LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Report
Friday, April 22, 2011
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Current Headlines
Top Stories
• DC Mayor Promises to Implement Taxpayer-Funded Abortion Ban
• Body of Baby Victimized in Abortion Found in Clinic Parking Lot
• Death Panels Crop Up Again as Obama Mentions IPAB in Medicare
• Politifact Wrong When it Comes to Planned Parenthood, Abortion
More Pro-Life News
• Countries Stand up to Obama Administration, UN on Abortion
• Pro-Life Group Asks Massachusetts Gov to Drop Abortion Website
• Key Pro-Life Democrat Faces Pro-Abortion Primary Challenger
• Florida Voters Support Ending Planned Parenthood Tax-Funding
• New York Special Election Candidate Hochul Gets Pro-Abortion OK
• New Hampshire Parental Notification on Abortion Bill Advancing
• Madrid Spain Selected as Site of World Congress of Families
• Washington Senate Passes Surrogacy Bill With Pro-Life Concerns
• Steubenville Nursing Student Wins Prestigious Pro-Life Award
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DC Mayor Promises to Implement Taxpayer-Funded Abortion Ban
Earlier this week, Congressional Republicans sent a letter to Mayor Vincent Gray of Washington, DC requesting that he faithfully implement the reinstated ban on taxpayer funding of abortions in the nation s capital.
Gray has sent a letter back to the pro-life House and Senate GOP lawmakers confirming he intends to put the ban back in place now that Speaker John Boehner pressured top Democrats and pro-abortion President Barack Obama to put the ban in place in exchange for supporting the recent long-term budget deal.
The letter Republicans sent Gray on Tuesday also accused the Gray administration of snubbing previous requests for information on how many taxpayer funded abortions were done during last year, when Democrats successfully removed the abortion funding ban for the District of Columbia for the first time in over a decade. According to a Washington Post report, Gray officials blamed the lack of information on the previous DC mayor, former Mayor Adrian M. Fenty.
The Mayor has received the letter and is reviewing it, the Gray letter says. He wants to thank the Members of Congress for their interest in the health care services provided by the District for its low-income citizens. Since receiving the first letter in January, his staff has been in communication with congressional staff about this issue. Unlike previous Administrations, Mayor Gray will send a response.
The Post indicates Gray administration officials blamed Fenty for not responding to the previous requests about the abortions that Fenty s administration started paying for with federal taxpayer funds beginning in August. Full story at LifeNews.com
Body of Baby Victimized in Abortion Found in Clinic Parking Lot
Local pro-life advocates helping to offer women alternatives to abortion outside an abortion clinic in El Paso, Texas have found the body of an unborn child victimized by an abortion in the parking lot of the facility.
Gaby Federico, who is also associated with the pro-life group Live Action, discovered a dead, dismembered baby in the parking lot of Hilltop Family Planning Clinic, an abortion center in this western Texas city.The Hilltop clinic advertises abortions up to 15 weeks into pregnancy.
Federico and a fellow pro-life sidewalk counselor at the abortion center were alerted to the baby s body a man who lives next to the abortion center. He said the night before, his dog had been sniffing around the parking lot and found the baby s body parts lying on the ground, so he put the remains of the baby in a plastic bag and handed the bag to Federico this morning. The bag contained disarticulated tissue, two bloody legs with feet, and a severed hand.
Federico notified police, who arrived at the abortion center late this morning and investigated the situation and interviewed abortion facility staff. Staffers told officials the body of the baby did not come from the abortion facility and said they dispose of bodies properly by using a hazardous waste company to process the remains of the babies victimized in abortions.
This is horrible to know that these children are killed daily here in El Paso, not only without a burial, but to be disposed of in such an inhuman way. It s not fair, Frederico said. This shouldn t ever happen, in El Paso or anywhere. The world needs to see what abortion clinics do to children. When dead babies start turning up in the clinic parking lot, no further proof is needed of what abortion is. These clinics need to be shut down. Full story at LifeNews.com
Death Panels Crop Up Again as Obama Mentions IPAB in Medicare
The issue of death panels is cropping up again as President Barack Obama and members of Congress consider competing plans to budget the federal government and to curb spending, the debt and deficit.
