NEW!  HEALTH CARE "REFORM"? Mayo Clinic Calls House Plan Bad Medicine

NEW!  Ohio Bill Would Include Father's Right's in Abortion Decision-Making Process

NEW!  Commentary: Abortion and Racism "Evil Twins," Martin Luther King Jr's. Niece Says / Maafa 21

NEW! Technology Allows Parents to Hold Life-Size Model of Their Unborn Child

NEW!  Personhood

NEW!  Pro-Life African-Americans to Protest Abortion at NAACP Centennial Convention

NEW!  Governments Maintain IPPF Funding Despite Financial Crisis in 2008

NEW! Nations Reject Abortion Language at UN Geneva Meeting

NEW! Amnesty Int'l Again Agitates for Abortion – This Time in Peru

NEW! Resource: 4-D Ultrasound Imaging of Human Development in utero -- www.babystepsdvd.com

Virginia Law Allowing Choose Life License Plates Goes Into Effect, Available Now

Death is upon us... "Us" being doctors

Abortionists Losing Special Treatment, maybe $1 Million: Legislature's Change of Direction Follows Undercover Video

Poland Follows Lithuania in Considering Law to Protect Youth from Promotion of Homosexuality

Alcohol and Suicide Among Racial/Ethnic Populations --- 17 States, 2005--2006

Commentary: Why Women are Unhappy

Federal Civil Rights Commission Warns Hate Crimes Bill Poses “Menace” to Civil Liberties

New Medical Study Shows More Premature Babies Surviving, Living Longer

Miracle Baby Set to Go Home – Born at 12.5 Ounces

Pro-Life Women's Group Launches New Abortion Outreach to Young Americans

Poland: Through the Pouring Rain, Thousands March for Life and Family

Slovak Republic Loses Free Speech Lawsuit to Pro-Life Group After Police Shut Down Pro-Life Rally

U.S. House Passes Sexual Orientation "Hate Crimes" Bill

Miss California Features in New Pro-Marriage Ad

EDITORIAL: Clinton Cannot Defend Margaret Sanger

Missouri is Taking a Different Approach to Use Stimulus Money 

National Pro-Life T-Shirt Day is Tuesday, 28 April 2009

Pastor Jailed for Pro-Life Witness (Now Released) Writes Letter from Prison to "Men of the Cloth"

Planned Parenthood Annual Report: Abortion Totals, Government Funding Increase

Georgia Governor Declares Saturday 18April as Pro-Life Day, Notes Women Who Regret Abortions

National Group Sponsors Pro-Life Video Contest to Honor Well-Spoken Teenager

California Man Symbolically 'Adopts' Wife's Two Aborted Babies... 

HEALTH CARE "REFORM"? Mayo Clinic Calls House Plan Bad Medicine
A world-renowned clinic that President Obama held up as an example of good medicine said Monday that the American people would be "losers" under the House's health care proposal, joining the growing chorus of critics the Obama administration is trying to fend off as the debate intensifies from Capitol Hill to Main Street.

Minnesota's not-for-profit Mayo Clinic, which Obama has repeatedly hailed as offering top quality care at affordable costs, blasted the House Democrats' version of the health care plan as lawmakers continue to grapple with several bills from each chamber and multiple committees.

The Mayo Clinic said there are some positive elements of the bill, but overall "the proposed legislation misses the opportunity to help create higher quality, more affordable health care for patients."

"In fact, it will do the opposite," clinic officials said, because the proposals aren't [R]patient-focused or results-oriented. "The real losers will be the citizens of the United States."

All day, Republicans took aim at Mr. Obama's weak spot as surveys showed that his poll numbers were slipping on the issue. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele charged that the president's plan amounts to a "reckless experiment," dubbing it "socialism."

"He's conducting a dangerous experiment with our health care," Mr. Steele said at the National Press Club as the RNC started an ad campaign, which will run in Arkansas, Nevada and North Dakota using similar language.

In the Senate, Sen. Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican considered key to grabbing some bipartisan support, warned that the House call to raise taxes on wealthier citizens and, therefore, some small businesses to fund the $1 trillion overhaul is a non-starter.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, is floating an idea that could make proposed tax increases more palatable to the more fiscally conservative members of her party. She would like to limit income-tax increases to couples making more than $1 million a year and individuals making more than $500,000, Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly said Monday. The bill passed by the House Ways and Means Committee last week would increase taxes on couples making as little as $350,000 a year and individuals annually making as little as $280,000.

Mr. Obama is going all out to keep the national conversation focused on the need for reform and the political forces at play. He hit back at Sen. Jim DeMint, South Carolina Republican, for suggesting that health care should be the president's "Waterloo."

Without naming Mr. DeMint, Mr. Obama offered the Republican's quote in a brief statement after a visit with health care providers at the Children's National Medical Center in Washington.

"If we're able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo, it will break him," Mr. Obama said, quoting Mr. DeMint from a conference call last week with conservatives who oppose the health care plan.

"Think about that. This isn't about me, this isn't about politics. This is about a health care system that is breaking America's families, breaking America's businesses and breaking America's economy," Mr. Obama said Monday, on the six-month anniversary of his administration.

White House aides did not have a response to the criticism from the Mayo Clinic, which Republicans exploited. Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, used his Twitter feed to spread the Mayo Clinic statement, adding: "They are right."

An ABC News/Washington Post poll showed that Mr. Obama's approval rate on how he's handling health care has slipped below 50 percent for the first time. The president's overall popularity has dipped just slightly.

Mr. Obama said Monday during an interview on PBS' "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" that he wasn't worried about the polls because he thinks they've "held up under extraordinarily difficult circumstances."

He also repeated his campaign stump line that health care has been discussed for decades but never reformed because of "special interests."

On the tax issue, Mr. Obama told Mr. Lehrer that the wealthy can afford to pay more and that he understands there are different proposals floating about.

"The gap, though, is one that I think can be closed relatively easily if everybody is committed to making sure that we get this done," he said.

Though it seemed Obama was backing off his August deadline, calling only for a bill to be done "this year," he told NBC and Mr. Lehrer on Monday that without deadlines nothing gets done in Washington.

To regain control of the debate, Mr. Obama will hold an 8 p.m. news conference Wednesday and will go to a Cleveland high school Thursday for a health care town-hall meeting.

Monday's back-and-forth comes as the big fight this week while senators struggle to come up with a way to pay for their plan and as House leaders battle conservative Blue Dog Democrats on the details.

On Capitol Hill, key committees in the House and Senate scrambled to sew up support. The House Energy and Commerce Committee met with fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats who threatened to withhold support if they didn't get cost-cutting measures and rural and small-business support into the House bill.

Lawmakers in both parties are getting antsy about the plan's price tag as the country fights its fiscal woes. The director of the Congressional Budget Office, Congress' official scorekeeper, last week said the bills making their way through Congress would drive up government spending and wouldn't curtail skyrocketing costs to consumers.

The Senate Finance Committee's bipartisan group of negotiators met again late Monday to try to craft a plan that would garner Republican support in the upper chamber, already blowing through deadlines set by the White House and party leadership.

Three Republicans and three Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee have come to agreement on four of the group's previously unresolved issues, Chairman Max Baucus, Montana Democrat, told reporters late Monday. He declined to talk about specifics or to say when the group would have a complete reform bill.

"These are big issues," he said of the group's progress.

The committee is under pressure from the White House and Senate leadership to move more quickly. The committee staff met throughout the weekend, including with Office of Management and Budget Director Peter R. Orszag.

Meanwhile, outside players ramped up efforts to get their voices heard in the reform debate.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce plans to announce an advertising campaign Tuesday, targeting the employer mandates in the House health care reform bill, which the group says would threaten the employer-based system.

The Democratic National Committee expanded its campaign to House members who are likely to cast pivotal votes on the reform bill in the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Further complicating the president's fiscal woes, the White House has delayed the release of its budget update. The update, initially planned for mid-July, is expected to show higher deficits and contrast the rosy forecast the administration released in February.

The release has been postponed until at least after Congress takes its summer break in early August.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/21/mayo-clinic-calls-house-plan-bad-medicine/print/
Originally published 04:45 a.m., July 21, 2009, updated 01:39 p.m., July 21, 2009
Christina Bellantoni  and Jennifer Haberkorn

Ohio Bill Would Include Father's Right's in Abortion Decision-Making Process
An Ohio lawmaker has re-introduced legislation that would include a father's rights in the abortion decision-making process.

Under Roe v. Wade, fathers are left out of the equation when a woman considers whether or not to have an abortion that would end the life of their child.

Rep. John Adams, a Republican from Sidney, wants to change that and the legislation he introduced today, House Bill 252, would require the biological father's consent before an abortion can be done.

The bill would apply to any abortion and would require written consent before it can be done.

Adams told the Daily Reporter newspaper that abortion centers would "need to get consent from the biological father" before the abortion can proceed and he called the measure a "father's right bill" to protect the interest of fathers who are given no say in the abortion process.

He also said the bill provides for criminal penalties for women seeking abortions who do not obtain consent properly.

