The religious abortion-rights movement, like the antiabortion movement, grounds its understanding of abortion in the Bible. Abortion-rights religious groups point to what they see as a telling silence in Scripture. "Jesus never mentioned abortion," notes Paul Simmons, a Baptist minister and author of the forthcoming "Faith and Health: Religion, Science and Public Policy." "The apostle Paul wrote all these lengthy letters to the Greco-Roman world, where abortion was widely practiced, with lists of virtues and vices. If anyone was a common-sense moralist, Paul was." But the subject doesn't come up in his counsel, or anywhere else in the Old or New Testament.

In the antiabortion view, life begins at conception. Abortion opponents cite passages such as Jeremiah 1:5: "Before you came forth out of the womb, I sanctified you." Yet the other side contends that the Bible distinguishes between a person and a fetus. Exodus 21:22-25, for instance, stipulates the punishment for accidental harm done to a pregnant woman. If she miscarries as a result, a fine is owed to her husband. If she herself suffers injury or death, however, "the penalty shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth."

The religious abortion-rights movement stresses that it presents these biblical readings not to promote abortion, but to endorse it as an option. The movement works toward what it calls true "reproductive choice," envisioning a society in which education and contraception prevent unintended pregnancies, and widely available healthcare and child care foster conditions supportive of childbearing.

I was so naive. I trusted him. After all, he was a doctor. A respected and educated man. And like everyone else, I had always heard that legal abortion was "safe and easy." It wasn't until he had me on the table that I began to question these illusions. It wasn't until he pulled out an enormous syringe that I became scared. The needle alone was four inches long. Suddenly I realized that this was not going to be as easy as he had implied.

The first thing he did was withdraw 60 cc's of amniotic fluid. At that point I started to feel afraid for my baby. I could feel her thrashing about, scared by this intrusion. I wanted to scream out, "Please, stop. Don't do this to me!" But I just couldn't get it out. I was petrified with fear.

After the fluid was withdrawn, he injected 200 cc's of the saline solution--half a pint of concentrated salt solution. From then on, it was terrible. My baby began thrashing about--it was like a regular boxing match in there. She was in pain. The saline was burning her skin, her eyes, her throat. It was choking her, making her sick. She was in agony, trying to escape. She was scared and confused at how her wonderful little home had suddenly been turned into a death trap.

For some reason it had never entered my mind that with an abortion she would have to die. I had never wanted my baby to die; I only wanted to get rid of my "problem." But it was too late to turn back now. There was no way to save her. So instead I talked to her. I tried to comfort her. I tried to ease her pain. I told her I didn't want to do this to her, but it was too late to stop it. I didn't want her to die. I begged her not to die. I told her I was sorry, to forgive me, that I was wrong, that I didn't want to kill her.

For two hours I could feel her struggling inside me. But then, as suddenly as it began, she stopped. Even today, I remember her very last kick on my left side. She had no strength left. She gave up and died. Despite my grief and guilt, I was relieved that her pain was finally over. But I was never the same again. The abortion killed not only my daughter; it killed a part of me.

A new report from a committee of the National Academies of Science finds that a first-trimester abortion, the most common abortion procedure, is linked to an increasing risk of premature birth. The report comes from the Institute of Medicine (IOM), a NAS organization.

The IOM published a report this month titled "Preterm Birth: Causes, Consequences, and Prevention."

In the report is a list of "immutable medical risk factors associated with preterm birth" and "prior first-trimester abortion" is listed third among other risk factors that increase the risk of having a subsequent premature birth.

The report has huge consequences for abortion because premature birth can lead to a host problems, including cerebral palsy for the child and breast cancer for the mother.

Planned Parenthood of Canada - now known as the less historically freighted Canadian Federation for Sexual Health - has long pushed the envelope farther than its American counterpart. So, it's no surprise that its Toronto chapter's teen sex-ed site, Spiderbytes, is more openly pedophiliac than Planned Parenthood Federation of America's Teenwire.

For anyone wishing to prove that Planned Parenthood's true agenda is to sexualize children, Spiderbytes is a goldmine. There's simply too much for me to describe on my own, and works fail me when it comes to features like the Risk Rater.

Most who seek an abortion do not do so because of "freedom of choice," but because they feel they have no freedom and no choice. In so many instances, the pregnant young girl has loving parents, but is afraid of hurting or disappointing them. As a result, the very people who can best help her are the last ones she wants to tell. Parental involvement laws reconnect that frightened young girl with her own parents, enabling her to discover that the fears she had about parental rejection were unfounded, and enabling those parents to give their daughter the help and guidance she needs.

Predictably, as a result, studies have shown that such laws reduce the numbers of abortions in the places where they are in force.

