Free Republic

A memo from a top adviser to Jeb Bush gives a clue as to how he could connect with the conservative base of his party if he runs for president: talking about his religious faith. Faith is listed as one of nine “issues you care about” in a memo to Mr. Bush’s supporters from Sally Bradshaw that quotes Mr. Bush on each topic, offering an on-message preview of his potential bid for the Republican nomination. Referring to his conversion to Catholicism, Mr. Bush says, “My faith was strengthened when I converted to my wife’s faith…It gives me a serenity that,...

A group of Democrats are hoping to regain ground in their national fight for abortion rights with a bill that makes it illegal for states to “chip away at women’s reproductive rights.” The group, led by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), said they will introduce their “historic pro-choice bill” on Wednesday. The bill directly targets harsh laws recently passed in Texas and Wisconsin, which are now facing court challenges. “The protections in this measure are more necessary now than ever before in our history because an avalanche of restrictive, reprehensible state laws is drastically reducing fundamental...

There are two great freedoms being assaulted under the radar that will soon come to the fore: the freedom to live and the freedom to speak. Both parties use abortion as a litmus test. You want the Democratic nomination for any federal or state office; you need to support a woman’s right to abortion. You want the Republican nomination for any federal or state office; you better claim that you are pro-life. I say “claim” because that’s all Republicans need to do to satisfy each other. If Republicans truly were pro-life, they’d have passed a one-paragraph statute when they ran...

Alliance Defending Freedom filed an application with the European Court of Human Rights Wednesday on behalf of Tom Mortier, who is challenging Belgium’s laws that allow euthanasia. Mortier’s mother was put to death by a doctor for “untreatable depression” even though she was not terminally ill. Mortier did not find out what had happened until he received a telephone call the day after her death. “The government has an obligation to protect life, not assist in promoting death,” said ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Robert Clarke. “A person can claim that she should be able to do whatever she pleases, but...

Connecticut’s liberal Sen. Richard Blumenthal wants no one to have to worry about aborting unborn children late in pregnancy, very late. He favors abortion at any time prior to birth. It’s not clear yet whether he would vote to deny federal protection to newborns who survive an attempted abortion. Blumenthal was not in the Senate when that bill passed. Barack Obama was in the Illinois Senate when that state’s Infant Born-Alive Bill was killed. Then-Sen. Obama made sure that bill never got to the Governor’s desk. We should know what Sen. Blumenthal wants. He wants no protections at all for...

First Amendment: The pen may be mightier than the sword, but President Obama's pen is not mightier than the Constitution or Americans' right to run businesses without sacrificing their religious beliefs and consciences. While the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision in favor of Hobby Lobby and a furniture maker in Pennsylvania was limited to "closely held" for-profit businesses, and is limited to the contraception mandate, its effect could be one more Obama-Care thread unraveling under the weight of its own injustice and inefficiencies. The court has rightly decided that businesses such as Hobby Lobby, which is solely owned by founder David...

"Growing up, Mom always told me, 'The answer to life is yes.'" That was Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, speaking and Barnard College's commencement last month. Richards is the daughter of a former Texas governor, the late Ann Richards, and in her speech Cecile Richards went on to praise another feminist icon, Margaret Sanger, the mother of Planned Parenthood. In describing the "movement" Sanger gave birth to, Richards left out its eugenics-based origins and its current dark side, which give a dark irony to her life-affirming message above. A new report from Live Action, a group that has...

"...It’s past time true conservatives reject these organizations. Stop sending them money, burn your memberships cards, and join organizations that actually represent your values. instead of supporting the Chamber of Commerce, support the Club for Growth. Instead of supporting National Right to Life, support the National Pro-Life Alliance. Instead of suporting the NRA, support Gun Owners of America and the National Association for Gun Rights. These are uncompromising organizations with plans for action...."

MONTGOMERY, AL, April 22, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) –– Children in the womb should have the same legal standing as other children, the Supreme Court of Alabama ruled Friday. The decision upheld the prior conviction of Sarah Janie Hicks for “the chemical endangerment of her child,” when she exposed her unborn baby to cocaine. The boy, referred to as “JD,” was born testing positive for cocaine. The 8-1 decision reaffirmed the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling in a similar case last year that the word “child” includes “unborn child.” Friday’s decision was a review of the lower Court of Criminal Appeals’ conviction of...

New Jersey Governor and potential 2016 presidential candidate Chris Christie said during a speech at a forum on drug and alcohol abuse that he is pro-life and he tied his opposition to abortion to his respect for human life, chrischristie4saying he is pro-life both before and after birth. Christie was a featured speaker at the conference, held at Saint Peter’s University. His comments on abortion came during a conversation with former Gov. Jim McGreevey. “It’s great to be pro-life, but you need to be pro-life after they get out of the womb, too,” Christie said to applause. Video and transcript...

