ICYMI: Kentucky Gov. and AG Wants Catholic Hospital Do Sterilizations, Abortion

Univ. of Louisville Hospital

Update: Sept 1, 2011 Modern Health reports, "The Federal Trade Commission appears satisfied with the impact that a proposed $620 million merger with the University of Louisville Hospital and two subsidiaries of Catholic Health Initiatives would have on competition within Kentucky's healthcare market. . . .

The deal still needs approval at the federal and state levels, as well as from the Roman Catholic Church. The agreement would combine the three into a yet-to-be named, tax-exempt health system that would adhere to the tenets of the church, including restrictions on reproduction services for women and end-of-life planning. University of Louisville Hospital officials this week announced its staff would move some reproductive services after the merger to Baptist Hospital East in Louisville.

Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway continues his scrutiny of the deal, which his office called precedent-setting with nationwide impact. His office continues its review, concerned that the University of Louisville Hospital receives taxpayer support and lies on state-owned land. There's no timeframe from when Conway's office would complete its “lengthy” review, . . ."
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Life Site News reported in mid-August on a "potential showdown looms between Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear and Catholic leaders over a proposed merger of a local Catholic health system with a public hospital. Beshear says the new entity, which would be controlled by Catholic stakeholders, must have a “public mission” and so offer procedures such as sterilization and abortion.

The proposal would see a merger between Lexington-based St. Joseph Health System, which is owned by the Denver-based Catholic Health Initiatives, and the University of Louisville Hospital, along with Jewish Hospital & St. Mary’s HealthCare. Catholic Health Initiatives would own 70 percent of the new company, appoint a majority of board members, and follow the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Service.”

Beshear met Wednesday with state officials and representatives of the three health care organizations planning the controversial merger. “We had a good meeting,” Beshear told the Louisville Courier-Journal. “We public officials have concerns about the public mission of U of L Hospital. … Overall, what we want to make sure of is the public mission of U of L Hospital remains the same.” . . . [Full Story]

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Tags: Kentucky, Governor, Attorney General, hospital merger, Catholic hospital, abortions, sterilization To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Greater Fitchburg For Life. Thanks!

Another Planned Parenthood manager quits and converts to pro-life

Ramona Trevino has left
her job as a manager at a
Planned Parenthood facility

By Thaddeus Baklinski, LifeSiteNews: In a story with clear echoes of the now famous conversion of former Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson, four months ago a manager at a Planned Parenthood facility in Sherman, Texas resigned from her position with the abortion giant and is now speaking out about her pro-life conversion.

In a press release from 40 Days for Life-Dallas, Ramona Trevino explains that although the particular Planned Parenthood where she worked did not perform surgical abortions, she was struggling “with [her] conscience . . . on contraception, abortion and [her] role in it all.”

Just like Abby Johnson, Trevino credits a 40 Days for Life campaign outside her Planned Parenthood facility with helping her movement towards a pro-life way of thinking.

After the 40 Days campaign came to Sherman, she says she went from believing she was providing a service to women in need, to realizing that Planned Parenthood “treated women like cattle and how they only cared about making money” – a realization she says was “long overdue.”

Interestingly, Planned Parenthood closed its Sherman clinic (the clinic where Ramona was the manager) on August 23, 2011, after Texas Governor Rick Perry signed into law a bill that stripped the organization of its funding, and prohibited the state government from contracting with any organization that provides abortions.

Six other Texas PP clinics - in Gainesville, Arlington, Mesquite, Plano, Terrell, and Waxahachie - have closed, or are scheduled to be closed by the end of September. . . . Read Full Story

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Tags: Planned Parenthood, prolife, abortion centers, abortion To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Greater Fitchburg For Life. Thanks!

False Abortion Arguments

Kirby Anderson, Point of View: Some of the arguments used to legalize abortion back in 1973 seemed compelling at the time. But as John Lott points out in his book, Freedomnomics, these arguments for abortion all turned out to be false.

He also points out that at first some of the trends seem contradictory. Consider these four changes that occurred after the abortion decision of Roe v. Wade. (1) A sharp increase in premarital sex. (2) A sharp rise in out-of-wedlock births. (3) A drop in the number of children placed for adoption. (4) A decline in marriages that occur after a woman becomes pregnant.

