Free Republic

Can you imagine not giving babies their basic human rights, no matter how they entered our world? My name is Gianna Jessen, born 31 years ago after a failed abortion. I’m a survivor, as are many others…but if Barack Obama had his way, I wouldn’t be here. Four times, Barack Obama voted to oppose a law to protect babies left to die after a failed abortion. Senator Obama, please support born alive infant protections. I’m living proof these babies have a right to live.”

On Sean Hannity's radio station today, he interviewed Gianna Jessen, a 31-year old woman, who survived a botched abortion. Gianna was burned alive in her mother's womb from saline, but to the surprise of everyone, she survived. Gianna says: “If Barack Obama had his way I would not be here.”

According to Barack Obama, Gianna Jessen shouldn't exist. Miss Jessen is an exquisite example of what antiabortion advocates call a "survivor." Well into her third trimester of pregnancy, Gianna's biological mother was injected with a saline solution intended to induce a chemical abortion at a Los Angeles County abortion center. Eighteen hours later, and precious minutes before the abortionist's arrival, Gianna emerged. Premature and with severe injuries that resulted in cerebral palsy. But alive. Had the abortionist been present at her birth, Gianna would have been killed, perhaps by suffocation. As it was, a startled nurse called an ambulance, and...

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Four months after he was declared brain dead and doctors were about to remove his organs for transplant, Zach Dunlap says he feels "pretty good." Dunlap was pronounced dead Nov. 19 at United Regional Healthcare System in Wichita Falls, Texas, after he was injured in an all-terrain vehicle accident. His family approved having his organs harvested. As family members were paying their last respects, he moved his foot and hand. He reacted to a pocketknife scraped across his foot and to pressure applied under a fingernail. After 48 days in the hospital, he was allowed to...

Thousands march against abortion in S.F. Thousands of abortion protesters marched along San Francisco's waterfront Saturday, hectored by a smaller band of abortion rights supporters, as both sides marked the impending anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that established those rights 35 years ago. Although passions ran high in both camps, the event - what is becoming an annual trek by the anti-abortion movement into what they consider the heart of abortion rights territory - was peaceful. At least 10,000 abortion opponents were bused into the city from all over California, and from outside the state, for a morning rally...

San Francisco, CA (LifeNews.com) -- The niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. will lead an estimated 20,000 people along San Francisco’s waterfront in the fourth annual West Coast Walk for Life. The event is a western equivalent to the national March for Life in Washington and it gives participants a chance to show how abortion hurts women.King's father was slain civil rights activist A.D. King, and their home in Birmingham, Alabama, was bombed during the civil rights struggles.This year's event takes place on Saturday, January 19 and Clenard Childress, another African-American pro-life leader and Gianna Jessen, who survived...

Even if some believe that evidence found in the 2000 trial was clear and convincing evidence that Terri would not have wanted the feeding tube, Judge Greer’s decision and the weighing of the evidence was AT ODDS and CONTRADICTORY to numerous court decision made in similiar cases across the country. This is a legal review from a law professor at Notre Dame. In it, he explains the veracity of Terri’s wishes from a legal prospective. His end conclusion is that the evidence used to condenmn Terri to death was hardly clear and convincing and was clearly against settled case law...

LifeNews.com Note: Laura Echevarria is the former Director of Media Relations and a spokesperson for the National Right to Life Committee and has been a radio announcer, freelance writer active in local politics. She is a new opinion columnist for LifeNews.com. In the September 25th issue of the online magazine Salon, neurologist Robert Burton takes issue with an important—and to most people encouraging—article that appeared in the Archives of Neurology. The title of Burton’s piece suggests the direction he is headed: “The Light is On, But is Anybody Home?” The former chief of neurology at Mount Zion-UCSF Hospital and the...

NEW YORK - A brain-damaged man who could communicate only with slight eye or thumb movements for six years can speak again, after stimulating electrodes were placed in his brain, researchers report. The 38-year-old also regained the ability to chew and swallow, which allows him to be spoon-fed, rather than relying on nourishment through a tube in his belly. The man's brain was injured during an assault, he spent six years with only occasional signs of consciousness and no useful movement of his limbs. In an experiment, researchers implanted electrodes in his brain for a procedure called deep brain stimulation,...

<p>Schindler is the brother of Terri Schiavo, a brain-damaged Florida woman who died in 2005 after a decades-long court battle.</p> <p>"What is the rush?" he asked. "This is not the first time we've heard of cases like this where doctors want to write off the chance of recovery, and the family, when they're told this, will make a decision to end a person's life.</p>

Paul Robinson has much to be thankful for. She lives in a £500,000 house, drives a Mercedes and has two beautiful children - Ryan, nine, and Tara, five. She is also glowing, for beneath her fashionable smock Paula, 40, is pregnant for the third time with a healthy new baby. But beneath this seemingly happy picture lies an unpalatable truth: shockingly, Paula has twice tried to abort this most recent pregnancy. Indeed, having survived such an assault, even Paula now refers to her previously unwanted child as a "little miracle". But the story of how this tiny dot has fought...

