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News Print Article | Email Friend | Reprint Permissions Tense confrontation: Congressman asks Sebelius for list of ObamaCare plans that don’t cover abortion by Ben Johnson Wed Dec 11, 2013 14:12 EST Tags: chris smith, john shimkus, kathleen sebelius, obamacare WASHINGTON, D.C., December 11, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Sparks flew on Capitol Hill today as a Republican congressman demanded that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius produce a list of ObamaCare health insurance plans that do not cover abortion. On October 30, Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois asked Sebelius if she could “provide for the committee the list of insurers in the federal...

Michigan became the 24th state to ban most abortions in its exchange plans when the state legislature passed a bill Wednesday afternoon by sizable margins. The action follows an an unusual citizens’ petition drive that allows state lawmakers to resurrect a bill the governor had vetoed and vote it into law without his signature. The ban goes into effect 90 days from Friday.

The Supreme Court over the past four decades has issued some decisions that not only defied the Constitution, but imposed changes on our society that go so far as to challenge fundamental principles of our civilization. For example, our Founding Fathers believed all men are endowed by their creator with an inalienable right to life -- a principal derived not only from natural law, but also from the commandment thou shall not kill. In 1973, the court said that the 14th Amendment, ratified after the Civil War to ensure equal protection of the law to all people in the United...

The world mourns the passing of Nelson Mandela the civil rights leader and former President of South Africa. It is fitting that we should respect and applaud his untiring struggle for civil rights and for his leadership in bringing about reconciliation in South Africa. In paying tribute to his many achievements as President between 1994 to 1999 we must not forget that he did not uphold the sanctity of life of children in the womb. The sanctity of human life and the dignity of the family are the foundation and guarantee of all other human rights. It is not possible...

I invite you to keep the attention of everyone on the important issue of respect for human life from the moment of conception. - Pope Francis at the Rome March for Life, I continue to love the current pontiff, Pope Francis. This adoration continues even after hearing the liberal magazine Time (who knew they still published?) has named Pope Francis as Time’s Man of the Year. The beauty I see in Pope Francis is that everyone seems to view him through their own eyes. Be you liberal, conservative, Catholic, non-Catholic, etc. . . . One day he is angering conservatives,...

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has issued a response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) alleging that ethical directives issued by the bishops are responsible for negligence in the care of a woman treated in a Michigan Catholic hospital. Tamesha Means, who reportedly suffered damaging infections during a troubled pregnancy that ended in miscarriage, should have been advised to abort the child, the ACLU argues. “It is important to note at the outset that the death of any unborn child is tragic, and we feel deeply for any mother who suffers such...

It was two days before my seventeenth birthday, a Saturday morning, the day after a football game in which I’d played. So I was tired and sore, but I could smell breakfast coming from downstairs and somebody was walking up the stairs. I was half asleep. The door opened: it was my girlfriend, I smiled, of course—but from the look on her face I could see that this wasn’t called for. This was a serious moment. I steeled myself. After a few long seconds, she looked up at me and said, “I’m pregnant.” That woke me up quick. We sat...

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell has waded into the health care debate with a broad endorsement of the kind of universal health plan found in Europe, Canada and South Korea. "I am not an expert in health care, or Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act, or however you choose to describe it, but I do know this: I have benefited from that kind of universal health care in my 55 years of public life," Powell said, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal, last week at an annual "survivors celebration breakfast" in Seattle for those who, like Powell, have...

NDIANAPOLIS, December 9, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Medical authorities in Indiana have asked an abortionist who violated a state law designed to catch child molesters to appear in person before renewing his license to practice. Dr. Ulrich George Klopfer must explain to the Indiana Medical Licensing Board why he failed to report performing two abortions on girls under the age of 14 in a timely manner, as required by law. Having sex with a minor 13 or younger is prosecuted as a felony, and abortionists must report performing abortions on young girls to the Department of Child Services and the Indiana...

LANSING, MI -- A group of adults conceived through rape, as well as survivors of sexual assaults, gathered at the Michigan Capitol on Tuesday to offer support for a controversial bill that would require women to purchase a separate rider if they want abortion coverage in their health insurance plan. The bill, spearheaded by Right to Life of Michigan and now awaiting action in the state Legislature, does not include any exceptions to cover abortion in the case of rape, incest or general health of the mother. "No child deserves to be punished for the crimes of their father," said...

The premise that there is a moment when a developing child changes suddenly from non-human to human is a fantasy that has no basis whatsoever in the science of biology. Rather, it is a figment of the human imagination, a transparent attempt to rationalize and justify the termination (i.e., murder, by definition) of helpless, innocent human life in the womb by declaring the existence of an arbitrary "transition" point in what is, in reality, a developmental continuum.

