Free Republic

Sarah Palin not anti-choice enough? A far right group claims the former Alaska governor's rhetoric on abortion sounds too "liberal" and "pro-choice" BY KATE HARDING In Salon today, Max Blumenthal writes of Sarah Palin, "her career has become a vehicle through which the right-wing evangelical movement feels it can express its deepest identity in opposition both to secular society and to its representatives in the Obama White House. Palin is perceived by its leaders -- and followers -- not as another cynical politician or even as a self-promoting celebrity, but as a kind of magical helper, the God-fearing glamour girl...

For the Denver-based American Right to Life, when it comes to abortion, Palin is as impure as any godless feminist. “[H]er words and actions prove that she is officially pro-choice and stands against the God-given right to life of the unborn,” they write in a new report. ARTL members plan to educate reporters about Palin’s many alleged failings as a true believer, particularly her March nomination of a former Planned Parenthood board member to the Alaska Supreme Court and her refusal to call for a ban on the morning-after pill.

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 debate over health-care reform is now entering a new phase. This week, the Senate Finance Committee voted for Sen. Max Baucus's health-care bill, which sets up a possible Senate vote on the legislation later this month. Aggressive negotiations are underway on how to handle abortion funding. Democratic leaders claim that all they want is to maintain the "status quo" on abortion. In reality, maintaining what we have now isn't even on the table. To do that, a health-care bill would have to explicitly prevent federal dollars from being used for elective abortions. Provisions that would have done that were...

After World War II, the U.S. government invested an enormous amount of money in medicine; medical research, medical procedures and medical technologies. This investment made contemporary scientific medicine into American medicine, characterized by a continuing flow of new treatment possibilities. These advances raised all kinds of ethical questions. Some were personal and individual, others were social and political. Both type questions are addressed by a new academic discipline called bioethics. The first attempt to develop a scientific medicine took place in Greece in the 5th century B.C. It was called Hippocratic medicine. Closely linked with this first scientific medicine was...

Five years ago the beginning of the end of Terri Schindler Schiavo’s life was transforming America into two battle camps, which fought bitterly over to preserve the life of who Terri’s father Robert Schindler told me he lovingly called his angel, Terri or to let government let her be starved to death. Yet after five years should America just simply move on? Would you simply move on if it were your child who suddenly was incapacitated and went through Terri Schiavo’s experience? It is an interesting question because there are those in the media and even probably in your office,...

A young mother's premature baby died in her arms after doctors refused to help because it was born just before 22-week cut-off point for treatment. Sarah Capewell, 23, gave birth to her son Jayden when she was 21 weeks and five days into her pregnancy. Although doctors refused to place the baby in intensive care, Jayden lived for two hours before he passed away at James Paget Hospital in Gorleston, Norfolk, last October.

Madrid, Spain, Aug 20, 2009 / 01:55 pm (CNA).- Dr. Esteban Rodriguez, spokesman for the organization Right to Life (Derecho a Vivir) in Spain, responded yesterday to comments by the country’s Minister of Justice, Francisco Caamano, who said there was no room for a conscience clause in the new law on abortion.  “We are willing to go to jail rather than following a criminal law, Rodriguez said, “and we are willing to commit the supposed crime of disobedience before the crime of abortion.” “We will not kill our patients, nor will we commit a crime against the public health deliberately harming...

SIOUX CITY, Iowa, August 18, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In his latest column, Bishop R. Walter Nickless of the Diocese of Sioux City joined a growing number of Catholic leaders in stated opposition to the Obama health care legislation, which is poised to expand abortion by mandating abortion coverage and providing taxpayer subsidies to abortion providers. Niclkess also noted that the Catholic Church has no position for or against any kind of health care distribution, and argued that the structure proposed by the legislation would ultimately be detrimental to distributing health care according to need. "No health care reform is better...

Roman Catholic leaders are stepping up their fight against the Obama administration’s healthcare plans, urging their faithful nationwide to contact legislators to protest abortion provisions in Democratic bills. Catholics who attended Mass Sunday in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, for example, received weekly bulletins with a call to action from Cardinal Justin Rigali, head of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' pro-life committee. The archdiocese, one of the largest in the nation, serves 1.45 million Catholics. “While this legislation is still in draft form, the request for action at the local level is imperative,” the cardinal wrote. “[W]e must take...

