Life Advocacy Briefing

Blessed Celebration!

WITH CONGRESS IN RECESS for Holy Week – Passover and Resurrection Day – we are expecting that Life Advocacy Briefing will not be published next week. Expect next our April 8 edition. We continue to appreciate your prayers for our editor, recovering from having been hit by an automobile, and for our team assisting her with our publication during her convalescence. May you enjoy a blessed season of reflection on the perfect love of our Lord.

Applying Equal Protection

U.S. SENATOR RAND PAUL (R-KY) HAS FILED A MAJOR PRO-LIFE BILL, which is pending on second reading in the Senate. The Life at Conception Act of 2013, identified as S-583, would implement the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, adding preborn humans to those among us enjoying the right to life.

Here is the wording of the 14th Amendment, which the Justices of the Supreme Court, in its Roe v. Wade and several subsequent abortion decisions, have appeared incapable of reading: “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Sen. Paul himself, in a statement quoted by Kirsten Andersen for LifeSiteNews.com, reminded colleagues of the right to life cited in the Declaration of Independence and tied his legislation to the human nature of the preborn child. “‘The Life at Conception Act,’” he said, “‘legislatively declares what most Americans believe and what science has long known – that human life begins at the moment of conception and therefore is entitled to legal protection. … The right to life is guaranteed to all Americans in the Declaration of Independence,” he noted, “and ensuring this is upheld is the Constitutional duty of all Members of Congress.’”

The Senator has attracted 15 co-sponsors during the bill’s first week, all Republicans: John Boozman/AR, James Risch/ID, Daniel Coats/IN, Chuck Grassley/IA, Jerry Moran/KS, Roger Wicker/MS, Mike Johanns/NE, Richard Burr/NC, John Hoeven/ND, Tom Coburn/OK, John Thune/SD, John Barrasso & Mike Enzi/WY.

Life Advocacy Briefing readers are urged to call their senators to thank the co-sponsors or encourage others to put their names on this bill. The capitol switchboard can be reached by calling 1-202/224-3121.

Delivered from the Mandate, for Now

IT MAY BE ONLY A TEMPORARY COURT ORDER, but Michigan-based US District Court Judge Lawrence Zatkoff’s preliminary injunction against the ObamaCare contraceptive mandate last week was unmistakable in the strength of its wording. This latest decision protects Tom Monaghan’s Domino’s Farms from threatened annual fines approaching $200,000 for non-compliance with the Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate for employers to provide contraceptive and abortifacient drug coverage in their insurance plans.

Judge Zatkoff’s opinion stated, “It is in the best interest of the public that Monaghan not be compelled to act in conflict with his religious beliefs” and that he would consider, “even if for a short time,” any violation of the pro-life businessman’s First Amendment rights an “irreparable injury,” according to a LifeSiteNews report by John Jalsevac.

The court order was opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU); Michigan’s attorney general Bill Schuette filed a brief supporting the injunction, according to J.C. Reindl of the Detroit Free Press.

Kudos to Kansas!

LAWMAKERS IN KANSAS HAVE SET A NEW STANDARD for pro-life public officials in response to an amendment seeking to limit a late-term abortion ban in order to discriminate against babies conceived in a sex crime.

Many pro-life political and lobbying operations have – wrongly in our judgment – put up with “rape/incest exceptions” ever since then-Pres. Bill Clinton forced the late, great Rep. Henry Hyde to compromise on his annual amendment barring the federal Dept. of Health & Human Services from using tax funds for abortion; it was there that the “rape/incest” loophole was first adopted into law and accepted as a necessary compromise by many otherwise pro-life politicians.

Kansas lawmakers, faced with the potential reopening of the notorious Tiller late-term abortuary in Wichita, stood tall last week, voting 90 to 31 in the state House of Representatives to defeat an amendment seeking the loophole. Democratic Representative John Wilson, according to the Kansas City Star, “said the state should clearly protect the right to an abortion in cases of rape, incest or crimes against children. Abortion opponents,” reported the Star, “noted that Kansas law allows abortions for any reason before the 22nd week.”

We commend the 90 House Members for standing up for Life and urge them to continue standing on this issue right through their re-election campaigns. It is a matter of fairness and should be fought on those grounds.

Horrors Highlighted in Court

THE GRUESOME DETAILS ARE BEGINNING TO BE TOLD in the capital murder trial of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell, with one of his former medical assistants taking the stand to describe his preferred method of killing late-term babies, some born alive, at the facility that has been dubbed a “House of Horrors.”