But abortion is a business, and its practitioners act accordingly. Parental involvement laws make for bad business at the clinics, which is why abortion advocacy groups oppose these laws at every chance they get. Moreover, abortion clinics in states that do not have such laws advertise that fact, and people take minors across state lines to circumvent the law that requires parental involvement. Those most likely to transport a minor in this way, of course, are adult men who have committed statutory rape by having sexual activity with a minor. It has been well established, through undercover investigative activity and evidence now available to the public, that abortion clinics routinely assist sexual predators to cover up this activity by refusing to report them to the authorities.

The Rev. Canon Elizabeth Kaeton from the Diocese of Newark (also a board member of RCRC and the Social and Urban Affairs Committee) was the next speaker. She referred to a quote by Martin Niemoller, and then said, "while abortion may not be favored by local churches, we are deputized to follow the Holy Spirit, not the wishes of the folks back home."

NOEL's Administrative Director Sheila Bracken, speaking for the first time before a GC legislative committee said "RCRC does not encourage parental involvement in the issue of abortion. They encourage girls to seek truth from within.

Those concerned about the consequences of the coming abortion bans need not trouble themselves about the theoretical problem of women surreptitiously scraping out their insides with coathangers. Not only is there no evidence of numerous American women having died from self-inflicted abortions in the past, there is no evidence of women who live in countries where abortion is currently banned dying from them either.

"No sin is beyond God's mercy," Father Mariusz Koch of Newark, a Franciscan Friar of the Renewal, told 100 church leaders gathered in Mountain Lakes for a study day on post-abortion healing.

"All of us can be the first touch of God's mercy. We must be present to (women who have had abortions) with God's compassion and understanding," he said.

Father Koch and Theresa Bonopartis, who are involved in post-abortion healing ministry, were among presenters at the study day, held at St. Catherine of Siena Church in Mountain Lakes and sponsored by the Paterson diocesan Office of Respect Life.

One speaker, Mary Kominsky of Union County, said that in her efforts to cope with her decision to have an abortion 30 years ago when she was 17 - "the most traumatic experience of my life" - she turned to drug and alcohol abuse and developed an eating disorder as she battled her depression.

Six years later, when she got married, she and her husband wanted children but were unsuccessful because of scarring she had from the abortion, she said. When she finally got pregnant at the age of 35, she said she didn't feel "worthy" to have a child. Her daughter was sick when she was born, and Kominsky considered it God's punishment for her abortion years earlier.

"I got down on my knees in the hospital chapel and .. asked God for his forgiveness," she said.

She said she finally began to find healing in 1999 through a retreat sponsored by Rachel's Vineyard, an organization that offers weekend retreats specifically geared to helping people who have been involved in an abortion deal with its effects on their lives and reach healing and reconciliation. "I realize now that God didn't leave me (when I had an abortion).... I left him," she said.

Father Koch said women who have had an abortion must accept the truth of their sin, but they need also to accept the greater truth that God loves them.

Healing and reconciliation begin "at that moment when they begin to understand - from the head down to the heart - that God loves them," the priest said.

"Surely," say the demagogues, "an embryo in a Petri dish can't be compared to a 10-year-old girl. They are materially quite different." But as the 10-year-old differs materially from the embryo, so the distinguished scientist with an IQ of 176 differs from the 10-year-old. As a matter of fact, the potential of the 10-year-old can't measure up to the proven achievements of the adult. Our sense of justice isn't based on their material condition, but on a moral principle that asserts the worth of every human being, regardless of material condition. If we abandon that principle because an embryo is not as materially developed as a 10-year-old, what shall we say when someone points out that we are not as materially developed as the scientist whose knowledge may save thousands, or the general whose skills are needed to defend millions. Will we accept the judgment that our claims of right are irrelevant because our betters have developed the material know-how and means to benefit or destroy us?

The unidentified organization ignored specialists who warned the procedure would entail serious risks for the girl who became pregnant through rape and was in her twelfth week of gestation.

According to the ATB network, the abortion took place in La Paz under the argument that the girl was having health problems and that authorities were taking too long to resolve the case. Two weeks ago the parents had requested an abortion for the girl, with the backing of prominent feminist groups.

On Thursday a judge in the city of Quillacollo - where the rape occurred - was to issue a ruling on the parents' petition, but the NGO in question did not wait for the decision. According to Carlos Polo of the Population Research Institute, the case shows that those who are promoting abortion in the region are trying to use cases that have already occurred to achieve the legalization of this practice.

"We're dealing with a false 'defense of women.' But in reality this is nothing more than turning women who are poor or are in difficult situations into instruments of predetermined objectives, of a predefined agenda. And real people end up becoming just a pretext," Polo maintained.

We first heard of our daughter's genetic condition long before she was diagnosed. It was considered a lethal condition, an extra 13th chromosome. Most babies don't make it to birth and those that do live a few years and are severely disabled. I thought, "Well, what is the point of that life?"

When the geneticist uttered the dreaded words, "your daughter has trisomy 13," and it was a diagnosis about my baby and not someone else's, the reality was entirely different. With the ferocity of a lioness, I wanted to love and protect this little girl, and do all that I could for her. If her existence was only to be a few more months of kicks and flutters in utero, then I wanted her to have that life for the sake of both of us. We named her Annie.

