Life Advocacy Briefing

Abstinence Ed Renewed, for Now

THE U.S. HOUSE PASSED A MEASURE TEMPORARILY EXTENDING authorization for the Dept. of Health & Human Services to continue Title V (Five) funding grants to abstinence-until-marriage educators. The bill passed 291 to 126. Because the abstinence provision was married to a pet cause of liberal Members, the House voting record is not definitive, so we do not plan to publish it as a Life-issue roll call. We are pleased to note the bill is on its way to the White House, having already passed the Senate.

The issue, however, is far from resolved. The extension embodied in S-1701 takes the abstinence education program only to the end of this fiscal year, a period of three months. If the House and Senate do not renew it more securely this month or during September, the growing network of abstinence education providers is likely to shrivel, and America’s schoolchildren will be increasingly subject to “how-to” instruction from those who would promote their sexual delinquency.

Calls to both House Members and Senators are needed and may be placed via the Capitol switchboard at 1-202/224-3121, asking lawmakers to “reauthorize Title Five abstinence-until-marriage education.”

Survivors Step Up

A PRO-LIFE YOUTH GROUP STAGED A SIT-IN early this monthat the Los Angeles campaign office for the Presidential campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY). The Christian youth group, Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, organized the demonstration as part of its annual leadership training camp in southern California.

More than 40 youth, aged 14 to 30, from all over the US, reports Peter J. Smith for LifeSiteNews.com, “participated in the sit-in protest as part of learning the ins and outs of pro-life activism.”

“‘It’s not just Sen. Clinton,’” said Survivors spokesman Kortney Blythe, quoted by Mr. Smith. “‘It’s any pro-abortion candidate – whether Democrat or Republican or whatever. If they support abortion,’” she said in the LifeSite story, “‘we want to be there to show what they support. … We hope to let them know,’” said Ms. Blythe, “‘that they’re not going to get the support of a generation that has seen the effect of abortion, … that’s seen one-third of their generation killed by abortion and seen their friends and family hurt because of abortion. We’re not going to support them,’” she declared in the LifeSite report; “‘[we’re] not going to vote for them and not going to let them pretend like they care for women.’”

The Survivors group plans to be active throughout the country during the coming election season. Training camp participants, Ms. Blythe noted, will “return as pro-life leaders to their hometowns. … ‘We’ve taught them how to run an event,’” said Ms. Blythe in the LifeSite story, “‘so they’ll be putting on their own events when politicians or pro-abortion leaders show up in their town.’” Survivors group organizers planned to spend this past weekend in Wichita, Kansas, leading what they anticipated would be “hundreds of youth” in “life-saving activism” outside the abortuary of notorious late-term abortionist George Tiller. Information about the group is available at www.survivors.la.

Tiller Forestalls Prosecution

LATE-TERM ABORTIONIST GEORGE TILLER HAS FILED SUIT challenging the constitutionality of the statute under which he has been charged with 19 counts of illegally committing late-term abortions without referral or a second opinion by a doctor not financially or legally dependent on him. The “second doctor” cited in the 19 cases reportedly moved her office to the Tiller abortuary when her own shop was closed by authorities.

Operation Rescue president Troy Newman charged, in an OR news release, the lawsuit is “an effort to dodge prosecution. …

“This legal maneuver is a baseless waste of time,” said Mr. Newman. “The language in the law was upheld in the US Supreme Court in the Casey decision. This is nothing more than a stall tactic,” he said, “to delay the criminal case against him. In the meantime,” he noted, “it is business as usual down at the abortion clinic, where babies that should have the protection of law will continue to be killed. I can’t think of a greater injustice.”

Brigham’s Back

ANOTHER NOTORIOUS ABORTIONIST – Steven Brigham – has resurfaced in the news, having acknowledged he was committing abortions at the latest New Jersey baby chop-shop to have been closed – albeit temporarily – by state health authorities.

