Free Republic

In an editorial lamenting a new Virginia state regulation requiring abortion clinics to comply with higher licensing standards, the Washington Post quoted one abortion-clinic owner who noted that he can do such things as "stick needles in babies' lungs" and "put tubes up penises," but now he is going to have to deal with the "nonsensical" demands of Virginia's regulation. "Some of the clinics, including those operated by Planned Parenthood, which has a national fundraising network, will survive," said the Post. "Many others, which are run as small businesses, probably will not."The Post pointed to a quote from Dr. David...

My husband I just ended our debate about having children. To breed or not to breed, this was the question — and it had been ticking like an egg timer in the back of my head for 15 years. We talked about it for five months. In the car on the way to work. During dinner. For five minutes, for 30 minutes. After seeing nephews and nieces. I wanted it to be a decision we made, not one made for us by chance or time. I turned to friends with kids for advice. “Feel free to convince me to your...

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) warns that the Obamacare tax hikes set to kick in at the start of 2013 are "a big part of the fiscal cliff" that will hurt those in need of vital medical equipment. Today, Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan issued the following statement highlighting the $1.058 trillion in higher taxes coming from ObamaCare over the next ten years. Many of the tax increases take effect on January 1, 2013: "ObamaCare raises taxes on middle-income families, employers and investors. It hikes taxes on people with no health insurance, people with too little insurance and people with...

If the shocking allegations contained in a lawsuit filed last Friday by responsible science advocate Steven Milloy are accurate, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a major scandal on its hands. As reported by the National Legal and Policy Center, Milloy initiated litigation in U.S. District Court in Virginia, based on evidence he accumulated via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). He alleges that the EPA engaged in disturbing experimentation that deliberately exposed human beings to airborne particulate matter the agency itself considers lethal. The experiments were conducted at EPAÂ’s Human Studies Facility at the University of North Carolina...

In its strongest ever warning, Ofgem said there may have to be “controlled disconnections” of homes and businesses in the middle of this decade because Britain has not done enough to make sure it has enough electricity. The regulator's new analysis reveals the risk of power-cuts is almost 50 per cent in 2015 if a very cold winter causes high demand for electricity. It predicts Britain will face power shortages because old coal and oil plants are being forced to shut down under the European Union’s environmental regulations. This will partly be replaced by wind farms, but they are less...

If there is one thing that anti-choice activists do that makes me see red, it is when they parade out their poster children: men, women and children who were "targeted for abortion". They tell us "these people would not be alive today if abortion had been legal or if their mothers had made a different choice". [....] The narrative that anti-choice crusaders are telling is powerful, moving, and best of all it has a happy ending. It makes the woman who carries to term a hero, and for narrative purposes it hides her maternal failing. We cannot argue against heroic,...

Tenn. Democrat Party urges voters to vote against their own nominee - works for pro-life group NASHVILLE, August 7, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Democratic Party of Tennessee is taking the unusual step of urging citizens to vote against its own nominee for U.S. Senate, because he works for a pro-life organization it deems a “hate group.” Mark Clayton won the party’s primary by a two-to-one margin over his next closest competitor, Gary Gene Davis. Former NBC Empty Nest star Park Overall came in third. Clayton has long been active with Public Advocate, a national pro-life, pro-family organization. “Mark Clayton is...

CHARLOTTE, NC, August 6, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Charlotte abortionist Ashutosh Ron Virmani was caught on camera telling pro-lifers to “adopt one of those ugly black babies.” Virmani’s comments came as he was speaking with pro-life activists from Operation Save America who confronted Virmani on his doorstep on July 26, 2012. The abortionist’s comments have riled black pro-life activists. Day Gardner, President of the National Black Pro-Life Union, said in a press release, “It’s all too obvious that he had a particular disgust for black babies and therefore has no problem killing them.”

Walking home this morning, I saw a frizzy-haired mother with a lefty vibe and Savonarola expression. Her young son ran in front of her, chasing pigeons. I listened, awestruck, as she admonished him thusly: "In your next life, I hope you come back as a pigeon, so you know what that feels like." Confused, the boy said, "What?" She repeated her wisdom in sterner tones. I'm dazzled by her genius at packing several soul-crushing blows into one sentence: 1) You're going to be reincarnated as punishment 2) Your mother eagerly awaits your eternal punishment 3) Walk robotically by my side...

