The move to declare a person a
"person" at all stages continues in Mississippi -- in spite of the
convincing defeat of a proposed constitutional amendment in November
that would have done exactly that.
A recent meeting with lawmakers in the
state capitol in Jackson dealt with proposed legislation to protect all
human life. Les Riley of Personhood Mississippi attended the meeting
and says one proposal before lawmakers will be the Adoption and Humane
Treatment of Human Embryos Act.
"Which will deal with embryonic
stem-cell research, human/animal hybrid bans, and things that the
pro-life movement didn't have to worry about 20 years ago [because]
they're now coming to fruition," he shares. "But [this act] also
provides the provision to make Mississippi the most embryo
adoption-friendly state in the nation."
In addition, legislation is being proposed to deal specifically with the life issue.
"We've proposed an amendment to the
legislature called the Life at Conception Amendment that basically
defines life as beginning at conception and specifically deals with the
objections that people had during the [recent personhood] campaign and
clarifies things."
During that campaign, opponents had
charged among other things that the amendment would ban in vitro
fertilization and birth control.
If the proposed bill does not pass the
state legislature, Riley says his group is fully prepared to again go
through the process of putting a constitutional amendment before voters
in the Magnolia State.
Contact: Charlie Butts
Source: OneNewsNow
Life Legal Defense Foundation Challenges Antagonistic Banners Lining City's Market Street in Violation of Code
It goes without saying that "politics
happen" -- but they should not happen on the taxpayer dime on lampposts
along Market Street in San Francisco. The Life Legal Defense Foundation
has challenged the City of San Francisco with a blatant violation of its
own city code. This month, inflammatory political statements promoting a
Ms. Magazine-initiated pro-abortion campaign now waft over foot and
auto traffic, as this municipal local marketing tool is abused, allowing
feminist rhetoric to take the place intended for promotion of farmers'
markets and neighborhood festivals.
The city regularly authorizes the
display of banners to promote "city-sponsored," "city-funded," or
"city-wide" events or "series of related events of interest to a
significant portion of the residents of San Francisco and/or tourists."
San Francisco does allow some non-event banners to be posted on
city-owned utility poles, but they are restricted to "city convention
facility banners" and "city neighborhood banners." A typical non-event
banner would be the non-controversial San Francisco State University
banners urging San Franciscans to "Support Public Higher Education: The
Future Depends On It."
The offending banners, issued by the
Trust Women Silver Ribbon Campaign, bear blatantly political statements,
including "U.S. Out of My Uterus," "Reproductive Rights are Human
Rights," and "San Francisco is Pro-Choice," slogans which are clearly
designed to provoke the ire of those who do not share the printed
sentiments. The authors of the Silver Ribbon Month website reference a
2011 pro-abortion Ms. Magazine blog as the impetus behind the project,
which is actually an event only in the virtual sense.
"The city minions who 'approved' these
illegal banners might have thought that the public would ignore the
challenge, but they are in error," said Dana Cody, Executive Director,
Life Legal Defense Foundation. "We also believe this puts a stick in the
eye of pro-life advocates who will be marching down Market Street on
January 21 for the annual March for Life."
Contact: Tom Ciesielka
Source: The Life Legal Defense Foundation
A watchdog group that speaks "the
truth about the Girl Scouts" has proof that the youth organization is
linked to Planned Parenthood.
Earlier this week, it was reported
that Renise Rodriguez, an employee for the Girl Scouts of Southern
Arizona, was ordered to turn her pro-life T-shirt inside out while she
was at the Tucson headquarters. She resigned because of the incident
that once again raises a question about the Girl Scouts' attitude on
sexuality and abortion. Christy Volanski, whose daughters co-founded
SpeakNowGirlScouts.com, says the Arizona group is linked to Planned
Parenthood.
"That group has a sex-ed program for
teens called 'Real Life. Real Talk,' and on the website of this Planned
Parenthood sex-ed program, there is a live link to Girl Scouts of
Southern Arizona because they are one of Planned Parenthood's partners
in that program," Volanski reports, noting that other regional councils
are also included.
Plus, the council is partnered with
other abortion rights advocacy groups, which is documented on its
website. And the Girl Scouts watchdog points out the problem with that
association.
