Pro-aborts ignoring healthcare workers' rights

Medical professionals have waited years for their consciences to be protected, and the founder of the only professional pharmacy association that is "100 percent total protection, no exceptions pro-life, and unashamedly so" says social media is being used to hinder that.

One example of the harm involves Brian Hreniuc, a Walgreen's pharmacist in Arizona who declined to fill a prescription for a woman to abort her child. Instead, he sent her to another pharmacy that would do so, fulfilling the company's requirements for pharmacists who do not want to violate their conscience or faith.

But Dr. Bo Kuhar of Pharmacists for Life International tells OneNewsNow the woman, Nicole Arteaga, made a big issue out of it on social media.

"She claims she filed a complaint with the Arizona Board of Pharmacy … as a patient has the right to do," Kuhar reports. "But that probably will not go anywhere, because both the state and the employer are supporting a pharmacist having a right of conscience."

Click here for more from OneNewsNow.

Jahi McMath, the teen doctors tried to declare dead five years ago, has died

Jahi McMath, the teenager who ignited a nationwide controversy after California doctors tried to remove her from life support against her mother’s will, died from excessive bleeding and liver failure on June 22nd after undergoing surgery in New Jersey to treat an intestinal problem.

In 2013, Jahi underwent a throat surgery, and initially, was awake and talking afterwards. But she soon went into cardiac arrest. Her doctors declared her brain-dead, and urged Jahi’s mother to remove all life support, and allow Jahi to die. But her mother, Latasha “Nailah” Winkfield, refused, and thus kicked off a court battle with the hospital. In court, doctors testified that Jahi had irreversible brain damage, and that if she was allowed to remain on life support, her body would deteriorate. An independent physician from Stanford University agreed with that diagnosis, and the judge ruled that Jahi was legally dead. A death certificate was issued.

The battle was not yet over, though...

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Trump vows to protect ‘lives of every American, including the unborn’

President Donald Trump vowed to protect the “lives of every American including the unborn” in a new letter (full text below) to pro-life activists this week, and he urged every American to do the same.

Thursday marked the beginning of the National Right to Life Committee’s (NRLC) annual convention in Kansas, the Kansas City Star reports, where “there was a feeling of happiness among those filling the convention center” because of Wednesday’s revelation that the president will be nominating a new justice to the Supreme Court.

Click here for more from Life Site News.

U.S. motorist see truth about abortion on first annual ‘pro-life bridges day’

The first National Pro-Life Bridges Day message that “Abortion takes a human life” reached an estimated more than 1,000,000 last Friday as teams of pro-lifers stationed themselves on highway overpasses across the U.S. holding banners.

The event sponsored by the Pro-Life Action League took place in more than 50 cities across the United States.

Click here for more from Life Site News.

‘We’re just getting started,’ Roger Severino director of HHS’ Office for Civil Rights tells Pro-Lifers at NRLC Convention

The Trump administration will continue and expand its efforts to advance the pro-life cause, a top official at the Department of Health and Human Services told pro-lifers this week.

Roger Severino, director of HHS’ Office for Civil Rights, addressed the National Right to Life Committee’s (NRLC) annual convention in Kansas on Thursday, the Wichita Eagle reported. NRLC president Carol Tobias said it was the first time she could recall someone from HHS speaking at the event.

Click here for more from Life Site News.

US vs. UN abortion showdown slated for autumn General Assembly

A disagreement over abortion between the Trump administration and European governments has set the stage for a showdown in the UN General Assembly this fall.

The U.S. Mission to the UN headed by Ambassador Nikki Haley has followed the lead of the Trump administration, which has succeeded in keeping "sexual and reproductive health" out of recent agreements at the G7, G20, World Health Assembly, and the Organization of American States. The same result is proving more difficult in New York. But the latest statement from the U.S. Mission signals U.S. diplomats may be getting ready for a vote on abortion in humanitarian settings.

Click here for more from Life Site News.

Chicago area Pro-Life Billboard could be seen by millions

Have you seen this new billboard on the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago?

The Illinois Family Institute has put up an eye-catching, pro-life billboard around I-90 and Kedzie Ave (at Diversey) near the Logan Square and Avondale neighborhoods of Chicago. It’s over 80 feet wide and can been seen from a mile away. The message – “Abortion Takes Human Life” — will be seen over 10 million times before the end of July, IFI says.

This new display comes after IFI and pro-life activists reached half of the adult residents in Cook County during 2016 and 2017 with billboards, pro-life bridge events, and other mass communication efforts. The group's current message is expected to be seen by people traveling to work and school, between O’Hare and Chicago, and to the Taste of Chicago and July 4th events.

