BY BEN JOHNSON

HOUSTON, TX, January 14, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A 20-year-old college student is seeking a restraining order against the NFL’s Arian Foster, because she says she wants him and his family to stop pressuring her to abort his baby.

Brittany Norwood, a senior at the University of Houston, alleges in court documents that last summer she became sexually involved with the Houston Texans’ running back, unaware he was married with children. 

Brittany Norwood says she wants to stop pressure to abort

She is now 17 weeks pregnant and expecting a baby boy in June. According to documents obtained by the entertainment website TMZ, Norwood had a DNA test that proves with 99.9 percent certainty that Arian is the father. That’s when she said harassment began.

Pages of text messages, which she says came from Arian, ask her to have an abortion so that Foster will not lose his wife and children. She said Arian’s brother, Abdul, told her, “You know, if you loved Arian at all you would have an abortion, because this child is going to ruin everything.”

Her court filings say that Foster and his sibling engaged in “a pattern of extreme and outrageous conduct” that is causing her “severe emotional distress.”

The lawsuit is seeking a restraining order, so the NFL star and his family will stop haranguing her to abort a baby she wants to keep.

“We want his conduct stopped, and we want the harassment to end,” her lawyer, Douglas York, toldKHOU television.

Under Texas law, she could abort up to 20 weeks, or obtain a late-term abortion in neighboring New Mexico.

The lawsuit also asks Foster to take a DNA test establishing paternity.

To date, he has declined comment to numerous media outlets seeking his side of the story. Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk wrote that Foster has “the right to dispute all allegations contained in the complaint, and to otherwise pursue all defenses aimed at securing a favorable outcome.”

The pregnancy scandal has generated more headlines for Foster than his football career. He had back surgery last fall after playing only eight less-than-memorable games.

Norwood’s allegations are consistent with what pro-life leaders say is a ubiquitous problem: coerced abortion. Post-abortive women have testified that they felt pressured – or in some cases were forced to abort – by parents, boyfriends, ex-boyfriends, husbands, abusers, even policemen.

A recent meta-analysis of 74 studies worldwide found that one of every four women who seeks an abortion was abused physically, mentally, emotionally, or sexually. The study’s authors include “coerced decision-making” as a factor contributing to the frequency of abortion and repeat abortion among abused women.

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http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/college-students-sues-nfl-star-so-his-family-will-stop-pressuring-her-to-ha

BY DUSTIN SIGGINS

WASHINGTON, D.C., January 14, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – House Republicans are once again moving to stop the federal funding of abortions, including in the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. 

Last Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice held a hearing about H.R. 7, the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.”

Introduced May 14, 2013 by Rep. Chris Smith, R-NJ, the bill would make numerous changes to federal law, including codifying the annually-approved Hyde Amendment.

Introduced May 14, 2013 by Rep. Chris Smith, R-NJ, the bill would make numerous changes to federal law, including codifying the annually-approved Hyde Amendment. The Hyde Amendment has prevented federal funding for abortions, except in cases of rape, incest, or threat to the life of the mother, in the United States since 1976.

On Wednesday, the Judiciary Committee officially begins its “markup” (the amendment and debate process for moving a bill through Congress) of the pro-life bill. A House Judiciary aide told LifeSiteNews.com that this will start at 10:15 a.m. tomorrow and could last for most of the day.

During the process a variety of amendments will be proposed and voted on, before a final committee vote. With Republicans the dominant party in the House, the bill’s passage through the Committee is nearly a foregone conclusion, but it could be modified by amendments.

However, the bill is unlikely to pass through the Senate. President Obama has threatened a veto of the legislation in past years. 

At last week’s hearing, Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-VA, noted the importance of the Hyde Amendment to life in America. Citing the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that as many as 675,000 abortions have been prevented every year due to the Hyde Amendment, Goodlatte said: “The policy we are discussing today has likely given America the gift of millions more children…millions more mothers, and millions more fathers, millions more lifetimes, and trillions more loving gestures and other human gifts in all their diverse forms.”

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has also formally backed H.R. 7.

In testimony to the committee last week, Richard M. Doerflinger, the Associate Director of the USCCB Secretariat of ProLife Activities, said that “H.R. 7 will write into permanent law a policy on which there has been strong popular and congressional agreement for over 35 years: The federal government should not use its funding power to support or promote abortion.”

