During his trial for attempted murder, an Edinburgh pensioner told the court that he thought killing his disabled wife by smothering her with a pillow would "be a good thing to do … for both of us."
The Edinburgh High Court found John Millar, 67, guilty of attempted murder last week and has sentenced him to four and half years in prison. His wheelchair-bound wife, Phyllis Millar, has suffered from Multiple Sclerosis for 20 years and Millar was her primary caregiver. He pleaded guilty to charges of attempted murder.
Lady Justice Smith told Millar, "You quite deliberately tried to kill her. Fortunately, your wife was able to get one of her hands between her face and the pillow so as to enable her to breathe and to shout for you to stop.
"Had she not been able to shout at you, it does not seem that your attempt to murder her would have stopped when it did."
The court was told that Millar walked into the bedroom of the couple's home and asked his wife if she wanted to live. Phyllis replied that she did. He came back into the bedroom later and pushed a pillow over his wife's face. After the attack, Millar called police and said, "I tried to kill my wife." He later told officers he thought it would be "a good thing to do at the time" for both of them.
The prosecuting attorney said that Phyllis "was quite clear throughout this investigation that she had not at any stage told the accused that she wanted her life to end, and had never requested his assistance to help her to die."
Given the "unusual and sad" nature of the case, Lady Justice Smith said that Millar's lawyers had convinced her that because of the stress he had experienced, he did not deserve a custodial sentence. But the prison term was decided after Millar twice broke his bail conditions during the trial.
Phyllis Millar has indicated that she wants her marriage, which began in 2008, to continue, but Smith insisted that Millar be closely supervised for 30 months following his release and recommended against returning Phyllis to his care. Witnesses described Millar as "too proud" to accept help in his wife's care, despite the availability of public assistance programs.
With public opinion in Britain leaning heavily towards legalizing assisted suicide for disabled people, the Director of Public Prosecutions last year announced that in cases where a killing can be shown to have been for "compassionate" motives, there is no "public interest" to prosecute. In this case, however, the victim survived and was able to inform the court that she did not wish to die.
At the same time, some are pushing to have the law changed to allow outright "mercy-killing." Tony Nicklinson, a 56 year-old engineer who was paralyzed by a stroke, is petitioning the courts to allow his wife to kill him by lethal injection because he is "fed up" with his condition.
Anti-euthanasia activists continue to warn that such changes are a direct threat to legal protections for vulnerable disabled, ill and elderly people. They also point out that much of the call for legal euthanasia and assisted suicide comes from fears of pain and loss of dignity at the end of their lives among the world's rapidly growing elderly demographic.
Despite growing support for legal assisted suicide and killing in Britain, a major new global study has placed the UK at the top of the world league for palliative care. The study, released by the Economist Intelligence Unit, said Britain was top in the Quality of End-of-Life Care sub-category, which includes indicators such as public awareness, training availability, access to painkillers and doctor-patient transparency.
The study noted that demands for euthanasia are coming largely from the public, fuelled by media coverage of high-profile euthanasia campaigners such as popular author Sir Terry Pratchett and Debbie Purdy, rather than from the palliative and hospice care profession.
"If you look at the percentage of palliative care doctors who are opposed to assisted suicide in the UK, it's over 90 per cent," said David Praill of Help the Hospices. "This is a publicly driven debate and definitely not a hospice and palliative care driven one."
Alex Schadenberg of Canada's Euthanasia Prevention Coalition says he laments the fact that the media is stirring up fears of painful and undignified death; he pointed out that in the Canadian province of Quebec, from which comes much of the pro-euthanasia push in the country, palliative care is top of the line.
"We now have better mechanisms for controlling pain than in any period in human history," Schadenberg said.
"Palliative-care units can offer patients good pharmaceutical pain control, psychological support, stress-releasing massage therapy, spiritual counsel, and music and art therapy.
"Palliative care units attract numerous volunteers dedicated to providing patients company and friendship to ward off loneliness. If effective pain-control, care and support are available, why is euthanasia so attractive?"
Contact: Hilary White Source: LifeSiteNews.com Date Published: July 22, 2010
A UT woman is pregnant with 2 babies, but they're not twins....
Angie Cromar was born with a rare condition called didelphys, which means she has 2 uteruses. It didn't pose a problem for her previous pregnancies, and the 34-year-old has given birth to 2 healthy children before.
But this time, she's conceived in both uteruses. During her 1st ultrasound exam, Cromar and her doctor discovered that she's carrying 2 fetuses at different stages of development, one slightly older than the other.
"[He said] I'm 5 weeks and 4 days in one, and 6 weeks and 1 day in the other," Cromar [said]...
The chances of this happening are estimated to be 1 in 5 million. "Probably less than 100, so far, worldwide, have been reported," [Dr. Steve] Terry, [Cromar's Ob/Gyn] said. "So she's a member of a small, elite club."
Cromar herself is a labor and delivery nurse, and knows the complications her condition can bring: chances of pre-term labor and low birth weight....
I don't understand why people don't connect the dots when it comes to suicide. On one hand, officials wring their hands–appropriately–over suicide rates. But at the same time, legislators and activists promote suicide/euthanasia for the sick. That's a mixed message any way you look at it.
In South Australia, where I recently visited, a pending state parliament bill would allow doctors to kill patients asking to die who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness. It even interferes with proper mental health treatment for suicidal conditions in the terminally ill. And yet, suicide is so worrisome that the state coroner wants to bring greater attention to the problem by treating such deaths in public reporting like auto accidents. From the story: A VICTIMS-OF-SUICIDE toll similar to the official road toll could help prevent some of the nearly 200 such deaths in South Australia each year, State Coroner Mark Johns believes. He has been discussing the idea of a toll with suicide experts and wants a public debate about how it could work and how the taboo subject of suicide is communicated to the public – and to families who may be able to prevent the tragedies, AdelaideNow reported.
In an opinion piece in today's Advertiser Mr Johns says the number of suicides he encountered in his position was the only thing that shocked him when he took up the job five years ago. "The suicide rate in this state is probably double the road toll and yet as a subject, it is not given anything like the same attention," he says.
Talk about missing the forest for the trees! Yes, we should combat suicides–all suicides–not just those of the healthy. Otherwise, anti suicide efforts–as some suicides are promoted and facilitated–will be akin to spitting in the wind.
