Life Advocacy Briefing

Stop this Judicial Nominee!

DESPITE THE RELATIVELY LOW WORKLOAD of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, filling a vacancy on the panel is a high priority for the Obama Regime, perhaps because of the volatility of the latest nomination. Senate Democrats are rushing to confirm Cornelia “Nina” Pillard, a Georgetown law professor, while Americans are on vacation, bringing the nomination to a hearing last Wednesday, less than two months from her name having surfaced.

Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, in his July 24 Washington Update, brings some of the nominee’s record to light, noting, “The former Deputy Assistant Attorney General argues that abortion is necessary to help ‘free women from historically routine conscription into maternity.’” Furthermore, Mr. Perkins writes, “She takes the opportunity in some of her writings to slam anyone who opposes the abortion-contraception mandate as ‘reinforce[ing] broader patterns of discrimination against women as a class of presumptive breeders.’” Other statements by Prof. Pillard attack abstinence education and reveal a radical ideology that denies basic biology.

Readers of Life Advocacy Briefing are urged to call their Senators at 1-202/224-3121 to advocate a “No” vote on the cloture motion so that, when this nomination comes to the floor, the Senate won’t need to embarrass its members with the necessity of a final vote.

Abortion Partisan Confirmed by Senate

THE U.S. SENATE HAS VOTED TO CONFIRM, as Secretary of Labor, a Justice Dept. veteran who has distinguished himself as an enemy of pro-life activism from his desk at the Atty. General’s Office of Civil Rights.

Because his abortion issue involvement was among the key elements in efforts of the pro-family community to lobby against his nomination, we are publishing the voting records on Thomas Perez at the conclusion of this Life Advocacy Briefing. Of the two, the roll call on “cloture” is the more significant, as without the 60th vote on that motion, his confirmation would not have come to a vote. (Several Senators voted “for” cloture and then voted against confirmation on the final roll call, knowing most voters who cared would look at the final vote rather than the more key one.) Of note: according to the Senate historian, reports Ben Johnson for LifeSiteNews.com, “the all-Democratic vote [on the confirmation motion itself] was an historic moment, the first time a Cabinet member was confirmed with the votes of only one party.”

The Perez record of abortion advocacy was the topic of a boast, reports LifeSite’s Mr. Johnson, who quotes him as “boast[ing]” last September, “‘We have opened 20 civil investigations under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and filed eight complaints under the Act – compared to just one civil FACE Act case in the eight years of the previous Administration.’ But his dogged pursuit of pro-life activists,” notes Mr. Johnson, “has earned his department a hefty fine – and a federal judge’s suspicion he was colluding with abortion providers.”

Mr. Perez was described by Family Research Council, in FRC’s background report on his nomination, as having been “praised by pro-aborts for increasing the number of prosecutions for supposed FACE violations, a statute commonly used to bully the 1st Amendment rights of abortion clinic protestors.

“In January 2012, a Florida judge chastised [the Justice Dept.] for one such unsubstantiated prosecution of a pro-lifer,” the FRC memo notes, “concluding: ‘The Court is at a loss as to why the government chose to prosecute this particular case in the first place. … The evidence could not lead a rational jury to find that Ms. Pine’s conduct [i.e., having peaceful conversations with clinic visitors on a public sidewalk] constituted a physical obstruction within the meaning of FACE.’”

FRC went on to cite two other court rulings which reprimanded Mr. Perez’s office for overusing the FACE law to stymie the freedom of speech of pro-life American citizens. Clearly, he is an activist undeserving of elevation to a Cabinet post. But the Senate assented to his nomination.

Webcam Abortion Under Review

PLANNED PARENTHOOD’s LATEST BUSINESS MODEL may be in trouble in the state where it began.

The Iowa Board of Medicine “voted 8-to-2 in June to begin the process,” reports Operation Rescue’s Cheryl Sullenger, of “halting the practice of dispensing abortion pills via webcam outside the physical presence of a doctor.”

Planned Parenthood in Iowa won a ruling from the professional regulation board in 2011 affirming the abortion behemoth’s practice – ongoing since 2008 – of planting little offices around the state – particularly in rural areas – where abortion pills are dispensed to customers who are interviewed by supposed doctors via computer conversation, using webcam technology. No in-person examination, no follow-up, but a very low-overhead way of doing business with no regard for the physical well-being of customers.

Planned Parenthood’s public response to the board’s reconsideration has been to “cry foul,” according to Ms. Sullenger, “over an e-mail from a pro-life activist that gave the Governor’s office a ‘heads-up’” that a petition from Iowa physicians and other Iowa healthcare professionals was about to be filed, seeking the board’s reconsideration.

Planned Parenthood of the Heartland’s executive director Jill June told the Des Moines Register, reports Ms. Sullenger, “‘The communication between the Governor’s office and anti-abortion activists confirms that there has been a synchronized effort to acquire a vote outlawing Planned Parenthood’s telemedicine delivery system based entirely on politics rather than scientific fact.’” Sure.

