Oklahoma Senate Committee OKs Abortion-Fetal Pain Abortion Ban

An Oklahoma state Senate committee voted today for a state House-passed bill that would ban abortions after 20 because unborn children have been shown to feel intense pain.

The House overwhelmingly approved the bill, House Bill 1888, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, on a 94-2 vote. The bill would require abortion practitioners to determine the age of an unborn child prior to an abortion and would prohibit abortions after 20 weeks — a clear point in science when unborn children have the ability to feel intense pain.

Today, the Senate Health and Human Services Committee voted for the measure 6-1, making it so abortion practitioners who violate the fetal pain-based abortion ban by doing abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy would face felony charges.

The legislation has the strong endorsement of pro-life groups and Tony Lauinger of Oklahomans for Life, told LifeNews.com today before the vote, “This crucial pro-life bill, HB 1888, would ban the aborting of an unborn child who is capable of feeling pain. Medical evidence shows that, by 20 weeks after fertilization, a baby can feel pain.”

The pro-life group is also endorsing another pro-life bill, SB 547, the Abortion-Is-Not-Health-Care bill, that will receive a vote in the House Insurance Committee this Thursday.

“SB 547 would prohibit coverage for elective abortions under health-insurance plans in Oklahoma, affirm the principle that abortion is not health care, and protect the conscience rights of pro-life premium payers so they’re not complicit in the killing,” Lauinger said.

During the House debate on the fetal pain bill, Rep. Pan Peterson, a Tulsa Republican, said about the legislation, “People on both sides of the abortion debate should agree that gratuitous suffering of an unborn child is really incompatible with a decent and humane society. That’s what this bill does; it shows the humaneness of that unborn child.”

“This is a bill that has caught up with scientific evidence,” Peterson said. “Thirty-eight years ago, it was considered a clump of cells and now we know differently. We can see the development of the child; we do fetal surgery.”

Peterson said the leading scientists who have researched the development of unborn children say “nerves linking receptors to the brain’s thalamus and subcortical plate are present no later than 20 weeks.”

“Current law requires more humane treatment of animals than of babies in the womb, yet there is no denying that an unborn child can feel pain and should not be subjected to it,” Peterson said.

Reps. Emily Virgin and Jeannie McDaniel, both Democrats, voted against the legislation and five Democrats were absent for the vote in the House. Virgin said she expects a lawsuit will be filed against the bill, even though the first-in-the-nation law Nebraska passed that is similar has not been the subject of a lawsuit. The Nebraska law is credited with driving late-term abortion practitioner LeRoy Carhart out of the state — as he now works for a Maryland-based abortion business.

The legislation, if it becomes law, is expected to take effect on November 1.

The science behind the concept of fetal pain is fully established and Dr. Steven Zielinski, an internal medicine physician from Oregon, is one of the leading researchers into it. He first published reports in the 1980s to validate research showing evidence for it.

He has testified before Congress that an unborn child could feel pain at “eight-and-a-half weeks and possibly earlier” and that a baby before birth “under the right circumstances, is capable of crying.”

He and his colleagues Dr. Vincent J. Collins and Thomas J. Marzen were the top researchers to point to fetal pain decades ago. Collins, before his death, was Professor of Anesthesiology at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois and author of Principles of Anesthesiology, one of the leading medical texts on the control of pain.

Related Links

• Doctors on Fetal Pain
• Oklahomans for Life

“The functioning neurological structures necessary to suffer pain are developed early in a child’s development in the womb,” they wrote.

“Functioning neurological structures necessary for pain sensation are in place as early as 8 weeks, but certainly by 13 1/2 weeks of gestation. Sensory nerves, including nociceptors, reach the skin of the fetus before the 9th week of gestation. The first detectable brain activity occurs in the thalamus between the 8th and 10th weeks. The movement of electrical impulses through the neural fibers and spinal column takes place between 8 and 9 weeks gestation. By 13 1/2 weeks, the entire sensory nervous system functions as a whole in all parts of the body,” they continued.

With Zielinski and his colleagues the first to provide the scientific basis for the concept of fetal pain, Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand of the University of Arkansas Medical Center has provided further research to substantiate their work.

