ABORTIONIST WHOSE FACILITIES HAVE INJURED DOZENS OF WOMEN SAYS SHE’S JUST 'HERE TO HELP'
from: LiveAction News

(14 Jun.) Vice President Kamala Harris and Planned Parenthood abortionist Colleen McNicholas were recently spotlighted by Teen Vogue – whose target audience is minors aged 12 to 17 – in a conversation promoting abortion.

Harris and McNicholas met in apparent commemoration of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which was handed down on June 24, 2022, overturning Roe v. Wade. McNicholas – chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood for the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri and head of the Planned Parenthood mega-facility just across the Missouri/Illinois border in Fairview Heights, Illinois – complained about pro-life laws in states like Missouri, which protect preborn children from abortion.

"Abortion is an issue that touches so many people," McNicholas began, though she neglected to address the people most adversely affected by it: the preborn children killed in each and every abortion procedure.

She continued by bemoaning Missouri’s trigger law, which protects nearly all preborn children from abortion, though it includes exceptions in cases of medical emergencies. "Physicians are here to help," McNicholas said. "It's a difficult place to be in, to contemplate, you know… do I help this person, this one person in front of me, and risk going to jail, and then not being able to help many other people, or, you know, serve my family? How terrible it feels to sit across from a patient, to know the right thing for them, to have the skill set to do it, but then have to turn around and call the hospital lawyers."

Teen Vogue did not bother to include the background of McNicholas' own abortion facility, widely considered to be one of the most dangerous in the country. Reproductive Health Services Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region (RHS) has injured numerous women, with examples including causing hemorrhaging during their abortions, fainting, seizures, and a stroke. A Senate investigation also found multiple instances of women having to return to RHS as many as five times for a single abortion procedure to be properly completed. Women were also specifically instructed by RHS not to call 911 if they experienced abortion-related complications once they were at home.

Additionally, Missouri state inspectors cited RHS for 39 classes of violations, involving over 200 incidents, 111 of which were related to failure to provide a safe and sanitary environment.

The Senate report of RHS – McNicholas' Missouri facility – was extremely critical:

[P]lanned Parenthood's own internal files reveal a shocking callousness toward vulnerable young women who seek their services. In fact, the procedures outlined in the materials reviewed may very well constitute outright medical malpractice… All of this indicates that Planned Parenthood is far more worried about the reputation, business model and public relations efforts than they are about the women in their care. It is difficult to conceive of any other organization, let alone an organization that holds itself out as providing women's health services, being so recklessly indifferent to the health of their patients as to put such directives as those listed above in print for the use of their employees. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: It's difficult to comprehend how people can become so calloused toward unborn babies for the sake of financial gain. The abortion business is profitable because they receive government subsidies and because employers who offer health insurance benefits can save money by paying a few hundred dollars for an abortion rather than paying thousands of dollars for mothers giving birth and taking maternity leave. These businesses are blind to the fact that there's a growing lack of workers and an increasing proportion of elderly to care for: short-term profit over long-term consequences.

UK, FINLAND, SWEDEN, NORWAY, AND FRANCE TO BLOCK TRANS PUBERTY BLOCKERS
from: BioEdge.org

(12 Jun.) England's National Health Service (NHS) has announced significant restrictions on the use of puberty-suppressing drugs for children seeking gender-related treatments. It says that there is insufficient evidence to support the safety and clinical effectiveness of these drugs as a routine treatment option.

On Friday, NHS England said that: "outside of a research setting, puberty-suppressing hormones should not be routinely commissioned for children and adolescents who have gender incongruence/dysphoria."

This policy change was foreshadowed in October and has now been formally implemented after a period of public comment. The new restrictions will take effect later this year.

The decision by the NHS to restrict the use of puberty blockers follows the closure of the Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service in London, the only youth gender clinic in the country. The clinic faced an overwhelming surge in referrals, from 250 young people in 2011 to 5,000 in 2021.

