Life Advocacy Briefing

Easter Blessings

PLEASE DO NOT EXPECT Life Advocacy Briefing, next week. We are planning to take a few days off in commemoration of the Easter holiday, celebrating the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. We hope you and your family will find eternal blessings in this holiday. And we look forward to returning soon to bring you timely news you can use in the cause of Life.

Good Night, Kathleen

WE GREET WITH JOY last Thursday’s news of Kathleen Sebelius’s long overdue resignation. We do not expect the President to appoint a satisfactory Secretary for the Dept. of Health & Human Services, but given the Sebelius record, both in Washington and as governor in Kansas, we cheer.

Repeal Death Panels?

SEN. PAT ROBERTS (R-KS) HAS FILED A BILL TO REPEAL four key rationing provisions in the ObamaCare overhaul of our nation’s medical care system.

S-2064 was filed in late February and sent to the Senate Committee on Finance. We are uncertain how serious Sen. Roberts is about his proposal, since his office has yet to secure a single co-sponsor.

The measure was brought to our attention via a OneNewsNow.com report quoting National Right to Life’s Burke Balch.

Under the law as it stands, Dr. Balch explains in the report, government bureaucrats are “‘going to recommend so-called quality and efficiency measures that will be imposed on your doctor and your hospital. And if your doctor or hospital dares to give you treatment that is above and beyond what the government authorizes, that doctor will not be able to get reimbursed from any of the qualified health insurance plans under ObamaCare.’”

Further, “ObamaCare does not permit insurers to sell a plan,” OneNewsNow reporter Charlie Butts notes, “if government bureaucrats think it allows one to spend an expensive amount on your own health care. So, as [Dr.] Balch says, ‘The government is telling you [you] can’t even use your own money to save your own life’ and makes sure you don’t.” (Unless you literally use your own money, out of pocket, in a private arrangement with all the providers involved; unlikely except for the wealthiest among us.)

The law sets up a panel of some 18 bureaucrats to make such rulings, which will have such profound effects on the well-being of every American. That panel, notes Mr. Butts, is what has been referred to as “the death panel,” whose authority would be abolished under the Roberts legislation.

We ask our readers to contact both their home-state Senators and request that they add their names as co-sponsors to the Roberts legislation. They can do so by calling his Capitol Hill office. Readers may use the Capitol switchboard to reach their own Senators: 1-202/224-3121.

Come On, Mr. Manchin

WE ARE DISAPPOINTED TO NOTE that Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) still, as of this writing, has not added his name as a co-sponsor to S-1670, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act filed by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and co-sponsored so far by 40 Senators, all of whom are Republicans.

We understand that becoming the lone sponsor from his party would require courage on Sen. Manchin’s part, but since he has already announced he would vote for the measure if Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) ever permits it to surface for a Senate vote – and since Mr. Reid would have more difficulty stifling it if it could be characterized as a “bipartisan” measure – such action would, it seems to us, earn Mr. Manchin a badge of both courage and honor. After all, Senator, the voters of your state are overwhelmingly pro-life; even the majority of state legislators in both houses in West Virginia are pro-life and have voted for a like measure by overwhelming margins.

Sen. Manchin’s reticence has provoked the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List to buy “$20,000 in radio ads,” reports Ben Johnson for LifeSiteNews.com, “encouraging [Mr.] Manchin to take action on the bill as well as supporting [the] similar West Virginia state bill,” and SBA president Marjorie Dannenfelser called his “‘public support [for the federal bill] a step in the right direction.’”

But Wanda Franz, former president of National Right to Life and current president of West Virginia for Life told LifeSiteNews, according to Mr. Johnson, that Mr. Manchin “is not inclined to co-sponsor the bill. … ‘As far as I’m concerned, that’s a problem,’ [Dr.] Franz told LifeSiteNews.com. ‘That’s not pro-life leadership, and we expect pro-life leadership from him.’”

Other Democratic Senators “who have been asked to take a concrete stance on the [Pain-Capable] bill include Joe Donnelly of Indiana,” reports Mr. Johnson, “Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.”

Notes Mrs. Dannenfelser, again quoted by Mr. Johnson: “‘The majority of Americans support protecting babies after 20 weeks – more than halfway through pregnancy.’” It would not hurt to see a little leadership, particularly from Senators who seek support from pro-life volunteers when they face the electorate. 