On Wednesday, H.B. 305, authored by Representative Frank Hoffmann (R-Monroe), passed through the Louisiana House of Representatives by a bi-partisan vote of 91-6. The bill had 35 Representatives join as co-authors. prolifestudents33H.B. 305 states that no individual or organization that performs elective abortion or its affiliates may provide instruction or materials in public elementary and secondary schools or in charter schools that receive state funding. Benjamin Clapper, Executive Director of Louisiana Right to Life, said the following about the vote: “We commend the Louisiana House of Representatives for passing H.B. 305 to protect the children in our state-funded school system....

WASHINGTON -- This may shock you. During the eight years of the Reagan Presidency I was not his biggest fan. I looked not so much at what he accomplished but what he didn't accomplish. My expectations were that government would get smaller under President Reagan. It didn't. I was disappointed. I looked at the agencies left in place -- the National Endowment for the Arts, the Legal Services Corporation (which has done so much damage) and A.I.D. -- and I felt that the Reagan Administration did not make a real effort to curtail them. I was disappointed. Also there was...

VATICAN CITY ― There were gaffes and there were laughs, but U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Rome clearly served its purpose, if the hope was to bask in the glow of the popular Pope Francis. The day began with a stiff handshake between Obama and the pope, but the mood quickly lightened when the president quipped, “His Holiness is probably the only person who has to undergo more protocol than me,” after observing the whimsically dressed Swiss Guards and row of tuxedoed papal attendants when he was on his way to the pontifical library. They shared a giggle when...

LifeNews has repeatedly chronicled cases of people who were prematurely declared dead or said to be in supposedly persistent vegetative states who ultimately recovered. Now comes the story of Lexi Hansen, a BYU student who suffered critical head injuries last week after being hit by a car. Hansen, 18, was alert and breathing on her own Tuesday, though she was still listed in critical but stable condition. She even tried to get out of her hospital bed. While she has a long road to recovery ahead, her family believes they have witnessed a miracle. lexihansen“When they brought her in, the...

CNN's Anderson Cooper did little to hide his outrage on his Tuesday program over a zoo in Copenhagen, Denmark killing a giraffe. Cooper confronted the zoo's scientific director and asked, "Doesn't the life of the animal itself have some value, rather than just it being part of your breeding program?" The host later expressed his dismay to Jack Hanna: "What he seems to be saying is that the animal itself doesn't really have any right to live." Cooper later used language familiar to pro-life activists in defense of the giraffe: "At a certain point, the animals themselves should have some...

As his 7-year-old son Mikey lay in a hospital bed on life support, the victim of a drunk driver who had smashed into his family's car, Paul Cortez took the boy's hand and made a solemn promise to God: If his son survived, no matter in what condition, he and his family would always be there for him. It was a promise the family would keep for 31 years ... Although he would never emerge from the persistent vegetative state his father had found him in that night, Mikey's family was not only there for him but also gave him...

It's no wonder the legacy media does the best it can to ignore the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. They would like to preserve the perception they've cultivated over the years of "right to lifers" as a bunch of crotchety, backwards, sexually uptight old folks. Images of the January 22, 2014 March for Life present a completely different picture, demolishing the pro-abortion media's false narrative about who today's pro-life activists really are.

On the morning of December 11th, Gretchen Whitmer, the charismatic 42-year-old minority leader of the Michigan Senate, stood before her colleagues in the Statehouse in Lansing, and told them something she'd told almost no one before. "Over 20 years ago, I was a victim of rape," she said. "And thank God it didn't result in a pregnancy, because I can't imagine going through what I went through and then having to consider what to do about an unwanted pregnancy from an attacker."No one in the gallery said a word. Instead, with just hours to go before it broke for Christmas...

At least one in five patients declared brain dead and approved as organ donors by one organ donation organization, are in fact still alive and are being killed by the removal of vital organs, a lawsuit filed last week in Manhattan alleges. The suit outlines the ghoulish worst-case scenario, one that was widely dismissed as scaremongering in the early days of the development of organ transplant technology, but which is getting a second hearing amidst growing concerns that coercion and abuse are becoming increasingly common in the highly lucrative transplant business. Patrick McMahon, a nurse practitioner and Air Force combat...

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — A California hospital is unwilling to allow an outside doctor to fit a 13-year-old declared brain dead after tonsil surgery with the breathing and feeding tubes that would allow her to be safely transferred to another facility, its lawyer said Tuesday. Children's Hospital Oakland will not permit the procedures to be performed on its premises because Jahi McMath is legally dead in the view of doctors who have examined her, lawyer Douglas Straus wrote in a letter to the girl's family. "Performing medical procedures on the body of a deceased human being is simply not something...