Abortion is statistically 10 times SAFER than childbirth, and complications are so very extremely rare! Abortion is a very safe medical procedure which thousands of women have every day, and thousands more women will have healthy pregnancies after an abortion.

President Bush cast the first veto of his 5 1/2-year presidency Wednesday, saying legislation easing limits on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research "crosses a moral boundary" and is wrong.

"This bill would support the taking of innocent human life in the hope of finding medical benefits for others," Bush said at a White House event where he was surrounded by 18 families who "adopted" frozen embryos not used by other couples, and then used those leftover embryos to have children.

"Each of these children was still adopted while still an embryo and has been blessed with a chance to grow, to grow up in a loving family. These boys and girls are not spare parts," he said.

Kristin Hansen, Vice President of Communications for Care Net, an organization that supports a network of 975 pregnancy centers in North America, called Waxman's report "an attempt to whitewash the risk of abortion on women's health."

"Because abortion has become so grossly politicized, it is easy for proponents like Rep. Waxman to cite one or two studies on the risks of abortion and call it a day. But women's physical and emotional health hang in the balance. They deserve a comprehensive look at the studies, not election year soundbites.

What's clear in these attacks is that the multi-million dollar abortion industry is growing increasingly frustrated with the success of pregnancy centers, which, unlike abortion providers, offer a wide range of free services to men and women facing unplanned pregnancy and sexual health-related concerns. We find that when a woman facing an unplanned pregnancy is empowered with information about abortion alternatives and given resources and compassionate support, nine out of ten will not choose abortion."

U.S. District Judge David Lawson in Bay City ruled Monday that Matthew Dubay's suit was frivolous and ordered him to pay attorney fees to the state.

Dubay, 25, of Saginaw Township, had said his ex-girlfriend, Lauren Wells, knew he didn't want to have a child and she assured him she couldn't get pregnant because of a medical condition.

He argued that if a pregnant woman can choose among abortion, adoption or raising a child, a man involved in an unintended pregnancy should have the choice of declining the financial responsibilities of fatherhood.

But Lawson disagreed and rejected Dubay's argument that Michigan's paternity law violates the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause.

"The fundamental flaw in Dubay's claim is that he fails to see that the state played no role in the conception or birth of the child in this case, or in the decisions that resulted in the birth of the child," Lawson wrote.

The Senate approved legislation Tuesday that would overturn President Bush's limits on using taxpayer funds to pay for embryonic stem cell research. The 63-37 vote for the bill was four votes short of having the two-thirds vote necessary to override an expected presidential veto.

Leading up to the vote, senators continued the second day of an hours-long debate on the pros and cons of both embryonic and adult stem cell research.

Some lawmakers said embryonic stem cell research, which has yet to cure a single patient, was wrong and shouldn't be funded with federal dollars because it involves the destruction of human life.

"It is immoral to destroy the youngest of human lives for research purposes," pro-life Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas said. "It is an age-old human debate, whether you allow the stronger to take advantage of the weaker. We have already regretted doing it in the past; we will regret this, too."

"Just because the budding lives would not survive does not mean that we should ghoulishly conduct experiments on them," pro-life Sen. Jim Bunning, a Kentucky Republican, added. "Who knows how many human embryos we will have to destroy before any tangible progress is made?"

But Sen. Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, claimed that many of the 400,000 frozen human embryos in existence will be destroyed anyway, so scientists should be able to take those human lives and destroy them for research.

"So you either use these embryos for research that will help cure people of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and Lou Gehrig's Disease, or you discard them," Harkin said.

Implantable contraceptives soon will be available again to U.S. women seeking a long-term solution to birth control, with the approval of a matchstick-size rod that can prevent pregnancies for up to three years.

Organon USA Inc. said Tuesday it would begin training doctors in August to implant the contraceptive rod, called Implanon. The Food and Drug Administration approved the 1.5-inch-long rod late Monday. It is designed to be inserted underneath the skin of the upper arm.

Implanon provides 99% contraceptive protection. It will be the first contraceptive implant to be sold in the United States since 2000, when Wyeth Pharmaceuticals stopped U.S. sales of Norplant.

The White House released an emphatic statement on Monday, as the Senate began its debate on a bill to use taxpayer funds for pay for embryonic stem cell research, saying Bush will definitely veto the bill because the funds would pay for science that destroys human life.

The Senate is expected to approve the bill with the 60 votes it needs when it votes on the measure Tuesday afternoon. However, whether it has enough votes to overturn a veto is in question.

"If [the legislation] were presented to the president, he would veto the bill,'' the official statement of administration policy said. Officials underlined the sentence in the statement for greater emphasis.

"The bill would compel all American taxpayers to pay for research that relies on the intentional destruction of human embryos for the derivation of stem cells, overturning the president's policy that funds research without promoting such ongoing destruction," it said.

