Last week in Geneva, Switzerland, negotiations went down to the wire as the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) wound down its high-level meeting on health. After a marathon negotiating session that lasted until the wee hours of the morning, delegates adopted the Ministerial Declaration on "implementing the internationally agreed goals and commitments in regard to global public health," rejecting a push by the United States (US) and most European Union (EU) countries to include language that some NGO's and developed nations interpret to include abortion.
When negotiations began on the declaration at United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York last month, delegations became embroiled in heated debates almost immediately over controversial language regarding reproductive health "rights," "sexual and reproductive health services" and "universal access to family planning." As C-Fam's Friday Fax previously reported, the Obama Administration had proposed "universal access" to "sexual and reproductive health services including universal access to family planning."
By the time negotiations in New York wound down before resuming in Geneva, the US had apparently moderated its position and would have been willing to compromise, but delegates from Sweden, Finland, Norway, Netherlands, Estonia and France insisted on including "reproductive rights" language. The terms "reproductive health services" and "reproductive rights" remain highly contentious in UN social policy discussions because they continue to be interpreted by powerful non-governmental organizations and UN agencies to include abortion.
Despite concentrated efforts to conclude the negotiations in New York prior to the start of the Geneva meeting, delegations were unable to reach consensus over the contentious language.
Late night negotiations carried on in Geneva as delegations continued to battle it out over the "reproductive rights" language in the draft text. While the US delegation remained quiet on the reproductive health provisions, the EU remained divided as Poland, Malta and Ireland continued opposing the controversial language despite pressure from their colleagues.
Malta's ambassador Victor Camillari made a strongly worded statement that stressed that "the right to life extended to the unborn child from the moment of conception and that the use of abortion as a means of resolving health or social problems was a denial of that right, and therefore Malta consistently disassociated itself from, and considered invalid, all statements or decisions that used references to sexual and reproductive health, directly or indirectly, to impose obligations on anyone to accept abortion as a right, a service or a commodity that could exist outside the ambit of national legislation."
The most contentious language regarding "reproductive rights" was removed from the text and the final declaration was adopted by consensus. While some language regarding "sexual and reproductive health" made it into the declaration, the reference was limited to the understanding reached at the Cairo Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Conference on Women, where it was agreed that no abortion rights were created and states made explicit reservations defining abortion out of the reproductive health and family planning provisions.
ECOSOC plans on holding a follow-up meeting next year to gauge how the impact of the declaration in changing public health systems
(This article reprinted by LifeSiteNews.com with permission from www.c-fam.org)
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Global health conference chooses life
Contact: Samantha Singson Source: LifeSiteNews.com Publish Date: July 16, 2009 Link to this article.
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House Pro-Life Members Muzzled by Pelosi's Pro-Abortion Leadership
House Narrowly Passes Legislation to Allow Taxpayer-Funded Abortion in the District of Columbia
Today the president of the Susan B. Anthony List commented on today's House passage of H.R. 3170, the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, by a vote of 219 to 208.
"Today the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation to expand taxpayer funding for abortion in our nation's capitol, but it didn't come easily for Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her abortion allies like Planned Parenthood," said Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser. "Pro-life leaders from both sides of the aisle used every tool at their disposal to allow an up-or-down vote on the measure. President Obama's decision to force American taxpayers to foot the bill for abortions in the District of Columbia will cause the deaths of at least 1,000 more unborn children each year. Instead of continuing the long tradition of open and fair debate on appropriations bills, Speaker Pelosi muzzled not just Republicans, but even members of her own caucus. President Obama and Speaker Pelosi are on a collision course with broad public opposition to taxpayer-funding for abortion. Today's battle will only be the first of many, as more Representatives strive to better represent the views of pro-life America by passing laws that will truly save lives."
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Rep. Pitts To Offer Amendment Excluding Abortion Coverage From House Health Care Bill
Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) said he plans to introduce an amendment to the House health care overhaul bill (HR 3200) that would prohibit insurers from being required to cover abortion, unless the woman's life is at risk or the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest, CQ Today reports. Pitts said he will offer the amendment Thursday at the first House Energy and Commerce Committee mark-up session.
The House bill would authorize the Obama administration to craft minimum benefit standards for health insurance plans, CQ Today reports. President Obama has said that he considers reproductive health care an essential service.
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ACLU Targets Phoenix Sheriff Over Inmates' `Ride' to Abortion Clinics
(Watch pro-abort local news propaganda video)
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is facing another legal battle. The ACLU filed a motion in Maricopa Superior Court last week to stop the sheriff from requiring inmates who ask for abortions to pay up front for transportation costs to the procedure. "He can't ask people to pre-pay to receive these medical services," ACLU Executive Director Alessandra Solar Meetze said. The ACLU's action stems from a December 2008 incident.
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Clinton Withholds Sotomayor Files
Although Obama chastised Bill Clinton during the presidential primary for withholding crucial files from Hillary's disastrous healthcare task force, he supports the former commander-in-chief's decision to withhold hundreds of documents relating to Sonia Sotomayor's 1990s appeals court confirmation battle. Responding to a Freedom of Information Act request from various media outlets, the Clinton Presidential Library recently posted thousands of documents relating to the 1997 nomination of Judge Sotomayor to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, but crucial files were purposely excluded. Click here for the documents.
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Pro-Life Group Protests Outside Vegas Clinic
Dozens of pro-lifers visiting Las Vegas for a national convention have gathered outside a women's clinic for a protest. As many as 50 people were outside the A-Z Women's Clinic on Thursday. They chanted at passers-by and held up posters. Operation Save America, an anti-abortion group, is in Las Vegas this week for a national convention. The group plans to stage events throughout the Las Vegas area through Wednesday, including protests outside six abortion clinics.
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'Extraordinary' Arizona legislative session witnesses pro-life victories
Characterizing the legislative session, which ended July 1, as "one of the most unusual and bitter legislative sessions in memory," Ron Johnson of the Arizona Catholic Conference (ACC) listed legislative achievements in a "wrap-up" announcement.
Johnson said the ACC was "especially grateful" that Governor Jan Brewer signed into law the Abortion Consent Bill, which requires informed consent and a 24-hour waiting period before abortions, tightens parental consent requirements. The new laws also specify that non-physicians cannot perform surgical abortions and they provide conscience protections for health care workers and pharmacists.
According to Johnson, the provisions barring non-physicians from performing abortions were added because new information showed that nurse practitioners performed more abortions than previously thought.
A state ban on partial-birth abortions was also enacted, while an end-of-life measure preserves food and fluids for certain patients with guardians.
