Free Republic

“Remarking on the soaring tensions between Ukraine and Russia, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Eduardo Rodriguez Parrilla voiced support for Moscow and echoed his voice against NATO’s expansion eastward.” (This was way back on Feb. 20, by the way.) Most of us recall the Obama administration's lies and treachery regarding Benghazi. But how many of you know about the Obama administration's lies and treachery against the American families of the Americans ambushed and murdered on the orders of Raul Castro this week in 1996?....... Thought so...Well, please read on: You see, amigos: This week 26 years ago three U.S. citizens and...

An Ohio woman's lawsuit alleging a Downers Grove sperm bank error that led to the birth of her biracial daughter has been thrown out of court. A DuPage County judge Thursday dismissed the lawsuit against Midwest Sperm Bank, saying the woman's wrongful birth claim and breach of warranty were not viable claims under state law. The suit, originally filed last November in Cook County, was refiled in DuPage County in March. Judge Ronald Sutter then gave attorneys for Jennifer Cramblett of Uniontown, Ohio, 14 days to refile the lawsuit as a negligence claim. Thomas Intili, a Dayton, Ohio attorney representing...

International surrogacy is often touted as a win-win situation. Western couples get a baby gestated for them at a low price, and the women in third world countries get more money than they would normally see in a lifetime. But all we rich western countries have to do is look a tad bit closer and the whole facade falls apart. The women are exploited by signing contracts they cannot read, are kept under lock and key, forced to deliver by cesarean section, and then not paid the full amount they are promised. Some women die. Many of the contracting...

Gerardo Hernandez, a spy for Communist Cuba and the man responsible for the murder of four humanitarian workers (three of whom were American citizens) over international waters, was freed from prison last year by the Obama administration, due in part to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). This was revealed at a February 6, 2015, celebration of Hernandez’s release, along with two of his fellow Cuban agents (collectively known as the “Cuban 5.. At the beginning of the event, an IPS official thanked all who who took part in the 17-year campaign and singled out a number of organizations that...

Christa Dias was awarded $171,000 Monday by a federal jury in Cincinnati, Ohio, which found that the 34-year-old gay teacher was wrongly fired by the Catholic archdiocese for becoming pregnant by artificial insemination in 2010. Dias, who was a technology teacher at Holy Family and St. Lawrence schools in East Price Hill, Cincinnati, was fired in October 2010 after she approached her employers concerning maternity leave. The archdiocese argued that Dias' employment contract was clear that she was required to abide by Catholic teachings. Undergoing artificial insemination was a breach of that contract. But she contended that as a non-ministerial...

When I do presentations on in vitro fertilization, audience members sometimes ask whether test tube babies experience psychological problems as they grow up. Although they clearly face elevated health risks for a number of diseases and physical disorders, the psychological effects on these children have not been thoroughly studied. Nevertheless, children born from other, closely related technologies, like anonymous sperm donation, are starting to be tracked, and researchers are finding that these children face significant difficulties in dealing with their feelings and emotions as they grow older. They oftentimes struggle with their own sense of dignity and identity, with their...

While promoting her movie 'The Switch' earlier this week, Jennifer Aniston told reporters that women don't need men to start a family or be good mothers. When Bill O'Reilly caught wind of her statement, he debated the topic of single motherhood on 'The O'Reilly Factor' and called out the 41-year-old actress. "She's throwing a message out to 12-year-olds and 13-year-olds that, 'Hey you don't need a guy. You don't need a dad.' That is destructive to our society," O'Reilly railed. FOX News contributor Margaret Hoover and FOX News anchor Gretchen Carlson debated the topic with O'Reilly, admitting young teens wouldn't...

Regarding the Instruction Dignitas PersonaeAim In recent years, biomedical research has made great strides, opening new possibilities for the treatment of disease, but also giving rise to serious questions which had not been directly treated in the Instruction Donum vitae (22 February 1987).  A new Instruction, which is dated 8 September 2008, the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, seeks to provide some responses to these new bioethical questions, as these have been the focus of expectations and concerns in large sectors of society.  In this way, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith seeks both...

SACRAMENTO -- Iris and Joseph Kievernagel disagreed about having children during their 10-year marriage, and their argument moved into the courts - and the casebooks of legal precedent - after his death in a helicopter crash. In a ruling made public Friday, a state appeals court said the Sacramento County woman has no right to use her husband's frozen sperm to become pregnant because he had made it clear he did not want to father a child posthumously. If only one spouse has contributed genetic material, "the intent of the donor" must control its disposition after death, said the Third...

NEW YORK — Eighteen-year-old Ryan and 14-year-old Anna found each other on the Internet. Both were conceived by artificial insemination technology. After they registered with the Donor Sibling Registry online, they discovered that they shared the same in vitro fertilization clinic and “donor number.” The same anonymous sperm donor was their genetic father. They are half brother and sister. On a long weekend in May, Ryan and his mother flew from Colorado to New York to meet Anna and her mother and non-genetic father. Coincidentally, Ryan and Anna were celebrating the same birthday. Perfect strangers, they bonded instantly, according to...

