Free Republic

The California Senate passed a bill September 6 that would make it legal for non-physician medical professionals such as midwives to perform abortions under a statewide training program. The measure now awaits Democratic Governor Jerry Brown's signature. (Gov. Brown pictured to the left of the state seal, Sen. Christine Kehoe to the right.) According to LifeSiteNews.com, the bill (S.B. 623), introduced by Democratic State Senator Christine Kehoe, “extends a program run by the University of California at San Francisco [UCSF], in which nurse practitioners, midwives, and doctors’ assistants are trained to perform abortions without any further training in medicine. Kehoe...

As states across the country are passing laws to restrict access to abortion, California lawmakers are considering a significant expansion of who would be able to perform the procedure in the state. Under a bill that passed its first committee hearing Tuesday, nurse practitioners, nurse midwives and physician assistants would be able to perform what is known as an "aspiration" abortion, which is the most common abortion procedure and takes place in the first trimester of a pregnancy. The current form of the bill, SB1338 by Sen. Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego, would allow for only 41 people in the state,...

An animal-rights activist from Vernon has been charged with obstruction and resisting arrest when she interfered with state wildlife biologists who were trying to tranquilize a black bear to change a satellite-radio collar used to track the bear, police said today. Susan Kehoe, 58, was charged Wednesday at 4:16 p.m. when she interfered and prevented a biologist from firing a tranquilizer dart at the bear, police said in a press release. They did not specifically say how Kehoe interfered, and police and state officials could not immediately be reached for comment. Reached by telephone, Kehoe also declined to comment.

VERNON — A Lake Wanda man, investigating a noise in his house, came face to face with a bear rummaging through his kitchen trash Sunday evening and escaped through a bedroom window to call police from a neighbor's home. A responding officer spotted the bear in the front yard of the Chestnut Street home, still eating garbage. The officer fired once at the bear and believed he hit the animal, but the bruin ran off into the woods. A Sunday night search of the area couldn't find any trace of blood or hair, and a follow-up search Monday could not...

A former member of Bear Education and Resource, an anti-hunting organization that blames people and their unsecured garbage for New Jersey's bruin troubles, was charged today with deliberately feeding the animals. Susan Kehoe, 57, was videotaped providing bags of sunflower seeds to bears in the backyard of her Vernon Township home... conservation officers watched her repeatedly feed bears ... BEAR protested public hunts that were held in 2003 and 2005 in the northwest corner of the state, and continues to oppose state efforts to trap nuisance bears. Kehoe and BEAR contend humans and their improperly stored trash are the problem,...

A mass grave being excavated in a north Iraqi village has yielded evidence that Iraqi forces executed women and children under Saddam Hussein. US-led investigators have located nine trenches in Hatra containing hundreds of bodies believed to be Kurds killed during the repression of the 1980s. The skeletons of unborn babies and toddlers clutching toys are being unearthed, the investigators said. They are seeking evidence to try Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity. It is believed to be the first time investigators working for the Iraqi Special Tribunal (IST) have conducted a full scientific exhumation of a mass grave. "It...

What normally is a legislative slam-dunk – a resolution honoring dads for Father's Day – turned into a debate on "alternative lifestyles" in the California state Assembly. According to a report in the Stockton Record, Republicans this week either withheld their support of voted against the resolution because it focused on "nontraditional" dads, including families with two fathers. "It didn't belong on the floor," said GOP Assemblyman Alan Nakanishi. "It was a homosexual bill in the sense that they wanted to make a point out of two fathers" in a single household. The resolution, sponsored by lesbian Democratic Assemblywoman Christine...