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LifeNews.com Note: Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture. His most recent book is the Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World. This opinion column originally appeared in the Church Report.Terri Schiavo continues to prick our collective conscience, our sensitivity to the way she died -- deprived of all food and water, even the balm of ice chips for nearly two weeks -- as raw today as on the day she drew her last breath five years ago next March. Usually, the trauma remains...

A non-partisan, black, *CHRISTIAN* woman publicly repents for voting for Obama despite his pro-abortion record. She explains why she was deceived and reaffirms her committment to putting Christ first. Before race. Before politics.

Wednesday December 23, 2009 Top Ten Good News Stories of 2009 Compiled by John-Henry WestenDecemer 23, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The following are the top ten good news stories of 2009, ranked according to popularity.1) 12-Year-Old Stuns Pro-Choice Teacher and School with Pro-Life Presentation  12-year-old "Lia" of Toronto become a star at her school and on Youtube with her five-minute pro-life speech, crafted for a school competition. A video of her speech has been watched over 800,000 times on Youtube.2) List of Bishops Opposing the Notre Dame Invitation and Award to President Obama83 U.S. bishops spoke out against Notre Dame's...

When the Senate and House agree on a health care bill and if our tax money pays for ana portion directly or indirectly, I will revolt by not paying my personal taxes. I will prefer going to prison than have even one cent of my income pay for an abortion. I have been praying about this and other issues that affect my pro-life principles. If I call myself pro-life, then I must act on these principles in a way that will change my comfort level to the point of suffering. How many of us have fought with money and time...

Washington (CNSNews.com) – Six senators, including former Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), when asked if it is morally right to take tax dollars from pro-life Americans to pay for health insurance plans that cover abortion, did not answer the question directly, but instead expressed their thoughts about the Senate health-care legislation. The Senate health-care bill at present mandates that the Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary make certain that at least one health-care plan in the government exchanges -- where people will use tax money to buy health insurance -- covers elective abortions. At the U.S. Capitol, CNSNews.com...

A car crash victim who was believed to have been in a coma for the past 23 years has been conscious the whole time. Rom Houben was paralysed but could not let doctors know that he could hear every word they were saying, reports the Daily Mail. "I dreamed myself away," said Mr Houben, now 46, who doctors thought was in a persistent vegatative state. Doctors conducted a series of coma tests before concluding that his consciousness was "extinct". But three years ago, new hi-tech scans showed his brain was still functioning almost completely normally. Mr Houben said: "All that...

She kept it secret for seven months and now she's finally speaking out. On Thursday, Governor Sarah Palin sat down to answer questions about the new addition to her family.

The Senate health care bill is dead on arrival in the House of Representatives unless major changes are made, including removal of special “carve outs” for Medicaid funding for certain states and inclusion of language barring taxpayer-funded health plans that cover abortions, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) told CNSNews.com on Tuesday. Faced with the possibility that House Democratic leaders and the White House will try to force the U.S. House to accept “as is” the health care bill that the Senate is poised to pass on Christmas Eve, the pro-life Democrat said the Senate bill differs too much from the version...

LifeNews.com Note: Sarah Palin is the former governor of Alaska and was the 2008 vice-presidential candidate. She is a pro-life stalwart and has won respect as the mother of a special needs child. Last weekend while you were preparing for the holidays with your family, Harry Reid’s Senate was making shady backroom deals to ram through the Democrat health care take-over. The Senate ended debate on this bill without even reading it.That and midnight-weekend votes seem to be standard operating procedures in D.C. No one is certain of what’s in the bill, but Senator Jim DeMint spotted one shocking revelation...

BASEL, Switzerland, December 23, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Swiss Federation of Service to Patients (Patientenstellen der Schweiz) has called for a ban on a particular type of contraceptive pill after it was linked to the death last month of a 17-year-old German girl who died in a Swiss hospital.The girl, who died at the University Hospital of Basel, was taking a pill that includes drospirenone, a synthetic progestin, which is a compound included in newer brands, such as Yaz, Yasmin, and Yasminelle.This has been the third grave incident reported in Switzerland this year involving such contraceptives.  In each case, the...

After Senator Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) announced Saturday that he had decided to support the amended health bill that allows federal funding of abortion, he set to work defending the decision in terms more familiar on the lips of his liberal colleagues: emphasizing the need for a compromise, and highlighting the greater good of the health of millions of Americans. Yet Nelson left behind a still-reeling pro-life and conservative constituency questioning what could have prompted the sudden change in the senator - who days before seemed so placidly settled in his convictions against the bill, particularly regarding abortion. The tension leading...

