American Medical Association To Explore Policy Change on Assisted Suicide

Yesterday, at its annual meeting in Chicago, the American Medical Association (AMA) rejected a Louisiana State Medical Society proposal to reaffirm the AMA’s long-standing policy against physician assisted suicide. Instead it approved a study-resolution to explore AMA adoption of a neutral position on physician assisted suicide, which was often referred to as “aid-in-dying” in the debate.

The study will be led by the AMA Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs, which will study a possible change to the AMA policy and report back with recommendations to the AMA Annual Meeting next year.

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More free publicity from PBS for the Abortion Industry

Nancy Northrop, the President & CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights was celebrating that next week one of the Abortion Industry’s most reliable friend–PBS–would be broadcasting “Trapped.” As you’ll recall, this ridiculously misleading pro-abortion acronym stands for Targeted Regulations of Abortion Providers.

In English that means any regulation which does not allow the Abortion Industry to do exactly what it wants to do with no oversight, is “targeting” abortion clinics.

The documentary will be aired right around the time the Supreme Court is expected to hand down its decision in a case that director Dawn Porter no doubt would hold up as a classic example of Trapped: Texas’s pro-life 2013 HB 2.

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Illinois breaks its own law protecting religious freedom

Sandra Mendoza was a nurse in Rockford, Illinois, in Winnebago County's Health Department where she served in the pediatric clinic and also in a children's home in Rockford. Noel Sterett, an attorney with the Chicago-based law firm Mauck & Baker, tells OneNewsNow a change came about that forced Mendoza out of her job.

“A new public health administrator was hired by the Health Department, and Mendoza was informed that as a result of the mergence of the Women's Health Clinic and Pediatric Clinic she was going to have to be involved in the provision of abortion referrals and abortifacients,” Sterett explains. “And according to her beliefs, both religious and moral conscientious objections, she couldn't participate.”

Mendoza was then informed she would have to take a job as a temporary food inspector and then was forced out of her job for standing for life and for her convictions, the attorney explains.

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Judge drops charge against Planned Parenthood investigator

A county court on Tuesday dismissed a misdemeanor charge against the man responsible for undercover investigations of Planned Parenthood, although a related felony charge is still pending.

“The dismissal of the first indictment today sends a strong message to Planned Parenthood and their political cronies that colluding to suppress the First Amendment rights of citizen journalists will never work,” said the Center for Medical Progress, the group founded by David Daleiden.

The “swift dismissal” of the charge against Daleiden is evidence that “the indictments from a runaway grand jury in Houston were a politically-motivated sham all along,” the statement went on to say.

Click here for more from CNA Daily News.

Mom’s tearful response convinces teenager not to abort

They don’t call them “reality TV” shows for nothing. Some readers may recognize the name Stacey Solomon. A while back, as a singer, she finished third in the sixth season of the British program “The X Factor.”

Nowadays Solomon is a singer, panelist on television programs, and a reality television star. Appearing on the daytime show “Loose Women,” Solomon talked about how as a teenager she was literally on the table about to have an abortion when she changed her mind.

Why? Her mother’s unspoken response to the ultrasound.

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The Dignity of Unborn Children Goes On Trial Today in United States District Court

Tuesday marks a historic day for Indiana and the nation as the dignity of unborn children goes on trial in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana. The core issues to be argued before Judge Tonya Walton Pratt revolve around the humane disposal of aborted babies in Indiana, as well as Indiana’s new protections, established in civil rights code, preventing unborn children from being aborted for the sole purpose of gender, race, national original, Down syndrome or other disability.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Planned Parenthood are once again teaming up in hopes of blocking Indiana’s new protections from going into effect on July 1. The expected ACLU argument will be that the free speech rights of abortion facility workers, who profit from the act of dismembering unborn children, outweighs the basic right to live for a baby with Down syndrome, or for the little girl whose parents would rather have a boy, or for the little boy whose life is being terminated for no other reason than the color of his skin. These are the children whose civil rights the ACLU is hoping to deny. What a strange contradiction for an organization with “civil liberties” incorporated into its name.

