Bill Supporting Abstinence Education Funding Heads to White House

Both chambers of Congress have approved legislation that would fund the nation’s largest abstinence education program — the same one President Obama tried to stop.

“Despite the president’s desire to see abstinence programs completely eliminated, we are pleased that the Senate has voted to continue this important program,” said National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA) President Valerie Huber. “We are especially pleased that bipartisan support has made the continuation of this valuable program possible.”

Obama proposed a budget earlier this month that would have eliminated funding for all such programs — also called sexual risk avoidance (SRA) programs.

H.R. 4302, passed by the Senate on Monday, extends funding through fiscal year 2015. The same bill also extends a Sexual Risk Reduction effort.

Research shows such programs are more effective, according to NAEA. Students are more likely to delay sex than their peers — if they are sexually active — and are more likely to discontinue sex or have fewer partners.

And parents, overall, favor the abstinence education approach, Huber explained.

“They recognize that it is much more than a ‘Just Say No’ approach,” she said. “SRA abstinence education reaches youth where they live and addresses issues they are concerned about. Parents don’t want their children to have a false sense of security from those who equate ‘safe sex’ with a condom or who make teen sex seem inevitable and risk-free. Parents want the best health outcomes for their children, so it is no surprise that they favor sexual risk avoidance programs.”

On the other hand, comprehensive sex education programs teach “several harmful and disturbing themes,” according to NAEA. Some of these include:

• Overstated, exaggerated claims of condom usage rates and effectiveness
• Inaccurate suggestions that “abstinence” and “safe” sex are equally safe and healthy choices
• Presentation of sexually explicit and other inappropriate content

NAEA thanked Senate leadership for passing the bill, especially Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, and Ranking Member Orrin Hatch, a Republican from Utah, “for leading the efforts to continue this proven and holistic risk avoidance approach.”

“We are especially grateful for political leaders,” Huber said, “who are able to transcend differences to do what is truly in the best interest of our nation’s youth.”

TAKE ACTION
Urge President Obama to sign legislation that would that fund the nation’s largest abstinence education program.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

(Editor’s Note: The reauthorization of the abstinence program was included in the Senate passage of the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014.)
Learn more about H.R. 4302.

Read “The National Abstinence Education Foundation Releases Abstinence Works.”

Read “What so-called ‘Comprehensive’ Sex Education Teaches to America’s Youth.”

POLST's Potential for Abuse

With the growing technocracy in medicine, it becomes increasingly difficult for patients to have actual control over their own care. Everything has become so (expletive deleted) arcane! Mind numbing, which is very dangerous because there is great potential for abuse in them-thar hills.

Take the POLST, which stands for Physician Order for Life Sustaining Treatment. This is a document placed in the patient’s chart that directs the medical team how to care for a patient in the event of a life-threatening circumstance.

POLST is different from an advance directive, such as the durable power of attorney for health care. But it is supposed to reflect patient or surrogate desires,and thus, be consistent with the AD. But if the POLST contradicts the AD, its instructions may be carried out instead of what a patient directed in his or her AD.

POLSTs follow the patient if he or she changes care/treating institutions. That means a mistake made in hospital A follows the patient to nursing home B.

POLST forms do not expire, and thus they can bind a patient years after signing,even if they no longer reflect patient desires.

California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform has published an important white paper that should be pondered by anyone with a loved on in a nursing home or hospital. Since I think these findings may not be exclusive to California, I share afew highlights with you here:

1. Virtually anyone (in CA) can sign a POLST form–it doesn’t necessarily have to be the patient, closest family member, or appointed surrogate. The potential for abuse is obvious.

2.The (CA) law does not require POLST orders to be compared with a patient’s advance directive to assure they are consistent. That means a POLST order could require care a patient does not want, or more likely, visa versa.

3.POLSTs are not mandatory, but 73% of patients were often or always told that they are, and apparently, there are reports of manipulation of patient “choices.”

4. Non-health care professionals often fill out the POLST forms contrary to law. That’s a problem:

In long-term care facilities, a staggering 57% of all POLSTs are believed to be completed by non-health care professionals such as admission coordinators and business managers. While these persons may possess some basic knowledge of health care, they are not experts in medicine and the issues of end-of-life care. Thus, many important choices on the form and their implications may be inaccurately explained or not explained at all, leading to violations of patients’ basic rights to give informed consent prior to medical treatment.

5. This part is also really scary: Apparently POLST orders have been signed by family members even though the patient was competent! 

One Long-term Care Ombudsman in Los Angeles reports that multiple nursing homes have a standard practice of having POLSTs signed by resident family members, regardless of whether the resident has capacity to make health care decisions. This observation is reinforced by the fact that 59% of surveyed Ombudsman found that POLSTs were signed by third parties, even when the resident had capacity, “often” or “sometimes.”

Think of a family member whose potential inheritance is being drained by the costs of care. Or, a family member with a different good faith perspective than the patient. If they sign a POLST, their views– instead of the patient’s–will be followed.

I know this is eye-glazing but attention must be paid!

I was the named health care surrogate for my late aunt. I was offered a POLST to sign–and did. But I required that I be called before life-impacting decisions were made in almost all circumstances–DNR excepted, per her expressed AD wishes. In that way, I retained control to react to actual circumstances. That approach worked out very well for my aunt as she was dying.

Just a suggestion, but if you are a surrogate and asked to sign a POLST, you consider doing likewise. The life you save may be that of someone you love.

For more information on POLSTs than I can give here, see this fact sheet from the always elucidating Patients Rights Council.

By Wesley J. Smith, National Review

Nine Years ago today Terri Schiavo died after 13 days without food and water

Terri Schindler Schiavo, shown here as she responds to the tender touch of her mother, Mary Schindler.

