Category: Sanctity of Life

“My body, my choice.” This is a common slogan among those who are pro-choice. It’s a handy little slogan. Any pro-choice woman can use it to immediately shut up a pro-life man, since his opinion doesn’t count, no matter the merits of his argument.

But what about my story? On March 29, 1997, my parents were driving through Minnesota when my mom suddenly began having contractions. Immediately, they drove to the hospital, and two days later I was born—11 weeks early.

North Carolina Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed legislation Thursday morning that would require abortionists to provide basic medical care to newborns who survive failed abortions, just days after the measure cleared the state legislature.

The North Carolina Senate approved Senate Bill 359 on Monday and the state House approved it on Tuesday. It requires infants born alive after attempted abortions to be guaranteed the “same claim to the protection of the law that would arise for any newborn, or for any person who comes to a hospital, clinic, or other facility.” Violators would be guilty of a Class D felony and face a fine of up to $250,000.

In becoming the ninth jurisdiction to legalize physician-assisted suicide, New Jersey has unleashed a Pandora’s box on its residents—and the poor, weak, and disabled will suffer the most. The Medical Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act was signed into law by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, after it narrowly cleared both chambers of the state Congress.

As of Aug. 1, 2019, terminally ill patients with a prognosis of six months or fewer will now be able to self-administer lethal concoctions of drugs in order to take their own lives. Murphy claimed in a statement that this bill would “[provide] terminally ill patients and their families with the humanity, dignity, and respect that they so richly deserve at the most difficult times any of us will face.”

A bill imposing one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the nation was signed into law in Ohio.

Republican Gov. Mike DeWine signed the heartbeat bill Thursday, breaking with his predecessor, Republican John Kasich, who had vetoed the measure twice.

Ohio’s closely divided politics had slowed the progress of the bill as it has caught momentum elsewhere, forcing years of debate in the state where the bill originated.

Of course, it’s alarming (to pro-lifers) that these laws have been less effective in states that have passed them more recently. Unfortunately, the researchers weren’t able to tease out exactly why this happened, but they do float some ideas for further research: “One possibility is . . . differential changes in the composition of teens at risk of abortion due to differences in the use of contraceptive technology, access to medication abortion and to changes in parent-child relationships. Differences in the availability of judicial and physician bypass may also play an important role in some settings.”

Despite the fact that Planned Parenthood remains the largest abortion provider in the United States — performing more than 330,000 abortion procedures last fiscal year alone — the group continues to receive about half a billion dollars annually from the federal government.

For decades, the Republican party has promised to remove that funding, but its efforts continue to fail. There are plenty of complicated reasons for that, as I reported in a recent issue of National Review magazine. But a huge part of the problem is that Republican politicians don’t make this goal a central part of their governing agenda, because they believe it would be unpopular.

Pro-life groups across the country hope a wave of new “heartbeat laws” adopted by states will not only protect babies from abortion in the early stages of pregnancy but also give the Supreme Court an opportunity to reverse its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that led to the legalization of abortion nationwide.

Abortion rights advocates have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to summarily strike down a controversial Louisiana law requiring doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital.

A bill requiring doctors and nurses to protect and care for children born alive during a failed late-term abortion cleared the North Carolina Senate on Monday, handing social conservatives a victory that could ultimately be undone by the Democratic governor.

Terminally ill adults in New Jersey will now be able to ask for medical help to end their lives.

Gov. Phil Murphy has signed the Medical Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act. And the law goes into effect August 1.
It will allow adults with a prognosis of six months or less to live to get a prescription for life-ending medication.