Contact: Wesley J. Smith Source: Secondhand Smoke Date Published: July 21, 2010
California Cryobank, a 30-year-old fertility business, has launched a "Donor Look-A-Like" program which allows women to search for sperm donors that the company claims resemble Tom Cruise, Viggo Mortensen, Will Smith, and other celebrities or athletes.
The program has drawn harsh criticism from pro-life quarters for effectively turning children into commodities to be bought and sold. Dr. David Stevens, Chief Executive Officer of the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) that the "program is another step down the road to the illusion of designer children."
But Scott Brown, communications director for California Cryobank, has insisted that "this is not a designer baby factory."
"We want to humanize the experience because we can't show what the donor actually looks like," he said.
California law requires that sperm donors be anonymous, and the company said the "Donor Look-A-Like" search was conceived of as a way to make the task of choosing a donor easier, given that one is unable to view a picture of the donor. The service, however, has had the additional benefit for the company of significantly boosting sales.
In addition to using the "Donor Look-A-Like" method, potential mothers can search by hair color and texture, eye color, height, weight, ancestry, level of education, area of education, and religion.
"Tragically, the reproductive assistant industry in the USA is totally unregulated," Stevens told LSN. "What anyone can conceive, they can do - from killing embryos that don't have the sex or traits the parents desire to human cloning."
In-vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics currently offer embyros screened to have specific characteristics, such as blue eyes or blond hair. Others offer gender selection and screening for cancer tendencies.
Dr. Stevens said that, "It is past time that we put limits on the 'anything goes' absolute right to reproduction where those born and unborn pay the price of their parent's whims."
A recent, unprecedented study on donor-conceived children found that they were more likely to be delinquent or have substance abuse problems than children raised by their parents.
Stevens also pointed out in many cases the users of "Donor Look-A-Like" might have their desires frustrated.
"They are selling an illusion," he said. "If by chance it works in a specific case, without sex selection you may get a daughter, not a son, that looks like Rob Lowe. Not a pretty sight!"
Contact: James Tillman Source: LifeSiteNews.com Date Published: July 21, 2010
A disabled British man with "locked-in" syndrome due to a stroke in 2005 is seeking a court order allowing his wife to kill him without fear of prosecution.
Tony Nicklinson, a 56 year-old engineer in Melksham, Wiltshire, is completely paralyzed and unable to speak. He communicates with the use of a Perspex board and letters, looking, blinking and nodding to spell out words. He said through his lawyers that he is "fed up with life" and does not wish to spend the next 20 years in this condition.
Under the current law, the lawyers said, the only way he could end his life was by withdrawal of food and water, but Nicklinson wants his wife Jane to be allowed to inject him with a lethal dose of drugs, something she has said she is prepared to do.
The legal team has launched a request of the Director of Public Prosecutions asking if Jane Nicklinson would be prosecuted for murder if she were to kill her husband at his own request.
Jane told the BBC that her husband wants the same "rights" as everyone else to commit suicide. "He wants to be able to take his own life at a time that he chooses," she told the BBC. "He has no quality of life at all."
"He just wants the same rights as everyone else. I mean, you or I can go out and commit suicide. He can't. That right was taken away from him the day he had his stroke."
Bindmans, the solicitors acting on his family's behalf, however, did not mention "assisted suicide" in their statement, referring more forthrightly to changing the laws on homicide.
"Tony Nicklinson contends that the current law of murder, which prohibits in absolute terms all intentional killing, whatever the motive and regardless of the 'victim's' wishes, constitutes an interference with his rights to respect for his private life under Article 8 (1) of the European Convention of Human Rights.
"He states that he is not depressed and he is not in need of counselling. He has had almost four years to think about his future, and he does not relish the prospect."
The news has prompted criticism from a disability rights group which says that Nicklinson's request will undermine the absolute value of human life in the law. Janet Thomas of No Less Human said, "The killing of vulnerable, innocent people, whether able-bodied or not, is never right, even when those people ask to be killed. The deliberate killing of any innocent person damages the interests of us all."
"Mr. Nicklinson feels he wants to die because of his disabilities - as if human value and worth are to be measured by physical ability. Human worth lies not in what people can do but in what they inherently are. Each human life whether damaged or not whether a short one or a long one is a gift of incomparable value."
Thomas said that disabled people can come to terms with their condition and have it improved with "positive help and support from family, friends and the community, and by a refusal to accept that there is any life which is worthless."
"Society, through its laws against murder and assisted suicide, comes down in favour of life. Every time someone decides that there are lives not worth living, he or she damages the security of all of us."
In September last year, Britain's Director of Public Prosecutions announced that the assisted suicide law would not be enforced in cases where it was judged that a person acted out of "compassion" in helping a relative or loved-one who had indicated a "clear, settled and informed wish to commit suicide" to carry about that wish. The announcement followed a decision by the Law Lords, at the request of assisted suicide campaigner Debbie Purdie, that the law should be "clarified."
The Care Not Killing Alliance warned at the time that the decision would threaten the lives of vulnerable disabled people, saying that they "reject the concept of a 'compassionate homicide' and we reject the concept that a person that assists the suicide of another person is acting in a compassionate manner."
The massive positive publicity surrounding the Purdie case and numerous high profile cases in which public figures have committed suicide at the Dignitas facility in Switzerland, has shifted public opinion in favor of legalizing assisted suicide in Britain. In January, a YouGov poll found that four out of five respondents supported a change in the law.
Contact: Hilary White Source: LifeSiteNews.com Date Published: July 21, 2010
Throughout the state yesterday, voters supported an amendment to the Georgia State Constitution that said the "right to life is vested in each human being from their earliest biological beginning until natural death" and that right should be protected by law.
In all 46 counties where the amendment was presented, it passed overwhelmingly by an amazing 75 % ! Georgia is the first state in the nation where voters have said "Yes" to the Personhood question.
Georgia Right to life chapters began work this spring in requesting that their local county parties place this non-binding "party" question on their local party ballots. Both Democrat and Republican parties were approached. Butts county was the only county to succeed in getting both parties to cooperate and approve the measure (Republicans 79% and the Democrats 72%). "There is no question that the people of Georgia would pass a Personhood Amendment" IF given the chance!", says Dan Becker, President of Georgia Right to Life. "The ball is now in the Legislature's hands to allow the people a voice on the most pressing human rights issue of the 21st century . . . deny them at your own peril."
