How Are Your Golden Idols Coming Along?

Obama: 100 Days of Abortion

by Tom Hoopes

Saturday, March 28, 2009 4:06 AM
National Catholic Register

As his April 29 100-day mark nears, the Register is compiling an editorial about president Obama’s abortion record, starting with his days as an Illinois state senator. Let me know if it’s missing anything.

March 28, 2001: Voted “No” to the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act in the Illinois Senate Judiciary Committee.

March 6, 2002: Voted “No” to the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act in the Illinois Senate Judiciary Committee.

April 4, 2002: Voted “No” to the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act on the Illinois Senate floor.

March 13-14, 2003: Voted “No” to the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act in the Illinois Senate after voting for an amendment that made it identical to the federal law of the same name.

2005-2008: 100% pro-abortion record in U.S. Senate.

July 17, 2007: Tells Planned Parenthood, “Well, the first thing I’d do, as president, is, is sign the Freedom of Choice Act,” which would wipe out all state laws regulating abortion.

Sept. 2, 2008: Obama campaign releases an ad putting abortion in the center of its effort.

Nov. 24, 2008: Names Melody Barnes domestic policy advisor; she previously served on the boards of both Emily’s List and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.

Dec. 1, 2008: Nominates Sen. Hillary Clinton as secretary of State. Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richards praises the pick on abortion grounds, saying: “Sen. Clinton understands that women’s quality of life directly affects the major issues confronting the globe: national security, environmental sustainability and global poverty.”

Dec. 11, 2008: Nominates Sen. Tom Daschle as Health and Human Services head. Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League) Pro-Choice America, says: “We appreciate his recent efforts to help defeat two abortion bans in South Dakota. We had a good working relationship with him.”

Dec. 12, 2008: Appoints Jeanne Lambrew to become the deputy director of the White House Office of Health Reform. A Planned Parenthood statement quoted by LifeNews.com says: “She is one of the leading health-policy experts in the country, and someone who is an advocate for” abortion.

Jan. 5, 2009: Appointed David Ogden deputy attorney general; he’s a pornography lawyer who opposed the Children’s Internet Protection Act and has also fought for Planned Parenthood.

Jan. 5, 2009: Appointed Dawn Johnsen assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel; she’s a former legal director for NARAL Pro-Choice America.

Jan 5, 2009: Appointed Thomas Perrelli associate attorney general. He was counsel to Michael Schiavo, who sought and received permission to starve and dehydrate his wife to death during Holy Week 2005.

Jan 23, 2009: Reversed the Mexico City Policy, allowing taxpayer dollars to go to organizations that perform and promote abortions overseas. In a Gallup Poll, just 35% approved of the action, making it his least popular move as president so far.

Jan 23, 2009: Released a statement pledging to work with Congress to restore funding to the U.N. Population Fund. In 2002, Secretary of State Colin Powell requested that Congress halt the funding, tying it to China’s “program of coercive abortion.”

Feb. 17, 2009: Signs stimulus package into law. The new law will fundamentally change the standard that Medicare follows in paying for medical care and, in so doing, may place seniors at risk of not receiving necessary, life-sustaining care.

Feb. 28, 2009: Nominates Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a pro-abortion extremist who has been publicly rebuked by her bishop and who has ties to Kansas abortionist George Tiller, to head the Department of Health and Human Services.

Feb. 4, 2009: Signs into law the SCHIP reauthorization. The Senate rejected an amendment extending health benefits to the unborn. (As senator, Obama voted against that amendment.) Under SCHIP, states are granted the authority to decide which health plans and services can be offered to children. “It’s alarming that this has happened with virtually no public debate,” said Grace-Marie Turner of the Galen Institute. “Many people do not understand the implications of SCHIP as it is written.”

March 5, 2009: Holds a health-care summit; invites Planned Parenthood and Human Rights Campaign but no pro-life groups.

March 6, 2009: Creates a new position and appoints pro-abortion activist Melanne Verveer ambassador-at-large for Women’s Issues. Pro-lifers worry that the position was created to “promote abortion and overturn pro-life laws in nations across the world,” the Catholic News Agency reports.

