Pro-Abortion Hillary

 

What did Hillary Clinton say and what did she mean?

By Dave Andrusko

George Stephanopoulos interviewing Hillary Clinton

Tip of the hat to LifeNews for clueing readers into comments pro-abortion and PPFA favorite Hillary Clinton made on This Week With George Stephanopoulos.
Naturally, much of the conversation centered on the terrorist attack last week in San Bernardino which killed 14 people and injured 21 more. As citizens, it is very much worth watching the whole interview. As single-issue pro-lifers, stung by bogus “connections” between our Movement and a deranged killer in Colorado Springs who murdered three people, there is a statement the former Secretary of State made that is worth noting.

(Two things go without saying, but I will say them anyway. First, NRLC has no position on guns or gun control. Second, nothing Bill or Hillary Clinton ever says is an accident.)
Stephanopoulos makes the point that some of Clinton’s Republican presidential rivals have criticized Clinton for focusing on gun control in the wake of last week’s murders. They pointed out that San Bernardino and France both have strict gun laws but that didn’t stop the murderous assaults in either locale.
To which Clinton responded:

“Well, first of all, what happened in San Bernardino was a terrorist act. Nobody is arguing with that. The law enforcement, FBI, have come to that conclusion. And, let’s not forget, though, a week before, we had an American assault on Planned Parenthood and some weeks before that, we had an assault at a community college. So, I don’t see these two as any way contradictory.”

By “these two,” she meant gun control, on the one hand, and needing to “up our game against terrorists aboard and at home,” on the other.
Two quick points. As we wrote about last week, there was a reflex response in some media circles to broadly hint that because there was a Planned Parenthood within a couple of miles of where Syed Rizwan Farook’s and Tashfeen Mali murdered 14 people in San Bernardino, there might have been some “right to life” connection. It was patently false on its face but that’s the environment we live in.
So for Clinton to mention in the same breath what was obviously (even more so now)a terrorist act in San Bernardino with the actions of one deranged killer in Colorado who’d been libelously linked to pro-lifers (or to our “inflammatory rhetoric”)comes perilously close to an act of intimidation.
You can watch the Clinton interview here.

Source: NRLC News

China

 

China’s announced “Two-Child Policy” doesn’t change the basic structure of coercive population control

By Rep. Chris Smith )R-NJ)
Editor’s note. Last week we posted the remarks of Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fl.), Cochairman of the Congressional Executive Commission on China, delivered at a Thursday hearing on “China’s New ‘Two Child Policy’ & the Continuation of Massive Crimes Against Women and Children. Today we are posting the remarks of Rep. Smith, Chairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on China.

Pro-Life Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Reggie Littlejohn, President, Women’s Rights Without Frontiers

The Chinese government has spent the past 35 years telling couples what their families must look like.
Thirty-five years of state sponsored violence against women including coerced abortions and involuntary sterilizations in the name of population control.
Thirty-five years of viewing children as “excess baggage” from the day they are conceived, particularly the girl child.
Thirty-give years or wasting precious human potential.
And, thirty-five years of committing massive crimes against women and children enabled by pro-abortion non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the United Nations Fund Population Fund (UNFPA).
Despite the platitude and applause by some being heaped on China’s announced “Two-Child Policy”— the proposal doesn’t change the basic structure of coercive population control and it is not some major reversal of policy to be lauded. And this so called reform isn’t a done deal yet. According to world famous demographer Dr. Nicholas Eberstadt, who will testify today, the “One-Child Policy” may become a “Two-Child Policy” but the coercive population control apparatus remains unchanged.
Dr. Eberstadt says, “To be clear: that shift has not yet taken place. To the contrary: just days after the October 29 announcement, China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission, which oversees the population program, emphasized that the new norms were not yet “valid” and described the Two-Child Policy as a “proposal,” indicating furthermore that this 2 proposal would have to be approved by Beijing’s legislature next year before it might eventually be enacted.”

That said, the “Two-Child Policy” may allow for more births – if “enacted” at some future date – but it does not remove the pernicious incentives given to local officials to pressure or even force mothers to abort a child if the birth hasn’t been approved by the state and is/or is the couple’s third. Chinese families are still not free to determine the size of their own families. Nor does this policy erase the enormous physical and psychological damage imposed on women done by three and a half decades of highly coercive birth limitations.

We should not be applauding China’s policy, we should be insisting they abolish all birth limits –forever.

Chen Guangcheng, the famous Chinese legal advocate, and human rights champion, calls China’s population control polices “genocide.” He calls for an international tribunal to vigorously investigate these crimes against humanity. And Mr. Chen calls on the Obama Administration to enforce existing U.S. law and bar Chinese officials associated with the policy from entry to the U.S – I wrote that law, and the Obama Administration has completely failed to enforce and implement its provisions.
The Chinese government is not the only one culpable in these heinous crimes against women and children. The UN Population Fund helped fund birth restrictions, fund forced abortions, and a massive and coercive family planning bureaucracy. Several years ago, I had a face to face meeting in Beijing with Peng Peiyun, the bureaucrat in charge of China’s draconian population program. Madame Peng repeatedly told me that my concerns were unfounded and repeatedly said that UNFPA found no coercion whatsoever – a complete whitewash.

The UNFPA whitewashed China’s crimes for decades and continues to do so today. On their website, the UNFPA justifies its history in China, saying that they “were tasked by the Executive Committee” to help China and had to “engage with China as a sovereign nation.”
Since 1994, the UNFPA claims that their efforts have focused on getting China to adopt a “rights based approach” to family planning, saying they opposed “coercion, violence, forced abortion, and sterilization as a violation of basic human rights.”

