- The Social Footprints of Contraception
The Church's teaching on sexuality that lies behind its teaching that contraception is intrinsically immoral is dazzlingly beautiful.
Many people whose understanding has been clouded by the corruption of our culture have difficulty understanding it.
09/ 04/08 - Teen Sex? Please Do! - Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood, the billion dollar corporate abortion mill, has taken indecency to a whole new level and is using your taxpayer dollars to do so.
09/ 03/08 - Johnny's Got a New Girl
The risk John McCain took last Friday is comparable to the 72-year-old ex-fighter pilot knocking back two shots and flying his A-4 under the Golden Gate Bridge.
McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his co-pilot was the biggest gamble in presidential history. As of now, it is paying off, big-time.
09/ 03/08 - A Chicken in Every Pot and the Pill on Every Nightstand
During my last pregnancy, I qualified for excellent, free state medical insurance because of our lower income. My husband is in graduate school for a while. This insurance coverage is part of the state's healthy start program for pregnant women and young kids.
09/ 02/08 - Who is Govenor Sarah Palin?
Women and Men across America are cheering the VP pick of John McCain. Here a look at who she is...
08/ 31/08 - PELOSI DENIES CATHOLICISM OPPOSES ABORTION
When asked about when life begins Pelosi answered "...what I know is, over the centuries, the doctors of the Church have not been able to make that definition.”
08/ 26/08 - Planned Parenthood Abortion Center Closes Instead of Following New Law
Monday was the first day that Planned Parenthood, which operates the only abortion business in South Dakota, had to comply with a new state law telling women the truth about abortion. Rather than tell women abortion kills children and has numerous risks, Planned Parenthood closed its doors.
07/ 22/08 - Planned Parenthood Needs More Scrutiny
Last year, Planned Parenthood performed more than 250,000 abortions, which account for about 1 in 5 of our country's total. Of all abortions, those performed for black women accounted for about a third of the procedures. It's also worth noting that a majority of Planned Parenthood's clinics are in minority neighborhoods.
07/ 15/08 - Black pro-lifers to ask NAACP to oppose taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood
Day Gardner: Planned Parenthood has basically bought off Barack Obama
07/ 15/08 - Black Pro-Lifers Demand Parties Refuse Planned Parenthood Funding
Democratic and Republican candidates must reject donations from Planned Parenthood this election year, and Congress should end all federal funding for the abortion provider, according to black pro-life leaders who held two press conferences last week in Washington, D.C., at Democratic and Republican Party Committee headquarters.
07/ 03/08 - Your Tax Money at Work Funding Abortions
For the last few decades, evangelicals repeatedly have mobilized and demonstrated to oppose the operation of abortion clinics. Over the years, many have believed that being anti-abortion had become a litmus test for their support of politicians and policies, which vie for evangelical votes.
07/ 03/08 - Inconvenient Truth for MSM: Black Ministers March Against Planned Parenthood
Exit poll after exit poll in election after election shows the Democratic Party is staunchly supported by an overwhelming majority of African-American voters, many of whom are much more socially conservative on issues like abortion than their party leadership.
07/ 03/08 - Candidates warned against Planned Parenthood money
Corporation's willingness to accept race-based contributions cited
07/ 02/08 - From our friends at KFL
Press release from Kansas for Life
06/ 27/08 - Planned Parenthood: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing?
During the last few years, everyone in the nation has come to understand that things are not always the way they appear with individuals or organizations. While all of us struggle to live up to our ideals, some groups live permanently in the land of personal or professional compromise.
06/ 23/08
Story published: Monday, Mar. 03, 2008
Grand jury ends investigation without indictments
Diane Carroll
Special to The Olathe News
A Johnson County grand jury wrapped up its three-month investigation of Planned Parenthood’s Overland Park clinic Monday without issuing any indictments.
