Doctors tell mom to abort her baby girl five times, now that baby is an internet sensation

Grace Anna

After three miscarriages in a row, Angie Rodgers wasn’t expecting her next unborn child to survive to 40 weeks. But she had hope. So when doctors repeatedly told her to abort her baby, she knew the answer was no. She knew she needed to give her baby a chance at life.

At three months gestation, doctors discovered that Rodgers baby girl had a rare form of dwarfism. According to the National Organization for Rare Disorders, Conradi-Hünermann syndrome is a rare genetic disorder characterized by skeletal malformations, skin abnormalities, cataracts and short stature. The specific symptoms and severity varies greatly from one individual to the next. It occurs almost exclusively in girls.

According to ABC News, doctors informed Rodgers that her daughter would likely be deaf and that her scoliosis could impair her lung function. Doctors also said her daughter would likely never walk.

And when Grace Anna was born via C-section, she was quickly rushed away due to meconium aspiration, a life-threatening condition that occurs as a result of a baby inhaling her first stool during or before delivery. Rodgers told ABC News:

“I didn’t know if she would make it – they didn’t tell me anything. I never saw her for the first 12 hours and when I did, she had scales on three-quarters of her body. The only place with no scales were her face and butt. They fell off in three months.”

Now, three years later, Grace is an adorable internet sensation, singing for the world on You Tube and gaining over 200,000 likes on her Facebook page. It all started when her mother shared a video of her singing The Star Spangled Banner. That video has over 350,000 views. And Grace has been invited to sing at events including a veterans’ benefit.

Her sweet voice and face have brought joy to thousands. And while she hasn’t yet begun to walk, Grace’s mom knows that her daughter has overcome ever obstacle thrown her way, and they’ve learned to take the advice of doctors with a grain of salt.

Grace, a little girl whom doctors thought wasn’t worthy of life, is singing her way into America’s hearts and hearts around the world.

Editor’s note. Nancy is a work at home mom who writes about parenting, special needs children, and the right to life. She is the lucky mother of three spirited little girls, one who has cystic fibrosis, and she spends any free moment she can find fundraising for a cure for CF. This appeared at liveactionnews.org.

You can watch Grace Anna sing the National Anthem at www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLdjwpfcC8w

By Nancy Flanders, LiveActionNews.org

Feeding Tube Removed Despite Court Order

Wesley Smith

Texas has a medical futility–what I call Futile Care Theory–law permitting doctors to remove wanted life-support that works from a patient based on their views about quality of life.

Before that is done, patients/families are supposed to receive due process–such as it is–e.g., a hearing before a bioethics Star Chamber committee. Then, if the committee decides the treatment should end, the patient has 10 days to find a new hospital.

But here’s the thing: I believe that once a society determines that doctors can refuse wanted efficacious life-sustaining service–that becomes the meme–and eventually the due process part goes away.

That may be part of what happened in a case out of a hospital near Austin. As recounted by Thaddeus Mason Pope, an estranged wife (of 5 years!) authorized pulling the feeding tube of Terry Mace. His parents won guardianship and a court blocked the dehydrate decision.

But the hospital did it anyway. From the Austin State Journal story:

“Stephen Casey, one of the attorneys for Mace’s parents, said doctors at Seton Medical Center Williamson surprised the family by removing the feeding and hydration tubes for Mace sometime within the past few days. The 43-year-old Killeen man had been hospitalized since March 6, when he went into cardiac arrest and hit his head on a concrete floor.

“After receiving a phone call Monday morning from Mace’s father, Casey went to the hospital and saw the tubes had been removed. Mace’s father got a doctor to reconnect the hydration tube Monday afternoon, Casey said. Mace died about 1 a.m. Tuesday. The hospital’s director of communications, Adrienne Lallo, released a statement Tuesday afternoon saying the hospital had cooperated with Mace’s family.”

Some cooperation.

Apparently the hospital didn’t adequately explain that “comfort care” actually meant in Mace’s case, ”dehydrate to death:”

“Doctors had told Mace’s family over the weekend that they were providing ‘comfort care’ to him, meaning they were keeping him sedated and making sure he wasn’t choking, said Casey. Mace’s parents might have been confused about what kind of treatment their son was receiving, their lawyers said.”

This is how trust in our health care system is being steadily destroyed.

