Life Advocacy Briefing

Warning to Parents

PLANNED PARENTHOOD HAS LAUNCHED A NEW CAMPAIGN: pushing vaccination of young children against human papilloma virus (HPV), a sexually transmitted disease, despite safety concerns about the vaccine. True to its heritage, what is more, PP is using minority-focused media to promote the use of the controversial vaccine.

The campaign showed up in a news story on Black Entertainment Television (BET), reports Ben Johnson for LifeSiteNews.com, mentioning PP as urging parents “‘to allow their kids as young as 11-to-12 to get vaccinated’ with the HPV vaccine.”

The “news story” was aired on BET just two days after the July 30 death of a preteen girl, “who had just finished sixth grade,” notes Mr. Johnson, just hours after undergoing an HPV shot urged on her mother by a doctor to whom she had taken her daughter when Meredith was examined for a sore throat. BET did not mention the girl’s death or the controversy which has surrounded the marketing of the vaccine.

“Her mother said the ‘vibrant’ child became sleepy on the way home” from the doctor’s office, reports Mr. Johnson, “and dozed off most of the afternoon.” On return from a half-hour errand late that afternoon, the mother “found [her daughter] dead, near a pool of her own vomit, her lips purple.”

Though “an initial report about the death could not definitively state,” writes Mr. Johnson, “whether the shot caused the child’s death, … her parents have no doubt. ‘The only thing different about that day was that shot,’” the mother said. The father, reports Mr. Johnson, “agreed. ‘It had to be that vaccine.’ …

“Parents and a growing number of experts are questioning,” writes Mr. Johnson, “whether the HPV vaccine, often marketed under the name Gardasil, is medically necessary and worth the potential side effects. The CDC reports that its Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System ‘received approximately 25,000 adverse event reports’ of side effects from the girls and young women who had the vaccination. Eight percent of girls experienced ‘serious’ side effects,” reports LifeSiteNews, “ranging from infertility to death.” That translates in 96 reports to the CDC of deaths related to the shot, reports Mr. Johnson, “47 of which were verified. The number includes at least two girls who died of Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS) after receiving the injection.”

And since HPV is a sexually transmitted disease, is not an emphasis on abstinence education a better “vaccine” for preteens and teenagers? Pushing HPV seems to us to be one more tool to contribute to the sexual delinquency of minors. But then, does not Planned Parenthood do that every day? It is what keeps PP’s cash flowing. Maybe that’s why PP’s Internet website declares, reports LifeSiteNews, “that the ‘HPV vaccine is recommended for males and females ages 9-26.’” Nine years old.

Who’s Unwanted?

IT SEEMS A PLANNED PARENTHOOD OUTPOST in Hollister, California, has lost its lease. The San Benito “Health” Center has been killing preborn boys and girls via surgical abortion and by dispensing “morning-after” abortifacient pills.

“The office posted a short announcement on July 31,” reports Ben Johnson for LifeSiteNews.com, “announcing its closing and directing its visitors to other Planned Parenthood offices” in three other California towns. Hollister is a town of 35,000 about 47 miles south of San Jose. The referral offices are some 16 to 28 miles away. A pregnancy resource center named Hollister Pregnancy Center offers pro bono counseling and testing services just a quarter-mile up the street from the now-shuttered San Benito shop.

Last day of business at San Benito’s Planned Parenthood was last Friday, Aug. 15, Mr. Johnson notes. “The decision took even some of its staff by surprise,” he writes, quoting a physician’s assistant “who has worked at the office since it opened [and] told San Benito County Today, ‘We were never told a reason. I do believe it was financial,’” she said, “‘but it would have been nice if they gave us a concrete answer.’”

The public affairs director for San Benito’s owner, Planned Parenthood MarMonte, based in San Jose with tentacles throughout the Monterey Bay area, hinted at the reason, telling the newspaper, according to Mr. Johnson, “Planned Parenthood officials are ‘very dismayed ourselves by the fact that we have to close a center.’ After an exhaustive search, she said, the abortion provider was unable to find ‘a suitable location’ to house the small office.

