by Susie Allen, host of the blog, Pro-Life in TN, and Kelli

We welcome your suggestions for additions to our Top Blogs (see tab on right side of home page)! Email Susie@jillstanek.com.

• Real Choice points out the strange pro-choice phenomenon which ignores women’s deaths due to abortion quackery and instead expresses outrage over slain abortionists.

• Mommy Life shares photos and the wonderful story of a recent visit from the birth family of their son Justin, who was born in the U.S. while his Taiwanese parents were here on student visa. Justin’s birth parents made the sacrificial and loving decision to make an open adoption plan for their son, who has Down syndrome, so he could stay in the United States, where he could receive the best health treatment and education.
• Secular Pro-Life continues to encounter opposition from other secularists and atheists, who believe the group is “secretly religious.” SPL points out that according to Gallup, “1 out of every 5 [or 19% of] non-religious people considers themselves pro-life.”
• John Smeaton responds to the claims from Save the Children that “family planning saves children’s lives”:
  

  The report relies heavily upon claims by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the Population Reference Bureau, the Guttmacher Institute and the Population Council, as well as officials in the relevant sections of WHO, UNICEF and DFID. But these people are basically one group: the abortion-contraception lobby.

• ProWomanProLife links to some commentary on the “war on women” and notices several euphemisms for abortion in a recent Planned Parenthood Action Fund graphic. How many can you find?
• Pro-Life in TN reports that word South Carolina and Tennessee abortionist Gary Boyle will no longer face felony charges for brandishing a loaded gun at prayer vigil participants in 2010. He will now only pay a $100 fine.
• Stand for Life agrees with a Pro-Life in NJ post pointing out why pro-lifers should not use the “potential for good” argument against abortion.
• Wesley J. Smith lambasts the Australian government for awarding eugenicist Peter Singer with the country’s highest civic award:
  

  A Peter Singer world would be profoundly immoral. It would be a society in which babies that did not suit the interests of their parents could be killed. It would be an era in which the most vulnerable human beings — living fetuses, unwanted infants, people with profound cognitive impairments — could be used in medical experiments of the kind decried by the Nuremberg Code and/or be subjected to death by organ harvesting. It would be a world in which universal human rights would have been discarded and replaced by a society in which our rights were subject to revocation based on our quality of life. And yet, despite these and other awful consequences, he’s the most celebrated bioethicist and moral philosopher of our times.

Here’s the hard truth: The problem isn’t Singer. The real source of the moral collapse comes because too many of us are unwilling or unable to defend the intrinsic dignity and importance of human life.

by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat

• Deng Jiyuan, the husband of the Chinese woman who was forced into a 7-month abortion has resurfaced in Beijing after leaving his hometown and is seeking help to get his wife released from the local hospital:
  

  Despite her requests to leave, Ms. Feng has been held in Shanxi Zhenping County Hospital watched over by local government officials, since being forced to abort her seven-month-old fetus on June 2.

  In a sign that local officials may be bending to public pressure, Ms. Feng’s sister-in-law, Deng Jicai, said by phone Friday evening that doctors had told her Ms. Feng would be released from the hospital following a final check up on Saturday. “Right now there is no one blocking us from leaving,” Ms. Deng said. “Those government people have been gone since yesterday.”

• The New York Attorney General’s office wants former New York NARAL leader Kelli Conlin (pictured left) to repay all of the NARAL money she spent on herself (apparently hundreds of thousands):
  

  The complaint cites more than $250,000 of improper expenses, some falsely documented, while noting Conlin’s salary was $380,000 in 2010 and she exercised increasing control over its outside bookkeepers and intimidated staff.

  They included $75,000 for retail purchases, with nearly $50,000 for designer clothing and shoes at stores such as Barneys and Giorgio Armani, some described in expense claims as “event decor” for the nonprofits’ fundraisers.

  Others were $17,000 for a July rental of a Southhampton house; $12,200 to pay her children’s nanny; $26,000 for personal travel; $18,500 in hotel expenses in Manhattan, where NARAL-NY has its office, though she lived in Brooklyn; $50,000 for non-business meals, including 120 from a sushi restaurant near her home; and $70,000 for car services, most for shuttling her children.

• In another brick in the mounting tower of evidence that human embryonic stem cell research is so 2002, the University of Massachusetts embryonic stem cell bank will close at the end of the year as funding dries up. The state of Massachusetts wasted $8.6 million on it since the legislation passed in 2008:
  

  The state invested $8.6 million in public funds to establish the bank at the medical school’s Shrewsbury campus.

  That decision in 2008 was seen then as a bold statement of support for research on human embryonic stem cells during a time when federal funding for work on the controversial cells was restricted. But advances in technology and changes to federal policies rapidly made the bank obsolete, state officials said….

