Life Advocacy Briefing

Expectation & Appreciation

OUR EXPECTATION, as of this writing, is that we will publish next week our Voting Record Index for the 2013 Session of the 113th Congress.

In celebration of Christmas, we anticipate further that next week’s Life Advocacy Briefing will be the last edition for this year.

We offer to our subscribers and to the Life Advocacy support team our heartfelt appreciation for your financial backing to sustain both Life Advocacy Briefing and our consultative/workshop work with pro-life front-liners to advance Life as a Winning Issue and to maintain our Internet website at www.LifeAdvocacy.com. Next year will mark the 20th anniversary of Life Advocacy Briefing; we are grateful for your support.

Elections Have (Sometimes Lifelong) Consequences

ONE OF THE MOST RADICAL ABORTION ADVOCATES ever to be nominated for a federal judicial post has now been awarded a lifetime appointment to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, a judicial appointment second only to a Supreme Court Justice post.

Cornelia Pillard was confirmed on a vote of 51 to 44 in the US Senate at 12:52 a.m. last Thursday. The vote followed two procedural roll call votes Tuesday evening to clear the path. And those procedural roll calls followed the Thanksgiving-eve destruction, by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and all but three of his party colleagues, of Thomas Jefferson’s rules of the Senate.

When Ms. Pillard’s nomination was blocked in November by the failure of Mr. Reid to secure the needed 60 votes to end debate and call her nomination before the Senate, our readers may recall, we reported Mr. Reid’s motion to reconsider that defeat. He held that motion until after he pulled off the Senate Rules destruction and called it up last Tuesday. It passed 54 to 44.

Next – also on Tuesday – came the motion to invoke cloture, which now – thanks to that Rules destruction we’ve discussed – needed only 51 votes to pass (previously needing 60). It passed with 56 votes.

We are publishing the voting records on all three of these motions at the close of this Life Advocacy Briefing. We thank all our readers who contacted Senators seeking votes against seating this extremist on one of the nation’s most pivotal benches. And we note that the Pillard nomination and confirmation represents a clear confirmation of the principle: Elections have consequences.

The 2010 voters in Nevada imposed on us Harry Reid’s continued membership in the US Senate. And the 2012 voters in a variety of states gave his party continued majority status and hence gave him continued power over the Senate. (It is worth noting that a Nov. 29 New York Times report by Jeremy Peters claims Sen. Reid used the abortion issue as a talking point in persuading his party’s Senators – behind closed doors – to line up behind destroying the Senate Rules; the Times’s headline reads “Abortion Cases in Court Helped Tilt Democrats Against the Filibuster.”)

In other elections, the 2008 voters in urban-dominated states conferred power on the radical chief executive who nominated Ms. Pillard and many other radical judges and administrators. The 2012 voters confirmed that tragic error.

Before the Pillard vote, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) made an extensive statement in which he highlighted the implications of the Senate Rules destruction with respect to the Pillard nomination. He said, in part: “The real-world consequences of that power grab [in November] are most sharply illustrated by the nominee before us. Professor Pillard may be a fine person, but she is not someone who should receive a lifetime position on the second highest court in the land. … A review of her legal views makes one thing clear: the nominee before us is a liberal ideologue – in other words, just the kind of person this Administration was looking for to rubber-stamp its most radical legislative and regulatory proposals on the DC Circuit Court.”

And Sen. McConnell added: “Nearly every single Democrat Senator voted to enable the Majority Leader’s power grab last month. Those Senators are responsible for its consequences. That includes the confirmation of Ms. Pillard, regardless of how they vote on her nomination.”

Setbacks such as this one suffered last week by the American people should act not as a deterrent but as a spur to action. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil,” said 18th century statesman Edmund Burke, “is for good men to do nothing.”

Shifting the Balance

AMERICANS UNITED FOR LIFE HAS RELEASED what it calls its “Women’s Protection Project” as a precursor to the publication of the AUL Defending Life model legislation guide for 2014.