"Providing a false biological father would be a first-degree misdemeanor the first time, which means not more than six months and jail, and a maximum $1,000 fine," Adams said. "And on the second occasion, providing false information would be considered a fifth-degree felony."

Adams told the newspaper that, in cases when the mother does not know the identity of the father, the abortion would be prohibited.

"There needs to be responsibility for actions," Adams said. "As someone who is pro-life, this is also an attempt and a hope to keep the two people who have created that child together, and I suppose if you just go back to the simple beginning, there is merit to chastity, and to young men and women waiting until marriage."

Adams said the bill offers exceptions in cases of rape or incest or when the life of the mother is threatened by the pregnancy.

This is the second time Adams has introduced the bill and he expects abortion advocates to oppose it when it comes to a committee debate and vote.

"The issue does stir emotion on both sides," Adams said. "When I introduced House Bill 287, I had some conversations that were less than pleasant."

He said Ohio Right to Life supports the bill and that he has more co-sponsors this time around, including a Democrat, Rep. Roland Winburn of Dayton.

Related web sites:
Ohio Legislature - http://www.legislature.state.oh.usOhio Right to Life - http://www.ohiolife.org

[17July 09, Ertelt, www.LifeNews.com, Columbus, OH,
http://www.lifenews.com/state4302.html]

Commentary: Abortion and Racism "Evil Twins," Martin Luther King Jr's. Niece Says

LifeNews.com Note: Alveda King is the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. King is a leading pro-life voice who formerly had two abortions before having a faith conversion and she now is a speaker for and representative of the educational outreach of the Silent No More network. This editorial originally appeared in the Washington Times.

Let me begin by telling you that two of 50 million children taken away by abortionists since 1973 were mine. I can still see them in my mind's eye.
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Like many black women, I once believed the doctor who told me my babies were no more than "a blob of tissue." I wanted to believe it. Eventually, I realized I was wrong, that I was a secondary victim of abortion. I repented and found healing through God. Today, I work in the civil rights movement of our century -- the right of every one of every race to live.
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I am asking you to join me. Let me tell you why. Abortion and racism are evil twins, born of the same lie. Where racism now hides its face in public, abortion is accomplishing the goals of which racism only once dreamed. Together, abortionists are destroying humanity at large and the black community in particular.
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Abortion has taken a gruesome toll on the black community, killing more than AIDS and crime combined. Some 14 million black babies have been aborted since the 1973 US Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in all stages in all 50 states. That's equal to one-third of the number of blacks living today.
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By the abortion industry's own statistics, black women are 4.8 times more likely to abort than are non-Hispanic white women. Blacks comprise about 13% of the population, yet have 37% of all abortions.
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When dramatic racial disparities like these appeared in employment and education, it was enough to conclude that institutionalized racism and discrimination were present in our corporations and colleges. Why should we apply a different standard to the abortion industry?
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Racism and abortion are twins in many other ways.
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Racism springs from the lie that certain human beings are less than fully human. It's a self-centered falsehood that corrupts our minds into believing we are right to treat others as we would not want to be treated. So it is with abortion.
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Racism oppresses its victims, but also binds the oppressors, who sear their consciences with more and more lies until they become prisoners of those lies. They cannot face the truth of human equality because it reveals the horror of the injustices they commit. While victims die physically, practitioners die spiritually. So it is with abortion.
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Racism is a way to gain economic advantage at the expense of others. Slavery and plantations may be gone, but racism still allows us to regard those who may keep us from financial gain as less than equals. So it is with abortion.
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A majority, perhaps as many as 75%, of abortion clinics are in areas with high minority populations. Abortion apologists will say this is because they want to serve the poor. You don't serve the poor, however, by taking their money to terminate their children.
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The abortion movement in this country was started by Margaret Sanger, the founder of an organization known today as Planned Parenthood. Ms. Sanger was quite open that she wanted "more children from the fit, less from the unfit." The unfit, she made clear, were blacks and poor whites. She had no qualms about speaking to as many as 12 Ku Klux Klan meetings. As I discuss in the new film, "Maafa 21: Black Genocide in 21st Century America" (produced by Life Dynamics Inc.), she targeted blacks in her eugenics-based campaigns.
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Does an overtly racist past mean that the abortion industry is racist today? Consider last year's widely reported account of seven Planned Parenthood offices that agreed to accept a donation on the sole condition that the money only be used to abort black babies. The recordings of the phone calls to Planned Parenthood are chilling. Why were some offices of the organization willing to take money based on race?
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Abortion targets blacks disproportionately, but it affects everyone. And as my uncle, Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote from the Birmingham jail, "[i]njustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Abortion is an attack on the family and the humanity that unites us all.

My Uncle Martin also wrote: "The Negro cannot win if he is willing to sell the future of his children for his personal and immediate comfort and safety." Those words are still true today. After all, how can the dream survive if we let them take our children?
[Alveda C. King, July 22, 2009, www.LifeNews.com]

Maafa 21 Dr. Johnny Hunter Speaks about Maafa 21 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA43T5ogsD4

Congressman Trent Franks Speaks about Maafa 21 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yroB8z4YQ0

"Everybody has to see Maafa 21"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJpfCWw_ioY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obyUo-OTVh8

Maafa 21 trailer: http://www.maafa21.com/

New Technology Allows Parents to Hold Life-Size Model of Their Unborn Child
Stunning new technology is allowing parents to go beyond a 3D or 4D ultrasound to bond with their unborn child in ways never imaginable. A student at the Royal College of Art in Britain has created life-like models based on pictures of unborn children that are the exact shape and size of the baby in the womb.

Fetal models have long been a staple of county fairs and health education classes across the country, but one student has gone further.

Brazilian student Jorge Lopes is a PhD. student at the college and he has pioneered the use of converting data from ultrasounds and MRI scans to form life-size plastic models in a process called rapid prototyping.

"It’s amazing to see the faces of the mothers. They can see the full scale of their baby, really understand the size of it," Lopes told the London Daily Mail newspaper.

One way to conceive of the idea behind the new process is to imagine a printer that relies on plastic powder instead of the ink that normally goes on a sheet of paper. As the plastic build up, it creates a 3D model instead of a flat image on paper.

Aine Duffy from the RCA added, "It's stunning technology - here at the RCA we use it for everything from new medical devices, to car components, to jewelry, to architectural models."

Lopes' work is slated to appear at an exhibition opening in London today.

The process is drawing positive comments from Dr. Staurt Campbell, who pioneered ultrasound imaging in Britain in the 1980s.

"I don't know whether I am looking at science or I am looking at art," he said, calling the process "absolutely unique" and "a fantastic development."
 [June 29, 2009, London, England, www.LifeNews.com, http://www.lifenews.com/int1249.html ]

Personhood. The Personhood Initiative in Mississippi has recently gain significant momentum because of national personhood efforts emerging around the country.  Mississippi has long been known as the most "pro-life" state in America and could be the first state to affirm the personhood rights of all humans.

Lt Governor Phil Bryant also gave this effort a boost by endorsing the effort and signing the petition. He joined a growing and diverse group of political, church, and community leaders from across the state who are getting behind this effort.

The Personhood Initiative is sponsored by the coalition named Personhood Mississippi, and has the legal backing of the Liberty Council and the Thomas Moore Law Center.

The grassroots volunteers have until January 2010 to gather roughly 90,000 signatures equally distributed among the congressional districts. But their goal is to have the signatures by Oct. 1, 2009 to place Personhood Initiative #26 on the November 2010 ballot.

Personhood Mississippi is mainly focusing on gathering the required signatures in churches all across the State.

"If this amendment becomes law, the rights that we as Mississippians enjoy, to not have our lives, liberty, or property taken without due process of law would be extended to the smallest and most helpless human beings in our state. This is not only an anti-abortion, anti-cloning measure, but ultimately a equal rights law as well." said Les Riley Personhood Initiative sponsor.

When asked about Roe v Wade, Riley continued that "Roe v Wade is not only an affront to God, but it is also one of the worst judicial overreaches in the history of the Republic. Illegitimate, illegal, and unconstitutional Court decisions should be challenged. If passed, the Mississippi Personhood Amendment would set up just such a challenge".
[July 13, 2009. Press Release, Jackson, MS, www.personhoodmississippi.com]

Pro-Life African-Americans to Protest Abortion at NAACP Centennial Convention
Dozens of pro-life advocates are expected in New York City as the NAACP marks 100 years of serving as the nation's largest civil rights group for African-Americans. The black pro-life advocates will be educating participants on how abortion targets the African-American community.

They will also educate convention participants how the NAACP has ignored abortion's affect on black Americans by taking a pro-abortion position.

Rev. Clenard H. Childress, Jr., the head of the northeast chapter of the black pro-life group LEARN will head up the educational efforts.

"The NAACP continues to ignore the severe health ramifications for women who have abortions," he told LifeNews.com on Monday.

"A disproportionate number are African-American," he explained. "African-American women now lead the nation in miscarriages and the rise in breast cancer among African-American women is epidemic. Multiple studies find this is due directly to abortions, especially among women who abort in their first pregnancy."