“The neural pathways are present for pain to be experienced quite early by unborn babies,” explains Steven Calvin, M.D., perinatologist, chair of the Program in Human Rights Medicine, University of Minnesota, where he teaches obstetrics.

by Steven Ertelt

http://www.lifenews.com/2011/03/28/oklahoma-senate-committee-oks-abortion-fetal-pain-abortion-ban/

Norah Jones - Don't Know Why

CIA Rambo Escapes Pakistan

By Eric Margolis

March 20, 2011 “Information Clearing House” —- The US government just decided Islamic shariah law is not so bad after all – at least not in the case of jailed CIA agent Raymond Davis.

The burly Davis, an ex-US Special Forces soldier, former Blackwater gunman, and now CIA “contractor” (jargon for mercenary) was jailed in Pakistan after shooting dead two Pakistanis, who were either robbers or government security agents. A third Pakistani was killed by a car driven by a CIA rescuer racing up a one-way street the wrong way.

Pakistanis were outraged, but their weak government, which subsists on $3 billion of annual US aid, caved in to its American patrons. After weeks of intense negotiations over US claims that Davis had diplomatic cover, some $2.3 million or more “diyaa,” or blood money, was paid to the grieving families of Davis’ victims. Case closed.

The CIA’s man in Islamabad was quickly rushed out of Pakistan to a US base in Afghanistan. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has become as adept at bending the truth as her hubby Bill, stoutly denied Washington had paid any money to get Davis released.

She was technically right. The Zardari regime in Islamabad paid off the families after strong-arming them to accept the sleazy deal. Washington will pay Islamabad back.

According to sources here in Washington, the “diyaa” ploy was the brainchild of Pakistan’s ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, which my old friend denies. He is widely known as the smartest ambassador in Washington.

Very diplomatic, very clever. The Davis crisis is over – at least in Washington. But not in Pakistan, where public fury over Islamabad’s crass sellout is boiling.

The Davis case will confirm the growing belief among most Pakistanis that their nation has been de facto occupied by the United States as part of its war in Afghanistan. What else could they conclude when American Rambos and spies run amok in Pakistan and US Predator drones pound its northwest frontier? Or as they watch Pakistan’s once proud soldiers, now turned sepoys of the new Raj, stand at attention to receive Pentagon orders.

On Thursday, at least 41 Pakistani civilians were killed by US air strikes along the northwest frontier – just as the Obama Administration was threatening war against Libya for doing the same thing.

Even the unloved former president, Pervez Musharraf, claims right after 9/11, Washington “put a gun to our head” and told him to either accept US semi-occupation of Pakistan or be bombed back to the Stone Age. This meant US use of Pakistan’s major ports, depots, key airfields, radar sites, intelligence service ISI, security police, and 120,000 troops.

Senior military and intelligence officers deemed insufficiently pro-American or Islamist were purged, among them many of the army’s ablest officers.

A decade later, polls show most Pakistanis believe the US is continuing to take over Pakistan, and aims to get control of their nation’s dispersed nuclear arsenal.

At the same time, Pakistan is increasingly becoming a free-fire zone for US gunslingers and CIA hit teams. The Zardari government in Islamabad, well lubricated by secret US “black” payments and stipends, raises few objections.
CIA harbors deep mistrust of Pakistan’s intelligence service, ISI, because it still puts Pakistan’s strategic interests ahead of those of the US.

The Davis affaire is very unfortunate for the United States. At a time when Washington is preaching democracy and rule of law to the Arab world, it is seen in Pakistan to be crassly violating norms of law and diplomacy, simply bribing its way out of trouble with venal Pakistani politicians and officials.

This behavior further undermines the feeble Zardari regime, the house of cards on which the US-led Afghan War rests. Nor did it help this week in Washington when US Afghan commander, Gen. David Petraeus, asserted there were less than 100 al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

CIA chief Leon Panetta had previously told the US Congress there were no more than 50 al-Qaida types left in Afghanistan. So why, one wonders, are there 110,000 US troops and another 40,000 NATO troops there? Could it be some other reason?

Davis should never have been allowed to Rambo around Islamabad, armed and dangerous, in a cowboy shirt. Who is running US policy in Pakistan?

http://www.pakistankakhudahafiz.com/2011/03/27/cia-rambo-escapes-pakistan/

Luke 17:7-10 (King James Version)

"But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat?

And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink?

Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not.

So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do."

