Office Depot accused of religious discrimination; refused to print anti-abortion flyer

An Office Depot in Chicago's northwest suburbs is being accused of religious discrimination for refusing to print flyers containing a prayer published by Father Frank Pavone and Planned Parenthood's own published statistics.

Thursday, Chicago's Thomas More Society sent a demand letter to Office Depot, challenging the company's refusal to print religious flyers for customer Maria Goldstein at its Schaumburg, IL location as discrimination and a violation of the Cook County Human Rights Ordinance.

“Anyone can order printing at Office Depot,” said Thomas Olp, Thomas More Society special counsel attorney. “But because Ms. Goldstein’s flyers had religious content—namely calling for prayer for Planned Parenthood—Office Depot refused to complete her order. This is a blatant violation of the Cook County Human Rights Ordinance, which forbids public businesses from discriminating based on religion.”

Click here for the originating article from Illinois Review.

House OK’s Bipartisan Stem Cell Bill; Smith Legislation Authorizes $265M over Five Years for Bone Marrow, Cord Blood Programs

On the very first day of the fall session, the House took up and passed vital legislation authored by U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) to continue America’s bone marrow and cord blood donor registry.

Sponsored by Smith with lead co-sponsor Rep. Doris Matsui (D-CA), the Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Reauthorization Act of 2015, H.R. 2820, ensures that two collaborative programs that support treatment and therapies derived from adult stem cell lines will not expire at the end of the federal fiscal year, Sept. 30.

Under the legislation, the C.W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program will be authorized for five years at $30 million annually, while the National Cord Blood Inventory is authorized at $23 million annually for a five-year period. Smith authored the original law (The Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Act of 2005—P.L. 109-129) that created the national cord blood program and expanded the C.W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program.

Click here for the originating article from NRL News Today

House Judiciary Committee Hears Testimony on Planned Parenthood’s “Horrific Abortion Practices”

Today’s three-hour hearing of the House Judiciary Committee was titled, “Planned Parenthood Exposed: Examining the Horrific Abortion Practices at the Nation’s Largest Abortion Provider.” Testimony from witnesses and questions from committee members amply illustrated just how ghastly these “practices” are, recently brought to the public’s attention by a series of eight undercover videos which show the Center for Medical Progress interviewing several high ranking Planned Parenthood officials.

Nothing could have better illustrated how far apart pro-life and pro-abortionists are than this exchange between Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and one of the four witnesses, Priscilla Smith, who directs Yale Law School’s Program for the Study of Reproductive Justice.

Rep. Goodlatte described what happens to an unborn baby in the course of a dismemberment abortion, how the baby is literally torn to pieces. He asked Ms. Smith if she considered this humane.

Yes, she responded, provided the baby [“fetus”] was not viable.

Click here for the originating article from NRL News Today

VIDEO: Gutierrez thanks Planned Parenthood

At Wednesday's U.S. House hearing on Planned Parenthood, Illinois' Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-04) thanked the people that work at Planned Parenthood, attributing their services to 500,000 less pregnancies last year.

"I'm not for abortion," Gutierrez said, "but I do honk that I'm pro-choice."

Gutierrez said no one has proven that Planned Parenthood is selling body parts, but, "I'm right to defend my two daughters' rights."



Click here for the originating article from Illinois Review

Planned Parenthood to Congress: Ignore what you see, hear in those videos

When the videos clearly show people in the Planned Parenthood labs clinically picking over fetal parts like brains, eyes, hearts, livers, arms or legs, disputes over exactly what prompted Planned Parenthood employees to make awkward admissions of the baby’s sex and humanity seem to be mere diversions.

Planned Parenthood wants Congress to put these images out of their minds and focus on the editing of the videos.

PPFA says Fusion GPS, the firm hired by Planned Parenthood to analyze the videos, “ultimately concluded that the manipulation of the videos and the transcripts means they have no evidentiary value in a legal context and cannot be relied upon for any official inquiries unless supplemented by the original video in unaltered form.”

