IRELAND'S PUBLIC HEALTH SYSTEM SPENDS $1M ADVERTISING ABORTION, SUPPRESSING PRO-LIFE ADS
from: LiveAction News

(10 Mar.) In recent replies to parliamentary questions, it was revealed that almost €1 million [1 million euros, equivalent to over $1M U.S. dollars] has been spent by the HSE [Health Service Executive] on advertising abortion in the first four years of legal abortion in Ireland.

It was also revealed in a separate reply from Minister Stephen Donnelly that the HSE has paid for the pro-abortion MyOptions hotline to automatically outbid any services which offer life affirming options.

Responding to this new information, Pro Life Campaign spokesperson Eilís Mulroy said [emphasis added by Live Action News editors]:

In just four years the HSE has racked up a bill of nearly €1 million in buying advertising to promote the HSE’s misleadingly titled ‘MyOptions’ hotline, which provides women with information on how to obtain an abortion.

Research by Students For Life published in early 2022 showed MyOptions counsellors are quick to offer abortion to women, including advising an undecided woman to ‘make an appointment anyway.’ Regrettably, the Minister has not acted on these alarming research findings.

It is shocking that money is continually shovelled into the pro-abortion agency MyOptions, whilst not a red cent is spent on providing women with positive supports and alternatives to abortion.

The revelation that the HSE has set up a management strategy for MyOptions on search engines to automatically outbid any websites which offer alternative options to abortion points to how the government’s agenda is clearly to promote abortion as a one-track option.

The Minister even admits the government has collaborated with Google to promote MyOptions and suppress organisations which offer supports to women in unplanned pregnancies. He unfairly refers to the work of such organisations, which are often staffed by qualified volunteers motivated by genuine compassion, as ‘disingenuous’ and ‘rogue agencies’ simply because they do not offer abortion. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: Ireland just a few years ago switched from being one of the last pro-life strongholds to become a bastion of abortion, actively promoting and funding this abominable evil. Now we learn that their Health Service Executive is controlling the media to present abortion as the only option by suppressing information about organisations that supports women in unplanned pregnancies.

EXPERTS FROM 75 COUNTRIES CALL FOR THE ABOLITION OF SURROGACY
from: BioEdge.org

(7 Mar.) A hundred experts from 75 countries have signed a declaration demanding the abolition of surrogacy because it offends human dignity and commodifies women and children.

The signatories of the so-called Casablanca Declaration say that both altruistic and commercial surrogacy should be banned. They have several recommendation for legislators:

  * A total ban on surrogacy
  * A declaration that surrogacy contracts are invalid
  * Prosecution of surrogacy brokers
  * Prosecution of participants in the surrogacy process
  * A global convention about surrogacy.

The authors of the declaration stress that they are calling for the total abolition of surrogacy, not the creation of a framework within which it can be regulated.

A conference was held in Casablanca on March 3 to launch the declaration. The organisers chose Morocco because it bans surrogacy completely. One of the organisers, Katy Faust, an American who is the founder of a group called Them Before Us, tweeted a link to a feature about a gay YouTube celebrity and his "husband." She told her readers: “Here’s your reminder that (unlike adoption) adults who procure children via #surrogacy undergo no screening or background checks” –

They had created a dozen embryos and barcoded them. Now they are deciding which to implant in the womb of a surrogate mother. The YouTuber is infamous for obscenity and sexualising children. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: We must realize that surrogacy is simply a euphemism for prostitution, paying a woman for sexual favors. It is practiced in many countries including Russia, Ukraine, the Far East, and Latin America. It is high time to impose a worldwide ban on this disgusting abuse of women, treating them as a commodity or a breeding animal.

RUSSIA: TOMSK MUSICIAN'S CRIMINAL TRIAL TO BEGIN 15 MARCH
from: Forum 18 News Service

Hebrews 13:3 – "Remember those who are in bonds, as bound with them; and those who are ill-treated, since you are also in the body."