  Originally, the bank was seen as a repository for embryonic stem cell lines that were being created but were not eligible for federal funding under Bush-era restrictions. The field has evolved significantly since then, with President Obama’s loosening of restrictions on federal funding and the development of new technologies for making stem cells….

  Some scientists said they were not surprised to learn of the endeavor’s failure. Rudolf Jaenisch, a stem cell biologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said his impression was that the banking effort never fully got off the ground. It did not announce the availability of its first stem cell lines until 2011.

  So they blew through nearly $9 million in tax funds and will only have been a functioning embryonic stem cell bank for 2 years?

by LauraLoo

Sandy and Ken Calwell were guests Monday through Wednesday on Family Life Today. 

After more than 10 years in the broadcast television industry, Sandy stepped out of the workplace in order to stay home and raise her son. She realized that many of the same skills and techniques she relied on in the working world were transferable to her new role. She promotes the importance of staying grounded, focused and motivated as a parent.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5K_c8YjCdA[/youtube]

E-mail dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.

And so if I have this right: The Federal Government may now levy a special tax on me if I do not comply with their specific directives about what I should buy, or do?

…The government may now, per Justice Roberts, assign special taxes on people if they do not live their lives the way the government prefers.

~ Ace of Spades, reeling from the Supreme Court’s ruling on Obamataxcare, June 28

by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat

• Two local Maryland laws regulating crisis pregnancy centers have been struck down:
  

  In a 2-1 ruling Wednesday, a panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond ruled that the Baltimore and Montgomery County ordinances violated the pregnancy centers’ free-speech rights.

• In China, the husband of a woman forcibly aborted at 7 months has gone missing:
  

  Deng Jiyuan traveled to Beijing last week to meet with lawyers and journalists to discuss the incident. But, according to his sister, Mr. Deng was met with fierce resistance. “More than 100 people and a dozen of cars showed up to stop him, and a man suddenly appeared and kicked my brother in the stomach,” Deng Jicai said.

  On Sunday, government officials purportedly urged local townspeople to unfold a banner near the hospital where Feng was located, which called the family “traitors” and ordered that they be excommunicated from the town. Meanwhile, photos were posted online displaying a red banner that reads, “severely beat the traitors and expel them.”

• The last abortion clinic in Mississippi (pictured left) is suing to stop enforcement of the state’s abortion clinic regulation law. None of the three abortionists who are employed there can get admitting privileges:
  

  The clinic said the unjustified requirement in the law is that it requires anyone who performs an abortion at a clinic to be an OB-GYN with privileges to admit patients to a local hospital. Lawmakers said that is for patients’ safety. The lawsuit says it’s impossible for the clinic’s physicians to get local hospital admitting privileges by Sunday….

  Clinic spokeswoman Betty Thompson said last week that the three physicians who work at the clinic are OB-GYNs and have applied for privileges but haven’t received them.

[Photo via 40 Days for Life]

UPDATE 6/29, 11:21a: My friend within six degrees of separation of this controversy reminded me last night that the Vatican would not have declared Father Pavone unsuspended and a priest in good standing had it not examined Priest for Life’s financial records for itself. After all, this was the foremost reason Bishop Zurek gave for his suspension. I agree that the Vatican would take absolutely no chance of having its withdrawal of suspension come back to embarrass it, especially in this day and age of priest scandals. So I have removed “(sort of)” from my headline. I think the Vatican indeed exonerated FP by its nod in his favor.

My friend said his first take was that the Vatican’s clearance opens the door for Father Pavone to pursue incarnation in a pro-life friendly diocese.

6/28, 12:01p: On Tuesday night came good news on Priests for Life’s website:

We are happy to announce that the Vatican has upheld Father Frank Pavone’s appeal and has declared that Father Pavone is not now nor has ever been suspended. Father Pavone remains a priest in good standing all over the world.

We were confident all along that a just decision would be made by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy. While we fully agree that Bishop Zurek has rightful authority over the priests of his diocese, we also see the urgent need for Father Pavone to be allowed to conduct his priestly ministry outside the diocese of Amarillo for the good of the pro-life movement.

From the onset we have been closely following the curious situation between Priest for Life’s Father Frank Pavone and his bishop, Patrick Zurek, of the Amarillo Diocese.

Last September Bishop Zurek abruptly ordered Father Pavone to report back to his diocese from New York, on the heels of a letter the bishop sent to his colleagues (subsequently leaked to the press) all but accusing FP of insubordination and mishandling of PFL funds, beginning with the apocalyptic sentence, “I have decided to suspend Father Frank A. Pavone from public ministry….”

Now the Vatican has overruled Bishop Zurek. Father Pavone was not suspended.

