BY DUSTIN SIGGINS

WASHINGTON, D.C., December 6, (LifeSiteNews.com) – A leading advocate for rape victims and their children has criticized a push by three major international human rights organizations to convince President Barack Obama to use an Executive Order to fund some abortions overseas for the first time since a 1973 law prevented such funding.

The Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE), Human Rights Watch, and the Global Fund for Women, are pushing for the funding in cases of women who are raped in war-torn countries. They claim the funding would help alleviate the harm faced by pregnant woman after they are raped. 

“Rape victim mothers need real help, not abortion,” said Rebecca Kiessling of Save the 1, who was herself conceived in rape.

However, current law says no federal dollars may be used to pay for overseas abortion, per the Helms Amendment of 1973. Named after former Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), it states that “No foreign assistance funds may be used to pay for the performance of abortion as a method of family planning or to motivate or coerce any person to practice abortions.”

The three organizations contend that post-rape abortions are not related to “family planning,” and that therefore the Helms Amendment likely doesn’t apply. CHANGE’s website contends “USAID has interpreted this amendment to prohibit U.S. funding of abortions that would preserve the physical or mental health of a woman, yet allow it for victims of rape or incest, or to save a woman’s life.”

But Rebecca Kiessling of Save the 1, who was herself conceived in rape, and who has spoken worldwide in support of babies conceived in rape, has responded to the campaign, saying that abortion is not a solution to rape, even in war-torn countries where women are marginalized. 

Kiessling, who said she has received e-mails from women all over the globe who have been raped, toldLifeSiteNews.com that she believes “rape victim mothers need real help, not abortion.” 

She pointed to the case of Nobel Peace Prize nominee Doctor Denis Mukwege Mukengere as a model for how to care for rape victims. Mukengere, the founder and medical director of Panzi Hospital,provides “child care, medical care for mothers, emotional and financial support, etc. at his hospital that exclusively serves rape victims and their resulting children in Congo,” she said.

Read More: http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/woman-conceived-in-rape-slams-campaign-for-obama-to-fund-abortions-for-rape

BY JOHN JALSEVAC

Dec. 13, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Earlier this week, famed Christian radio host and psychologist Dr. James Dobson filed a lawsuit challenging the Obama administration’s HHS mandate, which requires employers to provide insurance coverage that pays for contraception, steriliazations, and abortifacient drug.

The lawsuit was also filed on behalf of Dobson’s “Family Talk” radio show and ministry, a Christian non-profit organization that is currently subject to the mandate. 

Dr. James Dobson

Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, and Family Talk say they object specifically to providing coverage for abortion drugs and devices.

“Our ministry believes in living out the religious convictions we hold to and talk about on the air,” said Dobson. “As Americans, we should all be free to live according to our faith and to honor God in our work.

“The Constitution protects that freedom so that the government cannot force anyone to act against his or her sincerely held religious beliefs. But the mandate ignores that and leaves us with a choice no American should have to make: comply and abandon your religious freedom, or resist and be fined for your faith.”

The lawsuit was filed for Dobson by Alliance Defending Freedom. “The government shouldn’t be able to punish Americans for exercising their fundamental freedoms,” said Senior Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “Any government willing to force a family-run Christian ministry to participate in immoral acts under the threat of crippling fines is a government everyone should fear.”

The lawsuit, Dobson v. Sebelius argues that the mandate violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as well as the First and Fifth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Read More: http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/james-dobson-launches-lawsuit-against-hhs-obamacare-mandate

There were more groundbreaking moments than levels of Candy Crush but here are 13 of our favorites. 1. Americans march for life in DC and in state capitals nationwide to mark 40 years since Roe v. Wade. 2. TIME Magazine takes notice of pro-life successes since 1973 with this cover story in January.

See Pictures And Read More: http://www.nationalrighttolifenews.org/news/2013/12/the-top-13-pro-life-moments-of-2013/

BY JOHN JALSEVAC

December 6, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – If the pro-life movement is serious about ending abortion in America, it has no option but to start making a deliberate effort to reach out to the black and other minority communities, a prominent black pro-life pastor and his wife told a meeting of pro-life leaders in San Francisco last month.

“Why does black America say ‘no’ to the pro-life movement?” Walter Hoye asked. “The pro-life community has not asked us ‘Why?’ You have no idea why we’re saying no.”

Walter Hoye

Hoye is a pastor in Oakland who was famously so effective at sidewalk counseling outside a local abortion clinic, that the city passed an ordinance to stop his life-saving efforts – an ordinance he has repeatedly flouted, earning himself jail time in the process.

“The strategies that work in my community are different than maybe what will work in the larger pro-life community,” he told the gathered pro-life leaders. “There’s gotta be room at the table to talk about executing strategies that can start a conversation in the communities that are being targeted and are being slaughtered.”

