Free Republic

Implicit in most pro-abortion commentary is a certain level of frustration that there remain people who disagree with them. “It’s the 21st century and the Supreme Court has spoken; can’t you anti-choice yahoos get with the program?” This leads to all sorts of outlandish speculation about what really makes pro-lifers tick. Yesterday, UC Berkley sociology professor Claude Fischer published his thoughts on the “abortion puzzle,” attempting to figure out why Americans are growing “notably more laissez-faire on most sexual issues,” but not abortion: Before the Roe v. Wade decision on behalf of abortion rights perhaps 25% to 30% of Americans...

The Maryland State Police have agreed to pay a $385,000 settlement to 17 anti-abortion protesters arrested by Maryland State Troopers four years ago in Harford County. The protesters, two of whom were 14 at the time, were arrested and processed and spent a night in the Harford County Detention Center. ... Members of the Alliance Defense Fund,... were holding up graphic images to passing motorists, claimed they were mistreated by the police and filed suit in U.S. District Court in Baltimore against Harford County, the town of Bel Air and seven local and state police agencies. The suit claimed...

Disability rights activists from across Massachusetts will speak today before the Massachusetts legislature’s joint Judiciary Committee in opposition to a ballot question that would legalize assisted suicide. The activists are members of the recently formed group, Second Thoughts: People with Disabilities Opposing the Legalization of Assisted Suicide. The hearing will be at 1 p.m. in room A-2 at the state house. “Second Thoughts is a group of disability rights activists and organizations who believe that assisted suicide is a dangerous mix with a broken, profit driven health care system,” said John Kelly, the group’s director.“Economic and family pressures can make...

The Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network has announced that Ave Maria University will once again host “The National Mass for Terri’s Day” at the Ave Maria Oratory at Ave Maria University, located near Naples, Florida. Terri was killed on March 31, 2005 when her former husband won a protracted legal battle against the Schindler family for the right to disconnect her feeding tube. Doctors who examined Terri say she was not in a persistent vegetative state and that her condition could have been improved has she been given access to more medical care and rehabilitative treatment. The International Day...

The new Obama mandate that requires religious groups to pay for birth control and drugs that may cause abortions for their employees could result in fines as much as $2,000 per employee or $100 each day if they refuse to comply.Recently, Republicans in Congress asked the Congressional Research Service to examine the new mandate and the consequences for employers that do not want to follow it because it would violate their consciences and CRS issued a document finding noncompliant employers could face federal fines of $100 per day per employee.“If a group health plan or health insurance issuer failed to...

A couple in Portland are suing Legacy Health because their child has Down Syndrome. This is another of these so-called wrongful birth lawsuits that are so very wrong. The wrongful birth suit is brought by the parents of a sick or disabled child against medical professionals that, the parents say, were negligent.The wrongful birth lawsuit does not say that the medical practitioners caused the disease or disability, which would be a valid reason to sue. Instead the wrongful birth lawsuit claims the that doctor failed to inform the parents of the illness or disability of the child and that had...

If there is one word that captures the Orwellian nature of contemporary feminism, it is "choice." It's not just the word's wide use as a euphemism for abortion. You can understand why people on that side of the abortion issue prefer to frame their position in abstract terms, as a defense of liberty, rather than concretely discussing the specific freedom they are defending. Some of them are no doubt sincere in saying that they favor "the right to choose" in general and have no brief for abortion in particular. But not all. People who claim to favor "reproductive choice" are...

AJAX, Ontario, March 5, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A grade 12 student at a Catholic high school in Ontario was suspended in February after handing out a letter containing his thoughts on the need for greater modesty in his school. “[R]eal attractiveness doesn’t come from wearing the latest fashion, and it doesn’t come from being scantily clad in public, or putting on make-up, or having a pretty face, or a nice body,” wrote Paul Gomille, 17, in his Valentine’s Day letter addressed to all women, which he handed out at Archbishop Denis O’Connor high school in Ajax, Ontario during lunch hour....

The Drudge Report has linked to MRC TV's Stephen Gutowski, who dug up that the Radical Feminist Heroine of the Week Sandra Fluke thinks insurance policies shouldn't just pay for contraceptives, but for "transgender" amputations and implants. If the national media thinks this scandal-ette deserves to go for weeks on end, where is this story? Steve reports Fluke makes her view of an amputation entitlement clear in an article she co-edited with Karen Hu in the Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law: The title of the article, which can be purchased in full here, is Employment Discrimination Against LGBTQ...

For one brief moment, Rick Santorum was the ideal Republican candidate for 2012, the perfect consonance of Don't-Tread-On-Me libertarianism and traditional cultural conservatism. When asked about contraception, which Santorum and the Catholic Church hold to be destructive of marriage and family, Santorum replied, "You know, here's the difference between me and the Left, and they don't get this. Just because I'm talking about it doesn't mean I want a government program to fix it. That's what they do. That's not what we do." This helped explain why so many liberal politicians and journalists were misunderstanding or lying about what Santorum...