Anti-apartheid activist and former South African president Nelson Mandela is hailed across the globe as a champion of peace and reconciliation. And while the man who went from prisoner to president certainly deserves the plaudits for his political and civil rights accomplishments, not all of his work in office was quite as noble. LifeNews points out the unfortunate reality of where he stood on abortion, highlighting a brief history of Mandela’s record on the issue provided by John Smeaton, director of British pro-life group SPUC. Mr Mandela has been quoted as saying on abortion: “Women have the right to decide...

Pro-life leaders urge caution, while Pope, Cardinal Dolan praise controversial Nelson Mandela CAPE TOWN, South Africa, December 6, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The death of South African former President Nelson ‘Madiba’ Rolihlahla Mandela on Thursday has led to an outpouring of glowing praise for the man most known for ending apartheid – a system of racial segregation. However, pro-life leaders have warned that praise from Christian leaders is inappropriate given Mandela’s role in bringing abortion-on-demand and homosexual “marriage” to South Africa. According to official statistics, nearly a million unborn children have been killed in South Africa since President Mandela signed legislation...

The mother of a Ballard High School student is fuming after the health center on campus helped facilitate her daughter's abortion during school hours.

You may have seen this video earlier — Ed Morrissey featured it at Hot Air — but I didn’t see it until it was tweeted to me by Covenant College student Keifer Wynn and, because it was in Spanish, at first I wasn’t quite sure what I was looking at. “Abortistas atacan a católicos que defendían la Catedral de San Juan,” is the headline, and the description: “Estas son las hordas de lesbianas y abortistas del Encuentro Nacional de Mujeres.” So, translation via Google: “Abortionists attack Catholics defending the Cathedral of San Juan. These are the hordes of lesbians and...

Have you ever wondered what it looks like when a culture collapses? Have you ever wondered if past cultures that collapsed throughout history knew what was about to happen to them? Did they see it coming, or were they blindsided by it? I’ve often asked myself those questions, but now I’m also asking myself a new one. Provided the Lord chooses not to return and culminate history, I’m now wondering if future generations will ask the same questions about us? There are several telltale signs of a culture in decline, or on the brink of collapse. One of which is...

The world is paying its respects to civil rights leader and former South African president Nelson Mandela today, after learning that he passed away at the age of 95. While most people respect the civil rights and racial reconciliation work he did, some have questioned where Mandela stood on abortion. Unfortunately, Mandela signed into law a bill legalizing abortion on demand. John Smeaton, of the British pro-life group SPUC, offers this documentation about Mandela’s pro-abortion views. He writes as a Catholic but the comments are instructive of all pro-lifers to praise the good things Mandela did but to keep in...

Nelson Mandela and abortion Mr Mandela has been quoted as saying on abortion: "Women have the right to decide what they want to do with their bodies." In 1996, Mandela signed into law the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Bill, which permits abortion on demand. SPUC's pro-life colleagues in South Africa tells us that the bill was introduced into the South African parliament by Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Mr Mandela's health minister. In addition, the wording of the new South African constitution, signed by Mr Mandela in 1996, had made the legalisation of abortion on demand a mere formality. Mr Mandela's African...

Republican men in Congress “aren’t as sensitive as they ought to be” when it comes to running against female candidates and appealing to female voters, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday. “We’re trying to get them to be a little more sensitive,” Boehner said at his weekly Capitol press conference. “You look around the Congress, there are a lot more females in the Democratic caucus than there are in the Republican caucus. And some of our members just aren’t as sensitive as they ought to be.” The Speaker was responding to a question about an article in Politico reporting that...

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — A Planned Parenthood employee was arrested on a count of sexual battery, according to the Sacramento Police. Jorge Martin-Santana, 28, allegedly inappropriately touched a patient while working as a medical assistant in October. Sacramento Police detectives got an arrest warrant from the district attorney’s office for Martin-Santana on Tuesday. He turned himself in on the same day. Investigators believe this is an isolated incident, but encourages anyone who may have been victimized by Martin-Santana as a patient to come forward.

Maybe someone can explain to me how, exactly, conservatives are the aggressors in the culture war? In the conventional narrative of American politics, conservatives are obsessed with social issues. They want to impose their values on everyone else. They want the government involved in your bedroom. Those mean right-wingers want to make "health care choices" for women. Now consider last week's decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to consider two cases stemming from Obamacare: Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius and Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores. Democratic politicians and their fans on social media went ballistic almost instantly. That's hardly...

