Scrolling around...March 27, 2013

India's target-driven quotas for female sterilisation are producing horrific scenes, all with the aid of Western money
The end of the financial year has arrived in India, as it has in a number of other countries, but there the pressure of the bottom line has produced a very shocking effect. Early last month two doctors working at a hospital in the Malda district of West Bengal, performed sterilisation surgery on 103 women in one day. Since the hospital could only accommodate 30 women the rest were carried out on rough stretchers and dumped on an open field to recover. Some were loaded onto rickshaws, still bleeding and in semi-conscious or unconscious states, to be sent home. One woman fell off a rickshaw on her way home and had to be hospitalised with severe injuries...

UN report equates lack of access to abortion and reparative therapy for homosexuals with ‘torture’   A recent United Nations report on torture and mistreatment in health care systems around the world singled out lack of access to abortion as a form of “torture,” classifying it as a human rights violation on par with female genital mutilation, forced sterilizations and state-sanctioned beatings.
The report also says governments should recognize the preferred sex of ‘transgender’ individuals without regard to biology, arguing that forcing such people to undergo sex-reassignment surgery in order to prove their case is equivalent to torture.

Revealing What States Are Hiding About the Real Costs of Public Education
...In a new paper, Heritage expert Jason Richwine reveals that “Proper accounting would reveal tens of billions of dollars in extra teacher pension costs, equivalent to somewhere around $1,000 in unreported spending per student.”
That’s right—the real cost of education is far higher than we’ve been told, but it’s not because of extra classroom resources or newer facilities. It’s because of teachers’ pensions...

Albert Mohler: Marriage in the Dock—The Supreme Court Considers Same-Sex Marriage  ...Both cases are significant. Together they represent a monumental set of issues for the justices. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was passed by huge majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate back in 1996. It was then signed into law by President Bill Clinton. DOMA requires the federal government to define marriage exclusively as the union of a man and a woman, and it makes clear that no state is obligated to recognize a same-sex union conducted in any other state. President Obama, whose constitutional responsibility requires him to defend the laws of the United States, has ordered his Attorney General not to defend DOMA in court. It will be defended by attorneys representing the House of Representatives...

Are the Polyamorists Next in Line for Marriage Equality?
...Not to be outdone by their colleagues in Hollywood, the liberal news media has also gone out of its way to “innocently” ask questions about polyamory. In 2009, Newsweek asked if Polygamy was the next sexual revolution (because the old sexual revolution was not destructive enough of society). The article features a life and times of a Seattle “triad” made up of one woman and two men. This seemingly happy “family” figured out how to overcome the “hard-wired” tendency towards jealousy through the process called “compersion”—or learning to find personal fulfillment in the emotional and sexual satisfaction of your partner, even if you’re not the one doing the satisfying.”...

North Dakota Now First State to Ban Abortions Based on Down Syndrome
With the governor’s signature on the ban today, North Dakota has become the first state to ban abortions based on genetic “defects” like Down Syndrome. When diagnosed before birth, such genetic abnormalities prompt couples to have abortions 90 percent of the time...

Egyptian mosque turned into house of torture for Christians after Muslim Brotherhood protest
...Such stories have become increasingly common as tensions between Egypt’s Muslims and Copts mount, but in the latest case, mosque officials corroborated much of the account and even filed a police report. Demonstrators, some of whom were Muslim, say they were taken from the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in suburban Cairo to a nearby mosque on Friday and tortured for hours by hard-line militia members...