Free Republic

The governor of the Nigerian state of Imo has apologized to Christians and asked lawmakers to repeal a controversial law he signed which legalizes abortion for nearly any reason. The law, called the “Imo State Law of Nigeria Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) law No. 12” had been billed as a sweeping anti-violence law prohibiting all forms of violence – random violence, domestic violence, and traditional practices deemed harmful by the state – and ensuring justice for victims and their attackers. But hidden within the law were provisions authorizing abortion-on-demand. The law permits abortion in cases of sexual assault, rape, incest...

Ann Clare Boothe was born on April 10, 1903, in a dismal apartment house on Riverside Drive in New York City…. Clare herself once succinctly pictured her unpropitious prospects as a baby. Shortly after her conversion to Catholicism, she was attacked by an ardent disciple of Mrs. Sanger for the Catholic stand against birth control. She wound up her tirade by saying, “I cannot understand anyone as enlightened as yourself subscribing to that doctrine.” “I think I appreciate your logic,” said Clare. “Let’s take the case of a young married woman, frail and ill, deserted by her husband, earning a...

Pastor Tim led a small but wealthy United Methodist Church for almost twenty years. He used to tell his congregation the following story every few months: “When pro-lifers stand in front of abortion clinics and shout at women who go to have abortions, they aren’t showing the love of Christ. Until you’ve walked a mile in someone else’s shoes, you have no right judge. That’s not what God wants.” I’ve been involved in the pro-life movement for about a decade. I’ve never seen pro-lifers standing outside an abortion clinic shouting at women who are either going in to have an...

Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee (shown) has vetoed a bill that would have authorized the state to offer a “Choose Life” license plate to raise funds for a faith-based crisis pregnancy center in the state. The governor cited the First Amendment's supposed separation of church and state mandate that he insisted prohibited the state government from involving itself in such a campaign. The measure, which was approved by the Democrat-controlled state legislature earlier this month, would have allowed half of the $40 cost of the vehicle plates to go to Providence-based CareNet, a Christian crisis pregnancy center. Supporters said the...

Young women and men supporting late-term abortions shouted ‘Hail Satan’ throughout the day as the Texas House and Senate convened a special session to discuss timekeeping measures following Democrat Wendy Davis’ filibuster de-railing the vote to limit abortions to 20 weeks and establishing stricter safety standards for abortion clinics. On one occasion some young women shouted ‘Hail Satan’ as Christians gave personal testimony about  abortion and sang ‘Amazing Grace’.Breibart reports:‘It would be difficult to argue that the pro-abortion crowd wasn’t an “unruly mob” — last week protesters shut down proceedings by screaming from the gallery and used social media to debate...

Ireland appeared on course to legalize abortion in limited circumstances as lawmakers voted Tuesday to support a bill that would permit a pregnancy to be terminated when deemed necessary to save a woman’s life. Catholic leaders warned that the proposed law, which faces potential amendments this week and a final vote next week, was a “Trojan horse” designed to permit widespread abortion access in Ireland. But Prime Minister Enda Kenny insisted Ireland’s constitutional ban on abortion would remain unaffected, and his government’s Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill won overwhelming backing in a 138-24 vote. Ireland’s 1986 constitutional ban on...

Should Texas legislators get another bill to ban late-term abortions to the floor of the state Senate, pro-abortion lawmaker Wendy Davis says she will not filibuster the bill a second time.The bill was filed yesterday in the Texas legislature and legislators hold the first hearing on the measure today in the state House. A representative of Davis tells U.S. News and World Report that a second special session filibuster is not forthcoming.A spokesman for Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis, who stood and spoke for more than 12 hours to help kill the bill last week, says she won’t filibuster the...

In 2011, Frances Kissling, the founding President of the National Abortion Federation, penned a Washington Post editorial supporting the very abortion regulations that many pro-life groups are celebrating today. Kissling defended such regulations saying: If the choice movement does not change, control of policy on abortion will remain in the hands of those who want it criminalized. If we don’t suggest sensible balanced legislation and regulation of abortion, we will be left with far more draconian policies – and, eventually, no choices at all. Did you hear that? Unless abortion-advocates advocate for “common-sense” regulations of their murderous industry, abortion will...

Mom, Dad, I’m pro-life. The day I “outed” myself to my ultra-liberal family, I was terrified. These are the people who basically tried to bully me into aborting my son (aka, their grandson) back in 2011. Lord knows I love them, but I was seriously considering taking this to the grave. You’ve got to understand that I’ve always been the person in my family to keep my opinions to myself. Thank goodness I didn’t do that when I found out I was pregnant at 17 years old. I can date back several family issues that came up where I would...

