Free Republic

Paulette Harlow, age 75, was sentenced in a Washington, D.C. federal court on the afternoon of May 31 in relation to her participation in an October 2020 rescue action at the Washington Surgi-Clinic abortion facility, run by notorious abortionist Cesare Santangelo. Unlike her co-defendants — Lauren Handy, John Hinshaw, William Goodman, Jonathan Darnel, Herb Geraghty, Jean Marshall, Joan Bell, and Heather Idoni — who were immediately incarcerated following their convictions, Harlow has been on house arrest due to ill health following her November 2023 conviction of so-called “conspiracy against rights” and FACE Act violations. In spite of Harlow’s poor health,...

Tennessee governor Bill Lee signed a bill Tuesday making it illegal for non-parental adults to transport minors to another state for abortion without the knowledge or permission of the minor’s parents. HB 1895 specifies that anyone who “intentionally recruits, harbors, or transports” a minor to another state for an abortion without parental consent will be subject to a Class A misdemeanor, which comes with mandatory jail time of nearly a year. Currently, nearly all preborn children in the state are protected from abortion. Abortion proponents have spoken out with claims that the bill — which is in place to protect...

John Mannion, a New York state senator, is currently running for congressional office. And in a new campaign ad, he made an incredible claim about his mother allegedly being forced to carry a stillborn baby for two months prior to Roe v. Wade. In the ad, titled “Mother,” Mannion spoke about a tragic stillbirth his mother experienced in the 1960s. “Before she passed away, my mother shared her most painful memory,” Mannion said in the ad. “See, before I was born, she lost her pregnancy at seven months. That was before Roe v. Wade. So, she was forced to carry...

CV NEWS FEED // Many residents of a southeast Kansas city have been left “shocked and saddened” after learning there is legally nothing they can do to stop a Planned Parenthood clinic from opening in their area. According to an email from the Kansas Conference of Catholic Bishops, over 350 residents of areas around Pittsburg, Kansas from different religious denominations recently met to discuss the abortion clinic, which is set to open this fall. Chuck Weber, executive director of the Kansas Catholic Conference, said that “legally speaking, there is not much that can be done” in terms of stopping the...

CV NEWS FEED // After sentencing 75-year-old Paulette Harlow to two years in jail, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly quipped about the elderly pro-lifer’s husband’s concern that she might die in prison. Kollar-Kotelly commented that she hopes Harlow will “make an effort to remain alive” because that is a “tenet of [Harlow’s] religion,” according to LiveAction. On May 31, in a federal Washington, D.C. court, Kollar-Kotelly sentenced Harlow to two years in jail and 36 months of supervised release for protesting at a notorious late-term abortion clinic in Washington, D.C. with eight others. John Harlow, Paulette’s husband, spoke in court before the...

A video of an angry pro-abortion woman attacking a pro-life advocate has gone viral, racking up millions of views on X (formerly known as Twitter). The full encounter was posted on YouTube; in it, a woman stops two pro-life activists — one, a man, holding a sign, and the other, a woman, filming him — and asks if he knows there are people getting air-lifted into Oregon from Idaho for “life-saving” abortions, arguing that “any day now” a woman is going to bleed out in a helicopter due to Idaho’s pro-life laws protecting preborn children from abortion. The woman, who...

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted from May 7-14 asked 3,934 Americans numerous questions, including questions regarding their views about abortion. In its findings, Reuters reported that most respondents believe abortion should be legal in “all or most cases” (57%). But what, exactly, does the open and broad “all or most cases” phrase mean? It seems perhaps even poll respondents don’t know, because follow-up questions stunningly revealed that even when people state that they support abortion in most cases, they actually support limited access to abortion. “Most cases”? The poll first asked respondents broad questions regarding abortion before asking them more...

Fear and pressure lead many parents to abort disabled children Kevin was 48 years old, married for more than 20 years, and the father of two teenage boys. His life would forever change when his wife informed him of an unexpected pregnancy. Kevin shares, “At first it was a shock, but soon I was bragging about becoming a new father at my advanced age.” At a prenatal appointment later in the pregnancy, the doctor noticed they had never taken the test for Down syndrome. After testing, their son was diagnosed with the chromosomal disorder. The doctor suggested abortion. Tragically, this...

One of Joe Biden’s judicial nominees doesn’t understand basic science that most children learn in Middle School. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn was unable to answer a simple question about the basic scientific fact that chromosomes determine the sex of a human being at conception. Bidne nominated Netburn to serve as a federal judge for the Southern District of New York. “Is it possible to determine a person’s sex by only analyzing their chromosomes?” pro-life South Carolina Lindsey Graham asked. “I have never studied biology and therefore I am unqualified to answer this question,” Judge Netburn said. As The Washington Times...

Ever since the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, many states have been moving to enact restrictions on abortions with varying degrees of success. In nearly though not all of these states, exceptions are made for a variety of reasons dealing with cases of rape or incest, risks to the life of the mother, or fetal abnormalities making a fruitful pregnancy unlikely. The rest of the abortions that take place without falling into any of those categories are frequently described as procedures being used as a form of birth control. With these new restrictions coming online,...