Click here for more from Illinois Review.

Pro-life groups urge Supreme Court: It’s time to overturn Roe v. Wade

Ever since the announcement of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement yesterday, discussion of Roe v. Wade has been reinvigorated. In 1973, Roe forced abortion on demand, at all stages of pregnancy, on all 50 states. Today, over one million preborn children are aborted annually in the United States, and abortion has spread across the world due to American influence. But, with a cataclysmic Supreme Court change on the horizon, the human injustice that is Roe v. Wade may be seeing its final hours.

Pro-life groups, which have worked for decades to bring life to women, children, and families, are calling for the final overturn of Roe.

Click here for more from Live Action News.

Uncovered: Planned Parenthood cited for multiple campaign donation violations

Planned Parenthood, whose various political PACs and organizations spend millions of dollars pushing their abortion agenda down the throats of the American taxpayer, has been fined multiple times by the State and Federal Election Commissions for various violations. While Planned Parenthood masquerades as a healthcare organization, the organization’s former president, Cecile Richards, once claimed the abortion giant’s aim was to be the “largest kick butt political organization” — and with the help of their political arms that is what Planned Parenthood appears to be doing. But is the organization actually playing by the rules?

In a previous Live Action News report, we documented how a Wisconsin Planned Parenthood was fined by the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) for failing to report contributions to Democratic candidates. Now, a more thorough review by Live Action News has uncovered additional reports from both state and federal agencies...

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Life Legal uncovers shocking facts about assisted suicide law

***** WARNING THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS *****

Life Legal attorneys have uncovered shocking facts about how California’s assisted suicide law is being implemented and who is doing the “assisting.”

One of those doctors is Lonny Shavelson, a former contract ER doctor who came out of retirement as soon as the law was passed to dispense lethal prescriptions. Shavelson is not board-certified in any medical specialty, including diagnosing or treating mental illness, which is often at the root of a request for suicide.

His sole “practice” consists of getting people to die.

Shavelson admits to having “attended at bedside” as 89 people committed suicide. He stresses that the lethal drugs must be taken within 2 minutes, or they can “fail.” By “fail,” he means the people don’t die—and may decide that they don’t want to kill themselves.

In his book “Chosen Death,” Shavelson writes about observing an assisted suicide. Gene, a lonely widower, contacted the Hemlock Society, which has since changed its name to “Compassion and Choices.”

“Sarah” the head of the local Hemlock Society office, came to Gene’s home to prepare and dispense the deadly concoction. This was not Sarah’s first experience with “assisting” a person’s death. She called it “the most intimate experience you can share with a person. . . . More than sex. More than birth . . . more than anything.”

Sarah held Gene’s head on her lap as she gave him the suicide drugs. As he started to fall asleep, Sarah put a plastic bag over his head and told Gene to “Go to the light.”

But the drugs failed. Gene woke up and started screaming.

Shavelson describes what happened next:

“His good hand flew up to tear off the plastic bag. Sarah’s hand caught Gene’s wrist and held it. His body thrust upwards. She pulled his arm away and lay across Gene’s shoulders. Sarah rocked back and forth, pinning him down, her fingers twisting the bag to seal it tight at his neck as she repeated, ‘the light, Gene, go toward the light.’ Gene’s body pushed against Sarah’s. Then he stopped moving.”

As Wesley Smith writes, “There is a word that describes what happened to Gene, and that word is murder.”

Click here for more from NRL News Today.

Justice Anthony Kennedy retires from U.S. Supreme Court

After months of speculation, Anthony Kennedy, the pivotal justice in so many cases including abortion, announced today that he retiring from the Supreme Court effective July 31.

Speaking on the Senate floor, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said. “The Senate stands ready to fulfill its constitutional role by offering advice and consent … we will vote to confirm Justice Kennedy’s successor this fall.”

The decision by the 81-year-old Kennedy gives President Trump his second opportunity to shape the Supreme Court possibly for decades to come. In April 2017, President Trump formally appointed appeals court judge Neil M. Gorsuch to succeed Justice Antonin Scalia who died in April 2016.

Kennedy had dropped a number of hints, only seemingly to step back, that he would be leaving after 30 years on the nation’s highest court. He was appointed by President Reagan in 1988.

In a letter hand delivered following today’s last batch of decisions, Kennedy told President Trump

“My dear Mr. President. For a member of the legal profession it is the highest of honor to serve on this court. Please permit me by this letter to express my profound gratitude for having had the privilege to seek in each case how best to know, interpret and defend the Constitution and the laws that must always conform to its mandates and promises.”

