LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Report
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
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Current Headlines
• Top Senate Republican Leaves Door Open to Potential Elena Kagan Filibuster
• Robert Bork to Oppose Pro-Abortion Supreme Court Nominee Elena Kagan
• Republican Voters More Enthusiastic Than Democrats for 2010 Election Season
• Pregnancy Help Group Says FDA Should Not Approve Abortion Drug Ella
• Pro-Abortion Groups: Supreme Court Pick Kagan Not Pro-Abortion Enough
• Missouri Could Be 5th State to Opt Out of Abortion Funding Under Health Care
• How Mitch Daniels Can Be The Most Pro-Life, and Fiscally Conservative Too
• New Congressional Bill Has Govt Supporting Abortion Industry, Plan B Drug
• Pro-Life Women's Group Takes on "Pro-Life" Dem Who Backed Abortion Bill
• Holland Sees Euthanasia Cases Rise 13 Percent, Thousands of People Killed
• Missouri and Rhode Island Pro-Life Groups Make Congressional Endorsements
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Top Senate Republican Leaves Door Open to Potential Elena Kagan Filibuster
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The leading Republican in the Senate left the door open for a potential filibuster of pro-abortion Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. In a weekend interview with "Fox News Sunday" Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the initial information on Kagan has been "quite troubling."
In April, McConnell, a pro-life senator from Kentucky, said a filibuster of the then-unknown nominee would be "highly unlikely, however, unless the nominee is an extraordinary individual outside the mainstream with really bizarre views."
Kagan's views must be outside the mainstream enough to him and other Republicans because he admitted there is a possibility they could mount a filibuster.
"I think some of her views are quite troubling, at least to me, in the area of political speech and the First Amendment," he said. "She has basically argued before the Supreme Court that the government could ban pamphlets. I find that very troubling."
However, McConnell stressed that it is premature to say what the strategy on the Senate floor will be since committee hearings have yet to start on President Barack Obama's second pro-abortion selection for the nation's highest and most influential court.
"We know that the president has filibustered Supreme Court nominees. We know the vice president has filibustered Supreme Court nominees. We know Senator Reid has and we know Judiciary Committee Chairman Leahy has," he said, in mounting a potential filibuster defense.
"I have never filibustered a Supreme Court nominee. But it is possible, but entirely too early to know whether that would be appropriate," McConnell said, adding it is "entirely premature" to ascertain what Republicans will do. Full story at LifeNews.com
Robert Bork to Oppose Pro-Abortion Supreme Court Nominee Elena Kagan
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Robert Bork, the pro-life Supreme Court nominee who abortion advocates derailed during his confirmation process, will publicly oppose pro-abortion Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan on Wednesday. Bork will appear in a conference call sponsored by Americans United for Life.
The pro-life legal organization tells LifeNews.com it is hosting a conference call featuring Bork tomorrow.
"Bork s experience as a Supreme Court nominee is legendary, and the former Solicitor General, acting Attorney General and Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals will bring to the media event all the wit and wisdom that led to two New York Times best-sellers," AUL says in a preview of Bork's comments.
Bork is the author of bestsellers Slouching Toward Gomorrah and The Tempting of America.
The conservative jurist was nominated in 1987 by then-President Ronald Reagan but the nomination was ultimately derailed by Democrats who controlled the Senate, some of whom are still serving in the chamber.
He became an icon for conservatives and pro-life advocates after his defeat and his name is synonymous with the unfair treatment some other pro-life and conservative nominees have received from abortion advocates in the Senate.
After the 2008 presidential elections, Bork said he was certain Barack Obama would appoint judicial activists to the high court who would continue to uphold unlimited abortions.
The kind of judge he wants is a soft-hearted liberal who will legislate from the bench, Bork said. Full story at LifeNews.com
Republican Voters More Enthusiastic Than Democrats for 2010 Election Season
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- As the 2010 election season begins in earnest this summer, a new Gallup poll finds Republican voters more enthusiastic about it than their Democratic counterparts. With pro-abortion Democrats controlling Congress and most Republican candidates pro-life, the elections could have important pro-life consequences.
The current Congress saddled the nation with a health care bill that includes massive abortion funding, opened up abortion funding in the nation's capitol, and refused to allow votes to stop abortion funding and promotion internationally.
The new Gallup survey, released today, shows 59% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents have said they are more enthusiastic than usual about voting this year compared with past elections.
That's the highest average Gallup has found in a midterm election year for either party since the question was first asked in 1994.
Comparatively, just 44 percent of Democrats or independent voters who lean towards the Democratic Party say they are enthusiastic about the upcoming elections. Full story at LifeNews.com
Pregnancy Help Group Says FDA Should Not Approve Abortion Drug Ella
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The national pregnancy help organization Care Net assists thousands of pregnant women at its affiliated centers every day. With that experience of knowing women what want and need, a physician representative the organization says the FDA should not approve the new abortion drug Ella.
