Free Republic

A pro-life organization is blasting a Switzerland-based cosmetics manufacturer whose website openly admits some of its products were developed from the tissues of an aborted baby. Children of God for Life is a non-profit organization focused on the bioethics of embryonic tissue use in medicine and manufacturing. One of its current campaigns includes petitioning pharmaceutical companies to produce safe, effective alternatives to vaccines derived or cultivated from aborted fetal tissue.

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A coalition of mainline Protestant churches have authored a letter to members of Congress asking them to make certain the health care bills they are considering contain taxpayer funding for abortions. The letter comes from a group of churches that have long advocated the pro-abortion position. Under the umbrella of the Religious Institute, the church denominations and more than 1,100 pastors and church staff from the denominations endorsed the letter. The letter calls abortion a “morally justifiable decision” and opposed any amendments to the House and Senate bills, which current contain massive abortion funding, to strike...

Doctors said I'd had a miscarriage and did nothing as my premature baby fought for his life Like all mothers, Sarah Capewell will never forget the first minutes she spent with her newborn baby. She told her tiny son how much she loved him, gently kissed his face and took photos of him wrapped in the pretty blanket she'd bought for his birth. Then she held him tightly in her arms and watched helplessly as his body grew cold and he finally stopped breathing. Sarah pleaded for help from hospital staff from the moment he was born, but none came....

Bioethicist Jacob Appel can be relied on to promote the most radical bioethics agendas, assisted suicide for the mentally ill, fetal farming, you name it.  And now he has argued that if Montana affirms a constitutional right to assisted suicide in Montana, the state has a duty to make sure that doctors are willing to do the deed.  Why?  Doctors have a monopoly on a limited commodity–the practice of medicine–and hence they should be able to be forced to participate in the taking of patients’ lives in assisted suicide. From his column: However, it [medical license and professional autonomy]...

We gather today to mourn the loss of so many lives, and celebrate those who saved them; honor those who survived, and contemplate the obligations of the living. It is the grimmest of ironies that one of the most savage, barbaric acts of evil in history began in one of the most modernized societies of its time, where so many markers of human progress became tools of human depravity: science that can heal, used to kill; education that can enlighten, used to rationalize away basic moral impulses; the bureaucracy that sustains modern life, used as the machinery of mass death,...

We warned him, for his children's sake, to wash his hands of the innocent blood he assisted in spilling because, as Scripture warns, if "you did not hate bloodshed, bloodshed will pursue you". (Ezekiel 35:6) A news source states that Bud Feldkamp visited the site of the crash with his wife and their two surviving children on Monday. As they stood near the twisted and charred debris talking with investigators, light snow fell on the tarps that covered the remains of their children. I don't want to turn this tragic event into some creepy spiritual 'I told you so' moment,...

Terrorist strikes on four American cities. Russia rolling into Eastern Europe. Israel hit by a nuclear bomb. Gay marriage in every state. The end of the Boy Scouts. All are plausible scenarios if Democrat Barack Obama is elected president, according to a new addition to the campaign conversation called "Letter from 2012 in Obama's America," produced by the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family Action. The imagined look into the future is part of an escalation in rhetoric from Christian right activists who are trying to paint Obama in the worst possible terms as the campaign heads into the...

Catholics for Obama has just launched a web site as the Nov. 4 White House race between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain enters its final laps. Catholics, who account for close to a quarter of the U.S. adult population, comprise a key religious group that both sides have tried to woo. In closely contested swing states such as Ohio or Florida the Catholic vote could make a difference. The web site is sure to stoke controversy in Catholic circles with this statement: “Is Barack Obama really pro-life? The answer is ‘yes.’ Looking through the lens of Catholic Social...

Mary Anne Burke's voice was full of emotion as she left her 31st message of the night, this one for a parishioner of the Church of Immaculate Conception. "I'm a member of Our Lady Help of Christians in Abington," she said, "calling with a request that you support McCain-Palin on one nonnegotiable issue. The issue is life -- life from birth to death. Hopefully, prayerfully, you will consider it." Burke, 76, a volunteer for the Pro-Life Union of Southeastern Pennsylvania, has been an active opponent of abortion rights for three decades, but "it's never been this intense," she said, putting...

The news from Barbara Wagner's doctor was bad, but the rejection letter from her insurance company was crushing. Barbara Wagner(Paul Carter/Register-Guard) The 64-year-old Oregon woman, whose lung cancer had been in remission, learned the disease had returned and would likely kill her. Her last hope was a $4,000-a-month drug that her doctor prescribed for her, but the insurance company refused to pay. What the Oregon Health Plan did agree to cover, however, were drugs for a physician-assisted death. Those drugs would cost about $50. "It was horrible," Wagner told ABCNews.com. "I got a letter in the mail that basically...

