Sadly, a child died after miraculously surviving an abortion attempt in Italy. Two days after the baby boy was aborted he was found to be breathing. A priest, who had gone to pray next to the body of the baby, was shocked to find him breathing and immediately called on the doctors to help. It appears that the medical professionals had left the boy to die on his own after the abortion failed. He ultimately did die.

The United States has a law protecting children who survive abortion attempts, the “Born-Alive Infant Protection Act of 2002” (Public Law 107-207). The law establishes that any child who is “born alive” (is breathing, the umbilical cord is pulsating, has muscle movement, or a beating heart) after an abortion attempt is considered a person and needs to be treated accordingly. An enlightening aside to this story is that then-State Senator Obama voted against allowing the abortion survivors to live. In his words, “What we are doing here is to create one more burden on women, and I can’t support that.”

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An article in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association provides a global perspective on adult stem cell transplants. In particular, the researchers wanted to know how many transplants were taking place in different parts of the world. This particular study looked only at hematopoietic stem cell transplants, i.e., transplants of blood-forming cells, obtained from bone marrow, peripheral blood, and umbilical cord blood; it did not survey uses of other adult stem cell types, such as mesenchymal, adipose-derived, or nasal adult stem cells. Their survey found that worldwide in 2006 a total of 50,417 transplants were performed using these adult stem cells. Of that total, 57% used the patient’s own adult stem cells, and 43% used donor adult stem cells. Almost half (48%) took place in Europe, followed by the Americas (36%), Asia (14%), and the Eastern Mediterranean and Africa (2%). They note that adult stem cell transplants have become “the standard of care for many patients” with blood disorders and malignancies, though they are starting to be used for other conditions including autoimmune disorders and heart disease. They also note that their study “demonstrates that it is an accepted therapy worldwide”.

Adult stem cells are saving lives and improving health now.

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Clip of Tony Perkins appearance today Fox News regarding the recent “dis-invitations” of both himself and Franklin Graham from speaking at military events:

[If you're reading the post through a feed reader, click through to watch.]

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Today’s Washington Times has a fascinating article addressing a topic I have wondered about for years: that is, why don’t we fight poppy growers (Afghanistan) and coca growers (Columbia) with hi-tech chemicals targeted at those plants?  Well, this article by Rachel Ehrenfeld and Aylana Meisel – “Turning the Battle Against Drugs: Herbicide Breakthrough Could End Poppy and Coca Crops” – contains interesting information about governmental efforts to fight narco-trafficking with bio-technology.  (The authors also strongly argue for development aid to find replacement crops for poppy and coca cultivation.)

Here are several key paragraphs:

To seriously curtail the Afghan insurgency and global narcoterrorism, the U.S. must use effective eradication methods while subsidizing the cultivation of alternative crops. Most important, successful eradication of the Afghan drug trade will expedite the safe withdrawal of nearly 100,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

The U.S. must complete research on mycoherbicides – specialized bioherbicide agents designed to inoculate the soil against the growth of certain plants, ensuring that the targeted plants cannot be cultivated.

In January 2003, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime released the Research and Development of an Environmentally Safe and Reliable Biological Control Agent for Opium Poppy Summary Report. The research indicated that mycoherbicides do not have adverse health or environmental effects. They also are target-specific – they have no effects on plants they are not engineered to affect. Congress mandated further study on mycoherbicides in 2006, but the Office of National Drug Control Policy only contracted with the National Research Council to commence research in 2009 on the impacts of mycoherbicides and the feasibility of producing and implementing their use on a wide scale.

It is interesting that the U.S. agency tasked with studying this approach to fighting drug-trafficking took 3 years to get further research under way.  That sounds like a typical bureaucratic attempt to kill a program or concept.  Delay, delay, delay.  Wait until a new administration comes into office; then let the initiative die.  Hopefully, the Office of National Drug Control Policy hasn’t acted dishonorably with regard to Congress’s intentions in this matter.