Though there are multiple occasions on the tapes where Planned Parenthood abortionists discuss changing the “procedure” in order to get better “specimens,” more “intact” specimens, Planned Parenthood tells Congress in the letter that the only abortion method used at its centers, from about 13 weeks of pregnancy, is what it considers to be “dilation and extraction” (D&E), and any variations are merely “adjustments” to that “method.”

Click here for the originating article from NRL News Today

ACTION ALERT - Call Senator Mark Kirk to Defund Planned Parenthood

ACTION ALERT!

Call Senator Mark Kirk at his Washington office and urge him to defund Planned Parenthood.

The make-or-break moment for pro-lifers to defund Planned Parenthood is here.

Outraged by undercover videos on fetal tissue donation, conservatives are pushing to cut all federal funding for Planned Parenthood as part of legislation that would avert a government shutdown on Oct. 1.

Now is the time to get Senator Mark Kirk's attention and defund Planned Parenthood.

Call his Washington Office at: (202) 224-2854, urge him to defund Planned Parenthood.

IL Planned Parenthood uses tax dollars to win elections, acquire more tax dollars

Planned Parenthood Federation of America has been the focus of an ongoing undercover investigation by Center for Medical Progress, whose staffers posed as individuals interested in procuring fetal tissue and organs for research.

Thus far, they've released nine videos with Planned Parenthood officials and insiders explaining how babies are aborted, how their body parts are distributed for medical research, and how they profit from the transactions. Several governors have defunded their state's Planned Parenthoods, and many state legislatures have initiated investigations into the powerful organization. No action has taken place in Illinois.

In fact, Planned Parenthood of Illinois continues to receive millions of Illinois tax dollars every year. In FY 2015, checks totaling nearly $9 million were written to Planned Parenthood

Illinois' funding of Planned Parenthood was highlighted late last week when Adam Andrzejewski revealed that Illinois Comptroller Leslie Munger has paid Planned Parenthood $4.3 million of taxpayer money since January - and "Grants and Awards" of $1,592,850 between June 17 and July 22nd.

Click here for the originating article from Illinois Review.

9th Planned Parenthood video: For-profit Corporation Paid Fees to Clinic Directors for Exclusive Access

A new undercover video—the 9th in a series exposing Planned Parenthood—has introduced another major player in the business of harvesting fetal tissues.

The new video from the Center for Medical Progress exposes Advanced Bioscience Resources (ABR), a for-profit company with a longstanding relationship with Planned Parenthood. In the video, a competitor charges that ABR paid an “advisor fee” to abortion-clinic directors who gave them exclusive access to the tissues taken from aborted babies.



Click here for the originating article from Catholic World News

Press Conference outside of Senator Mark Kirk’s Chicago Office

Will you join me and other Illinois pro-life leaders this coming Thursday, September 3rd at a press conference outside of Senator Mark Kirk’s Chicago office? 

Earlier this month, Sen. Kirk voted AGAINST defunding Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion provider, which has been caught on camera harvesting and haggling over the body parts of aborted children. Senator Kirk needs to hear from Illinois pro-lifers right now. At the press conference, we will tell him:

We do NOT want our taxpayer dollars to fund abortion! Senator Kirk should support any efforts to defund Planned Parenthood this fall.

We want to see babies protected from painful late term abortions after five months. Senator Kirk must vote FOR the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act this fall.

Here are the details for Thursday’s event:

What: Women Speak Out: Demand Sen. Kirk Support Sensible 5 Month Abortion Limit 

Where: Outside Senator Kirk’s Chicago Office at Federal Plaza – 230 S Dearborn St., Chicago, IL 60604

When: Thursday, September 3, 12 PM – 1 PM

Who:    Susan B. Anthony List 

            Americans United for Life Action

            Concerned Women for America of Illinois

            Illinois Family Institute

            Illinois Right to Life

    Illinois Federation for Right to Life 

            Pro-Life Action League

            Pro-Life Future

            Students for Life of America 

            And many more local pro-life leaders!

Our nation’s permissive abortion laws have allowed Planned Parenthood to go unchecked for too long. Thanks to the Center for Medical Progress, we now know with certitude that Planned Parenthood has is wheeling and dealing in the body parts of aborted children. 

