The American Humanist Association (AHA) is threatening to sue Lamar County School District because an eighth grade teacher in Hattiesburg, Mississippi prays, OUTside of class, for her students and maintains a list of their names on a closet door in a back room off the classroom. The parent of one student alerted the AHA of this, what the atheists claim is, a horrific violation of the U.S. Constitution.
“This was prompted by getting a letter from a concerned parent that her child saw the prayer requests board.” -- Monica Merrill, attorney for Appignani Humanist Legal Center in Washington, D.C.
For background, click headlines below to read previous articles:
The [AHA] emailed an eight-page letter Sunday to Superintendent Tess Smith, Oak Grove Middle School Principal Patrick Gray and Oak Grove Middle School Assistant Principal Robin Ryder. The letter included a photo taken by the student of the prayer request board [attached to the closet door].
Smith declined comment Monday, saying she was waiting to hear from the district’s attorney on the matter.
The [AHA] association's letter said the prayer request board is "correctly perceived as a constitutional violation." It continued accusing Rogers of violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
The First Amendment reads "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
The association said that if corrective steps were not taken by next week, it would take the matter to federal court.
Randi Rogers, an eighth grade teacher at Oak Grove Middle School in Hattiesburg, reportedly witnessed a student take a picture of the board and confronted the student after class, according to a letter from the American Humanist Association to the school district.
Lamar County Superintendent Tess Smith said the board, which was on a chalkboard-like surface on a closet door in the classroom, has been erased. Smith said she has sent the letter, which she received late Sunday, to the district's attorney.
Smith said she spoke to the teacher only "very briefly" and that the principal is taking statements from the teacher and the student.
[Supt.] Smith said [the] board is actually painted on the door of a closet-like space that contains an air-conditioning unit — “It’s kind of tucked away in the back of the room, facing the opposite direction” — and that the idea for the board had come from requests of students.
“The teacher thought she was staying within guidelines since it was a student-led situation,” Smith said. “She said she never mentioned it aloud in class. It was something they could do before class or after class or just whenever.
“If we are breaking the law or violating the Constitution, then we will stop immediately,” Smith said. “But can students write their name on a wall in some other form? We’ll just have to await the attorney’s input.”
Smith said comments from parents were “overwhelmingly” in favor of the board.
Lamar County School District officials will soon issue a decision regarding the prayer request display, which was on a classroom's closet door at Oak Grove Middle School.
"The 'board' is painted onto the back of a closet door. The names have been removed at this time to protect the students," said Tess R. Smith, superintendent of the Lamar County School District, to The Christian Post regarding the status of the prayer request board.
Smith also told CP that she wished "that the parents had contacted me or the principal directly" rather than going to the American Humanist Association, the atheist group that sent the letter to the district threatening a potential lawsuit if the board isn't removed.
In the AHA's letter of complaint to Smith, Oak Grove Principal Patrick Gray and Assistant Principal Robin Ryder, Miller further argued that: "faculty involvement in prayer with student is even unconstitutional outside the formal classroom setting."
According to just-released government records of a routine survey of the Mobile Planned Parenthood center, Alabama authorities uncovered failures to report multiple instances of possible child sexual abuse when the clinic performed two abortions on one 14-year-old girl within a four-month span in 2014. Because the clinic promised not to conceal instances of suspected rape in the future, it is being allowed to remain open for business pending a criminal investigation, if any.
"There was no documentation in the medical record of the facility reporting suspected abuse to the proper authorities as required by Alabama Code Reporting of Child Abuse or neglect." -- Dr. Don Williamson, head of the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH)
The [ADPH] report states the clinic is required by law to report possible abuse and neglect, but failed to do so after providing services to the teenager identified as "MR 16."
The department of health inspected the center in November and interviewed employees about the case. An employee verified no report was made.
ADPH took no disciplinary action because the issues were addressed and the facility will again be inspected this year, Williamson said.
The only action the department could have taken, he said, would be to terminate the license or issue a probationary action. Neither happened because the center addressed the problems, he said.
Whether legal action is taken against the center for failing to report suspected abuse would be up to law enforcement officials, [ADPH's legal counsel, Brian] Hale said.
In addition to sanitation problems, improper paperwork and a lack of caution when administering drugs to patients, the health department found the Alabama clinic failed to report the 14-year-old’s case to the authorities, and was otherwise careless with her health.
A 14-year-old mother of two visited the clinic in April, 2014, for an abortion, and returned that August for a second abortion. Planned Parenthood did not obtain proper consent from a guardian, as required by Alabama law, and did not take proper precautions when administering the medication abortions.
