A federal judge in Mississippi has denied a request against the Jackson, Mississippi police department, which has been harassing pro-life Christians.
Police have been targeting Christians who are protesting outside the state’s last abortion facility for harassment.
“[Our] request that pro-life advocates receive injunctive relief from harassment by the City of Jackson, Mississippi Police Department was denied by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi Jackson Division,” wrote Tom Ciesielka of the Life Legal Defense Foundation. “Despite hours of supportive testimony and a long and well documented history of police misconduct, Judge Carlton Reeves denied a preliminary injunction prohibiting the city police from further persecution of peaceful pro-life protesters.”
The police have been arresting the Christians for the most minor of accusations. For example, Christians have been arrested if a sign they were carrying touched the ground, with the police claiming that because it touched the ground they were “obstructing a public sidewalk.”
“We are very concerned about the potential for police mistreatment of our clients as this case awaits its day in court,” added Life Legal Defense Foundation Executive Director and President Dana Cody in response to the court’s denial of a preliminary injunction. “It is very disappointing that the district court did not acknowledge that a police department that is already behaving with impunity might perceive this as an opportunity to continue illegal harassment of private citizens exercising their constitutionally protected freedoms.”
The pro-life organization Live Action held a rally outside Planned Parenthood in Washington, DC, calling for pro-lifers across the nation to call for the government to stop funding the abortionists.
The group said the government gave $500 million taxpayer dollars to the country’s largest abortion provider.
Live Action says that in addition to the abortion services, Planned Parenthood is using taxpayer dollars to teach dangerous sexual practices to underage children.
“[Planned Parenthood] is a $2.1 billion corporation that has a dangerous sexual agenda for teens,” Lila Rose of Live Action said at the event.
“Someone has to draw attention to it,” added Live Action’s Drew Belsky. “We decided that it should be us.”
“Mother Teresa, an expert on peace who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, said that ‘the greatest destroyer of peace in the world is the cry of the innocent unborn child.’ The womb, which should be a safe, secure place, has become a war zone,” Rose told the crowd.
A Catholic pro-life organization is actively campaigning for PBS to drop their plans to air the pro-abortion movie “After Tiller.”
The American Life League called upon PBS to pull the movie which is scheduled to air on Labor Day. The group says that because PBS is “publicly funded” is “has no business” airing a slanted, pro-abortion film.
“Why are pro-life tax dollars being used to paint a sympathetic picture of abortionists who stab babies in the base of their skulls just moments before they are born?” said ALL President Judie Brown. “Where is the sympathy for the babies, whose brains are being sucked out by vacuum machines by these abortionists?”
PBS says they will air the movie as part of their “Point of View” series that has been running for 27 seasons.
“‘After Tiller’ follows these four doctors as they confront a host of obstacles — from moral and personal dilemmas to restrictions placed on their practices by state legislation,” stated PBS in a press release. “Rather than trying to take a comprehensive look at the heated political debate surrounding abortion, the film weaves together revealing, in-depth interviews with the abortionists and intimate vérité scenes both from their lives outside their clinics and the time they spend in their clinics, counseling and caring for their anxious, vulnerable patients at profoundly important crossroads in their lives.”
Pro-life groups around the world have shown the “After Tiller” film to be slanted in favor of abortion.
A California professor who attacked a teenager that was holding a pro-life sign during a campus protest has pleaded “no contest” to the criminal charges related to the attack.
In return, she was given a slap on the wrist.
Mireille Miller-Young, a professor of feminist studies at University of California Santa Barbara, approached members of the group Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust during a peaceful protest. She began to yell at them and to the students who were quietly engaging with the protesters.
“We don’t need to listen to these people!” Miller-Young yelled. “They don’t have our permission to be here. Should we tear down their sign?”
Miller-Young then ripped the sign away from a teenage girl and marched into a nearby building. When the girl followed, the professor pushed and shoved her leaving scratches all over the girl.
Miller-Young received community service, anger management classes and three years probation.
The Supreme Court is being asked to weigh in on the constitutionality of states issuing license plates with the ”Choose Life” slogan.
The Alliance Defending Freedom filed an appeal on Friday with the court on behalf of the speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, Thom Tills, and the president pro tem of the North Carolina Senate, Phil Berger. The appeal comes after a three-judge panel with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the license places were unconstitutional.
The ADF says “state governments have the right to advance messages consistent with their public policies.” The Supreme Court, the ADF notes, has already affirmed that right in other cases.
The ACLU of North Carolina brought the initial suit against the plates because there were no pro-abortion license plates offered at the same time.
The “Choose Life” plates cost an extra $25, of which $15 goes to a pregnancy care fellowship that helps with pregnancy care centers in the state. If the ACLU is successful in removing the plates, thousands of women in North Carolina will be denied pregnancy care coverage because the ACLU is doing nothing to replace the funds that will be lost.
