Dismemberment abortions are vicious, cruel, barbaric, and not worthy of culture that calls itself civilized

Emily Crockett, writing at Vox.com today informs us (and I kid you not) that “Pro-life advocates are trying to ban abortion by grossing people out about it.”

She’s referring to the Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act which Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards signed just last week. Six states have banned these grotesque abortions: the other five are Kansas, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Mississippi, and Alabama.

According to Crockett

D&E bans are quickly becoming the latest trend in anti-abortion lawmaking at the state level. They have colorful names like the “Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act.” And some advocates and lawmakers are using them to focus on the lurid details of later abortion procedures, in hopes of turning more Americans against abortion and making the procedure easier to outlaw or restrict.

“Colorful names,” “lurid details,” “grossing people out…” Wow.

So, what do we have to say about that, fellow pro-lifers? Or is Ms. Crockett’s brilliance so dazzling, we are rendered speechless?

Click here for more from National Right to Life.

Kudos to LEGOS for baby-in-the-womb minifigure

LEGOS announced on Monday that it had created a graphic that depicted a LEGO baby in the womb. If you go to the LEGO Facebook page, you read, “It’s a big day! The first ever LEGO baby minifigure says HEY! to the world, arriving with the LEGO City 60134 Fun in the Park set, tomorrow June 1st.” [For those of us not familiar with the minutiae of LEGOS, minifigures are miniature figurine toys that accessorize LEGO sets.)

As of this afternoon, there were 63,100 comments and 13,682 “shared.”

As you can see, the graphic looks like a regular birth announcement coupled “with a ‘photo of the toy baby on an ultrasound screen,” as the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children described it. “The hazy gray ultrasound ‘photo’ shows the smiling ‘baby,’ its size and estimated date of birth.”

Click here for more from National Right to Life.

Blackburn Calls for HHS Investigation into StemExpress & Abortion Clinics

Select Investigative Panel Chairman Marsha Blackburn is calling on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to investigate potential violations of federal law by StemExpress and a number of abortion clinics.

In a letter to the Office of Centralized Case Management Operations at HHS, Chairman Blackburn asks Director Jocelyn Samuels to examine evidence uncovered by the Select Panel’s investigation that shows StemExpress and the abortion clinics violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). The HIPAA privacy rule is a patients’ rights law, designed to empower the patient to determine when and where their private medical information will be disclosed.

The Select Panel’s investigation also shows that StemExpress violated federal regulations governing Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) by using the appearance of compliance with the regulations, while fraudulently using invalid consent forms, and misleading scientific researchers to believe it had a valid IRB approval. Misleading scientific researchers violates one of the core values of the IRB system, enacted by Congress to engender integrity in scientific medical research. As a result, Blackburn is asking HHS Office for Human Research Protections Director Jerry Menikoff to conduct a thorough investigation into whether StemExpress violated the applicable regulations; and, if any violation is found, to take all appropriate actions.

“The key to understanding the HIPAA and consent violations that we’ve referred to HHS is that there’s a business contract between StemExpress and the abortion clinics under which both sides make a profit from the baby body parts inside the young woman’s womb,” Chairman Blackburn said. “The contract changes the way both entities view the young woman: her baby is now a profit-center. This betrayal of a young woman’s trust should disgust us all. It takes financial advantage, obtains consent through coercion, and deceives the woman, all in violation of federal privacy laws.”

Click here to read the letters and accompanying documents from Chairman Blackburn to HHS.

Click here for more from the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee.

A “radical shift in outlook,” brought on by the birth of her daughter, enables mother to let go of the grief at losing her own father

The post is so stunning, so beautifully written, so intense that I will not spend more than a few sentences telling you that rewire news was the last place in this galaxy that I expected to read, “Only Through Becoming a Parent Have I Been Able to Let Go of My Grief at Losing My Own.”

Rewire is the new name for the second iteration of the dismal pro-abortion site Rhrealitycheck.org. The re-named site is just as hysterically pro-abortion, just as vicious in its treatment of our Movement as its predecessor. But…. then….out of the blue….comes ….

