Life Advocacy Briefing

Facing Reality

THE U.S. CAPITOL THIS THURSDAY WILL ‘HOST’ some precious little Americans when a group called “Voices from the Womb” will kick off a national truth-through-ultrasound campaign at 11 a.m. EDT in the Congressional Auditorium.

Sponsored by the Stanton Healthcare clinic, the project will feature live ultrasonography.

“For the first time ever,” said the organizers in a news release, “the voices of pre-born children will literally be ‘heard’ on Capitol Hill. … Members of Congress will have the chance to clearly see the humanity of the child and work together to end the violence of abortion and establish human rights and justice for all.”

The Capitol Hill visit is the first scheduled for the babies and their moms on a national tour, reports the organizing group, “performing live ultrasounds in schools, churches, state capitals, legislative hearings and public events.”

House to Vote on Blocking ObamaCare Abortion Coverage

HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER ERIC CANTOR (R-VA) told the Values Voter Summit last Friday that the House Leadership would bring to the floor this week a measure to ensure that abortion is not covered under ObamaCare and that conscience protection would be secured.

Readers are urged each to contact his or her US Representative (Capitol switchboard, 1-202/224-3121) to ask them to vote “yes” on the proposal.

Rep. Cantor further indicated that the House GOP plan to defund Planned Parenthood after the November 2012 election, assuming Republicans take control of the Senate and White House while retaining control of the House.

U.N.F.P.A. Defunding On Tap

LEGISLATION TO BAR FUNDING FOR UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) cleared the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week; next stop: The full House of Representatives.

HR-2059 is sponsored by first-term Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC), joined “in making the case for terminating US contributions” to UNFPA, we are told by a Capitol Hill aide, “by other pro-life champions like Representatives Chris Smith [R-NJ], [Jean] Schmidt [R-OH], [Jeff] Fortenberry [R-NE] and Chairwoman [Ileana] Ros-Lehtinen [R-FL].”

UNFPA defunding – saving taxpayers $40-50 million per year – was the top winner in June’s “You Cut” online referendum conducted by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), prompting Rep. Ellmers to file the legislation which has now advanced from committee. Information is available via the Internet at www.majorityleader.gov/YouCut/P2_W1.htm.

The President’s current budget request for this controversial outfit is $47 million.

Readers are encouraged to call lawmakers via the Capitol switchboard at 1-202/224-3121 to urge a “yes” vote on HR-2059 to pull America out of the deadly agenda of the UN Population Fund, which has been found complicit in Red China’s brutal one-child pogrom. A call to Rep. Ellmers to thank her for leading on UNFPA defunding would also be appropriate.

H.H.S. Secretary Attacks G.O.P.

IN AN INAPPROPRIATELY PARTISAN SPEECH Wednesday in Chicago, the Obama Regime’s Secretary of Health & Human Services (HHS), Kathleen Sebelius, told supporters of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), reports Carla K. Johnson for Associated Press (AP), “that Republicans want to roll back women’s health gains 50 years.

“In a strongly worded speech,” writes Ms. Johnson, “[Mrs.] Sebelius said Republicans are not only working to repeal Pres. Barack Obama’s healthcare overhaul but also want to take away benefits in Medicare, cut back Medicaid and eliminate health services provided by Planned Parenthood.” (Apparently, to Mrs. Sebelius, if the government is not funding an activity, it does not count at all.)

“‘In other words,’” proclaimed Mrs. Sebelius to the NARAL donor crowd, “‘they don’t just want to go after the last 18 months, they want to roll back the last 50 years in progress women have made in comprehensive health care in America.’”

America’s top health bureaucrat told the 300 NARAL partisans, reported by AP, “‘We are in a war.’”

Among the alleged combatants were “a dozen anti-abortion protesters,” reports AP, “silently [holding] grisly signs depicting aborted fetuses” outside the luncheon venue.

