November 2011 Archives

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., Nov. 30, 2011/Christian Newswire--

In tandem with the White House proclamation marking this month as National Adoption Month, The Adoption Journey Project has now launched a new website, aimed at couples starting to think about adoption. The website, now available at www.AdoptionJourney.com is a collaborative effort between Bethany Christian Services, Lifesong for Orphans and Lifeline Children's Services.

"The vast majority of resources being published by adoption agencies and supporting organizations are for families that are either close to or have committed to the adoption process already," said Marc Andreas, Vice President of Marketing at Bethany Christian Services, the largest adoption agency in the country.

"We recognize that couples just starting to think about adoption have completely different perspectives and needs regarding the discernment process for adoption in their lives. This project will provide tangible resources to help support them and the beginning of their own adoption journey."

The web-based resources available on www.AdoptionJourney.com include:

• Frequently Asked Questions about adoption answered by post-adoptive parents
• Story vignettes of families who have adopted to highlight various circumstances and calling
• Educational resources for discovering current adoption needs - domestically & internationally
• Help with deciphering the financial aspects of grants, loans and financing adoptions
• A service to correspond with post-adoptive families regarding early stage consideration questions couples may have
• General overviews of adoption process based on geography or circumstance
• Platform for sharing couples' adoption journey stories who are currently going through adoption including tools for personal fundraising to help disburse financial impact

Additional resources are being published on AdoptionJourney.com for families such as interviews, webinars and ongoing social media engagement with families and leaders involved with adoption initiatives. Subject matter includes Biblical calling for communities to embrace adoption, church adoption funds, grants and loans, and questions pre-adoptive couples might have to ask of pastors and adoptive parents.

President Barack Obama's proclamation states, "Adoption has become a part of many Americans' lives and has contributed to the character of our Nation. As parents and as family members, it is our task to do all we can to give our children the very best." In like fashion, the aim for the project is to become hope producers and a catalyst for joy for orphans, vulnerable children, and families around the world.

ROCKFORD, Ill., Nov. 29, 2011/Christian Newswire --

This week, the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) delivered an early Christmas present for many unborn infants in Northern Illinois, when an Administrative Law Judge ruled that the suspension of the license of Rockford, Illinois' notorious abortion provider, the Northern Illinois Women's Center (NIWC), would be extended until January 4, 2012, when a formal public hearing will be held at 9:30 a.m. in the Michael Bilandic State of Illinois Building, at 160 North LaSalle Street, Chicago, Illinois, Room N502, on the 5th Floor.

The Judge announced her ruling during a teleconference yesterday, when IDPH prosecuting attorney, Eva Bylerly, Esq., advised the Judge that "two to three issues remained unresolved" during ongoing settlement negotiations she had been pursuing with Harold Hirshman, Esq., attorney for NIWC, over a series of charges that IDPH had brought against NIWC in the wake of public health inspections, which NIWC failed, triggering the suspension of its license earlier this year.

Last week, attorneys Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Society, and Jason Craddock, special counsel for the Society, wrote a lengthy letter to Ms. Byerly, expressing grave worries about a possible premature reopening of the NIWC on the part of its clients, concerned citizens residing in the Greater Rockford area, including the Rockford Pro-Life Initiative and also a Registered Nurse who had been instrumental in persuading the public health authorities finally to conduct a series of inspections of the NIWC abortion facility after a protracted period of nearly 14 years -- during which no inspections had taken place.

The Society's letter pointed out that IDPH's long overdue inspections had uncovered a laundry list of "egregious health and safety violations," which the letter then detailed. A copy of that letter, with several of its attachments, may be viewed here.

Among these cited violations, of which "many members of the public remain unaware," were the following:

• 3 of 3 operating rooms inspected failed to ensure a sanitary environment
• Failure to prevent contamination of clean surgical equipment
• Gynecological cannulas (surgical instruments inserted during abortion procedures) were stained with a "brown substance"
• Shoes were stored inside an open box of surgical gloves
• Operating room #1 contained a box of opened surgical gloves stained with a dried "brown substance"
• Autoclave equipment used to sterilize medical instruments failed biological testing on at least two occasions; such equipment should have been tested weekly but was untested for four months and then failed, leaving an undetermined number of patients exposed to unsterile surgical instruments
• Failure to meet legal requirement for a qualified Registered Nurse to be present in the operating room during procedures, leaving unqualified and unlicensed personnel to do tasks reserved by law for licensed, qualified professional personnel
• Failure to keep records as to persons accompanying patients, suggesting that women were left to care for themselves after surgery
• Repeated deficiencies in record keeping
• Failure of abortionists to have local admitting privileges, putting patients in life-threatening situations at risk of serious injury or death

These and other deficiencies had been brushed off by NIWC in its written filings in the administrative proceeding. NIWC's lawyers (who also represent Planned Parenthood in other cases in which the Thomas More Society is participating) even made the surprising claim that its patients are "safe" despite its failure to abide by legal requirements.

