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FULL TITLE: Autism breakthrough as 'genetic signature' in babies as young as a year found; blood test in the works A GENETIC "signature" of autism in babies as young as 12 months has been identified for the first time, an international conference is to be told. A simple blood test is now being developed and may be available in one to two years, Professor Eric Courchesne will tell the Asia Pacific Autism conference in Adelaide today. "This discovery really changes the landscape of our understanding of causes and effective treatments," says the director of the Autism Centre of Excellence at...

(CNSNews.com) - In Texas, where the state House today approved a bill that would prohibit abortion after the 20th week of pregnancy, 63 percent of the babies aborted in the most recent year on record were black or Hispanic, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In fact, the black and Hispanic babies aborted in Texas in the latest year on record exceeded the entire population of the city of Galveston. Each year, the CDC publishes an “Abortion Surveillance” report. The most recent report, published on Nov. 23, 2012, presents abortion data for calendar year 2009. For...

LAWRENCEVILLE, Va. (WTVR) – More than 15 years after the bodies of two newborn babies were discovered in a Virginia college dorm, a woman has been arrested for their murders, police confirmed to CBS 6 senior reporter Wayne Covil. Police arrested Darnesha Paulita Berry, 35, Tuesday at her Henrico workplace. Lawrenceville Police Chief Everette Gibson said investigators believe the woman, a Henrico resident, was the mother of the slain babies.

The first baby with three parents could be born as early as 2015 after a landmark decision to move ahead on a controversial genetic treatment. Britain could become the first country to sanction the creation of babies with three genetic parents, despite fears it might lead to ‘designer babies’. The Government will publish draft regulations later this year that will bring techniques a step closer to giving women affected by devastating hereditary diseases the chance to have healthy children. The techniques involve replacing defective DNA in the mother’s egg with material from a donor egg. The resulting healthy child would...

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Maybe the problem is that the topic has something to do with sex. Fertility is always about sex, although sex is not always about fertility. Maybe that’s what makes everyone so tense when demographics is raised as a possible factor in the economic woes of the nation. Or maybe it’s not sex at all: perhaps there’s something else which keeps economists and financial analysts (except for a small number of specialists) from talking about population issues when they look at economic growth and investment risk levels. After all, we don’t seem reticent about sexually-related topics the rest of the...

* * * * The sounds of liberal and conservative names varied, too. For both boys and girls, liberals tended to pick more feminine-sounding choices, such as Liam, Ely and Leila names that include lots of L sounds and soft-A endings, including popular choices Ella and Sophia. Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to pick names with more masculine-sounding Ks, Bs, Ds and Ts, such as Kurt. A couple of famous national political families demonstrate that pattern, Oliver said: The liberal Obamas named their daughters Sasha and Malia, both names heavy on As and Ls, whereas the conservative Palin family...

Bono, Olivia Wilde and Richard Branson join Matt Damon's "toilet strike" What is the latest celebrity accessory trend? Diapers. In a humorous, but fact-filled PSA, Olivia Wilde, Bono and Richard Branson announce they are joining Matt Damon's toilet strike to raise awareness about the global water crisis. In the definition of promises they can't keep (but it's the sentiment that counts), the three celebs pledge, "We won't go to the bathroom until everyone in the world has access to clean water and sanitation." "I remember when Matt first brought up the idea, it was at a meeting of the illuminati,"...

This week the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals this week struck down Arizona’s law prohibiting abortion at or after 20 weeks of pregnancy – a law that was based on uncontroverted medical evidence that abortion’s risks to maternal health increase dramatically at 20 weeks gestation. It is universally accepted that risks to maternal health from abortion increase as pregnancy progresses. There is no debate on that fact, and peer-reviewed evidence utilized by the Arizona Legislature demonstrated that abortion imposes significant risks of harm beginning at 20 weeks gestation. In fact, in his concurring opinion in this case, Isaacson v. Horne,...

A pro-life Catholic group will hold a memorial service tomorrow to give names to the babies killed via late-term abortions and infanticides at the Kermit Gosnell abortion clinic. Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, told LifeNews today about his plans. As he mentions, he has requested the actual bodies of the babies victimized in the abortion-infanticides at Gosnell and his staff’s hands. “As we await the verdict in the trial of Kermit Gosnell, Priests for Life, which has requested from the Medical Examiner the bodies of the babies retrieved from Gosnell’s clinic so that a funeral and...

