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BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, January 18, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – On Tuesday, the Massachusetts Appeals Court threw out a lower court’s ruling that would have forced a mentally ill woman to undergo an abortion and be forcibly sterilized against her will.

Norfolk Family and Probate Court Judge Christina Harms had ruled on January 6 that the 32-year-old could be “coaxed, bribed, or even enticed…by ruse” until she was sedated for the procedures.

The woman, who is identified only by the pseudonym “Mary Moe,” is approximately five months pregnant.

Moe, who suffers from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, had a previous abortion in her history. She reportedly described herself as “very Catholic,” and told the court she “wouldn’t do that (abortion)” again. However, despite the testimony of a court-appointed specialist who determined Moe would not choose abortion, and the fact that Moe herself reportedly became “agitated and emotional’’ when Judge Harms mentioned her previous abortion, the judge ruled that the specialist’s findings were inconclusive.

Instead, Harms ruled that Moe was not mentally competent to decide whether to have the baby, and said that if she were mentally competent, she would choose to have an abortion so she could resume taking medication to treat her illness. She added that Moe’s opposition to abortion stemmed from her “substantial delusional beliefs.” Although no one had sought sterilization, Harms also ordered Moe sterilized “to avoid this painful situation from recurring in the future.” The request that Moe abort originated with the state Department of Mental Health.

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Appellate Court Associate Justice Andrew R. Grainger overruled the decision, noting Harms’ orders contradicted a 1982 state Supreme Court ruling allowing all the right to procreate. He added that Harms “simply produced the [sterilization] requirement out of thin air.” Another judge in a lower court will make a final ruling.

Pro-life advocates expressed thanks at the Appeals Court’s decision and dismay at the original ruling.

Terry Donilon, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Boston, told LifeSiteNews.com the original ruling was “outrageous.”

“It’s barbaric to force anyone to undergo a sterilization or abortion,” constitutional expert John W. Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute told LifeSiteNews.com. “To force someone to go against their clearly expressed religious beliefs” is a clear violation of the First Amendment, he added.

“It’s not up to the state to determine who has a child and who doesn’t,” he said. “If permitted, it’s totalitarian.”

“The nation should take note at how close we are coming to the forced abortion policy of communist China,” Troy Newman of Operation Rescue wrote in a statement e-mailed to LifeSiteNews.com. “Can we now dispense with the ‘pro-choice’ label?”

“The abortion cartel has never wanted choice. They exist on an insatiable diet of more and more abortion.”

Others were surprised such measures were still being performed in the name of public health. “I didn’t realize that forced sterilizations were going on anywhere,” said Howard Trachtman of the National Alliance on Mental Illness Massachusetts. Daniel Pollack of Yeshiva University, said, “My guess is it happens a lot more than we know.”

The case demonstrates “the lingering shadow of eugenics, which has never left the ‘progressive’ agenda, despite its ugly history,” Father Shenan J. Boquet, president of Human Life International, http://hli.org told LifeSiteNews.com.

Although Harms prescribed a compulsory abortion to help stop Moe’s mental illness, abortion may have triggered her psychological issues in the first place. Court records show Moe had a “psychotic break” after her abortion and has been hospitalized numerous times for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

In 2003, researchers at the Elliott Institute found women with a history of previous abortion were nearly three-times as likely to have bipolar disorder, and a 2002 study by the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry observed that post-abortive women were being hospitalized for mental illnesses including schizophrenia.

In 2011, Dr. Priscilla Coleman of Bowling Green State University found nearly 10 percent of all mental illness in post-abortive women was “attributable to abortion.”

Brian Camenker, director of MassResistance, told LifeSiteNews.com, “this shows is just how dangerous these lower courts are.” Harms, who was appointed by Governor Michael Dukakis in 1989, retired on January 11. Camenker, who has long observed judicial trends in his home state, ranked Dukakis “probably the second worst [governor] in memory” for judicial appointments.

Fr. Boquet said he is happy the appeals court rejected “the extreme nature of the initial judge’s decision.”