These seem contradictory. Why would both the number of abortions and of out-of-wedlock births go up? And if there are more illegitimate births, why were fewer children available for adoption?

The answer to the first question is that abortion changed attitudes. With abortion as a backup, women and men became less careful in using contraceptives and were more likely to engage in premarital sex.

The answer to the second question is that before Roe, women who could not get an abortion were likely to give their child up for adoption. After Roe, those babies weren’t being placed with adoption agencies.

And the decline of so-called “shotgun marriages” was also the result of changed attitudes. Many men who felt tricked into an unwanted fatherhood, were more likely to wash their hands of the affair thinking that the woman had the option of abortion. So if it’s her choice, then let her chose abortion or else raise the child by herself.

When abortion was legalized, we were promised that it would reduce many of our social problems. Obviously, they made them worst. We should remember that the next time we hear how a new policy or court decision will makes things better. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.

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Tags: Kirby Anderson, Point of View, Abortion, false arguments To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Greater Fitchburg For Life. Thanks!

With Frank Turek - Legislating Morality - The Right to Life

Bobby Conway, One Minute Apologist Video: Special Guest Frank Turek explains to us what it means to legislate morality. Addresses the fist inalienable right: Life. For without the Right to Life, you don't have anything!

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Tags: apologetics, apologist, one minute apologist, evangelism, morality, legislating, Bobby Conway, Frank Turek, morals, ethics, law, inalienable right, life, right to life
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Political Responsibility With Respect to Abortion

Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, talks about the importance of the role of the next President of the United States regarding abortion. He points out several of the different ways the President can effect abortion. For more information, please visit www.politicalresponsibility.com

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Tags: political activism, political responsibility, the president, abortion, Fr. Frank Pavone To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Greater Fitchburg For Life. Thanks!

Florida Court: Abortionist Ordered to Pay Survivor $36 Million in Damages

by Karla Dial: A Florida judge on Monday denied a new malpractice trial to an abortionist previously ordered to pay a victim $36 million.

As a result, James Pendergraft — who owns five abortion clinics in Florida and one near Washington, D.C. — will likely see his businesses close, since he does not carry medical malpractice insurance.

The money will go to Carol Howard for the life-long care of her severely disabled 10-year-old daughter. Howard sought a chemical abortion from Pendergraft in 2001, when she was 20 years old and 22 weeks pregnant. Instead of delivering a stillborn child into a toilet, however, she delivered a live child weighing just over 1 pound at a nearby hospital. Her daughter suffers from cerebral palsy, strokes, brain and lung damage, chronic lung disease, seizure disorders, and has no function on the left side of her body.

“She’s never going to get any better,” Howard’s lawyer, Jennifer Gentry Fernandez, told the Orlando Sentinel after the ruling. “It was a tragically unbelievable situation. Hopefully, it won’t be too much longer until we can get recovery for (Howard).”

If a sonogram had been performed, Fernandez said, Howard would most likely have realized abortion was no longer an option.

In court, Pendergraft’s attorney said if Howard had stayed at the clinic instead of leaving 12 hours after the drugs were administered, the outcome would have been different. Gentry told the jury that when Howard asked clinic staff why the abortion was taking so long, she was told to “change her attitude or get the h— out of the clinic.

Since opening his first Florida clinic in the mid-1990s, Pendergraft has served time in federal prison for extortion and perjury. The Florida Department of Health has suspended his license four times, but at press time, his clinics remained open with other abortionists at the helm.

Howard won her civil case against him in July, when a judge ordered him to pay $18,255,000 in punitive damages, $18 million in compensatory damages to be placed in a trust for her daughter’s care, and more than $400,000 in court costs. Eleven jurors found him guilty, and one declared him “absolutely guilty!”
[H/T ARRA News Service]

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Tags: abortionist, Florida, judgement To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Greater Fitchburg For Life. Thanks!

Arizona. court OK’s abortion restrictions

Boston.com: An Arizona appeals court ruled yesterday to allow key parts of a state law restricting abortions to take effect, including one that requires women to see a doctor in person the day before getting an abortion to hear about risks and alternatives.

The provisions have been on hold for two years after a state judge blocked them from taking effect in 2009.