At 11:15am or so today, May 2, 2013, I tuned into the WV Statewide Talkline hosted by Hoppy Kercheval. A woman, identified later as being from the state ASPCA, was talking about the tragedy of ten bodies of what appeared to be pit bull puppies being found in a bag along the highway. They were in advanced stages of decomposition. The cause of death was not apparent. She spoke of an official investigation into the whys and wherefores of their deaths. She stated that the bodies had been sent to a Virginia university for necropsy to be performed on each...

When confronted with extravagant, Gosnell-like, Boston-like evil, we should pray that the perpetrators of evil would feel the sword of God’s justice. We should also pray that the wicked men and women involved would experience the incredible, life-changing, sin-forgiving mercy of God.

L.A. County Cites 16 ‘Maternity Hotels’ Serving Asian Visitors LA Times reports the following: Following a flurry of complaints, Los Angeles County inspectors have cited 16 “maternity hotel” owners for illegally operating boardinghouses in residential zones.No major health or safety issues were found at the hotels, where women from Asia stay to give birth to U.S. citizen babies. But some of the facilities, which were in Rowland Heights or Hacienda Heights, were cited for building and fire code violations, according to a report released Thursday.

In the message he issued along with his budget proposal on Wednesday morning, President Barack Obama said he wants to see 4-year-old children in the United States enrolled in public schools. Obama said America needs to start enrolling 4-year-olds to make sure the children are “better prepared for the demands of the global economy” and to help parents save on "child-care costs." After saying the United States needs to “equip our citizens with the skills and training” to fill jobs in manufacturing,energy and infrastructure,Obama said,“And that has to start at the earliest possible age.”

Our major public policies are based on the assumption that America will continue to enjoy growth. Economic growth and population growth. Through most of our history, this assumption has proved to be correct. These days, not so much. Last week, the Commerce Department announced that the gross domestic product shrunk by 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012. And the Census Bureau reported that the U.S. birth rate in 2011 was 63.2 per 1,000 women age 15 to 44, the lowest ever recorded. Slow economic growth and low population growth threaten to undermine entitlement programs like Social Security and...

It is one of life's great mysteries that so many liberal people are so callous when it comes to aborting fetuses. I mean, the Democratic convention last summer was almost a pro-abortion pep rally, as a variety of pro-choice speakers, including the self-proclaimed "Catholic woman" Caroline Kennedy, knelt at the altar of "reproductive rights." Recently, another woman who calls herself a Catholic, Mary Elizabeth Williams, wrote a shocking article for Salon. Entitled "So What if Abortion Ends Life?" Williams starkly states: "I believe that life starts at conception. And it's never stopped me from being pro-choice." In the body...

Is the pro-abortion left beginning to have second thoughts? Could that be the impulse behind a campaign being conducted by Chicago NPR affiliate WBEZ?  Anne Sorock of Legal Insurrection highlights the curious appearance of this Facebook-based ad:One of the principal features of life in the richest countries is the collapse of natality. Simply put, when people get rich, they tend to focus on themselves, and lose interest in having babies, which are expensive, and require a focus on something other than personal pleasure. The ready availability of contraception and abortion certainly keeps birthrates down, and the rising numbers of...

The Obamacare legislation contains no safeguards to stop taxpayer funding of abortions or abortion businesses. Now, a Pennsylvania hospital has indicated it will stop delivering babies thanks to Obamacare. The Obamacare law is causing physicians to cut the number of patients they see or leave their practices entirely — resulting in problems like this one. As AP reports: A southwestern Pennsylvania hospital will stop delivering babies after March 31 because its obstetricians are either leaving or refocusing their practices, and because hospital officials believe they can’t afford it based on projected reimbursements under looming federal health care reforms. The Windber...

An Australian toddler had a lucky escape after being attacked by a python which wrapped itself around the sleeping child's arm and then began constricting and biting the infant. Snake handler Tex Tillis said the two-year-old girl's mother woke at 3:00 am on Saturday to find the 1.85 metre (six foot) reptile attached to her child as they lay in bed in Lismore, about 600 kilometres (370 miles) north of Sydney. "She saw three coils of what looked like a snake around her baby's arm. She naturally freaked, but with presence of mind... she went for what she thought was...