Mrs. Sebelius reacted to the diners’ disquieting encounter with the evidence of their hobby during her speech. “‘I know that some people were a bit appalled,’” she said, “‘at walking through the demonstrators as you came to this lunch,’ [Mrs.] Sebelius said. ‘It is a discomfort when you’re coming to lunch, but think about the women who are trying to tap into the health services they desperately need who have to go through that kind of gantlet [sic] in order to access all-too-infrequent services.’” A far cry from her party’s former mantra of “safe, legal and rare.”

House Appropriator Seeks to Defund Planned Parenthood

NOT WAITING TO ENGAGE THE BATTLE, House Republicans on the Appropriations Committee are working on defunding Planned Parenthood in the Fiscal Year 2012 annual spending bill to fund the Dept. of Health & Human Services (Labor/HHS Appropriation).

The committee’s subcommittee on Labor/HHS, chaired by Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT), is deliberating on a spending bill that would “save taxpayers $27.5 billion compared with the President’s 2012 budget,” Mr. Rehberg told Christine Dhanagom for LifeSiteNews.com. Among the savings – any money that would have funded America’s leading abortion outfit.

Planned Parenthood’s chiefette Cecile Richards reacted predictably with a statement, quoted by LifeSiteNews, charging the defunding of her empire “would ‘result in millions of women across the country losing access to basic primary and preventive health care.’”

Readers are asked to call Representatives on the Subcommittee and ask for their vote for the Rehberg budget proposal and specifically for their vote defunding Planned Parenthood. Members may be reached via the Capitol switchboard at 1-202/224-3121.

Here is the roster of the subcommittee: Chairman Rehberg and Republican Representatives Jeff Flake (AZ), Jerry Lewis (CA), Jack Kingston (GA), Michael Simpson (ID), Rodney Alexander (LA), Kay Granger (TX), Cynthia Lummis (WY). Also Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Democratic Representatives Barbara Lee & Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA), Jesse Jackson Jr. (IL) and Nita Lowey (NY).

Whining Response

PLANNED PARENTHOOD HEAD CECILE RICHARDS RESPONDED SHARPLY to news last week that her tax-subsidized enterprise is about to undergo a financial examination by the House Energy Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigation.

Her electronic mass mailing to supporters sent Sept. 26 claimed, as reported by LifeSiteNews: “‘You know as well as I do that this isn’t about fiscal responsibility.’” [We’d say she’s right there, in a way – it’s about fiscal irresponsibility!] “‘This,’” she wrote, “‘is about harassment and intimidation of America’s leading provider and advocate of women’s health care. … [Chairman Stearns] is grasping for something, anything, he can use to discredit, damage or destroy Planned Parenthood.’”

The CEO of Americans United for Life, which sparked the Congressional probe via a hefty report on Planned Parenthood’s questionable practices issued earlier this year, responded to Ms. Richards’s claim of political motivation. “Prove it,” said AUL’s Charmaine Yoest PhD in a news release. “Open the records.

“Cecile Richards needs to account for the conduct of the abortion mega-provider,” stressed Dr. Yoest. “Substantial evidence exists,” she said, “that Planned Parenthood is an abuse-laden organization requiring Congressional oversight.”

Dr. Yoest underscored the abortion giant’s consumption of federal, state and local tax dollars. In view of Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer subsidy of more than $360 million per year, noted Dr. Yoest, the enterprise’s response “ignored the heart of the issue, which [is] allegations of the mishandling of the taxpayer trust and taxpayer dollars. …

“Ensuring compliance with the law is not a partisan issue,” said Dr. Yoest, “and the committee’s decision to investigate an organization that has been rocked by systemic fraud and abuse shows that Congress takes its responsibility to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars seriously.”

The AUL news release notes documented abuses prompting the probe: “For example,” said AUL, “audits of Planned Parenthood affiliates in California, New Jersey, New York and Washington State demonstrate a pattern of overbilling and abuse involving Medicaid funds, and in at least Washington even charging drugs used in an abortion as ‘family planning.’ Furthermore,” noted the release, “state audit reports and admissions by former Planned Parenthood employees detail a pattern of misuse of federal funds by some Planned Parenthood affiliates.” The Congressional probe covers every affiliate as well as Planned Parenthood of America.