DENVER, CO, July 4, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) —Days after Personhood USA president Keith Mason’s home was attacked in the night leaving his wife and children traumatized, a Personhood volunteer, 69-year-old Everett Stadig, was assaulted, sustaining a broken hip. On Saturday, Stadig – a soft-spoken and slender gentleman - was thrown off his bicycle while peacefully gathering signatures for the Personhood amendment in Colorado, and as a result has had to undergo surgery to replace part of his hip. Stadig stopped outside a grocery store to invite people to sign the Personhood petition. One woman expressed interest in signing, but had...

New York, NY (CFAM/LifeNews) — Love him or hate him, Stephen Colbert doesn’t waste time getting to the point. In last Thursday’s interview with Melinda Gates on the Colbert Report, he asked Melinda about her newest initiative and cut straight to the chase: the new population control movement exists to save lives by erasing lives. Colbert: “But now you’ve got a new charitable hobby horse you’re on, and it’s not necessarily saving people’s lives, so much as it’s stopping people’s lives from existing. You want to provide family planning to 120 million men and women around the world.”Melinda Gates: “Right.”...

ROCKFORD, ILLINOIS, June 18, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com)—A school bus covered in pro-life images that used to drive children to a local abortion clinic to pray was firebombed Friday night, report local advocates, who say the media have been negligent in covering the incident. The bus, owned by Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Academy, suffered extensive damage after vandals threw more than one device through the vehicle’s windows. Photos show some of the seats reduced to little more than metal frame and ash. The driver’s area was also bombed, and appears to be unusable. The bus is well known in the...

What should be done with elderly Americans when they become very seriously ill? Should we try to save their lives or should we just let them die? Unfortunately, there is a growing consensus among the "intellectual elite" that most elderly people are not going to have a high enough "quality of life" to justify the expense of costly life saving procedures. This philosophy is now being promoted very heavily through mainstream news outlets, in our television shows and in big Hollywood movies. The elite are attempting to convince us that killing off our sick grandparents is cool and trendy. We...

PROVIDENCE, June 14, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Democratic congressional candidate called for attendees at a progressivist conference to exercise “cultural power” by proudly touting past abortions, and urged post-abortive audience members to stand and be recognized. Darcy Burner, who is running for a seat in the House of Representatives for Washington State’s first district, was the opening speaker for an afternoon plenary session of Netroots Nation, a convention for liberal activists held this past week in Providence, Rhode Island. The session was titled, “The War on Women,” and the theme of Burner’s talk was “Going on the Offense.” “If you...

"A 12-year-old girl has responded with the stunning “I wish we didn’t exist” to questions about how she feels about pollution and humanity’s impact on the earth, according to a new video released by Brian Sussman, author of “Eco-Tyranny: How the Left’s Green Agenda will Dismantle America.” The response came from a 6th-grade girl identified only as Kalie, from Gault Elementary. Sussman met her during Earth Day events in Santa Cruz, Calif., recently, where he traveled to ask “What is the most serious threat facing mankind?”"

The world's most renowned population analyst has called for a massive reduction in the number of humans and for natural resources to be redistributed from the rich to the poor.Paul Ehrlich, Bing professor of population studies at Stanford University in California and author of the best-selling Population Bomb book in 1968, goes much further than the Royal Society in London which this morning said that physical numbers were as important as the amount of natural resources consumed.The optimum population of Earth – enough to guarantee the minimal physical ingredients of a decent life to everyone – was 1.5 to 2...

An injectable form of birth control doubles breast cancer risk among young women, according to a new study. The study examined younger women, ages 20 to 44, and confirmed a link between depo-medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA) - the main ingredient in the contraceptive sold under the brand name Depo-Provera - and breast cancer risk.

WASHINGTON, February 17, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - What do Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, “father of the sexual revolution” Alfred Kinsey, Lenin, and Hitler have in common? All these pioneers of what some call the culture of death rooted their beliefs and actions in Darwinism - a little-known fact that one conservative leader says shouldn’t be ignored. Hugh Owen of the Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation told an audience on Capitol Hill before the March for Life last month that the philosophical consequences of Darwinism has “totally destroyed many parts of our society.” Owen pointed to Dr. Josef Mengele,...