But as CatholicCulture.org (read that entire editorial – it’s good) points out:

[A]nyone familiar with canon law knew from the outset that “suspension” was the wrong term for the bishop’s action. As canonist Edward Peters explained last September, Bishop Zurek “should not have used the term ‘suspend’ in regard to Pavone, for ‘suspension’ is a canonical penalty for crime (c. 1333), and Pavone has not been accused of any crime.”

So the Vatican agrees.

But Father Pavone has not been reassigned to an unhostile bishop or perhaps to answer directly to Rome.

Thus, questions remain. Perhaps Bishop Zurek can’t “suspend” FP, but can he still curtail his activities, or worse, ban him from working with PFL? It appears so. Here was Bishop Zurek’s statement on the Vatican’s decision:

In its decree of May 18, 2012, the Congregation for the Clergy has sustained Father Frank A. Pavone’s appeal of his suspension from ministry outside the Diocese of Amarillo and his appointment from me on October 4, 2011 as Chaplain of the Disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ in Channing, Texas.  Father Pavone is to continue his ministry as chaplain until further notice. As a gesture of good will, I will grant permission to him in individual cases, based upon their merits, to participate in pro-life events with the provision that he and I must be in agreement beforehand as to his role and function.

Yes, that convoluted statement has to be read several times to understand. Bottom line: Father Pavone isn’t suspended but remains assigned as a chaplain to a tiny convent in the middle of the desert. And Bishop Zurek can call him back there for full time duty per his whim, when his sense of “good will” toward Father Pavone’s pro-life activities ceases and he is overcome by bad will.

And Bishop Zurek’s “good will” comes with a very short rope. Father Pavone must get his permission before doing any pro-life work. Bishop Zurek will decide whether each bit of pro-life work Father Pavone wants to do has “merit.”

The Amarillo Globe-News further quotes Bishop Zurek as stating the Vatican’s decision “makes it clear I am free to restore him to full religious ministry, if I wish. … But he must have my permission for anything in regard to work in pro-life, and in particular Priests for Life, because that is where the issue arose to begin with.”

So aside from maintaining the show of a pretty big ego. Bishop Zurek has purposefully left hanging his accusation that Father Pavone may have mismanaged PFL’s finances, which is inexcusable.

by Hans Johnson

President Obama held a campaign rally  Monday  in the Oyster River High School in Durham, New Hampshire. Though school is not in session,  students did attend as well as adults. He told the audience of almost 2,000:

We believe that in America your success shouldn’t be determined by the circumstance of your birth.

However, the president isn’t well known for worrying about one’s success by the circumstance of their conception, telling the crowd:

You can decide that instead of restricting access to birth control or defunding Planned Parenthood, we should make sure that in this country women control their own health care choices. That’s what we need!

Is a high school the proper venue for a president’s bully pulpit, speaking about such a controversial topic, and knowing that many students would want to see a bit of history at their own school? The folks at The Five on Fox News debated.

E-mail your suggestions to dailyvid@jillstanek.com

UPDATE 9:22a: philipklein tweet: “SCOTUS: ‘The Medicaid expansion thus violates the Constitution’– says states have choice on participating in expansion.'” SCOTUSblog tweet: “Expansion of Medicaid is constitutional (key), but States can’t be stripped of funds for not complying with expansion provisions.”

UPDATE 9:17a: The individual mandate will become a tax. Taxpayers will still be forced to pay for abortions. SCOTUSblog tweet: “From the Court: The mandate max [may?] be regarded as a tax. ‘That is sufficient to sustain it.'” philipaklein tweeet: “SCOTUS: Mandate ‘may reasonably be characterized as a tax.’ It survives.”

UPDATE 9:15a: The mandate is constitutional. Chief Roberts joined four liberal justices for majority opinion. SCOTUSblog tweet: “CJ Roberts fifth SCOTUS vote saved the ACA.”

UPDATE 10:13 a: Medicaid provision limited but not invalidated.

UPDATE 10:10a: Correction – Individual mandate is UPHELD as a tax. Said to be constitutional. Court rules individual mandate will become a tax. It appears the law will stand – not under Commerce Clause of Constitution but taxing powers of Congress.

UPDATE 10:08a: The individual mandate has been ruled UNCONSTITUTIONAL!

9:42a: The Supreme Court’s decision on the Obamacare mandate is due at 10a EST. I’ll post it as I learn it.

As a reminder, the Court’s options are:

1. Punt (say law can’t be challenged until people have paid the tax)
2. Strike down the mandate
3. Strike down the mandate and anything linked to it
4. Strike down the Medicaid expansion
5. Strike down the entire law
6. Uphold the entire law

According to a poll I have running, most of you think the Supremes will choose #5 – strike down the entire law. We can only hope.