FROM LIFENEWS.COM: TODAY'S PRO-LIFE HEADLINES

Poll: Half of Americans Oppose or Unsure on Sotomayor, Respect Pro-Life Judges
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A new national poll shows a majority of Americans either oppose the nomination of Supreme Court judge Sonia Sotomayor or are unsure where they stand. The survey also showed Americans most strongly admire and respect Supreme Court judges who are pro-life on abortion. The Opinion Dynamics poll conducted for Fox News and released Friday finds 32 percent of Americans oppose the Sotomayor along with another 22 percent who are not sure where they stand. On the other hand, 46 percent of those polled say they support her nomination. The results of the poll are similar to those for the most recent Supreme Court Justice, Samuel Alito, who saw 46 percent say they supported his nomination and 29 percent opposing it in a November 2005 Fox News survey. The new poll found Democrats, 69 percent, are more supportive of the Sotomayor nomination than Republicans (19 percent) and independents (46 percent). Men and women are equally supportive of the woman who could become the third on the high court. Full story at LifeNews.com

Medical Board Should Revoke Licenses of Tiller Abortion Associates, Group Says
Topeka, KS (LifeNews.com) -- A Kansas pro-life group says the state medical board should move ahead with efforts to revoke the medical licenses of abortion practitioners who were colleagues of slain late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller. Kansans for Life says three Tiller colleagues may have violations that the board should examine. At the time of Tiller's death, the Kansas Board of Healing Arts, which regulates physicians in the state, had taken two of the three steps needed to revoke his medical license. The board had declared as a finding of fact that illegal post-viability abortions had been performed at Tiller's abortion business over the last six years because they were done without the legally required referrals of a doctor not financially or legally affiliated with the abortion practitioner. State law requires a second doctor to sign off on the supposed validity of the late-term abortion and that the physician have no relationship with the one doing the abortions. However, Tiller, and his colleagues, relied on Kristin Neuhaus to sign off on the abortions and the medical board said Neuhaus derived her entire income from okaying abortions at Tiller's business. "The Board's assertion of criminal activity deserves continued aggressive action to prevent any and all Kansas abortion clinics from undermining the independent second physician requirement, or any other part of the 1998 post-viable ban in Kansas," KFL director Mary Kay Culp told LifeNews.com. Full story at LifeNews.com

Obama Likely Not Serious on Reducing Abortions, But Concedes Pro-Life Ground
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- President Barack Obama's faith based office met recently to talk about ways to reduce abortions. While most pro-life advocates are skeptical that any serious efforts will materialize, one says the pro-life movement has made gains if only because the stalwart pro-abortion president is conceding pro-life ground.
Tom McFeely, a writer for the National Catholic Register, says the debate over whether Obama is serious about reducing abortions by helping pregnant women with social programs "can't be answered now." "A more conclusive judgment must await the introduction of the actual programs and an assessment of their effects. But in the meantime pro-lifers have every reason to be skeptical, given the concrete pro-abortion actions Obama has taken already since becoming president," McFeely writes at NCR. However, McFeely points out comments from U.S. News & Report’s Dan Gilgoff, who notes that Obama's use of pro-life language about reducing abortions is perhaps an acknowledgement that the pro-life side is winning the abortion debate. "But in articulating a goal of reducing the need for abortion, hasn't the White House already made a judgment about its undesirability?" Gilgoff writes. "Why reduce the number of women seeking abortions if there’s nothing wrong with the procedure?" Full story at LifeNews.com




Pro-Life Women's Group Calls on Senate to Stop Obama Intl Abortion Agenda
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- With the House of Representativeshaving approved a bill this week that will allow President Obama to create a new women's office to promote abortion, a pro-life women's group is calling on the Senate to put a halt to the plan. The House voted Wednesday to approve the State Department funding bill that allows President Barack Obama to promote an international right to abortion. The vote came after House Democrats adopted rules for debate on the bill preventing a pro-life amendment stopping it. Despite objections from several leading pro-life groups, the House voted for the Foreign Affairs Reauthorization Act (HR 2410) 235-187 and the measure now moves to the Senate for consideration. Once the Senate considers the bill, the Susan B. Anthony List tells LifeNews.com it hopes lawmakers are allowed to vote for an amendment to make sure Obama's new Office of Woman’s Issues is not used as a tool to promote abortions in other nations. "Under the leadership of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, this office will actively engage in the promotion of abortion in other countries," SBA List president Marjorie Dannenfelser says. "[The office] will carry out her vision by advancing the legalization of abortion in pro-life nations around the world." Full story at LifeNews.com