But Margaret Sanger’s Progeny Does Have a Friend

AFTER PLANNED PARENTHOOD COMPLAINED last week about having to account for its massive tax subsidies, the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List (SBA) issued a “there-there” news release pointing out to the abortion behemoth that they have a friend in DC. His name is Obama.

“Earlier this summer, elected officials in New Hampshire,” notes SBA, “cancelled a $1.8 million contract with Planned Parenthood. Instead of respecting the right of states to end taxpayer funding of America’s largest abortion provider, the Obama Administration responded just days ago by contracting directly with Planned Parenthood” for “services” in New Hampshire.

“After the Indiana legislature courageously defunded Planned Parenthood,” the release reminds us, “the Obama Administration responded by calling their law ‘illegal’ and is threatening to pull the state’s Medicaid funding.

“And earlier this year during the federal budget battle,” according to SBA, “Pres. Obama nearly shut down the entire federal government in order to keep tax dollars flowing to Planned Parenthood.

“Pres. Obama will do anything to keep taxpayer dollars flowing to Planned Parenthood,” SBA maintains, “even during this time of economic crisis in our nation.”

Toward Faithful Citizenship

THE U.S. CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS LAST WEEK REAFFIRMED the USCCB’s 2007 document Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship as “guidance for Catholics in the exercise of their rights and duties as participants in our democracy.”

The newly reissued document includes a new “introductory note” including: “We urge our Catholic pastors and people to continue to use this important statement to help them form their consciences, to contribute to civil and respectful public dialogue and to shape their choices in the coming election in the light of Catholic teaching. It does not offer a voter’s guide, scorecard of issues or direction on how to vote,” states the introduction. “It applies Catholic moral principles to a range of important issues and warns against misguided appeals to ‘conscience’ to ignore fundamental moral claims, to reduce Catholic moral concerns to one or two matters or to justify choices simply to advance partisan, ideological or personal interests.”

The appended note, further, cites six “current and fundamental problems, some involving opposition to intrinsic evils and others raising serious moral questions.” The six highlighted issues, quoting the news bulletin released by the USCCB along with the reaffirmed document: “abortion and threats to the lives and dignity of the vulnerable, sick or unwanted; threats to Catholic ministries, including health care, education and social services, to violate their consciences or stop serving those in need; intensifying efforts to redefine marriage; unemployment, poverty and debt; immigration; and wars, terror and violence, particularly in the Middle East.”

Furthering attention to the USCCB’s concerns is a new website page focused on the “Faithful Citizenship” document. The page can be found on the Internet at www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/faithful-citizenship.

Steve Jobs – We Might Never Have Known You

Oct. 6, 2011 commentary by management /entrepreneurship student at Clemson University, John Paul Cassil, published by IllinoisReview.com

Oh yes, we know, abortion is a topic no one cares about or wants to see on blogs when there are “more pressing” issues like jobs and the economy. Jobs. The Economy. The late Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, is being mourned throughout the world today. At the relatively young age of 56, he died Tuesday, and without a college education, he became one of the most influential men in modern history.

But our pro-choice friends may be shocked to know that Jobs’s family roots are tangled and messy, and the Steve Jobs that held 315 patents and developed the i-Phone, the i-Pad … and the Mac was born to an unmarried college student – the typical expectant mother that so often chooses abortion. His story:

In a 2005 Stanford University commencement address, Steve Jobs painted a brief picture of his beginnings: “It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife.

“Except that when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: ‘We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?’ They said, ‘Of course.’ My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would some day go to college.”

Jobs’s biological parents were Joanne Simpson and Abdulfattah John Jandali. Although the details of Simpson and Jandali’s relationship have not been made public, we do know a good deal about Mr. Jandali. A Syrian immigrant, he came to the United States to pursue his higher education in 1949. According to the Daily Mail, he is now vice president of a casino in Reno, Nevada. At the time, however, Joanne’s parents would not allow the two to get married. For that reason, Jobs was given up for adoption to his parents, Paul and Clara Jobs.

How many other Steve Jobs has the world missed since 1973?