Yet, there is no evidence to show their efforts made one bit of difference in changing China’s policies. No evidence that UNFPA officials intervened to stop coercion and violence. For the past three and half decades, UNFPA funding gave China’s policies an international stamp of approval.
The UNFPA is complicit in China’s coercive population control policies. The U.S. and others who helped fund the UNFPA programs in China are also complicit. It is a dark and bloody stain that cannot be washed away.
I hope China will abolish all aspects of its horrendous birth control policy as soon as possible and compensate its victims. For me and many others opposed to this policy, it is a matter of justice and human rights. For the Chinese government, this is a matter of economic survival.
China’s government says it is instituting a “Two-Child Policy” to stem the twin demographic time bombs of a rapidly aging population and millions of men unable to find wives, but this new policy is unlikely to solve these problems.
As the Economist has noted, by 2025, nearly 1 in 4 Chinese citizens will be over the age of 60. At the same time, China’s working-age population has shrunk in each of the past three years. These factors are likely to hurt not only government balance sheets but also economic growth in China. This should be of particular concern to the Chinese Communist Party, as economic growth is the primary source of their ill begotten legitimacy.

The minimal policy change announced in October will do little to address the three decade decimation of female population. Approximately 40 million women and girls – perhaps millions more – are missing from the population—a policy that can only be accurately described as gendercide. The extermination of the girl child in society simply because she happens to be a girl.
The lack of girls has led to a dramatically skewed gender ratio. An estimated 30 million young men who will be unable to find wives in the coming decades.

The Chinese government should be concerned—as should China’s neighbors and the international community—of the consequences of 30 million men, unable to find companionship, unable to start families, and coming of age precisely at the time that China’s economy is creating fewer jobs to employ them. That is a ticking time bomb with the potential of dramatic consequences.
We continue to see increased human trafficking for forced marriages and sexual slavery. NGOs [Non-Governmental Organizations] working in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Burma have all reported an increase in trafficking of women and girls into China in recent years. Even if China ends its birth restrictions, given the current demographics, this problem of a shortage of women in China will only get worse in the coming decade.

In the long line of Chinese Communist Party mistakes, the brutal enforcement of population control may be one of the deadliest and most hated. The “Two-Child Policy” recently announced does little to fundamentally change the past and should not be celebrated.
The international community, led by the U.S., must insist that China abolish all birth restrictions, dismantle its family planning apparatus, compensate the victims of forced abortions and sterilizations, raise the legal and inheritance status of girls, and permanently close a dark and deadly chapter in Chinese history.

Source: NRLC News

Abortion

 

What is the “Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act” and why do pro-abortionists so fear it?

Q: What is a dismemberment abortion?

A: “DISMEMBERMENT ABORTION” means, with the purpose of causing the death of an unborn child, purposely to dismember a living unborn child and extract him or her one piece at a time from the uterus through use of clamps, grasping forceps, tongs, scissors or similar instruments that, through the convergence of two rigid levers, slice, crush, and /or grasp a portion of the unborn child’s body to cut or rip it off. This definition does not include an abortion which uses suction to dismember the body of the developing unborn child by sucking fetal parts into a collection container.

Q: Aren’t dismemberment abortions rare?

A: NO. Dismemberment abortions are a common and brutal type of D&E abortion which involves dismembering a living unborn child piece by piece. According to the National Abortion Federation Abortion Training Textbook – “D&E remains the most prevalent method of second-trimester pregnancy termination in the USA, accounting for 96% of all second trimester abortions”.[1] There are approximately 1 million abortions performed annually in this county. [2] Data from the CDC report published in November 2014 indicates that almost 9% percent of abortions are performed on these very developed babies. [3] These two numbers taken together show that roughly 100,000 unborn babies die each year after the first trimester.

Q: Dismemberment abortions are used to kill relatively undeveloped fetuses, aren’t they?

A: NO. By three weeks and 1 day following fertilization, the unborn child has a beating heart and is making her own blood, often a different blood type than her mother’s. At six weeks, she has brain waves, legs, arms, eyelids, toes, and fingerprints. By eight weeks, every organ (kidneys, liver, brain, etc.) is in place, and even teeth and fingernails have developed. The unborn child can turn her head and even frown. She can kick, swim, and grasp objects placed in her hand. [4] Dismemberment abortions occur after the baby has met these milestones. Any unborn child aborted using the Dismemberment Abortion procedure after 20 weeks would feel the pain of being ripped apart during the abortion. [5]

Q: Isn’t this really just a routine abortion procedure?

A: NO. Dismemberment abortion is the barbaric killing of a human being. The gruesome nature of dismemberment abortions was described by the Supreme Court in Gonzales v. Carhart: “[F]riction causes the fetus to tear apart. For example, a leg might be ripped off the fetus . . . .”[6]

Contrasting the partial-birth or “intact D&E” abortion, the Court said, “In an intact D&E procedure the doctor extracts the fetus in a way conducive to pulling out its entire body, instead of ripping it apart.”[7]“No one would dispute,” it wrote, “that, for many, D & E is a procedure itself laden with the power to devalue human life.” [8]

The author of the Gonzales opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy, used an even more graphic description in his dissent in Stenberg v. Carhart, [9] stating, “The fetus, in many cases, dies just as a human adult or child would: It bleeds to death as it is torn limb from limb.”
Indeed, the Ginsberg dissent in Gonzales and Stenberg stated: [10]

Nonintact D&E could equally be characterized as “brutal,” . .. , involving as it does “tear[ing] [a fetus] apart” and “ripp[ing] off” its limbs, . . . [11] “[T]he notion that either of these two equally gruesome procedures . . . is more akin to infanticide than the other, or that the State furthers any legitimate interest by banning one but not the other, is simply irrational.”[12] Stevens, concurring with Ginsburg in Stenberg.

