Life Advocacy Briefing

Stand Up for Religious Freedom

A CITY-BY-CITY NATIONWIDE RALLY is being planned for Friday, June 8, to protest the Obama Regime mandate that employers who furnish health insurance to workers include coverage of artificial contraception and sterilization, regardless of their conscientious objection.

Dubbed the Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally, the nationwide demonstration is being planned by Monica Miller of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society and Eric Scheidler of Pro-Life Action League.

The two previously fostered such rallies in 146 cities March 23, drawing more than 63,000 citizens.

Those interested in leading rallies in new cities are asked to contact Mr. Scheidler at 1-630/896-1200 or via electronic mail at [email protected]. Organizers had come forward in more than 110 cities as of this writing, according to a listing on the organizers’ Facebook page, according to Kathleen Gilbert of LifeSiteNews.com.

In a LifeSiteNews.com story by Kathleen Gilbert, Mr. Scheidler expressed willingness to help rally captains “‘every step of the way,’” reports Miss Gilbert, “‘from choosing a site and getting permits to enlisting guest speakers and working with the media,’” offering an unusual opportunity to lead a manageable project which, together with volunteers working in other cities, will reverberate throughout America.

Free at Last (to Tell the Truth)?

AS THE TEXAS PRIMARY GROWS NEAR and a gaggle of Republicans slug it out to determine which will follow Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in carrying the GOP banner, Texas voters are getting a peek at the woman who has claimed a pro-life commitment while seeking their votes through four elections to the Senate.

As her home state is embroiled in a fight to wrest Medicaid funds from the Obama Regime while denying state funding to Pres. Obama’s favorite abortion cartel (Planned Parenthood), Sen. Hutchison weighed in on the issue during an interview on MSNBC cable television network, reported by Paige Lavender in the Huffington Post in late March.

The venerable Senator “expressed her support for Planned Parenthood,” reports Ms. Lavender, “and emphasized how low-income women rely on the government programs that are losing funding.” Apparently, she failed to identify the culprit in why Texas is “losing [Medicaid] funding” from the federal government; the culprit is in Washington, DC, not in Austin, Texas.

“‘I do think that the governor needs to sit down with the federal government,’” said the federal lawmaker, as reported by Ms. Lavender, “‘and work it out so that we can have our share – our fair share, not more – of money for Medicaid … .’”

We hope that Texas Republican voters are done with being deceived by their Senatorial standardbearer.

Give Him a Medal

WHILE WE AWAIT further news of blind Chinese “rights activist” Chen Guangcheng, still undergoing “treatment” in a Beijing hospital after having been tricked by US “diplomats,” in our view, into leaving the American Embassy to which he had fled, our eyes lighted on a commentary by Steven Mosher, the American who first exposed the horror of Beijing’s brutal “one-child” pogrom to the world.

Under the title “Chen, the Conscience of China,” Mr. Mosher published his commentary May 8 as a PRI Weekly Briefing from the Population Research Institute, which he heads.

“A self-taught country lawyer selflessly trying to help his fellow citizens,” writes Mr. Mosher, “would be a sympathetic figure to many Chinese. Add to this the fact that he is blind, is the father of two small children and has been jailed by corrupt officials on trumped-up charges. But what makes him an iconic figure to his countrymen is his expose of the one-child policy.

“Bear in mind,” he writes, “that almost every Chinese family has been impacted in some way by the loss of a loved one because of the one-child per family policy. Virtually everyone in China is missing a son or a daughter or a brother or a sister because some Communist Party hack found out that their wife or mother was pregnant with an ‘illegal’ second or third child, arrested them for the ‘crime’ of being pregnant, and took them in against their will for an abortion.

“Chen documented 7,000 such cases,” notes Mr. Mosher, “taking down the names and addresses of those women who were victimized, as well as the particulars of the officials who committed these crimes. Now you can see why the Chinese Communist Party is so eager to silence Chen,” writes Mr. Mosher. “Not only has he exposed their crimes against the Chinese people, he has at least the potential to generate massive protests against the brutal one-child policy.