Unwelcome Neighbor

THE PLAN OF PLANNED PARENTHOOD to open a new 10,000-square-foot abortuary has the medical community and residents of Orlando-suburban Kissimmee, Florida, up in arms. The abortion shop, scheduled to open in May, would be the largest such mill in central Florida, according to Kirsten Andersen, reporting for LifeSiteNews.com. Its location will be across the street from Osceola Regional Medical Center (ORMC), prompting an outcry from medical professionals. The building is currently under construction.

“‘It’s going to have a devastating impact,’” said Dr. John Littell in the LifeSiteNews story, “on not only the lives of children unborn and the mothers that go in there choosing to end their pregnancies but also the surrounding medical practices and the hospital. …

“‘Keep in mind,’” Dr. Littell pleaded before the city commission, “‘that this is across the street from [ORMC], where women will be going in in labor and coming out with a baby at the same time,’” he said, reported by Ms. Andersen, “‘that women will be walking into an abortion clinic and coming out without a baby.’”

Other residents stressed the effect on the community as a whole during an April 1 city commission meeting that drew hundreds of citizens in protest. “‘We do not want a death factory in our back yard,’ said one resident,” quoted by Ms. Andersen. “Another begged,” she writes, “‘Do not let one of our attractions be baby-killing.’”

Kissimmee is well-known as a tourist destination just blocks away from the world-attracting – and child-oriented – Walt Disney World and Epcot Center theme parks.

But it seems, as noted by Ms. Andersen, that Kissimmee has a significant Latin American population, and Planned Parenthood of Central Florida’s CEO “told WFTV-9,” reports Ms. Andersen, “that Kissimmee’s high Latino population was a major reason they decided to open a new abortion business there. ‘Four in 10 Latino teens experience at least one pregnancy before the age of 20,’” she told the TV station, quoted by LifeSiteNews, “‘so we’re very excited to be serving the broader community of Osceola County.’”

But that does not make Planned Parenthood welcome among Latinos. “Dr. Jose Fernandez, a Kissimmee family practitioner who also objects to the facility’s planned opening, told News 13,” writes Ms. Andersen, “the heavily Latino community is largely religious and strongly pro-life.

“‘The issue that surrounds those clinics, which is centered around the idea of abortion, is very disconcerting,’ [Dr.] Fernandez told News 13,” she reports. “‘We have a fantastic religious community, supportive churches, and this is very upsetting to the community.’ …

“Like the Kissimmee facility,” reports Ms. Andersen, “nearly 80% of all Planned Parenthood locations target black and/or Latino communities.”

Though local officials expressed sympathy with the public sentiment, the fact that Planned Parenthood has assumed control of a location which formerly housed a medical office and that zoning was not changed in the interim makes it impossible, according to Kissimmee’s mayor, to block the development of the abortuary.

“The majority of city officials told residents they were personally against allowing the abortion facility to open,” writes Ms. Andersen, “and that they hoped to take the issue to the state legislature, at a minimum to address whether the facility will receive state funding. ‘I do think that the majority of commission members would feel as though we ought to do a better job in dealing with these kinds of issues,’ [Mayor] Swan said” in the LifeSiteNews report. “‘I don’t think anybody is comfortable with the loss of life or anything else.’”

Confronting Planned Parenthood

ONE OF SOUTH CAROLINA’s MOST RESPECTED – and certainly most conservative – state lawmakers, State Sen. Mike Fair (R-Greenville), has taken on Planned Parenthood head-on over a poll the abortion behemoth sponsored which claimed to find, reports Tim Smith in The Greenville News, “that a majority of respondents to the poll [taken in three other Senate districts] said they support access to abortion at 20 weeks after they were told that such abortions are rare and often involve fetal abnormalities.”

Sen. Fair could certainly have criticized the biased wording of the poll question, but instead he went right after Planned Parenthood’s own credibility, based on the character of the organization. The Senator, writes Mr. Smith, “told GreenvilleOnline.com he doesn’t trust any survey done by Planned Parenthood … .

“‘I have no more confidence in Planned Parenthood than I do in Adolf Hitler, if he were around, to ask about whether his signature is binding,’ [Sen.] Fair said,” quoted by The Greenville News. “‘He would say, “Yeah, it is.” It’s not, it wasn’t. He, by the way, had the same philosophy of Planned Parenthood, and that is that some people deserve to live more than other people based on what the culture says.’”

Bravo, Sen. Fair. Would that all our lawmakers showed such courage to speak the truth and to nail Planned Parenthood for its eugenicist foundations and philosophy. May lives be saved by your startling words.

