Angered by videos in which Planned Parenthood officials discussed compensation for providing fetal tissue from abortions, Republicans in Congress are again demanding an end to government funding for the nearly 100-year-old provider of women’s health services.
Away from the headlines, however, the group is facing other major challenges, including one from a far different source: the Affordable Care Act, which it avidly supports.
Many formerly uninsured women who once depended on Planned Parenthood for low-cost access to birth control, abortions and other reproductive healthcare have gotten coverage under President Barack Obama’s healthcare law, making them less reliant on the organization’s 700 clinics.
In many states, Planned Parenthood is losing clients as newly insured patients turn to medical providers included in their health plan’s networks, according to data provided to Reuters and interviews with more than two dozen of its affiliates.
“Some people relied on us because they were uninsured prior to the Affordable Care Act. Now they can go anywhere for care, and some of them have been,” said Lori Carpentier, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Mid and South Michigan, which expects to treat 58,000 patients in 2015, down about 15 percent from the 68,000 it treated in fiscal 2012, before major parts of the law went into effect. (Read more from “Planned Parenthood Faces Unexpected Challenge From Obamacare” HERE)
Over the past nine months, the Marine Corps tested a gender-integrated task force in both Twentynine Palms, Calif. and Camp Lejeune, N.C. in an attempt to gauge what the Marine Corps might look like with women in combat roles.
According to a recent report in the Marine Corps Times, only a small number of women were left by the experiment’s conclusion — two of the roughly two dozen that started — mostly in part because of the physical and mental stress that comes with combat roles. Both the men and women in the task force also reported a breakdown in unit cohesion with some voicing a perceived unequal treatment from their peers.
The experiment comes as all branches of the military face a Jan. 1, 2016 deadline to open all combat positions to women — from basic infantry battalions to elite special operations units such as U.S. Navy SEALs. While branches like the Air Force and Navy have relatively small communities where women are currently barred from serving — namely special operations detachment s— the U.S. Army and Marine Corps have a host of units and jobs closed to woman. These jobs, known as combat arms, include infantry, artillery and armored divisions.
The gender-integrated Ground Combat Element Task Force served as a snapshot of sorts of what the Marine Corps might look like if women were a staple in combat positions. Each closed position was represented: infantry, artillery and mechanized units, such as tank platoons and light armored reconnaissance detachments, all operated in tandem with one another. The women were spread among them in ratios that would be expected in an integrated Marine Corps, with roughly 90 percent of the branch made up of men.
The nine-month exercise was broken down into two parts. Initially there was a four-month training period, or “work-up,” at Camp Lejeune, followed by a five month “deployment” to the Mojave Desert in Twentynine Palms. Certain elements of the task force also participated in training at Camp Pendleton, and mountain warfare in Bridgeport, Calif. This two semester cycle was common over the past 15 years. During the height of the Iraq War, it was common that Marine units would train for six to eight months and then deploy for a similar amount of time. (Read more from “Marine Corps’ Women-In-Combat Experiment Gets Mixed Results” HERE)
Attendees at a Hillary Clinton campaign event in Cleveland, Ohio, were asked to sign a pledge promising to vote for the candidate before they were allowed into the venue . . .
Zito’s coverage of the Sunday event (which the Clinton camp has geared towards millennials) highlighted the Democratic candidate’s difficulty in winning over a demographic that has largely flocked to her primary opponent Bernie Sanders. Zito describes the event as nothing short of a disaster, where the small number of university students who showed up were more interesting in voting for Sanders and seeing her husband Bill Clinton. (Read more from “Hillary Clinton Makes Voters Sign Loyalty Pledge Before Entering Event” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00kathleenhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngkathleen2015-09-07 23:10:252015-09-07 23:10:25Hillary Clinton Makes Voters Sign This Pledge Before Entering Event
When Mindy Danison shared photos of her 7-week-old baby, whom she miscarried, on Facebook, she had a purpose: to share with the world the preciousness of life.
