Free Republic

As Hurricane Ian ripped its way across Florida, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn) asserted "things like this wouldn't be happening if Democrats were in charge everywhere. Republicans are the ones who refuse to help Democrats save the climate. They insist that the prosperity enabled by low taxes, adequate supplies of energy, and widespread mobility are too valuable to sacrifice for the small fractions of carbon dioxide we're trying to eliminate. Voters can save themselves from the Hellish environment that will overtake us in the next century by electing Democrats across-the-board in November." Christina Pushaw, spokesperson for Gov. Ron DeSantis' reelection campaign,...

The House passed a bill on Thursday to safeguard access to contraceptives, less than a month after Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said the bench should overturn the landmark case protecting forms of birth control. The legislation, titled the Right to Contraception Act, passed in a 228-195 vote. Eight Republicans joined all Democrats in supporting the measure, and two Republicans voted present. GOP “yes” votes came from Reps. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Anthony Gonzalez (Ohio), John Katko (N.Y.), Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), Nancy Mace (S.C.), Maria Elvira Salazar (Fla.) and Fred Upton (Mich.). Reps. Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio) and Mike...

NEW YORK — Amazon is limiting how many emergency contraceptives consumers can buy, joining other retailers who put in place similar caps following the Supreme Court decision overruling Roe v. Wade. Amazon’s limit, which temporarily caps purchase of the contraceptives at three units per week, went into effect on Monday, a spokesperson for the e-commerce giant confirmed to The Associated Press. The company did not share further details on what emergency contraceptive products were limited for purchase, but a listing showed the cap applied to Plan B, the popular “morning after” pill.

Unlike oral contraceptives, fertility awareness leads to true female empowerment by helping women understand their own bodies and make choices accordingly. Several years ago, I heard the diagnosis of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) for the first time, and it was mine. My symptoms such as irregular menstrual cycles, the inability to lose weight, frequent acne outbreaks, and constant fatigue were too strong to ignore.A recent survey found that nearly 47 percent of women have experienced symptoms of hormonal imbalance. Just like me, many of those women were prescribed a hormonal contraceptive to correct these issues. After 16 years of being...

Reports of Trump’s SCOTUS picks failing to produce wins while Chief Justice John Roberts leads us straight to perdition by the chicken littles of the right apparently have been greatly exaggerated judging by the Supreme Court’s 7-2 supermajority decision upholding President Donald J. Trump’s executive order finally and totally freeing that group of charitable nuns known as the Little Sisters of the Poor from the atheistic deep state abortion and contraceptive mandate that came with ObamaCare. Not only is Trump’s conservative and originalist makeover of the federal judiciary proceeding apace, even at the highest level, but also it appears to...

The Supreme Court upheld exemptions for the contraceptive mandate under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for entities with religious or moral objections in Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania. The order of nuns has faced nearly a decade of court battles after the Obama administration refused to allow exemptions to the mandate for religious entities. While President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) threatened the order with fines for non-compliance, the Little Sisters argue that the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act (RFRA) protects them from the far-reaching mandate. The Trump administration allowed exemptions to the provision and...

A Lehigh Valley man admitted he sent messages threatening to harm members of the Little Sisters of the Poor, an organization of nuns that provides shelter and charity to elderly people. Jaan Kruus Jr., 55, pleaded guilty in federal court Friday in Allentown to sending a threatening message to the organization in Washington, D.C. As part of a plea deal, a second charge was dropped. The Emmaus resident admitted he emailed this message Feb. 3, 2017. The capitalization and punctuation are verbatim: “Get out of my country now or else. We know where you live and work!! And are coming...

BALTIMORE, Maryland, October 3, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — A mother is furious after discovering that her 16-year-old daughter’s headaches and soreness were caused by a birth control implant inserted by a school nurse without her consent. Nicole Lambert was shocked to learn from her daughter’s pediatrician that the pain her daughter was experiencing had been caused by a tiny tube containing the contraceptive  “Nexplanon,” which had been improperly inserted in her daughter’s upper arm.Not only did the doctor recommend that the tube be removed to alleviate the child’s discomfort, but he further warned that the contraceptive could cause far worse side-effects, such...

Frustrated. Immobilized. That’s how Dr. Summer Holmes Mason felt a few years into her practice. As a board-certified OBGYN, she was dedicated to helping women manage their health. And often, that involved offering her patients contraception, like the Pill. “Prescribing contraception was bread and butter gynecology for me,” she says. “It was probably one of the largest tools I had in my arsenal as an OBGYN to treat medical issues.” The medication was meant to help. But soon, Dr. Holmes Mason noticed a trend. “After a couple of years, I realized people were coming back to me with more side...