We must never forget Terri and the premature, unthinkable death she endured. Last March 31st was the seventh anniversary of my sister, Terri Schiavo’s death. Terri was starved and dehydrated to death by those who value killing the innocent ahead of preserving life, and who put God second to the powers of a corrupt legal and government system—or leave Him out of the equation, entirely. Terri never wanted to die, and in fact told us just the opposite—that she wanted to live. As we look back on all she endured, we realize that Terri did not die in vain. For...

When Kenneth Warden was diagnosed with terminal bladder cancer, his hospital consultant sent him home to die, ruling that at 78 he was too old to treat. Even the palliative surgery or chemotherapy that could have eased his distressing symptoms were declared off-limits because of his age. His distraught daughter Michele Halligan accepted the sad prognosis but was determined her father would spend his last months in comfort. So she paid for him to seen privately by a second doctor to discover what could be done to ease his symptoms. Thanks to her tenacity, Kenneth got the drugs and surgery...

WASHINGTON — Old checklist for doctors: order that test, write that prescription. New checklist for doctors: first ask yourself if the patient really needs it. Nine medical societies, including the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American College of Cardiology, representing nearly 375,000 physicians are challenging the widely held perception that more health care is better, releasing lists Wednesday of tests and treatments their members should no longer automatically order. The 45 items listed include: * Don't repeat colonoscopies within 10 years of a first such test * Don't perform early imaging for most back pain * Don't do...

JANET BAIRD writes: President Obama and the Department of Health and Inhuman Services, as you know, recently decreed that free sterilizations be available to all college-age women under Obamacare. But the truth is even more sinister. Note the wording of the HHS regulation. As reported at CNS news, ‘[a]ll Food and Drug Administration [(FDA)] approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity,’ as prescribed by a provider,” said the HHS description of the regulation. [emphasis added] This clause caught my eye, “for all women with reproductive capacity.” Have you thought about the...

An engineer has come up with macabre rollercoaster concept where passengers are thrilled and then ‘killed’. The chilling Euthanasia Coaster is a theoretical machine engineered to ‘humanely, with elegance and euphoria, take the life of a human being’. It is designed to subject the rider to a series of unique experiences from euphoria to thrill and from tunnel vision to loss of consciousness. When travelling at 100m/s, the passenger would then pass away following a lack of oxygen reaching the brain. The surreal structure is the brainchild of Lithuanian engineer Julijonas Urbonas.

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) – How strongly does Barack Obama believe in unlimited abortions? Strongly enough that the only article he wrote for the Harvard Law Review while he was a law school student talked about how fervently believed in legalized abortion. Obama’s name wasn’t attached to any other legal scholarship during the time. In an article unearthed by the Politico web site, Obama, as the president of the Harvard Law Review, wrote an unsigned article touting abortion. The web site says the article comes in at six pages and is contained in the third volume of the 1990 Harvard Law...

A family court judge who ruled that a pregnant woman with schizophrenia should undergo an abortion and be sterilized sharply defended her decision yesterday, while denouncing Boston University for withdrawing what she said was a job offer amid the controversy. In a rare personal defense of the reasoning behind a court ruling, Christina Harms, who retired from the bench last month after 23 years, said she concluded that the woman, a 31-year-old who suffered from delusions, would choose to terminate her pregnancy if she were mentally competent, chiefly so that she could resume antipsychotic medication that would have harmed the...

With all that's going on with the Catholic Church and the President right now, this has become a huge hot button topic. But why is this so important to progressives? Rush keeps saying that "abortion is the sacrament of liberalism." What makes this so? Let's ask Margaret Sanger. In her book "Woman and the new race", Sanger explains the purpose of birth control:(Page 229) Birth control itself, often denounced as a violation of natural law, is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of those...

If you aren't creeped out by the No Birth Control Left Behind rhetoric of the White House and Planned Parenthood, you aren't listening closely enough. The anesthetic of progressive benevolence always dulls the senses. Wake up. When a bunch of wealthy white women and elite Washington bureaucrats defend the trampling of religious liberties in the name of "increased access" to "reproductive services" for "poor" women, the ghost of Margaret Sanger is cackling. As she wrote in her autobiography, Sanger founded Planned Parenthood in 1916 "to stop the multiplication of the unfit." This, she boasted, would be "the most important and...