Former Abortion Practitioner Bernard Nathanson Talks About George Tiller's Death
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Former abortion practitioner Bernard Nathanson, who has since converted to the pro-life position, was a former mentor of George Tiller, the slain late-term abortion practitioner. In a new interview, Nathanson said he was surprised that Tiller never became pro-life himself because of new medical technologies. Nathanson is no stranger to the abortion industry, having done more than 75,000 abortions himself during the 1960s and 1970s and presiding over one of the nation's premier pro-abortion groups, NARAL. He earned widespread praise from the pro-life movement for his movie "Silent Scream" which showed the advancement in ultrasound technology and how an abortion destroys human life. "I knew George Tiller years ago when I was on the pro-abortion side," he told the Washington Times. "He came to a course I was giving in the technique of abortion in New York in 1970 under the auspices of NARAL. And I did late-term abortions until I changed my opinion as of 1980." "My switch to pro-life had nothing to do with religion," he told the newspaper. "Tiller was a church-going man, which doesn't say a whole lot in this country, but one wonders why he never changed his mind based on the scientific evidence. That is where I changed my mind, based on fetoscopies and ultrasound studies," Nathanson added. Full story at LifeNews.com




United Nations One Step Closer to Creating Pro-Abortion Super Agency for Women
New York, NY (LifeNews.com/CFAM) -- At United Nations (UN) headquarters this week, member states moved another step closer to setting up a new women's "super-agency." Last month, nations had pushed back when UN staff insisted governments approve a new office without providing details on its budget, structure, staffing, or mandate. At this week’s meeting, Member States were presented with a "consolidated response" paper from the UN Secretariat which detailed the staffing and cost projections of a new UN "gender entity." For almost three years, the UN has discussed reforming its "gender architecture" by creating a centralized office which would be "the leader and voice on gender equality and the empowerment of women" and which would be "adequately resourced and with authority and capacity to drive and hold the United Nations system accountable." In her presentation to UN delegates on the new gender office, UN Secretary General's Advisor on Gender Issues Rachel Mayanja stated that the aim of the new gender office was to have "global coverage." Full story at LifeNews.com

Hundreds of Pro-Life Marchers in Alabama Will Recreate King Civil Rights March
Selma, AL (LifeNews.com) -- Hundreds of pro-life advocates will recreate the Civil Rights march across the Pettus Bridge in Alabama along with family members of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. More than 70 pro-life organizations representing different faith traditions and the leadership of pro-life advocates in the region, are promoting the event. Alabama Citizens for Life, along with Dr. Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., are the main organizers of the event, which takes place Saturday at 10:00 a.m. at the famous bridge. Cheryl Ciamarra, of Alabama Citizens for Life, talked with LifeNews.com about the march. "This march is uniting pro-life groups across not just the state of Alabama, but the region and country as well to take a stand for the right to life of the child in the womb," she said. Full story at LifeNews.com




California Pro-Life Group Backs Petition to Stop Schwarzenegger Funding Abortion
Sacramento, CA (LifeNews.com) -- A California pro-life group is sponsoring a new petition to call on state government officials, specifically pro-abortion Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, to stop using state money to pay for abortions. The California Pro-Life Council says paying for abortion is wrong, especially in this current difficult economic climate. The state spends more than $33 million to pay for the abortions of poor women even though main abortion business Planned Parenthood brought in $1 billion in revenue last year. Every year, pro-life advocates have tried to amend the state budget to remove the funding for as many as 95,000 abortions annually. That's about 8 percent of the total number of abortions done nationwide -- and all paid for at the expense of California taxpayers. "California state government is the state's largest single funder of the abortion industry," the group said in an email to LifeNews.com. The pro-life organization blames Schwarzenegger for running for governor as a moderate on abortion but never doing anything to stop taxpayer-funded abortions since his election. Full story at LifeNews.com

