News
Indiana Right to Life launches online petition against President Obama’s HHS abortion drug mandate
February 10, 2012
President Barack Obama today announced a false “compromise” over a controversial HHS mandate that will still require all insurers, include those who provide coverage for faith-based employers, to provide free coverage for abortion-causing drugs.
You are encouraged to sign our online petition to the White House today to express your opposition to this mandate tramples religious freedom and paves the way for additional abortion mandates.
Senator Dan Coats summed up the HHS mandate today by stating,
“”Today’s announcement changes nothing. Whether religious employers are forced to pay directly for contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs or to act as facilitators, their religious liberty remains compromised. But what the president fails to understand is that when it comes to freedom of religion – a core American principle – there is no room for compromise. It is unconstitutional and just plain wrong for the federal government to require faith-based institutions to betray the fundamental tenets of their beliefs. President Obama remains intent on ignoring the First Amendment and the millions of Americans opposed to this radical rule. It is now time for the bipartisan group in Congress who strongly disagree with the administration’s mandate to join together and rescind this unprecedented attack on religious and faith-based organizations.”
Sign our peition today and encourage your family and friends to do the same.
Indiana Right to Life statement on Komen Foundation decision to resume funding for abortion business Planned Parenthood
February 3, 2012
Indiana Right to Life President and CEO Mike Fichter issued this statement today regarding the Komen Foundation’s decision to continue funding for current Planned Parenthood grants:
“We are profoundly disappointed at the Komen decision to continue funding for the nation’s largest abortion business, Planned Parenthood. We do not believe it is in the best interest of the Komen Foundation, breast cancer research, and the lives of women to engage in partnership with an organization that has abortion at the core of its business, and that refuses to inform women of the numerous studies showing an elevated risk of breast cancer as a result of induced abortion.
It is our understanding that Komen events in Evansville, Terre Haute, Indianapolis and Fort Wayne have not provided any local funding to Planned Parenthood over the last several years. We will work with these Komen affiliates to assure that this will continue to be the case, and that they will encourage the national Komen Foundation to deny any future grant applications from Planned Parenthood on the national level.”
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Press advisory: statement on Rep. Dan Burton
January 31, 2012
Indiana Right to Life President and CEO Mike Fichter issued this statement today regarding Indiana congressman Dan Burton’s announcement that he will not seek re-election:
“We applaud Rep. Dan Burton for the legacy he will leave as a steadfast champion for the unborn. Over the course of his time in congress, Rep. Burton fought against FDA approval of the dangerous RU-486 abortion drug, supported the removal of taxpayer funding for America’s largest abortion business, Planned Parenthood, and helped to pass historic pro-life legislation including the federal ban on the gruesome partial-birth abortion procedure. There are undoubtedly many children who are alive today because of the efforts on Rep. Burton.”
Press advisory: body of unborn child found at Fort Wayne sewage treatment plant may have been chemically aborted and discarded in sewer
January 24, 2012
Indiana Right to Life will ask the Indiana State Department of Health to revisit guidelines for disposing the remains of aborted children in the wake of yesterday’s discovery of an unborn child’s body found caught in the screens of a Fort Wayne sewage treatment plant.
“We don’t know whether this baby was aborted and then flushed into the sewer system by Fort Wayne’s local abortion clinic, or aborted at home using the RU-486 chemical abortion method, but both are strong possibilities” notes Indiana Right to Life President and CEO Mike Fichter.
According to responses to inquiries made to the Indiana State Department of Health, fetal remains prior to 20-weeks are classified as medical waste to be handled according to federal guidelines. Those guidelines, according to the national Environmental Compliance Assistance Platform medical waste management web site supported by the federal EPA, list various methods for disposing of medical waste including “Discharge in a sanitary sewer or septic system that is properly installed and operating in accordance with state and local laws.”
“The horrifying fact is that abortion clinics in Indiana can use garbage disposals and toilets to discard body parts into local sewer systems,” states Fichter. “The degradation of the disposal process is second only to the degradation of destroying these lives in the first place.”
Fichter notes that the Fort Wayne baby may also have been aborted at home by a woman using the RU-486 chemical abortion method and subsequently flushed down a toilet. ”A woman who has an RU-486 abortion is given a drug that kills her unborn child, followed by another powerful drug that causes cramping, bleeding, and the expulsion of the child,” says Fichter. ”The abortion clinics do not prepare women for the trauma of delivering a recognizable baby at home, only to flush that baby down the toilet.”
“It is appalling that we even need to address this issue”, says Fichter. “But when you realize that Indiana is giving the option of treating aborted children like common sewage, something needs to be done. The discovery of this little body in Fort Wayne should be a wake up call for us all.”
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Blog from President and CEO Mike Fichter: A Christmas Message for 2011
December 21, 2011
Remember back in the days before people pepper-sprayed other customers vying for Black Friday doorbusters, and when Cyber Monday could have been the title for a Star Trek episode? Those were the days when the Sears catalogue was the basis for the Christmas wish lists of kids everywhere, myself included. I still remember the thrill each Christmas season when the catalogue would magically arrive at our home (or at least it seemed so), and for weeks to follow I would thumb through the pages and dream of what might lie beneath the tree on Christmas morning.
Those were the days before megastores and the internet, days when the Sears catalogue was the only place to see the latest and greatest in toys and apparel. Where else could you find Gumby, G.I. Joe, Lincoln Logs and those crazy electric football games, all in one place?
Those were simpler days – days when Christmas wishes meant something more, days when families watched Charlie Brown’s Christmas and the smell of Tollhouse cookies filled the air, days when Christmas Eve church services brought entire communities together to celebrate the birth of Christ.
Nowadays, Charlie Brown competes with over 200 channels on satellite TV. Baking cookies has become inconvenient and, in some circles, politically incorrect. And more and more churches are eliminating Christmas Eve services in deference to social gatherings deemed more relevant in this age of entertainment. I don’t think I’ll ever understand that one.
Times are changing. But I still believe in Christmas wishes because I still believe in Christmas. Not the Christmas that has become the great American escape from reality, but the Christmas in which the God of the universe turned the world upside down by sending His son, His only son, on a mission that no one else could accomplish.
Over two thousand years ago, on that one dark night in the census-choked town of Bethlehem, a baby boy was born who would change the world forever. Ahead of Him lay three nails, a crown of thorns, and a broken heart. But for this one night – this one holy night – the angels sang, the shepherds bowed, a star pierced the blackest of nights, and His mother held Him tightly to her own beating heart.
It happened. It really happened. And all of the Black Friday ads combined cannot cover the glory of the God who took on flesh as He grew in His mother’s womb before entering the world with a birth that still sets church bells to ringing around the world.
May you and your family enjoy a blessed Christmas.