Wednesday, August 1, 2018

Trump Admin Creates Religious Liberty Task Force to Protect Pro-Life Christians

 NATIONAL   STEVEN ERTELT   JUL 30, 2018   |   12:33PM    WASHINGTON, DC
The Trump administration has created a Religious Liberty Task Force, led by pro-life Attorney General Jeff Sessions, in order to protect and promote religious liberty.
The new task force is important for pro-life Americas as it will work to protect the conscience rights of medical professionals who don’t want to be forced to promote or perform abortions. Pro-life groups have also faced discrimination because of their Christian views and pastors have been unable to fully engage pro-life election issues in the pulpit for fear of reprisal from the government.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions said, “A dangerous movement, undetected by many, is now challenging and eroding our great tradition of religious freedom. There can be no doubt. This is no little matter. It must be confronted and defeated. This election, and much that has flowed from it, gives us a rare opportunity to arrest these trends. Such a reversal will not just be done with electoral victories, but by intellectual victories.”
“We have gotten to the point where courts have held that morality cannot be a basis for law; where ministers are fearful to affirm, as they understand it, holy writ from the pulpit; and where one group can actively target religious groups by labeling them a “hate group” on the basis of their sincerely held religious beliefs,” he added.
Leading pro-life advocates applauded the creation of the Religious Liberty Task Force.
Liberty Counsel’s Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “The establishment of a Religious Liberty Task Force is an historic and positive step by the Trump administration to protect religious freedom and the rights of conscience. Today’s announcement by the Department of Justice is encouraging, and the Trump administration is to be commended for making this 180-degree turn from the past administration which used the federal government to violate religious freedom and conscience rather than protecting our first freedom. This task force sends a strong message that there is a commitment to protecting religious freedom.”
Sessions added: “This President and this Department of Justice are determined to protect and even advance this magnificent heritage. Freedom of religious is indeed our “first freedom”—being the first listed right of our First Amendment. This has been a core American principle from the beginning. It is one of the reasons that this country was settled in the first place.”
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“But in recent years, the cultural climate in this country—and in the West more generally—has become less hospitable to people of faith. Many Americans have felt that their freedom to practice their faith has been under attack. And it’s easy to see why. We’ve seen nuns ordered to buy contraceptives,” he added.
“We’ve seen U.S. Senators ask judicial and executive branch nominees about dogma—even though the Constitution explicitly forbids a religious test for public office,” Sessions noted.
The attorney general pointed out how the Trump administration ended the Obama administration’s crusade against pro-life Americans who don’t want to be forced to pay for abortion drugs.
“The Department of Justice has settled 24 civil cases with 90 plaintiffs regarding the previous administration’s wrong application of the contraception mandate to objecting religious employers,” he said. “Last month, a district court in Colorado issued a permanent injunction in the case involving the Little Sisters of the Poor, a group of nuns who serve the elderly poor. This is a permanent injunction and a major victory for the Little Sisters of the Poor and religious freedom. The government has no business telling the Little Sisters that they must provide an insurance policy that violates their sincere religious beliefs.”

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Pro-Abortion Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hopes to Stay on Supreme Court 5 More Years

 NATIONAL   MICAIAH BILGER   JUL 30, 2018   |   10:56AM    WASHINGTON, DC
Liberal U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has no plans to retire any time soon.
A reliable supporter of abortion on demand, Ginsburg is 85 years old. But during a public appearance Sunday, she told CNN she plans to stay on the court until she is 90.
“I’m now 85,” Ginsburg said. “My senior colleague, Justice John Paul Stevens, he stepped down when he was 90, so think I have about at least five more years.”
The Washington Examiner reports Ginsburg discussed her plans for retirement in New York City after a play about the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
She already has hired law clerks for the next two years, according to the report.
Here’s more:
Ginsburg, who turned 85 in March, would have to serve on the highest court for another decade to near William O. Douglas’ record of serving for 36 years. She was appointed in 1994, becoming just the second woman justice after Sandra Day O’Connor.
A liberal, she signaled earlier this year that if Democrat Hillary Clinton had won the presidency in 2016, she would likely have announced her retirement by this spring.
When asked in October about possible retirement, she said, “My answer is as long as I can do the job full steam, I will do it.”
There has been speculation that Ginsburg might retire while President Donald Trump is in office, and open up the opportunity for Trump to appoint three conservative justices to the high court. However, Ginsburg has repeatedly stated that she will not retire while she still is able to serve.
Ginsburg is beloved by abortion activists because of her decisions on the high court since the 1990s. A new film, scheduled for release on Christmas, will glorify her liberal activism.
“A woman’s control of her own body, her choice whether and when to reproduce, it’s essential to women and it’s most basic for women’s health,” she once said.
In 2016, she was one of the five justices who sided with abortion activists in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, which struck down Texas abortion clinic regulations.
In a rare interview with the New York Times in 2016, Ginsburg said laws should not deny a woman “her right to choose” to abort her unborn baby. She and four other justices ruled that these safety regulations were an “undue burden” on women’s access to abortion.