The Monday announcement squares with comments a White House spokesman made at the end of last week.

"The legislation crosses an important moral line and if presented with the legislation -- the president would veto" it," Ken Lisaius said Thursday.

The announcement comes after lawmakers sough to put addition pressure on the president not to veto the measure.

Many religious health workers find no conflict between their beliefs and their jobs. But others describe what amounts to a sense of siege, with the secular world increasingly demanding they capitulate to doing procedures, prescribing pills or performing tasks that they find morally reprehensible.

Beginning in medical and nursing schools, some health workers describe struggling over where to draw the line. Will they refuse to perform an abortion or a sterilization, to fill a prescription for a morning-after pill or to pull the plug on a terminally ill patient? Will they refer patients to health workers who will? Or is that tantamount to being complicit in an immoral act?

Many will discuss their experiences only with a promise of anonymity, fearing being reprimanded, fined, denied promotions or fired. Often they will speak publicly only when they have new jobs.

"I've run into major conflicts with my colleagues who don't understand my belief system," said Jan R. Hemstad, a Catholic anesthesiologist in Yakima, Wash., who will not participate in sterilizations. "I've had a colleague threaten to call the police to say I've abandoned a patient who wanted an elective sterilization."

Ultrasound technician Donald Grant of New Richmond, Wis., was fired by a Minneapolis clinic in 2002 after he prayed with a patient to try to persuade her not to get an abortion.

"I'm not a rabid pro-lifer, but I know what I believe," said Grant, also a pastor at a small Pentecostal church. "I was not condemning in any way. But I had no choice but to speak my conscience."

Stephanie Clark was only looking for a pair of her daughter's pants when she opened the closet door. Imagine her surprise at finding a tiny newborn baby nestled in a blanket. "I screamed in surprise," she later told reporters. "I called 911. They said, 'Whose baby is it?' I said, 'I have no idea.' "

It turned out that the baby was her grandson, Navorn. Her 17-year-old daughter Shanta had concealed her pregnancy and secretly given birth to her baby boy in her home on September 21, 1997. She had hidden the baby in her bedroom closet whenever she left for school. It was 17 days after the birth before the startled grandmother first met her grandson.

The centre's practices are exposed by award-winning radio reporter Aisling Riordan, who went undercover to record a consultation with a "counsellor".

Ms Riordan said she was shocked by the way she was bombarded with one-sided advice during her hour-long consultation at the centre, which operates free from interference because no regulation exists to govern advice services or set standards for counsellors.

"No matter what your views on abortion, no woman or girl should ever have to go through that. It's manipulation and intimidation of women at their most vulnerable," she said.

Ms Riordan contacted the centre on a lo-call number listed on a display advertisement in the Golden Pages and was told she could attend a consultation at an office oin Dorset Street in Dublin or a city centre location in Cork. She was also offered the option of calling to a house in Castlebar, Co Mayo.

She was told during telephone conversations with representatives in Cork and Mayo that she could not have a friend accompany her for support and when she arrived for an appointment in Dublin, her companion was made sit outside.

During the recording, the counsellor is heard emphasising the suffering of the foetus and stressing the risk of developing breast cancer and suffering future miscarriages and premature births.

The woman also showed graphic images from a religious book and said Ms Riordan could have her baby in secret in a "mother and baby home" which would take care of all her financial and medical needs.

According to a US government report, Filipino healthcare workers, many affiliates of International Planned Parenthood, are sterilizing women using USAID funds, meaning your tax dollars contribute to the UN agency. Eileen Cosby, President of the Filipino Family Fund, is outraged.

"This is not in accord at all with foreign policy that the United States should be offering to democratic nations like the Philippines. These are our cousins, our aunts and this cannot be happening."

"The governor feels the actions taken against Sauer-Iyer are not justified and hopes that the complaint will be reconsidered and dismissed," Bush spokesman Russell Schweiss wrote in an e-mail to the St. Petersburg Times. "She did not disclose any information which was not already public."

In 1996, Sheldon Turkish, a physician, advised Rosa Acuna, then 29, to end her pregnancy because of problems with her kidneys, according to court documents.

Acuna, who was in her sixth to seventh week of pregnancy, claims Turkish didn't tell her the fetus was a baby when she asked, instead telling her "Don't be stupid, it's just some blood."

The doctor testified in previous court cases that he did not remember Acuna asking such a question but said he would have advised her that a "7-week pregnancy is not a living human being."

After the abortion, when Acuna was hospitalized after continued bleeding, nurses told her the physician had "left parts of the baby inside of her," according to court documents. Acuna sued on grounds that she had agreed to the abortion based on "erroneous information."

In a brief communiqué, made public today, the Vatican announced the theme of the 40th World Day of Peace, due to be celebrated on January 1, 2007: "The Human Person: Heart of Peace." The statement says that due to the "transcendent dignity" of each human person world peace is, "in danger when human dignity is not respected and when social coexistence does nor seek the common good."

