Life Advocacy Briefing

Defunding the Abortion Cartel

TWO TENNESSEE G.O.P. CONGRESSWOMEN OPENED the 113th Congress by filing legislation to bar Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses from receiving tax-funded grants under the federal Title X (Ten) “Family Planning” program.

Both HR-61 and HR-217 have been referred to the House Committee on Energy & Commerce, whose Subcommittee on Health is chaired by pro-life/family champion Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA). The first bill was filed by Rep. Marsha Blackburn, who is vice chairman of the full committee, and the second by Rep. Diane Black.

Rep. Black’s bill is co-sponsored initially by 23 G.O.P. Representatives: Martha Roby (AL); Trent Frank (AZ); Rick Crawford (AR); Tom Graves & Tom Price (GA); Peter Roskam (IL); Steve King (IA); John Fleming & Steve Scalise (LA); Justin Amash (MI); Adrian Smith (NE); Chris Smith (NJ); Tom Reed (NY); Renee Ellmers & Virginia Foxx (NC); Lou Barletta, Mike Kelly&  Joe Pitts (PA); Jeff Duncan (SC); Chuck Fleischmann & Phil Roe (TN); and Blake Farenthold & Bill Flores (TX).

We ask our readers to contact their own US Representative (Capitol switchboard, 1-202/224-3121) and ask him or her to join as co-sponsors to HR-217, thanking those who have already done so.

No Surprise Here!

THOUGH THE DECKCHAIRS ARE BEING REARRANGED in the Obama Cabinet, two of the most controversial officials are hanging on, and they are two who have been particularly hostile to pro-life activists and the cause of Life itself.

The White House announced last Thursday, reports Arnie Parnes for The Hill, that Attorney General Eric Holder and Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius are holding onto their posts into the Regime’s second term.

The two are a good fit for the most determined pro-abortion President in America’s history.

Court Dodges Justice

THE U.S. SUPREME COURT REFUSED last week to stop the illegal federal funding of lethal experimentation with embryonic human stem cells.

The lawsuit was brought more than three years ago by adult stemcell researchers Dr. James Sherley and Theresa Deisher, objecting to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) implementation of the March 2009 Obama executive order “allowing federal funds to be used for the first time,” writes attorney Samuel Casey in a news release from his Jubilee Campaign’s Law of Life Project, “for the creation of new stemcell lines requiring and providing incentives for the destruction of living human embryos.”

The plaintiffs claimed the NIH violated the Administrative Procedure Act, violated “the plain language of federal law known as the Dickey/Wicker Amendment,” which bars federal funding of research in which human embryos are created or destroyed, and even disregarded limitations of the executive order itself.

Despite widespread media backing and disinformation about “the promise” of embryonic stemcell experimentation and even with NIH tax dollars flowing to the labcoat ghouls, the success rate for finding and developing cures and therapies via adult stemcell research vs. embryo-destroying experiments stands, according to www.stemcellresearch.com, at 73 to 0.

New Hampshire Outlaws Partial-Birth Abortion

THE NEW HAMPSHIRE LEGISLATURE HAS OVERRIDDEN their governor’s veto of legislation outlawing partial-birth abortion.

Though the Associated Press (AP) characterized the enactment as “largely symbolic,” sound reasoning backs such actions by the states even in light of the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

To start with, it establishes public policy, as explained to AP by Ellen Kolb, incoming legislative affairs director for Cornerstone Action. “‘Finally,’” she declared, “‘New Hampshire has a policy in place that says while your right to an abortion is protected, it is not in the public’s interest for a fetus to be partially delivered, then killed.’”

But the effect goes beyond the philosophical to the practical. As AP’s reporter put it, “Supporters said they didn’t trust the federal government to prosecute its law.”

And that would be the case even in a less abortophilic Administration.

The federal law is limited both by the Constitution and by its own wording to situations where “interstate commerce” or a federal government connection – such as an abortion in a federal prison or military facility – can be established. So federal jurisdiction is not, by any means, absolute.

Further, prosecutors have discretion in the cases they pursue and, unless a partial-birth abortionist is seen to be part of an organized crime network (hmmm) or somehow involved in a bank robbery or kidnapping or public corruption, most federal prosecutors are unlikely to pursue such cases even where authorized by federal law to do so.

