Noteworthy News Notes
June 26, 2009

 

Abortion Activists Forget George Tiller Killed, Injured Women in Botched Abortions

Since his shooting death,…the mainstream media and abortion advocates have gone out of their way to paint late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller as a champion of women. However, their portrayal of Tiller neglects any mention of the women he killed or injured in botched abortions.

While hundreds of pro-life groups have forcefully condemned alleged gunman Scott Roeder for killing Tiller and while his record presents no reason for his death, Tiller was anything but a protector of women’s health. Perhaps the biggest blunder in Tiller’s career of doing legal, and supposedly safe, abortions was the death of Christen Gilbert. Gilbert was a 19-year-old mentally disabled girl from Texas who was killed in a botched legal abortion done at Tiller’s abortion business in Wichita in January 2005.

After the botched abortion, Gilbert was rushed into the Wesley Medical Center ER, followed by Tiller moments later. She eventually died. Following Gilbert’s death, the Kansas Board of Healing Arts, which regulates doctors in the state, refused to prosecute Tiller for killing Gilbert, saying he followed all state laws during the abortion procedure.

—LifeNews.com

 

Watchdog Says Media Bias Evident in Coverage of Killing of Abortion Practitioner

A leading media watchdog says media bias is clearly evident in the mainstream media’s coverage of the shooting death of late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller. Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center points out that many outlets have condemned pro-life advocates. Others, Bozell says, have gone out of their way to interview abortion advocates or find obscure or even anonymous people who are supposedly pro-life and applaud the Tiller killing. “The national media had zero interest in spotlighting a pro-life spokesman expressing horror.…”

Bozell points to several media outlets where the majority of Americans who are pro-life didn’t get a fair shake. Keith Olbermann started his MSNBC program with these words: “A religious jihad by fundamentalist crusaders who believe that murder is justified, their acts of violence having the intended effect of changing behavior.”

Bozell explains: “He was referring to conservative politicians and bloggers and the Fox News Channel. Olbermann insisted there was a ‘straight line’ of culpability” from pro-life advocates to alleged gunman Scott Roeder, despite the fact he has no affiliations with any pro-life group.

—LifeNews.com

 

Maryland Judge Rules for Pro-Life Advocates Shackled, Strip-Searched by Police

A federal judge in Maryland has sided with pro-life advocates who have filed a lawsuit against State Police, Harford County and the city of Bel Air. The case involved an Alliance Defense Fund lawsuit on behalf of pro-life women who were shackled and strip searched after peacefully protesting abortion in Maryland. The incident involves a group of pro-life advocates who, in August 2008, were arrested without warning by Hartford County State Troopers during their multi-city protest featuring abortion signs. At least a dozen police officers arrived in more than seven marked vehicles and then arrested, jailed, shackled and strip-searched them. Alliance Defense Fund and allied attorneys filed a lawsuit against Harford County, the town of Bel Air, and seven police officials on behalf of the young women.

—LifeNews.com

 

Nebraska Adopts Strong Abortion Ultrasound Law

Nebraska has enacted what is being described as one of the country’s strongest ultrasound bills for women considering abortion.

The single-chamber Nebraska legislature voted 40-5 May 29 for the legislation, and Governor Dave Heineman, a Republican, signed the measure into law the same day.

What sets apart the new Nebraska law from other states is its requirement when an ultrasound is performed that an abortion doctor display the image for the mother to see rather than requiring the woman to ask for the sonogram to be shown, according to the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC). Under the law, the mother can choose whether to view the image.

The law also requires an abortion provider to inform the woman considering the abortion of the medical risks of the procedure and the estimated age of the unborn child. In addition, it mandates she be told she cannot be forced to choose an abortion and that assistance is available if she decides to give birth.…

Eighteen other states have ultrasound laws, according to National Right to Life.

—Baptist Press

 

Georgia to Become First State With Embryo Adoption Law

The nation’s first law governing the adoption of embryos is set to take effect in Georgia after being passed by the legislature and signed by the governor.

The “Option of Adoption Act,” which will go into effect July 1, will provide safeguards for both parties involved in an embryo adoption, which is a unique form of adoption in which a couple—often an infertile one—adopts one or more surplus embryos from a couple who has undergone in vitro fertilization (IVF).

Embryo adoption allows the adopting mother to experience pregnancy and has been promoted by pro-lifers for years but, until now, has not been governed by the laws of any state. Significantly, the Georgia bill amends Georgia’s adoption laws to make clear that embryo adoption in fact is a form of adoption.…

Couples who undergo an embryo adoption in a state without such a law as Georgia’s must sign private legal contracts that treat the embryo as property. The new Georgia law defines an embryo as “an individualized fertilized ovum of the human species from the single-cell stage to eight-week development.”…

Dan Becker, the president of Georgia Right to Life, said the law is noteworthy not only because of its first-in-the-nation status but also because of the way it defines an embryo.

“We become the first state in the nation to, in our code, define an embryo as beginning at the single stage,” he said. “…That’s a huge move forward and one that was fought quite aggressively by the pro-abortion side of the equation.”