Q: Is “dismemberment” too harsh a description?

A: NO. Dismemberment abortion is an accurate description of this brutal procedure. As Leroy Carhart, the abortionist who challenged the partial-birth abortion ban, said in testimony leading up to Stenberg v. Carhart, “…[W]hen you rupture the membranes, an arm will spontaneously fall out through the vaginal opening …My normal course would be to dismember that appendage and then go back and try to take the fetus out whether foot or skull first, whatever end I can get to first.”

When asked how he performed this “dismemberment,” he replied: “Just pulling and rotation, grasping the portion that you can get hold of which would be usually somewhere up the shaft of the exposed portion of the fetus, pulling down on it through the opening, using the internal opening [of the uterus] as your counter-traction and rotating to dismember the shoulder or the hip or whatever it would be.”
Then he explains that “Sometimes you will get one leg and you can’t get the other leg out.” The attorney next asks: “In that situation, when you pull on the arm and remove it, is the fetus still alive?’” Carhart answers: “‘Yes.’” He adds: “‘I know that the fetus is alive during the process most of the time because I can see fetal heartbeat on the ultrasound.”
Justice Kennedy, widely considered the swing vote on abortion cases, has himself described the procedure in a simple and powerful way, when he wrote:

“The fetus, in many cases, dies just as a human adult or child would: It bleeds to death as it is torn from limb from limb. The fetus can be alive at the beginning of the dismemberment process and can survive for a time while its limbs are being torn off.” [13]

and …

“The doctor, often guided by ultrasound, inserts grasping forceps through the woman’s cervix and into the uterus to grab the fetus. The doctor grips a fetal part with the forceps and pulls it back through the cervix and vagina, continuing to pull even after meeting resistance from the cervix. The friction causes the fetus to tear apart. For example, a leg might be ripped off the fetus as it is pulled through the cervix and out of the woman. The process of evacuating the fetus piece by piece continues until it has been completely removed. A doctor may make 10 to 15 passes with the forceps to evacuate the fetus in its entirety, though sometimes removal is completed with fewer passes. Once the fetus has been evacuated, the placenta and any remaining fetal material are suctioned or scraped out of the uterus. The doctor examines the different parts to ensure the entire fetal body has been removed.” [14]

Q: Does dismemberment abortion have wide support in the medical community?

A: NO. The violent and dehumanizing nature of dismemberment abortion undermines the public’s perception of the appropriate role of a physician and confuses the medical, legal, and ethical duties of physicians to preserve and promote life. There are many accounts, even by current abortionists, regarding the brutal nature of the procedure. Dr. Warren Hern, a Boulder, Colorado, abortionist who has performed numerous D&E abortions and has written a textbook on abortion procedures, has stated “there is no possibility of denial of an act of destruction by the operator [of a D&E abortion]. It is before one’s eyes. The sensations of dismemberment flow through the forceps like an electric current.”[15]

Q: Are dismemberment abortions ever necessary to preserve the life and health of the mother?

A: NO. Dismemberment abortions are never medically necessary to preserve the life of a mother in acute medical emergencies – dilation of the cervix alone can take at least 36 hours. Additionally, according to the National Abortion Federation Abortion Training Textbook, dismemberment abortions are a preferred method, in part, not because they are necessary, but because they are cheaper than other available methods. [16]

Q: Isn’t this just another law that will be struck by the courts? …that it is just another doomed attempt to reverse Roe v. Wade?

A: NO. The states enacting the Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act are not asking the Supreme Court to overturn or replace the 1973 Roe v. Wade holding that the state’s interest in unborn human life becomes “compelling” at viability. Rather, the states are applying the interest the Court recognized in the 2007 Gonzales case, that states have a separate and independent compelling interest in fostering respect for life by protecting the unborn child from death by dismemberment abortion. Further, the state is recognizing their compelling interest in protecting the integrity of the medical profession with passage of this law.

Q: What about an unborn child with a fetal abnormality, shouldn’t there be an exception for this pregnancy?

A: NO. It is a sad truth that some unborn babies start their lives having serious medical conditions. These unborn children have disabilities – not unlike adults. For a society that prides itself on welcoming people with disabilities (we cut our curbs, make our public buildings and transportation accessible, pass laws to protect the rights of the disabled), it should be unacceptable to solve ‘disability’ by killing those who have the ‘disability’ before they are born. Surely we can do better.

Any diagnosis does not negate the fact that a child will feel pain from the abortion procedure at 20 weeks post-fertilization, if not earlier.
Prenatal diagnoses can often be incorrect or inaccurate, unnecessarily putting pressure on a mother to procure an abortion when all she needs is more information and resources about the diagnosed disability, information about perinatal hospice or other services, or more time to see if the diagnosis is correct.

For those children with profound disabilities or conditions incompatible with life, perinatal hospice offers a positive alternative to the trauma of aborting a child. It honors and respects the dignity of the life of every human being. It offers the mother carrying a child with a diagnosed disability extensive counseling and birth preparation involving the combined efforts of Maternal Fetal Medicine specialists, OB/GYN doctors, neonatologists, anesthesia services, chaplains, pastors, social workers, labor and delivery nurses, and neonatal nurses.
Regardless of any diagnosis received, abortion is an irreversible decision that exacerbates the grieving process and deprives an unborn child of her right to life, which exists no matter what condition a child may have.

