LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Report
Friday, February 5, 2010
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Current Headlines
• Barack Obama May Have Two Supreme Court Picks Soon, Would Affect Abortion
• Study Finds Patients Thought to be in "Vegetative State" Have Active Brain Activity
• Tim Tebow Closes National Prayer Breakfast in Prayer, But Obama Leaves
• Tim Tebow's Father Bob Tebow Talks About Decision Against Abortion, Son's Birth
• Catholic Pro-Life Group Presents President Bush Award for Opposing Abortions
• Pam Tebow to Speak at Spring Events for Maternity Home, Adoption Agency
• Biothicist Wesley J. Smith: New Brain Study Has Bearing on Terri Schiavo Case
• Senate Judiciary Committee Postpones Vote on Pro-Abortion Dawn Johnsen
• Canada Liberal Party Leader Pushes Pro-Abortion Agenda, Pro-Life Group Critical
• Arizona Pro-Life Laws Limiting Abortions Receive Court Hearing on Friday
• Pro-Life Advocate Wins Chair of European People s Party in Council of Europe
• United Nations Members Discuss Details of New Pro-Abortion Women's Agency
• South Dakota Senate Defeats Bid to Overturn Embryonic Stem Cell Research Ban
• Maryland's Montgomery County Attacks Pregnancy Centers With New Sign Rule
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Barack Obama May Have Two Supreme Court Picks Soon, Would Affect Abortion
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The main talk in the nation's capital today is that President Barack Obama may have the chance to appoint two new Supreme Court justices soon. That's because two of the members of the high court's 5-4 pro-abortion majority are facing advancing age and health issues and may consider retirement. Obama's ability to appoint another pro-abortion stalwart to the high court after his naming Justice Sonia Sotomayor, would have the effect of further entrenching the Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions. Together they allowed for virtually unlimited abortions and have resulted in more than 52 million abortions in the decades following 1973.
Today, ABC News indicates top Obama administration attorneys are preparing background information on several potential nominees because they are expecting not one, but two retirements between now and when Obama runs for re-election in 2012. Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, both strongly pro-abortion, are considered the most likely to step down from the Supreme Court in the next year or two.
Last week, during his State of the Union address, Obama criticized a recent Supreme Court decision that some pro-life attorneys and legal experts say could be used as a basis for overturning the 37-year-old pro-abortion precedent in Roe and Doe.
Stevens caused some court observers to take notice last year when he hadn't hired a full complement of clerks for next term -- but the justice was coy with the media and told reporters he was surprised that became a news story. Full story at LifeNews.com
Study Finds Patients Thought to be in "Vegetative State" Have Active Brain Activity
London, England (LifeNews.com) -- A new study finds that patients who are supposedly in a "vegetative state" have active brain activity. The study includes one patient who was able to respond to basic questions with affirmative yes and no answers despite having the dehumanizing term applied to his medical condition.
The new report is posted in the New England Journal of Medicine and researchers in Britain and Belgium studied 54 patients in a state of unconsciousness.
Some 23 of the patients were in a so-called PVS state while the rest were listed as minimally conscious.
In a 2006 version of the study with the same patients, one patient showed her brain was responding when asked questions about imaging various activities such as playing tennis or remembering her home. Those got the right areas of the brain functioning when she thought about them.
In the new experiment, three other patients showed similar brain activity when asked similar questions. In one man they asked him to think of two different things -- tennis and his home -- as a way to answer yes or no by showing the appropriate brain activity in response to questions.
We asked basic biographical questions, like Is your father s name Thomas? and Have you ever been to the United States? " Adrian M. Owen, a neuroscientist at the Medical Research Council in Cambridge, England, who developed the method and was a co-author of the paper, said. We then checked whether the answers were correct. They were. Full story at LifeNews.com
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Tim Tebow Closes National Prayer Breakfast in Prayer, But Obama Leaves
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The following is the text and video of pro-life college football player Tim Tebow closing the national prayer breakfast in prayer. Tebow appeared at the event in an ironic contrast to pro-abortion President Barack Obama as the nation awaits a Super Bowl story about how his mother spared him from abortion.