"In my opinion, it promotes
promiscuity. They've distributed materials to children [that is]
considered to be pornographic by government agencies. Planned Parenthood
is basically grooming future abortion and birth-control clients," she
concludes.
Volanksi stresses that her daughters'
website lists a number of alternatives to the Girl Scouts that teach
Christian values, chief of which is American Heritage Girls.
Contact: Charlie Butts
Source: OneNewsNow
Adult Stem Cell Researchers Ask Federal Appeals Court to Reverse
District Court Ruling That Federal Law Does Not Ban Federal Funding of
Illegal, Unnecessary, and Unethical 'Research in Which' Human Embryos
are 'Knowingly Subjected to Risk of Injury or Death'
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia asked to reverse
federal district's ruling dismissing action to enjoin federal funding of
human embryonic stem cell research.
Today, on behalf of the adult stem researchers it represents, the
Jubilee Campaign's Law of Life Project and their co-counsel at the
Alliance Defense Fund and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, filed their
opening Appellants' Brief asking the United States Court of Appeals to
"reverse the district court's judgment in favor of Defendants, reverse
the grant of Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment and the denial of
[Appellants'] Motion for Summary Judgment, and remand with directions to
enter summary judgment for [Appellants]." Appellants argue that The
National Institutes of Health (NIH) Guidelines for funding human
embryonic stem-cell research "are invalid because they violate [the
federal law known as] the Dickey-Wicker Amendment" and because they were
promulgated in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.
Accordingly, Appellants argue that they -- "not Defendants -- are
entitled to summary judgment."
Appellants are appealing the United States District Court for the
District of Columbia's July 27, 2011, decision dismissing their
challenge to the Obama administration's unprecedented and unlawful
federal funding of destructive human embryo research. Appellants argue
that the district court erroneously interpreted and applied the Court of
Appeal's April 29, 2011, ruling vacating the district court's August
23, 2010, preliminary injunction of the NIH Guidelines that the Obama
Administration promulgated to permit the federal funding of "research in
which" human embryos are "knowingly subjected to risk of injury or
death." While again affirming the standing of adult stem-cell
researchers to challenge these regulations, the federal district court
dismissed the case saying that it had no choice under the "mandate rule"
but to follow the Court of Appeal's April 29 ruling that Congress' ban
on human embryonic research was written in a sufficiently "ambiguous"
fashion to ban the use of federal funds that risked the "injury or
death" of human embryos, but not the use of federal funds to do research
on the embryonic stem cells that were derived from such injury or
destruction. In the words of U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth
explaining his July 27 decision: "While it may be true that by following
the Court of Appeals' conclusion as to the ambiguity of 'research,' the
Court has become a grudging partner in a bout of 'linguistic jujitsu,'
Sherley, 2011 WL 1599685, at 22 (Henderson, J. dissenting), such is life
for an antepenultimate court."
The case began almost two years ago when, in response to President
Obama's March 9, 2009 Executive Order, the NIH published and noticed for
public comment regulatory guidelines allowing federal funds to be used
for the first time for the creation of new stem cell lines (hESC)
requiring the destruction of living human embryos. Before these
guidelines became law, the Law of Life Project's General Counsel, Sam
Casey, with his co-counsel Tom Hungar of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher,
representing the DO NO HARM Coalition, formally filed over 140 pages of
legal and scientific comments objecting to what many people saw as the
grossly irresponsible use of public funds to support research which is
illegal, unnecessary, and an unethical breach of long-standing
Congressionally-acknowledged principles barring such human subject
experimentation. When NIH patently ignored and prejudged these comments
and approximately 30,000 other comments opposing federal funding of
destructive human embryonic stem cell research, the ongoing legal action
was required.
LOLP's General Counsel, Sam Casey, who has been arguing the issues in
this case for more than a decade, said: "Each time grant-awarding
officials and federally funded scientists support or engage in hESC
research, living human embryos are 'knowingly subjected to risk of
injury or death,' in violation of the federal law known as the
Dickey-Wicker Amendment. The federally sponsored hESC research that the
Guidelines support inevitably creates a substantial risk -- indeed, a
virtual certainty -- that more human embryos will be destroyed in order
to derive more hESCs for misdirected research purposes at the unwilling
taxpayers' expense."
