Life Advocacy Briefing

Senate Moving to D.C. Circuit Nominations

SENATE MAJORITY LEADER HARRY REID (D-NV) IS MOVING the Senate toward confirmation votes on nominees to the already underworked DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Three are pending to that powerful bench, including the highly objectionable nomination of radical law professor Cornelia Pillard, whose shocking advocacy for abortion is noted in a commentary by Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, reprinted at the close of this Life Advocacy Briefing.

We ask our readers to review the Pillard record as seen by Mr. Perkins and then to take action by calling their US Senators to urge a “no” vote on any motion advancing the Pillard nomination. Calls can be placed via the Capitol switchboard at 1-202/224-3121.

Subsidizing Abortion

MUCH HAS BEEN REPORTED already about the appearance of Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius before a House committee last Wednesday. So much, in fact, that some of our readers may have missed the abortion-centered exchange between the Secretary and Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL).

Rep. Shimkus “pressed for honesty,” writes FRC Action president Tony Perkins in his Oct. 30 Action Update. “‘If someone … has strongly held pro-life views,’” Rep. Shimkus began, quoted by Mr. Perkins, “‘can you commit to us to make sure that the federal exchanges that [are offered] are clearly identified so people can understand if they’re going to buy a policy that has abortion coverage or not, because right now you cannot make that determination.’

“‘Sir,’ [Mrs.] Sebelius shrugged,” as reported by Mr. Perkins, “‘I don’t know.’” And she probably has a swamp in Kansas to sell you.

One thing is certain: If she has to check with her “superior” in the White House, she already knows the answer will be “no.”

Not only because the President and his Secretary are the nation’s chief cheerleaders for the abortion industry but also because of the experience of those Americans who have been able to find a live human being at the other end of the ObamaCare information lines.

“FRC’s Anna Higgins contacted the exchange programs in Washington, DC,” notes Mr. Perkins, “and they all had the same response: their policy includes abortion coverage. Knowing that the exchanges are required by law to offer at least one policy that doesn’t cover abortion, Ann pressed one representative for the name of a policy that didn’t,” reports Mr. Perkins. “‘The representative,’” reports Ms. Higgins via the Perkins commentary, “‘replied that all the [exchange plans] cover elective abortion because it is deemed an “essential benefit.”’

“Anna then asked very pointedly,” writes Mr. Perkins, “‘So, there’s nothing I can do. … I’m going to have to pay for abortion no matter what?’ The agent responded, ‘Yes, because it is listed as an essential benefit.’ Anna reiterated, ‘Even in the [multi-state plans]?’” the report goes on “‘Yes,’ the woman replied.

“So much for the Administration’s assurances,” concludes Mr. Perkins, “that Americans won’t be forced to bankroll abortion against their will.” And Mrs. Sebelius surely knows it.

On Verge of Verdict in Virginia

ELECTION DAY COMES TOMORROW (Nov. 5) IN VIRGINIA, and much is at stake.

Though abortion pusher Terry McAuliffe (D) has led in recent public opinion polls by as much as 20 points after a barrage of ads sponsored by out-of-state abortion outfits and other leftwing interests, conservative GOP gubernatorial nominee Ken Cuccinelli had climbed to within four points in a mid-week poll last week, leading “news outlets like Politico,” reports Tony Perkins in his Oct. 30 FRC Action Update, to call the contest “a ‘nailbiter.’ …

“Most everyone agrees,” writes Mr. Perkins, “that the race – not just for Cuccinelli but for conservatives E.W. Jackson (Lieutenant Governor [nominee]) and Mark Obenshain [GOP nominee for] (Attorney General) – will all come down to turnout. The campaign may be a local one, but it has national implications,” notes Mr. Perkins, “in a state that’s led the fight against ObamaCare.”

Soon, we will know. Today, we can pray.

To the Rescue

SOUTH CAROLINA’s G.O.P. GOV. NIKKI HALEY VISITED VIRGINIA a week ago to set the record straight on the attitudes of women voters in approaching the Commonwealth’s Nov. 5 gubernatorial election.

