Life Advocacy Briefing

‘Winning with Life’

LIFE ADVOCACY’s SIX-HOUR WINNING WITH LIFE SEMINAR will be offered to pro-life candidates, officials and activists this coming Saturday, Jan. 9, in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Information is available by calling Life Advocacy at 1-888/344-LIFE.

The seminar is designed to equip pro-life communicators to be more strategic, persuasive and effective in advocating for Life. Presenters are former Illinois State Representative Penny Pullen and Texas-based campaign strategist Kevin Burnette, who present concrete examples and persuasive facts to counter the pervasive and harmful conventional advice given to pro-life candidates and officials when they are urged to minimize their pro-life stand and move quickly to other subjects, as though they had something to be ashamed of. More information about the format and objectives of the seminar, which was launched in 1992 and has reached hundreds of pro-life candidates, is available under the “publications” tab on www.LifeAdvocacy.com.

Those wishing to help defray the costs of the seminar – and also of publishing Life Advocacy Briefing every week – are welcome to send a donation to Life Advocacy at 2004 E. Sherwood Road, Arlington Heights, IL 60004; gifts are not tax deductible.

Vote Could Be Coming

THE U.S. HOUSE IS EXPECTED TO TAKE UP ‘OBAMACARE’ upon return from recess next Tuesday, Jan. 12.

Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak (MI), who put together a band of colleagues to stand up to their Leadership and demand a vote on the Stupak/Pitts/Hyde Amendment to bar taxpayer funding of abortion in the House healthcare takeover bill, has reassembled as many as 10 Democratic Members to stand against the Senate version of the proposal for the same reason.

Public opinion, which was ignored by the majority of the Senate, is critical to holding together the Stupak cadre and maintaining the unity of Republicans as the massive proposal nears final consideration.

Readers are urged to call their US Representatives via the Capitol switchboard at 1-202/224-3121 and to use the Congressional website at www.house.gov to send electronic mail and to ascertain the contact information for the Members’ district offices. Contacts by every means possible are called for here; one caution – postal mail could be too slow to be effective.

Contacts are especially critical from citizens who live in or near the districts of those Members listed below.

House Targets

HOUSE DEMOCRATS WHO VOTED ‘YES’ ON STUPAK/PITTS/HYDE when it was adopted Nov. 7 by a vote of 240 to 194 (and now constituting the top target list for contacts urging opposition to House agreement with the Senate-passed Reid/Obama “health care” proposal): AL/Bright, Davis; AR/Berry, Ross, Snyder; CA/Baca, Cardoza, Costa; CO/Salazar; GA/Barrow, Bishop, Marshall; IL/Costello, Lipinski; IN/Donnelly, Ellsworth, Hill; KY/Chandler; LA/Melancon; ME/Michaud; MA/Lynch, Neal; MI/Kildee, Stupak; MN/Oberstar, Peterson; MS/Childers, Taylor; MO/Skelton; NM/Teague; NC/Etheridge, McIntyre, Shuler; ND/Pomeroy; OH/Boccieri, Driehaus, Kaptur, Ryan, Space, Wilson; OK/Boren; PA/Altmire, Carney, Dahlkemper, Doyle, Holden, Kanjorski, Murtha; RI/Langevin; SC/Spratt; TN/Cooper, Davis, Gordon, Tanner; TX/Cuellar, Ortiz, Reyes, Rodriguez; UT/Matheson; VA/Perriello; WV/Mollohan, Rahall; WI/Obey. [Rep. Griffith from Alabama was a Democrat at the time of the Stupak vote and is now a Republican, thus no longer subject to pressure from the Pelosi Leadership.]

Saluting a Saint for Life

THE POSTAL SERVICE (U.S.P.S.) HAS ANNOUNCED A POSTAGE STAMP featuring a smiling picture of Mother Teresa and honoring this outstanding servant of the Lord.

In unveiling the stamp design, the USPS cited Mother Teresa’s achievement in winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978 “for her humanitarian work.

“Noted for her compassion toward the poor and suffering,” the USPS news release continued, “Mother Teresa, a diminutive Roman Catholic nun and honorary US citizen, serve the sick and destitute of India and the world for nearly 50 years. Her respect for the innate worth and dignity of humankind inspired people of all ages and backgrounds to work on behalf of the world’s poorest populations.”

The USPS news release notes her Presidential Medal of Freedom presented by Pres. Ronald Reagan in 1985, the Congressional Medal of Honor conferred on her by Congress in 1997 (the year of her passing) and honorary US citizenship awarded her by Pres. Bill Clinton and Congress in 1996. “As of February 2009,” notes the USPS, “the [honorary citizenship] honor has only been bestowed on five others,” four of whom have previously been featured on postage stamps.

Mother Teresa was deeply admired by her fellow advocates for Life the world over. In 1994, she addressed the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC, attended – on the dais – by Pres. and Mrs. Clinton and Vice Pres. and Mrs. Al Gore. Mother Teresa took the occasion to scold the leaders of the United States for turning their backs on preborn human beings.

Building a brilliant – and well received – address around the admonition of Jesus to love our neighbors and serve “the least,” Mother Teresa put her message straight and bluntly: “The greatest destroyer of peace today,” she declared, “is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child,” she reasoned, “how can we tell other people not to kill one another?”

Life Advocacy offers the four-page text of her inspiring Prayer Breakfast speech to any who request a copy by contacting us at 2004 E. Sherwood Road, Arlington Heights, IL 60004. A donation is not required but would be appreciated.

Shameless

INT’l PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION (I.P.P.F.) HAS RELEASED its supposed financial report for 2008, showing nearly twice as many babies having been killed in its shops in 2008 as in 2007.