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Parents in Illinois were handed a victory by the 7th Circuit Court yesterday.
For the first time since Roe v. Wade became law, parents in Illinois have won the right to be notified if their underage daughter seeks an abortion. That right was won after the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday dissolved a federal injunction on the Illinois Parental Notice of Abortion Act.
That act was passed more than ten years ago, but was never enacted due to the courts. Since then more than 50,000 underage girls have obtained abortions in Illinois -- some of them as young as 14 years of age.
David Smith, who heads the Illinois Family Institute, says the recent decision will save lives.
"No parent wants their children to go through a procedure like that," says Smith. "Most parents...would want to see the baby come into the family and that the whole support group there take care of the child -- or...they could [even] explore other options like adoption."
"Parents want to be able to have that say in their minor child's life," he continues, "and to be able to protect them from the physical [and] emotional harms that come along with an abortion."
Smith says Illinois attracted a lot of out-of-state minors seeking abortions because their home states required parental notification. He hopes this latest court ruling will put a stop to that.
Contact: Pete Chagnon Source: OneNewsNow Publish Date: July 15, 2009
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Pro-life groups and lawmakers are continuing to raise the alarm over the healthcare reform package President Obama is aggressively pushing through both the House and the Senate. The groups are urging Americans to oppose the healthcare overhaul, as pro-abortion lawmakers are insisting that abortion must be included in the basic healthcare package that all public and private insurers will eventually be required to cover.
Leading pro-life Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) at a Washington press conference today questioned: "Why the rush to enact Mr. Obama's exceedingly expensive, complex and potentially ruinous health care restructuring plan without the benefit of comprehensive hearings on and through a vetting of the actual bill text?
"Obamacare is the greatest threat ever to the lives and wellness of unborn children and their mothers since Roe v. Wade was rendered in 1973," he said.
Smith noted that a study by the Planned Parenthood's Guttmacher Institute showed that the widened availability of abortion through government funding increases the number of unborn children killed by 20%-35%.
"Obamacare opens the spigot of public funding and does more to facilitate abortion than any action since Roe. This is the big one!" said Smith.
Another "egregious flaw" in the bill, said the congressman, is its requirement that all insurance providers contract with "essential community providers" - a mantle eagerly taken up by Planned Parenthood in a media campaign last month.
"In other words, all health insurance companies will be compelled by the Obamacare to contract with abortion clinics or simply not be certified to do business," said Smith.
Further evidence of the hidden abortion expansion in the bill came during a meeting of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee last week, when Sen. Orrin Hatch asked for confirmation from Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) as to whether the funds would cover abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood.
Following the meeting, Planned Parenthood immediately launched a petition to tell Sen. Hatch "to stop lying about health care legislation," and claimed that the senator was "falsely claiming that the amendment mandates abortion coverage."
However, it was Mikulski who admitted in the exchange that Planned Parenthood clinics and their abortion services would be subsidized by the healthcare plan, though she appeared reluctant to answer the question.
HATCH: "...Would this include abortion providers? I mean, it looks to me like you're expanding it to... for instance, Planned Parenthood. Would that put them into this system?"
MIKULSKI: "It would include women's health clinics that provide comprehensive services and under the definition of a woman's health clinic, it would include, uh, it would include, uh, Planned, uh, Parenthood clinics. It would, um, it does not expand in any way expand a service. In other words, it does not expand, um, uh, or mandate abortion service."
HATCH: "No, but it would provide for them."
MIKULSKI: "It would provide for any service deemed medically necessary or medically appropriate."
HATCH: "Well, I would have a rough time supporting it on that basis. I just wanted to get that clarified. Thank you."
Later, Hatch asked, "Madam Chairman, would you be willing to put some language in [about] not including abortion services? Then I think you would have more support."
Mikulski answered, "No, I would not, uh, be willing to do that at this time."
Accordingly, the committee yesterday rejected amendments offered by the National Right to Life Committee that would have explicitly excluded abortion from the bill.
On Friday, an amendment introduced by Mikulski known as the Women's Health Amendment passed by a 12-11 margin. Capitol Hill pro-lifers expect that the broad language of the amendment will provide the gateway to abortion coverage in the federal plan.
Click here for more information on how to fight the healthcare abortion expansion.
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U.S. Capitol switchboard: 202.224.3121
Contact: Kathleen Gilbert Source: LifeSiteNews.com Publish Date: July 14, 2009 Link to this article.
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In the brief amount of time allotted to the abortion debate in this week's Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Judge Sonia Sotomayor assured members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that she would allow Roe v. Wade to stand as precedent, but did not consider the absolute ban on partial-birth abortion to constitute precedent of equal weight.
Judge Sotomayor frequently referred to her commitment to the doctrine of stare decisis, or allowing earlier decisions to stand as guiding principles for future decisions, throughout the hearings - perhaps in response to critics who have said Sotomayor's decisions frequently reflect an activist judicial philosophy.
Sotomayor defended Roe v. Wade and the court's other pro-abortion decisions on the basis of a constitutional "right to privacy."
When Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) on Tuesday queried whether Sotomayor also considered the partial-birth abortion ban "settled law," she replied, "All precedent of the Supreme Court I consider settled law, subject to the deference the doctrine of stare decisis would counsel."
But when pro-abortion Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) probed the partial-birth abortion question further, Sotomayor indicated that she did not consider the unequivocal nature of the ban part of the "precedent" set by the ruling.
"The health and welfare of a woman must be a compelling consideration," Sotomayor admitted.
Norma McCorvey, the "Roe" of Roe v. Wade who is now a leading pro-life activist, was arrested at Monday's hearing for shouting out a condemnation of Sotomayor's pro-abortion position.
"You're wrong Sotomayor, you're wrong about abortion," McCorvey declared before being escorted from the room.
Contact: Kathleen Gilbert Source: LifeSiteNews.com Publish Date: July 14, 2009
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Now that the assisted suicide movement believes it has some winds in its sails, its pretense of being reasonable and measured is collapsing under the ideological zeal that drives the movement. Case in point: The head of Compassion and Choices, Barbara Coombs Lee, has written an outrageous piece in the Huffington Post, that libels health care providers as torturers. From her piece:
In this country we usually torture people before we allow them to die of whatever is killing them — cancer, emphysema, the multi-organ failure of diabetes or heart disease…Our medical-industrial complex follows a cultural paradigm to do as many things to people near death as is medically possible. Our broken system rewards that paradigm with fee-for-service payments.
