Life Advocacy Briefing

Warning Shot

SOME 50 PRO-LIFE/FAMILY LEADERS RESOLVED during a Sept. 29 meeting, reports Hilary White for LifeSiteNews.com, to “‘consider running a third-party candidate … if the Republican Party nominates a pro-abortion candidate’” for President in 2008.

Though participants did not formally agree to enlist a contender for such a third-party effort now, such prominent conservatives as Focus on the Family president Dr. James Dobson and Family Research Council president Tony Perkins did resolve to warn the GOP not to take the votes of “social conservatives” for granted. The message was aimed at party leaders giving running room to former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, currently occupying first place among GOP Presidential hopefuls in most national polls and in the fundraising contest so critical to winning the competition in a field littered with contenders. Mayor Giuliani is a long-time backer of legalized and subsidized abortion.

Win One, Lose Five

PLANNED PARENTHOOD OPENED ITS MEGABORTUARY in Aurora, Illinois, last week but announced the closing, by year’s end, of five PP shops in Michigan.

In Aurora, the mayor issued an occupancy permit for the controversial 22,000-square-foot abortion mill to open for business without consulting the Aurora City Council or acknowledging the local ordinance requiring public hearings for non-profit medical businesses to locate in the Chicago suburb.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), by the way, managed to get his endorsement of the killing center into the media just ahead of the mayor’s announcement. Pronounced he, in a statement issued in late September, “I fully support Planned Parenthood’s desire to open a new facility in Aurora. The proposed center will serve the growing population in a part of the state where access to a full range of reproductive health care services is lacking.” Would that such “services” were lacking!

Area pro-life leaders and Aurora citizens are exploring legal recourse against the city of Aurora to add to the lawsuit they filed last week against Planned Parenthood of Chicago and its executive director Steve Trombley for his repeated slander of protesters during the last two months of controversy. In addition to the lawsuits, prayer vigils continue.

PP’s Michigan miseries stem from “a combined 40% cut in state and federal funding this year,” reports Focus on the Family’s Citizenlink bulletin. Two of the five threatened shops closed last Monday in White Cloud and Hart. “Clinics” in Grand Rapids, Muskegon and Mount Pleasant are slated to close before 2008. All are in western and central Michigan.

The nation’s leading abortion business will continue to receive $1 million in state and federal funds for its Michigan operations, but the still whopping total represents a cut from the $1.7 million in tax funds handed over to PP in Michigan last year.

Nice Try

NOTORIOUS ABORTIONIST GEORGE TILLER LOST A ROUND last Monday, when a county judge in Wichita refused to dismiss a citizens’ petition convening a grand jury to investigate the late-term specialist in baby killing. Kansas law permits the unusual citizen action, but lawyers for Mr. Tiller “said the process … violates the separation of powers,” reports Medical News Today citing Associated Press (AP) as source, “and results in a chilling effect on a patient’s right to privacy. They added,” reports MNT, “that the grand jury also would subject [Mr.] Tiller to malicious prosecution, a lack of due process and the right to a fair trial,” terming the prospective grand jury probe “a ‘vigilante effort’ by ‘individuals who have no interest in what the law is but with trumpeting a political agenda.’” The judge disagreed.

License to Kill in Jeopardy?

MR. TILLER IS FACING TROUBLE ON ANOTHER FRONT as well. His license could be in jeopardy at last.

Operation Rescue has filed a formal complaint, on behalf of an injured customer, against abortionist Shelley Sella as practitioner and against Mr. Tiller as medical director of his abortion shop, “for alleged illegal acts, unethical conduct and breach of the standard of care,” announces OR in a news release, “in the 2003 late-term abortion of Michelle Armesto.”

The young woman surfaced last month when she testified before a legislative committee probing late-term abortions in the state and then released her medical records to OR in order to file the complaint.

The formal complaint with the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts is the second lodged with KSBHA against Mr. Tiller in the past year. The first, filed last October, is now at the Peer Review Board stage.

