IFRL NEWS SHORTS FOR THURSDAY

IFRL NEWS SHORTS FOR THURSDAY Disclaimer: The linked items below or the websites at which they are located do not necessarily represent the views of The Illinois Federation for Right to Life. They are presented only for your information. Federal Judge Rules City Violated Pro-Lifers' Free-Speech Rights A federal judge has ruled the city of Findlay violated the free-speech rights of an anti-abortion organization when it barred the group from demonstrating in July 2007. U.S. Northern District Court Judge Jack Zouhary found the city's permit requirement for events to be unconstitutional. As a result, the judge found the city liable to Pastor Matthew Trewhella, Michael Marcavage and other volunteers from a group known as Missionaries to the Preborn. According to its Web site, the pro-life advocacy group, based in Milwaukee, regularly travels around the United States spreading the message that abortion is murder. The group sought only $1 in damages in its federal lawsuit against the city, former Mayor Tony Iriti and Police Chief Bill Spraw, but it did request reimbursement of attorney fees. Those fees are expected to exceed $25,000. http://www.thecourier.com/Issues/2009/Jan/07/ar_news_010709_story1.asp?d=010709_story1,2009,Jan,07&c=n   Obama Considers Clinton's FDA Chief to Head Agency Again Jane Henney, who ran the Food and Drug Administration when the abortion pill RU-486 pill was approved, is among those being considered for FDA chief under President-elect Barack Obama. An Obama representative asked Henney, who headed the agency from November 1998 until January 2001 under President Bill Clinton, if she was interested in the job, and she said yes, according to a person familiar with the matter. Henney, 61, a professor of medicine at the University of Cincinnati, declined to comment when reached by telephone. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=awl2h_OIPsio Event Featuring Planned Parenthood Speaker Moved After Complaints The leader of Indiana's Planned Parenthood organization was scheduled to speak at the South Bend Chocolate Cafe on Friday, but news of her appearance got a not-so-sweet reaction from some of the company's customers. Betty Cockrum, president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood of Indiana, is the guest speaker at the League of Women Voters' "Lunch with the League" event. Typically the monthly event is held in the Rockne Room of the South Bend Chocolate Cafe. Calls came largely from women, Tarner said, including people associated with the University of Notre Dame and out-of-town customers. http://www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090107/News01/901070137 Jacqueline Kasun, Pro-life and Anti-Population Control Activist and Author, Passes Away Pro-life advocates in Humboldt County California and across the United States are mourning the loss of prolific pro-life author and activist Jacqueline Kasun. Kasun, known especially for her book "The War Against Population," passed away at the age of 84 on January 1. Kasun was born in 1924 in Watts California. She did her undergraduate studies at UCLA and U.C. Berkeley, going on to earn a PhD in economics from Columbia University in 1956. According to a tribute written in 2007 by Jacqueline's son, Walter, Kasun entered the male-dominated field of economics at a time when there were more women doctors and physicists than economists. Kasun would go on to use her knowledge of economics to defend and promote a conservative, free market model of economics. She would also put her expertise to use in defending the cause of life. http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jan/09010713.html Medical Expert Says that Contraceptive Pill is Causing Global Rise in Male Infertility An eminent doctor writing for the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano has stated that hormones from the contraceptive pill are causing a significant rise in male infertility in western nations. Pedro Jose Maria Simon Castellvi, President of the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations (FIAMC), writes that "we have sufficient data to affirm that one of the reasons for the not insignificant rise in male infertility in the west (due to increasingly fewer sperm in men), is the environmental contamination caused by 'the pill'." "We are confronted with a clear anti-ecological effect that demands further explanation from the manufacturers," continued Castellvi, who also noted that the abortifacient and carcinogenic effects of the contraceptive pill are also well known. http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jan/09010701.html Doctors Who Refuse Assisted Suicide "Genuinely Wicked" says UK Bioethics "Philosopher Queen" Speaking to a group in Belfast last night, Mary Baroness Warnock, a leading voice in British bioethics, said that doctors who refuse to cooperate in assisted suicide are "genuinely wicked." Following a theme of previous comments in which she said that the elderly and people with dementia have a "duty to die," Warnock said, "There are doctors, we know, who don't pay any attention [to a patient's desire for suicide]. "But that seems to me a genuinely wicked thing to do – to disregard what somebody had quite explicitly said, that he wants to die – not to be resuscitated in certain circumstances and in certain circumstances to be helped to commit suicide. "I believe that if someone is diagnosed as having the beginnings of Alzheimer's or dementia, at that stage it is a positive duty that doctors should talk to them about what will happen when the moment comes where they reach steep decline." http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jan/09010706.html