They MUST be defunded.

Sadly, the U.S. is ALSO far outside the international norm when it comes to late term abortions. We are only one of seven countries – including human rights violators like China and North Korea -- to allow abortions after five months (20 weeks) more than halfway through pregnancy.

Join with me outside of Senator Kirk’s office this Thursday and ask him to defund Planned Parenthood AND help get the U.S. off the list of only seven nations lacking the compassion to protect babies – especially once they feel pain.

As Senator Kirk prepares to head back to Washington, D.C. after the August recess, he needs to hear from us – his pro-life constituents – now.

Join me on Thursday as we ask him to defund Big Abortion AND support a common sense, popular limit on abortion by voting FOR the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act when it comes for a vote in the fall.

Thank you and I look forward to seeing you in Chicago this Thursday at noon outside of Senator Kirk’s downtown office!

For Life,

Jill Stanek

National Campaign Chair, Susan B. Anthony List

Health Care Right of Conscience Act - Deadline Extended AGAIN!

SB1564 the Health Care Right of Conscience Act

Sponsor: Senator Biss.

The Deadline has now been extended to September 30, 2015.

This bill amends the Health Care Right of Conscience Act:  provides that notwithstanding any other law, a health care facility, or any physician or health care personnel working in the facility, may refuse to permit, perform, assist in, counsel about, suggest, recommend, refer for, or participate in health care services because of a conscience-based objection.  

This bill now undermines Healthcare Right of Conscience by requiring pro-life facilities to refer pro-abort services to other facilities thus violating their morals or beliefs.

From the bill text:

Amends the Health Care Right of Conscience Act. Makes changes in the Section concerning findings and policy. Defines "access to care and information protocols" and "material information". Provides that notwithstanding any other law, a health care facility, or any physician or health care personnel working in the facility, may refuse to permit, perform, assist in, counsel about, suggest, recommend, refer for, or participate in health care services because of a conscience-based objection only if the refusal occurs in accordance with written access to care and information protocols designed to ensure that (1) the patient receives material information in a timely fashion; and (2) the refusal will not impair the patient's health by causing delay of or inability to access the refused health care service. Provides that nothing in the Act shall be construed to prevent a health care facility from requiring that physicians or health care personnel working in the facility comply with access to care and information protocols.

This amendment requires a written referral to a facility that will complete the refused services including abortion, contraceptives and family planning.

From the bill text:

...a written document that contains the names of and contact information for health care facilities, physicians, or health care personnel that may provide the patient the particular form of health care service refused...

"Health care" is defined as any phase of patient care, including but not limited to, testing; diagnosis; prognosis; ancillary research; instructions; family planning, counselling, referrals, or any other advice in connection with the use or procurement of contraceptives and sterilization or abortion procedures; medication; or surgery or other care or treatment rendered by a physician or physicians, nurses, paraprofessionals or health care facility, intended for the physical, emotional, and mental well-being of persons...

Although an amendment has been added to bill, the Federation for Right to Life still opposes this bill.

Click here for more information on this bill.

Click here for the full bill text.

March for Life wins exemption from Obamacare contraceptive mandate

The March for Life has won a permanent injunction barring enforcement of the “Obamacare” contraceptive mandate.

A federal court rules on August 31 that the March for Life, the group that organizes the annual pro-life demonstration in Washington each January, should be granted the same exemption from the mandate that has been applied to religious organizations. Although the March for Life is not a religious group, the court reasoned:

If the purpose of the religious employer exemption is, as HHS states, to respect the anti-abortifacient tenets of an employment relationship, then it makes no rational sense-indeed, no sense whatsoever to deny March for Life that same respect.

Click here for the originating article from Catholic World News.

Video: Huge Crowds Gather in Aurora to Protest Planned Parenthood

In the wake of revelations that Planned Parenthood sells human baby parts for profit, over 1600 gathered outside the abortion clinic in Aurora as part of the nationwide protest against abortion.



Click here for the originating article from Illinois Review.

