The governor of Vermont has nothing but praise for an organization that kills tens of thousands of children every year.
Governor Peter Shumlin said that all residents of Vermont should feel “blessed” to have the “extraordinary work” of the organization in their state. Vermont is the only state in the nation where you can kill your baby via abortion during all nine months of pregnancy.
“Vermont is unusual. We should be blessed to live here with a Planned Parenthood that does extraordinary work, and a legislature that will stand behind you,” he said. “Let’s make Vermont an example for how this nation should deal with health care and reproductive rights.”
Planned Parenthood has 11 facilities in the state and receives $1.8 million dollars a year in Title X family planning funds.
Those standing for the lives of unborn children say that Planned Parenthood has an undue amount of influence of state politics.
“Sometimes we refer to them here in Vermont as the fourth branch of government,” Mary Hahn Beerworth of Vermont Right To Life said. “In 2010, when Peter Shumlin ran for governor for the first time, Planned Parenthood illegally raised and spent over $100,000 to run television ads that may well have made the difference in the election [as] they were run in the last few weeks. Most recently, our attorney general fined them $30,000 when he found them in violation of the law.”
World groups are using the 34th anniversary of China’s “One Child” policy to condemn the country for the millions of forced abortions carried out since the policy’s introduction.
The group Women’s Rights Without Frontiers sent a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping condemning the ongoing forced abortions in the country and the fact the government celebrates the killing of babies.
“Your government has boasted that it has ‘prevented’ more than 400 million births through this policy. These births have been prevented through forced abortions, involuntary sterilizations, confiscatory ‘terror fines,’ gendercide and infanticide — all in violation of international human rights law,” the group wrote.
The group condemned the new “two-child” policy adopted by the government for any parent who is an only child. They said the forced abortions will continue under the new policy.
“Allowing a relatively small number of families to have a second child will not end gendercide or sexual slavery in China,” the group wrote.
“The selective abortion and abandonment of baby girls is most prevalent in the countryside, where couples already can have a second child if the first child is a girl. Even if the most recent modification were to improve gender ratios at birth, the impact on sexual slavery would not be felt for decades to come.”
Contrary to claims made by the President and his supporters when they were pushing the Affordable Care Act through Congress, the law actually does pay for abortions.
A report from the General Accounting Office has revealed that many insurers receiving the government subsidies put no restrictions on abortions. The report shows 15 of 18 Qualified Health Plans ignored the rules that abortions are not to be covered except in cases of rape, incest or health of the mother.
“Of the 18 issuers offering QHPs that cover non-excepted abortion services from which we obtained information, all but three issuers indicated that the benefit is not subject to any restrictions, limitations, or exclusions,” noted the GAO.
“These 18 issuers offered a total of 246 unique QHPs that covered non-excepted abortion services — or 24 percent of the total number of QHPs covering non-excepted abortion services in the 28 states with no laws restricting the circumstances under which abortion services can be provided as a covered benefit.”
The National Right to Life Committee had warned in 2011 that the ACA was full of loopholes that allowed violations of right-to-life principles.
“As enacted, the PPACA contains multiple provisions authorizing federal subsidies for abortion, and additional provisions on which future abortion-expanding regulatory mandates may be based,” charged the NRLC.
Maine officials have backed down in the case involving a mother who was fighting to have a DNR lifted for her child after the story gained national media exposure.
The state has been fighting against the mother of Aleah Peaslee, who was six months old when her father shook her to the point that she suffered brain damage and was hospitalized in a coma.
After Aleah was removed from life support and placed in her mother’s arms with doctors expecting her to die. Instead, Aleah rallied and eventually came out of the coma.
Her mother Virginia Trask asked for the Do Not Resuscitate order placed on her daughter when she was in the coma be lifted since she was now recovering from her injuries. The state jumped in to keep it in place saying the child still had brain damage.
After major media outlets picked up on the story, the Maine Health and Human Services Department released a statement saying that if a court upholds the order they sought to keep the DNR in place, they would not enforce it.
Observers say that the case will likely be dismissed because of the Department’s new position and the governor’s opposition to their involvement.
A Catholic priest is speaking up on behalf of tens of thousands of displaced Christians who believe the Muslim-led government in Iraq abandoned them to the Islamic extremist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
“The people are angry because the government just gave up on them. They told us that, in Mosul, where there had normally been a presence of 60,000 soldiers, after the onslaught of ISIS, in only a matter of hours, these soldiers abandoned them, laying down their weapons,” said Fr. Rami Wakim in The Catholic Herald.
Many Christians have been forced to flee to the Kurdish regions of the country where Kurdish fighter groups have protected them.
Fr. Wakim said that most of the churches in the region are unable to hold full services inside their sanctuaries because they are filled with people sleeping on mattresses and piles of clothing because they have nothing left after fleeing Mosul and other areas overtaken by the terrorists.