(CNN) -- An Australian high court ruled Friday that a quadriplegic man has the right to refuse food and water and can be allowed to die, a rare legal finding that some see as a major victory for right-to-die campaigners. An Australian high court ruled Friday that Christian Rossiter has the right to refuse food and water. The ruling means that the nursing facility in which Christian Rossiter has lived since November 2008 cannot be held criminally liable for allowing the patient to die, the Supreme Court of Western Australia said. "I'm happy that I won my right to die,"...

In a public forum defined as much by passionate declarations on abortion as by statements about health care policy intricacies, U.S. Rep. Ahn "Joseph" Cao, R-New Orleans, said Thursday that he "leans" toward supporting the House Democrats' vision of a medical system overhaul provided it won't pay for procedures to end pregnancy. "The word is 'leaning,' " he repeated to about 150 people gathered at an Irish Channel Neighborhood Association meeting, the first of four planned public forums for Cao during the August recess. Besides the abortion caveat, Cao further tempered his statement with his concerns about how major policy...

Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao New Orleans, La., Aug 3, 2009 / 02:06 pm (CNA).- Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao, (R-New Orleans), the first Vietnamese-American congressman and a Catholic,  announced this past weekend that, because of the “stealth mandate” for abortion still present in the Health Care bill, he prefers to “save his soul” rather than  vote in favor of it.Cao, the only member of the Louisiana House delegation who had not weighed in on where he stands on the health reform bill, told the Times-Picayune on Saturday that he cannot support any bill that permits public money to be spent...

The following information-- which is not my own work, but the work of astute friends in Washington, DC-- provides all you need to know about the Obama White House plans regarding abortion and health-care reform: From the latest polls: - 51% of Americans self-identify as pro-life (Gallup Poll, June 2009) - 61% of Americans say abortion is an important issue and 52% think it is too easy to obtain an abortion in America (Rasmussen Survey, June 2009) - 62% of Americans want more limitations placed on abortions and only 36% believe abortion should be generally available (CBS Poll, June 2009)....

The Catholic Medical Association has sent a pointed message to the Federal government: Back off and start over in planning for the future of health care in America. In a statement released earlier this week (http://www.cathmed.org/issues_resources/publications/press_releases/statement_on_health_care_reform/), the CMA said that “health-care reform encompasses both individual rights and the common good, ethical issues surrounding life and death, and economic issues ranging from taxes and property to economic competitiveness.” According to CMA’s analysis, all legislation now being considered will make things substantially worse in each of these areas, while doing essentially nothing to improve medical care, even for the poor. Insurance and...

Healthcare continues to dominate the agenda on Capitol Hill as House leadership and the administration try to ram through their big government healthcare plan. Fortunately, they have been unsuccessful so far, as there are many horrifying provisions tucked into this massive piece of legislation. One major issue is the public funding of elective abortions. The administration has already removed many longstanding restrictions on abortion, and is unwilling to provide straight answers to questions regarding the public funding of abortion in their plan. This is deeply troubling for those of us who do not want taxpayer dollars funding abortions. Forcing pro-life...

A nurse, Catherina Cenzon-DeCarlo, was forced to assist in a late-term, partial-birth abortion procedure at Mt. Sinai hospital on May 24th, even though she was ethically opposed to the procedure, being a devout Catholic and niece to a Filipino bishop. Invoking the conscience clause (which protects people like her from participating in things like this), she asked to be taken off the procedure. They did not find a replacement, claiming the mother would die if the nurse did not assist -- ultimately she had to choose between her job and participating in the partial-birth abortion. Turns out that the "health...

In the late afternoon of July 1o, President Obama met privately with Pope Benedict XVI for just over 30 minutes. According to official Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi, S.J., "The president explicitly expressed his commitment to reducing the numbers of abortions and to listen to the church's concern on moral issues." On July 13 in a Senate committee hearing, Sen. Barbara Mikulski was forced to admit under persistent questioning by Sen. Orrin Hatch that the new health-care bill includes abortion coverage. Planned Parenthood's Guttmacher Institute estimates government funding of abortion increases abortion by 20 to 35 percent. There were 1,206,200...

Vatican City, Jul 10, 2009 / 11:37 am (CNA).- Pope Benedict XVI received President Barack Obama this afternoon in his private library, and after 36 minutes of private conversation, the pair emerged without providing any details about their topics of conversation. Nevertheless, the Holy See revealed that the Pope gave Obama an “unannounced gift”--a Vatican document on bioethics and the right to life. "The G8 has been very productive, 20 billion dollars have been allocated [to poor countries]; that's something concrete," President Obama told the Pope when he asked about the summit, as photographers and journalists were ushered out...

