Life Advocacy Briefing

How Do They Live with Themselves?

WHAT SORT OF MONSTERS WOULD VOTE AGAINST excluding from tax funding organizations which abet coercive abortion and involuntary sterilization? What creatures would force on American taxpayers complicity with Red China’s brutal one-child pogrom?

The kind who wear starched shirts and subdued ties and pinstriped suits. You will find their names listed in the Senate Voting Record at the close of this week’s Life Advocacy Briefing. Calls to their offices would be appropriate, advising each of your Senators what you think of his or her vote; they can be reached via the Capitol switchboard at 1-202/224-3121.

What kind of leader, on the other hand, would offer an amendment to prevent such injustice? US Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS). Thank you, Senator, for standing up for mercy.

It’s Official: Sebelius to H.H.S.

THE PRESIDENT HAS NAMED KANSAS GOV. KATHLEEN SEBELIUS (D) to the post of Secretary of Health & Human Services (HHS). Pro-life citizens need to call their US Senators (at 1-202/224-3121) and protest her nomination to one of the three Cabinet posts with the most power over abortion policy (the other two being Secretary of State and Attorney General, both of whom are also rabid abortion advocates).

Among Ms. Sebelius’s choice comments, quoted last week by George Weigel in First Things, citing the Wichita Eagle as source: “‘I think for me and a lot of other people, there are certain inalienable rights established for a person, but those are not applied in utero.’”

Organizers of Maryland’s 30th annual March for Life, set for tonight (Monday) in Annapolis, are citing the nomination of Gov. Sebelius as a rallying point. “‘Every person across the state of Maryland,’” said Family Protection Lobby director Doug Stiegler in a statement quoted by Catholic News Agency, “‘should question this radical nomination of someone so closely tied to the abortion industry.’”

Long respected pro-life Sen. Sam Brownback (R) endorsed his state’s governor’s appointment despite her record; Sen. Brownback also endorsed a “moderate” Republican last summer against pro-life hero Phill Kline in Mr. Kline’s bid to retain the post of Johnson County prosecutor, from which he was pressing charges against Planned Parenthood.  Mr. Brownback is planning to run for governor in 2010.

WorldNetDaily.com columnist Jill Stanek has written a stinging column about Gov. Sebelius’s abortion industry connections and the Brownback endorsement; we publish it below, just ahead of the March for Life speech transcripts. After reading the column, readers may wish to contact Sen. Brownback’s office in addition to their own Senators.

Dissing Conscience

THE OBAMA REGIME HAS SIGNALED ITS INTENTION to rescind the Conscience Protection Rule finalized in December by then-Health & Human Services Secy. Mike Leavitt. The rule, which puts teeth into long-standing statutory guarantees, took effect early Jan. 20, the day of Mr. Obama’s inauguration. It had been bitterly fought by Planned Parenthood, which speciously claimed it would force the abortion behemoth to hire pro-life workers.

“The Administration’s plans, revealed quietly with a terse posting on a federal website,” reports Washington Post staff writer Rob Stein, “unleashed a flood of heated reaction, with supporters praising the proposal as a crucial victory for women’s health and reproductive rights and opponents condemning it as a devastating setback for freedom of religion.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, writing a commentary for HumanEvents.com, termed the announced move “a direct assault on religious liberty. It marks the establishment of a state-sponsored religion of secular leftism,” Mr. Gingrich charged. “And it gives this new religion the right to eliminate the religious liberty of all others that it deems inappropriate”

US House Republican Leader John Boehner (OH), quoted in the New York Times by David Stout, declared, “‘This is the third action taken by Washington Democrats in the past 38 days to weaken American rules that are meant to safeguard the sanctity of human life.’”

Said Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), co-chairman of the House Pro-Life Caucus, quoted by Kathleen Gilbert for LifeSiteNews.com: “‘Women deserve to have the option to choose doctors who reflect their views on the sanctity of human life. They will lose that freedom if pro-life healthcare professionals are driven from the medical field. … It is ironic,’” he said, “‘that [pro-abortion radicals] like to be called pro-choice instead of pro-abortion but that their preference for “choice” refers only to people who support the killing of unborn children.’”

The Leavitt-Bush rule permits the cutoff of federal funding for any provider or government entity which forces healthcare employees – such as doctors, nurses and pharmacists – to commit or abet abortions or other procedures or dispense prescriptions to which they hold conscientious objection.

Murmuring niceties about “common ground,” unspecified Administration mouthpieces noted the action to rescind will invoke a public comment period of 30 days, once it becomes published officially in the Federal Register. The Leavitt-Bush rule had also undergone a 30-day comment period, after about 18 months of in-house deliberation, and the result was the Conscience Protection Rule which Mr. Obama seeks to demolish.