The notoriety of the federal law has, most likely, chilled the practice of deliberately partially delivering developed babies in order violently to kill them. But we are unaware of a single prosecution brought under that law and warmly endorse the concept of state-level action to outlaw the ghoulish practice. Debate over such proposals also advances the public’s awareness that the Supreme Court’s two 1973 edicts decriminalizing abortions actually legalized child-killing throughout the full nine months of pregnancy, a fact which moves Americans toward the pro-life cause.

Abortuary Closed in Western Michigan

THE FIRE MARSHAL IN MUSKEGON, MICHIGAN, HAS SHUTTERED an abortuary, certainly for good and most likely forever.

The local WOOD-TV aired shocking photos of what public safety officials called “filthy” conditions in Robert Alexander’s Women’s Medical Center. “The photos,” writes John Jalsevac for LifeSiteNews.com, “show a trash-strewn and filthy building with garbage piled up next to a procedure table along with unsterilized surgical equipment. The roof throughout the building is moldy and leaky, with buckets set out to catch the water. Many of the panels of the drop ceiling are simply missing,” he writes, “or stained by leaks.”

A Dec. 27 letter from the city’s fire marshal revealed, reports LifeSite’s Ben Johnson, that “the facility … dumped ‘chemicals and other liquids’ down drains without proper authorization and had hazardous material lying around. … ‘There were sharps or syringes laying on a table next to possibly a procedural [sic] area,’ [Public Safety Director Jeffrey] Lewis said.”

The abortionist, of course, “has denied any wrongdoing,” reports Mr. Jalsevac, “and has repeatedly hinted that he believes pro-lifers may have broken into the building and created the unsanitary conditions.” In a WOOD-TV interview reported by Mr. Jalsevac, Mr. Alexander “repeated claims made previously that he left the building in pristine condition.”

Good job, Muskegon, but beware Detroit, whose Summit Medical Services abortuary has hired Robert Alexander.

Operation Rescue, which filed a complaint last year, reports Mr. Jalsevac, “alleging a host of safety and medical violations at the clinic,” has called on the State of Michigan to suspend Mr. Alexander’s license before he can do any more damage.

Georgia Abortionist Arrested

AN ATLANTA, GEORGIA, ABORTIONIST WAS ARRESTED LAST WEDNESDAY for Medicaid fraud, pursuant to a Dec. 20 grand jury indictment. Conviction could subject him to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Dr. Andre Damian Williams is alleged to have “improperly charg[ed] the state $205,003 for treatments related to abortion,” writes Ben Johnson for LifeSiteNews.com.

The state attorney general’s office, reports Mr. Johnson, “contends [Mr.] Williams violated the Hyde Amendment from January 2009 until September 2011, charging the state for ultrasounds, pregnancy tests and ultrasounds that were part of an abortion as though they were stand-alone treatments. Officials also say he overbilled the state,” writes Mr. Johnson, “or received payment for services he never rendered.”

The abortionist’s son, Damian Williams, is an assistant US attorney for the Southern District of New York, based in Manhattan.

Ultimate Irony

BOULDER, COLORADO, WAS THE SITE JAN. 6 OF A CANDLELIGHT VIGIL mourning the death of an elk. Hundreds participated, and the police officer who shot the wild animal is under investigation and has been placed on paid leave, reports John Jalsevac for LifeSiteNews.com.

The poor elk had “wandered into a residential neighborhood,” writes Mr. Jalsevac, “where he had frequently been seen before.” Apparently a good many of Boulder’s residents would rather absorb the damage from such incursions than have their homes protected.

Here’s the irony: Boulder is home to one of the nation’s most notorious late-term abortion shops. In fact, the name “Boulder” has unfortunately become repugnant to many pro-life Americans as the town which has long tolerated the business of Warren Hern, known, notes Mr. Jalsevac, for having written “the first medical textbook on abortion procedures after the Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion in the US. He has also written published works,” notes LifeSiteNews, “in which he describes the human race as a ‘malignant eco-tumor’ destroying the earth and has described pro-life activists as ‘terrorists.’”