The legal period for abortions will be shortened from 28 weeks of pregnancy to 24 starting July 8. And pregnant women will no longer be able to get an abortion simply because they have infectious diseases such as AIDS, rubella, chicken pox, or hepatitis, or suffer from hereditary diseases such as liver trouble, mental diseases, hemophilia, and epilepsy. The changes are included in a revision to the enforcement ordinance of the Mother and Child Health Act. The bill was endorsed by the government in a Cabinet meeting Tuesday. Lee Won-hee, a director at the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family...

Science: The president's Council on Bioethics is summarily dismissed when it disagrees on the need for more federally funded embryonic stem cell research. The scientific method doesn't include firing those who disagree with you.Inspectors general are apparently not the only ones to pay for annoying the White House by doing their job. The 18-member council existed to provide the president with advice on the moral and ethical implications of the rapid advances in science and medical research. It exists no more. The council existed to ponder whether we should do something just because we can. Apparently President Obama wanted not...

EDITOR'S NOTE: On Friday, May 22nd, 2009, Mary Anne Hackett, President and CEO of Catholic Citizens of Illinois [www.catholiccitizens.org/] and former president of the Illinois Right to Life Committee [http://www.illinoisrighttolife.org/] was one of those who gave a speech at the First Annual Americans For Life [http://www.americansforlife.com] Rally and March in downtown Chicago. Below is the text of Mrs. Hackett's words to the gathering.--Daniel Zanoza, RFFM.org Executive Director "The Order Has Been Given Dooming Millions of Innocent Unborn to Death" by Mary Anne Hackett Today is a memorial for the 50 million innocent, voiceless, unborn babies who have been killed by...

Sometime after lunch Sunday, perhaps even as President Barack Obama receives his honorary degree and addresses the new graduates of the University of Notre Dame, a priest from one of New Orleans' cherished black institutions will mount a platform on the South Quad and tell a crowd of demonstrators how disappointed he is that the university is honoring Obama, a supporter of abortion rights. It is an extraordinary time for the Rev. John Raphael, principal of St. Augustine High School, a seedbed of black leadership in New Orleans. Raphael is a Catholic priest, a St. Aug alumnus and a 1989...

NEW YORK – A Gallup Poll released Friday found that 51 percent of Americans now call themselves pro-life rather than pro-choice on the issue of abortion, the first time a majority gave that answer in the 15 years that Gallup has asked the question.

Pope: "Non-Negotiable Human Rights" include "Right to Life and Right to Freedom of Conscience and Religion" VATICAN CITY, MAY 5, 2009 (LifeSIteNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI addressed members of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences yesterday at their plenary session which is focused on the theme of Catholic social teaching and human rights, and called for the promotion of universal human rights based on both faith and reason, affirming the "right to life and the right to freedom of conscience and religion as being at the center of those rights that spring from human nature itself." The Holy Father noted...

[On CatholicCulture.org, Dr.] Jeff Mirus has already commented on the absolutely critical role that Catholic bishops play in the American pro-life movement, and since his thoughts on that issue closely match mine, let me jump forward to the next topic I was planning to raise on this string: the importance of forcing politicians to honor their campaign promises. Pro-life activists have poured their energies into political campaigns over the past 30 years. Politicians have learned that pro-lifers will stuff envelopes, attend rallies, make phone calls, organize events, write letters, solicit donations, and-- most important of all-- show up in force...

Sarah Palin's speech tonight at the right to life dinner in Evansville, Indiana. Awesome words about her baby and the culture of life,

Gov. Sarah Palin's Remarks at Vanderburgh County Right to Life Banquet will be televised in full length on C-SPAN on Sunday April 19, 2009 at 06:36:55 PM - 07:15:57 PM (Eastern Time). C-SPAN has better quality than the video streamed by CNN.

Just posted on Youtube...

If you were bummed out about not being able to attend this years Spring Banquet, don’t fret, we have your solution. We are providing a link to an online webcast for the entire event. Just click the link below to get started and enjoy from the comfort of home. The feed can be found here:http://www.mogulus.com/vcrtl The program starts at 7PM CDT

laska Gov. Sarah Palin's main focus during her time in Evansville will be on the right to life banquet. But, it's not the only thing on her plate. The banquet is Thursday. Friday, Palin will meet with families involved in an organization called SMILE on down syndrome. You probably heard at least once or twice during the presidential campaign about Gov. Palin's infant son - Trig. Trig has down syndrome, so this is a topic near and dear to the governor's heart. The Luffs look like the textbook definition of the nuclear family - a mom, a dad, and two...