BALTIMORE, MD, December 4, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – New Jersey prosecutors investigating troubled abortionist Steven Brigham say that Brigham lied when he told New Jersey regulators he was covered by insurance at his practice in the state. Brigham claimed that he had insurance with the company as late as 2011, and just a month ago produced what the prosecution has charged was fraudulent paperwork claiming he had malpractice insurance. That certificate was from a company in Bermuda that hasn't issued insurance since 2006 and whose operator was imprisoned in 2007 for insurance fraud and money laundering. Steven Chase Brigham Brigham, whose...

The new report from the Centers for Disease Control had good numbers across the nation when it came to abortion — with abortions declining three percent in 2010 after a five percent decrease in 2009. But they also contained shocking figures showing abortion targets blacks and Hispanics. The CDC Abortion Surveillance Report dated November 29, 2013 reveals that in 2010, 56.7% of abortions reported to the CDC nationwide were done on Hispanic and Black women. According to the report, there were 415,479 abortions for known ethnicity reported for selected states in 2010 and 153,045 (or 36.8 percent) were non-Hispanic white...

Video at Gloria.tv in Buenos Aires, Argentina

Of the 112 plans available to members of Congress and their staff, 103 cover elective abortion, according to a recent analysis released by New Jersey Republican Rep. Chris Smith. According to Smith, a co-chair of the House Pro-Life Caucus, the availability of elective abortion coverage to Members and their staff amounts to taxpayer funding of the procedure, as members and staffers’ coverage is set to be subsidized by the government. “In the run-up to passage of Obamacare, Americans were repeatedly told and reassured by President Obama himself, including in a speech to a joint session of Congress in October 2009,...

Wichita, KS- What started out as the dream of a small Catholic High School class in Beloit, Kansas, has turned into a national pro-life event aimed at activating youth to stand against abortion. This Friday will mark the first Catholic School for Life Rally. Students from St. John’s Catholic High School in Beliot will travel 2½ hours to Wichita for a rally and prayer outside South Wind Women’s Center, the closest abortion clinic to Beliot as a means of education on the reality of abortion. They will be joined by other Catholic High Schools, including Sacred Heart Catholic School in...

Courtney Halvorson is a senior at Gaston High School in Alabama who enjoys life — but she shouldn’t be alive. Not because of a drunk driver, or doing drugs, or some other tragic death that claims the life of a young person — Courtney shouldn’t be alive because she was supposed to have died from an abortion.When she was 14, this teenage girl found out she was adopted — something that shocked her but something that was less shocking than what she found out next.From this amazing report about Courtney’s life: Courtney’s birth mother had an abortion when she was...

Pro-life demonstrators in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. Lansing, Mich., Dec 3, 2013 / 05:44 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A lawsuit charging that the U.S. bishops’ ethical standards for hospitals caused negligent care of a pregnant woman wrongly claims that abortion was medically necessary, a doctor and professor of medicine has said. “Abortion is never necessary to save the life of the mother,� said Dr. Brian C. Calhoun, a professor and vice-chair in the obstetrics and gynecology department at West Virginia University-Charleston. Calhoun, who specializes in high-risk pregnancies, rejected the deliberate killing of an unborn patient in a medical emergency....

AUCKLAND, New Zealand, November 4, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The New Zealand Court of Appeal has decided that the parents of a baby who was born in 2007 with spina bifida, despite being given a clean bill of a health at a 20 week ultrasound, may be eligible to receive compensation under the nation’s accident compensation scheme. The mother, whose name has not been released, has claimed that had she been given the correct diagnosis after that scan, she would have aborted her daughter. "We consider that the continued pregnancy of the appellant following a misdiagnosis in the 20 week scan...

Planned Parenthood of New York City is hosting a sex-themed spelling bee. This event, hopefully, won’t include any children spelling grandiloquent words few people have ever heard of let alone know how to spell. Instead, organizers promise a fun-filled time spelling sexual words in an event which will send proceeds to the Planned Parenthood of New York City Action Fund Activist Council, whose members help women find and get to abortion clinics and who take sex ed campaigns throughout New York. According to the event flier: “The PPNYC Action Fund Activist Council is hosting a sex-themed spelling bee, and you’re...

Wichita, KS, Dec. 3, 2013 (OperationRescue) – What started out as the dream of a small Catholic High School class in Beloit, Kansas, has turned into a national pro-life event aimed at activating youth to stand against abortion. This Friday will mark the first Catholic School for Life Rally. Students from St. John’s Catholic High School in Beliot will travel 2½ hours to Wichita for a rally and prayer outside South Wind Women’s Center, the closest abortion clinic to Beliot as a means of education on the reality of abortion. They will be joined by other Catholic High Schools, including...