This magnificent post by Sharona Coutts. And because I really do want you read her entire tribute to her father, who passed away 21 years ago, and wonder at the power of healing that came in the form of her child who was born late last year...

Click here for more from National Right to Life.

Euphemisms for Killing

Words matter. The terminology we employ not only reflects our values but helps to define them. Language is particularly important in bioethical debates, in which dehumanizing verbiage can distance us from our fellow human beings.

When embryonic stem-cell research was in the news, we were told constantly by scientists and the media that an early embryo was “just a ball of cells” that didn’t even “look human.” We even heard that human life had no actual beginning, since we had all evolved from bacteria floating in a primordial sea.

But the fact that a young organism does not yet look as it will at maturity doesn’t make it a non-organism. When we were early embryos, we each were the same organism that we are now. And a human embryo is far more than a bunch of cells.

Click here for more from National Right to Life.

Man convicted of first-degree manslaughter and manslaughter in deaths of pregnant woman and her unborn baby

On the fourth day of deliberations, a Rensselaer County Court jury today convicted Gabriel Vega of first-degree manslaughter and manslaughter in the April 2014 strangulation death of Vanessa Milligan, his ex-girlfriend, who was pregnant with his child, Alina.

Prosecutors say Vega strangled the 19-year-old Milligan and then doused her apartment with gasoline before setting the fire.

“The jury of six women and six men also convicted Vega of second-degree arson, third-degree arson and first-degree abortion,” according to reporter Kenneth C. Crowe II.

“Vega had been charged with second-degree murder, which carries a maximum sentence of 25 years to life but after days of deliberations the jury opted to convict him of the lesser charge,” Crowe added. However Vega still faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison.

Click here for more from National Right to Life.

Abandoned in college laundry room, “Baby Jane Doe” graduates 32 years later from same school

32 years ago, a student at San Francisco State University, who happened to be “taking a course in newborn care,” found a baby in a box in the laundry room.

“Her body temperature had dropped precipitously and her skin had turned blue,” wrote Bob Collins. “She’s been putting up a fight ever since.”

That fight culminated for Jill Sobol when she graduated last Friday from the same university at which her mother had abandoned her in 1984!

If her story weren’t already amazing enough, consider this. Sobol had written a letter years before to her birth mother but got no reply. She also tried Facebook. “The woman friended, then unfriended, Sobol on Facebook.”

Having learned last month that some Facebook message can be hidden from view, she looked to see if she had any.

She found one. It had been sitting, unseen, for nearly two years.

Click here for more from National Right to Life.

ACTION ALERT HB5576 and SB1564

Two pro-abortion bills are on Governor Rauner's desk for his signature, SB1564, the Health Care Right of Conscience Act and HB5576, the Insurance Contraception Coverage bill.  Both of these bills are dangerous and need to be stopped.  Please call the Governor's office at 217-782-0244, or click here to go to his website and send an email asking him NOT to sign SB1564 or HB5576 and veto the bills.

Here is more information on the bills...

Health Care Right of Conscience Act 

SB1564

Sponsor: Senator Biss.

This bill is currently on the Governor's desk for his signature.

This bill amends the Health Care Right of Conscience Act  The 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.

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

Please call the Governor's office at 217-782-0244, or click here to go to his website and send an email asking him NOT to sign SB1564 and veto the bill.

Click here for more information on this bill.

Click here for the full bill text.


Insurance Contraception Coverage 

HB5576

This bill is currently on the Governor's desk for his signature.

This bill provides that an individual or group health policy shall provide coverage for all contraceptive drugs, devices, and other products approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration, including over-the-counter contraceptive drugs, devices, and products; voluntary sterilization procedures; contraceptive services, patient education, and counseling on contraception; and follow-up services related to their use.

This bill requires insurance coverage of over-the-counter drugs such as Plan B and Ella.  These drugs prevent a fertilized egg  from implanting to the uterine wall and therefore cause a chemical abortion.

Please call the Governor's office at 217-782-0244, or click here to go to his website and send an email asking him NOT to sign HB5576 and veto the bill.

Click here for more information on this bill.

