Free Republic

The Maryland State Police have agreed to pay a $385,000 settlement to 17 anti-abortion protesters arrested by Maryland State Troopers four years ago in Harford County. The protesters, two of whom were 14 at the time, were arrested and processed and spent a night in the Harford County Detention Center. ... Members of the Alliance Defense Fund,... were holding up graphic images to passing motorists, claimed they were mistreated by the police and filed suit in U.S. District Court in Baltimore against Harford County, the town of Bel Air and seven local and state police agencies. The suit claimed...

Disability rights activists from across Massachusetts will speak today before the Massachusetts legislature’s joint Judiciary Committee in opposition to a ballot question that would legalize assisted suicide. The activists are members of the recently formed group, Second Thoughts: People with Disabilities Opposing the Legalization of Assisted Suicide. The hearing will be at 1 p.m. in room A-2 at the state house. “Second Thoughts is a group of disability rights activists and organizations who believe that assisted suicide is a dangerous mix with a broken, profit driven health care system,” said John Kelly, the group’s director.“Economic and family pressures can make...

The Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network has announced that Ave Maria University will once again host “The National Mass for Terri’s Day” at the Ave Maria Oratory at Ave Maria University, located near Naples, Florida. Terri was killed on March 31, 2005 when her former husband won a protracted legal battle against the Schindler family for the right to disconnect her feeding tube. Doctors who examined Terri say she was not in a persistent vegetative state and that her condition could have been improved has she been given access to more medical care and rehabilitative treatment. The International Day...

ROME, Italy, March 7, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Hackers claiming ties to the high profile group Anonymous are taking credit after the Vatican website went down Wednesday, claiming they are going after the “corrupt” Catholic Church over the clergy sex abuse scandal as well as its stances against abortion and contraception. “Anonymous decided today to besiege your site in response to the doctrine, to the liturgies, to the absurd and anachronistic concepts that your for-profit organization spreads around the world,” the hackers wrote in Italian. “This attack is not against the Christian religion or the faithful around the world but against...

March 7, 2012 (LiveActionNews.org) - I worry about my health a lot. Not because I’m unhealthy, but because I’m a hypochondriac. I don’t imagine symptoms, but when I do have symptoms, I became immediately and irrevocably convinced that they are cancer. Thanks, WebMD! Most recently, back in October, I found a tiny red welt on my right breast. WebMD told me that I almost definitely had inflammatory breast cancer–a particularly aggressive strain. I called my boyfriend in the middle of the night and made him talk to me until the sun came up, so scared I was shaking all over....

Sandra, I hope you take to heart our school’s motto of “Cura Personalis” – care of the whole person. You are so much more than your reproductive organs. Please, have some self-respect and take responsibility for your choices instead of having to beg the government for help. The government should not be able to force a religious institution – like the one we attend – to pay for the things they don’t believe in. That is pretty clear in the first amendment. But since you missed the ten commandments I can’t expect you to read the Bill of Rights either....

In the wake of the Obama administration dictate that private insurance companies cover contraceptives and abortifacients, supporters have defined anyone who would oppose this mandate as waging a "war against women." Obviously, no opponent of this policy is actually bombing, shooting or stabbing women to death. The same cannot be said for what the cultural left favors -- a war against babies. The latest front of "advanced" leftist medical ethics has emerged from the experts at Oxford University. They don't just favor abortion, even partial-birth abortion. They favor "after-birth abortion." It is stomach-turning stuff. Killing babies is no different...

Once again Hollywood will host a unique Film Festival in May 2012. It is not any ordinary film festival. You probably won’t see Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie. It’s the 2012 Life Fest Film Festival, which will be held in Los Angeles next summer. Life Fest will feature “films that reinforce the intrinsic worth of innocent human life, and the profound significance of each life”. This aspect of human dignity is rarely seen in films of our current culture. How nice to know that there are people out there who want to convey the message that...

Computers, television, film—moving images flickering across screens in hundreds of millions of homes across the U.S. are changing the world around us. Far more many people under thirty are likely to have seen the “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” or “The Lord of the Rings” than to have read either of the books. As our society develops a greater thirst for all things visual, what comes out of Hollywood matters more and more. The great news is that films that would have been passed over thirty or even twenty years ago because the message was too pro-life or...

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 6, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com)—While President Barack Obama and Kathleen Sebelius claim contraceptives can lower health care costs, influential environmentalist activists say birth control may save the world from the scourge of global warming. At a think tank conference last week, activists promoted Agenda 21 and United Nations climate change meetings, claiming that promotion of lower fertility rates “trumps almost anything else” and that the average 14-year-old girl “needs to know how to have” sex “for her pleasure.” The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars held the hearing, “Women’s Health: Key to Climate Adaptation Strategies” last Tuesday. Participants asked,...

