freedom bill to undermine RFRA, and other conscience protections that might inconvenience the abortion lobby.

 

It is essential that pro-life Americans reach out to their Senators today to ask them to vote against this dangerous and coercive law.

 

Source: LifeNews.com

Illinois Planned Parenthood pushes birth control vote

 

 

 

 
This fall Illinois voters will get to weigh in on birth control and religious liberty. The ballot in November will have a question asking voters whether they think any health insurance policy written in Illinois should be required by law to cover birth control, regardless of the employer's religious beliefs.
 
Jim Anderson of Illinois Radio Network reports that Kim Foxx, the board president of Planned Parenthood Illinois, hopes the referendum passes, especially in the wake of the Hobby Lobby decision.
 
"We hope the referendum gives the women and men of Illinois the voice to say enough! Birth control is basic health care," Foxx said. "Let women get the basic health care we need, and stay out of medical decisions we make with our medical providers and our families."
 
Foxx, who is also Chief of Staff to Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, does believe, however, that employers should be involved in women's medical decisions when it comes to paying for them.
 
Illinois law has required health insurance policies that provide coverage for outpatient services and outpatient prescription drugs or devices to cover birth control since 2004. So the ballot measure is seen by most political analysts as a election-year stunt to increase Democrat turnout in November.
 
Gov. Pat Quinn signed the bill to put this measure on the ballot. The campaign of Republican governor candidate Bruce Rauner says Rauner supports the current law requiring coverage for contraception.
Source: Illinois Review

U.S. Senate Democrats push bill to nullify abortion limits nationwide

U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee holds hearing on radical bill to nullify virtually all abortion limits nationwide National Right to Life President Carol Tobias will testify against "Abortion Without Limits Until Birth" measure WASHINGTON – Four months before the mid-term congressional election, Senate democrats are pushing into the national spotlight "the most radical pro-abortion bill ever considered by Congress," said Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of state right-to-life organizations. Tobias is one of only two non-congressional witnesses who will testify against the so-called "Women's Health Protection Act" (S. 1696), at a hearing before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, July 15, 2014, at 10 AM EDT. S. 1696 was introduced in November, 2013, with much fanfare from major pro-abortion advocacy groups, who have since featured the bill in fundraising solicitations to their memberships. A story published by National Right to Life News on November 20, 2013, which explains the radical sweep of the bill, is posted here: http://www.nationalrighttolifenews.org/news/2013/11/pro-abortion-coalition-unveils-sweeping-new-national-abortion-on-demand-legislation-in-congress/#.U8AepCieb4Z A copy of S. 1696 (PDF format) may be viewed or downloaded here: http://www.nrlc.org/uploads/foca/S1696WHPA.pdf S. 1696 is currently sponsored by 35 Democrat senators, including the chief sponsor, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Ct.), who will chair the July 15 hearing. A House companion bill, H.R. 3471, currently has 125 cosponsors, all Democrats. Always-current lists of cosponsors, arranged by state, are posted on the NRLC Legislative Action Center at: (Senate) http://www.capwiz.com/nrlc/issues/bills/?bill=63003456 (House) http://www.capwiz.com/nrlc/issues/bills/?bill=63003496 Like most congressional committees, the Senate Judiciary Committee offers video coverage of its hearings, which can be accessed either live or after the fact via the Committee website at http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/ We do not know yet whether the hearing will also be covered by C-SPAN. The bill is an updated and expanded version of the old "Freedom of Choice Act" that was championed by Barack Obama when he was a senator. The new bill would invalidate nearly all existing state limitations on abortion, and prohibit states from adopting new limitations in the future, including various types of laws specifically upheld as constitutionally permissible by the U.S. Supreme Court. Among the laws that the bill would nullify are requirements to provide women seeking abortion with specific information on their unborn child and on alternatives to abortion, laws providing reflection periods (waiting periods), laws allowing medical professionals to opt out of providing abortions, laws limiting the performance of abortions to licensed physicians, bans on elective abortion after 20 weeks, meaningful limits on abortion after viability, and bans on the use of abortion as a method of sex selection. These laws generally have broad public support in the states in which they are enacted, including support from substantial majorities of women. The bill would also invalidate most previously enacted federal limits on abortion, including federal conscience protection laws and most, if not all, limits on government funding of abortion. Regarding the bill, Blumenthal told Roll Call last November, "As the election approaches, I think the voters are going to want to know where legislators stand on these issues." Tobias commented, "We believe that many voters will be appalled to learn that nearly two-thirds of Senate Democrats have already cosponsored a bill to impose nationwide the extreme ideological doctrine that elective abortion must not be limited in any meaningful way, at any stage of pregnancy."   In her testimony, Tobias will call on Senate Democrats to also allow consideration of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (S. 1670), sponsored by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), which has an even greater number of Senate cosponsors (41), and which duplicates legislation that has already passed the House of Representatives (H.R. 1797). The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act would generally protect unborn children in the sixth month and later, by which point they are capable of experiencing great pain during abortions.

