Good Friday rally planned at Planned Parenthood facility
Since the clinic opened in October 2007, Fox Valley Families Against Planned Parenthood has held daily protests and prayer vigils outside the brick facility on East New York Street, one of Planned Parenthood's largest clinics in the nation.
After several heated confrontations with Aurora police and city officials, anti- abortion groups filed a lawsuit two years ago against the city charging that their First Amendment rights were being violated. The groups alleged police and other city officials were restricting how and where they could conduct their protests.
Last week, the city reached a settlement with the abortion opponents that recognized their right to protest while setting guidelines for demonstrations and use of graphic abortion photos.
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Off-duty Ventura cop who hosed an abortion protester will not face charges
No charges will be filed against a Ventura police officer accused of spraying an abortion protester with water during an off-duty confrontation outside his church, the Ventura County District Attorney's Office announced today.
Cpl. Jon Hixson, 46, was cited on suspicion of battery after his fellow officers responded to a disturbance Sunday morning on a sidewalk outside First Assembly of God Church, 346 N. Kimball Road, police said. Hixson, a Santa Paula resident, is a parishioner at the church.
In a prepared statement, the District Attorney's Office said the Ventura Police Department presented evidence that Hixson sprayed Todd Bullis of Ventura with water from a garden hose and spray bottles. Bullis is an anti-abortion activist who was protesting with several others in front of the church.
"While the spraying of water constituted a technical battery, no significant harm was done, and prosecution of a battery charge would not be a responsible use of public resources," the district attorney said. Click here for the video of the event.
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Tenn. Senate OKs abortion anti-coercion signs
Wednesday, the House approved the companion bill 87-8 -- a measure that would require abortion clinics in Tennessee to post anti-coercion signs. Lawmakers must now work out differences before the measure heads to the governor for his consideration. Any type of coercion to have an abortion is prohibited under current law. But sponsors said some women may not know that and the sign simply spells out what's in the law. The legislation would require clinics to conspicuously post signs that would read in part: "It is against the law for anyone, regardless of the person's relationship to you, to coerce you into having or to force you to have an abortion." Facilities that don't comply could be fined as much as $2,500.
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Court OKs Repeated Tasering of Pregnant Woman
A federal appeals court says three Seattle police officers did not employ excessive force when they repeatedly tasered a visibly pregnant woman for refusing to sign a speeding ticket.
The lawyer representing Malaika Brooks said Monday that the court's 2-1 decision sanctioned "pain compliance" tactics through a modern-day version of the cattle prod.
"To inflict pain on a person if that person is not doing what the police want that person to do is simply outrageous," said Eric Zubel, the woman's attorney. "I cannot say that loud enough."
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Planned Parenthood: Helper or deadly solution?
A new Planned Parenthood abortion facility is under construction in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Olivia Gans of the Virginia Society for Human Life (VSHL) suspects Planned Parenthood is again "spreading their really tragic remedies for very real problems that many women in the state are facing in dealing with an untimely pregnancy."
"It saddens us at VSHL to see Planned Parenthood launching itself in another region of the state as some kind of a real helper for women, when in fact all they offer are deadly solutions," she comments.
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Pro-life Democrat sees flaws in executive order, urges further action
Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D-Ill.) remarked today that the new health care bill is "a major step in the wrong direction" in defending the unborn. Concerned that the executive order on abortion funding will likely be overturned by the courts, he reported that the order may undercut its own claims to apply Hyde language to the legislation.
He added that the bill's problems can be corrected before its changes go into effect in 2014 and should be fixed regardless of whether President Obama's executive order functions as promised.
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