The Tudors - Anne Boleyn

Thousands of Christians Displaced in Ethiopia After Muslim Extremists Torch Churches, Homes

Thousands of Christians have been forced to flee their homes in Western Ethiopia after Muslim extremists set fire to roughly 50 churches and dozens of Christian homes.

At least one Christian has been killed, many more have been injured and anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000 have been displaced in the attacks that began March 2 after a Christian in the community of Asendabo was accused of desecrating the Koran.

The violence escalated to the point that federal police forces sent to the area two weeks ago were initially overwhelmed by the mobs. Government spokesman Shimelis Kemal told Voice of America police reinforcements had since restored order and 130 suspects had been arrested and charged with instigating religious hatred and violence.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said the Islamist group Kawarja is believed to have incited the violence.

"We believe there are elements of the Kawarja sect and other extremists who have been preaching religious intolerance in the area,” he said at a Saturday press conference. “In previous times, we have cracked down on Kawarja because they were involved in violence. Since then they have changed their tactics and they have been able to camouflage their activities through legal channels."

The string of attacks comes on the heels of several reports of growing anti-Christian tension and violence around the country where Muslims make up roughly one-third of the total population but more than 90 percent of the population in certain areas, 2007 Census data shows.

One of those areas is Besheno where, on November 9, all the Christians in the city woke up to find notes on their doors warning them to convert to Islam, leave the city or face death, a Christian from Besheno told FoxNews.com on condition of anonymity.

“Under the Ethiopian constitution we are supposed to have freedom of religion, but Muslim leaders in our town don’t allow us that right,” the source said.

Later that month three Christians in Besheno were assaulted in religiously-motivated attacks and three others were forced to flee the city after being told that Muslim leaders had commissioned hit men to kill them, one of the exiled Christians told FoxNews.com.

“We were told by some Muslims that live in the city that there was already a plan to kill us and that the people who were assigned to kill us had already come from another city to do it.”

A witness to the three attacks was then assaulted in January after testifying about them in court, International Christian Concern (ICC), an organization that aims to fight Christian persecution, reported.

In the southern town of Moyale, a Christian was sentenced to three years in prison in November for allegedly writing "Jesus is the Lord" in a copy of the Koran, Compass Direct News reported. Christians from the area told the website he had actually written the phrase on a piece of cloth.

Sources also told Compass authorities had offered to release the man, Tamirat Woldegorgis, if he would convert to Islam, but he refused.

Additionally, two of his friends were fined for visiting him in prison and taking him food, Compass Direct reported.

And in Oma Village on February 26 a Muslim mob with rocks and rods assaulted and wounded 17 Christian college students who were distributing Bibles during a mission trip, ICC reported.

The mob overwhelmed government security forces that attempted to protect the students, but the students eventually fled, the ICC website said.

"The violence against Christians in Ethiopia is alarming because Ethiopian Muslims and Christians used to live together peacefully. Besides, it’s extremely disconcerting that in Ethiopia, where Christians are the majority, they are also the victims of persecution," Jonathan Racho, ICC's Regional Manager of Africa and South Asia, told FoxNews.com.

Meles said that the government is doing everything it can to stop religious violence.

"We knew that they were peddling this ideology of intolerance, but it was not possible for us to stop them administratively because they are within their rights," he said. "If we can find some association between what they are doing by way of preaching and what happened by way of violence, then of course we can take them to court."

Racho, originally from Ethiopia, said the fact that the government waited a full week before sending troops to Asendabo shows that it’s not doing enough. Going forward, he said he hopes the government "will take measures to ensure that such attacks will not happen in the future," including bringing all responsible parties to justice to show this will not be tolerated.

"The Ethiopian government has arrested around 130 of the perpetrators, and we hope they will be prosecuted according to the law."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03/24/thousands-christians-displaced-ethiopia-muslim-extremists-torch-churches-homes-2057387870/#ixzz1HtKBGxk3

Libya: bishop renews call for end of bombing

The apostolic vicar of Tripoli has renewed his criticism of military intervention in Libya and called upon the international community to “allow room” for the African Union’s attempt at mediation.

“I have trust in African wisdom to resolve the crisis,” said Bishop Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli. “The Europeans delude themselves that they can resolve this matter with bombs. We need to allow room for mediation by the African Union.”

“We are surviving,” he said as he commented on the bombing. “What worries me is the situation of African refugees, who continue to knock on our doors, hoping that the Church can help them get to Europe. But this is not our task.”

