LONDON - The U.N. Population Fund has declared that having fewer children would help reduce so-called global warming...but added it is difficult to proof a connection between the two. The agency said the battle against global warming could be helped if the world slowed population growth by making free condoms and family planning advice more widely available. The agency did not recommend countries set limits on how many children people should have, but said: "Women with access to reproductive health services ... have lower fertility rates that contribute to slower growth in greenhouse gas emissions"...

Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson says he will use his key centrist vote to support a debate on the health care reform bill. But the Nebraska senator said Friday that his support of a procedural motion to allow debate does not mean he will vote for the overall bill. Nelson says having a debate on health care reform will allow for an opportunity to improve the bill and make sure Nebraskans' concerns are heard. Nebraska's other U.S. senator, Republican Mike Johanns, has opposed the Democrats' health care reform plan, saying the legislation would make health care more expensive and could jeopardize Medicare...

More Americans continue to oppose the health care reform legislation than support it, according to a Fox News poll released Friday. In addition, half favor banning the use of federal funds for abortions. By 51 percent to 35 percent, the public opposes the reform legislation being considered right now by Congress. Last month, a majority opposed the health care legislation by a similar 54-35 percent (October 13-14, 2009). While a majority of Democrats favor the reforms (65 percent), some 17 percent are opposed and another 18 percent are unsure. Most Republicans (82 percent) and a majority of independents (61 percent) oppose the legislation...

A healthcare policy expert says there are details in the Senate healthcare bill that will frighten everyone. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) has unveiled his more than 2,000-page healthcare bill with an estimated price tag of $849 billion. However, as Grace Marie Turner of the Galen Institute points out, one of the reasons the bill was scored under President Obama's $900 billion cost goal is because no one gets any benefit from the program until 2014. "So they start collecting taxes and fees now, and...the first ten years of full implementation of this bill is $2.5 trillion, and that's only the beginning," Turner explains. "So this does not in any way...meet President Obama's budget specification. And there are all sorts of tricks that they have pulled in this bill to try to pretend that it's deficit-neutral"...

CEDAR CREEK, Texas – Buoyed by a pair of Nov. 3 gubernatorial victories and signs of increasing voter unease toward Democratic-controlled Washington, top Republicans expressed optimism Thursday that their party was poised to make significant gains in 2010. After two successive election cycles that left their activists and donors demoralized, the Republican governors gathered here offered the sort of upbeat rhetoric about GOP prospects that has been largely absent since President George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election. While heaping praise on what they said were issued-oriented campaigns from their two new governors-elect, New Jersey’s Chris Christie and Virginia’s Bob McDonnell, Republicans said their comeback was being ushered in by a series of policy excesses by President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress...

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin early Friday morning greeted news that renewed guidelines scale back screenings for cervical cancer by asking if bureaucratic panels were already rationing care. “The recommendation from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists comes on the heels of another recommendation to limit breast cancer screenings with mammograms. There are many questions unanswered for me, but one which immediately comes to mind is whether costs have anything to do with these recommendations,” Palin wrote in a post on her Facebook page. “The current health care debate elicits great concern because of its introduction of socialized medicine in America and the inevitable rationed care,” she continued...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- As Congress remains embroiled in a massive debate over whether to force Americans to pay for abortions through the new government-run health care programs, a new CNN poll finds 61 percent oppose government funding abortions with public dollars. The poll found six in ten Americans favor a ban on using federal funds for abortions, such as the Stupak amendment recently added to the health care bill in the House. The new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released today shows 61 percent oppose taxpayer funding of abortions while just 37 percent are supportive...

A healthcare policy analyst says new mammography guidelines proposed by a government task force would be a setback for early breast cancer detection. A government panel of doctors and scientists recommended Monday that women in their forties should not have annual mammograms and older women should reduce their use of the screening device. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) concluded that early and frequent breast cancer screenings often lead to false alarms and unneeded biopsies without substantially improving women's odds of survival...

Washington (AP) - After months of maneuvering, the Senate stands at the brink of a historic battle over health care with President Barack Obama and his allies on one side and Republicans, outnumbered but unflinching, on the other. "Now it's America's turn, and this will not be a short debate," Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, warned after Majority Leader Harry Reid unveiled long-awaited legislation Wednesday night to extend coverage to 30 million more Americans and force insurance companies to take all comers. "Higher premiums, tax increases and Medicare cuts to pay for more government. The American people know that is not reform," McConnell said...

A state representative in Ohio wants the state's ban on homosexual marriage to be overturned. In 2004, Ohioans encountered a ballot presenting the issue of homosexual marriage. The vote established that the constitutional amendment protects marriage between one man and one woman by 24 percent. However, Tyrone Yates, Ohio Democratic state representative, seeks to overturn the vote of the people. David Miller of Citizens for Community Values in Ohio said, “I think everybody knows that every state that has given the voters the opportunity to limit marriage has done so, and most by very significant margins...