Christian Life News

By Rebecca Kiessling - Posted at Save the 1 : Alabama urgently needs to pass The Rape Survivor Child Custody Act, to terminate the parental rights of rapists and to suspend any custody or visitation. Last week, a rape survivor mom from our network, J.C., published her story in our Save The 1 blog, " From Age 13, My Uncle Raped and Impregnated Me, But The Judge Said It's Irrelevant. " In her custody case for her two surviving children conceived in rape-incest, DeKalb County, Alabama Judge Steven Whitmire told her that their conception was irrelevant, and granted her rapist uncle visits over Christmas. Determined to protect her children, she's sought protection from the County Sheriff's office, imploring them to file charges against him for the years of rape. All four of her children were conceived in rape-incest -- the first two were conceived when she was under "the age of consent" in Alabama. J.C. miscarried her first child, and her third chi

By Shane Vander Hart - Posted at Caffeinated Thoughts: Planned Parenthood of the Heartland announced on Wednesday that they closed their clinic located in Bettendorf, Iowa after 18-years of operation. They announced the Bettendorf clinic would close, along with the Burlington, Keokuk, and Sioux City clinics last May . The closing, the abortion giant said in a press release on Wednesday, was due to “defunding by extreme Iowa lawmakers.” Last May former Iowa Governor Terry Branstad signed a bill last week that reallocated over half of state funding away from abortion providers like Planned Parenthood of the Heartland to federally qualified health centers. “Gov. Kim Reynolds and anti-woman lawmakers forced us to make some extremely difficult changes this year in order to continue providing care for as many patients as possible. It is as devastating today as it was last spring to announce that we are no longer able to serve our patients in Bettendorf,” Suzanna de Baca, President and C

Image Source: WFAA-TV By Monica Hernandez - Posted at WFAA-TV:   "This was, of course, a difficult decision, especially because he’s not my baby. I understood how scared the biological parents must have been. I remembered how scared and confused I was when I got pregnant with my own twins. I was twenty years old, had not planned for the prospect of having one, yet alone two children and was frightened. I remember thinking, how much easier it would all be if there were easy answers. I did not consider an abortion even if, at that moment, it would have made things a-lot [sic] easier. Instead, at twenty years old and with no idea how I could afford or care for twins, I chose to provide them life. That decision was the best decision I’ve ever made. My children have been my biggest blessings and my greatest treasures." A baby at the center of a legal battle and national debate will receive life-saving surgery after a lengthy showdown between his biological parents and the

By Dave Bohon - Posted at The New American: A recent report by the Guttmacher Institute reveals that India was responsible for an estimated 15.6 million abortions in 2015, putting the country close to China's record in the number of pre-born baby killings. The Guttmacher Institute reported that the astounding number “translates to an abortion rate of 47 per 1,000 women aged 15–49,” with the majority of the deaths (81 percent) coming through “medication abortion,” followed by surgical abortions performed in “health facilities” (14 percent), with the remaining five percent “performed outside of health facilities using other, typically unsafe, methods.” According to the study, which Guttmacher conducted in conjunction with India's own International Institute for Population Sciences in Mumbai and the Population Council in New Delhi, of the estimated 48.1 million pregnancies in India during 2015, “about half were unintended — meaning they were wanted later or not at all.” Trans

By Diana Chandler - Posted at Baptist Press: KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (BP) -- A 26-year-old mother gives all credit to the Lord after she gave birth to a baby girl from a donated embryo frozen more than 24 years, considered a record in cryopreservation births. "People say it's science. No, I say it's purely the Lord," Tina Gibson told the NBC affiliate WBIR in a Dec. 19 video posted on Facebook. "This is a gift from the Lord for sure." The Christian-based National Embryo Donation Center (NEDC) in Knoxville, Tenn., announced the birth Dec. 19, noting it as a historical record of the longest-frozen embryo to lead to a healthy birth. Emma was born to Tina and Benjamin Gibson Nov. 25, weighing 6 lbs., 8 ounces, and measuring 20 inches long. "That's just the kind of God that we serve that He would do something like that for us. It's just precious," the mother said. "She's precious, She's perfect." Continue reading here. 

