FROM LIFENEWS.COM: PRO-LIFE HEADLINES (Tuesday)

White House: Obama Would Defer to "Experts" on Abortion in Govt Health Care
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A top White House official says President Barack Obama would defer to unnamed "medical experts" to determine whether the government-run health care plan Congress is crafting would cover abortions. Stopping taxpayer-funded abortions and abortion coverage in health care has emerged as a top pro-life priority. Yesterday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs answered a question from CNS News about the controversy. "I think when it comes to designing a benefit package, I think the president and this administration agree that that's--a benefit package is better left to experts in the medical field to determine how best and what procedures to cover," Gibbs said. Gibbs didn't name what experts would determine the coverage, but current bills in Congress set up an administrative entity that the Obama administration would run that would make those abortion decisions. On Fox News Sunday, Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag was slightly more forthright, if only by appearing to admit that the Obama administration would be making the decision, not some outside experts. The Obama budget chief would not rule out funding abortions but said he doesn't have an answer right now about whether abortion funding will or won't be included. Full story at LifeNews.com
ACTION: Contact members of the House and Senate and urge strong support for any amendment to exclude abortion from their health care bills. Call 202-224-3121 or go to http://www.House.gov and http://www.Senate.gov for specific contact information.

Pro-Abortion Group NARAL Endorses Sonia Sotomayor for Supreme Court Spot
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- One of the nation's largest pro-abortion groups announced today that it is supporting the nomination of appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. NARAL said that the hearings the Senate Judiciary Committee held last week show Sotomayor will support unlimited abortions. The pro-abortion group said Sotomayor showed during the hearings that she more strongly embraced the Roe v. Wade decision that allowed virtually unlimited abortions compared with Chief Justice John Roberts or Justice Samuel Alito, the previous two nominees. The group also noted that Sotomayor said several times during the hearings that she believed privacy rights were well-established and that they included a right to abortion. Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL, said, also praised pro-abortion President Barack Obama for selecting her and admitted that the decision to endorse Sotomayor was based in part on his pro-abortion credentials. "In addition, we took into consideration ... President Obama's consistent record of support for Roe v. Wade and his established record of nominating to key posts individuals who share his principles," she said. Full story at LifeNews.com

Medical professionals are on the frontlines of the battle on life issues. From abortion to assisted suicide, we are challenged in the workplace to defend our beliefs and risk our employment. The National Association of Pro-life Nurses has been here for nurses since the beginning. Join with us to protect those voices.

Planned Parenthood Blasts Pro-Life Groups for Opposing Abortion in Health Care
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Not content with efforts from pro-life groups to make sure that the health care restructuring bills in Congress don't force taxpayer-funding or mandate insurance coverage of abortions, Planned Parenthood is fighting back. In two emails over the last three days, the abortion business is trying to rally its supporters. Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards sounded the alarm on Saturday. "During the past week, anti-choice groups have turned out in droves to stop progress on health care reform in the name of ideology," Richards said. "The Family Research Council and the National Right to Life Committee published lies about a women's preventive health amendment introduced by Senator Mikulski, claiming that it would mandate abortion coverage," Richards said. The emailed never discussed the content of the amendment, which would guarantee that Planned Parenthood and abortion would be a part of the health care reform process. Richards also never cited any actual statements from the two pro-life groups or how they were supposedly misleading. "But there is no longer any doubt that anti-choice forces have zeroed in on the effort to build health care reform majorities in the House and Senate as their chance to strike a devastating blow to women's access to reproductive health care, including ... abortion," Richards complained. Full story at LifeNews.com


Senate Judiciary Panel Postpones Vote on Sonia Sotomayor Supreme Court Bid
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The Senate Judiciary Committee had been scheduled to vote on the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court today, but the panel will postpone the vote until next week. Republican senators on the committee used the rules of the panel to exercise their right to delay the vote. Republicans on the Judiciary Committee had asked the nominee to elaborate on her testimony by answering written questions and they wanted extra time to evaluate those responses. Chairman Pat Leahy, a pro-abortion Vermont Democrat, accepted the request for the delay and scheduled a vote on Sotomayor for Tuesday, July 28. Yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell talked more about why he will oppose Sotomayor, but also said that he doesn't expect any lawmakers to filibuster her nomination. "I don't know of any Republicans who think that will be necessary," he said. Full story at LifeNews.com

