by Steven Ertelt | LifeNews.com | 12/16/14 1:13 PM

Australia was rocked by a rare episode of terrorism on Tuesday, when a tense hostage siege in Sydney came to an end after police rescued hostages from a tenuous situation. As the world follows the fallout of the horrific event, stories of courage are emerging.

Tori Johnson, 34, and Katrina Dawson, 38 below right, were killed during the terrorist siege at Sydney’s Lindt cafe on Monday. Johnson, the cafe manager of two years, tried to wrestle the gun from the hostage-taker before he was shot. And Johnson was actually protecting two people — Dawson, 38, whose children are all under ten, was an attorney in Sydney’s central business district opposite the siege site and died of a heart attack.

Julie Taylor, 38, was getting coffee with Katrina Dawson in the Lindt cafe when Man Haron Monis launched his fatal attack.

One newspaper recounts what happened as she attempted to shield her pregnant friend.

“She had been getting coffee with pregnant Julie Taylor when Man Haron Monis entered the building – and later admirably shielded her friend from bullets,” the paper reported. “It was not clear whether Mrs Dawson was shot or what other injuries, if any, she sustained in the shocking incident.”

“Archbishop Anthony Fisher spoke at a prayer service later on Tuesday of how the two victims were ‘willing to lay down their lives so others might live,” it said.

Here’s more:

Taylor, who is recently married, was pictured fleeing the scene with two others 15 minutes before police opened fire, killing the gunman.

However she later learned that her friend Mrs Dawson, a 38-year-old mother of three, had died, reportedly from a heart attack in hospital.
Ms Taylor lives in east Sydney and is a successful barrister in corporate law at the law firm Eight Selborne. She completed a bachelor of civil law at Magdalen College, Oxford and has appeared before the High Court – one of the youngest women to do so.

She is currently in a stable condition in hospital.

During the siege, Ms Taylor was one of the first hostages chosen by Monis to outline his demands in a 44-second speech posted on YouTube.

“I’m Julie Taylor. I’m a barrister in Sydney. This is a message for Tony Abbott,” she said.

by Kristi Burton Brown | LifeNews.com | 12/10/14 4:41 PM

(LiveActionNews) — With today’s modern technology and medical information, we have a real-time window into the womb. What happens to babies before birth – all the ways they move, grow, and change – is nothing short of amazing.

Here are just 10 things that happen to babies before birth. These 10 things demonstrate their uniqueness, value, and of course, their humanity.

What’s more, each of these 10 things happen in the first trimester – when approximately 90% of abortions in the U.S. occur.

1) “On the first day following fertilization, the human embryo is identifiable as a specific individual human being on a molecular level.”

A South Dakota legislative task force, appointed to examine the science behind unborn life, found that “the new recombinant DNA technologies indisputably prove that the unborn child is a whole human being from the moment of fertilization, that all abortions terminate the life of a living human being, and that the unborn child is a separate human patient under the care of modern medicine.”

2) A Baby’s Heart Begins to Beat at 21 Days.

Here is a video of the baby’s heart beating at four weeks and four days, just a little over a week after it began beating.

According to The Endowment for Human Development, “[b]etween fertilization and birth, the heart beats approximately 54 million times…”

3) At 2 to 3 Weeks, a Baby’s Brain is the “First Organ to Appear.”

4) A Baby May Feel Physical Pain as Early as His Fifth Week.

After examining scientific resources and hearing medical testimony, the South Dakota Task Force found that “(the necessary pieces) for pain detection in the spinal cord exists at very early developmental stages.” Babies have also been documented moving away from unwanted or painful touch in their first few weeks of in utero life.

5) A Baby’s Kidneys are Present at Only 5 Weeks.

In fact, by eight weeks old, all of the baby’s organs are in place and only need to be fully developed.

6) A Baby’s Brainwaves Can be Measured at 6 Weeks Old.

See the brainwaves for yourself here.

7) At 6 Weeks, a Baby Will Move Away if His Mouth is Touched.

