Abortion

Catholic leader attacks "monstrous" embryo research

03.22.08 -- 2:14 PM

By Peter Griffiths - Reuters

Research using hybrid human-animal embryos for experiments is "monstrous" and should be banned, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland said on Friday.

Cardinal Keith O'Brien said a proposed new law -- the Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill -- should outlaw the practice.

The House of Lords rejected attempts earlier this year to include a ban on hybrid research in the draft legislation.

"This Bill represents a monstrous attack on human rights, human dignity and human life," O'Brien will say in his Easter Sunday sermon, according to extracts published in Friday's Daily Record newspaper. "In some other European countries, one could be jailed for doing what we intend to make legal."

Huckabee endorses CO measure, rights to fertilized eggs

02.27.08 -- 7:43 AM

By AP

A proposed ballot measure that would define personhood as a fertilized egg picked up the endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister.

In a statement Monday, Huckabee said the amendment proposed by 20-year-old Kristi Burton and her group, Colorado for Equal Rights, would send a clear message that every human life has value.

Burton called Huckabee's endorsement "an amazing boost" to their petition gathering efforts. Supporters must collect signatures of about 76,000 registered voters for the measure to appear on the ballot in November.

If passed, the measure would lay the legal foundation for making abortion illegal in the state.

Bush: Keep Abstinence in AIDS Program

02.17.08 -- 7:14 AM

By Ben Feller - Associated Press

President Bush on Sunday said Congress should renew his global AIDS program and preserve a requirement that steers money into abstinence efforts.

"We don't want people guessing on the continent of Africa whether the generosity of the American people will continue," Bush said in Tanzania, the second stop of his African trip.

Congress strongly backs the program, which is credited with getting medicine and preventive treatment to millions of people - most of them in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet its renewal has gotten hung up over ideology and political debate about disease prevention.

Some Democrats want to eliminate a provision in the bill that requires one-third of all prevention spending go to abstinence-until-marriage programs. Critics say that while they don't oppose abstinence programs, the inflexible requirement hampers the effort.

Huckabee: Abortion Not States' Call

Washington

11.18.07 -- 1:51 PM

By Associated Press

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee rejects letting states decide whether to allow abortions, claiming the right to life is a moral issue not subject to multiple interpretations.

"It's the logic of the Civil War," Huckabee said Sunday, comparing abortion rights to slavery. "If morality is the point here, and if it's right or wrong, not just a political question, then you can't have 50 different versions of what's right and what's wrong."

"For those of us for whom this is a moral question, you can't simply have 50 different versions of what's right," he said in an interview on "Fox News Sunday."

Judge dismisses lawsuit over outdated abortion law

Boise, Idaho

11.16.07 -- 11:08 AM

By Associated Press

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit over Idaho's 2005 abortion law because the 2007 Legislature replaced the law with a new one.

Planned Parenthood sued after the 2005 Legislature enacted a parental consent law with two provisions that the organization claimed were unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill said that Planned Parenthood was likely to win that argument, but the case continued in court over the next two years.

Giuliani Woos Conservatives on Judges

Washington

11.16.07 -- 10:03 AM

By Libby Quaid - Associated Press

Presidential contender Rudy Giuliani has been winning over some conservative Republicans by promising to appoint judges in the mold of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and others who might seem likely to limit the reach of the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

Judges he named as New York mayor, however, could never be mistaken for Scalia.

Giuliani's promise has helped overcome his abortion rights support as an issue for conservative voters. After all, the next president can do little about abortion except to name judges who interpret the law more strictly. As a result, some prominent conservatives, including televangelist Pat Robertson, have decided that Giuliani's view of judges matters most.