Life Advocacy Briefing

Say ‘No’ to Tax $ to UNFPA

YOUR U.S. HOUSE MEMBER AND TWO SENATORS NEED TO HEAR from you now with a simple message: “No tax money for UNFPA.” (Capitol switchboard: 1-202/225-3121.)

The House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations & Related Programs advanced a funding bill for the coming fiscal year last Thursday which contains a twisted provision opening the public coffers to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), whose funding has been embargoed the past seven years by Pres. George W. Bush.

The UNFPA embargo has resulted from the UN’s depopulation campaigners’ refusal to stop abetting Red China’s forced abortion and involuntary sterilization pogrom. Such involvement renders UNFPA ineligible for US funding under the long-standing Kemp/Kasten Amendment which protects US taxpayers from complicity in such anti-human programs. But the subcommittee chairman’s draft of the State/Foreign Ops Appropriation by Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) Thursday carves out a Kemp/Kasten exception for UNFPA and increases the UNFPA appropriation from $40 million embargoed to $60 million actual.

Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL) offered an amendment to strike the offensive language, but his amendment was rejected on a voice vote. The bill was approved by the panel, also by voice vote.

Said Dr. Weldon, “For years we have sought to protect women and children in China because it was morally wrong to support China’s forced abortion program. Now the Democrat Majority in the House has voted to change existing law and send millions of dollars to UNFPA and turn a blind eye to the egregious human rights violations that UNFPA promotes in China. This,” he declared, “is a despicable policy change.”

Battle Joined on Conscience Protection

THE ABORTION LOBBY IS REACTING HYSTERICALLY to reports that the Dept. of Health & Human Services (HHS) is moving forward on a regulation to protect the conscience rights of health care personnel who object to participation in abortion.

Supposedly frightened that the regulations would require Planned Parenthood to hire pro-life nurses or risk losing federal funding, PP “and its abortion allies are apoplectic,” reports Peter J. Smith for LifeSiteNews.com. The babykillers also shriek over equation, in the draft rule, of abortifacient contraceptives to abortion.

Citing a Bush Administration memo describing the developing rule, Mr. Smith quotes it as “defin[ing] abortion as ‘any of the various procedures – including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action – that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.’”

The abortion lobby is mounting a campaign to block the regulation.Readers may wish to contact HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt to encourage and thank him for his concern about conscience rights of health care workers. The Department’s tollfree telephone number is 1-877/696-6775, and the postal address is 200 Independence Ave., SW, Washington, DC 20201.

Kline Models Pro-Life Advocacy

THE NATION’s SOLE PROSECUTOR OF PLANNED PARENTHOOD CRIMES, Johnson County, Kansas, District Attorney Phill Kline has posted a bold, four-minute-20-second infomercial on the YouTube.com Internet website tying the injustice of commercialized abortion to the injustice of slavery in pre-Civil War America, advocating for restoration of legal protections for preborn boys and girls.

The video further outlines his persistent efforts to prosecute Planned Parenthood in the Kansas City area of Johnson County and directs viewers to his own website at www.StandWithPhill.com, where a second video, showing Mr. Kline’s recent interview by Fox News host Laura Ingraham, is posted. And the StandWithPhill.com website offers an opportunity for citizens across America to donate to Mr. Kline’s campaign for his re-election, in which he is being challenged in an Aug. 5 primary.

Abstinence Ed Renewed, For Now

THE PRESIDENT LAST WEEK VETOED the Medicare extension legislation on which the extension of Title V (Five) was riding to continue federal funding of abstinence education. Both the House and the Senate immediately took up and adopted motions to override the veto, sealing the paired extensions into law and giving Title V grantees one more year to nurture sexual abstinence in our nation’s young people.

Parent Notice Bill Gets a Hearing, Sort Of

UNABLE TO GET THE COURTESY OF A REPLY to two formal requests for a hearing on the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) on July 10 convened an unofficial hearing, a “forum” of the Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.  Mr. Franks is Ranking Member of the subcommittee, whose chairman is Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY).

Attending the forum were Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) and Representatives Mike Pence (R-IN) and Jim Jordan (R-OH), in addition to Rep. Franks. Appearing were Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), who sponsors the bill in question and its predecessor proposals, Missy Smith of Operation Outcry, political science professor Dr. Michael New of the University of Alabama, and University of St. Thomas law professor Dr. Teresa Collett.

Finding the statement of Rep. Lamar Smith a good summary of the need for the legislation, we reprint it near the close of this Life Advocacy Briefing.

Collaborator Exposed, Sidelined

OPERATION RESCUE (O.R.) HAS RELAUNCHED its “Abortion Collaborator” project to curb the odious late-term abortion practice of the notorious George Tiller in Wichita, Kansas. The campaign launched last Monday instantly netted its first victory.

“Less than eight hours after OR released his name to the public” as a Tiller collaborator, reports OR in a news release, neurologist Burt Odenheimer MD “agreed to no longer provide the second opinion for [Mr.] Tiller’s late-term abortion patients starting immediately. …

“Kansas law,” notes OR, “requires that an unaffiliated physician must concur with the abortionist that a post-viability abortion is necessary to prevent ‘substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function’ of the mother. [Mr.] Tiller,” explains OR, “currently uses the mental health loophole supposedly implied in the law as an excuse to abort late-term babies up until the day before birth.”