“‘The women in Virginia will do their homework in this race,’” said Gov. Haley, quoted by LifeSiteNews.com writer Kirsten Andersen. “‘They will realize,’” she said, “‘that for the good of economic success in Virginia, for our families, for our lifestyles and for the future of Virginia, women will go for Ken Cuccinelli.’”

The popular conservative governor “slamm[ed Democrat Terry] McAuliffe’s team for lumping all women together in an imagined, single-issue, pro-abortion voting bloc,” reports Ms. Andersen. “‘They’re totally dismissing the fact that women are smart,’” she said in the LifeSiteNews report. “‘We think for ourselves,’ [Mrs.] Haley said. ‘We don’t decide based on one issue. We decide who we’re going to vote for based on a lot of issues.’” And for many women, those issues include insistence on a candidate taking a stand for Life. It’s good for America, it’s good for families, and it’s good for women.

Fitting Bedfellows

THOUGH TOO LONG TOLERATED by the Republican Party, former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge – once thought worthy enough to sit in a GOP President’s cabinet and for a time even mentioned (incredibly) as a potential White House hopeful – attacked his party at an Oct. 23 banquet. Well, one wing of his party.

Here is the man whose policies were cited by a Philadelphia grand jury for having fostered the shocking conditions (and deaths) inside the Kermit Gosnell “house of horrors” abortuary, since as governor he ended the regimen of regular inspections of abortuaries by the state health bureaucracy some 17 years before Gosnell’s crimes were uncovered via a drug-enforcement criminal investigation.

And he has the gall, according to a report by Ben Johnson for LifeSiteNews.com, to “[deliver] a scathing address denouncing the GOP’s pro-life and pro-family wing as ‘narcissists and ideologues’ seeking to impose their own brand of ‘tyranny’ on the United States.

“‘Sometimes we [Republicans] just come across as too [expletive] self-righteous,’” said Mr. Ridge as quoted by Mr. Johnson, “‘and I’m sorry, that’s just not the 21st century policy party GOP that I think we need to govern America,’ he said.”

Though at one stage in his life, Mr. Ridge addressed such a notable audience as the Republican National Convention, his speech last month was at what may have been a more fitting setting: a Log Cabin Republican dinner pushing for homosexual leadership within the GOP.

Needless Controversy

A U.N. CONTROVERSY OVER ABORTION IS REVERBERATING through the controversies besetting the Girl Scouts of America, according to Rebecca Oas, PhD, writing for Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (C-FAM).

Though the once-popular group has attempted repeatedly in recent years to “cast themselves as neutral on abortion,” notes Dr. Oas, “their international umbrella organization played an active role” on the steering committee and during breakout sessions at the Global Youth Forum “orchestrated by” the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

The final statement issued from the supposed youth gathering, which met in Bali nearly a year ago, was rejected in late October by “UN diplomats who refused even [to] ‘take note’ of it,” writes the C-Fam UN observer.

“The ‘Bali Declaration’ recommended countries provide legal abortion and recognize the ‘sexual rights’ of youth regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity,” writes Dr. Oas. “The UN has never agreed to this and refused again when asked by youth representatives.”

Some time after the December 2012 conference, the Bali Declaration, reports Dr. Oas, “was subsequently promoted as one of ‘a series of official UN recommendations.’ However,” she writes, “the young people at the conference were not official representatives of their governments. They were selected by a committee featuring several pro-abortion organizations, including Planned Parenthood and Astra Youth.”

The rejection in late October of Brazil’s proposal to mention the Bali Declaration in a UN resolution on youth programs and policies “is a resounding rebuke to the UNFPA,” reports Dr. Oas. “As a key organizer of the Bali conference, [UNFPA] threw its weight and untold amounts of funds behind the strategy to arrange ‘youth delegates’ to attend the conference and push abortion and sexual rights.”

Quoteworthy

Retired Harvard Constitutional Law Professor Alan Dershowitz in an Oct. 24, 2013, interview by CNBC host Larry Kudlow: “I can’t find anything in the Constitution that says you prefer the life of the mother, or the convenience of the mother if it’s an abortion by choice, over the potential life of the fetus.”

Abortion As an Economic Issue

Oct. 28, 2013, commentary by Star Parker, reprinted from www.urbancure.org

Political discussions commonly assume there are two separate sets of issues. There’s a social agenda – issues like abortion and marriage. And there’s an economic agenda – issues like federal spending, debt, taxes and government programs like entitlements.