"The NIH chose to ignore both our DO NO HARM et. al. Comments, as well
as approximately 30,000 other comments -- 60% of those received in the
mandatory guideline review process -- which raised serious and highly
relevant questions about the ethics and scientific merits of human
embryonic stem cell research," said Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher partner,
Tom Hungar, Mr. Casey's co-counsel. Hungar added, "the challenged NIH
Guidelines clearly violate the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, but NIH's
decision to turn a blind eye to tens of thousands of comments
demonstrating that human embryonic stem cell research can't be justified
even under the government's own criteria means that the NIH's
guidelines were promulgated in violation of the Administrative Procedure
Act and must be struck down for that reason as well."
After the NIH took any real consideration of the merits of hESC research
"off the table" during its pre-ordained review process, effectively
pushing a very specific and controversial policy despite laws designed
to prevent exactly that action, the Law of Life Project and its
co-counsel were left with no recourse but direct litigation, and the
hope that the judicial system will ultimately rectify the injustice the
NIH continues to unlawfully perpetrate at the taxpayers' expense. Since
that time, after going to the Court of Appeals the first time in 2009
to establish their clients' "standing" to assert their claims, and a
second time in 2010 unsuccessfully defending a preliminary injunction
entered by the District Court on the strength of only the first of their
three claims for relief, Casey says, "the Law of Life Project now must
return to the Court of Appeals to respectfully ask it to give full
consideration to all of plaintiffs' arguments, including those that it
has not previously addressed. Given the legislative intent and legal
history involved in this case and the enormous destruction of human
embryonic life costing hundreds of millions of dollars Congress never
intended to permit in passing the Dickey-Wicker amendment banning such
expenditures, we have no choice but to now exhaust all of our judicial
remedies before returning to the Congress, if necessary."
Contact: Samuel B. Casey
Today, a three-judge panel of the
Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals lifted the preliminary injunction on
the Texas Sonogram Law on the grounds that the plaintiff did not have a
likelihood of winning their argument. The Texas Sonogram Law, that was
passed last year with the support of National Right to Life’s affiliate,
Texas Right to Life, ensures that abortionists display an ultrasound
image of the unborn child for the mother to view before an abortion
decision. Abortionists are further required to allow mothers to hear the
child’s heartbeat, and provide information about the development of the
unborn baby.
“This breakthrough decision from the
Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recognizes, in the words of the
Court, ‘the physicians obligations to display the sonogram images’ of
the unborn child before an abortion,” said Mary Spaulding Balch, J.D.,
director of state legislation for National Right to Life. “In practice,
an ultrasound law that does not require the ultrasound to be displayed
can become almost meaningless because virtually every abortion facility
will slip a waiver form into the stack of papers mothers are asked to
sign.”
In addition to Texas, both North
Carolina and Oklahoma have also passed measures requiring an abortionist
display an ultrasound image of the unborn child before an abortion.
Both laws have been challenged.
Writing the decision for the court,
Chief Judge Edith Jones clearly laid out the responsibility of the
abortion provider: “The woman seeking an abortion may elect not to
receive these images, sounds, or explanations. This election does not
obviate the physician’s obligations to display the sonogram images or
make audible the heart auscultation; the woman may simply choose not to
look or listen.”
Added Balch, “We commend the work of
Texas Right to Life for their hard work in ensuring that the abortionist
must display the ultrasound image of the unborn child for the mother.
Today, their tireless efforts have paid off, and we are so pleased by
this success.”
Source: National Right to Life
Two doctors running a secret abortion
clinic in Maryland are being charged with murder under the state’s fetal
homicide law for aborting babies that could have survived outside the
womb.
“This is a ground-breaking case that
could have implications across the nation,” said Troy Newman, president
of the pro-life group Operation Rescue.
Newman explained that the outcome “could blaze a legal trail that could eventually lead to major reforms in abortion laws.”
Doctors Steven C. Brigham of New Jersey and Nicola I. Riley of Utah were arrested on Dec. 28.
Brigham has been charged with five
counts of both first-degree and second-degree murder, while Riley faces
one count of each. Both physicians have also been charged with one count
of conspiracy to commit murder.
Brigham secretly ran a late-term
abortion clinic in Elkton, Maryland, despite not having a license to
practice in the state. He hired Riley to work with him.
After beginning late-term abortions in
his New Jersey office, Brigham would then move the laboring women to
Maryland – which has more permissive abortion clinic laws – to complete
the procedures.
