Free Republic

Friday Five: Jill Stanek by Jennifer Mesko, associate editorA life-changing event catapulted her into the pro-life movement, and now she's obsessed with it. (Editor's Note: This is the second in our series of Friday interviews with people of interest to family advocates. The format is simple: five questions every Friday.)When Planned Parenthood tried to sneak an abortion clinic into suburban Chicago this year, it forgot to do its homework on local life advocate Jill Stanek. She, along with thousands of other pro-lifers, helped to delay the opening of the nation's largest abortion clinic for 14 days.Eight years ago, Stanek...

New York Times Poll: Evangelicals Agree with Dr. Dobson by Jennifer Mesko, associate editorMajority only will support a presidential candidate who shares their values. A New York Times/CBS News poll shows white, evangelical Republicans agree with Dr. James Dobson.Nearly 60 percent of those who plan to vote in the primaries said they could not support a candidate they didn't agree with on issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage. Eighty-six percent said presidential candidates should be judged on both their political record and their personal life.Dr. Dobson has taken a beating in the media for promising to vote only...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorOctober 8, 2007Des Moines, IA (LifeNews.com) -- Campaigning in Iowa over the weekend, pro-abortion presidential candidate Barack Obama attempted to moderate his views on abortion and abstinence education. However, he made it clear he has no interest in limiting or reducing abortions and his pro-abstinence stance is tempered by his backing of sexual education.Speaking in the northeast town of New Hampton late Friday, Obama responded to a question in a forum from a Denver resident in the first primary state for a family reunion.The questioner asked Obama to reconcile how society gets upset at someone like Michael...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorOctober 8, 2007Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Millions of pro-life advocates lined the streets of hundreds of communities across America on Sunday braving cold winds or heat and humidity to tell their neighbors an important message. The annual LifeChain is an opportunity to let people know that abortion kills children and hurts women.Demonstrators pray and stand silently as cars passed through the busy intersections. Some honk and wave in support of the pro-life message while others give participants rude gestures.Some 200 people joined the event in Roanoke, Virginia, including 59 year-old Barney Arthur."We want to reach out to...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorOctober 8, 2007Royal Oak, MI (LifeNews.com) -- Assisted suicide crusader Jack Kevorkian has said in a new interview that he will focus on promoting prison reform and civil rights instead of advocating euthanasia. He says his health has recovered following his prison stay for showing a national television audience a video of him killing a disabled patient.He served eight years of a 10-25 year prison sentence for the murder of a disabled patient after killing more than 130 people via assisted suicide in Michigan.Though he is ready to hit the lecture circuit, Kevorkian tells the Detroit News...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorOctober 8, 2007Stockholm, Sweden (LifeNews.com) -- Three researchers who work with controversial embryonic stem cells shared the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for their role in looking at mouse genes and using their studies to determine the human genes that cause diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Pro-life advocates oppose embryonic stem cell research on human beings because days-old unborn children must be killed to obtain their cells. They support the use of animal and adult stem cells.Americans Mario Capecchi and Oliver Smithies and British scientist Sir Martin Evans split the prestigious award and its prize of...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorOctober 8, 2007Valleta, Malta (LifeNews.com) -- The head of the pro-abortion group that operates the abortion ship that has targeted the people of Ireland, Portugal and Poland is heading to Malta, one of the few European nations that makes abortion illegal. Rebecca Gomperts will visit the island nation on Wednesday to deliver a speech advocating legal abortions.Gomperts is the director of Women on Waves, the pro-abortion organization that has taken its converted tugboat to international waters outside pro-life nations to give women the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug.Her speech, “The Right to a Dignified Motherhood: The Crucial...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorOctober 8, 2007Wellington, New Zealand (LifeNews.com) -- The leading pro-life group in New Zealand has won the first court battle on its challenge of a 1977 abortion law. Right to Life of New Zealand took the law to the nation's high court saying that it was intended to provide abortion guidelines but has, instead, been used to promote unlimited abortions for any reason.Right To Life New Zealand filed suit against the Abortion Supervisory Committee saying the agency has misinterpreted the law. The measure was approved "with the objectives of stopping abortion on demand and to provide effective...

Although much of my new book, "What's the Matter With California," is humorous, this is one story from that book which is not. Steven Nary has spent the last 11 years in prison for daring to defend himself against homosexual rape by an illegal alien in San Francisco. Read "Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 for more background. This is the final of 5 parts featured this week in WorldNetDaily. Parental discretion is strongly advised.While awaiting trial in the San Francisco City Jail for the murder of Juan Pifarre, a gay man and a Hispanic activist, Steven...