The IDPH will not discuss the details of its negotiations with "outsiders," but Tom Brejcha comments, "On behalf of the good people of Rockford and its environs, including folks from Wisconsin and Iowa who may patronize NIWC, we will continue to monitor these proceedings as closely as possible and to do all we can to assure that NIWC is held fully accountable for compliance with Illinois law before it is permitted, if ever, to reopen and continue its grisly business of the mass slaughter of human beings. We pray that this Christmas season may mark NIWC's permanent closure."

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill., Nov. 29, 2011/Christian Newswire --

The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer chastised the U.K.'s abortionists at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (RCOG) today for publishing a statement in its revised guidelines entitled, "The care of women seeking induced abortion," which falsely claims "induced abortion is not associated with an increase in breast cancer risk." [1]

"The RCOG's statement is shameful, unethical, and totally self-serving. It has more to do with protecting abortionists from massive medical malpractice lawsuits and absolutely nothing to do with scientific evidence," said Karen Malec, president of the Coalition. "The RCOG's abortionists are following the tobacco industry's playbook."

The RCOG ignored advice from three internationally recognized experts (Professor Joel Brind, Angela Lanfranchi, MD, FACS and Patrick Carroll) and medical texts that say increased childbearing, especially starting before age 24, sharply reduces breast cancer risk. Obviously, the woman who has an induced abortion forfeits the protective effect of childbearing.

In its statement, the RCOG omitted 51 of 68 epidemiological studies dating from 1957 and biological and experimental evidence showing that induced abortion leaves the breasts with more places for cancers to start, due to elevated levels of pregnancy hormones that stimulate cell division and dramatic breast growth.

By contrast, women with first full term pregnancies experience a protective process (differentiation) during the last months of pregnancy that matures 85% of the breast lobules into permanently cancer-resistant lobules. [2] Every subsequent full term birth reduces risk an additional 10% and matures more lobules into cancer-resistant lobules.

The RCOG's statement conveniently excluded seven studies published since 2007 reporting an abortion-breast cancer (ABC) link:

1) Patrick Carroll's 2007 ecological study involving eight European nations, including the United Kingdom, which concluded abortion is the "best predictor" of future breast cancer trends; [3]

2) An American study, Dolle et al. 2009 (which included National Cancer Institute branch chief Louise Brinton as a co-author) whose authors reported a statistically significant 40% risk increase among women with abortions; [4]

3) An Armenian study in 2011 reporting a nearly tripled increase in risk for women with abortions; [5] and

4) Two Chinese studies [6,7]; and studies from Iran and Turkey. [8,9] More...

November 28, 2011/St. Paul, MN/Operation Rescue --

Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota, has announced that it will close its abortion clinic, GYN Special Services Clinic, effective December 9, 2011. According to local pro-life activists, it is the first abortion clinic closure in Minnesota in two decades.

"I cannot express properly the waves of emotions of joy I am experiencing with this victory," Brian Gibson of Pro-life Action Ministries told Operation Rescue.

Gibson and other local activists worked for years to convince Regions Hospital to close the abortion clinic, launching protests, petitions, and boycotts that Gibson says cost the hospital "millions of dollars in lost business."

The abortion clinic steadily lost business over the years. Last year, the clinic did 545 abortions, down over 55% from their high of 1,200 abortions annually.

"The closure of this abortion clinic is a testament to the steadfastness and faithfulness of pro-lifers who worked to end the killing without giving up. God honored their work," said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman, who tracks the nation's abortion clinics. "The number of abortion clinics continues a sharp decline, and that translates into lives saved. November has been a great month for the cause of life."

GYN Special Services Clinic joins four other abortion clinics in announcing closures in November. Two of those clinics were located in Michigan, one in New Mexico, and another in California.

View a listing of America's remaining surgical abortion clinics .

Dublin/November 25, 2011/Pro Life Campaign --

A new survey which claims that over half of Irish General Practice doctors favour legal abortion "fails to take account of key facts," the Pro Life Campaign (PLC) has said.

The survey, carried out by Dr Mark Murphy from Sligo claims to have found that slightly more than 50% of doctors believe a termination of pregnancy "should be available to a woman who chooses" it. Dr Murphy wrote to 500 established GPs and 250 GPs in training. There was a 44% response rate.

