Life Advocacy Briefing

It’s About More than ‘Jobs’

VETERAN PRO-LIFE CANDIDATES ARE USED TO IT. First-timers had better expect it.

The abortion lobby’s political arms – including the Obama Presidential Campaign – will go to any length to paint the pro-life candidate as an extremist, and if the pro-life candidate lets the label stick, it can be fatal to the conservative candidate’s prospects. (We at Life Advocacy advise pro-life candidates to stand up to their opponents and address the actual issues of the commonsense pro-life reform agenda; we see the conventional advice to “just admit to being pro-life and then get onto the next subject” as inadequate to inoculate the pro-life candidate from the extremist charge.)

The scenario is being played out right now on the national stage, and at this writing, we are seeing the usual – and concerning – reluctance of the more conservative candidate for President to engage.

Why should Mitt Romney build a Life-affirming message into his campaigning? Not only because the public is entitled to know what he thinks and plans to do about this critical issue, including what, if anything, he is willing to do to roll back the Life-destructive policies of the Obama Regime. An unabashed advocacy for the cause of Life and for commonsense pro-life reforms constitute the best defense against what is becoming a barrage of ads from the Obama camp. (If you, our reader, live in a “battleground” state, you have no doubt already begun to cringe from the unrelenting attacks.)

“For the third time in a month,” reports Ben Johnson for LifeSiteNews.com, “Barack Obama’s re-election campaign has attacked Mitt Romney as an anti-abortion extremist. ‘This is not the 1950s,’ says a woman named Alex in the latest ad,” notes Mr. Johnson.

After equating government policy on contraception with “‘a woman being able to make decisions,’” reports Mr. Johnson, the commercial shows a quick clip of the likely GOP Presidential nominee vowing to “get rid of” government funding for Planned Parenthood and then shows a woman saying, “‘I don’t remember anyone as extreme as Romney.’” There it is! The “extreme” label.

This ad follows one in which a woman says, reports LifeSiteNews.com: “‘I’ve never felt this way before, but it’s a scary time to be a woman. Mitt Romney is just so out of touch.’”

Classic. But effective if unanswered. We’re waiting, Mr. Romney. We’re waiting and wondering: What are you going to do about it?

Enhanced Access

THE HOUSE & SENATE HAVE RECESSED FOR AUGUST, an acknowledgment of the inclemency of Washington’s most humid month of the year.

Since many House Members and Senators return to their home districts and states for extended periods during August, it is a good time for pro-life citizens to seek meetings with their US lawmakers, either at public venues or in their offices, to lay out their requests and discuss their concerns. District office information can be obtained via the House and Senate websites at www.house.gov and www.senate.gov or via the reference desk of the local library.

We suggest our readers use the content in this and subsequent editions of Life Advocacy Briefing as ideas for topics to discuss.

(Also this week, we publish the final ObamaCare Repeal roll call, this one on the motion to end debate on the rule for consideration of HR-6079, a necessary step to advance the bill.)

Overturning the Mandate?

THE RECESS CAME WITHOUT ACTION in the House to forestall the Aug. 1 effective date of the Obama/Sebelius contraception/abortifacient/sterilization mandate on employers offering health insurance coverage for workers and their families.

“Several conservative [House] Members marked the passing of the Aug. 1 deadline in a press conference,” reports Family Research Council president Tony Perkins in his Aug. 2 FRC Washington Update.

“‘Today is the day that religious freedom died in America,’ said Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Kelly (R),” reports Mr. Perkins. He was joined by “more than a dozen others,” urging the House Leadership to schedule a vote on legislation by Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE), along with 223 co-sponsors.

HR-1179, the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act, would amend the ObamaCare law to clarify that it cannot require any person to violate his conscience in pursuit of its provisions.

The triggering of the mandate on Aug. 1 makes the legislation more urgent than ever. Readers are asked to contact House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) at 1-513/779-5400 and ask that he schedule a vote. Also to request their own Representatives to ask the Speaker to call up this urgently needed bill.

The Speaker himself, on the occasion of the mandate deadline, issued a statement, reports FRC’s Mr. Perkins, “urging leaders ‘to renew their determination to reverse the mandate and restore the religious liberty that has been demolished by the Obama Administration’s actions.’”

