A Struggle To Define 'Death' For Organ Donors

A Struggle To Define 'Death' For Organ Donors : Shots - Health Blog : NPR: A new method of obtaining organs for transplantation is raising a host of ethical questions, including whether the donors are technically "dead."

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Jimmy Carter: Democrats Should Abandon Pro-Abortion Position

Jimmy Carter: Democrats Should Abandon Pro-Abortion Position | LifeNews.com: Appearing on the Laura Ingraham Show today, former President Jimmy Carter said he believes the Democratic Party should moderate its position on abortion, which it currently supports without limits and funded at taxpayer expense. Toning down the stridently pro-abortion position would help win back Republicans who abandoned the Democrats because of abortion and other liberal social issue positions.

Carter said: “I never have believed that Jesus Christ would approve of abortions and that was one of the problems I had when I was president having to uphold Roe v. Wade and I did everything I could to minimize the need for abortions."

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Stem cells from fat win favor with heart researcher

Stem cells from fat win favor with heart researcher - chicagotribune.com: Stem cells derived from a patient's bone marrow can help treat severe heart failure, but the results are even better when they are taken from fat, a leading researcher said, citing his experience in a number of studies.

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Karishma’s Grandmother tried to Kill Her: Her Story

Karishma’s Grandmother tried to Kill Her: Her Story «: Karishma survived infancy through the vigilance of her mother. But when she was not yet a year old, her paternal grandmother started physically abusing Karishma. Over time the beatings intensified such that there were times when Karishma would pass out with the pain. She often had bruising all over her. The grandmother even taught Karishma’s young brother how to strangle her. She told him, “If you kill your sister, you will be even more loved by us.”

Related:

• 50% of girls in India don’t want to be girls. They feel so unloved and unwanted as girls in this society that they wish they were born as boys (according to a government survey)!
• Hundreds of girls born in India are given names like ‘Unwanted’ and ‘Undesired’ by their parents.
• 90% of abandoned children in India are girls who were discarded by their parents who did not want daughters. There are about 10 million abandoned girls in India.

Read more here: A report on the state of India's girls

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Arizona Senate OKs Bill to Ban Abortions After 20 Weeks

Arizona Senate OKs Bill to Ban Abortions After 20 Weeks | LifeNews.com: The Arizona state Senate has approved a measure that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy based on the scientific evidence showing unborn children feel pain at least at that point in development, if not sooner. The vote was 20 to 10, with one Republican joining Democrats in opposition and the legislation now heads to the Arizona state House.

Sen. Nancy Barto, R-Phoenix, is the main sponsor of HB 2036 and she cited testimony of a doctor who said that a 20-week fetus has sensory receptors all over its body. She also said there is evidence that the later along a pregnancy, the greater the chance of complications for the mother.

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Pro-Life Members of the European Parliament Sponsor a “Week for Life”

Pro-Life Members of the European Parliament Sponsor a “Week for Life” | NRL News Today: Pro-life Members of the European Parliament have begun a “Week for Life” in Brussels to highlight critical pro-life issues that confront lawmakers.

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Global Warming Models Wrong Again

William Happer: Global Warming Models Are Wrong Again - WSJ.com: What is happening to global temperatures in reality? The answer is: almost nothing for more than 10 years. The latest monthly global temperature anomaly for the lower atmosphere was minus 0.12 degrees Celsius, slightly less than the average since the satellite record of temperatures began in 1979.

The lack of any statistically significant warming for over a decade has made it more difficult for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its supporters to demonize the atmospheric gas CO2 which is released when fossil fuels are burned. The burning of fossil fuels has been one reason for an increase of CO2 levels in the atmosphere to around 395 ppm (or parts per million), up from preindustrial levels of about 280 ppm. CO2 is not a pollutant.

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‘The thing that frightens our opponents most’ is ‘an evangelical-Catholic alliance’

‘The thing that frightens our opponents most’ is ‘an evangelical-Catholic alliance’ | LifeSiteNews.com: Dr. Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, told listeners of his radio program, Richard Land Live, “You take evangelicals, and you take Roman Catholics, and you are over 50 percent of the population of the country.”

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Bioethics should be off-limits to the masses

Declaring War on Newborns | The Weekly Standard: The authors and the editor of the Journal of Medical Ethics were themselves shocked at the response [to the suggestion of after-birth abortions]. As their inboxes flooded with hate mail, the authors composed an apology of sorts that non-ethicists will find more revealing even than the original paper.

“We are really sorry that many people, who do not share the background of the intended audience for this article, felt offended, outraged, or even threatened,” they wrote. “The article was supposed to be read by other fellow bioethicists who were already familiar with this topic and our arguments.” It was a thought experiment. After all, among medical ethicists “this debate”​—​about when it’s proper to kill babies​—​“has been going on for 40 years.”

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Embryonic stem cells shift metabolism in cancer-like way upon implanting in uterus

Embryonic stem cells shift metabolism in cancer-like way upon implanting in uterus: These findings not only have implications for stem cell research and the study of how embryos grow and take shape, but also for cancer therapy.

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Magic cells: babies who save lives

Magic cells: babies who save lives | Life and style | The Guardian: It is mid-morning in the delivery suite at King's College hospital in London, and midwife Terie Duffy is cooing over the contents of a stainless-steel bowl. "Isn't it beautiful?" she says. "This is what makes my job worthwhile … the opportunity to give the chance of life."

But the object of her attention is not a baby. It is a placenta, which was, until about five minutes ago, attached to 4.1kg (9lb) Princess Gracie, who is crying lustily in the birthing room next door with her mum Charlotte Cribben and dad Andre Kum. "It has done its job for Princess Gracie," explains Duffy. "And now the precious stem cells it contains could cure another child or adult of leukaemia or another blood disease."

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Father-to-son sperm donation: 'Too bizarre'?

Father-to-son sperm donation: 'Too bizarre'? - Health - Men's health - msnbc.com: A married couple in the Netherlands did not want to use sperm donated from a stranger, partly because this would mean the child would not share genes with the husband's side of the family. But because the husband had no brothers to donate, the couple seemed at a loss on how to pass on his gene pool. Then the couple thought of an unconventional solution: Use sperm from the husband's father. The child produced from this union of egg and sperm would have a "father" who was his biological half- brother, and a "grandfather" who was his biological father.

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20,000 Ontarians demand end to abortion funding

20,000 Ontarians demand end to abortion funding | LifeSiteNews.com: The petition calls for the legislature to remove abortion from the list of services covered under the provincially-funded Ontario Health Insurance Plan. They have collected signatures from all 107 ridings and are preparing to submit them to Members of Provincial Parliament in the coming weeks.

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Stand Up for Religious Freedom

Rally Locations and Info « Stand Up for Religious Freedom: The Nationwide Rally for Religious Freedom is being held Friday, March 23 at noon, local time, outside federal buildings, Congressional offices and historic sites across the country. The theme for the Rally is “Stand Up for Religious Freedom—Stop the HHS Mandate!” Find a location near you!

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D.A. Carson: Adam in the epistles of Paul

Gospel Coalition: "If Paul's insistence on the historicity of Adam . . . be allowed to tumble into disarray, the foundations of Christian theology (not just Pauline theology) are threatened. . . . For it has pleased God to reveal himself along the historical line from the first Adam to the last, and we can know little of God apart from that revelation."

'Destroy All the Churches'

Clifford D. May: 'Destroy All the Churches': Why is it that when Abdulaziz ibn Abdullah Al al-Sheikh, the grand mufti of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, declares that it is “necessary to destroy all the churches in the Arabian Peninsula,” the major media do not see this as even worth reporting? And no one, to the best of my knowledge, has noted that he said this to the members of a terrorist group.