March 9, 2009: Obama overturned President Bush’s restrictions on embryonic stem-cell research. Now, money from taxpayers can go to scientists who do fatal research on human beings created for the purpose. Obama stopped the Bush preference for proven, moral adult stem-cell therapies.

March 10, 2009: The Obama administration’s Health and Human Services department opens a 30-day review period with an eye to challenging freedom-of-conscience rights that help Catholic doctors opt out of practices they deem immoral.

March 17, 2009: Nominates David Hamilton U.S. circuit judge for the 7th Circuit; he’s a former ACLU leader who blocked pro-life legislation as a Clinton-appointed federal judge.
Additional Appointments:

Nov. 7, 2008: Rahm Emanuel, chief of staff; he earned a 100% pro-abortion voting record as a U.S. representative.

Nov. 22, 2008: Ellen Moran, White House communications director; she was executive director of the pro-abortion political committee Emily’s List.

Dec. 17, 2008: Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar, Interior secretary; he scored only 28% with the National Right to Life Committee.

Dec. 17, 2008: Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, Agriculture secretary; Iowa Right to Life Committee Executive Director Kim Lehman, citing his record, said: “We definitely consider him anti-life.”

Feb. 12, 2009: Leon Panetta, CIA director; as a U.S. representative in 1990 he co-sponsored the Freedom of Choice Act.

Maryland Requires Parental Permission for Body Piercing but Not Abortion

How interesting, really, that for many many years now schools can't give a student a Tylenol without a written parental consent but abortion could be done without parental consent. Just as pathetic is Maryland:

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Parental Consent Required For Tattoos in Maryland, But Not For Abortion

By Thaddeus M. Baklinski

BALTIMORE, February 26, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Maryland House of Delegates has unanimously approved a proposal to require "parental consent" for tattoos and body piercings done on minors. However, the state still only requires that one parent be notified that a minor is going to have an abortion, with no need for the parent's consent.

Republicans in the House tried and failed to amend the "tattoos and body piercing" measure to include parental consent for abortion when Del. Gail H. Bates, a Howard County Republican, asked to have the measure include parental consent for "other invasive surgical procedures."

However, House Speaker Michael E. Busch declined to consider the proposed amendment, arguing that it changed the purpose of the bill and was, therefore, out of order, according to a Baltimore Sun report.

Maryland's Parental Notification for Abortion Law (Article 20-103) requires that one parent or guardian be notified before a minor has an abortion. The parent/guardian does not need to consent to or agree with the minor's choice, but does need to know the minor is planning to have an abortion.

Maryland's parental notification law also says specifically that no notification is required if, in the judgment of the doctor performing the abortion: the minor is mature and capable of giving her informed consent to the procedure, or notification would not be in the minor's best interest, or notice may lead to physical or emotional abuse of the minor, or the minor patient does not live with her parent or guardian, or a reasonable effort to give notice has been unsuccessful.

Scott Davis of National Pro-Life Radio commented that the Maryland parental notification law is so full of loopholes that it is rendered practically meaningless.

"This gives the abortionist sole and unreviewable discretion in regards to parental rights," Davis explained.

"The physician may perform the abortion, without notice to a parent or guardian of a minor if, in the professional judgment of the physician, notification would not be in the interest of the minor.

"So a teenage girl's parents could be kept in the dark about an abortion, a medical procedure with grave physical and psychological risks, simply because the abortion provider thinks it's a good idea."

Davis also pointed out that each year approximately 22.6% of Maryland abortions are performed on girls 16 and under.

Brain Death Criteria -- Really? Or Maybe Not.

By Hilary White - Rome correspondent

ROME, February 26, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - If a patient is able to process oxygen from the lungs into the bloodstream, maintain a normal body temperature, digest food and expel waste, grow to normal adult size from the age of four to twenty, and even carry a child to term, can he or she be considered dead? Can a person who is "dead" wake up and go on later to finish a university degree? Can a corpse get out of bed, go home and go fishing? Can he get married and have children?

These are among the real-life stories of patients declared "brain dead" presented by medical experts at the "Signs of Life" conference on "brain death" criteria held near the Vatican in Rome last week. Ten speakers, who are among the world's most eminent in their fields, sounded a ringing rebuke to the continued support among medical professionals and ethicists for "brain death" as an accepted criterion for organ removal.

