LifeNet

Governor Cuomo vetoes help for adoption

Pathetic. Like father, like son?

An "Albany Update" press release. See if you can follow Cuomo's logic.

Governor Steals Christmas From Foster Care Kids

Albany, NY –The Adoption Tax Deduction Bill (S.3382-A – Hassell-Thompson/A.2378-B – Crespo), which would provide a personal income tax deduction for all fees and expenses incurred in connection with the adoption of a child in New York’s foster care system during a given tax year, has been vetoed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Rev. Jason J. McGuire, Executive Director of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, made the following remarks:

“Gov. Andrew Cuomo has failed thousands of adoption-eligible foster children across New York by vetoing the Adoption Tax Deduction Bill. This bill would encourage adults to adopt children from the foster care system, and would mitigate financial concerns that might otherwise prevent families from considering adoption. While the Governor claims that cost concerns make it advisable for this bill to be considered within the budget process, his argument does not hold water. First, the slight amount of tax revenue that the state might lose due to adoption tax deductions would likely be more than offset by the savings realized due to decreased foster care costs. Second, the Department of Health has proposed to provide Medicaid funding for elective surgeries for transgendered persons, and plans to make this change not through budget negotiations or legislation, but through a rulemaking process. If so-called ‘sex reassignment’ surgeries can receive taxpayer funding outside of the budget process (and without any action by the Legislature), adoptive parents should be able to receive tax deductions outside of the budget process. Better yet, the Governor ought to jettison the taxpayer-funded surgeries and use those funds to provide tax deductions for adoptive parents. Where are the Governor’s priorities?”

“Gov. Cuomo should remember that his decision regarding the Adoption Tax Deduction Bill has made it more difficult for foster children in New York to be united with ‘forever families.’ We were hoping to encourage these kids with an early Christmas gift, but the State of New York has a Grinch for governor.”

Governor Cuomo vetoes help for adoptive families

Thanks to Ed Mechmann for sending us this.

An "Albany Update" press release from New Yorker's for Constitutional Freedom. Can you follow Cuomo's logic?

Governor “Grinch” Steals Christmas From Foster Care Kids

Albany, NY –The Adoption Tax Deduction Bill (S.3382-A – Hassell-Thompson/A.2378-B – Crespo), which would provide a personal income tax deduction for all fees and expenses incurred in connection with the adoption of a child in New York’s foster care system during a given tax year, has been vetoed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Rev. Jason J. McGuire, Executive Director of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, made the following remarks:

“Gov. Andrew Cuomo has failed thousands of adoption-eligible foster children across New York by vetoing the Adoption Tax Deduction Bill. This bill would encourage adults to adopt children from the foster care system, and would mitigate financial concerns that might otherwise prevent families from considering adoption. While the Governor claims that cost concerns make it advisable for this bill to be considered within the budget process, his argument does not hold water. First, the slight amount of tax revenue that the state might lose due to adoption tax deductions would likely be more than offset by the savings realized due to decreased foster care costs. Second, the Department of Health has proposed to provide Medicaid funding for elective surgeries for transgendered persons, and plans to make this change not through budget negotiations or legislation, but through a rulemaking process. If so-called ‘sex reassignment’ surgeries can receive taxpayer funding outside of the budget process (and without any action by the Legislature), adoptive parents should be able to receive tax deductions outside of the budget process. Better yet, the Governor ought to jettison the taxpayer-funded surgeries and use those funds to provide tax deductions for adoptive parents. Where are the Governor’s priorities?”

“Gov. Cuomo should remember that his decision regarding the Adoption Tax Deduction Bill has made it more difficult for foster children in New York to be united with ‘forever families.’ We were hoping to encourage these kids with an early Christmas gift, but the State of New York has a Grinch for governor.”

Good article in the NY Daily News about the "Choose Life" license plate struggle

An initiative of Elizabeth Rex of the Children First Foundation. The purpose of this particular custom license plate is to raise money for adoption initiatives. It's approved in plenty of states, but New York - still fighting against it. Hard to believe, really. It just never ends.