Andrzejewski: IL Comptroller Munger pays Planned Parenthood; holds disability payments

Instead of directing court ordered payments to the developmentally disabled, Illinois comptroller massively funded Planned Parenthood, spent taxpayer dollars on lobbyists, paid thousands of dollars in checks to a political blogger, and used the state plane as her personal taxi.

Those are the assertions of government transparency advocate Adam Andrzejewski in a Forbes' commentary Friday.

Andrzejewski says she's close to being in contempt of court with the checks she's writing.

Click here for the originating article from Illinois Review

Undercover video producers debunk Planned Parenthood's defense

The Center for Medical Progress, which has released a series of damaging undercover videos showing Planned Parenthood’s involvement in the sale of fetal tissues, has now sent a letter to Congress, rebutting a Planned Parenthood defense of its policies.

“The Planned Parenthood report contains multiple erroneous statements and conclusions, yet by its own words finds no ‘substantive video manipulation’ and ‘no evidence of audio manipulation,’ the pro-life group observed in a press release.

In his letter to Congress, the Center for Medical Progress pointed out that Planned Parenthood had acknowledged that some clinics “may ‘adjust’ abortion procedures in order to obtain higher quality fetal tissue specimens.” That would be a violation of federal law, the group notes. Explaining the process of harvesting organs from aborted babies, the Center says that “this is a new revenue stream off of fetal tissue with no real cost to Planned Parenthood, and thus a criminal profit.”

Click here for the originating article from Catholic World News

New Video Continues to Expose Grisly Nature of Baby Body Part Trafficking

Over lunch with undercover investigators from the CMP, Dyer casually discusses her company’s role in the trafficking process, including admissions that the company gets “a lot” of intact fetuses and suggesting that “another 50 livers a week” would not be enough. In her conversation, Dyer indicates the value of Planned Parenthood as a partner, referring to them as a “high volume” operation. She also fully revealed the gruesome nature of her “business,” namely that clients who receive the trafficked baby body parts often don’t want to see the heads, hands, and feet of the unborn children – indicating that even for researchers, the sight of an unborn child’s head in a delivery box is too grisly.

A claim repeated like a mantra by Planned Parenthood, and uncritically transmitted by many journalists, is that abortion makes up “only 3%” of Planned Parenthood’s “services.” But Planned Parenthood counts everything given to, or done to, a given patient as a separate “service.” For example: every pregnant woman who enters a Planned Parenthood clinic for an abortion, may also have a pregnancy test, STD screening, and may receive birth control pills. Each of these counts as a “service;” thus, a woman who walks in for an abortion receives not one, but four “services.” (This doesn’t include other “services” that may be required for the abortion itself.)

In short, the 3% figure is purposefully misleading. A much more instructive measure is to look at the numbers of clients, rather than the number of “services.” Based on data from their own annual report from 2008-2009 (where the 3% figure made its first appearance), nearly one in eight women walking through the door of a Planned Parenthood clinic has an abortion.

Click here for the originating article from NRLC

Thomas More Society Defends David Daleiden as He Uncovers Abortion Industry's Sale of Fetal Body Parts

Anti-SLAPP Motion Filed to Fend off National Abortion Federation Attempt to Silence Filmmaker's Free Speech

Thomas More Society attorneys are helping to defend David Daleiden, the investigative journalist who produced the Planned Parenthood exposé videos, against civil RICO charges which are pending before the federal district court in San Francisco. The not-for-profit national public interest law firm has filed an Anti-SLAPP motion on behalf of Daleiden and his affiliated entities, the Center for Medical Progress and Biomax Procurement Services LLC, in that ongoing proceeding.

The Anti-SLAPP action is a legal response to an arguably legally baseless effort on the part of the plaintiff, the National Abortion Federation, whose objective is allegedly to deny Daleiden his First Amendment free speech rights. Daleiden's whistleblowing videos depict the roles of Planned Parenthood, Stem Express and others in the illegal harvesting and selling of fetal body parts for profit, as well as the violation of laws against partial birth abortion, killing of born alive infants, and altering abortion procedures so as to enhance possibilities for securing "intact fetal cadavers." Following the release of these films, the National Abortion Federation sued Daleiden and his affiliated entities, as well as Operation Rescue head Troy Newman (represented by separate counsel), under the federal Racketeer Influenced & Corrupt Organizations Act known as RICO. This 1970 federal law was designed to combat organized crime. The suit also, as well as under another twelve California state law claims.

