Free Republic

A young woman sits in the waiting room of American Women’s Medical Center on Chicago’s northwest side, waiting to be called back to the operating room for her procedure. Even now, she’s unsure about the choice she’s made. She knows that abortion is against her religion, but she feels cornered. This is the only way out. Then she hears something that breaks through her anguished thoughts. A group of voices is singing outside the building. She recognizes the familiar words of a Christmas carol: “’round yon virgin, mother and child, holy infant, so tender and mild.” Outside, a group of...

The drama between Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and President Donald Trump has reached absurd heights. First, there was that rather tweet from the president, which was not out of the ordinary. He accused Gillibrand of doing “anything” for campaign contributions. Gillibrand said this was a sexist smear, despite the president using that line on pretty much everyone. This all is part of the ongoing sexual harassment reckoning on the Hill and elsewhere. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) is gone, and Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) has signaled his intention to leave…whenever that may be. Gillibrand has called on Trump to resign, as...

WASHINGTON, D.C. –The Little Sisters of the Poor and their hard-fought rights will be on trial Thursday, December 14, but the Sisters will be outside the courthouse because of Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s attempt to silence them. Shapiro is suing to take away the Sisters’ religious exemption from a Health and Human Services rule. In early October, HHS issued a new rule that protects the Little Sisters of the Poor and other religious non-profits from providing services in their health care plan that violate their faith like the week-after pill. The Little Sisters’ four-year legal ordeal was close to...

Two companies in California that procured and sold aborted baby body parts that they bought from abortion providers, including Planned Parenthood, reached a $7.8 million settlement after they were caught illegally profiting off of these body parts. The investigation and fines happened because of the undercover videos from the Center for Medical Progress, which shook the nation in the summer of 2015. Now, two years after those videos and nearly a year after committees in both houses of Congress recommended Planned Parenthood and their business partners for criminal investigation, the FBI has confirmed they are investigating the abortion giant. It’s...

David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) announced Wednesday that they are filing a new motion in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to request the removal of Judge William Orrick in the lawsuit brought against them by Planned Parenthood, pointing to his ties to Planned Parenthood. According to Daleiden’s petition, Judge Orrick has "an ongoing and longstanding professional relationship with one of the named Plaintiffs.” Orrick is a founder and officer of the Good Samaritan Family Resource Center (GSFRC), an organization that partners with Planned Parenthood and had a Planned Parenthood clinic incorporated on its premises while...

The Washington Post has done a surprising service by inadvertently revealing the damage having an abortion did to a woman who chose it. Grace, profiled in the story, “The long five minutes: Abortion doulas bring comfort during a complicated time” is not just a doula, but also an abortion survivor. As such she has my compassion and understanding. #Metoo. It took me decades to work through the grief and guilt of child loss through abortion. My pain was complicated greatly by being told it was not, in fact, a child by the people who sold that abortion to me. Can...

Doug Jones, the Democrat who pulled off a stunning upset victory in Alabama's nail-biter Senate contest on Tuesday, is considered a champion for civil rights in a state that played a seminal role in the 1960s movement for racial equality. Jones' supporters erupted in cheers and jubilation as it became clear their portly, balding candidate had become the first Alabama Democrat to win a US Senate seat in 25 years. It came at the bitter end of a vitriolic campaign centered on Jones's Republican rival, Roy Moore, a Christian conservative accused of preying on teenage girls years before. Moore was...

ROCHESTER, NY (WROC) — Brook Fiske and Sikander Imran had been dating on and off for 3 years. Imran, a doctor, had moved from Rochester to Arlington, Virginia for a new job – when he learned from Fiske, she was pregnant. “He didn’t want to have a baby so he tried to talk me into having an abortion… which I didn’t want to do,” explained Fiske. Fiske says she was 17 weeks pregnant when she went to Virginia to visit Imran to plan how they would raise the child. And that’s when she says, he poisoned her. “When I was...

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing the March for Life Education and Defense Fund have filed motions in two federal courts asking to be allowed to help defend Department of Health and Human Services rules issued in October that protect pro-life nonprofit organizations from the Obama-era abortion-pill mandate. ADF attorneys also represent Dordt College in Iowa in one of the motions. Both March for Life and Dordt College have been involved in separate lawsuits challenging the mandate, which forces employers, regardless of their moral convictions, to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs under threat of heavy financial penalties. The new HHS...

Well, the dam broke for Sen. Al Franken (D-MN). He’s going to leave. After eight women accused him of sexual misconduct, along with the resignation of Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) who also faced sexual harassment accusations, Democratic leadership decided it was time to clean house. It’s not a profile in courage. It’s not a come to Jesus moment. It’s all politics, which you already know. Franken is from a Democratic state with a Democratic governor. He was expendable and his exit allows Democrat to refocus their pressure on Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore. It still doesn’t erase the fact...