In 1854, Abraham Lincoln confronted America’s first “pro-choice” Senator, Stephen Douglas, in a speech in Peoria, Illinois. “Choice” then was about slavery, not abortion. Douglas sponsored the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which addressed the sticky question of how to deal with the legality of slavery in new territories entering the union. The Kansas-Nebraska Act resolved this by “choice.” Residents would vote to decide if slavery would be legal in their territory. Lincoln challenged Douglas’s “pro-choice” position on slavery. According to Douglas, said Lincoln, “…the principle of the Nebraska Bill was very old; that it originated when God made man and placed good...

Weekly Standard reporter John McCormack has unearthed an old video from 2003, when President Barack Obama was running for the U.S. Senate from Illinois, in which he defends his position favoring late-term abortions. OBAMA: “I am pro-choice.” REPORTER: “In all situations including the late term thing?” OBAMA: “I am pro-choice. I believe that women make responsible choices and they know better than anybody the tragedy of a difficult pregnancy and I don’t think that it’s the government’s role to meddle in that choice.”

When confronted with extravagant, Gosnell-like, Boston-like evil, we should pray that the perpetrators of evil would feel the sword of God’s justice. We should also pray that the wicked men and women involved would experience the incredible, life-changing, sin-forgiving mercy of God.

“Not until I went to the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” So wrote Alexis de Tocqueville. Yet, judged by the standards of those old “pulpits aflame with righteousness,” is America still a good country?

The health ministry in China released figures yesterday showing 336 million abortions have been carried out in the Asian nation since it first implemented the one-child population control policy. Started in 1980, the policy, which prohibits most Chinese couples form having more than one baby and limits rural residents to two, has resulted in severe human rights abuses. Family planning officials frequently jail couples who refuse to comply, sentence them to house arrest or labor camps, revoke jobs or governmental support, use physical harassment or violence and often target other family members. Today, the London Telegraph reports: Official statistics showed...

Guns and abortion. One is an enumerated, constitutional right, and the other is not. The Second Amendment guarantees the right of the people of the United States to keep and bear arms. It’s not a government-given right; it’s a natural right—the right to defend yourself, your family, and your freedom. In rare circumstances, abortion might be necessary to preserve the mother’s life. But there is no right to kill unborn babies in the U.S. Constitution. But 40 years ago next week the U.S. Supreme Court contended that abortion is an implied “right of privacy,” one that previously had lain hidden...

Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s latest annual report for 2011-2012 says that its affiliated clinics performed 333,964 abortions in fiscal 2011. That works out to an average of one abortion every 94 seconds. … The 2011-2012 report states that Planned Parenthood received $542.4 million in “government health services grants and reimbursements,” which it states includes “payments from Medicaid managed care plans.” …

Abortions in the United States Total number of abortions in the U.S. 1973-2011: 54.5 million+ 234 abortions per 1,000 live births (according to the Centers for Disease Control) Abortions per year: 1.2 million Abortions per day: 3,288 Abortions per hour: 137 9 abortions every 4 minutes 1 abortion every 26 seconds These statistics include only surgical and medical abortions. Because many contraceptive measures are abortifacients (drugs that induce or cause abortions), it is important not to overlook the number of children killed by chemical abortions. Since 1965, an average of 11 million women have used abortifacient methods of birth control...

Table 103. Abortions—Number and Rate by State of Occurrence: 2000 to 2008 [Number of abortions by state of occurrence from surveys of hospitals, clinics, and physicians identified as providers of abortion services conducted by the Guttmacher Institute]

Today, as some of you may know, is celebrated worldwide as “Human Rights Day,” where politicians and leaders of all stripes and ideologies climb onto their bully pulpits and loudly endorse the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was first adopted by the United Nations on December 10, 1948. One suspects, however, that the majority of these politicians have not read this Declaration—or at the very least, that this Declaration would undoubtedly fail miserably if voted upon today in the Canadian House of Commons. If you think I’m engaging in hyperbole, let’s take a look at the opening statement of...

You know those little vials of who-knows-what that TV bills as a healthier alternative to energy drinks. Turns out they might make you die. Or to be more specific, the flavored energy shot "has been mentioned in some 90 filings with the F.D.A., including more than 30 that involved serious or life-threatening injuries like heart attacks, convulsions and, in one case, a spontaneous abortion," according to a New York Times investigation. ... Don't worry, 5-Hour Energy fans, Monster Energy drink is a culprit, too. Following a review of FDA records, The Times found that 5-Hour Energy was implicated in at...