(7 Mar.) The criminal trial of Tomsk musician Anna Chagina on charges of repeatedly "discrediting" the Armed Forces is due to begin on 15 March. She is being tried for social media posts opposing Russia's war in Ukraine, based on her Christian beliefs, having already received a fine in 2022 for her poster at an anti-war protest which read "Blessed are the peacemakers (Matthew 5:9)." Tomsk Region Investigative Committee refused to discuss the case.

On 15 March, Judge Roman Zaynulin of Soviet District Court in the Siberian city of Tomsk is due to begin the criminal trial of Anna Chagina, according to the court website. If convicted, the 43-year-old musician and teacher, who based on her Christian beliefs opposes the invasion of Ukraine, faces a maximum three-year jail term or a large fine on charges of "discrediting" the Russian Armed Forces more than once in one year.

Chagina's first (administrative) conviction was for displaying a poster reading "Blessed are the peacemakers" at an anti-war protest in Tomsk in March 2022, just two days after the new offence of "discreditation" came into force. Investigators subsequently accused Chagina of posting anti-war materials on social media and charged her under Criminal Code Article 280.3.

Chagina's online posts included reposting an anti-war petition by Russian Orthodox clergy, online debates on the war from a Christian perspective and updates on the criminal prosecution of Orthodox priest Fr Ioann Kurmoyarov in St Petersburg. It remains unclear exactly which of her social media posts form the basis of the prosecution case.

"It was important for me to convey my position to people," Chagina told the "Govorit Ne Moskva" (Not Moscow Speaking) media project (which specialises in regional stories) through friends in December 2022, before she or they signed the non-disclosure agreements. "I am mentally prepared for the fact that the state will punish me for this. As far as I understand, I face either a prison term or a huge fine. I'm not afraid of either." Forum 18 wrote to Tomsk Region Investigative Committee to ask why expressing religion-based opposition to the war in Ukraine should be considered "discreditation" of the Russian Armed Forces, and on which specific social media posts the case against Chagina was based. "Taking into account the interests of the investigation, it is not possible to answer your request," it responded. It added that all information about preliminary investigations that it is legally permissible to make public is published on the Investigative Committee's website. The website has given no information on Chagina's case. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: What has it come to in Russia when a person is convicted of a crime by quoting "Blessed are the peacemakers (Matthew 5:9)" on a sign? This starkly illustrates the depths of absurdity that so-called Russian Christianity has sunk to.

NATION’S DISABILITY SERVICES AT BREAKING POINT, REPORT FINDS
from: Disability Scoop

(2 Mar.) After warning for years of an impending collapse in the disability services system, advocates say that the crisis is here with a new report painting a dire picture of the situation across the country.

Programs are closing, people with developmental disabilities are being turned away and providers are failing to meet federal requirements, according to the analysis out this week from United Cerebral Palsy and the American Network of Community Options and Resources, or ANCOR.

"Threats to community-based services due to workforce and funding shortages have existed for decades, but the threat has escalated to dangerous levels, forcing providers to deny access to crucial care and other support services for people with IDD,” said Armando Contreras, president and CEO of United Cerebral Palsy.The annual report known as the “Case for Inclusion” assesses 80 indicators of how well states are supporting individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the community.

Over 481,000 people with developmental disabilities were on waiting lists for home and community-based services as of the end of 2021. But even those who have come off waiting lists do not necessarily have services, the report notes, given the lack of availability.

Survey data from last fall shows that more than 60% of providers have discontinued programs in the past year and over 80% report that they have denied services to people with disabilities.

Meanwhile, only 36 states are participating in Money Follows the Person, a Medicaid program that helps transition people out of institutions and into community living. That’s down from 44 states in 2016. And, the Case for Inclusion indicates that community engagement among people with developmental disabilities “declined sharply” between 2019 and 2021 with fewer people in this population reporting that they went out for errands, entertainment or meals. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: It is finally becoming obvious that after the socialist state promises to provide all sorts of social services, it eventually runs out of money and can't deliver on its promises. Meanwhile, churches and other non-profits have been squeezed out of this sector because they couldn't compete with the "free money" the state has thrown at the gullible population. We need to re-awaken Christian compassion, roll up our sleeves, and get back to work putting the Gospel into practice at the street level.