1 Paul, Maureen, et al., eds. Management of unintended and abnormal pregnancy: comprehensive abortion care. John Wiley & Sons, 2009 at p157.
2 Jones, R. K., & Jerman, J. (2014). Abortion incidence and service availability in the United States, 2011. Perspectives on sexual and reproductive health, 46(1), 3-14. https://guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/psrh.46e0414.pdf 3
3 Pazol, Karen, Creanga, Andreea, Burley, Kim Jamieson, Denise, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “Abortion surveillance—United States, 2011.” MMWR Surveill Summ 63, no. 11 (2011): 1-41. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6311a1.htm?s_cid=ss6311a1_w 5
4 National Right to Life Education Trust Fund. The Basics. A compilation of recent and noteworthy information on the abortion issue. May 2006. Web. December 17 2014. http://www.nrlc.org/uploads/factsheets/FS02TheBasics.pdf
5 Doctors on Fetal Pain: The Basics. Web. December 18, 2014 http://www.doctorsonfetalpain.com/
6 Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U.S. 135 (2007).
7 Id. at 137; see also 152.
8 Id. at 158.
9 Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U.S. 914 (2000) (Kennedy, J., dissenting)
10 Gonzales, 550 U.S. at 182 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting).
11 Internal citations to majority opinion omitted.
12 Quoting Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U.S. 914, 946-947 (2000)(Stevens, J., concurring).
13 Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U.S. 914, 958 (U.S. 2000) (Kennedy, J., dissenting)
14 Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U.S. 124, 136 (U.S. 2007)
15 Warren M. Hern, M.D., and Billie Corrigan, R.N., What About Us? Staff Reactions to the D & E Procedure, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Planned Parenthood Physicians, San Diego, California, (October 26, 1978).
16 Paul, Maureen, et al., eds. Management of unintended and abnormal pregnancy: comprehensive abortion care. John Wiley & Sons, 2009 at p157-159.

Source: NRLC News

Assisted Suicide

 

Assisted suicide: death is not ‘a part of life’

Using the language of freedom to justify on-demand death is Orwellian and dangerous.

By Kevin Yuill
Editor’s note. Elsewhere today we post about the request made by The Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada asking the Supreme Court of Canada for a six-month extension to enable the government to legislate in response to the Court’s February 6th Carter decision gutting Canada’s prohibition against assisted suicide. The following is excerpted from a brilliant analysis of where the Court’s ruling could easily take the nation.

Supreme Court of Canada

‘When parliament is paralyzed, the courts must act.’ So said lawyer Joseph Arvay, representing the appellants in a case about the legal status of assisted suicide, at the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) in October 2014. The SCC apparently agreed; last February it struck down the ban on assisted suicide and gave the government 12 months to draft a replacement law.
The decision, made in relation to the Carter vs Canada case, was unanimous. This is surprising given the contested nature of this issue in Canada. The previous landmark ruling, in the 1993 Rodriguez vs British Columbia case, was split 5-4 against upholding motor-neurone-disease sufferer Sue Rodriguez’s right to be assisted to die.

In another sense, though, the ruling is not surprising. The chief justice Beverley McLachlin argued for upholding Rodriguez’s ‘right to die’ in the 1993 case, and is the only justice from that era who continues to serve in the SCC. Similarly, Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella has written about how a preoccupation with civil liberties can impede human rights – pre-empting the court’s tortuous logic last week.

The ruling highlights the trend towards an ‘enlightened’ elite imposing what it thinks is right over the heads of political representatives. The SCC is hardly democratic – the justices are all appointees and are chosen to represent the various regions. None of them have been elected to any office outside of their profession.

However, this will not stop proponents of assisted suicide from claiming there is democratic mandate for legalization, quoting various polls that claim the public agrees with them. It is true that, in Britain, between 70 and 80 per cent of those polled support assisted suicide – and the numbers are only slightly lower in Canada and the US. However, genuine democratic mandate is harder to come by than superficial, off-the-top answers to polls. …

As ever, the results to a poll depend on what question is asked. A 2013 Gallup poll in the US gave an indication of how people responded to different questions. Seventy per cent agreed when the question was: ‘When a person has a disease that cannot be cured, do you think a doctor should be allowed to end the person’s life in law by some painless means if the patient and his or her family request it?’ However, only 56 per cent agreed when the question was phrased: ‘When a person has a disease that cannot be cured and is living in severe pain, do you think doctors should or should not be allowed by law to assist the patient to commit suicide if the patient requests it?’ No wonder the euphemism ‘assisted dying’ is preferred by advocates.

What advocates of assisted suicide really fear is any real discussion of the issue; their case falls to pieces when subjected to any real scrutiny. They rely on sad stories, on our instantaneous response to suffering. But, in parallel to the fact that doctors and especially palliative doctors oppose legalisation, the public, when forced to consider the case more broadly, tend to reject assisted suicide. For a demonstration that even the most sophisticated assisted-suicide advocates lose support in an open debate, see Peter Singer and Andrew Solomon vs Ilora Finlay and Daniel Sulmasy.
Support for assisted suicide ‘without restriction’, according to a poll of Britons in 2009, was 13 per cent. But, strangely enough, that is precisely the implication of the SCC’s ruling. The court specified that an individual should be able to have an assisted suicide if they consented and if they suffered a ‘grievous and irremediable medical condition (including an illness, disease or disability)’.
As many have pointed out, that presumably includes psychological as well as physical suffering. Rather than the Oregon model, the Canadian judgement resembles the model of the Netherlands and Belgium, at least in its expansive categories. The path is now clear for any lovesick teenager, disabled person or depressed individual to request an assisted suicide, so long as they claim to be suffering grievously.