By Wesley J. Smith, National Review

911 Call Exposes Planned Parenthood's Disregard for Patient Health

Pro-Life Action League Releases Revealing Video of Emergency at Aurora Abortion Facility  AURORA, Ill., A disturbing video released by the Pro-Life Action League couples a 911 call from an abortion facility worker with footage of a female patient being hauled away on a stretcher and taken by ambulance from Planned Parenthood in Aurora, Illinois. The video sheds light on the recent spate of emergencies at abortion clinics around the country. In the audio recording of the phone call, the emergency operator tries to elicit information about the patient from the Planned Parenthood employee who placed the call. Despite repeated questioning by the 911 dispatcher, the abortion clinic worker would not give critical information about the patient's condition. The following is excerpted from the call: 911 dispatcher: Okay, what do you need an ambulance for?  Planned Parenthood staffer: Um, I was just directed by the doctor to call. I'm not sure what's going on with the patient. 911 dispatcher: Okay, can, can you -- I need some sort of information.  Planned Parenthood staffer: I, I --  911 dispatcher: Is there any way --  Planned Parenthood staffer: I honestly --  911 dispatcher: -- you can find that out?  Planned Parenthood staffer: Hm? The Planned Parenthood employee's unconcerned tone has drawn strong reaction from Pro-Life Action League Executive Director Eric Scheidler who declared, "Coming on the heels of a young woman's death at the hands of an abortionist in Cleveland, the recording of this 911 call sheds light on the abortion industry's pattern of neglect. This Planned Parenthood staffer has more to say about what entrance paramedics should use than the status of their patient in a health emergency. Is this how Planned Parenthood 'cares'?" Scheidler notes that Planned Parenthood didn't even bother to call 911 when Tonya Reeves was fatally injured during an abortion at one of their Chicago clinics in 2012. He suspects Planned Parenthood doesn't want pro-life activists to draw attention to what these 911 calls reveal about how abortion endangers women. "By saying as little as possible about an emergency -- or simply not bothering to call 911 -- Planned Parenthood is showing that what they really care about is sheltering their abortion business from public scrutiny." View the Planned Parenthood 911 call video here and read Scheidler's commentary here. Contact: Tom Ciesielka

Senate Bill 3076 - POLST bill passes IL Senate

Illinois Physician's Order for Life-Sustaining Treatment [POLST] form amendment or SB 3076 has passed the Senate as of April 3rd and is in the House Rules Committee waiting to be assigned to a standing House committee.

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."  It requires POLST forms to be honored by health facilities.

Problems with SB 3076:

The POLST form, which gives no distinctions for terminal and non-terminal conditions, is more for removing "life-sustaining" treatment than for protecting patients with "life-sustaining" treatment.  SB 3076 would change 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-no-resuscitate" orders even in non-terminal situations.

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.

Also, many elderly and frail patients may not understand the various options available to them with a POLST form, and so should have better education and options that the POLST form does not give.

Pro-Life has broad concerns with the POLST forms.  One clear concern is that private foundations that have put their money into promoting POLST have also given large amounts of money to the Euthansia organizations.

We will bring you more information as it becomes available.

National Right to Life Commends Senator Pat Roberts for Bill to Repeal Rationing in Obamacare

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Ks.)

Senator Pat Roberts (R-Ks) introduced the “Repeal Rationing in Support of Life Act,” which targets the four key rationing components of Obamacare identified in a March 6, 2014, report by the National Right to Life Committee’s Powell Center for Medical Ethics, “The Affordable Care Act and Health Care Access in the United States,” available at www.nrlc.org/communications/healthcarereport.

“Senator Pat Roberts, who has been a tireless campaigner for the right to life, has since 2009 repeatedly taken a leadership role in fighting rationing of life-saving medical treatment, food, and fluids,” said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life. “Although Americans are waking up to many of its flaws, too few are aware of what Senator Roberts has consistently highlighted – how Obamacare limits the right to use one’s own money to get health insurance less likely to deny life-preserving health care.”

The Roberts (S. 2191) bill targets four rationing provisions of Obamacare for repeal:

1) the “excess benefit” tax coming into effect in 2018,

2) the current exclusion of adequate health insurance plans from the exchanges,

3) present limits on senior citizens’ ability to add their own money on top of the government Medicare payment for health insurance in Medicare Advantage, and

4) federal limits on the care doctors give their patients to be implemented as soon as 2016.