As a kid, Corrina Gura was fascinated by babies. She remembers visiting the specimens of preserved human embryos and fetuses on display in the Prenatal Development exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry with her parents. When her aunt was pregnant, she asked if she could rest her hand on her aunt's belly. Those experiences years ago helped shape Gura's current belief that a baby's life begins at conception. "All it needs is a place to grow and food, and it will survive, which is what I need," said Gura, who lives in Skokie and works as a projects...

I received this question from a friend on Facebook: So, Jill, what happened with Nelson? You and other pro-life leaders were advising people to be "calm" and to thank him, and all indications now are that he prostituted his vote like so many others. How do you know who to trust? My friend was speaking about a blog post I wrote Dec. 11 encouraging pro-lifers to maintain support of Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb. In that post I relayed an e-mail received from Democrats for Life's president, Kristen Day, assuring everyone Nelson was unwavering in his refusal to vote for any...

WH requested Stupak 'not say anything' on abortion, congressman says By Tony Romm - 12/23/09 02:36 PM ET Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said Tuesday the White House asked him to "hold off for a while and not say anything" about the abortion language in the Senate's healhtcare bill. The Obama administration reportedly asked the Michigan congressman to withhold judgement on the provision until "they [had] a chance to try to sell me the language," he explained -- a request Stupak later said he denied. "I don’t need to have a conference with the White House," Stupak told CNSnews.com. "I have...

If we adopt the compassion of time rather than that of cash, we are not trying to do the same thing as liberals, only a bit more cheaply. Instead, we must ask of every idea that calls itself compassionate, "Does it make great demands on men (and women) to give themselves to their brethren?" Are we offering not coerced silver, but our lives? If we talk of crisis pregnancies, are we actually willing to provide a home to a pregnant young woman? If we talk of abandoned children, are we actually willing to adopt a child? We need to ask...

Stupak: Obama Admin Bullying Me to Accept Abortion Funding in Health Care Washington, DC -- Congressman Bart Stupak, the pro-life Democrat who has been the consistent champion against abortion funding in the health care bill, says the Obama administration is trying to bully him. Stupak says in a new interview that he will not back down in the face of pressure from the White House. http://www.LifeNews.com/nat5810.html

The Ronald Reagan U.C.L.A. Medical Center, one of the nation’s most highly regarded academic hospitals, has earned a reputation as a place where doctors will go to virtually any length and expense to try to save a patient’s life. “If you come into this hospital, we’re not going to let you die,” said Dr. David T. Feinberg, the hospital system’s chief executive. Yet that ethos has made the medical center a prime target for critics in the Obama administration and elsewhere who talk about how much money the nation wastes on needless tests and futile procedures. They like to note...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Tuesday morning, the Senate approved the Harry Reid manager's amendment to the government-run health care bill. Reid's amendment includes the so-called "compromise" language he agreed on with embattled Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska that keeps abortion funding in the bill. The Senate voted on the manager's amendment, number 3276, on a 60-39 vote. All Democrats in the chamber voted for the amendment while all Republicans, except absent pro-life Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, voted against it. With the vote today, the Senate now begins 30 hours of post-cloture debate that will continue throughout the day today...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The Hollywood elite and abortion promotion have long been synonymous but Sex and the City actress Cynthia Nixon is quickly becoming one of the leading pro-abortion voices in Tinseltown. Nixon followed up her Planned Parenthood fundraising letter earlier this year by wading into the health care debate.Nixon is joining abortion advocates who want to ensure taxpayer funding of abortion remains in the Senate government-run health care bill.Just one week after returning to the United States from filming the sequel to the popular television franchise's first feature film, Nixon is bashing a congressman's ban on abortion...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is getting attention for an interview yesterday in which she essentially admits that the American public would be forced to pay for abortions under the Senate health are bill and then relies on accounting gimmicks to suggests that's not the case. Sebelius spoke with BlogHer interviewer Morra Aarons-Mele yesterday and praised the new abortion language the Senate adopted in Harry Reid's manager's amendment. The language, submitted by Sen. Ben Nelson in conjunction with Sen. Bob Casey and pro-abortion Sens. Barbara Boxer and Patty Murray, opens the door to massive abortion funding. "I...

"A voice was heard in Ramah, Lamentation, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, Refusing to be comforted, Because they are no more." Matt 2:18 In Bethlehem, Herod killed all male children under 2 years of age because he felt threatened. On Capitol Hill, battles are raging to keep the abortion mills running. Who threatens you, Pelosi? Why are you determined to murder our children, Reid? If they succeed, the vote is shaping up for Christmas eve, a night when we are all reminded of the Christ born in a manger, a star to guide the wise men...

