LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Report
Friday, May 6, 2011
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Current Headlines
Top Stories
• Republican Candidates Tackle Abortion, Pro-Life Issues in Debate
• Pro-Life Advcoates Push for Tax-Funded Abortion Ban in Senate
• Senate Votes Next Week on Pro-Abortion Obama Pick Edward Chen
• UN Vaccination Scheme Would Fund Population Control Agency
More Pro-Life News
• Pro-Abortion Groups Use Mother s Day to Raise Funds
• Mainstream Media Should Acknowledge Unborn are Human Beings
• Iowa Fetal Pain Abortion Ban May See Changes Next Week
• Massachusetts Won t Shut Down Tax-Funded Pro-Abortion Website
• North Carolina Holds Hearing on Pro-Life Abortion Info Bill
• Philippines: Catholic Bishops Seek Prayer Against RH Bill
• Minnesota House Passes Tax-Funded, 20-Week Abortion Bans
• After New Constitution, Hungary Launches Pro-Life Ad Campaign
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Republican Candidates Tackle Abortion, Pro-Life Issues in Debate
A handful of likely Republican presidential candidates debated in South Carolina on Thursday evening and addressed a host of political issues ranging from the economy to foreign policy. They also tackled abortion and pro-life issues.
Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, received a question about the social issues truce Indiana governor and potential presidential candidate Mitch Daniels called for previously.
Asked, Are you willing to tone down your positions on abortion and homosexuality in an effort to reach more voters and help the GOP coalesce behind a more fiscally focused platform?, Santorum replied, Anybody that would suggest that we call a truce on the moral issues doesn t understand what America is all about.
Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty was asked about his stance on embryonic stem cell research and he made it clear he supports the more ethical kind that is the only variety to help patients.
As to stem cell research it holds great promise and I support stem cell research. I think it should be adult derived, he said. By the way, Shannon, most of the therapies and breakthroughs that we are seeing in terms of treatment are coming from adult derived stem cell research. I strongly support that. As to embryonic stem cell research, I don t think we should pursue [it]. Full story at LifeNews.com
Pro-Life Advcoates Push for Tax-Funded Abortion Ban in Senate
Yesterday, just one day after the House voted for a bill banning taxpayer funding of abortions across all governmental programs and departments, pro-life groups and lawmakers are pushing for a Senate version.
Sen. Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, on Thursday introduced a companion to the bill the House approved, but he acknowledged it s unlikely that there are 60 votes for the pro-life bill in the Senate because Republicans would have to overcome a filibuster from Senate Democrats. Still, he said he would push for the legislation anyway and might possible offer it as a rider to another bill at some point in the future.
However, Wicker said he didn t think he would seek to attach the abortion funding ban to the upcoming vote on the bill to raise the debt limit, telling The Hill any potential amendments will deal with financial matters, rather than this.
Every time we ve attempted to advance the pro-life cause through legislation it has always started out as an uphill battle, the senator said. It s unlikely that we ll be able to get to 60 votes. But that doesn t mean we shouldn t try.
For three decades, Congress has enacted annual provisions in appropriations bills to make certain American taxpayers are not funding abortions, but it is time for a single, government-wide prohibition on abortion funding, Wicker said. This legislation would establish a comprehensive policy prohibiting public funding for abortion in all federal programs. Americans overwhelmingly agree that tax dollars should not be used to support abortion providers. I will continue to advocate legislation that honors and protects human life. Full story at LifeNews.com
Senate Votes Next Week on Pro-Abortion Obama Pick Edward Chen
The Senate is expected to vote early next week on another pro-abortion judicial nominee President Barack Obama put forward for the federal courts, Edward Chen.
The Senate Judiciary Committee approved Edward Chen, an Obama selection for the District Court for the Northern District of California, at a committee meeting in March. Pro-life advocates oppose Chen because of his time spent as an attorney for the pro-abortion ACLU.
Chen has come under criticism because he was employed as an ACLU attorney in San Francisco for decades.
The Senate Judiciary Committee signed off on Chen s nomination in October 2009 on a 12-7 party-line vote, but Republicans used a filibuster to stop a vote in the full Senate and Obama was forced to renominate him. On Monday afternoon, the Senate is expected to vote on cloture to stop the filibuster and Senate Democrats need 60 votes to stop Republicans from opposing him.
Conservative columnist Warner Todd Huston says Chen is out of the mainstream.
Well, for one, the left-wing American Bar Association rated Chen a well qualified nominee and many of his associates at the ACLU speak highly of him, he said. Chen was quite the ACLU activist between 1979 and 2001. His ACLU history would suffice to make many wary of him, of course. Full story at LifeNews.com
UN Vaccination Scheme Would Fund Population Control Agency
The UN is about to ask governments to fund the vaccination of every girl in the world against the sexually transmitted disease HPV, human papillomavirus. The controversial campaign could cost as much as $300 per person, totaling billions.
Dignitaries who launched the campaign at the UN in mid-April included a prominent African first lady, leaders from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the American Cancer Society, and the contraceptives manufacturer PATH.
UNFPA and PATH want donor nations to buy the vaccine at $14 per shot. Three shots are required over a period of six months, totaling $42, and the treatment is only good for five years. Seven treatments would be required to cover each woman s reproductive lifetime.