St. Louis basketball coach Rick Majerus had no intention of creating such a firestorm when he made an appearance at a Hillary Clinton rally last Saturday night in St. Louis and answered questions regarding his pro-choice, pro-embryonic stem-cell research beliefs for a local TV affiliate. Three days later, Archbishop Raymond Burke of the St. Louis diocese, who is very active in the pro-life movement and recently attended the March for Life conference in Washington, D.C., drew a line in the sand in response. Burke said St. Louis University, which is a university operated by the Jesuit fathers, should discipline Majerus...

Legalizing doctor-assisted suicide does not lead to a "slippery slope" of excess deaths among the vulnerable poor, uninsured, elderly or other patients, according to a U.S. study in the October issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics. "Fears about the impact on vulnerable people have dominated debate about physician-assisted suicide. We find no evidence to support those fears where this practice already is legal," study lead author and bioethicist Margaret Battin, a distinguished professor of philosophy and adjunct professor of internal medicine at the University of Utah, said in a prepared statement. She and her colleagues analyzed data from The...

Anita Hill said on Tuesday she testified truthfully in 1991 in accusing Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment and responded to a new book by the U.S. Supreme Court justice by saying he had unfairly attacked her character. It was Hill's first response to the Thomas memoir that denounces his former aide and liberal interest groups who wanted to stop his nomination to the highest U.S. court. "I'm really concerned that the approach that Clarence Thomas is taking now is so typical of people accused of wrongdoing. They trash their accusers ... and I don't want this to become the model...

After 5 Years Without Inspection, Abortion Clinic Closed By Kevin Mooney CNSNews.com Staff Writer October 01, 2007 Part I. (CNSNews.com) - New Jersey health officials are not inspecting abortion clinics in that state regularly, apparently because they don't have the resources or the manpower. In one case, an abortion facility was not inspected for five years, and when inspectors finally visited, they found numerous, often morbid, violations, which led to the clinic losing its license and shutting down. "The lack of health inspections at these clinics speaks volumes about the sentiment to reduce abortion at all costs to the detriment...

What’s so bad about Planned Parenthood? It’s a question Americans must wonder about as they see pro-lifers protesting or praying outside clinics. And it deserves an answer because it gets to the heart of some key and contentious questions we face as a society, one that is ever creeping toward a brave new world (in many respects already living in it) as biotechnological choices propagate. Consider that Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton has been endorsed by Planned Parenthood in her Senate runs. Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican, has given money to them in the past....

Construction crews unearthed the burial chamber this spring near the town of Tula, the ancient Toltec capital, 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Mexico City (see Mexico map). The chamber contained 24 skeletons of children believed to have been sacrificed between A.D. 950 and 1150, according to Luis Gamboa, an archaeologist at Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History. All but one of the children were between 5 to 15 years of age, and they were likely killed as an offering to the Toltec rain god Tlaloc, Gamboa said. The Toltec, a pre-Aztec civilization that thrived from the 10th to...

More than two-thirds of Americans believe there are circumstances in which a patient should be allowed to die, but they are closely divided on whether it should be legal for a doctor to help terminally ill patients end their own lives by prescribing fatal drugs, a new AP-Ipsos poll finds. The results were released Tuesday, just days before Dr. Jack Kevorkian is freed from a Michigan prison after serving more than eight years for second-degree murder in the poisoning of a man with Lou Gehrig's disease. Kevorkian's defiant assisted suicide campaign, which he waged for years before his conviction, fueled...

In a case of "Whose life is it anyway?" a state appeals court ruled yesterday that a mentally handicapped woman has no say over whether she should be kept alive on life support. In the unanimous decision, a five-judge panel ruled that the 26-year-old - who says she wants to be kept on life support in the event she's felled by illness or an accident - isn't competent to make that decision. Instead, her mother, who is her legal guardian, gets to make the call - and she doesn't want her daughter on life support. A lawyer for the woman,...

"Young Israelis dream of being inventors, and their role models are the Israeli innovators who made it to the Nasdaq. Hezbollah youth dream of being martyrs, and their role models are Islamic militants who made it to the Next World." — Thomas Friedman, New York Times, August 9 The act of infanticide, the practice of intentionally causing the death of an infant, is rarely practiced today. Yet in the Middle East, it has taken on a new form. Under the direction of some leading Muslim religious figures, some parents in the region are encouraging their children to commit suicide as...

