Richmond Times Dispatch: “The Virginia Senate on Wednesday approved a bill that would require a woman seeking an abortion to first have an ultrasound, virtually assuring the measure will become state law…
The vote on the legislation, Senate Bill 484, was 21-18 in the 40-member chamber. Nineteen of the 20 Republicans and two Democrats — Sens. Charles J. Colgan of Prince William County and Phillip P. Puckett of Russell County — voted for the bill.”
Mark Shriver: “Before President Johnson and my dad started making deep investments in anti-poverty programs like Head Start, about one quarter of all children and the elderly lived in poverty.
Ten years later, that number dropped to about 15 percent for both groups.
The elderly poverty rate kept decreasing and is now at a historic low of nine percent. But the percentage of kids living in poverty today has returned to mid-1960s levels. I believe that’s so because kids don’t have access to the political process the way other Americans do.
Childhood poverty doesn’t just cause misery for the most vulnerable of us, it sets them up for failure in school, in their health and, frankly, for the rest of their lives.”
Washington Post: “The Associated Press reports that Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the nation’s leading breast-cancer charity, will cut off its funding to Planned Parenthood affiliates, where the foundation has traditionally paid for preventive screening services.”
Telegraph: “The amendment said that “euthanasia, in the sense of the intentional killing by act or omission of a dependent human being for his or her alleged benefit must always be prohibited”.
Danielle Bean: “Some say we should allow for abortion, even if we would not choose it ourselves, because not everyone shares our religious beliefs and we “can’t legislate morality.” Young pro-lifers are quick to point out, however, that we do just that all the time. We outlaw murder, rape, slavery, and theft because all of us, in our humanity, recognize that they are wrong. Abortion is a moral issue, not a religious one. Our faith might affirm our belief in the dignity and value of all human life, but it is not the source of it. Our humanity is.”
NCR: “But should a child with intellectual disabilities be denied a transplant based solely on those disabilities?
Thousands are saying “no” after reading about a 3-year-old girl who allegedly was was denied the possibility of a transplant–even with an kidney donated by a family member–at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP)…
Health care rationing already happens, and it’s often the most vulnerable who are denied care. This is a moral issue and, I would argue, a (pro-life) one, too.”
CNA: “A proposed California ballot initiative to require parental notification for abortions and another initiative to end the death penalty both won the support of the state’s Catholic bishops, who say the proposals will bring “common sense, compassion and prudent justice” to public policy.”
America: A constructive assessment might begin with a re-examination of the movement’s priorities. The March for Life, as worthwhile as it is, ought not to be the only expression of the pro-life cause. To effectively reduce the number of abortions in the United States, a political strategy must be accompanied by a more personal campaign for conversion. Ultimately, members of the pro-life community must work to make the world more welcoming for children. To accomplish this, they must be nimble, creative and above all motivated by love and compassion for mother and child. A comprehensive pro-life strategy would include, for example, the following important elements:
Outreach to families with disabled children…
Support adoption agencies…
Improve childcare.”
CNS: “A group of 12 nurses who sued the University Hospital in Newark over a policy requiring them to care for patients before and after abortions can no longer be compelled to assist in these procedures, under an agreement reached in federal court.”
NY Times: “The Shabab militant group, which presents itself as a morally righteous rebel force and the defender of pure Islam, is seizing women and girls as spoils of war, gang-raping and abusing them as part of its reign of terror in southern Somalia, according to victims, aid workers and United Nations officials. Short of cash and losing ground, the militants are also forcing families to hand over girls for arranged marriages that often last no more than a few weeks and are essentially sexual slavery, a cheap way to bolster their ranks’ flagging morale.”
Catholic News Service: “The head of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development joined with others in praising a new federal rule to cut down on the amount of toxins emitted from coal- and oil-fired plants.
“It just makes good sense to want to have clean air for our children and families to breathe and for future generations,” said a statement by Bishop Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, Calif., issued Dec. 21, the date the new EPA rules on toxins were unveiled.
“Children, inside and outside the womb, are uniquely vulnerable to environmental hazards and exposure to toxic pollutants in the environment,” he said. “Their bodies, behaviors and size leave them more exposed than adults to such health hazards.”
The EPA rule, which has been in the works since 1990, is intended to cut mercury, arsenic and other toxins by up to 90 percent by 2016, the year the rule would be fully implemented.”
Dan Morain: “Last month, the New York Times reported significant progress in Somalia. The number of people “facing imminent starvation” fell from 750,000 to about 250,000. Yes, that’s an advance since August when news accounts and photos like this one detailed the magnitude of the crisis. But imagine 250,000 people facing starvation…
But we who have stocked pantries and full refrigerators and yet feel that we don’t have enough ought to think of what we might do for people in a place halfway around the world, or maybe for the person sleeping under the overpass.”
NY Times: “Vaclav Havel, the Czech writer and dissident whose eloquent dissections of Communist rule helped to destroy it in revolutions that brought down the Berlin Wall and swept Mr. Havel himself into power, died on Sunday.”
Washington Post: “Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader who threatened the world with his nuclear weapons ambitions and suppressed his own people with imprisonment and isolation, left in the wake of his death Saturday an antiquated country with a power vacuum.”
Mark Shriver: “For all the great things my father did — creating the Peace Corps; running the War on Poverty, including Head Start and other programs; helping my mother grow the Special Olympics; fighting in World War II and being wounded in battle; working for interracial justice — I was most amazed that he rarely spoke about the past and instead focused on the moment and on the person he was with.”
Daily Mail: “Hollywood actor Christian Bale was manhandled and roughed up by Chinese security guards as he tried to visit a blind legal activist whose detention has sparked international outcry.
Bale, joined by a camera crew from CNN, was confronted by four men dressed in plain clothes as he tried to visit Chen Guangcheng who has been under house arrest in the Dongshigu village for 15 months…
Chen, a blind, self-schooled lawyer, angered authorities in 2005 by exposing forced abortions as part of China’s one-child policy.”
Max Fisher: “The violence in Syria has worsened dramatically and consistently since August. Shadia’s story, typical of late summer and early fall violence there, was documented in a report by Human Rights Watch, one of several human rights reports that tell many such stories from the government’s crackdown against civilians, often whether they are protesters or not. Children have increasingly come under fire in this violence. Though many of them are incidental victims like Shadia’s son, the tactics that security forces employ throughout the country put children at incredible risk. At best, the regime may be indifferent to their young victims; at worst, they may be deliberately choosing an approach that increases the likelihood that its bullets find their way to young boys and girls. But, more and more, the stories from Syria describe security forces actively singling out children, often for torture or worse.”