OR charged last Monday that “there may be other physicians associated with the Wichita Clinic,” where Dr. Odenheimer maintains his neurological and psychiatric practice, “who are also providing signatures for [Mr.] Tiller’s post-viability abortion patients.” One of those “other physicians” joined Dr. Odenheimer in the pledge to stop abetting Mr. Tiller before OR listed him, and OR apparently will now not release the name of this second Wichita Clinic doctor.

In addition to releasing Dr. Odenheimer’s name, OR had announced plans last Monday “to launch protests at the Wichita Clinic and sponsor prayer walks in [Dr.] Odenheimer’s exclusive neighborhood,” whose location OR identified in last Monday’s release.  Dr. Odenheimer’s quick surrender has obviated those moves, but some of the 30 “abortion collaborators” whose names OR released later in the week may now be in line for the persuasive treatment.

Protecting Our Girls & Their Families

July 10, 2008, statement by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) to the Republican Constitution Subcommittee Forum on HR-1063, the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act; source: Rep. Smith

Republican Members are here today to support a bill on behalf of an American people who overwhelmingly support it. But we are here today at a Republican forum, rather than at an official Judiciary Committee hearing, because the Democratic majority has refused, to address an issue that polls show greatly concerns parents nationwide.

Let me begin to address this topic by providing a little context. Across the country, officials must obtain parental consent before including children in certain school activities such as field trips and contact sports.

In nearby Maryland, 11 school systems even require a parent’s note before sunscreen can be applied to a minor student. And my own state of Texas, along with the large majority of states, requires parental consent before anyone can tattoo or put a body piercing on a minor under 18 years old.

Of course, abortion is a much more serious medical procedure. And most states – including my own state of Texas – have some sort of parental involvement law that requires that at least one parent be given notice – or give consent – before their minor daughter receives an abortion.

Yet today, it remains legal for complete strangers to evade those state parental involvement laws by transporting minors across state lines to obtain secret abortions without the minor’s parents ever knowing about it.

Because this shocking gap in the law involves interstate commerce, it can only be addressed by Congress, under the Constitution. The Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act, which passed the House overwhelmingly in the last Congress, would do just that, and ensure that state parental involvement laws are not evaded through interstate activity.

Parental involvement in the abortion decisions of minor girls will lead to improved medical care for minors seeking abortions and provide increased protection for young girls against sexual exploitation by adult men.

Parental involvement ensures that parents have the opportunity to provide vital medical history and other information to abortion providers prior to the performance of an abortion. The medical, emotional and psychological consequences of an abortion are serious and lasting. An adequate medical and psychological case history is critically important to any physician, and often only parents can provide such information for their daughters, as well as any pertinent family medical history.

Parental involvement also improves medical treatment of pregnant minors by ensuring that parents have adequate knowledge to recognize and respond to any post-abortion complications that may develop. Without the knowledge that their daughters have had abortions, parents are unable to ensure that their children obtain routine postoperative care and unable to provide an adequate medical history to physicians called upon to treat any complications that may arise. Such complications can be lethal if left untreated.

Finally, teenage pregnancies often occur as a result of predatory practices of men who are substantially older than the minor victim, resulting in the transportation of victims across state lines by an individual who has a great incentive to avoid criminal liability for his conduct. Experience suggests that sexual predators recognize the advantage of their victims’ obtaining an abortion. Not only does an abortion eliminate critical evidence of the criminal conduct, it allows the abuse to continue undetected.

Parental involvement laws ensure that parents have the opportunity to protect their daughters from those who would victimize them further, and only the bill under discussion today can do that.

Making the Case for the Pence Amendment

July 9, 2008, special order speeches in the House of Representatives; source: Congressional Record

REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): … Planned Parenthood had over $1 billion in revenue last year, $115 million in profit, $952 million in net assets. That’s bad enough, I mean, that they’re using our tax dollars to fund a practice that is wrong, that is immoral. But add to it this fact – and I want to cite … The Wall Street Journal article, where Planned Parenthood talks about the fact that they’re going to raise $10 million to fund their political action committee.

So to just put it into plain language, think about what’s going on here in this practice. Planned Parenthood is using your tax dollars to raise more money to run against your candidate to elect someone who will give them more tax dollars. Stated even more simply, using your tax money to run against you and run against the candidates you want to support, those pro-life candidates. That’s what they’re doing. They want to keep electing people that will keep this process moving forward.

This is just wrong, and it should stop. And the gentleman from Texas was so right when he talks about those pregnancy resource centers, those crisis pregnancy centers out there who are doing the bake sales. Our church, we help support one where they give each family a bottle, and you fill it up with coins, and you stuff a few dollars, raising money just any way they can to protect human life, because they understand it’s sacred. They understand it’s precious. Contrast that with this practice that we see here that Planned Parenthood engages in … .

The wisdom and the vision the Founders had when they started this place, when they started the greatest country in history, the founding statement: “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

I think it’s interesting to note the order the Founders placed the rights they chose to mention. Can you pursue happiness? Can you pursue your goals, your dreams, those things that have meaning and significance to you and your family if you first don’t have liberty, if you first don’t have freedom? And can you ever experience true liberty, true freedom, if government doesn’t protect your most fundamental right, your right to Life?

That’s what this legislation [the Pence Amendment] is about. It’s about protecting that most sacred, that most precious, that most fundamental right that the Founders understood was central to what we call this thing America.