In 2011, GRTL will use the results of the ballot to lobby the Georgia Legislature to place a constitutional amendment on the 2012 general election ballot.
I have been repeatedly asked my views about the Final Exit Network advocacy billboards that push assisted suicide. I was going to post on it, but I was interviewed by Fox News Network on the issue, and I think my comments to Fox's reporter will suffice. From the story:
A national right-to-die organization has launched a controversial billboard campaign to inform terminally ill and elderly adults that they have a right to end their own lives — but critics say the group is simply preying on vulnerable senior citizens and mentally unstable people.
Well, FEN has never advocated restricting assisted suicide to the terminally ill. Moreover, they have assisted suicides of people who were not dying–a point I made abundantly clear:
But others say Final Exit's mission is unethical … and illegal. "The signs communicate a pro-suicide message that sends a dangerous message throughout society, including to people like the young who would not legally qualify for a lethal prescription," said Wesley J. Smith, a California-based bioethicist who opposes assisted suicide. "I think they are trying to make themselves seem like an advocacy group rather than one in which some of its members engage in criminal suicide facilitation," he said.
The story details allegations and pleas of FEN activists assisting suicides of people who clearly were not dying–which I covered here when it happened:
But Final Exit members, including Egbert, also are alleged to have been involved in the 2007 death of an Arizona woman, Jana Van Voorhis, who suffered from a serious mental illness, not a debilitating physical illness. Wye Hale-Rowe, then 79, and retired college professor Frank Langsner, who provided her guidance, as well as two other senior Final Exit officials — Egbert and Roberta Massey — were charged in the case that will go to trial next month. Hale-Rowe pleaded guilty in January to facilitation to commit manslaughter, a felony. She struck a plea deal with county prosecutors and agreed to testify against the three remaining defendants in the case…
Smith says the Voorhis case "shattered" the "pretense that the minions who participate in the Final Exit Network are mere counselors — rather than mobile assisted suicide clinics."…Smith questions Final Exit's judgment of "suffering" individuals and asks people to "take the time to look beneath the political posturing and the true agenda — death on demand for people with more than a transitory desire to die — comes clearly into focus." "I think it is worth pointing out that the logic of these ideologues is impeccable. Once you accept the belief that killing is an acceptable answer to human suffering, assisting the suicides of the mentally ill — whose suffering is often far worse than those with physical illnesses — can become compelling," he said.
Proof of my points are found in the last paragraph from an "alternative" suicide counselor–who is clearly pro suicide–wants people to be able to choose not to burden others by being made dead: But Carolanne Cortese Barton of Alternate Group Counseling in Bayonne, N.J., says she sees the logic behind the billboard campaign, "because in life everyone has a choice, this really is all we have." "Family traditions have changed and children are no longer able to take their elderly parents into their homes for care anymore and therefore have to send them to nursing homes," Barton said. She said the billboards create awareness that there are options out there for people who are suffering and do not want their families to suffer further by paying for treatment and care.
Wow. Honesty. How unusual in the drive to legalize assisted suicide. Whether she is right is the debate we should be having.
Contact: Wesley J. Smith Source: Secondhand Smoke Date Published: July 21, 2010
Graham only GOP member to support pro-abortion, pro-homosexual nominee
A U.S. Senate committee today gave Elena Kagan, President Obama's pro-abortion, pro-homosexual Supreme Court nominee, the go-ahead to advance on her agenda.
The vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee featured all of the pro-abortion Democrats standing with Kagan and all Republicans opposing her except South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham.
The nomination now will go to the full Senate, where it still is uncertain whether pro-life GOP members will mount an effort to keep her from a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land, where her influence could be felt for the next few decades.
The opposition to Kagan in the 13-6 vote was led by Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who said Kagan's answers to the committee included "political spin."
"Throughout her career, Ms. Kagan has placed her politics above the law. She has never been a judge, never tried a case before a jury and has practiced law for only three years," he warned.
Sessions described her as the least-experienced nominee in 50 years.
He also pointed out she was a key part of efforts to allow unlimited "partial-birth" abortions, and she worked to limit gun rights, in addition to her work to expand the rights of homosexual activists.
If she is to be defeated now, it appears that a filibuster – with some help – would be necessary.
Kagan has been criticized by pro-life and pro-family advocates for working, while in the Clinton administration, for partial-birth abortion as well as her campaign to accelerate and legitimize homosexual behavior at Harvard while on the payroll there.
And they note that during Judiciary Committee hearings, she suggested that "precedent" could trump the original intent of the Constitution's authors.
Randy Thomasson, president of SaveCalifornia.com, is offering constituents a "take action" option on his website, while a "Stop Kagan Campaign" also is under way.
"We will continue to put every member on notice – Republicans and Democrats – that a vote for Kagan is a vote against the U.S. military, a vote against the Constitution, a vote against free speech and a vote for ultra-partisan extremism and activism on the bench," said Joseph Farah, editor and chief executive officer of WND who is orchestrating the "Stop Kagan" effort that has generated tens of thousands of individual letters to senators.
The "Stop Kagan Campaign" allows any American citizen to generate 100 individually addressed letters to every U.S. senator, each including the name of the sender and all delivered by FedEx for the low price of just $24.95.
Kagan's critics have pointed out she has only moderate support among Americans and issues that have been exposed in the last several weeks raise significant questions about her.
For example, she was revealed to have "manipulated" the opinions of two doctor's organizations to soften their testimony that partial-birth abortions never are medically needed.
According to Farah, Kagan disqualified herself from serving on the Supreme Court with her statement under oath that she has no view of "natural rights."
"In all my years of observing Washington, I don't think I've ever been more stunned and disappointed by the testimony of a Supreme Court nominee than I was with Elena Kagan," said Farah. "This is someone, who, from her own testimony, doesn't believe in the Declaration of Independence, which we just celebrated and commemorated for the 234th time in our nation's history. This is someone who claims she doesn't have a view about 'natural rights' – those that real Americans believe are unalienable and God-given."
Farah is asking all of his constituents to join his "Stop Kagan Campaign", which delivers personalized, individually addressed, anti-Kagan letters to all 100 U.S. senators by FedEx for only $24.95.