Chen Welcomed, His Cause Affirmed

JUST AS THE CONTROVERSIAL ANTI-RELIGIOUS-LIBERTY MANDATE took effect, House leaders welcomed Chinese rights activist Chen Guangcheng to Capitol Hill.

The famous blind attorney, whose efforts to protect Chinese families and their unborn children from Beijing’s infamous one-child tyranny landed him in repeated incarcerations until he escaped house detention several months ago, is now living in the United States while he studies at a New York university.

“Flanked by rabid pro-choicer Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA),” reports Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins in his Aug. 2 FRC Washington Update, “Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) praised Chen for his role in exposing [Red] China’s forced abortion and sterilization. ‘We can’t remain in silence when fundamental human rights are being violated,’ Speaker Boehner told reporters,” quoted by Mr. Perkins. “‘We cannot remain silent regarding China’s reprehensible one-child policy.

“‘When it comes to guaranteeing the freedom and dignity of all her citizens, the Chinese government has a responsibility to do better,’” said Speaker Boehner, quoted by FRC, “‘and the United States government has a responsibility to hold them to account.’”

No Kidding!

APOLOGISTS FOR BEIJING’s BRUTAL ONE-CHILD POGROM frequently suggest the scandalous use of forced abortion and involuntary sterilization, which pop up inconveniently in the news from week to week, are really aberrations, that the oppression is being carried out by local officials beyond the reach of the Communist country’s capital.

Such blather is just that, on its face. And now it is further disputed by Dr. Jackie Sheehan, associate professor for the University of Nottingham’s School of Contemporary Chinese Studies, writing in the South China Morning Post and quoted by Patrick B. Craine for LifeSiteNews.com.

Those local officials are not acting independently, notes the British expert on China. They are motivated by an elaborate and very official system of rewards and punishments. “‘Officials lose points for every out-of-quota birth in their area,’” she writes, quoted by Mr. Craine, “‘and earn cash bonuses for every abortion and sterilization they enforce,’” She adds, reports Mr. Craine, “‘Officials face far greater repercussions for missing targets than for igniting international scandal through forced abortions and sterilizations.’”

Points are deducted from the scores of the squads in each township, with “‘teams of village officials compet[ing] for a 1,000-yuan bonus for the top-scoring team,’” writes Dr. Sheehan, “‘while those from the last-placed village were named and shamed,’” a devastating punishment in the Chinese culture.

Dr. Sheehan commented on the recent removal of the family planning head in the area where a photo had been published, precipitating an international uproar, of a young mother lying on a hospital bed next to her bloodied and dead seven-month aborted baby. “‘It would be surprising,’” she wrote, as quoted by LifeSiteNews, “‘if [the family planning official] were not, inside a year, either back in the job or in another one of equal or greater rank.’”

Covering for the Indefensible

Aug. 1, 2012, commentary by Chuck Donovan, president of the Charlotte Lozier Institute, writing for The Corner blog at www.nationalreview.com

“What are your feelings, when you kill so huge a creature – when you take so vast a life?”
“Why, I feel a richer man,” said Allen laughing; then, after a moment, “No, but I see what you mean, and I have sometimes thought …”

• Conversation on whaling and vivisection, Dr. Stephen Maturin and Mr. Allen, The Far Side of the World

The press release from the National Organization for Women begins with the by-now-ubiquitous “war on women” language and conveys a threat of political retribution for the House majority that voted last night to outlaw abortions performed after 20 weeks of pregnancy in the District of Columbia. The NOW language is depressingly familiar – a bleak coda to the latest congressional skirmish over whether there exists a limit – any limit – to the vast right to abortion created by the Supreme Court four decades back.

The occasion was a debate over Rep. Trent Franks’s bill HR-3803, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. Although the margin in favor of the bill was large (66 votes), and more than 50 members missed the vote (subtracting further luster from one of the least lustrous Congresses in memory), the bill failed to garner the two-thirds vote necessary to pass it under suspension of the rules. Even so, a near-70-vote margin on a bill that proscribes a swath of late-term abortions is no small thing, especially given the certainty that its Senate companion, S-2103, is destined for the bottom of the sea in Harry Reid’s Senate.

Under these dynamics, the significance of the Franks bill, the Arizona Congressman’s latest heroic attempt to awaken the nation’s feelings about the huge waste of human life in our midst, lies in its ability to motivate and persuade. That life begins at conception and merits the protection of the law is the core proposition of the right-to-life movement. It represents a value judgment based on a straightforward assessment of biological truth.