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Jimmy Carter supports same-sex ‘marriage’ as he launches his new Bible

Jimmy Carter supports same-sex ‘marriage’ as he launches his new Bible | LifeSiteNews.com: Former president Jimmy Carter has been strongly identified as a “Born Again” Christian and as a liberal Democrat for nearly five decades. He is once more blending those roles as he promotes “his” latest book, his own study Bible.

The NIV Lessons from Life Bible: Personal Reflections with Jimmy Carter contains the full text of the New International Version of the Bible and the former president’s prayers, reflections, and asides. During his book tour to promote a study of the Scriptures, Carter mentioned he supports same-sex “marriage.”

Editor: What is Zondervan thinking?

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New ObamaCare Rule Departs from Hyde Amendment

New ObamaCare Rule Departs from Hyde Amendment | NRL News Today: At its core the Hyde amendment has TWO parts. It prohibits funding for abortion AND funding for insurance plans that include abortion. This is the fundamental reality of longstanding federal law: taxpayer dollars DO NOT subsidize abortion plans that include elective abortion.

Now, under Obamacare, taxpayers subsidies in the form of refundable, advanceable credits paid directly to the insurance company will subsidize insurance plans offered on the exchange that include abortion on demand—even late-term abortion. Obamacare further breaks with longstanding law by establishing a new abortion surcharge and secrecy clause.

Related: Women and religious liberty

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Tell Me The Story One More Time

Tell Me The Story One More Time | Challies Dot Com: Jeff feared Charlotte would die before he returned to the hospital, and he prayed God would grant her sufficient stamina to hold on. He need not have worried. When he entered her room, panting from his swift jog from the parking garage, Charlotte called him over to her bed. She took his hand, looked into his eyes, and said, “Pastor, tell me the story one more time.”

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Battle with GOP lawmakers over stem cells could cost U-M state aid

Battle with GOP lawmakers over stem cells could cost U-M state aid | Detroit Free Press | freep.com: A battle is heating up between a Republican-led state House panel and the University of Michigan over whether U-M must disclose its number of embryonic stem-cell lines. Republicans on the subcommittee are upset with what they call U-M's "thumbing of their nose" at requests for information about embryonic stem cells. Several lawmakers said that if they don't get the information -- required under language passed in last year's budget -- they'll look at docking U-M's state aid.

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If the world's population lived in one city...

If the world's population lived in one city...:

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Planned Parenthood speaker: Good parents let teens have sex at home

Planned Parenthood speaker: Good parents let teens have sex at home | LifeSiteNews.com: Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernadino Counties invited Amy T. Schalet, author of Not Under My Roof: Parents, Teens, and the Culture of Sex, to keynote the organization’s “Consider This” luncheon last week. Dr. Schalet, an assistant sociology professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, said American parents should be more like their counterparts in the Netherlands, who allow teenagers to have sex openly under their roof.

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Disabled Children and Our Cultural Blindspot

Disabled Children and Our Cultural Blindspot - Blog - Eternal Perspective Ministries: As far back as the 1980's, I read about a survey of pediatricians in which 3/4 said they would abort if knew they were going to have a Down Syndrome Child. Another survey of pediatricians and pediatric surgeons re­vealed that more than two out of three would go along with parents’ wishes to deny life-saving surgery to a child with Down syndrome.

On the one hand, we provide special parking and elevators for the handicapped. . . . But when we hear a woman is carrying one of these very children, many say, “Kill it.”

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The Global War Against Baby Girls

The New Atlantis » The Global War Against Baby Girls: Sex-selective abortion is by now sufficiently severe that it has come to alter the overall sex ratio at birth of the entire planet, resulting in millions upon millions of new “missing baby girls” each year.

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Picturing the Loss of 54 Million

Picturing the Loss of 54 Million: Fifty-four million = 58.6 percent of Generation Y and 71 percent of the Baby Boomer Generation. It is also 12 million more than the entire population of Generation X. Abortion has truly created a “lost generation.”

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I’m Going to Kill Our Baby: A Father’s Worst Nightmare

I’m Going to Kill Our Baby: A Father’s Worst Nightmare: The baby is not the mother’s body. He or she is a unique individual. The baby’s life should not hang in the balance of the mother’s “choice.” If a father wants to stand up for the right of his child to live, his voice should be welcomed and listened to. He should be given the right to care for that child himself, if he is willing. Please, fathers, don’t give up.

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Justices Weigh IVF Technology Against 1939 Law

Justices Weigh IVF Technology Against 1939 Law : NPR: The case before the court began in 2001 when Robert Capato was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. Before beginning treatments, he deposited sperm at a fertility clinic, and after he died, his wife, Karen, carried out the couple's plan to conceive using Robert's sperm. In 2003, she gave birth to twins and filed for survivors benefits for the children based on her late husband's Social Security taxes. But the Social Security Administration denied the claim, contending that because the twins could not inherit under Florida state law, where the couple lived, the children were ineligible for survivors benefits. A federal appeals court in Philadelphia disagreed, saying the 1939 Social Security Act confers benefits on all biological offspring of a married couple.

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NYC, Abortion Capital

NRO: Today the Chiaroscuro Foundation released an interactive map illustrating the abortion ratioby zip code in New York City from 2000 to 2009. The highest annual abortion ratio in any zip code in the period was 72.7 percent in Queens’s lightly populated 11430 in 2001, with 16 abortions and 6 live births. 11430 had the highest abortion ratio in the city three times over the period.

Other sparsely populated zip codes had ratios well above 60 percent on several occasions in the ten-year period, but zip codes with substantial populations and larger numbers of both abortions and births tend to top out at about a 60 percent abortion ratio and go down from there toward the citywide ratio of 41 to 43 percent.

Related: Abortion and Gentrification

Leave definition of marriage alone, Muslims warn

Leave definition of marriage alone, Muslims warn | News | The Christian Institute: The Muslim Council of Britain has warned that plans to rewrite the definition of marriage are “unnecessary and unhelpful.”

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California’s stem cell agency ponders future without taxpayer support

At a crossroads, California’s stem cell agency ponders a future without taxpayer support - The Washington Post: California’s stem cell agency wielded the extraordinary power to dole out $3 billion in bond proceeds to fund embryonic stem cell work with an eye toward treatments for a host of crippling diseases. Midway through its mission, with several high-tech labs constructed, but little to show on the medicine front beyond basic research, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine faces an uncertain future.

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Pro-Life Nurse Ordered to Assist in Abortion

Pro-Life Nurse Ordered to Assist in Abortion (Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services Refuses to Respond): Mount Sinai Hospital in New York ordered Cathy DeCarlo to assist in an abortion for a patient 22 weeks into her pregnancy. A pro-life nurse, DeCarlo had informed the hospital in 2004 that she was unwilling to assist in abortions. And both federal and state law allows health care providers, including nurses, to refuse to assist in abortions.

DeCarlo pleaded with the hospital, which still had six hours to find a replacement nurse. Instead, DeCarlo says the hospital forbade her from seeking a replacement and falsely claimed that the mother could die if DeCarlo failed to follow orders.

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Breaking: Obama admin widens abortifacient birth control mandate to college students

Breaking: Obama admin widens abortifacient birth control mandate to college students | LifeSiteNews.com: In a move that is likely to reignite the ire of religious leaders, late Friday afternoon the Obama administration announced a proposal that would require universities, including religious universities, to provide contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs to their students, as well as their employees, without a co-pay. This appears to significantly widen the originally-announced HHS mandate, which had only applied to employees.

