Late Thursday night, the North Carolina state Senate passed a pro-life omnibus bill that would stop abortions by helping pregnant women and stopping taxpayer financed abortions.

Today, Governor Pat McCrory has signed the bill into law.

The State Senate concurred by a vote of 32-13 with the State House, on SB 353, Health and Safety Law Changes. The State House worked with the Governor and his Department of Health and Human Services to reach an agreement for a compromise bill that accomplished pro-life goals in a way the governor would sign into law.

SB 353 addresses concerns about the administration of abortion inducing drugs and rules for abortion facilities, North Carolina Right to Life informs LifeNews. The pro-life provisions that were left intact after the compromise are: the opt out for abortion in the federal exchange and the city and county employee health plans, as well as the sex selection and web cam abortion bans.

“Thousands of unborn children’s lives will be protected from abortion,” stated Barbara Holt, President of North Carolina Right to Life, “by preventing the expansion of tax payer funded abortion through the federal exchange. By passing this legislation, our state has also demonstrated that it will not tolerate unborn babies being aborted just because they are the wrong sex or doctors being miles away from the patient when they administer drugs that kill the unborn baby and can harm the child’s mother.”

Governor Pat McCrory stated in a press conference prior to the State House passing SB 353 that he would sign the bill when it comes to his desk.

“North Carolina and the citizens of this state are pleased that Governor McCrory has said he will sign the bill into law; we look forward to the new law protecting unborn babies and their mothers,” said Holt.

The measure would prohibit sex selection abortions which 76% of North Carolinians support (Civitas March 2013 poll) and 85% of Americans support (Polling Company April 2013 poll). Some six states have already banned sex-selection abortions.

The bill includes an opt-out of abortion in the federal exchange and the city and county employee health plan except for the life of the mother and in cases of rape and incest. An April 2011 CNN poll found 61% oppose public funding for abortion, consistent with other poll done by other groups and 22 other states have stopped abortion funding under the Obamacare exchange.

The measure would require abortionists to be physically present to prevent web cam abortions and the misuse of abortion inducing drugs.

North Carolina joins Virginia, South Carolina, and Tennessee, as well as 19 other states, by opting out of abortion in the federal exchange; 14 states , by banning “web cam” abortions; and 6 states, by prohibiting sex selection abortions.

An abortion clinic in the state was shut down this month for posing problems for women’s health. Last month, North Carolina officials allowed a southeast Charlotte abortion clinic to reopen, but vow they will closely monitor operations at A Preferred Woman’s Health Center. The abortion clinic was shut down in early May, the second time the clinic has lost its license.

The first occasion was in February 2007, when, as the Charlotte Observer reported, “state investigators found as many as 16 safety and regulatory issues at the clinic, according to a letter DHHS sent the clinic.”

More recently, investigators found that staffers were administering methotrexate (an abortifacient) in liquid form. The regimen requires that methotrexate be injected or taken in pill form.

Lila Rose of Live Action has had enough and her pro-life group has started a new campaign, March on the Media, to combat the epidemic of pro-abortion bias when it comes to reporting on abortion issues.

The campaign comes after a new report showed the big television networks gave Texas abortion advocate three times more coverage than they gave to the trial of abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell, who killed babies born alive after abortions.

“Like it or not, the major news networks have huge influence in our country,” said Lila Rose, president of Live Action, in a statement today.

“Millions of Americans get a sense of the world through national filters like ABC, CBS, and NBC. So it’s inexcusable when these networks, in whom so much public trust is invested, refuse to report the facts on one of the most pressing human rights issues of our time,” she said.

Rose added: “The media has flinched from the reality of abortion for decades, but the degree to which they mischaracterize and whitewash this issue has become egregious lately. How can you go on about a senator’s sneakers and completely ignore the reason you’re talking about those shoes in the first place: because she’s championing a procedure that literally tears helpless children to pieces and puts women’s lives and health in extreme danger?”

She condemned the “rampant bias, censorship, and suppression in how America’s major news networks cover abortion.”

