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Houston, Texas, Jan 25, 2016 / 04:42 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Updated Jan 25, 2016 at 18:16 MST: The Center for Medical Progress issued a statement saying it "uses the same undercover techniques that investigative journalists have used for decades in exercising our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and of the press, and follows all applicable laws. We respect the processes of the Harris County District Attorney, and note that buying fetal tissue requires a seller as well. Planned Parenthood still cannot deny the admissions from their leadership about fetal organ sales captured on video for all the world to see."

Original story continues:

A Houston grand jury on Monday indicted the leaders behind the undercover videos which exposed Planned Parenthood’s role in offering fetal tissue for compensation. The grand jury had been investigating alleged misconduct by Planned Parenthood.

David Daleiden, project lead at the Center for Medical Progress, and fellow worker Sandra Merritt were indicted Jan. 25 on a second-degree felony charge of “tampering with a governmental record.”

Daleiden was also indicted for a misdemeanor charge of “purchase and sale of human organs,” according to Brian M. Rosenthal of the Houston Chronicle.

Back in August, the Harris County district attorney Devon Anderson had announced a criminal investigation into Planned Parenthood after a video released by the Center for Medical Progress showed the director of research for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, based in Houston, discussing how abortion procedures could be altered to better obtain “intact” fetal tissue for harvesters.

Daleiden and Merritt had posed as representatives of a biologics company, meeting with Farrell to discuss possible transactions of fetal tissue.

According to her July 29 testimony before the Texas Senate, former Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast clinic director Abby Johnson claimed that the clinic made up to $120,000 per month off of fetal tissue transactions.

On Monday, however, the grand jury announced that instead of indicting Planned Parenthood, they were indicting Daleiden and Merritt.

Anderson announced that “we must go where the evidence leads us,” according to the Houston Chronicle.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced afterward that the indictment would not alter the state’s investigation into Planned Parenthood.

Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.), a former nurse, called it “a sad day in America when those who harvest the body parts of aborted babies escape consequences for their actions, while the courageous truth-tellers who expose their misdeeds are handed down a politically motivated indictment instead.”

Last summer, the Center for Medical Progress released a series of undercover video interviews with Planned Parenthood officials as an exposé of the role the organization and its affiliates played in the transfer of fetal tissue to harvesters for compensation.

Federal law generally prohibits the sale of fetal tissue, but allows for “reasonable” compensation for the donation of tissue from aborted babies for research. This compensation would cover expenses like operating and transportation costs. The compensation cannot be for “valuable consideration.”

Planned Parenthood has maintained that its affiliates have acted within the law. The Center for Medical Progress has claimed that the organization broke the law by earning unlawful profits from the transactions.

Both House and Senate committees have launched investigations into the organization for wrongdoing, and the House has created a special investigative committee for that purpose, but no evidence has yet been publicized confirming the accusations.

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 WASHINGTON-Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York called on everyone "concerned about the tragedy of abortion" to recommit to a "vision of life and love, a vision that excludes no one" on January 14. His statement marks the 43rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. Cardinal Dolan chairs the Committee on Pro-Life Activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

"Most Americans oppose a policy allowing legal abortion for virtually any reason - though many still do not realize that this is what the Supreme Court gave us," wrote Cardinal Dolan. "Most want to protect unborn children at later stages of pregnancy, to regulate or limit the practice of abortion, and to stop the use of taxpayer dollars for the destruction of unborn children. Yet many who support important goals of the pro-life movement do not identify as 'pro-life,' a fact which should lead us to examine how we present our pro-life vision to others."

"Even as Americans remain troubled by abortion," wrote Cardinal Dolan, a powerful and well-funded lobby holds "that abortion must be celebrated as a positive good for women and society, and those who cannot in conscience provide it are to be condemned for practicing substandard medicine and waging a 'war on women'." He said this trend was seen recently when President Obama and other Democratic leaders prevented passage of the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act, "a modest measure to provide for effective enforcement" of conscience laws.