The authors conclude, “The dual mycoherbicide-alternative development approach would reduce the world’s supply of heroin and cocaine, severing the financial lifelines of terrorist organizations.”  They urge President Obama to make the completion of congressionally-mandated study a priority because “[i]t could help the United States win the battle against the Taliban while seriously striking terrorist and criminal organizations the world over.”  I agree and time is of the essence.

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British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking believes that extraterrestrial life exists, but feels it may be dangerous for us to contact them or let them know we are here.

“I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach. It would be ‘too risky’ to attempt to make contact with alien races. If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”

Maybe Prof. Hawking has recently seen the 1996 movie “Independence Day“. In that story, alien nomads arrive in a huge mothership (about a quarter the mass of the moon) and begin an attack to conquer the Earth for its resources.

Of course, it may be too late about that aspect of keeping quiet and not letting anyone know we’re here…

(click image to enlarge)

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Is that what they mean by “Earth day”? Probably not. Anyway, it could stimulate your immune system and possibly help prevent allergies. Not that actually consuming some earth is a possible key, but recently there was another report out that exposure to a little dirtiness, and some common microbes, could boost the developing immune system and potentially prevent at least some allergies and autoimmune problems.

Excessive cleanliness is to blame according to Dr. Guy Delespesse, a professor at the Université de Montréal Faculty of Medicine. Dr. Delespesse thinks that “The more sterile the environment a child lives in, the higher the risk he or she will develop allergies or an immune problem in their lifetime.” This has generally become known as the “Hygiene Hypothesis”. Although hygiene does reduce our exposure to harmful bacteria it also limits our exposure to beneficial microorganisms. Previously, German researchers at University Children’s Hospital in Munich found that mothers exposed to farms, particularly to barns and farm milk, while pregnant confer protection from allergies on their newborns. The exposure apparently affects the baby’s T regulatory cells, which act to suppress immune responses and thereby maintain immune system balance. Other studies have suggested that not only too much cleanliness, but also exposure to cleaning products, could have an affect.

The culprit is more likely not exposure to common dirt, but exposure to common microbes. Hygiene is good, and in order to avoid people getting the wrong idea, some have proposed calling this the “microbial exposure hypothesis”. The concept is that we need a little exposure to the usual bugs encountered in the environment, to train our immune systems. Researchers at Northwestern University suggested easing up on antibacterial soap and perhaps allowing children to get a little dirty, to acquaint them with everyday germs. They noted that we may be depriving developing immune networks of important environmental input needed to guide their function throughout childhood and into adulthood.

So go get a little dirty, and help your immune system.

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The Vatican is putting its money where its belief is, and will be putting an initial €2 million ($2.7 million) to support an International Intestinal Stem Cell Consortium. The group includes the University of Maryland, Istituto Superiore di Sanita (Italy’s version of the National Institutes of Health), University of Salerno and Bambino Gesu, the Vatican’s children’s hospital. Dr. Alessio Fasano, a University of Maryland professor of pediatrics, medicine and physiology, who is from Italy, is coordinating the consortium.

According to Fasano:

“We are trying to explore stem cell research aside from embryonic stem cells. Is there a better way?”

Fasano believes that using adult stem cells, from the intestines of the patients themselves, could be that “better way.” He notes that intestinal adult stem cells are easily harvested from the patient’s own supply with a simple procedure and so are readily available, and have an additional advantage in that they will not be rejected by the body because they are the patient’s own adult stem cells.

Father Bob Gahl of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross noted:

“Nobody should be killed in the process of doing medical research. So this new project falls exactly within the Catholic Church’s ethical guidelines.”

The Vatican has previously sponsored two international conferences on adult stem cells. In addition, the Catholic Church in South Korea and Australia has funded adult stem cell research.