Sadly Quoteworthy

Internet news blogger Matt Drudge on Jan. 2: “There will be over 3,500 killed in USA today from abortion. No flags lowered, no Presidents crying. No media hyperventilating. Normal day.”

Back in the Hopper – Defunding Planned Parenthood

Commentary by Family Research Council president Tony Perkins in his Jan. 4 Washington Update

903. That’s how many children are aborted by Planned Parenthood every single day. That’s one baby – one unique, God-created life and future – erased every 96 seconds. In 800 clinics across America, the body county keeps growing, thanks in part to the staggering amount of money that Congress is funneling to Cecile Richards’s group.

Americans have known for years that their government is a major shareholder in the international abortion business. What they didn’t know – until recently – was how much Planned Parenthood relies on unwilling taxpayers to keep their grisly operation afloat.

Based on its annual report, Richards’s group rakes in almost half of its budget (46%) from federal, state and local grants. The government’s contributions are a whopping $487.4 million, mostly from Title X [Ten] funds. Of course, Planned Parenthood is quick to point out that, by law, none of those dollars can directly finance abortions. But by paying the clinics’ other bills – like overhead – there’s no telling how many millions of dollars the government is freeing up for Planned Parenthood to pursue the darkest side of its business.

And, as of New Year’s Day, abstaining from abortion is no longer an option for Richards’s clinics. In its words, “[Planned Parenthood Federation of America] does not provide abortion care itself, but its member-affiliates offer that service throughout the United States, and as of January 2013, all member-affiliates will be required to do so.”

That makes what Rep. Diane Black (R-TN) is proposing all the more important. Today, the Tennessee Congresswoman introduced a bill that would stop HHS [Health & Human Services] from wiring “family planning funds” to abortion businesses under Title X unless they certify that they won’t provide or refer for abortions. That eliminates Planned Parenthood altogether, now that Richards is ordering affiliates to offer the procedure. Rep. Black, who led this fight as far back as 2011, is hoping to build on the support her former colleague, Gov. Mike Pence, won for the legislation in previous Congresses.

Obviously, Planned Parenthood isn’t the only abortion company that receives Title X funds, but it’s certainly the largest. And since abortion still makes up a jaw-dropping 91% of Planned Parenthood’s services for pregnant women, it’s time for Congress to put some meaningful distance between taxpayers and the Left’s “health care.” …

Transcendent Dignity of the Human Person

Excerpts from Pope Benedict XVI’s Jan. 7 address to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Vatican

The building of peace always comes about by the protection of human beings and their fundamental rights. This task, even if carried out in many ways and with varying degrees of intensity, challenges all countries and must constantly be inspired by the transcendent dignity of the human person and the principles inscribed in human nature. Foremost among these is respect for human life at every stage.

In this regard, I was gratified that a resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, in January of last year, called for the prohibition of euthanasia, understood as the intentional killing, by act or omission, of a dependent human being. At the same time, I must note with dismay that, in various countries, even those of Christian tradition, efforts are being made to introduce or expand legislation which decriminalizes abortion. Direct abortion – that is to say willed as an end or as a means – is gravely contrary to the moral law. In affirming this, the Catholic Church is not lacking in understanding and mercy, also towards the mother involved. Rather, it is a question of being vigilant lest the law unjustly alter the balance between the right to life of the mother and that of the unborn child, a right belonging equally to both. …

I would like to add that peace in society is also put at risk by certain threats to religious liberty; it is a question sometimes of the marginalization of religion in social life, sometimes of intolerance or even of violence towards individuals, symbols of religious identity and religious institutions. It even happens that believers – and Christians in particular – are prevented from contributing to the common good by their educational and charitable institutions.

In order effectively to safeguard the exercise of religious liberty, it is essential to respect the right of conscientious objection. This “frontier” of liberty touches upon principles of great importance of an ethical and religious character, rooted in the very dignity of the human person. They are, as it were, the “bearing walls” of any society that wishes to be truly free and democratic. Thus, outlawing individual and institutional conscientious objection in the name of liberty and pluralism paradoxically opens by contrast the door to intolerance and forced uniformity.