Tag Archives: Life News

Good News For All Americans

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A friend of mine used to refer to the ACLU as the Anti-Christian Lawyers Union. At times it did not seem as if she was far off target.

On October 2, Life News reported on a lawsuit brought by the ACLU in South Carolina to prevent the state from working with religious organization in its foster care program.

The article reports:

A federal court on Friday upheld South Carolina’s decision to do the right thing: continue partnering with faith-based foster care ministries that provide loving homes for children. In Rogers v. Health and Human Services and Maddonna v. Health and Human Services, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Americans United for Separation of Church and State sued Governor Henry McMaster to try to stop the state from working with religious foster agencies.

On Friday, a federal court shut down these attempts to shutter faith-based foster care, rejecting challenges to South Carolina’s efforts to protect children in foster care and the families who serve them. These decisions will make it easier for all foster families in South Carolina to find an agency that meets their unique needs and for more foster children to find loving homes.

“These two rulings from the U.S. District Court represent significant wins for religious liberty and South Carolina’s faith-based organizations like Miracle Hill, which will be able to continue their crucial mission of connecting children in foster care with loving homes,” said Governor Henry McMaster. “These victories will directly benefit countless children by further ensuring that faith-based organizations will not be forced to abandon their beliefs to help provide critical services to our state’s youth.”

South Carolina works directly with families seeking to foster and adopt children in crisis situations, serving children and families from all backgrounds. The state also partners with an array of private agencies that help find and support more families for foster children who need a safe place to live. Governor McMaster issued an executive order protecting the religious freedom of foster agencies in South Carolina. However, the ACLU recruited individuals to sue South Carolina over the inclusion of a single faith-based agency, Miracle Hill. Rather than reach out to any other organization or to the South Carolina Department of Social Services, the plaintiffs went straight to federal court.

Our Founding Fathers strove to insure our right to practice our religion faithfully without government interference. The ruling in this case supports this right. It also helps provide children a safe place to live.

Ghoulish Laws

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On Wednesday, Life News reported that the Democrats in the Maine Senate rejected an amendment to an abortion law that would have banned the sale of aborted baby body parts.

The article reports:

The Democrat-controlled Maine Senate rejected an amendment to a late-term abortion bill Tuesday that would have prohibited the sales and trafficking of aborted baby body parts.

The Maine Wire reports state Sen. Eric Brakey, R-Androscoggin, introduced the amendment as legislation to allow abortions through all nine months of pregnancy appears poised to pass.

The bill, LD 1619, sponsored by Gov. Janet Mills, a pro-abortion Democrat, would legalize abortions up to birth for any reason an abortionist deems “necessary.” Currently, abortions are prohibited after 24 weeks.

“If this legislation to legalize abortion up to the point of birth is to go into law, the least we can do is to establish this moratorium on the trafficking of fetal body parts so that the legislature can thoughtfully consider this issue in the coming years and develop more permanent policy,” Brakey said prior to the vote.

However, the state Senate rejected his proposal in a 23-11 vote, with state Sen. Rick Bennett, R-Oxford, joining Democrats in voting to kill the amendment. However, Bennett did vote against the bill itself.

The article concludes:

Pro-abortion Democrats control the state legislature, and the bill is expected to pass this week.

Polls consistently show strong public opposition to late-term abortions. The vast majority of Americans recognize that babies in the womb should be protected, at the very least, once they are viable.

Karen Vachon, executive director of Maine Right to Life, said the governor is returning a favor to the Planned Parenthood abortion chain, which “spent millions buying elections in Maine and around the country.”

“Pro-abortion leaders have lied repeatedly about their true intention,” Vachon said. “During the campaign in 2022, they were content with the law the way it was. In January, they announced they would propose a narrow expansion to address specific instances of tragic fetal disease and debilitation. Now they’ve moved the goal post once again, proposing abortion on demand, with no limitations to the point of birth.”

