The Alaska House of Representatives has passed a law that would put new restrictions on abortions.
The bill would define a “medically necessary” abortion that would then place limits on what kinds of abortions can receive state funding. State funding through Medicaid would be prohibited from paying for any elective abortions.
Opponents of the bill are making the usual claims that the bill is just aimed to keep low-income women from ending the lives of their babies via abortion.
“This bill has nothing to do with restricting a women’s right to an abortion,” Representative Gabrielle LeDoux told Anchorage Daily News. “We’ve got the right to travel, but it doesn’t mean the government buys us a ticket to Paris. We’ve got the right to bear arms, but the government doesn’t buy us a Sturm Ruger.”
Democrats said the bill will not save the state any money since pro-abortionists would file repeated lawsuits to stop the law which will cost the state for legal defense.
The bill is headed back to the state Senate for a final vote before heading to the Governor.
A New York City megachurch pastor is calling for immediate action against what she calls an “alarming trend” for increased abortions among the African American community.
Rev. Elaine Flake said that people of faith in the African American community have a responsibility to step in and stem the tide after a report showing over half the black women in New York City aborted their babies in 2012.
“I saw that article about a month ago, someone forwarded it to me via email and I was devastated,” Flake told The Christian Post. “I thought those statistics were just outrageous, and wondered if they were true. But if they are, it’s something that I think we have to deal with as a church. As the African American community we have to educate our people a little bit better. I think we just have to be determined that we’re going to deal with some of these issues.”
Flake suggested that as a whole young women are not being taught the value of life and family and perhaps the media is partially to blame for promoting a lifestyle that devalues human life.
“I could never counsel anyone to have an abortion. I could never do that. And I think that when people are making choices, I think they would know my position on that. Again, I think it goes back to the problem of our children especially becoming sexually active so young. … It just seems to be the way the culture’s going. I think that because it is going that way we are seeing these kinds of statistics,” Flake said.
Pope Francis has taken the boldest stand against abortion since his ascension to the Papacy.
The Pope said that human life is “sacred and inviolable” and that every civil law is based “ on the recognition of the first and most fundamental right, the right to life.” The Pope went on to praise groups that are working to save life “in all its phases.”
“Life once conceived, must be protected with the utmost care; abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes,” Pope Francis said. “It is therefore necessary to reiterate the strongest opposition to any direct attack on life, especially innocent and defenseless, and her unborn child in the womb is the innocent par excellence.”
The Pope went further and said the devaluation of human life via abortion is a direct result of the economics of the world that see human beings as nothing more than a means to an end.
“If you look at life as something that is consumed,” the Pope said, “it will also be something that sooner or later you can throw away, with abortion to begin with.”
An investigation by the New York Post has discovered the New York State Health Department has been negligent in their inspections of the state’s abortion clinics.
The report says that some facilities have not been inspected for violations in over a decade. The report also says that only 25 centers that provide abortions are regulated by the health department while pro-abortion supporters say that there are 225 abortion providers within the state.
The inspection reports show that 8 of the 25 clinics were never inspected between 2000-2012. Five had only one inspection and another eight only two or three times in the 12-year span. In all, a total of only 45 inspections were held during the 12-year period.
By comparison, state law requires all restaurants to be inspected once a year and every tanning salon once every two years.
A state Health Department employee told the Post that some facilities that perform abortions are not required to list that service in their operating certificates. In the case of places that do list abortion as a service, only one clinic had a legal action taken in the last 12 years.
A U.S. District Court judge has refused to block a new set of abortion regulations in Arizona.
The regulations now in effect will require abortionists to follow FDA guidelines for prescribing and dispensing abortion producing drugs such as RU486. The FDA guidelines prohibit the use of those drugs after the seventh week of pregnancy.
Attorneys for Planned Parenthood has sued to stop the law claiming that requiring abortionists to follow the federal government’s guidelines on the drug would harm women.
Judge David C. Bury ruled that it was still to be seen if the law is an obstacle to abortion but that based on what was presented to the court the measure did not create irreparable harm.
The pro-life Center for Arizona Policy released a statement praising the court’s action saying that the decision upheld a common sense health and safety standard and that it was a victory for anyone who truly cared about the well-being of women.