Meanwhile, embryonic stem cell scientists repeated the long-disproven old dogma that adult stem cells could only become the type of tissue in which they are found and could not treat problems with other different tissues, while grudgingly acknowledging that adult stem cells have actually already shown their utility for disease treatments. George Daley of Boston Children’s Hospital said

“I applaud the Vatican for being interested in supporting biomedical research, but I can’t help but think there’s an agenda.”

There most certainly is an agenda–putting the patients first. The Vatican is supporting the only type of stem cell research with a proven track record for real treatments — adult stem cells.

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The front page of this morning’s USA Today features articles on two very different men, both of them champions of the gridiron: Tim Tebow, the devout Evangelical Heisman Trophy winner from the University of Florida,and Ben Roethlisberger, pro quarterback for the Pittsburg Steelers.

Roethlisberger, suspended for six games by the NFL for credible allegations of sexual assault against a 20 year-old woman in Milledgeville, Georgia, received a letter from League Commissioner Roger Goodell stating that “there is nothing about your conduct in Milledgeville that can remotely be described as admirable, responsible, or consistent with either the values of the league or the expectations of our fans.”

In contrast, USA Today notes that Tebow’s Christian faith has motivated him to travel “to impoverished hamlets, prisons and hospitals around the world.” Tebow’s unapologetic commitment to the sanctity of unborn life became widely known when, during this year’s Super Bowl broadcast, he was featured in an ad with his mother. As USA Today reports, “Pregnant with Tim in the Phillippines (where the Tebows were missionaries), his mother became ill, suffering internal bleeding … Doctors, fearing for her life, recommended an abortion. She decided to have the baby.” Now that baby has been selected in the first round of the NFL draft.

Tebow makes no pretension of moral perfection, but his dedication to living a life of integrity, purity and conviction, all on behalf of his Savior, is a striking reminder that Christian witness and servanthood can inspire and encourage.

As to Mr. Roethlisberger, we can pray that he will, in the words of the prophet Haggai, consider his ways. The way Mr. Tebow is following – the Way, in fact – is worth emulating.

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Last night, Virginia had a major pro-life victory, passing a budget amendment that will limit abortion funding to extreme cases such as those covered by the federal Hyde Amendment (rape, incest or life of mother). Until now Virginia taxpayers also paid for abortions in cases of “fetal abnormality” and other instances.

Congratulations, and thank you to Governor McDonnell for introducing this amendment, to Virginia legislators who voted to accept it, and to Virginia residents who contacted your representatives and asked them to protect life in Virginia.

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We’ve had a number of Earth Day activities here at FRC today, including a lecture and a blog or two. Let me add my voice to the mix by sharing this ingenuous and beautiful Earth Day ad campaign on buses in Chicago:

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On April 15, President Obama issued a “memorandum” to the Secretary of Health and Human Services instructing her to prepare regulations that will protect the right of homosexual partners (and other non-family members) to visit their loved ones in the hospital.

In a series of interviews the next day, I emphasized that the Family Research Council does not have any objection to such visitation in principle, as long as it is premised on the patient’s personal choice rather than on a redefinition of family or marriage. However, I also pointed out that the main reason this is even a topic of discussion is because it is used as a political talking point by the advocates of same-sex “marriage,” who see it as a golden opportunity to tug at people’s heartstrings and generate emotional sympathy for their cause.

I further asserted my belief that the frequency with which homosexuals are barred from visiting their partners in the hospital is grossly exaggerated. As I pointed out in an online chat on the Washington Post website,

The idea that homosexuals are regularly denied the right to visit their partners in the hospital is one that has only one source–homosexual activists who want to change the definition of marriage. Where are the media surveys of hospital administrators to determine how many hospitals actually have such restrictive policies?

In the reporting on the Obama memorandum, however, many media outlets cited the case of Janice Langbehn, a lesbian who sued a Florida hospital claiming that she was denied the right to visit her partner Lisa Pond when Pond was dying from an aneurysm. Langbehn’s story is apparently a familiar one in the homosexual activist community, thanks in large part to a sympathetic New York Times article last year.