Here's what the plate looks like -

 

New York, choose free speech

It’s often said that one bit of censorship by the government will inevitably lead down a slippery slope to more censorship. In this case, New York has not gone down a slippery slope. It has strutted right off a cliff.

To buttress its legal case, in 2004 the state issued a moratorium on all new specialty license plates — so it can’t be accused of singling out any particular message. The end result is that the Boy Scouts, the Seneca Park Zoo, even a group honoring 9/11 first responders, can’t get a license plate.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

What is behind this pigheaded response? Choose Life is, of course, a rebuttal to the pro-choice mantra of those who favor allowing unrestricted abortion.

But the state’s position should offend anyone who values free expression, regardless of where they stand on abortion. Veteran civil libertarian Norman Siegel, who is pro-choice, says that the denial of the license plate is classic “government censorship” by state officials “with a different ideology than the message they are trying to suppress.”

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The latest twist arrived late last year, when a federal district judge in Syracuse ruled in favor of Children First, saying the state was guilty of viewpoint discrimination because the group had met all the requirements for a specialty plate.

Courts have long allowed states to deny license plates if the prohibition is based on specific content like vulgarities. But Judge Neal McCurn, consistent with reams of opinions over the decades, ruled that “the exclusion of the entire subject of abortion from the forum is not permissible content-based discrimination but is discrimination based on viewpoint, which runs afoul of the First Amendment.”

“The DMV,” he said, “created a public forum where it allows the display of messages, slogans, logos and toll-free numbers for advocacy groups. The state cannot permit free speech for some but not for all.”

The DMV, represented by State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, filed its appeals papers April 13 with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York with virtually no public notice. Apparently, it’s not something that the otherwise voluble Schneiderman wants to brag about.

 

 

ALL press release: Planned Parenthood drastically increases abortion; decreases their already low number of adoption referrals

PLANNED BARRENHOOD

From American Life league:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
10 September 2010
CONTACT: Katie Walker
540.659.4942| [email protected] 

Planned Parenthood Drastically increases abortions, decreases adoption referrals in 2008

 Washington, DC (10 September 2010) – American Life League has revealed that Planned Parenthood Federation of America committed 324,008 abortions in 2008 – a 6.1-percent increase over 2007, reported ALL vice president Jim Sedlak.

The total number of abortions committed by Planned Parenthood since it first began in New York state in 1970 is now 4,987,817.

While abortions are on the rise at Planned Parenthood, adoption referrals declined to just 2,405 – a staggering 51-percent drop since 2007. Thus Planned Parenthood now commits 134 abortions for every adoption referral.

“Keep in mind that Planned Parenthood is a business making a very clear business decision,” said Rita Diller, national director of ALL’s Stop Planned Parenthood International (STOPP) project. “Abortion is its most lucrative ‘service,’ and like all businesses, Planned Parenthood is simply maximizing its profits from its primary moneymaker. This becomes macabre when one stops to consider that Planned Parenthood is in the business of killing preborn children. Each one of those 324,008 abortions took the life of a unique, innocent and unrepeatable human person.”

Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest single abortion provider – committing 26.8 percent of the estimated 1.21 million abortions in the United States in 2008. Planned Parenthood also runs the nation’s largest abortion chain, with over 300 medical and surgical abortion facilities across the country.

Despite the increase in abortion, Planned Parenthood showed a decline in a number of other areas, including a drop of four percent (almost 100,000 visits) in its primary customer base – female birth control customers.

While Planned Parenthood often emphasizes that it is the only provider of health care in many areas of the nation, primary-care patients accounted for only one-tenth of one percent of its business in 2008.

The latest Planned Parenthood data are in keeping with the testimony of former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson, who has publically testified that Planned Parenthood is intentionally trying to increase its abortion business.

American Life League was cofounded in 1979 by Judie Brown. It is the largest grassroots Catholic pro-life organization in the United States and is committed to the protection of all innocent human beings from the moment of creation to natural death.  For more information or press inquiries, please contact Katie Walker at 540.659.4942.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

American Life League: STOPP Planned Parenthood
http://www.stopp.org/

Planned Parenthood Federation of America: Fact Sheet
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/files/PPFA/fact_ppservices_2010-09-03.pdf

# # #

Pro-adoption "Choose Life" specialty license plate program suspended by Connecticut DMV

On 5/24/06,  Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and State Rep. Roberta Willis (D) jointly requested that the CT DMV rescind CFF's "Choose Life" License Plate in Connecticut.

