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.
Right to Life to Display Float During Tulip Time Festival
Although Right to Life of Holland, Michigan won’t roll its float down Eighth Street in a Tulip Time parade, it will have a presence at the festival. Right to Life of Holland will display its float in the parking lot of Central Avenue Christian Reformed Church, 1 Graves Place, during Tulip Time, May 2-9. The festival committee decided last summer to stop allowing issue-oriented floats. The festival’s switch to a 501(c)3 nonprofit status reinforced that, Executive Director Tamra Bouman said earlier this month. The group that has had a float in Tulip Time since 1983 learned of the denial last month.
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US to Fund Research With Embryonic Stem Cells
When Obama eased limits on taxpayer-funded embryonic stem cell research, the big question became how far scientists could go. Friday, the government answered: They must use cells culled from fertility clinic embryos that otherwise would be thrown away. Draft guidelines released by the National Institutes of Health reflect rules with broad congressional support, excluding more controversial sources such as cells derived from embryos created just for experiments. "We think this will be a huge boost for the science," said Acting NIH Director Raynard Kington. "This was the right policy for the agency at this point in time."
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USAID Lobbying Obama to 'Triple' Funding for Overseas Abortions
With President Bush out of the way, supporters of USAID's family planning program overseas are urging Obama to triple the annual budget to $1.5 billion and end the Republican-backed "gag rule" that barred U.S. assistance to groups engaged in abortion-related services (Editor's note: It is disingenuous for Paul Bedard to suggest that Bush's annual $500 million funding for overseas family planning is some how a "gag rule" when in fact such funding is not found in the Constitution. In other words, it's against the law for the federal government to fund any "family planning!" It's un-Constitutional!). In a report due out next week, five former directors of USAID's Population and Reproductive Health Program say that it's time for the United States to get back into the international family planning business. At the beginning of a new administration and a new Congress, it is time to reverse the decline in U.S. political and financial commitment to this field of signature U.S. leadership and accomplishment, to satisfy the unmet need for services, and to improve women's reproductive health worldwide," says the report.
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Embryo Adoption Becoming Rage
In just three years -- 2004 to 2006 -- 988 babies have been born by this process, says one medical researcher, citing federal data. The total number born since Snowflakes Frozen Embryo Adoption Program was founded in November 1997 might conservatively be closer to 3,000, says Ron Stoddart, executive director of Nightlight Christian Adoptions, the agency that pioneered the process. With an estimated 500,000 cyropreserved embryos in storage, there soon could be a blizzard of babies born through embryo adoption.
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Tenn. pro-life bill scores breakthrough
The pro-life cause in Tennessee has made a major advance after years of efforts.
The Health and Human Services Subcommittee of the Tennessee House of Representatives, on a 20-7 vote April 7, approved a bill to restore the regulation of abortion to the legislature. The Senate had passed the bill the eight previous years, only for it to die in the subcommittee. The measure seeks to overturn a 2000 opinion by the Tennessee Supreme Court that invalidated all state laws restricting abortion.
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Brazilian Archbishop Who Announced Excommunication of Abortionists Receives International Pro-Life Award
Representatives from Human Life International (HLI) presented Brazilian Archbishop Dom Jose Cardoso Sobrinho with the Cardinal von Galen Award in acknowledgement of his heroic defense of Catholic Church teaching and human life. The ceremony took place at the Damas College Auditorium in Recife, Brazil on April 16.
In March Archbishop Sobrinho made international news after he declared that the Catholic doctors and counselors who facilitated the abortion of the unborn twins of a nine-year-old girl had incurred a latae sententiae (automatic) excommunication.
The tragic story of the nine-year-old girl, who had been impregnated by her step-father had captured global headlines in March. The "hard case" was used by international pro-abortion groups to criticize the Catholic Church's strongly pro-life position and to further the pro-abortion cause in Latin America, where pro-life sentiment remains strong.
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