AUCKLAND, New Zealand, November 4, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com)  - The New Zealand Court of Appeal has decided that the parents of a baby who was born in 2007 with spina bifida, despite being given a clean bill of a health at a 20 week ultrasound, may be eligible to receive compensation under the nation’s accident compensation scheme. The mother, whose name has not been released, has claimed that had she been given the correct diagnosis after that scan, she would have aborted her daughter. "We consider that the continued pregnancy of the appellant following a misdiagnosis in the 20 week scan...

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a sweeping federal lawsuit against the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops over its ethical guidelines for Roman Catholic hospitals, arguing the directives were to blame for negligent care of a pregnant woman who went into early labor and whose baby died within hours.The ACLU alleges the bishops were negligent because their religious directives prevented Tamesha Means from being told that continuing her pregnancy posed grave risks to her health and her child was not likely to survive. She was treated at Mercy Health Muskegon, a Catholic hospital in Michigan."It's not just about one woman,"...

It’s not often that a Grammy Award-winning rock star inserts himself into the national abortion debate. But for John Elefante, former lead singer of Kansas, abortion is more than a political issue…it’s personal. Twenty years ago, Elefante’s adopted daughter Sami barely escaped the grip of abortion when her 13-year-old birth mother decided to cancel her abortion procedure at the last minute. “There are two major facts I do know,” Elefante shares in a recent interview with CBN News. “ … [Sami] was almost aborted. Her mother was in the abortion clinic and called her mom from that place and told...

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) -- The University of Notre Dame is suing the Obama administration over a federal mandate that its health insurance plans for students and employees cover birth control. The university filed its lawsuit Tuesday in U.S. District Court in South Bend. It claims the mandate violates Notre Dame's freedom to practice religion without government interference. The Roman Catholic university says the birth control mandate violates the church's teaching prohibiting contraception.

Buenos Aires, December 2nd, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Extremely disturbing video footage from Argentina shows a mob of feminists at a recent protest attacking and sexually molesting a group of Rosary-praying Catholic men who were peacefully protecting the cathedral in the city of San Juan from threats of vandalism. The women, many of them topless, spray-painted the men’s crotches and faces and swastikas on their chests and foreheads, using markers to paint their faces with Hitler-like moustaches. They also performed obscene sexual acts in front of them and pushed their breasts onto their faces, all the while shouting “get your rosaries...

(CNSNews.com) - Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, a liberal Democrat, says decisions about health care should rest with the federal government, not with individual employers who pay for their workers' health insurance. "So, you know, this is one country," Dean told CNN's "State of the Union" with Candy Crowley on Sunday. "We all have to live by a set of things that are passed in Washington and agreed to by the court. We'll see what the court does, but I don't think a particular employer has a right to decide what kind of health care their employees are going to...

News that the US Supreme Court has decided to accept the case involving Hobby Lobby’s objection to being forced to fund abortions in the health insurance policies it provides for its employees failed to faze the Obama Administration. “The idea that individual conscience or religious beliefs can override the collective decisions of the American people is flawed thinking,” US Attorney General Eric Holder said. “We don’t allow pacifists to refrain from paying the costs of the wars their government chooses to fight. We don’t even allow them to refuse to personally participate in combat operations if we deem it necessary....

Do not disrupt. In the US we are used to abortion advocates claiming that the risk of elective abortion is relatively trivial, and major medical organizations denying any link between abortion and breast cancer. Now a powerful new study from China published last week by Yubei Huang and colleagues suggests otherwise. The article, a meta-analysis pooling 36 studies from 14 provinces in China, showed that abortion increased the risk of breast cancer by 44% with one abortion, and 76% and 89% with two and three abortions. This new article is another example of the recent excellent scholarship on abortion in...

In the US we are used to abortion advocates claiming that the risk of elective abortion is relatively trivial, and major medical organizations denying any link between abortion and breast cancer. Now a powerful new study from China published last week by Yubei Huang and colleagues suggests otherwise.  The article, a meta-analysis pooling 36 studies from 14 provinces in China, showed that abortion increased the risk of breast cancer by 44% with one abortion, and 76% and 89% with two and three abortions. This new article is another example of the recent excellent scholarship on abortion in peer-reviewed journals coming...

MADISON, MS, November 25, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Authorities say an abortionist with a history of tax evasion, botched abortions, and unusual disposal of aborted babies has died. Police found the body of Dr. Joseph Booker Jr., 69, at his home Thursday night after relatives complained they could not reach him. Investigators said Booker suffered a stroke and drowned in his shower in his Madison, Mississippi, home.