This theme for reflection, chosen by the Holy Father, "expresses the conviction that respect for the dignity of the human person is an essential condition for peace within the human family," says the statement. "Only through an awareness of the transcendent dignity of each man and woman can the human family follow the path that leads to peace and to communion with God."

The communiqué continues: "Today, perhaps more persuasively and with more effective means than in the past, human dignity is threatened by aberrant ideologies, assailed by the misguided use of science and technology, and contradicted by widespread incongruent lifestyles. Indeed, ideologies that find their inspiration in nihilism or fanaticism (material or religious) seek to deny or to impose supposed truths upon reality, upon man and upon God."

The note highlights the fact that, "often science and technology (especially biomedicine), rather than serving the common good of humanity, are instrumental in serving an egotistical vision of progress and well-being. Moreover, propaganda and the growing acceptance of disordered lifestyles contrary to human dignity are weakening the hearts and minds of people to the point of extinguishing the desire for ordered and peaceful coexistence. All this represents a threat to humanity, because peace is in danger when human dignity is not respected and when social coexistence does nor seek the common good."

"This new finding will hopefully save many lives, as we are repeatedly seeing a growing number of people being incorrectly diagnosed as 'PVS' which is essentially a death sentence," stated Robert Schindler, father of Terri Schiavo.

"Sadly, this only confirms the subjectivity of the PVS diagnosis which according to a recent study by the British Medical Journal is misdiagnosed 43% of the time. As in Terri's case, the PVS diagnosis is too often used as criteria to terminate life and common sense dictates that it should be abolished."

"These are resource centers that truly do believe that we should have a culture that values human life," Blunt said as he signed the bill. "And they're helping to build that culture all across our state."

Blunt signed the bill Tuesday morning at Open Arms Pregnancy Resource Center in Columbia.

"As you learn more about this center and others, you'll find that they truly do provide a loving environment where they work with the woman who's facing a crisis or an unplanned pregnancy, and help them make a choice and to choose life," Blunt said.

Pope Benedict XVI appointed Archbishop Raymond L. Burke of St. Louis to the court on July eighth.

Archbishop Burke took an uncompromising stand in a drawn out battle during the 2004 U.S. federal election over the reception of communion by pro-abortion public figures. The Archbishop led a minority of Catholic bishops who said they would be willing to uphold Church Law by refusing communion to "manifest grave sinners' until they recanted.

Presidential candidate John Kerry's insistence that he could be both strongly Catholic and strongly pro-abortion uncovered a split in the U.S. Bishops over whether or not to deny Kerry (and others like him) Holy Communion. While Cardinal McCarrick of Washington issued a statement saying the U.S. Catholic Bishops' Conference would not take a stand on the issue, Archbishop Burke directed his priests to refuse Holy Communion to any politician who officially supported abortion or euthanasia.

"I hereby call upon Catholic legislators...to uphold the natural and divine law regarding the inviolable dignity of all human life. To fail to do so is a grave public sin and gives scandal to all the faithful. Therefore...Catholic legislators...who continue to support procured abortion or euthanasia may not present themselves to receive Holy Communion. They are not to be admitted to Holy Communion, should they present themselves, until such time as they publicly renounce their support of these most unjust practices."

In a pastoral letter issued in January 2004, Archbishop Burke said abortion and euthanasia must take precedence over any other political considerations.

"Some will say that the defence of innocent life is only one issue among many, that it is important but not fundamental. They are wrong. In the natural moral law, the good of life is the most fundamental good and the condition for the enjoyment of all other goods."

Archbishop Burke had worked for the Vatican Supreme Court from 1989 to 1994.The Apostolic Signature oversees all tribunals and offices of the Roman Curia, as well as handling the establishment of international diocesan tribunals. Appeals to marriage annulment sentences make up a significant number of the cases handled by the court.

So, to all of you pro-lifers who are trying to rain on my parade, keep it to yourself, because I don't have the time for that kind of negativity. I've got an abortion to plan, and I just know it's going to be the best non-anesthetized invasive uterine surgery ever!

A state attorney says a lawsuit filed by a men's rights group on behalf of a man who is declining fatherhood is ''frivolous'' and the man has an obligation to financially support his daughter.

Assistant Attorney General Joel D. McGormley asked U.S. District Judge David M. Lawson to dismiss the lawsuit during a hearing last week in Bay City.

Lawson said he would take the case under advisement and issue a ruling later. He did not say when he would rule.

The National Center for Men filed the lawsuit in March on behalf of Matt Dubay, a 25-year-old computer programmer, who was ordered to pay $500 in monthly child support for his ex-girlfriend's daughter. Dubay has said the ex-girlfriend, Lauren Wells, knew he didn't want to have a child and she assured him repeatedly she could not get pregnant because of a medical condition.

But McGormley argued that Dubay cannot avoid child support just because he didn't want to become a father.

Regan Gray and her husband, Jason, learned of their first child's condition via ultrasound in her 30th week of pregnancy.