Related:
Obama's abortion funding plan
U.S. Clarifies Policy on Birth Control for Religious Groups
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‘At eight months, my doctor said he would ‘absolutely’ abort my disabled son’

‘At eight months, my doctor said he would ‘absolutely’ abort my disabled son’ | LifeSiteNews.com: While they watched their eight-month-old son move his arms and head; while they saw his little heart beat quickly, the specialist diagnosed spina bifida and hydrocephalus, and put it all out there:

He said it was the biggest lesion he had ever seen; that our son would probably never go to the bathroom on his own. He’d never walk, never talk. He said this based on a 30 second ultrasound. He said, ‘I will absolutely perform the abortion for you.’ I could see Titus’ arms and head moving and his heart beating at the time the doctor said this. He was emphatic that Titus would be basically a vegetable and mentally retarded.  And that it would be unfair to him for me to give birth.

At that moment, Nicole and Steven realized that their role in Titus’ life would be so much more than “parent.”  Their role was now “advocate,” too.

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Parents shouldn't have to sue over 'wrongful birth' of child with Down syndrome

Vitals - Bioethicist: Parents shouldn't have to sue over 'wrongful birth' of child with Down syndrome: Wrongful birth lawsuits are a horrible way to deal with failed prenatal testing. Forcing parents to argue that their child never should have been born may make legal sense but it is morally absurd. Why ask parents to reject the existence of their own child? Who can really put a value on a life that some argue in court ought not exist?

There is no reason to permit wrongful birth or wrongful life cases. When a mistake is alleged about genetic testing there ought to be some sort of no-fault insurance scheme under the supervision of neutral mediators, not a courtroom slugfest that demeans the value of a life with disability and reeks of eugenics.

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Aussie fertility clinic asks homosexual men to help out

Fertility clinic asks homosexual men to help out | Herald Sun: Victoria's leading fertility specialists are turning to gay men in a bold bid to help single and lesbian women start a family.

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Gay sperm donor wins right to help bring up child conceived with lesbian ex-wife

BioNews - Gay sperm donor wins right to help bring up child conceived with lesbian ex-wife: The Court of Appeal in London has ruled unanimously that a gay man who fathered a child for a lesbian couple is not a secondary parent, allowing him greater access to his two-year-old son. As the judge who granted permission to appeal wrote, the case raises 'important issues relating to the courts' approach to children born into "alternative families" and the relationship of such children with their fathers.'

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HHS announces comment period on mandate accommodation

CNA: After repeatedly stating that it will not back down on its controversial contraception mandate, the Obama administration has announced a 90-day comment period on possible ways to implement its Feb. 10 accommodation.

Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that the administration is taking the “next step” in respecting religious freedom while ensuring that women receive free contraception. The notice made it clear however, that this exemption will not be changed. Rather, it said, the current discussion will involve a second group, consisting of non-profit religious organizations that do not qualify for the exemption but still object to the mandated coverage.

Why black America votes Democratic

Walter Hoye: Ever wonder why Black America votes Democratic? Ever wonder why Black America votes for the party founded by the Ku Klux Klan? Every wonder why Black America votes for a party that authored "Black Codes" (i.e., "Jim Crow" legislation) making it illegal for Black Americans to hold office, own property, travel without permission, serve on juries, marry interracially, vote and own weapons? Ever wonder why Black America votes for a party that vigorously opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965?

Message to youth pastors

Learn more @ BeMyVote

The Divorce Revolution Perpetually Reduces U.S. Economic Growth

Divorce Removes a Fourth of Head-of-Household Productivity Growth

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FDA permits use of fetal brain tissue in lab experiments

FDA permits use of fetal brain tissue in lab experiments | LifeSiteNews.com: The Food and Drug Administration has approved experiments using brain tissue from aborted unborn babies to treat macular degeneration.  StemCells Inc. will inject fetal brain stem cells into the eyes of up to 16 patients to study the cells’ effect on vision. In its press release announcing the clinical trial, StemCells Inc. was careful to refer to the fetal brain material as “purified human neural stem cell product” or HuCNS-SC cells, rather than “fresh human fetal brain tissue,” a description which can be found elsewhere on its website.

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Four Things Christian Libertarians Believe

Four Things Christian Libertarians Believe | Values & Capitalism: "Christian libertarians have not only developed a consistent philosophy in which libertarianism and Christianity are fully compatible, but have a developed a philosophy in which their libertarianism is dependent upon their Christianity."

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Should Christians Be Wary of Conscience Talk?

First Things: Does freedom of conscience lead to a naked public square? When religious people try to protect their own rights of conscience, does this undermine their ability to advance their convictions publicly? In responding to the recent HHS mandate for religious employers to provide contraception and abortifacients, religious groups and individuals have argued that their rights of conscience trump any potential desire of their employees for these medications. Their private religious convictions about contraception and abortion prevent them from taking these actions, and under the First Amendment they cannot be coerced to violate those convictions.

However, these religious people are not trying to be only privately religious. They have convictions about abortion and contraception—and immigration, economic justice, and war, for that matter—that they want to argue in public and legislate. And they ground these convictions not only in their own religious teachings, but in the natural law and public reason. They seek to live their religion privately and to advance and act on its claims publicly. But, in the HHS case, if they frame the debate not about the rightness or wrongness of abortion and contraception, but of private religious convictions, doesn’t that knock the public foundation out from under those claims? Doesn’t it make religious teaching about abortion and contraception—or, in another case, any other issue of public import—just a matter of private religious conviction, like dietary laws or smoking peyote?

Millennials aren't amoral, adrift

Millennials aren't amoral, adrift | Statesman Journal | statesmanjournal.com: There's a "dark side" to young adults' moral lives, laments the subtitle of a new book. But before we succumb to resignation or rage, it's good to realize there's a bright side, too. Data and innumerable examples show that today's young adults are a generation marked by impressive social commitment and dedication to using their lives and careers for the greater good.

Related: The Evangelistic Question That Died -- Fewer people thinking about whether they will go to heaven after death

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Chris Smith slams “mass deception” in Obama abortion funding plan

Chris Smith slams “mass deception” in Obama abortion funding plan | LifeSiteNews.com: This week’s Obama abortion funding rule confirms that publicly funded insurance plans will include abortion on demand. Using an accounting gimmick, the premium payers will pay the President’s abortion surcharge of at least one dollar per month. This separate charge will go directly into an abortion fund.

“The mass deception of the Obama 2010 Executive Order has finally been exposed,” said Smith, Co-chair of the Congressional Pro-life Caucus. “The Executive Order implemented the same accounting gimmick, abortion surcharge and secrecy clause that was in the original text of the bill. We knew it at the time, and the final exchange rule confirms once again that the President was suggesting one thing while doing precisely the opposite."

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Writer: "I love abortion"

Jessica DelBalzo writes for a pro-choice blog:

I love abortion. I don't accept it. I don't view it as a necessary evil. I embrace it. . . . And I bristle every time a fellow activist uses a trendy catch-phrase or rallying cry meant to placate pro-lifers. The first of these, “Make abortion safe, legal, and rare!” has been used for decades as a call for abortion rights.

Safe and legal are concepts I fully support, but rare is something I cannot abide. I understand the theoretical mindset: it is better for a woman to prevent an unwanted pregnancy than to bear the physical and financial burden of an abortion. While my own abortion involved very little pain and a minimal financial expense . . . even I can admit that using condoms or the pill is preferable to eight weeks of nausea and weight gain. Contraception is a valuable tool.