Illinois Bill Forcing Pro-Lifers to Refer for Abortion Sent to Governor’s Desk

Illinois came one step closer to forcing its pro-life medical community to choose between violating state law and violating deeply held religious conscience Wednesday, as the state’s House approved Senate Bill 1564 and set the legislation on the governor’s desk.

The bill, which would introduce decisive changes to Illinois’ Health Care Right of Conscience Act, passed by a 61-54 margin and now awaits the signature of Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner.

Originally put forward in the summer of 2015, the legislation would require pro-life medical providers, including 51 Illinois nonprofit pregnancy centers offering free services including ultrasound and STI testing, to take action the bill’s opponents say amounts to participating in an abortion.

Particularly at issue is the bill’s requirement that every Illinois pro-life medical provider of any kind who chooses not to perform a procedure such as abortion or a prescription for birth control has one of three options: Either they must “refer the patient” to another provider, “transfer the patient” to another provider, or provide a list of “other health care providers who they reasonably believe may offer the health care service.”

One way or another, the law would compel pro-life medical providers in Illinois to participate in abortions.

ACTION ALERT...

Please call Gov. Rauner's office at 217-782-0244, or click here to go to his website and send an email asking him NOT to sign SB1564 and veto the bill.

Click here for more from National Right to Life.

Pro-lifer drops 'b' word on politicking Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood has already endorsed Hillary Clinton for president and plans to spend $30 million on political campaigns this year.

Jim Sedlak of American Life League says not all of it will be spent on behalf of the Clinton campaign, since the purpose is to support candidates who vote to continue the taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood.

That may be business as usual for the progressives in this country but Sedlak has another name for it: bribery.

"Not only is the organization committing bribery," the pro-lifer alleges, "but the person who accepts the money is committing bribery."

Click here for more from OneNewsNow.

Supreme Court sends more mandate cases back to lower circuits

After sending the Little Sisters’ HHS mandate case back to the circuit courts on May 16, the Supreme Court voided two more mandate cases on Monday.

In Zubik v. Burwell, the Supreme Court sent back to the federal circuit courts all the cases of all the plaintiffs, including the Little Sisters, the Archdiocese of Washington, the pro-life group Priests for Life, and several Christian colleges. The circuit court decisions, which all went against the non-profits, were voided.

The decision came after the Supreme Court, in a rare move in the middle of a case, had ordered both parties to come up with alternative solutions, if possible, of guaranteeing both contraceptive coverage for employees and religious freedom protections for the non-profits.

Click here for more from CNA Daily News.

Pro-Life Groups Protest Stericycle Shareholders Meeting Saying 'DUMP Planned Parenthood'

On April 11, 2016 an Illinois court denied attempts by Planned Parenthood's waste hauler Stericycle, Inc., to censor pro-life group Created Equal's first amendment protected efforts to expose the Lake Forest, IL company for providing waste-disposal services that enable abortion giant Planned Parenthood to kill preborn children. Evidence shows Stericycle has been partnering with Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry through their collection, transportation, and disposal of aborted children and the instruments used to kill them.

Created Equal launched #ProjectWeakLink on March 29 by distributing informational postcards in the Lake Forest, IL area, which is home to Planned Parenthood business partner Stericycle. On March 31, Created Equal was notified by Stericycle's attorneys that the company was seeking a temporary restraining order to stop the campaign.

On May 25, Created Equal will be conducting a demonstration at the company's annual shareholders meeting.

Click here for more from Christian Newswire.

Thomas More Law Center Wins Huge Victory for Free Speech and Unborn Babies Against Planned Parenthood

In a huge victory for free speech and unborn babies, United States District Judge Nancy Torresen, yesterday, issued a preliminary injunction barring the Maine Attorney General and City of Portland police officers from enforcing the Noise Provision of the Maine Civil Rights Act ("Act"). Under the Act, after being warned by a police officer, it is illegal to make noise that can be heard inside an abortion clinic with the intent to interfere with a medical procedure.