The clinic’s own standards require an abortionist to consult the medical director and/or affiliate protocols before performing a medication abortion on someone with a hemoglobin level below 10. The Planned Parenthood staff did neither of these things before performing the two medication abortions.
Planned Parenthood Southeast, which includes the Alabama clinic in its network, did not respond to a request for comment. The clinic could not be reached for comment.
. . . what is disturbing is that the report was dated November 21, 2014, nine months ago, raising questions about why it took so long for the Alabama Department of Public Health to release this public record. The report contained no plan of correction usually found on reports this old. In fact, it is not known what sanctions — if any – were ever levied on the Planned Parenthood office, which is open for business and conducting abortions today.
There was no documentation in [the 14-year-old girl's] medical record to indicate that anyone from Planned Parenthood could verify the signature of the adult that brought her for the abortion was indeed a parent or legal guardian.
Despite being seriously anemic with a hemoglobin count of 9.3 – too low for a medication abortion that induces heavy bleeding — she returned to the clinic on April 12 and was given drugs to induce an abortion. She received no management or consultation regarding her anemia.
[Four months later . . .] As before, no one bothered to authenticate that the adult who brought her to Planned Parenthood was her parent or guardian. Still seriously anemic, which should have contraindicated medication abortion to the Planned Parenthood staff, she was again given drugs to induce an abortion then sent on her way.
Curators at the Smithsonian Institution art and history museum are rejecting calls for the removal of a bust of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger. Rather, the national historians say that the famous early 20th Century American eugenicist, who referred to the negro race as "human weeds" and "human waste," belongs in the museum's civil rights “Struggle for Justice” exhibit.
"We are paying for, even submitting to, the dictates of an ever increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all. . . . We don't want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the [colored] minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members." -- Margaret Sanger (writing to birth control advocate Dr. Clarence Gamble in 1939)
"The last thing we need is a white supremacist sitting between the bust of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. That is a slap in the face of black folks and I hope the curator can understand that." -- Rev. Johnny Hunter, chairman of the Frederick Douglass Foundation
Conservative groups are calling on the National Portrait Gallery to remove of a bust of Margaret Sanger from the Washington, D.C. museum, the Associated Press reports. Sanger, who died in 1966, founded two groups that eventually became Planned Parenthood.
. . . a group of ministers lead by former Republican politician E.W. Jackson and the conservative non-profit ForAmerica say their opposition to the bust is based on Sanger’s support of eugenics, a social movement that sought to remove undesirable traits from the gene pool through sterilization and selective breeding.
. . . Presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas have written a letter to lawmakers that calls the sculpture’s display by the museum “an affront both to basic human decency and the very meaning of justice.”
In a statement to TIME, Planned Parenthood acknowledged Sanger’s flaws, but dismissed the attacks as motivated by anti-abortion sentiment.
[Birth control advocate Margaret] Sanger, who died in 1966, also supported eugenics, a now-condemned effort to discourage reproduction by criminals and others with undesirable traits. Brent Bozell, chairman of the conservative group ForAmerica, and a group of black pastors say Sanger favored using eugenics to limit the population of blacks, a claim that some Republican lawmakers have echoed but for which the evidence is contested.
"She will not be removed," museum spokeswoman Bethany Bentley said Wednesday. She said the gallery displays "significant people who represent the full spectrum of the American experience," including some with "less than admirable characteristics."
A Planned Parenthood spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But the group's website describes Sanger as "one of the movement's great heroes." It says women's progress in education, jobs and politics "can be directly linked to Sanger's crusade and women's ability to control their own fertility."
Prominent black pastors and pro-life activists gathered in front of the National Portrait Gallery on Thursday to demand that the taxpayer-funded museum remove a bust of Planned Parenthood's white supremacist founder, Margaret Sanger, from the institution's "Struggle for Justice" exhibit.
Nearly 20 African-American pastors and pro-life advocates spoke at the rally and explained that Sanger, who established abortion organizations that eventually became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, did not advocate for abortion and birth control because she wanted to help "disadvantaged women," but because it was her goal to use eugenics to eliminate what she considered people of "inferior races."
In response to the letter sent by the coalition Ministers Taking a Stand earlier this month, National Portrait Gallery Director Kim Sajet replied with a letter stating that the gallery will keep the bust because Sanger brought "medical advice and affordable birth control to disadvantaged women."
“The woman was a racist. She was a genocidal figure in America and in human history, and to honor her is to be complicit in her evil and her racism,” [Bishop E.W.] Jackson said. “That’s right. If you are honoring Margaret Sanger, you are joining together with her in her racist ideology.”