The statements by Kagan came in an exchange with Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. Farah said most of the press failed to cover her responses, which he deemed as newsworthy as any she made during the hearings:
Coburn: Do you believe it is a fundamental, pre-existing right to have an arm to defend yourself?
Kagan: Senator Coburn, I very much appreciate how deeply important the right to bear arms is to millions and millions of Americans. And I accept Heller, which made clear that the Second Amendment conferred that right upon individuals, and not simply collectively.
Coburn: I'm asking you, Elena Kagan, do you personally believe there is a fundamental right in this area? Do you agree with Blackstone [in] the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, the right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defense? He didn't say that was a constitutional right. He said that's a natural right. And what I'm asking you is, do you agree with that?
Kagan: Senator Coburn, to be honest with you, I don't have a view of what are natural rights, independent of the Constitution. And my job as a justice will be to enforce and defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States.
Coburn: So you wouldn't embrace what the Declaration of Independence says, that we have certain God-given, inalienable rights that aren't given in the Constitution that are ours, ours alone, and that a government doesn't give those to us?
Kagan: Senator Coburn, I believe that the Constitution is an extraordinary document, and I'm not saying I do not believe that there are rights pre-existing the Constitution and the laws. But my job as a justice is to enforce the Constitution and the laws.
Coburn: Well, I understand that. I'm not talking about as a justice. I'm talking about Elena Kagan. What do you believe? Are there inalienable rights for us? Do you believe that?
Kagan: Senator Coburn, I think that the question of what I believe as to what people's rights are outside the Constitution and the laws, that you should not want me to act in any way on the basis of such a belief.
Coburn: I would want you to always act on the basis of the belief of what our Declaration of Independence says.
Kagan: I think you should want me to act on the basis of law. And that is what I have upheld to do, if I'm fortunate enough to be confirmed, is to act on the basis of law, which is the Constitution and the statutes of the United States.
"This woman apparently thinks our rights descend from our Constitution, which is crazy," said Farah. "The Constitution is there to protect our unalienable, God-given human rights – not to define our rights or to invent them."
The campaign to deny Kagan confirmation in the Senate, however, began long before the hearings.
"This woman, as president of her university, banned the U.S. military from recruiting on campus," Farah reminds. "Just contemplate rewarding that kind of vehemently anti-American action with a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. Elena Kagan must be stopped."
He devised the "Stop Kagan Campaign" based on previous successes in generating heavy volumes of mail to members of Congress.
"It's a phenomenal bargain," says Farah. "It makes it easy for you to sound off on this historically bad nomination. It's a small investment. And I am convinced that if enough Americans take advantage of it, Kagan will be stopped – even by this Senate."
But time is short, Farah says. America is distracted by a floundering economy, a disastrous oil spill and a government that creates new crises on a daily basis, he explains.
Calling Kagan "an activist who wants to govern from the bench," Farah says there's a way to give senators a "spine transplant" and prepare them for the most contentious confirmation fight since Clarence Thomas.
"Kagan is a radical antimilitary and proabortion zealot," said Farah. "This selection by Barack Obama reveals once again his extremist agenda of leaving America undefended, elevating alternative lifestyles to sainthood and exterminating the most innocent human life with reckless abandon and persecuting anyone who tried to stand in the way. In a nutshell, that's who Elena Kagan is."
Farah's goal is to inundate senators with 100,000 letters calling for her rejection for a lifelong appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The letter campaign is based on previously successful efforts in which nearly 10 million "pink slips" were delivered to members of Congress opposing nationalization of health care, cap-and-trade legislation, hate-crimes laws and other bills, as well as the current campaign to stop amnesty in the U.S. Senate.
The letter to the senators reads:
"In a few months, the American people will have a chance to speak at the polls again. Almost every analyst and every public-opinion survey suggests the electorate is angry about the direction of the country. I strongly urge you not to show contempt for the will of the people and the Constitution by confirming the Supreme Court nomination of Elena Kagan.
"Kagan is not what Americans want and she is not what the country needs.
"At a time when federal central control is strangling the American economy, she calls for more regulatory authority not just in Washington, but for the president himself.
"At a time when American security is facing internal and external threats and our nation is still engaged in two foreign wars simultaneously, she advocates banning military recruitment on campuses because of her compulsion to see open homosexual behavior flaunted in the ranks.
"At a time when Americans have been stripped of their ability to write their own laws protecting the lives of the unborn, she advocates the creation of task forces to investigate and prosecute peaceful pro-life activities.
"At a time when Americans are recognizing the unique blessings of their Constitution, she advocates the consideration of foreign laws in shaping Supreme Court rulings.
"For all of these reasons and more we will surely learn about in the days ahead, please reject the nomination of Elena Kagan."
The youth-led pro-life group Live Action released a new undercover video today showing staff at an Indianapolis Planned Parenthood clinic using manipulative and medically inaccurate counseling to convince a young woman to have an abortion. This is the third undercover video Live Action has released showing abusive counseling practices at Planned Parenthood of Indiana.
When the woman, purportedly 10-weeks pregnant, asks the clinician, named "Sarah," when her baby's heart begins to beat, Sarah replies, "It's around I think the 8th or the 9th week that you can hear the heartbeat." The heart actually begins beating 3 weeks and 1 day after conception, according to Moore and Persaud's well-known textbook The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology. The Planned Parenthood clinician also insists, "It's not a baby, it's a fetus," which, she claims, is "not like a person."
In the video, Sarah assures the woman that "having an abortion is safer than carrying to term." The woman asks, "The abortion won't hurt me from having more kids in the future, will it?" and the counselor replies, "Nope." But a 2009 study from the Obstetrical and Gynecological Survey recently found that a previous abortion increased a woman's risk of pre-term birth by 20%, and a 2003 report from the Shanghai Institute of Planned Parenthood Research notes a 55% increased risk of future miscarriages for women who have abortions.
Lila Rose, UCLA student and president of Live Action, says the new footage places Planned Parenthood well outside the medical mainstream. "Planned Parenthood's counseling is based on its abortion-first mentality rather than the medical facts that women need," observes Rose. "Planned Parenthood gives vulnerable women misinformation to sell them the abortion." Indiana informed consent law requires that women receive accurate medical information before undergoing an abortion.