Research about late-term abortions shows that viable unborn babies are aborted for elective reasons in states where it is legal. Medical groups representing tens of thousands of doctors say late-term abortions that kill viable unborn babies are never medically necessary.

I can’t imagine voting not only to kill a baby up until the point of birth, but to vote also to sell the parts of the aborted baby for profit.

A Positive Update

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On May 5, I posted an article about the federal government’s attack on Saint Francis Health System, the 12th-largest hospital in the U.S. (article here) The government was threatening to strip the hospital of federal funding unless the hospital extinguished a candle that represents the presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty came to the rescue of the hospital, sending a letter to the Biden administration warning that the government’s threat was unconstitutional. Well, the letter did its job.

On May 5, Red State reported the following:

The Department of Health and Humans Services has folded on its demand that Catholic hospitals in Tulsa-based St. Francis Healthcare System extinguish the Eternal Flame candle burning it is chapel Confronted with a lawsuit that it was doomed to lose over an indefensible position contrary to law, HHS’s Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services agreed to grant a waiver to the bizarre inspection finding that concluded that a single beeswax candle on a wall sconce enclosed in glass constituted a fire hazard to patients.

…Because the hospital is Catholic, it has a chapel. The chapel has a candle that burns 24-hours a day. Under Canon Law, the candle has to meet certain specifications (like 50% beeswax). It can’t be replaced with a light bulb or an emoji. Whether the inspector had a hard-on for Catholics or he’d been told to f*** with the “mackerel snappers” is a matter of speculation. But the inspector made a beeline for the chapel and cited the hospital for a fire code violation even though the candle had been in the same place since 1960 without complain or conflagration.

On May 5, LifeNews reported:

“The game was simply not worth the candle for HHS,” Lori Windham, vice president and senior counsel at Becket, the religious freedom law firm representing the hospital, told The Daily Signal in a written statement Friday. “It realized it would be playing with fire in court if it stood by its absurd demand, so it chose wisely. We are glad Saint Francis’s can continue to serve those most in need while keeping the faith.”

Under the Biden administration (and previously under the Obama administration), the government has constantly put pressure on religious freedom. First Amendment rights have been challenged and matters of conscience have been challenged. If we are to remain free to practice whatever religion we choose in America, we are going to have to remain vigilant–the attacks on religious freedom will continue under the present administration.

 

 

A Sobering Thought

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Yesterday The Daily Caller reported:

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a bill Tuesday night, expanding abortion access and codifying a woman’s right to abort under state law.

Cuomo, a Democrat, signed the Reproductive Health Act on the 46th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, making good on his promise to add abortion protections to the state constitution, according to the New York Post.

Roe v. Wade gave women the constitutional right to an abortion under the 14th Amendment on Jan. 22, 1973. The ruling extended the right to abort up to the point of fetal “viability,” a slippery term that continues to foster debate as neonatal care advances.

The bill codified a woman’s right to abort under state law and removes abortion from New York’s criminal code.

The bill will also allow women to have abortions after 24 weeks in cases where “there is an absence of fetal viability, or at any time when necessary to protect a patient’s life or health,” according to the legislation. Nurse practitioners, physicians’ assistants and qualified health care professionals can provide abortions under the legislation.

Meanwhile, CNS News reported:

Last Thursday, Jan. 17, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stated that undercover video footage filmed by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), which showed Planned Parenthood employees discussing the sale of tissue from aborted fetuses, was “authentic” and “not deceptively edited.”

The federal appeals court also vacated an injunction by a district court, which had barred the Texas Health and Human Services Commission’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) from terminating Medicaid provider agreements with Planned Parenthood affiliates throughout Texas. The federal appeals court sent the case back to the district court.

…In 2015, the CMP, a pro-life organization, released several hours of undercover video footage that showed employees and doctors from various Planned Parenthood affiliates discussing potential research partnerships with individuals who expressed interest in obtaining body parts of fetuses aborted during the second trimester of pregnancy and paying a handling and shipping fee for those parts.

