Free Republic

he sudden spasm of intense debate over abortion on Capitol Hill this week threatens not only to stall the passage of health care legislation, but also to shatter the delicate cease-fire that has governed the abortion issue during the Obama era. After months of dodging high-profile confrontations over abortion, Democrats — including President Barack Obama — find themselves faced with a stark set of alternatives: Support a bill that imposes limits on access to abortion or demand one that might, however indirectly, fund the procedure with taxpayer money. It's the kind of decision point the White House and Democratic leaders...

For the first time, in a long time, there is actually some tangibility to the abortion debate in this country. Yes, after years of Democrats dodging around the issue by saying they don't approve of abortions, but favor a woman's right to choose (the same way they supported the troops but still were rooting against them in Iraq and Afghanistan) Democrats in the House were forced to vote whether they would support government-subsidized abortions as part of the new health care bill. In an amendment to the House's health care bill, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) proposed an amendment which essentially...

In the end the young father could fight no longer. For more than a year he had made daily visits to the hospital bedside of his chronically-disabled son. For six emotional days in the High Court he had battled against the hospital - and the baby's mother - who were reluctantly seeking the right to withdraw life support. Finally, faced with overwhelming evidence, he made the 'agonising' decision to let his beloved son go. Both parents wept as the court was told he no longer opposed the hospital's application. They said later they wanted to spend 'what little time remains...

WASHINGTON - Massachusetts officials are closely monitoring an abortion funding ban in the sweeping health care legislation before Congress to make sure that it does not restrict women’s access to abortion coverage in the state. Abortion is a covered service for low-income Massachusetts women enrolled in subsidized insurance plans available since 2006 through the state’s landmark health care law.But the bill that squeaked through the US House late Saturday would prohibit private insurance plans from covering abortion if they accept federal subsidies. It also bans abortion coverage in the new government insurance option. State officials say there are too many...

Nov 10, 2009 — When the Berlin wall fell 20 years ago, Dorothee Hubner first dared to think, “Are we allowed to leave and finally be free?” Her story and that of her parents Gerhard and Gertraude, scientists trapped in East Germany, was told by Andrew Curry, a freelance writer, in Science.[1] Dorothee was 23 years old in 1989. Her parents, also biochemists, “had spent decades struggling to do research in East Germany without compromising their personal ideals with allegiance to the ruling Communist Party.” By not pledging allegiance to the ruling Communist Party, the Hubners faced a life of...

  I awoke this morning in Edinburgh, jet lagged but looking forward to a productive time of debating and discussing assisted suicide.  Stumbling down to breakfast, I was sharply awakened into my usual state of concern for society by a front page headline in the Independent: Do I love my daughter? With all my heart. Will it be a relief when she dies?  Without question: Life and Death Issues with a Disabled Child The article is written by a woman named Tussie Myerson, the mother of eighteen-year-old Emmy, a young woman with severe seizure disorder and profound cognitive disabilities.  Myerson complains bitterly–and righteously–about the lack of services...

Bryan, TX (LifeNews.com) -- Planned Parenthood officials have failed in their bid to silence a former abortion center director who quit working for the abortion business after seeing an ultrasound of an abortion. They had pushed for a restraining order on Abby Johnson and a pro-life group that helped her conversion.Johnson had been the director of the Planned Parenthood center in this southeast Texas city that is home to Texas A&M University.She turned in her resignation on October 6 after years of a local pro-life group helping her see the problem with abortion. After the ultrasound, she decided to...

This topic forces us to assess the relationship between science and spirituality: is the invisible spiritual realm generated from the material or should it be considered as having a separate existence? Is religion a phenomenon that can ultimately be explained by science in naturalistic ways, or does religion represent a dimension of reality that cannot be directly probed by the methodologies of science? In an essay in Science, Elizabeth Culotta writes: ...

New York, November 10 (ANI): An English teacher was suspended for providing his students with a graphic short story about masturbation written by “Fight Club” author Chuck Palahniuk. Greg Van Voorhis had given the story to read to students preparing for the English Regents exam at The Bronx School of Law and Finance in Marble Hill. The material written for Playboy magazine told the tale of a teenage boy’s use of a carrot in a sex act on himself and autoerotic asphyxiation. Even though students were made to return the copies of the text at the end of the class,...

