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Huge Win for Life: Appeals Court Upholds South Dakota’s Strict Informed Consent Law

A federal appeals court has upheld a provision of a South Dakota law requiring the states lone abortion business, operated by Planned Parenthood, that it has to inform women of the validity of the link between abortion and suicide. With women facing a host of mental health issues following an abortion, Planned Parenthood can no longer keep women in the dark about them.

An en banc panel of the court declared that South Dakota’s statute that requires abortion doctors to disclose to pregnant mothers that an abortion places the mother at increased risk for suicide ideation and suicide constitutional because the disclosure is truthful, non-misleading, and relevant to the pregnant mother’s decision of whether or not to consent to an abortion.

Harold J. Cassidy, a pro-life attorney who represented Leslee Unruh, president of the Alpha Center of Sioux Falls, and Stacy Wollman, president of Care Net of Rapid City — two pregnancy centers that provide abortion alternatives — sent LifeNews details about the decision.

He called the decision “a fabulous victory for the women of the State of South Dakota.”

“The Court ruled that the women will now be given additional important information before they consent to an abortion: that the abortion places a woman at increased risk of suicide ideation and suicide,” he said. “This victory represents the fourth separate decision of the Eighth Circuit reversing the District Court in this one case, two decisions issued by en banc Courts four years apart – a rare occurrence that underscores the importance of the issues presented by the case.”

Read more from this story HERE, detailing the requirements of the upheld South Dakota law including informing mothers:

(1) that “an abortion terminates the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being;”
(2) that the mother’s “relationship with that second human being enjoys protection under the Constitution of the United States and the Laws of South Dakota;”
(3) that relationship and all rights attached to it will be terminated; and
(4) the abortion places the mother “at increased risk for suicide ideation and suicide.”

Photo credit: BrianSwant

Some Good News: US Youth Increasingly Pro-Life

This June, Students for Life of America released the results of a nationwide study, in which we surveyed 805 18-24 year-olds about the upcoming 2012 election, unconstitutional HHS Mandate, and abortion. We knew that a lot of folks tend to try to put young people in a neat little box when it comes to the issue of abortion, but, with this rising generation, we knew we had to shed some light into how they are really thinking and the changing of this debate.

The Good News… Their whole lives this generation has been told that identifying themselves as “pro-life” is judgmental, extremist, and wrong. Yet, when asked questions about their beliefs on the legality of abortion: 44% were pro-life and 45% pro-choice, and they were more likely to view abortion as a “bad thing” (31%) rather than a “good thing” (17%). In the addition, the plurality, 27%, selected “abortion should only be legal in the cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother” as the position most similar to own position on abortion. This generation is not radical in their support of abortion and takes much more of a common sense approach to the issue than President Obama and Planned Parenthood with an overwhelming majority favoring common sense abortion regulations:

  • 89% favored requiring abortionists to follow the same medical and safety protocols as other surgical clinics
  • 84% favored requiring abortion facilities to warn women of seeking abortions of potential health risks
  • 76% favored allowing pregnant women to view sonograms before undergoing an abortion
  • 74% support making sex-selection abortions illegal in United States
  • 70% agreed with offering a woman the opportunity to anesthetize her child before the abortion procedure

We are winning the HHS Mandate issue. When young Americans were asked whether the federal government should force institutions to pay for procedures that offend their religious beliefs, the plurality (44%) disagreed with the Obama’s administration’s move.

The Bad News… We need to educate this generation more on what conscience protections are and who is permitted to have them. The youth surveyed were split on whether medical students should be permitted to object to procedures or drugs for conscience reasons, although this age group was 8 points more likely to agree (44%) than disagree (36%). What they don’t know is literally killing this generation as 58% admitted that they didn’t know where resources were in their community or campus to support a woman facing an unplanned pregnancy who didn’t want to undergo an abortion.

Planned Parenthood still has the upper-hand when it comes to targeting and deceiving this generation. Our study found that young people supported Planned Parenthood by a ratio of six to one (66% “favorable” vs. 11% “unfavorable”), with two in five (40%) calling themselves “strongly favorable.” The plurality of even those who identify as Conservative (44%) and Pro-Life (46%) were even “favorable” towards Planned Parenthood. Even more shocking for those of in the pro-life movement is that fact that 48% said they did not know whether or not Planned Parenthood offered abortions.

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo Credit:  TFP Student Action

Another botched abortion death prompts calls for Congressional investigation of Planned Parenthood

Leading pro-life advocates are calling on Congress to investigate Planned Parenthood following another death of a woman from a legal abortion at one of its clinics — this time in Chicago, Illinois.

In response to news that a young woman, Tonya Reaves, died after a botched [second-trimester] abortion at Planned Parenthood, the Susan B. Anthony List renewed the call for a congressional investigation into the abortion provider.