Danison is mother to five children, ranging from age one to age nine. She and her husband, Gabe, were thrilled to be expecting another baby last fall, but unfortunately, that baby’s heart stopped beating around 7-and-a-half weeks gestation . . .
“I sit down in the tub and right away felt calmed,” she explained. “[…] I lean back, giving gentle pushes and finally I find a large thing that was encased. I analyze it to see if baby is inside. I begin to look closer and see a small piece of the baby. In that moment I was not sad, but not happy. It was a feeling that you can’t explain. If I had to, I would say, comforting, love, amazement . . .
Riley
“The incredible view of life in the early stages,” she said. “Those stages the doctors told me my baby was just clots and tissue. They told me I wouldn’t see him, I wouldn’t tell it’s a boy. […] How can they tell me this child, my baby, was not a baby?” . . .
Annabelle
But Danison and her husband would soon suffer two more miscarriages, including their daughter, Annabelle, whom they were also able to take photographs of after her birth in February. Anabelle was only eight weeks old when she passed away. (Read more from “Photos of Two Babies, Miscarried at 7 and 8 Weeks, Share the Truth About Abortion” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00kathleenhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngkathleen2015-09-06 23:11:242015-09-06 23:11:24Photos of Two Babies, Miscarried at 7 and 8 Weeks, Share the Truth About Abortion
Maury County (Tennessee) Director of Schools Chris Marczak has asked parents concerned about a seventh grade social studies class on the history of Islam to discuss their questions in a Sept. 17 meeting with district teachers and administrators.
“If we are truly going to Grow Maury County together, then we need to openly talk and discuss about what we want to emphasize in our county,” Marczak said in a noon Thursday statement to district parents . . .
The issue arose over new state-mandated standards on middle school social studies about early American history. The standards were developed two years ago and implemented in the 2014-2015 school year.
A Spring Hill Middle School parent complained after seeing a school project her daughter had created featuring the Shahada, or Five Pillars of Faith in Islam: prayer, almsgiving, fasting, pilgrimage and creed.
The creed pillar is known in Arabic as “Shahada,” and in transcribing it students were instructed to write, “Allah is the only God,” said parent Brandee Porterfield. (Read more from “Middle School Student’s Parents Furious Over Islam School Unit” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00kathleenhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngkathleen2015-09-06 23:04:172015-09-06 23:04:17Middle School Student’s Parents Furious Over Islam School Unit
A federal appeals court has ruled that an illegal immigrant and convicted felon can’t be deported back to Mexico because he identifies as a transgender woman, which leaves him vulnerable to torture back in his home country.
Edin Carey Avendano-Hernandez was born male in Mexico, and claims to have been raped by his brothers and suffered other torments. In 2000, he illegally entered the U.S. and took up residence in Fresno, California. Avendano-Hernandez also started taking female hormones and began living openly as a woman in 2005. In 2006, he committed two separate drunk driving offenses, the second of which injured two people and resulted in a felony conviction. After serving a year in jail, he was deported back to Mexico in 2007.
Back in Mexico, Avendano-Hernandez claims to have been subjected to more harassment from family and neighbors and to have been raped by members of the Mexican army. He illegally entered the U.S. again and, after being arrested, petitioned for sanctuary in the U.S. under the U.N. Convention Against Torture (CAT), arguing that deporting him would violate the CAT because he would more likely than not experience torture at the hands of Mexican authorities.
An immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) both rejected Avendano-Hernandez’s arguments on the grounds that he had committed a serious crime (felony drunk driving) and was not likely to face official torture.
Now, a three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals says Avendano-Hernandez must be allowed to stay in the U.S., because he “more likely than not” will be tortured if returned to Mexico. (Read more from “Federal Court: Illegal Alien and Convicted Felon ‘Can’t Be Deported’ Because He’s Transgender” HERE)
Pope Francis’ imminent visit to America is being spun by secular media as a political bonus for Democrats. No one, it seems, expects the pope to deliver a speech prophetically denouncing the human organ trafficking of Planned Parenthood, the grave threats to religious liberty in America, or even the ethnic cleansing of Christians from the Middle East.
