Vital Signs: Life and truth at Yale

Pro-life on a pro-choice campus. Members of Choose Life at Yale (CLAY) hosted their first student-led pro-life conference on the college’s campus last week. “Vita et Veritas: Promoting a Culture of Life and Truth” showed students that multiple worldviews can support a pro-life position. CLAY was formed in 2003.

Speakers included Clarke Forsythe and Bill Saunders of Americans United for Life as well as Sally Winn, the vice president of Feminists for Life. Drawing attention on the highly liberal campus, the event also shed light on Planned Parenthood’s lies and money-making motives.

“In an institution that is so pro-choice, it’s important to have that alternative view,” CLAY’s out-going president, Courtney McEachon, told Citizen Link.

Campus outreach in New Mexico. At the University of New Mexico, students are joining up with Created Equal, a pro-life organization focused on exposing the brutal truths about abortion. Created Equal is working on campus to gather votes for the 20-week abortion ban on Albuquerque’s November ballot. If voters approve the ban, it will be the first in the naiton adopted by a municipality. New Mexico has virtually no restrictions on abortion, and Albequerque is now known as the nation’s late-term abortion capital.

Rights of the unborn child. Wisconsin authorities brought a pregnant woman to court in July after she refused to take an anti-addiction drug, according to The New York Times. Under the state’s “cocaine mom” act, addicted mothers who could harm their unborn children are detained and the unborn babies given legal guardianship. “I didn’t know unborn children had lawyers,” the mother said.

Now groups are challenging the law in a federal petition filed on Oct. 2. The pro-life legislation was initially adopted in 1997, and this case is the first to challenge it. Three other states—Minnesota, Oklahoma, and South Dakota—have similar laws providing protection for the unborn child against an addicted mother.

Virginia clinic regulations. A legal challenge to Virginia’s new abortion facility restrictions will move forward after an Arlington judge ruled against Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s attempt to dismiss an appeal against them.

The Falls Church Medical Center challenged the law, claiming the costly renovations it required would put the abortion facility out of business. The Washington Post reported that the strict regulations include mandating the width of hallways and doorways and the number of parking spaces at the center. What the Post did not mention was the horrible sanitary conditions revealed during inspections at the abortion facility. The Falls Church Medical Center failed to comply with basic sterilization procedures and reports noted dried blood on numerous objects including the procedure tables and cleaning utensils.

This is all coming to a head right in the middle of Virginia’s gubernatorial race between Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat who vows he will not increase clinic regulations, and Cuccinelli, a Republican who believes abortion is wrong in all cases. Polls show McAuliffe with a narrow lead in the race.