CHANDLER, Arizona, June 28, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Written off by doctors as a hopeless “vegetable”, an Arizona man would not now be on his way to recovery from an accident caused by a marital quarrel if not for his family’s unrelenting struggle for his life. The Arizona Republic reports that on Wednesday, Jesse Ramirez, awoke from his nearly month long persistent vegetative state (PVS) and now “can hug and kiss, nod his head, answer yes and no questions, give a thumbs-up sign and sit in a chair.” If not for the past few weeks’ legal battles that ended Tuesday with...

Another big step taken Sarah Scantlin continues her amazing recovery over the past two years by feeding herself lunch By Clara Kilbourn The Hutchinson News Grand Prairie ckilbourn@hutchnews.com She's feeding herself. Adding to an incredible series of accomplishments over the past two years, Sarah Scantlin scaled another mountain this week. On Thursday her father watched for the first time as his daughter, with a spoon clasped snugly in the fingers of her right hand, lifted her arm and moved it toward her mouth. "It's a miraculous deal," James Scantlin said. "Think of it. For 20 years she was a blank,...

WARSAW (AFP) - A Pole who spent 19 years in a coma has woken up and will now have to adapt to a country where the communists are no longer in power, a television station announced Friday. Railwayman Jan Grzebski fell into a coma after he was hit by a train in 1988, the private channel Polsat said. In an interview, Grzebski said that he owed his survival to his wife, Gertruda. "She's the one who always took care of me. She saved my life," he said. Grzebski was a father of four at the time of the accident. He...

A 65-year-old railwayman who fell into a coma following an accident in communist Poland regained consciousness 19 years later to find democracy and a market economy, Polish media reported on Saturday. ADVERTISEMENT Wheelchair-bound Jan Grzebski, whom doctors had given only two or three years to live following his 1988 accident, credited his caring wife Gertruda with his revival. "It was Gertruda that saved me, and I'll never forget it," Grzebski told news channel TVN24. "For 19 years Mrs Grzebska did the job of an experienced intensive care team, changing her comatose husband's position every hour to prevent bed-sore infections," Super...

Jim Robinson is the founder and operator of FreeRepublic.com. He posted this editorial on Terri Schiavo, Sunday April 3rd. I said it was wrong to kill her. That is my opinion. Nothing can change it. No list of "facts" will ever change it. And I put "facts" in quotes because most of the so-called "facts" posted here were in fact "opinion." Whether it was a poster's opinion, a reporter's opinion, her husband's opinion, a relative's opinion, a supporter's opinion, a detractor's opinion, a politician's opinion, a lawyer's opinion, a doctor's opinion, the president's opinion, the governor's opinion, or even...

Thoughts of woman in 'waking coma' revealed Brain scans of vegetative patient ignites debate over her awareness. Michael Hopkin Neuroscientists have reignited the debate over whether patients in a vegetative state are conscious of their surroundings, by claiming that a woman in such a 'waking coma' can respond to verbal commands. The researchers say that brain scans show that she can selectively think of performing certain actions, such as playing tennis, on request. The British-led research team made the discovery after examining the brain of a severely brain-damaged patient who had been in a vegetative state — defined as a...

Sarah Scantlin was knocked into a coma by a drunk driver 20 years ago has begun to speak and remember her past. Her brain was injured so badly that doctors first feared she would spend her life in a vegetative state, spending years unable to form words or make any sounds other than loud cries. A week ago Sarah began speaking and doctors have no explanation. The parents, brother and sister of Terri Schindler Schiavo hope the Florida courts will see this miracle and think of Terri. Video tape shown today on CNN Headline News of Sarah with her mother...

Hikari Oe Last year when Japanese Author Kenzuburo Oe won the Nobel prize for literature, he made an unusual announcement. At the Stockholm awards ceremony, he informed the world that he would not be writing any more novels, at least not for the foreseeable future. He has no more reason to write. In an extended April 16, 1995 interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Sunday Morning, Oe detailed his reasons for writing and why he no longer needs to write. Oe sees his writing as a healing process. Thirty-two years ago, when his son was born, Oe and his...

This is from an article in my archives, which I originally published in June of 2006. As we move closer to another round of electioneering by those who would be our leaders, it seems there are more important issues hanging over our heads this time around, than there are bats hanging from the roof of a Central American cave. It is tempting to pick a few issues that are meaningful to the present day's news cycle, but doing so runs the risk of forfeiting hard-won ground on issues that are old and battle weary. Abortion is one such topic.One of...