“Using their experimental system,” Ms. Sullenger explains, “Planned Parenthood aimed to increase abortion profits by cutting the cost of having to maintain licensed physicians at offices all over the state. The system involves an abortionist who sits at a computer station in Des Moines and briefly interviews abortion patients over a Skype-like connection. Then he presses a button on his computer screen,” writes Ms. Sullenger, “to release a drawer at the outlying clinic that contains the pills. Women take one round of pills at the office, then are sent home to self-administer the rest of the abortion drugs, which cause an unmonitored and often painful abortion that is similar to a miscarriage.”

Operation Rescue warns that Planned Parenthood “admitted … in May 2010 … it was about to implement a five-year plan to place their webcam abortion system in every Planned Parenthood office in the nation. Once the news about the plan was out,” writes Ms. Sullenger, “legislatures in 11 states passed laws to ban the abortion pill distribution system in order to protect women from substandard care.”

Life Advocacy encourages the balance of the states to move forward with such legislation, as lives of children and the health and safety of their mothers is at stake. And we celebrate the reconsideration in Iowa of the deadly scheme.

Caught!

THE STATE OF TEXAS HAS SECURED A SETTLEMENT in a suit against Planned Parenthood for Medicaid fraud, including billing taxpayers for abortion “services” which the state does not cover. While claiming the charges brought in the probe were “baseless,” the abortion industry queen agreed to pay $1.4 million as reimbursement for “erroneous and fraudulent billing,” reports Ben Johnson for LifeSiteNews.com.

“A thorough investigation found,” writes Mr. Johnson, “that Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast (PPGC) ‘improperly billed the Texas Medicaid program for products and services that were never actually rendered, not medically necessary and were not covered by the Medicaid program,’” Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott announced last Wednesday, quoted by Mr. Johnson, “‘and were therefore not eligible for reimbursement.’”

Atty. Gen. Abbott offered as an example, quoted by LifeSiteNews, “‘State investigators determined that PPGC falsified material information in patients’ medical records in order to support fraudulent reimbursement claims to the Medicaid program.’”

The investigation was apparently touched off by a lawsuit filed against PPGC by a woman who had worked as a “healthcare assistant” at PP in Lufkin, Texas, between 1999 and 2009. Among other claims in her suit, reports LifeSiteNews, she claimed “that the Houston-based chapter of Planned Parenthood gave each of its 12 offices in Texas and Louisiana regular revenue goals and instructed them to bilk the state through deceptive billing.”

No wonder Texas’s governor and state legislators have acted to disqualify Planned Parenthood from state funding. Though such an exclusion is not to the liking of the Obama Regime, it surely appears justified for a broad variety of reasons.

Getting Out of the Kitchen

ONE TEXAS ABORTIONIST HAS ANNOUNCED HE WILL CLOSE HIS SHOP within the next 90 days but has “previously told the New York Times,” reports Operation Rescue’s Cheryl Sullenger, published by LifeSiteNews.com, “he would keep doing abortions ‘whether that means under the cover of a mesquite tree or on a shrimp boat or going to Mexico’ where abortions,” notes Ms. Sullenger, “are also illegal.

“Waving a speculum [abortion instrument] at a pro-abortion rally earlier in July,” writes Ms. Sullenger, Harlingen abortionist Lester Minto “told the crowd that the government ‘can’t take my gun and can’t take my speculum. … You’re going to have to pry it from my cold, dead hand.’

The Minto abortuary closure “is one of several already announced after Texas passed a sweeping bill [that] bans abortions after [five months] gestation,” writes Ms. Sullenger, “raises standards on the use of the abortion pill and puts in place safety regulations on abortion clinics, which previously were allowed to operate under dangerous conditions.”

Simply Unwelcome

THE ABORTION INDUSTRY IS POINTING to Virginia’s new abortuary regulations as the excuse for the recent closure of one of its flagship facilities in the DC suburbs. It likely had little to do with the new law. NOVA Women’s Healthcare sought new space after repeated suits by its landlord, only to find itself up against zoning issues and more stringent oversight by the local city council. It appears that the public’s appetite for abortion mills is waning, and these substandard shops are no longer being welcomed in some neighborhoods.

Quoteworthy

U.S. Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) in an interview with LifeSiteNews.com: “They sometimes wonder why we’re so tenacious. It’s because we have no choice. Once we realize what has happened to mothers and unborn children in this country, those with conscience must respond.”

Social Conservativism the Key to Victory

July 22, 2013, Washington Update commentary by Family Research Council president Tony Perkins

Paging the GOP! According to a new study, social conservatives are actually more important to the Republican base than economic conservatives.

The findings couldn’t come at a better time, particularly as more moderate Republicans try to push social issues into the background.

As part of the collaborative “2013 Economic Values Survey” by two (decidedly not conservative) groups, the Public Research Institute and the Brookings Institution, researchers found that fiscal conservatism “has the weakest hold in American public opinion.” Based on the response of conservatives, 38% of Americans are theological conservatives, 29% are social conservatives and only 25% are economic conservatives.