Help on the Way?

VOTERS IN NEW YORK STATE’s 20th CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT will go to the polls March 31 to choose the replacement for recently appointed US Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D). Among the candidates is GOP nominee Jim Tedisco, who is Republican Assembly Leader in the state capitol in Albany.

Mr. Tedisco is an advocate for the cause of Life and generally a conservative. He is purportedly leading in public opinion polls in a race being closed watched as a potential predictor of GOP prospects for 2010 Congressional elections. More about Mr. Tedisco and his candidacy can be viewed at the Internet website www.jimtedisco.com.

She Won’t Be in Kansas Any More

This WorldNetDaily.com column by Jill Stanek (www.jillstanek.com) expresses better than we can ourselves our response to the appointment of Kathleen Sebelius as Secretary of Health & Human Services and the endorsement of her appointment by the two US Senators from Kansas, especially by Mr. Brownback.

It occurred to me the White House might be forced to nominate radically pro-abortion Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as Dept. of Health & Human Services Secretary after news leaked last week [that] it was pausing due to her loathsome reputation among pro-lifers. Fear of pro-abortion recrimination, pride, whatever.

But it never occurred to me a pro-life legislator would applaud the pick, never mind two. But that’s what happened when Senators Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts issued a glowing joint statement congratulating their home girl: “It’s an honor for the State of Kansas to have an elected official appointed to the President’s cabinet. We are hopeful Gov. Sebelius will be a voice for Kansas and rural America. … We look forward to working with her on issues important to the state. …. Obviously we will have different viewpoints than the Administration on many issues. …”

And they proceeded not to name abortion as one.

The list of Sebelius’s crimes against preborn humanity is too long for this column, but they follow three tracks, repeatedly vetoing pro-life legislation, fighting enforcement of existing pro-life legislation and developing long-term associations with abortionists and the abortion industry, the reasons for tracks one and two.

For instance, infamous late-term abortionist George Tiller contributed thousands of dollars over the years to Sebelius, and the ways she has reciprocated by keeping his brutal butt out of jail would fill a book, and I think some day [former Kansas Atty. General] Phill Kline will. The high point in Sebelius and Tiller’s relationship came in 2007, when she hosted a party for him and staff at the [governor’s] mansion.

Sebelius once tried but failed to appoint abortion mill deathscort John Carmichael, a friend of Tiller, to the Human Rights Commission. Sebelius did succeed in appointing abortionist Howard Ellis to the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts, although he had to resign after surrendering his license in Missouri. He did stay long enough to deflect complaints brought against Tiller and Planned Parenthood long before [Phill] Kline came along.

An inadvertent beneficiary of Sebelius’s good cheer toward abortionists was Krishna Rajanna, who owned a Topeka chop shop. After it was discovered he kept a filthy mill with evidentiary photographs of a dead mouse in the hall and aborted babies in the refrigerator, the latter which staffers said they saw Rajanna eating in soup, legislators introduced clinic regulation legislation. Sebelius vetoed that twice.

All this information and more is waiting in the wings for Sebelius’s confirmation hearing, but will it ever see the light of day? Likely not, thanks to Brownback and Roberts, as Fox News, among many other media outlets, noted: “But it’s unlikely Sebelius will face much opposition in the US Senate. Even the two Republican Senators from her own state … are fine with the choice. Roberts was in attendance at the White House Monday as Obama announced his nomination of Sebelius – a point the President noted.”

That some pro-lifers don’t understand the harm done is also disturbing. One commented on my blog, “This is really a nonstory. … Brownback and Roberts understand that the nation’s loss is Kansas’s gain.”

No, a nation’s loss is no consolation for one state’s gain, if indeed there will be a gain, which is speculative, since Sebelius will be replaced by pro-abort Democrat Lt. Gov. Mark Parkinson. (And who actually rests comfortably with Parkinson’s assurance he won’t run in 2010?)

Brownback thinks he needs to move to the middle if he’s going to get the keys to the governor’s mansion in 2010. But here is where Brownback in particular made a common pro-life politician’s mistake, which too many pro-lifers accept: Casting dreams for what he could do for us tomorrow, Brownback didn’t do the right thing today. I don’t care what pro-life politicians promise they will do for me tomorrow. Tomorrow never comes. I only care what they do for me today. In fact, they’re only where they are today because they cast dreams in a previous campaign to do something for me today.