No pro-life person, however, will deny that the act of moral imagination required to accept the new embryo as fully human is more difficult than the recognition that a fully formed unborn child, just days from having the ability to survive outside the womb, is our brother or sister in kind. But such empathy continues to elude the sloganeers at the National Organization of a Shrinking Number of Women.

Empathy means the ability to identify with or vicariously experience the feelings or attitudes of another. It can be a difficult art, but it is not so terribly difficult when the act one is empathizing with is, as Rep. Steve King (R-IA) pointed out on the House floor, the ripping of limbs from one’s body. The testimony the House Judiciary Committee took earlier this year on the pain endured by a child of 20 weeks gestation – shown in elevated heart rate, reflex action and biochemistry – was not seriously rebutted either in committee or on the floor.

As Prof. Colleen Malloy MD of Northwestern University told the Judiciary subcommittee last May, “There is ample biologic, physiologic, hormonal and behavioral evidence for fetal and neonatal pain. In fact, by 20 weeks post-fertilization (22 weeks by last menstrual period), the fetal brain has the full complement of neurons that are present in adulthood.”

The promise of the failed vote on HR-3803 is that illusion after illusion about the extremes of the “abortion right” continue to crumble. Infants do survive abortions and are left to die, females are selected for death in the womb by the tens of millions, regimes bent on brutal population control do pin women to hospital beds and kill their nearly full-term children, and unborn children who can feel pain are slaughtered in our nation’s capital without so much as a drop of anesthetic.

Interestingly, White House spokesman Jay Carney answered elliptically when asked Tuesday if Pres. Obama opposed the Pain-Capable legislation. If Obama does oppose it, it would hardly be surprising, because he has never found an abortion so late-in-term, so grievous and violent, so clearly wrong that he believes its human target fit for the protection of the law. Even at the cost of “so vast a life,” he does not seem to see what we mean.

House Voting Record

HRes-724 – Ending Debate (Calling the Question) on the Rule for consideration of ObamaCare Repeal – Adopted – July 10, 2012 – 238-184 (Democrats in italics)

Voting “yes”/pro-life: Aderholt, Bachus, Brooks, Roby, Rogers (AL); Young (AK); Flake, Franks, Gosar, Quayle, Schweikert (AZ); Crawford, Griffin, Womack (AR); Bilbray, Bono-Mack, Calvert, Campbell, Denham, Dreier, Gallegly, Herger, Hunter, Issa, Lewis, Lungren, McCarthy, McClintock, McKeon, Gary Miller, Nunes, Rohrabacher, Royce (CA); Coffman, Gardner, Lamborn, Tipton (CO); Adams, Bilirakis, Buchanan, Crenshaw, Diaz-Balart, Mack, Mica, Miller, Nugent, Posey, Rivera, Rooney, Ros-Lehtinen, Ross, Southerland, Stearns, Webster, West, Young (FL); Broun, Gingrey, Graves, Kingston, Price, Austin Scott, Westmoreland, Woodall (GA); Labrador, Simpson (ID); Biggert, Dold, Hultgren, Johnson, Kinzinger, Manzullo, Roskam, Schilling, Schock, Shimkus, Walsh (IL); Bucshon, Burton, Pence, Rokita, Stutzman, Young (IN); Latham (IA); Huelskamp, Jenkins, Pompeo, Yoder (KS); Davis, Guthrie, Rogers, Whitfield (KY); Alexander, Boustany, Cassidy, Fleming, Landry, Scalise (LA); Bartlett, Harris (MD); Amash, Benishek, Camp, Huizenga, Miller, Rogers, Upton, Walberg (MI); Bachmann, Cravaack, Kline, Paulsen (MN); Harper, Nunnelee, Palazzo (MS); Emerson, Graves, Hartzler, Long, Luetkemeyer (MO); Rehberg (MT); Fortenberry, Smith, Terry (NE); Amodei, Heck (NV); Bass, Guinta (NH); Frelinghuysen, Garrett, Lance, LoBiondo, Runyan, Smith (NJ); Pearce (NM); Buerkle, Gibson, Grimm, Hanna, Hayworth, King, Reed, Turner (NY); Coble, Ellmers, Foxx, Jones, McHenry, McIntyre, Myrick, Shuler (NC); Berg (ND); Austria, Chabot, Gibbs, Johnson, Jordan, LaTourette, Latta, Renacci, Schmidt, Stivers, Tiberi, Turner (OH); Boren, Cole, Lankford, Lucas (OK); Walden (OR); Barletta, Dent, Fitzpatrick, Gerlach, Kelly, Marino, Meehan, Murphy, Pitts, Shuster, Thompson (PA); Duncan, Gowdy, Mulvaney, Scott, Wilson (SC); Noem (SD); Black, Blackburn, DesJarlais, Duncan, Fincher, Fleischmann, Roe (TN); Barton, Brady, Burgess, Canseco, Carter, Conaway, Culberson, Farenthold, Flores, Gohmert, Granger, Hall, Hensarling, Sam Johnson, Marchant, McCaul, Neugebauer, Olson, Paul, Poe, Sessions, Smith, Thornberry (TX); Bishop, Chaffetz (UT); Cantor, Forbes, Goodlatte, Griffith, Hurt, Rigell, Wittman, Wolf (VA); Hastings, Herrera-Beutler, McMorris-Rodgers, Reichert (WA); Capito, McKinley (WV); Duffy, Petri, Ribble, Ryan, Sensenbrenner (WI); Lummis (WY).