The effectiveness of puberty blockers has been a subject of bitter debate. While a Dutch study in the 1990s showed positive effects, a British study conducted at the Tavistock clinic in 2021 found no impact on psychological tests. This raised concerns about whether the drugs truly serve their intended purpose of giving adolescents time to consider their options.

James Esses, co-founder of Thoughtful Therapists, told the Daily Telegraph: "The fact that the NHS is holding firm on their intention to prevent the use of puberty blockers outside of the context of clinical trials is seismic. This will hopefully bring an end to vulnerable children being placed down a pathway to irreversible harm."

And David Bell, a former governor of Tavistock, said: "All the evidence shows that puberty blockers don't help, and there is clear evidence of physical and psychological harm caused by them, so this change is in line with the evidence we have. A very large percentage of children being treated for gender dysphoria have other problems such as autism and depression, and many are upset or confused about their sexuality."

Other countries have also taken steps to limit gender-related medical treatments for young people. Finland has started restricting access to these treatments based on evidence reviews, while Sweden has limited the use of puberty blockers and hormones to clinical trials. Health bodies in Norway and the French National Academy of Medicine have also advised caution. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: BioEdge also has a series of articles on this topic, many of which we have not featured before: https://bioedge.org/gender/transgender/. Also, another article, Why Matt Walsh will NEVER defeat the woke left, explains the real goal of the "trans" agenda – "one of the ultimate goals of queer activism is to destabilize the system by disrupting the norm… and one of the norms they wish to disrupt more than any other is the gender binary. The woke left literally wants to abolish gender, and create a world full of they/thems. Guess what: Being non-binary doesn't require medicalization. It simply requires declaring that you’re non-binary. In fact, many queer activists don’t use "trans" to mean transition anymore. They use it to mean transform. Why are there so many non-binary people all of a sudden? Because being non-binary was always the goal, a political act asserting a complete and total rejection of (what they consider to be) the social construct."

In other words, the "trans" agenda, or critical gender theory, like critical race theory and critical political theory, is just another way to "destabilize the system" and transform it – to weaken society in order to pull off a neo-Marxist revolution. The old critical Marxist economic theory failed because the economic disparities between rich and poor were overcome by peacefully redistributing the wealth. So in the 1940s the Marxists came up with these various-named "critical theories" that are aimed at undermining the social order, a "total rejection of... the social construct."

FIVE THINGS ABORTIONISTS DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT ABORTION
from: SBA ProLife America

(Jun. 13) Learn the surprising truth about post-Roe abortion in America: Lies. Distortion. Shoddy reporting. These KILL unborn babies. But until the deception is exposed the killing won't stop. Learn the truth in the eye-opening new FREE ebook "Five Things the Public Doesn't Know About Abortion" from Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.

This eBook, featuring research from top Lozier Institute scholars reveals FIVE FACTS about abortion. These realities are currently being concealed or ignored by government agencies and the industry of Big Abortion.

Big Abortion has launched a scorched-earth war to make to make abortion legal everywhere . . . and to make more abortions happen than ever before. Exposing their lies is one crucial part of SBA Pro-Life America's counter-strategy to defeat Big Abortion politically and culturally.

The only way to save more babies is to defeat the lies and cover-ups about abortion in America in the post-Roe battlefield. Get your free eBook emailed to you now: go to https://action.sbaprolife.org/five-things-ebook. This brief, hard-hitting, fact-filled ebook is free. I urge you – as a pro-life American – to download it now and get the truth.

Scholars from SBA Pro-Life America's research arm the Charlotte Lozier Institute reveal FIVE FACTS about abortion. These realities are currently being concealed or ignored by government agencies and the industry of Big Abortion.

That's why we're blowing the whistle – and letting you in on it. We're telling allies in federal and state governments, the media, and the American people. But you and every American deserve to know the truth. Because the truths revealed in this ebook can set women free and save unborn babies.

[read more...]