Today is the ninth anniversary of the grotesque death by starvation and dehydration of Terri Schindler Schiavo. The foundation established by her family, the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network, is holding a Mass for her today at the Chapel of the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter & Paul in Philadelphia. The mass will be celebrated by the great pro-life hero Archbishop Charles Chaput, Archbishop of the Diocese of Philadelphia.

I would like to use this somber again to update comments I’ve made about Terri and her brave parents and siblings. As you will see when I looked at Terri, I could never get another death by starvation out of my heart and mind.

When your life revolves around trying to stem the anti-life tide that has swept away 56 million unborn lives, you might think that the power of individuals cases—instances where the fate of one human life hangs in the balance—would be diminished. You would be wrong.

I had been at National Right to Life only few months when the case of an Indiana baby—“Baby Doe”—became a topic of intense debate. As the letter to the Movement that we reprint from President Reagan explained, when this little boy was born in 1982, he needed only routine surgery to unblock his esophagus which would allow him to eat. Except Baby Doe had Down syndrome.

“[A] doctor testified, and a judge concurred, that even with the physical problem corrected, Baby Doe would have a ‘non-existent’ possibility for a ‘minimally adequate life,’” the President wrote back in 1984. “The judge let Baby Doe starve and die, and the Indiana Supreme Court sanctioned his decision.”

As I wrote at the time,

“Up until the time that tiny newborn baby died of starvation I took my pro-life commitment very seriously but impersonally. Baby Doe’s unnecessary death forever changed that for me, and I’m sure for many others as well.”

I did not learn of Baby Doe’s plight until near the very end of his very brief life. That was not the case with Terri Schindler Schiavo. When Terri died on March 31, 2005, having been denied nourishment for 13 agonizing day, the 41-year-old’s starvation death brought to an end—in one sense, at least—a tumultuous, eleven-year battle between the Schindler family and Terri’s estranged husband.

The Schindler family waged their courageous fight in multiple courts, in the Florida legislature, in the halls of Congress, until January 24, 2005, when the United States Supreme Court rejected an appeal from Florida’s then Governor Jeb Bush. The justices refused to reinstate “Terri’s Law.” The law had been passed by the Florida legislature in an emergency session in October of 2003, signed into law by Gov. Bush, and protected Terri Schindler-Schiavo from a painful death by starvation and dehydration.

It is enough to say that if, as the saying goes, truth is “the first casualty in war,” then long before the campaign to starve and dehydrate Terri to death succeeded, all the important details had been thoroughly distorted. Virtually nothing—her true medical condition (Terri was falsely described as being a “persistent vegetative state” and/or “brain dead”), what she alleged would have “wanted” (to die this horrible death), her condition after 11 days (described by her estranged husband’s attorney as “peaceful,” “beautiful,” and/or “free of pain”)—was within hailing distance of the truth.

Terri’s memory lives on in the work of the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network (www.lifeandhope.com).

Maybe the best way to end these remarks is to quote from pro-life President George W. Bush who worked hard on the Schindler family’s behalf.

“The essence of civilization,” he said, “is that the strong have a duty to protect the weak.”

By Dave Andrusko, NRL News

Rep. Chris Smith: Obamacare's "attack on religious freedom is no accident"

Editor’s note. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), co-chair of the House Bipartisan ProLife Caucus, issued the following statement regarding the U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments in the religious freedom cases of Sebelius, Sec. of H&HS v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius, Sec. of H&HS.

Washington, D.C.–

Cong. Chris Smith (R-NJ)

I am grateful that the Supreme Court took up this critical case for religious liberty, and I am hopeful that the Court will provide much needed relief from this discriminatory Obamacare policy.

Under the Obama administration’s coercive mandate, family-owned businesses like Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood have found themselves in the impossible position of being forced to violate their moral or religious beliefs, or face crippling fines. And this not only puts businesses at serious and unnecessary risk, but also employees who may lose their jobs and their healthcare.

It is the height of hypocrisy for the Obama administration to coerce family businesses that provide generous healthcare for their employees into a situation that may force them to close. The Obamacare financial penalties are draconian, egregious and without precedent in U.S. law. Under Obamacare, a family business that does provide healthcare for its employees, like Hobby Lobby, but objects to covering certain drugs and services will be fined up to $36,500 per year per employee. That’s outrageous. For the Greene family of Hobby Lobby, this could amount to nearly half a billion dollars in fines per year.

I would note parenthetically that a company that does not provide any health insurance whatsoever for their employees will be fined $2000 per year per employee, an unfair burden to be sure but far less than $36,500 per year per employee if they refuse to include certain drugs or devices that violate their moral or religious tenants. For the Greene family of Hobby Lobby, dumping their existing healthcare coverage for employees could result in fines of up to $26 million per year or potentially $448.5 million less in fines than if they actually provided health insurance.

This burdensome penalty is completely unfair, unreasonable, and unconscionable. The Obama administration is saying we will punish you, we will hurt you, we could even put you out of business for providing healthcare for your employees unless you provide healthcare according to the government’s conscience. Also, employees currently on their businesses health plan could lose the coverage they need for themselves and their families. Secretary Sebelius and President Obama have no business imposing their morality on people of faith, but that is exactly what their oppressive mandate does.

The Supreme Court has a duty to protect the religious and conscience rights of the Greens and the Hahns [owners of Conestoga Wood] and everyone else suffering government imposed harm. The U.S. high court must act to protect the First Amendment rights of these families. Protecting them also protects their employees from the dire, foolish, and unprecedented consequences of the Obamacare mandate.

And let’s make no mistake about it, this mandate is very much Obama’s willful intention. The imposition of this attack on religious freedom is no accident. It comes straight from the pages of Obamacare. In December of 2009, in the run up to the passage of Obamacare, Senator Mikulski offered an amendment which provided the authorizing language for this oppressive mandate. When President Obama spoke at Notre Dame University (also currently suing over the mandate) in 2009, he spoke about drafting a “sensible conscience clause” – and yet, today, protection of conscience is another highly visible broken promise of Obamacare.