Police who searched the Elkton abortion clinic said they found the remains of 35 aborted babies in a freezer.
Although late-term abortions are not
illegal in Maryland, a 2005 fetal homicide law allows the intentional
killing of a viable fetus to be prosecuted as murder.
While the law has previously been used
to prosecute those who beat or kill pregnant women, this appears to be
the first time it has been used against an abortionist.
Operation Rescue filed a complaint
against Brigham with the Elkton State Attorney after a teenage girl
suffered a ruptured uterus in a botched abortion in August, 2010.
The organization then launched grassroots efforts to ensure that the case would move forward.
An investigation conducted by
Operation Rescue revealed Riley’s criminal background and the fact that
both Brigham and Riley had previously lost their licenses to practice
medicine and had been banned from performing abortions in any state.
Brigham and Riley are both currently being held without bail as they await upcoming extradition hearings.
“We have worked for over a year to
make sure Brigham and Riley were brought to justice,” said Newman. “This
is a victory for the pro-life movement.”
Source: CNA
When a woman donates her eggs for one
purpose–to help another woman have a child–is it right and ethical to
instead use embryos made from her gametes for destructive research
without her knowledge or consent? A survey of IVF clinics has discovered
that this is precisely what is happening ubiquitously in the IVF
industry. From the Reuters story:
Many U.S. fertility clinics don’t tell
egg donors that embryos made from their eggs may end up being used in
stem cell research, according to a new government survey. That’s despite
widespread opposition to such research, which is considered morally
offensive by a third of Americans, researchers write in the journal
Fertility and Sterility.
They found that among 100 fertility
clinics, two said they didn’t have a consent form for women donating
eggs. Of the 66 clinics that sent in a consent form and said they used
excess embryos for research, just 20 told women about that. And only
three of 38 clinics that used some embryos for stem cell research in
particular disclosed that to donors. “The survey shows that only a
minority of IVF (in vitro fertilization) clinics mention to egg donors
who are donating for the sake of treatment (as opposed to research) that
resultant embryos might ultimately be used in research,” said study
co-author Gerald Owen Schaefer of the National Institutes of Health in
Bethesda, Maryland. “An even smaller minority mention stem cell research
explicitly.”
This is a profound violation of
trust. Women risk their health and future fertility–and in very rare
cases, lose their lives–to allow others to bear children. They have a
right to know if some of the embryos made from their eggs, which after
all, are their biological progeny, could instead be destroyed for an
instrumental purpose, an issue that could be material issue in the
decision of some to become donors. As the Center for Bioethics and
Culture’s movie Eggsploitation makes clear, too often egg donors (or
sellers) are seen by IVF clinics as mere means to an end. This is yet
another example.
Contact: Wesley J. Smith
Source: Secondhand Smoke
According to a pro-family group, most
parents don't know that many health organizations and schools are
offering websites and texting services to reach adolescents with
information about sex.
Smaller school budgets and other
factors have reportedly inspired the creation of sites and services like
Sex-Ed Loop or the Planned Parenthood-run text-chat program, ICYC (In
Case You're Curious). These texting and web services provide young users
with information on sexual acts, diseases, and contraception. While
critics say the information only promotes unsafe sex, advocates claim
research proves the contrary. Peter Sprigg of the Family Research
Council (FRC) says he is troubled by the fact they are set up to elude
parental scrutiny.
"Even beyond that, these sources of
information do not have the kind of oversight that schools might have,"
he notes. "Certainly we have problems with some of the sex education
that goes on in public schools, but at least there is a certain amount
of vetting that takes place there."
According to The New York Times,
Stephanie Cisneros, a Denver-area high school junior, likes ICYC because
of its "immediacy and confidentiality." But as Sprigg points out, it is
difficult, if not impossible, for parents to monitor this activity.
"If their children have their own
cell phone with texting capability, or particularly with Internet
capability, then I'm not sure they can protect them," he laments.
To counteract the barrage of risk
reduction-only messages, Valerie Huber of the National Abstinence
Education Association hopes her organization will kick off its own
online service by next year.
Contact: Bob Kellogg
Source: OneNewsNow
According to its latest annual report,
the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) received $487.4
million in tax dollars over a twelve-month period and performed 329,455
abortions.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards and President Barack Obama. (AP Photo)
In addition, the number of adoption referrals made by the organization continued to decline.