"With the present administration's aggressive abortion agenda it is ever more imperative that the NAACP inform its body of the decimating effects of abortion on the Afro-American community," he added.

Childress, a New Jersey pastor, has said that, historically, the NAACP "has failed to address the concerns of many of its delegates about abortion."

He pointed to a 2004 resolution voicing support for “equal access to abortion” and urging its members to participate in a pro-abortion rally in Washington. Then, in 2007, the NAACP, for the second time in four years, blocked a proposed resolution expressing opposition to abortion.

"Each day 1,786 African American children are aborted. According to the US Census of 2006 African Americans are at 1.96 birth rate which is beneath the replacement level of 2.1," Childress explains.

"The organization founded for the national advancement of colored people is working in conjunction with the ideology of racist population control groups which advocates the national depletion of colored people, such as Planned Parenthood," Childress says. "How else can you explain the continual censoring and disregard for their own chapters resolutions and by-laws by the national board?"

Childress said the centennial convention comes at an ironic time -- when Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg admitted she previously thought Roe v. Wade was worthy of support to limit "particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of."

"America should not at all be surprised" by Ginsburg's remarks, Childress said.

This is the second national NAACP event this year, as the organization held a national convention in May.

There, Levon Yuille, a pastor and leader of the National Black Pro-life Congress [ http://www.nationalblackprolifeunion.com/?page_id=3 ] sponsored a protest involving dozens of pro-life African-Americans along with a special guest, Pastor Walter Hoye.

Hoye was recently released from prison in Oakland, where he served a jail sentence after reusing to abide by what he considered an unconstitutional law targeting his free speech rights to share the pro-life message at abortion centers in the city.
[13July09, Ertelt, Washington, DC, www.LifeNews.com,  http://www.lifenews.com/nat5211.html]

Nations Reject Abortion Language at UN Geneva Meeting. Last week in Geneva, Switzerland, negotiations went down to the wire as the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) wound down its high-level meeting on health. After a marathon negotiating session that lasted until the wee hours of the morning, delegates adopted the Ministerial Declaration on "implementing the internationally agreed goals and commitments in regard to global public health" rejecting a push by the United States (US) and most European Union (EU) countries to include language that some interpret to include abortion.

     When negotiations began on the declaration at United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York last month, delegations became embroiled in heated debates almost immediately over controversial language regarding reproductive health "rights," "sexual and reproductive health services" and "universal access to family planning." As the Friday Fax previously reported , the Obama Administration had proposed "universal access" to "sexual and reproductive health services including universal access to family planning."

     By the time negotiations in New York wound down before resuming in Geneva, the US had apparently moderated its position and would have been willing to compromise, but delegates from Sweden, Finland, Norway, Netherlands, Estonia and France insisted on including "reproductive rights" language. The terms "reproductive health services" and "reproductive rights" remain highly contentious in UN social policy discussions because they continue to be misinterpreted by powerful non-governmental organizations and UN agencies to include abortion.

     Despite concentrated efforts to conclude the negotiations in New York prior to the start of the Geneva meeting, delegations were unable to reach consensus over the contentious language.

     Late night negotiations carried on in Geneva as delegations continued to battle it out over the "reproductive rights" language in the draft text. While the US delegation remained quiet on the reproductive health provisions, the EU remained divided as Poland, Malta and Ireland continued opposing the controversial language despite pressure from their colleagues. 

     Malta's ambassador Victor Camillari made a strongly worded statement that stressed that "the right to life extended to the unborn child from the moment of conception and that the use of abortion as a means of resolving health or social problems was a denial of that right, and therefore Malta consistently disassociated itself from, and considered invalid, all statements or decisions that used references to sexual and reproductive health, directly or indirectly, to impose obligations on anyone to accept abortion as a right, a service or a commodity that could exist outside the ambit of national legislation."


     The most contentious language regarding "reproductive rights" was removed from the text and the final declaration was adopted by consensus.  While some language regarding "sexual and reproductive health" made it into the declaration, the reference was limited to the understanding reached at the Cairo Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Conference on Women, where it was agreed that no abortion rights were created and states made explicit reservations defining abortion out of the reproductive health and family planning provisions.

     ECOSOC plans on holding a follow-up meeting next year to gauge how the impact of the declaration in changing public health systems. [16July09. Friday Fax, Volume 12, Number 31, Samantha Singson, C-FAM, http://www.c-fam.org/publications/id.1301/pub_detail.asp ]





Amnesty Again Agitates for Abortion – This Time in Peru
The human rights organization Amnesty International has just issued a report on maternal mortality in Peru that promotes abortion in the pro-life nation while advancing controversial interpretations of international law.

     The report, "Fatal Flaws: Barriers to Maternal Health in Peru," also acknowledges that lack of emergency obstetric care – and not access to abortion – is the largest contributing factor to high maternal death rates in the Andean nation, while listing obstacles faced by poor, often indigenous, women in gaining access to basic maternal and newborn care.

     The overall thrust of "Fatal Flaws," however, is to claim a positive obligation by Peru and by extension other states to guarantee certain maternal health rights, which Amnesty then expands to include "therapeutic" abortion. In this Amnesty echoes the strategy of the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights, which in recent years has pushed a "right to maternal health" that softens the abortion emphasis. Critics see this "motherhood and apple pie" approach as a Trojan Horse tactic designed to undermine resistance to terminating unborn life.

     Amnesty asserts that "lack of access" to health care "is a violation of women's human right to the highest attainable standard of health." "Fatal Flaws" further claims that the Cairo Programme of Action adopted in 1994 at the International Conference on Population and Development – an "outcome document" that lacks binding international law status – commits states to providing "abortion to the full extent of national law." The actual Cairo text is less sweeping: it acknowledges that it creates no new rights, cautions that in "no case should abortion be promoted as a method of family planning" and affirms that any "measures or changes related to abortion … can only be determined at the national or local level according to the national legislative process," while also stating that where legal abortion should be safe.

     Expanding on this, Amnesty faults Peru for failing "to respond appropriately and in a timely manner" to a non-binding "finding" of the Human Rights Committee – the compliance committee tasked with monitoring implementation of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights. The committee declared that Peru violated the treaty when a public hospital denied the demand of a mother pregnant with an anencephalic baby for a eugenic abortion. That treaty's text, however, makes no mention of abortion, and there is no evidence that drafters intended to undo the domestic legislation of most nations, which either prohibited or severely restricted the practice at the time of adoption in 1966.

     Founded in 1961, Amnesty International previously maintained a neutral position on abortion, acknowledging as recently as 2005 that there exists "no generally accepted right to abortion in international human rights law." The group's subsequent pro-abortion advocacy has caused some to accuse the organization of betraying its founding principles. [16July09, Friday Fax, Volume 12, Number 31, Piero A. Tozzi, J.D., New York, C-FAM. 
http://www.c-fam.org/publications/id.1299/pub_detail.asp ]

Governments Maintain IPPF Funding Despite Financial Crisis in 2008. The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), the world's foremost abortion provider, recently released its latest financial report which shows that the organization continues to receive the majority of its multi-million dollar budget from government grants and pay six figure salaries to dozens of its executives despite the world financial crisis.

"IPPF Financial Statements 2008" highlights the work done by IPPF and its affiliate organizations all across the globe.  In total, the organization boasts that it has provided over 24 million "contraceptive services" and over 650,000 "abortion-related services" during the reporting period.

Though the financial crisis has increasingly put pressure on governments, funding for IPPF's activities primarily came from government donations. Of IPPF's total income of $119 million, almost 80% of that came directly from government grants. 17 countries gave money to IPPF in 2008, with the governments of Sweden, the United Kingdom and Japan topping the list.

Additionally, $1 million in funding came from the United Nations Population Fund and the UN Program on HIV/AIDS. Charitable foundations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and the Hewlett Foundation also filled IPPF's coffers with $23 million. Other prominent abortion advocacy organizations such as Population Action International and Ipas also gave significant amounts.

IPPF's total expenditure for 2008 totaled $121.4 million. While much of that money was spent on IPPF's five priority action areas - adolescents, abortion, access, advocacy and HIV/AIDS - a large amount was spent on staffing costs. In 2008, IPPF employed 297 staffers full-time for a cost of $23 million. Over 3 dozen individuals were paid out six figure salaries, with the top salary grossing close to $480,000 a year.

The report shows that IPPF handed out over $60 million in grants to its member associations around the world and also lists grants to "other organizations."  The grants to these "other organizations" include hundreds of thousands of dollars to Latin American offices of "Catolicas" por el Derecho a Decidir ("Catholics" for A Free Choice), abortion-provider Marie Stopes International and Women's Link Worldwide, a group dedicated to strategic litigation against laws protecting life globally.

According to the organization, IPPF's tentacles reached 176 countries through 151 affiliate organizations to push abortion and contraception worldwide last year. In a survey of affiliate activities, IPPF boasts that 88.4% of its affiliates are involved in "advancing national policy and legislation on sexual and reproductive health and rights."  82.3% of those affiliates state that they are involved in counteracting any opposition to sexual and reproductive health and rights.  

