Free Republic

Life expectancy has increased significantly over the past several decades and people live longer now than they did even 50 years ago. The average American now lives to almost 79 years old, nearly double the life expectancy for the average person in 1900. Yet, despite the number of older folks in our society, lack of respect and care for the elderly has become an increasing problem. As our society embraces a “throwaway” and materialistic mindset, we see a decline in the birth rate as well as a greater aging population. As society loses respect for the human person at even the...

BOSTON, March 14, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) - A bill that would allow adult biological males to shower or change alongside young girls has earned the endorsement of two prominent teachers unions in Massachusetts. State legislators are considering a bill that would specifically open all public restrooms, shower facilities, and locker rooms to transgender people. "An Act Relative to Gender Identity and Non-Discrimination" (H.B. 1577) would add "gender identity" to the state's protected classes able to access all public facilities, such as private changing areas. Lawmakers specifically exempted "lawfully sex-segregated facilities" when it passed a 2011 ordinance granting transgender people protected legal...

March 14, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – While some in the pro-life movement do not see a connection between the right to life and the struggle to preserve traditional sexual morality, those on the other side see how the efforts coincide quite clearly. The plaintiffs in the case to force California to redefine marriage say the LGBT political movement and actions to expand abortion “are inseparable.” John Lewis and Stuart Gaffney, a homosexual couple, won a California Supreme Court decision in 2008 stating that refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples is a form of discrimination that violates the state constitution....

NEW YORK CITY, March 11, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) -- New York Mayor Bill de Blasio issued an executive order giving men the right to use women's bathrooms and locker rooms, and vice versa. The mayor's edict is called, "Access to Single-Sex City Facilities Consistent With Gender Identity and Expression."  It means that all New York City single-gender facilities must accommodate both sexes, including city buildings and offices, parks, children's playgrounds, swimming pools, and more, all access given without showing identification or any proof of gender. Mayor de Blasio declared that transgenders using opposite sex bathrooms and locker rooms "is a fundamental...

In the wake of the huge controversy last year about the use of fetal tissue obtained from Planned Parenthood abortion clinics, the US Congress held hearings last week about “Bioethics and Fetal Tissue”.Here are excerpts from the testimony of G. Kevin Donovan, Director of the Pellegrino Center for Clinical Bioethics and Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington DC.********I am a physician trained in both pediatrics and clinical bioethics. I have spent my entire professional career caring for infants and children. It was this interest and concern that led me to further study...

UNITED KINGDOM, March 10, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – British organ transplant specialists want the country's National Health Service to encourage parents considering aborting their disabled unborn children to carry them to term so their parts can be harvested. While proponents say the harvesting won't happen until the baby is dead, that could mean "brain-dead," raising the prospect of other bodily functions being intentionally terminated at the optimum moment for removal of organs. The practice has generated strong criticism from ethicists, and though pro-life advocates appreciate that officials would encourage parents to carry their children to term, they are criticizing the underlying...

You’re a pro-life family. You teach your kids about the sanctity of every human being from an early age and help them explore the beauty of God’s creation at the earliest moments of life. You treasure the “wow” moments that your child experiences while learning about the culture of life. You know that teaching your child about the value of every human being is important. But what happens when your child is exposed to the horrors of abortion—through a cemetery of the innocents display, a pro-life memorial to honor deceased preborn children, or even during a church sermon? At American...

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 8, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) -- Marco Rubio is staunchly pro-marriage, but he’s facing questions after the revelation that he is appointing Paul Singer, a major gay “marriage” proponent, as his campaign finance chairman. Politico speculated that the choice is part of a Wall Street campaign to stop Donald Trump.  Merco Press claimed the choice "shows just how willing Rubio is to risk voter backlash in order to continue raising money for his campaign march." Singer founded the hedge fund Elliot Management Corporation, and is worth about $2.2 billion according to Forbes. In 2012, he started a Super PAC...

NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland, March 7, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Minutes after addressing a packed room at the 2016 CPAC, two leading social conservatives told LifeSiteNews that sexual agendas are putting religious liberty at risk. The Family Research Council's Travis Weber told LifeSiteNews that "for a lot of us, religious liberty's only been a hot-button issue recently, we're seeing in the news. Why is that? It's driven by agendas affecting matters of sexuality – marriage, abortion, contraception, and all sorts of other issues." "So what do we do about this? Some of these claims are going to be dealt with in the...

WOONSOCKET, Rhode Island, March 7, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – A Rhode Island Catholic school has instituted a policy against enrolling transgender students. However, in the face of backlash the school says it is open to rethinking the policy. “Mount Saint Charles Academy is unable to make accommodations for transgender students,” the school’s handbook states. “Therefore, MSC does not accept transgender students nor is MSC able to continue to enroll students who identify as transgender.” The policy against admitting students identifying as transgender has been in effect at the Woonsocket, Rhode Island, prep school as of October of last year, according to...

