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News

Republicans respond to pro-lifers desire to cut UN abortion funding

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From Life News.

Excerpt:

Earlier this month, LifeNews.com reported on a public vote House Republicans were taking, seeing input from American voters on which one of three ideas for saving taxpayer dollars was the most attractive and should become the next bill pushed in Congress. With thousands of pro-life advocates encouraged to vote, legislation cutting UNFPA funding won out and will now become the next piece of legislation Republicans will advance.

The vote at the popular YouCut web site makes it so the public will be able to track the progressof the legislation as it moves through the legislative process.

Rep. Renee Ellmers, of North Carolina, will be introducing legislation soon.

“This is going to save American taxpayers $400 million dollars over a 10 year period and it’s just another part of what we’re doing here in Washington to cut wasteful spending that we see happening,” she said in a new video introducing the bill. “And I am very excited to be part of this program and each week we will have more cuts coming forward.”

The legislation would result in cutting the funding President Barack Obama put in place for the UNFPA, an agency that promotes abortion and works hand-in-hand with family planning officials in China enforcing the one-child, forced-abortion policy.

[…]Steve Mosher, the head of the Population Research Institute and the leading campaigner exposing China and the one-child policy, says the UNFPA is the UN population control agency that is complicit in China’s brutal one-child policy, which is carried out through a program of coercive abortion and involuntary sterilization. He hopes the YouCut program receives enough votes to move the pro-life bill forward.

“With just a click of your mouse, you can cut funding to the United Nations Population Fund,’ he said in an email to LifeNews. “Defunding UNFPA could be considered by the House soon, but only if this option gets the most votes on the YouCut website. That’s where you come in. If you think the United States House of Representatives should cut funding to the UNFPA, then vote for that option on the YouCut web site, and urge everyone you know to do the same.”

Pro-life blogger Jill Stanek also encouraged people to vote in it.

“How many times have you been forwarded an email to vote on a meaningless opinion poll?” she asked. “Well, for once, here’s a poll that can really save the lives of preborn children. If you have friends who are solely fiscal conservatives, tell them that at $400 million, this choice will save taxpayers the most money of any of this week’s 3 options.

The YouCut web site talks about the history of UNFPA funding.

“In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan withheld all U.S. contributions to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) after determining that UNFPA participated in the support and co-management of China’s population control program,” it explains. “Under the Bush administration, the U.S. withheld funds for the UNFPA from America’s annual contributions to the United Nations due to UNFPA’s complicity in China’s one-child policy enforced through coercive abortion and involuntary sterilization, but the Obama administration and the 111th Congress resumed contributions to UNFPA.”

The budget House Republicans wanted sought to terminate UNFPA funding, which stood at $55 million in FY 2010. UNFPA funding was cut by $15 million, to $40 million in the final agreement over FY 2011 spending, but the remainder is sent to the pro-abortion agency.

After Obama restored the funding, Rep. Chris Smith tried to offer an amendment to revert the language back to the original ban on such funding, but House Democrats blocked him from doing so. Then, pro-life Sen. Roger Wicker offered a similar amendment but the Senate defeated it.

Republicans are opposed to funding coerced and sex-selection abortions in China. If Republicans can cut off the money to the United Nations, then maybe the coerced and sex-selection abortions in China will decrease. Regardless of that, we taxpayers can certainly use the money better on our own projects than the government of China can. For example, if I get my money back from the United Nations, I could give it to a crisis pregnancy center. Let me decide – it’s my money. I earned it.

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Men are the biggest losers in the recession

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From the American Spectator.

Excerpt:

Over the past decade, the total number of jobs for women went up by close to a million. Meanwhile, men lost more than 3 million jobs. From 1960 to 2008, the average unemployment rate for men 25 years and older was 4.2 percent. In the last two years, it has more than doubled, shooting up to 8.9 percent. By contrast, unemployment for women of the same age and for the same period of time went from 4.7 percent to 7.2 percent, an increase of 52 percent. The disparity is more striking if one considers that women’s rate of participation in the workforce has risen sharply since 1960 while the percentage of men in the job market has been shrinking.