“This young mother certainly needs help, not more violence in her life,” he wrote. “We pray that she is able to get the help she needs.”

VANCOUVER, January 18, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - On December 15th, 2011, CTV News in British Columbia launched a sting operation against the South Fraser Pregnancy Options Centre in Surrey, BC, with the what Executive Director Laura Lansink said was “the hope that our peer-counselor would give false or biased information.”

The Pregnancy Options centres are associated with the Canadian Association of Pregnancy Support Services (CAPSS), a national, non-political, registered Christian charity, committed to equipping pregnancy support services.

CTV sent a woman, named only as “Sheila,” to the Surrey Options centre posing as a legitimate client in distress because of an unplanned pregnancy and asking for help.

Ms Lansink said in a press release that a volunteer peer-counselor was able to see “Sheila” immediately and spent close to an hour talking through the woman’s concerns as well helping her to understand her choices.

“What this peer-counselor didn’t know, however, was that the woman had actually been sent by CTV News and that the woman was secretly recording the entire session,” Ms Lansink said, pointing out that “Sheila” had agreed to, and signed, an agreement of services which says in part: “please turn off all devices with recording capabilities prior to the session. POC Staff and Volunteers do NOT consent to any recorded conversations.”

CTV reports that the volunteer peer-counselor “asked ‘Sheila’ about her background, the circumstances of the pregnancy, and if she had been abused. They offered referrals to hospitals for any sexually transmitted diseases and said that she was not alone struggling with a tough decision.”

The volunteer peer-counselor also referred “Sheila” to a brochure produced by the Canadian Association of Pregnancy Support Services that discusses fetal development, adoption and the risks associated with abortion.

Ms Lansink stated that the CAPSS brochure is an up to date and accurate compilation of medical research that was reviewed and proofread by 25 professional counselors, physicians, and medical researchers across Canada before going to print.

Ms Lansink revealed that on January 5, Mr. Jon Woodward of CTV News called the Centre, saying that he had received a ‘complaint’ from a client who believed the Centre had given her false medical information regarding the risks of abortion.

“In a subsequent phone call he however admitted that it was not a client with a complaint. Instead this person had been sent from CTV News to the Centre with a hidden camera with the intent of exposing our organization for providing supposedly false information,” Ms Lansink said.

Ms Lansink noted that Woodward was given a copy of the CAPSS brochure, “yet he has let us know that he ‘disbelieves’ the studies, research, and information that the brochure cites.”

The CTV report on the sting was aired January 17, reporting that “staff welcomed Sheila and seemed genuinely concerned about her well-being.” However, the report went on to focus on the allegation that crisis pregnancy centres give misinformation.

For example, despite the Options Centre’s clear statement that they are not a medical facility and do not perform or refer for abortions, CTV reported that “Sheila” “pressed (the volunteer peer-counselor) on where an abortion would be available,” then quoted Greg Smith, director of a “sexual health” and abortion referral centre, saying “patients have come to him complaining that rather than being given objective advice, they were steered away from abortion.”

“We hear from time to time that people who have gone to those centres come out enraged,” CTV News reported Smith as saying. “They feel they were given a bait and switch.”

CTV News cited Dr. Wendy Norman of B.C. Women’s Hospital saying that infection after abortion “was uncommon in North American hospitals – about one in every 200 cases,” that uterine perforations ranged “between three in 1,000 to one in 10,000 cases,” and that infertility from abortion “is a mark of an illegal abortion.”

“Abortions performed by physicians and accredited health professionals have been shown indisputably to not have these long term effects,” Norman is quoted to have said.

However, studies carried out in the U.S. and Canada contradict Dr. Norman’s assertions that infection after abortion are about one-half of one percent, and can in fact range up to 17 percent. An American study of the psychological responses of women after abortion also discovered that seventeen per cent of the participants reported physical complications such as bleeding or pelvic infection after their first-trimester abortion. (Major B, et al. Psychological responses of women after first-trimester abortion. Archives of General Psychiatry 2000 August 57(8):777-84, p. 780.)