The undercover video is the third released by Live Action in the "Rosa Acuna Project," a multi-state undercover investigation of medical misinformation and manipulative counseling at Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion business in America. In the undercover "Mona Lisa Project," Live Action released footage of two Planned Parenthood Indiana clinics agreeing to cover-up the sexual abuse of a child. Indiana lawmakers have since sought to defund the state affiliate of over $3 million it receives annually in government grants.
"Citizens and lawmakers in Indiana must stop Planned Parenthood from using millions of dollars of taxpayer money to exploit young women," states Rose.
At his weekly pen and pad briefing on Monday at the Capital, Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), chairman of the House Republican Conference, said that last week's revelation by the National Right to Life's legal counsel that the new health care law will allow some states to use federal funds for abortion is unacceptable.
"It must not stand," Pence said when asked by CNSNews.com what Republicans are doing in response to the news.
"We are calling on this administration and the leaders in Congress to take immediate action to prevent taxpayers dollars to be used in that way," Pence said.
"The fact that the high-risk pool insurance program in Pennsylvania will use federal taxpayer dollars to fund abortions is unconscionable," House Republican John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement on Tuesday.
"Just last month at the White House, I asked President Obama to provide the American people with a progress report on the implementation of his Executive Order, which purports to ban taxpayer-funding of abortions. Unfortunately, the President provided no information, and the American people are still waiting for answers."
Pence said it showed the ineffectiveness of the Executive Order signed by President Barack Obama ahead of the congressional vote on the law to assuage so-called pro-life Democrats that the federal government would not fund abortions.
"It's appalling," Pence said, adding that the executive order was only "a piece of paper signed by the most pro-abortion president" and ended three decades of legal precedent in the United States that has banned the use of taxpayer money to fund abortions.
Contact: Penny Starr Source: CNSNews.com Date Published: July 19, 2010
The Montana Personhood Amendment Initiative CI-102 volunteers received news yesterday that they were just 6,000 signatures short of the required 48,674 signatures to put Personhood on the 2010 ballot.
"These are all volunteer signatures, which is an amazing feat in and of itself." commented Chet Gallagher, Personhood volunteer. These folks, both with the Montana ProLife Coalition and Personhood Montana, were working nonstop evenings and weekends to collect signatures, while most campaigns hire professionals. The hardworking volunteers see this as a stepping stone to victory in 2012."
The Montana ProLife Coalition and Personhood Montana see the victory in submitting well over the required number of signatures, though not all signatures were certified as valid. Personhood volunteers collected nearly double the signatures that they collected in 2008, and as the trend continues, organizers are confident that Montana will see Personhood on the ballot in 2012. It has been reported that the CI-102 initiative broke records for volunteer signatures in Montana.
"All unpaid volunteers, this grassroots prolife network will work to influence the November elections and bills during the 2011 legislative session," pledged Dr. Annie Bukacek, amendment organizer. "The killing of innocent humans is not compatible with a civilized society. We have barely begun the fight for the rights and liberties of unborn babies, and we will keep working at it until their personhood is established in our Montana Constitution."
"Jesus Christ is building a movement for personhood rights of babies across the country," explained Cal Zastrow, co-founder of Personhood USA. "He will continue to build in Montana, and they will stand ready. Although this year Montana citizens will not have the opportunity to end baby murder, we know will we have the chance in the very near future to protect every Montana citizen, no matter how small."
Contact: Dr. Annie Bukacek Source: Personhood USA Date Published: July 20, 2010
Billionaire investing mogul Warren Buffett has been secretly backing a campaign to combat the decrease in doctors who are training as abortionists and to bring abortion into mainstream medicine, revealed the New York Times this week.
In her NYT magazine cover story, journalist Emily Bazelon describes how abortion "rights" activists are working to "recast doctors, changing them from a weak link of abortion to a strong one."
The piece, entitled "The New Abortion Providers," claims that abortionists and the pro-abort lobby are trying to dispel the image of the "greedy, butchering 'abortionist'." "The bold idea at the heart of this effort is to integrate abortion so that it's a seamless part of health care for women — embraced rather than shunned," writes Bazelon.
The strategy, she says, aims at moving abortuaries away from stand-alone facilities into hospitals and encourages family physicians to offer abortions within their practices.
She describes two training programs for abortionists that are central to this strategy. The first, called the "Family Planning Fellowship," is a two-year post-residency program designed to further equip doctors for providing abortions and contraception. She says this fellowship is now being offered at 21 university campuses. The second is called the Kenneth J. Ryan Residency Training Program, which aims to supply medical schools with funds to train ob/gyn residents in providing abortions. So far, this program has funded 58 campuses in the U.S. and Canada.
Both programs are run out of the University of California at San Francisco, and both are directed by Uta Landy, the former director of the National Abortion Federation. Bazelon spoke with Jody Steinauer, the associate director of the Fellowship program, but she said that Landy declines all interviews out of fear that publicity would scare off potential universities, or their lone donor.
"The money for the Ryan and the Family Planning Fellowship comes from one foundation and from one family," writes Bazelon. "The donor has chosen to remain anonymous, which helps to explain why there's been so little publicity about the pro-choice strategy of bringing abortion into academic medicine. It has been covered by a veil of semisecrecy."
But as the two training programs have grown, this anonymous donor has become more widely known, she says. "In the course of my reporting, two doctors who had not done the fellowship themselves, but who work in universities, volunteered to me that the money for the programs comes from the Buffett Foundation," she wrote.
According to Bazelon, the Buffett Foundation's tax records reveal that most of its spending is allocated to "abortion and contraception advocacy and research." The Foundation has given tens of millions to Planned Parenthood and Ipas, as well as millions to other pro-abortion groups like Catholics for Choice. Buffett has pledged to give away 99% of his estimated $47 billion assets, with most of it going to the Gates Foundation, which is infamous for its avowed emphasis on population control.
Despite Buffett's and the rest of the pro-abortion movement's efforts to bring abortion into the mainstream of medicine, however, pro-life leaders insist that abortionists are by nature at the bottom rung of medicine, where debauched doctors end up when they are too incompetent for any other area.