Among the legislation drafts offered is a Women’s Health Defense Act, which prohibits late-term abortions “based on increasing evidence of the negative impact that such abortions have on women’s health,” explains AUL in a news release, “as well as concerns about the pain felt by an unborn child. … The specific language and animating principles of this model,” says AUL, “directly undercut the Supreme Court’s ill-informed assumption [in the Roe v. Wade edict] that abortion is good for women and beneficial to women’s health.” We see this project also as having potential for positive outcomes of electoral debates over abortion policy.

The “Women’s Protection” proposal which most caught our eye is one AUL identifies as “new this year.” The proposal would grant aggrieved citizens – “such as a woman who had an abortion or her family,” notes Bloomberg’s Esme Deprez, “to take legal action to ensure proper enforcement of an abortion-related law. …

“‘All the work in getting pro-life legislation passed can be lost if there are no tools for enforcing them,’” noted AUL president Charmaine Yoest PhD, quoted by Ms. Deprez. “‘The enforcement module, for the first time, equips ordinary Americans to file a complaint and expands the potential for people in their own communities – in addition to state attorneys general or other legal office holders – to hold the abortion industry accountable.’”

We see hope in this proposal, both because we believe it would be difficult to block in court and because we see it as a potential solution to the inexcusable foot-dragging which so often characterizes state medical licensing boards and other regulatory agencies. Weekly we see reports of medical board complaints being filed against abortionists, and nearly as often we see reports of wrist-slaps, at best, while babies are dying and aborting mothers are injured or even killed.

We think, for example, of young Tonya Reaves, killed by malpractice in a Chicago Planned Parenthood facility in 2012; that facility continues to do business.

We think also of the shocking grand jury testimony in the case of abortionist/murderer Kermit Gosnell, whose back-alley shop functioned openly in Philadelphia while state inspectors – at the direction of then-Gov. Tom Ridge – avoided abortion facilities for some 17 years in a conscious, look-the-other-way political decision.

And just last Monday, LifeSiteNews.com published a follow-up by Ben Johnson to an early December story concerning Indiana abortionist Ulrich George Klopfer, who reportedly routinely delays reports of abortions on underage girls. “Having sex with a minor 13 or younger,” writes Mr. Johnson, “is prosecuted as a felony [in Indiana], and abortionists must report performing abortions on young girls to the Dept. of Child Services and the Indiana State Dept. of Health within three days. [Yet Mr.] Klopfer,” reports Mr. Johnson, “withheld reports for as much as half a year,” stymieing prosecution of the molesters.

A flood of citizen complaints against Mr. Klopfer has resulted in the state’s licensing agency requesting the circuit-riding abortionist, who lives in Crete, Illinois, to make a personal appearance before the licensing board. We can only hope the Indiana board will stand out among such agencies by canceling this man’s license, which he seems to have taken as a license to abet child molesters.

New Study Links Abortion to Breast Cancer Rise

A MAJOR NEW STUDY IS SHOWING SUBSTANTIAL INCREASES in the rates of breast cancer tracking with high levels of abortion, adding to the evidence of an abortion/breast cancer link. And the study was done in a country where the numbers of abortions have mushroomed in recent years: Red China.

“The researchers say they were initially puzzled by their findings,” writes Peter Baklinski for LifeSiteNews.com, “stating that Chinese women ‘historically’ have had lower rates of breast cancer compared to women from western countries such as the US. They found, however, that incidences of breast cancer in [mainland] China increased at an ‘alarming rate’ over the past two decades, corresponding,” he notes, “with the rise of the Chinese Communist Party’s one-child policy” of forcing abortions on Chinese families. …

“‘The marked change in breast cancer incidence was paralleled to the one-child-per-family policy,’ the researchers stated,” quoted by LifeSiteNews.

Researchers found, writes Mr. Baklinski, “that the risk of breast cancer increased as the number of abortions increased. Two abortions increased the risk by 76%, three by 89%,” according to the study.

But researchers also found significant risk even after one abortion. “The overall risk of developing breast cancer among women having only one abortion increased by 44%.”

The study summary declared, reports LifeSiteNews: “‘The most important implication of this study is that induced abortion was significantly associated with an increased risk of breast cancer among Chinese females, and the risk of breast cancer increases as the number of induced abortions increases.’”