Interestingly enough, the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne affirms what I’ve been saying for a  number of years, which is that social issues may be the greatest bridge to Democrats – 19% of whom describe themselves as social conservatives. The panel of largely liberal experts agreed. “Conservatives can’t win without social conservatives.” If you look at the data, Dionne points out, “it turns out that social conservatives loom larger as part of that conservative constituency and more consistently than economic conservatives do.”

Hopefully, the results are instructive for the national Republican Party, which has sown division in the GOP by retreating on key planks of the platform. As the numbers show, the Republican Establishment cannot continue to relegate social conservatives to minority status in the national party, when we’re the majority in most states.

As the heads of 13 pro-family organizations (including FRC) reminded the Republican National Committee in April, it would be a “huge historical mistake” if the GOP dismantles the conservative movement by marginalizing social conservatives. And based on these findings, that’s no longer conjecture.

Senate Voting Records

Cloture Motion to bring forward Nomination of Thomas Perez as Labor Secretary – July 17, 2013 – Adopted – 60 – 40 (60 votes being needed) (Democrats in italics; “Independents” marked “I”; new Senators in ALL CAPS)

Voting “no” / pro-Life: Sessions & Shelby/AL, Flake/AZ, Boozman/AR, Rubio/FL, Chambliss & Isakson/GA, Crapo & Risch/ID, Coats/IN, Grassley/IA, Moran & Roberts/KS, McConnell & Paul/KY, Vitter/LA, Cochran & Wicker/MS, Blunt/MO, Fischer & Johanns/NE, Heller/NV, Ayotte/NH, CHIESA/NJ, Burr/NC, Hoeven/ND, Portman/OH, Coburn & Inhofe/OK, Toomey/PA, Graham & Scott/SC, Thune/SD, Cornyn & Cruz/TX, Hatch & Lee/UT, Johnson/WI, Barrasso & Enzi/WY.

Voting “yes” / anti-Life: Begich & Murkowski/AK, McCain/AZ, Pryor/AR, Boxer & Feinstein/CA, Bennet & Udall/CO, Blumenthal & Murphy/CT, Carper & Coons/DE, Nelson/FL, Hirono & SCHATZ/HI, Durbin & Kirk/IL, Donnelly/IN, Harkin/IA, Landrieu/LA, Collins & King (I)/ME, Cardin & Mikulski/MD, MARKEY & Warren/MA, Levin & Stabenow/MI, Franken & Klobuchar/MN, McCaskill/MO, Baucus & Tester/MT, Reid/NV, Shaheen/NH, Menendez/NJ, Heinrich & Udall/NM, Gillibrand & Schumer/NY, Hagan/NC, Heitkamp/ND, Brown/OH, Merkley & Wyden/OR, Casey/PA, Reed & Whitehouse/RI, Johnson/SD, Alexander & Corker/TN, Leahy & Sanders (I)/VT, Kaine & Warner/VA, Cantwell & Murray/WA, Manchin & Rockefeller/WV, Baldwin/WI.

Confirmation of Thomas Perez as Labor Secretary – July 18, 2013 – Confirmed – 54 – 46 (50 votes being needed) (Democrats in italics; “Independents” marked “I”)

Voting “no” / pro-Life: Sessions & Shelby/AL, Murkowski/AZ, Flake & McCain/AZ, Boozman/AR, Rubio/FL, Chambliss & Isakson/GA, Crapo & Risch/ID, Kirk/IL, Coats/IN, Grassley/IA, Moran & Roberts/KS, McConnell & Paul/KY, Vitter/LA, Collins/ME, Cochran & Wicker/MS, Blunt/MO, Fischer & Johanns/NE, Heller/NV, Ayotte/NH, Chiesa/NJ, Burr/NC, Hoeven/ND, Portman/OH, Coburn & Inhofe/OK, Toomey/PA, Graham & Scott/SC, Thune/SD, Alexander & Corker/TN, Cornyn & Cruz/TX, Hatch & Lee/UT, Johnson/WI, Barrasso & Enzi/WY.

Voting “yes” / anti-Life: Begich/AK, Pryor/AR, Boxer & Feinstein/CA, Bennet & Udall/CO, Blumenthal & Murphy/CT, Carper & Coons/DE, Nelson/FL, Hirono & Schatz/HI, Durbin/IL, Donnelly/IN, Harkin/IA, Landrieu/LA, King (I)/ME, Cardin & Mikulski/MD, Markey & Warren/MA, Levin & Stabenow/MI, Franken & Klobuchar/MN, McCaskill/MO, Baucus & Tester/MT, Reid/NV, Shaheen/NH, Menendez/NJ, Heinrich & Udall/NM, Gillibrand & Schumer/NY, Hagan/NC, Heitkamp/ND, Brown/OH, Merkley & Wyden/OR, Casey/PA, Reed & Whitehouse/RI, Johnson/SD, Leahy & Sanders (I)/VT, Kaine & Warner/VA, Cantwell & Murray/WA, Manchin & Rockefeller/WV, Baldwin/WI.