In the past, Mr. Brigham voluntarily surrendered his Pennsylvania medical license before his New York and Florida licenses were revoked. He has undergone official medical discipline in New Jersey and California, has been sentenced to 120 days incarceration for Medicaid fraud and has been ordered by a New Jersey judge to “stop advertising his abortions as ‘painless’ and ‘safe,’” reports Operation Rescue in a news release reporting the Brigham involvement in the now closed Alternatives in Atlantic City.

Mr. Brigham “has been under investigation and discipline,” notes Operation Rescue, “throughout his entire 20-year career.” He is now reported to be “in the process,” reports OR, “of buying the abortion clinic” in Atlantic City.

OR spokesman Cheryl Sullenger called Mr. Brigham “a menace to the safety of women and their preborn babies. … What we see in New Jersey is a ‘perfect storm’ for disaster,” said Ms. Sullenger. “We have a seedy abortion mill with dangerous conditions being taken over by a shoddy abortionist with a history of trouble a mile long. Women who go to these places,” she said, “have no idea what kind of danger they are walking into.”

Harold O.J. Brown, R.I.P.

A GIANT IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PRO-LIFE MOVEMENT, Harold O.J. Brown PhD, passed away July 8 after a long battle with cancer.

In recent years Dr. Brown served as a Senior Fellow at the Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity in Bannockburn, Illinois. He was professor emeritus of Biblical and systematic theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in nearby Deerfield.

He is best remembered among pro-life leaders for his groundbreaking work to bring evangelical Protestants into active advocacy for the cause of Life. “Dr. Brown sounded the trumpet call to evangelicals,” said Kurt Entsminger, president of CareNet, “to not sit idly by when the needs of our culture are so devastatingly evident. Hundreds of thousands,” noted Mr. Entsminger, “have responded to his call and have opened pregnancy centers in local communities. His solitary life has had a ripple effect that will last for generations; hundreds of thousands of children have been spared abortion over the last 30 years because of the compassionate work of pregnancy centers.”

In 1975 Dr. Brown co-founded CareNet – then “Christian Action Council” – along with former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. CareNet currently supports a network of 1,090 pregnancy centers in North America, according to the CareNet news release honoring Dr. Brown on his passing.

Christian Legal Society director Samuel Casey credited Dr. Brown’s writings and lectures as the inspiration behind the founding of CLS’s Law of Life Project and noted in a CLS news release, that Dr. Brown’s “most prominent work was helping form and intellectually arm the pro-life movement.”

Said Fr. Frank Pavone in his capacity as president of the National Pro-Life Religious Council, “Of how many people can it be said that countless lives were saved by their work? Yet that is undoubtedly true of [Dr. Brown]. His legacy lives on with the lives he helped save, the minds he inspired and the souls he touched.”

Protecting Missouri’s Children

THE STATE OF MISSOURI HAS BARRED PLANNED PARENTHOOD and other outfits which commit abortions from any involvement in public school sex education classes. PP has been teaching sex in as many as 40 public schools in the St. Louis area alone, according to LifeSiteNews.com reporter Hilary White.

“We are ecstatic,” said Jim Sedlak, vice president of American Life League in an ALL news release. He called the new law “a great victory for Missouri parents. … The elected officials in Missouri,” he said, “understood the conflict of interest that exists when PP is allowed to teach or provide material for sex education classes. To have an entity that profits from the sale of birth control and abortion teaching our children about sex is ludicrous.” Yet PP is invited into public schools across the country.

The new law reads, in part, “No school district or charter school, or its personnel or agents, shall provide abortion services, or permit a person or entity to offer, sponsor, or furnish in any manner any course materials or instruction relating to human sexuality or sexually transmitted diseases to its students if such person or entity is a provider of abortion services.”

The child protection provision in Missouri is part of a new statute which reclassifies abortion mills as “ambulatory surgical centers,” which subjects the butcher shops to greater state regulation and oversight.

Gov. Matt Blunt (R), at the signing ceremony for the law, called it “‘one of the strongest pieces of pro-life legislation in Missouri history,’” reports LifeSite. Missouri has been systematically tightening regulations on abortuaries, passing legislation two years ago which resulted in immediate shutdown of several mills.