Rev. Johnny Hunter of the Global Life and Family Mission in North Carolina, said it was a “slap in the face to black folks” to have Sanger as part of the “Struggle for Justice” exhibit.
“Her association with the eugenics movement shadowed her achievements in sex education and contraception, making her a figure of controversy, one whose complexities and contradictions mirror her times,” Director Kim Sajet told the pastors in an Aug. 19 letter.
“There is no ‘moral test’ for people to be accepted into the National Portrait Gallery,” said Sajet.
Sanger worked to bring birth control to Black families in the south, but recognized her ideas would be met with suspicion. According to Factcheck.org, an organization that verifies media statements made by elected officials, Sanger wrote about the importance of gaining support from a black clergyman.
Considering its origins, the Black community has long viewed the birth control movement with suspicion. Many Black people felt that early experiments with birth control pills used Black communities as test subjects. And up until recently, some states still practiced elements of eugenics with mentally challenged people and other undesirables being forcibly sterilized. An Atlanta Blackstar story reported several cases of Black female inmates in California being sterilized without their consent.
Today, anti-abortion activists say the high rate of abortion in the Black community carries elements of eugenics. According to figures from the Center for Disease Control, while Black people make up about 14 percent of the population, 40 percent of abortions are carried out by Black women.
Mercy Medical Center in San Francisco refused the request of a patient to be sterilized, so the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) threatened to sue, and the Catholic hospital acquiesced, in spite of its policy to refuse abortions, in vitro fertilization, and other unnatural procedures.
"While we’re grateful Mercy Medical has agreed to provide medical care in this instance for Ms. Miller, the reality remains that there is a clear conflict between the best interests of patients and the directives of the Catholic hospital system.” -- Elizabeth Gill, senior attorney at the ACLU of Northern California
[Patient Rachel] Miller, who says without Mercy’s cooperation she would have to travel 160 miles to receive the procedure, went to the ACLU for help. Last week the ACLU sent a letter to Mercy threatening a lawsuit, arguing that by denying Miller’s tubal ligation they were engaging in sex discrimination by refusing to provide “pregnancy-related care.”
In a post on the group’s website, ACLU attorney Elizabeth Gill said she’s happy the hospital will comply with Miller’s request, but that the group won’t be satisfied until all hospitals are forced to stop following Catholic doctrine.
This isn’t the first time the ACLU has targeted Catholic hospitals. In 2013, the organization sued the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops over its guidelines barring doctors from discussing abortion as a potential option with patients. That lawsuit was dismissed last month.
Mercy Medical Center is owned by the San Francisco-based Dignity Health, California's largest private health care network and the fifth-largest in the nation. In April, the hospital said it wouldn't allow patient Rachel Miller to receive a tubal ligation after her caesarean section, which is set to take place next month. The hospital cited the church's Ethical and Religious Directives, which prohibit "inherently evil" reproductive health care procedures like sterilization.
Miller, an attorney who lives in Redding, California, teamed up with the ACLU to protest the decision, which the hospital had communicated to her doctor. The ACLU argued in a letter to Dignity Health that the hospital was discriminating on the basis of sex by denying Miller a tubal ligation, and elevating "theological tenets over patient health."
Asked whether the decision to allow Miller to get a tubal ligation would apply to future cases, a hospital spokeswoman wrote in an email to HuffPost that it "has always and will continue" to operate according to the Catholic church's directives.
The ACLU has targeted Catholic health institutions before for not informing patients in dire medical circumstances that abortion was an option, or for telling doctors they may not discuss abortion with their patients. Health care providers and reproductive rights advocates have increasingly expressed concerns about the practices and procedures of Catholic hospitals, which provide 15 percent of the nation's hospital beds.
Presidential candidate U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is pleading with all Bible-believing Christians to pray and call on their own local church leaders to engage the battle against abortionists and stop government funding of Planned Parenthood. Yesterday, Sen. Cruz told thousands of Christian leaders via a conference call that they have the utmost duty to protect the unborn.
"How did America become a country that harvests organs from unborn children? And who has the courage to stop it?" -- Ted Cruz campaign ad
[Ted Cruz'] latest pitch to religious voters came in a conference call Tuesday with church pastors from around the country.
In the conference call earlier, and at every campaign event, Cruz attacks Planned Parenthood. He highlights the recent series of undercover videos from an anti-abortion-rights group accusing the organization of selling fetal tissue from abortions for profit.
Cruz argues that he can win the nomination — and the presidency — by motivating real conservatives and not worrying at all about winning moderates. That's something he and others argue imperiled Republicans' chances in the last several elections.