COMMENTARY: Defeating "the lies and cover-ups about abortion" requires that we address the basic, fundamental issue: relativism. Society in general has rejected the fact of objective reality and truth. Instead, it is based on relative, subjective feelings: "if it feels good, do it!" If you feel it's inconvenient to have a baby, just say it's not a baby but "just a fetus" or "only a lump of cells." But if that is true, then we are all only overgrown lumps of cells and there is no fixed reason for having a reliable social system based on traditional morality and revealed truth that have kept the human race from destroying itself.

FARM GROWS JOBS – AND HOPE – FOR PEOPLE WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES
from: Disability Scoop

(13 Jun.) ST. PAUL, MN. – Amanda Athman helped pick up the mobile chicken coop at 21 Roots Farm in Grant MN and move it to a fresh patch of grass just south of the farm’s apple orchard.

Athman knew just how fast to push the coop so that the squawking chickens could keep up. She then found a spot for the chickens' "dust bath" – a blue plastic tub full of dirt. A regular dust bath, she explained, helps keep their feathers clean by controlling parasites and preventing oil buildup.

Athman, 22, of Lino Lakes, is part of a pilot program this summer at 21 Roots, a nonprofit hobby farm that serves people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She and five other interns – all of whom have been regular attendees of programs at the farm – have been tapped to be part of a 20-week work-experience program where they are being "trained to be trainers," said Brittany Wiitala, one of the co-founders of the farm.

Next year, they'll help train others to work on the farm's produce-subscription program. The interns are receiving a stipend for attending the weekly training sessions, which focus on autonomy, safety and engagement.

Athman was checking all three boxes on a recent Tuesday. She gave the chickens fresh water and five scoops of pellet feed and checked on their egg production. "This is a fake egg," she said, pointing to a wooden egg labeled "fake." "We have it there so they know where to lay their eggs."

Athman, who has developmental delay, was diagnosed as a child with selective mutism, an anxiety disorder where a person is unable to speak in certain social situations. "You'd never know that when you see her at the farm," said her mother, Julie Athman. "She's a totally different person at the farm and when she's with animals. That's why we just love that place. It's just opened her up so much. It's done wonders for her."

Athman helps care for the farm's donkeys, alpacas, goats, sheep, cows and barn cats. Her special talent is trimming hooves. "She is super-precise and careful and cautious, but also efficient," farm co-founder Amy Peterson said.

Wiitala and Peterson met while they were students at Northwestern University, a Christian college in Roseville MN. Peterson, 38, grew up in St. Louis Park and graduated from Northwestern in 2007. After graduation, she worked for six years at Adventurous Christian, a wilderness camp in Grand Marais MN. She serves as head of farm operations.

Wiitala, 38, the farm's program manager, grew up in Auburndale, Wis., where her father worked in agriculture as an artificial inseminator. After graduating from Northwestern in 2006, she worked serving people impacted by disabilities in a variety of settings. Among her clients: a family who adopted three children with Down syndrome. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: This inspiring story shows us how we can (and should) develop an environment where people with disabilities can function along with others in society.

UKRAINE'S COUNCIL OF CHURCHES URGES THE GOVERNMENT NOT TO EQUATE SAME-SEX COHABITATION WITH FAMILY
from: Religious Information Service of Ukraine

(14 Jun.) The Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations is calling on the President, the Cabinet of Ministers, and the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine not to enact any legislative changes aimed at granting family status to same-sex cohabitation. The full text of the statement is as follows:

The recent decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in the case of "Maymulahin and Markiv v. Ukraine" has sparked a new wave of discussion regarding the threats posed by legislative initiatives promoting unnatural sexual relations and granting family status to same-sex cohabitation. In its 2007 declaration, the Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations already articulated its position on homosexuality and so-called same-sex marriages.