In fact, Langbehn’s story was instrumental in moving Obama to act. According to the Washington Post:

Officials said Obama had been moved by the story of a lesbian couple in Florida, Janice Langbehn and Lisa Pond, who were kept apart when Pond collapsed of a cerebral aneurysm in February 2007, dying hours later at a hospital without her partner and children by her side. Obama called Langbehn on Thursday evening from Air Force One as he flew to Miami, White House officials said.

The New York Times story last year did report that the hospital disputes some of Langbehn’s charges, but media reports on the Obama memo last week, like that in the Post, did not even bother mentioning that. They were content to repeat the storyline of the homosexual activists verbatim, without even stopping to ask if there was another side.

There is, however, another side. On the website of the Miami Herald, I discovered that the hospital which Langbehn accused of mistreating her has sent its own letter to President Obama. Here is part of what the hospital said:

We would also like to take this opportunity to provide you with some clarification on the allegations being made by Janice Langbehn, whose partner was treated at Jackson’s Ryder Trauma Center in 2007. From the beginning, JHS has vehemently denied that Ms. Langbehn was denied visitation due to her sexual orientation. The United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida dismissed Ms. Langbehn’s lawsuit against Jackson Memorial Hospital in September 2009.

Ms. Langbehn’s allegations and those made by published articles, blogs, etc., are inaccurate and have damaged the reputations and deeply hurt the feelings of the personnel in our trauma center. They have devoted their careers to all who come through our doors, from all walks of life.

JHS grants hospital visitation to all individuals equally, regardless of their relationship to the patient, as long as doing so does not interfere with the care being given to the patient or other patients in the area. With that said, our first priority when a patient is brought to our trauma center is always to stabilize the patient and save their life. As the only adult and pediatric Level 1 trauma center in Miami-Dade County to support a population of more than 2.3 million people, our facility is one of the busiest – and most renowned – in the nation.

The Trauma Resuscitation Unit in Ryder Trauma Center, where Lisa Pond was treated when airlifted to Jackson, is more like a large operating room with multiple beds separated by glass partitions rather than a traditional hospital floor. Sometimes, visitors are not able to see a loved one in the trauma bay as quickly as they would like or they may have to wait until the patient is moved to the ICU or to another area of the hospital that is better suited for visitation. This all depends on the circumstances of the situation, how busy the unit is at the time and the medical conditions of the patients in the unit at the time. The patients in this area are facing life-threatening injuries or illnesses and are extremely vulnerable.

The most important piece of information to consider from our side of this story is that the charge nurse on duty the night Ms. Pond was in our care – and the person who made all visitation access decisions that evening – is herself a lesbian with a life partner. In addition, numerous members of the medical team working in our trauma unit are openly homosexual. We can assure you that Ms. Langbehn was not treated differently because of her sexual orientation.

When homosexuals complain that they are “denied the right to visit their partners in the hospital,” they may give some people the impression (I suspect deliberately) that in some hospitals they are never able to visit their partners, simply because they are not legally recognized as family members. I pointed out that for ordinary patients in ordinary hospital rooms (the vast majority of hospital patients), there are few if any restrictions on visitation. You don’t go through security, no one checks your ID—you just walk up to the room and visit. Some hospitals have even done away with the tradition of “visiting hours,” and instead allow visitors to come in at any hour of the day or night.

I did acknowledge that there might be exceptions to these liberal visitation policies, such as when a patient is in intensive care. But there was one point so obvious that I did not bother making it (until now)—and that is that in situations of emergency, trauma, or intensive care, hospitals may sometimes keep away all visitors from a patient for medical reasons—not for reasons of “discrimination.” If the hospital’s account is accurate, that is what happened to Janice Langbehn.

Is the thought of a person “dying without their loved ones at their bedside” an agonizing one? Of course. But it is an agony that is probably experienced by many people, regardless of sexual orientation or marital status, every day, for one simple reason—their beds are surrounded by doctors and nurses fighting to save their lives.

