Bill Would Permanently
Fund Planned Parenthoo
Pro-abortion Democrats in the U.S. Senate took action Jan. 31 to force American taxpayers to keep funding the global abortion industry. According to the pro-abortion news site Truthout, 46 Senate Democrats wrote a letter to their party leaders urging support for a permanent end to the pro-life Mexico City Policy.
Contrary to what the lawmakers claimed, the Mexico City Policy saves lives. It protects the most vulnerable people of all, babies in the womb, by prohibiting U.S. tax dollars from funding abortion businesses such as the International Planned Parenthood Federation and MSI Reproductive Choices (formerly Marie Stopes International).
In their letter this week, the Democrat lawmakers asked to include a permanent ban on the Mexico City Policy in the 2022 appropriations bill so that future presidents will never be allowed to stop tax dollars from going to the abortion industry again, according to the report. (lifenews.com)
New Bill Would Require Abortion Clinics to Report Sex Trafficking
Legislation proposed by Rep. Ted Budd (R/N.C.) would require abortion providers to file a report with the National Human Trafficking Hotline if they suspect a patient at the clinic is a victim of human trafficking.
The Daily Signal first obtained a copy of the legislation, the Stopping Traffickers and Their Accomplices Act of 2022, which requires that abortion providers notify the hotline no later than 24 hours after consulting with a patient if they have “a reasonable suspicion that the patient is a victim of trafficking.”
Should the bill be enacted into law, those abortion providers who violate the act could be fined $10,000, imprisoned for up to six months, or both. The legislation cites the State Department’s 2017 Trafficking in Persons Report that “indicated that sex traffickers coerce women into receiving abortions against their will,” as well as research published in the Annals of Health Law Journal.
The bill would also require abortion service providers to certify to the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services that they are prepared to identify and respond to victims of trafficking who come to their facilities. (lifenews.com)
Doctors in Spain are Euthanizing Patients to Harvest Their Organs
“In my first anti-euthanasia column, written for Newsweek in 1993 I warned that if assisted suicide/euthanasia became legal and normalized, it would lead to ‘organ harvesting thrown in as a plum to society,’” said Wesley J. Smith, J.D., a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture and a bioethics attorney. “Needless to say, I was called a fear-monger, alarmist and hysteric — and those were the polite hate mailers.”
“I was also right. Belgium and the Netherlands allow the conjoining of euthanasia and organ donation — including of the mentally ill. So does Canada, our closest cultural cousins, although not yet of the mentally ill. But I am sure that is coming once they, too, can be given the lethal jab in about a year. In Ontario, the organ-donation organization will even contact the person to be killed to ask, in effect, whether they can have the person’s liver.
“Now Spain has joined the ‘euthanize-and-harvest club.’ From a Bioedge story: Spain legalized euthanasia on June 25 last year and already transplant surgeons are using organs from euthanized patients. According to a report in the Spanish magazine Redaccíon Médica, seven patients donated their organs — even though the government has still not released national guidelines for such procedures.
“The head of Spain’s National Transplant Organization (ONT), Beatriz Domínguez-Gil, said that the ONT ‘intuited’ that some euthanasia patients would like to donate their organs. It quickly drafted some guidelines for transplant coordinators so that euthanasia donation could be ‘normalized’ throughout the country.” (lifenews.com)
Marijuana Use May Impair
Memory and Learning
Marijuana use can impair cognitive function — especially for youth — according to a new study published in the journal Addiction. CNN interviewed one of the study’s authors, writing, “Our study enabled us to highlight several areas of cognition impaired by cannabis use, including problems concentrating and difficulties remembering and learning, which may have a considerable impact on users’ daily lives,” said co-author Dr. Alexandre Dumais, associate clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Montreal. “Cannabis use in youth may consequently lead to reduced educational attainment and, in adults, to poor work performance and dangerous driving. These consequences may be worse in regular and heavy users.”
This latest research underscores the toll that marijuana use can take on the brain — especially for teenagers and young adults. Researchers have found, time and again, that marijuana is dangerous. Last spring, a study out of California found infants were 35% more likely to die within a year of birth if their mother used marijuana heavily. The study also found that infants were more likely to be born preterm, have a low birth weight and be small for their gestational age.
Researchers have linked marijuana use with psychosis, schizophrenia, depression and suicide. A study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal last year found adults under age 45 who frequently used marijuana were roughly twice as likely to suffer a heart attack as adults who did not use marijuana. A report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that states that legalized commercial marijuana sales saw self-harm rates rise by 46% among men ages 21 to 39.
