Tag Archives: Category: Sanctity of Life

LifeNews.com: The liberal women on The View, Wednesday, shrieked at the “totalitarian” decision by a Texas judge to uphold a law requiring women to look at an ultrasound before having an abortion.

LifeNews.com: Blackburn also refers to recent information released by the Alliance Defense Fund and the Susan B. Anthony List showing more examples of fraud and abuse from Planned Parenthood affiliates nationwide in terms of misusing taxpayer funds . . . The ADF report found: . . .

Turtle Bay and Beyond: The White House blog in a post called “Health Reform, Preventive Services, and Religious Institutions” addresses women’s preventive services required under the Affordable Care Act by religious institutions.

Center for Reproductive Rights: Seeking immediate relief that would allow emergency contraception over-the-counter access for women of all ages, today the Center for Reproductive Rights asked a federal court to reopen the Center’s 2005 lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for imposing unnecessary age restrictions on the drugs, also known as the “morning-after pill.” | Tummino v. Hamburg

Reuters: Birth and abortion rates among U.S. teens fell to record lows in 2008 as increased use of contraceptives sent the overall teen pregnancy rate to its lowest level since at least 1972, a study showed on Wednesday.

LifeSiteNews.com: Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), told LifeSiteNews.com “we will not comply” with the Dept. of Health and Human Services’ mandate requiring religious institutions to cover abortifacient products such as Plan B, Ella, and the IUD.

MSN.com: . . . including requiring doctors to tell women that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer and eliminating tax credits for post-secondary medical institutions that perform abortions.

James Freeman at WSJ.com: It’s unclear why a charity focused on the prevention and treatment of breast cancer would decide to align itself with a group so closely tied to just one political party.

CBS New York (includes video): “The federal government should do what it’s traditionally done since July 4, 1776, namely back out of intruding into the internal life of a church,” Dolan told CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer.

The Hill: The White House struggled Wednesday to contain the growing uproar over its birth-control mandate, with Democrats peeling off one by one in what has become an increasingly divisive election-year controversy.

LifeNews.com: “I’m not a Catholic but I stand in 100% solidarity with my brothers & sisters to practice their belief against govt pressure,” Warren said. “I’d go to jail rather than cave in to a govement mandate that violates what God commands us to do. Would you? Acts 5:29.”

LifeNews.com: In a new interview with Greta Van Susteren of Fox News, “pro-life” former Democratic congressman Bart Stupak of Michigan says he is opposed to the controversial new Obama mandate that forces religious employers to pay for birth control and abortion-causing drugs in employee health insurance plans.

LifeNews.com: Melaney Linton, who will now oversee Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, is determined to further the Life-ending work of Planned Parenthood . . .

NewsOK.com: Religious groups that oppose President Obama’s mandate that they provide contraception are using the right to religious liberty as a way to discriminate against women, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said in an email opposing congressional repeal of the mandate.

ADF Attorney Casey Mattox on the Vicki McKenna Show to discuss the audit presented to Congress. | MP3 audio 15 mins

ADF Attorney Catherine Foster appeared on the Rita Cosby Show. | MP3 audio 3:14 mins

WNYC: Similar efforts are underway on the right. The Susan B. Anthony List, a political action committee that supports candidates who oppose abortion rights, along with the Alliance Defense Fund, released a report on Tuesday that it says details Planned Parenthood’s “systemic abuse of taypayer dollars.”

The New American: Steven Aden, senior counsel at the pro-family Alliance Defense Fund, expressed his disappointment with Handel’s departure from Komen, noting that she had become “another victim of Planned Parenthood’s mafia-style shakedown of the Susan G. Komen organization.”

Daniel Henninger at WSJ.com: Pope John Paul II, surveying from his seat in the eternal hereafter the battle between the American Catholic Church and the Obama administration over mandated contraception services, must be permitting himself a sad smile. The pope knew more than most about the innate tensions between the state and its citizens. The Obamaites will object that it is unfair to liken their government to the Communist Party of Poland. That is not the point. What the former Karol Wojtyla knew is that any state will claim benevolence on behalf of doing whatever it thinks it needs to do in pursuit of its goals.

