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The state of Kansas is standing firm on its refusal to give Medicaid money to America's biggest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood.
In fact, Republican Gov. Jeff Colyer is taking the matter to the highest court in the country. Colyer, a Catholic and a surgeon, maintains a vigorous pro-life stance.
"A Kansas Court issued a ruling which argues the framers of the Kansas Constitution imagined abortion as a separate constitutional right. This is violence against basic facts. This cannot stand. We are a pro-life state. On the issue of life, the stakes are so high, the issue is so foundational," he said in a February speech.
The state of Kansas filed a petition Thursday asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a lower court's decision that prevented Kansas from ending its Medicaid contract with Planned Parenthood.
The issue dates back to 2016 when then-Gov. Sam Brownback stripped Planned Parenthood of its Medicaid funding. Medicaid is taxpayer money used to pay for medical services provided to people who are needy or disabled.
Two Planned Parenthood affiliates in Kansas had been receiving up to $50,000 from Medicaid. Although Planned Parenthood provides abortions, they contend Medicaid dollars are used to pay for health care services such as birth control and cancer screenings.
CBN News contacted Planned Parenthood for a comment. Earlier, they said the state had no right to take away their Medicaid funding because they say patients who are eligible for Medicaid have the right to choose for themselves their medical providers and the state is not allowed to deprive the patients the services provided by Planned Parenthood.
The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed. Last month they ruled that Kansas lacked the authority to block dollars from going to a medical provider "for any reason they see fit, especially when that reason is unrelated to the provider's competence and the quality of the health care it provides."
However, Gov. Colyer fired back, saying, "Kansas is a pro-life state, and Kansans don't want state dollars being used to support abortion providers.
"The medical needs of Kansas women will continue to be met by other providers in the Medicaid and KanCare network. We want the Supreme Court to weigh in on this issue and we look forward to the outcome," he said.
Interestingly, the newest Supreme Court Justice, conservative-leaning Neil Gorsuch, was a judge on the 10th Circuit when this case was originally argued before that court.
For that reason, Gorsuch may have to recuse himself from further proceedings regarding this case. That leaves eight justices on the high court to decide whether to hear the matter. Those eight appear to be evenly split on the issue of abortion. Five are needed to agree to consider the Kansas case.
Reprinted with permission from CBN.com. Copyright The Christian Broadcasting Network, all rights reserved.
Powerful tech companies rule our world today, and shocking stories are coming out about how they're silencing the worldviews of millions of Christian and conservative Americans, censoring the messages you're allowed to read and post online.
The latest high-profile case might be called a gaffe or "mistake," but it actually exposes the tip of the iceberg in a much deeper, darker agenda.
This week, social network powerhouse Facebook came under fire for a survey asking users whether pedophiles should be able to ask underage girls for photographs.
The users were given multiple choice answers, none of which included "calling the police." Instead the options ranged from: "This content should not be allowed on Facebook, and no one should be able to see it" to "This content should be allowed on Facebook, and I would not mind seeing it."
Evangelist Franklin Graham called the survey "ridiculous and shameful" in a post on his own Facebook page.
"Why would Facebook ask such a question?" Graham wrote. "They surveyed users asking if pedophiles should be able to ask children for sexual pictures. It just shows you how low our moral standards in this country have fallen. Many people today don't seem to recognize right from wrong... Facebook now says the question was a mistake—well, to say the least, I firmly agree. To have a survey asking this is ridiculous and it's shameful. Pedophilia is just wickedness. The Bible says, 'For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts. (Mark 7:21).'"
Peter Sprigg, Senior Fellow for Policy Studies at the Family Research Council also expressed outrage, telling CBN News, "Transmitting this type of information is illegal. Possessing this type of material, child pornography, is illegal, so it's absolutely incomprehensible how anyone at Facebook could have thought this was an appropriate question."
Facebook said the survey has been taken down since it refers to "offensive content that is already prohibited on Facebook," stating to the New York Post, "We have prohibited child grooming on Facebook since our earliest days, we have no intention of changing this, and we regularly work with the police to ensure that anyone found acting in such a way is brought to justice."
This incident is just the latest in a series of moves suggesting big technology and social media companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google – which heavily influence cultural opinions – seem to be blind or outright hostile to issues important to Christians and cultural conservatives.
Sprigg pointed out that recently Facebook warned users that a story from the Christian site The Babylon Bee was "Fake News," apparently not realizing that the stories are satire.
"All of their stories are untrue, that's the whole point. And for Facebook to be so ignorant," he continued, "shows a real ham-handedness."
On a more serious note, Sprigg revealed another case of censorship. "I have a friend with an ex-gay ministry who was suspended for ten days," Sprigg said, "He was accused of having hate speech."
James O'Keefe, the founder of Project Veritas, who went undercover to expose Planned Parenthood abuses, told CBN News he has new undercover videos, this time exposing how social media companies regulate content.