Information available from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports 386 deaths from legal abortion in the U.S. between 1973 and 2004. In 2006, the most recent year for which data were available, six women were reported to have died as a result of complications from known legal induced abortions. No reported deaths were associated with known illegal induced abortions. Physical complications mentioned in the CDC report include cervical lacerations and injury, uterine perforations, bleeding, hemorrhage, serious infection, pain, and incomplete abortion in which the fetal remains are left inside the woman’s body.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan issued revised guidelines in 2011 that outline the numerous risks of abortion and the duty of the counseling physician or abortionist to inform any woman contemplating abortion of these risks.

The guidelines state that information provided to women should include not only the “precise nature” of the abortion procedure, but also “the known immediate risks.” The document gives as examples of the immediate risks “uterine perforation, infection, hemorrhage.”

Physicians should also inform women of the “known long-term risks,” including “impact on future fertility, incidence of future spontaneous abortions, ectopic pregnancy and premature birth” as well as “the known psychological risks.”

A 2009 study by Jessica Dolle et al. of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center revealed that U.S. National Cancer Institute researcher Dr. Louise Brinton, well known for claiming that it was “well established” that “abortion is not associated with increased breast cancer risk,” had reversed her position and now admits that abortion and oral contraceptives raise breast cancer risks. The study found an admission from Dr. Brinton and her colleagues that abortion raises breast cancer risk by 40%.

In an update received by LifeSiteNews, Laura Lansink said that while many supporters of the South Fraser Pregnancy Options Centre had suggested she file a formal complaint regarding the tactics used by CTV News, she indicated that this was not a course the crisis pregnancy centre intends to follow.

“At this point we won’t be taking any further action as we want to keep our focus and our energies on what we do best…  each day helping the woman that comes to us for help when she has nowhere else to turn,” Ms Lansink said.

For more information visit the South Fraser Pregnancy Options Centre website here.

To contact CTV News British Columbia:
Jon Woodward, ctvbc.ca
Suite 300, 750 Burrard St.
Vancouver, B.C. V6Z 1X5
Phone: 604 609-6333
Email: investigate@ctv.ca

January 18, 2012 (HLIAmerica.org) - As Christmas approached this year, I was waiting for a baby. Not my own child, but one that belonged to me by way of a supportive relationship I have with her mother. We are not sisters or old friends, but rather new friends brought together, surely by an opportunity arranged by God.

You see, I had been invited to an interview on Catholic Satellite radio to talk about my work as co-founder of Be Not Afraid. The topic was poor prenatal diagnosis. The mother had been listening and immediately called in to share the details of her own developing story. Her precious baby girl had a brain anomaly likely pointing to a serious genetic condition often characterized as “incompatible with life.”

The program host asked if I had any words of encouragement to offer the mother. I felt enormously put on the spot, but recall falling into a natural and all-too-familiar conversation with her, “I’m so sorry that you have received such difficult news surrounding your baby girl.” I acknowledged her grief and shock – after all, no one goes into the prenatal testing process expecting their baby will be anything but healthy.

I then assured her that the worst day (the diagnosis day) was behind her, and that with good support she would find this pregnancy and this baby to be a blessing. “And does she have a name?” I asked.

“Yes,” Mom answered, “Corrine Catherine.”

And so, from that moment in August, Corrine was destined to become my Christmas baby. As it turned out, after keeping vigil with her mother via numerous phone calls and emails over several months, and an all-too-brief in person meeting in October, Corrine Catherine arrived the week of Christmas, sheltered in the quiet embrace of her parents, three older siblings, and extended family. She lived less than two hours, but changed her family forever.

I think it is safe to say that no family touched by prenatal diagnosis remains unchanged by the experience. Though most parents do ultimately choose to abort with the news of a medical or intellectual disability, there is every indication that ending the story at the worst possible time, in the immediacy of the diagnosis, presents real risk emotionally. The truth that abortion doesn’t offer a shortcut through grief is a reality seldom shared with parents considering abortion.