Here is a good article in The Hartford-Courant newspaper on Friday, May 26.

http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-licenseplates0526.artmay26,0,5493827.story?coll=hc-headlines-local

Excerpts:

DMV Commissioner Ralph J. Carpenter agreed to reconsider the small foundation's eligibility for the plates - a status it applied for, and was granted, in 2003 - based on a letter Wednesday from Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and a Democratic state legislator charging that the group has "negligible, if any, `operations' in Connecticut, much less a base of operations in this state."

The charge surprised the nonprofit group's founder and president, Elizabeth Rex of Yonkers, N.Y. She had heard nothing from Blumenthal about such questions - but she quickly produced a series of letters from Connecticut officials who have recognized her group's efforts in recent years. The letters came from Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, Govs. John G. Rowland and M. Jodi Rell, the state's child advocate - and Blumenthal himself.

"Please extend my deepest appreciation and admiration to your members for the outstanding work that they do in advocating that every abandoned child should have a home with adoptive parents who love that child unconditionally," Blumenthal wrote Rex March 4, 2003. ...

..."This is the third time we've cooperated with the DMV," Rex said. "We dealt with their legal department and gave them all our papers, and they approved our plates."

Rex, who holds a doctorate in education, is the mother of three, two of whom are adopted. She co-founded the foundation in 2001 with her husband, Charles, who is a concert violinist in the first violin section of the New York Philharmonic.

She said the group supports pregnancy centers that do not offer abortion as an alternative, and also supports "safe havens" efforts under laws, including Connecticut's, that provide mothers the chance to drop off unwanted babies at specified areas such as hospitals and fire stations without fear of prosecution.

Here is further information from Elizabeth Rex:

The Children First Foundation has repeatedly and fully complied with all CT state and DMV regulations, statutes and requirements. Here are important facts about CFF and our plate:

    - CFF's Vice-President and four of our Advisory Board Members are CT residents.

    - CFF's base of operation in CT has always been on file with the DMV.

    -  Ms. Corinn Dahm (a CFF Advisory Board Member) is CFF's CT State Representative and CFF's office/base of operation in CT is located in her home in Gales Ferry, CT.

    - CFF has sponsored many educational and fundraising events in CT that have raised important funding and awareness to promote adoption and safe haven efforts in CT.

    - As President of CFF, I am CFF's official liaison with the CT DMV and CFF's official Headquarters is located in my home in Yonkers, NY (no overhead costs save money!)

    - CFF's official mailing address on file with the IRS is P.O. Box 326 in Eastchester, NY.

    - CFF has fully complied with the Secretary of the State and the Office of the AG.

    - The DMV has all of CFF's most recent information and approved our plate in 2003 along with many other diverse non-profit plates for a Labor Union plate, a Knights of Columbus plate, a Masonic Fraternity plate, and even a Penn State Alumni Association plate.

    - DMV recently updated all of CFF's information (April-May, 2006) and, once again, verified that CFF was in full compliance with all of the DMV's regulatory statutes for an organizational plate. This information can be requested from the DMV and is available from CFF.

    CFF has approximately 600 supporters/members in CT and @ 200 members have requested CFF's "Choose Life" License Plate to help promote and support adoption in CT. 

The CT Choose Life Plate has apparently been officially suspended by the DMV without any notification, explanation or due process. CFF's contact information on the DMV web site has been removed. This action should be reversed. http://www.ct.gov/dmv/cwp/view.asp?a=811&q=276538

Here is contact information for Elizabeth:

Elizabeth B. Rex, Ed.D.
President
The Children First Foundation
P.O. Box 326
Eastchester, NY 10709
1-877-Fund-Adoption /1-877-386-3236
www.Fund-Adoption.org
E-mail: [email protected]

CNN on Down Syndrome and Adoption

CNN had a very interesting article on the waiting lists for people who wish to adopt children with Down Syndrome. CNN.com - Children with Down syndrome sought for adoption - Feb 13, 2006