Politics: Sen. Mary Landrieu was the new "Louisiana Purchase." Sen. Ben Nelson got the federal government to pick up his state's future Medicaid tab. Maybe we should just put Senate votes up on eBay. Nelson, the 60th vote in the middle-of-the-night Senate party line vote on health care reform, will go down in American political history as the inventor of the permanent earmark. His seemingly principled stand against including federal funding for abortion evaporated like the morning dew as he decided to take what was behind door No. 1. The deal for Nelson includes special Medicaid funding for Nebraska, along...

Madison, WI (LifeNews.com) -- A Wisconsin state senator is expanding his call for an investigation of a Planned Parenthood abortion center shown on an undercover video misleading women about abortion and fetal development. Live Action's latest video has an abortion practitioner and staffer saying abortion does not kill a human being. The video also shows the staff misleading two women posing as potential abortion customers by telling them that the heart of the unborn child doesn't begin to beat until late in pregnancy -- instead of at about 22 days as is the case.Senator Glenn Grothman has already called...

GALVESTON, Texas, December 21, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Nearly half of women using depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA), commonly known as the birth control shot, will experience high bone mineral density (BMD) loss in the hip or lower spine within two years of beginning the contraceptive, according to researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. The study, reported in the January 2010 issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology, was the first to show that women on the birth control shot who smoke, have low levels of calcium intake and never gave birth are at the highest risk for BMD loss....

My son stood larger than life, the sun dancing on his hair, his eyes sparkling as he laughed with his teammates in all the bravado only teammates can share. Grinning from ear to ear, ahead in a major semi-pro football game, my son was radiant with the joy of it, and I thanked God for days such as this. I once had the RIGHT to kill him. For a second I imagined him not there. That thought shot through my body like ice and anger at women like Nancy Pelosi welled up inside. What kind of monster would fight to...

Elmira, N.Y. - Bobby Schindler watched his sister die in one of the most publicized end-of-life cases in the nation’s history. Now, he’s hoping a similar case in Chemung County has a different ending. Schindler, the brother of Terri Schiavo, was in Elmira Monday to show his support for Sara Harvey, who is attempting to regain custody of her injured husband, Gary Harvey. “We’re trying to support her efforts to bring her husband home,” Schindler said. Chemung County is the guardian of Gary Harvey, who has been in a persistent vegetative state since he fell down his basement steps in...

(Warning: This story contains content that may offend some readers.)Elderly people are now buying their loved ones suicide kits as Christmas gifts, according to a prominent euthanasia physician nicknamed "Dr. Death." Dr. Philip Nitschke, founder of Exit International and author of "The Peaceful Pill Handbook," has explained the use of legal drugs, inert gases, plastic bags and other methods for committing suicide to audiences all over the world, including in U.S. cities such as San Francisco, Calif., and Anaheim, Calif. He told Australia's Herald-Sun a so-called "peaceful pill" is being developed from Nembutal, the favored drug for ending life. Nembutal...

Ben Nelson (D-Nb.), though, said Sunday that he's not committed to vote to kill a GOP filibuster. "I have made no promise," Nelson said on CNN's "State of the Union." I can't decide about the procedural vote until I see the underlying bill. It would be, I think, reckless to say I'll support the procedure without knowing what the underlying bill consists of. And it's not put together yet. It's a draft — it will be a draft bill some time next week, submitted the Congressional Budget Office for the review of the cost." Nelson also gave a thumbs-down...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Pro-life groups have spent most of Saturday morning furiously analyzing the Nelson-Reid compromise language on abortion funding in the Senate health care bill. Their conclusion is that the language undermines the amendments they wanted to ban abortion funding. The compromise language appears in the manager's amendment Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is offering to shore up the 60 votes he needs to overcome the filibuster against the pro-abortion health care bill. The language is not similar to the Stupak and Nelson amendments approved by the House and defeated in the Senate. Instead, Section 38 adds a...

The 60 votes are there for ObamaCare to pass in the Senate. The only thing preventing a vote is a blizzard in Connecticut, where Joe Lieberman went home for Sabbath. So you might say that God is the reason, both for sending Joe home and for sending the snow storm. I'm beginning to think that it will take a miracle to stop this massive take-over of the health care industry. So I propose an ongoing Rosary vigil. How it works is that I begin by saying a Rosary. When I finish, I reply to this thread. Hopefully, someone else will...