Doerflinger cited multiple studies showing men and women alike, as well as supporters and opponents of abortion, are in favor of not requiring taxpayers to fund abortions. (Doerflinger’s testimony may be seen at full here)

One controversial section of HR7 would stop public funding for abortions in the District of Columbia.

Democrats, including District non-voting Member of Congress Eleanor Norton, are claiming H.R. 7 violates “The Home Rule Act of 1973,” in which Congress handed control of the District, with some exceptions, over to a local government. Norton argued in a recent press release that “the right to reproductive choice was not among those exceptions.”

Sponsors and supporters of the bill disagree. One GOP aide told LifeSiteNews.com that the Act “preserves Congress’s authority of the D.C. budget,” and all that all H.R. 7 does “is place limits on the use of all federal funds, including those Congress appropriates for D.C. So there’s no conflict between the Home Rule Act and H.R. 7.”

The aide also said that “there are no separate ‘local government funds’ in D.C, and all D.C. budgets must be authorized by Congress. D.C. is a purely federal entity, made distinctly so by the Constitution.”

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BY RITA DILLER

January 8, 2014 (STOPP) – As Planned Parenthood’s noxious sex education rockets across the country at unprecedented rates—propelled by millions of dollars in Obamacare PREP grants—those who bear great responsibility for the oversight of children’s education are being denied the opportunity to know what their children will be taught in these taxpayer-funded programs.

When parents in Hawaii became concerned about a sex education program being “tested” on children across the islands, they called on American Life League’s Stop Planned Parenthood project to helpfight the program and uncover the contents of the curriculum.

We always recommend involving state legislators who are concerned with protecting children from indecent materials, and parents in Hawaii did just that.

Hawaii is not the only state where elected officials are being denied access to such curriculum.

The result is described in a Honolulu newspaper headline proclaiming that a Hawaii legislator is “steamed” over the sex ed program. And for good reason.

After parents told state representative Bob McDermott about Pono Choices—the program that teaches middle school students about same sex relationships and oral and anal sex—McDermott attempted to get copies of the entire curriculum from the state department of education, but incredibly, his request was denied. He then approached the University of Hawaii, which received, in partnership with Planned Parenthood, almost a million dollars in a teen pregnancy prevention grant to develop and implement the program. The state legislator was once again turned down. He was instead invited to review the curriculum under supervision, which he declined.

Why was this elected representative of the people of Hawaii not given an opportunity to have possession of the curriculum and all materials that would be used in conjunction with it? Donalyn Dela Cruz, a DOE spokeswoman, told reporters that “the curriculum is sensitive in nature and can be misinterpreted.”

The Star-Advertiser quotes McDermott’s comments given to reporters at the state capitol. “It is outrageous that a state legislator . . . as an elected official and a father of public school children, cannot get this information,” McDermott said.

Representative McDermott was not the only legislator denied the materials. Senator Sam Slom received the same treatment and expressed his concern at a December 18 press conference. A video of Senator Slom’s remarks is available on the Hawaii Free Press website.

Senator Slom indicated during the press conference that he pursued the curriculum after receiving complaints and concerns from a broad range of parents, as well as teachers who, he points out, were very disturbed. Slom said his efforts at obtaining the curriculum were independent from Representative McDermott’s, but both hit the same roadblocks and came to the same conclusions. “A government that hides public information is antithetical to democracy,” Senator Slom said.

He pointed to the total lack of transparency regarding the curriculum. He tied the lack of transparency to ongoing requests for information to the state’s attorney general regarding the secret investigation of sexual assault, rape, and violence against children at the state school for deaf and blind that is alleged to have occurred over a five-year period. Repeated requests for information from that secret investigation have been denied as well. It is interesting to note that the curriculum Pono Choices was developed at the University of Hawaii Center on Disabilities Studies.

“This program,” Senator Slom said, “is a cookie cutter program that is referred to on the mainland as ‘Proud Choices.’ I don’t think it’s proud on the mainland, and I don’t think it’s pono here.” He said that denying him direct access to the curriculum impedes his ability to represent the people who elected him. He pledged to look at other avenues of obtaining the information.

When asked by a reporter whether he would be willing to sit down with DOE and UH representatives to go over the curriculum, Senator Slom reiterated that he would do so if he were first provided the curriculum—a request that was denied.