To tell people that their conscience is irrelevant and that they must follow the federal government’s conscience rather than their own is completely antithetical to the American principle of freedom of religion and the first amendment. Unless reversed, Obama’s attack on conscience rights will result in government-imposed discrimination against those that seek to live according to their faith. Under the weight of the mandate’s ruinous fines and penalties many businesses could be forced to shut down, eliminating jobs. I never would have believed this kind of religious violation could occur in the United State. The Supreme Court must end this abuse.

By Cong. Chris Smith

Pro-lifers worldwide celebrate International Day of the Unborn Child

Pro-life communities and communities of faith around the world observed the International Day of the Unborn Child on March 25th.

The observance was to recognize the need to protect and care for expectant mothers and their unborn children.

The first official declaration recognizing a “Day of the Right to Be Born” came in El Salvador in 1993. The first “Day of the Unborn” was officially recognized in Argentina. Then-president of Argentina, Carlos Menem, established it in an effort to fulfill a promise that he had made to Pope John Paul II.

This celebration of life had its earliest beginnings in individual faith communities. Many priests and parishes saw the natural relationship between March 25th and the unborn child. The Feast of the Annunciation, on March 25th, celebrates the moment when the angel Gabriel announced to the Virgin Mary that she would be the mother of Jesus Christ. This was seen as a day to draw attention to life in the womb.

Today marks the first time the nation of Chile is officially celebrating March 25 as the Day of the Unborn Child.

Over the years, the international pro-life community in various countries has embraced the day as a time to recognize not only the humanity of the unborn child but also the inherent dignity of all human life.

In some countries, the day is designated by the Catholic Church and, in others, it is officially acknowledged by the government.

Countries all across the globe participate. In 2002, Peru’s Congress designated March 25th as the “Day of the Unborn” and Ecuador proclaimed March 25th as the “Day of the Unborn” in 2006.

On the other side of the world, the Philippines designated it as a day to remember the unborn through a presidential proclamation in 2004. Spain recognizes it as the “International Day of the Unborn.”

Organizations and groups such as the Knights of Columbus and Priests for Life also recognize the day in an official capacity. The Knights of Columbus passed a resolution in 2002 proclaiming the day as the Day of the Unborn Child.

In a written statement, Carl Anderson, the Supreme Knight ,said, “May this day be the occasion for all of us to witness to the sanctity of God’s great gift of life and to further resolve to protect and defend it.”

But why should it be necessary to recognize a day to celebrate the life of the unborn child?

Tragically, there are still too many abortions here in the United States and around the world. The Obama administration has pushed an agenda that promotes abortion in broad and sweeping actions. While the number of abortions in the U.S. in recent years has decreased, there are still over a million lives lost each year! Since the 1973 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court legalizing abortion on demand, there have been over 56 million abortions performed in the United States.

Proclaiming an International Day of the Unborn Child gives the pro-life community around the world an opportunity to promote a Culture of Life and educate fellow citizens about the beauty and dignity of the unborn child.

In some communities, pro-life groups hold prayer services or vigils; some people may attend a special Mass or Rosary service. Others may participate in fundraising for local crisis pregnancy centers.

In recognition of Argentina’s declaration in 1999, Pope John Paul II sent a statement to Argentinian President Menem that included the following:

“The Catholic Church sees in the attacks against human life a grave offense against the Creator (cf. Gaudium et Spes). In this sense, I have not spared any efforts in proclaiming the value and inviolable character of life…I express my best wishes that the celebration of ‘The Day of the Unborn Child’ will favor a positive choice in favor of life and the development of a culture in this direction which will assure the promotion of human dignity in every situation.”

Technology has given us the ability to see into the womb, science tells us the unborn child can feel pain, and medicine treats the unborn child as a separate patient. As the pro-life movement promotes the International Day of the Unborn Child, the reality of life in the womb is being fostered in our communities.

Through this, the work to create a culture that embraces the humanity of the unborn child and the value of human life is being carried out all over the globe.

By Laura Echevarria, NRL News

Read the transcript from the oral arguments on the Obama Mandate and see the frightful place the mandate's logic takes us

Hobby Lobby co-founders David Green and Barbara Green

I had a chance this afternoon to read the entire 100+page transcript from Tuesday’s widely anticipated Supreme Court oral arguments in which the justices heard an extremely thoughtful challenge to the HHS mandate which compels employers to provide health coverage for drugs and procedures to which they have moral or religious objections.

We’ve commented previously on the 90-minute back and forth on “Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby” and “Conestoga Wood v. Sebelius” (nrlc.cc/1iBhOKX and nrlc.cc/QgOVKJ), so this post will be more of a series of hopefully informed impressions.

I suppose it’s fairly common, but the lawyer for the plaintiffs had not completed his second sentence before former Solicitor General Paul Clement was interrupted by Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Her line of questioning was one she (and other justices, particular Elena Kagan) used as a kind of moat to try to separate the Obama mandate from Clement’s extremely effective attacks.

In a word if Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood can successfully argue a religious objection, then (in Justice Kagan’s words) “you would see religious objectors come out of the woodwork.”

As he always is in front of the justices, Clement was unflappable. Each case is different, he argued, and the “parade of horribles” offered up by the government is hypothetical and unconvincing.

The justices who favored the Obama mandate kept trying to find some irresolvable scenario that would force Clement to back off. Each one they offered—including what happens if a single stockholder in a company does not have a religious objection to providing health coverage for a particular drug or procedures –-Clement provided a perfectly rational, acceptable answer to.

You had to feel sorry (sort of) for Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, who is not nearly as quick on his feet as Clement is. (Every time he sai he wanted to “walk” the justices through a particular point, he stumbled.)