One reason that men’s employment rate lags behind is that there has been negative growth in the types of jobs men historically have occupied. In the last 10 years, 5.5 million manufacturing jobs were lost. That’s one-third of our manufacturing base in an industry where men make up 70 percent of the workforce. In construction, where 87 percent of positions are filled by men, more than 1.4 million jobs went away during that time frame. Approximately 4.4 million jobs have been added in the education and health care sectors, but women dominate this growing field as they make up 77 percent of the work force.

It’s working-class men, not those who occupy elite positions in finance and government, who are suffering. The hemorrhaging of manufacturing and other well-paying jobs in America means that a rising number of young American men face dwindling prospects for earning a middle-class wage in the future. Young male unemployment is at 19 percent. More than 15 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans (most of whom are male) were unemployed in January 2011. African-American males also have been hit hard. Ten years ago, both African-American men and women had the same unemployment rate of 8.2 percent. Since then, the men’s rate has more than doubled and now is almost four points higher than the unemployment rate for women. Similarly, Hispanic men now have a 1.7 percent higher unemployment rate than Hispanic women, whom they historically have outperformed.

With growing numbers of out-of-work young men comes a volatile mix of negative social outcomes: they are less likely to marry, less likely to be a stable parental force for the children they father, and more likely to engage in violent behavior.

One would think that Washington policymakers would see these developments as a cause for concern. Nonetheless, for more than a decade, they have looked the other way as good American jobs have been shipped overseas, outsourced or have simply gone away. Ironically, our business tax system incentivizes our companies to export jobs and prosperity overseas. Also, our government welfare system all but discourages an intact family of a father and mother by the way it distributes money.

Men are not going to be able to fulfill their roles of protector, provider and moral/spiritual leader if they do not have the authority that comes from being the principle/sole breadwinner in the family. Right now, we have a situation where the schools are discriminating against men by having a tiny minority of male teachers, as well as co-ed classrooms. Men cannot learn as well when they are taught primarily by women and are distracted by female peers and do not have a separate male-focused curriculum. And that is why men now earn 40% of bachelor degrees on many campuses. Government’s massive spending and job-killing policies leave the few men who can graduate in an unstable employment situation where marriage becomes too risky. De-valuing a man’s savings with inflation doesn’t help, either.

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Alabama Senate Republicans pass several pro-life bills

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State Senator George Reed (R-AL)
State Senator George Reed (R-AL)

From Life News.

Excerpt:

After the Alabama state Senate voted to not participate in the abortion funding that will take place under the Obamacare law, legislators then approved a slate of pro-life bills that would limit abortions.

The measures are the first pro-life pieces of legislation to advance in the state Senate, thanks to the 2010 elections allowing pro-life lawmakers control of the body.

The chamber approved SB 298, by Senator Allen, which makes it unlawful to administer any abortion-inducing drug to a woman without her receiving an exam by a physician and would provide a physician with guidelines to follow in administering any abortion-inducing drugs. The bill targets the webcam or telemed abortion process that is generating controversy in Iowa where Planned Parenthood is denying women an in-person consult with a doctor prior to getting the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug that has killed dozens of women worldwide and injured another 1,100 in the U.S. alone as of 2006 FDA figures.

That legislation passed 26-6.

The Senate passed SB 301, by Senator Williams, to defines the term “persons” as used in the Code of Alabama 1975, as including all humans from the moment of fertilization and implantation in the womb. The bill can’t ban abortions, but allows the state to declare that human life begins at that point. The Senate voted 23-7 for that measure.

The chamber also passed SB 308, by Senator Scofield, that requires a physician to perform an ultrasound, provide verbal explanation of the ultrasound, and display the images to pregnant women before performing an abortion. The measure is similar to measures approved in other states that allow women to see the ultrasound of their baby, something abortion centers don’t typically show despite doing them to determine the age of the unborn child before the abortion.

The Senate voted 26-3 for the ultrasound legislation.

Lt. Governor Kay Ivey applauded the votes, saying, “History is being made in the Alabama Legislature. I commend Senator Greg Reed for all of his hard work in making the passage of this bill a reality. The Alabama Legislature is working together to help protect and save the lives of our future generations.”

Sen. Greg Reed added: “This past November’s election had consequences, and in this case, those positive consequences allowed us to pass the first pro-life bill in years.”

The lopsided votes on the five bills were a departure from the days when Democrats controlled the state Senate and pro-life bills died in committee.

Elections have consequences.