The latest annual report covers the
period from July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010, the PPFA’s fiscal year. The
report states that the organization received “government health services
grants and reimbursements” totaling $487.4 million.
Previous Planned Parenthood annual
reports showed total funding from “government grants and contracts”
(which were $363.2 million in 2009), while this year’s report also
accounts for payments from Medicaid managed care plans among the
payments the group receives from government .
When compared with previous annual
reports, the latest one shows an almost steady increase in the number of
abortions performed at its clinics: In 2006, Planned Parenthood did
289,750 abortions; in 2007, it did 305,310; in 2009, it did 331,796;
and, in 2010, it did 329,445--a small decrease from the previous year.
The annual report for fiscal year
2008-2009 does not include abortion or adoption figures, but a PPFA Fact
Sheet posted on its Web site and said to be current as of September
2010, states that 324,008 abortions were performed at Planned Parenthood
clinics around the country in 2008.
According to PPFA’s annual report for
fiscal year 2007-2008, in 2007 Planned Parenthood’s “adoption referrals
to other agencies” totaled 4,912. In Fiscal Year 2010 that number was
841, a decrease of 82.8 percent.
The PPFA Fact Sheet states that
adoption is included in 1 percent of services in 2008 (primary care and
“other services” are included in that 1 percent), or 2,405 adoption
referrals.
The latest annual report claims that
abortion services make up 3 percent of “medical services,” but PPFA
states it served 3 million people and performed 329,445 abortions –
numbers that show 11 percent of customers received an abortion.
The Fiscal Year 2009-2010 annual
report also shows that PPFA’s net assets as of June 30, 2010 topped $1
billion, specifically $1,009,600,000.00.
Planned Parenthood supporters at a rally in Philadelphia, Pa. (AP photo/Matt Rourke)
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of
the Susan B. Anthony List, a pro-life organization that lobbies Congress
to defund Planned Parenthood, called the organization an “abortion
giant.”
“With over a billion in net assets and
a business model centered on abortion and government subsidies, it is
time for Planned Parenthood to end its reliance on taxpayer dollars,”
Dannenfelser said in a statement. “Despite an unprecedented effort by
statewide and federal leaders to defund them, a wave of former employees
willing to testify against them, and uniform agreement amongst
Republican presidential candidates that they should be defunded, Planned
Parenthood continues full-steam ahead.”
“They are unwilling to answer to the pro-life American majority that wants out of this business,” Dannenfelser said.
As reported earlier by CNSNews.com, a
spokesperson with Planned Parenthood told Bloomberg’s Businessweek last
year that 90 percent of government funding the organization gets is from
the federal government or from Medicaid.
Contact: Penny Starr
Source: CNSNews.com
The owners of a Rockford, Ill.,
abortion clinic agreed to pay a $9,750 fine in order to resume doing
business in a settlement with the state health department today.
The Northern Illinois Women’s Center
had its license suspended last September, after the state found it
neither had admitting privileges at licensed hospitals nor an
experienced operating-room nurse on staff.
But the Thomas More Society, which
represents the Rockford Pro-Life Initiative, said in a Nov. 23 letter to
the health department the clinic owners were guilty of much more,
including maintaining unsanitary surgical equipment, allowing the
presence of dogs and rats and keeping shoddy records.
Though the clinic has since met the
health department’s standards, spokeswoman Melanie Arnold said today it
has no more room for error: Should NIWC repeat any of its previous
violations, its license will be revoked permanently.
“There’s also another option,” Arnold
said. “If the facility chooses to remain closed, it must surrender its
license to the Department of Public Health, but the fine will be reduced
to $1,000 because the risk of harm to the public is no longer there.”
Contact: Karla Dial
Source: CitizenLink
The Illinois Federation for Right to Life wishes you and your family a very blessed Christmas!
In order to help pro-life pilgrims
plan their trip for the upcoming national March for Life in Washington
D.C., below a list of events in and around D.C. Please check back
frequently as this list will be updated as more details become
available. If you know of an event that is not included on this list,
contact us here .
Saturday, January 21
Mass for Life - Georgetown University
5:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.
March for Life Convention
12:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m., 7:00 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Hyatt Regency Hotel, Washington D.C.
March for Life Youth Rally
7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Hyatt Regency Hotel, Washington D.C.