RUSSIAN WORLD IDEOLOGY IS A CHALLENGE TO ALL CHRISTIANITY – HEAD OF THE UGCC
from: Religious Information Service of Ukraine

(2 Mar.) "The entire Christian world should give a proper assessment of the Russian World Ideology. Because if such a genocidal ideology was generated by the Christian Church, then one can doubt its ecclesial nature."

His Beatitude Sviatoslav expressed such an opinion in an interview with the Ivano-Frankivsk regional television, reports the UGCC Information Department.

"When a religious institution begins to justify war... when it turns into a propaganda machine... when it promotes Orthodox shahidism, then it follows the path of the Islamic State. The Islamic world has already experienced something similar. Then, thank God, there was strength among the Muslim sages to reject and condemn this ideology," the head of the UGCC said.

"Today, the Christian world faces a challenge. If the Christian Church has given rise to an ideology – the ideology of the Russian World, which is essentially genocidal... then one can doubt its ecclesial nature," he added.

The Primate of the UGCC believes that this doctrine poses a threat to all Christianity and goes beyond the borders of one church and even orthodoxy.

"Many times, when I spoke in various forums with Orthodox and Protestant theologians and church leaders, I thought of this as a challenge for all of Christianity. After all, this type of use of the Christian religion for geopolitical purposes, justifying the atrocities and crimes of the totalitarian regime, is a challenge to the likelihood of preaching the Gospel of Christ to a person of the third millennium. That is, de facto, we see here a great danger to the credibility of the church essence itself, and this goes beyond the borders of one church and even Orthodoxy."

"Therefore, I have called on the entire Christian world... to give a proper assessment of such a murderous ideology. If we do not have the same courage as the Muslim world, if we, as Christians, do not reject the ideology of the Russian World, and do not have the antibodies of Christian conscience, then this can become a great danger for the future of Christianity in the third millennium," said His Beatitude Sviatoslav. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: The Kremlin's disinformation machine uses the euphemism "Russian World" to claim Russia's sovereignty over all places in the world where there is a small number of Russian immigrants, not only in Belarus and Ukraine, but also in Moldova and even Israel and Brighton Beach in New York City. But these immigrants are turning against their former homeland: see Russian flags come down in New York’s Little Odessa: ‘Putin has turned it into a fascist symbol.’

RUSSIA MUST END STATE TERROR BEFORE IT CAN HOPE TO GAIN FREEDOM
from: The Moscow Times

(1 Mar.) In ordering the invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his ex-KGB cohort in the Kremlin have invited disaster on Russia. For centuries, Russia's secret police have caused the country harm and terrorized its people. Only by easing its deadly grip might Russians gain freedom.

Since Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century, Russian rulers have relied on organized terror to enforce autocratic rule. Ivan had his oppressive bodyguard corps, the Oprichniki; later the Romanov Tsars had their Okhrana. The Soviets had the Cheka, which was later renamed the KGB. Today Russia has its successor organization, the FSB, whose agents – and Putin himself – are often referred to as Chekists.

The use of terror through various enforcement agencies helped propel Russia from tsarist authoritarianism to Stalinist totalitarianism. Under the last three tsars, the Okhrana executed 14,000 people. The Cheka killed over 140,000. Repression peaked in the 1930s when Stalin’s NKVD shot some 700,000. Later, the KGB tortured opponents in psychiatric hospitals, killed Ukrainian poet Vasyl Stus, human rights advocate Anatoly Marchenko, and many other heroic dissidents, and exiled the inspirational nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov, widely considered to have been the Soviet Union's greatest moral authority.

After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Russian President Boris Yeltsin made bold political and economic reforms, but only reshuffled the KGB. He even reversed tentative reforms of the organization, a tragic error.