Catholic Culture: A state law in Hawaii may form the basis for a compromise between the Obama administration and the US Catholic bishops on the mandate to include contraceptive coverage in health-care plans.

Daily Caller carries the video.

Sen. Rand Paul at National Review Online: In his 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus, Pope John Paul II delivered a scathing critique of socialism, declaring that “the fundamental error of socialism is anthropological in nature. Socialism considers the individual person simply as an element, a molecule within the social organism, so that the good of the individual is completely subordinated. . . .

Nikolas T. Nikas and Dorinada Bordlee at National Review Online: While a much longer treatment is called for, here’s three quick facts that everyone should know . . .

EngageFamilyMinute.com: The document, titled “Data and Summary of Planned Parenthood’s Waste, Abuse, and Potential Fraud,” is scheduled to be released later today in conjunction with ADF president Alan Sears’ appearance on Congress to document the illegal activity and ask for government accountability. On a conference call earlier today I head from top executives at SBA and ADF on the need for this report and an accounting by PP for their activities.

LifeNews.com: Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning is coordinating a legal challenge against the controversial Obama mandate requiring religious employers to cover birth control and drugs that can cause abortions.

Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America – Record of Protest Against the Infringement of Religious Liberty by HHS: . . . We, the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops, call upon HHS Secretary Sebelius and the Obama Administration to rescind this unjust ruling and to respect the religious freedom guaranteed all Americans by the First Amendment.

Catholic Culture: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has released a statement that offers “clarifications regarding the Health and Human Services regulations on mandatory coverage of contraceptives, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs.”

POLITICO.com: The advice coming from Biden and Daley also represented a division among the president’s top advisers, with a group of top women all urging the president to not create an exemption for religious organizations.

New Hampshire Public Radio (includes audio): A 23-page memo from the Susan B. Anthony List and the Alliance Defense Fund outlines what those groups’ leaders say are a series of funding irregularities uncovered in various state and federal audits of Planned Parenthood affiliates. “These problems reveal a pattern of gross financial mismanagement,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA List. Steven Aden, the Alliance Defense Fund’s senior counsel, added, “The 10 state audits amounted to nearly 8 million dollars in waste, abuse and potential fraud.”

OneNewsNow.com: “To begin with, there have been ten state audits of seven Planned Parenthood providers in California, New York, Texas, and Washington state that have discovered over $8 million in waste, abuse, and potential fraud between 2002 and 2008,” Aden explains.

USA Today: Steven Aden, senior counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund, said he was saddened by Handel’s departure, noting that Handel’s public service to women “has become another victim of Planned Parenthood’s mafia-style shakedown of the Susan G. Komen organization.” The fund is an alliance of Christian attorneys that released a report Tuesday in which it alleges that Planned Parenthood has wasted taxpayer dollars.

Inside the Beltway – Washington Times: “Planned Parenthood has to play by the same rules as everyone else. It certainly isn’t entitled to a penny of public funds, especially if it is committing Medicare fraud,” says ADF senior counsel Steven H. Aden. See the full report here: www.sba-list.org/ppwaste.

ADF President and General Counsel at National Review Online: If the federal government can succeed in forcing people to violate their faith, it will have the power to force anyone to do anything. It is therefore sad but not surprising that Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius took to USA Today this week to spin rather than explain her boss’s decision to force people and entities all over the country to fund abortifacients, contraception, and sterilization against their consciences.

LifeSiteNews.com: Even as the United States’ Catholic bishops have launched an all-out campaign against the Obama administration’s birth control mandate and urged their flocks to resistance, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has invoked the support of “fellow Catholics” to justify her position in favor of the mandate.

LifeSiteNews.com (includes video): Pro-life leaders say on Sunday, Rick Santorum may have become the first major presidential candidate in history to address the link between abortion and breast cancer.

LifeNews.com: The Pennsylvania House Health Committee voted on Monday to advance the Women’s Right to Know Act (House Bill 1077), which would offer a pregnant woman the chance to view an ultrasound image of her unborn child and observe the baby’s heartbeat prior to an abortion

Robert George and Carter Snead: Planned Parenthood’s Hostages – WSJ.com: Faced with even the tiniest depletion in the massive river of funds Planned Parenthood receives yearly, the behemoth mobilized its enormous cultural, media, financial and political apparatus to attack the Komen Foundation in the press, on TV and through social media.