Responding to the poll, spokesperson Dr Ruth Cullen said that the survey "failed to take account of key facts and distinctions".

Dr Cullen said:

Crucially, the survey ignores the vital ethical distinction between necessary medical interventions in pregnancy and abortion which intentionally ends the life of the baby.

For this reason alone, the survey sheds no new light on the abortion debate.

It is important to note that not all terminations are induced abortions. Birth is a termination of pregnancy as are necessary early deliveries where the baby may be extremely immature. But there is a profound ethical difference between such terminations and induced abortion, which directly targets the life of the baby.

As other surveys have shown, when these clear ethical distinctions are pointed out to respondents, it elicits a very different answer.

The survey asks doctors about the possible effects on women of having to travel for abortion. However, remarkably given the most recent evidence showing the adverse effects of abortion on women, it fails to ask them whether they have encountered women who suffered from undergoing abortion itself.

Dr Cullen also suggested that there were "very legitimate questions" that could be raised about the methodology used in Dr Murphy's survey. She noted: "For example, even assuming that a correct representative sample was chosen initially, only 44pc of those who were written to replied."

Such a sample, Dr Cullen said "could not be considered as a scientifically representative sample."

RALEIGH, North Carolina, Nov. 21, 2011/Christian Newswire --

Today, attorneys for the city of Jacksonville, North Carolina, and the Thomas More Society agreed to the entry of a preliminary injunction that will allow prayer and demonstration to resume at the entrance to the city's lone abortion clinic. The agreement, which will be in effect until the city amends its ordinances, was reached on the eve of a hearing on the matter before U.S. District Judge Terance W. Boyle. Attorneys for the city and the Thomas More Society have pledged to collaboratively work towards an amicable resolution to the lawsuit.

"We are pleased the city of Jacksonville has agreed to allow the demonstrators to continue their ministry during the lawsuit. This is a big victory for the First Amendment rights of pro-life people everywhere," said Peter Breen, executive director and legal counsel for the Thomas More Society. "We are hopeful for a successful resolution of this lawsuit that will protect First Amendment rights for the long term."

The dispute arose when lead plaintiff, Dr. Bartolo Spano, along with other local residents were forbidden from praying and picketing outside the front entrance of the Crist Clinic for Women, a Jacksonville abortion facility. The Thomas More Society's suit argues that the First Amendment protects these pro-life advocates' right to peacefully protest outside the Clinic. According to the suit, city authorities had denied the plaintiffs a permit to demonstrate, citing "public safety concerns," including that vehicles may leave the roadway and strike the demonstrators. This city has conceded that its Parade and Public Assembly Ordinance will need to be amended.

The injunction is available here.

The next topic was generated in response to a recent article published in a pro-abortion religion magazine wherein the author claims that the conscientious objection, by some American physicians, to participate in abortions is somehow endangering the lives of women.

These latest attacks against pro-life health professionals seeking to follow their informed conscience are based entirely on false assumptions (premises). The first is the mistaken belief that there exist situations where a direct abortion is required to save a woman's life or somehow preserve her health. An appendectomy, hysterectomy, or salpingectomy is often necessary to preserve the life or health of a woman.

Sometimes an early delivery may be needed to save a pregnant woman's life. For example, a pregnant woman with sepsis needs IV antibiotics and possibly an early delivery--even if the infant is too young to survive outside the womb. (Unfortunately, this baby would not be able to survive very long either in or outside the uterus.) One thing this woman certainly does not need is a direct abortion. For example, in my experience, I've treated several women in the unfortunate situation where she had an intra-uterine infection at a point during the pregnancy where her preborn child was too young to survive outside the womb. In these tragic settings, I've never hesitated to recommend induction of labor. Sadly, the child is unable to survive inside the uterus due to the infection, nor outside due to prematurity. Even though the child dies soon after delivery, he or she dies as a foreseen, yet secondary effect resulting from the unavoidable prematurity. He or she does not die as a direct result of my violent dismembering of the child's body using surgical instruments. Students of ethics will recognize this as the principle of double effect.

