Life Advocacy Briefing

Off Schedule

PLEASE BE PATIENT for next week’s edition of Life Advocacy Briefing. Our tech wizard will be out of town at our usual time to publish, so we expect to be publishing Monday, Feb. 8.

Spotlight on Obama Appointees, Johnsen Vote Impending

PRES. OBAMA’s NOMINEE FOR A KEY JUSTICE DEPT. POST is highlighted prominently in a 72-page report released last week by Liberty Counsel, which may be contacted tollfree at 1-800/671-1776.

“…Nominees like Dawn Johnsen, [the President’s] pick to head the Office of Legal Counsel in the Dept. of Justice, are pro-abortion to an extreme degree,” according to the document, reports LifeSiteNews.com in a story on its release. “She has said that the idea to make abortion rare as well as safe and legal is ‘nonsensical’ and that abortion restrictions ‘reduce pregnant women to no more than fetal containers.’” (Actually, legal protections for vulnerable pre-born boys and girls elevate “pregnant women” to their actual status as mothers.)

Here’s another bombshell comment from Ms. Johnsen, whom the President nominated to this key post a year ago and has lately renominated for the same office, quoted by Liberty Counsel and reported by LifeSiteNews: “‘The argument that women who become pregnant have in some sense consented to the pregnancy belies reality … and others who are the inevitable losers in the contraceptive lottery no more “consent” to pregnancy than pedestrians “consent” to being struck by drunk drivers.’”

The Johnsen nomination is pending urgently in the Senate. Readers are asked to call Senators at 1-202/224-3121 and to send them electronic messages via www.senate.gov.

“‘Pres. Obama has nominated and appointed the most radical group of ideologues ever assembled by an American President,’ said Mathew D. Staver,” reported by LifeSite.  Mr. Staver is founder of Liberty Counsel and dean of Liberty University School of Law in Virginia.

Pray & Work

U.S. REP. CHRIS SMITH (R-NJ) CALLED PRES. OBAMA ‘OBSESSED with promoting abortion” in an interview with Cybercast News Service (CNSNews.com) during the Jan. 22 March for Life in Washington.

Rather than a sharp rebuke, however, Rep. Smith phrased his complaint as a call for prayer for Mr. Obama.

“When CNSNews.com asked [Rep.] Smith what pro-life Americans could do to fight for the rights of the unborn, he said,” reports CNS’s Karen Schuberg, “‘I think we need to pray. We need to fast. We need to pray for Obama. He is so obsessed with promoting abortion. All of his picks for Secretary, Under-Secretary, Assistant Secretary – all the gate-keepers in government – are now litmus-tested pro-abortionists, many of whom come right out of the abortion-rights movement. And these movement abortionists,’” he said, “‘are trying to use everything when we know it – or sometimes when we don’t know it – behind the scenes, to promote this agenda. So this,’” Rep. Smith declared, “‘is an aggressive pro-abortion administration.’”

Rep. Smith saluted the efforts being undertaken by pro-life citizens to turn our nation back to a culture of Life. “‘The hard work, the redoubling of our efforts, the educational efforts,’” Rep. Smith noted – “‘obviously the 40 Days for Life [prayer vigil campaign], and all the other great ministries that are out on the front line saving women who are at great peril and risk. The post-abortion work that is done so magnificently by this movement,’” he told CNSNews.com, “‘needs to accelerate.

“‘All of that combined, you know – this is the greatest human rights struggle on earth,’” he said in the interview, “‘and I think everyone needs to realize that we need to do even more.’”

Vigilance Key

‘DOING EVEN MORE’ unfortunately includes continuing to contact Washington lawmakers to urge their opposition to ObamaCare. Though the Massachusetts upset victory of Republican Senator-elect Scott Brown appears to have caused consternation and fear among many Congressional Democrats who have been under tremendous pressure to vote for a government rationing regime that amounts to the destruction of America’s healthcare system, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-SanFrancisco) continues to send signals of determination and disregard for the views of the public. And Pres. Barack Obama urged lawmakers to renew his quest during his State of the Union address to Congress last Wednesday night.

We recall the fear engendered in lawmakers through the peaceful but huge uprisings at town-hall meetings across the country last summer, yet once Members returned to Capitol Hill in the fall, the battle was rejoined, and many lawmakers allowed their Leaders and the special interest lobbies to erase the memory of that fear.

Hence, we cannot sleep. ObamaCare is still lurking, and Democratic Leaders are believed to be angling for parliamentary maneuvers to get the job done regardless of political consequences.