All of this comes as groups work to legalize recreational marijuana in Arkansas and pro-marijuana political action committees work to elect candidates who support marijuana. (familycouncil.org)
Louisville to pay $75,000 to Officer Suspended for Off-duty Prayer
The city of Louisville, Ky. settled a lawsuit out of court on Jan. 27 after Kentucky police officer Matt Schrenger sued the city and the police department for violating his constitutional and civil rights. He will receive $75,000 from the city.
Schrenger, a 13-year Louisville police veteran, was suspended with pay for four months, stripped of his police powers and placed under investigation after praying with his father outside EMW Women’s Surgical Center — one of Kentucky’s two licensed abortion providers — while off duty on Feb. 20, 2021. According to Schrenger’s complaint, filed in Western District Court on Oct. 4, 2021, the off-duty prayer occurred before the clinic was open, around 6 a.m. He was locked out from his computer, removed from the patrol schedule and suspended that same morning.
The release notes that Schrenger’s private prayer “drew widely publicized and politicized scrutiny” after a Twitter account run by clinic escorts affiliated with EMW posted photos of Schrenger outside the abortion clinic. (baptistpress.com)
As Global Tensions Rise,
Military Chaplains Prepare
A continued increase in recent weeks of Russian troops on its border with Ukraine has mirrored the escalation of tensions in the area. In such times when the world’s geopolitical temperature rises, military chaplains begin making mental, spiritual and strategic preparations in case of conflict.
Chaplains play a key role in coming alongside soldiers to help them prepare for the severity of what they might experience and how that will affect them mentally, emotionally and especially spiritually given the lethal nature of modern warfare and the potential for mass causalities. The training chaplains receive centers on equipping and instructing them how best to minster to and meet the needs of soldiers during combat. To provide that “ministry of presence,” chaplains need to be as close to their troops as they can and identify the most crucial times and places where those under their care may need guidance and counsel.
They must also ensure that they have adequate religious and ministerial resources to meet the myriad religious needs of their troops in the field. Each unit has a portable chapel that can immediately be set up anywhere in a training or combat environment where chaplains can conduct religious services and provide pastoral care for service members. Those opportunities afford chaplains the opportunity to build relationships and intentionally invest in their lives, learn about who they are and earn the right to talk about their religious convictions.
One of the most important things a chaplain must consider on deployment is not just the troops under his care but their families back home who are anxious about their loved ones going to war. For now, Christians can pray that any military members who deploy in the next weeks and months will not be doing so into a conflict zone. (baptistpress.com)
Texas Abortion Ban
Celebrates 150 Days
150 days — that’s how long the Texas abortion ban has been in effect saving babies from abortion. Texas has the distinction of being the first state in the nation to ever have an active abortion ban following the infamous Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling in 1973 that ushered in abortion on demand and cost the lives of over 63 million unborn children.
The ban is a heartbeat law that prohibits abortions after the unborn baby’s heartbeat — which begins in the first two-three weeks of pregnancy — can be detected on a sonogram. That’s around the sixth week, just before the general time period of 7-12 weeks when a majority of abortions take place.
Since the ban has been in place, abortions have generally not been available at abortion businesses in Texas. Because Roe has not been overturned and surrounding states don’t have the ability to protect babies from abortion yet, unless they adopt their own Texas-style abortion bans and get them upheld in court, women wanting an abortion can travel to other states to get them.
That means not every unborn baby normally killed in an abortion in Texas has been spared. But Texas pregnancy centers that actually offer real help and support for pregnant women confirm they are seeing record numbers of people seeking help and babies are being saved.
Conservatively, Texas Right to Life believes anywhere from 75-100 babies are saved from abortion every day due to the Texas abortion ban — meaning over 11,000 or more babies were not killed in abortions that would have been otherwise.
The great news for the Lone Star State is that the abortion ban will keep saving babies for at least another month. The pro-abortion lawsuit abortion companies filed against it has been to the Supreme Court twice and a federal appeals court moved it to the Texas Supreme Court this month. The state’s highest court scheduled a hearing for Feb. 24 — meaning the abortion ban will stay in place at least until then.
In a 6-3 ruling on Jan. 20, the nation’s highest court rejected a request from Texas abortion companies to move their lawsuit from the Texas Supreme Court and place it in the hands of a federal judge that would overturn the ban. In the unsigned opinion, the Supreme Court rejected a request for an order directing the 5th Circuit federal appeals court to send the case back to U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman.
The heartbeat law has the potential to save tens of thousands of unborn babies from abortion every year. In 2020, about 54,000 unborn babies were aborted in Texas, and about 85% happened after six weeks of pregnancy, according to state health statistics. (lifenews.com)