IPPF is seeking to take advantage of the Obama Administration's decision to rescind the Mexico City Policy which banned organizations from performing or promoting abortion overseas. The report outlines the organization's plans for 2009 which include: pushing its "Declaration of Sexual Rights," a document which declares that governments are obligated to guarantee a sweeping definition of "sexual rights," including abortion, "sexual freedom" and "comprehensive sexuality education."  This year, IPPF will also focus on using the events surrounding the 15th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development - also known as the "Cairo Conference" - to advocate for abortion at the United Nations.  [This article reprinted with permission from www.c-fam.org;  Samantha Singson,  NY, July 9, 2009; C-FAM]

Resource: 4-D Ultrasound Imaging of Human Development in utero -- www.babystepsdvd.com

Virginia Law Allowing Choose Life License Plates Goes Into Effect, Available Now.  Motorists in Virginia now have a way to express their pro-life views and support adoption and abortion alternatives at the same time. A new state law allowing the purchase of Choose Life license plates went into effect yesterday and proceeds from the sales of the plates support those pro-life efforts.

Virginia drivers pay an additional $25 to get the yellow affinity plates and $15 of that fee, after the first 1,000 plates are sold, goes to Heartbeat International to provide women with tangible pregnancy help and options.

Senator Ken Cuccinelli was the sponsor of the Choose Life plate bill that pro-abortion Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine reluctantly signed in March.

"As of today, you can now purchase a "Choose Life" license plate by going to the DMV's web page," he told LifeNews.com.

"The proceeds go to crisis pregnancy centers around Virginia to help women at an extremely difficult moment in their life. Thanks so much to all the volunteers who do so much work to help these expectant mothers cope with tough circumstances," he added.

Although a state Senate committee defeated the bill, Cuccinelli didn't give up and amended another license plate bill on the floor of the Senate several days later with the Choose Life plate on a 20-19 vote.

Kaine said he signed the Choose Life plate bill only because he thinks state residents should have the right to a specialty plate. The bill includes other license plates, which may have made it easier for Kaine to sign the legislation into law.

"I sign this legislation today in keeping with the Commonwealth's longtime practice of approving specialty plates with all manner of political and social messages," he said in a statement LifeNews.com obtained.

Kaine also said he would sign a bill brought by abortion advocates for a pro-abortion plate.

"If Planned Parenthood ... or another similar organization ever chooses to seek a specialty license plate in Virginia, I believe the constitution would require the state to approve that plate to protect against any viewpoint discrimination," he said.

Virginia became the twenty-third state to have a Choose Life license plate, where portions of the proceeds from the sale of the plates fund pregnancy centers and adoption programs.

Victoria Cobb, the head of the Family Foundation, had been asking pro-life advocates to contact Governor Kaine urging him to support the plate. The Virginia Society for Human Life and other pro-life groups also supported the plate.

Related web sites:
DMV Info on Choose Life plates -
http://www.dmv.state.va.us/exec/vehicle/splates/info.asp?idnm=CL

[3July09, Ertelt, Richmond, VA www.LifeNews.com, http://www.lifenews.com/state4282.html]

Death is upon us. "Us" being doctors. Physicians who sign on to the Hippocratic Registry acknowledge the oath's six concepts: transcendence, which means submission to a higher authority; medicine as a moral, not just technical, activity; respect for life, meaning no abortion or euthanasia; a covenant between the physician and patient, not just a code of conduct; physician honesty and integrity; and collegiality between like-minded physicians. [World Mag, http://www.worldmag.com/articles/15479; ALL Pro-Life Today, 18June09]



Abortionists Losing Special Treatment, maybe $1 Million: Legislature's Change of Direction Follows Undercover Video

Planned Parenthood in Tennessee appears to be losing its special treatment and possibly $1 million in Title X family planning funds as the state legislature, following the release of an undercover video exposing the abortion business's practices, is changing directions.

The Legislature has voted for Senate Bill 470 which, instead of continuing the preference for Planned Parenthood to get about $1 million in federal money allocated to the state for family planning, requires officials to give money first to county health departments.

The vote happened only weeks after a video was released by Live Action Films revealed a counselor at a Memphis, Tenn., Planned Parenthood abortion business apparently advising a "patient" to lie to a judge about her boyfriend's age to avoid possible felony charges against him.

The film was released on the organization's website, http://liveaction.org/memphis/, as well as on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMlrAj4v4J4

Live Action officials said the undercover investigation video was Part 5 of their Mona Lisa Project – a series of investigations in which an undercover volunteer goes into Planned Parenthood abortion businesses with a concealed camera and records apparent violations of state laws. Other investigations have been in Indiana and Arizona.

The new Tennessee legislation states: "Upon receipt of all applications, the commissioner must first consider and give preference to funding requests from the county health departments. The commissioner is prohibited from excluding a county health department which seeks full funding of family planning services if, at the time of the application, the county health department does not have the capacity to serve the number of patients as estimated in the request for grant proposal if the county health department provides documentation demonstrating its ability at the inception of the grant period to serve the estimated number of patients.

The plan also notes, "If funds remain after awarding funding to all public departments of health, the commissioner may make funding available to private applicants in a manner consistent with the above-described provisions of present law and this bill."

"We are very happy that Tennessee legislators saw the harm Planned Parenthood is doing to little girls and took the necessary steps to ensure that the organization's negligence will no longer receive preferential treatment when taking our tax dollars," said Lila Rose, president of Live Action and the UCLA student who went undercover in the videos.

The change by lawmakers makes Tennessee the second location in which Live Action videos have revealed Planned Parenthood's actions, and public officials have responded by cutting back on taxpayer subsidies to the abortion business.

According to Live Action, when a community member alerted the Orange County, Calif., board of supervisors to more of Live Action's undercover videos of Planned Parenthood counselors agreeing to protect adult-child sexual relationships, the board in March refused to renew Planned Parenthood's $291,788 contract with the county.

The Live Action Mona Lisa Project is a multi-state campaign to expose Planned Parenthood's alleged willingness to violate mandatory reporting laws for statutory rape – in order to provide secret abortions for young girls.

"We will continue to expose Planned Parenthood for endangering the lives and well-being of young girls in service of its abortion-first mentality," said Rose. "It is our hope that other elected officials will soon follow the examples of Orange County and Tennessee in seeking to de-fund Planned Parenthood of all public subsidies for their lawless activity."

Live Action Films said in the Memphis video the Planned Parenthood nurse "coaches Lila Rose, posing as a 14-year-old girl, to lie to a judge about the age of her reportedly 31-year-old boyfriend in order to get a secret abortion and hide the statutory rape from her parents."

A WND call to the Memphis Planned Parenthood abortion business was put on a loop of promotional messages, but no spokesman ever picked up the call.

Live Action Films noted that in Tennessee, sex between a 14-year-old and an adult is a felony.

Yet, when the Planned Parenthood operative was told the patient was 14 and her boyfriend was 31, she disregarded the information.

"If we keep on this conversation I'm gonna have to talk to my manager, and he's gonna get in trouble," she told the "patient." "Just say you have a boyfriend 17 years old – whatever."

She specifically noted the "boyfriend" was more than double the girl's age.

"I'm not going to tell anybody … and please don't say that I told you this," the counselor said.

In the Arizona investigations, Rose and co-worker Jackie Stollar posed as 15-year-olds to enter two Phoenix Planned Parenthood facilities, seeking information about abortions for a "pregnant" teen. They stated the "boyfriend" was 27, but neither office reported the apparent violation of Arizona's statute requiring that law enforcement be notified immediately if an adult-child sexual relationship is known.

Videos of the Indiana visits revealed one Indiana Planned Parenthood business describing how to evade mandatory reporting laws and a counselor at another Indiana Planned Parenthood facilitate advising a "teen" how to hide a felony.

The videos from Indiana resulted in discipline against Planned Parenthood employees and a state promise of investigations. [20June09, http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.printable&pageId=101592
This is a WorldNetDaily printer-friendly version of the article which follows.
To view this item online, visit http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?pageId=101592, Lila Rose]

Poland Follows Lithuania in Considering Law to Protect Youth from Promotion of Homosexuality
Poland may soon consider passing a new law, similar to the one passed this week in neighboring Lithuania, that bans the media and schools from promoting adverse behaviors to the development of young people, including violence, suicide, and homosexuality.

MP Artur Górski, deputy head of the parliamentary commission on Polish-Lithuanian cooperation, has stated he intends to copy the Lithuanian law and introduce it before the nation’s parliament for passage.

"I have already asked for the translation of the Lithuanian law 'on the protection of youth' into Polish,” said Górski, a member of the major opposition party, Law and Justice. “This is a very interesting initiative and no doubt a very necessary one, especially now, when we face a more and more obvious expansion of gay activist circles."

Górski spoke with the Catholic daily “Nasz Dziennik,” saying he believed the initiative could be ready by the fall. He stated that 50 parliamentarians would be needed to sponsor the measure to bring it to a vote, but added that he believed the proposed initiative would gain more than enough support for its passage, and possibly the support of all the MPs in the Law and Justice Party.