Regency Ballroom
Sunday, January 22:
Official March for Life Youth Conference
7pm-10pm
Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill
Cardinal O’Connor Conference on Life
8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Georgetown University, Washington D.C.
See full schedule.
March for Life Convention
8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Hyatt Regency Hotel, Washington D.C
Students for Life of America National Conference
8:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m.
North Bethesda Marriott
5701 Marinelli Road
Bethesda, Maryland 20852
March for Life White House Mini-Rally
3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Lafayette Park, Washington D.C.
Opening mass for National Prayer Vigil for Life
6:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.
Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, D.C.
All night prayer vigil to follow. See schedule for details.
Monday, January 23
Giant 2010 Youth Rally and Mass for Life
7:30 - 11:30 a.m.
Verizon Wireless Center - Washington, D.C.
Closing mass for National Prayer Vigil for Life
7:30 a.m.
Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington D.C.
National Memorial for the Preborn and Their Mothers and Fathers
8:00 – 10:30 a.m.
Capitol Hill Visitor’s Center – Rm. HVC-201
March for Life Convention
8:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m., 3:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Hyatt Regency Hotel, Washington D.C.
Lutherans for Life Worship Service
9:00 a.m.
Immanuel Lutheran Church
1801 Russell Rd.
Alexandria, VA 22301
Rally for Life
12:00 p.m.
National Mall and 7th Street
Washington D.C.
Ignatian Pro-Life Network March for Life Mass
9:30-11:00am
St. Aloysius Church 19 I (“Eye”) St NW, Washington, DC 20001
March for Life
1:30 p.m.
Washington D.C. National Mall
See details and route map.
National Pro-life Youth Rally
2:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Upper Senate Park, Washington D.C.
Silent No More Awareness Campaign - testimonies
4:00 p.m.
Steps of the Supreme Court, Washington D.C.
Immediately following the March women
from the Silent No More Awareness Campaign will be giving testimonies of
their experiences with abortion.
March for Life Rose Dinner
6:00 p.m.
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to Deliver Keynote Address
Hyatt Regency Hotel, Washington D.C.
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
For decades, a basic tenet of the
international population-control lobby has been that declining fertility
rates will generate a more stable international order. But according to
an impressive panel of scholars who have contributed to a new book,
this scenario of “geriatric peace” is untenably optimistic.
Population Decline and the Remaking of
Great Power Politics is a collection of nine research essays, published
by Potomac Books and edited by C-FAM senior vice president Susan
Yoshihara and C-FAM senior fellow Douglas Sylva. In the book’s foreword,
demographer and political economist Nicholas Eberstadt applauds its
contributors for tackling the “profound and as-yet unanswered questions”
associated with population decline and international politics.
The prevailing assumption that
relatively old countries are predisposed automatically to peace is not
historically defensible, as Population Decline and the Remaking of Great
Power Politics points out. In the last century relatively aged regimes
like Nazi Germany and Serbia in the 1990s were notable for their
aggression against younger neighbors, and in classical history
democratic Athens reacted to the demographic shock of a devastating
plague by initiating a series of costly and ill-judged military actions.
Population Decline and the Remaking of
Great Power Politics begins with three chapters, written by Phillip
Longman, James R. Holmes and Francis Sempa, that set forth an analytical
framework for assessing the interaction between geopolitics and
demographic decline. The rest of the book is devoted to case studies of
six key global actors: Russia, Europe and Japan, which are all wrestling
with below-replacement fertility rates; the rising Asian powers of
China and Japan, whose futures will be differentiated by strikingly
different demographic profiles; and the United States, whose
“demographic exceptionalism” makes it the only major developed power to
resist depopulation.
In Russia, births declined by a
stunning 50% during the period 1987–1999. Murray Feshbach analyzes the
effects of this baby blight in the context of military recruitment.
Exacerbated by the widespread incidence of HIV and tuberculosis, the
country’s severe shortage of fit young males “will lead to a more
tenuous situation in Russian society, including the military, than the
economic dimension would portend,” Feshbach predicts.
Japan has sought to ameliorate its own
demographic challenge by substituting high-tech weaponry for soldiers.
In the process, “the minimal defense capabilities that Japan should
retain as an independent nation have already been forfeited,” according
to one Japanese general. These limitations might also restrict Japan
from contributing effectively to regional military alliances. If so,
Toshi Yoshihara warns in his strategic analysis, this “could add
tremendous volatility to alliance politics and trigger competitive great
power dynamics at the regional level that could nevertheless have
global reverberations.”