Pro-lifer follows Hobby Lobby's lead against mandate

 

 

In the aftermath of business owners winning the right to religious freedom from ObamaCare's abortion pill mandate, a Connecticut man is suing for the same right for individuals.

Barth Bracy, who heads the Rhode Island Right to Life Committee and lives with his family in Connecticut, preferred to stick with his medical insurance. But he received a notice from the company that the policy would be canceled. That forced him to go to the ObamaCare exchanges in Connecticut.

"That means they require that a mandatory abortion surcharge be levied against the enrollees in the plan – that would be us – and that we would have to pay that abortion surcharge out of our own pocket," he explains.

Bracy says he won't do that because he opposes abortion based on his faith. So he has filed suit in federal court and is being represented by Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Casey Mattox, who tells OneNewsNow that the Hobby Lobby decision is helpful with the case.

"The violation here is, if anything, even more fundamental because this is about just individuals and a family who is being forced to pay for other people's elective abortions, surgical abortions, against their conscience," the attorney explains.

"It's a fundamental violation of our First Amendment right, and we filed this case in Connecticut to make sure that that does not happen to the Bracy family and other families that are like them."

According to Mattox, a legal victory for Bracy would impact anyone using the exchanges who object to their funds being used to finance abortions.

Source: OneNewsNow.com

King of Abortion: Warren Buffet Has Spent $1.23 Billion, Enough to Kill 2.7 Million Babies in Abortions

The world's fourth richest person, Warren Buffett, ploughed $1.23 billion into abortion groups over eleven years, a media watchdog has found.
 
The Media Research Center (MRC), which analysed tax returns for Buffett's foundation, labeled him the 'king of abortion'.
The MRC says the money given 'is enough to pay for the abortions of more than 2.7 million babies in the womb' – which, it points out, equates to the entire city of Chicago.
 

 

 

 
MRC's report lays out the money Buffett's foundation gave between 2001 and 2012, saying it amounted to $1,230,585,161.
 
The money was given to groups which either 'provided abortions themselves or advocated for abortion or access to abortion'.
Warren Buffett has made his money through investments, and is listed by Forbes as having a net worth of $65.4 billion.
 
According to Buffett biographer Roger Lowenstein, Buffett has a 'Malthusian dread that overpopulation [will] aggravate problems in all other areas – such as food, housing, even human survival.'
 
This fear of an overcrowded planet is at least in part what gives him his enthusiasm for abortion. I guess he thinks that if there were more people on the planet his wealth might have to be shared.
 
Buffet is not alone amongst the mega-rich in having a record of funding population control. Also previously implicated are Ted Turner (founder of the Cable News Network), Bill Gates of Microsoft, David Packard, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard and financier George Soros.
 
In a similar way the pro-assisted suicide campaign in the UK has been bankrolled by wealthy businessmen.
 
Lord Falconer's Assisted Dying Bill, which seeks to legalize assisted suicide for mentally competent adults with less than six month to live, follows on from his highly controversial Falconer Commission which laid its framework.
 
