The U.S. Supreme Court today handed down its ruling in Roper v. Simmons and held, in a 5-4 decision, that the death penalty could not constitutionally be applied to juvenile offenders age 16 and 17. I discussed the potential implications of this case for parental consent laws a week ago in my post of February 23. The Supreme Court has now confirmed in its majority opinion the concerns that I raised last week. Continue reading →

At some point in the near future the U.S. Supreme Court will rule in the case of Roper v. Simmons, a case which questions whether adolescents ages 16 and 17 convicted of capital crimes can constitutionally be subject to the death penalty. The Supreme Court has already ruled that convicts 15 years old and younger may not be, nor may those older than 15 who are mentally deficient. There are numerous issues in the case, including whether the criminal justice system, in particular the jury system, functions properly and in an unbiased manner for accused adolescents, whether adolescents can receive a fair treatment from arrest through trial and whether execution of adolescents is “cruel and unusual” punishment. Continue reading →

Click here for a recent article by Jason Ryan in the Beaufort Gazette (excerpted below).

Birth control advocate speaks at Planned Parenthood event

Planned Parenthood advocate Alexander Sanger spoke Wednesday night at The Arsenal about women’s reproductive rights and the importance of changing the perception of planned parenthood services.

Sanger, chairman of the International Planned Parenthood Council and grandson of birth control activist Margaret Sanger, told about 50 people that Planned Parenthood advocates must alter the semantics of the reproductive debate.

“(We must) move away from the negative of preventing unwanted pregnancies,” Sanger said. “Let’s talk about the positive … that men and women want to reproduce successfully.”

I recently did an interview with Larry Mantle on 89.3 KPCC; click here to download the RealAudio file for the show.

The story on the effects, if any, of hormonal contraception on the transmission of sexually transmitted infections is not over. Another study by the same researchers is almost completed, and the results either confirming or not the previous study that I cited in my ealier post of Sept 22 should be available in a few months.
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The 2004 Presidential election was not a pro-life mandate for President Bush.
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I just listened to the interview I did last week on the Albert Mohler Program which was followed by commentary from Dr. Mohler and his listeners after I had left the show. I wish I had been invited to remain and to respond to all their comments.
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You can listen to a recent radio interview from the Albert Mohler program by clicking here and choosing between the RealAudio and MP3 formats.

(If you want, you can download the MP3 of the entire chat by right-clicking or control-clicking this link and selecting “save target as” or “download linked file as,” depending on your browser.)

Here’s an excerpt from a recent story in the Winston-Salem Journal by Janice Gaston (you can read the entire article by clicking here):

Anne Higgins, the mother of Margaret Sanger, died of tuberculosis at the age of 50. Sanger, a pioneer in reproductive issues, believed that the punishment her mother’s body took during 18 pregnancies sapped her strength and contributed to Higgins’ death.

Eleven of Higgins’ children survived. Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was the sixth. She bore just three of her own. Trained as a nurse, she spent much of her life educating women about contraception and advocating the development and use of birth control.

Her grandson, Alexander Sanger of New York, took up the issue of reproductive rights during the Reagan administration. In 1984, Reagan signed an executive order that prohibited the United States from giving money to organizations overseas that promoted or performed abortions.

“As the son of two doctors, as well as the grandson of Margaret Sanger, I thought that was an outrage,” Sanger said.