Quoteworthy

Reagan Domestic Policy Advisor Gary Bauer, now chairman of the Campaign for Working Families, in his April 8, 2014, End of Day Report: “A perfect example of the Left’s extremism when it comes to promoting abortion-on-demand: In one facility, half of the people who go in die. In the other facility, you’ll leave with a tan and might develop skin cancer years later. Liberals are all for regulating and taxing tanning salons, but the will go to extreme lengths to block health-and-safety standards from applying to abortion clinics.”

Abortion’s Worst Week in 50 Years

April 2, 2014, Commentary by Phyllis Schlafly, founder of Eagle Forum, mother of the conservative movement in America

Oh, how the tide has turned against abortion. Just last week, there were three stunning setbacks to the pro-abortion movement.

The first came Tuesday during oral argument in the Hobby Lobby case before the US Supreme Court. The left wing of the Court was having a field day by producing a parade of horribles if Hobby Lobby obtains a religious exemption from contraceptive regulations that violate its owners’ consciences.

But then Justice Kennedy, the swing vote in the Court, startled liberals with a comment he made to the Obama Administration’s attorney: “Under your view, a for-profit corporation … could be forced in principle to pay for abortions.” Justice Kennedy evidently opposes compelling anyone, even for-profit corporations, to pay for abortions. Justice Kennedy has not ruled in favor of abortion in more than two decades, and he is the decisive fifth vote on the issue.

Barely minutes had elapsed after Justice Kennedy’s remark when the US Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit independently issued its own stunning decision against the abortion industry. The court upheld the defunding of Planned Parenthood by the State of Kansas, in Planned Parenthood of Kansas & Mid-Missouri v. Moser.

Kansas limited, as all states should do, the distribution of federal family planning money under Title X to public entities, hospitals and federally qualified health centers that provide full healthcare services. Planned Parenthood is not on the list to receive this taxpayer money, and it ran into court to get a trial judge to block the good law. But on appeal, the 10th Circuit reinstated the law and even held that Planned Parenthood lacked a legal basis to challenge it.

There is no constitutional requirement that hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars must continue to flow to groups affiliated with abortion clinics. Yet time and time again, judicial activists have invalidated valid state laws which attempt to cut off the funding.

Now this liberal gig may finally be over, thanks to this landmark 10th Circuit ruling in favor of the power of states to prevent taxpayer dollars from flowing to affiliates of abortion clinics. Given that a majority of the Supreme Court apparently opposes requiring corporations to fund abortion, it follows that taxpayers should not be required to fund groups that promote or are affiliated with abortion.

The best ruling of the year was still to come. Last Thursday, an all-women panel of the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit rendered a stunning verdict against abortion clinics by upholding all significant parts of the pro-life bill (HB-2) that passed in a Texas special legislative session last summer. This law sensibly prohibits abortion unless the abortionist has hospital privileges within 30 miles of the abortion, so that he can remain available to handle any complications he causes. On no other major medical operation does the surgeon avoid helping on complications, as abortion providers often have been doing.

The business model of the abortion industry has been to shift the costs of complications onto hospitals, taxpayers and even pro-life physicians. The victims of abortion who have serious complications typically end up in emergency rooms where the abortionist is nowhere to be found.

If Pennsylvania had a similar law in effect, as was urged there for years, then Kermit Gosnell would not have been able to perpetrate his horrific acts in Philadelphia. This 30-mile rule is protective of women against unsafe medical practices such as back-alley-style abortions, and those who side against these protections for women cannot call themselves pro-women.

Nineteen abortion clinics have closed in Texas because of this good law, and liberals who oppose unsafe abortions should be cheering about the closures. Instead, they are whining and claiming that the Supreme Court should take this case on appeal. But in light of Justice Kennedy’s comment against forcing corporations to fund abortion and his unwillingness to side with abortion for more than two decades, Planned Parenthood may not dare appeal either of these rulings to the Supreme Court, which could result in a nationwide ruling against abortion.

Both rulings last week give candidates an excellent platform for confidently addressing the abortion issue with young voters. Candidates can reject bad advice urging them to support gimmicks, such as the worthless “personhood” approach, which are then used against them.

Republicans should learn from the legislators who passed the pro-women, pro-life law in Texas and the law ensuring that family planning money goes to the right places in Kansas. With three women judges unanimously upholding a law that results in the widespread closure of abortion clinics in Texas, Republican candidates now have something positive to campaign on.