LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Report
Friday, November 18, 2010
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Current Headlines
Top Stories
• Couple s Web Site Lets Public Vote: Give Birth or Have Abortion
• First Lady Michelle Obama Picks Abortion Advocate as New Chief of Staff
• Senate Democrats Plan Vote on Obama s Pro-Abortion Judges
• Mike Pence: Fiscal and Social Issues Go Together, 2012 Decision Soon
• Activists Still Hoping to Promote Abortion at US Military Bases
More Pro-Life News
• Pope: Heath Care Access a Right, Not Abortion or Euthanasia
• Pro-Abortion CEDAW Treaty Gets Senate Committee Hearing
• Pro-Life United Nations Lobbyist Earning Life Prizes Award an Unsung Hero
• Rotary International Criticized on Planned Parenthood Event
• CEDAW Report Pressures Nations on Abortion as Congress Holds Hearing
• Missouri Planned Parenthood In Columbia Resumes Abortions
• Michigan Catholic Bishop to Hold Burial of Abortion Dumpster Babies
• Carleton University Punts Decision on Zapping Pro-Life Group
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Couple s Web Site Lets Public Vote: Give Birth or Have Abortion
A Minneapolis, Minnesota couple is making waves across the Internet with a web site they created allowing the public to vote on whether or not they should give birth or have an abortion.
Pete and Alisha Arnold are both 30 and they are 17 weeks pregnant with a perfectly healthy baby nicknamed Wiggles. The unborn baby is just weeks away from viability and past the point at which most women have had an abortion.
However, the Arnolds have set up a website, http://www.birthornot.com because they aren t sure whether they want to become parents despite the fact that that journey has already started for them.
To make a difference in the real world, the couple has set up a poll on their website to allow the public to make the final decision for them.
They write: The whole point here is to let people have a real way to voice your opinion on the topic of abortion and have it actually make a difference in the real world. By voting on whether to continue or abort an actual pregnancy, you are doing so much more then simply telling an elected representative your feelings. You are actually changing something in the real world.
For the first time in history, your vote on the topic of abortion will not go unheard. We meant that, they said.
Currently, more than 32,000 people have voted in the poll with 79.16 percent urging the couple to give birth to their baby and 20.84 telling them to destroy the child s life in an abortion. Full story at LifeNews.com
First Lady Michelle Obama Picks Abortion Advocate as New Chief of Staff
First Lady Michelle Obama has selected a new chief of staff to replace longtime personal friend and political confidant Susan Sher.
She will be replaced with Tina Tchen, who was an abortion activist before joining the White House.
President Barack Obama selected Tchen to become the director of public liaison at the White House and, in March 2009, she became the executive director of the White House Council on Women and Girls, which pro-life advocates worry promotes abortions.
Tchen is a Chicago lawyer who raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Obama presidential campaign. Previously, she served as the vice president of the National Organization for Women, a prominent pro-abortion organization.
She upset pro-life advocates in July 2009 when she spoke to gathering of Planned Parenthood activists. There, she promised leaders of the abortion business that Obama is a pro-abortion president and urged them to continue their pro-abortion lobbying efforts.
During the event, Tchen told the Planned Parenthood activists that if they want abortion as a part of the health care restructuring plan Congress is considering, they need to bring it and up their lobbying efforts. Full story at LifeNews.com
Senate Democrats Plan Vote on Obama s Pro-Abortion Judges
Senate Democrats are reportedly planning to push for a vote on a handful of pro-abortion judicial nominees President Barack Obama has already put forward that have drawn strong opposition from Republicans and pro-life groups.
The vote on the judicial nominees is one of several contentious votes Democrats plan to push through during the lame duck session before the new session of Congress starts with fewer abortion advocates.
The nominees include Goodwin Liu, Edward Chen and Louis Butler all judicial activists who are supportive of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision responsible for 52 million abortions.
The Legal Times blog indicates Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse , a Rhode island Democrat, said yesterday that pro-abortion Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is working on obtaining enough votes to approve a cloture motion to end the Republican filibuster against the judges.
He s lining up the signatures, Whitehouse said. The cloture petition needs 16 signatures and the vote would need the support of 60 senators. Full story at LifeNews.com
Mike Pence: Fiscal and Social Issues Go Together, 2012 Decision Soon
Congressman Mike Pence responded to a letter from a group of Tea Party and gay rights activists saying the Republican party should focus on fiscal issues instead of social ones by saying the two go hand-in-hand.
People are always saying, should it be spending or social issues? How about both? Pence told ABC News.
How about, let s deny all federal funding to Planned Parenthood of America? That would save $350 million right off the top, he said of his bill that would deny Title X money to organizations that do abortions.
He added: I have to tell you as I travel around the country, the American people millions of Americans, more every day are offended that the largest abortion provider in America is also the largest recipient of federal funding under Title 10.
The letter came from 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 including Ralph King, who is a Tea Party Patriots national leadership council member and a co-coordinator of its Ohio group. Full story at LifeNews.com
Activists Still Hoping to Promote Abortion at US Military Bases
The fate of the legislation funding the Defense Department is still up in the air but abortion advocacy groups are asking their members to keep pressing to end the ban on abortions at military base hospitals.