A 16-year-old cancer patient 's legal fight ended in victory Wednesday when his family's attorneys and social services officials reached an agreement that would allow him to forgo chemotherapy. At the start of what was scheduled to be a two-day hearing, Accomack County Circuit Judge Glen A. Tyler announced that both sides had reached a consent decree, which Tyler approved. Under the decree, Starchild Abraham Cherrix, who is battling Hodgkin's disease, will be treated by an oncologist of his choice who is board-certified in radiation therapy and interested in alternative treatments. The family must provide the court updates on Abraham's...

Michael Schiavo's statements make best case for Terri's Day movement Kevin Fobbs March 27, 2006 Michael Schiavo attempted to appear pious as he answered NBC Matt Lauer's question on what was Terri's wishes on end of life on Dateline Sunday evening. It was pure theater but what many viewers may have missed was the essence of Michael Schiavo's answer when he claimed Terri did not want to be a "burden" to anyone. Being a burden is why the court allowed her to be killed. Being a burden is now a mortal crime punishable by death. Didn't America hear the argument...

Terri Schiavo became victim of Michigan's Dr. Death Kevin Fobbs March 21, 2006 He was an author of the macabre — an artist who relished in morbid artwork. A failed movie producer who perfected a machine in 1989 called "the Thanatron" — meaning "death machine" in Greek — which he used the very next year to usher in an era — a new era labeled for his moniker, "Dr. Death" inextricably tied to a new culture of death. Approximately 130 people became victims of his death machine — including one 27 year-old Floridian woman. Her name: Terri Schindler Schiavo who...

Colorado Cmte Kills Bill to Protect Pregnant Women From Violence by Steven Ertelt LifeNews.com Editor February 9, 2006 Denver, CO (LifeNews.com) -- On a party line vote Thursday, Democratic members of a Colorado legislative panel killed legislation that would have protected pregnant women and their babies before birth by allowing criminals who assault them and kill or injure their child to be prosecuted for two crimes. The House Judiciary Committee vote upset families members of those who have been victims of such violence. Colorado Springs resident Erin-Lea Hanson told the Coloradoan newspaper that her unborn grandson "had as much a...

About 20 percent of government staff in one Malaysian state use the Internet for personal activities including downloading pornography, music and games, the national news agency reported Tuesday. ADVERTISEMENT This was one of the main causes of poor work performance in Johor state, Bernama said quoting a top state official, Norsiah Harun, adding that large file downloads also considerably slowed the state government's computer system. Norsiah said the government viewed the matter seriously and would enforce the relevant regulations soon. She reminded all department heads to be firm in tackling the problem and to remind their staff of their responsibilities,...

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. - The state's highest court ruled Tuesday that the state can withdraw life support from an 11-year-old girl who was badly beaten, allegedly by her adoptive mother and stepfather. Haleigh Poutre, of Westfield, was hospitalized in September after she was allegedly kicked and beaten nearly to death with a baseball bat. The girl's stepfather, Jason Strickland, asked the Supreme Judicial Court last month to block the state from taking her off life support, arguing that he was the girl's "de facto" parent. He is already charged in her beating and if she dies, could face a murder charge....

Please help Floridians restore Florida from the Starvation State back to the Sunshine State. How can anyone visit Florida and enjoy their experience knowing what happened here? Let's disband Judge Greer's elite corps from Pinellas County who participated in onerous, double dealing, immoral and illegal activities. GREER'S ELITE CORPS: Former Sheriff Everett Rice vies for Fla AG GREER'S ELITE CORPS: Current AG Charlie Crist vies for Fla Governor Thanks in advance for helping Floridians save our State!

Doc's outrage on disabled Outburst ... Owen Lister     By JOHN COLES A RETIRED GP sparked fury yesterday by saying disabled kids should be guillotined to save cash. The outburst by Owen Lister, 79, a Tory councillor and deputy mayor, came in a council meeting over funding to care for such youngsters.Mr Lister said it was too expensive to look after severely disabled children — and the money should be used elsewhere.The Disability Rights Commission said: “It’s chilling that an elected representative with responsibilities for deciding on support to disabled children should view the slaughter of innocents as legitimate...

The publisher does not permit any reposting of materials so I have only provided a link to a very moving article telling the stories of several babies that have survived abortions. Some of them are now adults and able to speak out for themselves and for the little ones that lack voices of their own yet.

