Pro-Abortion Group Says 20 Week Ban "Criminalize Women"

Pro-abortion group UltraViolet responded to the passage of a bill that would put a national ban on most abortions after the 20 week gestation period by labeling the measure “inhumane.”

The Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which contains exemptions in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is threatened, finally passed the House this week after a long delay, prompting outrage from pro-choice organizations who responded with familiar vitriol.

Despite the fact that the legislation is likely to be killed in the Senate anyway, liberal activist group UltraViolet claimed the legislation would “criminalize women’s reproductive choices.”

“Plain and simple – when politicians introduce inhumane bans on abortions, they are tying the hands of physicians who want to help couples going through heartbreaking situations like serious fetal anomalies,” said co-founder Shaunna Thomas.

Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, asserted the bill was part of a stealth move to “ban abortion completely,” a claim backed up by zero evidence.

Meanwhile, Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, was offended that politicians would even dare vote on such a bill during ‘Women’s Health Week,’ calling such behavior “appalling.”

Responding to the criticism, Congressman Sean Duffy remarked, “If you stand with the defenseless, with the voiceless, you have to stand with little babies. Don’t talk to me about cruelty in our bill — when you look at little babies being dismembered, feeling excruciating pain, if we can’t stand to defend these children, what do we stand for in this institution?”

Characterizing the bill as “inhumane” makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. The only thing that’s “inhumane” is killing a life form that by 20 weeks weighs 10 ounces and measures around 10 inches, the length of a banana.

Ultrasound images show that babies at 20 weeks are so sensitive to touch that they react to a single human hair being drawn across their palm by making a fist.

“At 20 weeks, the fetal brain has the full complement of brain cells present in adulthood, ready and waiting to receive pain signals from the body, and their electrical activity can be recorded by standard electroencephalography (EEG),” according to Dr. Paul Ranalli, neurologist at the University of Toronto.

Robert J. White, M.D., PhD., professor of neurosurgery at Case Western University concurs, remarking that an unborn baby at 20 weeks gestation “is fully capable of experiencing pain. … Without question, [abortion] is a dreadfully painful experience for any infant subjected to such a surgical procedure.”

Most women start to feel a baby moving at around the 20 week mark. Ultrasound scanning has also proven that babies start making finger movements at around 15 weeks and are yawning by around 18 weeks. They also start to suck their thumb at around this time.

Babies more than double in size between 15 and 20 weeks inside the womb, while the nervous system is rapidly maturing as the nerves connect the brain to the rest of the body. Soft cartilage also hardens into bone while sensory perceptions which designate areas of the brain for smell, taste, hearing, vision and touch also quickly develop during this time period.

Parents are even advised to read aloud or sing at the 20 week mark because the baby is sometimes able to hear. New studies also show that premature babies born at 22 weeks can survive outside the womb.

There can be little debate about the fact that by 20 weeks, a baby is a functioning, feeling human life form and not just a “collection of cells” as abortion advocates sometimes characterize a fetus.

Pro-choice groups are also misrepresenting reality when they claim that most Americans would oppose the passage of this bill. In reality, a Washington Post poll found that 64 percent of Americans support restricting abortion beyond 20 weeks. Women and younger people are also more likely to support the ban.

In terms of Roe v Wade, which legalized abortion in the first three months of a pregnancy, polls have remained fairly steady over the last 40 years, with the most recent finding that 63 per cent oppose overturning the Supreme Court decision, while 29 per cent would like to see it reversed.

As we have previously illustrated, some college students even support killing newborns up to five years old.

In 2013, numerous residents in San Diego signed a similar petition composed by Mark Dice which advocated making post-birth abortions legal under Obamacare.

In another video also shot in 2013, reporter Dan Joseph convinced numerous students at George Mason University (GMU) to sign a petition demanding lawmakers legalize “fourth trimester” abortions, in other words killing babies that had already been born.

In 2013, the University of Melbourne’s Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva wrote a paper arguing that “after-birth abortion (killing a newborn baby) should be permissible, including in cases where the newborn is not disabled.”