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British Supreme Court Rules Patients Can be Starved to Death Without Consent, Without a Court Hearing

 INTERNATIONAL   STEVEN ERTELT   JUL 30, 2018   |   9:56AM    LONDON, ENGLAND
The British Supreme Court has ruled that doctors and families can revoke a patient’s life support and withhold food and water without his or her consent and without a court hearing.
The decision is particularly concerning — because it comes from a nation that is already pushing towards euthanasia. In the UK, with its government-run health care system, doctors and hospitals are routinely giving up on patients they believe are too far gone, even children such as Charlie Gard or Alfie Evans. In such instances they are pressuring families to allow life support to be revoked from patients they believe have no chance at life — even though other doctors and medical professionals disagree.
The ruling from the high court in Britain also comes after new reports that hundreds of patients are being euthanized in Belgium including three children. Leading pro-life organizations will likely see this ruling us another step towards euthanasia and pressuring patients to end their lives in assisted suicide.
The ruling essentially allows doctors and families to guess what a patient might ant if no advance directive is in place — allowing patients to have their life support and food and fluids terminated and their lives taken even if that may not be the decision they would have wanted.
End-of-life care can be withdrawn from patients in a permanent vegetative state without consulting a judge, the UK’s highest court ruled today. The Supreme Court upheld a decision that a man with an extensive brain injury, who can be identified only as Mr Y, should be allowed to die without his family going before a judge.
The ruling means that, in cases where families and doctors are in agreement, medical staff will be able to remove feeding tubes without applying to the Court of Protection.
The Supreme Court ruled on the case of a 52-year-old financial analyst, was from June 2017, was in a prolonged disorder of consciousness (PDOC) after suffering a cardiac arrest as a result of coronary artery disease.
PDOC covers patients remaining in a coma, vegetative state and minimally conscious state after a brain injury.
Experts agreed it was highly improbable that Mr Y would re-emerge into consciousness and – even if he did – he would have profound cognitive and physical disability and always be dependent on others.
Mr Y had not drawn up any advance decision to refuse treatment but his family were firmly of the view that he would not want to be kept alive given the poor prognosis.
The anti-euthanasia group Care Not Killing has expressed “concern” and “disappointment” that the Supreme Court has removed an important safeguard from brain-damaged patients today.
The group informed LifeNews:
It complains that judges have ruled that doctors should be able to withdraw food and fluids without going to Court. The ruling will effect up to 24,000 patients with permanent vegetative state (PVS) and minimally conscious state (MCS), meaning they can now be effectively starved and dehydrated to death if the medical staff and relatives agree that this is in their ‘best interests’.
People with PVS (awake but not aware) and MCS (awake but only intermittently or partially aware) can breathe without ventilators, but need to have food and fluids by tube (clinically assisted nutrition and hydration or CANH).
These patients are not imminently dying and with good care can live for many years. Some may even regain awareness. But if CANH is withdrawn, then they will die from dehydration and starvation within two or three weeks.
Until last year all cases of PVS and MCS have had to go to the Court of Protection before CANH could be withdrawn.
Dr. Peter Saunders, Campaign Director of Care Not Killing, commented: “This is concerning and disappointing news, because it removes an important safeguard from those without a voice.
“The Court of Protection did not prevent clinically assisted nutrition and hydration or CANHbeing removed, indeed under the old rules, introduced after the Tony Bland case in 1993 there have been over 100 such cases, but it did ensure independent scrutiny of any application. It did this because it recognised the emotional and financial pressure that families and clinicians can fell under.”
Saunders continued: “In making these declarations Lady Black and the Supreme Court has dramatically moved the goalposts on end of life decision-making. Once we accept that death by dehydration is in some brain-damaged people’s ‘best interests’ we are on a very slippery slope indeed.
“There is a clear difference between turning off a ventilator on a brain-dead patient and removing CANH from a brain-damaged patient. PVS and MCS differ from conditions with a ‘downward trajectory’ because they are not progressive and do not in themselves lead inevitably to death.
“The Supreme Court has set a dangerous precedent. Taking these decisions away from the Court of Protection removes an important layer of legislative scrutiny and accountability and effectively weakens the law.
“It will make it more likely that severely brain-damaged patients will be starved or dehydrated to death in their supposed ‘best interests’ and that these decisions will be more influenced by those who have ideological or financial vested interests in this course of action.”
He concluded: “Given that it costs about £100,000 per year to care for a person with PVS or MCS the potential ‘saving’ for the NHS could be as much as £2.4 billion annually if most seek to go down this route. Given the huge and growing financial pressure the health service is under is this really an additional pressure, no matter how subtle we want to put medical staff and administrators under.
“Coupled with this are the real, demonstrable and significant uncertainties about diagnosis and prognosis in both PVS and MCS. These have increased rather than decreased in the last 20 years and this is why continued court oversight is necessary.”
Meanwhile. in Belgium, new data shows that the number of euthanasia deaths continues to increase, euthanasia deaths for conditions related to aging have skyrocketed and three children died by euthanasia.
In 2016 there were 2028 reported euthanasia deaths up from 2021 in 2015 and in 2017 there were 2309 reported euthanasia deaths, a 14% increase from the previous year. There were 954 reported Belgian euthanasia deaths in 2010 representing a 242% increase in 7 years.
Since 2010, Belgium has expanded euthanasia to include children, people with mental or behavioral conditions and people who are not dying but have chronic conditions. The data indicates that in 2016/17 there were, reportedly, 3 children who died by euthanasia, 77 people with mental or behavior conditions and 710 people with sight loss or incontinence or conditions related to disability or age.

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