"If you look at the Polish parliament and see the ruling Civic Platform and major opposition Law and Justice, both claiming to be right wing, then there should be no trouble in passing such a law," Gorski said.

If passed, the Polish equivalent of Lithuania’s law “on the protection of youth,” would ban any public promotion of homosexual, bisexual or polygamous relations among Polish youth. The law also targets public messages directed toward youth that promote violence, horror, suicide, and self-abuse.

The measure would also provide a strong legal barrier to homosexual “Pride” parades that promote the social acceptance, display, and celebration of aberrant sexual behaviors in civil society.

"I think this law is needed also in Poland,” said MP Leszek Deptu³a of the minor coalition Polish Peasants' Party. “We should protect kids and youth from homosexuality and from promoting this idea. That's why my opinion on this issue is very clear: if such a project appears, I will sure support it."

"I am not against people of other sexual orientation, but I think there is no need to manifest and propagate such behaviors," added MP Stanislaw Rakoczy.

Related: Lithuania Passes Law against Homosexual Propaganda in Schools, Media ; British Ambassador to Poland Blasted for Promoting "Gay Rights" in Strongly Pro-Family Nation ; Poland Embraces Successful March for Life and Family in Face of 'Human Rights' Movement ; Poland is a Profoundly Pro-Life Culture Thanks to Lay Activists: Pro-life Leader
[19June09, P. J. Smith, Warsaw, www.LifeSiteNews.com]

Alcohol and Suicide Among Racial/Ethnic Populations --- 17 States, 2005--2006
During 2001--2005, an estimated annual 79,646 alcohol-attributable deaths (AAD) and 2.3 million years of potential life lost (YPLL) were attributed to the harmful effects of excessive alcohol use (1).

An estimated 5,800 AAD and 189,667 YPLL were associated annually with suicide (1). The burden of suicide varies widely among racial and ethnic populations in the United States, and limited data are available to describe the role of alcohol in suicides in these populations.

To examine the relationship between alcohol and suicide among racial/ethnic populations, CDC analyzed data from the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) for the 2-year period 2005--2006 (the most recent data available).

This report summarizes the results of that analysis, which indicated that the overall prevalence of alcohol intoxication (i.e., blood alcohol concentration [BAC] at or above the legal limit of 0.08 g/dL) was nearly 24% among suicide decedents tested for alcohol, with the highest percentage occurring among American Indian/Alaska Natives (AI/ANs) (37%), followed by Hispanics (29%) and persons aged 20--49 years (28%). These results indicate that many populations can benefit from comprehensive and culturally appropriate suicide-prevention strategies that include efforts to reduce alcohol consumption, especially programs that focus on persons aged <50 years.

A total of 19,255 suicides occurred in the 17 states contributing data to NVDRS during 2005--2006 (Alaska, California,* Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin) (2)...  [CDC, MMWR Weekly, June 19, 2009 / 58(23);637-641, Reported by: AE Crosby, MD, V Espitia-Hardeman, MSc, HA Hill, MD, PhD, L Ortega, MD, C Clavel-Arcas, MD, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, CDC.



Why Women Are Unhappy

The National Bureau of Economic Research released a study [http://bpp.wharton.upenn.edu/betseys/papers/Paradox%20of%20declining%20female%20happiness.pdf] to be published soon in the American Economic Journal that shows women's happiness has measurably declined since 1970. It's no surprise that this has stimulated much comment.  

This study covers the same time period as the rise of the so-called women's liberation or feminist movement. The correlation demands an explanation.  
One theory advanced by the authors, University of Pennsylvania economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, is that the women's liberation movement "raised women's expectations" (sold them a bill of goods), making them feel inadequate when they fail to have it all. A second theory is that the demands on women who are both mothers and jobholders in the labor force are overwhelming.  

I'm neither an economist nor a psychologist, but I'll join the conversation with my own armchair analysis. Another theory could be that the feminist movement taught women to see themselves as victims of an oppressive patriarchy in which their true worth will never be recognized and any success is beyond their reach.  

Feminist organizations such as the National Organization for Women held consciousness-raising sessions where they exchanged tales of how badly some man had treated them. Grievances are like flowers; if you water them, they will grow, and self-imposed victimhood is not a recipe for happiness.  

Another theory could be the increase in easy divorce and illegitimacy (now 40 percent of American births are to single moms), which means that millions of women are raising kids without a husband and therefore expect Big Brother government to substitute as provider. The 2008 election returns showed that 70 percent of unmarried women voted for Barack Obama [http://www.eagleforum.org/column/2008/nov08/08-11-21.html], perhaps hoping to be beneficiaries of his "spread the wealth" policies.  

In the pre-1970 era, when surveys showed women with higher levels of happiness, most men held jobs that enabled their wives to be fulltime homemakers. The private enterprise system constantly produces goods that make household work and kiddie care easier (such as dryers, dishwashers and paper diapers).  

Betty Friedan started the feminist movement in the late 1960s with her book The Feminine Mystique, which created the myth that suburban housewives were suffering from "a sense of dissatisfaction" with their alleged-to-be-boring lives. To liberate women from the home that Friedan labeled "a comfortable concentration camp," the feminist movement worked tirelessly to make the role of fulltime homemaker socially disdained.  
Economic need played no role in the feminist argument that marriage is archaic and oppressive to women.

A job in the labor force was upheld as so much more fulfilling than tending babies and preparing dinner for a hard-working husband.  

Women's studies courses require students to accept as an article of faith the silly notion that gender differences are not natural or biological but are social constructs created by the patriarchy and ancient stereotypes. This leads feminists to seek legislative corrections for problems that don't exist.  
A former editor of the Ladies' Home Journal wrote in her book Spin Sisters that the anorexic blondes on television are every day selling the falsehood that women's lives are full of misery and threats from men. Bernard Goldberg calls the mainstream media "one of America's most pro-feminist institutions."  
According to feminist ideology, the only gender-specific characteristic is that men are naturally batterers who make all women victims. On that theory, the feminists conned Congress into passing the Violence Against Women Act (note the sex discriminatory title), which includes a handout of a billion dollars a year to finance their political, legislative and judicial goals.  
The feminists whine endlessly using their favorite word "choice" in matters of abortion, but they reject choice in gender roles. The Big Mama of feminist studies, Simone de Beauvoir, said, "We don't believe that any woman should have this choice. No woman should be authorized to stay at home to raise her children . . . precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one."  
The feminists have carried on a long-running campaign to make husbands and fathers unnecessary and irrelevant. Most divorces are initiated by women, and more women than men request same-sex marriage licenses in Massachusetts so that, with two affirmative-action jobs plus in vitro fertilization, they can create a "family" without husbands or fathers.  
Despite the false messages of the colleges and the media, most American women are smart enough to reject the label feminist, and only 20 percent of mothers say they want full-time work in the labor force. I suggest that women suffering from unhappiness should look into how women are treated in the rest of the world, and then maybe American women would realize they are the most fortunate people on earth.  
[June 19, 2009, Phyllis Schlafly,  http://www.eagleforum.org/column/2009/june09/09-06-19.html]

Federal Civil Rights Commission Warns Hate Crimes Bill Poses “Menace” to Civil Liberties
The US Commission on Civil Rights has now weighed in the hate crimes debate, imploring the Senate to vote against the measure, which would not only make homosexuals a protected group, but more importantly would allow the federal government to have an individual prosecuted a second time under its rules for the same crime.

The federal commission sent the communiqué, dated June 16, to sixteen leaders in the Democratic-controlled Senate, which was then posted by National Review’s blog, the Corner, by Peter Kirsanow.

The letter comes just as leading Senate Democrats have confirmed that a vote on Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act (MSHCPA - S. 909) will come sometime before the end of the August recess, but not this week, contradicting an earlier report based on information provided by an unnamed source to the Washington Blade. The letter is a reiteration of the commissioners concerns, which were delivered to House leaders back in April.

“We believe that MSHCPA will do little good and a great deal of harm,” states the commissioners’ letter, warning that, “Its most important effect will be to allow federal authorities to re-prosecute a broad category of defendants who have already been acquitted by state juries — as in the Rodney King and Crown Heights cases more than a decade ago.”

The commissioners’ letter stated that although the US Constitution forbids an individual from “double jeopardy” – being tried by the government twice for the same offense – there are no protections in place under the Constitution for prosecution by “dual sovereigns” - indicating that the “hate crimes” bill opens up an individual to a double prosecution by state and federal government, violating the spirit of the law, but technically not the letter.

“We regard the broad federalization of crime as a menace to civil liberties,” stated the commissioners. They pointed out that the loophole to “double jeopardy” exists because the authors of the Bill of Rights “never dreamed that federal criminal jurisdiction would be expanded to the point where an astonishing proportion of crimes are now both state and federal offenses.”

They continue that the law as written does not merely require “the defendant be inspired by hatred or ill will in order to convict.” Instead, “It is sufficient if he acts ‘because of’ someone’s actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.”