Dr. Paul Byrne, the conference organizer, told LifeSiteNews.com he was delighted with the success of the conference, that he hopes will bring the message that "brain death is not death" inside the walls of the Vatican where support for "brain death" criteria is still strong.

Dr. Byrne, a neonatologist and clinical professor of pediatrics at the University of Toledo, compared the struggle against "brain death" criteria with another battle: "I'm sure that slavery was at one time well-accepted in the United States, and that people saw big benefits to slavery. And yes, it was difficult to go away from that but it was absolutely essential."

"Slavery was doing evil things to persons. This issue of 'brain death' was invented to get beating hearts for transplantation. And there is no way that this can go on. It must get stopped."

Participants came from all over the world to attend the Signs of Life conference, with speakers from Quebec, Alberta, Ontario, Germany, Poland, the US, Brazil and Italy. The conference hall was packed to standing-room only with physicians, clergy, students, journalists, and academics. Clergy included two senior officials of the Vatican curia: Francis Cardinal Arinze, the head of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Sergio Cardinal Sebastiani, the President Emeritus of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See. Two senior members of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith were also present. Conference organizers told LifeSiteNews.com that they had expected no more than a hundred to attend and were surprised but very pleased with the crowd of over 170 for the one-day event.

Conflicting voices on "brain death" criteria are still battling in the Church. In February 2005, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (PAS) refused to publish the findings of its own conference after the speakers roundly denounced "brain death" as a cynical invention to further the monetary interests of organ transplanters. The speakers said that using "brain death" for the purpose of organ harvesting results in the death of helpless patients. The PAS convened a second conference in 2007 with different speakers who, with only two dissenting, supported "brain death" for organ transplants. Papers from the 2005 conference that opposed "brain death" were excluded without explanation to their authors.

During a Vatican-sponsored conference last November on organ transplantation, at which not a single speaker raised their voice against "brain death," Pope Benedict XVI warned in an address that "the removal of organs is allowed only in the presence of his actual death." But on the Monday following the Friday organ transplant conference, only the PAS conference report in favor of "brain death" was posted to the Vatican website and not the Pope's warning.

Dr. Byrne said that a major function of the Signs of Life conference was "to support Pope Benedict," whose address in November, he said, had started to turn the Church against "brain death."

"It's here to demonstrate clearly that 'brain death' never was true death. What we're trying to do is come back to the truth and protect and preserve the life that comes from God.

"When there are attacks on life, then we, as physicians, defend it and that is what this conference is for."

The Signs of Life conference, sponsored privately by various pro-life organizations, including Human Life International, the Northwest Ohio Guild of the Catholic Medical Association, American Life League and the Italian organization Associazione Famiglia Domani, stood in opposition to the second PAS conference, which was titled, "The Signs of Death."

FOCA's Evil Twin ! Prevention First Act

Prevention First Act is FOCA's Dangerous but Overlooked "Evil Twin," says ALL Co-Founder

By Kathleen Gilbert

WASHINGTON, D.C., January 27, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - American Life League's (ALL) Judie Brown last week urged pro-lifers to actively oppose the Prevention First Act (PFA), legislation currently under review in Congress. The Act, if passed, would hand over millions to "family planning" methods, strike a blow to health providers' conscience rights, and financially pave the way for the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA).

Brown, who called the bill FOCA's "evil twin," urged the pro-life community to recognize the more imminent danger presented by PFA.

"We have been warning the entire pro-life movement that this would be a priority, and now we see it in black and white on the official White House web site’s women’s issues page," said Brown in an ALL column.

Brown complained that FOCA, the legislation designed to render illegal all state and federal regulations on abortion, has received more attention than PFA among pro-life circles, although PFA is already "gathering steam." "If and when FOCA is ever introduced and starts to build steam, we are ready to take that on as well, but first things first!" Brown wrote.

The Prevention First Act, which was introduced in the first day of the new Congress, is currently under review by a congressional committee.

"It's a one-two punch: FOCA to strip away all the restrictions and then PFA to pour millions, if not billions, in the abortion industry," Jim Sedlak, executive director of American Life League's (ALL) STOPP International and an expert on Planned Parenthood, told LifeSiteNews.com. "The Prevention First Act ... opens the floodgates for Planned Parenthood and all kinds of birth control, contraception, [and] family planning money."

