LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Report
Thursday, December 9, 2010
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Current Headlines
Top Stories
• Senate Votes Soon on Defense Bill With Pro-Abortion Language
• Republican, Democrat to Lead Congressional Pro-Life Caucus
• Judge: Planned Parenthood Rushed Abortion on Sexually Abused Teen
• Practitioner Who Killed Woman in Botched Abortion Wins Early Release
More Pro-Life News
• Santorum to Decide Soon on 2012, Says Palin Would Do Well
• William Brennan s Legacy: A Supreme Court Creating Abortion Rights
• Board Delays Hearing on Abortion Practitioner Evading Law
• House Honors Chinese Human Rights Activist Liu Xiaobo
• Parental Notification in Illinois: Will Minors Finally be Protected?
• New Jersey Choose Life Plates Finally Allowed After Six Years
• Missouri Pro-Life Bill Protects Pharmacists Conscience Rights
• Montana Lawmakers Will Consider Bills on Assisted Suicide
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 "Christian or not, whether you like thriller-genre books or not, regardless of your feelings about abortion. You must read this book." -- Abigail Seidman, Pro-Life Activist www.theintrusionbook.com |
Senate Votes Soon on Defense Bill With Pro-Abortion Language
The Senate may vote as early as Thursday on the 2011 defense authorization bill that contains language turning military base hospitals into abortion facilities.
The legislation contains the Burris amendment which would overturn longstanding pro-life law prohibiting the performance of abortions at taxpayer-funded military bases.
Earlier this year, a Senate committee approved the amendment sponsored by outgoing Sen. Rolland Burris, an Illinois Democrat. 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.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, according to a report in The Hill, plans to bring up the bill for a vote as early as today. His first effort to get 60 votes for cloture to cut off debate and allow a vote on the bill failed as Republicans filibustered the measure in part because of the Burris amendment but also because of the controversial Don t ask, don t tell law.
Without passage of the Defense Department funding bill, the increase in the number of pro-life and Republican votes in the Senate makes it all but certain that abortion activists will not be able to overturn the military hospital abortion ban. Full story at LifeNews.com
Republican, Democrat to Lead Congressional Pro-Life Caucus
To pass or defeat legislation in Conress, it frequently takes a bipartisan effort of pro-life Republicans and Democrats working together to accomplish the goal.
For decades, the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus has brought these lawmakers together and provided them resources to fight the legislative battles and network with allied pro-life organizations.
Today, Rep. Chris Smith, the pro-life champion from New Jersey, announced that he and pro-life Rep. Dan Lipinski will head the caucus as the next session of Congress provides pro-life advocates their highest numbers ever in the House of Representatives.
Dan Lipinski and I have and will continue to work hard together to provide needed protection for unborn children and their mothers, Smith, who has been the co-chairman of the Caucus since 1982, told LifeNews.com.
Lipinski, who was lauded by pro-life groups for standing up as one of the few pro-life Democrats to vote against ObamaCare over abortion funding, says he is committed to working with Smith and other pro-life lawmakers to protect unborn children. Full story at LifeNews.com
Judge: Planned Parenthood Rushed Abortion on Sexually Abused Teen
IA judge has issued a ruling saying a Cincinnati Planned Parenthood abortion business rushed an abortion it did on a 14-year-old girl who was a victim of sexual abuse.
The case was brought by parents whose minor daughter had an abortion at a Planned Parenthood facility without their knowledge after being sexually abused by her adult coach.
The parents allege that Planned Parenthood failed to comply with the statute requiring reports of known or suspected child abuse as well as Ohio s parental consent statute.
Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Jody Luebbers gave the girl and her parents a major legal victory on Tuesday.
She indicated the abortion practitioner for Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio breached the legal requirement by not meeting with the girl 24 hours prior to the abortion, as stipulated by the state s informed consent statute, to explain to her the alternatives available to her.
I think it s the first time ever Planned Parenthood has been in breach of that order, Brain Hurley, the attorney representing the teen, told the Cincinnati Inquirer newspaper. The question now is what (money) damages do we get? We believe it will be a significant number. Full story at LifeNews.com
Practitioner Who Killed Woman in Botched Abortion Wins Early Release
Massachusetts-based abortion practitioner Rapin Osathanondh, who received six months in prison after pleading guilty to the charge of manslaughter in relation to his killing 22-year-old Laura Smith in a failed abortion, has won an early release.
Smith died in September 2007 at his Women s Health Center abortion business after Osathanondh failed to provide proper medical care after the abortion went awry.
Court Judge Gary Nickerson sentenced Osathanondh to two years in prison but the plea bargain took that down to six months and the abortion practitioner was eligible under the sentence for parole in three months. He appears to have secured that.
Eileen Smith, who helped bring Osathanondh to justice for killing her daughter, told the pro-life organization Operation Rescue that Osathanondh has won a motion for early release from jail today after serving only half of his sentence. Smith says Osathanondh will be fitted with a monitoring device and released today to serve out the remainder of his sentence in home confinement at his plush luxury home on Cape Cod. Full story at LifeNews.com
Santorum to Decide Soon on 2012, Says Palin Would Do Well
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum says he will make a decision in early 2011 about whether he will mount a bid for the Republican nomination for president.