The letter indicates that “prosecutors will have ‘two bites at the apple’ for a very large number of crimes,” because the objective language of the law opens up the possibility that individuals accused of a crime that is perceived to fill any one of the “hate crimes” criteria could face trial twice. The letter gives the example that those accused with rape or robbing a disabled victim, could face trial twice for the same crime, because the victims in these circumstances “literally … are chosen ‘because of’ their gender or disability.”

“DOJ [Department of Justice] officials have argued that MSHCPA is needed because state procedures sometimes make it difficult to obtain convictions,” continued the letter.

“Such an argument should send up red flags.  It is just an end-run around state procedures designed to ensure a fair trial.”  

The Senate bill (S. 909), along with its companion legislation in the House (H.R. 1913), adds "sexual orientation" and “gender identity” as well as race, religion, class, gender, and disability to categories that are protected as "hate crimes.” Under this legislation, crimes against individuals who belong to the protected classes receive stiffer penalties than crimes against other groups not mentioned by the bill, a fact that critics charge makes “second class citizens” out of those not covered by the law.

Christian leaders have expressed particular concern that attempts to secure the right to speak against the homosexual lifestyle and its normalization have failed.  Among many rejected proposals for the bill was one offered by Rep. Louis Gohmert, R-Texas, which would have included a clause ensuring ministers could not be prosecuted for abetting a "hate crime" simply because they preached the Christian perspective on homosexuality.  

Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the Congressman who introduced H.R. 1913, claimed the bill posed no danger to Christian free speech, saying that it "only applies to bias-motivated violent crimes and does not impinge public speech or writing in any way." Section 10 of H.R. 1913 states: "Nothing in this Act, or the amendments made by this Act, shall be construed to prohibit any expressive conduct protected from legal prohibition by, or any activities protected by the free speech or free exercise clauses of, the First Amendment to the Constitution."

Yet free speech advocates have pointed out that under current U.S. law, any action that "abets, counsels, commands, [or] induces" a perceived "hate crime" shares in the guilt of that crime, and is therefore punishable.  

Legislators opposed to the measure have also called it the "pedophile protection act," after House members refused to approve an amendment specifying that the bill define “sexual orientation,” an oversight that some legislators charge could lead to a too broad interpretation – since the term is used by the American Psychiatric Association to encompass over 547 sexual deviancies (including pedophilia), and not just homosexuality.

WorldNetDaily reports that sources in the Senate tell them the campaign protesting the passage of “hate crimes” – which has generated at least 625,000 letters sent to Senators – has altered the dynamics in the Senate, where they had expected the vote on the bill to proceed smoothly.
Related:
Hate Crimes Bill to be Smuggled through Senate as a Legislative Amendment
Focus on the Family's Dobson on Hate Crimes Bill: "Utter Evil" Coming out of Congress
Free Speech Concerns Ignored as "Hate Crimes" Bill Passes Fed. Judiciary Committee
[18June09, Peter J. Smith, D.C., www.LifeSiteNews.com]

New Medical Study Shows More Premature Babies Surviving, Living Longer

Researchers in Sweden have published a new study showing survival chances have greatly improved for premature babies. The news comes at a time when the United States is grappling with the murder of an abortion practitioner who ended the lives of these babies in late-term abortions.

New Medical Study Shows More Premature Babies Surviving, Living Longer
Dr. Karel Marsal of Lund University Hospital and colleagues published their findings in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

They found that approximately 70 percent of the babies born alive between 22 and 26 weeks gestation in Sweden now survive past the age of one thanks to advances in modern medicine.

On the down side, the authors say more must be done because half of the babies who survived experienced serious health problems.

The researchers examined the birth of all infants born before 27 weeks gestation in Sweden from 2004-2007 and found the overall perinatal mortality or death rate was 45%. That means 55 percent of the 1,011 babies survived who were born at or before that stage of pregnancy.

Of those 55 percent of babies who survived, 70 percent were still alive at the end of one year which is a higher figure than in previous studies.

The study confirmed earlier research showing survival rates increase as the pregnancy moves further along.

It found 10 percent of babies born at 22 weeks survived to one year compared with 53% of those born at 23 weeks and 85% of those born at 26 weeks into the pregnancy. The later the birth in pregnancy the more likely the baby survived without any major illness and half of those born at 26 weeks had no serious health issues.

The study also found babies born at hospitals with the best intensive care facilities had the highest survival odds.

"Certainly, at 22 weeks the chance of surviving is very small, but at 23 weeks the results are much better," Marsal said in the study. "But gestational age alone is not enough to judge prognosis."

The survival of premature babies is an important research topic if only because the rate of premature births has increased over the years.

Some of the increase has been brought on because of abortion.

Last year, Canadian researcher Brent Rooney and colleagues published a report [http://www.lifenews.com/nat4623.html] in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons showing African-American women are at risk for higher rates of premature and extremely premature birth because they tend to have abortions at higher rates than women of other ethnicity.

According to the new research paper, black women are three times more likely to have an early pre-term birth before 32 weeks gestation and four times more likely to have an extremely pre-term birth before 28 weeks gestation in comparison with women of other ethnic groups.

While black women represent 12.5% of American females they have 38.2% of all abortions, according to the authors.

In July 2006, a report [http://www.lifenews.com/nat2453.html] from a committee of the National Academies of Science finds that a first-trimester abortion, the most common abortion procedure, is linked to an increasing risk of premature birth.

In the report is a list of "immutable medical risk factors associated with preterm birth" and "prior first-trimester abortion" is listed third among other risk factors that increase the risk of having a subsequent premature birth.

The IOM reported that premature births before 37 weeks gestation represent 12.5 percent of all U.S. births, a 30% increase since 1981. Abortion became legally accessible in 1973 and the number of abortions peaked in the early 1980s. [4jUN09, Stockholm, Sweden LifeNews.com, http://www.lifenews.com/int1222.html]



Miracle Baby Set to Go Home – Born at 12.5 Ounces
“There's a God in this world, and if it's meant to be, it will be” mother says to parents with similar difficulties.
On March 12, parents Brittany Rideout and Adam Bouchat welcomed their beautiful and extraordinarily tiny little girl, Taylor Rideout, at Magee-Women’s Hospital of UPMC in Pittsburgh. Born at 26 weeks gestation, Taylor was a mere 12.5 ounces or 350 grams, about the size of a pop can.

Ms. Rideout suffers from lupus, and about six weeks into the pregnancy she underwent two strokes and two seizures, notes a video on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s website. She was hospitalized for a month. Then, two months after she was released, she was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia and HELLP syndrome.

“Her blood pressure was sky-high and her liver was failing,” said Mr. Bouchat.Faced with the possibility of death for both mother and child, they chose to deliver baby Taylor at 26 weeks.

According to Taylor’s doctor, Dr. Jennifer Kloesz, the smallest babies they had delivered before Taylor were about 500 grams, but these babies were only 24 weeks gestation. Dr. Kloesz said that Taylor was about half the size of a normal 26-week baby.

“The reason that she’s still here and is going to survive and be discharged is that she was 26 weeks,” Dr. Kloesz said. “Her organ systems had developed more like a 26-weeker so that she was able to respond to our resuscitation.”

Dr. Kloesz said that if Taylor had not been gestated so long, they might not have made the attempt. Referring to her being 26 weeks, she said, “That’s kinda the main thing that makes her so different and why it was worth giving it a try, with her parents’ wishes,” continues Dr. Kloesz.

But Ms. Rideout urges parents facing similar difficulties never to give up, reports WXPI in Pittsburgh. “I would tell them,” she said, “don't give up on their child if they're born small or have a disease or anything. There's a God in this world, and if it's meant to be, it will be.”

Taylor is now 83 days old, and weighs 3 pounds. She has been transferred into a transitional unit for a couple weeks in preparation for leaving the hospital...

“Despite all she’s been through, she seems to be a very happy person,” he said.
[3June09, By Patrick B. Craine PITTSBURGH, June 3, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com]



Pro-Life Women's Group Launches New Abortion Outreach to Young Americans

A national pro-life women's group has launched a new outreach to young people to encourage them to take a stand against abortion. The Susan B. Anthony List Education Fund's new project, the Young Leaders Board, was created with a gift from its new spokeswoman.

Marilyn Musgrave, a former northern Colorado congresswoman, donated $50,000 from her congressional campaign committee to launch the new board.

“I am so pleased to support the Susan B. Anthony List Education Fund’s youth outreach efforts by supporting the new Youth Leaders Board,” Musgrave told LifeNews.com.

“As technology advances and sonograms continue to offer compelling visual evidence of the humanity of unborn children, we're finding that the younger generation is more pro-life," she said.

"I'm confident the Susan B. Anthony List Education Fund will effectively marshal the energy and enthusiasm found among young pro-lifers to be a voice for women and the unborn for years to come," Musgrave continued.

The Youth Leaders Board will be comprised of young pro-life women leaders from across the country and will focus on youth leadership training with a emphasis on communications in order to train effective pro-life spokeswomen.