Vincent Mosby signed a marriage contract and paid a dowry in a religious ceremony in August, police said. Mosby, 23, of Kansas City didn’t legally wed his 14-year-old bride, however, because Missouri law won’t allow it without a judge’s order. Police said she was pressured into the union because her mother and stepfather thought she was going to be sexually active with a boy her age. ***** Police said the girl’s stepfather and mother became concerned that she was going to become sexually active, so the stepfather allegedly approached Mosby about marrying the girl. The girl was “strongly encouraged” to...

  Gary Harvey is the brain injured man from New York, who seems to have his own private “death panel” determined to kill him off and to make his and his wife’s life as miserable as possible, until the sentence is carried out.  One might think it could get no worse than it has been.  One should never think such thoughts, lest one (or more) be shown that — for however bad — things can actually get worse! Though it wasn’t Sara sitting on the so-called ethics committee that determined Gary should be starved and dehydrated to death —...

t's a custody battle that rages on in Horseheads. Sara Harvey is fighting to be the guardian of her husband, Gary, who has been in a vegetative state since 2006. But a judge has ruled she is unfit to take care of him properly. Our Vince Slomsky tells us just some of this complex story and what might happen next.   HORSEHEADS, N.Y. -- Sara and Gary Harvey met at work. They married each other in 1998. “We had a beautiful relationship. Just loving," said Sara Harvey. Gary was a relatively healthy person, until January 21st, 2006. He had a...

A Christian student government president in California faces recall for allowing a pro-life display on campus.Sacramento City College recently celebrated Constitution Day, an annual celebration of the U.S. Constitution and free speech. The Genocide Awareness Project (GAP), a pro-life organization, requested and was granted a display space at the event. Steve Macias, 19-year-old Associated Student Government president, and Monica Guzman, student affairs commissioner, now risk losing their positions for refusing to kick the pro-life group off campus.

A top House Democrat said Monday she's "confident" that a conference committee will strip language in the House health bill on taxpayer funding for abortion. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the Democrats' chief deputy whip in the House, said that she and other pro-choice lawmakers would work to strip the amendment included in the House health bill that bars federal funding from going to subsidize abortions. "I am confident that when it comes back from the conference committee that that language won't be there," Wasserman Schultz said during an appearance on MSNBC. "And I think we're all going to be...

See: Texas TV News videoof late term Texas abortionist, Curtis Boyd, admitting that he is "killing" and does abortions on girls as young as nine or ten years old.

Most contested cases of removing babies or profoundly disabled adults from needed life support have involved those with serious brain injuries or cognitive impairments. But once the idea that dead is better than disabled takes hold, it will soon spread to those with physical disabilities.Now, in the UK, parents are fighting over withdrawing life support from a seriously disabled one-year-old child who is cognitively normal. From the story: The mother of a chronically ill baby has defended her court battle with the child’s father to have his life support machine turned off. The boy, known only as RB, has...

As we move forward toward centralized bureaucratic health care control, it is worth noting the problems in countries that already have it.  Ireland is apparently paying surgeons to do nothing, while surgeries are canceled because the department is over budged, and the lines grow ever longer.  From the story: Three Irish surgeons have revealed that they are being paid a whopping $350,000 to do nothing. The three orthopedic consultants at Letterkenny General HospitalCounty Donegal have revealed that the Irish Health Service is paying them to “sit around doing nothing” while operating theaters are empty. Senior consultant and team leader,...

I have my pro-life credentials. I’ve fought in the trenches, so shut-up. Too many times while in the trenches, Right-to-Life national leaders have been there wiping out our side, handing victory to the pro-aborts. Today, I lament and pray for and with Rep. John Shaddegg (AZ) who knew that if he could have received just a little bit of Right-to-Life’s cooperation, Pelosi’s health care bill would have gone down. Instead, Shaddegg got a Right-to-Life knife in the back. The battle lost in the House over the government health care takeover rests in large part on the shoulders of the national...

"The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it." -Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood"[Our goal is] to be ready as educators and parents to help young people obtain sex satisfaction before marriage." -Dr. Lena Levine, colleague of Margaret Sanger and medical secretary of the International Planned Parenthood Federation in the 1930s"We are not going to be an organization promoting celibacy or chastity." -Faye Wattleton, President of Planned Parenthood from 1978-1992This summer, one of America's largest community organization networks was "busted" thanks to the efforts of two college kids...

Democratic leaders trying to preserve a high-stakes Saturday vote on a House health reform bill battled a swift current of rank-and-file defections Friday as the White House swung into action to help corral the final votes. But progress was slower than expected – as a bad jobs number Friday with unemployment eclipsing 10 percent, and Tuesday’s election losses making that job harder. President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and a number of top aides – including chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Education Secretary Arne Duncan — called wavering members.Democratic officials said their count of hard...