After the footage was released, the OIG sent Planned Parenthood affiliates a notice of termination of their Medicaid agreements. The OIG argued that the affiliates had violated “accepted medical standards, as reflected in federal and state law,” and were no longer “qualified to provide medical services in a professionally competent, safe, legal and ethical manner.”

The article at CNS News concludes:

CMP founder David Daleiden wrote that the court’s decision “vindicated” the CMP’s “citizen journalism work” by “debunking Planned Parenthood’s smear that the videos were ‘heavily edited’ or ‘doctored.’”

“Now, it is time for the U.S. Department of Justice to do its job and hold Planned Parenthood accountable to the law,” Daleiden added.

Since the videos were released in 2015, Planned Parenthood has claimed CMP’s footage was heavily and deceptively edited. Many mainstream news outlets have reported that the footage was altered or distorted, using, as the basis for these claims, a Fusion GPS report that was commissioned and funded by Planned Parenthood.

It’s amazing how the same names keep coming up.

In April 2016, Life News reported:

On average, Planned Parenthood receives approximately $500 million a year in taxpayer funds, as a GAO report indicated last year.

Theoretically, this money does not pay for abortions.

In September 2018l Live Action reported:

Taxpayer-funded abortion corporation Planned Parenthood has announced its political arms are joining other “progressive” groups to invest an “unprecedented” $30 million to influence who is elected to key state and federal offices in the 2018 midterm elections.

Does anyone else object to the idea that an organization that takes money from the federal government contributes to political campaigns?

 

Respecting The Wishes Of Pro-Life Americans

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On Wednesday, Life News posted an article about some changes the Trump administration has made to ObamaCare health plans.

The article reports:

Today the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a new rule directing insurers selling Obamacare plans that cover elective abortion to collect a separate payment from enrollees for that coverage, as required by law. Under the Obama administration, insurers were allowed to collect these payments together in violation of clear statutory language.

In 2018, taxpayer-funded Obamacare insurance plans in 24 states and the District of Columbia are allowed to cover elective abortion with an embedded abortion surcharge. In 10 of those states more than 85 percent of Obamacare plans cover abortion on demand, including seven states where every single Obamacare plan for individuals and families covers elective abortion.

I don’t want to make abortion illegal–I want it available on the rare occasions it is medically necessary. However, I don’t want to be forced to pay for abortions that take place simply because a child is an inconvenience.

Because the Senate Republicans broke faith with the American people, we still have ObamaCare. Hopefully that will change in the near future.

The article concludes:

National Right to Life President Carol Tobias added, “We applaud President Trump and his administration for enforcing the law and seeking to uphold the principles of the Hyde Amendment to prevent the use of tax dollars to pay for abortion coverage.”

Another leading pro-life group praised the Trump administration for issuing the new rule.

“We thank President Trump and HHS Secretary Azar for enforcing the law and providing much-needed transparency about Obamacare’s abortion coverage,” said SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser, in remarks to LifeNews.

She added: “Obamacare was the largest expansion of taxpayer-funded abortion on demand since Roe. Then, the Obama administration went even further by allowing insurers to ignore the plain language of the law that said an abortion surcharge had to be collected separately. Instead, the Obama administration allowed the “separate” abortion surcharge to be collected along with regular premiums, effectively defining ‘separate’ to mean ‘together.’ Thanks to this trickery, millions of Americans have unwittingly purchased plans without knowing about the hidden abortion surcharge. Consumers deserve to know how Obamacare pays for abortion so they can avoid having their hard-earned dollars used to fund the destruction of innocent lives. Congress must still act to eliminate abortion funding from Obamacare, but until then, the rule issued today is an important step in the right direction.”

The law preventing taxpayers from paying for abortion has been in place for years. Those in Washington need to follow that law.