Now to the damage this abortion lover could do as HHS secretary. HHS controls the Food & Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health. [And also administers Title Ten “family planning” and abstinence education programs: Life Advocacy Briefing editor.] Quite simply, as HHS secretary, Sebelius will do on a grand scale what she did in Kansas: refuse to enforce pro-life legislation and show thanks for the position she attained only with the help of the abortion industry by doling hundreds of millions of dollars more to them than the hundreds of millions of dollars they get now.

The only thing Sebelius won’t be able to do in her new job is veto pro-life legislation. That she will have to leave to Obama.

March for Life Speeches

Transcribed by Life Advocacy Briefing from live coverage Jan. 22, 2009, on EWTN

Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS): I’m Todd Tiahrt from the great state of Kansas. Thank you. Welcome to Disneyland East. Welcome to Disneyland East. I want you to look at the faces of the people up here on the stage [the representatives of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign of post-abortive mothers and fathers]. I want you to look into the face of courage. People who are willing to take a stand for the unborn, willing to say that we’ve made a mistake and we’re going to make it better. It’s that kind of courage that you all have that’s going to change America. It’s that kind of courage that got people like Henry Hyde elected. And because of Henry Hyde, there are thousands of people who are alive today walking on the face of this earth – people who are bringing hope and opportunity to this country. We’ve had a step back in the election of this President. Elections do have consequences, and today the President by executive order signed into law that Mexico City language will no longer be accepted. [The order was actually signed several days later.] That our tax dollars will now promote and provide abortions overseas through our foreign operations budget. But I’m not discouraged, and I don’t want you to be discouraged, because these people who are so courageous have given me the encouragement that I need to move forward and that you need to move forward to change the face of America. So God bless you all for coming. You’ve made a change in the past; you’ve made a difference in the past. Let’s continue this and do it in the future. God bless you all. Thank you.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN): You’re a beautiful sight. My name is Michele Bachmann from the great state of Minnesota. Thank you for being here today. Each one of us is made in the image and likeness of a Holy God. And because of God’s imprint on each human being, we have value – infinite value, eternal value. Because of that value, we need to have policies that encourage life, that uphold life. Our nation today, to our shame, pays for death. We pay for death through our taxes. I have a bill called “The Positive Alternatives Act” that says if we as a nation can finance death, why not finance life? Let’s offer grants to pro-life centers for women so they can make positive alternatives for their children. Never forget the power of prayer. Cry unto our God. He will hear our prayer. Thank you, and never give up.

Senate Voting Record

Wicker Amendment to the Omnibus spending bill to require that funds appropriated for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) are not used by organizations which support coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization – March 5, 2009 – Failed 39 to 55. (Democrats in italics; “Independents” marked “I”.)

Voting “yes” / pro-life: AL/Shelby, AK/Murkowski, AZ/Kyl & McCain, FL/Martinez, GA/Chambliss & Isakson, ID/Crapo & Risch, IN/Lugar & Bayh, IA/Grassley, KS/Brownback & Roberts, KY/Bunning & McConnell, LA/Vitter, MS/Cochran & Wicker, MO/Bond, NE/Nelson, NV/Ensign, NH/Gregg, NC/Burr, OH/Voinovich, OK/Coburn & Inhofe, PA/Casey, SC/DeMint & Graham, SD/Thune, TN/Alexander & Corker, TX/Cornyn & Hutchison, UT/Bennett & Hatch, WY/Barrasso & Enzi

Voting “no” / pro-abortion: AK/Begich, AR/Lincoln & Pryor, CA/Boxer & Feinstein, CO/Bennet & Udall, CT/Dodd & Lieberman (I), DE/Carper & Kaufman, FL/Nelson, HI/Akaka & Inouye, IL/Burris & Durbin, IA/Harkin, ME/Collins & Snowe, MD/Cardin & Mikulski, MA/Kerry, MI/Levin & Stabenow, MN/Klobuchar, MO/McCaskill, MT/Baucus & Tester, NV/Reid, NH/Shaheen, NJ/Lautenberg & Menendez, NM/Bingaman & Udall, NY/Gillibrand & Schumer, NC/Hagan, ND/Dorgan, OH/Brown, OR/Merkley & Wyden, PA/Specter, RI/Reed & Whitehouse, SD/Johnson, VT/Leahy & Sanders (I), VA/Warner & Webb, WA/Cantwell & Murray, WV/Byrd & Rockefeller, WI/Feingold & Kohl

Not voting: AL/Sessions, LA/Landrieu, MA/Kennedy, NE/Johanns & ND/Conrad; Vacancy: Minnesota