LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Report
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
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Current Headlines
Top Stories
• Tea Party Activists Tell Republicans: Ignore Abortion, Social Issues
• Democrat Will Challenge Pro-Abortion Nancy Pelosi for Leader
• Pro-Life Groups Respond to Tea Party Activists Calling for Abortion Backdown
• Key Pro-Life Senator: Republican Party Needs New Chairman
More Pro-Life News
• New York Times Columnist Says Death Panels Needed to Fix Economy
• Catholic Bishops President: We Were Right on Abortion, Health Care
• Rationing Advocate Donald Berwick to Testify in Senate on ObamaCare
• Senate Committee to Hold Hearing on Pro-Abortion CEDAW Treaty
• Court Dismisses Charges Against Pro-Life Pastor Witnessing on Abortion
• Pro-Life News: Health Care, Prayer, Abortion, Wisconsin, Minnesota
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Tea Party Activists Tell Republicans: Ignore Abortion, Social Issues
The fiscally conservative tea party activists were crucial to electing pro-life candidates in the 2010 mid-term elections, but now they are calling on Republicans in Congress to avoid social issues like abortion.
Their call follows on the heels of two governors who are potential presidential candidates saying the Republican Party should declare a truce on abortion and other topics.
In a letter released today, according to Politico, the Tea Party activists, joined by representatives of a gay Republican group, say they want Republicans in Congress to lay off social issues.
On behalf of limited-government conservatives everywhere, we write to urge you and your colleagues in Washington to put forward a legislative agenda in the next Congress that reflects the principles of the Tea Party movement, the letter says. This election was not a mandate for the Republican Party, nor was it a mandate to act on any social issue.
Some of the signers of the letter, Politico indicates, include gay group GOProud s chairman Christopher Barron, libertarian host Tammy Bruce, bloggers Bruce Carroll, Dan Blatt and Doug Welch and Tea party activists unrelated to the gay rights group.
That letter to pro-life presumptive House Speaker John Boehner and pro-life Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell comes at the same time as leading pro-life organizations are calling for a vote on a bill that would stop all federal funding for abortion, including in the ObamaCare health care law. Full story at LifeNews.com
Democrat Will Challenge Pro-Abortion Nancy Pelosi for Leader
A moderate Democrat from North Carolina says he will challenge pro-abortion outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi in her bid to remain the leader of the House Democrats.
Rep. Heath Shuler said on Sunday that he will run against Pelosi if she officially decides to run for the Minority Leader position leading Democrats after Republicans defeated them overwhelmingly for control of the House.
Since Pelosi has essentially announced she will run for the top post, that means she will face competition from Shuler, who admits he doesn t have the votes necessary to win but wants Democrats to have a chance to elect a leader who is not as liberal.
Shuler told CNN s Joe Johns on State of the Union he know he doesn t have the numbers to win, but will run anyway.
If it comes down to this coming week, and she doesn t step aside, then I will challenge her, Shuler said. Full story at LifeNews.com
Pro-Life Groups Respond to Tea Party Activists Calling for Abortion Backdown
The letter jointing signed by Republican gay rights activists and a small group of Tea Party leaders has sent shockwaves throughout the pro-life movement.
Two leading pro-life organizations issued a swift response to the letter, which calls for ignoring social issues like abortion in exchange for focusing on the economy.
Concerned Women for America leader Penny Nance told LifeNews.com that social issues shouldn t be set aside and, instead, should share an equal level of important with fiscal issues in the next session of Congress.
Social issues should be at the very top of the list of priorities for the new Congress, along with sensible fiscal policies, she said.
Nance says internal post-election polling her organization conducted showed American voters in the mid-term elections were enthusiastic about pro-life and other social issues as much as they were the economy. Full story at LifeNews.com
Key Pro-Life Senator: Republican Party Needs New Chairman
Sen. Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican who is one of the leading pro-life conservatives in the Senate, says the national Republican Party needs a new chairman.
He says electing someone to replace Michael Steele, the pro-life advocate who currently runs the GOP, is crucial to the 2012 election campaign to defeat pro-abortion President Barack Obama.
DeMint told Fox News Sunday that the lack of a cohesive get out the vote campaign may have cost the GOP a few Senate seats in the midterm elections and could be a factor if Republicans move ahead with the same chairman.
I m looking for some alternatives right now, he said. I haven t decided who would support but we need a strong national Republican organization to help organize the energy of the tea parties and the other citizen activism that we are seeing out there right now. We need to make sure that we have a lot of boots on the ground.