"Doctors told us the minute Cameron was born that he would probably seize until he died," Regan Gray said. "They said they would not be surprised if he only survived three days."

By conservative estimates, sex-selective abortion in India accounts for the termination of about 10 million females over the past 20 years.

"This is the world's biggest genocide ever," Chetan Sharma, a campaigner against female feticide, told the Daily Mail of London.

Chetan is founder of the Delhi-based group Datamation.

India's 2001 census shows a drop in the number of girls 6-years-old and under per 1,000 boys, to 927, compared to 962 in 1981.

"The future is frightening. Over the next five years we could see more than a million fetuses eliminated every year," said researcher Sabu George."At this pace we'll soon have no girls born in the country. We don't know where it will stop."

The high court should defer to Congress in this area in light of the extensive consideration Congress gave to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. The fact is that the measure approved by Congress and signed into law by President Bush represents a permissible and constitutional course of action.

The Changing Hearts Project came into light as a result of the song "Think Of Me" written by Trudi Cross & Ray Fontenault. When Ray and Trudi completed this song they immediately saw an impact that they have never experienced on any other song they had written... a saved life. Not only did the song touch the heart of that young woman, who had 2 previous abortions, but it also reached #1 on songramp.com's "All - Hot 100" competing against more popular genres like pop, rock and country. They received positive comments from both sides of the abortion issue. The goal of the Changing Hearts Project is to raise awareness and touch hearts, through songs that relate to the plight of the unborn and young woman in need. They intend to have these songs used as a vehicle to raise funds, that support the causes of the unborn and woman through abortion alternatives, counseling, help after abortion and awareness and education. Their project is founded on love and compassion.

Scientists believe they have found a possible cause for mental impairment in Down's syndrome.

They have identified a gene that, if over-produced, can cause some brain cells to stop working properly.

The next step, say the US researchers in journal Neuron, is to find the mechanism for the process.

This, they say, could ultimately lead to finding a way to "turn down" the gene expression so mental decline might be stopped or even reversed.

Lead researcher Professor William Mobley, director of the Neuroscience Institute at Stanford University, said... "If we can decrease the expression of this gene, we may be able to provide something more than supportive care to people with Down's syndrome."

Jatrice Gaiters, president of Metropolitan Washington Planned Parenthood said, "While we are working on prevention these ruthless attacks on reproductive freedom will affect all of us wherever we live...We must ask ourselves: Are we ready to sacrifice women for a political ideology?"[..]

According to a Planned Parenthood fact sheet, the organization considers eight states as having "extremist, anti-choice legislation." These states are Arizona, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma and Utah.

The so-called extremist Michigan law mandates that a physician performing an ultrasound on a woman seeking an abortion offer to show her the ultrasound and issue her a copy of it. Pro-life supporters say that those opposing this law are denying women the ability to provide informed consent through access to the truth and reality of an abortion.

The Kentucky Legislature approved a law requiring that counseling be given to women orally and in person at least 24 hours before an abortion.

Gaiter and other panelists addressed the need for political action so women would not have their "reproductive freedoms subject to [pro-life] whims."

"It is critical that Maryland citizens get up and vote only for those candidates that are dedicated to fighting for birth control, emergency contraception and all of our reproductive freedoms," she said.

Sarah Stoesz, president of the South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota Planned Parenthood said the best way to destroy the pro-life movement is to "not take the bait of... the anti-reproductive rights movement and instead to bring the matter to the people of South Dakota."

However, Planned Parenthood's own polling panelist, Al Quinlin said, "This is a very conservative place, and when most [South Dakotans] have the choice to be legal in most [abortion] cases or illegal in all [abortion] cases they tend to tilt toward the illegal side by about a 10 or 12 point margin."

The panel also expressed strong opposition to the abstinence movement.

"You would be very surprised, as I have been, to see billboards saying chastity, virginity or abstinence..." said Stoesz. "There is a great deal of momentum in the so-called abstinence movement."[..]

Another abortion ban panelist, Joshua Vlibarri, said the abstinence movement is keeping "people from enjoying themselves and from being their own person."

The crowd roared with laughter as Stoesz mocked the idea of abstinence until marriage, claiming it demeaned women's sexuality and is an interesting "cultural aspect of this debate."

A reward is being offered for information that leads to the arrest of vandals who have repeatedly destroyed anti-abortion signs located on Congresswoman Jean Schmidt's family farm.

Congresswoman Schmidt's twin sister, Jennifer Black, is offering a $500 reward which she hopes will help lead to those responsible.

She said the vandalism has been going on for years, with two incidents in the last several weeks.

You'll find the pro-life signs at the busy intersection of Loveland-Miamiville and Branch Hill Guinea roads in Miami Township.

"This started three years ago so its been going on for a long time," Jennifer Black said.

The most recent incident happened last week.

"The sign says abortion stops a beating heart. Someone took a black spray paint can and wrote over that 'pro-choice,'" Black said.

