Life Advocacy Briefing

You Call This ‘a Vacation?’

LIFE ADVOCACY’s EDITOR is traveling for the next couple of weeks. We will endeavor to bring you Life Advocacy Briefing “from the road” but have no way to know whether this will work out. So expect to see the Briefing, but please forgive and understand if you don’t!

Communicator Coaching on Tap

LIFE ADVOCACY WILL PRESENT A WINNING WITH LIFE seminar on Saturday, Aug. 23, at the home office of PASS Pregnancy Care Centers in Tinley Park, Illinois. The six-hour session will be hosted by Chicago area businessman Marty Ozinga. The presentation features former Illinois State Rep. Penny Pullen, Life Advocacy’s president, and her seminar teammate Kevin Burnette, Texas-based marketing and campaign strategist. The seminar equips pro-life candidates, officials and citizens for effective, strategic communication on Life issues. Information and credit card registration (at $40) is available by telephoning 1-888/344-LIFE or via electronic mail at [email protected]. Registration may also be accomplished via $40 “donation” at lifeadvocacy.com, completing all information requested.

Obama Abortion Record Scored

THE PRESIDENT OF FIDELIS, a Catholic pro-life group, issued a statement earlier this month, reports Jim Brown for OneNewsNow.com, news outlet for the American Family Assn., responding to the appearance of expected Democratic Presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama at a “Women for Obama” rally in New York City, alongside Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY).

“‘What you have to look at here,’” said Fidelis President Brian Burch, quoted by Mr. Brown, “‘is [Sen.] Obama’s quotes and his record together, particularly where it matters. Not in TV interviews, not in fancy magazines, not where the media’s able to spin his position in the way that they hope to,’” said Mr. Burch, “‘but in front of the people that it matters most, namely Planned Parenthood, NARAL and specifically as a legislator himself.’

“[Mr.] Burch says,” writes Mr. Brown, “those who justify their support for Obama with the belief that he would enact policies to reduce abortions in America have yet to cite anything specific that he is willing to commit to in order to do that. ‘We would never allow a candidate to receive our support who says, “I want to reduce the number of slaves in America – but I am 100% committed to keep slavery legal,”’ the Catholic activist suggests,” reports Mr. Brown.

Mr. Obama’s opponent, likely GOP Presidential nominee John McCain, “brought up his pro-life record on abortion” at a town hall meeting in Kansas City, Missouri, some 10 days ago, reports Peter J. Smith for LifeSiteNews.com citing the Wall Street Journal as source, and “came out swinging” at his opponent “over the latter’s stand on abortion.”

Sen. McCain declared he is “‘proud of my record of protecting and advocating the rights of the unborn,’” reports Mr. Smith. The Arizona Republican added, reports LifeSiteNews, “that the noblest words ever written were those in the Declaration of Independence that outlined the rights to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ ‘Life means the rights of the born and the unborn,’ [Sen.] McCain continued,” writes Mr. Smith.

“[Mr.] McCain then blasted [Sen.] Obama for opposing a ban on partial birth abortion,” reports Mr. Smith. “‘My friends, that’s a hideous procedure. It should never be allowed any place on earth,’ he said” in the LifeSiteNews report. Other news reports indicate he further objected to Mr. Obama’s defense of medical neglect of newborn abortion survivors.

‘Enough is Enough!’

PROTESTERS PICKETING THE RECENT CONVENTION of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People demanded the NAACP take a stand against what they called “black genocide” in America’s abortion mills.

Using figures from Planned Parenthood’s own Alan Guttmacher Institute, reports Alisa Harris for World magazine, the demonstrators charged “African-American women are nearly five times more likely than non-Hispanic white women to have an abortion. According to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC),” writes Ms. Harris, “almost one in every two African-American pregnancies ends in abortion…

“If someone wiped out the entire African-American population in Oakland, Atlanta and Washington, DC,” she reports, “the number still wouldn’t equal the number of black babies lost to abortion in one year: 683,294.”

Among those leading the picket was Dr. Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who “said of Planned Parenthood,” writes Ms. Harris, “‘It has led the way in eliminating African-Americans to the point where one quarter of the black population is now missing because of abortion. Planned Parenthood is anti-life,’” commented Ms. King in the World report, “‘and we are here to say enough is enough!’”