"MIAMI - The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida today welcomed the U.S. Supreme Court’s rejection of a petition forcing the reinsertion of Terri Schiavo’s feeding tubes, a decision that protects the severely brain-damaged woman’s right to withdraw her own life-sustaining treatment and prevents politicians from interfering with intensely personal medical decisions...The ACLU of Florida filed a 47-page brief with the High Court early this morning, asking the Justices to reject efforts to reinsert Schiavo’s feeding tube..."

As I am sure is the case with many of you, I have been following the Terri Schiavo situation in Florida very closely. Though I was already concerned and praying, an incredibly strong burden began to overwhelm me yesterday (Wednesday, March 23). As I prayed and processed, I became convinced that this situation is not just about Mrs. Schiavo. As precious as even one soul is to God, I believe this situation is all about our nation. I feel that God is allowing it to epitomize where we are as a nation, picturing for us the death culture that has...

I told you yesterday, this is going to be the outcome at the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, and I'll predict to you now the US Supreme Court will not even hear the case. They don't have much of a track record of getting involved in these kinds of cases. The case will go to Anthony Kennedy first, he can decide to do it on his own or decide to take it to the full court, but I wouldn't hold out. I mean, you can hope, I don't want to take hope away, but my guess is that what we're...

. NEVER FORGET TERRI can breath unassisted. TERRI can eat food thru her mouth, food that MICHAEL has been stopping her from having for years. TERRI can SPEAK. TERRI is NOT the Living Dead. TERRI is capable of being re-hab'ed. TERRI rehabilitation that her "Husband" MICHAEL has been preventing for years as he continues to make babies with his lover. The Pittsburgh Post Gazette quotes one of TERRI's nurses saying in a Court Affidavid that: "TERRI spoke on a regular basis, sayng such things as 'Mommy' and 'help me.'" When she put a washcloth in TERRI's hand to keep her...

THE FINAL DAYS Death from dehydration common, placid, doctors say Removing a feeding tube from a patient who has no hope of recovery is a common practice that leads to a peaceful death, doctors say. BY JACOB GOLDSTEIN jgoldstein@herald.com Unless an order is given to reinsert her feeding tube, Terri Schiavo will soon begin a peaceful decline that will lead to death in about two weeks, experts said Saturday. She won't be aware of thirst, hunger or suffering, because the parts of her brain that create awareness were destroyed 15 years ago, according to the doctors who have examined her....

My Dear Congressman Murphy, Senator Santorum, Senator Specter I am writing to you about the Terri Schiavo case in Florida. We need to have some quick action to save her life since her feeding tube was removed yesterday. Here in the United States, the Preamble of the Constitution says that we all have the right to "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." I believe the slow starving of Terri Schiavo by the actions of her husband and an activist judicial system is denying her those rights. First, she is being denied life by the removal of her feeding tube....

Hutchinson-- For 20 years, Sarah Scantlin has been mostly oblivious to the world around her -- the victim of a drunken driver who struck her down as she walked to her car. Today, after a remarkable recovery, she can talk again. Scantlin's father knows she will never fully recover, but her newfound ability to speak and her returning memories have given him his daughter back. For years, she could only blink her eyes -- one blink for "no," two blinks for "yes" -- to respond to questions that no one knew for sure she understood. "I am astonished how primal...

For some the greatest fear is not that they may find themselves kept alive when they no longer want to live but that someone may make the decision to stop treatment at a time when they are too unwell to make clear they are not ready to die. Jacqueline Catlin, a 37-year-old motor neurone disease sufferer, had a scare when she learnt that, while she was unconscious, the possibility of not providing her with respiratory support had been discussed. As a result she has made a legal statement making clear that, if there is doubt, she wants to receive all...

Orlando, FL (LifeNews.com) -- The man at the center of a debate between his wife and a Florida hospital has died after the hospital won the right to terminate his life support. The hospital and wife disputed whether or not 73-year-old terminally ill patient Hanford Pinette had any hope of survival. Pinette stopped breathing less than two hours after doctors at Lucerne Hospital removed him from a breathing machine. "He was trying to breathe on his own," Pinette's wife Alice told the Associated Press. She is still upset at the actions a court took to allow the hospital to end...

Amsterdam, Netherlands (LifeNews.com) -- Dutch doctors are asking the Netherlands government for guidelines on so-called "mercy killings" after revelations surfaced this week that a hospital in the European nation has been killing several newborns a year it determines are not healthy enough to live. The Royal Dutch Medical Association (KNMG) has asked the Netherlands Ministry of Health to put together a panel to evaluate when euthanasia can be used on people "with no free will," CNN reports. That would include both adults and children who are unable to make their own health care decisions because of severe disabilities. The current...

