After 102 years, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, America’s historic military hospital that treated Presidents, foreign leaders, and generations of wounded soldiers returning from combat and service around the world, is set to close its doors in September.

Under a proposed change being considered by the national network overseeing organ transplant policy in the U.S., younger and healthier kidney patients would be given priority consideration for donor organs. Currently, the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), a non-profit organization that contracts with the federal government to coordinate organ placement, gives priority consideration to those who have been on a waiting list the longest, as well as to patients who are the sickest and most critically in need of a kidney.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has turned to the federal government in an attempt to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions. The liberal legal group took the action after St. Joseph’s Hospital and Clinic in Phoenix, Arizona, lost its Catholic status because doctors there had performed an abortion on a woman whom they claimed had life-threatening complications.

A controversial “birth control” drug, approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) despite evidence that it induces abortion in women who take it, is now on sale in the U.S. On December 1 Watson Pharmaceuticals, the New Jersey-based distributor of the drug known as “Ella,” announced that it is now available by prescription at pharmacies and clinics across the nation, as well as through some online pharmacies.

Researchers in Sri Lanka have found what they say is a link between abortion and breast cancer. According to the study conducted by scientists at the University of Colombo, having an abortion can triple a woman’s risk of the disease, and, in fact, abortion is the greatest reported risk factor associated with breast cancer. The latest study is the fourth in the last 14 months to show such a link, following similar findings by researchers in China, Turkey, and the United States.

On July 15 the U.S. Army reported 32 confirmed or suspected suicides among its troops in June, the highest number in a single month since the Vietnam conflict. Of the deaths, 21 were active duty soldiers, while 11 were reserve soldiers on inactive status. Seven of the soldiers killed themselves during combat in Iraq or Afghanistan, and the Army reported that among the 32 killed, ten had been deployed multiple times.

During a recent trip to Egypt, U.S Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (left) had some key advice for the leaders of this Middle Eastern country as it supposedly moves past a long era of oppression and dictatorship into freedom for its people: Don’t use the U.S. Constitution as a model in penning your own governing document.

As the White House released a memorandum outlining President Obama’s strategy for promoting homosexuality globally, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was busy hectoring the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva with the same discordant anthem. Speaking on behalf of the President, Clinton exhorted the UN body concerning the evils of “gay and lesbian discrimination,” reported the Associated Press, “declaring the U.S. will use foreign assistance as well as diplomacy to back its insistence that gay rights are fully equal to other basic human rights.”

A former U.S. Marine Cpl. who disregarded orders, fighting five times through an enemy ambush in an Afghan valley to help rescue three dozen comrades and recover four fallen American soldiers, received the Medal of Honor, America’s highest military award, in a September 15 White House ceremony. The Marine Corps Times reported that 23-year-old Dakota Meyer was honored “for his actions in the infamous Battle of Ganjgal, a six-hour ambush and firefight that killed some of his best friends on Sept. 8, 2009, in Kunar province, Afghanistan.”

The American Center for Law and Justice ACLJ), a conservative legal advocacy group, is targeting Delta Airlines’ new partnership with Saudi Arabian Airlines, charging that the venture serves to further discriminatory policies the Saudi passenger carrier has in place that target Jews, Christians, and women. In January Delta announced its partnership with the Saudi airline, with Delta’s vice president, Charlie Pappas, saying he was “honored that Saudi Arabian [Airlines] has chosen to link its future growth and success with Delta and our SkyTeam partners, while bringing our alliance greater access to destinations across the Middle East.”