Advocates warned the assembly that the idea would be contentious. Casting the campaign as an effort to eradicate cervical cancer rather than a massive vaccination program against a sexually transmitted disease will help steer clear of political resistance, they said.
One advocate advised the dignitaries that when they are asked why children should be vaccinated against a sexually transmitted disease, the UN should use the precedent of infant vaccinations against Hepatitis B. Full story at LifeNews.com
Pro-Abortion Groups Use Mother s Day to Raise Funds
Although they promote dangerous abortions to women and are responsible for allowing the deaths of almost 27 million unborn girls from abortion, pro-abortion groups are using Mother s Day as a fundraising tool.
Barkley Stuart, a man who is on the board of directors for the Center for Reproductive Rights, sent out a fundraising email asking for donations, saying, My mother, Martha Rose Stuart was a tenacious, loving, and very passionate woman. In her honor, I m proud to make a special contribution to the Center for Reproductive Rights this Mother s Day. I hope you will join me with a gift in honor of your mother and mothers everywhere today.
Stuart thanked his mother for teaching him about destroying girls in abortions, saying, My mother taught me that without reproductive freedom for all women, the world would never be at peace. I fervently believe that still today. That s why I m proud to serve on the Board of Directors at the Center for Reproductive Rights. I do this work for my mother, but also for my teenage daughter, Josephine.
For all of the important women in our lives, I urge you to please make a Mother s Day gift to the Center for Reproductive Rights today. We ll send you a link to our Mother s Day e-card that you can personalize and send along to your special someone, Stuart continued.
he later condemned the legislation pro-life advocates are pushing that he claims are assaults on access to abortion and he said he wanted to work for abortion and enshrine it as a fundamental human right for all women. Full story at LifeNews.com
Mainstream Media Should Acknowledge Unborn are Human Beings
Here are some things in life you just can t avoid: Death and taxes come to mind, of course, and the seeming inevitability of the Cubs ultimate collapse. There are others. One of them is the inescapable reality that abortion involves not a collation of tissue but the destruction of a person, a human being.
This is not just a theological assertion or philosophical rumination: We know from medical science that from conception, the unborn child has the entire DNA of a fully mature adult. What changes at time of birth is not the humanness of the child but his or her place of residence: For nine months, the womb was home; for the remainder of a person s life, it is the world around us.
Even the mass media cannot help itself. In ordinary stories, the personhood of the child pops up in the simple reportage of stories of the day. However much the pro-abortion movement has sought to shape the language of popular culture and public education, the fact that the little ones in the womb are, in fact, people, keeps intruding itself into public discourse. Full story at LifeNews.com
Iowa Fetal Pain Abortion Ban May See Changes Next Week
The fetal pain-based abortion ban that pro-life groups are fighting for in Iowa may come up next week after lawmakers successfully signed enough petitions to get the House-passed bill out of committee.
However, one lawmaker says the bill will undergo changes, including the potential removal of a provision in the bill affirming that human life begins at conception something pro-abortion groups are worried would somehow ban abortions. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that states may declare the beginning of human life at that point without banning abortions, which it prohibited under Roe v. Wade.
Sen. Joe Bolkcom, the floor manager of House File 657 in the Senate, told the Iowa Independent he is working on amendments to the legislation that would allow it to come up for a debate and vote in the state Senate.
I m taking time to become familiar with it, Bolkcom said. There are some amendments being worked on. We want to thoroughly address the constitutionality of it. Full story at LifeNews.com
North Carolina Holds Hearing on Pro-Life Abortion Info Bill
North Carolina state House members held a hearing on Wednesday on a key pro-life bill that will help reduce abortions by giving women more information about its risks and alternatives that they don t normally receive. The House Judiciary Subcommittee B held a hearing on the Woman s Right to Know bill, H 854, that other states have passed and that has been proven to reduce abortions. When women are given information about abortion that Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses don t routinely provide, they frequently consider alternatives. Full story at LifeNews.com
Massachusetts Won t Shut Down Tax-Funded Pro-Abortion Website
A Department of Health spokesperson says the controversial Massachusetts taxpayer-funded web site MariaTalks.com will remain online in its current format despite promoting abortions and Planned Parenthood. The AIDS Action Committee produced the web site in 2008 using a $100,000 rant from the state Department of Public Health. Full story at LifeNews.com
Philippines: Catholic Bishops Seek Prayer Against RH Bill
Catholic Bishops in the Philippines have set Monday, May 9 as a National Day of Prayer in the Philippines. May 9 also will mark the opening of the legislative session which will reopen debate on the controversial RH bill , a bill which is opposed by the Catholic Church and many other Christians in this pro-life and pro-family nation. Lipa Archbishop Ramon Arguelles issued the call for prayer against the bill, which would impose a two-child limit on the Pacific island nation similar to the one-child policy in China. Full story at LifeNews.com
Minnesota House Passes Tax-Funded, 20-Week Abortion Bans
The Minnesota state House today passed two pro-life bills that would ban taxpayer funding of abortions and abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy because unborn children can feel intense pain. Full story at LifeNews.com
After New Constitution, Hungary Launches Pro-Life Ad Campaign
Charges have finally been dropped against 88 pro-life advocates who engaged in protests on the Notre Dame campus when pro-abortion President Barack Obama came to town for a controversial graduation speech. Full story at LifeNews.com
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