The notion of infanticide was also implicitly backed by MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry, who said that newborn infants don’t count as being considered “alive”

Jade Helm 15 Lies By Federal Government

Infowars Reporter Joe Biggs exposes the lies disseminated by the feds regarding Jade Helm, highlighting the times the military has bribed local governments in order to domestic training.

Sen.Warren Has Angered Obama Over Trade Deal

WASHINGTON — When President Barack Obama huffed that Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts senator and established liberal star, was a "politician like everybody else" he revealed a rift that predates the current hostilities between the two Democrats over trade.

Though occasional allies, Warren has been aggravating the Obama administration since her pre-Senate days when she chaired an oversight panel charged with being a watchdog over the massive federal bank bailout.

But the dispute over Obama's efforts to get trade negotiating authority from Congress and complete a 12-nation Pacific rim trade deal goes to the heart of a fundamental divide within the Democratic Party. It also has turned the tables in Congress where Democrats once delighted in watching Republicans struggle with their conservative tea party faction.

Now it's Republicans who are amused and making the most of a Democratic split.

"You've got the energy of the Elizabeth Warren faction kind of driving the agenda" for Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Wednesday on CNBC. "The biggest divisions these days are not among Republicans but among Democrats."

Obama's request for negotiating authority got back on track Wednesday after an embarrassing procedural loss Tuesday when only one Democrat voted with the president on a motion to begin debate on trade, even though about a dozen support his overall goal.

Democrats have long been suspicious of trade deals, blaming them for job losses and lax enforcement. Warren and her allies have dug further, building on those concerns to make a case that Obama is negotiating an agreement that is secret from the public, places U.S. sovereignty at risk and could roll back U.S. financial regulations.

"She's absolutely wrong," Obama said in an interview with Yahoo! that aired over the weekend. "Elizabeth is a politician like everybody else and she has a voice that she wants to get out there."

That remark prompted Sen. Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat who has been among Warren's top allies on the trade issue, to rebuke the president for being "disrespectful."

"I think that the president has made this more personal than he needed to," Brown said.

While the Obama-Warren spat highlights the deep Democratic split over trade, the party has healed in the past after major trade fights. Mitch Stewart, who was a senior adviser to Obama's 2008 and 2012 campaigns and now is a consultant for a pro-trade advocacy group, downplayed the long-term impact of the Obama-Warren contretemps, predicting that the relationship can survive the disagreement.

This dispute, however, comes at an awkward time for Hillary Rodham Clinton, who as Obama's secretary of State once called the Trans-Pacific negotiations the "gold standard" for fair trade. Now, as a presidential candidate who feels the pressure of Warren's national prominence, she is sounding more skeptical amid calls for her to take a firmer stance. The lack of her endorsement has been conspicuous.

A former Harvard professor, Warren burst onto the Washington scene after the 2008 financial crisis as a vigorous advocate for consumer financial protections. She became the chair of a bipartisan Congressional Oversight Panel that kept tabs on the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the taxpayer-financed fund that helped financial institutions out of the crisis.

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Then-Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner bristled at her critiques, calling them "mostly unjustified."

"Her TARP oversight hearings often felt more like made-for-YouTube inquisitions than serious inquiries," Geithner writes in his book "Stress Test." ''She was worried about the right things, but she was better at impugning our choices — as well as our integrity and our competence — than identifying any feasible alternatives."

More recently, Warren infuriated the White House by objecting to Obama's nomination last year of Antonio Weiss, a Lazard investment banker, to be the third-ranking official at Treasury. Warren argued that he was too close to Wall Street to hold a high post at Treasury. Weiss dropped out of contention for the post and Obama appointed him to serve as a counselor to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, a post that does not require Senate confirmation.

The arrangement was not unfamiliar to Warren. She herself did not have Senate votes in 2010 to be confirmed as head of a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, so Obama appointed her a special presidential adviser to work with Geithner at Treasury on an interim basis.

A year later, with the help of then-Obama senior adviser Pete Rouse, Warren embarked on her 2012 Senate race. Obama campaigned for her.