Tebow was introduced by Senator Johnny Isakson, of Georgia, as "a role model for the youth of America."
He joked that he found it funny a fan of the University of Georgia would invite a former member of the Florida Gators to present the prayer.
Tebow joked, "It is rather incredible that a Georgia Bulldog invited a Florida Gator, so you can see the hand of God here."
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who also attended the event, spoke of her own preference of adoption over abortion and told the story of opening a home for the children of unwanted pregnancies after a visit from Mother Teresa.
Reports indicate Obama left shortly beore Tebow's prayer -- and the video of his prayer shows Tebow not mentioning Obama. Full story at LifeNews.com
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- By now, most Americans have heard about the famous Tim Tebow advertisement Focus on the Family will air during the Super Bowl. The ad reportedly features Tebow and his mother Pam and her story about how she decided against an abortion. Not as many have hear Tebow's father discuss the story of Tim's birth. As most people know, Pam Tebow got sick with dysentery while on a missions trip to the Philippines and her doctors suggested she consider an abortion because of the medication she was taking while pregnant with Tim.
She refused, gave birth, and son Tim led the Florida Gators to a national championship and won the Heisman Trophy.
During a time with slightly less national attention focus on his family, Bob Tebow talked with Sports Illustrated about his son's famous birth story.
"Have you heard the story of Timmy's birth?" he told the magazine. "When I was out in the mountains in Mindanao, back in '86, I was showing a film and preaching that night. I was weeping over the millions of babies being [aborted] in America, and I prayed, 'God, if you give me a son, if you give me Timmy, I'll raise him to be a preacher,'" he recalled. Full story at LifeNews.com
Catholic Pro-Life Group Presents President Bush Award for Opposing Abortions
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A national Catholic business group is slated to present an award to former President George W. Bush tonight honoring him for his lengthy record combating abortions during his administration. The event will also see Legatus honoring Cardinal Francis George and hearing from Newt Gingrich.
Bush will receive the prestigious Cardinal John J. O Connor Pro-Life Award because Legatus says Bush was consistent in his promotion of the pro-life ethic as president.
"You could argue that he was the most pro-life president in our lifetime," the group's executive director, John Hunt, told Zenit today. "He is very deserving, and since he is coming to us, we wanted to use this as an opportunity to tell him in a very specific and tangible way how appreciative we are," Hunt added.
Hunt also told Zenit that Bush was very statesmanlike in hosting Pope Benedict XVI in Washington in April 2008. President Bush's respectful time with the Catholic Church leader "was something for all Catholics to be so proud of, proud of their country for having honored His Holiness in the way President Bush did."
The organization said Bush's presidency saw "pro-life policies that included opposition to embryonic stem-cell research, the appointment of two pro-life Supreme Court Justices, an executive order barring federal funds to be used for abortion-related projects abroad, and a rule protecting federally funded health employees from taking part in abortion or practices that conflict with their faith." Full story at LifeNews.com
Pam Tebow to Speak at Spring Events for Maternity Home, Adoption Agency
Bradenton, FL (LifeNews.com) -- Pam Tebow, the courageous mother of Tim Tebow, with whom she stars in a widely-anticipated Super Bowl ad, will further share her story of how she decided against an abortion. She is expected to be the keynote speaker at two different events for organizations that help pregnant women.
Tebow's story has garnered national attention because of the upcoming ad before and during the Super Bowl that will focus on how she decided against an abortion when doctors suggested she have one.
Pam entered into a coma after she contracted amoebic dysentery, an infection of the intestine caused by a parasite found in a contaminated food or drink. The treatment for the medical condition would require strong medications that doctors told Pam had caused irreversible damage to Tim -- so they advised her to have an abortion.
She decided against it and now a Focus on the Family ad has generated national buzz.
Tebow will share her story March 13 as the featured speaker at the Manasota SOLVE annual gala in Bradenton, Florida.
News of Tebow speaking has already forced the maternity home to move the banquet to a larger venue -- the Fete Ballroom at the Polo Grill in Lakewood Ranch.