Another classic example used to illustrate this concept is that of uterine cancer (tubal pregnancy can easily be substituted here also). The pregnant woman with advanced uterine cancer will usually benefit from a complete hysterectomy as soon as possible. If this determination is made before 24 weeks of pregnancy, the baby would of course die as a similar secondary effect and this would be ethically permissible (i.e. it would not be a direct abortion). If on the other hand the child is beyond 24 weeks, the child's life can be saved by delivery via cesarean immediately prior to the hysterectomy. As an obstetrician, my duty is to do everything in my power to preserve the life of both the mother and the child. Conditions (like advanced cancer) that seriously threaten a woman's health also threaten her preborn child's health. Therefore, its misleading to suggest we'd place higher value on one life over the other. Justice demands that we do everything possible to save them both. Imagine a firefighter being told he had to choose to save only the mother or her child from the burning house. I'm sure every firefighter alive today would do everything possible to save them both if at all possible.

I repeat: a direct abortion is never required to preserve the life or health of a woman. On the contrary, a direct abortion always threatens the life of the woman and seriously damages her health....

Continue reading here.

November 18, 2011/Santa Fe, NM/Operation Rescue --

The only abortion clinic in Santa Fe will close as of December 23, 2011, when abortionist Lucia Ceis retires from private practice. The last day abortions will be done is December 16, 2011.

Ceis admits to having done thousands of abortions over her 35 years of business. Ceis posted an ad in The New Mexican newspaper announcing her retirement.

That closure will leave Santa Fe abortion-free and will reduce the number of abortion clinics in New Mexico to five.

Cies' abortion business offered abortions to 18 weeks at a cost of $500-$1,200. She also conducted abortions at St. Vincent Hospital in Santa Fe.

"Abortion clinics continue to close as Americans become more and more pro-life," said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. "The number of surgical abortion clinics has dropped from 2,200 in 1991 to only about 675 today. That is quantifiable evidence that we are winning the hearts and minds of the American people. Abortion is a human rights abuse that will soon be rejected and relegated to the ash heap of history."

View Project Daniel 5:25, a listing of remaining surgical abortion clinics.

WASHINGTON, D.C./Nov. 17, 2011/Family Research Council --

Family Research Council's Marriage & Religion Research Institute (MARRI) released its second annual Index of Family Belonging and Rejection today. This year's Index delved into the issues of poverty, educational attainment and teenage out of wedlock births in relation to state Index scores.

Study highlights include:

• Only 45.8 percent of American children reach the age of 17 with both their biological parents married (since before or around the time of their birth).
• The Index of Family Belonging is highest in the Northeast (49.6 percent) and lowest in the South (41.8 percent).
• Minnesota (57 percent) and Utah (56.5 percent) have the highest Index of Family Belonging values of all the states; Mississippi (34 percent) has the lowest.
• Family belonging is, as in 2008, strongest among Asians (65.8 percent) and weakest among Blacks (16.7 percent).
• While the effects of government spending on high school graduation rates are curvilinear and offer diminishing returns, family belonging is positively and significantly associated with high school graduation rates.
• Family belonging and child poverty are significantly, inversely related: States with high Index values have relatively low child poverty rates, and vice versa.
• There is also a significant, inverse relationship between family belonging and the incidence of births to unmarried teenagers.

MARRI Director Dr. Pat Fagan made the following comments:

This year's Index of Family Belonging and Rejection shows that the family is hugely important in determining a child's future success or failure. The report shows that states with higher rates of strong families have higher rates of high school graduation as well as higher average scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Family structure is actually more closely linked to educational outcomes than government spending.

States with higher scores on the Index have lower child poverty rates, and states that score low have high child poverty rates. A father is motivated to work harder to support a child when he is the biological parent of the child and lives with the child and mother. Conversely, many non-residential parents do not pay child support, and those that do, do not pay much.

Research at the individual family level has shown that adolescents who live in single-parent families or stepfamilies are more likely to have out-of-wedlock births. This continues the endless cycle of broken families and childhood poverty.

Government can do two things to help alter this trend. The first is to help in creating, compiling and publicizing sound research evidence on the links between family living arrangements and youth development, as well as those between family characteristics and community functioning and well-being. The second is in ensuring that governmental policies intended to help those in need do not have unintended consequences that create moral hazard and encourage the formation of more high-risk families.

To read the Index of Family Belonging and Rejection, click here.

EASTCHESTER, N.Y., Nov. 16, 2011/Christian Newswire --

At a Press Conference on Thursday, November 17th, at 2:00 PM, The Children First Foundation will read numerous statements and letters of endorsements urging Governor Cuomo to approve its pro-adoption "New York 'Choose Life' License Plate," and will officially launch an urgent and statewide "Call Governor Cuomo Campaign" as well as a "National Petition for the Approval of the New York Choose Life License Plate." The Press Conference will be held at the Law Office of Belair & Evans, located at 61 Broadway near Zucotti Park and the 9/11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan.