Obama Science Advisor Denies He Backs Forced Abortion, Population Control
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The office of John Holdren, whom Obama appointed to become Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, is denying charges that Holdren backs forced abortions. Holdren has been accused of backing population control given comments that appear in a book he co-wrote. With little fanfare, Holdren was confirmed by the Senate in March as the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. In a book Holdren co-authored in 1977, Obama's science czar wrote that women could be forced to have abortions whether they wanted them or not.
Holdren also said the population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs put into the nation's food or water, advocated the taking of babies from single mothers and giving them to couples, and said that people who "contribute to social deterioration," such as minorities or other so-called undesirables, should be forced to have abortions. In a statement released to Fox News today, Holdren's office says that's not so. "Dr. Holdren has stated flatly that he does not now support and has never supported compulsory abortions, compulsory sterilization, or other coercive approaches to limiting population growth," the statement said. "Straining to conclude otherwise from passages treating controversies of the day in a three-author, 30-year-old textbook is a mistake." Full story at LifeNews.com


Upcoming Seminar on Massive Abortion, Health Care Debate Shows Pro-Life Unity
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- With the health care proposal in Congress culminating in what could be the largest expansion of abortion and taxpayer funding of abortion since Roe v. Wade, numerous national pro-life groups are banding together for an unprecedented webcast to educate and activate pro-life people. A Thursday night webcast featuring leading representatives of several pro-life groups could see more than 100,000 participate to learn what they can do. Some of the leaders who will participate include Focus on the Family's James Dobson, Charmaine Yoest of Americans United for Life, former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, Father Frank Pavone, and Douglas Johnson of National Right to Life. David Bereit of 40 Days for Life is one of the organizers and participants and he tells LifeNews.com that the pro-life movement needs to get energized immediately about this massive battle. Bereit says the final health care package, if it does not include specific abortion exclusions, would "impose the cornerstones of the FOCA bill by stealth " an abortion mandate and taxpayer-funding abortion." Full story at LifeNews.com
To participate - http://www.StopTheAbortionMandate.com

YouTube Bans Another Video of Planned Parenthood Hiding Sexual Abuse, Abortion
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The popular video sharing web site YouTube has again censored a video exposing Planned Parenthood hiding a potential case of sexual abuse of a teenager. The video also shows the Planned Parenthood employee telling a woman posing as a teenager how she can evade the state's parental consent abortion law. The undercover video, taken by Lila Rose of Live Action, shows a staffer at a Birmingham, Alabama Planned Parenthood abortion center telling a woman who appears to be a victim of statutory rape that "we bend the rules." The video has triggered an investigation by the state Attorney General's Office into the nation's largest abortion business. Rose tells LifeNews.com that YouTube is engaging in censorship that "appears politically motivated." She indicated YouTube offered no prior warning or specific explanation for removing the video, which she says contains no apparent violations of YouTube's "community guidelines." Full story at LifeNews.com

 

Why Didn't Sonia Sotomayor Know Roe and Doe Allow for Abortion on Demand?
by Matthew J. Franck
Millions of Americans believe that states can prohibit abortion in the third trimester, yet current Supreme Court jurisprudence has manufactured a right to unfettered abortion right up to the time of the child’s birth. How did Americans become so confused on this issue and how did the Supreme Court end up where it has? Does Judge Sonia Sotomayor know the law as well as a future Supreme Court justice ought to know it? If a discussion during her confirmation hearings with Senator Tom Coburn (who is not a lawyer, but rather an experienced obstetrician) is any indication, it would seem not. When I pointed out, in a blog post at the American Principles Project, how wrong Judge Sotomayor was in her answer to Sen. Coburn’s hypothetical, a commenter on the site challenged me to back up my statement that the legal regime in America is one of abortion-on-demand throughout the nine months of pregnancy. This tutorial is my reply to such doubters. Full story at LifeNews.com
 