More than 100,000 pastors received e-mail invitations over the weekend to participate in conference calls with Cruz on Tuesday in which they will learn details of the [defund Planned Parenthood] plan to mobilize churchgoers in every congressional district beginning Aug. 30. The requests were sent on the heels of the Texas Republican’s “Rally for Religious Liberty,” which drew 2,500 people to a Des Moines ballroom Friday.
Heading into the primary season, it wasn’t clear how significant a role social issues would play in the selection of the Republican nominee. But social conservatives and evangelical voters say they have been galvanized by a one-two punch this summer: first, the Supreme Court’s decision that same-sex marriage should be legal in all 50 states — and then, the release of hidden-camera videos showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing the donation of fetal tissue in a seemingly cavalier fashion.
All of the Republican candidates have found themselves spending more trail time on both issues over the past few months. Those fighting most fiercely for religious voters have made them central to their campaigns. But few candidates have made the burgeoning “religious liberty” movement in opposition to same-sex marriage and the fight to deny funding to Planned Parenthood as much of their campaign centerpiece as Cruz has — and perhaps no one is as well positioned to benefit politically from a renewed focus on those issues.
The recent exposure of Planned Parenthood's barbaric practices of harvesting the body parts of innocent babies and selling them to the highest bidder has brought about a pressing need to end tax payer support of this institution.
As the son of a pastor, I know you bear a high and holy calling on your lives. I am urging you to confront this evil in our nation by praying and preaching with an unbridled passion until funding for Planned Parenthood ends, and this barbaric practice is purged from the land.
Over the next two weeks, with the support of your prayers and the impact of your preaching, I intend to lead an effort to end taxpayer support of Planned Parenthood.
The battle we face is not political. It is spiritual. To enter this arena in a prayerless condition invites failure. . . .
To read the entire E-mail from Sen. Ted Cruz above, CLICK HERE.
Cruz is working with the American Renewal Project, a conservative group that encourages pastors to run for elected office on a campaign to defund Planned Parenthood.
“Our call to action primarily, number one, is to get the pastors to return to prayer on this and every issue,” said the Rev. Ken Graves, who spoke on Tuesday’s teleconference call.
Too many of of the nation’s evangelical pastors “have come to believe that we have no freedom, no right to speak,” said Graves, senior pastor at Calvary Chapel in Bangor, Maine, and a speaker on the 20-minute call. He encouraged his fellow pastors to exercise their right to talk about Planned Parenthood and other issues according to their understanding of Scripture.
And Graves said the pastors stand on firm legal ground. “The word is out that pastors have the freedom, that they’re not a lower caste of American people,” he said. They can both speak out and engage in the process.”
The phone call is part of a larger 50-state campaign by Cruz to end taxpayer support for Planned Parenthood — a campaign likely to raise his profile in a Republican primary race where the vote of social conservatives is seen as up for grabs.
[Sen. Cruz] asked that pastors preach a message Aug. 30 “calling on your people to enter into this spiritual battle for the soul of their nation.” A link on the American Renewal Project points to an outline for a sample sermon titled: “The Cry of the Innocent for the Soul of a Nation.”
Finally, Cruz asked pastors to lead congregations in a “Day of Prayer and Fasting,” on Wednesday, Sept. 9, and use Wednesday night services asking God “to move in the hearts of men and women in government to vote to end the slaughter of the innocents.”
“Now more than ever it is the role of the church, as well as our pastors and faith leaders, to stand up and speak the truth with absolute clarity,” Cruz said in a telephone conference call.
“I would encourage every pastor on this call to preach the truth about what is happening with Planned Parenthood. I recognize these are topics that are not without controversy, and they invite criticism when faith leaders speak candidly about them,” he said.
“If we cannot speak about this, there is very little that we can stand up and speak about. Preaching from the pulpit biblical values on life and comparing those values, the teachings of Jesus, to this nationwide business of trafficking in the body parts of unborn children is a message that needs to be heard across this nation.”
Cruz urged the pastors to lift up America’s leaders in prayer as well as pray for action against the sale of human body parts by the abortion provider.
Even though President Obama's own pro-homosexual federal agencies have documented that so-called sexual minorities comprise only about two percent of the population, today fully one-third of American young people do NOT believe they're "straight," and half of British young people believe likewise.
"Straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender. At the end of the day, what's the difference?" -- Mantra of the day
Researchers from YouGov asked respondents to rate their sexuality on the Kinsey scale, also known as the Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale. The Kinsey scale was developed by Alfred Kinsey back in 1948 to help plot an individual’s sexuality. Results are based on a 0 to 6 scale, 0 meaning “exclusively heterosexual,” 3 meaning equally heterosexual and homosexual, and 6 meaning “exclusively homosexual.”