Several pro-family organizations representing over 600,000 concerned New Yorkers have already endorsed the New York "Choose Life" Plate and respectfully ask the Governor to approve it along with hundreds of other blocked custom plates -- including the "9/11 Remembrance Plate" -- without further delay or further unnecessary taxpayer-funded legal fees.

Last week, capping a decade-long effort and a seven-year federal lawsuit to get its pro-adoption "Choose Life" License Plate approved in New York State, a U.S. District Court judge ordered Governor Cuomo's newly appointed DMV Commissioner, Barbara Fiala, to "approve Children First Foundation, Inc.'s preferred custom plate design that was submitted prior to the institution of the [DMV's 2004] moratorium."

Because custom license plates raise millions of dollars in annual revenue for the state, and given that the state has already forfeited potentially millions of dollars since the DMV's 2004 moratorium on all new custom plates, this should be an easy decision for Governor Cuomo and his administration. Regrettably, however, the editorial board of the Albany Times Union has just urged Governor Cuomo to appeal this decision all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.

"At our press conference we will ask every pro-family and pro-liberty organization and every concerned citizen to use their telephones and cell phones, emails and letters, Facebook and Twitter to flood the Governor's Office with respectful requests to defend Freedom of Speech and Equal Treatment for all New Yorkers, not just some," said Dr. Elizabeth Rex, President of Children First.

Governor Cuomo's Office welcomes phone calls and can be reached at (518) 474-8390.
Please also sign Children First's "National Petition for the New York Choose Life License Plate" at www.gopetition.com/petitions/new-york-choose-life-license-plate.html.

LINYI, China, Nov. 12, 2011/Christian Newswire --

Women's Rights Without Frontiers has obtained a report from Chen Guangcheng's 2005 investigation into coercive family planning in Linyi County, Shandong Province. This report was drafted by human rights attorney, Teng Biao. Read the report here.

Since Chen's investigation exposed the fact that there were 130,000 forced abortions and sterilizations in Linyi in 2005, he was jailed for four years and three months. He remains under house arrest, where he has been tortured and denied medical treatment. His health is in jeopardy. Thousands will celebrate Chen's 40th birthday today, November 12.

Women's Rights Without Frontiers President, Reggie Littlejohn, stated, "It is an honor to release this report on the 40th birthday of Chen Guangcheng. For the first time, the world can read actual witness statements from cases that landed Chen in jail. The Chinese Communist Party has attempted to silence Chen, but they cannot silence the voices of millions in China crying for freedom."

In this report are accounts of a woman forcibly aborted and sterilized at seven months; villagers sleeping in fields to evade Family Planning Officials; Officials who broke three brooms over the head of an elderly man and forced a grandmother and her brother to beat each other. There is a detailed discussion of the practice of "implication" - the detention, fining and torture of the extended family of One Child Policy "violators."

"Chen is suffering for doing what we are doing: exposing the truth behind forced abortion and sterilization in China," Littlejohn said. "A report went out that Chen may have paid for this with his life, so we are even more determined to carry on this work in his name. We demand the immediate release and medical attention for Chen and his family."

Things may not have improved in Linyi since 2005. Earlier this year, Family Planning Officials stabbed a man to death. In addition, a woman who was six months pregnant recently died during a forced abortion in Lijing County, also in Shandong Province.

"The spirit of the Cultural Revolution lives on in China's Family Planning death machine. We have chosen to release the names of the perpetrators of these crimes against humanity, so that they can be held accountable before the world," said Littlejohn.

Littlejohn urges those who support Chen to join the Chen Sunglasses Freedom Campaign. "People everywhere are taking a picture of themselves wearing sunglasses in honor of Chen, and sending it to be posted on the WRWF website and Free Chen websites inside China, showing that they care about Chen and want him to be free."

Watch a 3 minute video about Chen and sign a petition to free him.

AUSTIN, Texas, Nov. 10, 2011/Christian Newswire --

Austin LifeCare, through its attorneys from the Texas Center for the Defense of Life (TCDL), the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), and the Jubilee Campaign's Law of Life Project (JC-LOLP) expressed thanks Thursday to the City of Austin for temporarily agreeing in Court today, through their legal counsel, that Austin LifeCare may take down the sign the City required them to post while the City takes a closer look at the constitutionality of the City's law that singles out Austin's pregnancy resource centers.

The agreement puts on hold, until February 2012, a lawsuit filed on October 6 on behalf of Austin LifeCare, a pregnancy resource center, against the City of Austin. The lawsuit challenges on First Amendment grounds an ordinance that requires pro-life pregnancy centers to post signs declaring that they do not provide abortions and other services.

