Life Advocacy Briefing

For the week of October 29, 2007

Senate Likely to Vote on Abortion Funding Ban / ‘Mexico City’ Policy Under Fire Again
/ Leaving Out ‘the Least of These’ / Stop the Blood Money! / Safety First – At Least for Moms /
Why No State Charges? / Convincing Victory / School Board Facing Recall for Sex Clinic Vote? / House Debate Excerpt

 

Senate Likely to Vote on Abortion Funding Ban

AS EARLY AS THIS WEEK, THE SENATE COULD TAKE UP a measure making significant changes in the federal government’s health programs for American Indians under the Indian Health Service (IHS).

When the Senate considers S-1200, Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) plans to offer an amendment, according to an alert from National Right to Life Committee (NRL), to bar IHS from paying abortionists with our tax funds, with unfortunate loopholes permitting abortions not just to save the life of the mother but even targeting little boys and girls conceived in the commission of a sex crime. Unlike the Hyde Amendment, such a Vitter Amendment would not have to be renewed each year but would be a permanent directive to IHS.

We join National Right to Life in urging that calls be made immediately to US Senators via the Capitol switchboard at 1-202/224-3121, requesting “a yes vote for the Vitter Amendment to S-1200.”

“For a number of Senators,” noted NRL in its bulletin, “this will be the first time that they vote on the issue of direct federal funding of abortion. That is because the Senate has not conducted a roll call vote squarely on an amendment to prohibit direct funding of abortion procedures since 1999,” stated the bulletin. The Senate, however, “has voted repeatedly on related issues such as funding for organizations that promote abortion and the use of federal military facilities for self-funded abortions.”

 

‘Mexico City’ Policy Under Fire Again

OF ALL THE PRO-LIFE REFORMS adopted by Congress in the past several years, the one which is drawing the most determined fire from the abortion cartel is the “family planning” reform first adopted by Pres. Ronald Reagan at a conference in Mexico City in 1984, dropped in 1993 by Pres. Bill Clinton and reinstated by Pres. George W. Bush in 2001.

Big money is at stake to a big segment of the abortion industry which is currently ineligible for funds transferred from US taxpayers. The Mexico City Policy limits “family planning” grants by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to groups which formally agree not to commit or promote abortion.

The abortion lobby’s Capitol Hill pals are stepping up their crusade to force the Bush Administration and American taxpayers to fill the coffers of such low-life/no-life outfits as International Planned Parenthood Federation, which is as intimately tied to abortion as Adolf Hitler was to genocide.

Next step in the steady, drumbeating crusade to overturn “Mexico City” – a hearing before the full House Committee on Foreign Affairs at 10 a.m. EDT this Wednesday, Oct. 31. Why should we think a hearing is part of a crusade? The witness list holds the clue: a Johns Hopkins professor who is paid by the Gates (as in abortion-fan Bill) Institute for Population & Reproductive Health; a spokesman for the Nigerian branch of Ipas, the outfit that manufactures the manual vacuum aspirator device used overseas for home abortions; and, surprise! a former executive of the Planned Parenthood Assn. of Ghana. Only one witness has been scheduled to represent the panel’s “minority” – a Kenyan gynecologist/obstetrician named Jean Kagia MD.

The committee, chaired by Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), has not invited USAID – the very agency whose policy is the target of the hearing – to testify.

“This,” notes a key Capitol Hill source, “is a very important pro-life issue currently under siege. Now the abortion lobby is taking the issue to the Foreign Affairs Committee,” after having undermined the Mexico City Policy in House deliberation on the State/Foreign Operations Appropriation earlier this year and having achieved repeal of the policy in the Senate’s consideration of the bill. The foreign aid spending bill must emerge from House/Senate conference and undergo final votes in House and Senate before going to the President. Wednesday’s hearing, no doubt, is intended to influence the conference, build support for using foreign aid to fund abortions before the House and Senate send the bill to the President, and then pressure the President to sign the destructive bill.

Elimination of the Mexico City Policy is, notes our Capitol Hill source, “emerging as the pro-abortion lobby’s top priority for their abortion agenda this year.” Will you help blunt their crusade by calling your Representative and Senators and ask them to support the Mexico City Policy on family planning? They can be reached via the Capitol switchboard at 1-202/224-3121.

