A poll published today by YouGov offers some fascinating insights into what 1,000 Americans said about abortion, fetal homicide, and the beginning of life.
For starters, 76% said prosecutors should be able to charge someone who attacks a pregnant woman if it leads to the “death of her unborn child.” There was a widespread consensus across all demographics.
Then there is the question of “When do you believe abortion should be legal?” YouGov summarized the results this way:
56% of Americans think that abortion should not be legal on request, with 17% saying that it should never be allowed and 39% saying that it should only be allowed in certain special cases. 16% support abortion until the first trimester, while 9% support it until the point of survivability. 20% believe that abortion should always be legal.
Continuing his reflections on the family, Pope Francis devoted his April 8 general audience to suffering children.
“From the first moments of their lives, some are rejected, abandoned, and robbed of their infancy and future,” said the Pope, according to Vatican Radio’s summary of his remarks.
“There are those who say it is a mistake to bring these children into the world, due to their fragility, and the hunger and poverty they suffer,” the Pope continued. “But children are never a mistake, and their sufferings are only reasons for us to love them even more.”
On April 7th at 8:00 a.m., Gov. Sam Brownback of Kansas signed into law a bill banning dismemberment abortions!
It is the first of what we hope will be many state laws banning dismemberment abortions. This law could have the power to transform the landscape of abortion policy in the United States.
In a dismemberment abortion, a forceps or similar instrument is used to twist and tear pieces of a living unborn baby from her body until the baby bleeds to death. Many of these babies are developed enough to feel pain.
Even Justice Anthony Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court has written forcefully about the brutality of such abortions. The Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act would ban them.
Scientists are coming closer to being potentially able to resurrect extinct wholly mammoths through cloning (using mammoth DNA in elephant eggs) and–to keep animal rights activists off their backs–gestation in artificial wombs instead of female elephants.
From the Popular Science story: Using a DNA editing tool called CRISPR, the scientists spliced genes for the mammoths’ small ears, subcutaneous fat, and hair length and color into the DNA of elephant skin cells. The tissue cultures represent the first time woolly mammoth genes have been functional since the species went extinct around 4,000 years ago. The next step will be to try and make mammoth embryos through cloning: If those tests go well, the team hopes to turn the elephant/mammoth skin cells into hybrid embryos that can be grown in artificial wombs, devices that allow for pregnancies outside of an animal’s uterus. Artificial wombs are pretty speculative at this point, but the alternative–implanting the hybrids into the wombs of female elephants–is unsavory to animal rights activists as well as geneticists. “It’s going to be more humane and easier if we can set up hundreds of [embryos] in an incubator and run tests,” says Church. That is the same process that will be required to perfect human cloning.
Throughout Good Friday, pro-lifers across the country will participate in ceremonies at the nation's abortuaries.
“We pray for these children who are threatened by abortion and we pray for their mothers and fathers to choose life,” Eric Scheidler says. “We pray for all those who are involved in the abortion decision, all those involved in working in the abortion industry including the abortion providers themselves. We pray for our nation. We pray for our legislators to do the right thing and restore legal protection to unborn children.”
The Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act has gained support that might get it some much-needed attention.
A bill to ban the practice is filed in both the U.S. House and Senate.
Marie Tasy of New Jersey Right to Life says Gov. Chris Christie has said he supports the federal legislation.
Christie is a possible contender for the Republican nod for president in 2016 and his statement could mean the bill might become a campaign issue in the coming months.
Assisted suicide supporters have filed SB128, a bill in the state Senate to legalize doctor-prescribed death. Supporters justify the move by pointing to Oregon’s assisted-suicide experience that, they claim, has worked without a flaw.
But how would they know?
State oversight depends almost entirely on self-reporting by physicians, who are about as likely to tell the state that they broke the law as they are to tell the IRS they cheated on their taxes. Moreover, Oregon state officials admitted to a British House of Lords investigative committee considering legalization of assisted suicide, that Oregon’s oversight agency does not have the legal authority — or budget — to conduct independent inquiries even if a legal violation is uncovered.
An Institute of Medicine report apparently favors advance care planning in ObamaCare – but there may be a hidden motive in advancing the concept.
When ObamaCare was first proposed, one of the provisions called for doctors to be paid to talk to Medicare patients about advance care planning – i.e., whether they would want lifesaving medical treatment. Burke Balch of the National Right to Life Committee reminds OneNewsNow that following an outcry from the public the provision was dropped – but he contends it is now being revived and, in part, encouraged by the Institute of Medicine.