Here are twelve comical but true resolutions that every liberal should make for 2013: 1.) Resolve to spend time with gun-owners. I have a liberal friend who says she would rather be in the same room as a cobra snake than a gun, even an unloaded gun. Guns really, really scare her. But guns don’t kill. People kill. Whether the tool is a gun or a knife or a baseball bat, unconscionable people kill, not the inanimate objects in their hands. Banning all tools and machinery will not turn bad people into good people. Doing so would make us more...

FERTILITY IN AMERICA has been declining for years. According to the Pew Research Center, the nation's birth rate hit an all-time low in 2011 – just 63 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age. It was almost twice as high – 123 births per 1,000 women – at the peak of the Baby Boom in 1957. As babies and children disappear from a society, what takes their place? One answer, as journalist Jonathan V. Last observes in a forthcoming book, "What to Expect When No One's Expecting," is pets. In surveys taken from the 1940s to the 1980s, fewer...

The old adage "be careful what you wish for" is an apt reminder in light of this week's news that the U.S. birthrate has dropped to its lowest level on record. For years, population hysterics have tried to convince Americans to aim not just for zero population growth in the U.S. but its complete reversal. Many of the groups pushing this view have also been in the forefront of the anti-immigration movement -- NumbersUSA, Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and Negative Population Growth (NPG). They don't like immigrants -- even legal ones -- because immigrants, especially Hispanic immigrants, traditionally...

Sick children are being discharged from NHS hospitals to die at home or in hospices on controversial ‘death pathways’. Until now, end of life regime the Liverpool Care Pathway was thought to have involved only elderly and terminally-ill adults. But the Mail can reveal the practice of withdrawing food and fluid by tube is being used on young patients as well as severely disabled newborn babies.

... While some researchers have suggested that fetuses yawn, others have disagreed and claim it is simple mouth opening. But the new research clearly distinguished 'yawning' from 'non-yawn mouth opening' based on the duration of mouth opening. The researchers did this by using the 4D video footage to closely examine all events where a mouth stretch occurred in the fetus. Using their newly developed criteria, the research team found that over half of the mouth openings observed in the study were classed as yawns. The study was carried out on eight female and seven male fetuses from 24 to 36...

Cleaning out papers, I found this that I had written and distributed without effect during the Clinton years. It was a 'back to the future' moment re-reading it today. "A group of people are bonded by a love of this country, gratitude and respect for those who have served to protect it, and concern for its future. Many of us were silent during the 1960's when revolution overtook America. We basked in freedoms bought by strangers, neighbors, and loved ones. We are the WAR BABIES. Born and raised in an atmosphere of trust that powers-that-be more or less kept everybody's...

A Pro-Life protester totally hijacked Barack Obama’s rally in Cincinnati on Sunday. The heckler pulled out an abortion poster and started screaming for several minutes until the police came in and dragged him out.

“When a wise man has a controversy with a foolish man, the foolish man either rages or laughs, and there is no rest.” —Proverbs 29:9 I was going to title this column, “How Not to Be a Smarmy, Bellicose, Horse-Toothed Dork Like Biden.” However, upon deeper contemplation I thought I’d direct it toward parents as an attempt to save the next generation from the insufferable effects of the boorish Biden bug. To call Biden an ass-clown after last Thursday’s debate with Rep. Paul Ryan is to insult bottoms, donkeys and Bozos far and wide. I’m surprised Joe didn’t fart loudly...

OSAKA — Explosions at a chemical plant in Hyogo Prefecture on Saturday killed a firefighter and injured dozens of people, the Japan Times reported, citing local fire department and police officials said. Global production of diapers could be affected because the plant made a key ingredient in a resin used in them, Japanese media reported. A fire broke out about 2 p.m. after an abnormal chemical reaction at Nippon Shokubai Co.'s plant in Himeji, the Japan Times said. The first explosion occurred about 2:40 p.m. as firefighters were spraying an acrylic acid tank with water, and the second followed shortly...

A Carthaginian burial site was not for child sacrifice but was instead a graveyard for babies and fetuses, researchers now say. A new study of the ancient North African site offers the latest volley in a debate over the primary purpose of the graveyard, long thought to be a place of sacred sacrifice. "It's all very great, cinematic stuff, but whether that was a constant daily activity ― I think our analysis contradicts that," said study co-author Jeffrey Schwartz of the University of Pittsburgh....