Today, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail. The JCT letter makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000...

Francheska Velez, 21, had just finished a tour in Iraq and returned to Ft. Hood three months pregnant. The Army granted Velez, a 2006 graduate of Kelvyn Park High School, a maternity leave of absence and she was set to return to Chicago in just two weeks.

PENSACOLA, November 6, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Last Friday, the 38th day of the autumn 40 Days for Life Campaign, the abortion facility at 6700 North 9th Avenue in Pensacola, Florida posted a 'Closed' sign on its door as pro-lifers prayed and kept vigil outside.Ernie Cyr, the Pensacola 40 Days for Life coordinator, said the local 40 Days for Life team didn't even realize at the time what they were witnessing - the permanent closure of an abortion facility that had been in operation for more than 25 years.Cyr explained that law enforcement officers went into the clinic on Friday...

Denver Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput will address parishioners on health care reform — and more specifically abortion — in a letter to be read at Masses this weekend. In his column in the Denver Catholic Register on Wednesday, Chaput said President Barack Obama has failed to keep his promise to not provide public money for abortion in his health care plan. Chaput said he is asking Catholics to demand their senators and representatives change congressional proposals "to respect Catholic and pro-life concerns." As it stands, federal law prohibits using federal funds to pay for abortions, except to save a pregnant...

Speaker Pelosi’s Government-Run Health Plan Will Require a Monthly Abortion Premium Health care reform should not be used as an opportunity to use federal funds to pay for elective abortions. Health reform should be an opportunity to protect human life - not end it. Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi’s 2,032-page government takeover of health care does just that. On line 17, p. 110, section 222 under “Abortions for which Public Funding is Allowed” the Health and Human Services Secretary is given the authority to determine when abortion is allowed under the government-run plan. The Speaker’s plan also requires that at least one...

Dallas, TX (LifeNews.com) -- The late-term abortion practitioner at the new abortion center in Dallas has admitted in a shocking interview that he kills unborn children during abortions. Curtis Boyd is one of the few abortion practitioners to admit what he is doing, but he has no qualms with his job. Boyd opened the first abortion center in Dallas in 1973 after the Supreme Court handed down the roe v. Wade decision allowing virtually unlimited abortions.In an interview with WFAA yesterday after news surfaced that he re-opened his late-term abortion center, Southwestern Women's Surgery Center, in the huge metro area...

SASKATOON, Saskatchewan, November 5, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Pro-lifers must be clear about the nature of euthanasia and assisted suicide, insisted Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, during an address at the Canadian National Pro-Life Conference last weekend in Saskatoon.  "If we allow confusion about what euthanasia or assisted suicide is then we lose!"The pro-life conference was held as the Canadian Parliament considers Bill C-384, which seeks to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide.Schadenberg stressed the importance of properly defining euthanasia and assisted suicide, which he said are commonly misunderstood.  Contrary to the popular understanding, they are not...

The ideal of the coolly rational scientific observer, completely independent, free of all preconceived theories, prior philosophical, ethical and religious commitments, doing investigations and coming to dispassionate, unbiased conclusions that constitute truth, is nowadays regarded by serious philosophers of science (and, indeed, most scientists) as a simplistic myth...

As Larry Johnson nears the Kansas City Chiefs' all-time rushing record, more than 10,000 fans have signed an online petition pleading for team officials to deactivate the running back after he posted homosexual slurs on his Twitter account. The petition — which has garnered 10,716 signatures as of early Thursday — calls on general manager Scott Pioli to act before Johnson, 29, surpasses running back Priest Holmes for the team rushing record. "We are asking you, as fans of this team, this organization, and of the pride that this city has in the Chiefs, please deactivate Larry Johnson," the petition...

Stunned and angry, national gay rights leaders Wednesday blamed scare-mongering ads - and President Barack Obama's lack of engagement - for a bitter election setback in Maine that could alter the dynamics for both sides in the gay-marriage debate. Conservatives, in contrast, celebrated Maine voters' rejection of a law that would have allowed gay couples to wed, depicting it as a warning shot that should deter politicians in other states from pushing for same-sex marriage. "Every time the citizens have voted on marriage, they have always sided with natural marriage," said Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, a Florida-based Christian...