Live Action unveiled a new March on the Media web site that urges pro-life advocates to take an active role in responding to media bias.

The web site contains a petition that reads:

I call on the United States’ major distributors of news and information to do their jobs.

A press that censors what abortion actually does to babies – dismemberment, poison shots through the skull, asphyxiation – and that censors and suppresses scientific information on fetal development (pain capability, heartbeat, biological humanity), is not objectively reporting the facts of abortion.

A press that lionizes abortion advocates and recites their slogans, while ignoring Kermit Gosnell’s severing of born children’s spines, is not objectively reporting the facts of abortion.

A press that buries the rampant abuses and dangers to women inherent in our nation’s vast and unregulated abortion industry, while claiming to report on women’s health, is not objectively reporting the facts of abortion.

To ABC, NBC, and CBS: Stop the abortion censorship. Stop flinching from the facts of the abortion debate. Stop the information suppression. Every day, America’s abortion industry kills thousands and wounds thousands more. It’s time to tell the truth.

“The media has flinched from the reality of abortion for decades,” Rose said, “but the degree to which they mischaracterize and whitewash this issue has become egregious lately. How can you go on about a senator’s sneakers and completely ignore the reason you’re talking about those shoes in the first place: because she’s championing a procedure that literally tears helpless children to pieces and puts women’s lives and health in extreme danger?”

Rose says she wants to point the media in a new direction. “A change is long overdue for our big news distributors,” she said. “It’s time for these networks to end their blackout of the truth on abortion – how it irreparably harms women, babies, and society.

“The abortion-friendly reporters and executives in New York and Washington will not come to terms with this fact unless we bring it to their door,” Rose said. “So that’s what we’re doing.”

NARAL Pro-Choice America, formerly known as the National Abortion Rights Action League, appears concerned it may be losing the battle to depict a 20-week abortion ban as “extreme.” The group expressed outrage that a host on NBC, a network usually sympathetic to abortion rights advocates, implied the 20-week ban is “reasonable.”

“Is it not reasonable to put late-term restrictions on abortion … ?” David Gregory of “Meet the Press” asked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on July 14.

Gregory pressed Reid twice more, repeatedly using the word “reasonable,” after Reid continued to dodge the question. Reid promised to “look at” the legislation, but also called it a “fringe issue.”

NARAL is now asking its supporters to email NBC to express their disappointment in Gregory’s use of the phrase “reasonable” to describe the 20-week abortion ban.

“Your depiction of 20-week abortion bans as ‘reasonable’ is misleading – and is exactly how anti-choice groups want these bans to be characterized,” NARAL wrote.

Most Americans believe a ban on abortions after the fetus is 20-weeks old is reasonable. A majority would even ban all second and third trimester abortions, which begin at 16 weeks.

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A recent HuffPost / YouGov poll showed 59 percent of Americans support the 20-week abortion ban. Only 30 percent were opposed. A Gallup poll conducted last year showed 64 percent of Americans support banning abortions in the second trimester and 80 percent support banning them in the third trimester. A 2011 Gallup poll showed that even a majority of those who describe themselves as “pro-choice,” those who NARAL ostensibly represents, believe that abortion should be illegal in the second trimester.

Restricting the abortion of fetuses even younger than 20-weeks is considered reasonable around the globe, even when looking at Western Europe, one of the most liberal areas on the planet.

According to worldabortionlaws.com, a Center for Reproductive Rights website: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Spain and Sweden have a 14-week ban; Italy has a 90-day ban; Portugal has a 10-week ban; Netherlands does not allow abortions after the age at which fetuses are viable outside the womb, which it calculated to be 21 weeks, but will allow abortions up to 24 weeks for medical emergencies; And Ireland has a near total ban, only allowing abortions to save the life of the mother.

NARAL seemed to suggest that what makes the 20-week ban “unreasonable” is that it would make it more difficult to abort fetuses with abnormalities, such as Down syndrome.

“Most states already have laws that address post-viability abortion,” NARAL wrote. “If you were to ask a woman who received a heart-breaking diagnosis dramatically affecting her pregnancy at 20 weeks forcing her to make an extremely difficult decision, surely she would disagree that such a ban is ‘reasonable.'”

