Congressional Panel Holds Biased Hearing on Stem Cell Research
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A House committee on Thursday held a hearing on stem cell research that a leading pro-life group says was biased towards forcing taxpayers to fund embryonic stem cells. Those are the cells that can only be obtained by destroying days-old unborn children. "As expected, today's House hearing on stem cell research was nothing more than the liberals' attempt to destroy confidence in the incredible breakthroughs with iPS and adult stem cells," Family Research Council president Tony Perkins told LifeNews.com afterwards. "Through their choice of witnesses, they showed that they would ignore the advances of ethical research and instead use the hearing to promote the killing of embryos." Perkins said the panel should have focused on iPS cells that are embryonic-like but don't require the destruction of human life to obtain. "By all accounts, the developments with iPS should make the debate over ESC obsolete," he said. Perkins concluded: "Although the witnesses from our side, including distinguished doctors Amit Patel and John Fraser, can prove that hundreds of patients have been treated with alternatives to ESC, liberals willfully disregard the evidence. The liberals couldn't muster a single witness who had been helped by ESC--mainly because no such patient exists."

Pro-Life Religious Group Praises Methodist Church for Pro-Life Votes
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The approval by The United Methodist Church’s General Conference of several petitions that move the Church in a more pro-life direction sends an encouraging signal, say leaders of the National Pro-Life Religious Council. As LifeNews.com reported, in a recent meeting of the United Methodist General Conference, the Church's governing body, pro-life advocates made progress. The group meets every four years and it overwhelmingly adopted several petitions affirming the sanctity of life during its quadrennial meeting in Fort Worth. Fr. Frank Pavone, president of the NPLRC, told LifeNews.com he's elated that "delegates voted to encourage the assistance of crisis pregnancy centers and support adult notification and consent when a minor seeks abortion." He said: “These are small, but important steps in what we pray will be an eventual affirmation of the inherent rights and dignity of all human lives." Rev. Paul T. Stallsworth, a member of the pro-life group's board and president of the Taskforce of United Methodists on Abortion and Sexuality (or Lifewatch), said, “For so many petitions reflecting a pro-life perspective to be approved at this quadrennial General Conference is a great encouragement to those of us in The United Methodist Church. We pray that God will continue to persuade United Methodist leaders so that soon our church will officially defend and protect ‘the least of these,’ the unborn child and mother.”

Kansas Pro-Life Group's Radio Campaign Targets Abortion Practitioner
Topeka, KS (LifeNews.com) -- Operation Rescue has launched a new radio ad campaign drawing public attention to the legal cases against late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller. OR launched a prior campaign in March with radio ads on several stations and hundreds of thousands of automated phone calls to Kansas households. Tiller's attorneys responded by filing a motion to have the grand jury currently investigating Tiller disregard the campaign. In a five-minute hearing, Judge Paul Buchanan rejected the motion. The latest radio ad takes aim at the delays in producing evidence to the grand jury and in the prosecution of Tiller's pending criminal case. "We intend to keep the public eye focused on these cases so that justice is properly served," said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. "If the judges and politicians realize that the public has not forgotten, they are more likely to act with swiftly and with integrity."