Life Advocacy Briefing

Stiffening the House Resolve

A TACTIC BY THE HOUSE G.O.P. LEADERSHIP – related to the continued but temporary funding of the federal government – could be putting at risk the party’s determination to reinstate protections for the cause of Life.

After passage by the House of a continuing resolution funding government programs through the end of the fiscal year – complete with government-wide bans on abortion funding and the Pence Amendment to disqualify Planned Parenthood from federal tax funds – the House watched the Senate stonewall on the CR and ultimately reject it. The House Majority Leadership proceeded to advance two consecutive short-term CRs which, while cutting government spending and eliminating some projects and programs, left in place funding for abortion in certain circumstances and continued the spending on Planned Parenthood.

Last week, some 54 Republican House Members refused to back the CR, citing the Planned Parenthood and abortion funding and citing continued funding of ObamaCare development in the short-term spending plan. And Thursday, reports Alexander Bolton in The Hill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) declared the Pence Amendment “will not be part of any agreement to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year.”

We believe it is time for the House Leadership to revert to a long-term continuing resolution cutting federal spending substantially, providing taxpayer protections from any direct or indirect involvement in abortions, defunding ObamaCare and disqualifying Planned Parenthood, just as the original CR undertook to do. It is time for the House to insist on its representation of the will of the people and to challenge the Senate to suffer the consequences.

Without question, the “real fight” will come in the formation of the spending plan for the 2012 Fiscal Year, being developed now for adoption by the end of September. But Sen. Reid appears to be viewing the less ambitious short-term CRs as concessions and signs of weakness; before the “real fight” commences this summer, the House Leadership must regain the moral high ground and rearrange Sen. Reid’s impression of their resolve. Let Sen. Reid’s own endangered Senate incumbents – 23 of them standing for election in 2012 – pressure him to yield or begin their campaigns with the pro-life and anti-spending citizenry firmly and actively in their opponents’ camps.

Outrageous Appointment

AMERICA’s ABORTION PRESIDENT HAS PROVED ONCE AGAIN that elections have consequences. But the Constitution requires the Senate to advise and consent on federal judicial nominations, and that gives the power to withhold consent. Calls to Senators are in order requesting their opposition to the appointment of Stephen Six. (Capitol switchboard, 1-202/224-3121.)

Pres. Barack Obama has appointed to the Denver Court of Appeals Kansas lawyer Stephen Six, who for a brief, agonizing time held the office of state attorney general.

“[Mr.] Six was involved in obstructing the prosecution of Planned Parenthood on 107 criminal charges,” noted Operation Rescue in an OR news release, “and, according to some, tied the hands of the prosecutor in the 2009 criminal case against [the late notorious abortionist] George Tiller.”

Mr. Six’s “political biases,” asserted OR, “make him unfit to serve.” And certainly unfit for confirmation by 60 Members of the Senate.

The former attorney general was appointed to that post by then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, notorious for her backing of no-strings abortion and specifically her close friendship with Mr. Tiller. The ex-governor is now the Obama Regime’s Secretary of Health & Human Services (HHS).

Operation Rescue charged last week that Mr. Six had tied the hands of the prosecutor he assigned to the case against Mr. Tiller, which had been brought by former Atty. Gen. Phill Kline.

What is more, Mr. Six acted to quash evidenceagainst Planned Parenthood in his furtherance of Mr. Kline’s case then pending against the abortion purveyor, OR charged.

“Steve Six has a lot to answer for,” said OR president Troy Newman, whose group has been instrumental in calling public attention to the Kansas cases and brought forward evidence which led to the 107 counts against Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood in Overland Park, Kansas.

“The charges of illegal late-term abortions and making false representations to authorities to cover for other crimes are serious charges that deserve to have a full hearing in court,” said Mr. Newman. “Steve Six placed himself between a county prosecutor and the perpetrator for the express purpose of concealing evidence of Planned Parenthood’s crimes. That,” he said, “is unconscionable.”

OR’s news release called attention to Mr. Six’s close political relationship with Mrs. Sebelius, for whom, OR charged, Planned Parenthood “once threw a drunken birthday party.”

Mr. Six “has proven,” said Mr. Newman, “that he is willing to place the interests of justice behind the political advancement of a political agenda assigned to him by Kathleen Sebelius and others. … [Mr.] Six is too easily manipulated by [Mrs.] Sebelius and others to whom he owes political favors and has a track record of allowing politics to trump the honest seeking of justice,” said Mr. Newman. “That makes him dangerous and tremendously unqualified to sit on the federal bench.”