It is important to remember that ECtHR decisions cannot serve as a basis for changing the constitutional foundations of the country. Neither the European Court nor the Council of Europe as a whole have the authority to change the legislation of any state. Although the mentioned ECtHR decision is binding in terms of financial compensation, it does not oblige Ukraine to change its legislation contrary to the existing Constitution. Currently, Ukraine is fighting for its sovereignty and the right of the Ukrainian people to independently determine their fundamental values and principles in the field of family and demographics.

We understand that international institutions and foreign partners, taking advantage of the vulnerability and complex situation in our country, may try to pressure Ukraine into legislative changes that would deviate from our family values. However, Ukraine operates under a continental legal system, where the fundamental principles of life are determined by the Constitution and laws, not judicial decisions. Regardless of the supporters of gender ideology who would like to use the aforementioned ECtHR decision and external influences to rewrite the Constitution of Ukraine and undermine the value of the family based on the marriage of a man and a woman, only the Ukrainian people have the sovereign right to decide such matters.

Initiatives to equate same-sex cohabitation with family (formal legalization of so-called same-sex partnerships, de facto equating them with marriage, and granting them adoption rights) are extremely dangerous during the current demographic crisis in Ukraine, which is exacerbated by the ongoing war. According to recent studies, as of May 2023, Ukraine's permanent population stands at only 29 million people. Russian aggression has led to 8.6 million Ukrainians leaving and not returning to their homeland, which threatens the lack of human resources for the post-war recovery of our state and the revival of the Ukrainian nation.

The Ukrainian state cannot ignore this demographic problem and cannot agree to external pressure aimed at undermining the family values of our people. We must preserve our nation and provide the best conditions for the upbringing of Ukrainian children, including orphans, within a loving family where both a father and a mother are present.

It is essential to emphasize that Ukraine differs from Russia and its genocidal ideology of the "Russian world" in that our people have demonstrated their respectful attitude toward universal religious and family values not just in words but through sacrificial actions. For the sake of a sustainable future, we call on the President, the Cabinet of Ministers, and the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to preserve and protect the family as the basic unit of society, rooted in traditional Christian values and enshrined in the Constitution of Ukraine. May God grant wisdom and understanding to all those responsible for making decisions that shape the future of our nation. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: Ukraine is not bowing to pressure from the USA or the EU to embody same-sex marriage in Ukraine's laws. We commend them for taking a stand for Chistian morality!

NEUROMORPHIC COMPUTER CHIP MIMICS HUMAN VISION AND MEMORY ABILITIES
from: Disabled World

(14 Jun.) Neuromorphic computing is a method of computer engineering in which elements of a computer are modeled after systems in the human brain and nervous system. The term refers to the design of both hardware and software computing elements. A neuromorphic computer or chip is any device that uses physical artificial neurons to do computations. Neuromorphic computing is sometimes referred to as neuromorphic engineering.

Neuromorphic computing's innovative architectural approach will power future autonomous AI solutions that require energy efficiency and continuous learning. Key advantages of neuromorphic computing compared to traditional approaches are energy efficiency, execution speed, robustness against local failures and the ability to learn.

Researchers have created a small device that 'sees' and creates memories in a similar way to humans, in a promising step towards one day having applications that can make rapid, complex decisions such as in self-driving cars. The neuromorphic invention is a single chip enabled by a sensing element, doped indium oxide, that's thousands of times thinner than a human hair and requires no external parts to operate.

RMIT University engineers in Australia led the work, with contributions from researchers at Deakin University and the University of Melbourne. The team's research demonstrates a working device that captures, processes and stores visual information. With precise engineering of the doped indium oxide, the device mimics a human eye's ability to capture light, pre-packages and transmits information like an optical nerve, and stores and classifies it in a memory system like the way our brains can.

Collectively, these functions could enable ultra-fast decision making, the team says. Team leader Professor Sumeet Walia said the new device can perform all necessary functions - sensing, creating and processing information, and retaining memories - rather than relying on external energy-intensive computation, which prevents real-time decision making.