"And a lot of health insurers are now paying organizations to cold call their beneficiaries – those who are insured – to start sort of talking them [about] agreeing to sign documents that say they'll forgo [such] treatment," he explains.
American tax dollars have been proven to fund abortions but now an exhaustive study shows the money is coming from an unexpected source.
Planned Parenthood has denied that its use of tax dollars – which average a whopping half-billion dollars a year – are used for abortion or for promoting abortion. But a review by the Government Accountability Office found widespread taxpayer funding for abortion advocacy organizations – six of them.
Seventeen states use Medicaid to pay for abortions for any reason.
When word came down the night of January 21 that House GOP leaders were reneging on their promise to hold a vote on the 20-week abortion ban the next day – the haunting 42nd anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v Wade decision – [WARNING: vulgarity alert], I was pissed off to the height of pisstivity. Sorry, that’s the most accurate way I can describe it.
How could GOP leaders have been so careless, cavalier, and apathetic as to let this lowest hanging fruit of a pro-life bill get away from them? How could they have been so cajoneless as to abandon the 20-week ban at the first sign of trouble? And just how low was their respect for the pro-life movement that they would dare to insult us on such a colossal scale?
And then to go silent about the ban for two full months following that debacle?
I’m boiling over again even as I type.
This is the backdrop for my decision to help organize a protest at Speaker Boehner’soffice on March 25. As CNS News reported:
Stanek, a nurse who formerly worked at Christ Hospital inChicago, became involved in the pro-life movement 16 years ago after she held a live baby who had survived an abortion and was left to die afterwards.
“I’ve been in this movement for 16 years, from the moment I held this little aborted baby, and I’ve never felt convicted to be arrested,” Stanek explained during the protest on Wednesday.
“I’ve always felt my voice was well-heard, speaking and writing,” she said. “But when this bill failed to be brought forward on Jan. 22, I was just so frustrated and disgusted with our Republican House leadership, that they would abandon these babies over political maneuvering.”
“I decided right then and there that I was willing to be arrested on behalf of this little baby that I held, and others like him,” she said.
So, on March 25, alongside several other pro-lifers, I marched to Speaker Boehner’sLongworth Building office to protest the hold-up…
Three of us gave speeches. Here’s mine…
Then, eight of us – six women and two men – sat in front of the locked door to Boehner’s office (it’s not as if he wanted anyone coming in anyway) and proceeded to get arrested. We were charged with, “Crowding, Obstructing, or Incommoding.” There were over twice as many Capitol police as protesters…
At this point I don’t want to appear to dramatize the details of our arrest, because our experience truly was nothing compared to what other pro-lifers endure for the cause. But I know people are interested in details, so here goes.
When we were loaded into the paddy wagon I realized my plastic cuffs were so loose I could take them off! … a nice little blessing from God to ease my slight discomfort and to scratch some itches all the way around. I never let an officer know until it came time to cut them off, at which point I said don’t bother, and at which point the officer planning to do the cutting rolled her eyes.
We were taken to the Capitol Police processing center, about five minutes’ drive from the Capitol. Guards itemized our belongings and did a (noninvasive!) body search. I was glad I’d gotten a pre-prison pedicure, since they even had me remove my socks and shoes!
We were then taken to an interview room, two in each, and handcuffed to the wall (only one hand). We sat there a couple hours.
We were ultimately given three options: to pay a $50 fine and be released with no conviction but with an arrest record, to post bond and come back for a jury trial, or to pay nothing and go to jail to await a court hearing. We all chose the first option.
There were two holding cells. The guys - Pat Mahoney and Troy Newman – ended up in one, and I ended up in the other, alone, while my female friends remained handcuffed to the wall. How this happened is I said I had to go to the bathroom, so a guard took me to the remaining cell, where there was a toilet, and then forgot about me, I think.
This, too, was a nice little gift from God – to have a little alone time with Him and to briefly ponder life in a jail cell.
In all, I spent a little over five hours in the processing center – four hours in processing and one hour in a jail cell.
One last thing – police confiscated our t-shirts as “evidence”! We are supposed to eventually get them back, but I’m not holding my breath. I should also mention Capitol police were courteous and even kind.
The dust hasn’t settled yet, but I feel good that our original goal was met. This was to refocus attention from political maneuvering back to the babies, and to rekindle traction to pass the 20-week ban in the House. By several accounts our protest has indeed sparked movement.