More women are speaking out against boorishness and much worse that they claim to have experienced from prominent politically active men, encouraged by the courage of others, and by the contrition expected of their accused tormentors. A decision appears to have been made at the top levels of the Democratic Party that the sacrifice of the careers of their own pawns on the political chessboard is worthwhile in the quest to unseat a sitting POTUS. So, the longest-serving member of the House of Representatives, John Conyers, only partially functional owing to advanced age, is stepping down from his safe seat...

Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) said Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) leaving the U.S. Senate should “establish a national standard” on how the Senate deals with Alabama GOP Senate hopeful Roy Moore if he wins. Partial transcript as follows: DICKERSON: Joining us now is Senate Democratic Whip Richard Durbin. He is in Springfield, Illinois. Welcome, senator. I want to pick up on something that Senator Collins said about the choice that senators may face if Roy Moore is elected in Alabama. And the question is: What business does the Senate have in overturning the will of...

Embattled Sen. Al Franken’s office on Wednesday disputed a Minnestota Public Radio report that he had decided to resign on Thursday. “No final decision has been made and the Senator is still talking with his family,” said a tweet on his official Senate Twitter account.

<p>Contrary to popular perception, Al Franken did not resign yesterday.</p> <p>"[T]oday I am announcing that in the coming weeks I will be resigning as member of the United States Senate. I, of all people, am aware that there is some irony in the fact that I am leaving while a man who has bragged on tape about his history of...sexual assault sits in the Oval Office and a man who has repeatedly preyed on young girls campaigns for the Senate with the full support of his party."</p>

Democratic Minnesota Sen. Al Franken has yet to announce when he’s actually going to leave office. Franken announced last Thursday that he would be resigning “in the coming weeks” after eight different women accused him of groping or forcibly kissing them. “The timing of Franken’s resignation remains unclear, as is his motive in delaying it,” New York Magazine’s Ed Kilgore noted at the time. Franken has yet to offer any more specificity about when he’s going to follow through in resigning. Franken’s office did not return multiple requests for comment on the subject.

Should he stay or should he go? Hollywood, never as monolithic as Fox News viewers believe, certainly has reached no consensus on Al Franken, the Saturday Night Live veteran turned Minnesota senator. “Zero tolerance,” tweets Alyssa Milano, firmly in the he-needs-to-go camp. On the other side: “He made a mistake,” said Chelsea Handler, agreeing with a Franken-supporting Bill Maher on last night’s Real Time With Bill Maher. “He’s not a predator.” Maher neatly summed up the anti-resignation argument: “He did a bad thing and the condemnation has been universal, which he deserves. What he doesn’t deserve is to be lumped...

...“Though I never anticipated this moment, I am resolved to do everything I can to move Minnesota forward,” Smith said. “I will be a fierce advocate in the U.S. Senate for equity and fairness.”

Dec 13 (Reuters) - Minnesota's Democratic Lieutenant Governor Tina Smith was appointed as U.S. senator on Wednesday to replace Al Franken, who resigned after being accused of sexual harassment, the state's governor said at a news conference. Governor Mark Dayton said that Smith will serve a one-year term in the Senate, concluding in January 2019. Smith, 59, will run in a special election for the seat next year. Smith became lieutenant governor in January 2015. The Star Tribune said she previously worked as Dayton's chief of staff and held positions at General Mills and Planned Parenthood. Last week Franken, 66,...

On Friday’s Morning Joe, the MSNBC show’s hosts and guests spent most of their broadcast mourning the announced resignation of Minnesota Senator Al Franken from Congress in the wake of over half a dozen allegations of sexual assault against him. In a stunning display of hypocrisy, MSNBC’s liberal morning pundits went to extraordinary lengths to cast doubt on the women who have accused Franken of sexual misconduct, violating the network’s own oft-repeated standards for Republican and conservative politicians.New York Times writer Bari Weiss was even brought on to complain about how “some innocent people are going to go down” as...

Among all the women who have accused all the various men, Leeann Tweeden has pictorial evidence: the infamous photo of Al Franken with his hands over her breasts. So why would Mika Brzezinski single out Tweeden to cast doubt on her veracity? On today’s Morning Joe, Brzezinski said: “We’ve never really talked about the woman who first came out against Al Franken . . . Playboy model who goes on Hannity, who voted for Trump . . . I’m just wondering if all women need to be believed.” Get the rest of the story and view the video here.