Standard routine is to torture those in the process of dying by inflicting upon them a host of toxic chemicals, invasive machinery and painful surgeries. It's the American way of dying — agonized and prolonged imprisonment in an intensive care unit, pinned down under a maze of tubes and machines, enduring one medical procedure after another, unable to hold or be held by loved ones.
What shameless and false demagoguery. The vast majority of people in this country do not die in ICU units. Hospitals aren't prisons. Doctors aren't torturing people, they are trying to treat them, which can be painful to be sure, but much effort is made to control painful and uncomfortable symptoms. Nobody ties people down and forces them to have chemotherapy, surgery, kidney dialysis, etc. Most people are desperate for these interventions–even when the doctor advises against because they are unlikely to do much good. Moreover, most care these days is not fee for service, it is managed care through the HMO system. Fee for service to physicians under Medicare is hardly a cornucopia, and in fact is being continually cut–including in the new health care plan.
But she isn't just implying that physicians are torturers, she accuses them of being sadistic:
Oncologists entice their dying patients into bearing one more, experimental round of chemotherapy almost certain to intensify toxic symptoms without extending life. Surgeons repair the fractures and amputate the limbs of people clearly only a few weeks from death. The newest medical specialists, "hospital intensivists" deftly thread tubes into failing hearts and attach ventilators to decrepit lungs. Much of the pain they inflict does nothing but monitor the chemistry and pressures of internal crevices and gather the information necessary to thwart a body trying to shut itself down.
I know that Coombs Lee knows this isn't true. She is well aware that Futile Care Theory is charging down the tracks, which is explicitly intended to prevent patients from receiving life-extending care when the bioethicists think the quality of their lives aren't worth the money spent.
And then, shifting gears, she attacks health care costs at the end of life. Does she want assisted suicide as a cost saving? You know she does, but doesn't say it. Does she want futile care legally imposed? That would appear to be true, but she doesn't say it. She just tells readers to call Congress and urge reform to stop the financial bleeding. But she doesn't really say what policy she would like to see enacted.
But the conclusion to her piece is just window dressing. Her purpose was to alienate people from their doctors and panic them into supporting assisted suicide, which ironically, would be provided by the same physician "sadists" she castigates. What a shameless piece of propaganda.
Contact: Wesley J. Smith Source: Secondhand Smoke Publish Date: July 15, 2009
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A case involving an attack by a South Carolina abortion clinic worker against a nine-year-old pro-life protestor has been settled.
Ted Williams of Charleston and his daughter Katherine have conducted peaceful demonstrations at the Charleston Women's Center abortion clinic for seven years.
"The escorts there really don't like her to come. They don't want her there," Williams notes. "People who are going there to have abortions see a young kid and it makes them think, makes them change their mind, and they ask us questions and then we give them help and alternatives."
According to LifeNews.com, clinic employee Larry Center has targeted the protestors for years and regularly "screams vulgarities" at pro-lifers. On May 2, he attacked Katherine Williams.
"This particular Saturday he was really raring to go and just simply walked up to her, said something to her, and kicked the sign," Ted Williams explains.
South CarolinaThe police report says Katherine was struck in the foot and shin when Center kicked her sign. Center was prosecuted and was, in effect, given probation. However, he was ordered to not get within 15 feet of the girl for six months. Williams had hoped for a harsher outcome for Center, but he has told OneNewsNow he and his daughter have resumed demonstrations.
Williams says he and his daughter will continue their work because they have a higher calling.
Contact: Charlie Butts Source: OneNewsNow Publish Date: July 15, 2009
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After 30 years of implementation and evaluation, there is no compelling evidence of contraceptive distribution and instruction programs having had a sustained and meaningful effect on "protective" behaviors-that is, "consistent and correct condom use" in classroom-type settings. As a public health intervention method, contraceptive programs have simply failed American youth: An STD epidemic currently exists amongst young people. One in four teenage girls nationwide has an STD, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; the U.S. continues to have the highest teen pregnancy rate in the industrialized world; and the toll from the negative psychological sequelae associated with adolescent sex is having an impact on mental health and the pursuit of life-goals.
Decreasing teen sexual activity is key to decreasing poverty, since single parenting is strongly linked to poverty. Research shows that the younger a teen starts having sex, the greater risk of pregnancy. A 2002 study from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy found that slmost half of all girls who have sex before age 15 get pregnant, The distribution of contraceptives does nothing to promote healthy relationships, healthy family formation, and marriage, where a greater probability for economic stability exists.
As well as increased risk of non-marital pregnancy, substance abuse and poor academic achievement are associated with teen sexual activity and can affect school drop-out rates. According to data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, those who were sexually active were three times more likely to be depressed than those who were abstinent. By contrast, teens who abstain from sex enhance their abilities to achieve short-term and long-term life goals.
Young people deserve a whole-person approach, including physical, emotional, and psychological dimensions. The primary prevention strategy, or risk-avoidance abstinence approach, provides for a health paradigm in which youth are better able to develop during adolescent years and from which society will benefit.
Contact: Moira Gaul Source: FRCBlog
Publish Date: July 14, 2009 Link to this article.
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HELP Committee Dems Block Pro-Life Provisions In Health Reform Markup
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Monday rejected several Republican abortion-related amendments to the committee' health overhaul bill but adopted a Democratic amendment allowing health care providers who oppose abortion to contract with health plans, CQ HealthBeat reports. The committee voted mostly along party lines to reject an amendment by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) that would have prohibited abortion coverage in a health care exchange for participants who receive government-subsidized coverage. Democrats said that the language could have been used to restrict abortion coverage in private insurance plans. The amendment failed in an 11-12 vote, with Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) crossing party lines to support it. The committee also voted 11-12 to reject an amendment by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) that would have specified that federal health reform legislation could not override state laws on parental notification when minors seek abortion services.
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Arizona Governor Signs Pro-Life Legislation
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law significant pro-life legislation Monday, signaling a positive new direction from her predecessor and long-sought victory for life advocates.
While former Gov. Janet Napolitano vetoed every abortion-limiting bill sent to her during six years in office, Brewer has already signed several pro-life measures in her first year as governor. These new laws include a ban on partial-birth abortion, a ban that prevents medical professionals other than doctors from performing surgical abortions, and a bill that protects the conscience rights of healthcare workers to refuse participation in an abortion.
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Venezuelan Bishops Denounce Bill to Legalize Abortion and "Homosexual Marriage"
Venezuela's Catholic bishops are denouncing a proposed legal reform that is likely to result in the legalization of abortion and homosexual "marriage" nationwide.