Instead, we are told that Pope Francis will emphasize his areas of agreement with the left over climate change, inequality, and immigration. If any congressmen are squirming in their seats, it is expected, it will be those prolife Catholic Republicans who differ with the pope on these latter issues.
As a Catholic, I still hold out hope that the pope will disappoint expectations, and speak up on subjects that are life-and-death, doctrinally clear, and rooted in genuine Catholic morality — rather than parroting the agenda of the secular, globalist left. But the actions of U.S. bishops in recent weeks are making it harder to hold on to that hope. Most sickening was the statement where Francis’ handpicked Archbishop Blaise Cupich of Chicago drew a moral equivalency between the butchery at Planned Parenthood and the inconveniences faced by illegal aliens, Medicaid recipients, and convicted killers. Cupich brazenly cloaked himself in the same “seamless garment” that his predecessor Cardinal Joseph Bernardin had crafted as a bulletproof vest for pro-abortion Catholic Democrats.
But it’s not just the bleeding edge of the Catholic left that feeds the secular media narrative. The widely-respected Abp. Charles Chaput, seen by many as the most conservative major Catholic prelate, recently delivered a speech on immigration that tracks exactly with the positions of the Democratic Party and radical immigrant activists groups such as La Raza. Chaput defended birthright citizenship for children of illegals, opposed deportations, and even condemned attempts to refine our legal immigration criteria to focus on skilled immigrants, rather than relatives of recently amnestied illegals. TV networks and Democratic candidates will eagerly feed on his remarks, in their ongoing effort to portray conservative Catholics as “dissenters” from “Catholic social teaching,” no purer in their religious allegiance than those who “dissent” from the Church’s teaching on selling baby limbs in medical waste coolers.
This narrative is entirely fictitious. Abp. Chaput’s remarks do not reflect real Catholic teaching on immigration — not the text of the current Catechism, nor the historic practice of Catholic countries, including the Papal States, on immigration. (To how many Muslims has the Vatican granted citizenship?) No more do Pope Francis’ speculations on the causes of inequality, or the vagaries of earth’s climate, have the slightest guarantee of religious authority. On all of these matters, popes and bishops are merely playing pundits, speaking beyond their proper authority and undermining it in the process. (Read more from “Open Borders Catholics Falsify Church Teaching – and Profit From It” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-09-05 00:12:582015-09-05 00:12:58Open Borders Catholics Falsify Church Teaching – and Profit From It
Jackie Hill-Perry, a Christian rapper and former lesbian, has shared her thoughts on how churches can better minister to the LGBT community and why she believes Christian leaders should remind those struggling with same-sex attraction that their identity is more than their sexuality.
During a recent interview with The Gospel Coalition, the 26-year old St. Louis native was asked “what is the most important thing church leaders can do to help people in their congregations who struggle with same-sex attraction?”
“What was helpful for me was that my leadership did not isolate my same-sex attraction from my whole person,” she responded. “They looked to see ‘how can I help her in a Gospel-centric way that’s holistic’ because it wasn’t that I struggle with lesbianism. I struggled with hatred, bitterness, laziness, gluttony, lack of stewardship, pride. There was a lot to me that was much deeper than just my sexuality.”
Hill-Perry, who is now married to fellow spoken word artist Preston Perry and has a daughter, explained that Christian leaders need to let people know that their identity is in more than just their sexuality.
“When I was able to see that all of me needed Jesus, all of me needed to be whole and all of me needed to be discipled, that’s what helped me. Because it kind of humbles you where [I said] ‘I’m real messed up because it’s not this one little fraction of me. It’s all of me’ and I’m able to really crawl to Jesus and know He can fix me. Only He can make me whole,” she said. (Read more from “Former Homosexual Shares How Churches Can Better Minister to LGBT Community: ‘Only Jesus Can Make You Whole'” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00kathleenhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngkathleen2015-09-05 00:11:012015-09-05 00:11:01Former Homosexual Shares How Churches Can Better Minister to LGBT Community: ‘Only Jesus Can Make You Whole’
Implementation of sexual and gender neutrality extends beyond the federal and state governments to the local governments as well. In New York City for example, its Health Department advocates “pregnancy prevention” efforts, which include information for bisexuals and transgender and gender non-conforming teens.