“No wonder he is being called China’s Sakharov. Like Sakharov,” writes Mr. Mosher, “he has courageously spoken truth to power and has become the conscience of the Chinese people, where forced abortions and forced sterilizations are concerned. Like Sakharov,” he concludes, “he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.”

Preposterous Excuses

WHEN WE AT LIFE ADVOCACY COUNSEL CANDIDATES and other pro-life front-liners toward strategic communication on abortion issues, our advice is fact-based and centered on truth. But then, we are not motivated by profit or by a downside-up political philosophy.

We were both heartened (in agreement) and chilled (in learning about the other side) by comments made by former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline in a Washington, DC, speech earlier this month, reported by Kathleen Gilbert for LifeSiteNews.com, covering how truth is twisted by the abortion cartel.

Mr. Kline is the heroic former prosecutor who was hounded out of office after daring to investigate Planned Parenthood on charges the abortion behemoth ignored state law requiring reporting to authorities whenever a minor is suspected to have been abused sexually. He is now fighting a politically inspired effort to strip him of his law license for having dared to confront the abortion industry.

His comments in the DC speech were instructive about the cartel we seek to recriminalize, about the practices not only of Planned Parenthood but also of the notorious late-term abortionist George Tiller, late of Wichita.

Mr. Kline described the “logic” employed by Mr. Tiller to get around the Kansas abortion law, as he pursued a business resulting in the deaths of at least 60,000 prenatal boys and girls.

He would “contort the meanings of legal restrictions on late-term abortions beyond recognition,” Mr. Kline said as reported by Miss Gilbert.

“‘We had at one point an exception [in the law] that allowed late-term abortions on viable children,’” explained Mr. Kline in the LifeSiteNews report, “‘if there was a severe fetal anomaly.  Dr. Tiller found a “severe fetal anomaly” in instances involving cleft palate, Down Syndrome and healthy twins,’ he said. ‘The logic of it is clear: twins are an anomaly, are they not?’” asked Mr. Kline. “‘And they can have a severe economic impact on the family.

“‘That’s what happens to the law,’” he said, reported by Miss Gilbert, “‘when you don’t believe in truth.’”

Mr. Kline also revealed – based on the Tiller records he examined in his probe of the Kansas abortion industry – how Mr. Tiller twisted the Kansas “exception for when a pregnancy imposes ‘severe and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function,’” reports Miss Gilbert. “‘We have him on tape explaining this,’ said the lawyer.

“‘The mind is a substantial part of the body. The child will likely outlive the mother in life expectancy. Since the mother will worry about the child, affecting the mind most likely for the remainder of her life,’” Mr. Tiller theorized, according to Mr. Kline, “‘she is suffering from severe and irreversible damage to a major bodily function, that of the mind.’”

Mr. Kline “emphasized the critical need,” writes Miss Gilbert, “to elect local prosecutors willing to take on unregulated abortion businesses. ‘The evidence I found is not unique,’” he said in the speech quoted by LifeSiteNews. “‘It’s just that no one is looking.’”

White House Acknowledges Preborn Visitors

ODD AS IT MAY SEEM, the White House Visitors Office recently issued a newsletter by electronic mail which included a directive, reports Charlie Butts for OneNewsNow.com, that prospective visiting families “must register their preborn babies before taking a tour of the White House.” Included in the required information is the baby’s gender.

This from a White House which, more than any before, utterly rejects the personhood of the unborn child.

Could it be that the First Lady has taken up knitting and desires to give a token of the occasion to each prenatal visitor to the White House? Or do the security natterers on Pennsylvania Avenue fear a baby will burst forth, armed and dangerous?

Kudos to Pennsylvania GOP Rep. Lou Barletta for issuing a news release pointing out the President’s hypocrisy in such a downside-up requirement. His news release cites the directive’s requirement that the name “Baby” be listed and the preborn child’s birthday [?!], gender and Social Security number.  Rep. Barletta “commend[s] Pres. Obama for finally acknowledging that life begins at conception.”

Gov. Deal Signs Flawed Pro-Life Bill

PRO-LIFE LEGISLATION HAS CONTINUED MOVING through state legislatures throughout the spring, with Georgia tackling a variety of measures signed by their new GOP governor, former US Rep. Nathan Deal.