However, there is no need to suggest that abortion be rare. To say so implies a value judgement, promoting the idea that abortion is somehow distasteful or immoral and should be avoided [emphasis added]. . . . Nevertheless, . . . we must remember that extenuating circumstances like health, contraceptive failure, and rape mean that abortion will always be a normal, necessary, and reasonable choice for many women. As such, we must avoid stigmatizing it in any way. No woman benefits from even the vaguest insinuation that abortion is an immoral or objectionable option. . . . Terminating a pregnancy is not an unethical act, yet suggesting that abortion should be rare implies that there is something undesirable about having one.

Similarly, I've heard reproductive rights activists claim that “no one likes abortion,” in an attempt to find common ground with anti-choicers. While it may be true that no one likes the physical act of having an abortion (any more than she may like her yearly mammogram, life-saving chemotherapy, or temporarily uncomfortable dental surgery), a great many women like abortion itself. They like knowing that an unwanted pregnancy does not have to yield an unwanted child. They like knowing that their mental and physical health take precedence over an embryo. They like knowing that they own their bodies. . . .

Suggesting that abortion be “safe, legal, and rare,” and crowing that “no one likes abortion,” accomplishes nothing for women's rights. . . . What good is common ground if it must be achieved at the expense of women who have had or will have abortions? . . . [W]omen who value their freedom should be proud to say that they like abortion. In fact, they should venerate it whole-heartedly. Abortion is our last refuge, the one final, definitive instrument that secures our bodily autonomy. What's not to love?

Christian minister accused of ‘crime against humanity’ for homosexuality stance

Christian minister accused of ‘crime against humanity’ for homosexuality stance | LifeSiteNews.com: If Rev. Lively were a Russian citizen living in St. Petersburg, the second largest city in Russia, he would be safe. Recently, St. Petersburg passed a pro-family law banning homosexual propaganda. But Lively is an American citizen, living in a society where Christian and anti-homosexualist messages are increasingly under ban.

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Solution to climate change: hacking humanity

Bioethicist's solution to climate change: hacking humanity (Wired UK): New York University bioethics professor S. Matthew Liao has published a paper in Ethics, Policy and the Environment arguing that one way to tackle the challenges of a rise in energy use is to modify humanity to simply use less energy. He suggests a range of ways to achieve this, from creating an aversion to meat by giving diners a mild intolerance to it, to using gene therapy to create smaller children.

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‘Husband’ and ‘wife’ terms axed if marriage is redefined

‘Husband’ and ‘wife’ terms axed if marriage is redefined | News | The Christian Institute: An official UK government paper has revealed that plans to redefine marriage would result in the terms “husband” and “wife” being removed from official forms. Important paperwork, including tax documents, would have to be rewritten to avoid assuming that a married couple means a man and a woman.

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Answers for Pastors and Other Christian Leaders

Answers for Pastors | Answers Outreach: Our world is searching for answers: Why are we here? Why am I suffering? Does God exist? Does He care about me? As Christian leaders, we need to be ready to give answers for the hope that is within us—answers that are founded on the Word of God. This is one conference for all pastors, Christian leaders, and ministry heads to equip and strengthen you in your effort to provide answers to the world around you.

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Female Genocide in India and the 50 Million Missing Campaign

Annual Rates of Female Homicide in India 

• Female foeticide approximately 1 million
• Female infanticide approximately 25000 in the State of Kerala alone
• Dowry-related murders approximately 25000
• Preadolescent mortality 1 in 6 dies before 15 yrs - Mortality rate 40% higher for girls under 5 than boys the same age (UNICEF)
• Maternal mortality rate - 136,000 (1 woman dies every 5 minutes due to pregnancy-related causes, WHO)

The number one means of elimination is female foetal abortions. An estimated 1 million female foetuses are selectively eliminated in India each year, and that number is expected to rise to 2.5 million within the next few years. Method number two is female infanticide, a practice that has a long history in India. Rita Banerji

Editor: The WHO maternal mortality rate has been disputed.

Arizona Bill Promotes Teaching Adoption Over Abortion

Arizona Public Media | AZPM Home | Bill Promotes Teaching Adoption Over Abortion: SB 1009 would require schools to talk about adoption as the preferred alternative to abortion when the issue comes up in the sexual education curriculum.

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Lawsuit Allowed For Death of Unborn Child

Lawsuit Allowed For Death of Unborn Child » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog: The other day, we discussed the Portland case in which parents successfully sued doctors for wrongful birth, e.g., negligently performing prenatal tests so the parents didn’t abort their daughter child with Down syndrome. Now in Alabama, doctors can be sued for negligently causing the death of an unborn child.

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What Are You Waiting For? by Dannah Gresh

Pure Freedom | What Are You Waing For? by Dannah Gresh: In What Are You Waiting For? Dannah follows the trail of one provocative, ancient word through the Bible to discover God’s deepest thoughts about sex. The mind-blowing truth she uncovers clearly points the way to a sexuality that’s satisfying and real and everything God designed it to be.

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The Right to Heresy?

LifeDate Spring 2012: Rev. Dr. James I. Lamb writes (page 3), "The Greek word, αιρεσις (hair-e-sis), means “choice.” It is often translated “heresy” when describing a wrong choice, a choice contrary to the way of God (Acts 24:14 KJV). Thus, the popular pro-abortion phrase, “the right to choose,” could be, “the right to heresy,” and “prochoice” would be “pro-heresy” if the choice is contrary to the way of God."

Obama health care rule final: $1 abortion surcharge from premium payers

Obama health care rule final: $1 abortion surcharge from premium payers | LifeSiteNews.com: The Department of Health and Human Services this month issued a final rule regarding the exchanges required under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The rule provides for taxpayer funding of insurance coverage that includes elective abortion through a direct abortion subsidy. 

To comply with the accounting requirement, plans will collect a separate $1 abortion surcharge from each premium payer. As described in the rule, the surcharge can only be disclosed to the enrollee at the time of enrollment, and insurance plans may only advertise the total cost of the premiums without disclosing the abortion surcharge.

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Fetal body parts used for reseach

InvestigateDaily – Fetal body parts used for reseach: It’s the hidden side of medical research. A massive industry harvesting pieces of dead children for experiments, or transplanting into animals. Ian Wishart discovers the University of Auckland has imported body parts from American babies for a research project, and asks some hard questions.

Editor: This article was published in 2006 and suffers from a lack of specific dates and other details that should be expected in an investigative report.

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Save the Planet, Reject the Child? Cizik Launches Family Planning Campaign to Fight Global Warming

Cornwall Alliance :: Stewardship Notes :: Save the Planet, Reject the Child?—Cizik Launches Family Planning Campaign to Fight Global Warming: As Vice President for Governmental Affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals, Rev. Richard Cizik caused controversy by fighting relentlessly but unsuccessfully to bring evangelicals on board with the battle against anthropogenic global warming and supporting same-sex unions. The former generated energetic criticisms from other evangelical leaders, who insisted Cizik didn’t speak for them. Some even urged NAE to dismiss him.

The latter led to his resignation from NAE in December, 2008 -- after which he went to work first for liberal media mogul, environmentalist, and population-control advocate Ted Turner’s United Nations Foundation, then for atheist, globalist, crony-capitalist George Soros’s Open Society Institute, and then founded The New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good -- heavily funded by his friends on the Left.