What is perhaps most shocking about the judgement is that this potentially monumental decision was based on some fundamentally flawed arguments. One particular assertion made by the court beggars belief: ‘The prohibition [of assisted suicide] deprives some individuals of life, as it has the effect of forcing some individuals to take their own lives prematurely, for fear that they would be incapable of doing so when they reached the point where suffering was intolerable.’

There is simply no evidence to support this. In fact, there is evidence presented by advocates of assisted suicide in the UK that indicates legalizing assisted suicide will increase the suicide rate among the terminally ill three-fold. A study of Danish cancer patients between 1971 and 1999 found that an estimated average of 31 cancer sufferers per year took their lives. If assisted suicide was legalized, the Oregon statistics suggest that the number would rise to 67. In other words, all evidence indicates that suicides will increase by a factor of two or three should legalisation occur. This crucial point, on which the court’s decision was based, is simply wrong. …

[The Supreme Court of Canada’s] ruling completely ignored the fundamental values noted by the Rodriguez case. Using torturous, Orwellian logic, the SCC has now defined the right to die as a natural part of the right to life. Therefore, the logic of the ruling was based on the idea that death is a part of life – it’s not, it is the end of it – and that we must protect Canadians’ right to life, liberty and security by killing people on request.
Wow. …

And, as the issue is passed on to parliament, there are a few crucial questions that politicians need to consider. Do all Canadians have a right to be assisted in suicide that is, as the court suggests, abrogated by the prohibition on assisted suicide? If not, who does and who does not have that right, and why? How will Canada reconcile the belief in the dignity and worth of every human person with assisted suicide for only some and not all?
Good luck, Canadian parliament.

Source: NRLC News

China

 

China’s abortion policies have global ramifications

  Bethany Blankley 

Social scientists have found that abortion, and specifically sex-selective abortion, over a period of four decades, has caused devastating socio-economic outcomes on a global scale. China’s mandatory fertility reduction program, including forced abortion, sterilization, and birth control, created with its culture the phenomenon of gendercide, otherwise known as sex-selective abortion.
China’s gendercide policies eliminated an entire generation of its population – of only one gender. Roughly 40 million Chinese girls no longer exist.

To date, there are nearly 40 million more men than women in China (a population difference the size of California).
China’s unprecedented gender imbalance—a direct result of gendercide and China’s One Child Policy and abortion policy—caused a gap in its workforce and also increased disproportionate rates of unemployment and crime committed by men.

A missing generation of women results in no wives, no children, and no ability to create a family or sustain or even maintain China’s population. As a result, social scientists attribute China’s gender imbalance as the primary factor responsible for unprecedented levels of increased crime, bride abduction, trafficking of women and children, rape, and prostitution occurring not just in China but also throughout Asia.
Women who do live, choose to kill themselves at a higher rate than anywhere else in the world. China has the highest rate of suicide among women worldwide, yet it only accounts for one fifth of the world’s population. The World Health Organization notes that China is the only country where suicide is higher among women than men.

More than seventeen million children exist in orphanages. Known as “out-of-plan” children, they have no legal rights, abandoned by parents who cannot afford to pay the hefty fine or endure imprisonment for breaking China’s One Child Policy. If the orphans survive, they suffer deplorable conditions and the weaker or less healthy girls, who are often neglected, are left in “dying rooms.”
How did the Chinese eliminate an entire generation of one gender?
Gendercide began in China in 1964, and U.S. policy is not far behind.

In 1964 the Chinese government established its national Family Planning Office to oversee China’s fertility reduction program. Under its new One Child Policy, couples could no longer have more than one child and those who chose to have a child were required to receive government permission. Married couples are required to apply for a birth permit in order to have an authorized pregnancy. After giving birth, women are then required to use IUDs or be sterilized.

All pregnancies without a birth permit are referred to as “out-of-plan” and are illegal.
The Chinese government also institutionalized mandatory birth control and abortion (often referred to as “remedial measures”). The government began charting women’s menstrual cycles, requiring monthly pelvic exams, and terminated all unauthorized pregnancies.

To date, nearly two-thirds of all Chinese couples (approximately 900 million people, or the equivalent to three times the size of the U.S. population) are under the jurisdiction of the One Child Policy, enforced by 300,000 officials.
Since 1971, the Chinese government has enforced approximately 336 million abortions, 196 million sterilizations, and 403 million IUD implants. Roughly 30-60 percent of Chinese women are forced to have an abortion each year.
Many human rights organizations, governments, and NGOs rightly condemn China’s One Child Policy. Yet American government officials do support sex-selective abortion despite their claims that such practices don’t exist in America and aren’t an issue.

Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D-CO) once remarked that she didn’t support “abortion for gender selection… I don’t know anyone who does. Maybe that’s because there is no problem in this country of abortion for gender selection.”

But some news and non-profit organizations have found that sex-selective abortion does exist in America. The Economist reported that within Chinese and Japanese-American populations in the U.S., distorted sex ratios do exist and can be directly linked to sex-selective abortions.
Live Action also revealed through undercover video recordings Planned Parenthood employees consulting women as to how they could have a sex-selective abortion within the legal timeframe in Arizona, Hawaii, New York, North Carolina, and Texas.