In addition to supplying abortion and contraception with more taxpayer funding, Sedlak pointed out coercive elements in the bill, including a title requiring all hospitals that do not provide emergency contraception for rape victims to surrender all federal funding.

"That provision would also result presumably in Catholic hospitals having to shut down if they refuse to provide contraception," said Sedlak, noting that such hospitals would lose Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements.

PFA would require Medicaid to cover contraceptives in the same format as had been proposed, then removed, in Obama's economic stimulus package. (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jan/09012702.html)

In addition, all health insurance programs that cover prescriptions would be required to cover the abortifacient morning-after pill.

"We invite our fellow pro-life leaders and their supporters to get with it and start doing all we can to stop this atrocious piece of legislation," wrote Brown in her column.

To read Jim Sedlak's breakdown of PFA, go to: http://www.all.org/article.php?id=11701

March for Life Media Blackout -- Mom of 12 Shares Photos

Mother of 12 shares photo journal from National March for Life
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=14908

Washington DC, Jan 28, 2009 / 06:27 am (CNA).- Becoming frustrated with the lack of media coverage of the National March for Life, writer and mother of 12, Barbara Curtis decided to create a photo journal on her blog to document the nearly 300,000 people defending the rights of the unborn.

The Virginia-area mother has released 477 photos displaying the diverse races, ages and religions of the pro-life movement on her blog website.

“The annual March for Life is the most under-reported event in the nation,” she explains on her blog. “This is my fourth year redressing the lack of Dinosaur Media coverage with an online photo journal. If a picture says a thousand words, then people can see the truth about Pro-Lifers here: a dazzlingly diverse movement filled with youth, vitality and joy.”

She also recalls 2007 and 2008, when the number of supporters was nearly 200,000. Prior to the recent march, “we wondered what would happen in 2009 - two days following the inauguration of the most proudly pro-abortion president in this sad episode of our nation's history. This year there were 300,000!”

On the site, MommyLife.net, those who attended the March last Thursday in Washington, D.C. can find photos of their groups. “I stood on a column in front of the Department of Labor for 2 1/2 hours shooting over 700 pictures. I have cut them to 477 - preserving such a large number for the sake of documentation and so that marchers can find their groups.”

Along with being active in the pro-life movement, Curtis is also a writer and cares for 12 children ranging from 8 to 39. Her three youngest children are adopted and have Down’s Syndrome like one of their older brothers. She explained to CNA, “While I’m old enough to be a grandmother - and do have 12 grandchildren so far - I am energized and excited about the younger generations, so being at the March with so many young people gives me great hope for the future!”

To view photos of the 2009 March for Life, visit: http://picasaweb.google.com/BarbarasMommyLife/MarchForLife2009

By Bishop Robert J. Hermann, Archdiocesan Administrator, St. Louis Archdiocese

Bishop Hermann: 'I thought you should know’

By Bishop Robert J. Hermann, Archdiocesan Administrator

January 27, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - I was very edified this past Saturday to see the Cathedral almost filled for the Pro-Life Mass. Then to see such a large contingent, on a very cold day, make a pilgrimage to the abortion clinic, praying the Rosary for Life, was truly heartwarming.

At the very moment I am writing this, our new president, Barack Obama, is being sworn into office. We congratulate him, and we pray for him, but we cannot condone his pro-death policies, even while we are happy that so many people feel they have new hope. We must do everything we can to oppose his pro-death-to-children efforts.

Joseph Bottum, in an article entitled "Abortion after Obama," writing in the January 2009 edition of First Things, pages 13-15, tells us, "Now the 2008 election has brought us the presidency of Barack Obama, the most consistent supporter of legalized abortion ever nominated by a majority party."

When asked about making decisions as to when a baby gets human rights, President Obama answered that "is above my pay grade." He also stated that he would not want his daughters "punished with a baby."

