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This column is a continuation of my last, which can be accessed in my column archive. It is simply an expression of gratitude towards the ten people who have most influenced my life as I approach the fifty-year mark. The purpose of writing this two part series is twofold. First, it is to remind people of the importance of stopping every now and then to express gratitude towards others (see the previous installment). Second, it is to highlight the way these important people have provided encouragement to me – in the hopes that this will give the reader ideas about...

Tom tells of the ignorance they faced, and the incredible moments they shared while bringing up Rosie… ‘The pregnancy was unplanned, so I’d already been through the standard worry, mainly about our financial situation. Then when we went for our 12-week scan, everything seemed fine and I felt happier. It was then my wife, Karen, now 39, decided to have the Bart’s screening test, which can indicate conditions such as Down’s syndrome. The test is offered to all mums-to-be, but it’s not compulsory. I think it was instinct on her part – we’d declined it with our other kids, Harry,...

The Obama Administration has chosen to back Ebola vaccines made using cell lines cultivated from aborted babies, despite the fact that the government itself acknowledged that moral alternatives could also be used, according to a pro-life organization that specializes in advocating for morally produced vaccines.  Children of God for Life says it has discovered that several Ebola vaccines in development for use worldwide are being made using the aborted fetal cell lines.The proof of the use of the controversial cell lines in the manufacture of the vaccines is found in the patents. According to the patents, Glaxo SmithKline (GSK) and NIAID...

In her autobiography, Margaret Sanger tells us about one of her visits to a Ku Klux Klan rally: "I accepted an invitation to talk to the women's branch of the Ku Klux Klan...I saw through the door dim figures parading with banners and illuminated crosses...I was escorted to the platform, was introduced, and began to speak...In the end, through simple illustrations I believed I had accomplished my purpose. A dozen invitations to speak to similar groups were proffered." (Margaret Sanger: An Autobiography, P.366) Thirteen invitations to speak to the KKK?  For the founder of Planned Parenthood?  Why was she such...

FULLTITLE: Two teenagers and life-long friends are the first students with Down Syndrome to be crowned homecoming king and queen in Florida For the first time ever, two high school students from Florida with Down syndrome were crowned homecoming king and queen. Travjuan Hunter, who goes by Bubba, and his queen Semone Adkins stood in a football field on October 11th in front of all their peers who cheered them on as they were adorned with crowns and handed bouquets of flowers. Bubba proudly wore a black tuxedo and Semone stunned in a floor length sparkly gray dress. The two...

More babies than ever are surviving being born at 23 weeks, a stage in pregnancy when they are not considered ‘viable’, and could even legally be aborted. While hospitals are only obliged to intervene and revive babies born after 24 weeks of pregnancy — also the current abortion limit — to the joy of many parents, increasing numbers of medics are saving the lives of those who arrive sooner. Research conducted in 2006 suggested that just 19 per cent of babies born at 23 weeks survived. Yet in a study sure to reignite the ongoing debate about lowering the abortion...

FULLTITLE: Police force pregnant woman to the ground at gunpoint for speeding - even though she was in LABOR and on the way to the hospital A pregnant woman in Iowa had a particularly difficult labor this week when she was held at gunpoint on her way to the hospital. Rachel Kohnen and her husband Ben were going 30 miles over the speed limit on Tuesday morning in Fort Dodge, Iowa, as Rachel was in labor and felt that if the two did not get to the hospital soon she was going to give birth in a car. Around that...

Jeanie, a 40 Days for Life leader in Syracuse, New York, told of a woman who came out of a Planned Parenthood clinic in tears. Jeanie and the people praying with her were able to talk to her and found out that she had been kicked out of Planned Parenthood and denied a pregnancy test because she was not considering abortion. According to Jeanie: “We offered her support and assisted her to the pregnancy care center next door.” According to Jeanie, this was not an isolated incident: “One couple we offered assistance to told us as they were leaving that...

A nurse in Italy is accused of killing patients that she found annoying, The Sydney Morning Herald reported Tuesday. Daniela Poggiali, 42, was arrested over the weekend after a 78-year-old patient in her care died from an injection of potassium, the paper reported. According to the Central European News , the patient had a high amount of potassium in her bloodstream, which can cause cardiac arrest.

All eyes are on Tennessee. Tennessee is known as the Volunteer State, Music City USA, home of Elvis Presley, Beale Street, the buckle of the Bible belt, and the Great Smokey Mountains. Now it has another moniker…abortion destination of the Southeast. Tennessee ranks as the third state nationally for out of state women coming to get their abortions. This occurred because the ACLU and Planned Parenthood sued the people of Tennessee in a lawsuit known as Planned Parenthood vs. Sundquidst. Planned Parenthood sued to remove three regulations around abortion that had been voted into place by bi-partisan legislators. These were...

