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New laws toughen rules on abortions, immigrants, votersmsnbc.com staff and news service reports updated 12/31/2011 10:12:54 AM ET About 40,000 state laws taking effect at the start of the new year will change rules about getting abortions in New Hampshire, learning about gays and lesbians in California, getting jobs in Alabama and even driving golf carts in Georgia. Several federal rules change with the new year, too, including a Social Security increase amounting to $450 a year for the average recipients and stiff fines up to $2,700 per offense for truckers and bus drivers caught using hand-held cellphones while driving....

Court: New Jersey Nurses Don't Have to Assist in Abortions Newark, NJ -- A federal court late Thursday gave pro-life advocates a huge victory in the case of 12 nurses being forced to assist with abortions at a New Jersey hospital. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/12/23/court-new-jersey-nurses-dont-have-to-assist-in-abortions/

YEREVAN, ARMENIA, December 20, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The practice of sex-selective abortion has become so deeply ingrained in the former Soviet republic of Armenia - where the median number of abortions obtained by women over 40 is a staggering eight - that the nation will soon face “a deficit of women,” according to a United Nations health official. A new report produced by the United Nations Population Fund, the Armenian ministry of health, and the Institute of Perinatology found that 7,000 Armenian women - or 0.8 percent of all Armenian women of child-bearing age - had elected to have sex-selective...

2 Very Disturbing Examples Of Radical Social Engineering By The U.S. Government The control freaks that run the U.S. government are busy imposing their values on all the rest of us, and most Americans have absolutely no idea what is happening. The Obama administration and members of Congress are engaged in radical social engineering, and they are trying to reshape America so that it conforms to their own twisted vision of "morality". Instead of focusing on fixing the economy and administering the government, these sick control freaks actually want to fundamentally alter what Americans believe to be right and wrong....

The Washington Post reports that, under President Obama and his Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, the Food and Drug Administration is considering letting “anyone of any age buy the controversial morning-after pill Plan B directly off drugstore and supermarket shelves without a prescription

Confronting elements of President Obama’s healthcare legislation that are so fundamentally restrictive of religious freedom that Jesus “would not qualify as ‘religious,’” the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has been engaged in a protracted struggle to defend the integrity of Roman Catholic doctors in the face of a federal government seemingly bent on requiring them to act against their consciences. As a reward for their labors, House Minority Leader — and self-proclaimed “devout Catholic” — Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has belittled the bishops as nothing more than “lobbyists in Washington, D.C.” As reported in late September for The New American,...

A man and a woman have been arrested after one-month-old baby was allegedly raped and battered. The tiny child had a heart attack brought on by his injuries and is fighting for his life. He was rushed to Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford, Kent, on Thursday at 7am, but was transferred to London's King's College Hospital after having a cardiac arrest there.

November 29, 2011 (LiveAction.org) - Ann Furedi, chief executive of the abortion chain British Pregnancy Advisory Service recently engaged with Will Saletan in a debate over the issue of late-term abortion. During her opening statements, Ann made some comments that caught my attention. She admitted that a late-term fetus connects with people because “it looks like a baby.” Of course though to Ann, it isn’t a baby nor worth of legal protection. She further states that “there is no evidence to suggest that we need to restrict later abortions in any way.” What sort of evidence is she looking for?...

Question: “When abortion becomes illegal again, are we going to start throwing all the women who have abortions into jail?” Answer: No. The people who should go to jail in that case are the abortionists. This particular question will be raised more and more as we to come closer to restoring protection to the unborn. The question is actually part of the well-planned public relations attack that abortion advocates always try to make on us in the pro-life movement. We are anti-woman, after all. Isn’t that the only logical reason why we would oppose abortion in the first place? That’s...

There he goes again. Embattled Catholic law professor and former Obama ambassador to Malta, Douglas Kmiec, is back defending the pro-abortion president to Catholics, this time over conscience issues. Writing in the National Catholic Reporter today, Kmiec essentially tells Catholics to get over the fact that the Obama administration is dangerously close to adopting new Obamacare rules that will require insurance companies and religious organizations to pay for insurance that will cover birth control, contraception, and drugs that can sometimes cause abortions. Without saying so directly, Kmiec essentially takes on the Catholic bishops and their argument that the Obama administration...

According to its website, "for more than 90 years, Planned Parenthood has promoted a commonsense approach to women's health and well-being, based on respect for each individual's right to make informed, independent decisions about health, sex, and family planning." There is in this glowing self-endorsement a subtle tribute to Planned Parenthood's founder Margaret Sanger. An unabashed eugenicist, Ms. Sanger's "commonsense" approach to unwanted pregnancies and undesirable demographic groups, such as minorities and the handicapped, was clear and unambiguous. She maintained that "the most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it," and...