"We are thankful to the City that it will take a closer look at its ordinance, and that in the meantime Austin LifeCare can continue to offer real help and hope to women without posting the City's message," said TCDL President, Greg Terra. Federal District Court Judge Lee Yeakel with the parties' agreement ordered the case to be stayed at least until February 3, 2012, when the parties will provide a status update to the court.

Another federal judge struck down a similar Baltimore ordinance in January, after which ADF attorneys secured an initial injunction against an ordinance in Montgomery County, Md., and recently won an injunction that suspends an ordinance in New York City. On October 12, 2011, attorneys for Austin LifeCare filed a motion for preliminary injunction in this case for argument later this month, which is now being put on hold by the Court while Austin LifeCare is freed to cease its compliance with the Ordinance.

JC-LOLP's General Counsel, Sam Casey, Austin LifeCare's lead trial counsel in the case, said: "We applaud the City of Austin for finally answering in Court today our letters sent to its City Attorney in April and August asking the City to suspend its enforcement against our client and consider repealing this facially unconstitutional Ordinance, particularly when there is no evidence that any pregnancy resource center in Austin is doing anything but freely providing a multitude of pregnancy services to women and men who are faced with an unintended pregnancy."

In April 2010, the Austin City Council passed an ordinance to restrict the operations of what it calls "Limited Service Pregnancy Centers," facilities that help pregnant women carry their babies to term without offering abortions, referrals to abortionists, or so-called "comprehensive birth control services."

Under the ordinance, centers such as Austin LifeCare are required to "prominently display, at the entrance of the center, two black and white signs, one in English and one in Spanish, that state as follows: 'This center does not provide abortions or refer to abortion providers. This center does not provide or refer to providers of U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved birth control drugs and medical devices.'"

The first offense is punishable by a minimum $250 fine; a minimum fine of $350 is issued for the second offense and a minimum $450 fine for the third. The fines only apply to individuals or organizations that primarily provide counseling information about pregnancy services or options. The ordinance does not require centers performing or referring for abortions to post any kind of signs about services that they do not offer.

WASHINGTON, D.C./11-9-11/Americans United for Life --

Americans United for Life President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest said Wednesday that the "long and noble legal precedent for the personhood of unborn children did not suffer harm by the defeat of the ballot initiative in Mississippi. This measure would not have led to the overturn of Roe v. Wade, but had a symbolic appeal for pro-life Americans. It was not drafted in such a way that it would conflict with Roe."

Dr. Yoest made the following observations about the hotly contested initiative:

"Once again we witnessed the willingness of the abortion lobby to fight with every dollar it possesses, with half-truths and with mud-against-the-wall tactics, misrepresenting the real impact of personhood as an issue under the law. The loss has no immediate implications as the initiative restricted what the government could do, not what individuals could do. The measure would have restrained government actions - government-funded abortions - and not abortions conducted by individuals or enterprises such as Planned Parenthood.

"The unborn child as a person under the law, who can be recognized in civil and criminal statutes, is a tradition stretching back to English law. Today, 38 states have wrongful death statutes so that grieving parents have a means of addressing the loss of a child in civil courts, and 37 states have fetal homicide laws on the books that carry criminal penalties. AUL has been on the forefront of these efforts as a source of model legislation for the two-pronged protections and recognitions of the personhood of the unborn.

"Pro-life Americans celebrated a significant number of successes during state legislative sessions this year. AUL's campaign to accumulate victories through strategic legislative gains led to 28 pieces of legislation alone. Despite the loss in Mississippi, a number of new pro-life pieces of legislation have taken their place in the law in defense of life.

"In Mississippi, abortion advocates confused voters with the impact, breadth and legal abstractions of this issue, which was vulnerable to attack in part because of its complex legal realities. But the importance of the recognition of the humanity of a child in the womb will not falter as a result of this vote."

For more information on personhood, click here.

November 8, 2011/Topeka, KS/Operation Rescue --

Open records received by Operation Rescue from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment raise more questions than they answer about the recent revelation that documents containing critical evidence against Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri were shredded under the Sebelius Administration.

Operation Rescue asked the agency for a broad range of documents and communications between KDHE and Planned Parenthood and/or the office of former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who now serves as President Obama's Secretary of Health and Human Services.

KDHE provided a scant number of documents reflecting an e-mail request from Planned Parenthood's Sheila Kostas asking for information listed on Termination of Pregnancy (TOP) forms was made on August 10, 2005. The records show that KDHE's Greg Crawford complied with the request the following day.