The bishops state that although the bill currently under consideration by the Venezuelan Congress claims to promote such values as equality and solidarity, "we have well-founded reasons to affirm that within it serious violations and irreparable damage is committed against fundamental rights and structures of Venezuelan society recognized and guaranteed in our Constitution."
The new law, they continue, "seriously offends rights that are consecrated and protected by our National Constitution, specifically the institutions of marriage and the family, and the superior interests of boys, girls, and adolescents consecrated in articles 75, 76, 77, and 78 of the Constitution, by legitimizing same-sex unions, awarding them the same juridical and patrimonial effects as those of matrimony."
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Pro-Life Group Disputes Sotomayor's View that Roe v. Wade Is 'Settled Law'
Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday that she considered Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court case that legalized abortion, to be "settled law."
When Sotomayor was asked how she felt about Roe v. Wade, she said "there is a right of privacy. The court has found it in various places in the Constitution," specifically, in the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure and the 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal protection of the law.
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Health care bill drawing bipartisan fire over abortion funding
As Congress prepares to consider President Obama's health care reform this week, the legislation is drawing opposition from both sides of the aisle. At a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, ten lawmakers warned that the current draft of the health care bill will force taxpayers, businesses and insurance providers to pay for abortions.
Reaction from Democrats first became public when a group of 19 congressmen, some of them "Blue Dog Democrats," sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the end of June.
In their letter, the group of 19 warned Pelosi that they would not vote for any health care reform bill that either mandates government coverage for abortion or allows the Health Benefits Advisory Committee to recommend abortion services be included under covered benefits or as part of a benefits package.
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Obama's science czar does not support coercive population control, spokesman says
The office of President Obama's "science czar" John Holdren has responded to concerns Holdren co-authored a book which allegedly contained comments supporting coercive population control measures. A spokesman for the department said that Holdren disavowed such policies at his confirmation hearing.
Holdren is currently Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and Co-Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
In 1977, he co-authored the 1,000 page book "Ecoscience" with Paul and Anne Ehrlich. The book included several descriptions of possible population control measures, including the addition of "sterilants" to the water supply to prevent human conception.
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A new report on the abortion-drug regimen known as RU-486 may leave a false impression of safety.
The report suggests that about one-fourth of the abortions in America are induced using RU-486, a two-drug combination that causes the death and abortion of an unborn baby. One of the concerns surrounding usage of that regimen has to do with the number of deaths and serious side effects, including infection.
Chris Gacek of the Family Research Council was asked if it is really safer. "What it's safer about is it's not causing these massive septic infections," he explains.
Such infections have claimed a number of lives. But another problem, Gacek notes, still persists -- excessive bleeding -- because that is just a fundamental part of the regimen.
"The drug induces sort of the chemical strangulation of the embryo or fetus, and then you have to dispose of the remains," says Gacek. "[T]he Misoprostol essentially strips the uterus of the baby and the products of conception -- [in other words] all the tissues that accompany the conception and help the pregnancy develop near the lining of the uterus and all that."
There has been no significant increase in abortions in the aftermath of the drug's introduction.
The report is based on research conducted at Planned Parenthood clinics across the U.S. Planned Parenthood is the nation's biggest provider of what the organization refers to as "medical abortions."
Contact: Charlie Butts Source: OneNewsNow Publish Date: July 13, 2009
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The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee has posted on its website its version of the health care reform bill. It's called the "Affordable Health Choices Act," and, as promised, it contains a public health care option. The impact on other health insurance providers is reason enough to oppose a public health plan, but an even greater reason is the way it is going to undermine pro-life values.
The public plan's immediate and long-term threat to pro-life values is what makes it a non-starter. The plan's immediate threat to pro-life values is evident from its failure to provide any pro-life protections.
There is no protection for health care providers who, due to their faith convictions, cannot provide abortion or abortion referrals. There is no protection for pharmacy owners or workers who cannot in good conscience dispense abortion drugs. There is no restriction on abortion, either. There is no language in the bill that would prevent the public plan from paying for any abortion under any circumstance. The bill does not even prevent the eventual inclusion of assisted suicide as a benefit.
Some will argue that the bill doesn't have anything to say about these things one way or another, but that is precisely the point. The bill's failure to explicitly protect these pro-life values will be interpreted as a requirement to ignore them.
It is instructive to remember the struggle to stop abortion funding through Medicaid on this point. In Medicaid law what isn't explicitly prohibited is therefore required. This is why Medicaid began paying for abortion as a covered benefit when abortion was legalized in 1973. It took the Hyde Amendment in 1976 to change that by explicitly restricting the use of taxpayer funds for abortions except in the cases of rape, incest and danger to the life of the mother.
The Hyde Amendment continues to protect taxpayers from paying for elective abortions. However, the Hyde Amendment is itself on a death watch these days. The amendment must be approved annually. It is clear that many in Congress would happily drop the Hyde Amendment language if they could. Many of us thought Congress would try to omit the amendment last year. Furthermore, the Hyde Amendment doesn't protect other pro-life values, like conscience protections and banning assisted suicide.
Of further concern is that the bill authorizes the secretary of Health and Human Services to create the public health plan. The person currently sitting in that seat is Kathleen Sebelius, a long-time abortion rights protector. The fact that the benefits provided under the public plan will be decided by political appointees and entrenched bureaucrats out of public view should be enough reason to fear for pro-life values.
Given Congress' history of excess, the long-term prospects for pro-life values are bleak as well. An insurmountable problem with the public option is that the government will be deciding what the plan will cover. Can you imagine what a health plan built by the government will look like after a few years? It will be loaded down with every imaginable benefit and coverage. In his Wall Street Journal opinion piece, "Public Option: Son of Medicaid," Daniel Henninger writes, "Medicaid is a morass. Since the program's inception, Congress has loaded it up every few years with more notions of what to cover, shifting about 43% of the ever-upward cost onto someone else's tab, mainly the states." There is no reason to think that Congress will exercise any restraint with a new health plan.
As Congress loads more benefits onto the plan, the costs will skyrocket in the same way they have for Medicaid. While the government will certainly raise taxes and/or premiums to pay for the higher costs, it will eventually have to resort to the same rationing scheme under which people in England and Canada are suffering.
In England, it is illegal for doctors even to tell patients about drugs that the country's health care rationing body has determined to be too costly. It doesn't even matter if the drug has proven helpful to some people. If it costs too much per person, it can be disallowed for coverage, and doctors cannot even tell their patients the drug exists. In Canada a person literally can die while waiting for rationed treatment.