Preacher and author John Piper responded to the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of black teen Trayvon Martin in Florida, saying the court’s verdict will not save Zimmerman from his real guilt of sin for his actions.

“Christians, who have a high view of the Bible and high view of God’s justice, and that Jesus Christ is going to be the judge of all people someday have a very important message because justice will be done,” Piper said in an interview posted on DesiringGod.org.

“Either the sins of George Zimmerman will be on Jesus on the cross because George Zimmerman has humbled himself, repented of his sin, trusted in Jesus, and made Him his Lord and Savior by faith, or he will suffer in hell, forever, for all of his sins, including these – that’s the choice in front of all of us,” added Piper, who retired earlier this year from Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minn.

Last week, a jury of six women acquitted neighborhood watch volunteer Zimmerman of second-degree murder and manslaughter. In February 2012, Zimmerman, whose parents are white and Hispanic, shot 17-year-old Martin. Many believed the killing was racially motivated, but Zimmerman said the shooting was in self-defense.

Piper was interviewed about a question and answer session at the Campus Outreach Global Staff Conference in Orlando, where a group of African American ministry leaders asked him why he chose not to respond to the issue.

The theologian said he didn’t respond earlier “because I didn’t know what to say… I was perplexed.”

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He went on to say that America had historically seen “disproportionate finding of guilt for blacks and less guilt for whites.”

However, Piper added that Christians needed to ask the deeper question that asks, “Where is all of this coming from in our world? Where is it all going to lead?” He added God wants to go down to the place where all of our sins, whether it is racism or pride, start, and to sever the root with faith in the finished work of Christ.

In March, Piper wrote on his blog, “Zimmerman is a hundred pounds bigger and ten years older. He had the gun, not Martin. Reportedly he has been arrested before on assault charges. As he was following Martin in his truck, he called 911 and was told ‘we don’t need you to do that.’ The police were on the way. But Zimmerman followed him anyway. His comments on the 911 recording (I listened to them) suggested possible racial frustration that ‘they always get away.’ Martin’s call to his girlfriend suggested he was troubled by being followed. Not all the witnesses corroborate Zimmerman’s story.”

In the article, Piper said race plays a huge role in our society even today, noting that it is also an issue central to biblical salvation. In the New Testament there were incidents “constantly revolving around ethnic realities,” he said.

During a question and answer session at a North Carolina ministry conference in March, Piper said the church needed to continually discuss issues related to racism. “Stay at the table when the conversation is happening, which means for the rest of your life,” he said. “The most sad development is to watch people make an attempt in racial harmony, get hurt, and walk away.”

And last March, Piper, along with Pastor Tim Keller and Dr. Anthony Bradley, participated in a discussion on race and the Gospel in New York City. In his talk, Piper characterized racism as a “history-long, global problem” that could only be explained by the biblical narrative of sin and the Fall.

The sin of pride, Piper said, causes humans to find satisfaction in themselves rather than in God, providing the basis for racism. “That is because humans are in rebellion against God. That’s where that comes from. Exalting ourselves over our maker and of course, if over our maker, over each other. That’s a given,” he said.

In November 2011, Piper said he was once “racist to the core” and a born-again Christian at the same time. But thankfully, he added, “God had mercy on this teenage racist who little by little was awakened to something beautiful – namely racial diversity – and to something horrible – namely my own sin – and to repentance as an ongoing way of life.”

Governor Rick Perry of Texas today signed the ban on late-term abortions into law at a bill signing ceremony. The signing came after weeks of debate in the state legislature and passage of the bill despite an unruly pro-abortion mob.

“Today’s signing builds on our continued commitment to protecting life for more than a decade. This is an important day for those who support life and the health of women in Texas,” Perry said. “Signing HB2 further solidifies the foundation on which the culture of in Texas is built.”

