Daily Archives: July 15, 2011

LifeSiteNews.com: This week, the lower house of the Italian legislature voted 278-205 to pass a bill that would definitively exclude the possibility of starving and dehydrating vulnerable patients to death. The Advance Directives Bill opens with a specific prohibition of euthanasia or assisted suicide and requires that patients not be denied food and hydration.

LifeSiteNews.com: For £20 Brits can buy a chance to win a baby in a lottery sponsored by a fertility charity, a move that has been decried by ethicists as just more evidence that children have been reduced to commodities by the artificial reproduction industry.

LifeSiteNews.com: The Ohio Senate approved legislation Wednesday that would ban most abortions in the state once the unborn child has reached the age of viability. The Senate voted 22-7 to pass the House’s ban on abortions after 20 weeks gestation, the same day that the Senate Health Committee approved it.

The Volokh Conspiracy : The case is today’s Neighborhood Enterprises, Inc. v. City of St. Louis, litigated by the Institute for Justice.

Religion Clause: In Fesseha v.Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Debre Meheret St. Michael’s Church in Dallas, (TX App., July 12, 2011), a Texas appellate court held that the trial court lacked jurisdiction over a suit by former church members against the church and its trustees for improperly conduction elections, meetings and improperly amending the bylaws and establishing a $30 per month membership fee.

WXEL: With the third year of recession tormenting Greece’s 11 million people, the Church has provided solace, comfort and nourishment but activists say it’s now time to dig deep into its coffers to help with the bailout.

The “emergency” request for a stay, filed late Thursday, asks that in the case Log Cabin Republicans v. United States the 9th Circuit once again suspend the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) . . .

Defining marriage down isn’t hard, for elected officials as blithely unconcerned with the will of the electorate as the New York Legislature. It helps, of course, if you have contempt for the Constitution and can immunize yourself against the realities of life and human relationships.

Tim Dalrymple at WORLD Magazine (Jul 30, 11): When sexual liberty and religious liberty are pitted against one another, says the Alliance Defense Fund’s Austin R. Nimocks, the elevation of one always diminishes the other. The religious liberties and conscience rights of individual professionals and business owners, Nimocks says, are in particular peril. Since they do not fall beneath the “religious umbrella” the law creates, wedding planners or florists or clothiers who decline to offer their services to same-sex couples may face lawsuits or other forms of government pressure. Marriage counselors and adoption attorneys, if they are not employees of a religious group, also could be accused of illegal discrimination if they do not serve gay couples. Even those beneath the “religious umbrella” may be less protected than they would like to believe. In spite of the conscience provision, there are “huge gaping holes” in the language of the law, says Nimocks.

Catholic News Agency (CNA): “Pro-life pregnancy centers, which freely offer real help and hope to women and their preborn children, shouldn’t be punished by political allies of those who make their money aborting babies,” said attorney Matt Bowman of the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal group . . . Attorney Matt Bowman said Judge Pauley’s decision “keeps the city from enforcing a law that is specifically designed to deter pregnant women from receiving the help they need to make fully informed choices about their pregnancy while this lawsuit goes forward.”

WORLD Magazine: Heil of the ACLJ praised the judge’s decision: “This law, which forces pregnancy care centers to adopt and express views about abortion and contraception that they strongly disagree with, is constitutionally flawed.” The ACLJ helped work on the case, along with the Alliance Defense Fund and the Catholic Lawyers Association. The local attorney arguing the case was M. Todd Parker—a graduate of Covenant Seminary in St. Louis—of Moskowitz & Book, LLC in New York City.