Last week, President Barack Obama put the issue of death panels back on the table with a speech highlighting his desire to cut health care costs by giving more power to the Independent Physicians Advisory Board (IPAB), which is an unelected 15-member panel appointed solely by the president. IPAB has been a sore spot with opponents of Obamacare and pro-life advocates since the health care debate began in earnest in 2009.
They are concerned that, if the IPAB is anything like the Oregon model on which it is based, government health-care programs could effectively out private options and make it so the bureaucratic decision-makers in the government-run program are the final arbiters of who receives which treatments. If that happens, patients would have serious concerns about rationing of health care. Those concerns were so real that 72 Democratic House members joined Republicans last year in seeking the removal of the IPAB from the Obamacare legislation.
With the debate over the IPAB renewing, several conservative commentators have focused on the potential problems. Full story at LifeNews.com
Politifact Wrong When it Comes to Planned Parenthood, Abortion
Recently, PolitiFact has disputed the numbers that describe just how intertwined Planned Parenthood s operations are with the practice of abortion. But, PolitiFact has taken a stronger stance than Planned Parenthood is willing to about figures accounting for its pregnancy-related services. Planned Parenthood Vice President for Communications Stuart Schear merely called it an unverifiable statistic.
One point of contention in the calculation of its treatment of pregnant women is Planned Parenthood doesn t keep track of [prenatal care] referrals.
Up until twelve years ago, Planned Parenthood not only tracked prenatal care referrals, but it included the figure in its annual reports.
In 1994 Planned Parenthood referred out 108,466 prenatal clients. Two years later, that number had dropped to 80,870. In 1998, it dropped again to 67,052. By its own reports, Planned Parenthood s prenatal client referrals dropped by over 40,000 in a four-year span. After that, Planned Parenthood stopped reporting its prenatal care referral numbers (though it continued to report referral numbers for other categories of care, such as vasectomies, sterilization, breast exams/breast care, and adoption referrals).
If it is true that Planned Parenthood clinics stopped tracking how many prenatal care referrals it makes (and did not just stop reporting the number) that begs the question, why? Did Planned Parenthood adopt a policy to no longer track prenatal care referrals? Full story at LifeNews.com
Countries Stand up to Obama Administration, UN on Abortion
This month SPUC witnessed twelve nations challenging the power of the pro-abortion lobby at the United Nations in New York at the annual meeting of the Commission on Population and Development.
Peter Smith, lobbying on behalf of SPUC, told me that in the Commission s final document there were 35 references to the term reproductive in various word combinations such as sexual and reproductive health and universal access to reproductive health .
Tragically, powerful parties such as the UNFPA, Barack Obama, Britain, and the European Union define reproductive health as including access to abortion and the same parties make aid to developing nations dependent on the distribution of the euphemistically-termed reproductive health commodities .
However, at the end of the meeting the following national delegations put in reservations concerning the reproductive heath wording making it clear that abortion should not be promoted under the guise of reproductive health . Full story at LifeNews.com
Pro-Life Group Asks Massachusetts Gov to Drop Abortion Website
A statewide pro-life group in Massachusetts is asking Governor Duval Patrick to immediately take down a state-funded web site, Maria Talks, that promotes abortion to young teenage girls.
Massachusetts Citizens for Life is upset that the modern-looking web site steers teens to abortions and does so without any input from a young girls parents and on the taxpayers dime. After initially taking its case to the media to complain about the Maria Talks web site, now MCFL has hand-delivered a letter to Governor Patrick asking him to take down the website pending an investigation into its funding and approval as well as requesting that an investigation be launched into the development of the web page.
Anne Fox, president of the pro-life group, requested a meeting with Patrick and said the web page is inaccurate and deliberately misleading.