There have been titanic battles over nominees to the Supreme Court, including those who were ultimately defeated and others, such as Justice Clarence Thomas, who surmounted an all-out attempt at character assassination. But with the Court so evenly divided and with Democrats happily moving further and further to the Left, this confirmation fight will no doubt be one for the ages.

Kennedy was a part of the coalition that upheld the core holdings of Roe v. Wade in the 1992 Casey case. He also was part of the majority that struck commonsense abortion regulations in the 2016 Women’s Health v. Hellerstadt decision.

On the other side he was a pivotal vote in the 2007 Gonzales v. Carhart decision which upheld the federal ban on partial-birth abortions and just this week was part of the 5-4 majority which struck a California law that attacked the free speech rights of pregnancy help centers.

In response to Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy’s announcement the following statement may be attributed to National Right to Life President Carol Tobias:

All too often, our efforts to protect unborn children and other vulnerable humans have been overridden by judges who believe they have a right to impose their own policy preferences. We look forward to President Trump nominating a jurist who shares the view that Supreme Court justices are constrained to enforce the text and original intent of constitutional provisions, and on all other matters should defer to democratically elected lawmakers.

Click here for more from NRL News Today.

Four more IL gubernatorial candidates could be on November ballot

Voters could see several gubernatorial candidates on the 2018 General Election ballot in November - including  Libertarian Party candidate, a Conservative Party candidate and two independents - if they're allowed to stay on the ballot. More could join Democrat JB Pritzker and "Rauner Party" Bruce Rauner later this week if petitions are submitted to the State Board of Elections by Friday.

From the state's first-time Conservative Party, State Senator Sam McCann of Plainview gathered enough signatures to submit petitions for himself and Aaron Merrejohn of Riverton IL:

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A slate of statewide candidates from the Illinois Libertarian Party submitted these names:

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As did two independent candidates:

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Click here for more from Illinois Review.

New York bill targets pregnancy centers with bogus investigations

Pro-abortion politicians in New York are moving ahead with another attack on pro-life pregnancy help centers. Last week, New York Assembly member Deborah Glick introduced a bill that targets pregnancy centers with sham investigations of the state’s 200 pregnancy help centers, nonprofits that provide peer counseling, ultrasounds, material aid, and post-abortive help at no cost.

Similar to other measures that have been pursued over the last several years, the bill starts with an assumption of guilt, calling pregnancy centers “deceptive clinics that do not provide comprehensive reproductive health care.”

Click here for more from Live Action News.

Women in California may soon be protected from abortionists like these

In this age of breaking the secrecy around sexual abuse, a California bill is seeking to “lift the veil of secrecy around physician sexual assault and other patient harm,” according to a press release issued by Consumer Watchdog. The group estimates that the Patient’s Right to Know Act of 2018 (SB1448) “would require disclosure by approximately half of the doctors the California Medical Board places on probation every year.” The move comes on the heels of horrific sexual abuse allegations against two high profile doctors, Larry Nassar and George Tyndall, whose troubling misconduct histories were unknown by the women they cared for as patients. But due to the fact that many abortionists have been previously disciplined by the medical board, SB1448 may also have ramifications for the abortion industry.

An abortion facility is one place where women are likely to know little, if anything, about their doctor. Compounding this is the fact that abortion and Planned Parenthood facilities in California are some of the least regulated in the nation. The abortion industry there has become a breeding ground for some of the most unscrupulous and dangerous doctors preying on women

Click here for more from Live Action News.

Abortionist Robert Rho Sentenced to Prison for Killing Woman During Botched Late-Term Abortion

Abortionist Robert Rho, who pleaded guilty last month to Criminal Negligent Homicide for causing the death of Jaime Morales, 30, during a botched second trimester abortion, was sentenced yesterday to serve fifteen months to four years in state prison.

Over Rho's 23-year career as an abortionist, he committed an estimated 40,000 abortions, according to his attorney Jeff Lichtman.

But Rho was known to cut corners on abortion procedures to save time and money. His short-cuts proved fatal for Jaime Morales when she visited Rho on July 9, 2016.

Rho conducted an abortion on Morales' 26-week baby in just one day instead of the recommended 2-3 days. Because of this, he inflicted serious internal injuries on Morales, including a perforated uterus and lacerated cervix, uterine artery, and vagina.

Instead of calling an ambulance for his hemorrhaging patient, he cinched her cervix closed to conceal the internal bleeding. Despite her drifting in and out of consciousness due to blood loss, Rho released Morales from his abortion facility. She died just hours later.