LifeNews.com Note: Colleen Raezler is a research assistant at the Culture and Media Institute. This article originally appeared in NewsBusters, the blog of the Media Research Center.   Profits, not the killing of unborn children, are the "real immorality" of abortion, according to "View" panelist Joy Behar. Behar expressed her unique view of morality during the Nov. 3 "Hot Topics" discussion about Abby Johnson, a Texas Planned Parenthood director who resigned from her post last month after seeing an abortion on an ultrasound. Johnson explained to the local Texas CBS affiliate that Planned Parenthood had been pressuring her to focus...

Bryan, TX (LifeNews.com) -- Planned Parenthood is attempting to silence a former abortion center director who quit working for the abortion business after seeing an ultrasound of an abortion procedure. Officials with the group are pushing a request for a restraining order on Abby Johnson and a pro-life group that helped her conversion.Johnson had been the director of the Planned Parenthood center in this southeast Texas city that is home to Texas A&M University.She turned in her resignation on October 6 after years of a local pro-life group helping her see the problem with abortion. After the ultrasound, she decided...

Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards Washington D.C., Nov 4, 2009 / 03:44 pm (CNA).- Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, sent an urgent message this week to the group's base asking for pro-abortion Catholics to defy the U.S. bishops, who are campaigning against the current versions of health care legislation on Capitol Hill because they fund abortion.In the email, Richards says that “as I write this, the bishops have asked all the Catholics in the country to contact their legislators, asking them to alter current health care legislation to include anti-choice amendments.” “The bishops have inserted...

One of two women accused of scrapping with an anti-abortion protester in front of Flagstaff City Hall has decided to accept six months of unsupervised probation to make the charges go away. Denise Redsteer, 48, accepted a "deferred prosecution" Friday in Flagstaff Municipal Court, said City Prosecutor Lisa Stankovich. Deferred prosecution does not admit guilt, and if Redsteer successfully completes the terms of her probation, the charges against her will be dismissed. Stankovich said that Redsteer has also agreed to pay a $150 prosecution fee and not commit any criminal offenses during the probationary period. Flagstaff attorney, Mik Jordhal, who...

Darwin’s bulldog—Thomas H. Huxley --snip-- Huxley, although an unbeliever, was thoroughly familiar with the gospel, and had little time for Christians who compromised their position by supporting the anti-biblical belief of evolutionary naturalism. He wrote: ...

The stars seemed aligned for supporters of gay marriage. They had Maine's governor, legislative leaders and major newspapers on their side, plus a huge edge in campaign funding. So losing a landmark referendum was a devastating blow, for activists in Maine and nationwide. In an election that had been billed for weeks as too close to call, Maine's often unpredictable voters repealed a state law Tuesday that would have allowed same-sex couples to wed. Gay marriage has now lost in all 31 states in which it has been put to a popular vote — a trend that the gay-rights movement...

MARSHFIELD, Mo. — Prosecutors have charged four Amish bishops in southwest Missouri with failing to report suspected child sex abuse. The four men were charged Tuesday with one misdemeanor count each. Missouri law requires people with "responsibility for the care of children" to report suspected child abuse. Examples of mandatory reporters are doctors, nurses, social workers and teachers and ministers who are not engaged in a "privileged communication." A lawyer for the four men questioned whether the law applies.

The Glasgay! arts festival is staging a play called Jesus, Queen of Heaven, in which in Christ is a man who wants to become a woman. As soon as I read about it, I thought: “I bet some public money has gone into that”. But even I was taken aback when I visited the festival website:If there’s one thing gay activists love, it’s public money. Though, as you can see, they’re only too thrilled to pick up a bit of commercial sponsorship along the way.Unsurprisingly, Jesus, Queen of Heaven has provoked protests from Catholics (who are probably unaware that they’re...

HINSDALE, Illinois, November 3, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A congregation of US Dominican nuns has publicly apologized for the scandal caused by one of its members acting as a volunteer escort at a Chicago area abortion facility, who now faces severe canonical penalties including excommunication and the possibility of dismissal.    LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) first broke the story about Sr. Donna Quinn, O.P., a Dominican nun who is outspokenly in favor of legalized abortion, who had been identified by pro-life witnesses as an escort for the ACU Health Clinic.Sr. Quinn's religious community, the Wisconsin-based Sinsinawa Dominican Congregation, admitted in a press release posted...