So, Black said, they put up a makeshift sign on the right.

"Immediately after we did that, within 72 hours, someone took that sign we had, 'pro-choice equals death and destruction' and they destroyed that sign," Black said.

If a mother is with child and has concerns about her baby, testing can be done so that the defective child can be weeded out and killed rather than being born into a life of pain and suffering. So is it any wonder that there are increasing numbers of parents who think that if murder in the womb or the Petri dish is acceptable, then surely when the going gets a bit tough, the best answer is to relieve one's own pain and suffering by eliminating the "problem." This might sound harsh, but reality is what it is.

When a mother who has been accused of taking her daughter's life is described as a "fantastic mother," a "loving mother," but someone who lacked sufficient support from the community, there is something wrong. When individuals are quoted in the media as saying that raising a child with disabilities "could move any normal person to be a different person and consider things they never considered before," the impression is given that deadly acts against vulnerable people are understandable and even compassionate. It further begs the question: what is "normal" in today's self-absorbed culture?

Is it normal to murder a baby in the womb? Is it normal to warehouse sickly grandparents? Is it normal to become so frustrated with a loved one that taking his life is the only way out?

Inside Carhart's office, the atmosphere changes: the walls are covered with thank-you letters from patients, national awards, and portraits of the horses that were killed in the fire. The members of the staff are full of camaraderie. During abortions, they console women, explaining the procedure and chatting with them about their pets, work, or families. The conversation continues in the recovery room, where women sit in recliners while assistants provide antibiotics, postoperative instructions, and contraceptive counseling. Some patients write in the clinic's diary, which was started by a 14-year-old girl who wrote a letter to future patients, sharing her story and reassuring them about the procedure. Before each woman leaves, she must void her bladder, circle the hallway 15 times, and show that her bleeding is slowing; since many patients live hours away, Carhart's staff makes sure that they are stable before they depart.

When we met Carhart one recent morning, he had already performed two abortions and had eight more scheduled. His next patient was a woman who had come in the previous day and been sent home because the staff did not think she was emotionally ready. She returned with her brother, who spent most of the time outside with the protestors, coming in occasionally to remind her that she was going to hell. In her purse, she carried protestors' pamphlets featuring pictures of developing fetuses. Before starting, Carhart asked her if she was sure she wanted to do this. She nodded. Throughout the procedure, though, she cried quietly. Afterward, Carhart asked whether the protestors had gotten to her. "No," she sobbed. "The guilt did."

The report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation found teen-pregnancy rates fell from 49 per 1,000 females in 1999 to 42 per 1,000 in 2003, the latest year for which data were available.

Linda Klepacki, analyst for sexual health with Focus on the Family Action, said it's part of a longer trend.

"We've seen a continual decrease in teen-pregnancy rates and teen-delivery rates since 1991," she said.

Klepacki said abstinence education has had the greatest impact.

"Research has shown over and over again," she said, "abstinence-until-marriage education is the factor that has decreased the rate the most."

[I]t's worth mentioning that I'm often the first person to cringe and discourage my fellow abortion opponents from marching with graphic images of dead children -- what Mr. Atkinson did, but in his case via the British postal service. No one wants to have look at pictures of death and destruction -- and on an issue that's already about as acidic and painful as political issues get, we might all get further with a little less vinegar. But whatever my own rhetorical preferences might be -- and whatever your position on abortion is -- it's a scandal that a man would be jailed for such an act of free speech. But sending offensive material through the mail is a crime in Merry Old England and so a judge deemed this old man's mail criminal. You don't have to think that abortion is an evil that we need to eradicate to think that that is an outrage.

They pray for babies.

Thousands of baby pictures plaster the domed walls of the Chapel of the Unborn. Babies with bottles, babies in bonnets, babies cradled in mothers' and fathers' arms.

The chapel, in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, is a small side room off the main sanctuary of Regina Pacis Catholic Church. Years ago, the space was used as storage for the church snowblower. Now it serves as a holy spot for women who hope to bring pregnancies safely to term.

"It's simple. It's quiet. It's powerful," said Msgr. Ronald Marino, 59, the priest who founded the chapel in 1988. He did so after finding himself unable to persuade a parishioner of the church's stance that abortion is wrong. Instead of hammering that message, he said, he decided to create a space to celebrate lives of children brought into the world.

Some of the photos are of infants whose parents struggled to conceive. Others are of babies whose mothers had difficult pregnancies. Others are of children whose parents once thought to abort, but ultimately did not.

The steady stream of visitors is largely anonymous, hailing not only from the church's parish, but from the other boroughs, Long Island and beyond. Marino doesn't know the bulk of people who come here, but since the chapel has been open, he estimates he's received close to 5,000 baby snapshots from families who visited. Sometimes, he said, parents will come straight from the hospital and leave the "Welcome, Baby" balloons and flowers they received after a delivery.