From the "180" Movie website,  an amazing story demonstrating the power films have to educate and change minds.  If we want to change laws so that all innocent human life is protected, we need to first create a Culture of Life in our society.  "180" is doing just that!  Read the "Pro-life Plant" below and then view the shocking, life altering video "180." Pro-life Plant Ray Comfort I was doing a radio interview recently with a host who said that he loved “180.” This was because the 33-minute movie was able to do what he had been trying to do...

A recent warning by the manufacturer of Norlevo, a morning-after abortifacient, that the drug won’t prevent pregnancy in women weighing over 176 pounds and may be unreliable for women over 165 pounds inspired US Attorney General Eric Holder to threaten to sue the manufacturers of this and similar drugs. “It is important that all be treated equally,” Holder declared. “To market a medicine that works for some, but not for others is, ipso facto, discriminatory, and thus, illegal.” Holder said he isn’t buying the argument that inherent differences between individuals inevitably means that the responses to medications are not uniform...

“We have a philosophy that if it we can’t measure it, we won’t do it,” says Brian. “The second part to that is that if we can measure it, we can improve it.” Nov 28, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Brian Fisher has a lot of reasons to be thankful this Thanksgiving: 1,341 of them, to be exact. That’s the number of babies that he can be sure are alive today thanks in large measure to the work of his fledgling pro-life organization, Online for Life. Like everything else the high-tech pro-life startup does, that number is exact and verifiable.  “We have...

So John Roberts will get another whack at ObamaCare. That’s the upshot of the Supreme Court’s decision to hear lawsuits against the contraceptive mandate filed by the Christian family that owns the Hobby Lobby craft and Mardel Christian bookstore chains. David Green and his family say the mandate would force them to underwrite practices they regard as immoral. From the moment the administration first put forth this mandate, it’s been clear that church-affiliated nonprofits — from Notre Dame to the Tyndale House Publishers — would protest. What few could foresee is that the mandate would end up bringing to the...

President Barack Obama and outgoing New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg have both tried to nudge their way into America’s Thanksgiving (or Thanksgivukkah) dinners, with talking points about Obamacare and gun control, respectively. Not only is introducing contentious political issues into a family holiday a recipe for unhappiness, but it also reflects the disturbing Orwellian ambitions of Obama’s big-government liberalism. The idea that politics must be brought into every family discussion and every personal relationship has been a hallmark of Obama’s style since the 2008 campaign, when he told his supporters to confront their neighbors, to get “in their face.” During...

Responding to an angry constituent’s letter about the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama allegedly used a sexually charged derogatory term referring to members of the Tea Party movement. -snip- To his surprise, the 49-year-old teacher got a reply written on official White House stationary in which Mr Obama supposedly stated that while the health care law was 'certainly not the smart "political thing," it will be the right thing for the country. The president also took umbrage with Ritter's claim that his administration has been cracking down on Republicans and conservatives. ‘I... appreciate your concern about the toxic political...

Want to know which candidate for governor Pennsylvania Democrats prefer? According to a new survey released today, the answer is a former owner of an abortion clinic. Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Allyson Schwartz refuses to say if, when she ran an abortion business in the state, she would refer women to Kermit Gosnell’s infamous abortion facility. But she is leading all Democratic candidates for governor. From a poll: Things are pretty wide open when it comes to the Democratic primary for Governor. The leader is undecided, with 27% of voters unsure on who they want the nominee to be. Allyson Schwartz...

Obama pens letter to schoolteacher, says health care ‘wasn’t the smart political thing!’ By Eric Pfeiffer 3 hours ago The handwritten letter from President Obama to a Texas schoolteacher (momentsintime.com) A Texas schoolteacher who wrote a letter highly critical of President Obama’s health care law was surprised when the president himself wrote back defending his policies but admitting that health care “wasn’t the smart political thing!” Just like every commander in chief before him, Obama has his share of critics. And in the Internet age, those critics have been given a bigger voice than ever before. But what do you...

Infamous former Georgetown Law student and now social justice attorney Sandra Fluke is back in the news thanks to the Supreme Court agreeing to take up a case surrounding the employer contraception mandate in Obamacare. In case you need a reminder, Fluke is the woman who testified before Congress in 2012 about how birth control should be paid for by someone else because it can cost a female student "$3,000 during law school." Last night on MSNBC, Fluke argued that employers cannot be exempted from the contraception mandate in Obamacare because that would mean they could also opt. out of...