Free Republic

Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, has described 2011 as “the most difficult year in [Planned Parenthood’s] history.” Well, welcome to 2012. The Alliance Defense Fund, in conjunction with the Susan B. Anthony List, released its summary report on publicly available federal and state audits that identify waste, abuse, and potential fraud by Planned Parenthood and state family planning programs and reveal systemic misuse of nearly $100 million taxpayer dollars. The audits speak for themselves in detailing Planned Parenthood’s misuse of the money that’s been funneled to state family planning programs and Planned Parenthood affiliates. Ten state...

If there is one word that captures the Orwellian nature of contemporary feminism, it is "choice." It's not just the word's wide use as a euphemism for abortion. You can understand why people on that side of the abortion issue prefer to frame their position in abstract terms, as a defense of liberty, rather than concretely discussing the specific freedom they are defending. Some of them are no doubt sincere in saying that they favor "the right to choose" in general and have no brief for abortion in particular. But not all. People who claim to favor "reproductive choice" are...

Life-end Clinic will send teams to the homes of patients' whose doctors refuse to carry out the procedure A mobile euthanasia clinic will begin operating in the Netherlands on Thursday, to assist patients' whose own doctor refuse to carry out the procedure. According to the AFP news agency, the the Levenseindekliniek (Life-end clinic) has prepared several teams made up of a specially-trained doctor and nurse to attend to patients in their homes. "People who think they comply with the criteria for euthanasia can register," the Right To Die Netherlands (NVVE) spokeswoman Walburg de Jong is quoted as saying. "If they...

Good grief! A Maryland state legislator has filed a bill that would allow surrogate decision makers to “donate” kidneys and liver lobes. From HB 449: THIS SUBSECTION APPLIES ONLY TO A PATIENT WHO HAS BEEN CERTIFIED UNDER § 5–606(B) OF THIS SUBTITLE TO BE IN A PERSISTENT 8 VEGETATIVE STATE. (3) A PERSON AUTHORIZED TO MAKE HEALTH CARE DECISIONS FOR ANOTHER UNDER THIS SECTION MAY AUTHORIZE THE DONATION OF A NONVITAL ORGAN IF THE DONATION IS BASED ON: (I) THE WISHES OF THE PATIENT AS PREVIOUSLY EXPRESSED BY THE PATIENT; OR (II) A DETERMINATION BY THE SURROGATE THAT THE DONATION...

Rick Santorum's claim that the Netherlands advocates mass murder through involuntary euthanasia has prompted a furious backlash from the Western European country, with local news sources calling the Republican a "crazy extreme" candidate making up facts to stir up his political base. "Rick Santorum Thinks He Knows the Netherlands: Murder of the Elderly on a Grand Scale" fumed the headline of the newspaper NRC Handelsblad on Saturday. The article references an interview, barely played up by the American press, in which Santorum claims that euthanasia makes up "10 percent of all deaths" in the Netherlands," and that many of those...

UPDATE, 12:14p: More evidence the “compromise” stinks: Planned Parenthood likes it. UPDATE, 12:02p: From a House source: This “new policy” is a distinction without a difference.  The services the religious organization opposes won’t be listed in the contract, but the insurance companies will give it the employees anyway.  Insurance companies will justify providing the coverage that the religious charity opposes by swearing that birth control coverage doesn’t actually cost anything because it’s cheaper than pregnancy services, so it’s just a free perk. The administration will argue that people of faith should be fine with this arrangement, because they can tell...

The drama continues to deepen.When the board of directors of the Susan G. Komen Foundation decided to halt funding to notorious abortion provider Planned Parenthood, abortion activists launched an informal investigation. Something sinister was happening here; some pro-life plague had to have infiltrated Komen. They pinned their attention on Komen’s relatively new VP, Karen Handel, an admittedly pro-life former Republican candidate for the governor of Georgia. They pointed out that the announcement of Republican Rep. Cliff Stearns’ investigation into Planned Parenthood preceded Komen’s revision of its grant eligibility criteria, which now excludes any organization under investigation by local, state or...

Planned Parenthood of Middle and East Tennessee has opened a new satellite health center in Johnson City. Located at 409 E. Unaka Ave., the Planned Parenthood office is open to patients... ...That's all you need to know. Go straight to the first comment!

“Planned Parenthood’s mission is to pressure as many women into having an abortion as it can,” a former abortion facility worker has revealed. From Catherine Anthony Adair’s op-ed piece in The Washington Examiner: In 1997, I began working at a Boston Planned Parenthood clinic as a young, idealistic college student who strongly believed in what I had been told about the organization, that I would be helping other young women access safe and affordable health care. My time there was not spent providing prenatal care to pregnant women, providing counseling or basic health care services or educating women about reproductive...

Amelia "Mia" Rivera has Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome, a complex genetic disorder that causes mental and physical impairments, and her family said that the 3-year-old will die if she does not get a kidney in the next six months to a year. Mia's mother Chrissy Rivera has said the family is willing to donate a live organ, but Children's Hospital of Philadelphia has reportedly told her that they will not recommend transplantation for the toddler because of her disabilities. Rivera blogged about her daughter's plight last Friday, and now more than 20,000 online supporters from 15 states are petitioning the hospital to...