Regarding the humane disposal of aborted babies, the ACLU will argue that it is nonsense to require that aborted babies be treated any differently than any common medical garbage. Just months ago Indiana learned that the bodies of aborted babies were being shipped in 31-gallon drums to a medical waste plant in Indianapolis to be ground up with other garbage, and even persons with no interest in the abortion debate were horrified.

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UN has trampled on rights of people with disabilities in its rush to push abortion

Life Institute spokeswoman Niamh Uí Bhriain said that the case had been brought before the United Nations by the US-based Centre for Reproductive Rights, a massively wealthy pro-abortion outfit who were persistently attacking Ireland’s pro-life laws. She said the UN Committee ruling contradicted international human rights law, and trampled on the rights of people with disabilities.

“What is really disgusting here is that this US-based organisation used the most vulnerable children of all, unborn babies with severe disabilities, to try to drive a wedge in Ireland’s abortion laws. These are the most vulnerable, most helpless unborn babies, they are sick and need support and protection, but these abortion campaigners cynically use their disability to attack their right to life, and to try to push abortion,” said Ms Uí Bhriain.

“Instead of protecting the most vulnerable, the UN has chosen, yet again, to champion abortion, and has trampled on the right of people with disabilities,” she added.

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The Culture of Death’s Love Story

It’s maddening to watch a movie trailer resplendent with engrossing and alluring screen shots projecting a terrific flick, only to learn after paying the price of admission that you’d watched the totality of the movie’s value. That’s not misleading; it’s good advertising.

But sometimes movie studios are just plain guilty of false advertising.

The new movie Me Before You looks to be an inspirational love story. A lower-class woman in England is hired to take care of a young man who recently became a quadriplegic after being hit by a car. He inspires her to live a fuller life; she inspires him to find the joys he can still realize from his wheelchair.

That’s the commercial, but that’s not the actual plot. Spoiler alert: this isn’t a love story, it’s a story of a man’s self-love leading to assisted suicide. Girl meets boy, girl falls in love with boy, girl holds hand as boy kills himself.

As Eric Henderson wrote for Slant magazine: “Me Before You is some kind of twisted reversal of those expectations, punking its impressionable audience into believing the lie and then punishing them for their foolishness.”

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The moral and ethical corruption inherent in assisted suicide

We’ve long argued that abortion and euthanasia/assisted suicide were birthed in the same hatchery. They are, if not identical twins, at least fraternal twins.

Both are inherently expansionary, for example. Consider the parallels.

If offing her unborn child is a woman’s “right,” why should that “right” end at the conclusion of the first trimester? Or second? Or up till birth? Indeed, it is (as the saying goes) no accident that we are hearing occasional rumbles about “after-birth abortion.”

Likewise with assisted suicide. If the issue is about autonomy, about one’s supposed right to die “on my own terms,” why should there be any ethical calibration made about “good” reasons and insufficient reasons? If I can’t exercise my “right”–whether because I am in a weakened physical state or no longer can articulate my desires, or something else–then surely it is discriminatory not to facilitate my death.

And, of course, where the twin sisters of death meet is when countries decide that newborns should be killed if they are disabled (physically or intellectually) or because that’s what they would “want” if they were able to speak.

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Clinton vows to PPFA Action Fund to “always have your back”

When the former Secretary of State is speaking to her soul mates, you hear in clear, straightforward English just how in touch she is with PPFA but how out-of-touch she is with the rest of America.

Clinton told the Planned Parenthood Action Fund

Let’s repeal laws like the Hyde Amendment that make it nearly impossible, make it nearly impossible for low-income women, disproportionately women of color, to exercise their full reproductive rights.

Never mind that overwhelmingly, the American people do not–do not–want their tax dollars paying for abortions. In an environment that is ever more receptive to the pro-life cause, this truism goes back to the earliest days.

What is the real reason Clinton and Planned Parenthood want to gut the Hyde Amendment? Simple. By cutting off virtually all federal funding for abortion, unborn lives are saved each and every day.