But the Arizona Court of Appeals ordered the judge to lift his hold yesterday, saying the provisions are constitutional and do not put undue burdens on women seeking to end their pregnancies.

The provisions include a requirement for women to get so-called informed consent about risks and alternatives from a doctor in person before getting an abortion. Currently, women are allowed to get that information over the phone from a doctor or a nurse practitioner.

The appellate court’s ruling also covers provisions banning nurses from performing surgical abortions and requiring parental consent forms to be notarized for minors getting abortions. Another provision expands an existing law that allows health care workers to refuse to participate in abortions for moral or religious reasons.

The new provisions could take effect as soon as a month from now but could be held up for more than a year if Planned Parenthood of Arizona files an appeal in the Arizona Supreme Court.

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Tags: abortion, Arizona, Court of Appeals, upholds Arizona law To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Greater Fitchburg For Life. Thanks!

Abortion Story, The Knocking At The Door

By Ron R, Totus Blog: He is waiting, waiting for the knocking at the door. While all around him he feels a warmth, a feeling of security, a sense of being and the closeness of belonging. And yet he knows there is more, more than this so he waits patiently for the knocking at the door. Sounds, not to distant flood his world and he feels the outside through the inner darkness. A gentle softness flows over him and lulls him to sleep and he dreams, dreams of the knocking at the door.

Suddenly he wakes, wakes to the knocking at the door. And in an instant the door is shattered and the warmth that surrounds him flows away and a alien claw grips him and the pain pierces his very being as he is pulled from his sheltered world. A brief blinding light flashes only for moment before a cold dark eternity settles over him.

Doctor A. Borson looks over the sheet at the young woman lying on his table and smiles as he says, "now that wasn't all that bad was it". She manages a slight smile and in a subdued voice says, "no". The doctor removes his bloody gloves as he stands and turns to the nurse asking, "how many more do we have today"? She replies, "four". "Good" he says as he walks out the door. The nurse then reaches to the pan on the floor and picks it up while placing her foot at the base of the container marked "Hazard: Medical Waste", pushing the small black pedal down the white top opens and she dumps in the lifeless mass of bone and tissue.

Just another day in the clinic. Just another day in the progressive world of modern day America. Just another baby thrown on the trash pile of a liberal ideology, one who will never know the love on the other side of that door. And in the waiting room of Dr A. Borson four more unsuspecting victims are waiting, waiting for "The Knocking at the Door"!

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Tags: abortion, abortion story, The knocling At The Door To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Greater Fitchburg For Life. Thanks!

Congressmen Defend State’s Right to Defund Planned Parenthood

by Karla Dial, CitizenLink: A law prohibiting Indiana from distributing Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood has some powerful advocates on its side — namely, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), 25,000 Americans and 41 U.S. Representatives — most of whom are from states also trying to defund Planned Parenthood.

Signed in May by Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, the law was immediately put on hold when Planned Parenthood and the ACLU challenged it in federal court, which later granted a motion for preliminary injunction. The case was then appealed to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) filed on behalf of the congressmen — including all Indiana House Republicans — a “friend of the court” brief on Aug. 8, defending the state’s right to distribute federal funds as it sees fit.

“HEA 1210 (Indiana’s state law) is not rendered unreasonable or inconsistent with federal Medicaid law simply because it bolsters Indiana’s strong interests in encouraging childbirth and ensuring that abortions are not directly or indirectly subsidized by public funds,” the brief states. “Indiana may reasonably conclude that sending large sums of public funds to abortion providers that also provide non-abortion services within the same organization serves to indirectly subsidize abortion activities.”
Planned Parenthood — which receives more than $350 million a year from taxpayers via “government grants and contracts” challenged the law by saying it has a “constitutional right” to perform abortions and receive public funds.

CitizenLink Judicial Analyst Bruce Hausknecht said federal law clearly “gives the states wide latitude in determining who qualifies as a Medicaid provider, and that’s what Indiana is taking advantage of.”

This year, six states moved to defund Planned Parenthood: Indiana, Kansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin. Planned Parenthood is suing Indiana, Kansas and North Carolina in federal court.