Incredibly, 1,134,549 abortions is not a big enough market share for the abortion giant. Its report, in addition to boasting, reports Samantha Singson of Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (C-Fam), “of promoting its abortion agenda among its member associations in traditionally pro-life countries,” IPPF, she writes, “remains unsatisfied with the [abortion death toll] figure, arguing that ‘in comparison to other types of services provided by IPPF member associations, these figures remain low and indicate that much needs to be done in terms of future investment in this area if IPPF is to meet its objectives of providing women with the choice and right to safe abortion when faced with an unwanted pregnancy.’”

Planned Parenthood’s new megabortuary in Aurora, Illinois, meanwhile, is being cited as one of the likely principal causes for a dramatic boost in abortions committed in 2008 in the midwest abortion magnet state. Writing for the Chicago Sun-Times yesterday, staff reporter Dave McKinney reveals the number of abortions committed in Illinois “reached a 10-year high in 2008, newly compiled state records show. The uptick could be due,” he opines, “to the state’s flagging economy and to the first full year of operation of a new clinic offering abortion services in Aurora, abortion rights advocates and opponents alike say.

“In 2008, the most recent year for which data are available,” Mr. McKinney reports, “figures from the Illinois Public Health Dept. show that 47,717 abortions were performed statewide.” He goes on to note that “abortion statistics in three of the four counties straddling Aurora saw the number of women seeking the procedure jump dramatically in 2008, state records show.”

Obama Sued over Secret Meetings

VETERAN GADFLY LARRY KLAYMAN HAS FILED SUIT against Pres. Obama “for secret meetings with Planned Parenthood and other lobbyists,” writes WorldNetDaily.com’s Bob Unruh, “on his plans to nationalize health care.” The suit was filed in Washington, DC, reports WND, under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which “requires disclosure of records of meetings between the executive branch and outside industry lobbyists. It also,” reports Mr. Unruh, “requires access to meetings.”

WND’s story notes Mr. Klayman had earlier raised the same issues, while he was president of Judicial Watch, “during the early years of the Clinton Administration, contributing,” recalls Mr. Unruh, “to the demise of the healthcare proposal championed by Hillary Clinton.”

“‘It is widely known,’” said Mr. Klayman, quoted by WND, “‘that Pres. Obama and his surrogates have been holding behind-closed-door meetings with healthcare industry lobbyists, cutting dealts to win passage of his healthcare legislation.’ … The lawsuit,” writes Mr. Unruh, “charges that in [Mr.] Obama’s ‘haste to socialize medicine in the United States and increase government control generally,’ he has ‘violated his commitment to transparency.’”

Mr. Klayman notes, writes Mr. Unruh, that the advisory committee law “‘requires the President to come clean on why he has caved in to the pharmaceutical industry, preventing the importation of prescription drugs that would lower prices for consumers, why he has become the lackey of Planned Parenthood in championing government financed abortions and why the AMA (American Medical Assn.) and AARP (American Assn. of Retired Persons) are now his great friends.’”

Apparently Mr. Klayman tried to follow “procedures” before filing his suit on behalf of Freedom Watch, the organization he now leads. WND reports “he hand-delivered just days ago a letter to [Mr.] Obama under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act and FACA seeking copies of all minutes and final decision documents. His letter was accepted at the White House,” writes Mr. Unruh, “only after he was badgered and belittled by uniformed police officers, he said.

“‘Egregiously, upon hand-delivering the letter to the Secret Service,’” Mr. Klayman told Mr. Unruh, “‘agents of the President, the undersigned chairman and general counsel of Freedom Watch [Mr. Klayman] was illegally detained … at the front gate of the White House, while he was on the sidewalk ([having] never entered the White House grounds), questioned for over an hour in below-freezing temperatures and berated, harassed and threatened by two of the President’s uniformed Secret Service agents for his public advocacy … .’”  Mr. Klayman asserted in the WND story that these two agents had “‘violated [his] exercise of First Amendment freedom-of-speech rights.’ …

“The White House,” reports Mr. Unruh, “did not respond to a request for comment.”

Top Line-Up

AN ARRAY OF PRO-LIFE STARS HAS BEEN LINED UP to speak at Illinois’s annual statewide pro-life conference, SpeakOut Illinois, Saturday, Jan. 30, in the Doubletree Hotel in west suburban OakBrook.

Former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, renowned for his efforts to prosecute both the late, notorious George Tiller and Planned Parenthood for violations of state laws, will keynote the conference with a speech on “The Foundation of Liberty and the Rule of Law – the Need for Truth.”

He will be joined on the program by Live Action Films founder Lila Rose, whose undercover videos have exposed Planned Parenthood’s legal and ethical violations across America. In addition to meeting with pro-life teens at the concurrent TeenSpeak, she will address the conference as a whole on “Exposing the Truth about Planned Parenthood.”

At the conference luncheon, the Henry Hyde Life Leadership Award will be presented to Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute founder and president Austin Ruse, who is scheduled to respond with a speech titled “The UN Threat to Life, Faith and Family and How Christians are Fighting Back.”

Information is available by contacting Life Advocacy, a conference co-sponsor, or via the Internet website www.speakoutillinois.org. Reservations placed before Jan. 18 are discounted to $50 from the full $60 registration fee.

There Oughta Be a Law

THE MONTANA SUPREME COURT HAS HANDED DOWN a ruling with mixed implications on the issue of abetted suicide. Though not finding a constitutional right to “aid in dying,” the state high court did not find either any enacted public policy against it, prompting calls for the state legislature to act to safeguard the right to life of vulnerable people.

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