Alongside today’s respect for human life there is the increasingly popular idea that there is too much human life around, and that it is killing the planet. Since the beginning of time, one of the clearest markers of an enlightened society has been the moral status it attaches to human life. And outwardly, at least, twenty-first-century Western societies express an unprecedented degree of respect for human life. For example, cultural and political institutions continually talk about the need to uphold human rights. The human rights narrative now shapes policymaking, both domestically and internationally. Many even argue that protecting human rights...

January 9, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a recently released report, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) claimed credit for helping to “shape” the Affordable Care Act signed by President Obama this past March. “In the latter half of 2009 – in what will surely be remembered as a pivotal achievement – Planned Parenthood worked with its supporters across the nation to help shape and pass the Affordable Care Act,” wrote PPFA President Cecile Richards and PPFA Chair Valerie McCarthy, in a letter published as part of the organization’s 2009-2010 annual report. The women credit their organization’s “tireless efforts” with...

“There is only one country in the world for which we project the median fertility to not fall below 2.1 children in the projection period between 2010 and 2100,” said the UN Population Division in the 2010 Population Estimates and Projections Revision. In their informative video series, Overpopulation Is a Myth, The Population Research Institute explains, ”by the end of this century, we’ll be losing 1 billion people every twenty years.”

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...

No amount of reassuring chat can disguise his advice that we should keep deadly drugs in our sock drawerDr Philip Nitschke, aka “Dr Death”, has been in town. According to a report in the Independent on Tuesday the Australian euthanasia campaigner has been telling audiences in London, York and Scotland that “his aim [is] to save lives”. His argument runs that “once people have a means of killing themselves, many who might attempt a botched suicide would instead prolong their lives, knowing they had a way out without having to call on a loved one to help, exposing them to...

An artist's rendering of the unborn child at 32-weeks gestation. MELBOURNE, Australia, November 23, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A 32-week set of twins were both aborted after staff at an Australian hospital initially killed the healthy twin by accident, and then also aborted the sick sibling after realizing their mistake, reports the Herald Sun. The paper reports that the mother of the children was told that one of her twin children had a congenital heart defect that would require years of surgery, and that the child may not survive. After she decided to have the child aborted, doctors then gave...

The Obama administration Friday revoked the approval of the best-selling drug Avastin for treating advanced breast cancer in the United States, despite appeals from distraught women, some patients advocates and the company that makes the drug. FDA Administrator Margaret Hamburg issued a 69-page decision outlining her decision, which was based on the recommendation of a six-member FDA advisory committee that unanimously concluded in June that the drug was harming women more than it was helping them. [Snip] ... Genentech spokesman Charlotte Arnold. “We are disappointed with this outcome. We remain committed to the many women with this incurable disease and...

I think my Ukrainian heritage fuels my twin obsessions with Soviet history and economics. Sadly, this often puts me on opposing ideological ground from my good friends and fellow alumni of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, which recently helped bring Utopia in Four Movements to Iowa City's local tax-supported theater. Sam Green, the filmmaker who narrated the exploration of "the battered state of the utopian impulse," on one hand described socialism has having gone "monstrously wrong" and on the other expressed open sentimentality for the Russian and Maoist revolutions. He showed pictures of executed Cambodians and also said a copy of...

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 global population reaches 7 billion, Jeffrey Sachs says we must adopt sustainable technologies, achieve stable population. Just 12 years after the arrival of the 6 billionth individual on the planet in 1999, humanity will greet the 7 billionth arrival this month. The world population continues its rapid ascent, with roughly 75 million more births than deaths each year. The consequences of a world crowded with 7 billion people are enormous. And unless the world population stabilizes during the 21st century, the consequences for humanity could be grim. A rising population puts enormous pressures on a planet already plunging into...

A speech by Don Feder at Ave Maria University, September 20, 2011 Hollywood has a penchant for blowing things up – especially the world. Since the 1950s, apocalyptic movies (which come with a variety of special effects) have been all the rage. We’ve met our doom through nuclear war (“On The Beach,” “The Day After”), a worldwide super-plague (“Twelve Monkeys” “The Stand”), global warming (“The Day After Tomorrow,” “Waterworld,”), the earth’s core over-heating (“2012,” “The Core”), overpopulation (“Soylent Green”), a comet striking the earth (“Deep Impact,” “Armageddon”), sentient machines taking over (the “Terminator” and “Matrix” series), rampaging simians (the “Planet...