Recognizing the socio-economic effects of abortion, Congressman Trent Franks (R-Az.) sponsored the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA) to make sex-selective abortion a criminal act. The measure failed in the House and was sent to and remains in committee.

Organizations like NARAL claim that PRENDA would “limit access to abortions” and that PRENDA is a “race and sex-based attack on choice.” In other words, NARAL supports abortion based on race and sex. Barack Obama, who supports infanticide, also opposes PRENDA because he reasons, “the government should not intrude in medical decisions or private family matters in this way.”
But sex-selective abortions, as Chinese statistics indicate, are not “private family matters.” They are determined, in part, by political decisions that affect populations worldwide. Social scientists have only begun to uncover what seem to be far-reaching and devastating socio-economic consequences directly linked to and resulting from China’s official One Child, fertility reduction, and abortion policies.

Any other society that would replicate China’s policy should anticipate experiencing similarly disastrous consequences.

Source: LiveAction News

Rationing

 

Texas hospital seeks to remove man from hospital treatment against his will

  Lauren Enriquez  

A 46-year-old Texas man is being forced to fight for his right to life after his hospital invoked a Texas law that allows life-sustaining treatment to be removed at the doctor’s discretion without patient consent, and against his will.

Chris Dunn is currently receiving life-sustaining treatment in the ICU ward of Methodist Hospital in Houston.  Dunn, who has in the past served in various state and federal agencies including his local Sheriff’s Department and the Department of Homeland Security, is now at the mercy of a hostile medical system that has shown a shocking level of callousness towards his desire to live.

Last month, his healthcare providers invoked a draconian Texas law which would allow them to remove Dunn’s treatment based on an arbitrary judgment that continued care would be “futile.”  Thanks to attorneys working pro bono on Chris’s behalf (not all Texans are so lucky), two consecutive temporary restraining orders against the hospital have been secured to bide time for Chris’s lawyers to fight the hospital decision.

Complicating matters is the fact that there is no provision in the law at play — the Texas Advance Directives Act (TADA), passed in 1999 — for legal recourse to such a decision by the hospital.  Instead, patients and their families are supposed to appeal unfavorable decisions to a board of hospital administrators which wields ultimate power over the patient’s life.  If the panel sides with the physician who ordered withdrawal of treatment, the TADA provides for no further recourse but to submit to that fatal decision.

Chris’s attorney, Joe Nixon, explained to the local ABC affiliate that the statute allows hospitals to hide behind anonymity without fear of any repercussion no matter what decisions they make: “There’s a statute in Texas that allows hospitals to form a nameless, faceless committee and make a decision that they want to terminate life-sustaining care.”

However, Dunn is not brain dead — he is alert when not in medically-induced sedation — and he understands what is being done to him and has personally expressed his desire to live  and continue receiving hospital treatment.  According to Texas Right to Life, the organization which helped Dunn find lawyers and navigate the hospital system after receiving notice that he would be removed from treatment, Dunn was admitted with abdominal pain eight weeks ago.  “[T]he hospital quickly found other ailments plaguing Chris,” they say.  “After the hospital assessed his condition and instead of diagnosing and treating him, doctors made a quality of life decision and deemed him unworthy of their care.”   Watch Dunn’s response, below, when his attorneys ask him if he wants to live:
Dunn’s mother, Evelyn, is acting as his Medical Power of Attorney since he is sometimes sedated.  The hospital is so bent on bringing about Dunn’s demise that they have filed an injunction seeking to be appointed Dunn’s custodial guardian, which would strip Evelyn of her ability to fight on her son’s behalf.

The story is gaining momentum on Twitter, where Dunn’s supporters are spreading the word about his cause with the hash tag #HelpChrisSeeChristmas.

Source: LiveAction News

Abortion

 

10 reasons not to have an abortion

By Kristi Burton Brown
Note: If you are a father trying to stop an abortion, see this article. If you are a woman who is being pressured into an abortion, go here.
Parenting website Mommyish recently published an article advocating ten reasons (well, actually nine) to have an abortion. In response, I wrote a piece debunking the author’s arguments. Today, I will discuss ten reasons not to have an abortion.

1) It compounds tragedy.

Sometimes the circumstances surrounding a pregnancy are tragic. Perhaps the woman was raped. Maybe the baby has been diagnosed with a defect. Or the woman’s health might be at risk. However, one tragedy is not answered with another. We do not erase a rape by killing a child. We do not cure a baby by taking his life. And we do not avoid all health issues by avoiding the reality of another human being.

Women who have been raped must be compassionately cared for. But compassionate care does not include executing a woman’s child. Parents facing a difficult prenatal diagnosis must be given real facts and directed to others with helpful experiences. They must not be forced into a quick choice for abortion or urged to take the life of their child instead of giving her a chance to defy the odds. Women with high-risk pregnancies must be treated by real medical professionals. But treatment does not include intentionally killing a child. (If a child dies during the course of treating the woman – i.e., during chemotherapy for cancer, removal of an ectopic pregnancy, etc. – this is not an abortion.)

2) It takes innocent lives.

Science could not be more clear. Unborn human beings are living, separate, and unique. From the moment of fertilization – better known as conception – a new human life is in existence. Ending this life is not ending “potential.” It is ending a life. We would do well to understand the modern science that reveals the humanity of the unborn. (Here is a scientific report, quotes from textbooks, photos, and a video.)

3) It violates civil rights.