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It appears that President Obama’s support with prominent Jews may be under severe strain.  Former New York City mayor Ed Koch has blasted Obama on several occasions recently over the president’s relentlessly anti-Israeli policies.  The articles appeared in: 1) Israel National News on March 25; 2) Huffington Post on March 30; 3) and, Huffington Post on April 12.

In the April 12^th piece, the ex-mayor asserted that the president was trying to “so weaken the resolve of the Jewish state and its leaders that it will be much easier to impose on Israel an American plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, leaving Israel’s needs for security and defensible borders in the lurch.”  Koch also asserted, “I believe President Obama’s policy is to create a whole new relationship with the Arab states of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, and Iraq as a counter to Iran – The Tyrannosaurus Rex of the Muslim world which we are now prepared to see in possession of a nuclear weapon. If throwing Israel under the bus is needed to accomplish this alliance, so be it.”

In the opening paragraph of his March 30^th piece, Koch described “President Obama’s abysmal attitude toward the State of Israel and his humiliating treatment of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu” as “shocking.”  He concluded by observing, “It is one thing to disagree with certain policies of the Israeli government. It is quite another to treat Israel and its prime minister as pariahs, which only emboldens Israel’s enemies and makes the prospect of peace even more remote.”  This harsh language also included a denunciation of AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) for giving Secretary of State Hilary Clinton a standing ovation at their recent convention.

Another major figure in the Jewish cultural world has made his feelings of unhappiness about American policy toward Israel – and Jerusalem, in particular – widely known.

Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel is less direct in his criticism of the Obama Administration than Koch, but his point is clear.  In a full-page advertisement entitled “For Jerusalem” that I have read in the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post on April 16^th (follow link), Wiesel writes, “For me, the Jew that I am, Jerusalem is above politics.”  He notes the centrality of Jerusalem to Jewish life and civilization.

In a thinly veiled swipe at the Obama Administration he asks of Jerusalem:  “What is the solution?  Pressure will not produce a solution. (my emphasis)”    He continues by asking why the issue of Jerusalem must be addressed first before other major problems are resolved.  Why must the toughest question be resolved before Arabs and Jews can be shown to be capable of living together peacefully?  A fair question.

Wiesel continues by observing that “Jerusalem must remain the world’s Jewish spiritual capital, not a symbol of anguish and bitterness, but a symbol of trust and hope.”  And, he closes saying, “Jerusalem is the heart of our heart, the soul of our soul.”

It is too early to know whether these comments constitute a trend within the Jewish community, but if I were President Obama I might want to lose the Lawrence of Arabia act for a while.  There is, however, little chance of that happening because Ed Koch has it exactly right.  In fact, Koch may be understating Obama’s animosity toward Israel.

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Don’t you just wonder why some grownups are so terrified of kids praying in schools, of town councils invoking God’s blessing and guidance on their work, or of the absolute “horror” of having an Enfield, Connecticut high school graduation take place in a building in which Christian worship occurs? It’s not only sad, but rather strange, that such energy is expended to eradicate the tiniest smidgen of Christianity from the public square.

Should we be subjected to those whose self-appointed mission is to bully their way through communities where their crusade to annihilate Christianity is neither wanted nor welcomed? Furthermore, must we be forced to accept that their patronizing destruction of Judeo-Christian traditions is “good for us?” Sooner or later, the ACLU and others like them may have to acknowledge that the majority of Americans adhere to the Christian faith and don’t want the empty exchange they have to offer. We enjoy our faith – we enjoy our God, and in spite of our many shortcomings, Scripture is clear that God enjoys us. And whether or not the ACLU approves, that is a lifestyle worth celebrating.

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While it may lack the charm of Rosie the Robot Maid from the Jetsons, scientists have developed a robot that folds towels.

But does it do dishes?