"While this is disturbing," said Cardinal Dolan, "it is also an opportunity." Pro-life Americans should reach out to "the great majority of Americans" who are "open to hearing a message of reverence for life." He added that "we who present the pro-life message must always strive to be better messengers. A cause that teaches the inexpressibly great value of each and every human being cannot show disdain or disrespect for any fellow human being." He encouraged Catholics to take part, through prayer and action, in the upcoming "9 Days for Life" campaign, January 16-24. More information on the campaign is available online: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxJwfcefUiU

He also cited the Year of Mercy called by Pope Francis as a time for women and men to find healing through the Church's Project Rachel post-abortion ministry.

The full text of Cardinal Dolan's message is available online.
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Keywords: Roe v. Wade, anniversary, Pro-Life, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, 9 Days for Life, USCCB, U.S. bishops, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Year of Mercy, Project Rachel, Pope Francis
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Washington D.C., Jan 25, 2016 / 03:05 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The dark nature of abortion and choice come into sharp relief when considering the human rights abuses which result from forced abortions in mainland China, according to one pro-life activist.

“The issues regarding choice really come into pretty stark relief when you consider forced abortion under the one-child policy, and also gendercide, the sex-selective abortion of baby girls,” Reggie Littlejohn, president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, told CNA in an interview last week about China’s decades-long one-child-per-family policy – now a two-child policy.

Littlejohn, whose work includes exposing the widespread human rights abuses in China under the state’s family planning policy and helping pregnant mothers keep their children, was selected to deliver the keynote address at the annual Cardinal O’Connor Conference on Life on Jan. 23 at Georgetown University, but the conference was canceled due to weather concerns.

The theme of the conference was to have been “Whose Choice?”, exploring the false notion of choice in the matter of abortion.

In an interview before the scheduled conference, Littlejohn explained how China’s repressive family planning policy has resulted in forced abortions and sterilizations. “Forced abortion is clearly not a choice,” she told CNA.

For decades in China, women would be forced to have an abortion and sterilization if they were found by the state to have had more than one child, as a form of coercive population control.

“So you say whose choice are these abortions? They’re the choice of the Chinese Communist party, they’re the choice of the state,” she said. “The woman’s body remains in the domain of the state.”

China’s recent announcement that the one-child policy would be expanded so that married couples could have two children has still not fixed the human rights abuses of forced abortions and sterilizations, and gendercide will continue, Littlejohn insisted, because of the population cap.

Third children in families “will be routinely aborted,” she said.

Additionally, the state will still forcibly sterilize women to comply with the policy. These sterilizations are brutal and permanently damage a woman’s body, Littlejohn explained.

One woman who was forcibly sterilized without anesthesia reported to Littlejohn that it felt like a blowtorch to the inside of her body. The woman became infected and suffered chronic back and abdominal pain and migraine headaches.

“They’re conducted by people who have very little training, and women end up being butchered, and really end up losing not only their reproductive health but their general health after these sterilizations,” Littlejohn said. In rural areas where it is the women’s task to carry water to the family from aquifers, those who have undergone sterilizations will be too weak to carry the necessary amount.

Thus many women will avoid undergoing these sterilizations by just not having a second child.

The policy has also spurred gendercide throughout the country. Mothers would have ultrasounds of their babies to find out its sex – if the baby were a girl, they would abort the child, just to be able to later have a boy to carry on the family name. This has created a demographic disaster in China, as there are an estimated 117 men per 100 women in the country.

“I believe that gendercide will continue at the same pace under the two-child policy, because of the issue of forced sterilization,” Littlejohn continued. If families already have one daughter and the mother is pregnant with a girl, they may abort the second child, until they have a boy.

“Second daughters are extremely vulnerable in China, and they will remain vulnerable,” she said.

While the government regrets this consequence because of the country’s demographic problems, they have done nothing to really stop it, Littlejohn said.

So she has been conducting the “Save a Girl” campaign, woman-to-woman, to persuade one mother at a time to keep her baby girl. If a woman is scheduled for an abortion at a local hospital, the network will go to the mother’s door and plead with her to keep the child, giving her a monthly stipend to care for the child.

“Our motto is for the mother to keep her own daughter, to keep the family intact,” she explained.

“These women are so grateful for us to come to their door. It’s like the voice of truth and love and mercy and help coming from the United States to their very door and saying ‘You’re right, you don’t want to abort your daughter. She is precious to you. And so we’re going to give you practical help’.”

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