While the American health care system has its flaws, especially when it comes to abortion, it still places a much higher value on life than either the English or Canadian plans. I suppose rationing is one way to keep health care "affordable," but I'm sure it's not what most Americans want. If England and Canada can't figure out how to make a public plan work without rationing, there is no reason at all to think our government will do any better. We must continue to move pro-life values forward, not backward.
Making it possible for every person to get and keep health insurance is a pro-life value worthy of everyone's support. But I do not believe it is necessary to throw our other pro-life values under the bus in order to achieve that worthy goal.
Contact: Barrett Duke Source: BP Publish Date: July 10, 2009 Link to this article.
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'Comprehensive Planetary Regime could control development, distribution of all natural resources'
John Holdren
The man President Obama has chosen to be his science czar once advocated a shocking approach to the "population crisis" feared by scientists at the time: namely, compulsory abortions in the U.S. and a "Planetary Regime" with the power to enforce human reproduction restrictions.
"There exists ample authority under which population growth could be regulated," wrote Obama appointee John Holdren, as reported by FrontPage Magazine. "It has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society."
Holdren's comments, made in 1977, mirror the astonishing admission this week of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who said she was under the impression that legalizing abortion with the 1973 Roe. v. Wade case would eliminate undesirable members of the populace, or as she put it "populations that we don't want to have too many of."
In 1977, when many scientists were alarmed by predictions of harmful environmental effects of human population growth, Holdren teamed with Paul R. Ehrlich, author of "The Population Bomb," and his wife, Anne, to pen "Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment."
Holdren's book proposed multiple strategies to curb population growth, and, according to the quotes excerpted by FrontPage Magazine, advocated an international police force to ensure the strategies were carried out.
"Such a comprehensive Plenetary Regime could control the development, administration, conservation, and distribution of all natural resources, renewable or nonrenewable," Holdren and the Ehrlichs reportedly wrote. "The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries' shares within their regional limits. ... The Regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits."
Learn how close to home "Planetary Regime" really is by reading Jerome Corsi's New York Times best-seller, "The Late Great USA." This weekend only, get an autographed, hardcover copy for only $4.95 - a $21 discount!
The website Zombietime.com has posted photos of text excerpts from "Ecoscience," referencing even further strategies from Holdren and the Ehrlichs, including compulsory adoption of children born to teenage mothers, forced sterilization and other government-mandated population control measures.
A former Teresa and John Heinz professor of environmental policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Holdren was appointed as the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and confirmed on March 20 to assume the position informally known as Obama's "science czar."
Holdren's track record shows a trend of alarmist viewpoints on scientific issues, including a statement made in 1973 that the U.S. population of 210 million at the time was "too many, and 280 million in 2040 is likely to be much too many." In response, Holdren recommended "a continued decline in fertility to well below replacement should be encouraged, with the aim of achieving [zero population growth] before the year 2000."
The current U.S. population is approximately 304 million.
After the perceived "crisis" of population growth faded, however, Holdren began sounding the alarm over global climate change. In the 1980s Holdren warned of human-caused ecological disasters resulting in the deaths of a billion people before 2020, and as recently as 2006, Holdren warned that sea levels could rise as much as 13 feet by the year 2010.
WND reported Holdren's participation in a panel predicting a dire future caused by global warming and calling for a global tax on greenhouse gas emissions in a report to the U.N.
Holdren's activism for greater government involvement drew a negative reaction from other scientists in the form of an open letter to Congress, WND reported.
"This is the same science adviser who has given us predictions of 'almost certain' thermonuclear war or eco-catastrophe by the year 2000, and many other forecasts of doom that somehow never seem to arrive on time.
"The sky is not falling; the Earth has been cooling for 10 years, without help. The present cooling was NOT predicted by the alarmists' computer models, and has come as an embarrassment to them.
"The finest meteorologists in the world cannot predict the weather two weeks in advance, let alone the climate for the rest of the century. Can Al Gore? Can John Holdren? We are flooded with claims that the evidence is clear, that the debate is closed, that we must act immediately, etc, but in fact THERE IS NO SUCH EVIDENCE; IT DOESN'T EXIST."
During his confirmation, at a hearing before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, Holdren was grilled about his history of predicting calamity and advocating radical measures in response.
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., expressed concern at the hearing that Holdren's alarmist positions violated a statement made by President Obama when he nominated the Harvard professor:
"The truth is that promoting science isn't just about providing resources – it's about protecting free and open inquiry," Obama said. "It's about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology."
In response, Holdren sought to differentiate between alarmist "predictions" and simply "descriptions" of where America could wind up if it continues on its current path:
"The motivation for looking at the downside possibilities, the possibilities that can go wrong if things continue in a bad direction, is to motivate people to change direction. That was my intention at the time." Holdren explained. "I think it is responsible to call attention to the dangers that society faces so we will make the investments and make the changes needed to reduce those dangers."
Regarding his more recent forecasts of environmental doom, Holdren affirmed, "We continue to be on a perilous path with respect to climate change, and I think we need to do more work to get that reversed."
Nonetheless, Vitter persisted in questioning Holdren's potential political ideology behind advocating government-mandated population control:
"I'm scared to death that you think this is a proper function of government," Vitter said. "Do you think that determining optimal population is a proper role of government?"
"No, Senator, I do not," Holdren answered.
Holdren then explained that current policies, including those that promote health care and opportunities for women, as well as education, naturally create families more likely to have fewer children, thus solving the potential problems of population growth.
Contact: Drew Zahn Source: WorldNetDaily Publish Date: July 11, 2009 Link to this article.
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About one out of four children aborted early in America are killed by the abortion pill rather than a surgical procedure, according to an Associated Press report.
The report concerns a Planned Parenthood study published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine touting the improved safety of a drug used in abortions that is now dissolved orally instead of vaginally - the latter being a technique that is more prone to causing severe and sometimes fatal infections.
The chemical abortion method consists of first distributing mifepristone, also known as RU-486, which kills the child before misoprostol is administered two days later, a drug that induces the body to expel the corpse.
A spokeswoman with Danco Laboratories LLC, the manufacturer of Mifeprex (mifepristone), told the AP that such "medical" abortions account for about one quarter of all early abortions, and about one third of early abortions at Planned Parenthood.
The AP reports that the use of RU-486 has risen steadily since its approval in 2000, despite its availability only in clinics or doctors' offices rather than pharmacies.
Planned Parenthood researchers published a study in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine analyzing chemical abortions at Planned Parenthood between 2005 and mid-2008, and found that the change in the misoprostol's administration reduced the risk of serious infection from about 1 in 1,000 to 0.06 in 1,000.