"This exchange was revealing because of the informal way Kostas and Crawford addressed each other, and the speediness of the answer from KDHE concerning TOP information. It shows a friendly, working relationship that has some apparent history," said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. "Contrast that with the hostility expressed by KDHE in responding to an investigation by a pro-life Attorney General's office, and we have a troubling bias and motivation for evidence destruction."

Continue reading this story and view the documents.

November 7, 2011/Topeka, KS/Operation Rescue --

The Kansas State Board of Healing Arts completed its disciplinary hearings on Friday for abortionist Ann Kristin Neuhaus, who is accused of making improper referrals for late-term abortions to George Tiller's now-closed Women's Health Care Services in 2003.

Neuhaus seemed uninterested in Friday's hearings, and displayed a continued pattern of disrespect by often texting or otherwise playing with her cell phone under the table during the proceedings.

KSBHA prosecutor Reese Hays concluded cross examination of Neuhaus' expert witness, brought in to counter testimony from Dr. Liza Gold, who stated repeatedly during earlier questioning, that Neuhaus' records and the supposed mental health evaluations of eleven late-term patients ages 10-18 fell below the standard of care.

Hays skillfully used Dr. K. Allen Greiner's testimony to methodically make his case that Neuhaus' records were woefully lacking in content and the basis for mental health diagnoses that were used to justify otherwise illegal late-term abortions. Kansas law at that time required that a second, unaffiliated physician concur that the pregnant woman would suffer "substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function" if she continued the pregnancy.

Greiner agreed that Neuhaus' records do not document that she conducted complete mental health exams, mental status exams, physical exams to rule out a medical reason for symptoms, or order any lab work to determine if medication was a factor. The file for "Patient 8" contained no diagnosis or evidence that any examination was made by Neuhaus. Two other files contained diagnoses made well after the abortion process had begun.

Neuhaus plugged "yes or no" answers into a computer program called "PsychManager Lite" which generated a printout and calculated a psychiatric diagnosis. The print out from the computer program was placed in the record in place of a true medical record that should have contained information, including Neuhaus' personal observances, to document her diagnoses. Neuhaus also seemed to rely heavily on intake forms produced by unlicensed clinic employees who interviewed prospective patients over the telephone.

Comments from patients recorded in the intake forms were used as indicators of mental health disease, including statements like "Some nights I can sleep and some nights I can't." Another patient expressed "a little bit of guilt" over her situation of been an unwed pregnant teenager. Yet another did not participate in basketball because she could not run as fast being in her third trimester of pregnancy. This was used to illustrate a "loss of interest" in activities.

Under questioning by Hays, Greiner agreed that many of the "symptoms" could have been attributable to normal feelings or symptoms common to women in their late stages of pregnancy instead of mental health disease.

Occasionally, Greiner would attempt to defend a particular point, but Hays would refer him to his deposition where he made statements damaging to Neuhaus, which Greiner had to admit were true.

The disciplinary case is based on a complaint filed by Operation Rescue's Cheryl Sullenger in 2006 and amended in February, 2007. In April, 2010, KSHE filed an 11-count petition based on their investigation opened by Sullenger's complaint.

Attorneys for KDHE and for Neuhaus have until January 17, 2011, to submit their final information to the presiding officer, who will made a recommendation within 30 days, in time for any disciplinary order to go to the full Board for finalization in late February. Neuhaus faces the possibility of license revocation.

Background

WASHINGTON, Nov. 3, 2011/Christian Newswire -- A prominent Washington, D.C. pastor and board member of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) is to lead the religious outreach program of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

The Rev. Dr. Derrick Harkins, whose hiring was announced October 20, is senior pastor of the prestigious Nineteenth Street Baptist Church, one of the largest historic black congregations in Washington, DC. In addition to serving on the NAE board, Harkins serves on an advisory board for the pro-abortion rights Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC). He also serves on the board of the liberal advocacy group Faith and Public Life, funded by leftist philanthropies like George Soros and the Tides Foundation.

In 2009, Harkins argued that Obamacare is morally imperative. This summer, Harkins endorsed Jim Wallis's "Circle of Protection," which effectively sided with President Obama and against Congressional Republicans during the debt ceiling crisis by opposing spending limits on social welfare or entitlements programs, by implication favoring only tax increases and military cuts to address spiraling federal deficits.

Institute on Religion and Democracy President Mark Tooley responded:

The DNC selection of Harkins is understandable given his liberal politics and his connections with mostly conservative evangelicals. As a board member of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), he has ready access to leaders of at least 40 member denominations.