Excess benefits tax. Starting in 2018, Obamacare will impose a 40% excise tax on employer-paid health insurance premiums above a governmentally imposed limit that does not keep up with medical inflation. Consequently, insurance companies will be forced to impose increasingly severe restraints on policy-holders’ access to diagnostic tests and treatment—limits that will make it harder to get often-expensive treatments essential to combatting life-threatening illnesses. “Keeping employers from spending relatively little more to buy better insurance impacts us all, not just their employees,” stated Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansans for Life. “When those who can afford to spend more on health insurance are prevented from doing so, it severely dampens the costly research and development that gives those at all income levels access to innovative drugs and treatments that improve the ability to save lives and improve health.”

Excluding Insurers from Exchanges. Under Obamacare, consumers using the exchanges may only choose plans offered by insurers who do not allow their customers to spend what government bureaucrats deem an “excessive or unjustified” amount for their health insurance. “We are already seeing most exchange plans deny access to top specialists and medical centers,” Culp noted, “but few reports explain this is because insurers who provide greater access to care are excluded from the exchanges.”

Medicare Limits. Most senior citizens know that Obamacare will cut half a trillion dollars for Medicare over a decade, but they may not be aware of the law’s provision allowing Washington bureaucrats to prevent them from making up the Medicare shortfall with their own funds by limiting their right to spend their own money to obtain insurance through Medicare Advantage less likely to limit treatments that could save their lives.

Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). IPAB is directed to recommend measures to limit spending on health care to a growth rate below medical inflation – not just for Medicare, but also for all private, nongovernmental health care spending. The federal Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) is then authorized to implement these measures by placing limits on the treatments providers may give their patients by imposing so-called “quality and efficiency standards.”

“Obamacare authorizes Washington bureaucrats to create one uniform, national standard of care that is designed to limit what private citizens are allowed to spend to save their own lives,” stated Culp. “We are convinced most that Americans do not believe that the government should limit the right of Americans to use their own money for health insurance that is adequate to save their lives. We commend Senator Roberts for his bill and his consistent leadership to end Obamacare’s rationing. ”

The report is available from the National Right to Life Communications Department here: www.nrlc.org/communications/healthcarereport.

"Therapeutic cloning" back on the boil

Shoukhrat Mitalipov

After a couple of years in hibernation, the notion of “therapeutic cloning” is once again in the headlines. The latest development comes from Shoukhrat Mitalipov, a Russian-educated researcher at Oregon Health and Science University.

In a paper in Nature, his team reports that they have successfully created embryonic stem cells using a technique which bypasses the need for egg cells. Instead, the nucleus from an adult cell was placed in an enucleated zygote at the two-cell stage (which is also called the interphase). For some reason this dramatically increases the chance of the new cell’s successful development.

Scientists had previously thought the interphase stage — a later stage of the cell cycle — was incapable of converting transplanted adult cell nuclei into embryonic stem cells.

Apparently Mitalipov and his team have succeeded because they carefully synchronized the cell cycles of the adult cell nucleus and the recipient embryonic cytoplasm. Both had to be at an almost identical point in their respective cell cycles for the process to work. “That was the secret,” Mitalipov said. “When we did that matching, then everything worked.” The next stage is using the same process in monkeys and after that, humans.

Reviving the powerful “therapeutic cloning” rhetoric of a decade ago, a university press release claimed that this was a great step forward for regenerative medicine: “Human embryonic stem cells are capable of transforming into any cell type in the body. Scientists believe stem cell therapies hold promise for someday curing or treating a wide range of diseases and conditions — from Parkinson’s disease to cardiac disease to spinal cord injuries — by replacing cells damaged through injury or illness.”

Although the technique does seem to advance understanding of cell reprogramming, it still poses significant ethical challenges.

First, the source material. In the past, “therapeutic cloning” was not only difficult but impractical and expensive. It depended on access to a huge supply of human eggs. Extracting these is quite dangerous for women and potentially quite exploitative. A market in eggs would be needed.

However, Milatipov apparently envisages using “surplus” eggs from IVF clinics. There are hundreds of thousands of these frozen and stored in the clinics. Embryos will be far cheaper as a raw material for research than eggs – but also far more controversial ethically.