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Talibian Attack In Kabul Killed 9 Foreigners

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban attack on a Kabul guesthouse left 14 people dead, including nine foreigners, in the most audacious assault by the insurgents in the Afghan capital since the start of their spring offensive, a government official confirmed Thursday.

Among the nine foreigners killed in Wednesday's attack, seven were men and two were women, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. The full breakdown of the nationalities was not immediately known but an American and four Indians have been confirmed dead.

Gunmen stormed the restaurant of the Park Palace Hotel in the Afghan capital as it was hosting a party for foreigners on Wednesday evening, and authorities said the victims were killed during an hours-long siege that ended early Thursday morning. At least 54 hostages were rescued, according to Afghan officials.

Five Afghans were also among the dead — four men and one woman — and seven were wounded, including one Afghan policeman.

The U.N. mission in Afghanistan condemned the assault, saying in a statement Thursday that it was an "atrocity."

"Taliban statements on avoiding civilian casualties ring hollow when we set them against the latest killings," said UNAMA's human rights director Georgette Gagnon.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. The group's spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in an email distributed to media that the hotel was targeted because of the presence of foreigners, including Americans there. In the claim, he said only one attacker was involved, armed with a Kalashnikov rifle, a suicide vest and a pistol — not three as the Afghan government reported. The Taliban often exaggerate their claims.

The Afghan police kept the hotel cordoned off on Thursday. Earlier, they said all the attackers were killed in the shootout with security troops.

The attack began around 8:30 p.m. local time when the gunmen opened fire at the hotel restaurant, according to Kabul police chief Gen. Abdul Rahman Rahimi.

U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Monica Cummings said in an email statement that a U.S. citizen was killed in the attack, although she had no further details and did not identify the victim.

Cummings said the U.S. Embassy was in close contact with Afghan authorities and was working to obtain more information. "Our thoughts are with the families of the victims," she said.

India's Ambassador Amar Sinha confirmed Thursday that four Indian nationals were also among the dead - three men and a woman. He said they were among a total of 11 Indians resident at the guesthouse, none of whom are embassy personnel.

The guesthouse had about 100 residents, he said.

Throughout the standoff, sporadic gunfire echoed around the guesthouse in a central neighborhood that is home to United Nations compounds and a foreign-run hospital. At one point, two explosions could be heard and four ambulances later arrived to the scene.

Amin Habib, a U.S. citizen from Los Angeles, told the AP that a party was going on at the hotel to honor a Canadian when the gunmen stormed the guesthouse. He said dozens of people, including foreigners and U.S. citizens, were inside the hotel at the time.

Also earlier, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Twitter account said he was "concerned about the situation (and) I pray for everyone's safety."

Canada's Foreign Affairs Spokeswoman Caitlin Workman said all staff at the Canadian Embassy in Kabul were "safe and accounted for."

Hours after the standoff began, fire trucks arrived at the scene, with firefighters saying they were called in to clear and secure the area. A number of people were seen leaving the building. Police initially freed some 20 people trapped in the guesthouse, but others had remained inside, according to Zia Massoud, an Afghan government official.

The hotel has both guest rooms for visitors and a residential area for those who live full time in Kabul, including foreign aid workers.

Afghan security forces have been struggling to fend off Taliban attacks since U.S. and NATO forces formally concluded their combat mission at the end of last year.

The Taliban have staged similar attacks in the past on Kabul hotels and guesthouses — typically extremely well-guarded locations with foreigners.

In March 2014, the Taliban stormed the Serena Hotel where guests had gathered at the restaurant for a buffet dinner to celebrate the Persian New Year. Nine people in all were shot at close range and killed in the attack, which was particularly shocking because the luxury hotel was long considered one of the safest places in Kabul to stay. The dead included four foreigners, an Afghan businessman and an Afghan journalist, his wife and two of his three children.

And in January 2014, the Taliban attacked a popular Lebanese restaurant in Kabul, killing 21 people, making it the deadliest single attack against foreign civilians in the course of a nearly 13-year U.S.-led war there.