“HB2 brings improvements to the quality of care women receive,” Perry added. “HB2 protects unborn babies after the fifth month of pregnancy.”requires a doctor providing abortions to secure admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, and lastly, requires a doctor to personally administer the abortion-inducing drugs to the patient.

After a day filled with pro-abortion threats, pro-life people hiding in secure areas of the capitol fearing for their safety and protestors disrupting the Senate proceedings, democracy finally prevailed. Members of the state Senate approved the bill to ban late-term abortions on a 19-11 margin on second reading. The chamber then approved the bill in third reading by the same 19-11 vote.

Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, issued the following statement today in support of Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s signing

“Governor Rick Perry and the Texas legislature have done what they were elected to do, that is, safeguard the well-being of Texans. The new law Governor Perry signs today will advance the protection of women from the unscrupulous practices of abortionists, and the protection of children from the deadly weapons of those same abortionists. Those who were so vociferous in their opposition to this law are on the wrong side of morality and of history,” he told LifeNews.

He added: “We at Priests for Life will continue to expose the horrors committed by Texas abortionists like Douglas Karpen. This law will make that task much easier.”

Leading pro-life activists from Texas Right to Life and former Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson attended the ceremony and tweeted pictures from it.

 

 

After the House voted, Perry issued a statement saying: “The tremendous outpouring of support for this legislation has demonstrated how Texas stands for life, and I commend everyone who wore blue, turned out and spoke up in support of life in our state. Now is not the time to waver, however, as the Senate continues its important work in support of women’s health and protecting the lives of our most vulnerable Texans.”

Perry issued a call for a special session of the Texas legislature to pass the bill that a pro-abortion mob prevented the legislature from passing last week.“I am calling the Legislature back into session because too much important work remains undone for the people of Texas. Through their duly elected representatives, the citizens of our state have made crystal clear their priorities for our great state,” Perry said.

“Texans value life and want to protect women and the unborn. Texans want a transportation system that keeps them moving. Texans want a court system that is fair and just. We will not allow the breakdown of decorum and decency to prevent us from doing what the people of this state hired us to do.”

The last attempt to pass the bill was halted in the state Senate with a pro-abortion filibuster but state Sen. Wendy Davis said she would not filibuster the bill a second time.

A recent national poll by The Polling Company found that, after being informed that there is scientific evidence that unborn children are capable of feeling pain at least by 20 weeks, 64% would support a law banning abortion after 20 weeks, unless the mother’s life was in danger. Only 30% said they would oppose such a law. Polling from Texas also shows support for the legislation.

Even a Huffington Post poll found a majority of Americans support banning late abortions — on a 2-1 margin.

The bill relies on the science of fetal pain to establish a Constitutional reason for Congress to ban abortions late in pregnancy.

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.

“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.

Dr. Colleen A. Malloy, Assistant Professor, Division of Neonatology at Northwestern University in her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in May 2012 said, “[w]hen we speak of infants at 22 weeks LMP [Note: this is 20 weeks post fertilization], for example, we no longer have to rely solely on inferences or ultrasound imagery, because such premature patients are kicking, moving, reacting, and developing right before our eyes in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.”

“In today’s medical arena, we resuscitate patients at this age and are able to witness their ex-utero growth and development. Medical advancement and technology have enabled us to improve our ability to care for these infants…In fact, standard of care for neonatal intensive care units requires attention to and treatment of neonatal pain,” Dr. Malloy testified.

She continued, “[t]hus, the difference between fetal and neonatal pain is simply the locale in which the pain occurs. The receiver’s experience of the pain is the same. I could never imagine subjecting my tiny patients to horrific procedures such as those that involve limb detachment or cardiac injection.”

This week, a pro-abortion activist had to be removed from a hearing and another read a disgusting poem to legislators equating her vagina to a gun.

The protesters at the Texas capitol have exploited children by making them hold signs supporting their protest against a ban on late-term abortions. Today the Internet is abuzz with shock and disgust over another sign, along with a video showing abortion activists chanting Hail Satan.

Meanwhile, a little girl is shown in a picture along with pro-abortion protestors holding a sign saying, “If I wanted the government in my womb, I’d f— a senator.”