This was conceived by Dignity in Dying (DID), the former Voluntary Euthanasia Society, manned by euthanasia sympathizers and funded by DID patrons Terry Pratchett and Bernard Lewis.
 
Bernard Lewis is the English entrepreneur behind the River Island fashion brand and clothing chain and is estimated to be worth £1,030m (€1,484m).
 
Terry Pratchett is an English novelist who has a net worth of £42 million according to the Sunday Times Rich List.
They are small fry compared with Buffet and Gates but very well-endowed by UK standards.
 
Baroness Warnock is a moral philosopher who believes that elderly people suffering from dementia should consider ending their lives because they are a burden on the NHS and their families.
 
She said in 2008 that pensioners in mental decline are 'wasting people's lives' because of the care they require and insisted there was 'nothing wrong' with people being helped to die for the sake of their loved ones or society.
 
The 84-year-old added that she hoped people will soon be 'licensed to put others down' if they are unable to look after themselves.
It deeply troubles me when I hear of very wealthy and powerful people using their money to finance efforts to legalize medical killing through abortion, assisted suicide or euthanasia.
 
I wonder if part of the motivation is to protect their personal wealth from those who might have calls on it for care, support or treatment.
 
The real heart of a society is revealed in the way it treats vulnerable people – especially the unborn, elderly, sick or disabled. Does it make sacrifices for vulnerable people or does it choose rather to sacrifice them?
 
These rich men all use the language of autonomy, choice and compassion but taking another person's life through abortion or euthanasia, or helping them to kill themselves through assisted suicide, is actually to eliminate all future choice.
 
In stark contrast stands the life of Jesus Christ, creator and sustainer of the universe, who gave himself for us when we were helpless and weak:
 
'For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.' (2 Corinthians 8:9)
 
'For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ' (Romans 5:6)
 
Source: LifeNews.com
 
LifeNews.com Note: Dr. Peter Saunders is a doctor and the CEO of Christian Medical Fellowship, a British organization with 4,500 doctors and 1,000 medical students as members. This article originally appeared on his blog. He is also associated with the Care Not Killing Alliance in the UK.

IFRL Attends NRLC Convention

 

              Three IFRL directors, Pat & Dick Conklin and John Ryan, attended the NRLC Convention in Louisville last Thursday - Saturday.  The convention included several excellent sessions addressing issues related to fetal pain and strong responses to the real war on women.  There were also several sessions addressing the critical need for a more aggressive approach to protecting life against doctor prescribed suicide and outright euthanasia, both on an individual basis and before the legislatures.  With Congressional elections and state elections in the vast majority of states approaching in November there were also numerous presentations focused on what the pro-life movement needs to do to promote pro-life candidates and bring them to victory.  Pat, Dick, and John also attended a number of convention sessions and meetings regarding fundraising and organization that hopefully will benefit IFRL in the year ahead.

                The convention opened with a panel discussion of the appropriate pro-life response to the purported "War on Women" entitled "The REAL War on Women" featuring Kathryn Jean Lopez, Editor-At-Large of National Review Online, Dr. Jean Garton, Founder and long-time President of Lutherans for Life, and Joy Pinto, an on-air personality on EWTN radio and TV and director of a CPC in Birmingham, AL.  All three were clear in the need to turn the language on the proponents of unceasing attack on unborn women and any women who do not agree with them.  Dr. Garton examined the plain meaning of the word "war" to illustrate how just the use of the term suggested an attack pro-lifers and conservatives have never made, but one pro-aborts and "progressives" are willing to undertake.  Lopez and Pinto both brought a strong, unapologetic, and positive energy to many of their answers.