It’s usually assumed that these two agendas don’t have anything to do with each other. But it’s simply false that we can consider the challenges of our federal budget without thinking about the state of the American family, our birthrates and abortion.

Our massive entitlement programs – Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid – now make up about 45% of our current federal budget.

These programs are overwhelmingly driven by the demographics of the country, mostly directly but also indirectly. Their economics are driven both by how long we live but also by how many children we have.

Social Security and Medicare focus on our elderly, to assure they have income and health care. Because the programs are financed through payroll taxes of the working, their viability depends on how many are employed compared to the size of our aged, retired populations.

This picture is changing dramatically, for the worse. And this is the root of our problem.

In 1945, there were about 42 working Americans paying payroll taxes for every retiree receiving Social Security benefits. By 1960, the ratio was about 5-to-1. Today it is about 3-to-1.

Americans are living longer but having fewer children.

Currently, about 13.3% of our population is over 65. Projections from the Department of Health & Human Services are that by 2040 – in a little over 25 years – 21% of our population will be over 65.

Meanwhile, birthrates are dropping. According to data compiled by the Pew Research Center, between 1920 and 1970, birthrates varied from a high of about 118 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age to a low of about 80. In recent years, this rate has been a little over 60 births per 1,000 women.

A report from the chief actuary of the Social Security Administration (SSA) discusses factors that have led to the drop in birth rates. These include more use and availability of birth control, more women working, postponement of marriage, increased prevalence of divorce, and more women choosing to remain childless.

Not surprisingly, the SSA report ignores the impact of legal abortion. But this is a critical factor. You can look at any chart showing historical fertility rates in the United States and see it bottom out after the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 and staying around those levels.

Because fewer and fewer are working for every retiree, our current level of taxation nowhere near covers what the requirements for Social Security and Medicare will soon be.

Meanwhile, although Medicaid is usually thought of as health care for the poor, it’s the source of funding for most long-term care for the elderly. Today, about 60% of Americans in nursing homes and long-term care institutions are being covered through Medicaid.

Just think what this financial burden will look like as our aged become an increasingly large portion of our population. It’s why projections for the shortfalls in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid combined have been as high a $126 trillion.

A central premise of ObamaCare is forcing healthy young Americans to buy health insurance to subsidize overall premium costs for older and less healthy parts of the population. What happens as the percentage of youth in our population continues to shrink?

It should be clear that it is impossible to separate marriage, children and abortion from our overall economic picture. These factors are at the root of the economic picture.

A renaissance in American family life – restoration of marriage and children as central to our culture and purge of the scourge of abortion – can restore a healthy future that today looks so ominous.

Reject This Nominee!

Oct. 25, 2013, Washington Update commentary by Family Research Council president Tony Perkins

…  President Obama is trying to add to his [courts] with one of the most liberal judicial activists the nation has ever seen. Cornelia “Nina” Pillard, the White House’s pick for the second most powerful court in the country, the DC Circuit Court, could be on the Senate floor for confirmation as early as next week. How dangerous is Pillard? Ed Whalen of NRO’s “Bench Memos” describes her as “less moderate” than the most activist liberal in appellate court history. Apart from calling abstinence education “unconstitutional,” the former Deputy Assistant Attorney General argues that abortion is necessary to help “free women from historically routine conscription into maternity.”

As if her militant feminism wasn’t apparent enough, she takes the opportunity in some of her writings to slam anyone who opposes the abortion-contraception mandate as “reinforc[ing] broader patterns of discrimination against women as a class of presumptive breeders.” Just as shocking, Pillard has lashed out at ultrasound technology as “deceptive” and manipulative. Interestingly enough, the Senate is considering Pillard’s nomination at the same time as Senate Republicans are circulating a bill to reduce the number of justices on the DC court by three.

Considered by many to be a stepping-stone to the Supreme Court, the DC Circuit Court is routinely criticized for retaining so many judges with such a light caseload. America can’t afford to give a lifetime appointment to a radical ideologue! Contact your senators and urge them to vote no on Nina Pillard.