“People look up to priests and bishops as the only solution, the only help they can get at a time where — of course we need to pray with them — but at this time prayer alone doesn’t seem enough and actions are required,” Wakim added.
The influx of Christian refugees is overwhelming the refugee centers in many of the areas and some aid groups have been told that they will have to transport refugees to other villages.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is speaking out about the Islamic terrorist group ISIS and showing that the head of the military’s top advisors to the President see the group as a real threat.
“This is an organization that has an apocalyptic, end-of-days strategic vision and which will eventually have to be defeated,” Army General Martin Dempsey said.
Gen. Dempsey and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel discussed the terrorist organization with a group of reporters.
“Can they be defeated without addressing that part of their organization which resides in Syria? The answer is no,” Gen. Dempsey said. “That will have to be addressed on both sides of what is essentially at this point a nonexistent border and that will come when we have a coalition in the region that takes on the task of defeating ISIS over time.”
The “nonexistent border” referred to by the general was the parts of Iraq and Syria taken over by the terrorist entity.
Defense Secretary Hagel said the group is different that previous terrorist outfits.
“They marry ideology, a sophistication of strategic and tactical military prowess. They are tremendously well-funded,” Hagel said. “This is beyond anything that we’ve seen. So we must prepare for everything.”
Secretary of State John Kerry is highlighting the case of Pastor Saeed Abedini as an example of Christian persecution in the Middle East.
“In Iran, U.S. Iranian citizen Pastor Saeed Abedini remains imprisoned. The Iranian authorities sentenced him to eight years behind bars simply because of his religious beliefs. We will continue to call for his release and we will continue to work for it,” Kerry stated.
The American Center for Law and Justice, who has been working to get Pastor Abedini freed, released a statement saying they were thankful that the Secretary of State was finally paying real attention to the case.
Kerry was speaking about the State Department 2013 Report on International Religious Freedom.
“On several occasions, however, senior U.S. government officials, including the President and the Secretary of State, raised directly with their Iranian counterparts the case of Christian pastor and dual U.S.-Iranian national Saeed Abedini, who is being held on charges related to his religious beliefs, and called for his release,” the report states. “The Department of State also publicly called for the release of Mr. Abedini and other prisoners held on religious grounds.”
Prayer vigils around the country are planned on September 26th, the two-year anniversary of Abedini’s unlawful imprisonment.
Massachusetts lawmakers passed a new law to restrict pro-life protesters who would be outside an abortion clinic after the Supreme Court struck down their previous law.
The new law, which is titled An Act to Promote Public Safety and Protect Access to Reproductive Health Care Facilities”, will now allow police to break up any protest that the police say are “impeding access” to an abortion clinic and then ban anyone at the protest from being within 25 feet of a clinic for 8 hours.
The governor said he was “proud to sign” the bill that can allow police to bully those who believe in the value of life.
The law will be challenged in court by pro-life groups.
“We are deeply disturbed at this legislature’s efforts to silence the voices of those they disagree with. We thank those legislators who voted against this new legislation, and we will closely monitor how this law is being carried out,” stated Massachusetts Citizens For Life. “Rest assured that Massachusetts Citizens For Life will be doing everything in its power to ensure that the voices of pro-life individuals are protected.”
The crackdown on churches in China is ramping up again.
Chinese police in Wenzhou forcibly removed the cross from the top of a local church building. The members of the church gathered around the fallen cross, weeping and praying for the men who conducted the removal.
The congregants had tried to protect the cross atop Longgang Huai En Church but hundreds of police descended on the building and overwhelmed the church members. The government said the cross on top violated the city’s ordinance on the height of buildings within the city.
The government workers did make an unusual step in allowing the church members to keep the cross inside their building.
The Chinese government is cracking down on churches in Wenzhou, called the “Jerusalem of China” by local Christians because of the revival of faith in the city. The International Chrsitian Concern says that the government has not only encouraged local officials to remove crosses from buildings but are offering political promotions to those who succeed in shutting down churches.
Rabbi David Saperstein has been nominated by President Obama to be the next ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom at the U.S. State Deaprtment. Rabbi Saperstein would be the first non-Christian to hold the position since the job was created in 1998.
“I am grateful that Rabbi Saperstein has chosen to dedicate his talent to service the American people at this important time for our country,” President Obama said. “I look forward to working with him in the months and year ahead.”
Rabbi Saperstein now awaits Senate confirmation.
The nomination is coming after controversy. The position was left unfilled by the Obama Administration for almost two years before Suzan Johnson Cook took the role in 2011. She left in October during very visible times of Christian persecution around the world and the administration had not taken steps to fill the office for the last nine months.
Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention took note of the nine-month delay in the President’s action but had praise for the nominee.
“Rabbi Saperstein is a respected thinker and leader who brings gravity to this important task,” Moore said. “He has my prayers and my pledge of full cooperation. The downgrade of religious freedom and the persecution of religious minorities around the world must end.”