"I think it's very scary for our society. They're rewiring the DNA of our democracy, censoring ideas because they don't like the ideas," he said. "It's Orwellian, like something out of 'A Brave New World.'"
One of the videos shows Pranay Singh, a Direct Messaging Engineer at Twitter, describing how company employees identify hot-button language in Tweets and then write algorithms to delete them and others like them.
A sample of the language he says would be inappropriate: "They'll all be like guns, God, America, the American flag and the cross," Singh said. "Who says that? Who talks like that?"
Another undercover video shows a former Twitter engineer describing a practice called "shadow banning" saying, "You ban someone, but they don't know they've been banned because they keep posting and no one sees their content. So they just think that no one is engaging with their content when in reality, no one is seeing it."
O'Keefe says the terms they choose to ban reflect a clear bias.
"They're talking about shadow banning people who believe in God, guns and the Bible," O'Keefe said, "If you're a Christian and you're tweeting, Twitter will consider you a Russian bot."
O'Keefe said tech companies like Twitter, Facebook, and Google, "Are not allowing information unless it fits their narrative. They are altering the perception of what's newsworthy and preventing facts from reaching people, not allowing people to see that information."
Twitter responded to the undercover videos by stating that they do not "shadowban" accounts, but do "take actions to downrank accounts that are abusive, and mark them accordingly so people can still to click through and see these Tweets if they so choose."
Twitter also said some of the people in the videos, "The individuals depicted in this video were speaking in a personal capacity and do not represent or speak for Twitter."
Other examples of perceived censorship include Google-owned YouTube restricting a PragerU video exposing myths about the abortion giant Planned Parenthood.
Similarly, Twitter would not allow an anti-abortion advertisement from Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn that blasted Planned Parenthood's sale of body parts from aborted babies.
The pro-life group Live Action contends both Twitter and Facebook have restricted their posts condemning abortion.
In addition to suppressing Christian content, former Facebook employeesrevealed they were instructed to bury conservative content, and regularly did so, such as stories from the Republican CPAC meeting and pieces about Republican leaders such as Mitt Romney and Rand Paul despite knowing the stories would be of interest to its users.
In January, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a new company policy restricting certain content their customers will view. "As we roll this out, you'll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media," his statement read.
However, critics say only Christian and conservative content appears to be what has been restricted. The analysis shows engagement numbers among those publishers dropped by more than half, while others remained the same.
The role of technology companies filtering the news is the subject of a new documentary by journalist Peter Schweizer, author of the book, "Clinton Cash."
The movie, to be released in May, is called "The Creepy Line," referencing a notorious comment made by former Google chief executive and Chairman Eric Schmidt, who, speaking about privacy issues in 2010, said it was his company's role "to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it."
Bones unearthed in Japan appear to be those of a Christian missionary from the 1700s who was killed for his faith.
Construction workers building a parking lot for a condominium complex found the skeletal remains of what anthropologists say is Italian missionary Giovanni Battista Sidotti, who was martyred. The condos sit on the site of a prison earmarked for Christians 300 years ago. Today, its only reminder is a stone marker commemorating the location.
Sidotti, who snuck into the island nation disguised as a samurai, was on a mission to spread the gospel of Christ to the Japanese people, who at the time were hostile to Christianity.
Sidotti was said to have had tremendous influence on the Japanese culture at that time. His general knowledge about Western things such as geography, language and global affairs were prized by Japanese scholars he encountered, who were fairly isolated from the rest of the world and who craved information from abroad.
However, it was Sidotti's refusal to renounce his Christian faith that turned those same leaders against him. He was thrown into a notorious prison for Christians where torture was routine. While the brutal conditions prompted many other Christian inmates to publicly forsake their beliefs, Sidotti held fast to his faith. He was even said to have converted and baptized the Japanese couple caring for him while he was in prison.
Historical accounts say Sidotti was afforded elevated respect compared to the other prisoners. That is backed up by the configuration of his skeletal remains.
"His body was laid flat in a casket, a luxurious one as far as I can tell by the brackets," Akio Tanigawa, professor of archaeology at Tokyo's Waseda University and lead researcher on the remains, told AFP, referring to coffin pieces discovered with the bones.
"People did not bury human bodies like this," Tanigawa stressed, suggesting Sidotti was likely given a burial "in the Christian way."
Two sets of bones found next to Sidotti's are said to belong to the Japanese couple.
Not many substances are as widely studied as tea. Now, the verdict is in. The bottom line: if you're not drinking tea on a regular basis, it might be a habit worth starting.
That's because when it comes to your health, tea packs a powerful punch. Combined studies examining literally hundreds of thousands of tea drinkers led a vast array of scientists to conclude that a consistent dose of tea is good for the body.
Most of the research was conducted in Asian countries, on people drinking hot, green tea. The amount mattered. Usually people only experienced health benefits if they drank at least three cups a day.