Faced with similar demographic
constraints, Europe is seeking to exercise “soft power” (as opposed to
military and economic “hard power”) through its domination of
multilateral institutions, and also on continued high immigration.
Whether the multilateralist approach will be effective is entirely
unknown, Douglas Sylva notes, while Europe’s fertility rates are now so
low it would require an immigration influx far beyond what the continent
can accommodate.
Sylva suggests European policymakers
instead consider a radically different approach of trying to advantage
their own native-born “family-oriented women” to increase birth rates.
Writes Sylva, “Doing so, of course, would force Europe to abandon some
of its most cherished tenets of feminism and multiculturalism, a step
for which there is little evidence to suggest any European governments
are prepared to take, despite the geopolitical consequences.”
Contact: Tom McFeely
Source: C-FAM
Just in time for Christmas, NIH
Director Francis Collins has approved more human embryonic stem cell
lines for taxpayer funding, bringing the total number of hESC lines at
the federal trough to 142. Today’s approval is not all that
surprising–the four new lines, from the University of Queensland, were
recommended for approval by the Stem Cell Working Group at the December
9, 2011 meeting of the Director’s Advisory Committee. The Stem Cell
Working group had also voted not to approve six lines from China.
The four new hESC linies that have
been approved are not for clinical use, however. Subsequent to the
meeting and before the latest approvals, NIH also approved two other
hESC lines, from Mt. Sinai Hospital in Canada. Those two lines are also
restricted:
NIH-funded research with this line may
only be conducted at Mount Sinai Hospital and “other Canadian
laboratories affiliated with the Canadian Stem Cell Network for further
research or potential clinical use.”
In the meantime, the current and future patient benefits of adult stem cells continue to be ignored.
Contact: David Prentice
Source: FRC Blog
Funding for abstinence education has
returned to the federal budget in the spending bill passed by Congress
and signed by President Obama.
The $1 trillion budget, which staves
off another potential government shutdown, allocates $5 million for
abstinence-based Sexual Risk Avoidance (SRA) programs that were slashed
by the Obama administration beginning in 2009.
Valerie Huber, executive director of
the National Abstinence Education Association, told the Focus on the
Family-affiliate CitizenLink that the restoration of funding is a "step
in the right direction."
Abstinence-only education has been
under fire by critics who argue that it is ineffective and leaves teens
at greater risk of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases if they
engage in sex. Advocates for abstinence education, meanwhile, point to
new evidence suggesting their programs are having a positive impact.
A Feb. 1, 2010, study published in the
Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine measured the
effectiveness of abstinence-only education versus "safe sex" and
"comprehensive" sex education by assigning high-risk students to one of
the three programs. The study indicated that abstinence-only education
was more effective in convincing students to refrain from sex.
Additionally, students in the abstinence program were no less likely to
use condoms if they did have sex, disputing a key argument of
abstinence-only opponents.
A March 3 report by the Centers for
Disease Control (CDC) showed that more men and women ages 15-24 have
never had a sexual encounter. The percentage of men who remained
sexually pure increased from 22 to 27 percent, while the percentage of
women rose from 22 to 29 percent. The study also indicated that 53
percent of boys and 58 percent of girls ages 15-17 had never had sexual
contact.
Even mainstream media outlets gave
some credit to abstinence education. "The data renders null and void the
'abstinence is unrealistic' claims made by anti-abstinence advocacy
groups," Huber told Baptist Press regarding the CDC study.
Despite new evidence for the
effectiveness of abstinence education, Huber told CitizenLink that
"comprehensive" condom-based sex education still receives 20 times the
funding of abstinence education in the federal budget.
"So we are a long way from parity,"
Huber said. "But it's definitely a step in the right direction. The
important thing that we were really working to see accomplished this
year was for abstinence education to be re-established as federal
sex-education policy."
Contact: John Evans
Source: Baptist Press
After meeting with a group of Catholic bishops on December 17, Illinois
Governor Pat Quinn told reporters that the discussion had been friendly
and the prelates had spoken “only a little bit” about the Catholic
political leader’s support for legal abortion. But the Illinois bishops
quick responded with a statement taking issue with that report.
