Study: Facial Expressions of Unborn Babies in the Womb Show They Feel Pain

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Photo Credit: Life News

A newly-published research study shows unborn children are capable of feeling pain in the womb, as evidenced by the grimaces they show in their facial expressions…

Researchers from Durham and Lancaster Universities in England say unborn babies learn to show pain in their facial expressions as part of the process of fetal development. They took 15 scans of healthy unborn children and found that, when responding to painful stimuli, the babies were capable of one-dimensional expressions of pain in their faces at 24 weeks — such as moving their lips in a negative fashion.

At the 36th week of pregnancy, the researchers found unborn children can perform complex multi-dimensional facial expressions similar to what children make after birth.

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Women’s Conference Attended by Melinda Gates Champions Peter Singer Who Says Coercive Population Controls Necessary Because of Religion

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Bioethicist Peter Singer compared women and children to cows overgrazing a field and said that women’s reproductive rights may one day have to be sacrificed for the environment. He made the remarks at the global Women Deliver Conference last week, hailed as the most important meeting to focus on women and girls’ human rights in a decade.

The controversial Princeton University professor, known for championing infanticide and bestiality, was a featured panelist on Thursday at the three-day Women Deliver conference attended by Melinda Gates and more than 4,000 abortion and contraception activists in Kuala Lumpur.

Singer said that since the world’s affluent are not likely to restrain their high rate of consumption compared to the world’s poor any time soon, and since it’s possible that family planning efforts may “turn out to be not enough…we ought to consider what other things there are that we can do …in order to try stave off some of the worst consequences of the environmental catastrophes…”

“It’s possible of course, that we give women reproductive choices, that we meet the unmet need for contraception but that we find that the number of children that women choose to have is still such that population continues to rise in a way that causes environmental problems,” he said. Women have more children because of their “ideological or religious views.”

…Singer, who has also argued the case for bestowing international human rights on primates, said it is “appropriate to consider whether women’s reproductive rights are ‘fundamental’ and unalterable or whether, in bioethicist speak, they are ‘prima facie’ – good and important to respect but there can be imaginable circumstances in which you may be justified in overriding them.”

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Court Win in Girl’s Lung Transplant Case (+video)

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A federal court judge has granted a temporary order that will allow 10-year-old Sarah Murnaghan, who is dying from cystic fibrosis and desperately needs new lungs, to join an adult organ transplant list.

The judge has scheduled a preliminary injunction hearing for June 14, MyFoxPhilly reported.

Judge Michael Baylson made his ruling after hearing oral arguments Wednesday afternoon on a federal lawsuit filed by Sarah’s parents, challenging the “Under 12 Rule” that was keeping the 10-year-old off the adult transplant list.

Baylson’s order tells Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to direct the group that manages the organ transplant list to cease application of it in Sarah’s case.

And if there is another child in the judicial district in Sarah’s situation, the judge would consider and probably grant a temporary restraining order for them, too, if the case is presented in court.

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Court Order: Generic Morning-After Pills Must Be On Sale to All Ages in US, Without Restriction

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Generic versions of emergency contraception can be sold without a prescription or age restrictions while the federal government appeals a judge’s ruling allowing the sales, an appeals court said Wednesday.

The brief order issued by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan permitted two-pill versions of emergency contraception to immediately be sold without restrictions, but the court refused to allow unrestricted sales of Plan B One-Step until it decides the merits of the government’s appeal. It did not specify why the two-pill versions were being allowed now, though it said the government failed to meet the requirements necessary to block the lower-court decision.

The order was welcomed by the Center for Reproductive Rights, where President Nancy Northup called it a “historic day for women’s health.”

“Finally, after more than a decade of politically motivated delays, women will no longer have to endure intrusive, onerous and medically unnecessary restrictions to get emergency contraception,” she said in a statement.

The center’s litigation director, Julie Rickelman, said the government has two weeks to decide whether to appeal the 2nd Circuit’s decision on the stay to the full appeals court or the Supreme Court. Even if there is no appeal of the stay ruling, it was unclear how soon drugstores would move the two-pill emergency contraception from behind the counter. She said she hoped the pills would be available without restriction within a month.

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Pro-Life Congresswoman: My Unborn Baby Has Potters Syndrome, May Die

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Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler, a pro-life Republican from Washington state, recently shared the sad news about her unborn baby and a potentially fatal diagnosis.

Beutler posted a message on Facebook saying her unborn child has been diagnosed with Potters Syndrome, a condition which prevents the child’s kidneys from developing properly and is typically fatal for the baby.

On May 1, Beutler, 34, announced that she and her husband, Daniel Beutler, were expecting their first baby this fall.