By Heather Clark - Posted at Christian News Network : WASHINGTON — A federal judge in the nation’s capital has ordered the Trump administration to allow two more illegal immigrant teenagers to obtain an abortion, but has briefly stayed her ruling to allow the government a day to appeal. “[Defendants are] required to transport J.R. and J.P.—or allow J.R. and J.P. to be transported—promptly and without delay, on such dates, to an abortion provider, in order to obtain any pregnancy or abortion-related medical care and to obtain the abortion procedure itself, in accordance with the abortion providers’ availability and any medical requirements,” the order , written by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, reads in part. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had filed on behalf of the two 17-year-old girls, who were detained at the border and transported to shelters. They learned after their entrance into the United States that they were pregnant and decided to abort. One teen is

Posted at the National Review : But this issue is an opportunity for finding common ground on ways to protect women. On Thursday, Arizona Republican congressman Trent Franks announced he would resign in the face of an ethics investigation, after having asked women on his staff to be gestational surrogates for him and his wife, who had been struggling with infertility. In his statement, he described the surrogacy approach they ultimately did take as “pro-life.” Jennifer Lahl, a nurse, has been working with broad coalitions against surrogacy for years as the founder and president of The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network . She talks with National Review about the problems of surrogacy and why pro-lifers — and anyone else concerned with human rights and women’s health and freedom — should never embrace it. Kathryn Jean Lopez : Would you ever describe surrogacy as a “pro-life” option? Jennifer Lahl: I would never, ever describe surrogacy as pro-life. Surrogacy necessaril

Posted at iB2 News : A law firm representing religious liberty concerns has filed a lawsuit to stop the implementation of taxpayer-funded abortions through House Bill 40 (HB40) in Illinois on Jan. 1. The Chicago-based Thomas More Society suit argue that the General Assembly has not set aside funds in the state’s budget to pay for the abortions and remain within the Balanced Budget requirements of the Illinois Constitution. It also contends, according to the Thomas More Society, that the law cannot become effective until June 1 because it missed a May 31 cut-off date for General Assembly action. “We’ve got $1.7 billion more appropriations than we’ve got revenue coming in,” said Peter Breen, Special Counsel for the Thomas More Society. “I don’t see how we’re going to find the money to pay for these elective abortions.” Initial arguments were heard in the Seventh Judicial Circuit Court December 6 at the Sangamon County Courthouse in Springfield. Breen asked when the state planned to

Posted at GreggJackson.com : “At my inauguration, I swore on the Holy Bible to uphold the Supreme Law of the Land, The United States Constitution. The 5th and 14th amendments both guarantee that no state shall deprive any innocent person of their life without due process of the law and equal protection of the laws. As president, I will enforce these vital provisions of the United States Constitution as I am morally and constitutionally required to do. Today, I am calling on every individual state Governor to enforce the imperative and explicit provisions of the 5th and 14th amendments by closing down all abortion centers and related activities including distribution of chemical abortion pills in their state. ... Continue reading here.

By Pastor Jim Jenkins - Posted at Herescope : “In almost every message to our staff, I talk about our doing sacred work,” Dr. Laura Meyers, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, told the news outlet. “This confirms the sacredness of the work we do.” Later, she said pro-lifers “tried to separate those of us working on or supporting the right of women to choose a from a sense of deep spirituality . So today is a shift in that narrative .”[1] [emphasis added] Clergy blessing Planned Parenthood [2] “...the whole world lieth in wickedness.” (1 John 5:19b) The occasion for my controversial remarks to a group of pastors happened shortly after the grand opening of the new Planned Parenthood facility in Eugene, Oregon. The mayor (the former head of the local Planned Parenthood organization) had been effusive in her praise of the work of Planned Parenthood. The ceremony was replete with all the trappings one might expect at the opening of a hospita

By Kelsey Harkness - Posted at The Federalist : When today’s feminists say “reproductive rights,” they’re usually referring to the “right” to taxpayer-funded abortion and contraceptives. But many feminists conveniently ignore a far more basic “reproductive right”: the right of a woman to know whether the prescriptions she takes may increase her chances of committing suicide. According to a new study, some do. “In a study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, researchers in Denmark report that women taking hormonal contraceptives — like birth control pills, the patch, the ring and hormonal IUDs — have up to tripled the risk of suicide as women who never took hormonal birth control,” Time reports, adding: Among women who used hormonal contraceptives currently or recently, the risk of attempting suicide was nearly double that of women who had never used contraceptives. The risk was triple for suicide. The patch was linked to the highest risk of suicide attempts, followe

By Sandy Salmon - Posted at Caffeinated Thoughts : On June 2nd of this year, the Iowa Supreme Court recognized for the first time that parents have a right to a “wrongful birth” claim. In the case before them, they ruled that parents of a child born with severe disabilities may bring a medical negligence lawsuit based on the doctors’ failure to inform them of prenatal test results showing abnormalities that would have allowed them to exercise their option to abort their child. This particular lawsuit is known as a wrongful birth claim. The parents did not argue, as would be typical in a tort case, that the doctors’ negligent care caused their child’s disability and that therefore they were seeking damages to remedy that. Instead, their argument centered on this: that had the doctors properly counseled them about the test results; they would have chosen to abort their baby. This complaint is the essence of a wrongful birth claim. Earlier, in this case, a lower court judge had