Now Cizik has rocked the boat afresh, calling for increasing access to contraceptives around the world. Why? To protect women and reduce abortion rates, population growth, and, ultimately, global warming.

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Nasty people in the media prime the brain for aggression

Nasty people in the media prime the brain for aggression: Research over the past few decades has shown that viewing physical violence in the media can increase aggression in adults and children. But a new study, co-authored by an Iowa State University psychology professor, has also found that onscreen relational aggression -- including social exclusion, gossip and emotional bullying -- may prime the brain for aggression.

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UK Docs Suspended for Agreeing to Sex-Selection Abortion

UK Doc Suspended for Agreeing to Sex-Selection Abortion | LifeNews.com: Two abortion practitioners have been suspended in the Telegraph expose’ revealing abortion doctors facilitating illegal sex-selection abortions.

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Obama Admin Finalizes Rules: $1 Abortions in ObamaCare

Obama Admin Finalizes Rules: $1 Abortions in ObamaCare | LifeNews.com: Nestled within the “individual mandate” in the Obamacare act — that portion of the Act requiring every American to purchase government-approved insurance or pay a penalty — is an “abortion premium mandate.” This mandate requires all persons enrolled in insurance plans that include elective abortion coverage to pay a separate premium from their own pockets to fund abortion. As a result, many pro-life Americans will have to decide between a plan that violates their consciences by funding abortion, or a plan that may not meet their health needs.

The Department of Health and Human Services has issued a final rule (see page 627) regarding establishment of the state health care exchanges required under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

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Priest Tells Congress She'd Break Law to Help Minor Get an Abortion

Priest Who Calls Abortion a ‘Blessing’ Tells Congress She'd Break Law to Help Minor Cross State Line to Get One | CNSNews.com: Appearing as a Democratic Party witness at a hearing of the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, Dr. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale, president and dean of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass. recalled the time she took a 15-year-old girl she had never met before to get an abortion. She cited her vows as an Episcopal priest as the reason why she would “have no choice” but to break the law. In a 2010 speech, Ragsdale called abortion "a blessing."

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Speak Up : Resources for Churches

Speak Up : Resources for Churches: To clearly understand your constitutional rights as a pastor or church leader, we encourage you to study the resources below. These materials, prepared by ADF attorneys directly involved in church litigation cases, will help equip you when religious freedoms are challenged in your own church.

Click on 'General Resources' under 'Churches & Politics.'

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Where have all the bold pastors gone?

Where have all the bold pastors gone? (OneNewsNow.com): Before we even became a country, pastors (especially in New England) would preach election day sermons, not necessarily endorsing particular candidates, but explaining biblical civic duties.

Editor: I'd like to hear pastors speak out on moral issues well before election day.

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Origins of the term 'genocide'

Conflict Of Interest: With the exception of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, all presidents since Truman have endorsed ratification of the Genocide Convention. However, on June 16, 1949, when President Truman sought the Senate's advice and consent to ratify the Genocide Convention, a small group of Southern senators blocked the process. Among those senators were Southern segregationists who believed in segregation (i.e., a very strict separation of Blacks and Whites).

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Transhumanism: Now It’s “Machine Rights?”

Transhumanism: Now It’s “Machine Rights?” » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog: "Machine consciousness is a neglected area…not too many people are thinking about the ethical and moral issues involved. We need to think about this preemptively. Failure to set standards and guidelines in advance could result in not just serious harm to nascent machine minds, but a dangerous precedent that will become more difficult to overturn as time passes."

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Bill introduced in Michigan: Coercive Abortion Prevention Act

Coercive Abortion Prevention Act: Research confirms that a substantial number of women feel forced by boyfriends, spouses, parents and others to have an abortion against their will. Women are coerced through threats of physical violence, withdrawal of financial support, loss of housing such as being kicked out, and violation of employment contracts or other legal agreements. Furthermore, numerous studies have confirmed that women presenting for abortion are substantially more likely to be suffering domestic violence.

H.B. 4799 adds to Michigan's current anti-extortion/coercion provisions by including coercion to abort as a specific crime. It will be illegal coerce a woman to abort by threatening or actually committing the following actions: physical assault, withdrawing financial support, or terminating or otherwise violating a legal contract such as an apartment lease, university athletic scholarship, or employment contract.

Related:
Arizona Bill De-Funds Planned Parenthood, Abortion Industry

Virginia Gov. McDonnell Signs Abortion-Ultrasound Bill

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Jury awards nearly $3 million to couple in 'wrongful birth' lawsuit

Oregonian: The money will cover the estimated extra lifetime costs of caring for a child with Down syndrome. Ariel and Deborah Levy sued Legacy Health, claiming that Deborah Levy would have aborted her pregnancy had she known her daughter had the chromosomal abnormality. The lawsuit blames Legacy's Center for Maternal-Fetal Medicine in North Portland and a Legacy lab for allegedly botching the test. 

Their attorney contends that the doctor removed maternal tissue -- not fetal tissue --from Deborah Levy's womb. The suit faults him and lab workers for not recognizing that the tissue was from the mother. According to WebMD, however, chorionic villi are found in the placenta, which is neither baby nor mother.

Editor: So now do parents have to expect to spend an extra $3 million to raise their  children with Down syndrome?

The New Scar on My Soul

Articles: The New Scar on My Soul: "It never rains, but it pours," said the fertility doctor -- of the three embryos that were implanted, all three took. We were faced with the news of triplets. I was shocked, knowing the burden that would entail, but since God gave us three, I was prepared to do whatever I needed to do to help, manage, and provide.

"My wife? Something snapped. She insisted that we do a "selective reduction" from three to one, or else she would have a full abortion. She was adamant. She would not carry three. She would not carry two. I was presented with a Coventry-esque decision: save one, or save none. I chose the former, though I tried on several occasions to convince her to at least keep twins. I failed."

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Gorilla Genome Is Bad News for Evolution

Gorilla Genome Is Bad News for Evolution: In a significant number of cases, evolutionary trees based on DNA sequences show that humans are more closely related to gorillas or orangutans than chimpanzees—again, all depending on which DNA fragment is used for the analysis. The overall outcome is that no clear path of common ancestry between humans and various primates exists, so no coherent model of primate evolution can be achieved. The recent release of the gorilla genome spectacularly highlights this evolutionary quandary. According to the Nature study, "in 30% of the genome, gorilla is closer to human or chimpanzee than the latter are to each other."

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Who Were Cavemen?

Who Were Cavemen? - Answers in Genesis: We can be sure that they all descended from Adam through Noah’s family. These certainly aren’t unique species, in the sense of being something “less than modern humans”—they’re just more evidence of beautiful variations in the appearance of individuals in our one unique race. Our relatives may have looked different, but they weren’t bumbling brutes. They had the very human and God-given ability to discover creative solutions in a dangerous, sin-cursed world. And they were all rebels from God, in need of His grace.

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Baby is born following sex change for both parents

Baby is born following sex change for both parents | News | The Christian Institute: In what is understood to be a world-first, a mother and father both changed sex before the birth of their first child. The Pennsylvanian couple, who met online, claim to be the world’s first transgender parents to have a child without undergoing fertility treatment.

In the confusing case, the boy’s mother Joyce was seven months pregnant before realising she was expecting, because she had been taking testosterone to try to become a man. Her husband Jason had a sex change to assume a female appearance after undergoing surgery in Thailand – six months before the baby was born.

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Kirk Cameron - 'an accomplice to murder'?