‘A holocaust in our community’

Hoye’s wife, Lori, a trained statistician, pointed to the sobering statistics showing how disproportionately high the abortion rate in the black community is compared to the national average.

“Abortion is the number one cause of death in the African American community,” she said. “We lose over half a million lives in our community to abortion every year. If you combine cancer, heart disease, AIDS, diabetes, and any kind of violent crime, add them all up together, they don’t come even close to the lives we lose to abortion.”

“It’s a holocaust in our community,” she said.

The latest abortion numbers from the CDC, released just days ago, have only served to emphasize her point, showing that while the abortion rate among whites fell between 2007 and 2010, the rate jumped three percent among blacks, and eight percent for Hispanics. 

During those three years nearly 36 percent of all abortions in the U.S. were performed on black children, even though blacks make up only 12.8 percent of the population. Another 21 percent of abortions were performed on Hispanics, and an additional seven percent on other minority races.

‘The brothers are blood guilty’

But the challenges facing a largely white pro-life movement in stemming the tide of abortion among blacks and other minorities are daunting, said Walter Hoye, who outlined four reasons why leaders in the black community, particularly the pastors, are unwilling to speak up about abortion. 

Probably the most insidious and difficult to overcome, he said, is that most black pastors are post-abortion. 

“The brothers are blood guilty,” he said. “There’s an abortion in their life somewhere. It’s their mama, it’s their wife, it may be their son, it may be their daughter. It may be a member of their congregation who they wrote the check for, or even drove to the clinic.” 

Even though they may understand the Biblical arguments against abortion, when Planned Parenthood comes into their community and tells them that the unborn baby isn’t a child but a “choice,” a black pastor “embraces all that because it allows him to sleep at night,” Walter said. “He needs to be healed.” 

But the need for healing presents its own challenges, added Lori, who pointed to the lack of any resources in the black community to provide such healing. It’s also a catch-22, she added, because even when some black pastors have attempted to bring post-abortion healing ministries into their churches, few, if any, women have shown up.

“None of us are going to show up to anything that has that ‘A’ word in it,” she said. “Because the shame level associated with having taken the life of my own child – and I’m sitting in church every week and praising the Lord and thanking him for everything he’s done for me – but I have done something that I can’t live with.”

“You’re dealing with a community that is in pain,” she said. “There’s no outlet.” 

Other reasons black pastors may be unreceptive to the pro-life movement, said Walter, can include outright reverse racism against a predominantly white GOP political class and pro-life leadership, as well the risk that if the pastors do speak up, they may lose their jobs. 

‘Will you help me?’

But Walter said his own experience shows the amazing things that can happen when a single black pastor takes a stand on the issue. 

Before Oakland passed the ordinace preventing him from sidewalk counseling, Walter said he noticed that a surprising number of women were showing up at the abortion clinic on the day he did his counseling – more than could possibly be getting abortions in the space of time he was there.

“They found out that I was there, and I was helping women,” he said. “They were making appointments, just so they could stop me at the public sidewalk and talk with me.”

When women came to speak to him on that sidewalk, he said, they asked him three questions: firstly, “Is it true God loves me,” secondly, “Is it true that God loves me and my baby?” and finally, “If it’s true that God loves me and that God loves my baby, will you help me?”

“And she’s talking about tangible, physical help,” added Walter, who said he would have drained his church “dry” to provide physical support for the women he met outside the clinic.

Even a single pastor who brings the pro-life message to his congregation of 300 can have a massive effect, he said, because of the ripple effect.

‘We don’t have 40 years’

Hoye concluded with a sobering plea for an effort to build a “modern day Underground Railroad,” to help save his community from literal extinction.

“Until we build a modern Underground Railroad, I’m concerned that we’re going to still have the same problems we have now, and what motivates me and my wife is that the numbers against us are huge,” he said. “We don’t have 40 more years. At the rate we’re aborting our children, we don’t have 40 more.”

“If the pro-life movement wants to work it out in 40 more years, that’s great. I don’t have that time,” he said. “That’s my people.”

Read More: http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/the-pro-life-movement-ignores-the-black-community-at-its-peril-jailed-black

Outside the womb it’s called a baby; inside, it’s a fetus. Outside, we rush them to the hospital for care; inside, we inoculate them with sterile surgical equipment in the soft spot. Outside, it would be murder; inside, it’s called “termination.” Why the change in terms?

Let’s call it like it is. If we are for it, we should understand the procedure – the ins and outs, the ups and downs, the good and bad. At just 3 weeks, the heart is beating; the DNA is coded in every cell. The brain is developing, and yet in most cases not even the mother knows of the miracle growing inside. In Texas alone, in 2009, we ended 77,630 of those miracles. That’s 77,630 heartbeats stopped, 155,260 little feet that will never take a step, 155,260 eyes that will never see the light of day, and 776,300 tiny fingers that will never hold their mommies’ hands.