“We made a simple request,” he said. And he continued:

Show us the materials first. Then we can sit down and talk. But to treat us like children and treat us with disrespect . . . I think is going to have far-reaching consequences. Budget hearings are starting in a few moments. The University of Hawaii is going to be once again investigated by the senate Friday, and I can tell you when the DOE and UH come before Ways and Means seeking more money, I will have questions for them, as well.

A press release from Senator Slom announcing the press conference says, in part:

The DOE halted the controversial sex education program on November 29 to “investigate.” The program is aimed at 11, 12, and 13-year-old students teaching graphic information that includes teaching children to put condoms on wooden dildos and pro-homosexual behavior.

In the fastest “investigation” in Hawaii history, two weeks, the DOE announced the program will restart. The program will also be expanded to 30 more schools because the DOE “affirmed that the curriculum meets department standards, and also showed that Pono Choices is a culturally responsive curriculum that has resulted in positive outcomes for students,” said Leila Hayashida, assistant superintendent for the Office of Curriculum, Instruction, and Student Support.

Tell that to the parents.

[Representative Bob] McDermott and I separately requested copies of the Pono Choices curriculum. Both requests were denied. This is taxpayer money. We are taxpayer representatives. This program, and the DOE, is neither pono, nor provides parental choices.

STOPP research in early September established the connection between Pono Choices and Making Proud Choices. We found that Making Proud Choices, a curriculum about which much disconcerting information is available, was listed as a “key consultant” to Pono Choices. A recent exposé in theHawaii Free Press points to our research in showing the extent of the depravity of Pono Choices.

Hawaii is not the only state where elected officials are being denied access to such curriculum. In Statesville, North Carolina, the school district received a $4 million Tier 1 Teen Pregnancy Prevention grant from the federal government for after-school programs with Making Proud Choices and Be Proud Be Responsible. A school board member there is working to expose and stop the imminent implementation of Making Proud Choices for ninth graders throughout the district. On December 9, he requested a copy of the entire curriculum and materials that will be used to teach the children, and as of December 30 the requested materials had still not been received.

Read More: 

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/secret-state-reps-denied-request-to-see-planned-parenthoods-graphic-sex-ed

The organization Women Speak for Themselves (WSFT) was recently established to acknowledge the many women whose views on contraception and the HHS mandate are not represented by so-called women’s rights groups.

In an open letter to congress (specifically to President Obama and Secretary Sebelius), WSFT outlined the concerns shared by large numbers of American women about the nature of the HHS mandate and about the fact that progressive organizations have been erroneously claiming to speak for all women in their approval of the legislation.

The letter is straightforward and to-the-point. It acknowledges that the voices being represented are those in-line with Catholic teaching on matters of sexuality, but affirms that there are many non-Catholic women who stand with the Church as a representative of their own thoughts in this regard. These women feel slighted by the notion that potentially-abortifacient drugs with a high propensity to cause physical detriment to women’s bodies are being touted as a boon to women’s freedom. 

The group has accumulated well over 40,000 signatures. The organization provides fact sheets on religious freedom, the HHS mandate, and risk compensation, and maintains a blog to showcase the voices of women who do not feel benefited by the HHS mandate, and in many ways feel that it is a blow to true womanhood. Click here to learn more or to sign the letter.

Read More:

http://liveactionnews.org/organization-women-speak-for-themselves-proves-many-women-disagree-with-mandated-contraception/

BY KIRSTEN ANDERSEN

FORT WORTH, TX, January 14, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The husband of a pregnant Texas woman who is being kept on life support against his wishes filed suit today to have the life support removed – a move that would kill their unborn baby. Meanwhile, pro-abortion activists are petitioning the state of Texas on his behalf, while pro-life activists held vigil (video) Sunday outside John Peter Hospital, where both mother and baby are patients.

Marlise Munoz, who suffered cardiac arrest at her home on Nov. 26, remains on life support thanks to a Texas state law forbidding hospitals and doctors from removing pregnant women from life-sustaining care before their babies are viable for delivery. The law applies even if the patient has signed a do-not-resuscitate order as part of a living will.

Marlise Munoz

But her husband, Erick, is arguing that the law should not apply to his wife because doctors have told him she is “brain dead.” The hospital, however, has repeatedly refused to confirm that is the case, saying merely that she is “pregnant and in serious condition.”

“Marlise Munoz is dead, and she gave clear instructions to her husband and family — Marlise was not to remain on any type of artificial ‘life sustaining treatment’, ventilators or the like,” Erick’s attorneys, Heather King and Jessica Hall Janicek, wrote in the court filing. “There is no reason JPS should be allowed to continue treatment on Marlise Munoz’s dead body, and this Court should order JPS to immediately discontinue such.”

