LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Report
Monday, January 25, 2010
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Current Headlines
• Pelosi Wants House to OK Pro-Abortion Senate Bill, Use Reconciliation
• Status of Pro-Abortion Health Care Bill Uncertain as Democrats Meet
• Supreme Court Ruling Sets Up Attack on Precedent for Roe v. Wade
• Lawmakers Credit Pro-Life Movement for Stopping Pro-Abortion Health Care
• Group Wants Probe of National Cancer Inst Abortion-Breast Cancer Coverup
• President George W. Bush to Headline Pregnancy Center Fundraiser in Indiana
• Over 35,000 Pro-Life People Join West Coast Walk for Life in San Francisco
• Pro-Life Advocates Confront Notre Dame's Father Jenkins at March for Life
• Newsweek Wrong That Young Women Did Not Attend March for Life
• Washington State Abortion Advocates Attack Pregnancy Centers in New Bill
• Jury Hears About Abortion at Trial of George Tiller Shooter Scott Roeder
• South Dakota Right to Know Bill Gets Backing From Pro-Life Legal Group
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Pelosi Wants House to OK Pro-Abortion Senate Health Care, Use Reconciliation
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Leading Democrats have settled on their next strategy for passing a pro-abortion health care bill. They plan to try to talk House members into approving the Senate's pro-abortion health care bill with some changes and then having the Senate use the controversial reconciliation process.
Aides to top Democrats told the Associated Press late today that the plan is to pass the Senate bill, with some changes to it to appease House members.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her top lieutenants will present the plan to rank and file Democrats in party caucus meetings this week to see if the trial balloon will float. Pelosi already said the Senate bill doesn't have the votes without changes, so the question will be wether any proposed changes are enough to accommodate them.
The Senate would have to approve the changes to the bill using the reconciliation produced normally reserved for budget items. The move would allow the Democratic majority to pass the change with 51 votes instead of needing 60 to pas the bill over a filibuster -- which can't be stopped now that Scott Brown of Massachusetts provides Republicans with the 41st vote.
Should Senate Democrats use the process to approve the bill, Senate Republicans have promised they would do everything possible to disrupt the chamber to prevent that or future legislation.
The House would likely be voting on a revised Senate bill that would still fund abortions and have other concerns. That leads National Right to Life Committee legislative director Douglas Johnson to tell LifeNews.com that House lawmakers who vote for the pro-abortion Senate bill would be voting for government funding of abortions. Full story at LifeNews.com
Status of Pro-Abortion Health Care Bill Uncertain as Senate, House Democrats Meet
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The status of the pro-abortion health care bill in Congress is uncertain as House and Senate Democrats spent the weekend planning their next step in the wake of a key election loss in Massachusetts that leaves them without a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
Meanwhile, advisors for pro-abortion President Barack Obama spent the weekend on television shows saying they vowed to push ahead with a bill, though they gave few details on what kind of bill or how they would get it passed in Congress.
Obama himself said Friday he thinks one problem with the pro-abortion health care bill is that Americans view it as a monstrosity" filled with special deals.
The biggest question is whether Democrats will play hardball and attempt to get the current pro-abortion health care bill through Congress with just 51 votes in the Senate. As LifeNews.com has profiled, Democratic leaders could opt for the controversial process known as reconciliation -- normally reserved for rare occasions on which important financial legislation needs to be considered.
Republicans say that the outcry from the public for railroading the current bill through Congress using this parliamentary procedure will draw significant opposition from the American public. If they try to jam health care through on partisan lines, I think November 2010 will be a very good month for us, pro-life Sen. John Cornyn said. Full story at LifeNews.com
Supreme Court Ruling Sets Up Attack on Precedent for Pro-Abortion Roe Case
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Supreme Court observers are focusing on an aspect of last Thursday's decision to overturn a national campaign finance reform law that shows the high court could establish a legal basis for overturning the Roe v. Wade decision that has resulted in 52 million abortions.
The high court also overturned a law that had been on the books for more than a century.
During his confirmations hearing Chief Justice John Roberts talked about the importance of precedent and members of the Senate asked him if he respected the supposed precedent of Roe.
But, in last Thursday s 5-to-4 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling dismantling the McCain-Feingold campaign law, Roberts joined fellow Bush appointee Justice Samuel Alito to issue a separate concurrence to address the important principles of judicial restraint and stare decisis implicated in this case.
The language of the Roberts-Alito concurrence has an important bearing on abortion.