The Endowment for Human Development has a video of a six-week-old baby responding to touch here.

8) A Baby’s Ear Can Begin to be Seen Around 6 Weeks.

9) A Baby Has Fingerprints at 9-10 Weeks.

These fingerprints will be the same throughout the baby’s life. His permanent identification is already developing. Watch a video and see an unborn baby’s fingerprints here.

10) A Baby Can Suck Her Thumb and Yawn at 9 1/2 Weeks Old.

According to The Endowment for Human Development, most babies prefer their right thumb. At this age, plenty is going on. A baby’s vocal cords are forming, her bones are hardening, and her toenails and fingernails are emerging. See a video of a ten-week-old baby yawning here.

For more on prenatal development, go here.

by Jill Stanek | LifeNews.com | 12/9/14 1:21 PM

Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards disclosed in Elle in October that she had had an abortion:

I had an abortion. It was the right decision for me and my husband, and it wasn’t a difficult decision. Before becoming president of Planned Parenthood eight years ago, I hadn’t really talked about it beyond family and close friends. But I’m here to say, when politicians argue and shout about abortion, they’re talking about me—and millions of other women around the country.

At the time I thought the “it wasn’t a difficult decision” line was terribly insensitive to Richards’ three surviving children. They certainly know it could have been any one of them who was snuffed, in which case so what, according to their mother?

But we know why Richards had to act blasé. There is a new campaign underway to destigmatize abortion, and to do that abortion has to be portrayed as nothing earth shattering to a woman and not necessarily done for awful reasons, like rape, or a handicapped baby. Explained post-abortive Merritt Tierce in a recent New York Times op ed:

By repeating only the gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, terrifying abortion stories, we protect a lie: that abortion isn’t normal. We have learned to think of abortion with shame and fear. We have accepted the damaging idea that a person who wants an abortion must grovel before the consciences of others…. We have to stop categorizing abortions as justified or unjustified.

Thus, Richards reiterated her abortion was no biggie in a video she made for the “1 in 3″ campaign a couple weeks ago, adding, “[t]oday, I’m telling my story”:

But Richards didn’t tell her story. She gave absolutely no details other than she and her husband were indifferent about killing their baby.

Which leaves so many unanswered questions. How can it be that the premier leader of the abortion/contraception industry got pregnant by mistake? Was she using birth control? What kind of birth control?  When did she get her abortion, before or after she was married? Why? Before, after, or between which child? Did she get her abortion at a Planned Parenthood or go to a private doctor? Did she do it for her career (which would be incredibly ironic)?

And how could Richards travel the country promoting Planned Parenthood and abortion for eight whole years as president and not disclose her own abortion? Wasn’t that living one huge, stinking lie?

The mundaneness by which Richards claimed to have procured her abortion began to show itself differently in an interview she gave to Cosmopolitan, published yesterday, in which she said:

I just talked to my kids the other day, and they knew I’d had an abortion, and they were sort of like, “Mom, it was no big deal,” but I could also tell it was important to them that we talked about it.

That sentence makes no sense. If their mother’s abortion was “no big deal,” it should have not been “important” for the kids to talk about. Clipping one’s fingernails would fall under the category of “no big deal,” in which case kids wouldn’t think it important to discuss.

So what exactly was “important” for Richards and her surviving children to hash through? That they are missing a sibling? That there’s someone to mourn? That they are special to their parents, even if by the luck of the draw they could have been so unspecial as to have been killed – without a second thought?

The problem with Cecile Richards’ abortion is if it truly “wasn’t a difficult decision,” then she is showing heartlessness not just about the death of a child created with the man she loved, then killed in cooperation with him, but also toward their surviving children.

But we know Richards is lying, because it turns out she needed to somehow smooth things over with her children, I’m guessing during the Thanksgiving holiday. She needed to thread a needle of displaying callousness toward the offspring she killed but love toward the offspring she didn’t kill but easily could have – quite a feat, and good luck with that.