“Congress has an obligation to exercise clear and regular oversight of businesses like Planned Parenthood that receive hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funding and have such dramatic impact on the lives of women and unborn children. This tragic incident reminds us once again that an industry that relies on practitioners like Kermit Gosnell, that has shown willingness to aid alleged human traffickers, and that turns a blind eye to sex-selective abortion must be thoroughly and immediately investigated by Congress,” said Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser.

Dannenfelser added, “We must not allow Tonya Reaves to have died in vain, but rather heed this warning and call on Congress to exercise its full capacity to investigate Planned Parenthood. As the nation’s largest abortion provider, in 2010 alone Planned Parenthood ended the lives of 324,008 unborn children and ill-served their mothers.”

“Left unregulated, the abortion industry clearly cannot be trusted to look out for the true interests of women,” continued Dannenfelser. “Earlier this year, Congressman Cliff Stearns launched an investigation of Planned Parenthood which raised a list of questions and issues concerning safety and oversight of Planned Parenthood. The American people need to know the answers to those questions about internal operations so that Americans can be assured women’s interests are protected.”

Read more from this story HERE.

‘Catholic’ Pelosi calls GOP bill to cut off Planned Parenthood funding ‘an immorality’

Leave it to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to get it backwards. The “Catholic” Democrat is upset House Republicans this week approved a bill that includes language cutting off funding for Planned Parenthood unless it stops doing abortions.

Instead of lamenting the immorality of abortion, she calls the bill an “immorality,” according to a CNS News report. The bill also withdraws funding for the Obamacare law that includes abortion funding and potential rationing.

Pelosi said, “The defunding of Planned Parenthood, which is part of what their mark-up was about, was it yesterday that they officially marked up? Yesterday, that was, I know was in the mix, I didn’t know if they were finished with it, that mark up.”

“The bill is — what they marked up is really, in my view, an immorality,” Pelosi said. “An immorality to ignore scientific opportunity to make the American people healthier. Things like that I think are an immorality. However, it doesn’t happen to be a priority for the Republicans.”

The Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee approved their FY13 spending bill. During consideration, pro-life Republicans on the panel turned back two pro-abortion amendments from Democrats.

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit: edalisse

Female Chair of the Democratic National Committee: Electing Women isn’t Always a Good Thing

The nation’s top Democrat made it clear at a left-wing event for women that electing women to public office is only a good thing is they subscribe to the liberal dogma that advances abortion and birth control.

Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida congresswoman, spoke at the Women 2020 this week and said the focus shouldn’t be electing women to Congress but only supporting women political candidates who support “ensuring access to birth control.” The comment is a clear reference to the national debate over the Obama HHS mandate that forces religious groups to pay for and refer women for abortion-causing drugs and birth control in violation of their religious beliefs.

CNS News caught video of Wasserman-Schultz’s comments: “I think we have to be cautious about who is, you know, just celebrating that a woman got elected to a particular office and make sure that we have women who are running and winning who are going to champion the causes of women — who are going to make the agenda that is important to women like equal pay for equal work and making sure that when it comes to fighting for middle class families and ensuring access to birth control and making sure that health care is a priority and that it’s affordable, making sure that access to education and higher education is a priority.”

“So, electing just any woman shouldn’t be the goal. Electing a woman who is going to make the issues important to women and families is really should be the focus and I don’t know if we made as much progress on that as we should.”

This isn’t the first time the DNC chair has attacks Republicans as supposedly anti-woman for their pro-life views. She said Republicans are “anti-woman” and are waging “war on women” with an “extremely radical social agenda.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit: mdfriendofhillary

The Economics of Abortion: Hundreds of Billions of Dollars Lost

As we all know, there are so many effects that abortion has on our society and the whole world. What seems to be overlooked is how abortion can hurt the economy. People make the mistake that abortion is solely a moral issue, and therefore cannot be related to the effects of the economy.

In the United States, we have a national debt nearing $16 trillion, which has surpassed the nation’s annual GDP. In other words, our federal government is spending beyond our means. Since abortion was legalized in 1973 by Roe v. Wade, over 50 million babies have died, with over 3,000 killed on a daily basis.

It’s horrible enough that these innocent babies are murdered, but can you imagine how many more contributions those 50 million lives would have made? Perhaps one of those aborted could have found a way to cure AIDS, cancer, or asthma, just to name a few. Plus, with more people contributing to society through work, we would have a higher GDP, which would greatly help reduce the burden of our government spending, which spends about $4 billion daily. Much progress could be made to shore up the social security of the 10,000 individuals who retire every day.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Social Security Administration, Guttmacher Institute, and National Center for Health Statistics, if abortion had never been legalized in 1973, more than 17 million people would be employed, resulting in an additional $400 billion from those workers, with $11 billion contributed to Medicare and $47 million contributed to Social Security. Although it is important to also reduce government spending, these added incomes would nevertheless help the country.