While Roberts conceded that departures from precedent are inappropriate in the absence of a special justification, he gave pro-life advocates hope for the future. At the same time, stare decisis is neither an inexorable command nor a mechanical formula of adherence to the latest decision especially in constitutional cases," he wrote. Full story at LifeNews.com
Lawmakers Credit Pro-Life Movement for Stopping Pro-Abortion Health Care Bill
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Key pro-life lawmakers in Congress credit the pro-life movement for stalling a pro-abortion health care bill that appeared to have enough steam to make it to President Barack Obama. They say the focus on the abortion funding in the bill has caused enough dissension to health the legislation for now.
As LifeNews.com is reporting today, the status of the pro-abortion health care bill is uncertain in the wake of the Massachusetts election. Rep. Mike Pence told CNS News that the abortion battle played a "critical role" in temporarily stopping the bill.
CNS News asked him, "Do you think the abortion language had anything to do with the bill being dead now?
"I do believe it did, Pence responded. "I want to give great credit to the pro-life Republicans and Democrats who took a stand in the House of Representatives on the traditional language that was encompassed first in the Hyde Amendment and then in the Stupak-Pitts Amendment -- so, I think it played a critical role." Full story at LifeNews.com
Group Wants Probe of National Cancer Institute Abortion-Breast Cancer Coverup
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A women's group is asking Congress and the Obama administration to investigate the expose' showing how a top National Cancer Institute researcher recently admitted that abortion causes a 40% breast cancer increase risk but organizing a meeting to get the NCI to deny it.
As LifeNews.com reported earlier this month, the main NCI activist who got the agency to deny the abortion-breast cancer link has co-authored a study admitting the abortion-breast cancer link is true, calling it a "known risk factor."
The study, conducted by Jessica Dolle and NCI official Louise Brinton, appears in the April 2009 issue of the prestigious cancer epidemiology journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.
The Dolle study, conducted with Janet Daling of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, cited as accurate Daling's studies from 1994 and 1996 that showed between a 20 and 50 percent increased breast cancer risk for women having abortions compare to those who carried their pregnancies to term.
Now, the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer informed LifeNews.com today it is sending a letter, signed by doctors and pro-life organizations to President Obama and the leaders of Congress calling for an investigation of the U.S. National Cancer Institute. Full story at LifeNews.com
President George W. Bush to Headline Pregnancy Center Fundraiser in Indiana
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Former President George W. Bush will headline a fundraising banquet for an Indianapolis crisis pregnancy center -- adding to the pro-life record he compiled during eight years in the White House. Bush will speak at the 27th annual Life Centers Celebration of Life fundraiser in Indianapolis.
President Bush will join a special musical guest, Grammy Award-winning artist Sandi Patty, at Conseco Fieldhouse on Thursday, April 15 at 7PM.
We are honored to welcome President George W. Bush, whose strong record on life issues demonstrates his belief that every life matters, Brian Boone, the Life Centers president, told LifeNews.com today.
This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to celebrate life with a keynote address from a public servant who made the sanctity of human life a priority," he said.
The proceeds from the event will benefit Life Centers, a nonprofit Christian ministry that is one of more than 2,500 pregnancy centers across the country that provide abortion alternatives. Full story at LifeNews.com
Over 35,000 Pro-Life People Join West Coast Walk for Life in San Francisco
San Francisco, CA (LifeNews.com) -- More than 35,000 pro-life advocates joined the West Coast Walk for Life on Saturday and they appeared in a jubilant mood given the indefinite stalling of the pro-abortion health care bill in Congress. People from across the state and Pacific Coast walked from Justin Herman Plaza to the Marina district.
The annual event has become an alternative to the national March for Life in Washington for Americans living in western states who can get to San Francisco ore easily.
The walkers filled this city's waterfront with toddlers holding hands with grandparents and college students waving banners in what organizers tell LifeNews.com is the largest crowd in its six-year history.
They came despite rainy weather that would have kept people in other causes home.
Walk for Life co-founder Dolores Meehan said "The tenacity of pro-lifers, showing up in their tens of thousands, despite a downpour, is a testimony to their commitment." Full story at LifeNews.com
Pro-Life Advocates Confront Notre Dame's Father Jenkins at March for Life
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- At the March for Life last Friday, pro-life advocates confronted Father John Jenkins. He is the Notre Dame university president who is under fire for allowing President Barack Obama to give the college's commencement speech and by giving him an honorary degree.
Jenkins participated in the March for Life for the first time as a way of making amends but he was confronted by pro-life advocates for the fallout from the event.
