Chen Guangcheng, the blind, self-taught lawyer known for his outspoken opposition to China's forced abortion and sterilization policies, has escaped from house arrest and posted a dramatic YouTube video calling on Premier Wen Jiabao to investigate his case and protect his family.....
According to activist sources with knowledge of Chen's escape, it happened last Sunday. Chen had apparently planned his departure for weeks, pretending to be bedridden in hopes that those guarding his farmhouse would become less attentive.
Hu said Chen had to climb over a high wall, which was especially difficult because Chen is blind. "His story is the Chinese version of the Shawshank Redemption," Hu said.
The next day, Bolden collapsed while walking out of a building in Grand Rapids with her 3-year-old son and boyfriend. Her family would never speak with her again.FULL STORY
Doctors told relatives she had two brain aneurysms that burst, the apparent result of stress from pregnancy on a possible pre-existing health condition.
Bolden was declared brain dead at Spectrum Health days later, on March 6 — the same date an obituary lists as the date of her death.
But as family learned she was gone, they were hit with other news that brought on a wave of strongly conflicting emotions: Bolden's twins appeared to be just fine.
She carried them for nearly a month, while on life support, until their birth by cesarean section April 5.
Though the boys remain in the hospital — after being born premature at 25 weeks — family now say they are thanking God that a part of Christine Bolden will live on.
After several women testified about their own experience being coerced into terminating a pregnancy, Jones, R-Grand Ledge, spoke about a 19-year-old female college student with an unplanned pregnancy. He said the father's parents brought the girl "into a restaurant and did everything they could to coerce this young lady into an abortion. Offers of money; offers of all kinds. She resisted that, got an attorney and got full custody of that baby." "She then stayed in college, became a great special education teacher and adopted two special needs children that nobody wanted. The baby in question that they wanted aborted was reading thick books like ‘Harry Potter' by age 6. At age 7 he tested at ninth-grade level, at age 12 at a college level. "He's my 14-year-old grandson."FULL STORY
Reagan reminded readers that neither the American people nor our legislators had ever had a chance to decide if they really wanted to legalize abortion through all nine months of pregnancy: That’s still true today. Nor is abortion a right guaranteed by the Constitution. Reagan wrote that Roe v. Wade was “not the first time our country has been divided by a Supreme Court decision that denied the value of certain human lives.” The Dred Scott decision affirming slavery has that dubious distinction. He wrote of the great need to clearly frame and present the issue of abortion -- just as abolitionists exposed the terrible truth about slavery. And what is the real issue? Reagan asked. “The real question today is not when human life begins,” he wrote, “but What is the value of human life?FULL STORY
The United States Congress and the state legislatures of Michigan and New Hampshire are considering Pain-Capable Child Protection Acts. These acts would prohibit almost all abortions at twenty weeks post-fertilization and beyond. Five states—Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Alabama, and Idaho—already have such laws on the books. These laws are premised on the idea that an unborn child's capacity to feel pain, independent of fetal viability, is sufficient to establish the humanity of the child and to sustain a limited prohibition on abortion. Like partial-birth abortion bans, these laws advance public recognition of the unborn child's humanity and should be supported.
“On pro-life issues, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama provide a stark contrast. As the country's most pro-abortion president, Barack Obama has pursued a radical pro-abortion agenda,” said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life. “It is now time for pro-life Americans to unite behind Mitt Romney. For the sake of unborn children, the disabled, and the elderly, we must win.”
Mitt Romney has taken a strong pro-life position and is committed to implementing policies to protect the unborn, the medically dependent and disabled, and the elderly. Romney opposes abortion and has called the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, "a big mistake." Romney has expressed his support of the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for abortion.
"The research we're doing is opening new avenues to help us understand this devastating condition," says Melvin McInnis, M.D., the Thomas B. and Nancy Upjohn Woodworth Professor of Bipolar Disorder and Depression at the U-M Medical School, the principal investigator of the Prechter Fund, and associate director of the U-M Depression Center.
"Soon, someone with bipolar disorder, or any medical disorder, could have their own stem cell lines available to model how their nervous system will react to a specific medication. This is the holy grail of personalized medicine and will radically change the approach to medicine."
In Michigan, about 30 bills have been introduced that Planned Parenthood believes are designed to chip away at women's rights to abortions, contraception and preventive care. Sponsors say the legislation reflects public sentiment against abortions and protecting religious freedoms.
What's different, they say, is that the bills now have a chance at passage with GOP gains since the 2010 elections. Two-thirds of Lansing lawmakers are solidly anti-abortion, according to Planned Parenthood......
Ed Rivet, legislative director of Right to Life of Michigan, said now is "absolutely" the best political climate he's seen for the group's agenda.
After the eight years under Gov. Jennifer Granholm and her potential veto of legislation perceived as anti-abortion, he said: "There's been a lot of pent-up demand."
Anti-abortion advocates have "earned" the opportunity, he said, through hard-fought gains in legislative majorities and moving public sentiment.
"We didn't wake up overnight in November 2010 and suddenly we were in Oz," Rivet said. "We worked our way there."
"When women walk through this door, if they feel desperate, if they feel that they are under pressure in a crisis pregnancy, that's what ultimately Planned Parenthood is going to do, give them an abortion referral," Miller said.