Steele is pro-life, but he has disappointed many grassroots conservatives by a lackluster fundraising effort and a poor get out the vote effort that is cited by some election experts as hurting pro-life Senate candidates in Washington, Colorado, West Virginia and elsewhere.
I appreciate Michael Steele s service, DeMint added in the Fox News interview, but said where we lost a few Senate seats, our ground game was not as strong as it could have been. We were actually out manned on the ground. Full story at LifeNews.com
New York Times Columnist Says Death Panels Needed to Fix Economy
When former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin warned about the potential for death panels under ObamaCare that would make life and death medical decisions for patients, she was scoffed at and dismissed as off base.
Now, an economist who is a columnist for the New York Times says death panels may be needed as a solution to fix the troubled economy.
Paul Krugman appeared on ABC s This Week with Christiane Amanpour during a roundtable discussion about the economy and the recent conclusions from the U.S. Debt Reduction Commission.
Krugman said the death panels won t come into play now but would down the road.
Some years down the pike, we re going to get the real solution, which is going to be a combination of death panels and sales taxes. It s going to be that we re actually going to take Medicare under control, and we re going to have to get some additional revenue, probably from a VAT. But it s not going to happen now, he said. Full story at LifeNews.com
Catholic Bishops President: We Were Right on Abortion, Health Care
In his final speech as the outgoing president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Francis E. George said the nation s Catholic bishops were right on abortion and health care.
In his talk to open the week-long annual meeting of the bishops, Cardinal George talked about the wound to the church s unity caused by way in which some groups took a divergent position from the bishops favoring ObamaCare.
But the pro-life Catholic leader said developments since the passage of the legislation confirmed our analysis of what the law itself says was correct and our moral judgments are secure.
The Catholic bishops ultimately took a position opposing the final legislation because language was not added to it to prevent abortion funding, sufficiently stop rationing, and protect the conscience rights of pro-life medical professionals. Full story at LifeNews.com
Rationing Advocate Donald Berwick to Testify in Senate on ObamaCare
ne of the nation s late-term abortionists is on the run. Having worn out his welcome in Nebraska, LeRoy Carhart announced plans to take his grisly practice elsewhere.
Carhart says he s trying to escape the harassment of legal courts, so he s set his eye on Iowa, Indiana and the DC area.
Carhart s problems began earlier this year when Nebraska banned abortions after 20 weeks, based on clear scientific evidence the baby feels pain. This had made his filthy old abortion mill less profitable. Though pro-abortion activists insist the new law is unconstitutional, they aren t willing to risk a lawsuit. Suppose the case goes to the Supreme Court. Suppose they lose. Suppose not just Nebraska, but all 50 states ban late-term abortions. That d put Carhart out of business. Full story at LifeNews.com
Senate Committee to Hold Hearing on Pro-Abortion CEDAW Treaty
The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on Thursday on the CEDAW treaty that has been used to pressure nations to legalize abortions.
While the treaty is meant to promote women s rights, United Nation s agencies have used it to promote abortion.
The treaty has been ratified by 186 nations worldwide but not by the United States in part because of its ties to abortion promotion. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, who strongly supports abortion, is heading up the hearing in the Human Rights and the Law subcommittee that will take place in the afternoon.
Recently, the United Nations human rights panel lectured the United States for not having adopted the document.
But Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, told LifeNews.com CEDAW is a rabid anti-life treaty that claims abortion is a universal right and he expects a regurgitation of the debate that took place in the Senate in 2002 the last time a hearing was held on the treaty.
Among other things, the administration would use its ratification to strong-arm other countries into overturning their pro-life laws. Conservatives will have to be on guard, he said. Full story at LifeNews.com
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Court Dismisses Charges Against Pro-Life Pastor Witnessing on Abortion
A trial court has dismissed the charges Oakland city officials placed on pro-life Pastor Walter Hoye for violating a new law created with the sole intention of stopping him from helping women at abortion centers.
Hoye was found guilty of violating what pro-life attorneys call an unconstitutional city law used specifically to prevent providing information to women outside abortion centers. Oakland officials had enacted the law that appeared to be directed at Hoye, a black pastor.
Hoye says the new law is an unconstitutional infringement on free speech and he was charged under it in early 2009.
Just three months ago, an appellate court overturnedPastor Walter Hoye s criminal conviction for violating Oakland s so-called Mother May I law restricting sidewalk counseling. In a jury trial in 2009, Hoye was found guilty of two counts of unlawfully approaching women seeking abortions at an Oakland abortion clinic; the court sentenced him to 30 days in jail and an $1100 fine. Full story at LifeNews.com
Full story at LifeNews.com.
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