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

• “I have trust in African wisdom,” says Apostolic Vicar of Tripoli; a ship of refugees bound for Italy turned back (Fides)
• African Union to host delegates for Gadhafi, rebels (Globe and Mail)
• Libya: bishop calls for truce (CWN, 3/24)

http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=9730

Children in the Warsaw Ghetto

For Love of Country

NATO: America's Imperial Tool

In 1999, Nobel laureate Harold Pinter called America's bombing and dismemberment of Yugoslavia "barbaric (and despicable), another blatant and brutal assertion of US power using NATO as its missile (to consolidate) American domination of Europe."

Against Iraq and Afghanistan it's to dominate Eurasia, and against Libya for greater regional hegemony, including resource control, privatization of state industries, new Pentagon bases for future imperial wars, and deterring any democratic spark from emerging.

Obama lied saying:

"United States forces are conducting a limited and well-defined mission in support of international efforts to protect civilians and prevent a humanitarian disaster."

In fact, he caused a humanitarian crisis by killing civilians, the situation worsening daily as deaths and destruction increase.

"We will seek a rapid, but responsible, transition of operations to coalition, regional, or international organizations that are postured to continue activities as may be necessary to realize (stated) objectives," he added.

False.

Giving NATO operational no-fly command is a ruse. NATO is the Pentagon, America's missile to reign death and destruction on targeted nations directly or through proxies. Washington planned, orchestrated and leads naked aggression on Libya. The announced handover changes nothing. European allies are more pawns than partners. They mostly go along to get along.

America remains in charge for what promises to be a protracted, destructive, expensive war to replace one despot with another. Like Iraq and Afghanistan, it'll likely cost billions of dollars at a time homeland needs are neglected to hand America's wealth to Wall Street, other corporate favorites, and militarists for endless wars - lawless naked aggression each time.

Moreover, humanitarian intervention is cover for mass killing and destruction. The more the better to assure corporate crooks huge contracts to rebuild, then on to the next war, and the next one, ad infinitum, America's addiction, the major media its cheerleading chorus.

NATO, An Alliance for War, not Peace

Established in April 1949, NATO calls itself a "political and military alliance for peace and security." In fact, it was more for offense than defense. Cold War hysteria was contrived to incite fear and assure an arms race for corporate enrichment. Napoleon once said, "Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self-interest."

Until the Soviet Union dissolved, communism was the alleged enemy. Today it's terrorism, as bogus now as then. Both, however, were used for hugely profitable imperial wars from Korea to Libya to numerous proxy ones, as well as trillions of dollars for military readiness - in fact, scandalous amounts in America without enemies for justification since WW II.

Strategically intervening under US control, NATO, in fact, threatens world peace and human survival. In November 2010, Robert Griffiths, general secretary of Britain's Communist Party (CPB) said:

Under NATO, "(a) global military and reconnaissance infrastructure is being created to support US, British and western European big business interests, especially energy, financial and armaments monopolies." What began "as a cold war provocation against a non-existent Soviet threat (now) invent(s) or exaggerat(es) threats from so-called failed or rogue states, Islamic fundamentalism and cyber-terrorism."

Petre Ignat, general secretary of the New Communist Party of Romania, called for NATO's disbandment, saying:

"We cannot and will not recognize such a murderous alliance, with such a horrible track record....which includes the murder of thousands of innocent civilians in places like Bosnia, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. We cannot and will not recognize an alliance which, through its aggressive policy of expanding East and setting up new military bases there, through its gross interference in other countries' internal affairs, through its gross violation of international law, can only increase the likelihood of an inter-imperialist war between Western imperialism and emerging capitalist powers, like Russia."

Its original member countries include America, the five (1948) Treaty of Brussels states (Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg), Canada, Portugal, Italy, Denmark and Iceland. It's now expanded to 28 states and dozens of partners, threatening world peace and stability.

Membership, however, is a bonanza for Western and Israeli weapons industries as current members and entering states must maintain modern arsenals to state-of-the art readiness, despite no enemies except ones Washington creates to wage wars.

On April 4, 2009, NATO's 60th anniversary, a major international demonstration was held in Strasbourg, France under the slogan, "No to War - No to NATO." Participating organizations included peace groups, global justice movements, trade unions, students, and others against NATO's aggressive military and nuclear policies.