"We are most excited to have Pam Tebow speak at our Gala," Peggy Kerwin, the assistant director of Manasota Solve, told LifeNews.com today. "Her personal story of courage resonates the mission of SOLVE perfectly. Each and every life is precious and contains marvelous possibility when given the opportunity." Full story at LifeNews.com
Biothicist Wesley J. Smith: New Brain Study Has Bearing on Terri Schiavo Case
London, England (LifeNews.com) -- Top bioethicist Wesley J. Smith says the new study showing active brain activity in patients who are supposedly in a vegetative state or a minimally conscious state has a bearing on the Terri Schiavo case. He says the judge who allowed her husband to kill her should have ordered similar tests.
The study found that patients in such unconscious states were able to respond mentally to yes and no questions by thinking of different things that activate brain activity in certain areas.
The patients showed they were very aware because they could answer all sorts of personal questions and do so accurately.
Smith recalled the Terri case in reaction to the study and pointed out how "she had been diagnosed as PVS and the courts refused to allow that determination to be shaken during the ordeal."
"Indeed, when it was clear that Terri would be lying in bed for a year pending appeals, the family begged Judge Greer to permit sophisticated brain scanning that had never been used on her before," he recalled. "It couldn't have hurt her, and it might have shown something. But stubbornly, he refused. I will go to my grave believing the judge knew what he didn't want to know."
Smith says both the Schindler family and others who observed Terri said she could "react, particularly, that she could hear and respond to loving talk (as in the famous photo of her smiling broadly as she is greeted by her mother or her opening her eyes wide on request.)" Full story at LifeNews.com
Senate Judiciary Committee Postpones Vote on Pro-Abortion Dawn Johnsen
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The Senate Judiciary Committee has again postponed a vote on pro-abortion Obama nominee Dawn Johnsen. The panel was slated to vote on her nomination today after considering two other nominees but it lost a quorum to do business just before her nomination was slated to be considered.
Johnson's nomination was already delayed one week but was held over until today.
The delay gave pro-life advocates more time to focus on opposing her nomination to the key Justice Department post.
Nominating Dawn Johnsen to head the Office of Legal Counsel is an insult to pro-life Americans," Congressman Steve King of Iowa said in a statement LifeNews.com received.
"Her personal pro-abortion agenda, previous disparaging comments about pro-life Americans and past criticism of Congress' ban on partial-birth abortion are evidence that she is not interested in finding common ground with those who oppose her narrow philosophy," he said. Full story at LifeNews.com
Canada Liberal Party Leader Pushes Pro-Abortion Agenda, Pro-Life Group Critical
Ottawa, Canada (LifeNews.com) -- Michael Ignatieff, the leader of the Liberal Party in Canada, is calling on the administration of Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper to ensure that he will not promote any limits on abortion. Ignatieff's push is earning him criticism from the national pro-life group Campaign Life Coalition.
In a Tuesday press statement, Ignatieff said, "Liberal MPs are calling on Stephen Harper to assure Canadians that he won't change Canada's long-standing tradition of recognizing women's reproductive rights, (such as abortion) and access to contraception, as part of his maternal health initiative."
He wants the Prime Minister to "work in full partnership with the International Planned Parenthood Federation."
Jim Hughes, the president of Campaign Life Coalition, issued his own statement in response. "Michael Ignatieff once again shows his extreme pro-abortion position in order to garner what he assumes will translate into pro-abortion votes for his leaderless Liberal Party," he said. Full story at LifeNews.com
Arizona Pro-Life Laws Limiting Abortions Receive Court Hearing on Friday
Phoenix, AZ (LifeNews.com) -- A slate of pro-life laws that would have a significant effect on limiting the number of abortions in Arizona get a court hearing on Friday. The court will hear a lawsuit the Planned Parenthood abortion business filed seeking to overturn the laws signed by Gov. Jan Brewer.
Deborah Sheasby, legal counsel with the Center for Arizona Policy and an Alliance Defense Fund allied attorney, will represent pro-life advocates wanting to help defend the legislation. The court granted ADF and CAP permission to file a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, but they are appealing the court s decision to deny doctors, several organizations, and the bill s sponsors the ability to intervene in the lawsuit to defend the laws.
