Pro-life legislation gets nod from Gov. Brewer

The daily glumly calls them “restrictions on abortion rights.” 

We cheer HB2564, the Abortion Consent Act, signed into law by Gov. Jan Brewer, which implements a variety of changes to statutes related to abortion – including modifying the existing parental notification and judicial bypass requirements that apply when a minor is seeking an abortion.

The law sets new requirements that physicians must follow when obtaining written informed consent of patients seeking abortions. It also allows certain health professionals to abstain from having to facilitate or participate in an abortion or provide abortion medication.

Former Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat and abortion advocate, had vetoed all pro-life bills sent to her.

Federal judge and government agency undermine parental authority

U.S. District Judge Edward Korman has ordered the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to allow 17-year-olds non-prescription access to purchase the so-called “morning-after” contraceptive pill. He also directed the agency to evaluate whether all age restrictions should be lifted.

The FDA said Wednesday it was accepting rather than appealing the federal judge’s order that lifts Bush administration restrictions limiting over-the-counter sales of “Plan B” to women 18 and older.

“This decision is driven by politics, not what is good for patients or minors. Parents should be furious at the FDA’s complete disregard for parental rights and the safety of minors,” said Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America.

“Plan B is a high-dose of birth control pills. The FDA requires a prescription for the lower dose of the same drug for good reason. It can cause blood clots, heart attacks, and strokes in healthy women. The FDA violated its standards when it made the high dose Plan B available non-prescription to adults. But now the FDA is making the drug available to minors without parental consent. Parents should be furious that the FDA is putting their minor daughters at risk,” Wright said.

MSNBC carries the AP report here.

The Arizona Supreme Court’s unfortunate decision

John Hood of National Review online zeros in on the Arizona Supreme Court decision to strike down two state-funded scholarship programs helping special-needs students attend schools of their choice.

The programs, according to the court, violate the state constitution’s prohibition against appropriations to aid churches and sectarian schools. The scholarship programs in question simply allowed families rather than districts to make such decisions.

The affected kids, Hood writes, will be allowed to complete the school year but then the programs go away. Add them to the list of victims of teacher unions, ideological cranks, craven politicians, and the failed monopoly they defend at all costs.

Who can improve upon Hood’s indictment? Read his short but cogent piece, Conform or be cast out, here.

The Institute for Justice provides a more detailed report.

Governor Jan Brewer’s statement addressing the issue can be read here. This first sentence gives an insight into her feelings regarding the decision:

“As a long-time supporter of school choice, it is heartbreaking for me to think of the challenges that are now faced by foster parents and the parents of disabled children to locate a different educational program than the one they have already selected.”

Pro-life bills pass out of AZ House

Congratulations to the members in the Arizona House of Representatives who passed these pro-life bills:

 HB 2564: Abortion Consent Act, passed 36 – 19 Votes here. Sponsors here.

HB 2400: Banning partial-birth abortion, passed 37 – 19 Votes here. Sponsors here.

Teacher’s unions accept the previously unacceptable as BO throws them a curve

The American educational community was hit with a double whammy by the President they overwhelmingly support.

Barack Obama came out strongly in support of merit pay for teachers who produce results and increasing the number of the nation’s charter schools.

“It’s time to start rewarding good teachers, stop making excuses for bad ones,” Obama said. “If a teacher is given a chance or two chances or three chances but still does not improve, there’s no excuse for that person to continue teaching.” 

“Too many supporters of my party have resisted the idea of rewarding excellence in teaching with extra pay, even though we know it can make a difference in the classroom,” said Obama.

His support for merit pay breaks with Democrat party loyalists and teacher’s unions, longtime opponents of such overtures.

In yesterday’s remarks to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Obama also called on states to remove caps on the number of public charter schools. Twenty-six states and the District of Columbia now cap the total, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. The icing on Obama’s educational cake is a push for lengthening school days – and years — an effort to keep America’s students competative in the global economy.

Wow!

Had George W. Bush had the temerity to suggest either of these actions, he would have been the object of liberal castigation and union wrath. Instead, the unionists meekly accept his proposals with objections couched in the softest of terms.

Read more in the Wall Street Journal. The full text of his speech is available here.

Transgenderism: Coming to a school near you?

Focus on the Family’s CitizenLink reports that Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) is sponsoring TransAction Day in schools across the nation to promote transgenderism and “gender non-conforming” behavior.

For TransAction Day, GLSEN makes available workshops exploring the use of gender-neutral language and terminology. Students are instructed to use pronouns such as “zie” and “hir” instead of “he” or “she” and “his” or “hers.” TransAction Day materials also discuss new definitions and concepts, like sexual reassignment surgery and what it means to be a drag queen.

In addition, students are encouraged to advocate for transgender issues in their schools and communities. They are urged to launch campaigns for gender-neutral or multi-gendered bathrooms, and are advised to challenge school policies, such as male-female couples at prom and gender-based colors for graduation gowns. They are also taught how to make their student clubs transgender inclusive.

Candi Cushman, education analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said GLSEN’s agenda has no place whatsoever in taxpayer-funded schools that simply need to focus on the academic basics.

“Gay-activist groups like GLSEN repeatedly claim that these schoolwide events are just about making schools safe,” she said. “But, if you look at the materials GLSEN is making available to students and teachers celebrating this event, you see there is a very radical, extreme agenda at play here.”

Read more here.

The mighty big elephant in the GOP room

When Michael Steele, was elected chariman of the Republican National Committee (RNC) last month, he was the recipient of praise from the Log Cabin Republicans, who issued a statement saying he “believes in a big tent GOP” and “is an inclusive leader who will bring a new energy and a new vision to the GOP at a critical time.”

