LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Report
Thursday, August 18, 2011
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Current Headlines
Top Stories
• Planned Parenthood Stops Abortions at Seven Arizona Locations
• New Hampshire Won t Reinstate Planned Parenthood Funding
• Out of Iowa: Perry and Bachmann Dominate GOP 2012 Buzzs
• Polling Data Confirms Pro-Life Movement Gaining Momentum
More Pro-Life News
• World Youth Day Provides Evidence Millenials are Pro-Life
• Abortion Practitioner Kermit Gosnell s Web Site for Sale
• Canadian Court Shoots Down Assisted Suicide Lawsuit
• US and UN Diplomats Promote Abortion as Population Control
• Appeal Filed Against Democrat Seeking to Silence Pro-Life Group
• Abortion Payment Bigger Than University of Miami Football Sins
• Pittsburgh Repeals Ordinance Banning Pro-Life Leaflets
• Scientists Find Another Adult Stem Cell Source: The Ear
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Planned Parenthood Stops Abortions at Seven Arizona Locations
Thanks to a comprehensive pro-life law a court recently upheld, the Planned Parenthood abortion business will be stopping abortion at seven locations throughout the state, the abortion agency announced today.
As LifeNews.com reported earlier this month, the Arizona Court of Appeals issued a decision upholding a pro-life law that protects the health and safety of women and their unborn children by giving them information they don t normally receive.
The Arizona Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in June in Planned Parenthood Arizona v. Horne, a case the abortion business filed which challenges key aspects of the 2009 Abortion Consent Act. The law is a pro-life measure Governor Jan Brewer signed which tells women of the risks associated with and alternatives to abortion. Planned Parenthood sued the state soon after its signing and a Superior Court judge blocked the law from taking effect while the case moves forward.
The law will now go into effect and it makes it so Arizona will require a notarized parental signature before an abortion can be performed on a minor child, women will be provided with full and accurate information by a doctor in person at least 24 hours before an abortion, medical professionals cannot be forced to perform abortions if it contradicts their sincerely held religious or moral beliefs and non-doctors will not be permitted by law to perform surgical abortions.
Responding to the decision, Planned Parenthood announced today that it will no longer do abortions at seven locations including communities outside of Phoenix and Tucson. Planned Parenthood President Bryan Howard told the Arizona Republic newspaper the abortion business would be appealing the court s decision but it has no choice to stop doing abortions until and unless another court rules because the laws are in effect now. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/18/planned-parenthood-stops-abortions-at-seven-arizona-locations/
New Hampshire Won t Reinstate Planned Parenthood Funding
The health department in New Hampshire will not reinstate $1.8 million in taxpayer funding revoked earlier this summer by the Executive Council and that will likely cause the abortion business to close or scale back in the Granite State.
The Executive Council voted on June 22 to revoke the contract and that vote went into effect on July 1. Since then, according to a Keene Sentinel report, the pro-abortion organization has been cutting back, Planned Parenthood of Northern New England spokeswoman Jennifer L. Frizzell says.
The abortion business has been engaging in a statewide lobbying campaign to get the Executive Council to reconsider the vote and, now, the Concord Monitor newspaper indicates the state health commissioner says he has no plans to reinstate the tax financing.
The decision comes after the Obama administration sent the state a strongly-worded letter to complain. The Health and Human Services Department is claiming the state broke federal rules in denying the Planned Parenthood contract and it alleges the state must provide family planning services to low-income women and that de-funding Planned Parenthood puts it at risk of losing federal funding by supposedly denying women access to family planning even though other alternatives are available from other agencies.
But Commissioner Nick Toumpas of the state Department of Health and Human Services tells the newspaper the Obama administration gave the state until August 15 to respond. It has responded by saying no plan is in place to restore Planned Parenthood s funding, because the Executive Council remains opposed to funding the abortion business with Councilor Dan St. Hilaire of Concord, Ray Wieczorek of Manchester, and David Wheeler of Milford opposing Planned Parenthood funding.http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/18/new-hampshire-wont-reinstate-planned-parenthood-funding/
Out of Iowa: Perry and Bachmann Dominate GOP 2012 Buzz
The dynamics of the 2012 presidential race have completely changed in less than a week thanks to the Ames Straw Poll and Governor Rick Perry s entrance into the race.