In a 35–page opinion and order, Judge Torresen, an Obama appointee, held that the Noise Provision of the Act is content-based because it restricts speech based on its purpose, and therefore, is facially unconstitutional.

Click here to read Judge Torresen's entire opinion.

Click here for more from Christian Newswire.

Judges hear appeal of woman sentenced for aborting her 25-30 week old baby and then ignoring him after he was born alive

A three-judge panel of the Indiana Court of Appeals is hearing arguments today in the case of Purvi Patel.

Last year St. Joseph Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Hurley sentenced Patel to 20 years for throwing her newborn son into a dumpster following a chemically-induced abortion. The baby was estimated to be 25 to 30-weeks old, which did not make its way into early coverage of the hearing.

Attorneys for the 35-year-old Patel told Chief Judge Nancy H. Vaidik, Judge L. Mark Bailey and Judge Terry A. Crone to throw out the conviction.

In February 2015, following a trial that took place over six days and which 20 witnesses offered testimony, Patel was convicted of feticide and child neglect. Prosecutors said she took drugs to induce an abortion and failed to get medical help for the baby when he was born alive.

Click here for more from National Right to Life.

General Conference of the United Methodist Church votes overwhelming to withdraw from Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice

An incredible turn of events. Yesterday, on a vote of 425 to 268 (61% to 39%), delegates to the quadrennial General Conference meeting of the United Methodist Church voted that two United Methodist entities withdraw immediately from membership in the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC).

The two coalition members of RCRC are the General Board on Church and Society (GBCS) and United Methodist Women (UMW).

As the Rev. Paul Stallsworth has written for NRL News Today, RCRC “is dedicated to keeping abortion–all abortions, of all unborn children, for any reason or no reason–legal in American society. In other words, RCRC never, ever speaks or lobbies or writes against abortion.”

“There is nothing moderate or nuanced about RCRC, which has consistently lobbied to defend grisly ‘partial-birth’ abortions, even after our Social Principles included a statement ‘call[ing] for the end of this late-term practice,’” said John Lomperis, a delegate to the General Conference and United Methodist director at the Institute on Religion and Democracy. “In contrast to the United Methodist Church, RCRC dismisses the value of unborn human life. RCRC even promotes rituals to bless all the work of elective abortion clinics, describing aborting unborn children as always ‘holy work.’”

Lomperis added, “This is a necessary and good step towards affirming that the unborn are persons of sacred worth. This also shows the UMC moving away from other liberal, declining, ‘mainline’ denominations to embrace a new faithful, global identity.”

Click here for more from National Right to Life.

Could Brittany Maynard Have Been Saved?

This week, CBS’ 60 Minutes reported that FDA has just granted “breakthrough status” for an innovative treatment for glioblastoma brain cancer that was first reported by 60 Minutes on March 29, 2015.

Brittany Maynard had glioblastoma and died by physician-assisted suicide on November 1, 2014, just 5 months before the original TV segment aired.

Brittany Maynard was a young newlywed who, with enormous media publicity and the support of the pro physician-assisted suicide group Compassion and Choices, announced her intention to commit assisted suicide. She asked for donations to the Brittany Maynard Foundation to raise money to help Compassion and Choices fight for legalization of physician-assisted suicide throughout the US.

Using Brittany’s story and foundation, Compassion and Choices was finally successful after years of failed attempts to get a physician-assisted suicide law passed in California.

Did Brittany, her doctors, or Compassion and Choices know about the promising clinical trials for glioblastoma reported by 60 Minutes before Brittany took her life with a physician ordered lethal overdose?

Click here for more from National Right to Life.

Gallup poll a gold mine of useful information and misleading inferences

As is always the case with Gallup and abortion, the latest post from veteran Gallup writer Lydia Saad is informative. In places it also makes you scratch your head and occasionally it’s deeply misleading. (The figures come from Gallup’s 2016 Values and Beliefs poll, conducted May 4-8.)

The headline is understandable, given that Donald Trump’s views on abortion are a work in progress: “Most ‘Pro-Life’ Americans Unsure About Trump’s Abortion Views.”

