Protecting life in California, Pastors die in Cuba, Abortion funding cut, Christian therapist fired

Protecting Life. A judge in Riverside County overturned California's physician-assisted suicide law last week. The 2015 law had allowed terminally ill patients to request lethal injections from their doctors. California was the fifth state to legalize assisted suicide. The battle is not over, however. The California attorney general has the right to appeal, and in a statement Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra said: "We strongly disagree with this ruling and the state is seeking expedited review in the Court of Appeal." Records indicate that in the first six months after the law went into effect, 173 physicians wrote the 191 prescriptions statewide. Pastors Die in Cuban Crash. A Boeing 737 crashed after takeoff last week in Havana, Cuba. Among the 113 dead were pastors and spouses from the Church of the Nazarene who were in Cuba for a conference. According a report from WORLD, Leonel López, president of the Church of the Nazarene Cuba, said the pastors and their spouses were heading home to Holguín after a three-day national conference in Havana. “Our blessed and joyful pastors and their spouses were among those who lost their lives, but we know that they are in Heaven with the Lord,” he wrote. Abortion Funding Cut. The Trump Administration cut about $60-million in federal funds, which will now go to qualified health centers with no ties to abortion. Dawn Laguens, vice president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said the redirection of funds means “people will not get the healthcare they need. They won’t get birth control, cancer screenings, STD testing and treatment, or even general women’s health exams.” However, many qualified health centers that have no ties to abortion provide all the same services. “These tax dollars can go to many fine community and rural healthcare centers, which far outnumber the Planned Parenthood abortion clinics and provide a vast array of quality, non-controversial and life-affirming healthcare services,” David Stevens, president of the Christian Medical Association, said in a statement. Catherine Glenn Foster, president of Americans United for Life (AUL), told WORLD, the regulations, instigated by the Reagan administration and upheld by the Supreme Court in 1991, “merely recognize that abortion is not a method of family planning. AUL was proud to be part of the legal defense of these life-affirming regulations then, and maintain our strong support for them now.” Christian Therapist Sues. According to the Detroit Free Press, “A social worker is suing her former employer after she was fired for refusing to provide marriage counseling to a gay couple because it conflicted with her Catholic faith.” Kathleen Lorentzen said her supervisors “mocked for her beliefs and physically intimidated” her. "Mrs. Lorentzen’s protected status (religion) was a motivating factor in the decisions of defendant HealthSource that constituted adverse employment actions, including her termination," the lawsuit reads. Lorentzen worked for HealthSource from 2011 to 2017 as an outpatient behavioral therapist for HealthSource, according to the complaint filed late last week in U.S. District Court. In summer 2017, a gay couple was referred to her for marriage counseling. She saw the couple twice before asking her supervisors to re-assign the couple to another therapist. Instead, she was fired. She is seeking a jury trial and financial compensation. Milestones. Nathaniel Hawthorne died on May 19, 1864. Nobel Prize winner Sigrid Undset was born on May 20, 1882.

05/22/18