Life Advocacy Briefing

Clear, Raw & Present Danger (C.R.P.D.)

THOUGH CONGRESS USUALLY RETURNS JUST AFTER LABOR DAY, session will not resume until next week because of the Democratic National Convention, which opens today (Monday) in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Pending in the Senate is a dangerous treaty about which we urge our readers to contact their two US Senators (1-202/224-3121 or senate.gov) – or to discuss with their Senators if they encounter them in their home states during the next week. (Illinois readers, please include Sen. Mark Kirk in your contacts; he could return to session after this recess, though he has not been voting since being felled by a stroke in January.)

It is the United Nations Convention (Treaty) on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which would supersede US law and trample on the authority of parents.

Though supplanting decision-making by parents with the treaty-granted authority of bureaucrats is the main thrust of the treaty, “it wouldn’t be a UN proposal,” opines Family Research Council president Tony Perkins in his July 27 Washington Update, “if it didn’t include a back door to greater abortion access.

“‘The feminists saw to it that this treaty about disabilities includes language in Article 25 that requires signatories to “provide persons with disabilities … free or affordable health care,”’ Phyllis [Schlafly] notes,” quoted by Mr. Perkins, “‘including in the area of sexual and reproductive health and population-based health programs.’ Translation,” writes Mr. Perkins: “The global community could force America to sanction sterilization or abortion for the disabled – at taxpayer expense!”

This treaty is a clear and present danger. It cleared the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in late July and could arise for a full Senate vote at any time chosen by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). Senate globalists are known to be anxious to ratify every pending treaty before their favorite Republican, Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, leaves in January (having lost his primary bid) to conservative Richard Mourdock.  Sen. Lugar is the Ranking Member on Foreign Relations and, predictably, voted for the treaty in committee. He was joined in that vote by GOP Senators Johnny Isakson (GA) and John Barrasso (WY), as well as all Democrats on the panel.

Ominously, the abortion implications were confirmed during the committee markup. “Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) tried to neutralize the threat,” reports Mr. Perkins, “during the mark-up in the … committee. Unfortunately,” Mr. Perkins writes, “his amendment, which would have stopped the treaty from forcing abortion policy on countries that sign, was thwarted by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA),” the chairman of the panel.

Noting the votes of Republicans for the treaty – particularly that of Sen. Barrasso – we are concerned that Senators are not fully informed of its wording or implications. (GOP Senators Jerry Moran of Kansas and John McCain of Arizona have also been cited by Eagle Forum in a July 19 alert as backing the treaty.) Consequently, we underscore the need for our readers to step forward to help block ratification of this treaty, and we close this Life Advocacy Briefing with a reprint of Phyllis Schlafly’s insightful commentary on it.

Not So ‘Dead’ After All!

DISAPPOINTED THAT A FIRM PRO-LIFE/FAMILY CONSERVATIVE won the Missouri primary for the US Senate, Senate GOP campaign operatives, led by campaign chairman Sen. John Cornyn (TX), pounced on a poorly handled abortion policy answer given by their nominee, Rep. Todd Akin, hastily cutting their nominee off from campaign aid, initiating a campaign to cut off the Akin campaign’s private-source funding and lustily demanding that he resign the nomination.

One thing the GOP powerbrokers did not count on, though, while insisting that Rep. Akin had fatally damaged his own chances: They forgot how weak and vulnerable his Democratic opponent, Sen. Claire McCaskill is and how disappointed Missouri voters are with her lockstep support of the President and his radical agenda.

Sen. McCaskill, after all, was elected in the heartland state as a “moderate.” But her vote favoring ObamaCare and her 100% pro-abortion voting record in the 2011 session have betrayed her constituents, and they know it.

Indeed, after suffering an immediate drop in the polls, Rep. Akin – who has apologized for his clumsy handling of a question about his rejection of rape loopholes in abortion law – has regained the lead, according to a poll of 829 Missouri voters commissioned by Family Research Council Action. Rep. Akin “has regained his lead over Sen. Claire McCaskill,” writes John-Henry Westen for LifeSiteNews.com, “by a 45-to-42% margin, with 13% undecided.” The poll was conducted by telephone between Aug. 27 and 28 with a sample of 32.7% Democrats, 34.1% Republicans and 33.2% independents.

Pollster Fritz Wenzel noted, reports Mr. Westen, “‘The fact that 80% said they were firm in their choice certainly indicates that this is a race that will be decided more by ideology and turnout efforts by the campaigns and less by breaking news that flashes across the news pages and cable news channels.’” Regardless of how little they may know about Rep. Akin, outside his own district, it appears they know enough about Sen. McCaskill to have made up their minds.