Although 78 percent of Americans reported that they are completely heterosexual, 12 percent of this group also admitted to having a sexual experience with someone of the same sex. Another four percent of American adults said they were completely homosexual and 16 percent said they fell somewhere in between. Among those who said they fell in between, 10 percent said they are more heterosexual, three percent said they are exactly in the middle, and the remaining three percent said they are more homosexual.
It seems, however, that younger Americans have a harder time pigeonholing their sexuality compared to adults. Only 66 percent of Americans under the age of 30 said they are either completely heterosexual or completely homosexual. A total of 29 percent said they were somewhere in between compared to 24 percent of Americans between the ages of 30 and 44 and eight percent of those over the age of 45.
The majority of respondents did not identify themselves as gay or straight. The study showed that 23 percent of Brits identified themselves somewhere from one to six or somewhere other than exclusively heterosexual; this was particularly common among younger adults. For instance, about half of British youth from 18 to 24 identified within the one to six range on the Kinsey scale.
Twelve percent of heterosexual American adults also said that they have had a sexual experience with someone of the same sex, with 15 percent of straight women twice as likely as straight men (8 percent) having had a sexual encounter with someone of the same sex.
What do the results mean? The poll has brought up many questions among experts. Is this unusual? Perhaps the signs of a natural evolution or are people just more open about their sexuality these days? And will someone who isn't gay or straight--nor bisexual--necessarily act on a slight attraction to the same sex?
With each generation, people appear to see their sexuality as less set in stone.
Of 1,632 people surveyed, 60 per cent of heterosexuals and 73 per cent of homosexuals supported the idea that sexuality is a scale.
About a quarter of those aged between 18 and 39 said reported having had a homosexual experience, compared to just nine per cent of those aged 60 and over.
More men report having had a gay experience. A fifth of males, compared to 14 per cent of females, report having had a sexual experience with someone of the same sex.
YouGov researcher Will Dahlgreen further explained the implications of the results to The Huffington Post on Monday.
"I am surprised about the results, yes," he said in an email. "While I don't think they show there will be a drastic rise in the number of gay, lesbian and bisexual people, they do show that young people are less quick to rule out the idea as inconceivable. They may be more prone to experiment, even if they know they're more suited to heterosexuality, or at least the idea of it doesn't shock them or strike them as out of bounds."
The proud lesbian of the Denver City Council, Robin Kniech, has quelled any support for a lease to allow a Chick-fil-A restaurant to operate at the Denver International Airport (DIA) by her questioning if such a Christian-owned restaurant "fits with the kind of city we want to live in and our residents expect."
The Business Development Committee on Tuesday stalled the seven-year deal with a new franchise of the popular chicken chain for two weeks.
Kniech and Council Member Jolon Clark on Wednesday said their focus now is on Chick-fil-A's current practices and policies.
"Constituents of mine, people who are very near and dear to me, have been fighting for their relationships to be recognized and for their rights to be equal," said Clark, who also questioned allowing the lease at DIA during Tuesday's meeting.
If the committee rejects the lease, an individual member could introduce the deal in the full council. At Tuesday's meeting, none of the 10 members in attendance defended Chick-fil-A.
A 2013 survey at DIA showed the chicken sandwich chain was the second-most suggested fast food at the airport, following Chipotle, which did not apply for the spot.
Councilman Paul Lopez called [his] opposition to the chain at DIA "really, truly a moral issue on the city."
Robin Kniech, the council's first openly gay member, said she was most worried about a local franchise generating "corporate profits used to fund and fuel discrimination." She was first to raise Chick-fil-A leaders' politics during a Tuesday committee hearing.
But legal scholars often have come to the company's defense, raising company leaders' First Amendment rights.
Several council members — including four on the six-member committee — raised questions related to Chick-fil-A's religion-influenced operation, which includes keeping all franchises closed on Sundays.
DIA has estimated the restaurant's first-year sales at $4.1 million, with $616,278 paid each year in concession fees. Chick-fil-A restaurants typically generate more in six days a week, DIA says, than most fast-food concessions that are open all seven.
The company's founder, S. Truett Cathy, died at 93 in September 2014.
The fast-food chain received criticism and calls for boycott after the founder's son and Chick-fil-A CEO Dan T. Cathy, in a 2012 interview on "The Ken Coleman Show," said of the company: "We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that."
Though Dan Cathy later pledged the company would not champion any political agendas surrounding marriage or family, the Cathys stood firm on its Christian values.