As I wrote a couple weeks ago, pro-life activist Todd Bullis recently relocated from California to Texas. Recall Todd launched “The Church Project” while in California, showing graphic images of aborted babies on Sunday mornings in front of churches professing to be pro-life but bearing no fruit. To say the least, Todd had interesting experiences at those churches – from being hosed by an off-duty police officer congregant at one church to having signs flipped over by a congregant at another. Todd plans to continue his project in Plano. This past Saturday Todd and his son decided to test the...

The new Obama mandate that requires religious groups to pay for birth control and drugs that may cause abortions for their employees could result in fines as much as $2,000 per employee or $100 each day if they refuse to comply.Recently, Republicans in Congress asked the Congressional Research Service to examine the new mandate and the consequences for employers that do not want to follow it because it would violate their consciences and CRS issued a document finding noncompliant employers could face federal fines of $100 per day per employee.“If a group health plan or health insurance issuer failed to...

A couple in Portland are suing Legacy Health because their child has Down Syndrome. This is another of these so-called wrongful birth lawsuits that are so very wrong. The wrongful birth suit is brought by the parents of a sick or disabled child against medical professionals that, the parents say, were negligent.The wrongful birth lawsuit does not say that the medical practitioners caused the disease or disability, which would be a valid reason to sue. Instead the wrongful birth lawsuit claims the that doctor failed to inform the parents of the illness or disability of the child and that had...

The debate over abortion comes down to one essential issue — the moral status of the unborn child. Those making the case for the legalization of abortion argue that the developing fetus lacks a moral status that would trump a woman’s desire to abort the child. Those arguing against abortion do so by making the opposite claim; that the unborn child, precisely because it is a developing human being, possesses a moral status by the very fact of its human existence that would clearly trump any rationale offered for its willful destruction. This central issue is often obscured in both...

They are movers and shakers and whether crowned or uncrowned these Black women have made an impact in the community. These unique individuals have given so unselfishly of themselves to better the common good in hopes that the world will listen, act, and join them in their mission. During this women’s history month, we at NewsOne are honoring the remarkable accomplishments of 10 sheroes whom we love and who have demonstrated the noblest qualities of humanity: 1) Michelle Obama: She is the 44th First Lady, an attorney, Mother, and wife. Mrs. Obama has focused her attentions on the issues that...

While the media’s still buzzing about The Sandra Fluke Story, Democrats have rolled out a disappointing sequel starring a nurse who can’t get free contraception because she works at a Catholic hospital that doesn’t provide such coverage for religious reasons. Produced by DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), a conference call last Friday featured a nurse at a Catholic hospital in Tacoma, Washington who complained that the hospital’s insurance doesn’t cover contraception. The nurse’s comments echoed those of Georgetown student Sandra Fluke, who has become the focus of national media discussion. “I currently work as a nurse at a...

Recently Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards asked women to post videos on YouTube, to “have their say.” Fr. John Hollowell takes her up on her offer – most eloquently. In stirring yet simple language, Fr. Hollowell calls together all pro-lifers, warning Planned Parenthood and the President of our ultimate victory, and our fight for the short-term victory. He says to them: “You better knock us out now. You and the President better knock us out right now, because Cecile, I can promise you – Here comes the Catholic Church.”Very aptly, he ends his poignant monologue with the words of the...

If there is one word that captures the Orwellian nature of contemporary feminism, it is "choice." It's not just the word's wide use as a euphemism for abortion. You can understand why people on that side of the abortion issue prefer to frame their position in abstract terms, as a defense of liberty, rather than concretely discussing the specific freedom they are defending. Some of them are no doubt sincere in saying that they favor "the right to choose" in general and have no brief for abortion in particular. But not all. People who claim to favor "reproductive choice" are...

The nation’s Catholic bishops have vowed to close their religious institutions rather than comply with the HHS mandate that they provide insurance coverage for contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs. In a column printed on CatholicNewWorld, Francis Cardinal George urged people to purchase a copy of the Archdiocesan directory “as a souvenir,” because in two years the page containing a list of Catholic hospitals and health care institutions “will be blank.” Ed Morrissey of the Hot Air blog calculated what it would mean if the Catholic bishops shut down all religious institutions that are ineligible for the conscience clause under the...

http://www.mittvmitt.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=K9njHHyRI7g (half a million hits and climbing)