A district court judge who blocked Alabama’s abortion law announced they will be holding a trial to discover the “merits” of the law.
Judge Myron Thompson, appointed by President Carter in 1980, issued a decision on the law saying that if the court finds the law was passed in an attempt to protect the lives of an unborn baby, then the law is unconstitutional.
Pro-abortion groups including Planned Parenthood, the ACLU and Reproductive Health Services immediately attacked the law upon passage, which Governor Robert Bentley signed last year. The judge placed the law on hold because he said evidence had to be reviewed regarding the effects of the law.
Abortion supporters say the law’s requirement that abortionists obtain admitting privileges at a nearby hospital is too restrictive because most hospitals won’t give those privileges. They claim at least three of the state’s five abortion clinics would have to close if the law is allowed to go into effect.
The Alabama legislature is considering three new bills to curtail abortion in the state.
The governor of West Virginia has vetoed a bill that would have extended protection to unborn children.
Democrat Earl Ray Tomblin is the governor in the nation to veto a bill that would ban abortion after 20 weeks. Tomblin, who has previously claimed that he was pro-life, said his reason for vetoing the bill was that he believed it was unconstitutional.
“The bill is also problematic because it unduly restricts the physician-patient relationship. All patients, particularly expectant mothers, require the best, most unfettered medical judgment and advice from their physicians regarding treatment options,” Tomblin said. “The medical community has made it clear to me that the criminal penalties this bill imposes will impede that advice, and those options, to the detriment of the health and safety of expectant mothers.”
Pro-life groups were stunned by the governor’s move because of his previous claims of being pro-life.
“The governor has placed himself in a minority position on this bill,” Wanda Franz, president of West Virginians for Life, told Christian News.
If you believe in the sanctity of life, the House minority leader thinks you’re stupid.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi told a Planned Parenthood group that was giving her an award that anyone who was pro-life was “closed-minded”, “oblivious” and “dumb.”
Pelosi was being given the Margaret Sanger Award for “outstanding contributions to the reproductive health and rights movement.” Sanger is the woman who founded Planned Parenthood and once said that she had to submit to the dictates of “an ever-increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who should never have been born at all.”
Pelosi said she was accepting the award on behalf of her colleagues who are continuing to fight for those who want to end the lives of their babies via abortion.
The gathering also gave a “Global Citizen Award” to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg who is very pro-abortion.
A U.S. appeals court has upheld a Texas law that requires abortionists to gain admitting privileges at a local hospital less than 30 miles from their abortion clinics.
A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans ruled the law put in place last July is Constitutional and does not place an undue burden on abortionists or women seeking to end the lives of their babies via abortion.
Lawyers for Planned Parenthood brought in abortionists had told the court that the regulation was unconstitutional because it would require abortion clinics in the state to close. Sixteen abortion clinics in the state have already closed because of the law.
Pro-life supporters say that many of the clinics are not actually closing because of the hospital privilege requirement, but rather they did not want to pay to upgrade their facilities to the same levels of hygiene and safety as other ambulatory surgery clinics.
The decision overturns a lower court ruling that requiring the admitting privileges was unconstitutional.
Abortion advocates said they would continue their fight in the courts to make sure more abortions would be able to continue in the state of Texas.
The University of Michigan is hosting an exhibition whose purpose is to glorify and glamorize abortion and even mock God with a poster claiming that God is a woman who endorses the killing of babies via abortion.
The horrific display, titled “4000 Years For Choice”, is an exhibition of posters promoting abortion practices through the years. The University has a web page describing the exhibit as promoting a “means to reclaim reproductive freedom as a deeply personal and life-sustaining act.”
The exhibit also includes a poster that reads, “Abortion is a gift from God.” However, the “O” in God is the universal symbol for a woman, implying that God is a woman and that “she” gave abortion to women so they didn’t have to worry about a child.
Other posters reading, “Abortion is a blessing” and “anything 46 million women do every year can’t be immoral.”
The program is sponsored by the Program for Sexual Rights and Reproductive Justice, an official arm of the University of Michigan. The program receives public funding. When questioned by The College Fix regarding whether the other point of view on abortion would be presented on campus, calls were referred to Planned Parenthood.
The University of Michigan administration has not issued a statement on using public funding to promote abortion.