According to the company's website, "Truett Cathy, made the decision to close on Sundays in 1946 when he opened his first restaurant in Hapeville, Georgia. He has often shared that his decision was as much practical as spiritual. He believes that all franchised Chick-fil-A Operators and Restaurant employees should have an opportunity to rest, spend time with family and friends, and worship if they choose to do so. That's why all Chick-fil-A Restaurants are closed on Sundays. It's part of our recipe for success."
As tens of thousands of people gathered in hundreds of cities across America to protest taxpayer dollars funding Planned Parenthood, the mainstream media covered yesterday's national day of unity as just isolated local events. Meanwhile, the latest undercover video by the Center for Medical Progress exposes Planned Parenthood's sale of intact dead babies.
“We now know that Planned Parenthood not only perpetrates over 300,000 abortions each year, but harvests the organs of the unborn children it destroys. Whether this trafficking is called a sale or the coverage of expenses, PP is compensated for this harvesting.” -- C.J. Doyle, Catholic Action League of Massachusetts
For background, click headlines below to read previous articles:
The demonstrations unfolded at about 320 clinics around the nation, according to organizers, with some gatherings drawing a few dozen protesters and others drawing hundreds and perhaps thousands more.
The protests kicked off at 9 a.m. Saturday and included speakers, prayer groups and chants, as well as signs distributed by organizers that said “Planned Parenthood sells baby parts.”
Though the official number of protesters was not immediately available, organizers billed the effort as the largest-ever rally against the health-care provider. Monica Miller, the director of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, one of the participating groups, told USA Today that previous protests have drawn thousands of protesters, but hundreds of simultaneous protests have never taken place on the same day.
Protests were held at 14 Michigan sites of Planned Parenthood, part of nationwide protests at 290 locations. A coalition of more than 50 pro-life groups looked to create awareness of abortion and the sale of aborted materials.
Protester Barb Yagley of Troy, campaign director for 40-Days for Life, was at a protest in Ferndale.
“The short-term goal here really is to educate the American public about what abortion actually does to the child that’s within the womb and that it’s not just a blob of tissue, and to ask Planned Parenthood to reform themselves,” Yagley said.
A push to defund Planned Parenthood is underway in Lansing as state Senator Patrick Colbeck of Canton is sponsoring a bill to cut off taxpayer funding.
Tens of thousands of pro-life advocates across the country — perhaps as many as 50-75,000 people in all — protested at Planned Parenthood abortion clinics across the country today. They protested to raise national attention to the massive scandal at Planned Parenthood, where its staff and officials have been caught selling aborted babies and their body parts.
The protests took place in over 350 cities in 47 states and 5 countries — with hundreds of people in many cities and over 6,000 in the Twin Cities in Minnesota alone.
Organizers of the protests say they are the outgrowth of recently released Planned Parenthood expose videos showing the abortion company trafficking in aborted baby body parts and showing a complete disregard for women and unborn children.
While the videos have focused on the Planned Parenthood abortion business, the biotech firm StemExpress, which buys and resells aborted baby body parts from the abortion giant . . .
In the video, Cate Dyer, the CEO of StemExpress, is shown in a lunch meeting with undercover operatives posing as representatives of a biotech firm. Dyer is laughing about how StemExpress purchases fully intact aborted babies from Planned Parenthood. She laughs about how shippers of the aborted babies would give a warning to lab workers to expect such a baby.
“Oh yeah, if you have intact cases — which we’ve done a lot — we sometimes ship those back to our lab in its entirety,” she says.
“Tell the lab its coming,” she laughs about the intact unborn babies. “You know, open the box and go ‘Oh my God,'” Dyer adds.
The controversy over videos purporting to show Planned Parenthood officials discussing the sale of body parts from aborted fetuses drew hundreds of people to a protest outside of the group’s Aurora clinic this morning.
Protest organizer Eric Scheidler said he saw people protesting he hadn’t seen in years, and said was easily the largest protest outside of the Aurora clinic since it opened in 2007.
The protesters ranged in age from their teens to their 80s. Living Hope Bible Church of Roselle Associate Pastor Mike Tiberi said the videos showing Planned Parenthood executives discussing the sale of body parts left by abortions make him more determined than ever to see abortion stopped.
Hundreds of abortion opponents protested outside the Boston Planned Parenthood clinic Saturday, bearing crucifixes and graphic images and calling for an end to government funding for the organization.
The Boston demonstration was one of approximately 300 organized across the country. The protests come after pro-life advocates released footage of Planned Parenthood officials discussing the harvesting of fetal tissue.