“We don’t know what the future holds for our family, but we ask for your prayers and appreciate the privacy a family needs in such circumstances,” Herrera Beutler wrote. “According to the medical information and advice we’ve received, I will be able to continue to balance the responsibilities of an expectant mother with serving as your representative in Congress.”

“Our baby has a serious medical condition called Potter’s Syndrome,” Herrera Beutler announced Monday on Facebook. “We have had a second opinion and the medical diagnosis was consistent with the initial news: there is no medical solution available to us. We are praying for a miracle.”

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Liberty High Valedictorian Makes a Stand, Says the Lord’s Prayer at Graduation (+video)

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An Upstate high school valedictorian tore up his graduation speech and prayed instead.

Valedictorian Roy Costner spoke at his Liberty High School graduation as people in the crowd cheered when he threw away his pre-approved speech, reciting the Lord’s Prayer instead.

…Costner said he spoke to his pastor and prayed before deciding his speech was the time to make a statement.

“It was an emotional moment,” Costner told FOX Carolina on Tuesday. “It was overwhelming to look out and see the crowd and yelling.”

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Southern Baptists Leaving Scouts “en masse,” Huge Membership Problem Looms for BSA

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The Boy Scouts of America’s decision to allow openly-gay young men to participate in the organization is already spawning some major membership problems.

While those in support of the new-found policy are frustrated that gay leaders are still not permitted to take part, others who oppose the amendment believe that the group is abandoning its Christian heritage. Among the denominations that may cut off support for the Scouts is the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).

Church leaders, according to CNN, are planning to urge the religious order’s 45,000 congregations and 16 million members to officially cut ties with the Boy Scouts. Considering that 4,000 units are currently sponsored by the SBC, this would be a monumental loss for the organization — one that would impact 100,000 young men who participate through this denomination…

“There’s a 100% chance that there will be a resolution about disaffiliation at the convention and a 100% chance that 99% of people will vote for it,” Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptists’ Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, told CNN.

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James Brown: Reagan ‘The Most Intelligent President We’ve Ever Had’

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The godfather of soul, it turns out, was a Ronald Reagan fan.

In a 1984 interview with Rocci Fisch for ABC News Radio, the late James Brown called the then-president ”a man of conviction” and “the most intelligent, most well-coordinated president we’ve ever had.”

The interview, recently animated and re-released by Blank on Blank, a multimedia non-profit organization run by PBS, contains more than five minutes of Brown spewing fragments of wit and wisdom, as well as Fisch’s memories of meeting the R&B legend while he had his hair styled in Washington D.C. before a tribute concert.

Calling himself neither Republican nor Democrat but rather “A man…a humanitarian,” Brown responded with immediate praise when asked, “What do you think of Reagan?”

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Some 100,000 Christians Killed Per Year Over Faith, Vatican Says

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A staggering 100,000 Christians are killed annually because of their faith, according to the Vatican — and several human rights groups claim such anti-Christian violence is on the rise in countries like Pakistan, Nigeria and Egypt.

“Credible research has reached the shocking conclusion that an estimate of more than 100,000 Christians are violently killed because of some relation to their faith every year,” Vatican spokesman Monsieur Silvano Maria Tomassi said Tuesday in a radio address to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

“Other Christians and other believers are subjected to forced displacement, to the destruction of their places of worship, to rape and to the abduction of their leaders, as it recently happened in the case of Bishops Yohanna Ibrahim and Boulos Yaziji, in Aleppo [Syria],” Tomassi said.

While several human rights groups could not comment specifically on the Vatican’s number, organizations, like Persecution.Org, said the persecutions of Christians have been on the rise in places like Africa and the Middle East over the last decade.

“Two-hundred million Christians currently live under persecution. It’s absolutely on the rise,” Jeff King, the group’s president, told FoxNews.com.

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FBI Terrorism Task Force Wants to Question National Crisis Pregnancy Center Director

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Photo Credit: Chris Slattery

The FBI office charged with investigating terrorism has said it intends to question the national director of a chain of crisis pregnancy centers. The development is the latest in what pro-life activists have charged is a pattern of intimidation on the part of the Obama administration against pro-life activists.

Agents of the Joint Domestic Terrorism Task Force told Chris Slattery, national director of Expectant Mother Care (EMC) FrontLine Pregnancy Centers, only that they wanted to meet him “for a mutually beneficial relationship.”

“In other words, if I don’t meet with them, it will not be beneficial for me,” Slattery told LifeSiteNews.com. “I’m not sure what I’m going to get out of it,” he joked.

The questioning comes as New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has subpoenaed the group for not abiding by the standards of a consent agreement Slattery believed expired more than 20 years ago, as well as in relation to a question of some of its paperwork.

Currently EMC is poised to expand crisis pregnancy centers into 10 states, including Washington, D.C.

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