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Nor are parents generally aware of the extent to which abortion has become part of routine obstetric care when it is determined that a baby has a disability. Results of an American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) survey reported that ninety percent of the doctors responding considered abortion because of fatal fetal anomaly a justifiable treatment option, and 63% considered abortion a justifiable treatment option because of a non-fatal anomaly. Using a simple semantic slight of hand abortion becomes a treatment option, and medical professionals effectively disengage from the baby with a prenatal diagnosis, and signal that it is reasonable for the parents to do the same. As a result abortion is often presented as the only option to parents who have already bonded with, loved, and named their baby.

Research, however, suggests that many parents are in fact looking for some other option. Most will choose to continue their pregnancy if offered a program of comprehensive support. Parents want something better than abortion. They want someone to affirm the dignity of their child and to accompany them on the lonely and unfamiliar path from the diagnosis to the birth.

Having supported a good many families in the experience of carrying to term and recognizing that there are many reasons for this trend toward abortion following a prenatal diagnosis, I think it also likely that medical providers, just like friends and family, co-workers and communities of faith (all the people who should support parents) find it difficult to be supportive because they are afraid.

Corrine Catherine in her frailty says something to all of us about what it means to be vulnerable. Professionals, friends and family around parents carrying to term are also often struggling to find their way, worried about encountering disability and death. Just as no family is left unchanged by prenatal diagnosis, no person is left unchanged at one of these births. Embracing the brokenness of Corrine Catherine, despite the anguish of being unable to help her survive, teaches us to accept the heart-breaking limitations of life. Ultimately true love involves giving these precious children the look of love they deserve and providing a safe space where the least can be welcomed no matter the cost.

Parents experiencing a poor prenatal diagnosis and those carrying to term would be better served if there was more support for welcoming every life as a gift. For parents and those blessed to know them, the experience of loving in spite of a diagnosis is grace-filled and transformative.  One need only read the obituary of Corrine Catherine to see the beauty of a life too brief:

Corrine Catherine was a blessing from the moment her parents knew she existed. When she received a diagnosis in the womb that was “incompatible with life” it did not stop her family from loving her or valuing her place in our lives. In sharing their journey with family and friends, Corrine opened people’s eyes to the beauty of life…Without uttering a word she has communicated the meaning of unconditional love, directed people closer to their faith and explained the redemptive power of suffering. In only an hour and a half, Corrine Catherine shared her special grace with all of her family giving each special moments and memories that will always be treasured. She received a sacred birthday party while being passed around in loving arms. After one final embrace by her mother, Corrine Catherine peacefully fell asleep for her final rest…Her parents and family look forward to being united with her again in our heavenly home.

Tracy Winsor is a contributing writer of HLI America, an educational initiative of Human Life International. She is co-founder of Be Not Afraid, an apostolate dedicated to supporting those who receive a poor prenatal diagnosis. She writes for HLI America’s Truth and Charity Forum.

January 18, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Cathy Ruse’s article yesterday urging pro-life and pro-family advocates not to buy Girl Scouts of America (GSA) cookies, both because of the organization’s ties to Planned Parenthood and an overall “progressive” agenda, has ignited quite the debate. Not only is the article LifeSiteNews’ most read article of the week, it has also drawn an enormous amount of commentary, both supportive and critical.

Lots of readers agree that GSA’s ties to Planned Parenthood disqualify its cookie initiative from receiving support, while others argue it’s unfair to tar the whole organization with the actions of some GSA bureaucrats and councils, pointing out that the pro-abortion activism doesn’t necessarily (and often doesn’t) filter down to many of the individual troops, which still do a lot of good. One impassioned reader wrote:

I am a Girl Scout leader and I can attest to the fact that I have never heard of any comments about pro-choice or abortion rights from my council or anyone else in the organization and this is certainly not talked about with the girls. We are an all volunteer organization and there are some people that have made mistakes with certain topics, but we are not all that way and certainly do not all support abortion.

The first thing worth noting is that Cathy didn’t say Girl Scouts should get no support at all, but confined her remarks to the cookie sale, pointing out that most of the funds don’t even go to the local troop (troops receive as little as 10% of the profit). Instead, they fund Girl Scout councils or the head office, where the problems originate. 

