Free Republic

WEIRTON — Two weeks before the Nov. 5 election, one local legislator is speaking on why he feels it is important for West Virginia voters to approve Amendment 1. If approved by voters, Amendment 1, also known as the Protection of Persons Against Medically Assisted Suicide amendment, would modify the West Virginia Constitution to include prohibitions of medically assisted suicide procedures being performed in the state. Such change, if enacted, would be listed under Article III, Section 23 of the Constitution. Medically assisted suicide currently is not legal under West Virginia law, but Del. Pat McGeehan, R-Hancock, said passage of...

This letter was sent to every bishop, archbishop, and cardinal of the Catholic Church in America on August 29, 2024. The goal? To ask them to speak out on the pre-eminent issue (according to them) in this election cycle. Your Excellency,For a number of election cycles, I updated and sent out copies of my book, Defeating the Culture of Death: the Pro-Life Vote to all of the bishops and higher clergy in America. The premise is simple… if Catholics would vote their faith, the culture of death (abortion, homosexual marriage, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, and cloning) would be defeated....

Some defense and congressional officials believe the White House is laying the groundwork to halt plans to move U.S. Space Command’s headquarters to Alabama in part because of concerns about the state’s restrictive abortion law, according to two U.S. officials and one U.S. defense official familiar with the discussions. “The belief is they are delaying any move because of the abortion issue,” one U.S. official said, referring to the White House. Another U.S. official said, “This is all about abortion politics.” The White House directed the Air Force last December to conduct a review of the process that led to...

In 2021, only 486 people died using California's assisted suicide program, but that same year in Canada, 10,064 died used MAID to die that year. MAID has now grown so popular that Canada has both anti-suicide hotlines to try and stop people killing themselves, as well as pro-suicide hotlines for people wanting to end their lives. MAID has fallen into further scrutiny over claims that people are now seeking assisted suicide due to poverty and homelessness or mental anguish, as opposed to the traditional method of the terminally-ill seeking a painless death. Dying With Dignity Canada associates Ellen Wiebe and...

A Canadian pensioner seeking euthanasia because he fears homelessness has received approval from a doctor despite admitting poverty is a major factor in the decision to end his own life. Les Landry, 65, told assessors for the procedure he 'doesn't want to die' but has applied for medical assistance in dying (MAID) because he can't afford to live comfortably. Astonishingly, a doctor has given one of the two signatures required for Landry to end his own life, despite knowing that financial hardship - not illness - is a leading reason for the profound decision. Landry is now awaiting the decision...

This bill will eliminate many pro-life laws accross the land. https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3755

The Government of New Zealand has confirmed that Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients are eligible for a newly-enacted euthanasia law that pays doctors who provide the service a $1,087 plus travel expenses fee. The New Zealand Ministry of Health (MOH) describes the End of Life Choice Act 2019 (EOLCA) on its website as legislation that “gives people who experience unbearable suffering from a terminal illness the option of legally asking for medical assistance to end their lives.” The EOLCA was approved by the people of New Zealand in a 2020 rider referendum accompanying a federal election that saw lockdown and...

A 14-year-old girl is seriously hurt after she and a 12-year-old boy allegedly armed themselves with stolen guns and opened fire on Florida deputies, officials said. The children, who reportedly ran away from a group home hours earlier, allegedly broke into an empty house Tuesday night, which the homeowner said was stocked with an AK-47, a handgun, a shotgun and a large amount of ammunition, the Volusia County Sheriff's Office said. The 12-year-old boy told investigators he grabbed the AK-47 and two loaded magazines for the AK-47 from a case in the bedroom, according to the charging affidavit. Deputies surrounded...

Dr. Zeke Emanuel, an advisory board member appointed to Joe Biden’s coronavirus task force, has argued that living past the age of 75 is not of value and that younger people should receive a flu pandemic vaccine first. In 2014, Emanuel penned an article arguing that the quality of life by the age of 75 had dwindled to the point that one would be “better off” if nature took “its course swiftly and promptly.” “The fact is that by 75, creativity, originality, and productivity are pretty much gone for the vast, vast majority of us,” he argued. Biden, the presumed...

If there’s something positive to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic, perhaps it’s a turning point in the national discussion over the value of human life. This would be a marked change from recent years in our national dialogue and politics, to be sure. Individual lives and their value have been treated as very much “none of our business” until recently. Fifteen years ago this month, the debate over Terri Schiavo gripped the nation. She spent half her life in a long-term care facility after suffering a cardiac arrest, severely damaging her brain and leaving her unable to survive without...