Specifically, they are upset that he has not gotten Notre Dame officials to withdraw the charges against the 88 pro-life protestors arrested on campus for protesting the Obama speech.
Jenkins was presented with various banners along the parade route, reading "Fr. Jenkins: Free the Notre Dame 88."
Monica Migliorino Miller, the head of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, told LifeNews.com today that "the presence of the ND 88--those arrested protesting Obama's commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame last year and who await trial--was extremely effective during this year's March for Life." Full story at LifeNews.com
Newsweek Wrong That Young Women Did Not Attend March for Life Last Week
by Matthew Balan
Krista Gesaman of Newsweek.com's Gaggle blog could have saved herself from the indignity of making the absurd claim that young women were "missing" from protests marking the anniversary of Roe v. Wade by merely searching through the past coverage of the March for Life by the Washington Post, Newsweek's sister publication.
In past years, the Post has highlighted the "youthful throng," the "large turnout of young people," and has quoted from teenagers participating at the annual pro-life March.
My colleague Ken Shepherd noted Gesaman's beyond faulty conclusion on Friday, and highlighted a recent Marist poll that indicated that "58 percent of persons aged 18-29 view abortion as 'morally wrong.'"
Members of this age were all born after the 1973 Roe decision by the Supreme Court, so it's not that surprising of a statistic. He also underlined how "hundreds if not thousands of busloads teeming with teenagers and college students, many of them young women, descend on the nation's capital for the annual March for Life." Full story at LifeNews.com
Washington State Abortion Advocates Attack Pregnancy Centers in New Bill
Olympia, WA (LifeNews.com) -- Abortion advocates have opened up another line of attack on pregnancy centers that help women find positive alternatives -- expanding their effort from Baltimore to Virginia to Washington state. A Washington legislative committee will hold a hearing Wednesday on a bill attacking pregnancy centers.
The bill "Concerning Limited Service Pregnancy Centers" (HB 2837/SB 6452) receives a hearing in the Senate Health and Long Term Care Committee on Wednesday morning.
NARAL Pro-Choice Washington and Planned Parenthood are pushing for new legislation that would place a "gag order" on the centers because they don't push abortion on women. The legislation would apply the Consumer Protection Act to religious non-profit organization and, as opponents say, would violate the pregnancy center's rights of freedom of faith and conscience.
The idea is to define information pregnancy centers produce as not "medically and scientifically accurate" because women are told about physical, medical and mental health risks of abortion -- risks abortion advocates deny. Full story at LifeNews.com
ACTION: Contact your Washington state legislator at http://apps.leg.wa.gov/DistrictFinder/Default.aspx and urge a no vote on the bill.
Jury Hears About Abortion at Trial of Alleged George Tiller Shooter Scott Roeder
Wichita, KS (LifeNews.com) -- The jury at the trial of Scott Roeder, the man accused of shooting late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller, heard about abortion for the first time today. They also heard that Roeder, who has no affiliation with any pro-life organization, visited Tiller's church several time before shooting him there last summer.
Keith Martin, an usher at Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, talked about the shooting on May 31 and said he had seen Roeder there about a half dozen times before that day.
Roeder has already admitted to killing Tiller but he has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder and aggravated assault -- for threatening two church members on his way out of the building after the shooting.
Today, District Attorney Nola Foulston brought up abortion for the first time in the trial when she asked Martin whether the church had been protested because of abortion and Tiller's attendance there. Full story at LifeNews.com
South Dakota Right to Know Abortion Bill Gets Backing From Pro-Life Legal Group
Pierre, SD (LifeNews.com) -- A pro-life legal group filed a friend-of-the-court brief Friday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit asking the court to reject Planned Parenthood s attempt to block a South Dakota law. The informed consent law is designed to help persuade women to consider positive alternatives to abortion.
The law requires the state's lone abortion center, run by Planned Parenthood, to detail the links between abortion and the increased risk of depression and suicide.
The Alliance Defense Fund brief seeks to overturn a lower court s decision that abortion providers in South Dakota are not required to inform women of these risks.
The brief argues that Planned Parenthood does not have the legal right to bring its lawsuit because it actively works to keep the truth about abortion from mothers. The brief also asks the court to reverse a portion of a lower court ruling that struck down a part of the law that required doctors to inform women that they are terminating a legally protected relationship with an unborn human being. The judge concluded that pre-born children are not persons.
A child s life is worth more than Planned Parenthood s bottom line, said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Steven H. Aden. Full story at LifeNews.com
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