It doesn’t take a world-renowned economist to figure out that when you’re decreasing the youth from abortion and with all the baby-boomers retiring, Social Security is going to eventually run out if we continue with abortions and the amount of spending by the federal government. Even though Social Security cannot last forever with the amount of federal spending today, not having abortion would help Social Security last longer, assuming that the amount of federal spending is the same.

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit: utsfl

Incredible Video Shows the Knitting Together of the Human Face in the Womb

This short BBC documentary on the development of the human face in the womb shows, using advanced computer imagery based on 4D ultrasound, how it all comes together between the first two and three month’s of an unborn child’s life.

Photo credit: Mrs. Flinger

House Panel Votes Today on Prohibiting DC Abortions on Unborn Children that feel Pain

A House Committee will vote today on a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy in the District of Columbia based on scientific evidence showing unborn children feel pain.

Arizona Republican Congressman Trent Franks introduced the District of Columbia Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The bill is similar to a first-in-the-nation law the state of Nebraska passed that successfully drove late-term abortion practitioner LeRoy Carhart to move most of his abortion business to Maryland and bans abortions at 22 weeks gestation (20 weeks post-conception) due to the scientific evidence that not only do unborn children feel pain, they feel it more acutely because pain “dampeners” do not fully develop until 40 weeks gestation, and later.

Currently, in the District of Columbia, abortion is legal for any reason, until the very moment of birth.

According to officials with National Right to Life, at least two abortion providers currently are advertising that they provide abortions in the District past the point that the bill would establish protection – one to 24 weeks after fertilization, and the other during the third trimester, at least to seven and one-half months, and perhaps later.

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit: uzi978

Does EMILY’s List really know what women want?

A few minutes before 3:00 PM last Thursday, the always-cheerful gals over at EMILY’s List (Early Money Is Like Yeast) sent out yet another e-mail blast begging for money. Since their “proven” track record is so less-than-stellar they opted to use this solicitous rant as an opportunity to address what they have accomplished this year.

They touted and featured some of the 1,300 pro-abortion Democrat women they’ve “trained” these last few months in an effort to excite their strictly pro-abortion base. In the hopes of adding even more to their already deep war-chests they lauded the “political prowess” of this year’s EMILY Listers. What they don’t mention and what becomes embarrassingly apparent every election night is that they should have cut back on the canvas bags and given these poor dears a lesson in the subtleties of concession speeches.

The e-mail that went out to millions of their subscribers notes and emphasizes that these pro-abort broads were made aware of what the American female electorate “really” wants as seen through the pro-abortion prism that is EMILY’s List. They claim to have conducted their own “extensive” polling and discovered that:  “The characteristics women voters seek in their congressional representatives include collaborative, equality, balance, relatable, listeners, nurturing, smaller egos, understanding, … and more feminine qualities.”  Really?!?

Nurturing? This is an organization that raises tens of millions of dollars each election cycle with the singular purpose of giving cash to women who advocate the destruction of their own children. In their warped and disconnected reality nothing says “nurturing” more than supporting partial-birth abortion. They advocate nurturing their unborn daughters by ripping them to shreds. Hamsters have a better “nurture” track record.

Smaller Egos? On June 16, 2009 Brigadier General Michael Walsh was testifying before the Environment and Public Works Committee. During the course of his back and forth with male Senators he referred to them as ”Sir,” which is the most common and respectful way of addressing Senators by members of our Armed Forces. But when he referred to Babs Boxer (D-CA) as “ma’am” (most respectful way the military addresses superiors) her super-sized ego attempted to publicly dress-him-down by insisting he call her “Senator.” You can watch the demure Ms. Boxer’s cringe-worthy exchange with the Brigadier General here.

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit: david_shankbone

Abortion backers assault more pro-lifers in recent violent assaults

In recent days we have reported on the assault of a pro-life protester (caught on video and followed by arrest) and the vandalization of a pro-life leader’s home.

Here are two more attacks by abortion supporters against pro-lifers to report.

The first occurred June 30 and is in follow-up to my story that pro-life activists planned to distribute flyers outing country singer JoDell Nauert as the owner of three abortion clinics at an Independence Day gig.

This was ironically a charity event for a group supporting handicapped children and adults.

Six pro-lifers paid to enter the event and were in the process of distributing tracts when organizers asked them to leave, which they did.

But one of those pro-lifers, Steve Kinn (above right) is a disabled veteran who walks with a cane due to injuries sustained to both his knees. When he didn’t exit fast enough, the property owner allegedly shoved him, making him fall to the ground and reinjure one of his reconstructed knees to the extent he had to be taken out in an ambulance.

It was of no help that a police officer threatened to arrest Kinn for trespassing both before and after he reached the hospital.

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit: tobyjmarks