Kirk Cameron - 'an accomplice to murder'? (OneNewsNow.com): It's one thing to be called an intolerant bigot. It's another thing to be called "an accomplice to murder," but that's the latest charge being raised by gay activists and their allies -- and it needs to be exposed for what it is: an outrageous lie.

Related:
Cameron won't back down, also says abortion wrong
Will Young: arrest vicars who say gay marriage is ‘abhorrent’
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The Other Invisible Children – The Spirit of Kony is Alive In America Also

Many of the people who are getting involved with Invisible Children refuse to confront the invisible victims of the abortion holocaust. Bryan Kemper enumerates their excuses:

I don’t want to get involved with a political issue.
I know it is wrong but it is not for me to tell someone else what to do.
At least they won’t have to grow up in this world.
Abortion is inevitable, so we might as well keep it safe and legal.
We don’t know the parents’ situation; maybe they can’t afford a baby.
That is cool that you stand up, I just have other things I am called to do.
I don’t want to judge anyone.
The fetus is not “really” alive yet.
We just need to talk about Jesus, instead of political issues.
I can’t deal with abortion; it depresses me to think about it.
Abortion is too controversial; I don’t want to offend anyone.
I don’t believe in legislating morality.

These excuses are used not only by pro-choice people, but also those who claim to be pro-life or Christian. "They just don’t want to be vocal about it. The problem is that abortion is seen as controversial, and the Invisible Children project is not."

All Life Belongs to God

Erkki Koskenniemi, Lutheran pastor and scholar (Adjunct Professor at three Finnish Universities; New Testament), has published a booklet All Life Belongs to God (Wipf &Stock, Eugene, OR). The booklet (74 pages) presents how Greek and Romans used to expose their infants and tells why Jews and Christians prohibited it. 

He says, "In my opinion, it means a contribution to modern pro-life debate, offering a new point of view on the dignity of human life, born and unborn. The moderate book is written for to ordinary Christians, e.g. for physicians, nurses and teachers, and for everyone dealing with Christian ethics. A larger book (The Exposure of Infants among Jews and Christians in Antiquity: The Social World of Biblical Antiquity, Second Series, 4 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2009) was written for scholars."

The booklet is priced so that it can easily be used in Bible study circles. Visit the publisher's Internet page: Wiph & Stock to purchase.

Google’s New Privacy Policy: A Safety Workaround for You and Your Teen

Google’s New Privacy Policy: A Safety Workaround for You and Your Teen | Covenant Eyes: Google will be able to track your physical location via your mobile device. This information, if it falls into the wrong hands, could be potentially dangerous, especially in regards to younger children.

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Murder of Newborn Babies in Infanticide as Bad as Abortion

LifeNews: The following remarks were made by Congressman Chris Smith, Republican from New Jersey and the head of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, during a hearing on the decision by the Obama administration to deny to the nation’s Catholic bishops a grant for a program helping sex trafficking victims because they would not refer for abortions.  

Giubilini and Minerva say the devaluation of newborn babies is inextricably linked to the devaluation of unborn children, and is indeed the logical extension of the abortion culture, and wrote that they, “propose to call the practice afterbirth abortion rather than infanticide to emphasize that the moral status of the individual killed—the newborn baby—is comparable with that of a fetus… Whether she will exist is exactly what our choice is about.”

These anti-child, pro-murder rationalizations remind me of other, equally disturbing rants from highly credentialed individuals. Princeton’s Peter Singer suggested a couple of years ago that, “There are various things you could say that are sufficient to give some moral status [to a child] after a few months, maybe six months or something like that, and you get perhaps to full moral status, really, only after two years.”

Dr. James Watson, Nobel laureate for unraveling the mystery of DNA, wrote in Prism Magazine, “If a child were not declared alive until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice only a few are given under the present system. The doctor could allow the child to die if the parents so choose and save a lot of misery and suffering. I believe this view is the only rational, compassionate attitude to have.”

In like manner, Dr. Francis Crick, who received the Nobel Prize with Watson, said that, “…no newborn infant should be declared human until it has passed certain tests regarding its genetic endowment and that if it fails these tests it forfeits the right to live.”

The dehumanization of newborns isn’t new but it’s getting worse. Giubilini and Minerva’s article must be a wakeup call.

YWCA Nigeria Promotes UN Video Appearing to Support Abortion

YWCA Nigeria Promotes UN Video Appearing to Support Abortion | LifeNews.com: Nigeria is the country with the largest Christian population in Africa. Abortion is considered an abomination by most Nigerians, and is only allowed when the life of the mother is at risk. Unsurprisingly, some of those attending Monday’s event asked probing questions and proposed abstinence education and help to mothers as opposed to relaxing abortion restrictions. Whenever anyone mentioned abstinence and morals they were treated to cheering and thunderous applause.

Editor: There's really nothing to be confused about here. The term "unsafe abortions" is always code for "safe, legal abortions." The YWCA in the US may not advocate for abortion, but it will refer women who have been raped to abortion doctors.

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UN Agencies Driving Up Root Causes of Sex-Selection Abortions

UN Agencies Driving Up Root Causes of Sex-Selection Abortions | LifeNews.com: Dr. Susan Yoshihara identified three reasons for the “missing girls” phenomenon in China, India, and spreading to other nations. The root causes for the massive killings, she said, are access to technologies that facilitate abortion, a preference for sons, and the parents’ or governments’ desire for small families.

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New front in birth control rule battle: the courts

New front in birth control rule battle: the courts - The Washington Post: Since November, at least eight lawsuits have been filed in federal district courts across the country challenging the constitutionality of the rule, which requires employers, including church-affiliated organizations that object to contraception on religious grounds, to cover birth control in workers’ health plans with no out-of-pocket charges. (Groups that are exclusively religious, such as churches, are exempt).

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WEBCAST TODAY -- The Dad I Wish I Had: The Crisis of Fatherhood in the American Family

The Dad I Wish I Had: The Crisis of Fatherhood in the American Family: Join the webcast at noon on Thursday, March 8th as pastor, youth counselor, and former National Football League player Freddie Scott explains why our families need fathers and discusses opportunities to strengthen fatherhood in your own community.

Freddie Scott is the founder and president of Unlock the Champion, LLC, an organization dedicated empowering families and the teaching of fundamental life skills essential to character development for people who are raised in broken homes, especially athletes. His most recent research has made him aware of the tremendous need, now more than ever, for strong fathers in America's ever-changing culture and across the world. This understanding inspired his first book, The Dad I Wish I Had.

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A voice for life - the story of an abortion survivor

A voice for life - the story of an abortion survivor | LifeSiteNews.com: In 1977, Melissa’s biological mother decided to have an abortion in the fifth month of her pregnancy.  While at first it was thought that the saline injection had ended Melissa’s life, a nurse noticed that she was actually alive.  The baby was admitted into the hospital.  The nurse gave the baby a name and brought her clothes and toys since she felt sorry that no one else came to visit the baby.

Miraculously, Melissa suffered no physical or mental handicaps as a result of the attempted abortion.  She was adopted, and while she always knew of her adoption, it wasn’t until she was fourteen that she learned the reason behind her adoption.

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“How Has Being a Young Earth Creationist Affected Your Career as a Scientist?”

“How Has Being a Young Earth Creationist Affected Your Career as a Scientist?” | Dr. Georgia Purdom's Blog: As judged by the world’s perception, Georgia Purdom is an “embarrassment” to an entire university science department and a “science-denying kook.”