He made it to his third sentence before Chief Justice John Roberts politely asked if Verrilli’s opening words weren’t “inconsistent with RFRA,” the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was at the core of the defense relied on by the plaintiffs.

Understandably a debate on what the RFRA meant/means took up a lot of time.

Verrilli had the unenviable task of trying to demonstrate that the government had a “compelling state interest” in requiring what Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood opposed providing, given the many exemptions the Obama administration had provided. Verrilli had a particularly difficult time with the “grandfathering” clause [allowing people to hold onto old insurance policies that don’t meet the new ObamaCare requirements], both explaining why it was used and predicting when (in the foreseeable future) it might expire.

As the Los Angeles Times’ Jon Healey described the exchange, “As [Chief Justice John] Roberts noted, there’s no date certain for grandfathered plans to be eliminated. In theory, they could continue until all of their current holders reach retirement age and switch to Medicare.”

This intersected with the question of why mandating the services Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood objected to furthered “a compelling governmental interest.” As Healey put it (summarizing a line of questioning from Justices Roberts and Samuel Alito), “If it’s so compelling to require employers’ health plans” to include this coverage, “why did the Affordable Care Act allow people to hold on to ‘grandfathered’ plans that didn’t include the coverage?”

There was one other very important point begun with question from Justice Alito: “What about the implications of saying that no for-profit corporation can raise any sort of free exercise claim at all and nobody associated with the for-profit corporation can raise any sort of free exercise claim at all,” which is the government’s position.

What about abortion? Justice Anthony Kennedy put it this way:

“Under your view, a profit corporation could be forced — in principle, there are some statutes on the books now which would prevent it, nut — could be forced in principle to pay for abortion.”

Verrilli responded:

“Well, I think that if it were for a for­ profit corporation and if such a law like that were enacted, then you’re right, under our theory that the for­ profit corporation wouldn’t have an ability to sue. But there is no law like that on the books.”

In the four minutes he was given in rebuttal time, Clement picked up on Verrilli’s less than sterling response. Clement said

“Let me start with the Abortion Conscious Clause, because it tells you something about where Congress has drawn the line and it tells you the consequences of the government’s position. Historically, those conscience provisions have applied to all medical providers, including for-profit medical providers. But we learned today that as far as the government’s concerned, that’s just Congress’ judgment. If Congress changes its judgment and says that a for-profit medical provider has to provide an abortion, RFRA doesn’t apply. That, with all due respect, cannot be what Congress had in mind when it passed RFRA.”

By Dave Andrusko, NRL News

Pope Francis, President Obama meet at Vatican

Not to be overly cynical, but if I was President Obama (with every kind of approval index mired in the high 30s and low 40s), I know I would like to bask in the reflected glow of Pope Francis, whose popularity is double that of the beleaguered President.

So far not a lot has come out about the 52-minute meeting Thursday between Pope Francis and President Obama. Mr. Obama expressed his appreciation for the meeting, the first with Pope Francis and the second the President has had with a Pope. (The first was with Pope Benedict XVI in 2009, “a cordial meeting that nevertheless drew attention to the differences between the church and Obama on abortion,” as Fox News noted.)

“I was grateful to have the opportunity to speak with him about the responsibilities that we all share to care for the least of these, the poor, the excluded,” Obama said today. “And I was extremely moved by his insights about the importance of us all having a moral perspective on world problems and not simply thinking in terms of our own narrow self-interests.”

The Vatican put out a brief statement. “Views were exchanged on some current international themes,” the statement read. “[T]here was a discussion on questions of particular relevance for the Church in that country, such as the exercise of the rights to religious freedom, life and conscientious objection, as well as the issue of immigration reform.”

Other accounts, such as Doyle McManus for the Los Angeles Times and John Allen for the Boston Globe, both read between the lines and reminded readers that there are serious differences between this Administration and Rome.

Allen, for example reminded us that “Aside from the broad clash between Obama’s support for abortion rights and the Catholic church’s opposition,” the meeting at the Vatican comes two days after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two lawsuits challenging the Obama mandate that compels employers to provide health coverage for drugs and procedures , including contraceptives, to which they have moral or religious objections.

“Sharp differences on that score still loom over the administration’s relationship with the church,” Allen reported.

McManus noted that just as Obama gave an interview with a newspaper in Rome prior to the meeting, so, too, did the Vatican media office issue a statement before the Pope and the President met. It noted that the two men were meeting during “a complex phase of the administration’s relations with the Church of the United States, marked, in particular, by controversy on the implementation of health care reform (the ‘Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,’ commonly known as ‘Obamacare’)…”

Of the stories I read, only McManus noted the significance of Pope’s parting gift to the President: “a bound copy of his 2013 letter to the faithful, ‘The Joy of the Gospel’ — the one that became famous for its critique of trickle-down economics.”

McManus wrote that Obama said, “I actually will probably read this in the Oval Office when I’m deeply frustrated,” and added, “I’m sure it will give me strength and calm me down.”

But “If the president actually does read the pontiff’s letter, he’ll find that though it’s joyful, it isn’t always comforting,” McManus observed. “[T]here’s also a strong reminder that the church still believes that there are ‘objective moral norms which are valid for everyone.’ And there’s a full-throated defense of traditional Catholic teaching on abortion, which Francis complains is too often criticized as ‘ideological, obscurantist and conservative.’”

He then quotes from what Pope Francis wrote in “The Joy of the Gospel”:

“This defense of unborn life is closely linked to the defense of each and every other human right,” the pope argues. “Once this conviction disappears, so do solid and lasting foundations for the defense of human rights, which would always be subject to the passing whims of the powers that be.”

By Dave Andrusko, NRL News

Jimmy Carter Equates Sex-Selection Abortion With Murder of Babies

Television history was made when a guest on “Late Show with David Letterman,” for quite possibly the first and last time, used the words “murdered” and “aborted” in the same sentence.