The study did not address mifepristone's side effects, including abdominal pain, uterine cramping, and vaginal bleeding or spotting, which almost all patients experienced in clinical trials for an average of 9-16 days. About 8% of the women experienced bleeding for 30 days or more.
In 2007 the New England Journal of Medicine published a study showing that chemical abortions did not pose more of a risk for miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, preterm births, or low birth weight than surgical abortions.
While the media reported the news as proof that the abortion pill is "safe," critics said the conclusion was misleading as the study failed to compare the rate of post-abortive complications with the rate of complications in women who had not aborted a previous child. That would have shown that the abortion pill was merely equally as likely as surgical abortions to dramatically increase the risk of such complications, as shown by several studies.
Contact: Kathleen Gilbert Source: LifeSiteNews.com Publish Date: July 10, 2009 Link to this article.
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86% favor significant restrictions; Majority believes abortion hurts a woman long-term
The American people continue to move to the pro-life perspective on abortion according to the latest Moral Compass polling by the Knights of Columbus and Marist Institute.
The poll mirrored findings of other recent surveys, showing that more Americans identify as pro-life than as pro-choice (an 11% shift from October), and that the vast majority of Americans favor restricting abortion.
Among the key findings:
- 86% of Americans would significantly restrict abortion.
- 60% of Americans would limit abortion to cases of rape, incest or the life of a mother -- or not allow it at all.
- 53% of Americans believe abortion does more harm than good to a woman in the long term.
- 79% of Americans support conscience exemptions on abortion for health care workers. This includes 64% of those who identify as strongly pro-choice.
- 69% of Americans think that it is appropriate for religious leaders to speak out on abortion.
- 59% say religious leaders have a key role to play in the abortion debate.
Additionally, the data showed that nearly every demographic sub-group had moved toward the pro- life position except for non-practicing Catholics and men under 45 years of age.
Independents and liberals showed the greatest shift to the pro-life position since October, while Democrats were slightly less likely to be pro-life now than they were in October.
"The data shows that the American people are placing an ever increasing value on human life," said Supreme Knight Carl Anderson. "Far from the great divide that most people think exists when it comes to the abortion debate, there is actually a great deal of common ground.
"Most Americans are unhappy with the unrestricted access to abortion that is the legacy of Roe vs. Wade, and pundits and elected leaders should take note of the fact that agreement on abortion need not be limited to the fringes of the debate and issues like adoption or pre-natal care. The American people have reached a basic consensus, and that consensus is at odds with the legacy of Roe."
The survey of 1,223 Americans was conducted May 28 - 31 and has a margin of error of +/-3%.
Source: LifeSiteNews.com Publish Date: July 10, 2009 Link to this article.
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A new report on the abortion-drug regimen known as RU-486 may leave a false impression of safety.
The report suggests that about one-fourth of the abortions in America are induced using RU-486, a two-drug combination that causes the death and abortion of an unborn baby. One of the concerns surrounding usage of that regimen has to do with the number of deaths and serious side effects, including infection.
Chris Gacek of the Family Research Council was asked if it is really safer. "What it's safer about is it's not causing these massive septic infections," he explains.
Such infections have claimed a number of lives. But another problem, Gacek notes, still persists -- excessive bleeding -- because that is just a fundamental part of the regimen.
"The drug induces sort of the chemical strangulation of the embryo or fetus, and then you have to dispose of the remains," says Gacek. "[T]he Misoprostol essentially strips the uterus of the baby and the products of conception -- [in other words] all the tissues that accompany the conception and help the pregnancy develop near the lining of the uterus and all that."
There has been no significant increase in abortions in the aftermath of the drug's introduction.
The report is based on research conducted at Planned Parenthood clinics across the U.S. Planned Parenthood is the nation's biggest provider of what the organization refers to as "medical abortions."
Contact: Charlie Butts Source: OneNewsNow Publish Date: July 13, 2009
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The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee has posted on its website its version of the health care reform bill. It's called the "Affordable Health Choices Act," and, as promised, it contains a public health care option. The impact on other health insurance providers is reason enough to oppose a public health plan, but an even greater reason is the way it is going to undermine pro-life values.
The public plan's immediate and long-term threat to pro-life values is what makes it a non-starter. The plan's immediate threat to pro-life values is evident from its failure to provide any pro-life protections.
There is no protection for health care providers who, due to their faith convictions, cannot provide abortion or abortion referrals. There is no protection for pharmacy owners or workers who cannot in good conscience dispense abortion drugs. There is no restriction on abortion, either. There is no language in the bill that would prevent the public plan from paying for any abortion under any circumstance. The bill does not even prevent the eventual inclusion of assisted suicide as a benefit.
Some will argue that the bill doesn't have anything to say about these things one way or another, but that is precisely the point. The bill's failure to explicitly protect these pro-life values will be interpreted as a requirement to ignore them.
It is instructive to remember the struggle to stop abortion funding through Medicaid on this point. In Medicaid law what isn't explicitly prohibited is therefore required. This is why Medicaid began paying for abortion as a covered benefit when abortion was legalized in 1973. It took the Hyde Amendment in 1976 to change that by explicitly restricting the use of taxpayer funds for abortions except in the cases of rape, incest and danger to the life of the mother.
The Hyde Amendment continues to protect taxpayers from paying for elective abortions. However, the Hyde Amendment is itself on a death watch these days. The amendment must be approved annually. It is clear that many in Congress would happily drop the Hyde Amendment language if they could. Many of us thought Congress would try to omit the amendment last year. Furthermore, the Hyde Amendment doesn't protect other pro-life values, like conscience protections and banning assisted suicide.
Of further concern is that the bill authorizes the secretary of Health and Human Services to create the public health plan. The person currently sitting in that seat is Kathleen Sebelius, a long-time abortion rights protector. The fact that the benefits provided under the public plan will be decided by political appointees and entrenched bureaucrats out of public view should be enough reason to fear for pro-life values.
Given Congress' history of excess, the long-term prospects for pro-life values are bleak as well. An insurmountable problem with the public option is that the government will be deciding what the plan will cover. Can you imagine what a health plan built by the government will look like after a few years? It will be loaded down with every imaginable benefit and coverage. In his Wall Street Journal opinion piece, "Public Option: Son of Medicaid," Daniel Henninger writes, "Medicaid is a morass. Since the program's inception, Congress has loaded it up every few years with more notions of what to cover, shifting about 43% of the ever-upward cost onto someone else's tab, mainly the states." There is no reason to think that Congress will exercise any restraint with a new health plan.