"No one goes to medical school with the intent of working in a Planned Parenthood or some other abortion clinic," said Mark Crutcher, President of Life Dynamics Inc., last month, after an Ottawa abortionist was disciplined for his incompetence in treating 25 of his clients. "The wash-outs from the leftovers of medicine wind up working in these abortion clinics."
Contact: Patrick B. Craine Source: LifeSiteNews.com Date Published: July 19, 2010
Oklahoma District Judge Noma Gurich ruled today that a pro-life ultrasound law will remain under an injunction keeping it from taking effect until at least January 21. The order is a continuation of one issued in May.
The setback is just the latest of many difficulties the law has encountered.
The law, which passed the Oklahoma legislature in March, would require abortionists to show to women and describe in detail an ultrasound of their unborn child within the hour before anesthesia is administered for the abortion. Such a description must include the dimensions of the child, whether the child has a heartbeat or not, and what external members and internal organs the child has.
Democratic Governor Brad Henry vetoed the law, saying that it should contain an exception for victims of rape and incest and that it was an unconstitutional intrusion into women's privacy, before the legislature overrode the veto in April. Governor Henry often clashes horns with the Oklahoma legislature over pro-life issues: he recently vetoed measures prohibiting health insurance providers in Oklahoma from subsidizing elective abortion, and other pro-life measures.
Judge Gurich blocked enforcement of the law, however, after the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) of New York filed a suit against the state in May. The CRR argues that the statute interferes with the doctor-patient relationship by compelling doctors to give unwanted speech and by intruding on the patient's privacy.
Pretrial hearings for the suit are now scheduled for January 21.
Proponents of the the law say it would prevent abortuaries from lying to women about developmental facts regarding their unborn child. Such deception has been documented at multiple Planned Parenthood locations by the pro-life media group Live Action. Critics of the law also say it is too invasive because it requires doctors to use a vaginal rather than abdominal ultrasound when this would make the image clearer.
Republican state Senator Steve Russell criticized such arguments. "We speak of invasiveness," Russell said. "[In abortion] an unborn child is forced to have an instrument forced into its body, killing it."
"We speak of the poor and underprivileged. No one is more vulnerable than a child in the womb. They have no voice except ours."
Contact: James Tillman Source: LifeSiteNews.com Date Published: July 19, 2010
Americans United for Life (AUL) has issued a report shedding new light on Elena Kagan's role in manipulating key medical testimony on partial-birth abortion, saying that she failed to admit her actions in Senate confirmation hearings and calling on lawmakers to investigate.
It was revealed last month that an amendment to a statement issued by the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists on partial-birth abortion, which Kagan is believed to have added, tampered with medical testimony that proved crucial to later litigation.
"Because of the lack of other reliable scientific data, the ACOG Policy Statement, as Kagan amended it, was relied upon by federal courts to invalidate the laws of 30 states and an act of Congress," wrote AUL. "This seriously compromised the integrity of the U.S. federal judicial process for more than a decade."
Thus Kagan's apparent willingness to politicize the American judicial system "at the highest level," says AUL, "raises serious questions."
An ACOG panel in October of 1996 drafted a medical report on partial-birth abortion, which stated that they "could identify no circumstances under which [partial-birth abortion] would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman."
Kagan, however, in a December memo called the draft a "disaster" and wrote the following statement, which was included in the final draft of the ACOG report: "An intact D&X [dilation and extraction, or partial-birth abortion], however, may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman, and a doctor should be allowed to make this determination."
AUL's report notes that Kagan's intervention with the ACOG "was not an isolated incident, but part of a pattern of behavior." Memos point to Kagan similarly tampering with testimony from the American Medical Association, also regarding partial-birth abortion.
In a Senate confirmation hearing June 30, when Senator Tom Coburn directly asked Kagan whether she "had no efforts at all to influence" ACOG's statment, Kagan answered, "My only dealings with ACOG were about talking with them about how to ensure that their statement expressed their views. I was a, you know, a staffer with no medical knowledge."
Yet AUL points to a June 1996 memo that appears to belie her testimony, showing that she took a much more active role on the issue than she was willing to admit.
Prior to the first draft of the ACOG statement, Kagan told Clinton in that memo that ACOG officials in a meeting with her "went through every [medical] circumstance imaginable ... and there just aren't many where use of the partial-birth abortion is the least risky, let alone the 'necessary,' approach."
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), after hearing Kagan's testimony, said he was "stunned by what appears to be a real politicization of science."
Upon receiving AUL's report, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, indicated agreement that there was a "contradiction" in Kagan's representation of her role in the partial-birth abortion language.
"President Clinton seems to have been disposed to sign the ban, and Ms. Kagan seems to have persuaded him to reverse that position," said Sessions in a statement Thursday. "In her testimony, Ms. Kagan clearly presented herself as a neutral staffer in the process, though this record suggests she was an active player in working to keep partial-birth abortion legal."
Bill Saunders, senior legal council with AUL, warned this week that the memos reveal that Kagan could be "every bit as bad if not worse" than U.S. appeals court judge Diane Wood.
Wood, another name on Obama's supposed short list for the Supreme Court, had been widely considered the most radically pro-abortion of the choices. She opposed the partial-birth abortion ban, and authored the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals decision that sided with National Organization for Women's attempt to silence Scheidler and the Pro-Life Action League and other groups.
Saunders told LifeSiteNews.com that Kagan's abortion advocacy, in addition to her "over-the-top support for judicial activists" such as U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall and Israeli Chief Justice Aharon Barak, point to Kagan being a "very extreme" Supreme Court candidate. "Even where [Clinton] wanted to be a little bit moderate on partial-birth abortion, [Kagan] convinced him not to do that," he noted.
"She should be required to explain herself better than she has because her answers at the hearings just don't seem to line up with the record," he said.
A team of lawyers at Americans United for Life has compiled a comprehensive assessment of U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan as Obama's Supreme Court pick, the end result of a year's work evaluating available data.
Contact: Kathleen Gilbert Source: LifeSiteNews.com Date Published: July 16, 2010
Maryland will join Pennsylvania as the second state to use federal tax dollars to pay for abortions under the new health care law signed by President Barack Obama in March, according to information released by Maryland's State Health Insurance Plan.