Civil rights are violated when people are deprived of their basic rights in a discriminatory fashion. Unborn children are deprived of life – the most basic right of all – simply based on their location (their mother’s womb) and their developmental status. This is discriminatory, inhuman, and cruel.

4) It punishes innocent people.

A child does not deserve to die for the crimes of his father. A five-year-old cannot be killed because his father is a rapist. A five-month-old unborn child should not be allowed to be killed for the same reason.
A child does not deserve to die because her mother and/or her father were irresponsible. A child is completely innocent. An unborn child is always innocent and should never be punished.

5) It can harm women.

Real-life stories demonstrate again and again that abortion harms women. Harm comes in a variety of forms – mental, emotional, relational, and physical – and in some cases, women’s lives are lost through abortion. They can also experience the loss of their fertility or an increase in miscarriages after an abortion. To find out more, check out this study, this paper, this compilation of stories, these experiences, and these stories.

6) It is damaging to relationships and families.

Any time a family member dies, the rest of the family is affected. And this is true of abortion. A real, living, irreplaceable child has been killed, and the parents and siblings are damaged. Fathers attempting to stop abortions should read this article. Siblings who need a place to express their pain should go here. And for more information on how abortion damages relationships, read this and this. Many women who abort just to convince their guy to stay with them find that they are left alone anyway, shortly after the abortion. Abortion is never the answer to a successful and loving relationship.

7) It never goes away.

No matter how hard we try, we can never erase what abortion does. Abortion takes – it kills – an innocent human being. Time does not erase murder or ease the reality of what it is. Abortion is a cruel tragedy, but it is also a choice that should never be made. Such a choice stays with us forever.
For anyone who has already participated in abortion, while there is no way to change your past, there is a way to heal from it. Check with your local pregnancy resource center for post-abortion recovery programs. You can also look into Rachel’s Vineyard or Ramah International. Also, check out this sermon by Mark Driscoll, in which he discusses how “Jesus died so murder could be forgiven.” Recovery, hope, and healing are always available.

8) It creates new problems.

Some people believe that having an abortion and ending a child’s life will solve their problems. And in the immediate present, it may appear that the problems have been erased. Perhaps college becomes an easier option, maybe parents never find out that their daughter was pregnant, or possibly an affair remains undiscovered. But in reality, abortion only hides problems – it doesn’t solve them. Many women finish college while still giving life to their babies. Many parents are far more accepting and loving than their daughters believed possible. And the truth is better than a lie, when a lie would cost an innocent person’s life. In the end, that’s what this is really about: our problems are not solved through killing an innocent person.
Just because it’s legal doesn’t make it right. And just because it’s often a hidden choice doesn’t mean it won’t stay with you forever.
Parents often experience great pressure without being told of the great gift they’ve been given…

9) It avoids responsibility.

Abortion is sometimes used as an easy cover-up for a one-night stand or a solution to a relationship gone bad. However, when two adults make the choice to participate in an activity known to create babies, these adults must accept responsibility.
Responsible people have to make hard choices sometimes. Timing may seem bad, and circumstances might be difficult. But this does not justify killing an innocent person. Choosing to raise a child is responsible. Choosing adoption for a child is responsible. But choosing abortion and denying life to a child who already exists is irresponsibly – and irreparably – wrong.

10) It’s not empowering or liberating for women.

As a woman who considers herself a feminist, I find it appalling that abortion is classified as part of “women’s rights.” It is not my “right” to kill my child. I should not be the only person who has the power to order my child’s execution at the hand of an abortion doctor. Letting my child suffer a death in which her spine is sucked into a tube or her limbs are torn apart or her heart is stopped through poison is not empowering or liberating. These choices ought not to be choices at all. They are cruel tragedies for all involved, and they should not be permitted in a civilized nation. Women do not receive freedom through the blood of their children.
All women should understand exactly what abortion is.
Editor’s note. This appeared at liveactionnews.org and is reprinted with permission.

Source: NRLC News

De-Fund Planned Parenthood

 

BREAKING: U.S. Senate votes to defund Planned Parenthood

  Kristi Burton Brown 

Throughout the day, the mainstream media has been reporting that the Senate was expected to vote in favor of repealing ObamaCare and stripping Planned Parenthood of federal funding. And now it’s been done.
Today, the U.S. Senate has succeeded in voting to defund Planned Parenthood of taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars, by a vote of 52 to 47.

While the pro-abortion White House had earlier promised to issue a veto, the Senate still voted to approve the bill. NBC reports:

Republicans drove legislation toward Senate approval Thursday that would demolish President Barack Obama’s signature health care law and block Planned Parenthood’s federal money, edging toward a veto fight the GOP knows it will lose but believes will delight conservative voters in next year’s elections.

This vote is the first time that the Senate has successfully voted to strip Planned Parenthood’s federal funding, sending it instead to more worthy health care centers that serve low-income women and their families. (Find a center here.) In fact, this bill increases funding to community and federally qualified health centers, proving that pro-life Americans do practically care about the health of women.

Senator James Lankford (R-OK), who voted in favor of defunding Planned Parenthood explained:

We understand we have a president that strongly supports Planned Parenthood and what they do. We get that. But we also don’t want this issue to go away. We want to continue to be able to raise it over and over again and say, “Is this what Americans really believe?”

Source: LifeSite News

Celebrities and Abortion

 

Hollywood Legends Were Haunted by Their Abortions

By Maria Gallagher, Legislative Director, Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation
Hollywood is filled with the sad aftermath of abortion, and it has been for a long time.