Dr. Patrick Fratellone is a cardiologist who practices integrative medicine New York City. He advises his patients to make tea a part of their daily life.
"The active component in green tea is EGCG," he explained. "And that's a polyphenol that helps reduce cholesterol, heart disease, and protects against cancer."
Green Tea Guidelines
Green tea comes from the camellia sinensis plant, as do black and white teas. Green tea contains the most EGCG. But with so many types of green tea on the market, it can be difficult to choose which is best.
Fratellone shares some guidelines.
"I like organic tea because you want to make sure it's grown in an area free of metal in the soil, so you don't want to have lead, cadmium, mercury, any bad, toxic elements," he explained.
"If it's in a bag, you don't want a bag that has a staple on it, sometimes that can get in the tea," he continued. "But I'd rather have loose. And sometimes I don't even strain it. I leave it in there and eat the leaves."
Research shows green tea lowers the risk of Type 2 diabetes and liver disease. It also has been shown to improve memory, reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and depression, as well as significantly lowering your chance of having a stroke.
"Tea is meant to be drunk plain and you get the more medicinal benefits," Fratellone explained. "When you add milk or sugar you can deactivate some of the active medicinal components."
"If there's anything to add, I would add raw honey. It's better to have hot or lukewarm," he said. "When people have iced tea, green iced tea, you lose a lot of the benefits."
Tea Instead of Pill
In addition to the teas you'd find at the grocery store, there are also lots of other teas that are very effective at treating specific medical conditions in lieu of popping a pill.
Fratellone is also a registered herbologist, with a vast knowledge about teas made from various plants, trees, and shrubs. He often prescribes those teas to his patients instead of allergy medicines, antacids, cough suppressants, and more.
"There are many teas that have antibiotic properties, so you don't always have to take an antibiotic," he said. "Yarrow has a great antibiotic profile against many bacteria and viruses. I use barberry, berberine—these are all teas from natural plants."
He points out that many conventional medicines you find at the average pharmacy are actually derived from plants.
"We have a tea for arthritis," he explained. "I use white willow bark, which comes from the tree salix. It's the active ingredient of aspirin, so I mix white willow bark, a little turmeric, a little ginger and probably some devil's claw."
Dorota Meller needed to overcome chronic fatigue.
"So I was really dizzy all the time," she recalled. "I felt weak, I felt tired. I couldn't get out of bed and then when it was eveningtime I couldn't fall asleep. But I was always lethargic."
Fratellone discovered she was anemic. But her problem went even deeper, originating in her intestinal tract.
"So not only the iron, but my vitamin D, my vitamin B, I wasn't absorbing anything I was eating or my supplements or vitamins," Dorota explained.
"I expected to be put on medication or additional supplements, I really didn't know, but Dr. Fratellone said it's as simple as a tea mixture," she said. "And when he first said it, I was maybe a little bit hesitant. I was like, 'How's this tea going to help me?'"
Within a month she felt better.
"My iron for the first time in 10 years is normal. And so is my vitamin D," she exclaimed. "So I know that whatever he gave me, it worked. And it's as simple and as easy as a tea."
Treating the Root
Fratellone says his priority is getting to the root cause of his patients' illnesses, not just treating the symptoms.
"I believe as an M.D. and an herbalist, that the gut is the gateway of all disease, so I want to heal the gut first," he explained.
"You might take gluten, dairy and let's say, corn, out of your diet. Unless you heal your gut, you're still going to have the symptoms," he said. "So the gut-healing tea contains slippery elm, marshmallow, meadowsweet, and raspberry."
He said cleavers, mullein, blue violet and lady's mantle are good teas for breast health and premenstrual syndrome.
"These are all teas for keeping the female side active and we make that as a tea," he continued. "I give that to some of my patients that are going into menopause to ease in with a nice, natural tea instead of taking a lot of things that are harmful."
WARNING: Consult the Expert First
Herbal teas can interact with conventional medicine, so before drinking them, people should check with their doctor or registered herbologist.
The growth of these natural treatments has led to a relatively new healthcare provider known as a naturopathic physician. They attend an accredited four-year program focusing on botanical medicine, food as medicine, and other natural remedies.
Nick Edgerton is a student at the University of Bridgeport College of Naturopathic Medicine.
"I think there needs to be more marketing to realize this medicine is available," he said. "And that you don't have to jump on a statin or a blood pressure medication when you might be able to control it with some dietary changes and maybe the use of an herb, which is not that much different than a drug."
"(That) is why it's important, whether it's tea or herbal pills, that you do see a naturopath because you do need to have coordination of care with other medications as well," he said.
While naturopathic doctors practice in each state, they are only licensed on 19 states, with more on the way.
So for overall better health, include three cups of green tea to your daily diet. Research overwhelmingly concludes it's worth the effort.
For more specific health concerns, consult a registered herbologist or naturopathic doctor about a natural tea that could take the place of conventional pharmaceuticals.
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