Hence the question that immediately occurred to me after reading Cathy’s article was, would it be all right to directly support your local girl scout troop, in lieu of buying cookies?

But the whole thing might remind some of the “fungibility” problem we see in the Planned Parenthood tax-funding debate: even though they are technically forbidden from using our money for the objectionable stuff (i.e. abortions), any support at all means we’re freeing up money for the organization to do those things we disagree with. Some might say this is what funding any part of GSA amounts to as well.

However, I’m not sure I buy that, since Girl Scouts isn’t a business the way Planned Parenthood is: it’s an organization with largely autonomous troops, with the character of the individual troops largely determined by volunteer troop leaders and the girls in the troop. The direct financial relationship between the cookies initiative and the GSA hierarchy is obvious: but I see no such relationship when giving money to a local troop. Will such money end up at the head office, and ultimately at Planned Parenthood? It seems unlikely.

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In fact, to me there might be a valid argument that getting involved with and supporting your local Girl Scout troop is a good way to protect it from some of the nonsense coming from head office. Of course, if you know that the leadership of your local troop is already taking its cues on social issues from head office, then it might be better not to support that troop, and to support an alternative, unless it looks like there is some hope for change in the troop.

My fear is that in this case the “spotlight fallacy” may be at work: that is, we may be judging the whole organization based upon a few high-profile instances of pro-abortion activism by a small, if powerful, segment of the organization. But just because the GSA leadership is promoting abortion rights at the UN doesn’t mean that your local troop has in any way contributed to that initiative. 

Hence, the question seems to come down to just how systemic the rot in GSA is. Is it so widespread that the whole organization is compromised, or is it contained enough that we can work in good conscience with the good sections, ensuring that no anti-life rot enters into them, and perhaps pushing the rot further back?

A 2004 survey conducted by STOPP International gives us some information on this question. That survey found that around 25% of councils who responded to the survey said they were partnering with Planned Parenthood in some way. That’s a considerable number. However, only 65 out of 249 councils responded to the survey, leaving the vast majority of them unaccounted for. And keep in mind that these are councils rather than individual troops, which are even more numerous. 

Personally, I would like to see more information before I make up my mind about GSA. I absolutely condemn the anti-life actions that have been performed in GSA’s name by its members, and I condemn any partnership of any kind with Planned Parenthood, but I must ask, is there still some way that we can in good conscience support GSA, or is it beyond hope?

What do you think?

Some links with more info about Girl Scouts’ anti-life activism:

100 Questions for Girl Scouts

As noted in the Girl Scouts and Pro-Abortion WAGGGS section, GSUSA also supports abortion rights through their membership in, substantial funding of, and close relationship with the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS), which aggressively promotes accessible, affordable and safe abortions.

Girl Scouts partner with Planned Parenthood:

On March 5th [2004] Kathy Cloninger, CEO of the Girl Scouts of America, appeared on NBC’s “Today” show to discuss the boycott.  … Cloninger explained that Girl Scouts of America addresses the challenges girls face in today’s world, including issues regarding sexuality and body image.  She then added, “We partner with many organizations.  We have relationships with our church communities, with YWCAs, and with Planned Parenthood organizations across the country, to bring information-based sex education programs to girls.”

COMBERMERE, Ontario, January 18, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Do you or someone you know have a real-life story to tell that could inspire thousands of people? Do you want your story to become part of the fabric that weaves the beautiful cloth of the Culture of Life?

LifeSiteNews would like to carry your real-life story. Give us the facts, we will even write it for you.

We are looking for stories about heroic men and women who struggle with seemingly insurmountable odds because of their respect and love for human life and family. Perhaps you even know someone who made the ultimate gift of their very own life to save the life of another person?

We want to carry stories about pro-life initiatives that are saving the lives of so many babies and turning the hearts and minds of people towards a genuine respect for human life.

We are looking for personal stories about those who work tirelessly to safeguard the institutions of marriage and the family. Have you or someone you know had enormous difficulties to overcome in this important work? 