That was one of the surprising lessons I learned in the book “Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends” by Mary Claire Kendall.

I had picked up the book in order to discover more about the faith journeys of the cinematic stars of yesteryear. But what I came to realize is that many of these celebrities had been touched by the trauma and tragedy of abortion.

For instance, after screen legend Gary Cooper began an extra-marital affair with the actress Patricia Neal, Neal became pregnant. The book notes that the affair took an emotional toll on Cooper, his family, and Neal, “complicated by Neal’s pregnancy, which, to her later regret, she terminated.”
The actress Mary Astor, who starred in the movie “Meet Me in St. Louis” had an adulterous affair with a Fox executive and became pregnant. She chose to have an abortion and later remarked that the place she went to “committed such crimes under the fiction of ‘therapeutic treatment’” and gave her a “new burden of guilt to carry.” Years of painful substance abuse followed.

After the beautiful actress Lana Turner filed for divorce, she discovered she was pregnant. Her agent reminded her about MGM’s policy against having a baby while unmarried. She reluctantly had an abortion, and she later wrote that the abortionist nearly killed her as he took the life of her baby. During a subsequent pregnancy, she was pressured again to have an abortion because of career considerations.

In the end, these post-abortive women found hope and healing–but it was a long, painful path to travel. The sadness associated with these abortions lingered for an extended period of time. No amount of Hollywood acclaim could fill the holes in hearts that had been cracked open by the loss of their aborted children.

Reading the pages of the book, I wondered what the lives of these legendary actresses would have been like if they had only received support for carrying their lost children to term. How much heartache they could have avoided, how their lives could have been enriched, by these precious babies. They could have been the true stars of these actresses’ lives.
Hollywood has been promoting abortion for decades. But the American experience has taught us that abortion is not the solution to the problems that women face–problems such as lack of family support, coercion, and difficult relationships.

Abortion only creates additional problems that cannot be resolved in the length of a Hollywood movie. It can take years–decades even–for a woman to come to grips with the impact of her decision to abort her child. And that is a story few screenwriters are likely to tell.
Editor’s note. This appeared at paprolife.us.

Source: NRLC News

Euthanasia

 

‘Medical aid in Dying’ in Québec is Euthanasia, Quebec Superior Court rules

By Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director – Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Justice Michel Pinsonnault

In his decision on December 1, Justice Michel Pinsonnault of the Québec Superior Court stopped the Québec euthanasia law from coming into effect on December 10. The case was launched by the Coalition of Physicians for Social Justice which sought to obtain an injunction and to declare that the Québec law is unconstitutional.
The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) intervened in the case.
According to the National Post

The judge noted that last February’s Supreme Court of Canada decision striking down a federal ban on assisted suicide gave Ottawa and the provinces a year to prepare new legislation before the Criminal Code provisions in question become invalid.

Pinsonnault ruled that as long as those provisions are on the books — and it is expected Ottawa will request an extension to the Feb. 6 deadline — a Quebec physician administering euthanasia under the provincial law would be committing a crime. He ordered the suspension of the articles of the Quebec law concerning euthanasia until the Criminal Code is changed.

Paul Saba, the leader of Coalition of Physicians for Social Justice, and Lisa D’Amico, a woman with a disability, brought the suit. But the federal attorney general “intervened on their side, arguing that application of the Quebec law should be suspended until the Criminal Code is amended,” the National Post reported.
The Québec government reacted to the judgement by declaring that they will appeal the decision. The government suggested that the judge made an error when finding that ‘medical aid in dying’ constitutes euthanasia. CTV news reported:

The senior Couillard government ministers reminded reporters in Québec City the law addressed end-of-life care for those with serious illness and should not be associated with a form of euthanasia, a parallel made in the injunction ruling. [Ed. note: Rene Couillard is the Premier of Quebec.]

According to the CTV news Québec Justice Minister Stephanie Vallee said:

“There is a clear difference between euthanasia and medical aid in dying.”

The comments by the Québec government defy logic.
It is one thing to devise political “talking points” to hide the fact that ‘medical aid in dying,’ which includes death by lethal injection, is euthanasia. It is another thing to appeal a court decision based on a talking point.
In his decision Justice Pinsonnault saw through the rhetoric.
The National Post’s Graeme Hamilton noted

What is more devastating for Quebec’s euthanasia advocates is that Pinsonnault’s ruling picks apart the foundation of the Quebec law. Quebec has argued that it was within its rights to legislate because “medical aid in dying” is simply an element of health care, which is a provincial jurisdiction.

Pinsonnault writes that Quebec cannot resort to a euphemism to skirt criminal law. “It must be concluded at this stage that ‘medical aid in dying,’ in the present context, corresponds prima facie to the euthanasia of a human being at his express request,” he writes, “or in other words, assistance with suicide necessarily through the intervention of another person.” Whatever the act is called, it is not currently permitted under the Criminal Code. “Adding the word ‘medical’ to the expression ‘aid in dying’ is alone not enough to protect provincial legislation that is incompatible with federal criminal legislation.”

Hamilton then quotes Québec Justice Minister Stephanie Vallee, who disagreed:

“In the judgment, a much too narrow parallel is made with euthanasia. Medical aid in dying is health care; it is part of a continuum of care.”

EPC will intervene at the Court of Appeal in this case. We will urge the Court to employ the same clear thinking as Justice Pinsonnault did in his Superior Court decision.
Editor’s note. This appeared at alexschadenberg.blogspot.com and is reprinted with permission.

Source: NRLC News