Besides specializing in baby deaths, Gosnell also produced numerous injuries among the mothers he was aborting, according to investigators cited in a LifeSiteNews story by John Jalsevac. Accused of killing seven babies in the case, he faces an additional third degree murder count in the lethal overdose of medication given to a 41-year-old patient.

According to an earlier LifeSiteNews story by Kirsten Andersen, eight former Gosnell employees, including his wife, have previously entered guilty pleas in these murders. Her story quotes the prosecutor in the Gosnell case as saying, “The standard practice here was to slay babies. That’s what they did.”

Ms. Andersen notes that the initial contact of authorities with Mr. Gosnell was by FBI agents intent on quietly interviewing the abortionist about suspicions that he was selling illegal prescriptions for painkillers. District Attorney Seth Williams dubbed the facility “House of Horrors” in 2011, indicating the agents found “a dirty clinic filled with moaning, bleeding, heavily medicated women in tremendous pain,” according to Ms. Andersen. Having allowed Mr. Gosnell to continue the procedures already underway, according to Agent Jason Huff, the FBI agents interviewed the man while he ate his dinner. “He was still wearing his bloody latex gloves. They had some holes in them,” the agent testified. “And he ate his dinner. He didn’t take them off.”

At the time of the intended drug raid, news media reported that Pennsylvania’s abortuary licensing law had not been enforced through inspections for some 17 years; the inspection protocol was suspended by then-Gov. Tom Ridge (R) in order to curry political favor with the abortion industry.

Pennsylvania citizens were rocked by that disclosure – and the deaths uncovered in the grand jury’s Gosnell investigation – two years ago, and they are being rocked again now by the facts being brought out in the Gosnell trial as the prosecution lays out a shocking case. We do not plan to cover these details every week but will report some of the facts from time to time. In addition to the facts we quoted above, reported by LifeSiteNews, we believe a couple of facts reported by Family Research Council president Tony Perkins in his March 20, 2013, Washington Update, are worthy of noting and ought to aid policymakers and lay citizens in assessing how dangerous is the blind eye offered by so many state regulators – and public officials like then-Gov. Ridge – when it comes to consumer protection from the abortion cartel.

“Kermit Gosnell’s Pennsylvania abortion facility was the site of 261 pages of abortion horrors,” writes Mr. Perkins, citing the shocking grand jury report which brought forth the current trial. “Yesterday, a jury sat in shocked silence as [Mr.] Gosnell’s medical assistant recounted the pattern of cold-blooded killing. At [abortionist] Gosnell’s request, Adrienne Moton admitted,” reports Mr. Perkins, “that she had ‘cut the necks of at least 10 babies after they were delivered.’ Weeping, she told the courtroom about a picture she had taken of a baby on her cellphone,” notes Mr. Perkins, “because he was bigger than any victim she had ever seen.” Quoting the witness, Mr. Perkins reports, “‘Gosnell later joked that the baby was so big he could have walked to the bus stop.’”

Prosecutors charged, relates Mr. Perkins, that in the Gosnell shop, “15-year-old high school students ‘perform intravenous anesthesia on patients’ and ‘fetuses frequently clogged the toilet.’” Concludes Mr. Perkins, Mr. Gosnell “is a monster whose inner-city torture chamber is the real face of ‘choice’ in America.”

Exciting Developments in North Dakota

TWO ACTIONS LAST WEEK BY NORTH DAKOTA LAWMAKERS have placed precedent-setting bills on Gov. Jack Dalrymple’s desk and given new impetus for other states to forward pro-life legislation.

Having first instituted a ban on all abortions based on sex selection or fetal abnormality, the state’s legislature has advanced to the governor a bill to prohibit aborting a developing child whose heartbeat can be detected in utero. The former bill is the first to pass in the nation and received an earlier pledge from the governor to affix his signature, according to Dr. Charlene Yoest, president and CEO of Americans United for Life.

Fodder for Investigating Planned Parenthood

A RECENTLY ANNOUNCED CONGRESSIONAL REQUEST FOR GAO INVESTIGATION of Planned Parenthood’s use of taxpayer funding has been given a boost by the public disclosure of a 2011 suit brought by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) against Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest.

The suit alleges that some $377 million in taxpayer dollars was “pocketed” in the abortion behemoth’s overbilling Washington State’s Medicaid program for contraceptive and abortifacient services “at least 50,000 times,” according to Ben Johnson’s story for LifeSiteNews.com.