Wikileaks Publishes Crucial Papal Letter on Order of Malta Affair The letter from December 2016 reveals Pope Francis supported Cardinal Raymond Burke’s view that the distribution of contraceptives by its humanitarian arm had to stop. Edward Pentin Wikileaks today published a confidential letter confirming that Pope Francis strongly opposed the Order of Malta distributing contraceptives as part of its humanitarian work and that he wished the issue be “completely resolved.”  In the letter, dated Dec. 1, 2016, and addressed to Cardinal Raymond Burke, the patron of the Order of Malta, the Holy Father stressed that the Order “must ensure that...

June 5, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Using contraception is an “intrinsic evil” in all circumstances because it “cuts off one of the goals of marriage which is an openness to life,” Kansas City Archbishop Joseph Naumann told LifeSiteNews. Any question on this issue lies on the level of moral culpability for those who do use it, he added. “Circumstances can affect the culpability, [but] it doesn't affect the rightness or wrongness of the act,” he said. Speaking exclusively with LifeSiteNews, the incoming chair for the U.S. Bishops’ pro-life committee said further that following the Church’s teaching on contraception is an attainable...

TULSA, Oklahoma, April 12, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — An Oklahoma mother allowed her daughter to go on an educational field trip only to have her return with a three-year chemical contraceptive implant inside her arm. Langston Hughes Academy hosts an annual sex-ed class by Youth Services of Tulsa. When Miracle Foster's daughter wanted to learn more, she allowed her to visit the clinic. But Youth Services of Tulsa is part of the Tulsa Area Teen Pregnancy Prevention Collaborative, whose PregNOT program began in 2010 with $1.5 million in tax funding from the Obama Health and Human Services' Office of Adolescent Health....

In the effort to dismantle Obamacare, women's health takes a hit. In 2012, a women's preventative health care provision within the Affordable Care Act went into effect making birth control free for women with insurance. When it was first rolled out, an estimated 26.9 million women benefited. If the mandate is struck down, it will leave 55 million women without no-copay birth control.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’ve seen the headlines jeering at men after the news broke that a trial for male birth control was cancelled because men “couldn’t handle” the side effects. The mocking was practically immediate. Men were derided as being whiners who were unwilling to tolerate the side effects that women endure every month, so not only were they weak, they were misogynists as well.People titled Julie Mazziotta’s article “Men Back Out of Male Birth Control Study Because They Couldn’t Handle the ‘Changes in Mood.’” She wrote that it was time for guys to “woman up.”...

Emails from the account of Hillary Clinton’s current campaign manager John Podesta released by WikiLeaks show that in February of 2012, Podesta and the president of Voices for Progress discussed how to “plant the seeds of revolution” within the Catholic Church, particularly at a time when Catholic bishops were opposing the HHS contraceptive mandate in Obamacare.

Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner has clashed with Illinois Democrats on big issues like the state budget and the influence of unions, but he recently he bucked the party line on legislation the GOP has fervently opposed: expanding birth control coverage and access to abortions. Not a single Republican voted in favor of either bill. So last week, Rauner surprised some Republican legislators and angered conservative groups when he signed both Democrat-sponsored measures. One of them extends insurance coverage for nearly all contraceptives and the other requires physicians who refuse to perform abortions or other health care services for moral and...

This is the kind of case the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia liked to sink his judicial teeth into -- whether the federal government can compel a religious entity like the Little Sisters of the Poor to violate their religious beliefs and acquiesce to the ObamaCare contraceptive coverage mandate. As LifeSite News reported on Wednesday’s hearing: This week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case of the Little Sisters of the Poor, a 175-year-old religious order of women who have vowed their lives to care for the elderly poor.

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...

A few days ago, Pope Francis and his spokesman Federico Lombardi directly contradicted the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church on contraception, including directly contradicting the clear words of Pope Paul's 1968 encyclical Humanae vitae. Various "Catholic" individuals and groups quickly lined up to support Francis, including the often heterodox Filipino Catholic Bishops Conference. But a surprisingly large and strong set of Catholics--beyond the expected set of minority traditionalists--has now risen up to resist, as if Francis, after years of this this sort of thing, has now crossed an obvious line. Who knew that line would be you know where....

Dear Pope Francis: I write this letter to you as a priest to the Bishop of Rome and as a son to a father. I write with a heavy heart, and I know that heaviness of heart is shared by many of my Catholic brethren both clergy and laity. I watched the early news one morning last week to find that one of the headlines proclaimed that in an interview on the flight from Mexico to Rome you indicated that the Church's teaching on contraception may be undergoing a change. As in the past, I went to the official translation...