Protecting the First Human Right

DELAWARE’s HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES HAS DECLARED “that it is against the public policy of this state and this state’s interest in life, health and safety, for hydration and nutrition that is not harming a patient to be involuntarily removed from a non-terminal, apparently brain-incapacitated patient if doing so will cause the individual’s death.”

In their resolution, the lawmakers cite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, reports WorldNetDaily.com (WND), “which ‘asserts that “everyone has the right to recognition as a person before the law” and that “all are equal before the law.”’ They also,” reports WND, “cite the Americans with Disabilities Act that ‘clearly identifies the rights of the disabled to access essential needs and have essential services provided to them.’”

The lawmakers, reports WND, “further affirm, ‘It is becoming increasinglyapparent that persons who are suffering from severe brain injuries often have cognitive functions significantly beyond what medical science previously estimated.’ Finally,” reports WND, “they determine, ‘It is also becoming increasingly apparent that the diagnosis of “persistent vegetative state” or “PVS” is a category that recent science shows is far more uncertain and overly broad than had been previously thought, including a high rate of misdiagnoses of PVS patients who have not been able to exhibit responses but whose consciousness can now sometimes be measured.’”

The resolution was accompanied by an “explanatory note,” reports WND, establishing that the “‘impetus for this resolution comes from the case of Lauren Richardson, a 24-year-old Delaware woman who, after suffering brain injuries and impaired consciousness, now faces the possible removal of her nutrition and hydration, despite the absence of her clearly specified and legal consent to any such a course of action.’”

The Richardson case is in court in a saga tragically reflective of the protracted legal battle for the life of Terri Schiavo in Florida, ending in her court-ordered murder by starvation some three years ago. Miss Richardson’s mother, Edith Tower, secured a court order in January naming her the young woman’s guardian, though her mother wants her starved. Her father, Randy Richardson, is appealing that designation and seeking to become the guardian in order to protect her life and provide her therapeutic treatment. Further information about the Richardson case is available in the archives of www.WorldNetDaily.com or via the Internet website still maintained by Terri Schiavo’s family, www.terrisfight.org.

In another pending case, a Fresno, California, judge has ordered restoration of food and water to 46-year-old Janet Rivera, reports the Associated Press, “pending a hearing [this] week about her long-term care.” Mrs. Rivera, reports AP, “[had] been without food or water since July 14, when Fresno County Coroner Dr. David Hadden had the [feeding tube] removed to end her suffering,” brought on by a February 2006 heart attack. The vulnerable woman’s husband, reports AP, “was removed as his wife’s conservator June 17 and replaced by [Dr.] Hadden, who says he was following the advice of [Mrs.] Rivera’s doctors.”

All three cases underscore the vital importance of investing in a trusted person a “power of attorney for health care,” officially signed by every individual as insurance against utilitarian doctors, judges and relatives.

Pestering Peru

AN OUTFIT CALLING ITSELF ‘HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH’ is pressuring Peru to decriminalize abortion.

Peru’s government “has resisted all attempts,” reports Matthew Cullinan Hoffman for LifeSiteNews.com, “to establish abortion as a legal ‘right’ by means of a ‘protocol for therapeutic abortion ‘ – an official document demanded by pro-abortion groups that would give guidelines for killing unborn children in specified cases,” writes Mr. Hoffman.

Human Rights Watch has issued a report claiming, reports LifeSiteNews, “ ‘Legal “therapeutic” abortion – abortion needed to save the life of the woman or avoid damage to her health – is a vital public health service, and denial of this service jeopardizes a broad range of fundamental human rights of women and girls.’ …

“‘Abortion is a prohibited behavior,’” said Peruvian Carlos Polo, Latin American chief for Population Research Institute, quoted by Mr. Hoffman, “ ‘which has no support of our government, laws or public policies in Peru.’” He insisted, reports LifeSiteNews, “contrary to the claims of Human Rights Watch, all abortion is illegal in Peru. … Abortion is a crime in all cases,’” he said, “‘since the Constitution of Peru protects the life of the unborn.’”

Mr. Polo dismissed the transparent attempt of Human Rights Watch to couch its abortion advocacy as a benefit for women. “‘HRW is not demanding new health facilities or equipment or access of women to deliver in a hospital,’” he noted in the LifeSiteNews story. “‘HRW has no interest in women – or their mental and physical health – who have decided to have a child and have no good conditions to do it.’