Since they seem to be so fond of "moderates"

Bryan, TX (LifeNews.com) -- News that the director of a local Planned Parenthood abortion business has drawn national interest and encouraged members of the pro-life community. With the "rest of the story," a pro-life leader tells LifeNews.com that the decision to quit Planned Parenthood wasn't a sudden reversal for Abby Johnson.Johnson had been the director of the Planned Parenthood center in the city that is home to Texas A&M University -- until she turned in her resignation on October 6.She says she ultimately had a change of heart after watching an ultrasound of an abortion procedure and realizing that abortion...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A new report from researchers at a university in New Zealand indicates 85 percent of women who had abortions report negative mental health issues as a result. The report is the latest from professor David Fergusson and his team showing abortions cause problems for women.The University of Otago team examined the medical history of over 500 women and concluded having an abortion generally “leads to significant distress in some” women who have them.It noted women reporting adverse reactions to their abortions were up to 80 percent more likely to have mental health problems and risk...

www.catholicnewsagency.com School counselor targeted for supporting Maine’s pro-marriage Question 1 Don Mendell appearing in the TV ad in favor of Question 1 Portland, Maine, Nov 3, 2009 / 02:52 am (CNA).-  A high school counselor is the subject of an ethics complaint to the Maine licensing board because of his appearance in a TV ad in favor of Maine’s Question 1, which would secure the definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman. His defenders say the complaint is an attempt to silence supporters of marriage.Donald Mendell, a licensed counselor at Nokomis Regional High School, is...

Ardipithecus ramidus is an extinct primate whose fossilized remains were first found along the Awash River in Ethiopia about fifteen years ago. Many fragments were collected, including shattered bones from a four-foot-tall female nicknamed "Ardi." She was chosen to represent her kind, apparently because of the comparative completeness of her remains. Now Ardi's discoverers believe they have collected enough data to reconstruct her history--but what does their data actually reveal? ...

Backed by some of the most powerful members of the Senate, a little-noticed provision in the healthcare overhaul bill would require insurers to consider covering Christian Science prayer treatments as medical expenses. The provision was inserted by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) with the support of Democratic Sens. John F. Kerry and the late Edward M. Kennedy, both of Massachusetts, home to the headquarters of the Church of Christ, Scientist. The measure would put Christian Science prayer treatments -- which substitute for or supplement medical treatments -- on the same footing as clinical medicine. While not mentioning the church by...

Oct 29, 2009 — “Even the most ardent fan of Charles Darwin might be feeling weary as his anniversary year draws to a close,” remarked Clive Wynn in another issue of Nature celebrating his bicentennial. --snip-- The Editors are not done celebrating, though. They just began a 4-part essay series on how Darwin’s ideas were received around the world...

No sooner had we celebrated the exit of Barack Obama's green jobs czar, Van Jones, because of his Communist connections, another off-the-wall administration embarrassment surfaced. President Obama nominated for commissioner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) a woman who signed a radical manifesto endorsing polygamy. We thought our nation had settled the polygamy issue a century and a half ago, but this nomination makes it a 21st century controversy. Obama's nominee for the EEOC, a lesbian law-school professor named Chai R. Feldblum, signed a 2006 manifesto endorsing polygamous households (i.e., "in which there is more than one conjugal partner")....

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The pro-life movement is unified in its opposition to the House health care reform bill Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled last week because of its abortion funding. In a new letter to members of Congress, the National Right to Life more exactly spells out what is at stake in the votes expected later this week. Members of the House could hold multiple votes on health care as soon as Thursday -- with votes coming on the rules for debate, one massive amendment from Pelosi and ruling Democrats, and a vote on the bill itself.When they vote,...

Monday November 2, 2009 Director of Planned Parenthood at 40 Days for Life Birthplace Resigns after Watching Abortion Ultrasound Planned Parenthood seeks restraining order By Kathleen GilbertBRYAN, Texas, November 2, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The director of the Texas Planned Parenthood abortion mill where the 40 Days for Life campaign began has resigned, saying she experienced a conversion after watching an ultrasound video of a child being killed by abortion."I just thought I can't do this anymore, and it was just like a flash that hit me and I thought that's it," said Abby Johnson in an interview with local...

A DURBAN father allegedly killed his teenage daughter after he discovered that she had pierced her tongue. The 17-year-old schoolgirl was allegedly beaten to death with an extension cord. The Ntuzuma township father allegedly punished his daughter on Saturday. The 38- year-old father was arrested yesterday morning, just hours after the killing. He had allegedly accused his daughter of having a boyfriend and misbehaving at school. The incident, which has shocked the community, has left the family devastated. KwaMashu police’s Constable Mumsy Mfeka said the father told the police he beat his daughter with an extension cord because she had...