Early this month, Gov. Deal and the GOP-controlled legislature made Georgia the eighth state to outlaw abortion on babies aged older than 20 gestational weeks, based on research showing that prenatal boys and girls can experience pain by that time in their development.

But there is a hitch. The new legislation contains exceptions not only to save the life of the mother but also, writes Reuters reporter David Beasley, “if the fetus has extreme defects that make survival unlikely.” That bogus loophole was added as a last-minute amendment, reports Patrick Craine for LifeSiteNews.com.

“‘This legislation provides human protection to innocents capable of feeling pain,’” said Gov. Deal in a statement quoted by Mr. Beasley, “‘while making an important exception for [sic] in the case of medically futile pregnancies.’”

That provision rightly drew criticism from Georgia Right to Life, which, writes Mr. Beasley, “called the new legislation ‘a step in the right direction,’ but expressed disappointment at the exemption for ‘medically futile’ pregnancies in which the fetus is likely to die after birth.’

“Abortion opponents,” writes Mr. Beasley, “said the exception left the door open for a doctor to recommend abortion of fetuses that are less than completely healthy.”

In fact, “abortion opponent” Dan Becker, president of Georgian Right to Life, told LifeSiteNews.com the “medically futile” loophole “‘is a first step to establishing a eugenic policy in Georgia.’”

It strikes us as highly ironic timing that such an odious loophole would be written into otherwise pro-life legislation at the very time that former Sen. Rick Santorum’s disabled daughter Bella has been in the national spotlight. The little girl was born with a profound chromosomal anomaly called “Trisomy 18.” As are other parents of “Trisomy 18” afflicted children, the Santorums were advised their infant daughter would not survive many days or even hours. The Santorum family celebrated Bella’s fourth birthday yesterday, May 13, and the former Pennsylvania Senator championed the right to life of children like his cherished daughter during his recently suspended campaign for the GOP Presidential nomination.

We are not surprised that the abortion lobby would seek to undermine effective pro-life legislation with such a crippling loophole, but we must ask the Georgia legislature and Gov. Deal, What were you thinking?

Quoteworthy

Hartford, Connecticut’s Nicole Peck, regional coordinator for the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, responding to the “war on women” at a Hartford rally: “Abortion is the real war on women, on our families and on our country as a country. … Abortion left me unable to conceive another child. It is a choice I regret to this day. I found out I was infertile when I married in my 40s and wanted a child. The ‘choice’ I made at age 15 not only affected me but my husband and family. I was never told the truth about abortion and its devastating effects …. Our society should be protecting women from harm and giving them the truth about abortion.”

In Defense of Life

Excerpts from a statement written in March for a Chilean newspaper by Chilean President Sebastian Pinera, translated by Matthew Cullinan Hoffman and reprinted by LifeSiteNews.com

… As the whole country knows, I am against the legalization of abortion for multiple reasons and in many ways. I have peace in that this is a position that I have maintained in public and in private, for my whole life, including the period in which I was a Senator, two times a candidate for the presidency, and it was thusly stated in my presidential position statements, and today I ratify it as President of the Republic.

This firm and clear position is supported by various kinds of arguments. First, one of juridical character. [Here, President Pinera outlines constitutional provisions and court rulings protecting “the life of the unborn.”]

The second reason is a practical one: When in doubt, it is always better to opt for life, because even if we didn’t have certainty regarding the juridical treatment that must be given to a human life in gestation, the correct and wise thing to do is to assume a humble position and opt for that which is most favorable to the protection and development of that life. When we are addressing issues that involve human life or dignity, therefore, it is better to be prudent than proceed in haste.

The third reason is that this is not a decision that belongs only to the mother or the parents of the unborn child. A new, unique, unrepeatable person, distinct from its parents, is also involved, whose life must be defended with greater force precisely because of its state of complete innocence and defenselessness.

The fourth reason is of a religious kind. As a Christian, I believe that life is a gift from God. Only He has the right to give life and the right to take it away. For that reason, I support protecting life and human dignity from conception to natural death. …