The Board will also permanently integrate a youth perspective into existing Susan B. Anthony new media outreach efforts, like Lia’s Challenge, the organization’s recent YouTube youth video contest.

Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Washington state Republican, will serve as the Board’s honorary chairwoman.

“One of my priorities in Congress is to encourage women to get involved,” she said. “Through the use of new media and other communications tools, I look forward to helping the SBA List’s Young Leaders Board reach out to young, pro-life women.”

The new effort is an extension of Musgrave's involvement with the Susan B. Anthony List. In March, she joined as the Director of Regional Outreach to run the organization’s new pro-life voter education effort, Votes Have Consequences.

Related web sites:
Susan B. Anthony List - http://www.sba-list.org
[4June09, http://www.lifenews.com/nat5122.html, Ertelt, Washington, DC, www.LifeNews.com]

Poland: Through the Pouring Rain, Thousands March for Life and Family

Ignoring, and even enjoying, a torrential downpour, approximately 2,000 Poles marched for life and family in Warsaw, Poland this past Sunday. Some participants marched carrying pro-life signage over their heads to protect themselves from the rain, while others simply allowed themselves to get completely soaked during the march. (Click here to see a photo essay of the event)

Slawomir Olejniczak organized the march this year, choosing a route through Warsaw that took two hours to complete. The march culminated with a family picnic, during which time a concert was originally scheduled, but then cancelled due to the inclement weather.

The recent Canadian March for Life saw 12,000 people march through the rain, but it appears that the weather was even worse for the Poles, with water accumulating enough in some places to cover marchers up to their shins.

“It was absolutely amazing,” one participant in the march told LifeSiteNews. “People were staring at us from the windows; they couldn't believe we were actually marching in this weather.”

In recent years the UN and EU have been increasingly pressuring Poland to loosen its restrictions on abortion and homosexual “marriage,” despite the fact that the majority of Poles favor the true definition of marriage and are against legalizing abortion.

Organizers hope that the march for life will embolden Poland to stand up to the pressure from international abortion promoting organizations. [By Alex Bush WARSAW, Poland, June 2, 2009 LifeSiteNews.com]

Slovak Republic Loses Free Speech Lawsuit to Pro-Life Group After Police Shut Down Pro-Life Rally
The highest court in the Slovak Republic, an eastern European nation, ruled in favor of a pro-life group Tuesday in its lawsuit against police for shutting down a pro-life rally.

The Centre for Bio-ethical Reform Europe filed suit with the help of attorneys from the Alliance Defense Fund. ADF attorneys told LifeNews.com that police put an end to a peaceful pro-life rally that was held in full compliance with domestic law.

The pro-life legal group says CBR held its “Stop Genocide” rally to inform people about the atrocities of genocide, including abortion, but Slovak police asserted the signs displayed by participants were too graphic for the general public. The court ruled that police violated the pro-life group’s constitutional right to free speech. [4June09, Kosice, Slovak Republic (LifeNews.com, #4629]   

U.S. House Passes Sexual Orientation "Hate Crimes" Bill
The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday voted 249-175 to expand federal "hate crimes" law to include protection based on a person's sexual orientation or "gender identity."

The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Act of 2009 would grant the federal government authority to investigate crimes that appear to be motivated by a person's sexual orientation.  The bill also extends current hate-crimes protection to victims not engaged in a federally-protected activity, such as voting or going to school.

Obama yesterday strongly supported the measure, urging lawmakers to pass the measure he called "an important civil rights issue." 

Legislators rejected a proposal that would have protected ministers, who speak of the Christian perspective of homosexuality, from being prosecuted for abetting a perceived "hate crime." 

Critics of the bill say that it threatens to chill free speech, arguing that similar legislation has done so in Canada, Sweden, and the U.K.

Related:

Obama Urges House of Representatives to Pass Sexual Orientation "Hate Crimes" Bill
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/apr/09042911.html

Free Speech Concerns Ignored as "Hate Crimes" Bill Passes Fed. Judiciary Committee
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/apr/09042407.html
[30Apr09, Kathleen Gilbert, D.C., www.(LifeSiteNews.com]

Miss California Features in New Pro-Marriage Ad
The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) today released its new TV advertisement featuring footage of Miss California Carrie Prejean's encounter with judge Perez Hilton during the recent Miss American pageant.

Hilton, a homosexual celebrity gossip, had asked Prejean during the pageant about her views on same-sex "marriage," to which Prejean responded that marriage should be between a man and a woman. The answer sparked a controversy and widespread coverage in the media, while Hilton subsequently attacked Prejean on his blog, calling her a "dumb bi**h."

The ad - a continuation of NOM's campaign in defense of marriage - also features footage of a same-sex marriage activist from the Human Rights Campaign referring to supporters of marriage as "outright bigots."

NOM's new "No Offense" ad advances the religious liberty argument by informing Americans that a number of prominent legal scholars, on both sides of the debate, have warned that legalizing same-sex marriage in fact "will create widespread … legal conflict" for individuals, small businesses and religious groups.

This afternoon Prejean threw her full weight behind NOM's commercial, giving a speech at the official launch conference of the ad in Washington DC.  While on NBC "Today" this morning, the 21-year-old was asked about her decision to do so, pointing to the fact that she was "attacked" while on stage at the beauty pageant for merely giving her opinion.

"The National Organization for Marriage basically just respects marriages and people who support it," she said. "That's what I'm here to do today, protect traditional marriage." 

Prejean is standing strong in the face of extreme criticism. After Hilton called her a "dumb b*tch" on his blog, a British political leader made joked on TV that if Prejean is "murdered" everyone will know that it was he who murdered her.

Even Miss California USA pageant officials have criticized Prejean's decision to respond honestly to the judge's question, saying "no reigning title holder has so readily committed her face and voice to a more divisive or polarizing issue," and accused her of having an "opportunistic agenda."
 
But Maggie Gallagher, president of NOM said, "Carrie only said what the majority of Americans believe: marriage means a man and a woman.  Her example resonates, especially to many young Americans, because she chose to stand for truth rather than surrender her core values."

"The behavior of Carrie's critics raises a question in a lot of folks' minds," he continued, "if this is how they treat good people who disagree with them now, what will they do once they have the power of the law on their side?"

According to the NY Daily News, Prejean said she has been repeatedly asked to "apologize" for her comments, but has refused to, saying, "I was representing California. I was representing the majority of people in California."

To view the ad and read the letters from legal scholars, go to http://www.nationformarriage.org.
[30Apr09, Tim Waggoner, DC, www.LifeSiteNews.com]

COMMENTARY : CLINTON CAN'T DEFEND PLANNED PARENTHOOD "Heroine"

by Mona Charen

Sanger was certainly a birth control pioneer.

But when you examine the totality of Sanger's views, you'd think modern feminists would blanche -- at least a little.

Sanger was a most thoroughgoing racist.

"Eugenics," she wrote, "is the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political, and social problems"

…"More children from the fit, less from the unfit -- that is the chief issue of birth control."

(Full article: http://townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/04/24/mrs_clinton_cant_defend_patron_saint_of_planned_parenthood; 6May09, abstinence.net)

MO Turns Tables on Obama Stimulus Money: Missouri is Taking a Different Approach to Use Stimulus Money from the Pro-abortion Administration for Pro-Life Causes.

The Missouri House has passed a bill that would provide what they are calling scholarships. Daniel McConchie of Americans United for Life (AUL) tells OneNewsNow how the money would be used.
 
"Maternity homes and pregnancy resource centers in the state -- they can apply for grants," he explains. "They are setting aside $2 million of the stimulus money to be able to promote these types of alternatives to abortion, especially for those women who find themselves in very desperate situations where they need help."
 
McConchie believes it is a good model for other state governments to use.

"This is one not only that we help promote a culture of life in the states that consider doing this, but also help vulnerable women at the same time," he adds. 

AUL can provide the language of the bill to lawmakers in other states and answer related questions, McConchie says.
[Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow - 5/5/2009 6:00:00 AMBookmark and Share http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=515890

Pastor Jailed for Pro-Life Witness Writes Letter from Prison to "Men of the Cloth"
"It is Thursday, March 26th, 2009 and I am sitting on the top of the second of fifteen bunks in housing unit thirty-four east of the Santa Rita jail in Dublin, California," begins a recent letter from Oakland pastor Walter Hoye, who was sent to jail on March 23 for peacefully counseling and picketing at a local abortion facility.

Hoye was ordered to serve 30 days in county jail by Judge Stuart Hing of the Alameda Superior Court, who found him guilty of unlawfully approaching two persons entering an abortion facility in Oakland and offering information about abortion alternatives.

Judge Hing said that at first he intended to impose no fine or jail time if Rev. Hoye agreed to stay one hundred yards away from the abortion facility for three years. Rev. Hoye refused this term of probation and would not agree to the stay-away order, whereupon the judge denied the defense motion to stay the sentence pending appeal. Mr Hoye was taken into custody from the courtroom.