NYTimes.com: The Georgia law, which made the act of promoting assisted suicide an element of the crime, was deemed a violation of free speech rights. | Final Exit Network v. Georgia

News from The Associated Press: A political adviser to President Barack Obama said Tuesday the administration didn’t intend to “abridge anyone’s religious freedom” with its regulation requiring church-affiliated employers to cover birth control for their workers.

News from The Associated Press: Utah’s Supreme Court is deciding whether a sperm donor contract is proof that a man wanted to be a father, even after his death.

News from The Associated Press: Students at Shippensburg University in central Pennsylvania can get the “morning-after” pill by sliding $25 into a vending machine installed at the request of the student government.

ADF Attorney Matt Bowman appeared on The Victoria Taft Show to discuss the situation. | MP3 audio 6:41 mins

he Alliance Defense Fund Tuesday officially made public its report to Congress identifying waste, abuse, and potential fraud by Planned Parenthood affiliates across the nation that may amount to multiple millions of dollars in wasted taxpayer money.

Newsmax: The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) and the Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List) plan to hold a conference call with the media Tuesday morning, to discuss ADF’s latest report to Congress alleging waste, abuse, and potential fraud by Planned Parenthood. [more]

The New American: But instead of abandoning its attack on the pregnancy centers, the city council simply replaced its objectionable ordinance with another equally onerous statute that, explained the ADF, “continues to require pro-life centers to post negative signs simply because the centers speak to women about pregnancy.” As with the first, the replacement ordinance continues to exempt abortion facilities from the First Amendment-violating law. [more]

OneNewsNow.com: “The city should recognize that using sleight of hand to force pro-life centers to post a message the city wants does not solve the First Amendment problems with the law,” says Bowman. “Courts around the country have been striking these types of laws down that target pro-life pregnancy centers.”

CBS New York: Catholic leaders upped the ante Monday, threatening to challenge the Obama administration over a provision of the new health care law that would require all employers, including religious institutions, to pay for birth control.

ADF, allies seek new court order after city’s decision to replace one bad law with another

Associated Baptist Press: “Our religious liberty is being similarly subverted and attacked,” Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said of the Obama administration’s inclusion of pregnancy in “preventive services” that health insurers must provide.

LifeSiteNews.com: s a formidable tide of Christian opposition began rising this week, including at least 115 U.S. bishops, the nation’s leading abortion lobby is leaping to defend the Obama administration order that will force religious institutions to provide free birth control next year.

LifeNews.com: In an email distributed by Human Events, a conservative publication, Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich takes the Obama administration to task of its new Obamacare mandate.

LifeNews.com: The Virginia state Senate has approved a bill, on a 21-18 margin, that allows women a chance to see an ultrasound of their unborn child before an abortion — something abortion facilities don’t always allow.

ADF Attorney Jonathan Scruggs appeared on Across America with Gary Freeman. | MP3 audio 21:29 mins

Nicholas Jackson at The Atlantic: The key factor behind Komen’s decision, Aun told the Associated Press, is not ongoing protests of Planned Parenthood — the Alliance Defense Fund was quick to praise Komen “for seeing the contradiction between its lifesaving work and its relationship with an abortionist that has ended millions of lives” — but an audit launched by Rep. Cliff Stearns, chairman of the Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, to determine whether public money had been spent on abortions over the last decade.

JournalTimes.com: Anti-abortion groups, in contrast, welcomed the news. The Alliance Defense Fund praised Komen “for seeing the contradiction between its lifesaving work and its relationship with an abortionist that has ended millions of lives.”

FIRE – The Moral Liberal: Under the new policies, which were put into place after pressure from the Alliance Defense Fund, students may still reserve the table in the free speech zone, but may also speak elsewhere on campus spontaneously and without prior approval. The college also eliminated a speech code that banned “offensive” or “derogatory” speech.

Times-Journal.com: : Standard insurance plans offered in Alabama would not cover elective abortions if a bill offered by state Sen. Shadrack McGill becomes law.

