January 19, 2013
Abortion 40 Years After Roe v. Wade
The 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, which was handed down on Jan 22, 1973, comes as states have added more and more restrictions -- 43 state laws passed last year and 92 passed in 2011, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a group that does extensive research on abortion. Just three weeks ago, Texas defunded all Planned Parenthood clinics in the state – many of which do not perform abortions -- for being affiliated with an organization that advocates them. Read more...
ACLU Drops Challenge to Kansas Abortion Law
The American Civil Liberties Union ended its legal challenge Friday to a Kansas law restricting private health insurance coverage for abortions. A court filing shows the parties have agreed to dismiss all remaining claims, with each side bearing its own costs and attorneys' fees. The agreement follows a federal judge's Jan. 7 ruling that, as a matter of law, the ACLU failed to provide any evidence that the Legislature's predominant motivation in passing the 2011 law was to make it more difficult to get abortions. Read more...
Woman Spends 42 Years Fighting Abortion
Beverly Cielnicky is an unassuming, soft-spoken woman who has spent four decades making her voice resound. The sweater-clad, bespectacled 75-year-old is a mother, a grandmother, a recreational gardener, a scrapbooking hobbyist and a retired fourth-grade teacher. But she is also the president of Crusade for Life, a grassroots anti-abortion organization first incorporated in 1971, two years before the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade. Read more...
January 15, 2013
States Deliver 43 Pro-Life Laws in 2012
As the United States approaches Roe v. Wade's 40th anniversary, pro-life advocates have gained ground in restricting the number of abortions taking place every year. In 2012, 43 pro-life provisions went into effect in 19 states, the second highest number after states enacted 92 pro-life laws in 2011. The numbers come from a report published by pro-abortion group Guttmacher Institute, which calculated the number of pro-life provisions rather than bills or laws, since bills often have multiple provisions. Read more...
Mississippi Clinic Can't Comply With Law
Mississippi's only abortion clinic missed a deadline to comply with a 2012 state law that requires each of its physicians to get hospital admitting privileges — a law the governor said he signed with the hopes of shutting the clinic down. The state Health Department won't immediately close the clinic, Jackson Women's Health Organization. The department will set an inspection later, and if it orders a shutdown, the clinic can appeal. Clinic administrator Diane Derzis said every Jackson-area hospital where the clinic applied for privileges said no. Read more...
Wyoming Abortion Bills Focus on Heartbeats
A pair of bills before the Wyoming Legislature fixate on the heartbeat of the embryo or fetus before an abortion. House Bill 97 would prohibit abortions if an embryo or fetus heartbeat is detected. Senate File 88 would provide pregnant women the opportunity to listen to the fetus' heartbeat before an abortion, among other things. Abortion rights advocates oppose the bills. Read more...
Generation Life Spreads Pro-Life, Chastity Message
The National Catholic Register has published a profile of the work of Generation Life, an organization whose 16 missionaries speak to 25,000 youth annually about chastity and respect for life. "We're fighting abortion by promoting the virtue of chastity," said Christine Barba, the organization's executive director. "At the root cause of the culture of death is a lack of understanding of our body and our procreative powers." Read more...
Conference Knocks 'Cuomo's Abortion Expansion Plan'
The New York State Catholic Conference has put out a strongly worded memo of opposition to the Reproductive Health Act that, in case you missed their message, brands it as "Governor Cuomo's Abortion Expansion Plan." Cardinal Timothy Dolan came out against Cuomo's call for the measure — long sought by Democrats in the Legislature — immediately after it provided one of the most enthusiastic responses from the crowd in Wednesday's State of the State address ("It's her body, it's her choice!"). Read more...
May 27, 2012
Abortion Survivor Urges Mothers to Choose Life
Claire Culwell was faced with challenges even before her birth. At the age of 13 her mother became pregnant and chose to have an abortion. What her mother didn't know at the time is that she was pregnant with twins. Sometime later she returned to an abortion clinic to find out the news, where she was told it was too late to have a second abortion. Placed on life support at birth, Culwell dealt with some difficult health issues -- including dislocated hips and feet turned inward. Despite the challenges, she's grateful to have lived to tell her story. Read more...
Hundreds of UK Teens Have Had Two Abortions
Pro-life campaigners said young women were being "let down in an appalling way" after it emerged three of the 38,269 teenagers who had a termination in 2010 had undergone the procedure at least seven times. NHS figures released under the Freedom of Information Act show another two teenage girls had their seventh abortion in 2010, the most recent year for which data is available, while four more teenagers had a termination for the sixth time. Read more...
Support for Abortion Rights Dropping
It appears pro-choice isn't a popular stance these days. A Gallup poll showed only 41 percent of Americans favor abortion rights. That's the lowest number in Gallup poll history. The poll also shows most people think abortion should be legal under certain circumstances. Read more...
FBI Probes Fires at Women's Clinics in Georgia
The FBI says it is investigating "intentional" fires that erupted this week at two Atlanta-area women's clinics, one of which performs abortions. "FBI-Atlanta is seeking information regarding intentional fires," the agency said in a statement. It said the first of the blazes occurred on Sunday morning after someone broke out the front window of a gynecological office and set a fire inside the building. Read more...
Website Asks Women to Be Proud of Their Abortions
Since xoJane.com prides itself on being the website "where women go when they are being selfish, and where their selfishness is applauded," it's no surprise they are asking women to brag about their experience with abortion. The site is asking women to submit photos of themselves declaring why they support the act of killing one's own child. They want women to end their silence and proclaim to the world that they've had abortions and feel zero guilt about it. Read more...