Jeannine Parvati Baker talks about New Age yogis and abortion: “Allow me first to first turn my attention to the yoga community wherein it is all too common for women yogis (yoginis) to abort their babies … I have watched many of my yogini sisters procure abortions knowing that it was breaking the primary vow of ahimsa (harmlessness) that yogis make. They justified their actions with the confused philosophy of reincarnation and “free will.” In other words, they said that the soul knew “on some level’” what it was getting by choosing incarnation into a woman who did not want...

Mario Melazzini at work in Rome    Monday, February 29, was Rare Disease Day, an international initiative to promote awareness of the thousands of crippling disorders. It’s a good opportunity to highlight how courageously their victims deal with adversity.It would hard to find a better example of this than the new chairman of the board of Italy’s peak body for regulating pharmaceutical products, Agenzia italiana del Farmaco (AIFA), Mario Melazzini.Melazzini was appointed by the Minister of Health in January, after his predecessor resigned over conflict of interest issues. He was an unusual choice. For about 20 years he practiced as...

NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland, March 3, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) -- As the Conservative Political Action Conference got underway Thursday, they faced strong criticism for welcoming a Republican homosexual activist group as a sponsor for the first time. The Log Cabin Republicans state on their website that their group exists solely to “make the Republican Party more inclusive, particularly on gay and lesbian issues.” “Working from inside the Party—educating other Republicans about gay and lesbian issues—is the most effective way to gain new Republican allies for equality,” the group’s website states. “We believe equality for LGBT Americans is in the finest tradition...

On January 21 of last year, the eve of the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, I was teaching a night class in literature. The topic was Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery.” [For any who haven’t read it, a big SPOILER ALERT is necessary here.]Jackson’s 1948 story was set in a rural community. The cheery townspeople gather one sunny, happy day, amidst much joking, for the annual lottery. Families draw from a black box, then, when an individual family is chosen, each member of the family draws again. Only at the very end of the story is the purpose of...

The Pope and the Baby Killer In 2010, after I had lived in Italy about two years and had begun to understand the byzantine complexities of this country's politics, Emma Bonino decided to run for the office of governor of the region of Lazio. Once I found out what kind of person she was, I was seized with the urge to buy a crate of spray paint and go around Rome writing, "10,000 bambini assassinati non abbastanza per Emma 'la Bicicletta' Bonino," on all her posters. "10,000 murdered babies not enough for Emma 'the bicycle' Bonino." I thought of it...

SANTO DOMINGO, March 1, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Tomorrow, the Dominican Republic's LGBT Chamber of Commerce will be inaugurated at a luxury hotel in downtown Santo Domingo, and it is being pushed almost singlehandedly by the United States government and its taxpayers.  The following press announcement was sent to all major news outlets in the staunchly pro-family Caribbean nation by the United States Embassy. The Embassy of the United States of America, the LGBT Chamber of Commerce of the Dominican Republic (CCLGBTRD) and the United States Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce  (NGLCC), under the auspices of the United States Agency...

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, February 29, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) -- Last week the youth wing of Sweden’s Liberal Party voted to call for the decriminalization of sexual relations between siblings as well as sexual relations with a corpse, on the argument that laws should not be based on “morality” or on a societal consensus on what is “disgusting.”“We are a youth organization and one of our tasks is to think one step further,” said Liberal Youth leader Cecilia Johnsson to  Swedish news site Aftonbladet last week. “I understand that [incest and necrophilia] can be seen as unusual and disgusting but legislation can not be...

It was a big year for salacious affairs between teachers and their students. Here are 10 of the most scandalous of these stories that captured the public’s imagination in 2015. (WAY less than 50%)

UNITED KINGDOM, February 29, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) -- A postgraduate student on an educational path to enter social services has been expelled from his university after being told by administrators that Facebook comments he made months ago arguing the Christian position against gay “marriage” made him unfit to become a social worker. Two months after posting to Facebook comments defending U.S. county clerk Kim Davis and her decision to not grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples as well as quoting the Bible’s condemnation of homosexual acts, 38-year-old Felix Ngole found himself before a disciplinary hearing at Sheffield University due to a student...

WASHINGTON, D.C., February 29, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – In a first-of-its-kind analysis, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have concluded that one in two black men who are gay or bisexual will contract HIV.In an infographic released last week, one in six men who have sex with men (MSM) will contract HIV in their lifetimes, with half of black MSM likely to contract. Black men are the most likely racial and gender demographic to contract HIV, with a five-percent chance of contraction.White women are the least likely to contract the disease of the demographics examined – blacks, Hispanics, and whites of...