The KGB’s notorious Fifth Directorate, responsible for censorship and security against political and religious dissent, was merely relabeled in the FSB. As in the Soviet era, dissent is brutally crushed in Russia today. The country is now more repressive internally and more aggressive externally than at any time in its modern independence. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: The Fifth Directorate of the FSB (former KGB) has developed a long-range strategy of disinformation spread in Western news media and institutions. By calling a pig's ear a "silk purse" they have convinced many people that Russia is righteous and godly in attacking Ukraine because the latter is evil and ungodly. Also, in WHY HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN THE TRUTH OF GOD? we read how the Russian Orthodox Church has made itself into an arm of the FSB.

As you might know, the Sadducees were a religious/political group at the time of Christ who were the power brokers who had worked out a modus vivendi with the Romans; they appointed the Jewish high priest and held a majority in the Sanhedrin. As the Gospels tell us, they did not believe in the afterlife and held that only the five Books of Moses were inspired Scripture.

On the other hand, the Pharisees were the strict literalist biblicists who observed all of the rituals and rules in the Law, Psalms, and Prophets – what we the Old Testament today, but they also held to the Talmud, a collection of explanations and clarifications to their Scriptures that added hundreds of extra rituals and rules. As Christ said, they insisted on ritual washing of hands, plates, and cups, not doing "work" on the Sabbath such as picking and rubbing heads of grain and eating them.

In modern terms, we might call the Sadducees "liberals/relativists" and the Pharisees "conservatives/literalists." On the far extremes of the social and political spectrum, each side can tend toward absolutism. The far left insists the Scriptures shouldn't be taken literally – you should believe nothing in particular but anything in general including dozens of genders and cohabitation – just abort those inconvenient babies, that we should just vaguely be nice to our neighbor and serve society, that everything is relative and there are absolutely no absolutes (except that statement itself).

The far right in response believes in lifelong marriage between one man and one woman to have a big family, insists on a literal interpretation of the Constitution (but we shouldn't get involved in "dirty" politics) and of the Scriptures (but my interpretation of the Bible is right and yours is wrong – this has led to over 20,000 mutually contradictory denominations), just evangelize to save people from the coming tribulation and the fires of hell.

But you've probably seen the color spectrum depicted not just in a straight line as above, but as a "color circle" in which the purple and red curve around to merge into the violet. So by this we can see how absolute relativists and absolute literalists merge into similar forms of extremism: the far-left anarchists and the far-right nutcases – both extremes meet behind the barn and duke it out. How can we avoid this, how can we find the "golden mean" in-between?

In the year 325 A.D. the Church was just emerging from the catacombs and violent persecution by the Greco-Roman empire, but was facing a more serious danger – that from within. A certain liberal clergyman, a deacon by the name of Arius from Alexandria, had begun teaching that Jesus was merely a created being, perhaps a holy man, a moral teacher or a prophet, but not God incarnate. In response, another deacon from Alexandria by the name of Athanasius held fast to the traditions handed down from the beginning of the Christian faith that Jesus was fully God and fully man from the very instant of His conception by the Virgin Mary. This discord spread through the whole Church so that the bishops had to call a council in the city of Nicea.

After weeks of discussion and debate, Athanasius led the charge against Arius' position: Athanasius won the day, Arius was declared a heretic and was driven out of the Church – excommunicated. His followers were cast out of the empire into the Arabian desert, where their idea that Jesus was not God combined with the later heresy of iconoclasm and was picked up by Mohammed to form the basis of Islam.

The Nicene Creed contains the core beliefs of Christianity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one visible, holy and universal Church based on the Apostles, baptism for remission of sins, and eternal life. The "golden mean" – the true Church – teaches that we must combine ortho-doxy (right belief) with ortho-praxis (social ministry). Anyone who sincerely confesses this Creed and puts it into practice is a Christian, and anyone who cannot or will not confess and practice it is not a Christian.

"But be doers of the word, and not only hearers, deluding your own selves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man beholding his natural face in a mirror; for he sees himself, and goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law, the law of freedom, and continues, not being a hearer who forgets but a doer of the word, this man will be blessed in what he does. If anyone among you thinks himself to be religious while he doesn't bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this man's religion is worthless. Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: to care for the orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world." (James 1:22-27)

Which one are you?

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