ADF explains the delay in its announcement, saying, “By law, such cases must initially be filed under seal and may not be made public while federal authorities decide whether to join the case.” In light of the Congressional letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) earlier this month, the breaking of that seal could not be more timely.

Public Outcry against Carhart Snubbed

WHEN A COALITION OF NATIONAL PRO-LIFE ORGANIZATIONS DELIVERED 5,000 petitions to the Maryland Board of Physicians (MDBP) last week, the MDBP refused to receive the letters, according to John Jalsevac, writing for LifeSiteNews.

The letters called on MDBP to revoke the medical license of the notorious LeRoy Carhart, most recently operating a late-term abortion mill in Germantown and freshly drawing public attention in the death of a 29-year-old mother whose abortion Carhart appears to have botched.

In being confronted by representatives of the coalition, MDBP officials reportedly “abruptly sent the group of concerned citizens away with boxes of letters still in hand. The group was told, ‘Public opinion doesn’t matter,’” according to Mr. Jalsevac.

We at Life Advocacy suggest that this is indeed how unelected bureaucrats think and how they “respond” to the public. A better course, it seems to us, would be to apply grassroots pressure on elected officials such as the state’s governor and legislators. The Carhart situation invites such an outcry and ought to put elected officials into an uncomfortable position, should they continue to hide behind their backers in the abortion industry and not step forward to protect mothers and their children from such butchers. Why is it that the abortion lobby stridently and continually attacks pro-life public officials across America, yet pro-life leaders do not seem to nail cowardly, pro-abortion politicians even in the face of such outrageous injustice.

Quoteworthy

Senator Marco Rubio at Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), quoted by Family Research Council president Tony Perkins in his March 15, 2013, Washington Update: “Just because I believe states should have the right to define marriage in the traditional way does not make me a bigot. The people who are actually closed-minded in our society are the ones who love to preach about climate science and refuse to believe the science that life begins at conception.”

The Value of C.I.A.N.A.

March 12, 2013, report by the editors of LifeSiteNews.com, citing Fr. Frank Pavone as source

If you’re a parent living in one of the 38 states that require an abortionist to notify you or obtain your consent prior to his performing an abortion on your minor daughter, you may think that your rights to know what happens to your pregnant child are protected. Think again.

In the other 12 states, where, an abortionist can perform this invasive procedure on a minor without either of that girl’s parents knowing, it doesn’t matter if the girl is a local resident or from out of state. It also doesn’t matter if your daughter is accompanied across state lines by the coercive adult father of her child – your grandchild can be aborted without you even being aware of it.

Moreover, this could have been stopped by now.

In 2005 and 2006, both houses of congress passed versions of the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act (CIANA). This measure would have made it illegal to transport a minor to another state for the purpose of avoiding a state’s parental notification or consent for abortion law. It would have protected parents’ rights and protected girls from adult abusers who don’t want evidence of their abuse to survive.

In accordance with normal lawmaking procedure, the slightly different versions of the bills passed by the House and Senate were to be worked out by a conference committee so that a single bill could go to the President to sign. But Senate Democrats, led by then Minority Leader Harry Reid, blocked the conference committee from being called.

Attempting to reassert the rights of majority, the House again passed the CIANA legislation in 2006. Senator Harry Reid responded by staging a filibuster so that the bill could not even be considered by the Senate. When a cloture vote was taken to end the filibuster and allow a vote, Senator Reid twisted enough Democrats’ arms so that only 57 Senators agreed – three short of the 60 needed. A minority of pro-abortion zealots in the Senate prevented CIANA’s passage.

After 2006, Senator Reid and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi assumed power in Congress for the next four years, ensuring that no new parents’ rights legislation, much less new pro-life legislation, would see the light of day.

Today, while Senator Reid still rules the upper chamber, there is pro-life leadership and a pro-life majority in the House of Representatives.

The Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act has been reintroduced in the House by Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL) and in the Senate by Senator Marco Rubio (FL). It would not only bar the transporting of a minor across state lines to avoid a parental notification or consent law, but also require an abortionist to contact a parent of the girl if she’s from out of state.

An overwhelming majority of Americans, whether “pro-life” or “pro-choice,” support this commonsense legislation. It would be nice to know why so many Democratic legislators disagree. CIANA has been introduced as a bill; it’s time it became law. For more details, visit www.priestsforlife.org/legislation.