LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Report
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
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Current Headlines
Top Stories
• Husband Behind BirthOrNot Site Admits Abortion Vote a Hoax
• Next Pro-Life Battle Centers on Abortions at Military Bases
• City Council Votes Unanimously to Block Late-Term Abortion Practitioner
• Justice Scalia: Founders Never Imagined Abortion Rights
• Tea Party Nation Rebuts Letter: We Want Action on Abortion
More Pro-Life News
• Decision Points Book Highlights George W. Bush s Pro-Life Values
• Society Ignores Terri Schiavo But Health Care Rationing Not Going Away
• Barbara Bush Expands on Story of President Bush Seeing Unborn Baby
• Court: Nurse Can t Sue Hospital That Forced Her to Do Abortion
• Hey Massachusetts Republicans: Pro-Life Candidates Did Well
• Planned Parenthood Sues to Stop Alaska Parental Notification Abortion Law
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Husband Behind BirthOrNot Site Admits Abortion Vote a Hoax
The husband behind the BirthOrNot web site that caused an international controversy over a vote on an abortion has now admitted the web site was a hoax.
Pete and Alisha Arnold put up the web site under the claim that they were conflicted over a decision about whether to have an abortion and take the live of their 17-week-old unborn child or give birth to the baby.
In new comments to CNN, Pete Arnold said his wife supports legalized abortion but he admitted the couple put the web site online knowing they never intended to seek an abortion.
Arnold also admitted what bloggers from both sides of the abortion debate revealed days ago that he purchased the BirthOrNot.com web domain about four months ago well before Alisha became pregnant.
We chose our words very carefully, Arnold told CNN about public statements saying the site was legitimate during the international press craze that followed the initial stories.
He said Arnolds, who live in Minnesota, wanted to put up a web site that would engage people on the issue of abortion because so many feel it s a topic that doesn t touch them personally.
A lot of people elect representatives based on this issue alone, yet nothing happens, nothing comes of it, nothing changes. he said, telling CNN the couple called the baby Baby Wiggles to give people more to think about. Full story at LifeNews.com
Next Pro-Life Battle Centers on Abortions at Military Bases
When members of the Senate return from their Thanksgiving break, the pro-life movement will immediately face a key legislative showdown over the issue of abortions at military bases.
The Senate will consider the legislation funding the Defense Department, which currently contains the Burris amendment, a measure that overturns the longstanding pro-life policy against abortions at taxpayer-funded military bases.
There is talk on Capitol Hill that Senate Democrats will put forward a new Defense Department funding bill without the amendment in order to secure more votes for its passage, but that possibility remains to be seen.
Current law prohibits abortions at the taxpayer-funded base hospitals both in the United States and abroad, but abortion advocates are rallying support for the legislation to overturn it.
In an email today, Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser says pro-life advocates need to get involved now if they don t want to see military base hospitals become abortion centers.
We are most concerned about the Department of Defense Authorization bill. A previous version of this bill, defeated earlier this year, contained the Burris Amendment which would allow for abortions on military bases both here at home and abroad, Dannenfelser added. Pro-abortion Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will be working overtime during the lame duck session to pass this bill, and if the bill contains the Burris Amendment, we must make sure that it is defeated. Full story at LifeNews.com
City Council Votes Unanimously to Block Late-Term Abortion Practitioner
AThe Council Bluffs City Council voted unanimously last night to prevent late-term abortion practitioner LeRoy Carhart from obtaining a parcel of land on which to build a new abortion facility.
Carhart made national news recently when he promised he would expand his late-term abortion business to Iowa and Maryland and take over operations of another abortion center in Indianapolis, Indiana.
At issue was a city council vote on 24,393 square feet of vacant city ground near the intersection of Avenue G and North 15th Street that Carhart possibly hoped to obtain for his new abortion center.
But, as the Omaha World-Herald reports, council members voted unanimously to sell the parcel of land with the stipulation that an abortion facility not be build on it.
I think the council is unified on this, Councilman Matt Schultz said. We ll try to do what we can to prevent this type of activity.
We do take this seriously, Schultz told the approximately 300 people who attended the meeting to speak out against Carhart s coming to town. Over the five years I ve been here, we ve worked hard to make this a positive place to work and live. Full story at LifeNews.com
Justice Scalia: Founders Never Imagined Abortion Rights
In a speech at the University of Richmond in Virginia on Friday, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia confirmed again his view that the Constitution contains no so-called abortion rights.
He told the audience during his speech, that is only now drawing attention, that the founders of the nation never envisioned a right to an abortion when drafting the Constitution that is supposed to guide the federal courts.
Scalia criticized, according to an AP report, those who misinterpret the 14th Amendment s due process clause to include abortion.
But some of the liberties the Supreme Court has found to be protected by that word liberty nobody thought constituted a liberty when the 14th Amendment was adopted, Scalia said. Abortion? It was criminal in all the states.
Scalia repeated his view that the Constitution should be taken literally, as written, rather than interpreting it to include rights not intended to be protected under law.
The Constitution says what it says and it doesn t say anything more. For flexibility, all you need is a legislature and a ballot box, he added, in terms of how abortion advocates should attempt to change the constitution if they want to have legal abortions. Full story at LifeNews.com
Tea Party Nation Rebuts Letter: We Want Action on Abortion
TAfter a letter signed by a handful of Tea Party activists made national headlines for its request to downplay social issues like abortion, a new letter signed by Tea Party Nation leaders goes the other direction.