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Obama Mandate Could Fine Religious Groups $2,000 Per Employee

Obama Mandate Could Fine Religious Groups $2,000 Per Employee | LifeNews.com: Recently, Republicans in Congress asked the Congressional Research Service to examine the new mandate and the consequences for employers that do not want to follow it because it would violate their consciences and CRS issued a document finding noncompliant employers could face federal fines of $100 per day (or $2,000) per employee.

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After-Birth abortion: A Modest Proposal?

After-Birth abortion: A Modest Proposal? | LifeSiteNews.com: As reprehensible as their conclusions are, Giubilini and Minerva agree with pro-lifers on two key points. First, they fully accept that the unborn and the newborn are both living human beings, accepting without argument the scientific reality that a biological human being begins at conception. Thus, they forthrightly acknowledge that both abortion and infanticide involve the taking of human life.

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Something deadly this way comes: the insatiable appetite of the Culture of Death -- Albert Mohler

Something deadly this way comes: the insatiable appetite of the Culture of Death | LifeSiteNews.com: This article in the Journal of Medical Ethics is a clear signal of just how much ground has been lost to the Culture of Death. A culture that grows accustomed to death in the womb will soon contemplate killing in the nursery. The very fact that this article was published in a peer-reviewed academic journal is an indication of the peril we face.

For years now, pro-life activists have been lectured that “slippery slope” arguments are false. This article makes clear the fact that our warnings have not been based in a slippery slope argument, but in the very reality of abortion. Abortion implies infanticide. If the unborn child lacks sufficient moral status by the fact that it is unborn, then the baby in the nursery, it is now argued, has also not yet developed human personhood.

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When Being Pro-Life Isn’t Enough to Stop Abortion

When Being Pro-Life Isn’t Enough to Stop Abortion « Public Discourse: The challenge in preventing abortion of Down syndrome fetuses is not convincing mothers that their child is a human being with a right to life, but of assuring expectant mothers there will be support for their children after they are born.

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The Truth Behind Rush Contraceptive Uproar

Stoll: The Truth Behind Rush Contraceptive Uproar: Under Obamacare, if you have health insurance, contraceptives have to be not just inexpensive, but free. . . . This idea that something which costs money to make can really be “free” to taxpayers or to anyone else is a deeply held left-wing belief.

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The War on Fertility

The War on Fertility - WSJ.com: Contemporary feminism does not actually value choice, except as a means to an ideological end, which is the obliteration of differences between the sexes. The biggest such difference consists in the distinct and disparate demands that reproduction makes on women. Thus in order to equalize the sexes, it is necessary to discourage fertility. Implicit in contemporary feminism is a normative judgment that having children is bad.

If this were made explicit, of course, the whole project would fall apart. Feminism is politically unviable without the support of at least a substantial minority of women, and women (or at least most women) do have a maternal instinct. So feminism has to wage its war against fertility covertly, rationalizing it in terms of other goals.

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Scientists use artificial womb for research into embryos

The Engineer: Scientists at Nottingham University have developed an artificial womb to aid research into how early embryos develop. The new device is effectively a soft polymer bowl that mimics the tissue of a mammal’s uterus in order to grow mouse embryos outside the body for long enough to observe the embryo developing in the vital first eight days of life.

Research leader and professor of tissue engineering Kevin Shakesheff said studying the way the body generates new cells at an early stage could lead to treatments for otherwise untreatable conditions. ‘There are a lot of diseases that involve adult patients losing the functions of certain tissues, for example, after a heart attack and, as adults, we can’t repair that spontaneously. ‘But everybody did grow those tissues themselves when they were an embryo in a matter of a few weeks. We want to know what’s happening in the embryo better and see if we can use that as a way of growing adult tissue from adult stem cells.’

Editor: What happens to the embryos when they've completed their observations?

Obama: End Funding for Snowflake Embryo Adoption Program

Obama: End Funding for Snowflake Embryo Adoption Program | LifeNews.com: The Obama administration proposes to defund the Embryo Adoption Awareness Campaign in its fiscal 2013 budget. As the Washington Times reports, “The Department of Health and Human Services “is not requesting funds for this program” because “the Embryo Adoption program will be discontinued in FY2013,” HHS officials said in a February funding report to Congress.”

Ron Stoddart, executive director of Nightlight Christian Adoptions, one of the top embryo adoption programs, told the newspaper he is disappointed with the decision, saying, “I think that daily we talk to people about … embryo donation and adoption, and we hear the response, ‘Really? I didn’t know that was even possible.’”

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Abortion: A Crime Against the Black Community

Abortion: A Crime Against the Black Community | LifeNews.com: Since 1973, legal abortion has killed more African Americans then AIDS, cancer, diabetes, heart disease and violent crime combined. Every week more blacks die in American abortion clinics then were killed in the entire Vietnam War. With this much murder taking place amongst a group of people, it is clearly a crime, is it not? A crime against humanity?

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Stem Cell Discovery Could Put Cloning on the Fast Track

LifeNews: Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have announced they have found stem cells in ovaries that may be able to generate egg cells. It was previously thought that women are born with all the eggs they will ever have in a lifetime. But this research suggests that more eggs can be made by extracting these stem cells from ovaries. . . . this discovering has much greater ramifications than simply slowing a woman’s biological clock. If successful, this technique may put the push for cloning back on the fast track.

What we gained through infertility

What we gained through infertility - Salon.com: "The realization that a biological child wasn’t in the cards alighted unexpectedly on my shoulder, like a butterfly. It happened the moment my sister [their surrogacy volunteer] called to say the fifth round of artificial insemination didn’t work. The news that another fertility treatment had failed was no surprise, but I was shocked by my reaction. I was completely fine. Suddenly I had the acceptance and clarity that had eluded me for so long. With enormous relief, John and I officially decided to adopt a baby."

Christian perspective, from Terri Stovall, dean of women's programs at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary:   Infertility -- where grief meets grace

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Teenagers launch campaign to send one million pro-life letters to the White House

LifeSiteNews: 15-year-old Angela Kim and the five other members of the Teenage Life Club are sending letters to the White House and the Supreme Court this month calling for an end to abortion. And they are looking for a few hundred thousand people to join them. The goal of the group’s 2012 Pro-Life Letter Writing Campaign is to flood the White House and the Supreme Court with one million pro-life letters during the month of March.

“We know that abortion is not going to end just because a million letters are sent, but we also know that the letters will represent pro-life people in our nation as well as the million babies aborted every year in the United States alone,” Angela told LifeSiteNews. “We are hoping that it will remind people of the need to elect an actively pro-life president and other governmental officials.”

It’s an ambitious project for a small, newly-formed group of teenage girls, whose involvement in pro-life work has so far been confined to the local level. The six members, who live in five different states, have taken advantage of their geographical distance to get the word out across the country. “Many pastors have been very supportive,” says Angela. “Eight churches support our cause now in six different states, and more are constantly joining the campaign.”

Android's Iris, a Siri-like service, changes stand on abortion

Android's Iris, a Siri-like service, changes stand on abortion - latimes.com: What does your smartphone think about abortion? If it is powered by Android, and running the Siri-like voice-recognition system Iris, you may be surprised to learn that until Wednesday morning (Feb. 8), it was decidedly anti-abortion.

Cha Cha, the real-time Q&A service that powers Iris, has made some changes as of this morning, but before that, if you asked Iris "Is abortion wrong?" the answer you got was: "Yes, abortion is wrong. The Lord has said, 'You shall not murder.' Exodus 20:13. The life that is growing within the mother is a child, a baby. The Bible looks at the life in the womb as a child. Thanks!"