 

Leaving Out ‘the Least of These’

THE VERSION OF THE S-CHIP BILL passed last week to expand government control of children’s health coverage left out the states’ current option under the program to cover unborn children. The new bill was, thankfully, instantly vetoed Friday by Pres. George W. Bush.

Though efforts were made to amend the unborn childprovision back into the previous S-CHIP version recently sent to the President’s veto pen, House Leaders did not permit Members to offer any amendments Thursday.

Though we have not seen the veto message, we hope one of his reasons was the exclusion of unborn children from the bill’s scope, in addition to the bottom-line financial considerations. Some 12 states are taking advantage of the current regulation offering the unborn child coverage option.

 

Stop the Blood Money!

A COALITION OF 60 PRO-LIFE GROUPS SENT A LETTER to Members of Congress late last week urging, writes syndicated columnist Robert Novak, “suspension of more than $300 million in federal funding of Planned Parenthood … about one-third of the organization’s budget.”

The request cites “a massive criminal case brought in Kansas,” writes Mr. Novak, “against the abortion rights organization … . That launches an attack,” he writes, “against the nation’s largest purveyor of ‘reproductive health care’ – including abortions.” The case on which the letter is based is the 107-count indictment brought by Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline against Planned Parenthood of Kansas & Mid-Missouri, on which we have reported previously.

“This opens a new front in the endless abortion wars,” opines Mr. Novak. “The offensive against abortion now takes dead aim at Planned Parenthood and attempts to expand a Kansas criminal prosecution into a nationwide assault.” Well, a nationwide appeal for justice, to be more exact.

Among the signers of the letter to Congress are Concerned Women for America (CWA), Focus on the Family, Eagle Forum, American Family Assn., Traditional Values Coalition, Americans United for Life and Operation Rescue. The letter, notes Mr. Novak, petitions, “‘We urge you to act to ensure that our tax dollars are not subsidizing abortion clinics that perform possibly illegal abortions.’ While the Democratic-controlled Congress surely will not defund Planned Parenthood,” writes Mr. Novak, “it will be pressed to fulfill its oversight mission with Congressional hearings.”

What is more, he writes, “The socially conservative Family Research Council Wednesday called for a Justice Department investigation. And Republican Presidential candidates, who proceed gingerly on abortion, will,” predicts Mr. Novak, “be called to combat in this war.”

 

Safety First – At Least for Moms

THE CHRISTIAN MEDICAL ASSN. CITED THE 107-COUNT INDICTMENT against Planned Parenthood of Kansas & Mid-Missouri in calling last week for “increased oversight of abortion clinics.”

“This case raises larger questions we should be asking about abortion clinics nationwide,” said CMA CEO David Stevens MD, in a Christian Medical Assn. news release. “Why does the abortion industry remain the most unregulated medical operation in this country? … If just 29 records from one PP abortion clinic in Kansas have produced 107 criminal charges, isn’t it possible,” he asked, “that similar abuses are also occurring at others of the 860 Planned Parenthood facilities nationwide?

“[Especially] with our tax dollars supporting Planned Parenthood,” he said, “the public has a right to know.”

Dr. Stevens called for “oversight hearings by state and federal legislators and also … increased scrutiny and recommendations for reform by medical oversight organizations.”

 

Why No State Charges?

THE CRIMINAL CHARGES FILED AGAINST PLANNED PARENTHOOD in Johnson County, Kansas, have prompted three area state lawmakers to challenge Kansas Attorney General Paul Morrison, “asking him to explain,” reports David Klepper for the Kansas City Star, “why he cleared PP of Kansas & Mid-Missouri of any criminal wrongdoing.”

Johnson County State’s Attorney Phill Kline, reports Mr. Klepper, “us[ed] the same records available to [Mr.] Morrison” in securing an opinion from a judge that “probable cause” exists to prosecute the baby-killing outfit on 107 counts, including commission of illegal late-term abortions.

 

Convincing Victory

CONGRATULATIONS TO REP. BOBBY JINDAL (R) ON HIS ELECTION Oct. 20 as governor of Louisiana.

It was his second run for the state’s highest office. Four years ago, he lost, at age 32, to Democrat Kathleen Blanco, later disgraced by her own administrative paralysis in the face of Hurricane Katrina. During that 2003 race, notes Meg Jalsevac, writing for LifeSiteNews.com, Rep. Jindal “was specifically targeted for his ardent pro-life positions. At that time,” writes Ms. Jalsevac, “he unapologetically stated to a local newspaper that he was ‘100% pro-life with no exceptions. I believe,’” he said, quoted by LifeSite, “‘all life is precious.’”