A statue of Mary sits in the center of the chapel. Behind her, a stained-glass window portrays angels praying and a newborn Jesus in the manger. In front stands a red-velvet kneeling bench, a thick, black, ledger book and a pen.

"Dear Blessed Mother, Help us conceive a child," says one entry. "We have a lot of love to give any baby(ies) you wish for us. Love, William.

A man who was in a coma for 20 years has awaken from it and regained his speech and movement capabilities as his brain has rewired itself by growing new connections from those that were severed in an automobile accident. Terry Wallis is one of a few people to make such a dramatic recovery after a prolonged coma.

Wallis speaks in a slurred but coherent voice, telling visitors "Glad to be met" and telling them of his brother's plans to light fireworks today at his house nearby.

For his family, each word is a miracle. Wallis began recovering from the coma in June 2003, as national controversy about an incapacitated woman, Terri Schiavo, began to develop.

Wallis' first word was "Mom" and he has been speaking more and improving his speech ever since. He can now count to 25 uninterrupted.

Marie Stopes International plans to use the drug methotrexate as an alternative to RU 486 in a pilot program involving 100 women in Sydney next month.

If the program is a success, the abortion business will begin giving the cancer drug to women for early-term abortions at its eight Australian abortion centers in NSW, the ACT, Queensland and Western Australia. MSI also plans to open a new abortion center in Melbourne this year.

Philip Goldstone, a senior Marie Stopes abortion practitioner who plans to head up the trial, told The Age newspaper the mifepristone abortion drug is slightly more effective than methotrexate but he said the process of getting the RU 486 abortion drug approved nationwide was "very long-winded."

Goldstone told The Age he knows that another company is planning to try to get the mifepristone abortion pill approved in the next 12 months and that MSI will use methotrexate until then.

"While we are waiting for RU 486 to become readily available methotrexate is a safe and effective alternative," he said.

My miscarriage ended. I don't know how to describe the feeling of it. The emotional and physical pain of it all. It has hit me harder than I thought it would considering I was thinking of aborting. But I knew that I wouldn't come from this unmarked. I knew it. I knew it would have a lasting effect on me.

It's funny how they say God works in mysterious ways. He made it so tht I needed to go through this event. I kept asking myself, why would I get pregnant only to have a micarriage. Why would God put such a weight and pain on me. I'm not a big religious person but I know this is was something I had to go through.

I believe in Karma. And I feel like if I was meant to have an abortion, I would have had it the day I went to that clinic. If it was meant, it would have happened.[..]

I feel so full inside but at the same time I'm full of pain and emotions that I don't want to let out. I feel soo confused with everything. Like there is no going back to being me after this. After having to sit on that toilet and bleed my baby out of my body, how can I go back to the way I was. I sat on the fucking toilet for 7 days, every time I went to the bathroom, and stared at my misfortune and pain on a fucking Pad.

Why did God give me a baby to take it...
...Why make me feel it inside of me...
Why make me think of keeping it....
....Why make me and Ray consider it......
Why make me feel so damn ashamed and confused to want it ...
but I was scared....
why?
why?

After a hospital's ethics board ruled that it would be futile to keep an eleventh-month-old on life support, another facility is expected to take the boy.

Daniel Cullen the Second will be transferred to Truman W-Smith Children's Care Center, a long-term pediatric nursing facility in East Texas. That's what The Dallas Morning News reports.[...]

A date hasn't been set for the transfer, but officials said it would probably be next week.

I just spoke to the receptionist at A Helping Hand and they have been inundated with calls and emails - over 300 in one day. They are somewhat overwhelmed at the moment, and have released a mass mailing, but do intend to wade through the responses as quickly as they can.

The good news is that because of the enormous interest shown in him, James's file will not be sent back to China at the end of the week, but a committee will be put together to begin the process of reviewing applications.

A pregnant Chinese woman fell to her death at a hospital while trying to flee an attempt by local officials to force her to abort twins, a human rights monitoring centre said.

Li Shimei was seized at her home and taken to the hospital in the eastern city of Hefei because she already had one child when she became pregnant, a violation of China's "one child" birth limits, the Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said, citing unidentified sources.

Li, who was seven months pregnant, fell from the Shuguang Hospital's second floor while trying to leave because she thought the procedure was too dangerous, the Information Centre said.

There are really only three alternatives for society: continue to kill the unborn; adopt more traditional (or archaic, or puritanical--however you want to present it) views on human sexuality; or deal with the children. This last provides another important part of the puzzle of liberal psychology: its embrace of the modern notion that children are something that ought to be planned, just as one would plot out buying a house or taking a new job.

Scientists who carry out embryonic stem cell research and politicians who pass laws permitting the practice will be excommunicated, the Vatican said yesterday.

"Destroying human embryos is equivalent to an abortion. It is the same thing," said Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, head of the Pontifical Council for the Family.

"Excommunication will be applied to the women, doctors and researchers who eliminate embryos [and to the] politicians that approve the law," he said in an interview with Famiglia Christiana, an official Vatican magazine.