Hi Folks! Just read about this warning regarding Bumbo Seats — little seats that look even safer than normal seats because there’s a big, hmmm, I guess “bumbo” in front of the crotch, wedging the child in. (See below.) About 4 million — that’s 4,000,000 — have been sold. And now they are being recalled for retooling — basically adding a safety belt — after reports of 2 baby skull fractures. (Two, that is, while the seat was on the ground. Another 19 occurred when the seat was on a raised surface and presumably the child fell out or off.)Now,...

Americans witnessed a remarkable drama this week when some of our most exalted politicians frantically scrambled to reassure voters that they, too, believed that the United States ought to permit the deliberate killing of at least some innocent human beings. They apparently did so to persuade the public they are caring, compassionate and -- above all -- reasonable people. The drama started when Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican nominee in the U.S. Senate race in Missouri, expressed his view that no innocent human being ought to be deliberately killed. However, that was not the only thing Akin expressed. "What about...

An experiment five years ago suggested that babies are equipped with an innate moral compass, which drives them to choose good individuals over the bad in a wooden puppet show. But new research casts doubt on those findings, demonstrating that a baby's apparent preference for what's right might just reflect a fondness for bouncy things. The researchers who conducted the original study stand by their results and interpretations, pointing to some discrepancies in the new study. In the original study, conducted by Yale researchers in 2007, groups of 6-month-olds and 10-month-olds watched a puppet show with neutral wooden figures, where...

Members of Operation Save America, a Texas-based anti-abortion group, have posted online video of Virmani challenging protestors to “adopt one of those ugly black babies” and get them “off the taxpayers’ money.”

A woman has been hailed a hero after details of her astonishing work with abandoned children has emerged. Lou Xiaoying, now 88 and suffering from kidney failure, found and raised more than 30 abandoned Chinese babies from the streets of Jinhua, in the eastern Zhejiang province where she managed to make a living by recycling rubbish. She and her late husband Li Zin, who died 17 years ago, kept four of the children and passed the others onto friends and family to start new lives. Her youngest son Zhang Qilin - now aged just seven - was found in a...

Go vote for a well deserved family who submitted the best looking shot of their grandchild on "Disney Baby". Voting ends tomorrow at 11am, and I wanted to lend a hand.

Naydeline Blanco made history this morning as the first baby delivered in the new Marian Regional Medical Center. The hospital opened to emergency room patients at 7 a.m., and Marian staff and volunteers began moving patients from the old hospital into the new facility at 8 a.m. The little girl was born at 10:50 a.m. in one of the hospital’s labor and delivery rooms on the third floor, according to Marian spokesperson Jessa Brooks. Her mother, Elva Blanco, was visiting the area from Mexico when she went into labor, according to Brooks.

A lot of weight rides on the name you choose for your kid. And every year when the Social Security office releases the data on the most popular baby names, parents get upset. As a Michele who faced the extreme popularity of my name way back when, I'm here to tell you that if your child's name is on this list, it's going to be just fine. In fact, take pride in knowing your baby name choice won't be ridiculed.

WROCLAW, Poland, March 13, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Polish woman endured 75 days of labor lying in a nearly upside down position to save the lives of her two premature babies after the first of three triplets was born prematurely and died. Joanna Krzysztonek was pregnant with triplets when she went into labour at 21 weeks. Her first baby was born prematurely and did not survive. Dr. Mariusz Zimmer, head of the Wroclaw obstetrics and neo-natal clinic where Krzysztonek gave birth, intervened with medication to stop contractions and told the expectant mother that the babies might be saved if she...

On Tuesday night, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) appeared on GBTV’s 'Real News From The Blaze' to attack government mandated insurance coverage for contraception, which she claimed could lead to the "health care dictator" limiting the number of babies born per family. Rep. Bachmann said: “Going with that logic, it isn’t far-fetched to think the President of the United States could say…we need to save health care expenses…the federal government will only pay for one baby to be born in the hospital per family. Or two babies to be born per family. That could happen.”

Frightening images of babies as young as two weeks old being flung around a therapist's head have shocked millions around the world. And now the Russian woman filmed spinning the babies by their wrists and ankles has confirmed she hopes to bring the practice to the UK. Lena Fokina can be seen flipping a baby over her head in her bizarre 'baby yoga' routine which has been banned from a number of websites for fear that it glorifies child abuse. Many viewers believed the moves must have been performed on dolls but the 51-year-old says they are definitely real babies...