Forensic investigators leave the rented home of Angela Kuehl in Kanata yesterday afternoon. Kuehl has been charged with the second-degree murder of her newborn son in April. (BLAIR GABLE/SUN) A 26-year-old Kanata woman faces a charge of second-degree murder after police allege she gave birth to a baby boy, killed him and put him in the trash. Police Staff-Sgt. Monique Perras said Angela Kuehl was arrested yesterday morning without incident and charged later that afternoon following a five-month investigation into the death of her newborn. Kuehl is expected to make her first court appearance this morning. Police were first...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorOctober 2, 2007Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Rudy Giuliani has tried every trick in the book in order to persuade pro-life voters to consider him for the Republican nomination for president. Now a congressman with a long record of opposing abortion has labeled the former mayor pro-life and said he would have voted mostly pro-life if he had been a congressman as well.Rep. Pete Sessions, a Texas Republican, says that if Giuliani were a member of Congress today, he'd be considered pro-life."In a hypothetical comparison of congressional votes, Mayor Giuliani's voting record would mirror the voting record of...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorOctober 2, 2007Seattle, WA (LifeNews.com) -- Researchers at a cancer center in Seattle have confirmed what previous studies have shown: women who bear children have a reduced risk of developing breast cancer. They say fetal cells “transplanted” to the mother before birth are a source of this protective effect. That's something that abortion denies.Scientists at the University of Washington and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center presented their results in the October 1 issue of Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.They studied a concept called fetal microchimerism, which is the ability of cells...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorOctober 5, 2007Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- That a handful of pro-life advocates are considering a third party bid for president next year holds no attraction for former Govs. Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney. Both Republican presidential candidates have worked to attract pro-life voters and say they won't look to third party bids.Huckabee, who served as governor of Arkansas, told the Washington Post on Thursday that he would not seek or accept an invitation to run as a third-party presidential candidate from Christian conservative leaders."No, I think a third party only helps elect Hillary [Clinton]," Huckabee said of...

by Justin McCarthyOctober 5, 2007 LifeNews.com Note: Justin McCarthy is a news analyst at Media Research Center, a watchdog group that tracks bias in the mainstream media. He is a marathon runner and graduate of St. Joseph's University in 2005. Is Whoopi Goldberg becoming the Rosie O’Donnell type bully? It appeared that way on the October 3 edition of “The View.” A discussion about Hillary Clinton’s $5,000 a baby entitlement plan quickly descended into a heated exchange between Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Whoopi Goldberg about abortion. When Hasselbeck noted that $5,000 a baby could lead to fewer abortions in the world,...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorOctober 5, 2007Topeka, KS (LifeNews.com) -- A pro-life group has filed an official complaint against late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller in what is the latest skirmish in the battle to prosecute him for allegedly doing illegal abortions. The group says Tiller and a colleague broke state laws on late-term abortions but also provided women a substandard level of care.The latter complaint is what is most germane for the State Board of Healing Arts, which licenses and oversees physicians in the state.Operation Rescue relied on medical records from Michelle Armesto, a Topeka resident, for its complaint. Armesto testified...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorOctober 5, 2007 Frankfort, KY (LifeNews.com) -- Kentucky's gubernatorial candidates, abortion advocate Steve Beshear and pro-life Gov. Ernie Fletcher, debated the issue of abortion on Wednesday in a televised debate. Beshear, a Democrat, tried to play down his pro-abortion views in a state that is strongly pro-life, regardless of political party.Kentucky is one of just handful of states to have significant off-year elections this year."Abortion is a tragedy anytime it happens, under any circumstances, and as governor, I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that women have choices other than that," Beshear said in...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorOctober 4, 2007Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said Thursday that one of her first actions if she wins the 2008 election will be reversing President Bush's protections on embryonic stem cell research. Bush has twice vetoed bills that would force taxpayers to fund the research, which requires the destruction of human life.Bush also put in place a policy in August 2001 that prevents federal funding of any new embryonic stem cell research and, instead, concentrates most federal money in the area of adult stem cells.Those are the cells that have shown the most...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorOctober 4, 2007Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A Catholic bishop who made national headlines yesterday with comments saying he would deny communion to pro-abortion Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani has gone further. Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis says the nation's Catholic bishops should establish guidelines for a national policy.Burke expressed his views in an essay that appeared in Periodica De Re Canonica, published by the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.The Catholic leader says parish priests should ensure that everyone takes communion in a worthy manner, with no one taking it if they have publicly stood against the...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorOctober 4, 2007Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A new Gallup poll finds an overwhelming majority of Democrats say they trust pro-abortion New York Sen. Hillary Clinton to handle the issue of abortion. She obtains much higher support on the issue from Democrats in the survey than pro-abortion rivals Barack Obama and John Edwards.Sen. Hillary Clinton, who currently leads the Democratic race for the 2008 presidential nomination by more than 20 percentage points according to two recent polls.Part of the lead is explained in a new Gallup survey which shows Democrats perceive Clinton as the best prepared of the...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorOctober 4, 2007 Gainesville, FL (LifeNews.com) -- Saying it is worried about security in light of concerns at other college campuses, the University of Florida has decided to postpone a controversial speech by euthanasia advocate Jack Kevorkian. The speech would be his first following his release from prison for killing a disabled man and showing the death on national television. Kevorkian was slated to speak to UF students on October 11 and receive $50,000 for the talk, as long as his parole officers approve the trip.Now the speech has been postponed until January 15 as UF officials...