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Abortion still “morally wrong,” latest Gallup shows

A Gallup poll conducted May 4-8 finds that more Americans still find abortion “morally wrong” (47%) than “morally acceptable” (43%). In 2015, Gallup’s numbers were 48% and 42% , respectively.

The breakdown along party lines is that only 24% of Republicans said abortion was morally acceptable, 44% of Independents, but 62% of Democrats.

On an encouraging note, while there is still a majority who found “Doctor Assisted Suicide” morally acceptable, the numbers are down slight from 2015 (naturally not noted by Gallup).

In 2016, 53% responded they believed Doctor Assisted suicide is morally acceptable to 41% who said it is morally wrong .

In 2015, 56% said they believed Doctor Assisted Suicide was morally acceptable, to 37 who told Gallup they believed it was morally wrong.

Needless to add, the “Doctor assisted” label increases support. Even now, people are more likely to voice support when a “doctor” is involved.

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Pediatric nurse sues Winnebago Co Health Dept after losing job for her beliefs

On Wednesday, Rockford nurse Sandra Mendoza sued the Winnebago County Health Department for forcing her out of her long-time job as a pediatric nurse on account of her refusal to participate in abortion related services. Ms. Mendoza, a devout Catholic, had worked for the Health Department for 18 years providing pediatric care, immunizations, and screenings.

In 2015, the County’s new Public Health Administrator, Dr. Sandra Martell, merged the pediatric clinic with women’s health services and mandated that all nurses be trained to provide abortion referrals and participate in the provision of abortifacients like Plan B.

When Ms. Mendoza informed Dr. Martell and the administration of her conscientious objections to participating in any way in the provision of abortions, Dr. Martell gave Ms. Mendoza two weeks to either quit or accept a demotion to a temporary job as a food inspector. Mendoza refused the demotion and was forced to resign in July 2015.

Click here for more from Illinois Review.

Virginia family gets reprieve to stop hospital from taking 2-year-old off life support

The family of a Virginia toddler has more time to seek another hospital for their child after a judge’s ruling Tuesday that she cannot be removed from life support for at least another 10 days.

Patrick and Alison Lawson are in a dispute with Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Health System over performing a brain apnea test on their two-year-old daughter Mirranda Grace and withdrawing her life support, in another case involving the legal definition of brain death.

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Researchers use adult stem cells to reverse stroke symptoms up to 3 years later

Researchers at Stanford University’s School of Medicine have successfully treated stroke victims with donated adult stem cells, restoring the use of legs and arms rendered useless by the loss of brain function.

There are treatments to mitigate the impact of strokes if administered within days. This treatment is the first that works long afterwards. The injected bone marrow, used for decades as a safe treatment for leukemia and other cancers, surprised the research team by disappearing from the brain within a month (while in leukemia treatment the marrow remains in the patient, producing red blood cells, but requiring the patient to take drugs to suppress his or her immune system).

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If Illinois Government Has Its Way, Women Won’t Have the Right to Choose Pro-Life Doctors

Can you imagine a passionately pro-life OB-GYN who is forced by the government to provide patients with a list of abortion providers if they request one? How would this doctor reconcile promoting abortion with his or her conscience? What would this doctor tell pro-life patients who came to him or her because they wanted someone who shared and upheld their values – not someone who helps facilitate abortions?

Abortion is a serious issue. For those of us in the pro-life camp, the thought of promoting abortion—in any form—would be a violation of conscience.

Unfortunately, the Illinois legislature has passed a bill—SB 1564—that would force all medical facilities and physicians in the state who conscientiously object to involvement in abortions to adopt policies that provide women who ask for abortions with a list of providers “they reasonably believe may offer” them. In other words, the government is trying to compel the speech of pro-life providers—in the form of abortion referrals.

What the Illinois government fails to realize (or care about since we’ve brought it to their attention before) is that referring someone for an abortion goes against everything that pro-life doctors and pregnancy care centers believe about the sanctity of human life.