Click here for the originating article from Christian Newswire

Media Support for Forcing Doctors to Kill

So, you’re a doctor. You go into the profession to heal and alleviate suffering.

You believe in the sanctity of human life, either due to religion or philosophy. You accept the maxims of the Hippocratic Oath. Your beliefs are in accord with the ethics of your profession.

Suddenly, the Supreme Court of your country rules that doctors killing sick patients is a Charter right–even for psychological pain. Now, your beliefs are considered a denial of a patient’s right to be killed.

Fine. Let other doctors do it, you say. Not you. You believe it is a grievous sin and/or profoundly immoral to be complicit in homicide. That’s not why you became a doctor. Tough!

Canada’s medical establishment wants to force you to kill. And, the media is beginning to join the chorus.

Click here for the originating article from National Review.

2016 Presidential Candidates on Defunding Abortion Providers: Do you know where they stand?

Following the release of undercover videos exposing Planned Parenthood’s trafficking of baby parts procured from their lucrative abortion business, pro-life Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) introduced S. 1881, a bill which would end all federal funding of the nation’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, with the money being given instead to other women’s health service providers.

On August 3, 2015, U.S. Senators voted 53-46 to advance this bill.  Sixty votes were needed for advancement. Two Democrats voted to advance the legislation, which was opposed by a single Republican. One pro-life senator was absent and another pro-life senator changed his vote to “no” at the last minute so that he could later ask for reconsideration.

One of the individuals pictured above is likely to be elected President in 2016. In light of President Obama’s threat to veto any bill that defunds Planned Parenthood, following is an overview of the 2016 presidential candidates’ positions on the issue in alphabetical order.

Where do the 2016 presidential candidates for the Republican nomination stand on defunding abortion providers?  Click here for more.

Click here for the originating article from NRL News.

Starkehaus: Will Bruce Rauner’s support for Planned Parenthood remain “unequivocal”

...we have a game changer now – and "game" is the accurate description of what the political dialog of abortion has become. The whistleblower videos that Holly O'Donnell and the Center for Medical Progress have produced regarding Planned Parenthood's designer abortions – tailored with the harvesting human fetal tissue in mind – mean that social conservatives can no longer delude themselves by thinking that Planned Parenthood is in the business of "mostly mammograms with an occasional abortion thrown in for emergency purposes only."

Representatives like Bruce Rauner would perhaps like to gloss over the need for a thorough examination of Planned Parenthood's profit motive for expedience's sake. Maybe they will suggest that it's a poor use of the state's limited resources. And, after all, we wouldn't want to be seen as infringing upon Planned Parenthood's mythological mammogram programs, would we? Think of the optics in the upcoming election cycle if feminists start launching on so-called misogynist Republicans again.

So social conservatives have been alerted to the atrocities and are left wondering, what will Bruce Rauner do now that the actions of Planned Parenthood's employees have been revealed on video for all the world to see?

Click here for the originating article from Illinois Review.

Pro-life advocates line sidewalks nationwide outside 300+ Planned Parenthood centers

Almost half of the 668 Planned Parenthood facilities in the nation were flooded with pro-life protesters Saturday in a nationwide effort. The demonstrations come on the heels of a series of videos by from the Center for Medical Progress that show top doctors at Planned Parenthood haggling over the price of fetal body parts.

The protest, planned for weeks, follows a new video released this week in which a Planned Parenthood fetal parts buyer is seen making jokes about shipping baby heads. About 320 Planned Parenthood centers saw protesters with the turnout at some numbering in the hundreds and even thousands. Posts about the rallies were tagged #ProtestPP and became the top trending items on both Facebook and Twitter.

Click here for the originating article from Live Action News.