Life Advocacy Briefing

A Little Off?

OUR EDITOR IS GOING TO BE TRAVELING SOON – including on some days when she normally would be writing. Our publication schedule for the next two to three weeks could be a little off, and it is possible we will suspend for a week during that time. Please bear with us. We’ll do our best to bring you any news that is relevant and urgent.

Corroboration – or Collaboration?

THE INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE TUESDAY ENDORSED the Obama Regime’s plan to mandate insurance coverage of surgical sterilization and chemical contraception, including contraceptives which interfere with implantation of the tiniest human beings in their mothers’ wombs. The IOM nod came in response to a request from the Dept. of Health & Human Services (HHS), whose Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, is one of the most notorious abortion collaborators in America today.

Planned Parenthood, which would net huge profits from the mandate, promptly applauded the IOM recommendation, but itwas immediately sharply rebuked by the chairman of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Cardinal Daniel DiNardo. We publish his statement at the close of this Life Advocacy Briefing. Notably, Cardinal DiNardo calls for enactment of HR-1179, the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act, filed by Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) and Rep. Dan Boren (D-OK); we join him in urging Members of Congress to co-sponsor this critically needed legislation.

The federal government’s alleged power to mandate such coverage stems from the “preventive services” section of the notorious ObamaCare legislation, whose repeal would strip such supposed power from HHS.

Call for Probe of Planned Parenthood

SIX CONGRESSIONAL COLLEAGUES JOINED Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC) and Rep. Randy Hultgren (R-IL) in their mid-July Capitol Hill news conference calling for an investigation of Planned Parenthood.

The news conference was called in response to the release by Americans United for Life of a 174-page report which, writes Patrick Craine for LifeSiteNews.com, “included evidence of a ‘pattern of misuse’ of federal healthcare and family planning funds, failure to report child sexual abuse, skirting of parental involvement laws, assisting prostitution and sex trafficking, and misuse of the dangerous abortion drug RU-486.”

Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), chairman of the House Pro-Life Caucus, participated in the news conference and, writes Mr. Craine, “called the report ‘a blueprint for action’ and a ‘game changer’ in the effort to investigate Planned Parenthood.

“‘There is no organization in America, perhaps even on earth,’” Rep. Smith said in the LifeSiteNews report, “‘that stabs, dismembers, decapitates or chemically poisons more unborn children to death than Planned Parenthood. … It should not be a sacrosanct organization or a politically correct organization that evades that kind of scrutiny,’ he added.”

Also participating were GOP Representatives Bill Huizenga (MI), Steve Chabot and Jean Schmidt (OH), Diane Black (TN) and Louisiana’s John Fleming, who said, reports Mr. Craine, citing the Washington Independent as source for Dr. Fleming’s comments: “‘The taking of innocent life is not health care, … and yet we see a situation where Planned Parenthood seems to disguise its abortion factory as health care.’ The Congressman,” writes Mr. Craine, “pointed out that Planned Parenthood committed 332,278 abortions in 2009. ‘If that’s not a factory, I don’t know what it is,’ he said.”

Though he did not appear at the news conference, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) issued a statement, reports the Washington Times, indicating “he is considering holding a hearing on Planned Parenthood” in the House Energy & Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations, which he chairs.

Americans United for Life (AUL) CEO Charmaine Yoest, PhD, said last Thursday in a statement distributed by electronic mail, “We will not quit [calling for an investigation] until Cecile Richards, Planned Parenthood’s president, is called to testify before Congress.”

Planned Parenthood Defunding in the States

THE PRO-LIFE SUSAN B. ANTHONY LIST (S.B.A.) RELEASED A PROGRESS CHART last Monday listing defunding actions by eight states thus far, totaling “just over $60 million.”

Texas tops the chart at a $47 million Planned Parenthood cut, followed by New Jersey ($7.5 million), Indiana ($2 million), New Hampshire ($1.8 million), Wisconsin ($1 million), North Carolina ($434,000), Tennessee ($335,000) and Kansas ($300,000).

The SBA message, signed by former Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave, now director of SBA’s “Votes Have Consequences” project, notes Planned Parenthood is fighting back, particularly in New Hampshire, where the state’s Executive Council voted 3-to-2 recently to disqualify Planned Parenthood from state funding.