Congressional Democrats' Common Ground Abortion Legislation is a Pro-Life Fraud
by Deal Hudson
The next sad chapter of the Obama "common ground/abortion reduction" charade is ready to be written. This one will feature a fraudulent pro-life bill co-sponsored by a formerly pro-life Democratic congressman, Tim Ryan (D-OH), who, like a reed shaken by the wind, has been turned into an abortion supporter -- like most of the other Catholic Democrats in the Congress. Ryan voted for a budget including federally funded abortion in the District of Columbia and voted against an amendment offered by a fellow Democrat stripping the bill of its abortion funding. Now Ryan is helping to relaunch a bill co-sponsored with the leading pro-abortion "Catholic" member of Congress, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), the "Reducing the Need for Abortions and Supporting Parents Act." Full story at LifeNews.com

 
Drive to Ban Sex-Selection Abortions Gaining More Momentum as Cases Multiply
by Colin Mason
On September 23, 2008, Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona introduced a bill. Its purpose seemed straightforward and its cause universal: put an end to the wholesale killing of little girls whose only crime was that they were little girls. One might have thought that this bill would have garnered universal support, with everyone from radical feminists to conservative Christians clamoring for its passage. The problem was that this legislation would protect unborn little girls. The Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act of 2009 (PreNDA) seeks to criminalize the practice of sex-selective and race-selective abortions, which are growing more prevalent among certain communities in the United States. At the time of this writing, the bill has 29 co-sponsors, including 27 Republicans and 2 Democrats. According to the National Academy of Sciences, some Asian-American groups have imported a preference for boys and are dramatically altering their demographic landscape by selectively eliminating baby girls from their population. Add to this the problem of African-American abortions, where some statistics suggest that as many as half of African-American pregnancies are terminated, and the need for such a bill becomes self-evident. Full story at LifeNews.com

 

Montana Supreme Court Will Hold September Hearing on Assisted Suicide Lawsuit
Helena, MT (LifeNews.com) -- The Montana Supreme Court has announced it will hear oral arguments in September on a case that could make the state the third to allow assisted suicide. If the state's high court affirms a lower court ruling, then Montana could have the most permissive assisted suicide situation in the country.
Oregon became the first state allowing assisted suicide following two statewide votes and legal battles. Washington voters made the Pacific coast state the second last November after approving I-1000. Playing off of a pro-abortion decision the state's high court handed down misusing the privacy clause in the state constitution, pro-euthanasia attorneys filed a case for a now-deceased man who wanted to get a prescription for a lethal cocktail to kill himself. Although drafters did not have abortion or assisted suicide in mind -- they were targeting governmental snooping and intrusion -- the Montana Supreme Court in 1999 claimed the constitution allowed an unlimited right to an abortion. State officials have appealed the decision by District Judge Dorothy McCarter who misused the privacy clause to allow a so-called right to assisted suicide. Full story at LifeNews.com

Maryland Pro-Life Group Upset County Gives 25K for Research Destroying Life
Annapolis, MD (LifeNews.com) -- Maryland Right to Life officials are unhappy with the Frederick County Commissioners and their recent decision to give $25,000 to a company that destroys unborn human life in research. MDRTL says Life Technologies, Inc is a poor choice to receive the grant from the county. Life Technologies, Inc has a history of embryonic experimentation that has come to light, the pro-life group told LifeNews.com on Tuesday. Noting the debate over the grant and the proper role of Frederick County Government in that process, MDRTL acknowledged that Life Technologies could use the grant from Frederick County for another job at a time when the economy is depressed. However, MDRTL is concerned about Life Technologies investment in controversial experiments that involve the destruction of human embryos. Full story at LifeNews.com

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