US Prepares to Fight EU Over Abortion Policy at Global Summit Next Month

Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

In preparation for a global health summit in September, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar sent a joint letter to foreign governments asking for support in an upcoming battle over abortion. The European Union recently rejected a United Nations agreement on global health because it did not make a statement declaring abortion an international right.

The US and EU are arguing over the specific definition of "sexual and reproductive health" in previous UN legislation. The United States wants to make the definition of this phrase specific so that it does not include abortion, while EU ambassadors favor a vague definition that grants abortion rights. Click here for more.

Pro-Abortion Writer Tells Horrifying Stories from Abortion Pill Users

A pro-abortion writer from Vice recently wrote an article detailing horrifying stories from women (including herself) who had complications when using abortion pills. In the end, she stubbornly comes to the conclusion that her abortion was "was the right thing for both me and the potential child," but the article still serves as a chilling reminder of the potential harm abortions can cause to women and the lack of information given to vulnerable women who go to pregnancy clinics. 

Women gave stories involving contractions, bleeding, vomiting, and needing to go perform surgical abortions instead of waiting for a "miscarriage." According to Vice's source, Dr. Yvonne Neubauer, 95% of medically induced abortions are, “successful in causing the complete passage of the retained product," which means the remain 1-in-20 women experienced similar complications. Perhaps not a high rate, but still an unpleasant one considering the suffering caused to women in positions in which they feel the need to have abortions, let alone the preborn children who are killed. Click here for more.

South African Doctors Refuse to Perform Abortions Despite Advocacy Efforts

Abortion has been legal in South Africa since the Choice of Termination of Pregnancy Act passed in 1996. In spite of this, only 7% of pregnancy clinics in the country will perform abortions. On top of this, very few doctors at the 93% of clinics that don't perform abortions are willing to refer patients to clinics that will.

Pregnancy clinics and individual doctors most often refuse to perform abortion procedures due to religious beliefs, which is entirely legal. Polling shows that the culture in South Africa tends to share those beliefs. Religious organizations are working to provide women in need with alternatives to abortion, and the country as a whole serves as an example that it is possible to win the culture war. Click here for more.

Vermont Health Commissioner Says Vermont Taxpayers Will Make Up For Lost Title X Funding

After Planned Parenthood chose to give up Federal Funding from Title X rather than comply with a new rule requiring family planning organizations that receive funding to distance themselves from abortion practices, it took a large hit. In an attempt to make up some of the money it will lose, it turned to fundraising, but Vermont Health Commissioner Mark Levine has brought up another disquieting alternative.  According to him, Vermont taxpayers will make up the funds that local clinics lost.

If pro-abortion legislators and government officials move to increase state funding of abortion facilities, the pro-life victory of Title X could be for nothing. We will soon see if more states try to make this move. Click here for more.

Abortion Pill Reversal Can Stop Chemical Abortions

A new study finds that the use of the hormone progesterone, which is important to a healthy pregnancy, can help prevent the death of a preborn child in the case that the chemical abortion process has already begun. “Women who change their minds after starting a medication abortion now have a second chance at choice,” said George Delgado, one of the study’s authors. At least 750 lives have been saved through the use of abortion pill reversal (APR).

In addition, several states have passed APR informed consent laws which help notify women seeking abortion of this life-saving option. Click here for more.

Amazon Studios Releases Documentary Showing the Tragedies of China's One-Child Policy

A new Amazon Studios documentary shows the horrible damage caused by China's enforcement of its one-child policy. In it, families describe the horrors of having government officials forcefully take children away. Female children were abandoned, killed, or sent away to orphanages so that families could try again to get a male child. Abortions, killings, and human trafficking rose. You can watch the trailer above or click here to see if the film is playing near you.

Click here for more on this story.

Court Upholds Denial of Ohio Abortion Clinic's License. Forced to Close

On August 22, The Women's Med Center of Dayton ran out of options to appeal a court decision that would close the facility. The Department of Health had denied them a license for not meeting regulations. The Women's Med Center went to court and lost, but was able to continue operating until they had exhausted all of their appeal options. On Wednesday, the Ohio Supreme Court declined to hear the case, thereby finalizing the decision.

The facility was unable to "maintain privileges at a local hospital. Instead, it applied for a variance that would have allowed it to substitute a hospital transfer agreement in lieu of hospital privileges." No hospital would enter an agreement with the clinic because of the number of hospitalizations and complications it had a history of causing. Click here for more.

Child Born with 2% Brain Capacity Develops at Near Normal Rate after Parents Reject Pressure to Abort

Doctors had told parents of now 4-year old Noah Wall that if he were to be born, he would end up developing to have half of a normal brain, and that wasn't even Noah's only health problem: “These included spina bifida – a condition which prevents the spine from developing properly – rare chromosome abnormalities and hydrocephalus.” Despite all of that, parents Rob and Shelly Wall decided to go through with the pregnancy and are delighted by their son's progress. "Miraculously he kept on growing, and so did his brain, which by the age of three, scans showed had grown to 80 percent capacity. Now at the age of six, he has learned to talk and is hoping to be able to walk, surf and ski with the help of a pioneering clinic in Australia."