HUXLEY, Iowa -- An Iowa woman was charged Tuesday in the death of her newborn twins. The Department of Public Safety said Huxley police were called to check on the welfare of a 22-year-old woman, now identified as Jackie Burkle. Burkle was found inside a duplex in the 500 block of North Main Avenue on Saturday. When authorities arrived, they found she'd given birth to two baby girls in the apartment. Authorities said the babies did not survive. Authorities said the babies were found in the trunk of Burkle's vehicle, which was parked in the driveway. "Miss Burkle indicated she...

Guy Bechor reports that Egypt is in the process of destroying all remnants of its ancient, non-Muslim cultures. It was barely mentioned in the Israeli and global media, but the following event pertains to the whole of Western civilization: Last Saturday, violent groups of Islamic-Salafi radicals burned the famous scientific institute established by Napoleon in Egypt after its first encounter with the West. Some historians consider it the start of modern times in the Middle East. The site, L’Institut d’Egypte, held some 200,000 original and rare books, exhibits, maps, archeological findings and studies from Egypt and the entire Middle East,...

Imagine California without the sunshine, New York without the cultural elan, New Jersey without Chris Christie. That’s Illinois. I have previously deemed the Governor of Illinois, Patrick Quinn (D.), the worst governor in the country. Go here to read the post in which I bestowed the title. After his meeting with the Illinois bishops on Friday December 16, 2011, I have attached “Lying” to his title. The bishops asked for the meeting to protest the constant pro-abortion advocacy of Quinn. After the meeting here is what Quinn said: “A lot of the discussion was how we could work together to...

The “slippery slope” is often derided as a logical fallacy. But when one of the leading advocacy groups for euthanasia in Belgium posts an article entitled “Euthanasie: tijd voor de volgende stap, Euthanasia, time for the next step”, it’s hard not to think that it may not be so illogical after all. The Humanistisch-Vrijzinnige Vereniging (Humanist-Liberal Association) complains that eligibility for euthanasia is far too restrictive. At the moment, only people with unbearable suffering can be euthanased. This leaves out people in irreversible comas, people with dementia, people with irreversible brain diseases and people who are under 18. This is...

A woman in Australia who was pregnant with twins decided to have one of her babies aborted after doctors discovered that he had a life-threatening congenital heart defect. The seriously disturbing part? The doctors aborted the wrong fetus, terminating a perfectly healthy child. After doctors realized the "blunder," the woman, who was 32 weeks pregnant, had to undergo an emergency cesarean to deliver the sick fetus, where it was later terminated. The Royal Women's Hospital confirmed the incident and referred to it as a "terrible tragedy." Um, yeah ... one could say that. I honestly really don't even know what...

Years ago, Charlie, a highly respected orthopedist and a mentor of mine, found a lump in his stomach. He had a surgeon explore the area, and the diagnosis was pancreatic cancer. This surgeon was one of the best in the country. He had even invented a new procedure for this exact cancer that could triple a patient’s five-year-survival odds—from 5 percent to 15 percent—albeit with a poor quality of life. Charlie was uninterested. He went home the next day, closed his practice, and never set foot in a hospital again. He focused on spending time with family and feeling as...

As the world population reaches seven billion people, the BBC's Mike Gallagher asks whether efforts to control population have been, as some critics claim, a form of authoritarian control over the world's poorest citizens.> In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson warned that the US might be overwhelmed by desperate masses, and he made US foreign aid dependent on countries adopting family planning programmes. Other wealthy countries such as Japan, Sweden and the UK also began to devote large amounts of money to reducing Third World birth rates. > Meanwhile, Paul Ehrlich has also amended his view of the issue. If he...

As Jenny lay on the obstetrician's examination table, she was grateful that the ultrasound technician had turned off the overhead screen. She didn't want to see the two shadows floating inside her. Since making her decision, she had tried hard not to think about them, though she could often think of little else. She was 45 and pregnant after six years of fertility bills, ovulation injections, donor eggs and disappointment – and yet here she was, 14 weeks into her pregnancy, choosing to extinguish one of two healthy foetuses, almost as if having half an abortion. As the doctor inserted...

I'm penning this column from Australia where I was privileged to speak a few days ago at an event at Parliament House celebrating Australia's National Marriage Day. As in America, marriage in Australia is under attack by homosexual activists who seek to shoehorn their lifestyle choices into a shoe that will never fit: marriage. They want the law-and public opinion--to redefine marriage to include homosexual sex as something good, the moral equivalent of marital sexuality expressed by a husband and a wife. Pro-family Australians are blessed with charismatic leaders like MP's Bob Katter and Kevin Andrews, and pro-family advocate Babette...

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM, August 22, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A recently retired New York Times reporter has penned a book in which she details how she followed through on a shocking pact to help her 88-year-old mother, Estelle, starve to death. Julia Gross with her mother Estelle. In an excerpt from the book, “A Bittersweet Season,” published recently in the Daily Mail, Jane Gross describes her mother’s increasing dissatisfaction with life as her health deteriorated, and her mounting desire to die, despite the fact that she was not terminally ill. “So here we were, my mother and I, wishing that she...