Maryland will receive $85 million in federal funds for its federally mandated high-risk insurance pool, which will cover abortions. As CNSNews.com reported on July 14, Pennsylvania will receive $160 million in federal funds for its high-risk insurance pool, which will also cover abortions.
During the debate over the health-care bill, President Obama delivered a speech to a joint session of Congress, saying: "Under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions."
The day the House voted to pass that bill, President Obama also signed an executive order purporting to prevent federal funding of abortions in the programs it created.
Rep. Mike Pence (R.-Ind.), the chairman of the House Republican Conference, said Friday that the fact that Maryland will now use federal dollars to fund abortions under a program mandated by the health-care law signed by President Obama represents a "broken promise.
"This is one more example of a broken promise in ObamaCare," said Pence. "It is morally wrong to end an unborn human life and it is reprehensible to take taxpayer dollars from millions of pro-life Americans and use them to pay for abortions."
Pence urged Congress to enact new legislation to stop abortion funding through the health-care law.
"I call on Congress to act quickly on critical legislation by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA) to stop the administration from using ObamaCare to fund abortions."
In a July 7 press release, the sate of Maryland announced that it had reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to offer federally subsidized insurance plans to people with pre-existing conditions as mandated by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—the health-care law signed by President Obama in March.
Under the terms of that law, either HHS itself or state governments contracting with HHS must offer such plans in each of the 50 states to people with pre-existing conditions. These plans must operate until 2014 when all states are required under the law to run insurance exchanges that will offer federally subsidized insurance plans to state residents earning less than 400 percent of the poverty level.
Maryland said it will use its existing high-cost insurance pool--the Maryland Health Insurance Plan (MHIP)--to administer the federal high-risk plan, which it calls the MHIP Federal Plan.
The press release, issued by MHIP, said Maryland will receive $85 million in federal money to administer this plan and pay claims.
According to a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) fact sheet published by MHIP, its new Federal Plan will offer the same benefit package as its state-funded plans. "The MHIP Federal Plan offers the same benefit package as other MHIP plan options," that document states. All five of MHIP's plans cover abortion, including one plan that requires no co-pay if the abortion is performed at an out-patient abortion clinic, according information found on page 53 of the 2010 MHIP Certificate of Coverage.
Maryland's federally subsidized plan for people with pre-existing conditions will be available in September 2010.
Contact: Matt Cover Source: CNSNews.com Date Published: July 16, 2010
Attributes Increases to New Socio-Political and Theological Movements
As a result of increased attention due to January's earthquake crisis in Haiti and other external factors, Bethany Christian Services (www.Bethany.org), the nation's largest adoption agency, is seeing significant growth and interest in the U.S. adoption market, with overall international and domestic adoption placements up 26 percent over the same time period in 2009.
The organization is reporting Intercountry Adoption placements up 66 percent and Intercountry Adoption inquiries ahead by more than 5,000 requests during the same six month time period of 2009, totaling an unprecedented 10,567 inquiries. Bethany ascribes these increases in part to the Haiti crisis and the need to find safe homes for children who lost one or both parents during the earthquake.
Domestic Infant Adoption inquiries are also higher than in 2009 with 8,037 in the first half of 2010. Additionally, Infant Adoption Home Studies have increased 15 percent and formal Infant Adoption applications have increased 23 percent over 2009.
In addition to the Haiti crisis, Bethany attributes the increase in adoption to new movements within Christian churches, which are creating new attitudes for young couples. Bethany has been instrumental in bringing more families forward to adopt by partnering with organizations such as Catalyst, Saddleback Church, Q Conference, Southern Baptist Denomination, and Christian Alliance for Orphans.
"The figures Bethany released show strong improvement as we confront the global orphan crisis, but the need still remains as there are still an incredible number of orphaned children who wait for their 'forever family'," said Bill Blacquiere, president and CEO at Bethany Christian Services. "It is our vision that every child has a loving family, so we are working to find new families and identify supportive local communities. We all must contribute to take measurable and immediate action in order to find more families who can provide loving homes."
Bethany has been at the forefront of partnering with church leaders to support foster care, adoption, and orphan care programs within their ministries. Most recently, the Southern Baptist Convention announced a new Adoption Fund, which subsidizes the cost of adoption for pastors by $2,000. In addition, Rick Warren's Saddleback Civil Forum focused heavily on orphans and adoption and other popular conferences, such as Catalyst, Together for Adoption, the Christian Alliance for Orphans Summit and Adopting for Life, have put adoption at center stage.
Operation Rescue calls for an independent auditor in light of connections between Gov. Culver, Attorney General Miller and Planned Parenthood
Operation Rescue has filed a formal request with Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller for a state audit of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, (PPH).
A Governmental Accounting Office report issued in Washington, DC, on May 28, 2010, revealed that $2.3 billion dollars in taxpayer money has been doled out to Planned Parenthood organizations nationwide from 2002-2008, yet Planned Parenthood's own financial reports show that only $657.1 million has been spent. That leaves $1.8 billion dollars in tax funds with unaccounted for.
Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, based in Des Moines, Iowa, has been the recipient of Title X funds as well as money from other federal programs. Thousands of tax dollars have been disbursed directly to PPH through the Iowa Attorney General's office. It is likely that some of the missing $1.8 billion has made its way to Iowa.
"We believe the public has a right to know where their tax money is going. It is time that Planned Parenthood gives an account for the money that it has siphoned from hard-working taxpayers," said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman.
"We are especially concerned about possible misappropriation of funds after discovering that PPH is overbilling insurance companies for their remote-controlled abortion pill distribution scheme, known as telemed abortions."
Evidence of overbilling by a number of Planned Parenthood affiliates has surfaced in California, where a state audit discovered that Planned Parenthood of San Diego and Riverside Counties had overbilled the state $5,213,645.92 for birth control pills alone. A Federal whistleblower lawsuit filed by former Chief Financial Officer of Planned Parenthood of Los Angeles revealed that the state of California was overbilled for a total of $180 million by Planned Parenthood affiliates in that state.
"There is enough history of Planned Parenthood bilking taxpayers and other financial improprieties to justify this request for an audit of PPH," said Newman.
Operation Rescue released an investigative report on PPH's telemed abortion scheme in March, 2010, then filed a complaint concerning its dangers with the Iowa Board of Medicine the following month. That investigation is ongoing.