While Noah is still unable to walk, his parents are hopeful that he will, and are determined to help him fulfill his dreams. Click here for more.

Former Planned Parenthood Employee Wins $3 Million in Damages. Was Fired for Reporting Injuries Caused by Doctor.

A former employee from Planned Parenthood Arizona recently won a lawsuit against the organization that fired her. She attempted to report a doctor who developed a history of injuring women during abortion procedures but found that her superiors valued their relationship with the doctor in question more than the safety of the women coming in to have abortions. According to the Mayra Rodriguez, the fired employee, patients were “suffering far more substantial post-abortion surgery complications and problems than the patients who underwent abortion surgery by or with the other PPA physicians.”

It is appalling that it takes a lawsuit from a former employee for a doctor like this who repeatedly hurts mothers in addition to their preborn children to be acknowledged, let alone held accountable for their actions. Click here for more.

Unplanned Actress Ashley Bratcher Creates Scholarship Fund for Women with Unplanned Pregnancies

After the success of the recent film Unplanned, made by the writers and producers of God's Not Dead, lead actress Ashley Bratcher is partnering with Heartbeat International to help women with unplanned pregnancies pursue education while being a mom. "...Not only will the scholarship financially support the decision of mothers to continue their education, but it will also connect them to an organization that will support them throughout their pregnancy and beyond.”

You can donate the scholarship fund here.

The film tells the story of Abby Johnson, a former clinic director for Planned Parenthood who became a pro-life activist after a traumatic experience watching an abortion through ultrasound. Abby Johnson tells her story in a book also named Unplanned.

Click here for more.

Planned Parenthood Loses Federal Funding after Leaving Title X

On August 19th, Planned Parenthood made the announcement that it would pull out from the Title X federal family planning program rather than comply with a new Trump administration rule prohibiting clinics who receive funding from the Title X program from referring patients to abortion providers. They believe it is more important for them to be able to offer abortions to patients than to receive funding from this program. To comply, the organization would have had to make a “good faith effort” to abide by the new rule before the 19th.

Title X provided $60 million of federal funding yearly to planned parenthood, but it still receives far more from Medicaid in addition to other federal and state sources. Planned Parenthood is attempting to make up for some of the lost federal dollars through fundraising, but they know that it won’t be nearly the same. Click here for more.

Their facility has seriously injured dozens of women. And Planned Parenthood just gave them an award.

Planned Parenthood just bestowed “Media Excellence” awards upon various Planned Parenthood-friendly journalists, as well as the highest “Care. No Matter What” award to staff associated with Reproductive Health Services Planned Parenthood in St. Louis, Missouri. The facility has had more than six dozen medical emergencies in the past ten years, and put women’s lives at risk due to failed abortions. The Media Excellence awards, previously named the “Maggie Award,” or the “Margaret Sanger” award, after eugenicist founder Margaret Sanger, was recently changed without fanfare or explanation.

Despite the dangers the facility may pose to women, and the state health department’s decision not to issue the facility a license, a commissioner has just granted Planned Parenthood another reprieve, allowing the unlicensed abortion vendor to continue providing abortion services until a hearing set for August 1.  Click here for more.

Pregnant Alabama woman shot in stomach loses baby and is indicted for manslaughter

In a highly unusual case, an Alabama woman has been indicted for manslaughter after her preborn baby died from a gunshot wound… and she wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger.

According to news reports, Marshae Jones, 27, got into an altercation with another woman over Jones’ baby’s father. CNN notes that Pleasant Grove police Lt. Danny Reid said the other woman, Ebony Jemison, “react[ed] [to] defend herself” with a gun. Reid said, “It was the mother of the child who initiated and continued the fight which resulted in the death of her own unborn baby…. The investigation showed that the only true victim in this was the unborn baby.” A grand jury declined to indict Jemison, instead bringing charges against Jones for the death of her five-month-old preborn baby, a girl. Jones has another daughter at home, age six, reports the New York Times. Click here for more.

France’s top court decides brain-damaged Vincent Lambert must die

The French Court of Cassation has decided that Vincent Lambert (pictured), France’s Terri Schiavo, must die.

At the end of a whirlwind procedure, it published its arrest of cassation at 5 p.m. Friday in Paris, agreeing with the French state that the administration had in no way violated the tetraplegic, brain-damaged young man’s rights by a form of legal “assault” in refusing to sustain his life regardless of provisional measures demanded by the UN Committee for the Protection of Disabled Persons (CDPH).

The stopping of his food and hydration can “resume” immediately, according to the mainstream media.  Click here for more.