The same California Supreme Court that created a "right" to homosexual "marriage" earlier this year has now ruled that the state may force healthcare professionals to provide services that support an immoral and physically dangerous lifestyle. California's highest court was unanimous in its decision on Monday that Christian doctors may not refuse to perform artificial insemination for homosexual patients. (See "California court says no religious exemption for doctors") Attorney Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), reacts to the ruling. "This is a clear violation of the fundamental rights of individuals to live and practice their faith," he...

California physicians may not refuse treatment to patients based on their sexual orientation even if it violates their religious beliefs, the state Supreme Court ruled yesterday. [[Benitez081908.jpg]]In a unanimous decision, the high court said two Vista physicians who refused to artificially inseminate a lesbian from Oceanside because their religious convictions prohibited such procedures for unmarried persons could be sued for violating the state’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, reversing an appellate court that had ruled otherwise. “Do the rights of religious freedom and free speech, as guaranteed in both the federal and the California Constitutions, exempt a medical clinic’s physicians from...

NEW YORK - A couple can proceed with a lawsuit against a fertility clinic they filed after the wife gave birth to a daughter whose skin they thought was too dark to be their child, a judge has ruled. ADVERTISEMENT Thomas and Nancy Andrews, of Commack, N.Y., sued New York Medical Services for Reproductive Medicine, accusing the Manhattan clinic of medical malpractice and other offenses. They claim the Park Avenue clinic used another man's sperm to inseminate Nancy Andrews' eggs. Three DNA tests — a home kit and two professional laboratory tests — confirmed that Thomas Andrews was not the...

In a remarkable op-ed appearing in the Washington Post, a young woman named Katrina Clark explains what it's like to know that you are the child of an anonymous sperm donor. It's not fun. The essay could be Exhibit A in any argument about the morality of artificially assisted human reproduction. The child of a loveless, sterile union between gametes speaks with authority when she reminds us that nobody asked for her opinion on the circumstances of her birth. Her mother (whom she still admires) got the baby she wanted. But the baby didn't get a father she could know....

The Vatican today published a sweeping condemnation of contraception, abortion, in-vitro fertilisation and same-sex marriage, declaring that the traditional family has never been so threatened. The document was issued by the Pontifical Council for the Family, whose head, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, is a strong opponent of the use of condoms under any circumstances. Gay activists in Italy condemned the report as a grotesque attack against modern life, freedom and social redemption.The 57-page document does not break any new ground but summarised traditional Vatican positions."Man of modern times has radicalised the tendency to take the place of God and substitute him," it...

MICHIGAN, United States, May 23, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Demonstrating again the dangers of artificial procreation, doctors reported last week on the case of five children fathered by the same sperm donor have inherited a rare and often fatal disease from him. The rare disease naturally affects only about one child in five million, said Dr. Lawrence A. Boxer, director of paediatric haematology and oncology at the University of Michigan, who discovered the cases. When four families with affected children came to him in one year, "it became pretty striking," he told the AP. The families had seven children, including...

Wolf’s Phantom Pregnancy Fools Zookeepers Zookeepers expecting a litter of wolf cubs were disappointed after discovering that a female Korean wolf in captivity at the Seoul Grand Park Zoo was actually in the midst of a phantom pregnancy. It would have been the first time a Korean wolf became pregnant by artificial insemination. After the sudden death of a male wolf, the zoo collected sperm from the animal and kept it in storage for a week before attempting the artificial insemination of a female in heat at the time. Some 50 days later, the wolf’s abdomen began to bulge, the...

BIRTHS TO UNMARRIED MOTHERS ARE at a record high in the United States--almost 1.5 million in 2004 alone, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. While the rising trend is of long standing, one novel factor driving up childbearing outside marriage is the growing popularity of single motherhood by donor insemination. The incidence of this "assisted reproduction," as it is called, has more than doubled in the last decade.Most public discussion of donor insemination for single women has been carried on in a neutral, positive, or breathlessly celebratory tone. Isn't it great, the thinking seems to be, that these...

It seems like a simple question — the kid’s mom and dad, right? The people who made the baby. But for decades, legal and technological changes have been reshaping families, as reproductive techniques like sperm donation, egg donation, and surrogate motherhood become far more embedded in our culture than most of us realize. Now we have kids with two moms, four moms, or none at all. These technologies, and the legal tangles they create, have shifted us to an understanding of family that pretends bodies don’t matter, and denies children’s need for their own mother and father. Here are only...

Websites offer donor eggs and sperm to women who want children. Proposals to crack down on internet sites that trade in human sperm and eggs are set to be unveiled this week by the government. The plans are part of a consultation on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. ...The Department of Health has said there are a number of concerns regarding how internet sites currently operate, including the fact that internet sperm donors do not benefit from the same legal protection as that given to donors at regulated clinics. This means website donors are regarded as the legal...