Tag Archives: Arizona

News

Good news for pro-lifers from Arizona and Texas

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Republican Governor Jan Brewer
Republican Governor Jan Brewer

Good news for pro-lifers from Arizona!

Excerpt:

Thanks to a comprehensive pro-life law a court recently upheld, the Planned Parenthood abortion business will be stopping abortion at seven locations throughout the state, the abortion agency announced today.

As LifeNews.com reported earlier this month, the Arizona Court of Appeals issued a decision upholding a pro-life law that protects the health and safety of women and their unborn children by giving them information they don’t normally receive.

The Arizona Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in June in Planned Parenthood Arizona v. Horne, a case the abortion business filed which challenges key aspects of the 2009 Abortion Consent Act. The law is a pro-life measure Governor Jan Brewer signed which tells women of the risks associated with and alternatives to abortion. Planned Parenthood sued the state soon after its signing and a Superior Court judge blocked the law from taking effect while the case moves forward.

The law will now go into effect and it makes it so Arizona will require a notarized parental signature before an abortion can be performed on a minor child, women will be provided with full and accurate information by a doctor in person at least 24 hours before an abortion, medical professionals cannot be forced to perform abortions if it contradicts their sincerely held religious or moral beliefs and non-doctors will not be permitted by law to perform surgical abortions.

Responding to the decision, Planned Parenthood announced today that it will no longer do abortions at seven locations — including communities outside of Phoenix and Tucson. Planned Parenthood President Bryan Howard told the Arizona Republic newspaper the abortion business would be appealing the court’s decision but it has no choice to stop doing abortions until and unless another court rules because the laws are in effect now.

Jan Brewer is the famous Republican governor of Arizona. She’s tough as nails!

Republican Governor Rick Perry
Republican Governor Rick Perry

And now more good news for pro-lifers from Texas.

Excerpt:

Still reeling from funding cuts in Texas, Planned Parenthood is closing clinics and merging affiliates throughout the state, Texas Right to Life reports.
The national abortion giant received a major blow this summer when Texas Governor and presidential contender Rick Perry signed into law a bill that stripped the organization of its funding, and prohibited the state government from contracting with any organization that provides abortions.

A July report in the Gainesville Daily Register confirmed the closure of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Gainesville as a direct result of these legislative developments.

Texas Right to Life Legislative Director John Seago told LifeSiteNews.com that his organization called over 70 Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas and confirmed six additional closures in Arlington, Mesquite, Plano, Sherman, Terrell, and Waxahachie. All seven locations are scheduled to be closed by the end of September.

Additionally, Planned Parenthood’s website indicates that a center in Groesbeck is “temporarily closed.”

[…]He also said that a planned merger between Planned Parenthood’s Waco affiliates in Central Texas and their Austin affiliates is believed to be related to budget cuts, based on press reports of layoffs related to the merger.

[…]Elizabeth Graham, Director of Texas Right to Life, called the developments “historic for the pro-life movement and the protection of women’s health.”

Pro-life advocates in the state are also celebrating an end to tax-funded abortions as a result of the new law, which denies state funds to county hospital districts that use local tax money to fund abortion services.

The Austin American-Statesman reports that the Central Health Board in Travis County, formerly the only county in the state financing abortions with tax revenue, voted unanimously last week to end publicly funded abortion services.

As LifeSiteNews reported in April, funds stripped from family planning organizations have been re-allocated to pregnancy centers, among other programs.

According to a recent Texas Tribune report, the Texas legislature allocated an additional $300,000 to the state’s Alternative to Abortion Services program, for a total of $8.3 million in state funding.

Don’t mess with Texas.

News

Republicans pushing hard for school choice at the state level

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School choice is a major issue for Republicans in five different states.

Excerpt:

2011 is shaping-up to be a monumental year for school choice. The year kicked-off with big changes in Wisconsin, where in February, Governor Scott Walker broke the union stranglehold on public education and lifted the cap on the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, the nation’s oldest voucher program.

In March, Utah passed a statewide online learning program. The Beehive State passed the The Statewide Online Education Program, which allows children in grades 9-12 to take highschool coursework online from public or private providers anywhere in the state. Also in March, in an historic win for low-income children in the nation’s capital, the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program was restored and expanded, thanks to the leadership of Speaker John Boehner.

In April, Arizona created education savings accounts (ESAs) for special-needs children, who can now receive 90 percent of state per-pupil expenditures in their ESAs, which they can use on a variety of education options, including private school tuition.

And in May, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels enacted the largest school voucher program in the country, which will help an estimated 600,000 children attend a private school of their choice.

Now, children in Oklahoma could soon benefit from a proposed tuition tax credit program. A bill which is headed to Gov. Mary Fallin’s desk would provide scholarships to children in low- and middle-income families to attend a private school of their choice. Oklahoma is building on the voucher program for special needs children passed early last year, and is on its way to having one of the most robust education markets in the country.

Meanwhile, in Illinois, Democrat women are trying to push more sex education into the schools, while Republican men try to slow them down.

Excerpt:

Bananas and condom races became topics of debate in the Illinois Senate this afternoon, when lawmakers rejected a measure that would have given the State Board of Education new control over sex education.

Under the legislation, schools choosing to offer sex education would be required to teach “medically accurate and developmentally appropriate” curriculum — local districts would choose from a range of material offered by the state board, then parents could review the material and decide whether or not their child should participate.

Republican lawmakers grilled the bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Heather Steans, D-Chicago, on what would qualified as “age-appropriate” material for the junior high and high school students in question.

State Sen. Kyle McCarter, R-Lebanon, asked Steans if materials suggesting “having races by putting condoms on bananas” were suited for sixth-graders.

State Sen. Chris Lauzen, R-Aurora, said he believed adopting the new standards could push parents with “traditional values” to pull their children from public schools.

[…]”This is not just educating them on math and science — this is educating them on an issue that could literally save their lives,” said state Sen. Linda Holmes, D-Plainfield.

The funny thing is that all the evidence shows that increasing sex education actually increases the number of out-of-wedlock births and sexually-transmitted diseases. If we really were serious about stopping out-of-wedlock pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, we would be pushing abstinence education – which is the only thing that is proven to work.

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Events

Upcoming summer apologetics conference in Phoenix, Arizona

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Here is an apologetics conference that is happening in Phoenix, Arizona in June!

And here are the speakers:

  • Mary Jo Sharp (Confident Christianity)
  • Brett Kunkle (Stand to Reason)
  • Neil Mammen
  • Letitia Wong
  • Shawn White

And here are the topics:

  • What is truth?
  • Are all religions the same?
  • Does God exist?
  • Is the Bible true?
  • Is faith blind?

And they are having a raffle for an Ipad 2 for conference sponsors! If you are looking for a good conference to sponsor, this one looks ideal!