That said, we aren’t going away. Stay tuned for more information on that in the following days. By Jill Stanek This article first appeared on JillStanek.com and can be read in full here.
The planned sit-in/prayer vigil at Speaker John Boehner’s office today has culminated in the arrest of eight pro-life leaders, including Rev. Pat Mahoney and our own Jill Stanek.
Here is the speech that Jill gave just before she was arrested. Please be in prayer for these leaders, who were attempting to give voice to preborn children:
The Kansas House of Representatives today approved, on a voice vote, the Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act, groundbreaking legislation that will prohibit brutal dilation & evacuation (D&E) dismemberment abortions in the state. The state Senate previously approved the bill, 31-9, in February. Pro-life Governor Sam Brownback (R) is expected to sign the bill, making Kansas the first state in the nation to enact the National Right to Life model legislation.
Sponsored by state Sen. Garrett Love (R-Montezuma), the Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act has been the top state legislative priority for National Right to Life and its affiliate, Kansans for Life (KFL). In announcing the bill at a press conference in January, KFL Legislative Director Kathy Ostrowski observed, “With the discussion about, and passage of this bill, the public will see that dismemberment abortions brutally – and unacceptably – rip apart small human beings who have all of their internal organs and who have perfectly formed fingers and toes.”
Merle Hoffman is the founder and owner of an abortion clinic. She wrote about witnessing her first few abortions:
What I saw a running through those vacuum tubes when I first started my work was only blood and tissue, unformed and messy. It was easy to imagine the fetus as a bunch of cells that one could define as one wished. But even in the beginning I had an inkling that this mentality was the easy way out, that it didn’t go far enough to do justice to the experience of abortion.
Even though Hoffman intended to make a living providing abortions, the quote reveals she knew that dismissing the fetus as a “bunch of cells” is dishonest.
After giving birth, the couple learned they had both a daughter and a son, and the doctor asked them if they had a name for the boy, which they did: Jamie. Kate says: […] we noticed the dynamic in the room was quite strange. […] He [the doctor] sat on the edge of the bed and said, ‘Jamie didn’t make it. We’ve lost him.’
Kate instinctively grabbed her son and put him skin to skin against her chest so he could hear her heartbeat. She quickly instructed David to take off his shirt and get in the bed with them so that Jamie could have as much body heat as possible. There they stayed, skin to skin, telling their son about his twin sister Emily, and asking him to look after her. They cried as they told him about the plans they had for him and about his extended family.
The newborn lifted his head. Then he grabbed his father’s finger, and he opened his eyes. Jamie made it known to his parents and the medical team that he was most definitely alive. Everyone in the room was shocked and amazed at the miracle unfolding before them.
Riley Goodger was only 22 weeks and three days along when his mother, Emma Jones, went into labor in December of 2013. His older brother, Tyler, had been stillborn in 2012, so his mother, Emma Jones, was understandably frightened and heartbroken to be going into pre-term labor.
Riley weighed only 480 grams, but he was breathing independently. He had a fighting chance, but according to Wales Online, the medical team refused to treat him because Riley was born eight days before the existing abortion cut-off.
"He wasn’t crying, but I could see he was breathing – and his heart was beating through his chest wall. But no care could be provided for him even though he was living" stated Emma Jones.
One woman shared her abortion story in the journal America:
“A terrible, raw guilt had festered in me for many years. Ever since the day I had walked into a trendy women’s health clinic and filled out the paperwork for what I believed was a simple medical procedure. At the time I was an ardent feminist as well as an atheist. I had studied ethics in graduate school and was fully versed in all the philosophical arguments for and against this particular procedure. I firmly believed that abortion was morally acceptable if performed in the early stages of a pregnancy. I firmly believed that a woman’s rights took precedence over the rights of the fetus."
"I began having flashbacks in which I relived the experience over and over. Each time, I saw myself walking into the clinic. I saw myself climbing up on the table. I felt the crushing pain. I saw the woman standing beside me holding my hand. Wracked with guilt and selfloathing, I wept. How could I have ended my child’s life?"
With each milestone in its development, the Gosnell movie makes it harder and harder for the media to ignore the name of “America's biggest serial killer.” FX’s Justified star Nick Searcy will direct Gosnell, a crime drama telling what the media refused to – the story of convicted Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell. The Hollywood Reporter broke the story March 18 and detailed how Searcy felt “both excited and humbled” to voice the “story that many in Hollywood were unwilling to tell.”