May 04, 2012
More Teen Girls Use Best Birth Control
Health officials say more teen girls use the best kinds of birth control. A recent survey found 60 percent of teen girls who have sex use the most effective kinds of contraception. That's up from the mid-90s, when less than half were using the best. Health officials say the trend may help explain a large decline in the U.S. teen birth rate since 1990. Read more...
Operation Rescue Says It Has Patient Records
The leader of a Kansas anti-abortion group says un-redacted abortion records it received recently aren't the first to be discovered by the confidential informant who provided them. Operation Rescue president Troy Newman told The Associated Press that the same man found similar records last summer and turned them over to the state, but it did nothing. Newman says the man two weeks ago gave his group the records of 86 female patients treated in April at a Kansas City, Kan., clinic. He says the man didn't say how he got the records but that he claimed he obtained them legally. Read more...
Kansas Senate Passes 'Conscience' Bill
A bill that would allow pharmacists to bow out of providing drugs they believe might cause an abortion cleared the state legislature. The Senate voted 23-16 to approve the bill, which is primarily intended to broaden legal protections for health-care providers who don't want to be involved in abortion procedures. Already passed by the House in March, the bill now awaits the signature of Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, a staunch opponent of abortion. Read more...
May 02, 2012
Georgia Gov. Signs 'Fetal Pain' Abortion Bill
Gov. Nathan Deal on Tuesday approved new restrictions on late-term abortions in Georgia, sealing a victory for conservative leaders who championed the issue at the Capitol this year. Deal's signature makes Georgia the latest state to generally ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, cutting by about six weeks the time women in Georgia may have an elective abortion. Read more...
May 01, 2012
Appeals Judge Stops Planned Parenthood Injunction
A federal appeals judge stepped into the fight over the Texas Women's Health Program on Tuesday, saying he wanted to hear arguments on whether the state should be prevented from enforcing a law that bans Planned Parenthood from participating in the program. Less than 24 hours after a federal judge in Austin ordered Texas not to enforce a rule banning clinics associated with abortion providers from receiving state funds, Fifth Circuit Appeals Judge Jerry Smith granted Texas an emergency stay lifting the Austin court's order. Read more...
Nurse Accused in Baby Theft Denies Being 'Monster'
A Texas woman accused of kidnapping a newborn boy after fatally shooting his mother says she is not "some sort of monster" and people should not judge her until they know the facts. Verna McClain remains jailed without bond after being charged with fatally shooting 28-year-old Kala Golden-Schuchardt and snatching her 3-day-old son on April 17. The infant was later found safe. Read more...
Woman Gets 7 Years for Adoption Scam
A Missouri woman will spend 7 years behind bars after admitting to swindling 23 couples in an adoption scam, Fox 4 reports. 35-year-old Roxanne Janel Jones admitted to running a scam where she would pretend to be pregnant, contact adoption agencies and ask to be set up with couples looking to adopt. Jones then would ask the couples to provide her with living expenses such as rent, according to Fox 4. She admitted in a guilty plea that she scammed 23 couples, from Missouri, Minnesota, Georgia, California, Tennessee and Massachusetts. She also admitted to scamming five adoption agencies. Read more...
April 30, 2012
Judge Blocks Texas From Cutting Off Planned Parenthood
A federal judge stopped Texas from preventing Planned Parenthood from getting state funds through the Women's Health Program. U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel in Austin ruled there is sufficient evidence that a law banning Planned Parenthood from the program is unconstitutional. He imposed an injunction against enforcing it until he can hear full arguments. The law passed last year by the Republican-controlled Legislature forbids state agencies from providing funds to an organization affiliated with abortion providers. Eight Planned Parenthood clinics that do not provide abortions sued the state. Read more...
Oklahoma Court Tosses Petition on 'Personhood'
The Oklahoma Supreme Court threw out an initiative petition that would have called for a vote on "personhood" beginning at conception. The ruling cited a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court case -- Planned Parenthood v. Casey -- which centered on Pennsylvania's attempt to challenge Roe v. Wade, which recognized a constitutional right to have an abortion. "The United States Supreme Court has spoken on this issue. The measure is clearly unconstitutional. ... The states are duty bound to follow its interpretation of the law." Read more...
Minnesota Governor Issues Second Abortion Veto
Gov. Mark Dayton has issued his second veto of an abortion bill in as many weeks. The governor issued an expected veto of a bill that would have required physicians to be physically present every time an abortion pill like RU-486 is prescribed, and again every time such a pill is swallowed. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Joyce Peppin, R-Rogers, pitched it as a measure meant to protect women’s health in the event of side-effects from the pill. Read more...
State Denies License to Reopen Abortion Clinic
Alabama's health department said it had denied a company's application to take over a Birmingham abortion clinic that is now slated for closing over health violations, citing ties between the prospective operator and the current owner. Ochata Management, which sought state approval to run New Woman All Women Health Care, cannot operate the clinic because it is too close to the current operator, said a statement from the Alabama Department of Public Health. Read more...
Sebelius Unaware of Religious Liberty Cases
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius provided as much evidence as necessary as to why this administration has some incompetents running the show. While testifying before Congress, Sebelius was asked some direct questions about how she "balanced" concerns for religious liberty with the contraceptive mandate that is part of Obamacare. The result proves that her constitutional knowledge wouldn't fill the head of a pin. Does Sebelius know the three different tests applied to the Constitution to determine whether a piece of legislation balances principles? "I'm not a lawyer and I don't pretend to understand the nuances of the constitutional balancing tests," replied Sebelius. Read more...