It literally coaches minor girls on how to obtain abortions without their parents knowing, Fox complained in an email to LifeNews.com. Full story at LifeNews.com
Key Pro-Life Democrat Faces Pro-Abortion Primary Challenger
Rep. Dan Lipinski of Illinois is one of the few authentic pro-life Democrats left in Congress who both opposed the Obamacare legislation and also voted for efforts to de-fund the Planned Parenthood abortion business.
Now, the Chicago congressman will face a challenge from the left as a pro-abortion opponent has stepped up and raised significant funds to take on Lipinski. John Atkinson, a wealthy insurance executive and activists for government-run health care has already raised more than $535,000 during the first quarter of this year and Politico indicates that is more than any other Democratic congressional challenger anywhere in the country. The money is also four times the amount Lipinski raised during the same period.
Politico notes Atkinson has already signed top strategists, including Michael Rendina, who managed Alexi Giannoulias s 2010 Senate campaign, and Washington-based pollster Jill Normington, who worked for pro-abortion former Illinois Rep. Melissa Bean.
People are yearning for someone who s interested in something other than ideology, Atkinson said told the political news web site in referring to Lipinski s pro-life views and votes. I want to bring in a more temperate, calmer voice.
Atkinson will also use the repeal vote against Lipinski and has attempted to tie the pro-life Democrat to pro-life Republican Speaker John Boehner.
Lipinski has responded to Atkinson s challenge by defending his record rather than running away from it telling Politico his vote against Obamacare was the right thing to do for my constituents and the country as a whole. When I m out in the district, people still stop me to thank me for my vote. Full story at LifeNews.com
Florida Voters Support Ending Planned Parenthood Tax-Funding
A new poll of Florida voters finds a majority support ending taxpayer funding for the Planned Parenthood abortion business. The poll comes at a time when Florida lawmakers are yanking abortion funding from Obamacare. The new Viewpoint Florida survey was conducted April 13-14 among 807 Florida registered voters who say they are likely to vote in the 2012 elections and it found 54 percent of Florida residents support de-funding Planned Parenthood while just 38 percent oppose doing so. Another 8 percent are unsure if the abortion giant should continue receiving tens of millions of dollars from the federal government. Full story at LifeNews.com
New York Special Election Candidate Hochul Gets Pro-Abortion OK
The pro-abortion group Emily s List, which only endorses candidates who support taxpayer funding of abortion and partial-birth abortions, has endorsed Democratic nominee Kathy Hochul in the upcoming special election in New York. Although Democrats have been slow to put financial and organizational resources behind Hochul in her race against Republican nominee Jane Corwin to replace former Rep. Chris Lee in the May 24 race, Emily s List believes the presence of a third-party candidate could disrupt enough votes to allow Hochul to win on a plurality vote. Full story at LifeNews.com
New Hampshire Parental Notification on Abortion Bill Advancing
A bill to allow parents the ability to know when their minor daughters are considering an abortion is advancing in the New Hampshire legislature and is expected to eventually get to Governor Lynch s desk. Without such a law in place, parents would have to pick up the pieces after their daughter has an abortion and potentially be required to pay for medical bills related to problems afterwards without knowing about the abortion in the first place. Full story at LifeNews.com
Madrid Spain Selected as Site of World Congress of Families
At a recent meeting of the International Selection Committee, Madrid was unanimously recommended as the site of World Congress of Families VI May 25-27, 2012. The recommendation was subsequently accepted by the WCF Management Committee. Full story at LifeNews.com
Washington Senate Passes Surrogacy Bill With Pro-Life Concerns
This morning, the Washington Senate passed a newly amended version of HB 1267, which would overhaul the Uniform Parentage Act. Because the House and Senate must pass the identical bill before it can be signed into law by the governor, HB 1267 has been sent back to the House. The House may be considering it tomorrow or possibly even this evening. Full story at LifeNews.com
Steubenville Nursing Student Wins Prestigious Pro-Life Award
A Franciscan University of Steubenville nursing student who is active in the pro-life movement was recently awarded a $1,000 national scholarship. Celine Talbot, a junior, is the second Franciscan University nursing student in as many years to receive the award from the National Association of Pro-Life Nurses (NAPN).Full story at LifeNews.com
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