Rev. Hoye is an African-American pastor who says he feels a special calling to work for the end of what he calls the genocide by abortion taking place in the African-American community. As part of his efforts, he stands in front of an abortion facility in Oakland with leaflets offering abortion alternatives and a sign reading, "Jesus loves you and your baby. Let us help."

Rev. Hoye continues his letter from prison by directing his thoughts to the responsibility of his fellow pastors to act on behalf of the unborn: "Here my thoughts turn towards my brothers, men of the cloth, men who are called and sanctified by God the Father. Men who are preserved as the bondservants of Jesus Christ. Men who serve as the holy burden bearers of God's word. Men who are the watchmen on the wall. It is now in the spirit of the prophet Ezekiel, I write to my fellow watchmen on the wall."

Noting the statistics on abortion of African Americans, Rev. Hoye writes: "Brothers, in Black America alone every seventy-two seconds a black baby is murdered in the womb of his or her mother. This holocaust is genocidal to the point that today a black child has less than a fifty-percent chance of being born. According to the 2006 U.S. Census, Black Americans are below the replacement level.

"In other words, death in Black America outpaces life. Abortion alone accounts for three times more deaths in our community than HIV/AIDS, Violent Crimes, Accidents, Cancer, and Heart Disease combined. There is no question pre-natal murder, abortion, is the number one issue in not only Black America, but in all of America today."

Encouraging his brother pastors to keep the scourge of abortion prevalent in the minds of their congregations, Rev. Hoye urges them to "speak regularly and boldly from our Sunday morning pulpits, from our mid-week Bible studies and from our small group meetings on the weekend against abortion."

"We must inform, educate and activate God's people to take public stands against the sin of legalized murder in America today."

Commenting on his own work as a sidewalk counselor that led to his arrest and imprisonment, Rev. Hoye warned that the "ministry is not for the faint of heart."

"A sidewalk counselor must remain prayerful, peaceful and above all non-violent. If you cannot commit to these three requirements DO NOT become involved in sidewalk counseling.  Inherent in the ministry of sidewalk counseling is the danger of arrest and incarceration."
UPDATE: Pastor Hoye was released after spending 18 days in jail, on 8Apr09.

Link to the full text of Rev. Hoye's letter: http://www.stspeterpaul.san-francisco.ca.us/church/rev_hoye_3_26_09.pdf

See previous LSN coverage:
Pro-Life Pastor Faces 2 Years Jail and Fine for Peaceful Sidewalk Counseling
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/feb/09021707.html

African American Pastor Sentenced to Jail for Counselling Women on Public Sidewalk
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/feb/09022002.html

African American Pastor Sent to Jail for Offering Abortion Alternatives on Public Sidewalk
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09032305.html
[3Apr09, T.M. Baklinski, OAKLAND, CA, www.LifeSiteNews.com]

Planned Parenthood Annual Report: Abortion Totals, Government Funding Increase. The Planned Parenthood Federation of America has released its annual report for fiscal year 2007-2008. The document shows the nation's largest abortion business is getting bigger as it showed an increase of five percent more abortions and increased taxpayer funding.

According to Planned Parenthood's latest report, abortions increased to 305,310 abortions up from 289,750 in 2006.

That 5.3 percent increase came at a time when the Alan Guttmacher Institute, it's former research arm, showed abortions were at near-historic lows.

Thus, while abortions were on the decline in the United States, and while Planned Parenthood sought to distance itself from its abortion business, Planned Parenthood did more abortions than it has done in years.

The annual report showed more government funding heading to the abortion business even if the taxpayer funds did not directly pay for abortions.

The total government grants and contracts received by PPFA affiliates from government sources including state, local and federal governments, increased from $337 million to $350 million.

Looking at Planned Parenthood data from 1997 to the present, the increase in government funding corresponds with an increase in the number of abortions.

In 1997, Planned Parenthood did about 160,000 abortions and received approximately $160 million in total taxpayer funding from various levels of government. Both the number of abortions and the amount of money received from government, supposedly for family planning to reduce abortions, has double since then.

In previous annual reports, Planned Parenthood had been criticized for a lowering of the number of adoption referrals and then leaving the referral number entirely out of its previous annual report.

This new document boasts that the number of adoption referrals provided by Planned Parenthood increased by over 100 percent from 2,410 referrals in 2006 to 4,912 referrals in 2007.

However, the total number of adoption referrals still amounts to a number equal to only one-third of the increase in the number of abortions done by Planned Parenthood affiliates.

Planned Parenthood also says it helped just under 11,000 women in 2007 with prenatal care and pregnancy help services.

Yet, prenatal care and adoption referrals resulted for only 5 percent of the total services provided to women in 2007 while abortions accounted for 95 percent of the services that year, according to Planned Parenthood's own figures. [8Apr09, Ertelt, www.LifeNews.com, DC, #4585]
 

Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue has issued a proclamation making Saturday a statewide pro-life day and also acknowledging the fact that thousands of Georgia women regret their abortions. A leading group for women who have been victimized by abortion applauded the recognition saying more needs to be done to see how abortion hurts women.

"Therefore, I, Sonny Perdue, Governor of the state of Georgia, do hereby proclaim April 18, 2009, as Hope for Life Day in Georgia," Perdue's proclamation reads.

"I call upon all Georgians to recognize this day, to rededicate ourselves to compassionate service on behalf of the weak and defenseless, and reaffirm our commitment to respect the life and dignity of every human being," Perdue adds.

Julie Thomas, who heads the Georgia outreach for Operation Outcry, an organization of women and men hurt by abortion, applauded the move.

"Finally we are celebrating the gift of life and I applaud Governor Perdue for proclaiming April 18th as Hope for Life Day," she told LifeNews.com.

Thomas noted the special Georgia pro-life day comes on the same day as in 2007 when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Congressional ban on partial-birth abortions and said abortion causes "severe depression" and "loss of esteem" for some women.

The Court also said that abortion was a "difficult and painful moral decision, fraught with emotional consequences" and that "some women come to regret aborting the infant life they once created and sustained."

The high court cited a brief filed by The Justice Foundation on behalf of Atlanta resident, Sandra Cano, the original Mary Doe of Doe v. Bolton, the companon case to Roe v. Wade, which established a so-called right to abortion throughout pregnancy for any reason.

The Justice Foundation also represented 180 Operation Outcry women who have been hurt by abortion, and whose testimony was referred to by the Supreme Court.

To celebrate the United States Supreme Court's recognition that abortion hurts women and the special pro-life day Perdue proclaimed, the Justice Foundation, Operation Outcry, Georgia Right to Life, and other women and men hurt by abortion will be marching in celebration of Hope for Life Day.

They will be joined by pro-life supporters friends and family and will be marching down Martin Luther King Drive to the Federal Courthouse where Doe v. Bolton originated this Saturday morning. Sandra Cano, Norma McCorvey, and others will speak to the crowd.
[17Apr09, Ertelt, www.LifeNews.com Atlanta, GA]

National Pro-Life Group Sponsors Video Contest to Honor Well-Spoken Teenager
The Susan B. Anthony List is honoring Lia Mills, an every day seventh grader who decided to give a speech on abortion for a competition. Despite initial resistance from her teachers and the competition organizers she was allowed to give her speech on abortion.

The video of her speech became a sensation and hundreds of thousands of people have seen it. "This speech has quickly been forwarded from inbox to inbox as many have been struck by this young lady’s inspirational defense of the unborn. Her speech was even responsible for convincing some real women to choose life," says SBA List president Marjorie Dannenfelser.

Now, the pro-life women's group is sponsoring a contest in her honor. "Last month we honored Lia with our Susan B. Anthony Young Leader Award. Now she is joining us to find the next up-and-coming generation of pro-life leaders," she told LifeNews.com.

"Lia’s Challenge is our new pro-life video contest for youth. We’re asking young people across the country to post their own pro-life videos just like Lia’s on YouTube. There will be two winners, and each will receive a $1000 scholarship."

Visit the group's web site (www.sba-list.org) for more information.

[17Apr09, Ertelt, www.LifeNews.com, DC; 18Apr, #4592]

California Man Symbolically 'Adopts' Wife's Two Aborted Babies

Lisa M, now 45, had her first abortion at 19 because she was too frightened to admit her pregnancy to anyone — including her then live-in boyfriend, the Assist News Service reported.

But terminating the pregnancy caused her so much pain that she tried to cover it with "drugs, alcohol, partying and a promiscuous lifestyle," she told radio host Rich Buhler in an interview with KBRT AM-740.

"The world tells me that it was only a blob of tissue, but my heart tells me otherwise," Musil told FOXNews.com by e-mail. "The grief often times was more than I could bear."

To try to cope with that pain, Lisa turned her efforts to honoring those who have gone through abortions.

"It’s been a desire of mine to establish a memorial where post-abortive women can go to have the names of their aborted children engraved to honor their remembrance," she said.

"As this is coming to fruition, I was wondering what last name I would put on this memorial, and my sweet husband asked if we could find some way he could legally adopt my babies and then they could take his name."  [http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,517503,00.html;  ALL Pro-LIfe Today, 23Apr09]