He has made it known that, upon taking office, he will remove all federal restrictions on funding embryonic stem-cell research. He also intends to sign the Freedom of Choice Act. Seldom has our nation ever been confronted with such an extreme measure. The Freedom of Choice Act will invalidate for the entire country all restrictions on abortion before viability, including parental notification, waiting periods and partial-birth abortion bans. President Obama has no problem supporting legislation that would even kill a child who survived a botched abortion.

If at this stage our anger is directed at President Obama, our anger is misdirected. Obama is not the enemy. He needs and deserves our prayers, not our condemnation.

As Catholics, we are not guiltless. It seems to me that when President Kennedy compromised Catholic teachings and accommodated political pressures in order to be elected to the highest office in the land, he set the tone for many Catholic leaders to follow and to compromise their Catholic principles to get ahead.

In our Supreme Court and in our Congress, we have a plethora of so-called Catholics who are failing to live their Catholic identity. Over 50 percent of our electorate voted for a president who is one of the most pro-culture-of-death candidates from a major party to run for the highest office of the land.

Yes, we can thank one-half of our Catholics for bailing out on their faith!

After almost 50 years of having 50 percent of Catholics abandoning their Catholic identity, we cannot expect to turn this culture around by short-term political efforts.

In order to bring about a transformation from a culture of death to a culture of life, we have to restore our Catholic identity.

This means that all of us, as Catholics, have to undergo a profound transformation. It means that we have to take a good look at every facet of our Catholic life, including the serious study of life issues, the regular and devout use of our Sacramental system, especially the devout and weekly attendance at Mass, the regular reception of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, the devout praying of the daily Rosary, and then the faithful, loving and firm witness to lax Catholics about our Catholic beliefs and practices.

We have to live our lives in such a way that we will be unafraid to witness to what we believe and live.

I may courageously say that I am willing to die to end abortion, but am I equally willing to say that I am ready to let my ego get ruffled daily for the same cause? Yet … that is where I need to arrive if I am to be a credible witness.

What a glorious opportunity we all have to make a difference in the pro-life cause. Until we are willing to be politically incorrect in order to be biblically correct, we will never convince anyone that our religion is worth living.

It does not take 100 percent of our Catholics to transform this country. If 75 percent of our Catholics were steeped in Catholic identity, the abortion issue would be over for our entire country. We have many, many evangelicals on our side in the culture of life. Look at how many more of them would flock to our side if we really lived our Catholic teachings! They, too, are looking for changeless principles lived out in practice.

But there is more! Our laxity in living our Catholic life has blinded us into not seeing the role of Satan in the culture of death. Satan is having a heyday in our midst, because he has managed to remain invisible in the culture of death, and our laxity has granted him that luxury. Since we are not steeped in the Word of God as we should be, we do not recognize his darkness in our society. Our first reading from Hebrews tells us, "The word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart."

St. Paul tells us that our warfare is not against flesh and blood but against the power and principles of darkness. He also tells us that we should not let the sun go down upon our anger so as to give Satan a foothold. These readings are wake-up calls for us all. I bring this up deliberately, because I do not want us to fall into Satan's trap of getting us to hate President Obama or any of the pro-choice Catholic legislators in Congress. Being pro-life means that we engage far more in spiritual warfare than in political warfare.

That Satan is very alive in influencing all of us is his best-kept secret. Becoming steeped in the Word of God and the teachings of the Catholic Church exposes his evil machinations.

President Obama, pro-choice legislators and Planned Parenthood are not our enemies. Our enemies are the invisible forces masked behind these people. Most of them do not have a clue that they are being deceived by our common enemy, the devil. They are used by our common enemy, Satan, and his evil forces, to get us to hate so that we, too, will end up in a culture of death. President Obama and all pro-choice and pro-abortion legislators, as well as members supporting Planned Parenthood (and we have in our own state a national legislator who has received over $900,000 from groups that advocate for abortion rights) — these are not our enemies. They are used by the evil one to get us to hate them in our efforts to be pro-life and thereby ditch our pro-life efforts. We cannot fall for that trap!

We owe all of them prayers and fasting for their conversion. At one point, Gov. Reagan was California's very pro-abortion governor. Yet he became a very pro-life president. He repented and regretted the evil he supported.

We must bravely witness against supporting pro-choice and pro-abortion candidates in political elections, but pray daily for their conversion.