The person doing the talking was former president Jimmy Carter, who’s making the rounds to plug his new book, “A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence and Power.”

Follow this link to view the video: http://www.mrctv.org/videos/jimmy-carter-sex-selection-abortion-akin-murder-newborns

Any conservative saying what Carter said, which was profoundly disturbing, would be immediately condemned by the left as an extremist –

LETTERMAN: Things are contained in this book that I was completely ignorant about and am stunned by what I know of what is covered here. What, what is the source of this, the abuse of women, essential slavery, human trafficking, on and on?

CARTER: Well, it’s the worst human rights abuse on earth and it’s basically unaddressed. I’ll start with the worst statistic that I know and that is that 160 million girls are now missing from the face of the earth because they were murdered at birth by their parents or either selectively aborted when their parents find out that the fetus is a girl. So that many people are missing and they’re all girls who are missing.

LETTERMAN: And how many countries are represented in this?

CARTER: A good many countries are. I don’t know how many parents in America would rather have a boy than a girl, that they’re very poor and feel they can’t support children. But in about 15 years ago there was an accurate assessment in China and 50 million were already missing there because the Chinese government had mandated one-is-best, two-is-most (limiting family size), and then India has had the same problem with them, and in many other countries as well. So now, for instance in China and India and South Korea and some other countries, young men can’t find brides to marry, so they buy brides and that increases the amount of slavery that exists on earth.

The slave trade now is much greater (“greater”? How about “worse”?) than it ever was in the 19th century. It amounts to about $32 billion a year and the United States State Department is required by law now to assess the slavery market and they estimate that 800,000 slaves are sold across international borders every year. And 80 percent of those slaves sold are young girls who are going, who are being sold into the sex slave, slavery. And this occurs, about 100,000 of them are in the United States, not sold across international borders. Atlanta is a key of the human trafficking or slavery trade.

During his “Morning Joe” appearance on Monday, Carter went even further, stating that the 160 million “missing” girls murdered through infanticide and sex-selection abortion far exceeds the death toll of the Holocaust — more fighting words to liberals had they come from a conservative.

Letterman, predictably, kept his questions limited to slavery and human trafficking and never revisited Carter’s claim that sex-selection abortion contributes to the enormity of this current-day holocaust — despite Letterman specifically asking about “the source” of this terrible abuse. At the very least, sex-selection abortion must be seen as one of the sources.

Then again, how could Letterman ask about this, since doing so risks derailing a dominant liberal meme, that of the so-called war on women. What Jimmy Carter is describing is an actual war on women and girls, the real thing, global in scope and incomprehensible in its staggering losses. What liberals call the war on women is a phony war.

In yet another example of its affinity for the obscene, the left would rather wage their phony war than an actual one worth fighting; hence their opposition to efforts in Congress to ban sex-selection abortions.

For Carter to describe all these girls as “missing,” however, is a curious euphemism since the word implies that a person whose whereabouts aren’t known might be alive. Such is not the case after abortion and murder, both of which are rendered with unforgiving finality.

Here’s where I part company on this with the former president: those tens of millions of unborn boys who’ve been aborted — they’re among the missing, too.

Editor’s note. This appeared at http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jack-coleman/2014/03/25/jimmy-carter-equates-sex-selection-abortion-murder-babies

By Jack Coleman, NRL News

Supreme Court hears oral arguments in challenge to Obama Mandate

Former Solicitor General Paul D. Clement

In a widely anticipated case, the Supreme Court heard two challenges consolidated into one case that are contesting the HHS mandate which compels employers to provide health coverage for drugs and procedures to which they have moral or religious objections.

Each side was given 45 minutes to present its case. The lead attorneys were the same as faced off two years ago when the High Court addressed the issue of ObamaCare’s individual mandate requirement: former U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, and current Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli, Jr.

The Plaintiffs–Hobby Lobby Stores and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp.– are family owned corporations. Hobby Lobby is a chain of arts-and-crafts stores while Conestoga Wood Specialties is a Mennonite-owned cabinet maker. They argue that the mandate, which are regulations adopted by the Department of Health and Human Services under a provision of ObamaCare–violates the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the First Amendment’s free exercise of religion clause.

Most media accounts came to the conclusion that, as is so often the case, the swing vote is likely Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy. Adding suspense was that he asked questions that each side could conclude favored their position.

For instance, over at the Scotusblog.org, long-time Supreme Court watcher Lyle Denniston likened the discussion to “something like a two-act play on a revolving stage: first the liberals had their chance and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy gave them some help, and then the scene shifted entirely, and the conservatives had their chance — and, again, Kennedy provided them with some support.”

And the Washington Post’s Robert Kaiser wrote that “The three liberal and female justices were the most vocal in questioning Paul Clement. Justice Elena Kagan “said Clement’s argument could be extended to employers refusing to pay for blood transfusions or vaccines because of religious objections.”

Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli, Jr.

Denniston wrote, “When it was Solicitor General Verrilli’s turn at the lectern, he found immediately that Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito, Jr., were ready to pounce, disputing each of the government lawyer’s core points” about the need for the mandate in this context.

Those included queries about what Congress meant when it passed the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the religious rights of corporations, and why the government couldn’t pay for the services it wanted but to which the plaintiffs objected.

What Denniston described as the “low point” for Verrilli came near the end

“when Justice Kennedy told him bluntly: ‘Under your view, for-profit corporations can be forced to pay for abortion. Your reasoning would permit that…. You say that for-profit corporations have no standing to litigate what their shareholders believed.’”

Hobby Lobby, which has a workforce of 13,000 people of all faith, prevailed before the full 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“In a divided opinion, the appeals court relied in part on the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which said corporations have political speech rights just as individuals do in spending on elections,” Kaiser wrote. In that case Judge Timothy Tymkovich, writing for the majority, concluded “We see no reason the Supreme Court would recognize constitutional protection for a corporation’s political expression but not its religious expression.”