‘Baby Joseph’ Rescued to U.S. Hospital

A CANADIAN INFANT HAS BEEN RESCUED from the London, Ontario, Health Sciences Center to save his precious life.

Joseph Maraachli, whose case has attracted attention as “Baby Joseph” in the media and in pro-life circles, has been transported to Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center in St. Louis after a nationwide search by Priests for Life director Fr. Frank Pavone. Also involved is Bobby Schindler of Terri’s Life & Hope Network, founded to protect others from the fate of his late sister, Terri Schiavo.

The seriously ill Baby Joseph was just hours from being denied life support at the Canadian facility when the transfer was made. His parents have pleaded for treatment for their little boy, and doctors at Cardinal Glennon “told media late [last] Monday,” reports Patrick B. Craine for LifeSiteNews.com, the infant “‘likely will have a tracheotomy performed by the end of [last] week to facilitate his transition to a skilled nursing facility.’” The hope is to secure care for him in a nursing home in the US near his family’s home just across the border in Windsor, Ontario.

“The London hospital, where Joseph was treated since October, had refused to perform the [needed procedure],” writes Mr. Craine, “and sought to remove his ventilator against his parents’ wishes.” The wee one’s father had not even been permitted to pray privately with his son until arriving in St. Louis, reports Mr. Craine, because the Canadian hospital “had required the family to be overseen by security.”

This is the system of “universal, single-payer medical care” which Pres. Obama and his central planners are seeking to impose on the people of the United States. Should he and his fellow travelers in Congress – such as open advocate Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) – succeed through his ObamaCare scheme, where is the haven to which “the least of these” – or for that matter, any of us – can go for care?

Abortion ‘Traumatic’

A RECENT SURVEY OF 500 WOMEN IN FRANCE “found that 92% consider abortion a traumatic event,” reports Rebecca Millette for LifeSiteNews.com, “and 83% say abortion is physically painful.” This though some “82% of respondents said they believe that legalizing abortion liberated women … .”

A further finding in the survey by an outfit called OpinionWay showed that “one in two women in France also said they had been misinformed about abortion or contraception methods,” reports Ms. Millette. Not surprising if they’re getting their “information” from the sales forces of Planned Parenthood or others in the abortion cartel.

Hope for Cancer Patients

A FOUR-YEAR-OLD GIRL IN SPAIN has been “cured” of brain cancer through the use of umbilical cord stem cells, according to Spanish media sources and reported by Matthew Cullinan Hoffman in LifeSiteNews.com.

Though the little girl was born healthy in 2007, reports Mr. Hoffman, she “began to suffer from a brain tumor” at the age of 22 months “and needed several intensive rounds of chemotherapy, which destroyed her blood cells, requiring her to receive infusions of stem cells from her umbilical cord.” The practice of storing umbilical cord stem cells at birth is rare in Spain, and the transplant of such cells was the first in Spanish history, according to Mr. Hoffman.

The report of apparent success comes some “16 months after her stem cells restored her blood system,” writes Mr. Hoffman, and the little one “remains cancer free. Doctors will be able to certify her as ‘cured’ after [she has lived] a total of five years without a relapse. …

“In contrast with embryonic stemcell procedures, which destroy a human life in [his or her] earliest stages and which have never produced a single cure to date, adult or umbilical cord stemcell procedures are harmless to the donor,” notes Mr. Hoffman, “and are proving to be a powerful weapon in the arsenal of modern medical treatments.”

Quoteworthy

Former CEO and potential GOP Presidential candidate Herman Cain speaking to public policy advocates at the Heritage Foundation, quoted by Family Research Council president Tony Perkins in his March 16, 2011, Washington Update: “You probably don’t hear a lot of people talking about this. When Margaret Sanger – check my history – started Planned Parenthood, the objective was to put these centers in primarily black communities so they could help kill black babies before they came into the world. … It’s planned genocide.”

Time to Take a Stand

Statement issued by Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) before voting against short-term continuing resolution

With a $14 trillion national debt and a $1.65 trillion deficit, our federal government is facing a fiscal crisis of unprecedented proportions.

With the passage of HR-1, House Republicans took an important first step for fiscal discipline, defunding ObamaCare and restoring respect for Life to the federal budget, only to see it rejected by liberals in the Senate.

The Senate Majority Leader called the Republican budget cuts “mean-spirited, reckless and irresponsible,” even defending federal funding for a Cowboy Poetry Festival. Is it reckless and irresponsible to ask for $61 billion in cuts when the national debt is 230 times that amount? They just don’t get it.