Hospitals across the country are considering whether to enact universal “do-not-resuscitate” orders for coronavirus patients as the mounting pandemic threatens to overwhelm the health care system, according to a report. Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago is among the hospitals where the drastic policy is under consideration — even when the move is against the wishes of a patient and their family, The Washington Post reported. Richard Wunderink, one of Northwestern’s intensive-care medical directors, told the outlet the hospital is exploring whether state law would allow it to implement the policy, which would limit possible exposure to health care workers and...

After a violent weekend in which two mass shootings claimed the lives of 31 people in Texas and Ohio, Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput didn’t offer thoughts and prayers. He offered criticism of those who think gun control is the solution. ...only a fool can believe that ‘gun control’ will solve the problem of mass violence,” he wrote in his weekly column, which was posted on the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s website, CatholicPhilly.com, and his Facebook page. Chaput further wrote: “The people using the guns in these loathsome incidents are moral agents with twisted hearts. And the twisting is done by the...

Many of us like to blame God for our difficulties. The reason is that it absolves us of responsibility for our bad choices. It also ensures we won’t recover. Nations are groups of individuals clumped together, primarily by geography. In a democratic nation, if a majority of the voting population chooses wisely, the entire nation will benefit from those choices (even those who oppose the choices). In a democratic republic, such as the United States, we are one step removed from our responsibility. We don’t choose the policy directly; we choose the people who in turn choose the policies and...

Virginia Democrat Delegate Kathy Tran proposed a measure last week that would not only allow abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy in the state, but would also permit a woman to decide whether she wants to “abort” her baby as she is dilating and about to give birth. The bill is proposed as New York Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo has just signed into law the Reproductive Health Act, which eliminates recognition of “personhood” in the unborn and defines a “person” as a “human being who has been born and is alive.” That law has been referred to as permitting...

Assisted suicide advocates pretend they just want a very limited death license, a “safety valve,” as they put it, for suffering in the terminally ill that cannot otherwise be alleviated (almost always a false premise). The problem is, their laws and proposals never actually read that way. And now a legalization bill in New Mexico shows the true radical heart of the assisted suicide/euthanasia agenda. The bill would allow non-doctors to lethally prescribe. From HB 90: “Health care provider” means any of the following individuals authorized pursuant to the New Mexico Drug, Device and Cosmetic Act to prescribe a medication...

Strategies for convincing ‘ambivalent patients’ Does your patient “believe that life begins at conception and that abortion is an act of murder”? Here’s how to get them to go through with an abortion anyway. The University of California-San Francisco, which focuses on health sciences, offers an “Early Abortion Training Workbook” with the innocuously named chapter “Pregnancy Option Counseling Techniques.” It’s part of the taxpayer-funded university’s Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health, which brags that it has pioneered “new forms of abortion,” expanded the “abortion care workforce” and increased the number of “highly trained” abortionists. Though the pregnancy-options chapter claims that...

The British government’s decision to allow two critically ill babies to die in two years is a natural reflection of the culture of death and the steady increase in totalitarian tendencies among Western governments. Last year, the British government ordered life support removed from Charlie Gard, ending his life when he was just 11 months old. Now, Alfie Evans – just 23 months old – has received what amounts to the same death sentence. On Monday, he was removed from life support by court order – against the wishes of his parents. Then something remarkable happened. The child confounded his...

An Atlanta woman was charged with murder after she allegedly put her two young sons in an oven and turned it on sometime between Thursday and Friday last week. Lamora Williams, 24, with murder in the deaths of 1-year-old son Ja'Karter Penn and 2-year-old Ke-Yaunte Penn. Channel 2 Action News, citing an arrest warrant, reported that she is accused of killing the two “by placing them in an oven and turning it on.” Police reportedly said that the children had injuries, including burns.

Why has the case of British 11-month-old baby Charlie Gard struck an international nerve? At its core, this controversy is about state infringement on parental rights. The question is, whose child is Charlie: his parents’ or the state’s? Why is the hospital holding him hostage and by what authority can it override his parents’ wish to pursue therapy that could help Charlie? President Trump, Pope Francis, 40 European parliament members, members of Congress, Terri Schiavo’s brother Bobby Schindler, and even Cher have weighed in, all agreeing the hospital should release Charlie to his parents. According to Justice Francis in a...

The little tent of the Democratic Party just got smaller, as DNC chairman Tom Perez has called for all Democrats to walk in lockstep with Planned Parenthood on the question of abortion rights, effectively ruling out the possibility of “pro-life Democrats.” “Every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman’s right to make her own choices about her body and her health,” Perez said in a statement. “That is not negotiable and should not change city by city or state by state.”