Though Louisiana’s unique “jungle primary,” pitting candidates of all parties against each other, typically leads to a run-off to achieve a winner, Governor-elect Jindal won the contest outright, taking nearly 54% in a 12-way contest.

It was an impressive showing for the outspoken conservative and was achieved despite – and to some degree in reaction to – an over-the-top smear campaign challenging his Catholic faith. His response was a model of defensive campaign strategy, and his success, so stunning as perhaps to give pause even to the most vicious professional smear-mongers. We can dream.

 

School Board Facing Recall for Sex Clinic Vote?

PARENTS IN PORTLAND, MAINE, HAVE LAUNCHED A RECALL CAMPAIGN against the school board members who voted to dispense prescription contraception drugs to middle schoolers as young as 11. In giving consent for their children to receive clinic services at King Middle School, as in most school-based clinics, parents waive their right to control their children’s medical treatment and, under state law, are specifically barred from notification of testing or treatments related to sex, drugs or mental health.

Some 500 signatures were garnered on the recall petition in the first day of circulation, reports Pete Chagnon for OneNewsNow.com, a service of Baptist Press. A four-day period is offered for collection of some 3,000 signatures. The proposition would be put to a vote in an election, if the petition campaign succeeds.

The campaign is receiving cooperation from the Maine Republican Party, whose executive director told the media “the decision on the contraceptives policy was made in less than an hour. She claims,” writes Mr. Chagnon, “there has been more discussion about leash laws than what was given to this school health policy.”

 

House Debate Excerpt

Shortly after the House passed the S-CHIP revised package Thursday, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), took to the House floor with a powerful speech challenging the bill’s exclusion of unborn children. Throughout his speech, an appealing poster showing a prenatal boy or girl was displayed. We are publishing most of his speech here, leaving out only his introductory remarks in which he states his lengthy credentials as a child advocate. We found his speech inspiring and thank him for using the opportunity.

… Mr. Speaker, … there is one critical component of protecting innocent children I have learned over and over again; and that is, if you desire to protect children, you must protect the family, because either families or government bureaucrats will ultimately make the decisions about nearly all aspects of our children’s lives.

The proposed S-CHIP legislation funds and empowers government bureaucracies and not families. It is a quintessential example of a misguided and overreaching program that is an entitlement program and affixes itself to a funding mechanism that is a declining revenue source. Not only does it place this generation into a Hillary-care, government–run health care system, but it also places the burden of cost on the next generation of children, Mr. Speaker, and those many times who will be forced to pay for it will be those making less money than those benefiting from the program.

Mr. Speaker, Americans care desperately about their children. And unfortunately in this S-CHIP debate, liberal Democrats are exploiting America’s love for children, for temporary political gain. The Majority has cast this entire debate in terms of Republicans being against children and Democrats being for them. For a Republican like myself, who has spent their entire life dedicated to children’s issues, it is an equation that I have to reject in the strongest possible terms. And it is especially difficult for me, Mr. Speaker, in light of the fact that the same party who says they advocate for poor children leaves the very poorest children of all out of the equation.

It is the Democrat Party, Mr. Speaker, that has for decades fought for an abortion-on-demand policy that has allowed thousands of unborn children to be killed in America every day.

At the beginning of this Congress, newly elected Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “We are here for the children.” And she called the House to order for “all of America’s children.”

But she didn’t mean all of them, Mr. Speaker. In fact, most Democrat Members of this body, including Speaker Pelosi, voted against, in the last Congress, allowing unborn children to even receive anesthetic when undergoing abortion procedures so torturous that they would be a felony if performed on an animal.

Mr. Speaker, behind me this picture is a little baby who deserves to be protected like every other child in this country, and yet before the sun sets in America today, 4,000 unborn children will be killed through abortion on demand, and, Mr. Speaker, their mothers will never be the same.

The Democrat Speaker and the Majority of this Congress have to somehow understand that there are better ways to help mothers than killing their children for them. And they must also realize that they can never have credibility as advocates for children while they still support an abortion-on-demand policy that has killed nearly 50 million innocent children.

Mr. Speaker, it is time for Members of this body to come together and to truly do the right thing for all of America’s children, even those yet unborn.

 

Permission granted to quote with attribution. Reproduction rights granted only by express authorization.