A Swedish woman was denied a job with three different medical clinics because she would not perform abortions.
The Alliance Defending Freedom has filed a brief with the court on behalf of Ellinor Grimmark. Grimmark was subjected to verbal harassment because of her beliefs and openly denied employment because of those beliefs.
“No one deserves to be denied a job simply because she is pro-life,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Roger Kiska. “International laws to which Sweden is obligated recognize freedom of conscience and make clear that being pro-abortion cannot be a requirement for employment, nor can medical facilities force nurses and midwives with a conscience objection to assist with practices that can lead to an abortion.”
One of the defendants, Varnamo Hospital, had offered a position to Grimmark but withdrew it when they discovered she was pro-life.
The ADF brief points out that the Council of Europe has ruled “no person, hospital or institution shall be coerced, held liable or discriminated against in any manner because of a refusal to perform, accommodate, assist or submit to an abortion, the performance of a human miscarriage, or euthanasia or any act which could cause the death of a human fetus or embryo, for any reason.”
The case is currently pending.
A woman wearing a Burger King uniform shirt verbally and physically assaulted members of the pro-life organization Created Equal who were conducting an awareness event in Columbus, Ohio.
Victoria Duran was caught on video physically attacking a teenage boy who was an intern of the Created Equal group. She also used profanity filled rants and kicked down signs that were erected showing the development of a baby at 12 weeks.
“We understand the risk we take each time we go into the marketplace of ideas with a message as counter-cultural as showing the victims of abortion,” Created Equal Executive Director Mark Harrington told LifeNews, adding that “despite the threat we will not shrink back from representing the victims.”
Police arrived on the scene and removed Duran from a public bus to talk; she held out her arms telling the police “take me.”
Duran was questioned by a reporter from KSYX-TV who said she assaulted the pro-life group members and Duran responded by saying shoving them was not assault.
Police disagree and have charged Duran with assault and criminal damaging.
A new Rasmussen survey says that the number of registered voters who identify themselves as pro-life has reached a new high.
The new survey showed 44 percent of voters identify themselves as pro-life versus 48 percent that identify themselves as pro-choice. The pro-life total is one percent higher than 2013 and five percent higher than 2012.
“When it comes to the issue of abortion, the number of voters who consider themselves pro-life is at an all-time high,” the press release read.
“This particular poll confirms a growing trend in the U.S. of people coming to understand the value of each human being’s life from creation to death,” Jim Sedlak of the American Life League told the Christian Post.
Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life Committee, said the poll is similar to the results of other polls she has read.
“The pro-life movement is growing for a number of reasons,” Tobias said. “Protecting unborn children is a compelling civil rights movement that attracts a large variety of people.”
New Zealand pro-life groups are praising a new report that shows the country’s abortion rate has struck a 20-year low.
Right To Life New Zealand credits increase public awareness that abortion is really murder and also of issues connected to the process.
“There is also an increasing awareness that abortion damages women’s health with an increased risk of breast cancer, drug and alcohol abuse, suicide, grief, anger, regret and increased depression,” the group wrote in a statement.
“Right to Life commends those brave and courageous women who when faced with an unplanned pregnancy chose life for their child,” the statement continues. “These are truly heroic women who deserve our admiration and support. Right to Life also commends the majority of the medical profession who faithful to the Declaration of Geneva have sworn to maintain the greatest respect for human life.”
The abortion rate of 15.4 per 1,000 in 2013 was barely above the 1994 level of 15.3. The abortion rate for women under 19 also fell significantly, from 27 per 1,000 in 2007 to 14 per 1,000 in 2013.
The pro-life group Voice for Life praised the news but also had a bit of a somber tone in their celebration.
“While Voice for Life is pleased at today’s news of yet another decline in the abortion rate, we also feel a sense of great sadness and loss for the more than 14,000 human beings who were denied social justice and their fundamental human right to life last year in NZ.”
The Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision in favor of a pro-life group that wanted to challenge an Ohio law that put them at risk for a lawsuit if someone felt their political ads were “false.”
The Susan B. Anthony List had sued a now-former Democratic U.S. Congressman who had claimed the group lied about him in a campaign ad that said he supported taxpayer funded abortion because of his support of the Affordable Care Act. While the Congressman dropped his complaint against the group under the Ohio law, the group sued to say the law was unconstitutional.
The group said that the lawsuit by former Rep. Steve Driehaus also violated the group’s freedom of speech. The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled the group had no standing to pursue a lawsuit because the suit against them had been dropped after the election was over.
The ACLU, a very anti-life legal group, surprised observers by backing SBA List in the case.
“Speech is rarely black and white,” an ACLU spokesman said. “If the government silences one side of the debate, the public is less informed and others might be fearful of criticizing elected officials. The answer to unpopular speech is not less, but more speech.”
Anti-life groups said the case is about the “right to lie” despite the fact the SBA List has shown the Affordable Care Act includes multiple abortion funding provisions.