Planned Parenthood defended itself from what protest organizers say is the largest coordinated day of protest against the group.
Pro-life advocates want an end to public funding for Planned Parenthood. In 2014, the group received over $528.4 million in government dollars.
A crowd of some 200 anti-abortion activists demonstrated outside the offices of Planned Parenthood in San Diego on Saturday morning, calling for the elimination of federal funding to the nonprofit health care organization.
The protest near downtown was one of 320 similar gatherings staged outside Planned Parenthood offices across the country, according to organizers. In San Diego, protesters lined the sidewalks at the corner of First Avenue and Grape Street, chanting and holding signs.
A similar protest in Escondido also drew about 200 participants Saturday, according to police, while another rally of about 100 people was staged in Vista.
Saturday’s peaceful rally in San Diego drew a range of participants, including students from local colleges, as well as members of church groups from around the county. Several protesters brought children and infants.
The event’s organizer, Silas McClufor with Advocates for Justice, said they counted more than 500 men, women and children standing outside the city’s Planned Parenthood facility.
“Planned Parenthood is lying to women and not giving information that they are using the body parts of the aborted babies. They are not telling mothers they are selling these for a profit and we cannot stand for this. Planned Parenthood does not honor women and it doesn’t have respect for human life in the womb,” McClufor explained.
“Multiple times in multiple videos, [Planned Parenthood] is seen discussing how to get higher compensation for this fetal tissue. And in fact, a flyer given to Planned Parenthood by StemExpress states that sale of tissue will benefit them financially,” Dr. Francis, who is also a board member with the American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said.
More than 1,000 abortion opponents protested in front of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Mt. Auburn as part of a nationwide protest against the organization Saturday morning.
The protests were organized by a coalition of anti-abortion groups, including American Life League and Stop Planned Parenthood International, in 47 states and more than 300 cities to call for cutting off Planned Parenthood's federal funding and putting a stop to abortions.
The protest had multiple speakers including Cincinnati City Councilman Charles Winburn and Ohio State Senator Joe Uecker. Local clergy, including Revered Chuck Hickey of the Trinity Presbyterian Church, led the protesters in prayer.
"It still surprised me that more people aren't upset about this," said Corrine Groh, who attended the protest with her two children. "They say that it's a woman's right to choose, well you made the choice to get pregnant."
At a rally Saturday morning outside Planned Parenthood in north Spokane, state Rep. Matt Shea called the group “an evil organization” committing acts on par with Nazi Germany.
Jami Cary held a sign reading “#PPSellsBabyParts,” a reference to the videos released by the Center for Medical Progress, an organization opposed to abortion. . . . “I think the majority of people are apathetic about it,” said Cary, who was at the rally with her husband, Kevin, and four children. “I think, with the videos coming out, your basic human alarm clock is dinging. I think there’s more momentum now.”
Alex Barron, who traveled to Spokane from Post Falls to attend the rally sponsored by the Priest Lake-based Selkirk Pro-Life Alliance, said abortion decisions in the courts were an extension of rulings in the 19th century that defined personhood.
“I believe that this country has made the same decision that it made in Dred Scott, when it said that blacks were not human,” said Barron, a black man, referring to the 1857 Supreme Court decision that ruled slaves had no legal protections as citizens. “When that (Roe v. Wade) Supreme Court decision was made a few years ago, we did not have the same science, we did not have the same clarity, we did not have the same sonograms that we have now.”
Barron said that taxpayer dollars should not go to Planned Parenthood, but should be directed instead to other organizations that provide similar services without facilitating abortions.
Hundreds of people gathered outside the Salem Planned Parenthood clinic Saturday morning to protest the organization, which offers health services, including abortions, to women.
The protest in Salem began with a service led by Father Tim Mockaitis of Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Salem. After the service, Gary Carignan, 69, a member of Queen of Peace and one of the speakers at the protest, called for a 10-minute break before state Rep. Bill Post, R-Keizer, spoke.
[Rep. Post] cited a report by the state Division of Medical Assistance Programs that shows that the state spent more than $20 million on abortions in the past 12 years, all funded by the Oregon Health Plan.
The peaceful protest was mainly led by prayer and was without incident or violence.
Providence police blocked off Chestnut Street as several hundred protestors, led by Bishop Thomas Tobin of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, demonstrated outside. Private security and volunteers kept the building accessible to visitors.
“There is nothing about Planned Parenthood that involves parenthood at all. It involves prevention and death,” said Kathleen Kelly of Silent No More, a Christian campaign.