We want to carry stories about those who have been through the darkest valleys on their own life’s path but have emerged triumphantly. Such stories might include women who have had abortions and repented, abortionists or abortion clinic workers who have left their line of “work” and converted to pro-life, homosexuals who have left the homosexual lifestyle or rediscovered with relief a heterosexual orientation, transsexuals who have returned with joy to their birth gender, and pornographers who have learned how to see the human person whole again.

The journalistic world believes that people’s interest is only sparked by the ‘bad news’ stories. Since LifeSiteNews carried its first “official” Culture of Life story in November, 2010, the popularity of these stories has shown us that people today are in fact voracious for the ‘good news’ stories. In a culture saturated with death, darkness, and signs of moral decay such stories are received like a ray of sunshine on a dreary day. Like sunshine, they have the power to dispel the darkness.

In spite of the prevailing culture, the culture of life is strong and vibrant with people of all ages discovering within it an infinite reservoir of peace, joy, and hope. The stories coming from the people who have entered into this culture are often dynamic, having the power to inspire people and to change lives.

Can you help LifeSiteNews in building a Culture of Life? What story to you have to tell the world?

Contact Pete Baklinski, LSN journalist
E-mail

January 18, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A coalition that includes black pastors and pro-family organizations held a protest outside the headquarters of the Southern Poverty Law Center yesterday to protest the organization’s ongoing “slander” against pro-family organizations.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which has traditionally sought to counteract racist organizations in the south, has recently begun to categorize pro-family groups as “hate groups” for opposing the homosexual political agenda and condemning homosexual behavior as immoral.

Groups condemned as “hateful” by the SPLC include The Illinois Family Institute, Mass Resistance, Abiding Truth Ministries, and Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, all of which appeared at the protest or made supporting statements. The Family Research Council has also been condemned by the SPLC.

Among the African-American pastors protesting at SPLC headquarters were Pastor Glen Sawyer, of the Mt. Zion Church of God in Christ (Camden, North Carolina), Pastor Wil Nichols, Victorious Praise Fellowship (Durham, North Carolina), Pastor Jon Robinson, Kingdom C.O.M.E. Ministries (Clairton, Pennsylvania), and Pastor Kenneth Jefferson of Greater Harvest.

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Pastor Patrick Wooden, who was interviewed before the protest by Peter LaBarbara of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, said that he was saddened by the SPLC’s deviation from its historic role of defending racial minorities in favor of defending the homosexual lobby.

“It breaks my heart that a time-honored civil rights organization that has done so much good, would, for whatever reason, whether it is for financial considerations, or for whatever reason, buy into this lie,” Wooden said.

“At the end of the day they know better. And for any civil rights organization to label any other group a ‘hate group’ because they are pro-family, that they believe in the model that the God of the Bible designed and introduced—it is sad, and they are wrong,” he added.

“I think every African-American ought to be appalled, ought to be angry, and begin to wave their fist in the air and declare black power and say to the homosexual lobbyists, the homosexual groups, how dare you compare your wicked, deviant, immoral, self-destructive, anti-human sexual behavior to our beautiful skin color,” Wooden also said.

In addition to the above-mentioned organizations, Rabbi Yeshuda Levin of the Rabbinical Alliance of America and Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel Action joined their voices to the protest, along with several other pro-family groups.

“In the past few years the SPLC has inexplicably chosen to lay on the line any credibility it once had as a serious civil rights advocacy group to, instead, push a left-wing extremist political agenda,” said Barber.

“The SPLC has moved from monitoring actual hate groups like the KKK and Neo Nazis to slandering mainstream Christian organizations with that very same ‘hate group’ label. By extension, the SPLC is smearing billions of Christians and Jews worldwide as ‘haters,’ simply because they embrace the traditional Judeo-Christian sexual ethic.

“It’s a shame that an organization which once supported the noble vision of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would, today, engage in anti-Christian bigotry of a kind MLK would have, no doubt, detested. What’s most troubling is that there are actually law enforcement agencies around the country that still use the SPLC’s ‘hate group’ resources. I encourage all law enforcement to discard the SPLC as it has discarded any semblance of objectivity and usefulness. Today’s SPLC is simply a well-funded MoveOn.org,” concluded Barber.