Second, although media reports and the university press release skirted around this issue, two embryos are destroyed in the process: the “surplus” embryo from the IVF clinic, and the cloned embryo created by the researchers, which is dissected for its stem cells.

Third, although media reports tiptoed around the “c-word”, Milatipov’s process is basically an elaborate form of cloning. It could also be used for human reproductive cloning. There are no hints of this in his paper, of course, but the easier it is to produce pluripotent human embryonic stem cells, the easier it will be for rogue scientists to produce human clones.

Editor’s note. This appeared at bioedge.org.

By Michael Cook, NRL News

Two teenagers who survived failed abortions speak out

In 2012 the movie October Baby was seen on big screens across America. The story of a girl named Hannah who discovered her lifelong medical conditions were linked to surviving a failed abortion was an eye opening hit. The story was based on the life of Gianna Jessen, a pro-life speaker whose cerebral palsy came as a result of surviving a late term saline injection abortion. Audiences found the film compelling because many had never heard the story of an abortion survivor. In our country we hear stories from women who’ve chosen abortion, men who’ve paid for it and doctor’s who’ve performed them. Rarely do we hear the true stories from the children who survived death by miraculous intervention.

The Abortion Survivors Network tells the stories of children who made it out alive. Take Courtney’s story for example. She writes:

‘My name is Courtney. I’m sixteen years young. When I was 14, I was told that I am adopted. When I was 14, I also learned that there was much more to the story of my life. Not only am I adopted, but I am an abortion survivor. When my birth mother was somewhere around 7 weeks pregnant, she had an abortion. Five weeks or so later, she went for a post-op checkup, and it was discovered that I was there in the womb. She didn’t know that she was pregnant with twins when she had the abortion.’

Tragically Courtney’s twin was aborted. Thankfully her mother refused the option of having another abortion to destroy Courtney. Instead she chose to place her in a loving adoptive family. On June 19, 1996 the adoptive family got a phone call saying Courtney’s birth mom was having pains and didn’t think her daughter would survive.

Courtney was born at 27 weeks. Doctor’s didn’t think she would live much longer after birth. She spent three months in the hospital and was sent home, weighing just one pound and two ounces. Courtney says the doctors didn’t even send a sleep apena machine home with her because they didn’t think she’d make it through the winter. Courtney is a fighter who proved them wrong. She was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease and Right Hydronephrosis. She’s had four foot surgeries. Aside from that she is alive and well through the help of her loving family and friends.

In Jan 2013 Courtney began sharing her story publicly. She hopes to change the lives of people when it comes to abortion. Courtney writes:

‘It’s a choice–a choice between life and death for a child. A baby is a gift from God and NEVER a mistake. I am a miracle and I believe God put me here for many reasons. I think two of them are to change lives, and to help people who need it’.

The Abortion Survivors Network website also holds the story of a boy named Josiah Presley. Josiah’s story was originally told on the Abolish Human Abortion website. Josiah’s mom had an abortion in South Korea when she was two months pregnant. As the months passed after the abortion Josiah’s mom realized she was still carrying a child. She later placed him with an adoptive family in the U.S. The attempted abortion caused Josiah’s left arm to be deformed. Josiah wrote his story because he wants people to know that he never wanted his mom to try and take his life. Josiah has an answer to the question, “What will happen to the babies if we don’t abort them?” He says:

“Trust me, they will be adopted. My adopted family has twelve children, ten of which were adopted! They will be adopted! I mean, if we would stop funding the stuff to do abortions and put it towards making adoption fees lower, many would adopt because many who want to adopt can’t afford the high adoption fees and therefore can’t adopt.”

Josiah has a heart to defend the children who are being aborted. He says: ’What makes them any different from us besides the fact that they are innocent and can’t defend themselves against these huge abortion bullies killing them?’

He believes abortion is wrong because we are killing our completely innocent offspring. For those who don’t believe fetuses in the womb are human beings worthy of protection, Josiah says, “Well, I differ with that thought because it was that same thinking that almost ended my life 15 years ago”.

For more abortion survivors stories or to share your own survival story, visit theabortionsurvivors.com.

Editor’s note. This appeared at liveactionnews.org.

By Christina Martin, NRL News

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