Friday s hearing concerns the state s motion to dismiss a portion of the lawsuit as well as a motion to intervene filed by the Arizona speaker of the House, who also wishes to defend the laws.
Everyone deserves full and accurate information before undergoing any medical procedure, Sheasby told LifeNews.com. These types of protections have been repeatedly upheld and are overwhelmingly supported by the public. Full story at LifeNews.com
Pro-Life Advocate Wins Chair of European People s Party in Council of Europe
Strasbourg, France (LifeNews.com/CFAM) -- Italian pro-life politician Luca Volonte captured the chairmanship of the European People's Party (EPP) in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) last week, besting second-place finisher Jean-Claude Mignon of France, whom socially-liberal members had rallied around after their favored candidates faded.
Immediately upon assuming the chairmanship of the EPP, the chamber s Christian Democratic grouping, Volontè was confronted with a number of challenges on controversial social issues.
Due to coordinated EPP opposition, a report on "discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity" sponsored by Swiss socialist Andreas Gross was withdrawn and referred to the PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights.
Volontè had engineered a flood of some 70 substantive amendments to the bill, joined by Italian colleagues Renato Farina and Lorenzo Cesa, as well as Marco Gatti, representing San Marino, an independent microstate on the Italian peninsula. Full story at LifeNews.com
United Nations Members Discuss Details of New Pro-Abortion Women's Agency
New York, NY (LifeNews.com/CFAM) -- This week at the United Nations (UN), member states will start deliberating the details of the new "super" agency for women.
The General Assembly decided last fall to reform the current "gender architecture" by consolidating the UN's four existing departments on women and establish a new office, but details regarding the new entity's mandate, structure and funding have yet to be finalized.
In anticipation of these meetings, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon released a comprehensive proposal for the new entity last month, outlining a vision for the new office that includes a half-billion dollar budget, national, regional and international advocacy work and the creation of a new under-secretary-general position to accommodate the new office's executive director.
As decided in last year's resolution, the four existing UN offices that address women's issue, including the Division on the Advancement of Women, are to be merged into a new "composite entity" headed by an Executive Director with the title of under-secretary-general, which is the third highest ranking position in the UN system, after secretary-general and deputy secretary-general. Full story at LifeNews.com
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South Dakota Senate Defeats Bid to Overturn Embryonic Stem Cell Research Ban
Pierre, SD (LifeNews.com) -- The South Dakota legislature has defeated legislation designed to overturn the state's ban on embryonic stem cell research -- which has scientists killing unborn children for their stem cells. With the legislative defeat the backer of a state ballot proposal to do the same thing may revive his effort.
Yesterday, the state Senate rejected a bill that would allow state residents to get any treatments authorized by the FDA based on embryonic stem cells.
Since embryonic stem cell research has never cured a single patient or even been tried in humans because of problems with them causing tumors and immune system rejection issues, state residents would likely not be treated anytime soon.
The Senate voted down the bill on a 21-12 vote. Full story at LifeNews.com
Maryland's Montgomery County Attacks Pregnancy Centers With New Sign Rule
Rockville, MD (LifeNews.com) -- Montgomery County officials in Maryland have given their final approval to a new county ordinance that targets pregnancy centers located in this suburban area of both Baltimore and Washington, D.C. The new rules come after the city of Baltimore approved their own ordinance attacking such centers.
Montgomery County Councilwoman Duchy Trachtenberg is behind the new legislation there, which received a 7-2 vote from the county. They would be required to tell potential clients that they should go elsewhere for medical advice because Trachtenberg claims they are misleading women.
The new law makes it so pregnancy centers must post a disclaimer if they don't have medical professionals on staff and would refer them to a center with licensed medical professionals.
"It's pretty much just a consumer protection measure more than anything else," Trachtenberg said, according to the Examiner newspaper earlier. "We're not saying they can't seek clients and they can't counsel them." Full story at LifeNews.com
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