                An evening general session Thursday  followed up the introduction with acclaimed breast cancer surgeon Angela Lanfranchi, M.D., FACS, presentation entitled "What if ALL Women Knew ALL the Facts?"  Dr. Lanfranchi has conducted research, written, and spoken extensively on breast cancer prevention including reproductive and hormonal risk factors.  She has spoken extensively around the United States, in numerous nations around the world, and at the United Nations before medical and medical training organizations, cancer organizations, and governmental bodies about the risk factors which prominently include induced abortion.  Dr. Lanfranchi illustrated the depth and breadth of the research illustrating the abortion – breast cancer link and ways in which it is increased within particularly at-risk populations.  Among the noteworthy populations with a substantially increased risk of breast cancer later in life is adolescents who have abortions well into a first pregnancy, something that occurs quite commonly.  Even with some general familiarity with the facts, it is stunning to realize just how far our society will go to protect the abortion industry at the expense of millions of individual women.

                In a presentation entitled "The Lessons of Fetal Pain and the Duty to Protect Unborn Children" O. Carter Sneed, a University of Notre Dame Law Professor and the Director of Notre Dame's Center for Ethics and Culture, started from the current efforts to protect pain-capable unborn children to suggest the critical problem in law of who is protected.  While pro-lifers say that everyone is protected, everyone counts as a member in the community of persons, Roe v. Wade opened the door to exclude not only those yet to be born, but also the weak, the aged, and the handicapped.  The law plays a critical role in "humanizing" at risk populations as has been illustrated with born alive infant protection acts, bans on partial birth abortions, ultrasound opportunity laws, and pain-capable child protection acts.  If we continue to educate and demonstrate the humanity of the unborn child new knowledge may push the pain sensory thresholds back into the range where the unborn child responds to touch at around 8 weeks gestation.  In this process there will be new opportunities to make the society aware of the beating heart and other physical proofs of the humanity of the unborn child back to the earliest stages of pregnancy.  In such steps the law needs to and can continue to work with science and elements of the culture to restore the notion that everyone counts from conception until natural death.

                In another general session titled "Bioethics' War on Humans" Wesley J. Smith, PhD., a renowned ethicist, author, and lawyer who is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center on Human Exceptionalism, asked why the great push for assisted suicide and euthanasia did not come 100 years ago when there was much more suffering related to many medical conditions.  Smith traced the answer to the philosophy of DesCartes which proposed health as a primary good of society.  Relief of pain has become a goal and relieving suffering, eliminating suffering, has become a purpose of society.  Definitions of suffering have become fluid and severe disability, chronic illness, mental illness, terminal illness, and financial hardships have all entered into some definitions of suffering.  Medical ethics committees, medical schools, and individual bioethicists have all moved in new and frightening directions.  Smith referred to "undignified bioethics" where capacity has become more important that being.  If an injury changes a person, as was the case with Terri Schiavo, then no one in our society is safe. 

Smith argues that we need human exceptionalsim, or speciesism, -- our dignity is inherent in our membership in the human species.  Critical threats continue to be seen in many directions.  Arguments are being made for the harvesting of human organs before the donor has been declared dead.  "Suicide tourism" is being seen in some European countries.  Critical inappropriate legislation and ethics standards with regard to the obligations of medical professionals are being seen in various corners of the world, most notably at the moment with regard to euthanasia in Quebec and abortion in one Australian state.  Smith maintains that it is our fault as a society that many elderly people have come to view themselves as a burden on their families.

As part of the same general session Jennifer Popik, the Legislative Counsel for NRLC's Robert Powell Center for Medical Ethics, outlined the legislative and judicial movement towards doctor prescribed suicide in five states where there has been overt movement in that direction.  Each law or judicial opinion has been worse than the one before it, although there are definite possibilities of limiting or repealing a law passed in Vermont which included certain safeguards that would drop off in three years if the law is not repealed of amended.  Burke Balch, Director of the Robert Powell Center for Medical Ethics, concluded the session with a call to arms citing the swing from the philosophy of Hypocrites towards the philosophy of Plato within the ethics communities of most hospitals today.  He referred to the emphasis on quality of life today being "Himler-like" with the very clear EXCEPTION of the RACIAL component of Himler's purges of the Jewish and Black races.

By John Ryan, Illinois Federation for Right to Life