I usually skim books by pro-abortionists—the arguments are repetitious and drawn from the same fetid pool of anti-child and (usually) anti-male rhetoric. But I believe I will have to read Katha Pollitt’s “Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights.”Is it because Pollitt’s book promises a breakthrough, so to speak, a new way of defending the indefensible? Not if you read the 100% sympathetic reviews that have appeared in the usual places (Slate, the New York Times, Salon, etc., etc.) But that’s not the point, although you keep hearing notions that an abortion absolutist is somehow reaching out to people who share none of...

FULL TITLE: Woman who had no idea she was pregnant gave birth to twin girls after going to see the doctor for a stomach ache An Iowa woman had an eye-opening experience last week when she went to the doctor for a stomach ache and gave birth to rare twins in the hospital hours later. Shelby Magnani and her fiancé James Croskey of Ankeny, Iowa had no idea Shelby was six-months-pregnant with one child - let alone two. Ava and Anna were born by C-section last Thursday weighing just four and three pounds each. Not only was Shelby pregnant with...

Two children were raped several times resulting in several pregnancies that ended in abortion. Each time the young victims were sent back into the hands of their abuser because the clinic or clinics where they were taken by their mother failed to report the possibility of abuse. The story begins in 2008, when a 16-year-old teen gave birth and her boyfriend’s parents realized that the baby did not look like their son, but rather like an adult male acquaintance of the teen’s mother. teensexualabuseA DNA test proved the boyfriend was not the baby’s father, and that’s when the girl admitted...

FULL TITLE: Abortion is great and wonderful and everyone would agree if pro-life activists hadn’t “brainwashed” the public I usually skim books by pro-abortionists—the arguments are repetitious and drawn from the same fetid pool of anti-child and (usually) anti-male rhetoric. But I believe I will have to read Katha Pollitt’s “Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights.” Is it because Pollitt’s book promises a breakthrough, so to speak, a new way of defending the indefensible? Not if you read the 100% sympathetic reviews that have appeared in the usual places (Slate, the New York Times, Salon, etc., etc.) But that’s not the point,...

A new report on Sex Trafficking has revealed that many women who are victims of Human Trafficking have also had several abortions at Planned Parenthood and abortion facilities. The authors interviewed several survivors of sex trafficking who stated that many of their pregnancies were forcibly aborted at abortion clinics and some of the doctors may have been clients of their pimps. In the report entitled, Health Consequences of Sex Trafficking, published by the Annals of Health Law, it reads, “the prevalence of forced abortions is an especially disturbing trend in sex trafficking…The survivors in this study reported that they often...

FULL TITLE: Ohio televangelist ‘forced members to have vasectomies and abortions, told women to treat pregnancies as tumors and allowed children to be sexually abused’ Televangelist Ernest Angley has been accused of running an Ohio church where men are forced to get vasectomies and women abortions, and where children were sexually abused. Self-proclaimed prophet Angley has been described by some of 21 former members as a closeted-homosexual Jim Jones who's turned a blind eye to sexual abuse. But the 93-year-old has defended the allegations, saying he is simply an instrument of God. He told the Akron Beacon Journal: 'I'm not...

FULL TITLE: Giggling nurse with a throat infection who breathed on critically ill baby and said it was 'better off dead' faces being struck off A nurse who breathed on a critically ill baby while she was suffering from a throat infection and said the newborn was ‘better off dead’ faces being struck off. Claire Orton giggled after exhaling onto the 'extremely poorly' child while it was being treated at University Hospital in Coventry, Warwickshire, a tribunal heard. She had told colleagues she had been ill with a throat infection before she deliberately breathed on the infant’s face as if...

Men can and do make a difference — just ask former abortion workers. In particular, they’ve noticed that no-shows and cancellations go way up when a it’s a man in a Roman collar who’s joined the vigil. The staff knows right away it’s going to be a bad day for business. We are thankful for all the priests and ministers who have helped make more “bad days” possible! Many members of the clergy have led by example by praying at 40 Days for Life vigil sites these past three weeks. It takes courage … so thank them when you see...

When I arrived at the Ohio State House yesterday afternoon I was already skeptical about a prayer vigil that was being advertised by Planned Parenthood. I did not really expect to hear anything remotely biblical. I walked up to the steps of the State House with my pro-life signs and noticed the sign on the podium immediately. It read, “Moral Movement”. Are you kidding me? How can any movement that includes the nation’s largest child-killer call itself moral? Mark Harrington, of Created Equal, and I began to set up the signs we brought to show Planned Parenthood and their supporters...

FULL TITLE: A young woman writes an open letter to the child she is about to abort and posts it online. – My open letter to her. A young woman writes an open letter to the child she is about to abort and posts it online. I want to start by saying that I am skeptical of this being a sincere post. I am actually praying that it is not. It seems to me that one of the biggest strategies of the pro-abortion movement is to de-stigmatize abortion: to make it a simple, no-big-deal action like clipping your nails. All...