As LifeNews.com has reported, an FDA panel cast two unanimous votes suggesting the agency approve the ella abortion drug, known as EllaOne in Europe or ulipristal.
Life mifepristone, the abortion drug commonly known as RU 486, EllaOne has the potential to cause the death and abortion of an established pregnancy growing in the womb.
However, abortion advocates and officials on the FDA panel, have misrepresented the drug as an "improved" morning after pill that only works to prevent pregnancy. However, pro-life physicians have confirmed, and studies have shown, that it destroys the life of a unique human being after conception, as opposed to merely preventing fertilization from occurring.
Care Net's national medical consultant Sandy Christiansen, MD, FACOG, said the organization "strongly recommends that EllaOne not be granted FDA approval."
"Its ability to destroy established pregnancies, as well as prevent implantation, makes it an embryocidal drug. FDA approval without making this clear to the public would violate the public trust," Dr. Christiansen said. Full story at LifeNews.com
Pro-Abortion Groups: Supreme Court Pick Elena Kagan Not Pro-Abortion Enough
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Two pro-abortion groups issued tepid analysis of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan a week ahead of her scheduled confirmation hearings. The ACLU and Center for Reproductive Rights both say Kagan is pro-abortion but they do not have enough to go on to say for certain.
Their comments follow analysis from NARAL showing Kagan decidedly pro-abortion and from Americans United for Life and other pro-life groups saying she is too extreme to be approved.
The Center for Reproductive Rights, a New York-based legal group known for challenging pro-life state laws and promoting abortion as an international right, believes Kagan's record is clear enough to see that she is pro-abortion.
But, it questions whether Kagan believes those rights are central and without limit.
CRR questioned a 1988 memo she wrote as a Supreme Court clerk saying elective abortions are not medically necessary.
Still Kagan appeared to update her view during the Clinton administration, when she ignored, and essentially manipulated an ACOG opinion saying partial-birth abortions were never necessary for the health of the mother.
CRR also questioned Kagan's position on the partial-birth abortion ban, saying she supported a health exception that was too narrow for abortion advocates, even though pro-life groups opposed it because it would essentially keep all partial-birth abortions legal. Full story at LifeNews.com
Missouri Could Be 5th State to Opt Out of Abortion Funding Under Health Care
Jefferson City, MO (LifeNews.com) -- Missouri could become the fifth state to opt out of at least some of the abortion funding under the health care bill President Barack Obama signed if Governor Jay Nixon signs a bill the state legislature approved. Four states -- including Arizona, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana have passed similar bills.
Louisiana's Governor Bobby Jindal is expected to sign the measure its state legislature passed any day.
Joe Ortwerth, executive director of the Missouri Family Policy Council, told LifeNews.com "Missourians will not be required to subsidize abortion through health insurance policies sold in the state" if Nixon signs the bill.
The legislation would "prohibit federally-subsidized health plans authorized under the new federal health care bill from including abortion coverage."
Senator Scott Rupp of Wentzville, the sponsor of the pro-life measure, says, "This legislation protects Missouri's longstanding desire not to use taxpayer dollars to fund abortions, and it's especially important now that the federal health care mandate attempts to do just that."
Obama's recently-enacted federal health care law, known as the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act," establishes health insurance exchanges in each state. Insurance policies marketed through those plans benefit from federal subsidies.
Individuals of low-to-moderate income are eligible to receive refundable tax credits and cost-sharing reductions which they may use to purchase abortion coverage. Full story at LifeNews.com
How Mitch Daniels Can Be The Most Pro-Life, and Fiscally Conservative Too
by Tom McClusky
I was happy to see Indiana governor Mitch Daniels (R) somewhat retreat from his earlier statement that he would not reinstate the Mexico City Policy. The Mexico City Policy halts U.S. family planning funds from going to foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that perform abortions or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other countries.
This clarification does not fully explain the Governor s truce comments. The best response I have seen to the ridiculousness of a truce was written by prominent conservative activist (and FRC Action board member) Phil Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values:
Unless he knows something we don't, using the word truce when family values are under increasing attack can only mean surrender. Does he have knowledge that the other side is going to stop performing abortions during this truce ? Are homosexual activists going to stop promoting same-sex marriage during this truce ? Is what Governor Daniels really wants is for the pro-family movement to stop talking about his record so he can run for President?