Voting “no”/anti-Life: Sewell (AL); Barber, Grijalva, Pastor (AZ); Ross (AR); Baca, Bass, Becerra, Berman, Capps, Cardoza, Chu, Costa, Davis, Eshoo, Farr, Filner, Garamendi, Hahn, Honda, Lee, Lofgren, Matsui, McNerney, Napolitano, Pelosi, Richardson, Roybal-Allard, Linda Sanchez, Loretta Sanchez, Schiff, Sherman, Speier, Stark, Thompson, Waters, Waxman, Woolsey (CA); DeGette, Perlmutter, Polis (CO); Courtney, DeLauro, Himes, Larson, Murphy (CT); Carney (DE); Brown, Castor, Deutch, Hastings, Wasserman–Schultz, Wilson (FL); Barrow, Bishop, Johnson, Lewis, David Scott (GA); Hanabusa (HI); Costello, Davis, Lipinski, Quigley, Rush, Schakowsky (IL); Carson, Donnelly, Visclosky (IN); Boswell, Braley, Loebsack (IA); Yarmuth (KY); Richmond (LA); Michaud, Pingree (ME); Cummings, Edwards, Hoyer, Ruppersberger, Sarbanes, VanHollen (MD); Capuano, Frank, Keating, Lynch, Markey, McGovern, Neal, Olver, Tierney, Tsongas (MA); Clarke, Conyers, Dingell, Kildee, Levin, Peters (MI); Ellison, McCollum, Peterson, Walz (MN); Thompson (MS); Carnahan, Clay, Cleaver (MO); Berkley (NV); Andrews, Holt, Pallone, Pascrell, Rothman, Sires (NJ); Heinrich, Lujan (NM); Ackerman, Bishop, Clarke, Crowley, Engel, Higgins, Hinchey, Hochul, Israel, Lowey, Maloney, McCarthy, Meeks, Nadler, Owens, Rangel, Serrano, Slaughter, Tonko, Towns, Velazquez (NY); Butterfield, Kissell, Miller, Price, Watt (NC); Fudge, Kaptur, Kucinich, Ryan, Sutton (OH); Blumenauer, Bonamici, DeFazio, Schrader (OR); Altmire, Brady, Critz, Doyle, Fattah, Holden, Schwartz (PA); Cicilline, Langevin (RI); Clyburn (SC); Cohen, Cooper (TN); Cuellar, Doggett, Gonzalez, Al Green, Gene Green, Hinojosa, Jackson-Lee, E.B. Johnson, Reyes (TX); , Matheson (UT); Welch (VT); Connolly, Moran, Scott (VA); Dicks, Larsen, McDermott, Smith (WA); Chandler, Rahall (WV); Baldwin, Kind, Moore (WI).

Not Voting: Bonner (AL); George Miller (CA); Hirono (HI); Gutierrez, Jackson (IL); King (IA); Akin (MO); Boehner (OH); Sullivan (OK); Platts (PA).