Planned Parenthood Abortion Businesses in Connecticut, Rhode Island to Merge
Hartford, CT (LifeNews.com) -- Two local Planned Parenthood affiliate groups, in Connecticut and Rhode Island, are planning to merge as a way of cutting costs. The affiliates will combine to form Planned Parenthood of Southern New England that will run its 19 centers, including abortion businesses. The new group will oversee 18 centers in Connecticut and one in Providence, the capital of the tiny state of Rhode Island. Judy Tabar, chief executive of Planned Parenthood of Connecticut, told the Hartford Business Journal that the merger could be completed as soon as next month. Tabar said the problematic economic climate is causing many of the national Planned Parenthood affiliates to merge in order to reduce costs and consolidate operating expenses. That comes as the most recent annual report shows Planned Parenthood income rising to over $1 billion and the hundreds of millions from state, national and local governments on the rise. Full story at LifeNews.com




New York Stem Cell Research Board Agrees to Pay for Women's Eggs for Science
Albany, NY (LifeNews.com) -- The Empire State Stem Cell Board has agreed to a new plan, that has been soundly criticized by pro-life advocates, using taxpayer funds to pay women who allow for the extraction of their eggs for research purposes. The board will use money from the $600 million in state taxpayer funds it oversees. The board has authorized up to $10,000 per retrieval and the eggs would be used in human cloning and embryonic stem cell research that has never helped any patients. The decision makes New York the only state in the nation to allow tax-funded compensation for women who subject themselves to the painful egg-extraction process for donations for research and goes against recent decisions in states like California and Massachusetts, which prohibit payment for eggs for research. Fr. Thomas Berg, member of the Ethics Committee of the ESSCB, and director of the of the Westchester Institute, told LifeNews.com the decision was wrongheaded."Without any involvement from the public, who might like to know that state cash will be used as an inducement for underprivileged and cash-strapped women to undergo a risky and potentially dangerous procedure, this Board has set in place a plan to allow payments to women who undergo ovarian stimulation," he said. Full story at LifeNews.com

Planned Parenthood to Put Center Near Eastern Washington Elementary School
Pasco, WA (LifeNews.com) -- Planned Parenthood is coming under fire for plans to put a new center near an elementary school in eastern Washington state. Planned Parenthood of Central Washington is looking at a new center in Pasco, that would open up next to Mark Twain Elementary School. The center won't do abortions, but will make abortion referrals and could begin doing abortions sometime down the road. The idea that the pro-abortion group would put a center next to the school irks Deeana Hoyt, who operates a day care nearby. "To put such a highly volatile business right next to an elementary school," she told the News Tribune newspaper. "I'm concerned about the impact it's going to have on the community." Full story at LifeNews.com

ACTION: Ask the Pasco Planning Commission to deny the Planned Parenthood permit. Contact it at communitydevelopment@pasco-wa.gov or by mailing comments to 525 N. Third Ave., Pasco, WA 99301.

East Timor Resists Pressure From United Nations, NGOs to Allow Abortions
New York, NY (LifeNews.com/CFAM) -- The parliament of East Timor – a small, Catholic nation in South East Asia recognized as an independent state in 2002 – has resisted concerted pressure from United Nations agencies and pro-abortion non-governmental organizations (NGOs) by enacting a revised penal law that continues to criminalize abortion in virtually all cases. With last week's 45 to 0 vote with only 7 abstentions on the main operative paragraph, parliament retained penal sanctions on abortion, except in instances where abortion is the "only way" to prevent death to the mother as attested to by three independent physicians. A preambular paragraph states that life "from the moment of conception" is entitled to protection. Abortionists are subject to up to eight years imprisonment, depending on the circumstances. The law also recognizes the conscience rights of doctors to refuse to perform abortions. Full story at LifeNews.com