The newer Armesto complaint “alleges 14 suspected violations,” reports OR, “including beginning the abortion procedure without having taken a medical history or obtaining her consent. It also alleges,” according to the news release, “that [Tiller associate] Sella ignored the legal requirement that she meet with the patient prior to the procedure, violating the 24-hour waiting period, and failed to provide follow-up contact or care.” These violations are typical of procedures at the Tiller shop, according to numerous anecdotal reports and charges.

“Additionally, the complaint contends,” reports OR, “that [Ms.] Sella falsified the determination of non-viability in [Ms.] Armesto’s 24-week preborn baby in order to avoid having to comply with the [Kansas] laws restricting abortions on viable babies. …

“‘Tiller now faces two Board of Healing Arts investigations that could cost him his license,’” said OR president Troy Newman in the news release. “‘He faces 19 criminal counts of illegal late-term abortions [in a separate probe] that could cost him huge fines, and he faces a grand jury investigation,’” notes Mr. Newman, “‘that could net literally hundreds of additional counts of illegal abortions from the past five years that could cost him his freedom. This is a full court press against an abortion industry that has too long operated as if they are above the law,’” said Mr. Newman. “‘It is past time that these people were brought to justice.’”

Tragedy on the Table

THE MOTHER OF A 22-YEAR-OLD ABORTION VICTIM “is demanding the authorities take action,” writes Peter J. Smith for LifeSiteNews.com citing Operation Rescue as source, “against an abortionist who destroyed her daughter’s unborn child while [the young woman] died of cardiac arrest on his operating table.”

The Massachusetts woman “has initiated legal action,” writes Mr. Smith, “against abortionist Rabin Osathanondh in order to prevent her daughter’s cruel death from being merely ‘swept under the rug’ as frequently occurs after abortion tragedies.”

The 22-year-old “walked into Osathanondh’s Women Health Clinic in Hyannis on Sept. 13, 2007, as a healthy young woman engaged to be married,” writes Mr. Smith, “before she died on Osathanondh’s abortion table. A friend had taken [the young woman] to the abortion clinic without the knowledge of her mother, … who told Operation Rescue that she never realized her daughter was 13 weeks pregnant and considering an abortion until both her daughter and the child were dead.”

The grieving mother “told OR,” writes Mr. Smith, “that she met privately for one hour with [Mr.] Osathanondh, who refused to meet her accompanied by her husband and only alone in a public place. Osathanondh admitted to [the mother] that her daughter died as a result of the abortion but refused to accept any culpability. … Over 600 people attended [the young woman’s] funeral, and one young woman,” reports LifeSite, “changed her mind about abortion after hearing the [family’s] testimony of their daughter’s tragic death. …

“A complaint has been filed … with the Massachusetts Board of Registration,” reports Mr. Smith, against the Hyannis abortionist “regarding the abortion death. In 2001, [Mr.] Osathanondh made headlines for threatening in a fit of rage to murder five nurses for misplacing his paperwork.”

We join OR in urging citizens to contact the district attorney “to request a formal investigation of Rabin Osathanondh in the abortion death of Laura Hope Smith.” District Attorney Michael O’Keefe can be reached via telephone at 1-508/362-8113, via electronic mail at [email protected], and by postal mail at PO Box 455, Barnstable, MA 02630.

Just in Time for Hallowe’en

THE UNITED NATIONS CHILDREN’s FUND IS AMONG AGENCIES which last week launched a new initiative pushing for, among other things, legalized abortion worldwide.

UNICEF has long maintained it is not involved in abortion, yet over the years the agency has indeed invested in abortion promotion. The agency is aggressive also about using the world’s children – particularly those in America – to raise massive funding above and beyond the official funding the UN extracts from taxpayers through their respective governments. The decades-long fundraising campaign nets millions each Hallowe’en from children begging their neighbors for UNICEF cash along with begging for candy.

UNICEF’s participation in the “Deliver Now” initiative was unveiled by the pro-life UN watchdog Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute, which focused its Friday Fax (dated Oct. 4, 2007) on the new campaign and its abortion connection. The Friday Fax can be read in its entirety at the Internet website www.c-fam.org.

Adult Stem Cells Show Even More Promise

ANOTHER APPLICATION OF ADULT STEM CELLS appears to be promising for those suffering liver failure, for which the only current treatment available is transplantation.

“Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital,” reports Devon Williams for Focus on the Family’s Citizenlink bulletin, “successfully treated rats with liver disease by injecting stem cells from bone marrow into their livers. If the results can be replicated in humans,” writes Mr. Williams, “a patient’s life may be prolonged until a liver don[ation] becomes available. The treatment,” he writes, “also could enable the organ to eventually regenerate itself, eliminating the need for a transplant altogether.”

Adult stem cell therapies are effective for an increasing number of conditions and are entirely ethical, since no human being need be sacrificed to collect adult stem cells. Such research contrasts sharply with experimentation on stem cells harvested from embryos, since embryo experimentation requires the sacrifice of the embryo for the benefit of another and since the touted “success” of embryo experimentation is limited to theory and dream; no experiments have been undertaken to date in humans, since trials in animals have yet to show either usefulness or safety for the embryo stem cell transplant recipient.

Determined to Deal Death

DEFYING THE REALITIES OF MEDICAL RESEARCH, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) declared last week that if elected President, “she would sign an executive order,” reports AP writer Beth Fouhy, “rescinding Pres. Bush’s restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. …

“On the campaign trail, [Mrs.] Clinton has repeatedly slammed what she calls [Pres.] Bush’s ‘war on science’ and accused the administration of allowing conservative political ideology to interfere with research and scientific evidence. She cites Administration officials who have questioned the scientific evidence of global warming,” writes Ms. Fouhy, “and who have suggested a link existed between abortion and breast cancer.”

New Poll Shows Risk for G.O.P. Tilting Toward Abortion

Oct. 4, 2007, End of Day memo by Gary Bauer, president, Campaign for Working Families, and former domestic policy chief for Pres. Ronald Reagan

Given the recent news of talk among conservatives about a third-party effort if a socially liberal candidate were to win the Republican Presidential nomination, the respected polling firm Rasmussen Reports decided to test the issue. Today, it released the findings of a new poll that clearly demonstrates the risk Republican voters would be taking if a pro-choice [sic] candidate, like Rudy Giuliani, were to win the nomination.

According to the Rasmussen analysis, “27% of Republican voters say they’d vote for the third-party option rather than Giuliani.” In such a three-way race, Hillary Clinton would win 46%, Giuliani would win 30%, and a conservative third-party candidate would capture 14% of the vote.

“This poll proves two points that I have been making in recent weeks. First, I have been extremely skeptical about polls showing that Giuliani can “win” in November of 2008 for the very reason that there are millions of conservative voters who would likely not vote for him. Some might come around in the heat of a campaign and decide at the last minute to vote for the “lesser of two evils,” but is that a risk GOP voters are willing to take?

The second point relates to the dangers of just such an option for the conservative movement. As I have said before, a Clinton/Giuliani race is a no-win situation for pro-family conservatives – especially if 14% back a third-party candidate and Hillary gets elected. Clearly the third-party route does not get us across the goal line.

The solution, as I see it, is to keep the coalition of economic and social conservatives united. If the Republican Party is to win in 2008, its best bet is to nominate a candidate who is pro-life, pro-growth and pro-defense.

But right now, Giuliani is leading the nomination contest according to most national polls because the conservative vote is split between Brownback, Huckabee, Hunter, Keyes, McCain, Paul, Romney, Tancredo and Thompson. And, unfortunately, the third-quarter fundraising reports are not helping to clarify the situation.

So what is the status of the race? According to an average of national polls, including conservative pollsters, four candidates are in double digits: Giuliani (28%), Thompson (21%), McCain (14%) and Romney (10%). From what we know of the third-quarter fundraising reports, the money leaders are Romney ($18 million), Giuliani ($11 million), Thompson ($8 million) and McCain and Paul tied at $5 million.

If these figures frustrate you, don’t blame me. I am just reporting the facts as we now know them. And it explains why one political reporter recently wrote, “The race for the Republican Presidential nomination is a muddle. It is clouded by confusion and illuminated only by brief flashes of perplexity.” I couldn’t agree more!