"Performing all of these functions on one small device had proven to be a big challenge until now," said Walia from RMIT's School of Engineering. "We've made real-time decision making a possibility with our invention, because it doesn't need to process large amounts of irrelevant data and it's not being slowed down by data transfer to separate processors."

What did the team achieve and how does the technology work? The new device was able to demonstrate an ability to retain information for longer periods of time, compared to previously reported devices, without the need for frequent electrical signals to refresh the memory. This ability significantly reduces energy consumption and enhances the device's performance. Their findings and analysis are published in Advanced Functional Materials. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: This technology is amazing: it uses micro-minaturized computing that mimics the human nervous system, not the standard computers' ones and zeros of mathematical and logical algorythms. It is too early to say how well this will work in real-world applications but its future is promising: will it give sight to the blind?

"I AM the Lord." This phrase is repeated over and over again in chapters 18 and 19 of Leviticus. Chapter 18 is mostly concerned with rules of sexual morality and after every group of rules comes the phrase "I AM the Lord." But in Leviticus 19:9-18 we find rules about our ordinary social relationships:

9 When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field, neither shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest.
10 You shall not glean your vineyard, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and for the foreigner. I am the Lord your God.
11 You shall not steal; neither shall you deal falsely, nor lie to one another.
12 You shall not swear by my name falsely, and profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.
13 You shall not oppress your neighbor, nor rob him. The wages of a hired servant shall not remain with you all night until the morning.
14 You shall not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind; but you shall fear your God. I am the Lord.
15 You shall do no injustice in judgment: you shall not be partial to the poor, nor show favoritism to the great; but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.
16 You shall not go up and down as a slanderer among your people; neither shall you stand against the life of your neighbor. I am the Lord.
17 You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him.
18 You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people; but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

Notice the special care for the poor, the deaf, and the blind. What do we see here? Because of the "I AM" we can have objective rules for living – family relationships, wider social relationships, and business relationships – that are not just subjective, based on our feelings and "what's in it for number one." Because God – the "I AM" – exists, we can have an objective, solid foundation for morality and truth. This is because humans are unique among all living creatures: we are created in the image of God, intended to reflect His nature and His glory. This life on planet Earth is intended to be a testing ground for our eternal life with God.

There's much talk these days about animal rights and the rights of nature, the environment. We humans are to treat these other creations with care and respect because God created mankind to be stewards over all the earth. But only human persons have the God-given rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (in the sense of eternal bliss).

The very first God-given right is the right to life. This comes before the right to liberty because without life we have no liberty. Today's "Right to Life" movement understands this, but the "Right to Freedom of Choice" group doesn't seem to grasp this fundamental fact. Liberty or freedom is not the right to unjustly deprive other persons of their life. The "Freedom of Choice" folks in politics and the abortion industry actually limit this freedom to just one choice: killing unborn babies.

They argue that personhood doesn't exist until the baby is born or develops self-awareness, which begins at about the age of 18 months, so it's OK to kill the baby before then. A balanced article on this is What is 'personhood'? The ethics question that needs a closer look in abortion debates. Another criterion they list is the ability to think logically, but this would exclude people who are unconscious long-term (in a "persistent vegetative state") or with limited intellectual ability. So they sometimes conclude that it is OK to euthanize these adults, although many "Pro Choice" people find that is going too far down the slippery slope of un-personhood.

The Right to Life isn't limited to the beginning of life, to unborn babies (not a "fetus" or "lump of tissue" – very dehumanizing terms), but also to those approaching the end of life, as I've discussed in PCHETA, THE SENATE’S DEADLY PALLIATIVE CARE BILL, IS BACK ON THE TABLE and elsewhere: "MAiD" (Medical Assistance in Dying) and turning palliative care into hospice care and then into euthanasia.

So "Respecting the Personhood of All Humans" concerns the whole spectrum o human life, from birth to childhood, adolescence, adulthood. and old age. It means treating each person with respect, just as we would like them to treat us: "you shall love your neighbor as yourself."

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