OneNewsNow reports that a conservative activist group is urging Steele to refrain from courting homosexual activists within the GOP. Illinois-based Americans for Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) is calling on socially conservative Republicans to contact party chairman Steele and ask him not to promote the agenda of the Log Cabin Republicans.

This is based in part on a highly charged and unrepudiated display of anti-Christian bigotry from Jamie Ensley, President of the Georgia Log Cabin Republicans (LCR) and party officer, as he smeared Americans For Truth as a “radical Christian domestic terrorist group” and compared AFTAH to Germany’s Nazi Party.

During the campaign last fall, Ensley made the following comment, printed in the homosexual publication the Washington Blade: “In Georgia, as far as McCain goes, people are making up their own mind about it. I get a lot of phone calls and e-mails from our members asking if we have made an endorsement and we haven’t. We’re waiting for the national LCR to make an endorsement and then we’ll follow them.”

Making it clear that the Log Cabin Republicans align with bedmates over party issues, Ensley said a number of gay Republicans are drawn to Obama for his stance on gay issues. “We call them Obamicans,” he joked.

Eventually the GOP group begrudgingly endorsed the Republican nominee.

But the issues are far broader than lack of commitment to the Republican party. AFTAH points to what has taken place, without parental knowledge or input, in the Canadian schools in British Columbia.

Homosexuality is now promoted as an “alternate lifestyle” equivalent to traditional marriage. The course is only the first part of a larger K-12 curriculum resulting from a Human Rights complaint settlement by the government with a pair of homosexual activists, Murray and Peter Corren.

It was revealed in 2006 that the provincial government had signed the settlement contract with the two men, giving them unprecedented control over the content of the curriculum. The contract stipulated that the education ministry would meet with the men every six months until September 1, 2007 to allow them to oversee the development process. Parents cannot opt their children out of the indoctrination.

The Vancouver Sun reported that among the “key learning concepts” in the new course are “ableism, ageism, anthropocentrism, consumerism, cultural imperialism, extremism, feminism, fundamentalism, heterosexism, humanism, racism, sexism and speciesism.”

Heterosexism is defined as a “prejudice against homosexuals on the assumption that heterosexuality is the norm.”

That’s a mighty big elephant in the room.

And speaking of government intrusions

Last session, Minnesota’s legislature sought to eliminate current informed parental consent requirements for government storage, use, and dissemination of blood and DNA of all newborns for “future analysis and research.”

Their state Department of Health already has an operational plan to collect and “warehouse” the DNA, but it required parental consent.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty correctly vetoed the scheme, telling state lawmakers that while screening for medical disorders is a laudable goal, maintaining the database without parental permission – and in fact, sometimes in opposition to parental desires – “is concerning.”

“This bill would … expressly exempt the Department of Health from laws which require written informed consent for the department to store and use personally identifiable genetic information for non-screening purposes,” Pawlenty wrote in a letter to the president of the Minnesota state senate.

Amazingly, the March of Dimes has consistently opposed changing Minnesota’s testing protocol to an “opt in” system for newborn screening, saying it could put babies at risk for treatable conditions that were not being detected by this genetic collection method. The organization held that parents, assuming they knew of the governmental overreach, could “opt out” if they expressed their objection in writing — using a form provided for this specific purpose. Blood samples once collected, become the property of the state.

The Citizens’ Council on Health Care provides further information.

David Ogden: Obama’s nominee for Deputy AG raises numerous red flags

President Obama has nominated David Ogden to be the next deputy attorney general of the United States — the second highest position in the U.S. Department of Justice.

Especially troubling are the views expressed in the brief he co-authored on behalf of the defendant in the controversial Roper case. The Heritage Foundation includes an easily read report covering Ogden’s arguments for reliance upon the laws and practices of foreign nations as well as other sources of foreign law and “the opinion of the world community,” rather than following our own Constitution.

He has filed briefs opposing parental notification in cases involving a minor seeking an abortion, spousal notification prior to an abortion, and even opposed the Children’s Internet Protection Act and the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement.

Additionally, Ogden has litigated numerous obscenity and pornography cases on behalf of such clients as Playboy, Penthouse, the ACLU and the largest distributor of hardcore pornographic movies. He was the counsel of record representing the American Psychological Association and the National Association of Social Workers in filing an amicus brief in support of the defendants in the Lawrence v. Texas sodomy case. He is on record supporting raced-based affirmative action.

Fidelis includes a comprehensive research brief, available here.

His Senate confirmation hearing before the Committee on the Judiciary, is currently scheduled for tomorrow, February 5.

We have provided the contact information for US Sens. John McCain and John Kyl. You pay their salaries. No doubt they’d enjoy hearing from you.

Arizona homeschoolers ace competition

A team of Phoenix students will travel to Washington, D.C. to compete in the 17th Annual Future City National Finals in February. Veritas Homeschoolers have won the Arizona Region National Engineers Week Future City Competition.

The winning students were among 200 seventh and eighth graders from around the state who presented their complex future city models in a regional competition. Noah O’Connor, Joshua Ekstrom, and Alex Janss, earned this honor along with their teacher, Mary Ann Ekstrom, and volunteer engineer mentor Kenneth Ekstrom.

Team-mates engineered future cities based on a theme of self-sufficient systems with water-efficient homes. They competed with each other for the chance to attend the national competition in Washington, D.C.

The Veritas Homeschoolers winning city, Abundaqua, includes the use of solar collectors, roof top wind turbines, and wave turbines for energy production. Twenty percent of the city is located underground. A bullet train that can reach speeds of up to 300 mph is used for transportation as along with pod cars, buses and a magnetic rail system.

Find out more here.