The IL General Assembly destroys audiotapes of its floor debates after transcripts have been written. That is why there is precious little audio, if any, of Barack Obama as state senator making any speeches. But a pro-life sleuth has found a short audio clip on the Chicago Tribune website of Obama arguing on the IL Senate floor on April 4, 2002, against Senate Bill B1663, a companion bill to the Born Alive Infants Protection Act that would have required an abortionist to call a second physician to assess a baby aborted alive.

Savannah Aulger will never have snapshots with her father on her first birthday, on Christmas or at a school event. The only picture she will ever have of them is the one as sweet as it is heartbreaking. Hooked up to an oxygen mask at the hospital, the man she would call dad cradled her in his arms for 45 minutes...

The White House struggled Wednesday to contain the growing uproar over its birth-control mandate, with Democrats peeling off one by one in what has become an increasingly divisive election-year controversy. Still, one senior Democratic aide said the plan has put some lawmakers in an “awkward position.” “A lot of Democrats just don’t want to talk about it and be in the position of defending it,” the aide said. “It’s horrible timing.”

HANNIBAL, Missouri, February 3, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Criminals say that the most difficult part of a murder is what to do with the body. This was apparently true for an abortionist who operated a clandestine abortion facility from his home more than 60 years ago in the small town of Hannibal, Missouri. Contractors recently hired to renovate the old home discovered in the basement the remains of two tiny babies floating in a preservative solution inside two dusty jars with screw-on lids. “I know they did medical procedures and stuff,” said the property’s owner William C. Neff to Connecttristates.com. “I...

Last week, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray announced his latest and greatest plan to solve D.C.’s crisis in education: the D.C schools will extend their reach in 2012, offering “early childhood education” to children as young as 6 months of age. The mayor believes that D.C. babies and toddlers will experience educational success only if school system employees--or subcontractors--are around to prod their intellectual growth. After all, what could be more crucial to a baby’s development than a specially assigned bureaucrat, right? It’s preposterous. Even from an educational perspective, the proposal lacks credibility. The D.C. public schools are among the worst...

According to recent population reports, birth rates among Israel’s Jews are on the rise while those of Arab citizens are in decline. According to Israel's Interior Minister the last decade has seen the Jewish birth rate in Israel rise by nearly 20 percent. Muslim and Christian birth rates over the last decade have fallen by 5 percent and 10 percent, respectively. The findings, from the Interior Ministry’s Population and Immigration Authority, offset widespread concerns that Israel’s 80 percent Jewish majority is threatened by population growth among Israeli Arabs - and residents of Palestinian Authority administered enclaves in Judea and Samaria....

MILTON WVA---The Centers for Disease Control has released some startling statistics about teen pregnancy in West Virginia. The number of 15 to 17 year old girls giving birth in the state is up 17 percent. West Virginia is the only state with that kind of spike. Teen mother Julie Akers is raising two children. She was a sophomore in high school when she first got pregnant. She says it wasn't easy to grow up fast and she wants other teens to know about the realities of being a young mom. "It was every day just getting up, making bottles, changing...

This FaithIssues video shows the exponential population growth of human beings from a biblical perspective. The bible says in the book of Daniel that in the last days man will travel to and fro and knowledge will increase. And along with that has been a huge population increase. Enjoy this video and share it with your friends. Thank you. Faith Issues Link to video: http://www.youtu.be/KlNYwsAQYzQ

Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar had an announcement to make on The Today Show this morning, which is that Michelle was pregnant with their 20th baby. I found myself getting prickly on their behalf watching the response and somewhat annoying questions by Ann Curry… What a witness this couple and family are. I just love them. See what I mean by this clip posted at People. And this clip just up on the TLC website… “We are so excited,” says Michelle, 45, who is now about 3-1/2 months into her pregnancy and due in April. “I feel good. I am...

508 Babies Saved From Abortion as 40 Days for Life Closes Another 40 Days for Life campaign has come to an end — and we can look back now at lives FOREVER CHANGED. During these 40 days, there have been 508 lives saved — that we know of — because of God’s response to your prayer! http://www.lifenews.com/2011/11/07/508-babies-saved-from-abortion-as-40-days-for-life-closes/