This time last week, Mitt Romney was clearly the frontrunner nationwide for the nomination. Michele Bachmann appeared to be his biggest threat, with surging support from tea party activists and socially conservative evangelicals. Tim Pawlenty was gearing up for a crucial weekend, which would test his candidacy. Meanwhile, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum and Herman Cain were aiming to stand out in the debate and pull off strong showings in the straw poll.
Predictably, the top spot in the straw poll went to Michele Bachmann while Ron Paul surprised critics by claiming second place, less than two hundred votes behind Bachmann. In a death knell for his campaign, Pawlenty took a meager third. After spending considerable time and resources in Iowa, Pawlenty s disappointing showing ultimately caused him to withdraw from the race on Sunday. Santorum and Cain lauded their respective fourth and fifth place finishes as indicators their campaigns are on track.
Usually a test of candidates viability and organizational strength, the Ames Straw Poll this year was largely overshadowing by Governor Perry, who waited in the wings to announce his candidacy until the opportune moment. Raining on the other candidates parade, Perry s announcement stole considerable media coverage from the straw poll participants.
Since Perry s entrance, the rest of the field has struggled to garner media attention. The blogosphere and Twitter have been ablaze with posts and tweets about Perry. The Washington Post analyzed the buzz of each of the top candidates on the web using a Topsy, a real-time search engine indexing Twitter data. Perry reached a four-day high of 56,398 mentions on Tuesday. Bachmann s peak was 38,000 mentions on Saturday following her straw poll win. Romney barely registered, reaching his peak with 5,794 mentions on Saturday. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/18/out-of-iowa-perry-and-bachmann-dominate-gop-2012-buzz/
Polling Data Confirms Pro-Life Movement Gaining Momentum
During the Clinton years, 56 percent of Americans described themselves as pro-choice, while only 33 percent of us self-identified as pro-life. But in just a decade and a half, the numbers have completely shifted.
According to the most recent Gallup polling, pro-lifers edge out those in favor of legal abortion by 47 to 45 percent. Half of all Americans agree that abortion is morally wrong.
And the news gets even better. Following a ground-breaking Nebraska law last year that bars late-term abortions because of the risk of fetal pain, five other states have passed measures outlawing nearly all abortions after five months of pregnancy. Legislatures in Kansas Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, and Oklahoma this year have enacted abortion bans after 20 or 21 weeks. The laws allow for exceptions when the mother s life is at risk or she faces severe physical impairment.
I guess we shouldn t be surprised, but liberal activists are shocked. AP reports that late-term abortion laws have emboldened anti-abortion activists, angered abortion providers, and will likely make decisions all the more wrenching for women affected by the late-term bans.
Not one word about the protecting the lives of babies or supporting the choice of pregnant women to save their own children.
Who is really on the side of women in this whole distorted debate? Well, most Americans aren t buying the line of the abortion industry. According to Gallup, majorities of Democrats as well as most Republicans favor informed consent, parental consent, 24-hour waiting periods, and a ban on partial birth abortion. The respected polling agency says that 87 percent of respondents favor informing a pregnant woman of the risks of having an abortion. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/18/polling-data-confirms-pro-life-movement-gaining-momentum/
World Youth Day Provides Evidence Millenials are Pro-Life
As with the annual March for Life in the U.S., the mainstream media is missing a big story concerning this month s World Youth Day (WYD) in Madrid. Through ignorance, disinterest, and sometimes hostility, its coverage often fails to recognize what is truly newsworthy and significant. For example, a few mainstream articles noted the rising proportion of young people participating in the March for Life in Washington in recent years, and recent stories about World Youth Day routinely report that a million or more youthful pilgrims are expected in Madrid. However, what is not emphasized, or even understood, is these events are important signals of what is to come.
What can we expect in the future from a million inspired young people, who travel from afar to WYD seeking identity, solidarity, and mission?
Pro-life commitment and activism (among other things).
Extensive pro-life offerings during WYD will encourage the youthful pilgrims to carry the pro-life message wherever they go.