Our readers are asked to renew their calls to their US Representative and Senators and urge them to vote against any scheme to put bureaucrats in charge of our medical care. (Even if they excluded abortion funding, which the Senate has refused to do, the government takeover itself is a threat to the lives of the most vulnerable among us and, ultimately, of us all.) They may be contacted via the Capitol switchboard at 1-202/224-3121 or via electronic mail at www.house.gov or www.senate.gov. Better to call too often than not enough.

Relevant Education

FEBRUARY IS OFFICIALLY ‘BLACK HISTORY MONTH’ in America, but how many schoolchildren and community groups will learn about the application of the dastardly eugenics movement to black families in America?

The ties between Europe’s Nazis (and their American sympathizers), the eugenics movement here in the US and today’s “‘family planning’ cartel,” notes Mark Crutcher of Texas-based Life Dynamics, Inc., are exposed in chilling detail – and directly applied to the struggles of black Americans in a stunning documentary called Maafa 21.

We have watched this film on DVD, and we heartily recommend it to our readers – any time, really but especially as a useful tool this month to reach African Americans at a time when they are especially attuned to resources about their history. A review copy is offered by Life Dynamics to those who call 1-940/380-8800. It’s an eye opener for all Americans.

It’s Not Just Here

MEDICAL DOCTORS ARE LEADING AN EFFORT in South Korea to “motivate the people of their country to re-examine the catastrophic pro-abortion culture in which they live,” reports Theodore Baklinski for LifeSiteNews.com. The problem in South Korea, apparently, is lack of enforcement of anti-abortion laws.

A courageous doctor gathered colleagues for a recent news conference “to ask ‘forgiveness,’” writes Mr. Baklinski, “for having performed illegal abortions.” They have founded a group “which calls on other doctors,” he writes, “to declare whether they have performed illegal abortions.” [Note: Life Advocacy considers “commits” to be a better verb to use than “perform” – especially in a country where abortion is criminally illegal but also in the US, where abortion is a crime against Nature and against Nature’s God, regardless of what the Supreme Court has declared. In quoting other sources, however, we attempt to be faithful to their texts.]

The report indicates abortion carries “little stigma” in South Korea, where “for decades,” writes Mr. Baklinski, doctors were “encouraged … to provide abortion and contraception to Korean women for patriotic reasons.” Abortion, he writes, became “a lucrative business” for the medical profession.

“‘We see a tendency to have one perfect child and abort the rest,’” said the pro-life doctors’ group founder in the LifeSite story. “‘We had women demanding an abortion simply because they had taken cold medicine or drunk too much while pregnant. We sold our soul for money,’ added [the doctor]. ‘Abortion was an easy way to make money.’”

Some 43.7% of babies conceived in South Korea are aborted, according to Health Ministry statistics cited by Mr. Baklinski, but, he reports, “The actual number of abortions may be at least five times the official estimate” of 350,000 annually. The Korea Times, he writes, reported recently that a member of the ruling party in the National Assembly said a legislative inspection in October “found that the number of illegal abortions in Korea exceeds 1.5 million a year or roughly 4,000 babies aborted per day.” The population of South Korea, according to the US State Dept., was 48.6 million in 2008. The State Dept. estimates the population growth rate in 2008 at 0.31%.

According to the LifeSite report, the “current fertility rate of 1.19 children per woman, one of the lowest in the world, caused the government to abandon [its] population control policy, and [it] is now frantically moving in the opposite direction to save the nation from a self-inflicted demographic implosion that threatens to undermine the nation’s economic and social survival.” Abortion is lethal to babies, destructive to their mothers and devastating to a nation.

Speaking for Life

Continued rally speeches delivered by Members of the US House and Senate to the massive crowd assembled Jan. 20, 2010, for the March for Life in Washington, DC; transcribed by Life Advocacy Briefing from recorded-live video coverage.

Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL): Good afternoon. I’m Robert Aderholt, Congressman from Alabama. Glad to see everybody out here today. Glad to see Auburn University out here and a lot of other Alabamians that are out here in the crowd, and they’re standing up for pro-life.  We have a lot of work to do in Washington and here in the capital to protect life. But we also all have a lot of work to do to change the hearts and the minds of the American people. And I think we’re doing that. So keep up the good work. Thank you for being here today. You don’t know how much your presence means not only to us here in Congress but also to the entire nation. So, may God bless you, may God bless America. Thank you.

Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO): Good afternoon. I’m Todd Akin. I’m from the state of Missouri. And I’m pro-life. This is my tenth year joining you here. And it calls to mind a characteristic that describes all of you. It is a character of every great leader. There was a time for every great leader when they hung doggedly to some enterprise and people would say the cause is hopeless. The Pilgrims on the beach at Plymouth. Washington at Valley Forge. But those great leaders discovered through their dogged determination to do what was right that God brings deliverance sometimes from very strange quarters. We saw an example this week of the same thing. The socialized medicine bill was a big threat to life. And deliverance came from a strange quarter indeed: Massachusetts. You all have that same quality of being here year after year. Thank you. God bless you.

Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD): Roscoe Bartlett from Maryland. Maryland, where are you? Yeah, thank you. Are we empowered by Massachusetts? Yes. Okay. I’ve been here since ’92, and every year you keep coming and coming. Thank you for inspiring us, and each year the polls show that more and more Americans are pro-life. There is a God. Ultimate victory is ours. Keep on keeping on. God bless you.

Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA): My name is Joseph Cao, and I’m from Louisiana, and I’m very proud to be pro-life. And I want everyone to repeat after me: “I am pro-life. We are pro-life. America is pro-life.” You know, I just came back from a trip to Southeast Asia, and one of the countries that I visited was Cambodia. And during the time when I was there, I visited the killing fields of Cambodia. They showed the congressional delegation what they called the killing tree. And the reason that they called it the killing tree was they used to hang babies from the tree and they used to slam babies against the tree. And the reason why I want to tell you that story is because some of the acts we use in abortion are just as brutal. And I want people to understand that abortion is a moral issue of our time, and we have to speak loudly in order for our leaders to understand that we are pro-life. And I’m so honored last night that I had a chance to speak to about 500 students from Louisiana, and just seeing so many young faces gives me so much hope and so much energy because I know that this fight will be long and hard, and we will need all the young people to speak out loudly to our leaders. So thank you very much, and please carry on with the fight. Thank you.

Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS): Good afternoon. I’m Todd Tiahrt from Kansas. Greetings, America. Greetings from my wife Vicki, who’s in Topeka, Kansas, at the March for Life. And she wants you to know that, even though she’s in Topeka, Kansas, her avatar is here with you and going to march with you to the Supreme Court. A lot of Americans are here in spirit. You’re not alone. We are changing the view of America on the issue of Life, and it’s been because of you sacrificing every year to come out and enthuse those of us who work daily to try to elevate the value of life. It reminds me of what Abraham Lincoln said in the first Lincoln-Douglas debate. He was referring to slavery. But what he said was, “With public sentiment, anything is possible. Without it, nothing is.” So those who form public sentiment are more important than those who pass statutes or render decisions, meaning the legislature, the courts. So what you’re doing is very important. You’re changing public sentiment. Today we would call it public opinion. Thank you for being here. God bless you. Let’s move forward and change the laws of this land.

Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ): My name is Chris Smith. This is my wife Marie. On behalf of both of us and all of the Members and everyone up here, thank you all for being an important part of the greatest human rights struggle on earth, the right to life movement. I also want to thank you for your steadfast support of the Stupak/Pitts amendment, which made the difference in ensuring that an ill-fated and very pro-abortion health care reform bill will not become the law of this land. We especially today admire and honor the extraordinarily courageous post-abortive women who are silent no more. Their voice and their witness show the path to reconciliation for all women who have been first deceived and then victimized by abortion. And President Obama, the abortion President, you should know this: Even though you have unleashed the full might and power of your administration in the ignoble promotion of abortion, both here and around the world – especially in Africa and Latin America – we pray for you and will fast for you, even as we tenaciously fight your anti-Life policies. Years ago, years ago, a friend of mine Dr. Jean Garton wrote a book with the title inspired by the question of a young child who unexpectedly walked into a room as she was preparing a lecture on abortion. Her three-year-old took one gasping look at the photo of a baby badly bruised and battered, an aborted baby, and shouted, “Mommy, who broke the baby?” That young child saw the brutality of abortion and understood. That child saw and immediately knew that babies are smashed and broken to bits by abortion, and with alarm wanted to know “who did it?” President Obama, is it really so hard to understand that abortion really is violence against children? A pernicious form of child abuse, falsely marketed as choice, a human right, health care, and safe. Abortion isn’t health care. There’s nothing benign or healing about abortion. And safe? Certainly not for the 52 million unborn babies who have been killed since 1973 and certainly not for the women who have been hurt physically and psychologically – and the medical data strongly suggests that their subsequent children are often premature or low birth weight babies. [Abortion] is a serious human rights abuse, Mr. President, and with indomitable trust in God, we today recommit and reiterate our resolve to pray and fast and work hard to enfranchise all, regardless of age, race, sex, disability, wantedness, or condition of dependency. God bless you, and thank you.

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