SBA countered Planned Parenthood’s pressure with a public rally 10 days ago in Concord, at which former Rep. Musgrave said, quoted in the release, “The [defunding] action of this council really will save innocent unborn lives. … When taxpayers fund Planned Parenthood,” she noted, “it means increased abortions.” It’s as simple as that.

More Progress in the States

TWO STATES COMPLETED WORK LAST WEEK on new laws barring the killing of prenatal babies at an advanced gestational age.

The new Ohio post-20-weeks abortion ban, just signed by Gov. John Kasich (R), may drive notorious partial-birth abortion developer Martin Haskell out of the state – or, better yet, out of his grisly business. Chiefly because of Mr. Haskell’s Cincinnati-area mill, the legislation is expected to protect as many as 700 babies annually.

Missouri’s Democratic governor, Jay Nixon, allowed his state’s late-term abortion ban to become law without his signature. Setting the line at 20 gestational weeks, the legislation is based on scientific evidence that prenatal boys and girls can experience pain at that stage.

“‘This legislation was approved by an overwhelming, bipartisan majority in both houses,’” Gov. Nixon explained, quoted by Rebecca Millette for LifeSiteNews.com. Indeed, the measure passed 119 to 38 in the House last March and passed the Senate in April by a vote of 27 to 5.

“‘Although people have differing views on this issue,’” said the historically pro-abortion governor, quoted by Ms. Millette, “‘it’s important that we work together to provide accurate health information, promote personal responsibility, protect women’s health and improve foster care, adoption and child protection services.’”

Mosher Warns of Europe’s Death

U.S. POLICY TOWARD EUROPE’s DECLINING POPULATION should be turned right-side-up, Population Research Institute (PRI) president Stephen Mosher told the US Commission on Security & Cooperation in Europe, meeting for a June 20 hearing in the Rayburn Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill. The Commission, also known at the US Helsinki Commission, was created to monitor implementation of the landmark 1975 Helsinki Accords and is co-chaired by Rep. Smith and Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-MD). The alliance stemming from the international summit in Helsinki is called the Organization for Security & Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

“‘It doesn’t matter whether we call them reproductive health programs, family planning programs or population control programs,’” said Mr. Mosher, quoted by Thaddeus Baklinski for LifeSiteNews.com. “‘They all have the same effect. They force down the birthrate in countries that are already dying,’” he said. “‘Such programs are only making a bad problem worse. …

“‘Many nations, especially in Europe, are already in a death spiral,’”Mr. Mosher warned in the LifeSiteNews story, “‘losing a significant number of people each year. Listen closely, and you will hear the muffled sound of populations crashing.’”

“The hearing … focused on the implications for the security, as well as the economic and social developments in Europe and the former Soviet Union,” notes Mr. Baklinski, “due to demographic decline marked by diminishing and rapidly aging populations in most of the Organization for Security & Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) 56 participating states. …

“‘The fact is that most OSCE countries are in demographic decline, many of them in rapid decline,’” commented Rep. Smith, quoted by LifeSiteNews. “‘Only a handful of the OSCE’s 56 member states are at or above replacement level,’ [Chairman] Smith observed,” reports LifeSiteNews.

“The commission heard,” writes Mr. Baklinski, “that the pattern of demographic decline will likely have significant social, economic and security consequences for countries throughout the region. States will become increasingly dependent upon foreign workers in the coming decades,” notes Mr. Baklinski, “while there will be a dramatic decrease in the pool of potential recruits for military service, resulting in mounting social tensions ‘as demonstrated by clashes in some participating states in recent years,’ according to [Rep.] Smith. …

“‘Likewise with the economy,’ [Mr.] Smith continued,” quoted by LifeSiteNews. “‘It is far from clear how, in many of the most rapidly declining countries, how economic growth can be sustained by a declining population – or, to touch on the most pressing specific, how the numerically smaller younger generations will even begin to provide for the larger older generations.’”

Those who wish to read a transcript of the hearing may do so via the Internet at http://csce.gov, June 20, 2011 – hearing.

Pres. Reagan’s Powerful Defense of Human Life

May 19, 2011, BreakPoint commentary by Charles Colson, copyright BreakPoint

English author Samuel Johnson once wrote that some truths are too important to be new. I’ll share with you some important old truths about human life.

A few weeks ago, a friend sent me something he thought I would enjoy reading, something that had been published nearly 30 years ago by Ronald Reagan. I found it so moving, I wanted to share it with my readers.