Former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is headed to Nebraska. Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, will headline an Omaha rally Sunday afternoon to try to persuade U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson to change his mind on health care reform. The rally will be at 3 p.m. at the Civic Auditorium Music Hall, 17th Street and Capitol Avenue. Doors will open at 2 p.m. The rally was put together quickly Saturday after Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat, said he would support a health-care reform bill in the Senate. Republican U.S. Rep. Lee Terry of Omaha is expected to attend, as well as state...

Fixed it is not. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) latest health care “manager’s amendment” would STILL levy a new “abortion premium” fee on Americans under the Democrats’ health care plan. Just like the original 2,032-page, government-run health care plan from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) and the last version of Senator Reid’s 2,074-page bill, this latest 383-page amendment levies an abortion premium and does not fix the problem of government funds being used to subsidize elective abortions.http://www.nrlc.org/AHC/NRLConReidManagersAmend.html Under Reid’s “manager’s amendment,” there is no prohibition on abortion coverage in federally subsidized plans participating in the Exchange. Instead the amendment includes...

Abortion Deal In Sight In Senate Healthcare Negotiations Barbara Boxer is 'optimistic' about reaching 60 votes after all-day talks with Majority Leader Harry Reid and Democratic holdout Ben Nelson. The GOP redoubles threats to slow business to a crawl. By Janet Hook and Noam N. Levey December 18, 2009 Reporting from Washington - With a critical vote looming this weekend, Senate Democratic negotiators closed in Friday night on a deal to persuade a lone Democratic holdout -- Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson -- to back the party's healthcare bill after a marathon day of negotiations. That would give Democrats the 60...

December 19, 2009 'Betrayed' [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Nebraska Right to Life on Nelson's choice: Lincoln——Nebraska Right to Life and pro-life Nebraskans have been betrayed by Senator Ben Nelson's agreement with Democratic leadership to become their 60th vote for cloture on the Senate healthcare bill, propped up by abortion compromise language which in no way resembles the Stupak amendment in the House bill or the Nelson/Hatch amendment attempt in the Senate. Both of those amendments had protections against taxpayer funding of abortion. "Senator Nelson had a chance to ensure that the longstanding principle of the Hyde Amendment against federal funding of...

While this does by all appearances give Majority Leader Harry Reid the 60 votes he needs to achieve cloture on his massive health care legislation, there remain several hurdles for this bill to clear -- most notably a conference committee in which House liberals will try to reinsert language stripped out to achieve a Senate majority. Already, the reaction to the Reid-Nelson abortion compromise is getting failing grades from both the pro-life and pro-choice side: Planned Parenthood, NOW and NARAL oppose the language as it would allow states to prohibit coverage, while the pro-life movement opposes the language because it...

Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson dropped his anti-abortion amendment into the Senate health care debate this afternoon, essentially lifting the language from the House version that so angered the left. Nelson, a staunch pro-life advocate, partnered with fellow Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and several Republicans to offer the measure, saying it’s necessary to ensure no federal dollars are spent on elective abortions. “Most Americans, even some who support abortion, do not want taxpayer money to be used for abortions,” Nelson said in his floor speech. “We should not break with precedent on this bill.” Nelson said the amendment would bar women...

If you want to know what really goes on behind the closed doors of Planned Parenthood, Google "Live Action" and click on the Planned Parenthood Appleton clinic. It's clear nothing has changed in the 35 years since I visited Planned Parenthood. An unintended, undesired pregnancy clearly constitutes a significant life crisis for many women and demands responsible crisis counseling. Lila Rose, president of Live Action, confirmed that the young woman in the undercover video received no counseling except that of the nurse and abortionist. The nurse was adamant that a fetus is not a baby "until birth," while the abortionist...

About 20 high school kids (including myself) from my school’s Live Action chapter went to a Planned Parenthood in the Bay Area. We got there around 10:00 AM, and met with a few more activists with signs picturing abortion victims. We split up into a couple of groups of 7 or so each, and each group gathered in a circle near one of the 3 driveway entrances to the parking lot of the clinic. We prayed for a while, each sharing his/her own prayer, and then we read aloud from the Psalms. Then we prayed again. The whole time, children...

Pro-life Senator Ben Nelson left a slip-up in his bow to Dems on the “health care” flop. “Conservative Republicans and the National Right to Life Committee criticized. “Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., who pushed through the restrictions in the House-passed bill, rejected Nelson's deal.