However, John Peter Smith Hospital spokeswoman Jill Labbe says state law is clear that Marlise’s baby’s life takes precedence over Erick’s wishes.

“JPS has a responsibility to be a good corporate citizen while providing compassionate, quality care for our patients,” Labbe told AFP.  “In all cases, JPS will follow the law as it applies to health care in the state of Texas. State law says life-sustaining treatment cannot be withheld or withdrawn from a pregnant patient.”

According to the law, Marlise must be kept on life support until her baby is developed enough to survive outside the womb.  At that point, the child can be delivered via cesarean section and Marlise’s husband, Erick, will be able to remove her from life support if that is what he wants.

Pro-life activist Sue Cyr and her family stand in support of attempts to save Marlise Munoz and her pre-born baby, who are currently on life support at a Ft. Worth, Texas hospital.

Abortion advocacy group NARAL Pro-Choice America has joined the fray, circulating a petition to the state attorney general on Erick’s behalf which reads in part: “The Munoz family deserves better than this — and it’s up to Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to show them that the state of Texas respects their wishes and their privacy.”

The petition demands that the state of Texas “leave difficult, personal decisions in the hands of families and support the Munoz family’s decision to take Marlise off of life support.”

Meanwhile, pro-life activists held a vigil outside the hospital Sunday in support of the Munozes’ baby. 

“We must save this baby. It is a person, guaranteed protection under the constitution,” said Pastor Stephen Broden, who led a prayer vigil outside the hospital Sunday.  “There is an alternative for the family. There are families willing to take the baby and provide a safe place for it to grow in a loving environment.  If we err, we should err on the side of life.”

“We feel great compassion for the family of Marlise Munoz and her pre-born baby,” Troy Newman of Operation Rescue said in a statement prior to the prayer vigil.  “No one ever wants to be in their difficult and tragic situation. Marlise wanted this baby, and as long as there is a chance that he or she can be saved, we support John Peter Smith Hospital in their bid to follow the law and protect this baby’s life.”

Read More: 

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/as-husband-sues-to-end-life-support-of-pregnant-wife-pro-life-advocates-hol

BY JONATHON VAN MAREN

Seeing is believing, the old adage goes. Often the only thing capable of denting humanity’s monumental ability to bunker down in a state of denial is indisputable, visual evidence. When cruel things take place on a massive and institutionalized scale behind closed doors and out of sight in societies clinging to the tattered mantle of “civilized,” only jarring confrontation, history tells us, can shatter the delusions we cling to. If the ear won’t listen, tell it to the eye.

That was the topic of a Slate article that came out some time ago, featuring a photo of German prisoners of war watching footage of concentration camps. “As part of the Allied policy of postwar denazification,” Rebecca Onion writes, “’forced confrontation’ brought Germans face-to-face with the worst works of the Third Reich. Confrontation took multiple forms, as American and British military officials adapted their tactics based on local conditions.” These “forced confrontations included forcing Germans to watch video footage of concentration camps, marching townspeople past the charred corpses of their former neighbors, and posting photos of the atrocities in public places. Imagery, the evidence of what had actually been done to a brutally dehumanized and coldly executed group of human beings, was central in re-educating a population that had been “educated” to think that Jews, and many others, were not fully human.

The Allies were careful to show the Germans that the destruction of these millions of lives was a collective responsibility, something that each member of the society conducting the killings was partially responsible for. In Legacies of Dachau: The Uses and Abuses of a Concentration Camp, Harold Marcuse notes that huge placards showing piles of charred corpses were hung up “in cities, towns, and Military Offices everywhere” with titles such as “YOU ARE GUILTY OF THIS.” As many historical works have since proven (Daniel Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners being one of the most extensive and thorough), they were—although reactions among recipients of this message varied widely.

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To come face to face with such horrors, to see the careless heaps of shattered lives and broken people, was too much for many to bear. Even a veteran soldier like General Dwight Eisenhower struggled to comprehend what had happened.

“I have never felt able to describe my emotional reaction when I first came face to face with indisputable evidence of Nazi brutality and ruthless disregard of every shred of decency,” he wrote, “…I visited every nook and cranny of the camp because I felt it my duty to be in a position from then on to testify at first hand about these things in case there ever grew up at home the belief or assumption that the stories of Nazi brutality were just propaganda.”