In 1983, then-Pres. Reagan sent an unsolicited manuscript to the editors of Human Life Review, who published it in a small book. It was a heartfelt plea to the American people to recognize the sanctity of life of unborn babies – and to never give up working to protect them in law.

Reagan reminded readers that neither the American people nor our legislators had ever had a chance to decide if they really wanted to legalize abortion through all nine months of pregnancy; that’s still true today.

Nor is abortion a right guaranteed by the Constitution. Reagan wrote that Roe v. Wade was “not the first time our country has been divided by a Supreme Court decision that denied the value of certain human lives.” The Dred Scott decision affirming slavery has that dubious distinction.

He wrote of the great need to clearly frame and present the issue of abortion – just as abolitionists exposed the terrible truth about slavery.

And what is the real issue? Reagan asked, “The real question today is not when human life begins,” he wrote, “but: What is the value of human life? The abortionist who reassembles the [torn-apart] arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been [removed] from its mother’s body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being.”

And in 1981, Senate hearings on the beginning of human life involved many medical and scientific witnesses who agreed, based on scientific evidence, “that the unborn child is alive, is a distinct individual, [and] is a member of the human species.”

So “the real question,” Reagan wrote, “… is whether that tiny human life has a God-given right to be protected by the law – the same right we have.”

Reagan quoted Lincoln, who wrote that “nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on.” He quoted sociologist William Brennan, who warned: “The cultural environment for a human holocaust is present whenever any society can be misled into defining individuals as less than human and therefore devoid of value and respect.” And he quoted Malcolm Muggeridge, who said that “Either life is always and in all circumstance sacred or intrinsically of no account; it is inconceivable that it should be in some cases the one and in some [cases] the other.”

How right these men were.

In order to bring back protection for the unborn, which involves fighting the powerful abortion lobby and activist judges, Reagan said, quoting Mother Teresa, we must become “a soul of prayer.” In fact, we must be like William Wilberforce and his friends, who, Reagan recalled, prayed for decades for the end of British slavery. “Let his faith and perseverance be our guide,” Reagan wrote.

The Gipper would be pleased to know that, thanks to the ceaseless efforts of many Christians, more Americans now call themselves pro-life than ever before.

Life Advocacy Briefing editor’s note: To read the entire, inspiring monograph written by Pres. Reagan for the 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade edict, search for “abortion Reagan” at the Internet website www.humanlifereview.com and choose the 1983 entry “Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation.”

‘Pregnancy is Not a Disease’

July 19, 2011, Statement of Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, pro-life activities chairman, USCCB

I strongly oppose the Institute of Medicine’s recommendation today that the Dept. of Health & Human Services (HHS) mandate coverage of three particular practices in almost all private health plans: surgical sterilization, all FDA-approved birth-control (including the IUD, “morning-after” pills and the abortion-inducing drug Ella), and “education and counseling” promoting these among all “women of reproductive capacity.”

Pregnancy is not a disease, and fertility is not a pathological condition to be suppressed by any means technically possible. The IOM report claims it would have good reason to recommend coverage for surgical abortions as well, if such a mandate were not prevented by law. But most Americans surely see that abortion is not healthy or therapeutic for unborn children and has physical and mental health risks for women which can be extremely serious. I can only conclude that there is an ideology at work in these recommendations that goes beyond any objective assessment of the health needs of women and children.

The single largest abortion provider in the United States – Planned Parenthood – is celebrating the IOM’s report. If the HHS does likewise and implements its recommendations, these controversial practices will be mandated for all insurance plans – public and private – without co-pay from anyone receiving them. The considerable cost of these practices will be paid by all who participate in health coverage, employers and employees alike, including those who conscientiously object to Planned Parenthood’s agenda.

Without sufficient legal protection for rights of conscience, such a mandate would force all men, women and children to carry health coverage that violates the deeply held moral and religious convictions of many. This new threat to conscience makes it especially critical for Congress to pass the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act introduced by Representatives Jeff Fortenberry and Dan Boren (HR 1179). I am writing to all Members of Congress to urge their co-sponsorship.

The IOM missed an opportunity to promote better health care for women that is life-affirming and truly compassionate. I once again urge the Dept. of Health & Human Services to focus on the need of all Americans, including immigrants and the poor, for basic life-saving health coverage – not on mandating controversial elective practices in ways that undermine the good of women and children; the consciences of employers, employees and health plan providers; and the common good.