—Michael Foust for Baptist Press

 

California Supreme Court Creates Legal Chaos and Disruption Over Proposition 8

May 28, 2009, the California Supreme Court upheld the right of citizens to amend the state constitution to define marriage as a one-man, one-woman union. I have praised the court for upholding Proposition 8. However, the court also ruled that the 18,000 gay marriages already performed in the state are legal. For this, the court deserves condemnation.

The court created this problem in the first place by ruling in 2008 that Proposition 22, passed in 2000, was unconstitutional. Prop. 22 was passed by 61.4 percent of the voters. It was a Defense of Marriage Act that defined marriage in statue as a union of one man and one woman.

After the court overturned this Act, pro-family forces in California organized a massive campaign to amend the state constitution to protect marriage from being redefined by unelected judges and radical gay activists.

—Louis P. Sheldon, Traditional Values Coalition

 

New Hampshire “Gay Marriage” Opponents Hope to Hit “Undo” in 2010

New Hampshire may have legalized “gay marriage,” but if opponents of the new law get their way, a new governor and a new legislature will hit the “undo” button and reverse course on the issue in two years.

Flipping the governor’s office and the legislature from Democrat to Republican in 2010 is a bold goal, and it offers no guarantees, but it’s the only option social conservatives in New Hampshire have now that the state has become the sixth nationwide to redefine marriage to include homosexuals.

New Hampshire Democratic Governor John Lynch signed the bill…after it passed the Democratic-led legislature.

Unlike other states, New Hampshire law does not allow citizens to gather signatures to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot banning “gay marriage.” Any recourse must start with the legislature, which traditionally had been controlled by Republicans but which has been held by Democrats for two terms.

“I think we have a good chance of that happening, because I think people are so disgusted with what this legislature has done this year,” Kevin Smith, executive director of the conservative New Hampshire-based Cornerstone Policy Research, told Baptist Press. “The goal after that would be to repeal the law.”

Smith isn’t proposing the law be repealed by a constitutional amendment but by a state statute—a bill—in the same manner the law came into being. Unlike Massachusetts, Connecticut and Iowa—states that had court rulings legalizing “gay marriage”—New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine redefined marriage simply by passing a law, which means it presumably can be reversed by passing another law. Of those three latter states, New Hampshire is the most conservative and seems the most likely to change course at the legislative level.…

Smith rejects the popular notion that once “gay marriage” is legalized it’s nearly impossible to repeal. He points to what happened in California, where voters there passed a constitutional amendment to overturn a state Supreme Court ruling legalizing “gay marriage.”…

“I think the voters are so disenfranchised that they haven’t had their say on this issue that they want to have their say on it,” Smith said. “I think the horse can be put back in the barn, sure.”

—Michael Foust for Baptist Press

 

Alameda, California Elementary School Children to Be Indoctrinated With Gay Curriculum

Providing yet another example of the threat that “gay marriage” and the gay agenda provide to school children and parental authority, the Alameda Unified School District [May 26] adopted a new curriculum over the objections of hundreds of parents who testified at the board hearings. The newly adopted curriculum specifically elevates respect for gay, lesbian and bisexual students and their families over respect for diverse racial and religious backgrounds.

…Ron Prentice, chairman, ProtectMarriage.com…noted that the curriculum does not provide parents with any sort of opt-out right for their students.…

…[S]aid Prentice, “It is a parent’s responsibility to protect his children from inappropriate and biased content. With the Alameda School District’s decision to adopt pro-homosexual instructional materials, a parent’s job has become that much more difficult.…By the school board’s decree, many public school children will be trained in beliefs that contradict those of the home. It is no wonder that homeschooling and private education continue to grow in California.”

—Christian Newswire

 

Two National Rabbinic Groups Issue Religious Ban on Voting for Pro-Homosexual Agenda Politicians

In light of recent developments in the ongoing push to legislate a Federal Hate Crimes Bill in Congress and same-gender marriage legislation in New York and other states, Rabbi Yehuda Levin, spokesman for the 65-year-old Orthodox Jewish national Rabbinic organization Rabbinical Alliance of America, surrounded by Rabbis, issued a religious ban on voting for any politician or office holder who supports any aspect of the homosexual political agenda.

Rabbi Levin also called upon other Orthodox Jewish religious and civic organizations such as Agudath Israel of America, the OU, the Rabbinical Council of America, Chabad and the Chasidic groups to follow suit.

Furthermore, the Rabbis addressed Christian denominations including the Southern Baptist Convention, the Pentecostals, other evangelical denominations and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops urging them speedily to employ similar bans.

“If the religious groups, consisting of tens of millions,…draw a line in the sand, even at this late stage of the devolving culture and its destruction of religious liberty, we can still save the day. But it’s very late in the game,” said Levin.

…Similarly, Blacks and Latinos were urged to reject the comparison of the “gay” agenda and same-gender marriage with the legitimate civil rights movement of the aforementioned minorities.

—Christian Newswire

 

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