Kermit Gosnell was convicted May 2013 of first-degree murder of three babies (while the Grand Jury Report, The Hollywood Reporter noted, “alleges Gosnell killed hundreds of infants by sticking scissors into their necks”). The trial, in which witnesses described baby abortion survivors “swimming" in toilets “to get out,” attracted a mere 12 – 15 reporters. Only after 56 days, multiple letters from members of the House of Representatives and a public outcry, did all three broadcast networks report on Gosnell.
The March 16 permanent injunction from U.S. District Judge John Kane for the District of Colorado said the plaintiffs in the case were protected by the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
“This final victory, a permanent injunction protecting us from the abortion-pill, contraception and sterilization mandate, has taught our family that we have been right to put God first, and be proactive to protect our right to live and work according to our faith. Spiritual treasures come before business tools.” William Newland, a co-owner of Hercules Industries, stated.
A Planned Parenthood state official, who did not want to give his name, admitted that some women who go to Planned Parenthood are treated poorly. In a 2013 pro-abortion book, he says:
We try to make very sure that everyone seen in our clinics – for any service, not just for abortions – is treated with kindness and courtesy. But the reality is that there is no law that can guarantee sympathetic behavior. There are all sorts of reasons today why women get less than sympathetic treatment: patient overload, job-related stress and the necessity of hiring office staff who may not be fully “in sync” with the right to choose, to name just three.
Abby Johnson wrote an article in which she noted that Planned Parenthood will hire just about anyone because they are so desperate for employees to work there.
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child - ACTION ALERT HR 147 (RATIFY CONVENTION ON CHILD RIGHTS) Sponsor: Mary E. Flowers This bill urges President Obama to submit the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child to the U.S. Senate for its advice and consent without delay, and further calls on the U.S. Senate to move swiftly to approve the Convention. However, under this resolution, children would have the right to reproductive health information and services, including abortions without parental knowledge or consent. References: -Katie Hatziavramidis, Parental Involvement Laws for Abortion in the United States and the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child: Can International Law Secure the Right to Choose for Minors?, 16 Tex. J. Women & L. 185, 202-203 (Spring 2007): “The unmistakable trend in the United States is to consistently increase anti-choice legislation, particularly with respect to minors. Ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child by the United States holds a strong possibility of assisting minors who seek abortions without parental interference. [*203] The Convention may offer the best hope for securing adolescent reproductive freedoms on a global level. If enough diplomatic pressure were exerted on the United States to compel it to ratify the treaty, the CRC could provide significant improvements in the outlook for reproductive freedom for minors.” Paragraph 3, Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child: Columbia, Committee on the Rights of the Child, 42nd sess., U.N. Doc. CRC/C/COL/CO/3 (2006): “The Committee notes with appreciation…decisions of the Constitutional Court on…the partial decriminalization of abortion.”
Paragraph 55, Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child: Chile, Committee on the Rights of the Child, 44th sess., U.N. Doc. CRC/C/CHL/CO/3 (2007): “The Committee…is concerned over the high rate of teenage pregnancies, the criminalization of the termination of pregnancies in all circumstances….” This bill is currently in the Youth & Young Adults committee. The hearing is scheduled for March 19th at 11:00 am. ACTION ALERT! Fill out a witness slip in opposition of this the bill before the hearing convenes March 19, 2015 at 11:00 a.m. Remember to check the boxes for "Opponent," "Record of Appearance Only," Enter "Illinois Federation for Right to Life" for the Agency field and "Citizen" for the Title Field. Make sure to "Agree to Terms" before submitting. Click here to fill out a witness slip for this bill.
Please contact as many of the committee members as you can and let them know that you OPPOSE HR 147, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Chairperson: Laura Fine (217) 782-4194 Vice-Chairperson: Deborah Conroy (217) 782-8158 Republican Spokesperson: C.D. Davidsmeyer (217) 782-1840 Member:Adam Brown (217) 782-8398 Member:Terri Bryant (217) 782-0387 Member:Tom Demmer (217) 782-0535 Member:Mary E. Flowers(217) 782-4207 Member:Robyn Gabel (217) 782-8052 Member:Frances Ann Hurley (217) 782-8200 Member:Jeanne M Ives (217) 558-1037 Member:Natalie A. Manley (217) 782-3316 Member:Martin J. Moylan (217) 782-8007 Click here for more information on the bill. Click here for the full text of the bill.