Click here for more from ChristianNewsWire.

Planned Parenthood sues Trump administration, calls abstinence education “dangerous”

Calling an abstinence-only educational curriculum “dangerous,” Planned Parenthood affiliates filed a lawsuit on Friday against the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The abortion corporation announced that it was “challenging the administration’s efforts to impose their abstinence-only-until-marriage (AOUM) agenda on the 1.2 million young people who are set to benefit from the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program (TPP program). The lawsuit seeks to protect the future of the TPP program. If successful, the lawsuit will ensure that the TPP program maintains its evidence-based principles and that new grantees are not forced to push dangerous AOUM curriculums.”

Of course, Planned Parenthood’s narrative comes directly from the fiction section. Over in non-fiction, the facts show that the TPP programs are vastly ineffective.

Click here for more from Live Action News.

Supreme Court sides with pro-life pregnancy centers in California abortion case

The Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked a California law requiring pro-life pregnancy centers to post information on programs to obtain and free or low-cost abortion.

The 5-4 ruling in National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA) v. Becerra sent the case back to a lower court to be reconsidered, in light of the Supreme Court’s finding that “We hold that petitioners are likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that the FACT Act violates the First Amendment.”

Lower courts had rejected a petition to temporarily block the California law while it was being legally challenged. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the case against the law was unlikely to succeed on its merits.

The Supreme Court reversed that ruling, saying that the Ninth Circuit was wrong to treat the speech of pregnancy centers as a lesser category of free speech simply because it is “professional speech.”

Click here for more from CNA/EWTN News.

Court down to last days to decide law violating pregnancy center’s First Amendment rights

As is always the case as the Supreme Court approaches the end of its turn, important cases remain to be resolved. For pro-lifers, that is National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra.

As anyone who has read about, let alone attended oral arguments, there is no foolproof way of gauging from the justices’ questions what they are thinking. For example, “hostile” questions may be a fishing expedition to find the best answer to give to colleagues who really are hostile to someone’s argument.

That being said, the justices, from the least receptive to anything resembling a pro-life initiative, to the more sympathetic, found California’s so-called “Reproductive FACT Act” a stretch. The law requires both pregnancy help centers that offer medical services and those who don’t to “act as a ventriloquist’s dummy for a government message”—abortion—as one pro-life attorney phrased it.

If they offer medical services, they must post signage that the state offers free abortions. If they don’t, they must post signage that announces, “This facility is not licensed as a medical facility by the state of California.”

The justification for the Reproductive FACT Act, passed on strictly party-line votes in the Democrat-controlled California statehouse and signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown, is that pregnancy centers were allegedly misleading women. As became painfully clear at oral arguments, there is precious little evidence to support the allegation.

Nearly all the justices found ample reason to consider the question whether the requirements constituted an “undue burden.”

Click here for more from NRL News Today.

Phyllis Schlafly's son Andy, speculates on effects of possible Supreme Court justice retirement

In an email Monday, Andy Schlafly, son of the late conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly, shed light on speculations that Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy may announce his retirement soon.

"If Kennedy retires, then that may explain why he declined to join the pro-abortion wing of the Court on the petition for cert by Planned Parenthood in the Arkansas abortion medication complications case," Schlafly wrote. "To the surprise of all, and the dismay of pro-aborts, the Supreme Court "denied cert" in that case, thereby allowing the pro-life decision by the 8th Circuit to stand.  (Planned Parenthood v. Jegley)  This is the first time in memory that the Supreme Court, which has enough votes to grant cert for Planned Parenthood, has rebuffed PP's request."

One the other hand, Schlafly said, if Justice Kennedy does not retire, his opposition to Planned Parenthood in the Jegley case could indicate the 81-year-old justice's opinion has shifted against abortion.

Click here for more from Illinois Review.

Pro-abortion Vice Media wanted woman to abort so they could film it

Texas is ground zero for abortion activists. The state has passed numerous pro-life laws in recent years, including banning brutal dismemberment abortions and putting into place protections for victims of sex trafficking and the abortion industry. The state has also permanently banned taxpayer funding for abortion. And while all of these things have made the state safer for both preborn children and for women, it has also made Texas a target for pro-abortion activism — including from the media, which is supposed to be unbiased.

In 2015, Vice was considering doing a special for HBO on abortion restrictions in Texas, and a producer came up with a twisted spin: find a woman, try to convince her to have an abortion, and film it. The producer’s manager thankfully axed the story, and the producer was fired.

Click here for more from Live Action News.