The New York City Health Department distributes Plan B emergency contraception and other hormonal contraceptives to minor public school students without telling their parents (distribution isn’t tracked or correlated to pregnancy prevention data). It has also created several videos and NYC Health smart phone apps to “educate” teens about reproductive and sexual health and free clinic services.
One app, NYC Condom Finder, lists locations where anyone can find “FREE condoms no matter where you are in New York City,” including:
“walking directions to the 5 nearest venues that distribute FREE NYC Condoms! With more than 3,000 locations throughout all 5 boroughs, no matter where you are, you’ll always be protected.”
Another, Teens in NYC, provides information about sexual health services for teens. Children under 18 years old “don’t need a parents’ consent to use these clinics.” It’s stated policy is:
“teens in NY State have the right to sexual health services privately – without getting permission from parents, girlfriends/boyfriends or anyone else.”
Videos explain how young teens can access birth control to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
The apps provide easy access for teens to locate free and confidential contraceptive, abortion, counseling, and pharmaceutical services without the involvement of their parents’ knowledge or consent.
New York State does not require parental consent or notification before their child receives prescriptions for “reproductive health” drugs, including Plan B, treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, or abortions.
One video features Anaya who wants to wait until she’s married to have sex. She wants to focus on good grades in high school. She states how much she loves her boyfriend and that she wants to make him happy. She gives in and has unprotected sex, after which she goes to a clinic and receives the morning after pill and free birth control, expressing how she feels accepted and happy.
Another video features a teenage girl discussing birth control from a bisexual perspective. “Samantha” says she may have feelings for her female friend, “Alisha,” even though she has a boyfriend, “Richie.” She says, “I like sex with Richie but sometimes I can’t stop thinking about how beautiful Alisha is … or how much I want to kiss her, or go even further. So I guess I like girls, too.”
In the video, a counselor directs her to a free health clinic where Samantha is given condoms and a prescription for birth control and told that her feelings for both men and women are “normal.”
The Health Department has stated it does not compile data related to the numbers of pregnancies it claims to prevent in order to evidence the in/effectiveness of its programs. (For more from the author of “NYC Tax Dollars at Work: Apps for Free Condoms, Bi-Sexual Birth Control, and More” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00kathleenhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngkathleen2015-09-05 00:05:572015-09-05 00:05:57Public Tax Dollars at Work: Apps for Free Condoms, Bi-Sexual Birth Control, and More [+videos]
The Tim Tebow Foundation announced today that more than 100 churches have been selected to host the “Night to Shine” event simultaneously on Friday, February 12, 2016…and the number continues to grow.
Night to Shine is an unforgettable prom night experience, centered on God’s love, for people with special needs, ages 16 and older. The Tim Tebow Foundation will serve as the sponsor at each of these locations by providing a detailed instruction manual, financial support, a prom kit complete with decorations and gifts for the guests, and personalized staff support. This is truly going to be a worldwide movement, as the churches that have been approved to host already represent 41 states across the nation and 6 countries around the world.
“The Tim Tebow Foundation has a heart for people with special needs, and we want to show these amazing people that they are loved, valued and ALL kings and queens in God’s eyes,” said Erik Dellenback, executive director of the Tim Tebow Foundation. “Our prayer is that this event will change the face of Valentine’s Day weekend from simply a celebration of love, to a celebration of God’s love for people with special needs.” (Read more from “Tim Tebow Foundation to Sponsor More Than 100 ‘Night to Shine’ Proms for People With Special Needs” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00kathleenhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngkathleen2015-09-05 00:03:262015-09-05 00:03:26Tim Tebow Foundation to Sponsor More Than 100 ‘Night to Shine’ Proms for People With Special Needs
Angered by videos in which Planned Parenthood officials discussed compensation for providing fetal tissue from abortions, Republicans in Congress are again demanding an end to government funding for the nearly 100-year-old provider of women’s health services.