OR also filed a formal complaint with the Attorney General's office requesting a criminal investigation telemed abortions. Miller indicated that his office was unlikely to investigate. Operation Rescue then discovered connections between Miller and PPH, including a PPH abortionist who sits on one of Miller's advisory boards. In addition, Gov. Chet Culver, recently met with PPH officials and received their endorsement of his re-election campaign.
"In light of Miller's and Culver's connections with PPH, we are asking for an independent audit to be conducted by someone not associated, either personally or politically, with Miller or Culver," said Newman. "That is the only way the public can be assured of an honest accounting."
The Washington Board of Pharmacy is apparently going to revisit its regulation requiring every pharmacy to dispense all legal prescriptions. The controversy arose when a small pharmacy chain refused to dispense Plan B contraception based on the religious beliefs of the chain's owners and fears it could act as an abortifacient. To coerce the company into dispensing Plan B, the Board passed the regulation described above. The company sued and a trial court ruled that it violated the company's right to freedom of religion. The Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, claiming that as a general applicable regulation, it did not violate the 1st Amendment–ignoring, or better stated, knowing and not caring–that the only companies likely to oppose contraception dispensing would be owned by people with religious objections. Thus, based on the appeals court ruling, it appeared as if all conscience rights of pharmacies were to be quashed.
My concern had to do with lethal prescriptions for assisted suicide, legal in Washington. If pharmacies could be forced to dispense contraception based on the regulation, but also, drugs intended to kill. But now, the Pharmacy Board has decided to revisit the issue and agreed to revise the rule. From the story:
The state Board of Pharmacy and pharmacists suing it over Plan B want out of court. The litigants asked federal district court Judge Ronald Leighton last week to put their legal fight on hold pending the resolution of a new rule-making process. The move angered advocates of unfettered access to Plan B emergency contraception. They contend the delay signals an undoing of a 2007 victory: the passage of rules requiring pharmacists to dispense a drug unless another pharmacist is available in person or by phone to step in.
The pharmacy board voted last month to reopen the rule-making process to consider "facilitated referral," which is essentially the "refuse and refer" rule that the board embraced in 2006. Under that rule, pharmacists with moral objections to Plan B – some consider it tantamount to abortion because it prevents implantation of a fertilized egg – could refuse to dispense it as long as they took steps to help patients get it elsewhere.
That would still force pharmacies to be complicit in objectionable (to them) dispensing, and hence, I would prefer that the conscience rights of pharmacies be fully protected–with the condition that it publicly and clearly publicize and post signs in the stores which prescriptions it won't fill. In other words, a pharmacy that doesn't wish to participate in the killing of a patient in assisted suicide should not be forced to have anyblood on its hands–even if indirectly. Still, this is good news because it permits those in support of conscience to make their case and help craft a noncoercive approach to dispensing controversial drugs and medications.
An abortion can triple a woman's chances of contracting breast cancer, according to a study conducted in Sri Lanka.
The research, performed by scientists at the University of Colombo, showed abortion is the greatest reported risk factor for the disease, according to the Daily Mail in London. The study is the fourth in the last 14 months to demonstrate such a link, the newspaper reported June 24.
A cancer research organization in Great Britain criticized the study's size.
Joel Brind, a professor at New York University and an expert on the abortion-breast cancer link, said the sample of 100 women who have had breast cancer and 203 who have not, is "still a good study, just not quite as powerful. I would emphasize that it is typical of studies that have come out early in countries where breast cancer and abortion are not yet that common, like studies in the 1980s in China, Japan, Australia and even the U.S."
Though not all research has shown a connection between an abortion early in life and breast cancer later, there are more than two dozen peer-reviewed studies in various countries that have shown evidence of a link, according to the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer.
Contact: Tom Strode Source: Baptist Press Date Published: July 16, 2010
Republican Congressman Todd Akin and Democratic Congressman Gene Taylor have sent a letter signed by 180 members of Congress to House and Senate leadership urging them to eliminate language from the FY2011 Defense Authorization bill that would permit abortions on military bases.
"DoD medical facilities should remain focused on providing the best possible care for our military service members and their families, not providing abortion on demand," said Akin and Taylor.
The Blagojevich-appointed Democratic Senator Roland Burris offered an amendment to the FY2011 National Defense Authorization Act on May 27 that would permit abortions in domestic and overseas military facilities. It passed the Senate Armed Service Committee by a vote of 15-12.
The amendment would strike Section 1093(b) of Title 10 of the U.S. Code, which states that no facility of the department of defense may be used for an abortion except in cases of rape, incest, and risk to the life of the mother. The law has been in place since 1996.
Akin said that "at a time when we are engaged in two wars, it is unfortunate that Senator Burris has decided to insert this contentious issue into the DOD Authorization."
Akin has said that such a bill would demand that all taxpayers be co-conspirators in killing children through abortion.
Rep. Gene Taylor pointed out that in the past "military medical personnel firmly rejected previous efforts to turn our nation's military medical facilities into abortion clinics."
President Clinton signed a memorandum permitting abortions at military facilities in 1993.
Even before the current ban on abortion in military facilities was passed in response to the Clinton memorandum, military physicians commonly refused to perform or assist in elective abortions.
This led the administration to seek civilians who would do what military doctors would not. "If the Burris Amendment were enacted," the letter warns, "not only would taxpayer funded facilities be used to support abortion on demand, but resources could also be used to search for, hire, and transport new personnel simply so that abortions could be performed."
More importantly, the letter states that "military treatment centers - which are dedicated to healing and caring for life - should not facilitate the taking of the most innocent human life: a child in the womb."
A similar amendment was offered in the house in 2006, where it failed by a vote of 191-237. This amendment offered abortion only on overseas bases; the Burris Amendment is more expansive in allowing abortion on both domestic and overseas military bases.
The Defense Authorization bill passed by the House does not contain the language of the Burris Amendment. Senator Chris Smith has said that he does not expect the House to accept the bill if it returns from the Senate with the Burris Amendment.
"We will stand very firm," Smith has said. "I believe there will be an overwhelming vote in the House to keep our military hospitals as nurturing centers, not abortion mills."
A repeal of the military's ban on openly homosexual service members has also been attached to the FY2011 defense bill.
Contact: James Tillman Source: LifeSiteNews.com Date Published: July 14, 2010
