LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Report
Friday, May 14, 2010
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Current Headlines
• Elena Kagan Donated to Pro-Abortion Women's Group With Ties to Emily's List
• Media Gives 10 Times More Conservative Labels for Alito Than Liberal for Kagan
• Is Pro-Euthanasia "Duty to Die" an Extension of Throwaway Consumer Culture?
• Heartbeat International Conference Will Equip and Assist Pregnancy Centers
• Proper Palliative Sedation Not Same as Assisted Suicide's "Terminal Sedation"
• Answering Christians Who Say: I'm Not Called to the Pro-Life Movement
• My Visit to Planned Parenthood's New Mega Abortion Center in Portland, Oregon
• Pro-Life Advocates to Protest Visit by Planned Parenthood President to Iowa
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Elena Kagan Donated to Pro-Abortion Women's Group With Ties to Emily's List
by Americans United for Life
Americans' lives are shaped and changed by the law, but a Supreme Court Justice s role is not to impact people s lives by shaping or changing the law according to her own beliefs. Rather, a Justice should apply the law as it is written to each case that arises before the Court.
In the past 40 years, certain Supreme Court Justices, in the name of a right to abortion, have imposed their pro-abortion views on the American people, denying Americans their right to decide this important issue through the legislative process.
President Obama has repeatedly stated a requirement for his Supreme Court pick would be someone who could interpret the Constitution as protecting abortion rights. Will Solicitor Elena Kagan objectively apply the Constitution or promote a pro-abortion agenda?
It seems unlikely. Here s why.
Kagan has contributed financially to the National Partnership for Women and Families (NPWF), an organization whose goal, in its own words, is to increase women s access to reproductive health services and block attempts to limit reproductive rights and to give every woman access to abortion services . [1] Kagan listed membership in NPWF in a questionnaire she submitted in connection with her judicial nomination in 1999.[2]
Judith Lichtman, Senior Advisor for the NPWF, who believes [e]fforts to limit coverage of abortion services are really attempts to deny women access to health care services, [3] wrote a letter wholeheartedly supporting Kagan s Solicitor General nomination, whom she describes as a friend and colleague. [4]
The NPWF also shares strong ties to Emily s List, an organization that works to elect pro-abortion Democratic women to Congress, and NARAL Pro-Choice America (NARAL), an organization that advocates for increased access to abortion. NPWF s president, Debra Ness, serves on the Board of Directors of Emily s List. Prior to her position at NPWF, Ness was a high-ranking official with NARAL, where she worked to revitalize NARAL s grassroots political capability and to make it a force in American electoral politics. Full story at LifeNews.com
Media Gives 10 Times More Conservative Labels for Alito Than Liberal for Kagan
by Rich Noyes
As the MRC s Tim Graham documented yesterday, ABC and NBC's morning and evening newscasts have so far refused to tag Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan as a liberal, with CBS s Jan Crawford offering the sole ideological label of the nominee on Monday's Evening News: Her career has put her solidly on the left.
In contrast, all three networks made a major deal out of the last person nominated by a Republican President for a slot on the Court, Justice Samuel Alito. Out of the first 21 stories on the ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening news shows after Justice Alito s selection, correspondents conveyed ten explicit conservative labels during the first 36 hours of coverage. In contrast, Graham documented just one liberal label in 14 Kagan stories during the equivalent time period after her selection.
In Alito s case, the networks began trumpeting ideology from the moment he was picked. Anchor Charles Gibson opened ABC s Special Report announcing Alito s nomination: He is very conservative. This is a liberal appellate court, but he is the most conservative member on it....The President has picked someone very conservative, but a very accomplished jurist as well.
Over on CBS, correspondent Thalia Assuras began: Well, this nominee is a conservative that should make conservative Republicans very happy.... After the announcement, correspondent Gloria Borger tweaked: He may be called Scalito because he s quite conservative, but the conservatives say he is not bombastic like Justice Scalia can sometimes be.
On NBC, Matt Lauer began his network s live coverage: In just a minute or so, President Bush will nominate conservative appeals court Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. Co-anchor Katie Couric agreed: Alito is a favorite on the right, and he would replace moderate Justice Sandra Day O Connor. Full story at LifeNews.com
Is Pro-Euthanasia "Duty to Die" an Extension of Throwaway Consumer Culture?
by Thomas Sowell
One of the many fashionable notions that have caught on among some of the intelligentsia is that old people have "a duty to die," rather than become a burden to others.
This is more than just an idea discussed around a seminar table. Already the government-run medical system in Britain is restricting what medications or treatments it will authorize for the elderly. Moreover, it seems almost certain that similar attempts to contain runaway costs will lead to similar policies when American medical care is taken over by the government.
Make no mistake about it, letting old people die is a lot cheaper than spending the kind of money required to keep them alive and well. If a government-run medical system is going to save any serious amount of money, it is almost certain to do so by sacrificing the elderly.
There was a time-- fortunately, now long past-- when some desperately poor societies had to abandon old people to their fate, because there was just not enough margin for everyone to survive. Sometimes the elderly themselves would simply go off from their family and community to face their fate alone.