“All life is precious. And I don’t want to look back on my life saying that I knew this was going on and that I didn’t try to do something about it,” said Jessica Baeckel. Baeckel came to the protest with her husband and two of her four children.
Several local lawmakers have also appealed to Attorney General Peter Kilmartin to investigate Planned Parenthood, but no such investigation is underway in Rhode Island, according to a spokesperson for Kilmartin.
Christians persecuted for their faith went on stage at a rally in Des Moines, Iowa last night to discuss how they were victimized by their own government and stripped of their jobs, businesses and religious liberty. Republican presidential candidate and Texas U.S. senator Ted Cruz, hosting the event, told the crowd that America is nearing the end of its founding principle of freedom of religion if Bible-believing Christians don't rise up immediately.
"Is the next victim of persecution your pastor? Your charity, where you volunteer your time at a crisis pregnancy center?" ". . . there is this liberal intolerance that says that anyone that dares follow a Biblical teaching of marriage, that is the union of one man and one woman must be persecuted, must be fined and must be driven out of business." -- Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)
Cruz, looking to gain traction in an early voting state with a heavy concentration of evangelical Christians, held a highly organized and produced "Rally for Religious Liberty" Friday night. The rally featured live music, interviews with people who said their religious liberty was violated and sermon-like speeches from Cruz, who tried to cement himself as the candidate of choice for evangelical voters in a crowded Republican primary field.
"There is a war on faith in America today," Cruz said, later noting that 54 million evangelical Christians stayed home during the 2012 election.
"I'm here to tell you, we will stay home no longer," he said as the audience, which filled a ballroom and the campaign estimated to number 2,500 people, cheered.
While Cruz will be competing for the evangelical vote with candidates including former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, former senator Rick Santorum and neurosurgeon Ben Carson, few have been as vociferous about the notion that religious liberty is under attack than Cruz. . . .
First up onstage Friday night were Dick and Betty Odgaard, an Iowa couple who would not host a gay wedding at a venue they owned because they felt doing so would violate their religious beliefs. The two have been the subject of a lawsuit and closed their business. The senator sat down with the Odgaards onstage and prompted them to tell their story, bringing Betty Odgaard to the verge of tears.
“I know this has been a very hard journey,” Cruz told them, leaning over to hold Betty Odgaard’s hand in a rare public display of softer emotions from the senator. “Scripture tells us, God ordered our steps.”
“Amen,” she replied.
“I’m convinced you have gone down this road, endured the pain, endured the attacks, endured the hatred, precisely to put you where you are here today, for such a time as this,” he said, to applause.
Cruz spoke about his experience defending freedom of religion at the Supreme Court and what he said were the threats facing religious liberty.
"These threats have been growing, they have been growing for decades but never have the threats been greater to religious liberty than they are right here and now today," he said.
"These threats are not imagined, they're not made up. These are real people leading real lives who found themselves facing persecution simply for living out their faith. There is a war on faith in America today."
The event featured guest speakers who had faced consequences of upholding their religious beliefs, from losing a job to vandalism to losing a business.
"They didn't ask for confrontation and the government came to them and said, 'Choose between faith and obedience to government power,' and they said, 'I follow a higher power and that is God almighty,'" Cruz said.
In his opening remarks [at the Community Choice Credit Union Convention Center] during the “Rally for Religious Liberty,” Cruz referenced a number of Supreme Court cases regarding religious issues that came down to a 5-4 decision.
“You want to know what this election is about? We are one justice away from the Supreme Court saying ‘every image of God shall be torn down,’” said Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas said.
Iowa radio host Steve Deace, who endorsed Cruz earlier this week, interviewed the other guests. They included Barronelle Stutzman, a florist sued for declining to provide flowers to a same-sex marriage, and Oregon bakers Melissa and Aaron Kline, who declined to provide a cake to a same-sex marriage, among others.
“These are just everyday people like all of you in this room and yet they find themselves on the front line in the battle for the soul of this culture,” Deace said.
While Sen. Ted Cruz was grilling pork chops at the Iowa State Fair today, actress Ellen Page, wearing a hat and sunglasses, snuck her way up to the grill and asked the GOP presidential candidate about "the persecution of gays in the workplace and LGBT rights."
"Well, what we’re seeing right now, we’re seeing Bible-believing Christians being persecuted for living according to their faith," Cruz responded.
The Texas senator, 44, went on to argue today that "no one has the right to force someone else to abandon their faith and their conscience."
"Imagine, hypothetically, you had a gay florist and imagine two evangelicals wanted to get married and they decide, ‘You know what, I disagree with your faith and I don’t want to provide flowers,’" Cruz posed to Page.