“Wenzel also observed,” reports LifeSiteNews, “that ‘McCaskill holds a 58% lead over Akin among very liberal voters, but that pales compared to Akin’s 81-to-5% lead among very conservative voters in Missouri.”

A second poll, taken by Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling, late last week also showed Rep. Akin ahead, this one 44 to 43%.

We are hopeful that Mr. Akin’s miscommunication will not affect his or other candidates’ abilities to inform voters of the stakes involved in elections where the candidates contrast on Life. Still, we urge that pro-life candidates think through their communication strategy before the questions come. Life Advocacy Resource Project helps pro-life candidates develop such strategy; we urge candidates and their key supporters to visit our Internet website and to contact us.

Without Mercy

THE PRO-LIFE SUSAN B. ANTHONY LIST HAS RELEASED a powerful new ad to be televised in “battleground” states as part of SBA’s campaign to inform Americans about the record and views of Pres. Barack Obama.

The ad features Melissa Ohden, a young woman who survived an abortion attempt.

Here is what SBA president Marjorie Dannenfelser said about the video in an electronic message announcing its release: “Melissa Ohden would have died in a trash bag on an abortion clinic floor – and Barack Obama would have done nothing to stop it. That’s because if an abortion fails and miraculously the child survives, Barack Obama doesn’t believe the child deserves to live.”

How do we know this?  Mrs. Dannenfelser explained, “Barack Obama was asked to decide on just that question, and he voted ‘no.’ … Appallingly,” she continued, “as an Illinois State Senator, Barack Obama voted to deny any basic protections for babies born alive from an abortion – not once but four times!”

That is what the records in Springfield, Illinois, show.  Mr. Obama repeatedly voted against the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act in the face of eyewitness testimony from Jill Stanek, then a nurse who held a baby until his death after finding him struggling for life after a late-term abortion.  Mrs. Stanek now speaks about Life and her own experience and publishes a blog at www.jillstanek.com. Recently she posted a brief video of a 2003 Springfield news conference in which Mr. Obama acknowledges his “pro-choice” stand even in “late-term … situations.” That video can be viewed via the Internet.

The Weekly Standard has just published two transcripts from then-State Sen. Obama, which John Jalsevac of LifeSiteNews.com characterizes as “convoluted” – and, lacking telePrompter, they are – in which he rationalizes his vote on the basis that he has “confidence that a doctor who is in that room is going to make sure that they’re looked after.” This after clear eyewitness testimony from Mrs. Stanek in the committee hearing which he chaired. Confidence in the good faith of an abortionist. Sure.

Planned Parenthood Hit by Lawsuit

THE MOTHER OF THE YOUNG CHICAGO MOM KILLED by Planned Parenthood has filed a lawsuit against the abortion purveyor alleging negligence in the death of Tonya Reaves.

The 24-year-old died in late July some 11 hours after undergoing a second-trimester surgical abortion at an unlicensed facility on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue. Her family is seeking “at least $120,000,” reports John Jalsevac for LifeSiteNews.com, “including money to compensate [Ms.] Reaves’ one-year-old son.”

The suit alleges, writes Mr. Jalsevac, “that Planned Parenthood ‘carelessly performed’ the abortion …, then failed to properly monitor her afterwards. After the abortion,” he notes, “[her] bleeding allegedly continued for five-and-a-half hours before a Fire Dept. ambulance finally took her from Planned Parenthood to Northwestern Memorial Hospital.”

The family is also suing the hospital, reports Mr. Jalsevac, “for failing to immediately discover the uterine perforation inflicted by Planned Parenthood that caused her to bleed to death. Northwestern had originally said,” writes Mr. Jalsevac, “that [Ms.] Reaves had suffered an incomplete abortion and treated her for that before further tests revealed the perforation.”

There He Goes Again

EVER SINCE PETER SINGER ARRIVED FROM AUSTRALIA – claiming with the complicity of Princeton University, where he is a professor, to be “an ethicist” – he has sought to undermine the American way of life.

Last week he lobbed a paintball again against his host country’s foundations with a claim in a Scottish newspaper, reports Hilary White for LifeSiteNews.com: “‘Membership of the species Homo sapiens is not enough to confer a right to life.’”

As if his feted ravings are not enough in themselves, the “philosopher/ethicist” seeks to block debate by positing a refutation. “‘Opponents will respond that abortion is, by its very nature, unsafe – for the fetus,’ he wrote,” quoted by Ms. White. “‘They point out that abortion kills a unique, living human individual. That claim is difficult to deny,’” he admitted, “‘at least if by “human” we mean “member of the species Homo sapiens.”’”