April 14, 2009 Indiana anti-abortion banquet marks Palin's national return By Erika Bolstad WASHINGTON — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's taken flak from political foes at home, and national Republican leaders are miffed that she won't be at one of their fundraisers this spring. Still, the former vice presidential contender is intent on visiting southern Indiana this week to attend what's billed as the country's largest annual banquet for anti-abortion activists. Thursday's event doesn't carry quite the same weight for potential presidential candidates as, say, eating midway food at the Iowa State Fair or a sit-down with the Union-Leader newspaper editorial...

The announcement that the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, MA, has chosen a lesbian, pro-abortion president to lead the seminary has sent shock waves around the Anglican Communion. The appointment of Katherine Hancock Ragsdale highlights a week that also saw TEC bishop-elect Kevin Thew Forrester replace a reading from the New Testament with a reading from the Quran at St. Paul's Marquette, Michigan. One wonders what Episcopal boundaries and barriers have yet to be crossed that the dying embers of historic Christianity could possibly fan into life. That the Diocese of Massachusetts has a functioning transgendered priest complete with a...

Big donors, VIPs and those who could afford to shell out for corporate sponsorships won't be the only ones who will see Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in the flesh at Thursday's Vanderburgh County Right to Life spring banquet. The folks in the cheap seats will be able to see Palin in person, too.

Making Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's April 16 visit to Evansville come off without a hitch isn't just a question of who gets to pick her up at the airport. For the small band of local residents tasked with handling the details of Vanderburgh County Right to Life's annual Spring Banquet at The Centre, it's about such mundane but essential tasks as drilling 2,200 holes into blocks of wood. After all, you can't have displays for 218 tables without a way to hold up all those red, white and blue dowels. "My neighbors are all laughing at me because I'm always...

MEDIA ADVISORY, Mar. 24 /Christian Newswire/ -- Some of you may have seen the major news story of the private plane that crashed into a Montana cemetery, killing 7 children and 7 adults. But what the news sources fail to mention is that the Catholic Holy Cross Cemetery owned by Resurrection Cemetery Association in Butte - contains a memorial for local residents to pray the rosary, at the 'Tomb of the Unborn'. This memorial, located a short distance west of the church, was erected as a dedication to all babies who have died because of abortion. What else is the...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) will have a special screening of the new documentary, “The Terri Schiavo Story” from Franklin Springs Family Media, at their national convention in June. Additionally, National Right to Life will be endorsing the film in their April edition of the National Right to Life News which is sent out to nearly 400,000 subscribers. NRLC State Organization and Development Director Jacki Ragan stated, “This story is one that pro-lifers ought to review once a year.” The NRLC review of the documentary goes on to say, “The DVD does an excellent job...

President Obama, who has made massive strides to expand abortion rights in his first few weeks in office, is looking forward to a "dialogue" with Catholics, who by church law are pro-life, when he speaks at the school's commencement this spring. The confirmation came at a news briefing today from presidential press secretary Robert Gibbs to Les Kinsolving, WND's correspondent at the White House. "What is the president's reaction to the 50,000 people already who've signed petitions joining the Catholic bishop of Fort Wayne, South Bend in objecting to his addressing the graduation and receiving an honorary degree from Notre...

March 26, 2009, Anchorage, Alaska – Governor Sarah Palin today announced the appointment of Wayne Anthony Ross as Attorney General. Ross, currently in private practice, will fill the vacancy created last month by the resignation of Attorney General Talis Colberg. The governor thanked Acting Attorney General Rick Svobodny for his support and counsel during this transition. Svobodny will resume his position as Deputy Attorney General for the Criminal Division. “Wayne Anthony Ross will be a great defender of Alaska and the people he serves," Governor Palin said. "With his vast legal knowledge, experience and integrity, he will make an exceptional...

A cousin of mine badly needs prayer for her baby. I'm not a medical person so I don't quite understand it, but she's on the verge of losing the baby. Here is the prayer request email I received with personal info blanked out: "Sat. around 1:00 a.m. began loosing amniotic fluid and was having contractions. She was admitted to The Hospital in . Upon arrival she had only 3 centimeters of fluid left but it began to increase (7.2 centimeters) that afternoon and there was hope that the amniotic fluid bag would repair itself. On Monday a.m. a Level II...