Current law prohibits abortions at the taxpayer-funded base hospitals both in the United States and abroad, but NARAL president Nancy Keenan is hoping to change that.
In an email LifeNews.com obtained, she asks her group s members to lobby their senators to press for a vote on the funding bill containing the Burris amendment, which overturns the longstanding pro-life policy. Keenan is concerned her forces won t have another chance to kill the policy in the next Congress.
When the new Congress is sworn in, we ll face at least 79 new anti-choice members in the House and 13 in the Senate, she writes. These numbers tell me one thing: we need to make important pro-choice gains for women now. Full story at LifeNews.com
Pope: Heath Care Access a Right, Not Abortion or Euthanasia
In a message at a health care conference read for the Pope Benedict XVI, the Catholic Church leader said access to health care is a right but not abortion, euthanasia or other practices destroying human life.
The Pontiff said nations have a moral responsibility to guarantee access to health care for all citizens, calling medical treatment one of the inalienable rights.
The care of man, his transcendent dignity and his inalienable rights should concern Catholics and non-Catholics alike, he said, because one s health is a precious asset.
But Pope Benedict cautioned that good health care does not include practices that destroy human life like euthanasia, or artificial reproductive techniques that destroy human life like human cloning of in-vitro fertilization that involves the destruction of human embryos. Full story at LifeNews.com
Pro-Abortion CEDAW Treaty Gets Senate Committee Hearing
A Senate Committee held a hearing on the CEDAW treaty that the United Nations and pro-abortion groups have used to pressure countries around the world to legalize abortions.
The treaty was negotiated by Jimmy Carter 31 years ago and most countries have ratified it but the United States has not in part because of the abortion promotion.
But Sen. Dick Durbin made promoting the treaty a majority part of a hearing he held today featuring a who s who of pro-abortion leaders and activists including representatives of the ACLU, Human Rights First and the National Women s Law Center.
He also drew support from actor Geena Davis who complained the United State is one of just a handful of nations to not approve the document. Full story at LifeNews.com
Pro-Life United Nations Lobbyist Earning Life Prizes Award an Unsung Hero
Delegates have again locked themselves in a UN conference room to negotiate reproductive health language. Outside, Jeanne Head, a retired labor and delivery nurse, pores over UN documents. It s late and cleaning crews have begun their shift around the building. But the delegates and Jeanne are just settling in for a long night.
It s a familiar scene to UN delegates. They know Head well and that they ll find her nearby for advice on a provision or just some background. She is a resource delegates can and frequently do turn to.
Though she calls herself a reluctant activist, Head s hard work and effectiveness earned prominent recognition Tuesday. The Gerald Health Foundation awarded her a Life Prize, given to individuals or organizations that have achieved significant progress in promoting the sanctity of human life and are working to protect and preserve it. Full story at LifeNews.com
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Rotary International Criticized on Planned Parenthood Event
A local Rotary International club in Washington state is coming under fire from a pro-life organization upset that it is co-sponsoring an event with the Planned Parenthood abortion business.
Life Decisions International is urging the Rotary Club of Walla Walla (RCWW) to cancel a planned event titled, Serving Our Community With Vital Health Care Planned Parenthood, scheduled for February 2011. Anna Franks, chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho, will be the keynote speaker.
Kenneth C. Garvey, director of communications for Life Decisions International, told LifeNews.com today the national organization has a history of supporting pro-abortion groups.
We are not surprised that a Rotary Club is involved with Planned Parenthood, he said. But we continue to be appalled by the increasingly close relationship between the two pro-population-control groups. Full story at LifeNews.com
The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women ( CEDAW ) released its concluding observations for its 47th session, which was held in Geneva from October 4th through the 22nd of October, 2010. Concluding observations were released for Burkina Faso, the Czech Republic, India, Malta, Tunisia, and Uganda.
Listed below are the sections from each of the observations that promote abortion, contraception, and sex ed for youth. Full story at LifeNews.com.
Missouri Planned Parenthood In Columbia Resumes Abortions
After 13 weeks of temporarily halting abortions at its Columbia center, the Planned Parenthood abortion business in Missouri is resuming abortions.
Missouri Right to Life indicates the Columbia Planned Parenthood abortion clinic will resume aborting babies next Monday, November 22. The pro-life group is planning an event featuring peaceful prayer at the abortion center at 711 Providence Road all day today. Full story at LifeNews.com
Michigan Catholic Bishop to Hold Burial of Abortion Dumpster Babies
Reverend Earl Boyea, the Bishop of Lansing, Michigan, will personally conduct the funeral rites for seventeen aborted babies whose remains were discovered earlier this year in a trash dumpster used by the Woman s Choice abortion center.
Members of the Citizens for Pro-Life Society organization discovered the allegedly illegal dumping of fetal remains in dumpsters outside the Woman s Choice abortion clinics in Lansing and Saginaw. Full story at LifeNews.com
Carleton University s student government in Canada has punted on a decision about whether to kick out a pro-life group that won t acquiesce to its demands that it rework its charter to support abortion.
As LifeNews.com reported, Carleton Lifeline indicated earlier this week that its club status had been revoked as part of the student association s policy against discrimination, which mandates that student clubs respect the so-called right to abortion. Without officially recognized status, the pro-life club won t receive funding or access to space. Full story at LifeNews.com.
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