Read More: 

http://www.lifesitenews.com/blog/seeing-is-believing-forced-confrontation-and-the-holocaust

BY BEN JOHNSON

January 10, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The woman who now handles the Girl Scouts’ communications used to have another employer: an abortion lobby think tank founded by Gloria Steinem.

According to her LinkedIn profile, Kelly Parisi has served as vice president of communications at the Girl Scouts of the USA since last July. But her last job, before her two-month gap in employment, was as vice president of marketing and communications for the Ms. Foundation for Women. The foundation – which Steinem founded in 1973 – lists “Reproductive Rights and Health” (which includes support for taxpayer-funded abortion) first on its list of issues.

 

Parisi, who has a minor in women’s studies, said she was thrilled to work at the foundation, because she was “able to channel my outrage at women’s inequality and gender injustice into action every day.“

“The last two years have generated record numbers of restrictions on reproductive rights across the country,” shesaid. “Women are constantly under attack.”

At the Ms. Foundation, Parisi served on a five-member “executive team” that guided policy. A report she contributed to last year called for the “repeal [of] state and federal legislative barriers to abortion access,” granting military women access to abortion, implementing the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), expanding “family planning” funding, and teaching “comprehensive” sex education in the public schools.

It blasted “so-called ‘conscience clauses’ that allow providers and companies to cite religious reasons for refusing to provide contraception, abortion and sterilization.”

Parisi’s report – which revealed the feminist group was funded in part by George Soros’ Open Society Foundation and the Tides Foundation – criticized the Hyde Amendment, abstinence-based sex education classes, and crisis pregnancy centers that allegedly “mislead or harass women with false information about abortion.”

Parisi had an earlier stint as director of communications at the Ms. Foundation for four years, from August 1998 to January 2003. In between, she worked at the at the Children’s Health Fund, founded by liberal songwriter Paul Simon, an organization that also has ties to abortion advocacy.

Parisi had only been at her new post with the Girl Scouts of the USA for a few months when she ignited controversy over the Scouts seeming to honor her former employer. Just before Christmas, the Scouts retweeted a Huffington Post story that named Wendy Davis and Gloria Steinem among the “Incredible Ladies Who Should Be Women of the Year for 2013.”

Parisi defended the tweet, telling CNSNews.com, “Our Twitter bio states that a retweet does not equal an endorsement. Our sharing a link was not to endorse any of the women featured, but to highlight the source’s acknowledgment of women who made a mark in 2013.”

“As the world’s premiere leadership organization for girls, we are charged with developing girls of courage, confidence and character,” she said. “We hope that all girls have the courage to make the their voices heard and welcome respectful discourse about what qualities a woman of the year should have.”

Parisi’s own Twitter account, under the handle @bossladykp, is locked and can be read only with her permission.

However, the Scouts’ ties to Planned Parenthood and enthusiasm for Steinem precede Parisi’s tenure. A 2012 report on “healthy media” on the Girl Scouts’ website promotes the book and websiteMy Little Red Book, “a collection of short narratives written by women about their first period.” The reviewers wrote “we like it” because it features “[s]tories from women of different ages and backgrounds, including renowned authors and activists such as Gloria Steinem” and pro-abortion children’s book author Judy Blume. (In 2009, Blume wrote a fundraising e-mail asking donors to send money to Planned Parenthood in honor of Mother’s Day.)

Girl Scout CEO Kathy Clonginer told the Today Show in 2004 that the organization partners “with Planned Parenthood organizations across the country to bring information-based sex education programs to girls.” In 2012, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi describes the Girl Scouts’ relationship with Planned Parenthood as “very valuable.”

The group’s advocacy for LGBT causes has also undermined its wholesome image for many. In 2011, the group announced it would admit a seven-year-old biological boy as a Girl Scout, because he considers himself a transgender “girl.” In July, more than 90 Girl Scouts marched in San Francisco’s Gay Pride Parade for the first time ever.

The online news service Breitbart has noted the ravaging effects social liberalism has had on the organization. Girl Scout councils have reduced from 312 to 112, and the group has lost nearly one-third of its funding from 2007-2011. During that time, contributions dipped by a massive $44 million.

Read More: 

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/fmr.-spokeswoman-for-pro-abortion-foundation-now-works-for…the-girl-scout