Joel Brind, PhD, president of the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, in a commentary published by LifeSiteNews, called the study a “‘game changer.’”  Dr. Brind has carried on a decades-long battle to get medical authorities in the US to acknowledge the link, which at one time was published on a US government medical research website but was taken down after pressure from the abortion lobby.

“The problem [with acknowledging the link] isn’t faulty science,” he writes, “rather politicized science and faulty journalism. … Fortunately, over the past five years,” he writes, “lots of new studies documenting the reality of the abortion-breast cancer link have appeared from around the world in international, open-access journals, largely from Asia. It is indeed ironic that many of these studies reporting a significant A-BC link have been conducted in countries such as Iran and mainland China,” he notes, “whereas the Western journals have largely presented a great wall of denial.”

Michigan Bans Insurance Coverage of Abortion

PRO-LIFE CITIZENS IN MICHIGAN WON A HUGE VICTORY last Wednesday when both houses of the state legislature enacted a ban on abortion insurance coverage in the state – both through and apart from the state’s ObamaCare exchange. The only exception is to protect the life of a mother.

The new law leaves customers free to purchase an abortion insurance rider, but the coverage would need to be chosen specifically and paid for by the customer at the time of securing the overall insurance policy.

Under a unique citizen-initiative provision in Michigan’s constitution, the proposal does not require action by the governor; legislative passage was sufficient and was achieved with a 62-to-47 vote in the House and 27-to-11 Senate margin. The proposal immediately became law, to take effect 90 days from last Friday.

The governor had vetoed a similar proposal about a year ago, driving citizens to initiate the proposal via a statewide petition campaign led by Michigan Right to Life. The state’s electoral authorities certified the validity of the petition and sufficiency of its signature count (topping 315,000) early this month, triggering a 40-session-day window for the legislature to act.

Senate Voting Records Confirming Judge Pillard

Motion to Reconsider the defeated Cloture Motion on the Nomination of Cornelia Pillard to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals – Dec. 10, 2013 – Adopted 54-44 (Democrats in italics; “Independents” marked “I”)

Voting “no” / pro-Life: Sessions & Shelby/AL, Murkowski/AK, Flake & McCain/AZ, Boozman/AR, Rubio/FL, Chambliss & Isakson/GA, Crapo & Risch/ID, 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, Burr/NC, Hoeven/ND, Portman/OH, Coburn & Inhofe/OK, Toomey/PA, Graham & Scott/SC, Thune/SD, Alexander & Corker/TN, Cornyn/TX, Hatch & Lee/UT, Manchin/WV, 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, BOOKER & 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, Rockefeller/WV, Baldwin/WI

Not Voting: Kirk/IL, Cruz/TX

Motion to End Debate & Invoke Cloture on the Nomination of Cornelia Pillard to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals – Dec. 10, 2013 – Adopted 56-42 (Democrats in italics; “Independents” marked “I”)

Voting “no” / pro-Life: Sessions & Shelby/AL, Flake & McCain/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, Burr/NC, Hoeven/ND, Portman/OH, Coburn & Inhofe/OK, Toomey/PA, Graham & Scott/SC, Thune/SD, Alexander & Corker/TN, Cornyn/TX, Hatch & Lee/UT, Manchin/WV, Johnson/WI, Barrasso & Enzi/WY

Voting “yes” / anti-Life: Begich & Murkowski/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, 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, BOOKER & 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, Rockefeller/WV, Baldwin/WI

Not Voting: Kirk/IL, Cruz/TX

Confirmation of Cornelia Pillard to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals – Dec. 12, 2013 – Confirmed 51-44 (Democrats in italics; “Independents” marked “I”)

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

Voting “yes” / anti-Life: Begich/AK, Boxer & Feinstein/CA, Bennet & Udall/CO, Blumenthal & Murphy/CT, Coons/DE, Nelson/FL, Hirono & Schatz/HI, Durbin/IL, 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, BOOKER & 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, Rockefeller/WV, Baldwin/WI

Not Voting: Carper/DE, Chambliss/GA, Kirk/IL, Moran/KS, Coburn/OK