I'd like to offer up to Governor Daniels a way to be more pro-life while also being more fiscally responsible then any of his predecessors, should he actually win the office he has been speculating about, the Presidency of the U.S. Full story at LifeNews.com
New Congressional Bill Has Government Supporting Abortion Industry, Plan B Drug
by Mailee Smith
Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) and Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) have introduced a bill deceptively entitled the Emergency Contraception Education Act. Upon a careful reading the bill, it becomes clear that this bill is not about educating women on the use of so-called emergency contraception; instead, it mandates the governmental dissemination of propaganda supporting the abortion industry.
In fact, the bill contains so many red flags that it is difficult to fully capture and address them all. Before even getting into the creation of education programs the purported heart of the bill the bill contains a number of congressional findings that are breathtaking in their agenda-driven inaccuracy.
For example, the bill acknowledges that emergency contraception (EC) works by preventing or delaying ovulation, preventing fertilization and may prevent implantation. Implantation of what? The drafters do not say, clearly tipping their hat to the biased slant of this bill. In reality, EC can work by preventing an already-developing human embryo from implanting in a woman s uterus thus making it an abortion drug, not an emergency contraceptive.
A core controversy of the bill comes down to the definition of pregnancy and the drafters and sponsors of this bill are working under a definition of pregnancy not generally understood or accepted by the medical establishment or the majority of the American public. While most of us would think of pregnancy as beginning at conception when the egg and sperm unite and a unique and separate human organism is formed under the terms of this bill, pregnancy does not begin until that unique human embryo has implanted. Yet this is a clear delineation from decades of embryology. Full story at LifeNews.com
Pro-Life Women's Group Takes on "Pro-Life" Democrat Who Backed Abortion Bill
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- With the mantra that votes have consequences, a pro-life women's group plans to spend as much as $300,000 to remind voters in the Pennsylvania congressional district of Kathy Dahlkemper that she reneged on her pro-life views when she supported the pro-abortion health care bill.
Dahlkemper is one of several Democrats the pro-life movement regarded as pro-life who joined Rep. Bart Stupak.
The Stupak group had promised to vote against the health care bill because of its massive abortion funding but wound up supporting it in exchange for an executive order pro-life groups say will not stop much abortion funding, if any.
Today the Susan B. Anthony List Candidate Fund announced its endorsement of Mike Kelly, the former Butler city councilman who is the Republican candidate this November against Dahlkemper in the third congressional district.
"Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper will soon realize, as Alan Mollohan and Bart Stupak already have, that votes do have consequences," SBA List president Marjorie Dannenfelser told LifeNews.com Monday morning. Full story at LifeNews.com
Holland Sees Euthanasia Cases Rise 13 Percent, Thousands of People Killed
Amsterdam, Netherlands (LifeNews.com) -- The number of euthanasia cases in the Netherlands has increased and, last year, 2,636 Dutch people were killed by doctors. Some 80 percent of the cases involved physicians administering lethal drugs and patients returning home to die.
An estimate of 2,500 deaths was first published in January and pro-life advocates said they were likely too low.
The number of euthanasia cases in Holland rose 10 percent from 2007-2008 and numbered 2,331 at that time.
That was an increase on the 1,815 reported cases in 2003, the year after the Netherlands became the first nation in the world to legalize the practice.
Critics say the rising numbers are underreported and that more people have their lives taken by their physicians - in some cases when they can't legally consent to killing themselves.
Jan Suyver, chairman of the government's euthanasia monitoring commission, told the London Telegraph that the increase in numbers likely came because the "taboo" was removed on euthanasia over the years since its legalization.
But Phyllis Bowman, the executive officer of Right to Life, responded: "I am sure that the increase in numbers of people opting for euthanasia is largely a result of inadequate pain control." Full story at LifeNews.com
Missouri and Rhode Island Pro-Life Groups Make Congressional Endorsements
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Pro-life organizations in Missouri and Rhode island have issued endorsements for Congress in what appears will be an election cycle yielding tremendous success for the pro-life community. Missouri Right to Life and Rhode Island Right to Life are weighing in on two key races.
In Missouri, Right to Life has endorsed Ed Martin in his candidacy for Congress in Missouri s 3rd district.
The pro-life group said Martin has long been an effective voice for the protection of innocent life.
As Director of the Human Rights Office for the Archdiocese of St. Louis, one of the youngest directors of his kind in the United States, Ed re-focused the office on the needs of families, neighborhoods, seniors, children, and the un-born. In an email to LifeNews.com, Martin said he has worked tirelessly to protect the unborn and stand up to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America abortion business.
And in Rhode Island, Right to Life is supporting Dr. Ernest Greco for Congress in the 2nd congressional district.
Greco is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Roger Williams University and Greco is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Roger Williams University and he formally announced his candidacy this past Saturday on Federal Hill. Full story at LifeNews.com
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