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It’s another classic bureaucratic report from the Pentagon. In the wake of the murders of 14 persons by Nidal Hasan last November, the Secretary of Defense demanded a full report. [Yes, there were fourteen victims. One of those killed was a pregnant woman.] Well, the Secretary got his report. It’s another doorstop of a document replete with all the usual verbiage when it comes to pop psychology and busy-work buzz words. Here’s what the Department of Defense press release tells us:

Continue reading »

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In the latest Mapping America, mothers aged 35-44 in always-intact marriages who worship at least weekly are more likely to have earned a bachelor’s degree than mothers in all other family structure and worship combinations.

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UK scientists have used nuclear transfer (cloning) technology to create 3-parent human embryos–one father and two mothers.

Despite the standard hype about curing disease using these cloning techniques, significant ethical concerns exist. First, the technique sacrifices two embryos — the smallest, most vulnerable humans — to create a third, recombined embryo, with two mothers and one father. It is not a possible cure, but germline genetic engineering and even eugenics, in that embryo manipulation moves us further down the slope not just of selecting children, but manufacturing them.

This technology, described below, is a further step toward tampering with the very essence of humanity, and demonstrates not just a contempt for life itself – all the embryos in this experiment were destroyed for science – but a profoundly dangerous and arrogant belief that we can tamper with the genetic makeup of our fellow human beings.

The rationale for the experiment was that some people have diseases caused by their mitochondria, little energy-generating factories in every cell. Mitochondria have DNA of their own coding for a handful of genes, separate from the nuclear DNA of the cell, and mutations in the mitochondrial DNA can lead to some diseases.

Every cell has mitochondria to generate energy, including the egg cell. When a sperm fertilizes an egg, the mitochondria from the egg cell that contributed to the new embryo are passed to every cell of the person, and if those mitochondria have a mutation, the mutations are passed on as well. The cloning technique used in this experiment was designed to try to get rid of problem mitochondria.

In this human cloning experiment, the scientists used one-cell embryos as both the DNA donor and recipient, an “Embryo Cell Nuclear Transfer”. NOTE that most news stories call these embryos “fertilized eggs”; the term is a scientifically inaccurate misnomer and misleading, as once fertilization occurs, these are no longer eggs but rather embryos. The scientific paper published in Nature uses the scientifically-accurate term: “Pronuclear transfer in human embryos to prevent transmission of mitochondrial DNA disease”

After fertilization, but before the maternal and paternal nuclei have joined as a single zygote nucleus, the embryo is at the “pronuclear” stage. The scientists transferred this nuclear material out of one embryo (thus destroying the first embryo), placing the nuclear material into a second embryo (the second embryo having had its nuclear material removed, i.e., destroying the second embryo to make room for the nuclear material of the first.)

Two embryos are destroyed to create (with new genetic mitochondria) a third, recombined embryo. The newly-created recombined embryo has the nuclear material from one embryo, and the cytoplasmic material from another embryo.

A diagram of the process is in the paper’s supplementary material.

OR click on this image to enlarge

The scientists let the recombined embryos develop for up to eight days before they were destroyed. As with all cloning experiments, few of the embryos developed. In this case only 18 out of 80 showed any development or divided at all, and only three of the recombined embryos made it to blastocyst stage. This was only half as good as the control “abnormal” embryos (17%), which also develop poorly when compared to normal IVF embryos (32%), again indicating that cloning and manipulation of embryos introduces problems.

When they checked the mitochondria, on average about 2% of mitochondrial DNA was carried over from the first embryo with the transferred nuclear material. The scientists suggested that this was not enough to cause disease, and claimed the experiment as proof-of-principle for a way to prevent inherited mitochondrial disease. However, they have not even shown that such a genetic engineering technique that mixes nuclei and cytoplasm of different individuals is safe even for the newly-cloned embryo and does not affect normal development.

Nonetheless, the UK scientists are supposedly working with the Human Embryology and Fertilisation Authority (HEFA), which licenses research on human embryos in the UK, to determine what further studies must be done before a human embryo that has undergone their genetic engineering procedure can be implanted for a pregnancy.