It wasn’t something talked about in my house. The rule was you don’t do this, and “it” will never happen. But the “it” happened to me, and that “it” changed my life forever.

It was cold that December, my first to be away from home. I was making bad choices and defending them with even worse excuses. I became pregnant. I was scared, alone, and so lost; I didn’t know where or whom to turn to.

I started looking for help, and immediately found answers through Planned Parenthood. They said, “Women feel relieved after,” so I made the call and set up the appointment. The women told me, “We have donors who will pay for the procedure if you cannot afford it.” Looking back now, it sounds silly that someone would donate to a procedure as such.

Then I did something I had no real knowledge about, the one thing I thought I’d never do: I had an abortion.

In 2010, I found out about a group called Embrace Grace (EG). Embrace Grace is a nonprofit organization that inspires the church to help young women who are single and pregnant. The leaders instill strength and perseverance through the tough situations. They lift spirits and confidence, too, all by their own testimonies. They give opportunities and display compassion to those who are hurting. Leaders raise money to host baby showers to equip mothers with their babies’ needs, from bottles to cribs to rides to the doctor, and emotional support, too.

I did not find out and attend this group by chance. I was one of the misdirected girls in that group; I was pregnant again. However, this time was different. I had a support system – not just the other girls in the group whom I became friends with, but a whole group of leaders who told me, “You can do this!” They displayed love and compassion and told me my baby was a gift, and – something that still boldly stands out to me – they said I was a gift, too.

While pregnant with my son, I started having flashbacks. The whole procedure would echo in my head, becoming so vivid: the nurse’s cold hands, the loud sound of the vacuum pump, the smell of the clinic, the pain of my child literally being sucked out of me. The depression and pain started setting in. I became paranoid of my son’s safety and would often cry in fear of him being taken away. I would beat myself up daily with the “what ifs,” the “could- have-beens,” and literally exhaust myself replaying my actions. This is the information Planned Parenthood fails to disclose.

Hours after the delivery of my son, I remember holding him in that hospital rocking chair and one of the EG leaders walking in. I became so overwhelmed with emotion; the tears just started rolling down my face onto my son’s. Had the EG leader not intervened when I was only 12 weeks along, I may have not been sitting there holding the one thing I love most in this world, the one thing that gives me strength, that loves me no matter what and is always there for me: my son.

Read More: http://liveactionnews.org/a-life-lost-and-a-life-saved

While explaining to a fellow pro-lifer why I hold such a position, I let her know that perhaps the number-one reason is because I just get so excited about how we are conceived. I’m talking about the miracle of biology here, though the idea that two people can come together so intimately and actually create another person is pretty exciting, too.

Personhood USA’s Facebook page has some pretty cool photos!

Science already tells us that life begins at conception. One can find a variety of credible sources telling us this. And, as I have already asked before, if it doesn’t begin at conception, where does life begin? If it’s not from the start, but before we’re born, especially considering all the amazing ways in which the unborn develop, then the answer seems rather arbitrary. Not only is it unscientific to say that life does not begin at conception when it does, but it also seems to be a matter of mere subjective opinion to say life begins at this stage according to one person and at that stage for another.

I would think that we would all know how babies are made, but considering how vehemently in denial of life some abortion advocates can be, perhaps we could do with a reminder. Besides, this is what truly amazes me. When a man and a woman have sex, either nothing happens (speaking from a purely reproductive level) and the egg and lining is shed, causing the woman to menstruate, or something does happen. Now, I’ve already discussed this in a previous article from almost exactly a year ago, so I’ll try not to rehash too much.

While most couples trying to conceive will become pregnant within one or two years, the chances of a woman becoming pregnant during each month are actually pretty low. Some sources say 15-25%; others say up to 30%. And, as the bump points out, the 20-25% figure is for women in their twenties, around the time when they are most fertile, before fertility starts to decline at age 27.

It seems almost like a miracle to me then that with such chances, our species is actually able to continue because one sperm is able to make it all the way to fertilize one egg (unless we’re talking about women who conceive twins, triplets, etc). And what’s even more wondrous about that, what truly convinces me of this miracle and of the scientific fact that life begins at conception, is that we are already our own people at the time we are conceived. We already have all of our DNA present, and this genetic makeup, which is of a very real and individual person, has not existed since, nor will it exist again.

And consider if we were to take into account those who still don’t quite get it, but who are almost there and who at least seem to be well-intentioned enough. I’m talking about those who speak of the unborn as a “potential human being.” Even if the unborn child insider her mother’s womb were not yet a human being, isn’t it better to give her the benefit of the doubt, and to err on the side of life? For when those who say otherwise realize the error of their ways, may God have mercy on them when they figure out that they have been advocating for the murder of the innocent.

Read More: http://liveactionnews.org/arent-we-so-wondrously-made