Governor Quinn reported that he had spent most of his time with the
bishops talking about “how we could work together to fight poverty.” The
bishops, while commending Quinn’s concern for the poor, said that the
meeting was “between pastors and a member of the Church to discuss the
principles of faith, not the works of faith.”
“As Catholic pastors, we wanted to remind the Governor that conscience,
while always free, is properly formed in harmony with the tradition of
the Church,” the bishops stated. Noting that Quinn has claimed that his
support for legal abortion is prompted by his Catholic faith, the
bishops continued:
A personal conscience that is not consistent with authentic Catholic
teaching is not a Catholic conscience. The Catholic faith cannot be used
to justify positions contrary to the faith itself.
Source: CNA
With the release of the Illinois abortion statistics for 2010, we learn that abortions have fallen in Illinois to the lowest level since 1973 at 41,859, better than the previous low of 42,228 in 2003. Even in the counties near the Planned Parenthood abortion fortress in Aurora, IL, abortions fell for 2010 compared to 2009. However, for residents of the six counties most affected by the Aurora abortion facility (Cook, DeKalb, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, and Will), abortions in 2010 were still higher by 10% overall compared to 2007. The 2010 Illinois abortion total of 41,859 compares to 46,077 for 2009, which is a 9% decrease. Abortions fell for residents of most counties and for all age groups. Fortunately, abortions committed on women from other states also fell by 16%, but with abortions on women of unknown residence falling from 1,146 to 187, abortions on out-of-state women may have fallen much more. These statistics are good news. The only concern comes from a June 16, 2011 Chicago Tribune article on "reporting gaps" in Illinois abortion records. That report revealed that for 2008, Illinois statistics show 47,717 abortions, but Guttmacher shows 54,920 Illinois abortions. This difference suggests that at least 7,203 abortions were not reported to the state that year. How many abortions were not reported to the state for 2010? We hope under-reporting has not been increasing! Contact: Illinois Right to Life Source: Illinois Review
A $662 billion omnibus spending bill passed by Congress Wednesday night contains $5 million for abstinence education programs. In 2009, the Obama administration slashed community-based sexual risk avoidance (SRA) programs from the federal budget — giving comprehensive, condom-based sex education programs $16 for every $1 spent on abstinence education. "We are very pleased that Congress has chosen to redress a real problem in sex-education policy by re-establishing abstinence education as a program for America's teens," said Valerie Huber, president of the National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA). But it's only the first step in the right direction. "This funding of five million dollars is contrasted against about 100 million dollars in the budget for contraceptive sex education," she said. "So we are a long way from parity. But it's definitely a step in the right direction. The important thing that we were really working to see accomplished this year was for abstinence education to be re-established as federal sex-education policy." The bad news is that the bill also contains $297 million for Title X, the main federal funding stream for Planned Parenthood. The House version aimed to completely defund the group, but the Senate version wanted to give it $299 million. And with a Friday passage deadline looming, some legislators are playing hardball to get their way on other measures. One of those is the reauthorization of the International Religious Freedom Commission — the only independent agency which advises the U.S. State Department on issues of religious persecution around the world. The agency has been granted one temporary reprieve after another over the last few months, and was set to expire for good Friday if legislators didn't come to an agreement. At the last minute, lawmakers passed a stand-alone bill to reauthorize USCIRF for one year, adding an amendment by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., limiting the nine commissioners to two two-year terms apiece. That means the Commission will have seven vacancies in 2012. The omnibus also contains language banning any federal funding from being used in the District of Columbia to subsidize abortions, but the Obama administration is leaning hard on legislators to take it out. Capitol Hill insiders said the White House "is serious about its threat to shut down the federal government over the D.C. abortion ban," Contact: Karla Dial Source: CitizenLink
That's right! The IFRL is making plans to move the business office from Alton, Illinois to Springfield, Illinois.We anticipate that the moving process will take several weeks and we ask for your patience if we are delayed in responding to your calls and letters. Be assured that your communication is always appreciated and important to us. We will do our best to respond to you as promptly as possible. So please do not hesitate to continue to contact us during this time of transition.For current information you can always visit our website at www.ifrl.org which is updated daily with new information and action alerts and you can keep informed on all our news by subscribing to our weekly newsletter.Thank you, Illinois Federation for Right to Life