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 on this bill and other legislative updates and alerts.

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Planned-Parenthood partner reportedly takes 400-600% profit for fetal organs

A report from the US House of Representatives charges that StemExpress, a California firm, sold fetal tissue for as much as six times the purchase cost, in violation of federal law that prohibits the sale of fetal tissue for profit.

Undercover videos taken by the Center for Medical Progress had shown Planned Parenthood officials arranging for the delivery of fetal body-parts to StemExpress, to be sold for medical research. After a further probe, the House Selective Investigative Panel on Infant Lives reports that the fetal organs were sold for profit. The panel also said that the sales by Planned Parenthood to StemExpress appeared to violate federal laws requiring confidentiality in the records of medical patients.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, who chairs the House panel, said that the business relationshiop between Planned Parenthood and StemExpress changed the nature of the relationship between the abortion clinic and the pregnant women. "The contract changes the way both entities view the young woman," she said. "Her baby is now a profit center."

Click here for more from Catholic World News.

Natalie Portman: Contraception caused depression that gave me ‘dark moments’

Oscar-winning actress Natalie Portman has announced that taking oral contraceptives caused depression that plunged her into some “dark moments” as a teenage college student.

Portman's admission that taking birth control pills contributed to ill health should not come as a surprise. Oral and injectable contraceptives have a well-documented history of negative effects on women, whether mental or, more often, physical. The risk for blood clots, which can cause stroke, heart attack, blindness, brain damage, and death, is three-to five times higher in women taking birth control pills.

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FDA used faulty data to approve Essure contraceptive coil: study

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has used faulty data to approve many high-risk ob-gyn medical devices in the last 15 years, a new study says, including the controversial contraceptive device Essure.        

“Recent controversies surrounding obstetrics and gynecology devices” including among other things, the Essure contraceptive coil device, “highlight the need for deeper understanding of obstetrics and gynecology medical device regulation,” the study’s authors, based at Northwestern University, said. “Our results reveal significant weaknesses in the preapproval and post approval regulation of high-risk obstetrics and gynecology devices.”

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President Ronald Reagan: The Unborn’s Transcendent Right to Life

Sunday was the twelfth anniversary of the passing of pro-life President Ronald Reagan. The following was described as “a personal letter to the Pro-Life movement from President Ronald Reagan.”

As America looks forward to the second half of the 1980s and beyond, our Nation faces a clear political choice. Two very different views about America – who we are and what we can become – are competing to lead our great country into the future.

I think that Americans involved in the noble work of the pro-life movement will agree that the difference between those competing views is no more striking than on the tragic issue of abortion.

Recently, some of our political opponents have tried to further their cause by belatedly assuming the mantle of traditional family values. They talk about family, about concern for less fortunate Americans. And they portray themselves as the “party of compassion.”

But where are those high-minded ideals when it comes to the issue of abortion? Where are the new defenders of the family when it comes to the taking of innocent human life? And what have we heard from them while more than 15 million unborn children – over 10 times more Americans than have been lost in all our nation’s wars – had their lives snuffed out by legalized abortions? [Editor’s note. The total is now over 58 million.]

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Supreme Court approaches deadline for decision on pro-life Texas law HB 2

Just to be clear, no one except the eight Supreme Court justices and (to a lesser extent) their clerks know exactly when the High Court will rule on a host of controversial cases, some of which raise new issues, others of which will finesse previous rulings. Could be this week, could be the end of the month.

According to ABC News, “The court still has 24 opinions left to release before it recesses for the year in late June.”

HB 2 is best known outside the Lone Star state for the filibuster that temporarily derailed the law. Pro-abortion state Senator Wendy Davis catapulted her role in that filibuster to national fame, which tempted her to run what proved to be a disastrous 2014 campaign for governor.

At issue are two provisions: (1) that abortion clinics meet the same building standards as ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs); and (2) that abortionists have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital for situations of medical emergencies.

What gives the case such importance is that the justices will be challenged to flesh out yet again what an “undue burden” on the “right” to abortion means.

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