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Chinese Parents Flee to America to Save Their ‘Out-of-Plan’ Babies

Chinese Parents Flee to America to Save Their ‘Out-of-Plan’ Babies | Society | China | Epoch Times: Three Chinese parents share their ordeals of fleeing from China to escape forced abortion and other reprisals because of an “illegal, out-of-plan” second pregnancy.

Related: China to soften one-child slogans, not the policy

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Ethicists say newborns not persons

News to Note, March 3, 2012 - Answers in Genesis: While we say fetuses (and embryos too, for that matter, but that discussion is for another day) and newborns should receive the same protection, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva argue fetuses and newborns are equally deserving of no protection. The authors admit both a fetus and a newborn are human, but they redefine person as someone able to appreciate his own existence. They therefore count “many non-human animals and mentally retarded human individuals” as persons but exclude a newborn because she has not reached a “level of mental development” that is “capable of appreciating her own being alive.” “Merely being human is not in itself a reason for ascribing someone a right to life,” they write, as only an “actual person” has a “right to life.”

Then they define harm as depriving a person of something they value. And since neither a fetus nor a newborn can value life, they assert there is no moral reason to prohibit abortion and therefore no reason to prohibit infanticide. In their words, “Since non-persons have no moral rights to life, there are no reasons for banning after-birth abortions.”

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Israeli woman wants own baby to be recognized as triplet of twins born to surrogate

Israeli woman wants own baby to be recognized as triplet of twins born to surrogate - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News: A Haifa woman is petitioning the National Insurance Institute to recognize a baby she gave birth to, as well as twins born to a surrogate mother, as triplets. The NII objects to the petition, submitted to the Regional Labor Court in Haifa last week, claiming the significant benefits to triplets' mothers apply only to babies born during the same birth.

Related: UK prolific surrogate mother pregnant again, with twins

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Abortion paper led to death threats

Abortion paper led to death threats: Avoiding the term ''infanticide,'' Alberto Guibilini and Francesca Minerva= say ''after-birth abortion'' should be permitted when disabilities, such as Down syndrome, are not detected during pregnancy, or if economic or psychological circumstances change and ''taking care of the offspring becomes an unbearable burden on someone.''

Dr Minerva said she had notified police about the death threats and feared for her safety. ''This was a theoretical and academic article,'' she said. ''I didn't mean to change any laws. I'm not in favour of infanticide. I'm just using logical arguments.''

The paper had been taken out of context, she said. It was intended for an academic community. ''This debate is not new. The debate has been going on for 30 years,'' she said. ''I don't think people outside bioethics should learn anything from this paper. I've received hundreds of emails saying, 'You should die'.''

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Frozen embryo 'open adoption' raises hopes, questions

TODAYMoms - Frozen embryo 'open adoption' raises hopes, questions: Many post-birth adoptions these days are “open,” in which the birth and adoptive families know each other’s name and perhaps have some degree of contact. Pre-birth arrangements may be following suit, though the law hasn't yet caught up.

Embryo donation has long been available at IVF clinics, but in the late 1990’s, embryo “adoption” agencies opened, with the goal of placing the roughly 500,000 unused frozen embryos in the U.S. with prospective families. Although they encourage open arrangements, most agencies leave that decision to the families involved.

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Rick Santorum and prenatal testing: I would have saved my son from his suffering.

Rick Santorum and prenatal testing: I would have saved my son from his suffering. - Slate Magazine: "I love my son more than any person in the world and his life is of utmost value to me. I don't regret a single minute of this parenting journey, even though I wake up every morning with my heart breaking, feeling the impending dread of his imminent death. This is one set of absolute truths.

"Here's another: If I had known Ronan had Tay-Sachs (I met with two genetic counselors and had every standard prenatal test available to me, including the one for Tay-Sachs, which did not detect my rare mutation, and therefore I waived the test at my CVS procedure), I would have found out what the disease meant for my then unborn child; I would have talked to parents who are raising (and burying) children with this disease, and then I would have had an abortion."

Editor: I know a couple of professors who say it's okay to kill him now.

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Academics' defense of infanticide supported by pro-choice logic

Academics' defense of infanticide supported by pro-choice logic: “The proposal of a so called 'after-birth abortion' is not a surprise,” Italian neonatologist and Pontifical Academy for Life member Dr. Carlo Bellieni said in response to the article. “It is only a quantitative extension of abortion, but not a qualitative change,” the pro-life physician said, noting that “at birth nothing substantial happens in the body or psyche of a baby” to distinguish it from what abortion advocates call a mere “fetus.”

Dr. Bellieni indicated that defenders of legal abortion have no grounds on which to give a “scandalized response” to the proposed killing of newborns, since “in both cases the life of a human being is terminated.”

Related: ‘Yes, We Are Serious’: ‘Ethicists’ Defend ‘After-Birth Abortion’ Argument in Raucous Radio Interview

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Georgetown co-ed: Please pay for us to have sex … We’re going broke buying birth control

Georgetown co-ed: Please pay for us to have sex … We’re going broke buying birth control « Hot Air: At a hearing of the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee yesterday, a single witness — Georgetown law student and “reproductive rights activist” Sandra Fluke — told sympathetic policy-makers that the administration’s so-called contraception mandate should stand … because her peers are going broke buying birth control. It costs a female student $3,000 to have protected sex over the course of her three-year stint in law school, according to her calculations.

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Number of UK marriages increases in 2010

Number of marriages increases in 2010 | News | The Christian Institute: The number of weddings in England and Wales increased by almost four per cent in 2010, according to new figures. Analysts say the recession has caused a desire for the stability marriage offers and people valuing their family more than material possessions.

Meanwhile: Lesbian feminist rejects same-sex marriage and argues for the demise of marriage in general

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'Killing babies' article reveals the truth of abortion

'Killing babies' article reveals the truth of abortion, say pro-lifers - Telegraph: Pro-life campaigners have welcomed publication of an article arguing killing newborns should be "permissible," saying it showed there was no moral difference between abortion and infanticide.

Related:

• Parents should be allowed to have their newborn babies killed because they are “morally irrelevant”
• Abortion article author receives death threats

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Abortion has been trivialised admits Abortion Act supporter

Abortion has been trivialised admits Abortion Act supporter | News | The Christian Institute: A self-proclaimed supporter of the Abortion Act has admitted that abortion has become trivial for many people, as he reacted to revelations of sex selective abortions in the UK.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, he disclosed that there were some he knew in the medical profession who had approved abortions for pregnant women simply because they “did not want their holidays spoilt by pregnancy.”

The commentator and former doctor, writing under his pseudonym Theodore Dalrymple, said people now view life as an existential supermarket in which they are consumers. From the article:

[T]he whole sorry story illustrates the mess we get into when two notions become culturally prominent: on the one hand of rights and on the other of consumer choice. 

Whatever the law says, most people now think that abortion is a right under all circumstances and not something that is permissible if certain conditions are met, as the framers of the law surely intended. That particular slippery slope has long been slid down. . . .

Into this poisonous mixture we must add the notion that any form of distress, or even the slightest frustration arising no matter how self-indulgently, constitutes an impairment of mental health: for the mentally healthy person is always happy and never experiences any difficulties in life. In short, inconvenience is the greatest of all threats to our well-being, and must at all times be avoided. It is our right to avoid it.

The Abortion Act was intended as a humane response to genuine hardship: the type of hardship that drove women to back-street abortionists. I supported it, not realising that its intentions would soon be subverted by a change in the character of the population, including that of doctors, who would easily affix their names to declarations they knew or suspected to be false. But now the genie is out of the bottle, and I fear there is no getting it back.

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