But for Peter Singer, Ms. White notes, “being a human being isn’t enough to confer any legal rights. To be a ‘person,’ one must fulfill a particular set of criteria,” a set, of course, defined by the world’s most self-awed ethicist himself.

His musings continue to follow his unique path of alleged logic, charging that the notion “‘that the fetus … has the same right to life as any other human being’” is “‘a fallacy.’”

His posts at supposedly distinguished universities both in the US and in his native Australia, Ms. White astutely opines, “are as good an indicator as any to start to appreciate just how far into the Upsidedownland Matrix academia and the world of bioethics has gone.”

We wonder when his name will appear on some advisory panel to the ObamaCare bureaucracies.

Globalist Interference in Family Matters

July 25, 2012, commentary by iconic conservative pro-family leader Phyllis Schlafly

The United Nations, in collusion with Obama’s globalists, have cooked up another scheme to slice off a piece of US sovereignty and put us under global government. The plan is to stampede the Senate into ratifying the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

This particular piece of globalist mischief had been unnoticed since Pres. Obama ordered UN Ambassador Susan Rice to sign this treaty on July 30, 2009. Now he is trying to ram it through to ratification.

The notion that the UN can provide more benefits or protections for persons with disabilities than the US is bizarre. The United States always treats individuals, able or disabled, rich or poor, innocent or guilty, better than any other nation.

We certainly don’t need a committee of foreigners who call themselves “experts” to dictate our laws or customs. But that’s what this treaty and most other UN treaties try to do.

We already have protections and benefits for persons with disabilities enshrined in US laws, regulations and enforcement mechanisms. Prominent among these laws are the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Fair Housing Act and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

Other laws that benefit persons with disabilities are the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the Air Carrier Access Act of 1986, the Voting Accessibility for the Elderly & Handicapped Act of 1984, the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act and the Architectural Barriers Act of 1968. These federal laws are enforced by numerous federal agencies, particularly the Civil Rights Division of the Dept. of Justice.

The UN General Assembly adopted the CRPD on Dec. 13, 2006, and it became part of what globalists euphemistically call international law on May 3, 2008, after 20 nations ratified it. The treaty now has 117 nations that have ratified it.

Under the CRPD, we would be required to make regular reports to a “committee of experts” to prove we are obeying the treaty. The “experts” would have the authority to review our reports and make “such suggestions and general recommendations on the report as it may consider appropriate.”

These demands are often outside the treaty’s scope of subject matter. They override national sovereignty in pursuit of social engineering, feminist ideology or merely busybody interference in a country’s internal affairs.

CRPD’s Article 7 gives the government the power to override every decision of the parent of a disabled child by using the caveat “the best interest of the child.” This phrase has already been abused by family courts to substitute judges’ decisions for parents’ decisions, and transferring the use of that phrase to the government or to a UN committee is the wrong way to go.

The feminists saw to it that this treaty on disabilities includes language in Article 25 that requires signatory states to “provide persons with disabilities … free or affordable health care … including in the area of sexual and reproductive health and population-based health programmes.” Wow!

When the UN approved the CRPD, the United States made a statement that the phrase “reproductive health” does not include abortion. But that’s just whistling in the wind, because international law does not recognize the validity of one nation’s reservations to a treaty ratified by many other nations.

Furthermore, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is on record as stating that the definition of “reproductive health” includes abortion. In testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on April 22, 2009, she said: “Family planning is an important part of women’s health, and reproductive health includes access to abortion.”

After ratification, treaties become part of the “supreme law” of the United States on a par with federal statutes. That gives supremacist judges the power to invent their own interpretations, which some are all too eager to do.

It’s easy to predict that some pro-abortion supremacist judges will rule that the CRPD, if part of the supreme law of our land, includes abortion. Several Supreme Court justices, including Ruth Bader Ginsburg, have urged us to use foreign law in interpreting US domestic law.

Americans may differ about the legality and the scope of abortion rights, but it’s unlikely that any of us want those decisions to be made by a UN “committee of experts.”

Another problem with this treaty on disabilities is its failure to give workable definitions. When the treaty states that “disability is an evolving concept,” that means open sesame for litigation against the US.

This treaty is a broadside attack on parents’ rights to raise their children, and it’s a particular threat to homeschooling families because of the known bureaucratic bias against homeschooling and against spanking. It is clear that both the United States and persons with disabilities are much better off relying on US law than on any UN treaty.