When the left savages the right, it's OK. When America's top conservative questions why taxpayers must subsidize the sex life of a coed, the sky falls in. Bill Maher, call your office. When the late, great Andrew Breitbart was asked in a Twitter conversation whether he'd apologize for his website's posting of a video of a speech by Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod that led to her forced resignation, Breitbart replied, "Apologize for what?" Breitbart knew the sensitivities and the hypocrisy of the left when their sacred cows and double standards were under attack. Hell hath no fury, he knew,...

President Barack Obama is seeking to end federal funding for a pro-life program installed during the administration of President George W. Bush that helped save unborn babies potentially slated for destruction in fertility clinics. The “snowflake baby” program provided funding for adoption-awareness programs for the children who were formerly stored human embryos at fertility clinics who could have been destroyed for scientific research. Congressman Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican, was one of the strong proponents of the pro-life program, saying, “Assertions that leftover embryos are better off dead so that their stem cells can be derived is dehumanizing and...

LifeNews Note: Reprinted with permission from Ethika Politika, the blog of the Center for Morality in Public Life.Remember the Georgetown Law student, Sandra Fluke, who was forced to suffer through $3,000-worth of protected sex during her stint at law school? Turns out, thereÂ’s a bit more to the story.According to some sources, Fluke might just have been a well-placed fake. Not exactly the young-and-helpless female law student most took her for, FlukeÂ’s LinkedIn profile speaks for itself:With a six year hiatus between her undergraduate time and GT Law, Fluke is probably closer to 30. And sheÂ’s had plenty of involvement...

LARGO, FL, March 5, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Pepsi Company, which is set to release the new product Pepsi Next in the coming weeks, is facing a more robust boycott as pro-life activists protest the company use of cells derived from an aborted fetus in flavor-enhancing research. But Pepsi has succeeded, with help from the Obama Administration, in keeping its controversial operations from consideration by its shareholders. In a decision delivered Feb 28th, President ObamaÂ’s Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) ruled that PepsiCoÂ’s use of cells derived from aborted fetal remains in their research and development agreement with Senomyx to...

Dr. Josef Mengele held a doctorate in anthropology from Munich University and a medical degree from Frankfurt University. He was an early medical pioneer in "after-birth abortions." His groundbreaking research was conducted at his world renowned clinic in Auschwitz, Poland. Evil comes in a variety of shapes, sizes, sounds, and smells. Many people (particularly liberals, progressives, and non-believers) are uncomfortable with the idea that monstrously evil individuals can also have the capacity to laugh, love their dogs, love their children and parents, be part of a community, and have a pleasant appearance. These people would prefer to see evil as...

Santorum Backs Nullifying Existing Gay Marriages Bob Egelko Saturday, March 3, 2012 There are 18,000 married gay and lesbian couples in California and at least 131,000 nationwide according to the 2010 census, conducted before New York state legalized same-sex marriage in July. Rick Santorum says he'll try to unmarry all of them if he's elected president. Once the U.S. Constitution is amended to prohibit same-gender marriages, "their marriage would be invalid," the former Pennsylvania senator said Dec. 30 in an NBC News interview. "We can't have 50 different marriage laws in this country," he said. "You have to have one...

An article entitled After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live? was recently published in the London-based Journal of Medical Ethics, advocating that if abortion is allowed, then society also has the right to kill a newborn child. This outrageous deduction by Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva takes abortion to its logical conclusion. The abstract states: “By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue...

At a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Secretary of HHS Kathleen Sebelius confirmed the fears of many pro-life advocates who worry that the recent HHS mandate requiring all insurance plans to cover contraception and sterilization, regardless of an employer’s moral objection, is just the beginning.The same statutory authority of the Administration to mandate contraception could just as easily mandate abortion on demand. The Administration believes in essence that employers are not really paying for contraceptives or abortion since they would be cheaper than providing for prenatal care, childbirth or child care.In an exchange with pro-life Congressman Tim...

SlutWalk marched through D.C. on Saturday as one of many recent marches organized by women to raise awareness and reduce the blame put by society on victims of sexual abuse. Women and men gathered at Lafayette Square and processed down 15th Street to the Washington Monument. Some marchers woreonly in a bra, several painted “Slut” across their chests, others carried signs declaring “My Dress is Not a Yes” and “Even Sluts Have a Right to Say ‘No’.”

Royal Meeker, who was an advisor and long time ally(details, see chapter 4) to Woodrow Wilson, wrote the following: (page 544) In M. Colson's view the poor are poor through their own laziness, inability or thriftlessness; the rich are rich because of their own or their ancestors' virtues. The laws of property and of inheritance are almost above criticism. Any attempt to ameliorate the condition of those living at or below the minimum of subsistence must result in such an increase of the poorer classes that the result will inevitably be a larger number of miserable wretches living at or...