JERUSALEM, November 10, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - “Wrongful life” lawsuits, in which doctors are held liable for not discovering fetal abnormalities that might have prompted parents to abort their child, have become so common in Israel that the government has set up a committee to investigate the issue, New Scientist reports. According to magazine, wrongful life claims are more prevalent in Israel where a higher rate of genetic disorders caused by consanguineous (connected by kinship) marriages has fueled a “pro-genetic testing culture.” The county has seen an estimated 600 wrongful cases since the first in 1987. While similar lawsuits in the...

A pro-family advocate finds it odd that a group of homosexual activists has admitted to working to help defeat Mississippi's personhood amendment on Tuesday. In an announcement released the day after the vote, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund admits to sending activists to Jackson, Mississippi, to help with a phone bank and "stand in solidarity" with Planned Parenthood Federation of America and other abortion proponents. Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) thinks it was a peculiar alliance, since homosexuals cannot procreate. "This is a group that works hand-in-hand with so-called 'sexual freedom advocates,'...

A well-backed Democrat candidate who ran for a position on the board of a top beltway-area school system has been found guilty of assault for ramming a pro-lifer with her car during this year’s national March for Life on January 24, LifeSiteNews has learned. Charisse Espy Glassman, the niece of former U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy, withdrew her candidacy for the Fairfax County Public School board after the charges were revealed by the Washington Post this summer. Glassman was convicted of one charge of simple assault, and found not guilty of a second charge of possession of a prohibited weapon....

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- Mississippi voters shot down a referendum Tuesday that would have effectively banned abortions in the state, rejecting an initiative that said life begins at conception. The so-called personhood initiative was rejected by more than 55 percent of voters. If it had passed, it was virtually assured of drawing legal challenges because it conflicts with the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established a legal right to abortion.

A mother and her two daughters, all former Girl Scouts who say they are disillusioned with the organization’s connection to less-than family values, claim the U.S. group’s 52nd National Convention next week in Houston is a farce. Christy Volanski and her daughters, Sydney and Tess, formed a sort of watchdog group earlier this year with their online site, “Speak Now: Girl Scouts,” as their platform in attempt to expose the group’s pro-abortion stance. Volanski, who also served as a Girl Scout leader in the last three years of her daughters’ eight year membership, told The Christian Post that Girl Scouts...

A National Association of Evangelicals board member is calling on African-Americans to vote for their conservative convictions in the 2012 election, describing President Barack Obama as a theologically liberal candidate. Bishop Harry R. Jackson. Jr., senior pastor of Hope Christian Church outside of Washington, D.C., asked blacks to re-evaluate their tendency to “flock the polls” in support of Democratic leaders in an opinion piece published Friday in The Wall Street Journal. Blacks, he noted, espouse traditional, conservative beliefs on social issues rooted in their faith. Yet, they often vote for Democratic leaders with liberal leanings. “Most blacks have looked the...

President Obama’s re-election campaign has been hammering Mitt Romney from many angles in recent weeks. And now Democrats are beginning a new push against him, this time using the issue of reproductive rights in a bid to raise doubts about Mr. Romney among women. The Democratic National Committee has scheduled a conference call for Thursday with Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, the party chairwoman, who, according to the committee’s press release, will “slam G.O.P. presidential candidate Mitt Romney for voicing support for such efforts which could endanger women’s lives.” The Democratic offensive is built around Mr. Romney’s statements on...

It’s one of the most notorious unsolved mysteries in history: who was Jack the Ripper, the Victorian serial killer who surgically disemboweled five prostitutes in the fall of 1888? According to claims that are currently getting a great deal of media attention in Britain, he may be none other than prominent surgeon Sir John Williams – who, in addition to serving as Queen Victoria’s surgeon in London, was also a well-known abortionist. In a new book, Sir John’s great-great-great-great nephew, Tony Williams, presents evidence for Sir John’s guilt, including his discovery of a six-inch surgical knife among his ancestor’s possessions...

Illinois' six Catholic bishops have deplored Catholic governor Pat Quinn's role as the presenter of a “Pro-Choice Leadership Award” at an abortion advocacy group's upcoming ceremony. “We deeply regret the governor's decision to present this award, which so closely associates him with a political action group whose purpose is contrary to the common good,” the six bishops said in a Nov. 2 statement released by the Catholic Conference of Illinois. “With this action, Governor Quinn has gone beyond a political alignment with those supporting the legal right to kill children in their mother's wombs, to rewarding those deemed most successful...