Should a pastor work directly for a political party while also leading a church? The Religious Left would complain if an evangelical pastor were similarly hired by the Republican National Committee.

It remains to be seen if traditional, pro-life, pro-traditional marriage evangelicals listen to Harkins' appeals on behalf of the DNC.

Tuesday, November 01, 2011/Newark, NJ/Alliance Defense Fund --

by Attorney Matt Bowman

Twelve nurses represented by Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed suit Monday against their employer, a hospital run by the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, for requiring them to participate in abortions. Federal and state law both protect them from being forced to do so.

"Pro-life nurses shouldn't be forced to assist in abortions against their beliefs," said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. "No less than 12 nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortions regardless of their religious objections. That is flatly illegal."

Federal law prohibits hospitals that receive certain federal funds from forcing employees to participate in abortions. UMDNJ receives approximately $60 million in federal funds annually. In addition, New Jersey law states, "No person shall be required to perform or assist in the performance of an abortion or sterilization."

In September, UMDNJ initiated a policy change and began telling Same Day Surgery Unit nurses that they must assist abortions. The hospital imposed the policy on the nurses in October and repeatedly threatened that they must assist abortions or be terminated.

When one nurse objected to assisting abortions on the grounds of her religious beliefs, a supervisor responded that UMDNJ has "no regard for religious beliefs" of nurses who object to participating in abortions.

The hospital scheduled the nurses to begin training to assist abortions on Oct. 14. The training involves actually assisting surgical abortions, which the nurses believe is, in the words of the U.S. Supreme Court, "an act of violence against innocent human life."

If the court does not issue an order requested by ADF attorneys that stops the training sessions while the lawsuit moves forward, the nurses and their colleagues will continue to be scheduled one by one to undergo the training and then to assist abortions on a regular basis. The lawsuit also requests that the hospital be ordered to return part of the federal taxpayer money it has received in light of its violation of federal law.

Demetrios K. Stratis, one of nearly 2,100 attorneys in the ADF alliance is local counsel in the case, Danquah v. University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. ADF is currently involved in a similar lawsuit in New York state court involving a nurse at Mt. Sinai Hospital.

MEDIA ADVISORY, Nov. 1, 2011/Christian Newswire --

Over the weekend, presidential candidate Herman Cain referred to Planned Parenthood as "Planned Genocide." The National Black Prolife Coalition illuminates this horrific truth through their "Numbers Don't Lie" video series. The third installment in this series, created by The Radiance Foundation, has been released today, entitled: "We've Been Guttmacher'd." It exposes the pro-abortion distortions of the Guttmacher Institute.

"Planned Parenthood's Negro Project 2.0 Director lashed out at Cain for using 'inflammatory and divisive language.' In the real world, we call this language 'truth.' Guttmacher began as a pseudo-scientific arm of Planned Parenthood and, today, gives legs to the abortion giant's propaganda," said Ryan Bomberger of The Radiance Foundation.

The Guttmacher Institute was founded by Alan F. Guttmacher, vice president of the American Eugenics Society and the first president of Planned Parenthood (1962-1974). Its current president, Sharon Camp, was caught lying about its present relationship to Planned Parenthood claiming it was "completely unaffiliated" with PPFA since 2004-2005. IRS records show, however, that Guttmacher has received over $2.1 million from the nation's largest abortion chain since 2004.

"Black America is waking up to the truth. Sharpton, Veazey, Jesse Jackson, Veronica Byrd and other pro-abortion voices are pretending to support civil rights while standing for civil wrong," said Stephen Broden, pastor of Fair Park Bible Fellowship.

The National Black Prolife Coalition wants to end the epidemic levels of abortion in the black community and abolish the human injustice society-wide. There are life-affirming alternatives as seen in pregnancy care centers, maternity homes and adoption agencies which provide care to thousands of women and babies, every day, in the US.

"Cain has dared to defy the abortion establishment and speak about the atrocities they commit every day. Our communities deserve physicians who heal, not abortionists who butcher our very future," said Day Gardner of the National Black Prolife Union.

The video addresses numerous contradictions by Guttmacher. A recent national study confirms that most abortion clinics are located in disproportionately black areas. Guttmacher, itself, declared in January 2011 that "abortion services are concentrated in cities" then issued another advisory contradicting their own claim.

"I have a dream that America will soon wake up from the nightmare of abortion and all the blood, pain and death associated with the decimation of precious human life in our nation," said Dr. Alveda King, Director of African American Outreach for King for America. "We truly have been Guttmacher'd!"