Netherlands Hospital Euthanizes Babies By TOBY STERLING, Associated Press Writer AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Raising the stakes in an excruciating ethical debate, a hospital in the Netherlands — the first nation to permit euthanasia — recently proposed guidelines for mercy killings of terminally ill newborns, and then made a startling revelation: It has already begun carrying out such procedures in a handful of cases and reporting them to the government. The announcement last month by the Groningen Academic Hospital came amid a growing discussion in Holland on whether to legalize euthanasia on people incapable of deciding for themselves whether they want...

dc

TAMPA, Fla. - The Florida Supreme Court (news - web sites) on Thursday declined a request from Gov. Jeb Bush to reconsider its decision striking down a state law designed to save the life of a severely brain-damaged woman at the center of a bitter right-to-die dispute. The state's high court ruled 7-0 last month that Bush and state lawmakers overstepped their authority when they adopted the law ordering that Terri Schiavo's feeding tube be reinserted six days after her husband had it removed so she could die. Bush's attorney asked the court for a rehearing, which was rejected without...

The so-called “right-to-die” movement was handed another victory last week when the Florida Supreme Court struck down a law designed to prevent the starvation death of Terri Schiavo, a brain-damaged woman who has been the latest target in the Left’s crusade against the elderly and disabled. The ruling by the Florida High Court is the most recent episode in a six-year legal struggle by Terri’s estranged husband Michael Schiavo to end her life. Mr. Schiavo contends that Terri is in a “persistent vegetative state” and therefore should be condemned to a starvation death by having her feeding tube removed, even...

Repeal Ban on Abortion Services to Military Women Action Needed:Please use this link to send a message to members of your Congressional delegation as soon as possible, urging them to support a repeal of the ban on abortion services at overseas military hospitals for military women and dependents who are victims of rape and incest. An amendment offered by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) is contained in the fiscal year '05 Defense Department authorization bill, which will be finalized soon in conference committee. We are concerned that abortion rights opponents who may be appointed to the...

Abortion may drag us to history's grave

The body of a police special forces officer who died when Islamic terrorists blew themselves up in Madrid was taken from its grave, mutilated and burnt yesterday. The coffin and body of special agent Francisco Javier Torronteras were pulled from the tomb in Madrid Sur cemetery in Carabanchel and pushed 1,000 yards in a wheelbarrow before being doused with petrol and set alight. The body was found with a pick driven into its head and a spade dug into its chest. Although no motive was immediately apparent, police speculated that it could be the work of sympathisers of the Moroccan...

Infanticide promoter: Bush morally stunted Ethicist says president should have 'turned the other cheek' after 9-11 ----------------------- © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com A controversial college professor who thinks parents should be able to kill disabled children says though President Bush makes himself out to be a good Christian leader, he has the moral development of a 13-year-old boy. Princeton's Peter Singer Peter Singer, professor of bioethics at Princeton University,(A useless over paid job) said in an interview with an Australian newspaper Bush sees the world "very simply, in black and white, as good versus evil, and he thinks that America is the...

WASHINGTON - The world has moved on since the case of Terri Schiavo, whose husband sought to remove the feeding tube that kept her alive, briefly grabbed public attention last fall. But Terri's life remains at risk. Michael Schiavo, her parents, the state of Florida, and advocacy groups continue to fight over her future. Alas, she keeps losing where it matters most, in court. Terri collapsed in 1990, leaving her profoundly cognitively disabled. Her husband won a $1.3 million malpractice judgment that included money for her medical care, but subsequently refused to fund rehabilitative treatment for her. Along the way...

In 7:25 break, anchor reported "Terri Schiavo was rushed to a Pinellas County emergency room last night after nursing home staff noticed puncture wounds on her arm. The wounds appeared to be caused by a hypodermic needle! Toxicology tests were conducted but the results are not available yet!" This could open a huge new round in this case. What did tests reveal? Who was last person in room? When was husband there? Was staffer trying the Angle of Death routine? This will be developing hard all day!

Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, an attorney for the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, and a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture."The darndest thing just happened," an early morning caller who is close to the Schiavo case enthused on my voice mail. "The Second District Court of Appeal actually decided to start applying the law." That would be big news. One of the most outrageous aspects of the Terri Schiavo debacle has been the almost universal adherence by the trial and appellate courts to the "The Rule of...