A similar cloning experiment with mice was done in 2007, and in 2009, U.S. scientists used a similar nuclear transfer cloning technique to create cloned monkey embryos. The U.S. scientists who did the monkey experiments also supposedly have plans to seek approval from the FDA to use their technique to create genetically-manipulated human embryos.

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This week I saw a screening of a new documentary, “Nine Days that Changed the World,” on Pope John Paul II’s June 1979 pilgrimage to Poland, hosted by Newt and Callista Gingrich. The impact this short trip would have first on a country and ultimately on an entire “empire of evil” was extraordinarily well communicated in the film. The underlying theme of the movie is that freedom is found in faith.

Those interviewed in the movie include noted Polish writers, religious and political leaders, including presidents, priests and ambassadors. As I watched I couldn’t help but be reminded of the well-known Peggy Noonan piece on this very trip, “We Want God,” named for the ongoing chant of the Polish people during one of the religious ceremonies.

Perhaps most importantly this movie brings a message for this particular time period in American history. Political ideologies may try to oppress the human spirit but the inherent capacity for God, truth, love and freedom that exists in every single human being can never be extinguished.

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If you think legislation on the federal level has gone haywire, take a minute to check out what’s going on in state governments through FRC’s State Legislation Tracker. The present 38 issue “profiles” currently track 7469 bills of concern. A breakdown of the results (listed below) provides a telling glimpse into the “state of the states” and the subsequent health of our nation. That the top five profiles include domestic violence (2146), gambling (1346), divorce reform (827), and pornography (728 total, 325 dedicated to child pornography alone) should be a serious wake-up call for all Americans.

Whether or not current liberals and “progressives” approve, America’s Founders understood from historical perspective that their new government must be rooted in Judeo-Christian tenets. Nothing less resilient and enduring could contribute the ongoing stability required for individuals, families and national industry to flourish in the long term. The following contemporary indicators mandate that we re-examine those pro-family factors that precipitated America’s success, and work aggressively at the state and local level to re-introduce and re-implement them.

Numbers of bills (see here a drill-down on each issue):

• Abortion – Fetal Pain – 5
• Abortion – Parental Notification – 38
• Abortion – Ultrasound Bills – 60
• Abortion Alternatives – Pregnancy Care Centers -18
• Adoption – By Traditional Family – 551
• Adoption – By Unmarried or Same-Sex Couples – 44
• Bathroom Bills – Gender Expression & Same-Sex Issues – 185
• Conscience Regulations – 4
• Cord Blood – 62
• DADT – Military Repeal of ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ – 13
• DOMA – Defense of Marriage Act – 2
• Domestic Violence – 2146
• Eminent Domain – 1340
• ENDA – Employment Non-Discrimination Act – 3
• Gambling – 1346
• Hate Crimes – 27
• Health Care – States’ Response to Obamacare – 176
• Homeschool – 341
• Human Cloning – 149
• Human Eggs – 8
• Human Trafficking – 255
• Jessica’s Law – 5
• Life Issues – 23
• Marriage – Divorce Reform – 877
• Marriage – Marriage Protection Amendments -12
• Pornography: Child – 325
• Pornography: General – 403
• Public Education: Bullying Bills – General – 28
• Public Education: Bullying Bills – Pro-Homosexual Agenda – 41
• Public Education: Discrimination Free Zones – 1
• Public Education: Sex Education – 7
• Religious Liberty – 29
• Reproductive Health – 9
• Same-Sex Marriage – 493
• Sexual Predators – 60
• Statutory Rape – 69
• Stem Cell Research – Adult – 17
• Stem Cell Research – Embryonic – 37

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Meinhardt Raabe, the actor who played the Munchkin coroner in the classic “The Wizard of Oz“, has died at the age of 94. He was 22 years old when the movie was shot in 1938, and one of only nine Munchkins who had speaking parts in the movie.

Here’s a clip of his part from the movie

And here a recent clip as he reprises his lines

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