As Congress loads more benefits onto the plan, the costs will skyrocket in the same way they have for Medicaid. While the government will certainly raise taxes and/or premiums to pay for the higher costs, it will eventually have to resort to the same rationing scheme under which people in England and Canada are suffering.
In England, it is illegal for doctors even to tell patients about drugs that the country's health care rationing body has determined to be too costly. It doesn't even matter if the drug has proven helpful to some people. If it costs too much per person, it can be disallowed for coverage, and doctors cannot even tell their patients the drug exists. In Canada a person literally can die while waiting for rationed treatment.
While the American health care system has its flaws, especially when it comes to abortion, it still places a much higher value on life than either the English or Canadian plans. I suppose rationing is one way to keep health care "affordable," but I'm sure it's not what most Americans want. If England and Canada can't figure out how to make a public plan work without rationing, there is no reason at all to think our government will do any better. We must continue to move pro-life values forward, not backward.
Making it possible for every person to get and keep health insurance is a pro-life value worthy of everyone's support. But I do not believe it is necessary to throw our other pro-life values under the bus in order to achieve that worthy goal.
Contact: Barrett Duke Source: BP Publish Date: July 10, 2009 Link to this article.
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'Comprehensive Planetary Regime could control development, distribution of all natural resources'
John Holdren
The man President Obama has chosen to be his science czar once advocated a shocking approach to the "population crisis" feared by scientists at the time: namely, compulsory abortions in the U.S. and a "Planetary Regime" with the power to enforce human reproduction restrictions.
"There exists ample authority under which population growth could be regulated," wrote Obama appointee John Holdren, as reported by FrontPage Magazine. "It has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society."
Holdren's comments, made in 1977, mirror the astonishing admission this week of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who said she was under the impression that legalizing abortion with the 1973 Roe. v. Wade case would eliminate undesirable members of the populace, or as she put it "populations that we don't want to have too many of."
In 1977, when many scientists were alarmed by predictions of harmful environmental effects of human population growth, Holdren teamed with Paul R. Ehrlich, author of "The Population Bomb," and his wife, Anne, to pen "Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment."
Holdren's book proposed multiple strategies to curb population growth, and, according to the quotes excerpted by FrontPage Magazine, advocated an international police force to ensure the strategies were carried out.
"Such a comprehensive Plenetary Regime could control the development, administration, conservation, and distribution of all natural resources, renewable or nonrenewable," Holdren and the Ehrlichs reportedly wrote. "The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries' shares within their regional limits. ... The Regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits."
Learn how close to home "Planetary Regime" really is by reading Jerome Corsi's New York Times best-seller, "The Late Great USA." This weekend only, get an autographed, hardcover copy for only $4.95 - a $21 discount!
The website Zombietime.com has posted photos of text excerpts from "Ecoscience," referencing even further strategies from Holdren and the Ehrlichs, including compulsory adoption of children born to teenage mothers, forced sterilization and other government-mandated population control measures.
A former Teresa and John Heinz professor of environmental policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Holdren was appointed as the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and confirmed on March 20 to assume the position informally known as Obama's "science czar."
Holdren's track record shows a trend of alarmist viewpoints on scientific issues, including a statement made in 1973 that the U.S. population of 210 million at the time was "too many, and 280 million in 2040 is likely to be much too many." In response, Holdren recommended "a continued decline in fertility to well below replacement should be encouraged, with the aim of achieving [zero population growth] before the year 2000."
The current U.S. population is approximately 304 million.
After the perceived "crisis" of population growth faded, however, Holdren began sounding the alarm over global climate change. In the 1980s Holdren warned of human-caused ecological disasters resulting in the deaths of a billion people before 2020, and as recently as 2006, Holdren warned that sea levels could rise as much as 13 feet by the year 2010.
WND reported Holdren's participation in a panel predicting a dire future caused by global warming and calling for a global tax on greenhouse gas emissions in a report to the U.N.
Holdren's activism for greater government involvement drew a negative reaction from other scientists in the form of an open letter to Congress, WND reported.
"This is the same science adviser who has given us predictions of 'almost certain' thermonuclear war or eco-catastrophe by the year 2000, and many other forecasts of doom that somehow never seem to arrive on time.
"The sky is not falling; the Earth has been cooling for 10 years, without help. The present cooling was NOT predicted by the alarmists' computer models, and has come as an embarrassment to them.
"The finest meteorologists in the world cannot predict the weather two weeks in advance, let alone the climate for the rest of the century. Can Al Gore? Can John Holdren? We are flooded with claims that the evidence is clear, that the debate is closed, that we must act immediately, etc, but in fact THERE IS NO SUCH EVIDENCE; IT DOESN'T EXIST."
During his confirmation, at a hearing before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, Holdren was grilled about his history of predicting calamity and advocating radical measures in response.
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., expressed concern at the hearing that Holdren's alarmist positions violated a statement made by President Obama when he nominated the Harvard professor:
"The truth is that promoting science isn't just about providing resources – it's about protecting free and open inquiry," Obama said. "It's about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology."
In response, Holdren sought to differentiate between alarmist "predictions" and simply "descriptions" of where America could wind up if it continues on its current path:
"The motivation for looking at the downside possibilities, the possibilities that can go wrong if things continue in a bad direction, is to motivate people to change direction. That was my intention at the time." Holdren explained. "I think it is responsible to call attention to the dangers that society faces so we will make the investments and make the changes needed to reduce those dangers."
Regarding his more recent forecasts of environmental doom, Holdren affirmed, "We continue to be on a perilous path with respect to climate change, and I think we need to do more work to get that reversed."
Nonetheless, Vitter persisted in questioning Holdren's potential political ideology behind advocating government-mandated population control:
"I'm scared to death that you think this is a proper function of government," Vitter said. "Do you think that determining optimal population is a proper role of government?"
"No, Senator, I do not," Holdren answered.
Holdren then explained that current policies, including those that promote health care and opportunities for women, as well as education, naturally create families more likely to have fewer children, thus solving the potential problems of population growth.
Contact: Drew Zahn Source: WorldNetDaily Publish Date: July 11, 2009 Link to this article.
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About one out of four children aborted early in America are killed by the abortion pill rather than a surgical procedure, according to an Associated Press report.
The report concerns a Planned Parenthood study published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine touting the improved safety of a drug used in abortions that is now dissolved orally instead of vaginally - the latter being a technique that is more prone to causing severe and sometimes fatal infections.