August 21, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A prominent left-wing American political blog has come under fire after publishing one writer’s quip that the world needs “a global superplague” because “there are too many goddam people already.” Daily Kos contributor Jon Stafford’s August 10 post, in which Stafford described himself as “Not Pro-Choice, Pro-Abortion,” drew immediate attention in the blogosphere. While Stafford said that his remarks are partly “facetious,” he went on to say, “nevertheless there is a seed of truth in it, because I believe that the world is wildly overpopulated and that we must take steps as a society to...

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...

Population: The vice president gives a thumbs up to Beijing's policy of sustainable growth through forced population control. This is no gaffe. The White House endorses this policy. Just ask the president's science adviser. We are used to the "mouth that roared" putting his foot in it. But Vice President Joe Biden's remarks at Sichuan University in China clearly embrace the progressive belief that people are a plague on the Earth — not its greatest resource. "Your policy has been one which I fully understand — I'm not second-guessing — of one child per family. The result being that you're...

In the wake of an onslaught of criticism for Vice President Joe Biden’s comments in China about “not second guessing” the country’s one-child policy, the Obama administration has issued a statement of clarification. “The Obama Administration strongly opposes all aspects of China’s coercive birth limitation policies, including forced abortion and sterilization,” Biden’s spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff told The Daily Caller in an email. “The Vice President believes such practices are repugnant.” Barkoff explained that Biden was attempting to critique the restrictive system with his comments.

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...

Comedian and actor David Cross appeared on Current TV's "Countdown" program Monday evening to promote his upcoming movie and other gigs when the conversation turned to a recent study that watching one hour of television shortens your life by 22 minutes. Cross was being very serious on how this would benefit his pocket because that would mean he would not have to pay for medical care of the elderly who are "not contributing anything." Keith Olbermann, the host of "Countdown," believes this is a Darwinian idea. Transcript below: David Cross: "I don't mind, I like the idea -- or I'm...

I am sure this will be happening in Madrid as it did in London. Richard Dawkins brought at least one laspsed Catholic back to the Church during the Papal visit to the UK. She saw the the anti-Pope snarling mob led by Dawkins and Tatchel, with their plastic devil horns and inflated condoms, sex "toys" and angry faces and she saw the sheer joy of those cheering the Pope and the banners carried by the enthusiastic youth. She said it wasn't about arguments, it was about faces. Dawkins & co. glaring and hopeless, those who were there cheering the Pope...

President Obama is on the verge of achieving his liberal revolution. His goal is to destroy our Judeo-Christian culture and replace it with European-style radical secularism. The administration is now contemplating forcing health insurance companies to provide free birth control - including the "morning-after" pill - as part of Obamacare. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is seriously considering adding contraception to the list of services that must be fully covered by insurers without charging co-payments. HHS is expected to make its final decision before Aug. 1.

Our unsustainable population levels are depleting resources and denying a decent future to our descendants. We must stop the denial. A 2009 NPR story on U.S. pregnancies reported that half — yes, half — of all U.S. pregnancies are unintended. That's a lot of unintended consumers adding to our future climate change. And that's what the right calls the "liberal" side of the mass media. The politically conservative U.S. mass media cover unsustainable population levels even less. That pretty much reflects the appalling state of U.S. public education today on population. The U.S. approach to population issues across all levels...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced on Tuesday that it plans to ban the sale of “the most toxic rat and mouse poisons, as well as most loose bait and pellet products” to residential customers. The goal is to better protect children, pets and wildlife. “These changes are essential to reduce the thousands of accidental exposures of children that occur every year from rat and mouse control products and also to protect household pets,” said Steve Owens, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. The EPA also will require that all rat and mouse poisons

(CNSNews.com) - President Barack Obama’s regulatory czar retreated from a 2003 academic report he wrote advocating that government assign a higher monetary value to the lives of young people than to senior citizens during testimony to Congress on Friday. Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Cass Sunstein testified in front of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations about the Obama administration’s plans for reviewing and reducing federal regulations. “I’m a lot older now than the author with my name was, and I’m not sure what I think about what that young man wrote,”...