Supreme Court will not hear challenge to decision overturning Alabama law banning the dismemberment of living unborn children

The Supreme Court denied Alabama’s petition to review a decision that overturned the state’s ban on the dismemberment of living unborn babies.

The 2016 law never went into effect. In July 2016, an enthusiastically pro-abortion trial judge issued a temporary restraining order against Alabama’s Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act (SB 363) before ruling it unconstitutional in 2017.

Last August, a sympathetic appeals court panel reluctantly upheld U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson’s decision.

While Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas concurred with the decision in Harris v. West Alabama Women’s Center not to hear the appeal, he pointedly observed, “The notion that anything in the Constitution prevents States from passing laws prohibiting the dismembering of a living child is implausible. But under the ‘undue burden’ standard adopted by this court, a restriction on abortion — even one limited to prohibiting gruesome methods — is unconstitutional if ‘the purpose or effect of the provision is to place a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability.’ ”  Click here for more.

VIDEO: ‘Pro-choice politicians’ out of touch with America, says pro-life group’s pre-debate ad

The action arm of the organization which organizes the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., aired a six-figure ad on MSNBC ahead of the Democratic debates Wednesday night.

The “Consensus” ad features a number of women discussing the consensus among Americans shown by a recent Marist poll, which reveals that 8 in 10 Americans — and even 6 in 10 Americans who identify as pro-choice — think “abortion should happen only during the first three months of pregnancy – at most. That’s consensus.”  Click here for more.

Beaumont woman at center of dispute over Texas’ 10-Day Rule passes away

Carolyn Jones passed away Tuesday from natural causes following her high-profile battle with the Texas 10-Day Rule.

In May, a hospital committee pulled the plug on Carolyn against her family’s will, but she lived without a ventilator or dialysis for over 60 hours until escaping the hostile hospital in a private ambulance in the dead of night.

Carolyn stopped breathing early Tuesday morning at the long-term nursing facility in which she resided and was rushed to a nearby hospital. Hours later, Carolyn passed away peacefully – on God’s time, not on a countdown forced by a hospital committee or at a time prescribed by state law.

Carolyn’s husband and daughter, Donald and Kina Jones, labored tirelessly to protect her from death imposed by the 10-Day Rule. The Jones family is grateful for countless concerned well-wishers and supporters who sent love as well as donations to Carolyn’s aid. The generosity of people from across the United States afforded the Jones family 43 extra days to cherish with their wife and mother whose life would have otherwise been cut short in May.  Click here for more.

VIDEO: Will more women die from back-alley abortions if they can’t get them legally?

The latest video in Live Action’s “Pro-Life Replies” series was released today in response to the claim that “if abortion is made illegal, women will have dangerous back alley abortions.” The argument from many abortion advocates is that society will never get rid of abortion entirely, and if it’s illegal it will be unsafe — and therefore, they say, we need to keep abortion legal. This argument is severely lacking for several reasons, one of which is the fact that making anything illegal rarely stops that action altogether. Murder and theft are illegal, but homicides and burglaries still happen — and that’s because protecting life and protecting citizens’ private property are two important roles of government.

As for multiple other reasons why this argument is deficient, we turn to former abortionist and one-time Planned Parenthood medical director Dr. Kathi Aultman, who explains in the video below.  Click here for more.

Planned Parenthood forum: Every Democratic presidential candidate will expand abortion and make taxpayers foot the bill

Planned Parenthood’s political arm recently sponsored a “We Decide” membership forum in South Carolina where every 2020 Democrat political presidential hopeful vowed to protect abortion, and most promised to reverse the pro-life Hyde Amendment, which would force federal taxpayers to fund abortions. Planned Parenthood reflected on states where recent pro-life laws were enacted which seek to protect the preborn at the moment a heartbeat is detected in the womb. While Planned Parenthood labeled pro-life legislation as “part of a concerted strategy to ban abortion outright by overturning Roe v. Wade,” the abortion corporation’s own “2019 strategy” along with several other pro-abortion groups, has been to expand abortions to all nine months of pregnancy in several states.

Abortion expansion, it seems, has also now become the position of most of the 2020 Democratic hopefuls. Click here for the more pertinent quotes from that event.

British pro-lifers rally against forced abortion: ‘Unlikely that this is a one-off case’

British opponents of forced abortion rallied outside England’s Houses of Parliament yesterday.

The “Stand With Her” demonstration yesterday evening was both ebullient and serious in the wake of an Appeals Court overturn of an earlier decision in the Courts of Protection that a Nigerian disabled woman living in Britain should be forced to have an abortion.  

In an address to the rally, Emmi Egbonou stated “The fact that the state can force a late-term abortion on a woman who did not want one is not the kind of state we want to live in. The fact that a judge could make a ruling to force an abortion on a vulnerable woman without her consent is a betrayal of the justice system and betrayal of the most vulnerable in our society.”  Click here for more.