Rather than providing security, NATO has been an obstacle to world peace. In a public statement, the Strasbourg coalition said:

NATO "is a vehicle for US-led use of force with military bases on all continents, bypassing the United Nations and the system of international law, accelerating militarization and escalating arms expenditures."

Its member countries account for up to 80% of all purchases, used for imperial wars called "humanitarian intervention."

"To achieve our vision of a peaceful world, we reject military responses to global and regional crises," real or contrived. "We refuse to live under the terror of nuclear weapons, and reject a new arms race." World security depends on peaceful cooperation and coexistence, impossible to achieve under NATO.

Today, bogus threats are used to justify its existence, including "terrorism," instability, arms trafficking, and proliferation of ballistic missiles, nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, mostly in Western and Russian arsenals.

Moreover, new justifications are exploited, NATO citing:

"Key environmental and resource constraints, including health risks, climate change, water scarcity and increasing energy needs (that) further shape the future security environment in areas of concern to (member states) and have the potential to affect significantly (their) planning and operations."

In addition, other areas, including the "ability to prevent, detect, defend against and recover from cyber-attacks (and) assessing the impact of emerging security technologies."

At the same time, NATO pays lip service to "creating the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons" when, in fact, members like America proliferate them. Hypocritically it then states, "As long as there are nuclear weapons in the world, NATO will remain a nuclear power" because Washington, Britain and France won't abandon them.

Rick Rozoff runs the Stop Nato web site:

"an international email news list that examines, from an adversarial position, the expansion of (NATO) and affiliated and allied military blocs into and throughout Europe, the Mediterranean, the Caucasus, Central and South Asia, East Asia and the Pacific, Africa, the so-called Greater Middle East and beyond."

As explained above, he calls NATO "the first attempt in history to establish an aggressive global military formation," comprising one-third of world nations as members or partners on five continents. Stop NATO's purpose is "anti-militarist, international and internationalist." The ultimate aim is survival.

NATO wars, in fact, are America's for greater reach. Against Libya it's to control the only North African Mediterranean state outside its partnership, and only one of five African states not under AFRICOM.

Replacing Gaddafi with a subservient puppet will assure its entry, giving Washington unchallenged Mediterranean Basin dominance, a strategically important waterway bordering three continents. Securing control over Iran, Syria and Lebanon successfully will achieve overall regional hegemony.

NATO's European dominance and eastward expansion especially threatens Russia. Its new Military Doctrine listed "main external threats of war" concerns, including:

-- NATO's global expansion, including to Russia's borders;

-- destabilizing nations and regions;

-- deploying foreign forces on territories and adjacent waters bordering Russia and its allies;

-- deploying offensive strategic missile systems targeting Russia;

-- militarizing space;

-- deploying strategic non-nuclear precision weapons;

-- interfering in the internal affairs of Russia and its allies;

-- proliferating weapons of mass destruction, including missiles, related technology, and nuclear weapons;

-- violating international agreements;

-- not ratifying and implementing others on arms limitations and reductions; and

-- escalating armed conflicts and using military force in areas bordering Russia and its allies.

As a result, at the February 2010 Munich Conference, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said:

After the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact dissolved, "a real opportunity emerged to make the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) a full-fledged organization providing equal security for all states of the Euro-Atlantic area. However, the opportunity was missed, because the choice was made in favor" of expanding NATO eastward, threatening Russia and its allies.

For example, Yugoslavia's 1999 bombing violated international law and NATO's charter "when a group of OSCE countries....committed aggression against another OSCE country." Again in August 2008 in the Georgian - South Ossetian conflict "in violation of the Helsinki Final Act," prohibiting use of force. US-led NATO, in fact, proliferates it globally, Libya its latest adventure, threatening the entire region and beyond.

A Final Comment

It's no exaggeration calling NATO a global menace, waging war, not peace. It should be abolished, dismantled, not expanded. Today, it reserves the right to use nuclear weapons unilaterally in violation of the 1996 International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling stating:

"....the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable to armed conflict, and in particular the principles of humanitarian law," despite no "comprehensive and universal prohibition."

Operating lawlessly and recklessly as America's "missile," NATO threatens world peace, stability, security and survival. Disbanding it is more important than ever. Besides millions of Iraqi and Afghan victims, how many Libyan deaths are needed to prove it.

By Stephen Lendman

http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2011/03/27/nato-america-s-imperial-tool