“[Mr.] Polo said he believes that the organization is ‘desperate’ after years of fruitless efforts to decriminalize abortion in Peru,” writes Mr. Hoffman, “but that the report is a ‘mistake,’ because it is likely to offend Peruvians, who are ‘very sensitive with sovereignty issues.’”

Making the Case for the Pence Amendment

July 9, 2008, special order speeches in the U.S. House; source: Congressional Record

REP. JOSEPH PITTS (R-PA): Mr. Speaker, I rise today to highlight the practices of an industry that are characterized by death, deception and depression – the abortion industry. And that’s just what it is, an industry.

Since 1973 and the infamous Roe v. Wade decision, 50 million unborn babies have been lost. Abortion has burgeoned into a thriving industry. At the average cost of hundreds of dollars per abortion, the abortion business is a billion-dollar-a-year industry in the United States. It’s even bigger than that internationally, and the American taxpayer subsidizes it. Abortion providers continue to receive hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer funds every year. The US government subsidizes this industry every year in every budget.

Planned Parenthood has emerged at the front of this big business as one of the top abortion providers in the country. Two years ago, this not-for-profit organization posted record-breaking profits. Last year, it reported even higher profits, but at whose expense does this profit come? It’s at the expense of helpless unborn children, young girls and women.

While the government continues to provide a slush fund for abortion providers, a mother mourns the loss of her child; siblings grieve their unborn brother or sister, and grandparents lament the grandchild who was taken from them. My own words could never fully capture the pain that has been meted out by the hand of the abortion industry. …

One woman tells the story of how she was routinely raped by her father. When she was 16, he forced her to have an abortion at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Cincinnati, where she reported the abuse to the staff. However, the staff chose not to report her case to law enforcement. It was not until the girl told a school counselor that authorities were notified so that they could intervene and rescue her. … Abortion clinics are habitually covering up abuse by failing to report statutory rape, and we are funding those clinics with Title X [Ten] money. We must stop funding clinics that facilitate abuse and that cover up crimes against children.

Another woman, from Nebraska, recently filed a lawsuit against Planned Parenthood after undergoing an abortion that resulted in the perforation of her uterus and in a severe loss of blood. According to reports, the practitioner began the procedure with a shot in the woman’s uterus, and she immediately complained of severe pain. She told the practitioner to stop, but he allegedly replied, “We can’t stop.” The woman was then restrained by three Planned Parenthood employees while the practitioner completed the abortion. She experienced severe pain, bleeding and three seizures by the time she arrived at the hospital. A hospital report stated that her uterus was perforated during the abortion and that doctors had to perform an emergency hysterectomy because of the severe damage to her body. The doctors later said that the botched abortion could have killed her.

The abortion industry makes false claims that abortion is harmless and that it is a simple procedure. They often use safety as a talking point for legalization. However, the truth is that abortion, legal or not, is a risky procedure that carries potentially serious side effects for the health of the woman.

Unfortunately, the deceit does not end there. The abortion lobby denies the reality that abortion has a very powerful and lasting emotional impact on most women, but real human stories decry this lie. …

A 14-year-old girl writes, “This was something I really never thought I’d go through, something I don’t want anyone else to have to go through. I did not feel a thing physically, but emotionally, I’m scarred for life. The day it came, I was so upset: The last time I could sing or talk to my baby again. Not even a day after, I’m already regretting it, just sitting here, wondering what he or she would have become.”

While we continue down the path of deception, women continue to suffer. I hope, during this hour, we might remember the lives of those who could have been. We might remember the lives of unborn children who are lost. We might remember the lives of women and families who carry hurt and pain from an experience that they were told would be harmless. …

As the chairperson of the Feminists for Life, Frederica Mathewes-Green once said, “An abortion wounds a mother’s heart. They will never recover from the grief of an abortion. There are always two victims within an abortion – the baby and the mother – one wounded, one dead.”

Mr. Speaker, the taxpayers deserve to know that their hard-earned dollars supposedly destined for family planning services are being used to subsidize the abortion industry. I urge my colleagues to oppose federal funding for abortion providers and to support the Title X [Ten] Abortion Provider Prohibition Act.