But is that where we are today? Full story at LifeNews.com
Heartbeat International Conference Will Equip and Assist Pregnancy Centers
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Heartbeat International is sharing a message of hope with the pregnancy help ministries that have been attacked by harassment bills intended to impugn their reputations.
Better together is the message of the 2010 Heartbeat International Conference, designed for ministry leaders, staff, board members, and volunteers of life-affirming pregnancy help centers, medical clinics, maternity homes and nonprofit adoption agencies, as well as medical, counseling, social work, and education professionals.
The 39th Heartbeat International Annual Conference, scheduled for May 18-20, 2010 in Orlando, Florida is attracting nearly 700 pregnancy support providers from 17 countries.
Heartbeat will provide 72 educational workshops in 12 different tracks including a Center Defense track developed to address the attacks by elected officials and to expose the propaganda tactics used by abortion dealers to thwart the good work of pregnancy help centers.
Our focus on center defense is a very important track at our conference this year because nonprofits are not used to being attacked for helping pregnant women, Heartbeat International President Peggy Hartshorn, told LifeNews.com. Pregnancy help ministries need to learn proactive strategies to handle the hostile political maneuverings of public officials retained by the abortion industry.
Heartbeat's Babies Go to Congress is one such strategy where women grateful for the services they have received from the pregnancy centers get a chance to share their story with elected officials in Washington D.C. Full story at LifeNews.com
Proper Palliative Sedation Not Same as Assisted Suicide's "Terminal Sedation"
by Wesley J. Smith
The assisted suicide movement is ever about blurring vital distinctions and deconstructing crucial definitions. One target has been the proper pain control technique known as palliative sedation, a rarely required procedure in which patients near death are sedated to control pain or other symptoms such as severe agitation or air hunger that cannot be alleviated in any other manner.
Confusion about this some of it intentionally sown by assisted suicide advocates induced the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization to issue a statement clarifying the proper methods and purposes of sedation as a palliative technique. Full story at LifeNews.com
Answering Christians Who Say: I'm Not Called to the Pro-Life Movement
by Bryan Kemper
After 20 years of involvement in the pro-life movement I have heard all the excuses under the sun for why people won't get involved and take a stand. No matter what the excuse is, it all boils down to apathy and denial.
I actually have more respect for someone who is active in the pro-abortion movement then a pro-life person who won't take a stand. I think I find the apathy of pro-lifers even more distressing because most pro-lifers also claim to be followers of Christ. For someone to understand the principles of the Gospel of Christ and yet turn a blind eye to one of the most basic calls we as Christians have boggles my mind.
My friends and people I am talking to about abortion often tell me that while they don't believe in it, they are just not called to the pro-life movement. They tell me that they appreciate my passion for the babies, but that is just not what they are passionate about.
The fatal flaw in this excuse is that they seem to be viewing the pro-life movement as just another profession. Taking a stand against the killing of innocent children is not another major you can take in college; it is not a career choice your guidance counselor is going to encourage you towards. Full story at LifeNews.com
My Visit to Planned Parenthood's New Mega Abortion Center in Portland, Oregon
by Dr. Randy O'Bannon
A couple of weeks ago, on a speaking trip to the west coast, I saw it for myself. With my own two eyes. Planned Parenthood's massive new 42,000 square foot clinic and office building in Portland, Oregon.
It was big, clean, new, with lots of bricks, lots of steel, lots of window space.
There is currently no large sign identifying the building's occupant, but an appliqué in the corner of one of the windows displays the Planned Parenthood logo.
It is located in an area of Portland where a older, poorer area abuts a nice upper middle class neighborhood. For those relying on public transportation, it is located on a major bus line. Wealthier clientele can use the freshly paved, large parking lot in the back with a private entrance.
The Portland Development Commission, an appointed political board charged with "revitalizing" the area, sold the parcels to a developer who expressed interest in building a medical care facility with Planned Parenthood as the publicly identified tenant in 2007 (The Oregonian, 4/12/07, PDC memo, 3/14/07).
Some of the building was supposed to be devoted to "retail space," but there were no obvious tenants other than Planned Parenthood. Full story at LifeNews.com
Pro-Life Advocates to Protest Visit by Planned Parenthood President to Iowa
by Eric Scheidler
On May 20, the Pro-Life Action League will join pro-life leaders and activists in Iowa to protest an appearance by Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards.
This is the same Cecile Richards who once called the pro-lifers who were opposing the opening of the huge Aurora, Illinois abortuary some of the ugliest anti-choice protesters we've ever seen.
Moms and dads with kids in strollers, grandmothers with their Rosary beads, high-school teens rallying on behalf of their unborn brothers and sisters that s what Cecile Richards calls ugly.
What I call ugly is the kind of gala celebration of abortion that brings Richards to Cedar Rapids next week. It s the Planning is Power 30th anniversary of Planned Parenthood of East Central Iowa (PPECI) at the Cedar Rapids Marriott.
But abortion is nothing to celebrate. In the thirty years since PPECI was founded, over 185,000 unborn babies have been aborted in Iowa (source) most of them by Planned Parenthood.
It s no wonder that Richards is eager to visit Iowa. Planned Parenthood is desperate to legitimize their abortion business. They want to make abortion as American as apple pie, hiding it behind words like choice and planning and empowerment.
But we're not going to let that happen. Full story at LifeNews.com
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