LifeNews.com: After years of protests and criticism from pro-life advocates, the biggest breast cancer organization, Susan G. Komen for the Cure has announced it is halting further grants and donations to the Planned Parenthood.

Richmond Times-Dispatch: Gov. Bob McDonnell this morning said he supports a measure expected to clear the Senate today that would require a woman receive an ultrasound before having an abortion.

PilotOnline.com: One-by-one, three Virginia women told lawmakers about their gut-wrenching decisions to terminate medically perilous pregnancies and urged officials not to repeal state subsidies for poor women to abort fetuses with serious birth defects.

LifeNews.com: Obama has appointed Andrew Hurwitz to the 9th Circuit Court, the most liberal appeals court in the country based in San Francisco and covering laws approved in western states. Yet, according to the Daily Caller, Hurwitz was instrumental to providing some of the legal framework for Roe, which resulted in 54 million abortions.

LifeSiteNews.com: Attorneys representing the centers immediately notified the council of their objections. In October the Alliance Defense Fund, the Law of Life Project, and the Texas Center for Defense of Life (TCDL) filed a federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court.

LifeNews.com: ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman commented on the law and the lawsuit in remarks to LifeNews.com. “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,” he said. “This order 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. The order also means that the court is likely to find the ordinance unconstitutional.” Bowman noted the court was also critical of the New York Civil Liberties Union’s defense of the city ordinance: “Given the New York Civil Liberties Union’s (“NYCLU”) usual concern for First Amendment rights, its amicus brief supporting Defendant’s expansive view of the commercial speech doctrine is puzzling.”

LifeNews.com: At least three Catholic bishops have said they will not comply with the mandate the Obama administration put in place recently in Obamacare that will force religious employers to pay for birth control, contraception and drugs that may cause abortions in their health care plans.

Pat Buchanan at Townhall: Now, not only is this a battle the Church must fight, it is a battle the Church can win if it has the moral stamina to say the course. In forcing the Church to violate its own principles, Obama has committed an act of federal aggression, crossing the line between church and state to appease his ACLU and feminist allies, while humiliating the Catholic bishops.

Christopher Kaczor at Public Discourse: From its ancient Stoic origins to its modern Kantian formulations, human dignity is an important concept for sound ethical thinking. Doing so requires that we distinguish dignity as attributed, dignity as intrinsic worth, and dignity as flourishing.

LifeNews.com: A pro-life member of Congress has introduced new legislation that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy in the District of Columbia based on scientific evidence showing unborn children feel pain.

LifeNews.com: Signatures are currently being gathered to put Parental Notification on the 2012 November ballot for the fourth time in California. In 2008 Parental Notification’s Proposition 4 lost by a very small percentage, 52% to 48%.

LifeNews.com: Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund are also part of the lawsuit. “Pregnancy centers, which offer real help and hope to women, shouldn’t be punished by political allies of the abortion industry,” said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “Attacks such as this ordinance are an ideologically motivated attempt to distract from the growing national scandals in the abortion industry. For years, abortionists have preyed on women and girls to generate profits. Now, pro-abortion politicians are trying to give women fewer choices.”

LifeNews.com: n Iowa man has been arrested for forcibly aborting his girlfriend’s baby. According to police, Yoirlan Tome-Rojas gave an abortion drug that he purchased on the Internet to his pregnant girlfriend.

The letter form Bishop Thomas Olmstead, dated Jan. 25, 2012 is here.

Steven Aden at Townhall: The death business is booming, but we’re killing ourselves to make it happen.

LifeNews.com: Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum said late Sunday that the medical condition that forced the Santorum family to hospitalize the little girl over the weekend has dramatically improved.

Free speech now allowed campus-wide (OneNewsNow.com): ADF legal counsel David Hacker says that was reasonable . . . “Universities across the country are censoring Christian and pro-life speech on really a rapid scale,” he laments. “But we’re really pleased that Chemeketa was willing to work with us and change its policies to open up the campus to more speech.” [more]

Baptist Press: “It is time to get New Hampshire taxpayers out of the abortion business,” said Manchester, N.H., lawyer Michael Tierney, who is affiliated with the Alliance Defense Fund. “Planned Parenthood’s business model is centered on abortion, and New Hampshire taxpayers want no part in it.”