The chemical abortion method consists of first distributing mifepristone, also known as RU-486, which kills the child before misoprostol is administered two days later, a drug that induces the body to expel the corpse.
A spokeswoman with Danco Laboratories LLC, the manufacturer of Mifeprex (mifepristone), told the AP that such "medical" abortions account for about one quarter of all early abortions, and about one third of early abortions at Planned Parenthood.
The AP reports that the use of RU-486 has risen steadily since its approval in 2000, despite its availability only in clinics or doctors' offices rather than pharmacies.
Planned Parenthood researchers published a study in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine analyzing chemical abortions at Planned Parenthood between 2005 and mid-2008, and found that the change in the misoprostol's administration reduced the risk of serious infection from about 1 in 1,000 to 0.06 in 1,000.
The study did not address mifepristone's side effects, including abdominal pain, uterine cramping, and vaginal bleeding or spotting, which almost all patients experienced in clinical trials for an average of 9-16 days. About 8% of the women experienced bleeding for 30 days or more.
In 2007 the New England Journal of Medicine published a study showing that chemical abortions did not pose more of a risk for miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, preterm births, or low birth weight than surgical abortions.
While the media reported the news as proof that the abortion pill is "safe," critics said the conclusion was misleading as the study failed to compare the rate of post-abortive complications with the rate of complications in women who had not aborted a previous child. That would have shown that the abortion pill was merely equally as likely as surgical abortions to dramatically increase the risk of such complications, as shown by several studies.
Contact: Kathleen Gilbert Source: LifeSiteNews.com Publish Date: July 10, 2009 Link to this article.
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Disclaimer: The linked items below or the websites at which they are located do not necessarily represent the views of The Illinois Federation for Right to Life. They are presented only for your information.
Community Outreach: Center Takes Steps To Assist Planned Parenthood to Target Hispanics for Population Reduction
Clinic outreach workers for Thomason Hospital Women's Health Center have been touring the area's closed Planned Parenthood offices in a large white RV since the longtime women's health service called it quits in El Paso on June 30. The workers' hope is that women who don't know where to go for medical services will find a new home and not neglect their health. They hope the large vehicle helps grab patients' attention. "We are going to different sites of Planned Parenthood to talk to patients and let them know we're here to help," said Lelia Onsurez, community health educator for Thomason Hospital Women's Health Centers. "They're not going to be left out in the cold." Planned Parenthood provided family planning and primary care services and services for people living with AIDS and HIV.
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Vandals Hit Oregon Pregnancy Support Center With Graffiti
Graffiti vandals have targeted a local support center for pregnant women. The phrases "kill us now", "give us your eggs", "freedom", and a swastika cover the glass windows at the front of the Lane Pregnancy Support Center on 13th Avenue in Eugene. The vandalism occurred late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning. According to a news release, Lane Pregnancy Support Center is a non-profit, privately funded pro-life community outreach serving over 300 clients in Lane County each month.
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'Cardiac Death' Allows One to Kill the Organ Donor
In 2006, research done by Dr. Gerald Buckberg, a cardio-thoracic surgeon and UCLA expert, demonstrated that a person can survive cardiac arrest for an average of 72 minutes if they are given the following treatment: cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, the use of a heart-lung machine to keep blood and oxygen circulating, and gradual restoration of blood and oxygen flow.
This research was done at hospitals in Alabama and Ann Arbor, Michigan and also in Germany. Of 34 patients, seven died, only two had permanent neurological changes and 25 recovered completely. One patient had been in cardiac arrest for two and a half hours. Similar results were obtained by research in Japan, Taiwan, and elsewhere in Asia.
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The Most Pro-Life State Gains Momentum for Personhood Initiative as Lt Governor Signs On
The Personhood Initiative in Mississippi has recently gain significant momentum because of national personhood efforts emerging around the country. Mississippi has long been known as the most "pro-life" state in America and could be the first state to affirm the personhood rights of all humans.
Lt Governor Phil Bryant also gave this effort a boost by endorsing the effort and signing the petition. He joined a growing and diverse group of political, church, and community leaders from across the state who are getting behind this effort.
Click here for the full article.
Abortion Pills Administered Incorrectly
The protocol at Planned Parenthood clinics for administering RU-486, the drug that causes medical abortions, was officially changed in order to reduce the resulting serious infections and deaths. Planned Parenthood is now trying to claim kudos for making medical abortions safer, for the mother. When the FDA first approved RU-486 — a combination of two drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol — as an abortifacient for the general public's use, manufactured by Danco Laboratories, their guidelines suggested oral use as the safest way to effect an abortion. However, Planned Parenthood (PP) had been telling women to use the drug as a suppository, and by their own admission giving it thusly in their clinics. This resulted in serious cases of infection and even death.
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Pro-Life Protester Interrupts Sotomayor Confirmation Hearing
An anti-abortion protester briefly disrupted the opening of Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination hearing.
The outburst came during Sen. Dianne Feinstein's opening statement Monday. A man in room interrupted her remarks by shouting: "Senator. What about the unborn!" He called abortion "genocide.
Capitol Police identified the protester as Robert James, from Virginia. He was charged with unlawful conduct and disruption of Congress.
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Kennedy-Dodd Health Bill
The two central "health care reform" bills currently moving in Congress – the Kennedy bill and the House Democratic leadership bill – each contain provisions that would, if enacted, represent the greatest expansion of abortion since the Supreme Court handed down its Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion in 1973. These bills contain multiple provisions that would result in federally mandated insurance coverage of abortion on demand, massive federal subsidies for abortion, mandated creation of many new abortion clinics, and nullification of at least some state limitations on abortion.
Next week, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee is expected to consider a number of NRLC-supported amendments offered by Republican senators that would remove the pro-abortion mandates and subsidies from the Kennedy bill. House committees will consider similar amendments during markups of the House Democratic leadership bill, which is also planned for next week.
On July 9, Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ), co-chairman of the House Pro-Life Caucus, distributed to his colleagues the letter that appears below – a collection of statements by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and five pro-abortion organizations, confirming their intent to greatly expand access to abortion on demand, using "health care reform" as a vehicle. You will find it easier to read if you download the PDF image of the letter, click here.
If President Obama, congressional Democratic leaders, and the pro-abortion advocacy groups were to succeed in mandating vast expansions of access to abortion, with federal funding, the predictable result would be a great increase in the number of abortions performed – this, from a president who assured the American people that he would pursue policies to reduce abortions. Click here to see the related Action Alert
Contact: Douglas Johnson Source: NRLC
Publish Date: July 10, 2009 Link to this article.
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