Attorney General Merrick Garland spent some time Capitol Hill on Tuesday, sparring with Republicans who, once again, were expressing their extreme displeasure with the way he does business but not really doing anything about it. Welcome to the United States of America's never-ending nervous breakdown. Garland took umbrage with any suggestions that his Department of Justice has morphed into a vindictive goon squad that is motivated by exacting punishment upon the American Left's political enemies. Gosh, wherever would we get an idea like that? There's enough stink in the Garland DOJ to be smelled at the International Space Station. His...

... Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said that free contraception will now be available for women aged 17 to 35. The Free Contraception Scheme was first introduced in 2022 from 17-25-year-olds, and was extended last year. The scheme provides for the cost of prescription contraception, including the cost of consultations with medical professionals and fitting and/or removal of various types of contraceptives. The range of contraceptive options currently available include contraceptive injections, implants, IUS and IUDs (coils), the contraceptive patch and ring and various forms of oral contraceptive pill, including emergency contraception. The Government said that the extension is supported by...

Former and potentially future President Donald Trump was found "guilty" last Thursday on 34 felony counts in a hush money "trial." It's not just Trump they're going after, though with a weaponized and politicized justice system. As we've been covering, President Joe Biden's Department of Justice (DOJ) has been quite eager to prosecute prayerful pro-life activists using the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, including an elderly grandfather. Since then, more grandparents have been sentenced, including grandmothers in poor health. Late last month, 59-year-old Heather Idoni was sentenced to 24 years in prison. She's already been incarcerated for...

A final pro-life activist was sentenced on Friday to years in prison for protesting at an abortion clinic infamous for late-term abortions in Washington, DC. Paulette Harlow, 75, was sentenced to 24 months in prison for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and “conspiracy against rights” for the 2020 protest at the Washington Surgi-Clinic, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ). She is the ninth and final activist to be sentenced within the past few weeks for the protest. Unlike her co-defendants — who sat in jail for months awaiting sentencing — Harlow has been on...

Two newborn babies have been surrendered to a Safe Haven Baby Box in Hobbs, New Mexico, since its installation last year, officials announced. A newborn baby boy was placed in a baby box at a Hobbs fire station last week, and first responders quickly found the baby “safe and sound,” KOB4 reported on Friday, quoting city officials. First responders promptly transported the baby to Covenant Health Hobbs Hospital for evaluation, according to the report. The child is now in the custody of the Children, Youth, and Families Department. Baby boxes were created to deter parents from abandoning their newborns in...

A Massachusetts man has been accused of tricking his ex-girlfriend into taking abortion pills before she suffered a miscarriage. Robert Kawada, 43, allegedly pressured the unnamed woman into taking the abortion pills over several weeks, telling her they contained iron and other vitamins. Watertown Police said the former couple met on a dating app in January and dated until Kawada ended the relationship in early March, as reported by NBC Boston. The alleged victim learned she was pregnant after the two broke up, according to court documents, and that's when Kawada obtained the abortion pills, including misoprostol, a prescription drug...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a new interview criticized her fellow Democrats for their response to the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, arguing they could have “done more.” “We didn’t take it seriously, and we didn’t understand the threat,” Clinton said in an interview with The New York Times, published Saturday. “Most Democrats, most Americans, did not realize we are in an existential struggle for the future of this country.” “We could have done more to fight,” she added. (snip) The former presidential nominee also slammed the conservative justices on the high court who handed down...

In most states with legal abortion, pregnant people can abort for any reason they choose. In some states, this extends all the way through pregnancy, including in the ninth month. (Elective abortions that late may be very rare, but they are legally allowed.) I think that most people who abort genuinely struggle with the decision, and many are facing hard circumstances. Many feel their problems are insurmountable, and abortion is their only choice. Sometimes they are being pressured, some have been abandoned by family, friends, and the baby’s father, others are struggling financially and can’t imagine how to support another...

An abortion advocacy group has released a report claiming that the number of abortions in the United States has increased since Roe v. Wade was overturned. A pro-life researcher, however, believes the data might be wrong. The Society of Family Planning's latest #WeCount report, released earlier this month, estimates that, despite restrictions in some states, there were, on average, 86,000 abortions performed per month in the U.S. in 2023, exceeding levels reported before the June 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling Dobbs v. Jackson, which overturned Roe. SFP started its #WeCount effort to assess the number of monthly abortions by state...

The Texas Supreme Court is considering whether or not to take up the case of Caroline Antoun who is seeking personhood for her frozen embryos. The embryos are currently the property of Antoun’s ex-husband, Gaby Antoun, as the IVF contract had stated he would get custody in the event of a divorce. Antoun, however, is asking that the embryos be considered persons and placed in her custody. The former couple had welcomed twins through IVF and kept three remaining embryos frozen. Antoun said she did not fully understand the gravity of the contract she had signed regarding embryo custody and...