A panel of the 3rd U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the Conestoga Wood Specialties must comply with the HHS mandate.

The financial penalties for non-compliance are extremely heavy, particularly for Hobby Lobby with its large work force. The fine is $100 per day per employee–$365 million for Hobby Lobby.

Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) issued a statement this morning with this apt conclusion:

“This burdensome penalty is completely unfair, unreasonable, and unconscionable. The Obama administration is saying we will punish you, we will hurt you, we could even put you out of business for providing healthcare for your employees unless you provide healthcare according to the government’s conscience. Also, employees currently on their businesses health plan could lose the coverage they need for themselves and their families. [HHS] Secretary Sebelius and President Obama have no business imposing their morality on people of faith, but that is exactly what their oppressive mandate does.”

By Dave Andrusko, NRL News

POLST Bill SB3076 Passes out of Committee

Update on POLST Bill SB3076

The bill passed out of Public Health Committee today. Two Senators voted against the bill: Senators LaHood and Oberweis.  Seven voted in favor of the bill.

WE OPPOSE THIS BILL BECAUSE:

1.     SB 3076 amends the Illinois Physician's Order for Life-Sustaining Treatment [POLST] form to allow for "practitioners" other than physicians to sign the POLST form. The other "practitioners" include "advanced practical nurse, physician's assistant or licensed resident after completion of one year in a program." 

2.     SB 3076 does not distinguish between terminal or non-terminal conditions for withholding treatment.  As proposed in the bill this form promotes withholding treatment instead of protection for patients. 

  (For example: A patient who signs a POLST form can check a box "do-not-attempt-resuscitation" if he/she stops breathing and the pulse stops. This is an "actionable medical order" to do nothing even if CPR would clearly be called for in a medical situation. For example, an allergic reaction to a medication can stop the breathing and pulse, but most patients would want to have CPR. The POLST form says NO).

3.     SB3076 changes the long-standing relationship of doctor and patient in matters of end-of-life decisions by having nurses and even less qualified physician's assistants talk to patients about these decisions and authorize "actionable medical orders" including "do-not-resuscitate" orders even in non-terminal situations.

4.     SB3076 will confuse many elderly and frail patients who may not understand the various options available to them with a POLST form.  They require more education and options thaN the POLST form provides.  

5.     SB3076 has the support of private foundations that have put their money into promoting euthanasia organizations.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO STOP THIS BILL:

Contact your state senator, urge him/her to vote NO on SB 3076 - the POLST bill when it comes to a vote.  You can find you legislator's contact information at: http://www.elections.il.gov/DistrictLocator/DistrictOfficialSearchByAddress.aspx

ACTION ALERT: Senate Bill 3076, Illinois Physician's Order for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST Bill)

Senate Bill 3076, Illinois Physician's Order for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST Bill)

Sponsor:  State Senator John Mulroe (D-10)

Committee Hearing: State Senate Public Health Committee on Tuesday March 25th at 1:00 p.m. in Room 409 in the Capitol

What is a POLST FORM?  A POLST Form is a do-not-resuscitate medical order to do nothing (even CPR) to save an individual.

OPPOSE THIS BILL BECAUSE:

1.     SB 3076 amends the Illinois Physician's Order for Life-Sustaining Treatment [POLST] form to allow for "practitioners" other than physicians to sign the POLST form. The other "practitioners" include "advanced practical nurse, physician's assistant or licensed resident after completion of one year in a program." 

2.     SB 3076 does not distinguish between terminal or non-terminal conditions for withholding treatment.  As proposed in the bill this form promotes withholding treatment instead of protection for patients.  

(For example: A patient who signs a POLST form can check a box "do-not-attempt-resuscitation" if he/she stops breathing and the pulse stops. This is an "actionable medical order" to do nothing even if CPR would clearly be called for in a medical situation. For example, an allergic reaction to a medication can stop the breathing and pulse, but most patients would want to have CPR. The POLST form says NO).

3.     SB3076 changes the long-standing relationship of doctor and patient in matters of end-of-life decisions by having nurses and even less qualified physician's assistants talk to patients about these decisions and authorize "actionable medical orders" including "do-not-resuscitate" orders even in non-terminal situations.

4.     SB3076 will confuse many elderly and frail patients who may not understand the various options available to them with a POLST form.  They require more education and options thaN the POLST form provides.  

5.     SB3076 has the support of private foundations that have put their money into promoting euthanasia organizations.

WHAT YOU MUST DO TO STOP THIS BILL:

1.     Contact your state senator today or tomorrow before 1:00 p.m.  Urge him/her to vote NO on SB 3076 - the POLST bill.  You can find you legislator's contact information at: http://www.elections.il.gov/DistrictLocator/DistrictOfficialSearchByAddress.aspx

2.     Contact the following Public Health Committee Members:

Chairman John Mulroe

Mattie Hunter

Napoleon Harris, III

Kwame Raoul

Heather A. Steans

Patricia Van Pelt

Dave Syverson 

Dari M. LaHood

Jim Oberweis

3.     REGISTER ONLINE WITH THE ILLINOIS GENERAL ASSEMBLY IN ORDER TO FILE WITNESS SLIPS 

-What is a witness slip?  A witness slip is a form that is filled out by lobbyists and concerned citizens to express their support or opposition to a bill that is being heard in the committee.  The witness slips are read by the Chair of the committee before the bill is heard.  It is always impressive to have a stack of witness slips in support of or opposing a bill.

NOW YOU CAN FILL OUT A WITNESS SLIP AND MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD WITHOUT TRAVELING TO SPRINGFIELD!