Pueblo, Colorado - Nicholas Coke, a baby boy from Pueblo is a living miracle. He was born with no brain. He can’t see, hear, crawl or suck, but still managed to make a history. This week he has completed his one year’s tough fight for survival.The disease Nicholas was born with is called Anencephaly. It’s a genetic disorder in which a person has no brain, just a brain stem. Anencephaly is a defect in the closure of the neural tube during development in the womb. The neural tube is a narrow channel that folds and closes between the third...

An aide to Rep. Bart Stupak (D. Mich.) coordinated opposition to a Senate compromise on the place of abortion in health care legislation this morning with the Republican Senate leadership, the Conference Catholic Bishops, and other anti-abortion groups, according to a chain of frantic emails obtained this morning by POLITICO. Stupak, in an interview with POLITICO, called the Senate’s bill’s abortion position unacceptable – but disavowed his staffer’s collaboration with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

WASHINGTON -- The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of right-to-life organizations in all 50 states, strongly opposes the abortion language contained in the "manager's amendment" filed today by U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (Nv.). Reid intends to press for Senate approval of the language during the days immediately ahead, without allowing an opportunity for any revisions to be considered. The following statement may be attributed to NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson: "The manager’s amendment is light years removed from the Stupak-Pitts Amendment that was approved by the House of Representatives on November 8 by a bipartisan...

WASHINGTON--Senate Democratic leaders said Saturday morning they have secured the 60 votes needed to ensure passage of health overhaul legislation after reaching agreement with Sen. Ben Nelson to address his concerns with the bill's handling of abortion. "Every Democrat realized...we had to get it done," said Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat who helped broker the final deal. Sen. Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat, told reporters Saturday he intends to vote for the legislation.

In a submission to a consultation on relaxing the rules on assisted suicide - which ends today - a coaliton of five disabled groups, said that “to see suicide as the right solution is to abandon hope. Severely ill and terminally ill people do no deserve society to give up on them.” The group, which is lead by Baroness Campbell, accused others who were pushing for the change as “seeking to change the law by the back door by creating the impression that those who assist in a suicide will be immune from prosecution”. Over the past 10 years 100...

Regular BreakPoint listeners know about the inhumane lengths some environmentalists are prepared to go to “save the planet.”Some have proposed taxing the parents of newborns several thousand dollars to discourage child-bearing, and thereby reducing CO2 emissions. Others have spoken of “culling” the human herd.What these proposals have in common, besides their cold-bloodedness, is that mainstream environmentalists keep insisting that they are “fringe” views. Well, recent statements from sources that couldn’t be more “respectable” put the lie to those claims. And they should remind Christians why the sanctity of human life must be our highest priority.During the recent U.N. global...

I just received a sad, two line E-Mail letter from a woman whose dedication to the fundamental human rights issue of our age is second to none: “In the week before Christmas my country gave to me, abortion, paid for by me.I guess Senator Nelson didn't read your article about him. Bart Stupak is our last hope.” She had apparently read the same report from the Washington Post which I had: ****** “Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.), the final Democratic holdout on health care, was prepared to announce to his caucus Saturday morning that he would support the Senate reform bill,...

Here's what I'm hearing. The deal for Ben Nelson includes additional Medicaid funding for Nebraska and carve outs for physician owned hospitals in Nebraska — and Nebraska only. Uncle Sam will take the hit for 100% of the Medicaid expansion for Nebraska, forever. Nebraska is the only state to get this deal. It profits a man nothing give his soul for the whole world, but for Medicaid funding carve outs....

Yesterday a friend and I were discussing the fact that President Obama allowed the public funding of abortions in Washington DC, and what our response should be. My friend suggested that instead of an all out refusal to pay taxes, and instead of individuals doing this on their own - which the IRS would salivate over - he suggested a massive tax protest held over a certain period of time. If the signers of the Manhattan Declaration are serious about refusing to pay taxes over the public funding of abortion via health care legislation, let me say there is no...

Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.), the final Democratic holdout on health care, was prepared to announce to his caucus Saturday morning that he would support the Senate reform bill, clearing the way for final passage by Christmas. "We're there," said Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), as he headed into a special meeting to announce the deal.

Conservative Democrat Ben Nelson is reported as the "holdout" for passing "real" health care reform is is lucky number "60" for passage of this socialist bill. Nelson says "The true meaning of Christmas is that you don't destroy babies!" In reality, ALL legislators who vote for this are equally responsible, and ALL will be held accountable. NOW is the time to contact his office and tell him that his political future hangs in the balance of his vote on this 2000 page monstrosity. Contact him via: Washington, D.C.720 Hart Senate Office BuildingUnited States SenateWashington, DC 20510Tel: (202) 224-6551Fax: (202) 228-0012...