How can @CecileRichards show apathy toward the child she killed but love to those she didn’t?

Which makes the latest pro-abortion campaign another impossibility to pull off. If even the president of Planned Parenthood cant do it, no one can.

If Richards were to ever show compassion in any way toward her aborted baby, she would be unlocking a compartment in her consciousness that would begin to unravel everything she stands for.

The thing is, I think Richards already knows all that.

by Jill Stanek | LifeNews.com | 12/9/14 1:21 PM

Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards disclosed in Elle in October that she had had an abortion:

I had an abortion. It was the right decision for me and my husband, and it wasn’t a difficult decision. Before becoming president of Planned Parenthood eight years ago, I hadn’t really talked about it beyond family and close friends. But I’m here to say, when politicians argue and shout about abortion, they’re talking about me—and millions of other women around the country.

At the time I thought the “it wasn’t a difficult decision” line was terribly insensitive to Richards’ three surviving children. They certainly know it could have been any one of them who was snuffed, in which case so what, according to their mother?

But we know why Richards had to act blasé. There is a new campaign underway to destigmatize abortion, and to do that abortion has to be portrayed as nothing earth shattering to a woman and not necessarily done for awful reasons, like rape, or a handicapped baby. Explained post-abortive Merritt Tierce in a recent New York Times op ed:

By repeating only the gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, terrifying abortion stories, we protect a lie: that abortion isn’t normal. We have learned to think of abortion with shame and fear. We have accepted the damaging idea that a person who wants an abortion must grovel before the consciences of others…. We have to stop categorizing abortions as justified or unjustified.

Thus, Richards reiterated her abortion was no biggie in a video she made for the “1 in 3″ campaign a couple weeks ago, adding, “[t]oday, I’m telling my story”:

But Richards didn’t tell her story. She gave absolutely no details other than she and her husband were indifferent about killing their baby.

Which leaves so many unanswered questions. How can it be that the premier leader of the abortion/contraception industry got pregnant by mistake? Was she using birth control? What kind of birth control?  When did she get her abortion, before or after she was married? Why? Before, after, or between which child? Did she get her abortion at a Planned Parenthood or go to a private doctor? Did she do it for her career (which would be incredibly ironic)?

And how could Richards travel the country promoting Planned Parenthood and abortion for eight whole years as president and not disclose her own abortion? Wasn’t that living one huge, stinking lie?

The mundaneness by which Richards claimed to have procured her abortion began to show itself differently in an interview she gave to Cosmopolitan, published yesterday, in which she said:

I just talked to my kids the other day, and they knew I’d had an abortion, and they were sort of like, “Mom, it was no big deal,” but I could also tell it was important to them that we talked about it.

That sentence makes no sense. If their mother’s abortion was “no big deal,” it should have not been “important” for the kids to talk about. Clipping one’s fingernails would fall under the category of “no big deal,” in which case kids wouldn’t think it important to discuss.

So what exactly was “important” for Richards and her surviving children to hash through? That they are missing a sibling? That there’s someone to mourn? That they are special to their parents, even if by the luck of the draw they could have been so unspecial as to have been killed – without a second thought?

The problem with Cecile Richards’ abortion is if it truly “wasn’t a difficult decision,” then she is showing heartlessness not just about the death of a child created with the man she loved, then killed in cooperation with him, but also toward their surviving children.

But we know Richards is lying, because it turns out she needed to somehow smooth things over with her children, I’m guessing during the Thanksgiving holiday. She needed to thread a needle of displaying callousness toward the offspring she killed but love toward the offspring she didn’t kill but easily could have – quite a feat, and good luck with that.

How can @CecileRichards show apathy toward the child she killed but love to those she didn’t?

Which makes the latest pro-abortion campaign another impossibility to pull off. If even the president of Planned Parenthood cant do it, no one can.

If Richards were to ever show compassion in any way toward her aborted baby, she would be unlocking a compartment in her consciousness that would begin to unravel everything she stands for.

The thing is, I think Richards already knows all that.