A nine-month-old boy known as OT has died after his parents lost a legal bid to overturn a ruling giving hospital staff the power to stop medical treatment keeping him alive, the parents' solicitor said. Appeal judges upheld a High Court ruling that gave doctors at an unnamed NHS trust powers to turn off the ventilator keeping him alive. The parents of the seriously ill child earlier said they were "deeply distressed" by a court ruling allowing their "beautiful and beloved boy" to die. The NHS trust had argued that the boy was suffering intolerable pain as a result of...

Baby in right-to-life battle dies The couple were refused permission to appeal a High Court ruling A seriously ill baby, whose parents lost a court battle to keep him alive on a ventilator, has died. The nine-month-old, known as "Baby OT", had a rare metabolic disorder and had brain damage and respiratory failure. His parents had appealed against a ruling at London's High Court that it was in the boy's best interests to withdraw "life-sustaining treatment". Baby OT was unable to breathe by himself and died at 1008 GMT after doctors withdrew his treatment. His parents said they were "deeply...

A seriously ill baby, whose parents lost a court battle to keep him alive on a ventilator, has died. The nine-month-old had a rare metabolic disorder and had brain damage and respiratory failure. His parents had appealed against a ruling at London's High Court that it was in the boy's best interests to withdraw "life-sustaining treatment". Baby OT was unable to breathe by himself and died after doctors withdrew his treatment. His parents said they were "deeply distressed" by the decision of the High Court in London and said the life of their "beautiful boy" was worth preserving. The couple...

Vanderburgh County Right to Life confirmed today that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will speak at the group's annual banquet April 16 at The Centre. The event in The Centre's Bill Brooks Exhibition Hall has sold out of about 2,050 dinner tickets, but Right to Life Executive Director Mary Ellen Van Dyke said arrangements have been made to accommodate an additional 2,500 people for a simulcast with theater seating in The Centre's auditorium. If both rooms are filled, the Right to Life banquet will be the largest event in The Centre's history, said Dave Rector, general manager of the Evansville Vanderburgh...

Clinton doesn't know what an embryo is and Gupta doesn't correct him.

Many surprised by event billed as diversity presentationAlveda King speaks about abortion Tuesday in Warriner Some students at Alveda King's speech Tuesday night did not expect a strictly literal interpretation of the advertised "life affirming choices" speech. The niece of Dr. Martin Luther King spoke out strongly against abortion at her "Can the Dream Survive?" presentation in Warriner Hall's Plachta Auditorium. Some students were surprised to learn that was the topic of her lecture. Several of the about 650-person audience walked out. "I felt a little misled personally," said Flint senior Detrone Turner, who said he thought the speech was...

In the past, I have supported the work of Jim Minnery, president of the Alaska Family Council. But Mr. Minnery crossed the line with his recent hit-piece, an email sent to thousands of Alaskans criticizing our new Supreme Court justice -- Superior Court Judge Morgan Christen, one of two finalists whose names had been submitted to Gov. Sarah Palin. The governor appointed Judge Christen to the Alaska Supreme Court on Wednesday. Judge Christen is the second woman in state history to serve on the high court. I have known Judge Christen for almost 20 years. As a mother and wife,...

Author's note: A version of the following column first appeared in the Christian Coalition magazine. It also was posted on the Illinois Leader and, most recently, appeared on the Illinois Family Institute's web site. To see a video of Dan and his wife Julie discussing the pain of their long past, but haunting decision to abort, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nuEU3YLlvg Nearly thirty years ago, my wife and I aborted a child. That decision will haunt us for the rest of our lives. Since that time, I've developed deep feelings on the subject of abortion. There are two primary reasons why I'm...

Author's note: A version of the following column first appeared in the Christian Coalition magazine. It also was posted on the Illinois Leader and, most recently, appeared on the Illinois Family Institute's web site. To see a video of Dan and his wife Julie discussing the pain of their long past, but haunting decision to abort, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nuEU3YLlvg Nearly thirty years ago, my wife and I aborted a child. That decision will haunt us for the rest of our lives. Since that time, I've developed deep feelings on the subject of abortion. There are two primary reasons why I'm...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 09-39 Governor Palin Pushes Parental Consent Legislation Joined by Rep. Coghill and Sen. Olson February 26, 2009, Juneau, Alaska – Governor Sarah Palin today was joined by Representative John Coghill, Senator Donny Olson and other lawmakers who offered their support for legislation that would require parental notice and consent before a minor can have an abortion. The governor stressed the broad support for the family-oriented bill. “The most important thing at stake is the right of Alaska’s children to receive the support and input of their parents as they face a life-changing decision,” Governor Palin said....