The Tennessee-based tea party group led by National Tea Party Convention organizer Judson Phillips has a new letter and a list of action items that reflects the views of pro-life advocates.
Calling for the dismantling of the liberal-political complex, the new letter, addressed to Sen. Mitch McConnell and Speaker-elect John Boehner, calls for dismantling ObamaCare and its abortion-funding provisions and de-funding the Planned Parenthood abortion business.
America is a conservative country. We expect conservative leadership, the more than 185 tea party activists who signed this new letter say.
Last week a dozen Tea Party activists signed on to a letter to Congress urging them to abandon social issues and focus exclusively on economic matters. The letter was sponsored by the homosexual rights advocacy group GOProud.
Tea Party Nation says that letter came from non-Tea Party, non-conservatives trying to claim leadership of the Tea Party movement. Full story at LifeNews.com
Decision Points Book Highlights George W. Bush s Pro-Life Values
George W. Bush is an interesting man with a complicated presidency that most Americans going into Bush s final year of office deemed a failure. At one point, Bush had the worst approval/disapproval rating since Gallup began measuring. His record on domestic policy and foreign policy, on the economy and Iraq, on Katrina and the War on Terror, engenders much heated debate.
That said, George W. Bush was our best pro-life president, hands down. To cite just a few examples:
Bush s confirmed picks to the Supreme Court, from a pro-life standpoint, were superb. His actual policy changes, from bans on partial birth-abortion to stopping taxpayer funding of the deliberate destruction of human embryos, were wonderful. His first day in office, Bush authorized a ban on U.S. taxpayer funding of international abortion rights groups like International Planned Parenthood, which seek abortion implementation worldwide.
In contrast, President Barack Obama immediately restored that funding his first week in office, specifically, January 23, 2009, the day after the annual March for Life. In August 2002, Bush signed the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, which requires medical attention to a child that accidentally survives an abortion. Barack Obama, as a state senator in Illinois, repeatedly blocked or voted against such legislation. Full story at LifeNews.com
Society Ignores Terri Schiavo But Health Care Rationing Not Going Away
by Bobby Schindler
Last week, former U.S. President, George W. Bush released a memoir of his tenure in office called Decision Points. In this 500-plus page account, Bush revisits a number of official and personal events, as well as choices that shaped both his presidency and his attitudes in private life.
I was disappointed to learn that Bush s actions in March of 2005 that led to the passage of Terri s Law were not a part of this account. On March 20, 2005 in what was called the Palm Sunday Compromise, Congress passed Relief of the Parents of Theresa Marie Schiavo a law that gave the Federal court access to review of the case to dehydrate my sister, Terri Schiavo, to death. President Bush left his home in Texas in the middle of the night to return to Washington, D.C. in order to sign this bill into law.
Some would praise him as a pro-life hero and a friend to the disabled. Others sharply criticized him for involving himself in a state circuit case. Yet nearly all would remark that his actions were extraordinary and historic.
Why, then, has Bush not recounted that experience in his memoir? A friend has reasoned with me that Bush may have some regrets over the matter, or even embarrassment with how it was handled and eventually politicized by both politicians and the corporate media. Full story at LifeNews.com
Barbara Bush Expands on Story of President Bush Seeing Unborn Baby
Former First Lady Barbara Bush, who is not pro-life, expanded on the story of President George W. Bush seeing the body of the baby she miscarried and how it impacted his pro-life views.
Bush and former President George H.W. Bush appeared Monday night on CNN s Larry King Live program and she did not dispute how the younger Bush asked her for permission to include the story in his book but said she did not recall showing Bush the jar. Full story at LifeNews.com
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Court: Nurse Can t Sue Hospital That Forced Her to Do Abortion
A federal court ruled today that a pro-life nurse doesn t have the right to sue the hospital that forced her to participate in an abortion.
Though the court dealt a blow to the pro-life nurse, her attorneys say the state case and the overall battle continues and they will vigorously press it to protect her rights.
Since 2004, officials at Mount Sinai Hospital knew that Cathy Cenzon-DeCarlo had deeply-felt pro-life views and would not consent to assisting in an abortion.
That didn t stop hospital officials from threatening her with disciplinary measures if she did not honor a last-minute summons to assist in a scheduled late-term abortion in 2009. They said she would lose her nursing license and potentially her job by not participating.
The Alliance Defense Fund filed two lawsuits on Cenzon-DeCarlo s behalf a state lawsuit and a federal one claiming Mt. Sinai ignored federal laws prohibiting such coercion while receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding. Full story at LifeNews.com
Hey Massachusetts Republicans: Pro-Life Candidates Did Well
If any state is one where Republicans have historically shied away from pro-life issues, it s Massachusetts one of the bluest of the blue states nationwide.
Massachusetts is where Republicans like William Weld have ditched any interest in pro-life issues and where pro-life advocates have to be content with someone like Sen. Scott Brown, who supports abortion but also modest limits on abortions and abortion funding. Full story at LifeNews.com.
Planned Parenthood Sues to Stop Alaska Parental Notification Abortion Law
The Alaska Planned Parenthood abortion business would have parents in the state be kept in the dark when their minor teenage daughters get an abortion if they get their way in court. Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest has filed a lawsuit against the new law state voters passed in the primary election that requires abortion centers to notify the parents of a minor girl who wants to have an abortion.
Voters approved the measure in August and the pro-life law is slated to go into effect on December 14, but the abortion business is asking a judge to issue an injunction preventing that from happening. Full story at LifeNews.com.
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