Indeed, Spain itself needs the help of pro-lifers to reverse alarming increases of abortion over the last ten years. From 1998-2008, Spain had the largest increase in the number of abortions of 27 European countries.[1] This represents an increase of 115%. Over an 18 year period, the rate of abortion grew from 8.57% of pregnancies ending in abortion in 1990 to 18.28% in 2008. With over 1.3 million abortions since 1980, it is the leading cause of mortality in Spain. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/18/world-youth-day-provides-evidence-millenials-are-pro-life/
Abortion Practitioner Kermit Gosnell s Web Site for Sale
The web site for gruesome abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell is for sale. Gosnell is the abortionist found to be killing and injuring women in botched abortions and jabbing medical scissors into the backs of babies to kill them in live birth abortions.
A Philadelphia Daily News report reveals the domain kermitgosnell.com is for sale from a domain re-seller web site for $959 based on the amount of traffic the domain currently generates from searches on the Internet given the infamous national attention he received when officials finally discovered his abortion practice and shut him down.
Gosnell faces multiple murder charges for killing a woman in a failed abortion and seven unborn children after purposefully inducing birth so he could take their lives in a ghastly abortion-infanticide procedure. His wife, who worked at the Women s Medical Society abortion business with him, and staffers also face charges ranging from murder to obstructing justice to practicing medicine without a license.
Nowyo.com now owns the domain and purchased it after noticing the term Kermit Gosnell receives 5,400 local searches monthly and another 6,600 globally on Google, without including searches on other search engine web sites like Yahoo or Bing or social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. A representative of the company told the Philly newspaper it purchased the domain to resell after the domain lapsed merely because of the potential traffic it could generate. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/18/abortion-practitioner-kermit-gosnells-web-site-for-sale/
Canadian Court Shoots Down Assisted Suicide Lawsuit
A court in the Canadian province of British Columbia shot down a lawsuit from a pro-assisted suicide group seeking to legalize so-called self-chosen death and said it did not have a strong enough challenge to the Criminal Code.
Justice Lynn Smith ruled Wednesday against the Farewell Foundation for the Right To Die, based in New Westminster, British Columbia, and said the unnamed individuals do not have legal standing to challenge the law. Now, the pro-assisted suicide group plans to come back with a new case naming people who want to challenge the statute. The law stands from a ruling 20 years ago in the case of Sue Rodriguez, who had ALS, Lou Gehrig s disease, and determined she wanted to take her own life.
The Farewell Foundation tried something new and today we learned that that is not possible, foundation director Russel Ogden told reporters, according to the National Post newspaper.
The foundation claims times have changed since the Rodriguez case and it wants Section 241(b) of the Criminal Code overturned as it currently calls for a maximum of 14 years in prison for assisted a suicide in Canada. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/18/canadian-court-shoots-down-assisted-suicide-lawsuit/
US and UN Diplomats Promote Abortion as Population Control
The new book by historian Mara Hvistendahl on sex selected abortion shows how American diplomats and politicians were active in promoting abortion, often through UN channels, as a means of population control in the developing world. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/18/us-and-un-diplomats-promote-abortion-as-population-control/
Appeal Filed Against Democrat Seeking to Silence Pro-Life Group
The Susan B. Anthony List has filed an appeal in the Sixth Circuit Court on the constitutionality of an obscure elections law a Democrat is using to try to silence the pro-life organization. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/18/appeal-filed-against-democrat-seeking-to-silence-pro-life-group/
Abortion Payment Bigger Than University of Miami Football Sins
Normally, I write in the voice of Secular Pro-Life, speaking on behalf of all our members. But today, I write as Kelsey Hazzard: president of Secular Pro-Life, and graduate of the University of Miami. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/18/abortion-payment-bigger-than-university-of-miami-football-sins/
Pittsburgh Repeals Ordinance Banning Pro-Life Leaflets
The mayor of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has signed off on a City Council-approved measure repealing an ordinance that faced an injunction from a judge because it restricted the right of pro-life people and others to distribute literature within the city. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/18/pittsburgh-repeals-ordinance-banning-pro-life-leaflets/
Scientists Find Another Adult Stem Cell Source: The Ear
Japanese scientists have shown that useful adult stem cells can be isolated from the human ear. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/18/scientists-find-another-adult-stem-cell-source-the-ear/
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