But what is far more interesting is that after decades of unabashed, straight-forward, unambiguous promotion of abortion, Hillary Clinton’s views are unknown, or at least unclear, to many pro-choice adults.

Let’s compare the responses to the presumptive nominees of the Republican and Democratic parties, respectively. Saad writes

Sixty-three percent of Americans who describe themselves as “pro-life” are unable to say whether they agree or disagree with Trump on the abortion issue. The rest are about equally divided between agreeing (19%) and disagreeing (18%) with him.

Clinton?

Hillary Clinton is unambiguously pro-abortion rights and has talked about her strong support for women’s reproductive rights for decades. Nevertheless, the public is only a bit less vague about her stance on the issue compared with Trump’s. Overall, 22% of Americans say they agree with her views and 32% disagree, while 46% are unsure.

Click here for more from National Right to Life.

City of Chicago and Illinois Department of Public Health Risk Women's Health and Safety

On May 19th, the Thomas More Society filed complaints against the City of the Chicago and the Illinois Department of Public Health for refusing to release information that is rightfully available under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, known as FOIA. The actions arise from requests by the Pro-Life Action League and private citizens for records that were legitimately requested in accordance with FOIA and have not been fulfilled. Both FOIAs were filed regarding matters involving the health and safety of women at abortion clinics.

Thomas Olp, attorney with the Thomas More Society, explained, "Both the City of Chicago and the Illinois Department of Public Health have acted unreasonably and unlawfully in withholding the requested public records. These FOIAs were filed seeking information regarding abortion clinics at which women's health and safety may be at risk. In both cases, the legitimate public interest in seeking the records is provable and compelling. Yet neither the city nor the health department has complied with the Illinois Freedom of Information Act which declares the public policy of the State of Illinois to be that 'all persons are entitled to full and complete information regarding the affairs of government.'"

He added that the Illinois FOIA law raises a presumption that "all records in the custody or possession of a public body are ...open to inspection or copying." While private information may be exempt from public disclosure (if it is "highly personal or objectionable to a reasonable person and in which the subject's right to privacy outweighs any legitimate public interest in obtaining the information"), the burden of proving the exemption rests squarely on the agency asserting the exemption. In neither case, Olp maintained, has the city or health department met the burden of proving that its refusal to disclose public records was justified.

Click here for more from Christian NewsWire.

Pro-abortionists’ desperate attempt to hide the truth about fetal pain

The pro-abortion mind is not big on incontrovertible truths. There is only one: nothing matters but choice, exercised by the woman. Whether to snuff out that child’s life is fair, ethical, just, or its very opposite, doesn’t matter. It is literally a decision beyond right and wrong: it is hers to make, so get over it, pro-lifers, and move on.

To pro-lifers, there are many incontrovertible truths–human equality, mutual interdependence, the responsibilities that attend absolute power over a powerless unborn child, to name just three. But here I’d like to talk about a “truth” that pro-abortionists will defend with the unborn child’s dying breath: these children cannot experience pain until at least the 27th week or even (some would argue) until after birth.

Put another way fetal pain cannot be true. Were pro-abortionists to concede the self-evident–the capacity of the unborn child to experience unfathomable agony as she is ripped apart– suddenly that “tissue” or that “pregnancy” or that “uterine content” takes on human qualities that gives pause to all but the hardest heart.

This denial of reams of scientific evidence constitute such a key component of the pro-abortion narrative that no amount of evidence could ever cast even the slightest doubt.

Click here for more from National Right to Life.

Say what? Everybody's happy with SCOTUS decision?

How is it possible that both sides are declaring victory in Monday's move by the Supreme Court to send the ObamaCare contraceptive mandate dispute back down to the lower courts?

The White House, which authored the contraceptive mandate, was thrilled with the ruling. "We obviously were pleased with the announcement from the Supreme Court today," said White House press secretary Josh Earnest.

Meanwhile, Sister Constance Viet of Little Sisters of the Poor, which opposed the mandate, told FOX News she was equally pleased. "Today was a very good day, and we're very happy with the result," she stated.

Is it possible the two sides have stumbled into a legitimate compromise?

Click here for more from OneNewsNow.