Although he would likely be a long-shot to capture the nomination, Santorum would present a stark contrast between his own pro-life views and voting record and the pro-abortion record President Barack Obama has compiled in just two years.
Santorum has visited top primary election battleground states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina and he told The Sun News more about his presidential plans.
I m getting here. I m getting feelers on whether people think that what I m saying, what I m thinking, what I m doing and what I ve done is something they could get behind and be supportive of, he said. Full story at LifeNews.com
William Brennan s Legacy: A Supreme Court Creating Abortion Rights
One man s biography becomes the story of jurisprudence when constitutional interpretation is governed by personality and politics.
No matter how heavy the theorizing may get, the project of interpreting what is known as the living Constitution is nothing more than the dishonest use of the law to reach ideologically pleasing results. This is one of the salient lessons of a new biography of Justice William Brennan, Jr., Justice Brennan: Liberal Champion, by Seth Stern and Stephen Wermiel. This book, though not without flaws, provides a balanced and lucid portrait of this masterly behind-the-scenes law bender whose influence is, alas, alive and well on the current Court. Full story at LifeNews.com
Board Delays Hearing on Abortion Practitioner Evading Law
The Kansas State Board of Healing Arts has announced it is delaying hearings in a case related to an abortion practitioner who evaded state law by making illegal abortion referrals.
Ann Kristin Neuhaus provided illegal late-term abortion referrals for the slain late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller.
The board filed an eleven-count recommendation this summer against Neuhaus and set hearings on the matter for December 20 and January 11. But Operation Rescue, which filed the original complaint against her, announced today those hearings have been pushed back to April 12.
The full disciplinary hearing, which will be conducted in a trial-like format with testimony expected from witnesses, has been rescheduled for May 3 and is scheduled to last four days. Full story at LifeNews.com
House Honors Chinese Human Rights Activist Liu Xiaobo
The House of Representatives today voted overwhelmingly today to approve a resolution authored by pro-life Rep. Chris Smith congratulating Tiananmen Square survivor Liu Xiaobo.
Liu is the Chinese political prisoner who will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10 in Oslo, Norway.
Last February, Smith led a bi-partisan group of lawmakers in nominating Liu for the prize. They also nominated Chen Guangcheng and Gao Zhisheng, two attorneys who were jailed for standing up for the victims of forced abortions and sterilizations under China s one-child family planning rule.
They hoped the trio would draw attention to the plight of political prisoners in China and the Nobel Prize committee eventually awarded it to Liu, though he is not expected to be permitted by China to attend the awards ceremony. Full story at LifeNews.com
Parental Notification in Illinois: Will Minors Finally be Protected?
To date, minors in the state of Illinois have been completely unprotected from the physical and psychological harms of abortion.
In 1995, legislators in the Illinois General Assembly passed the Illinois Parental Notice of Abortion Act ( Act ); but due to legal challenges by the ACLU and their allies, the law has been enjoined for 15 years.
Even to a lawyer, 15 years of litigation is an incredible amount of time especially considering the fact that many women who were minors at the time of enactment may have teen children themselves now who could be impacted and protected by the law. Full story at LifeNews.com
New Jersey Choose Life Plates Finally Allowed After Six Years
New Jersey motorists will finally have the option to purchase Choose Life license plates now that the state has agreed to end a six year block on them.
The state agreed to authorize The Children First Foundation s life-affirming specialty license plate, prompting the Alliance Defense Fund to voluntarily dismiss a lawsuit it filed in 2004 on behalf of the pro-adoption organization. State officials agreed to lift their roadblock against Children First s plate application after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit reversed a dismissal of the ADF lawsuit in April.
Pro-adoption organizations should be allowed to express their message as part of a program where others are freely allowed to express theirs, said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Jeff Shafer. Full story at LifeNews.com.
Missouri Pro-Life Bill Protects Pharmacists Conscience Rights
A bill filed for the next session of the Missouri legislature would protect the rights of pharmacists who don t want to dispense drugs that can sometimes cause an abortion.
State Representative David Sater, a Republican who owned a pharmacy in Barry County for 30 years says the measure he introduced would guarantee the rights of pharmacies to decline to sell drugs like the morning after pill and the Plan B or ella drug.
I think any retail business would be affronted if state government or federal government came in and told them that they had to sell a certain product, Sater said, according to St. Louis Public Radio. We still live in a free country, and we re just trying to keep it (as) free as possible. Full story at LifeNews.com.
Montana Lawmakers Will Consider Bills on Assisted Suicide
After the Montana Supreme Court made the state the third to allow the practice of assisted suicide, state lawmakers want their say and will consider legislation on both sides of the debate.
The high court did not determine if the Montana constitution guarantees a right to assisted suicide but said nothing in state law or the precedent of the court prevented assisted suicide.
The decision essentially had Montana joining Oregon and Washington as the only three states in the nation to allow assisted suicides. It declared assisted suicide as legal and could prevent doctors from almost any prosecution for engaging in them. Full story at LifeNews.com.
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