“Planned Parenthood of Missouri complained,” reports LifeSite, “that the new law … will require them to spend up to $2 million to refit their abortion mills in order to meet the standards required under the new classification,” an admission that their surgical facilities have been operating under substandard conditions. The president of Planned Parenthood for the St. Louis Region, reports LifeSite, “said the new law could leave only one abortion facility in the state.”

Retorted Gov. Blunt, quoted by LifeSite, “‘I say if they can’t meet the same basic requirements that other (medical providers) do, then they should shut down.’”

Welcome, Sen. Barrasso

A NEW SENATOR TOOK THE OATH OF OFFICE late last month. Casper, Wyoming, orthopedic surgeon John Barrasso (R) will serve until January 2009, filling the vacancy created by the passing of pro-life Sen. Craig Thomas, who won re-election last November. A special election will be held in November 2008 to fill the final four years of the six-year term.  Sen. Barrasso was appointed by his state’s Democratic governor, Dave Freudenthal, from a list of three nominees submitted by the Wyoming Republican Party.

Sen. Barrasso has served in the state senate since 2003. Defining his philosophy in the application he filed with the Wyoming GOP, he said, reports Associated Press writer Bob Moen, “‘I believe in limited government, lower taxes, less spending, traditional family values, local control and a strong national defense. … In the state senate, in addition to receiving an “A” rating from the NRA,’” said Sen. Barrasso in the AP report, “‘I have voted for prayer in schools, against gay marriage and have sponsored legislation to protect the sanctity of life.’”

Sen. Barrasso called himself “pro-choice” at the time of his 1996 primary race against Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY), then competing for an open seat, according to published reports. We welcome his later declaration of commitment to “the sanctity of life” and expect fidelity to that claim.

House Debate on ‘Mexico City’

Excerpt from a June 21, 2007, House speech by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) on the Lowey Amendment gutting the Reagan-era Mexico City Policy by which the US foreign aid budget cannot be tapped by organizations which commit abortions or lobby for relaxation of overseas anti-abortion laws. Source: Congressional Record.

REP. WOLF: … A May 22 Washington Post article described a recent crackdown on Chinese families that have violated [Red] China’s one-child policy. The article stated that Chinese birth control bureaucrats showed up in a half-dozen towns in Guangxi Province carrying sledgehammers and electric cattle prods to destroy the homes and businesses of those who had failed to pay their fines under China’s coercive one-child policy. The article described family planning officials as ransacking businesses owned by parents of more than one child. Thos who protested were bloodied in the struggle, and villages reported people being killed in the violence.

Now, I heard that on National Public Radio, too. It was brutal. So that’s really what we are talking about, because the United States “Mexico City” policy prevents funding from going to international organizations that promote abortion as a means of family planning, including in China.

Two prime examples of these organizations are the International Planned Parenthood Federation and (Britain-based) Marie Stopes International, both of which are closely tied to the Chinese one-child policy. They are, in essence, the ones that will get this [funding]. They never, ever speak out [about Red China’s brutal actions].

In fact, China was the second country to become “officially recognized as a qualified member of the International Planned Parenthood Federation.” On its website, IPPF recently touted, saluted, just said it was a great thing – China’s effort to exploit, its exploitation policy, family-planning policy regime worldwide.

I don’t want to get off too far on this, but this is a country getting aid [from] these groups that are poisoning your toothpaste, poisoning your pets and, if you read the article the other day, painting Thomas the Tank Engine trains with lead paint that most people here – their children and grandchildren – have. This country is the country.

We restrict UNFPA funds to China expressly because China is coercive, and this is a coercive government. … Organizations that will receive funds under the new family planning language in this bill will be able to help China continue these unconscionable and, I would say, immoral activities.

I support family planning, but I can’t support – will not support – giving family planning taxpayer funds to these kind of organizations that not only never speak out but actually participate.