January 18, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - I’m amazed that people who are so passionate about saving women from botched abortions can be so happy to turn a blind eye when women are targeted for abortion.

Canada’s media elites and legal-abortion advocates are up in arms this week after a call to combat female feticide in the Asian population by the editor of the Canadian Medical Association Journal.  Dr. Rajendra Kale asked Monday for the country to prohibit disclosing a child’s sex until 30 weeks gestation, when, he said, “an unquestioned abortion is all but impossible.”

You would think we could find wide support for an outright ban on sex-selection rather than this kind of politically-correct proposal that withholds useful information from parents.

But according to Joyce Arthur of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, such a restriction would be a “dangerous road to go down” because “women have the right to decide” even if we disagree with their reasons.

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Arthur clearly recognizes the simple fact that if we move to restrict sex-selective abortions, the whole edifice of “choice” crumbles along with it.  If we grant the unborn protections based on sex, there will be no justification for denying them protections based on other categories for non-discrimination, like disability.

No more aborting Down syndrome babies, and ultimately no more abortions for rape or incest.  That’s just discrimination based on the circumstances of conception.

“If you bestow human rights on some fetuses, how do you justify not bestowing them on all? Why protect a fetus at risk of termination because of its gender, but not a disability?” asked National Post columnist Chris Selley on Wednesday.

The existence of sex-selective abortions shoots a hole right through “pro-choice” rhetoric about women’s rights.  Dr. Kale calls it “discrimination against women in its most extreme form.”

How can we claim that abortion is necessary to women’s rights when it allows for the destruction of women?  We shouldn’t forget that girls die from abortion even when the motivating factor isn’t her sex.

Legal-abortion advocates say they don’t like sex-selection abortions, but argue that the solution is to change cultural attitudes rather than withhold information from expecting mothers.

But you’ve got to wonder how serious they are about protecting these endangered girls.  Transforming deep-seated cultural stigmas is a long and ethereal process, and they seem content to allow the massacre to continue unabated in the mean time.

So-called “pro-woman” groups like the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada and the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists oppose any restrictions on sex-selective abortions because they know it would be logically inconsistent to accept anything but total, unfettered access to abortion.

They know that granting the smallest of protections for the unborn, like a ban on coercive abortions, opens the door to total protection.

And so it should.

Patrick Craine is Canadian Bureau Chief for LifeSiteNews.com and the president of Campaign Life Coalition NS.  He lives with his wife and two children in Nova Scotia.

MYRTLE BEACH, SOUTH CAROLINA, January 17, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Republican Party’s remaining presidential hopefuls gave a fiery and rousing performance at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center Monday night that featured a first of the debate season: a standing ovation for a participant’s answer.

In the heavily evangelical state, the issues of religious freedom, family, abstinence education, and the rights of the unborn provided many of the forum’s highlights.

Reviving the theme of a prominent television ad, former Texas Governor Rick Perry stated, “This administration is at war against organized religion.” He said, “Catholic Charities cannot take money [from] the federal government…because this administration doesn’t agree with the Catholic Church on the issue of abortion.”

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In September, the Obama administration denied millions of dollars in federal grants to the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops, because its top-rated program to assist victims of sexual trafficking will not refer women for an abortion. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held a hearing on the issue in December.

Perry also slammed the administration for “going after churches” when it asked the Supreme Court to reject the “ministerial exception,” which allows religious organizations like Christian schools to appoint their own ministers. The Supreme Court unanimously rejected the administration’s argument last week.

“If that’s not a war on religion, I don’t know what it is,” Perry said to thunderous applause. “And this administration is out of control.”

The crowd also cheered Rick Santorum’s promotion of marriage and opposition to the Obama administration’s opposition to abstinence-only education.  Santorum, who tied Romney for first place in the Iowa caucuses, held out the traditional family as the best way to avoid a life of poverty. “If you look at a study that was done by the Brookings Institute back in 2009, they determined that if Americans do three things, they can avoid poverty,” he said. “Work, graduate from high school, and get married before you have children.” The study found only two percent of people who do all those things live in poverty, and 77 percent earn more than the national average in income.