“The state efforts to defund Planned Parenthood are the latest installment of the state versus federal health care battle, and one that will continue in the future,” said Carrie Gordon Earll, senior director of issue analysis for CitizenLink. “If (they) are successful in securing their rights in federal court, you will see even more states try to defund Planned Parenthood next year.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Read the complete ACLJ amicus brief: http://c0391070.cdn2.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/pdf/aclj-s-amicus-brief-supporting-indiana-law-defunding-planned-parenthood.pdf
Download Americans United for Life’s groundbreaking report on Planned Parenthood.

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Tags: defund, planned parenthood To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Greater Fitchburg For Life. Thanks!

Common Ground On Life

A new Gallup poll suggests there is considerable common ground between "pro-choice" and pro-life Americans. For example, 52% of Americans who identify as "pro-choice" favor banning abortions after the second trimester. Here are more results from the survey:

• 60% of "pro-choice" Americans favor 24-hour waiting periods before abortions
  
• 60% of "pro-choice" Americans support parental consent for minors seeking abortions
  
• 86% support "informed" consent requirements for women seeking abortions.

In addition, the poll also found that while Americans were equally divided between the "pro-choice" and pro-life labels (47% each), an overwhelming majority of 58% felt that most abortions should be prohibited. Just 26% supported the most radical view -- a view held by President Obama -- that abortion should be legal under any circumstances.
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Hat Tip: Gary Bauer:

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Tags: Gallop poll, life, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Greater Fitchburg For Life. Thanks!

Denver Post: Aborting Our Children Will Save the Planet

American Thinker Blog - By Michael J. Norton: For decades, the term "family planning" has been a euphemism for "abortion" to abortion proponents.  Echoing Humpty-Dumpty, when the left "uses a word, it means just what [they] choose it to mean, neither more nor less."

So, with twists in language, "homosexual behavior" is called "gay lifestyle," "sex outside marriage" is termed "freedom," and "killing babies" is called "family planning."  Often, it seems, in an effort to add weight to the pro-abortion mantra, the left couples "family planning" with other leftist causes like "carbon footprint" or "saving the planet."

A recent op-ed in the Denver Post informed readers that "population [is] one of the major contributors to climate change and other environmental crises."  And if population is the problem, what did the editorial writer think the solution is? You guessed it: kill more babies...I mean, do more "family planning." Therefore, the title of the op-ed in the Post was "Family planning is a gift to planet."

Written by Dottie Lamm, former first lady of Colorado and a member of the U.S. delegation to the U.N. Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994, the op-ed sounds as though it was torn directly from eugenicist Margaret Sanger's playbook, bemoaning the fact that some women continue to have more than two children apiece.  (Lamm writes highly of the fact that women in China average only 1.5 childbirths, although she does not explicitly endorse the forced abortion policy Chinese women endure.)

According to Lamm, the prediction that the world's current population of 7 billion will reach 9 billion by 2045 is of staggering consequence.  She warns readers that "the pressures that an expanding population [will] put on global warming are enormous" -- her argument being that adding that many people to the planet is equivalent to adding a carbon footprint equal to "two more United States."

Lamm quotes a population/climate change researcher who argues that if we cut the population gain to 8 billion instead of 9 billion by mid-century, we "could account for 16 to 19 percent of the emissions reductions thought necessary to keep global temperatures from causing serious impacts."

In all fairness to Lamm, she's not alone in her views that all things -- even the lives of children -- should be sacrificed in homage to planet earth.  For example, in England, David and Victoria Beckham are currently being described as "selfish" for welcoming their fourth child into the world.  There, Simon Ross, "chief executive of the Optimum Population Trust, an organization that campaigns for the 'gradual decrease of the population to sustainable levels,' said, 'The Beckhams...are very bad role models with their large families.'"

So, apparently, the groups that are cajoling the Beckhams would be praising them if they'd only availed themselves of "family planning" and killed their child in the womb. That's how twisted things get when people exchange worshiping the Creator with worshiping the creation instead.

Michael J. Norton is senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund (www.telladf.org), a legal alliance employing a unique combination of strategy, training, funding, and litigation to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.

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Funeral For The Unborn

Video: Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, talks about the recent funeral service held for Baby Esther.

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Tags: Fr. Frank Pavone, Priests for Life, Funeral, unborn, video, abortion, abortion clinics To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Greater Fitchburg For Life. Thanks!