At a hastily called late-afternoon court hearing, the grand jury’s special counsel told District Judge Kevin Moriarty that the 15-member panel had examined all the medical information before it and saw no need to request further abortion records. In addition, retired Judge Larry McClain said, the grand jurors voted unanimously to withdraw their earlier subpoena for medical records.
The president of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri said he was “enormously pleased” with the outcome.
“That affirms our contention throughout that we’ve had nothing to fear from this investigation,” said Peter Brownlie, who attended the hearing with two of his attorneys.
Two leaders of the petition drive that called for the grand jury investigation said they were disappointed but not surprised.
“We put the full blame on Judge Moriarty and the special counsel,” said petition drive spokesman Tim Golba of Lenexa.
The grand jury, which was seated Dec. 10, issued a subpoena Jan. 7 for the medical records of 16 women who had abortions in 2003. Planned Parenthood filed a motion soon afterward to quash it. Since then, District Attorney Phill Kline has been fighting to have the subpoena enforced.
But Friday, Moriarty agreed to a plan worked out between the grand jury and its special counsel and Planned Parenthood. Under the plan, Planned Parenthood turned over the medical records of the 16 women to the judge, along with a spreadsheet Planned Parenthood created with the pertinent information requested by the grand jury.
Moriarty verified that the information in the records matched the information in the spreadsheet and turned the spreadsheet over to the grand jury.
Golba and Judy Smith of Leawood, another grand jury organizer, said they thought Moriarty should have ruled on Planned Parenthood’s motion to quash the subpoena. That would have allowed the matter to be appealed to the Kansas Supreme Court, where it could have been litigated further, they said.
“For Judge Moriarty to insert himself into this process acting as the gatekeeper and them not seeing the records was very surprising to me — shocking actually,” said Smith, Kansas director of Concerned Women for America. “But having said that, we wanted a jury and we got the jury and we’re glad for that.” Moriarty said at Friday’s hearing that the easiest thing for him would have been to rule on the subpoena because then it would have been out of his hands.
Instead, he said, he chose to provide the grand jury with the information it wanted. Turning it over in a timely fashion, he said, allowed the grand jury to complete its work.
State law limits the length of a grand jury to three months. The grand jury’s deadline was Monday. Moriarty had the authority to extend it 30 days. But if the case had gone to the state Supreme Court, Moriarty said, he does not think it would have been resolved within another three-month period.
The grand jury met most of Monday afternoon, presumably reviewing the spreadsheet. Deputy District Attorney Stephen Maxwell, who attended Monday’s hearing with Assistant District Attorney John Christopher Pryor, declined to comment afterward, and a spokesman for Kline could not be reached.
Kline’s office argued all along for the enforcement of the grand jury’s subpoena, which would have provided more information than jurors ultimately received.
In a recent motion, Kline’s office argued that the subpoena should be enforced because a Shawnee County district judge thought there were problems with abortion records Planned Parenthood provided to Kline in 2004 while he was attorney general. That judge testified recently that he thought that former Attorney General Paul Morrison should not have cleared Planned Parenthood of criminal wrongdoing last June.
Still pending is a 107-count criminal complaint that Kline filed against Planned Parenthood last fall. The complaint accuses Planned Parenthood’s Comprehensive Health Clinic of providing illegal late-term abortions in 2003 and of forging, falsifying and failing to maintain abortion-related records. A preliminary hearing is scheduled in that case in early April.
During Monday’s hearing, none of the grand jurors chose to speak or to comment afterward. McClain told Moriarty that the grand jurors planned to write a report on their work.
The petition asked that the grand jury investigate Planned Parenthood in seven areas of abortion law. Court documents indicated that the grand jury focused its inquiry on the parental notification and 24-hour waiting period requirements. However, Brownlie said Planned Parenthood turned over information to the grand jury that related to all seven areas of concern.
Smith said she’s not sure what abortion opponents will do next. She said she believes they would have the right to circulate a new petition calling for a new grand jury.