 (YOU WILL ALSO BE REGISTERED TO FILE WITNESS SLIPS ON OTHER PRO-LIFE RELATED LEGISLATION WHEN YOU DO THIS AND WE WILL ALERT YOU WHEN WE NEED TO DO SO!) 

SO REGISTER NOW AND HERE IS HOW: 

1. Go to the Illinois General Assembly Website at www.ilga.gov

2. Click on "GA Dashboard" found in red under "Reports and Inquiry"

(See website link here: http://www.ilga.gov/) 

3. At the Dashboard site, click on "Register" on the left column

(See Dashboard link here: http://my.ilga.gov/) 

4. At the "Create an Account" page, put in your email and create your password, check agree to the Terms and Agreements and click "register."

NOW YOU CAN FILL OUT YOUR WITNESS SLIP AND HERE IS HOW:

1. Log in whenever you need to file a witness slip.

2. Follow the directions above to get to the GA Dashboard once you are registered.

3. Click "log in" at the upper right of the screen.

4. Click "Senate" at the left of the screen.

5. Click "Committees" at the left of the screen

6. Go down to Public Health Committee and if it says "Scheduled" on the right of it, click on the second icon "View Committee Hearings"

7. Click on "View Legislation" on right.

8. Find SB 3076 and click on the second icon "Create Witness Slip"

9. Complete the witness form.  Check "opponent" under POSITION, "record of appearance only" under TESTIMONY, click "Create (Slip)"

If hundreds of people throughout the State do this, it would be a powerful message against SB 3076 and the members of the committee will take notice.

Supreme Court to hear challenge to Obama Mandate next week

Next week, Tuesday to be specific, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in what may well be the most watched cases of this term: the hugely controversial HHS mandate which compels employers to provide health coverage for drugs and procedures to which they have moral or religious objections.

This represents the first legal challenge to ObamaCare to reach the Supreme Court since it upheld the law’s “individual mandate” 21 months ago.

In the lower courts one of the two plaintiffs prevailed — Hobby Lobby Stores—while the other lost–-Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. Both are family owned corporations. Hobby Lobby is a chain of arts-and-crafts stores while Conestoga Wood Specialties is a Mennonite-owned cabinet maker.

As Richard Wolf of USA Today wrote this morning, the mandate has “been the subject of more than 100 lawsuits across the country, including 78 that are still pending.”

The core arguments raised by the plaintiffs are that the mandate violates the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the First Amendment’s free exercise of religion clause.

When the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, David Green, Hobby Lobby’s founder and CEO, said “This legal challenge has always remained about one thing and one thing only: the right of our family businesses to live out our sincere and deeply held religious convictions as guaranteed by the law and the Constitution. Business owners should not have to choose between violating their faith and violating the law.”

Kyle Duncan, general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and lead lawyer for Hobby Lobby, said at the time, “This is a major step for the Greens and their family businesses in an important fight for Americans’ religious liberty.” In an interview with POLITICO, Duncan said, “The cases will decide ‘who gets to exercise religion — it’s really that simple. The idea that the protection of religious liberty is confined to only certain pursuits … from our perspective, that’s disturbing.’”

The financial penalties for non-compliance are staggering, particularly for Hobby Lobby which employees 13,000 workers. The fine is $100 per day per employee–$475 million for Hobby Lobby.

Last June the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Hobby Lobby in a 5-3 ruling.

In July the 3rd U.S. Court of Appeals rejected Conestoga Wood Specialties’ request for an exemption from the mandate which are regulations adopted by the Department of Health and Human Services under a provision of ObamaCare, formally known as the “Affordable Care Act.”

By Dave Andrusko, NRL News

One pro-abortion mind at work: contempt for babies, children, and pro-lifers

When pro-abortionists truly go off the deep end, I am reluctant to go after them, in no small part because those over-the-top comments so often come wrapped in obscenities. But on further reflection, I think it’s worth discussing Amanda Marcotte’s two recent full-throated diatribes against pro-lifers in a responsible fashion. They tell us something. Today, Part One.

To be clear, it simply is unproductive to quote/paraphrase Marcotte’s foul mouth. To people like Marcotte—the same ones who tell you how stupid, dull, boring, and repetitive pro-lifers are—the more personal the insult, the stronger they believe their case is.

Or, to put it differently, why from Marcottte’s perspective bother to talk to pro-lifers (the jumping off point, by the way, was whether it made any sense to debate secular pro-lifers) when (a) they are no less authoritarian than pro-lifers who base their case on, or are motivated by faith, and (b) “rational, free discourse is predicated on the understanding that everyone involved in the debate is arguing in good faith, and I can assure you, after years of dealing with this issue, that anti-choicers are not arguing in good faith.”

In other words to “indulge” any pro-lifer by allowing them (us) into a “free-wheeling” discussion is to afford them (us) an honor they do not deserve. We have nothing new to add.

But if recycling old positions is the definition of boredom and “half-baked quackery,” what new argument have pro-abortion advocates presented? One: they are even more extreme than ever.

For example, if “an embryo or even fertilized egg that has no brain,” as Marcotte hisses, then you might think that there is an endpoint somewhere in pregnancy where the unborn has the qualities even pro-abortionists would feel honor bound to recognize.

Not so. At the very same time every medical breakthrough is demonstrating the incredibly complexity and interconnectivity of the unborn child and her mother, the Marcottes of this world are vocally and unapologetically extending the logic of “terminating” unborn life to the very end of a pregnancy.

None of this first, or second, or even beginning of the third trimester limitation. There is no abortion that should be banned. Ever. And, of course, anything that however slightly impedes a race from panicky reaction to a pregnancy test to an abortion can only be still another example of how pro-lifers do not “respect” women.

But the reason our case for the unborn child and her mother has to be (in Marcotte’s words) “a bunch of half-baked, never-changing nonsense that they cling to no matter how frequently it’s debunked” is, in her words, “simple: They don’t want to speak their real argument out loud.”