It’s time to take a stand for taxpayers and future generations. I will not vote for the short-term Continuing Resolution. Things don’t change in Washington, DC, until they have to. It will not be possible to put our fiscal house in order without a fight. By giving liberals in the Senate another three weeks of negotiations, we will only delay a confrontation that must come. I say, “Let it come now. It’s time to take a stand.”

HR-1 was a victory for taxpayers and a victory for Life. House Republicans need to tell liberals in the Senate, “This far and no further.” Nobody wants a government shutdown, but unless we take a stand, we will shut down the future for our children and grandchildren.

March for Life Speeches

Congressional speeches delivered at the Jan. 24, 2011, March for Life, transcribed by Life Advocacy Briefing from EWTN television coverage; more to follow in future editions.

Rep. Martha Roby (R-AL): Good afternoon, I’m Martha Roby, representing Alabama’s Second Congressional District. I am unapologetically pro-life. I too believe that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, that each of us were knit together in our mother’s womb by our Awesome God. I want to say thank you to my sweet family member who’s here today, Rebecca Samuels. I want to tell each of you, thank you so much for making the journey here today to defend those who can’t defend themselves. Keep up the good fight for the unborn. God bless each of you.

Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS): Good afternoon, I’m Mike Pompeo from the great state of Kansas. Yea, I see you all! Kansas has been for so many years a battleground on the issue of life. Kansas has been a place where there has been a central focus. We always know this in Kansas: that the right to life can’t be given to you by a Member of Congress and it can’t be taken away from you by nine folks on the Supreme Court. We know that life comes because He gave us life and He made us in His image. Thank you all so much for coming out here today. God bless you all, and let’s keep up the fight. Thank you all.

Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN): Good afternoon, I’m Marlin Stutzman from the great state of Indiana, and I brought my pro-life team, my wife Christy, our son Payton, our youngest son Preston. And I want to give a big shout-out to the folks from Indiana, especially the Allen County Right to Life group that traveled out the other night to be here today. I tell you, I’m a freshman Congressman, and this is an amazing sight to see, and I want your picture from up here, okay, Payton? I believe that this is the generation that’s going to see the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, because we are winning in the hearts and minds of Americans. We may not be winning all the time in Washington, DC, but across this country, we are winning. Keep up the fight. God bless you.

Rep. Bobby Schilling (R-IL): Hello, everyone, my name is Bobby Schilling from Illinois’s “Fighting 17th.” This is my wife Christy of 24 years. Together we have ten children. The day after the Presidential elections, two of my daughters came to the room and asked who won. And when we told them, they started to cry. When they left the room, I said to my wife: We’ve got to do something; here I am. And when our friends from the other side tell us they want the “right to choose,” please finish the sentence for them: The right to choose to kill their unborn child. We have to stay focused. Keep the faith. There’s a Planned Parenthood in our area. There’s also a, a, what is it, Honey, a woman’s choice center. (I’ve always got to have my better half with me.) I’ve got to tell you, the lady, when I visited there, she said that what they do is, they bring women in who are looking to have an abortion and they had one [such client] and they were doing the sonogram and the baby was just lying there and all of a sudden – it was right before they were getting done – and that baby just put on a show for Mama. And that baby is born today and is 18 years old. So keep the faith. We’ve got to get this done. Let’s stay focused. God bless you, God bless America.

Rep. Bill Flores (R-TX): Howdy, I’m Bill Flores from Texas. Today reminds me of a story about Abby Johnson from my home town of Bryan, Texas. As many of you may know, Abby Johnson was the director for two years of Planned Parenthood in Bryan. One day she was watching an ultrasound and decided that she had to leave. Later on she submitted her resignation, walked across the street and went to work for Coalition for Life in Bryan, Texas. And like Abby Johnson, each of us are faced with a decision, and it should be our decision to protect, defend innocent lives of all Americans, including those of the unborn. Thank you and God bless you.

Rep. Frank Guinta (R-NH): Good afternoon, my name is Frank Guinta, and I represent the great state of New Hampshire. I’m a member of the freshman class who calls proudly himself pro-life. We do have the biggest freshman class that is pro-life, and I’ll tell you, the other thing we get to do from New Hampshire is make sure that every candidate who runs for President assures us that they will protect life and defend life. Help me in New Hampshire elect a President who will overturn Roe v. Wade. Thank you all very much.

Rep. Jeff Landry (R-LA):Bienvenue, mes amis. My name is Jeff Landry from Louisiana. Thank you, thank you for taking to the streets and marching for the sanctity of life. Thank you for making your voices heard and praying for the unborn. Thank you for your inspiration. Always remember that all human beings are created equal and are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which is the basic right to life. Thank you. Thank you.

Permission granted to quote with attribution. Reproduction rights granted only by express authorization.