Santorum said the Obama administration’s opposition to abstinence-only education affected a friend, former Education Secretary William Bennett’s wife Elaine, who operates a program for at-risk youth called Best Friends. Obama administration officials told Bennett her counselors “can no longer promote marriage to these young girls…They can no longer even teach abstinence education. They have to be neutral with respect to how people behave.”

“The problem is neutrality ends in poverty, neutrality ends in choices that hurt people’s lives,” Santorum said. “That is absolutely unconscionable.”

Santorum won the backing of influential evangelical Christian leaders on Saturday in the hopes he will emerge as the alternative to frontrunner Mitt Romney.

Romney, who was asked about his changing views on abortion, again discussed his most recent change. Romney replied that as governor of Massachusetts, “I thought I could go in that narrow path between my personal belief and letting government stay out of the issue. Then a piece of legislation came to my desk and it said we would begin to create embryos for the purpose of destroying those embryos, and I said I simply couldn’t sign something like that.” He penned an op-ed in the Boston Globe describing himself as pro-life, shortly before preparing to run for the Republican presidential nomination four years ago.

Same-sex “marriage” also became a hot-button issue during Romney’s time as governor. “I’ve always opposed gay marriage,” he said. “I believe that we should provide equal rights to people regardless of their sexual orientation, but I do not believe that marriage should be between two people of the same gender.” 

The highlight of the debate was Newt Gingrich’s performance. A debate that began with Gingrich on the defensive about a series of attack ads his campaign launched against Mitt Romney’s history at Bain Capital ended with him dominating the event. After moderator Juan Williams asked Gingrich if his description of Barack Obama as “the food stamp president” was insulting, he launched into a four-minute defense of work and free enterprise that ended with the boisterous crowd on its feet. “I’m going to continue to find ways to help poor people learn how to get a job, learn how to get a better job and learn some day to own the job,” he said.

The next discussion is Wednesday’s Presidential Pro-Life Forum in Greenville, hosted by Personhood USA. Four of the remaining five Republican presidential hopefuls will attend. Mitt Romney has decided to skip the event.

One-third of South Carolina’s voters remain undecided, just days before the state’s primary.

WASHINGTON, January 18, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The New Hampshire House of Representatives on Wednesday morning voted to put Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers at the bottom of the list of eligible recipients of state family planning funds, further frustrating efforts by the Obama administration to keep the local abortion branch afloat.

Lawmakers passed HB 228 by a margin of 207 to 147, prioritizing state-controlled family planning dollars away from abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood. The funding is now prioritized to public and private entities that provide comprehensive health care to women and do not perform abortions.

The defunding language was inserted by Rep. Warren Groen (R-Rochester) as an amendment to the bill that now heads to the State Senate.

The measure represents the latest move in a tug-of-war between the state and the Obama administration over funding of Planned Parenthood.

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Last September, the New Hampshire Executive Council filed a formal protest with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Government Accountability Office after the Obama administration awarded a non-competitive $1 million contract with Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, bypassing the state’s earlier decision to reject taxpayer funding of the abortion giant.

Including New Hampshire, nine states have successfully defunded Planned Parenthood of over $61.7 million, states SBA List, which helped craft the bill.

“The House-passed bill ensures that taxpayer funds are prioritized to entities dedicated to providing comprehensive health care to women, not abortion,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B Anthony List. “This is a great victory in what has become a nationwide battle to stop taxpayer funding of abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood.”

“It is time to get New Hampshire taxpayers out of the abortion business,” said Michael Tierney, an Alliance Defense Fund-allied attorney in Manchester, New Hampshire. “Planned Parenthood’s business model is centered on abortion, and New Hampshire taxpayers want no part in it.”

“Every innocent life deserves to be protected. Taxpayer dollars should go toward helping and caring for the most vulnerable Americans, not killing them,” said Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Mike Norton. “New Hampshire taxpayers should not be forced to fund abortions.”