And—in the interest of saving time–it goes without saying that Marcotte goes up into the attic of her mind where she reaches into a chest now covered in cobwebs to pull out the hoariest of retreaded canards: it’s all about men wanting to control women. If we point out that women are more pro-life than men are, then advocates like Marcotte cite that as “proof” women are brain-washed by the “patriarchy.” So much for respecting women. And, for the matter, so much for originality.

Finally, what really set Marcotte off in her March 14 post was the specter of adoption. (We’ll skip her distaste for children which is a problem more deep-seated than any foolish post.)

Sure, a woman (in this scenario Marcotte) may not want this child—or want the child later—but she’s not going to put her body through all that @#$%^ for nine months “so that some couple I don’t know and probably don’t even like can have a baby.”

You don’t have to know Marcotte well—or at all—to understand what motivates her to say things such as what a woman wants “trumps the non-existent desires of a mindless pre-person that is so small it can be removed in about two minutes during an outpatient procedure. Your cavities fight harder to stay in place.”

She feigns surprise in the next paragraph that having said this (and other oddball rantings) “I’m performing against gender norms so hard that even I recoil a little.” That’s all for show and is just a setup so we understand that her self-hating conclusion is justified.

Marcotte loathes the “training and socialization” that has “bull[ied] women into pretending that they’re more interested in being selfless and eternally nurturing than they actually are, even at great cost to themselves.”

Marcotte believes she is freeing herself from the imaginary chains of oppression by acting as unpleasant as she possibly can, say things that are ugly and hurtful and filthy as she can come up with, and at all costs turn those who disagree with her into mindless automatons who deserve every slur she launches at us.

It’s hard to miss the irony of her final paragraph. Enough of this pointless, vacuous “when does life begin” nonsense. That’s for conformist dummies.

In Marcotte’s world, a herd of independent minds if ever there was one, what truly free-wheeling thinkers talk about is “Gender norms and conformity.”

All that hate for this?

By Dave Andrusko, NRL News

New Smart-Phone "Appcessory" Allows Moms to Hear Unborn Child's Heartbeat

Pro-lifers have told people without fail that “abortion stops a beating heart,” but perhaps no technology made that clearer than the fetal heartbeat stethoscope, allowing mothers and dads to hear the “whoosh-whoosh” of their unborn child’s pumping circulatory system. That is, until maybe now.

For years, the fetal heartbeat stethoscope was a specialized piece of medical equipment largely used within the confines of a pregnant woman’s Ob-Gyn. As a mom shared the experience with other members of her family, her friends, or her co-workers of the wonder of the “whoosh,” her accounts were largely second hand.

Now, though, thanks to a new smart-phone “appcessory” featured in the March 6, 2014 issue of Laptop Magazine, a woman can hook a microphone and amplifier up to her iPhone, hold the microphone next to her belly, and listen to her baby’s heartbeat whenever and wherever she wants.

And she can share that amazing experience with anyone she wants!

The new Bellabeat Tracking System sells for $129 and can be used by phones with either an iOS or an Android operating system. The BabyWatch companion app not only enables the mother to hear the heartbeat, but also allows her to see a colorful, moving display of her baby’s vital signs.

There’s no pocket ultrasound yet, but the Bellabeat tracking system also delivers information on the child’s weekly development and offers the mom a chance to log each kick. A calendar helps a mom track her prenatal appointments and reminds her to take her folic acid supplements. (Tips about singing and talking to the baby are also included.)

As noted one of the features is the ability to connect and share this data via social media. As meaningful as this might be to the expectant mother and father, this new phone app has the chance to influence public perceptions of the unborn child even more widely.

This will make it harder than ever to dismiss the unborn child as just a “clump of tissue.”

The device has been licensed by the FDA, but no one is suggesting that this app take the place of regular visits to a woman’s obstetrician. Women will need to learn how to distinguish the baby’s heartbeat from the rush of their own blood flow. However there is little doubt that this will prove a fascinating and attractive accessory to many young mothers of the smart-phone generation.

More than that, though, it may end up being another valuable pro-life educational tool making the broader public more aware than ever before of the humanity of the unborn child.

By Randall K. O’Bannon, Ph.D., NRL Director of Education & Research

World Health Organization (WHO) acknowledges that legalizing abortion does not make it safe

Abortion advocates have long advanced their opinion that all legal abortions are safe, and all illegal abortions are unsafe. But this has never been true.

An editorial in the latest Bulletin of the World Health Organization (WHO) considers the definition of “unsafe abortion” and distinguishes the safety of abortion from its legality. This is a reversal of a policy that has been in place since the early 1990s and a tremendous step in the right direction.

The article acknowledges, “WHO has historically used a pragmatic operational construct that measures safety in terms of only one dimension—legality—in developing its regional and global estimates of rates of unsafe abortions.”

This method inflates the number of “unsafe abortions” in countries that prohibit abortion, providing fuel for efforts to legalize abortion. And it downplays the number of dangerous abortions in countries that permit abortion on demand.

The truth is that “illegal abortion is not synonymous with unsafe abortion,” as WHO’s new editorial concedes. We know, on the basis of evidence from around the world, that abortion can be legally permitted and yet be extremely dangerous to the health of women, largely depending on the medical context.

Legalizing abortion does not suddenly make it safe. It only makes it more common. Evidence from many countries shows that legalizing abortion is simply not necessary to reduce maternal mortality and protect the lives and health of women.

We applaud WHO for recognizing the difference between abortion’s safety and its legality. We urge WHO to also recognize that no abortion is ever completely safe—that abortion inherently poses risks to women’s physical and psychological health. And we hope that WHO will one day recognize that every single abortion takes the life of an innocent human being, a valuable member of the human family who deserves our care and respect—the unborn baby.

Source: NRL News