“‘I think one other thing that’s of note,’” she said in the county newspaper, quoted by LifeSiteNews, “‘is that – whether we like it or not – I think the clout of our name makes it a little bit harder for us to find places that will accept us.’” Enough said!

Inexcusable

A COUNTY JUDGE IN OHIO HAS ISSUED AN ORDEr abetting a Toledo abortuary that has been unable to land a professional agreement with any local hospitals to treat its casualties in the event of complications.

As we reported last week, the Ohio Dept. of Health (ODH) has ordered the closure of Toledo’s Capital Care Network abortion shop in accordance with the state statute offering safeguards to abortuary customers. It was due to close last Tuesday after a lengthy fight with the state’s health agency.

But Lucas County Common Pleas Judge Myron Duhart last Monday issued an order blocking the state agency from doing its job, allowing Capital Care to stay open while appealing the ODH order in court.

The state agency has already deliberated the matter for months, ordering the closure after reviewing a recommendation from a hearing officer earlier this year. During all the time that the facility’s license has been in jeopardy, this abortuary has been unable to find a hospital closer than Ann Arbor, Michigan – more than 50 miles north across the state line – that would execute a transfer agreement with the substandard operation.

“It is a shame,” said Operation Rescue president Troy Newman in an OR report on the judge’s action, “that one judge, who has only been exposed to a minimal amount of information about the case, can overrule the decision of a legislature that spent months passing the law, the decision of a governor who signed the law, the decision of a hearing officer who heard hours of testimony before recommending enforcement and countless officials at the ODH who investigated and determined that it was in the public’s interest to close the facility.

“In the meantime women will have no access to continuity of care in the event of an emergency,” he noted, “and are being placed at risk daily.”

Referring not only to the Toledo injunction but also to recent federal appellate rulings in Alabama and Mississippi challenging state laws protecting aborting mothers from substandard abortuaries, Mr. Newman opined, “We have every reason to believe that these recent court rulings will eventually be overturned and that the abortion facilities that are currently operating in conditions that violate the law will eventually close down.

“The protection of the public is a primary duty of the states,” he noted, “and there can be no doubt that these abortion facilities are endangering the public by failing to comply with minimum safety regulations. Eventually,” he declared, “common sense must prevail.”

Here’s to You, Hoosiers!

THE ABORTION DEATH TOLL CONTINUES TO DECLINE in Indiana, according to the state’s Dept. of Health and reported by Ben Johnson for LifeSiteNews.com.

This is the fifth straight year of reduction, with the 2013 abortion incidence of 8,027 down “nine percent,” writes Mr. Johnson, “from the 2012 level of 8,808.” And that is “about half the state’s all-time highest abortion total in 1980: 16,505,” Mr. Johnson notes.

One caution to our Indiana readers: Do not rest from your good work. Neighboring Illinois’s parental notice law is finally cleared for enforcement after a near-20-year court battle. Fewer of your teens will now be crossing the border to add to the Illinois abortion toll. And, of course, one is still too many.

One More Inch Toward Victory

ANOTHER SMALL STEP OF PROGRESS was reported last week by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), related to challenging the Obama Regime’s abortifacient/contraception mandate.

A federal judge, reports ADF, “has refrained from granting the Administration’s motion to dismiss and instead issued a stay order” on Aug. 8 in a suit brought by the non-profit Louisiana College, based in central-state Pineville, near Alexandria. The order, though temporary while the suit pends, “preserves the college’s lawsuit and religious freedom claims through August,” reports ADF. The Regime had sought an order dismissing the case.

Telling Our Children The Truth

Commentary by Pastor Scott Brown, director of National Center for Family-Integrated Churches, reprinted from The Christian Post

We need to train up a new generation that understands the value of life in the womb. Here are five things your children need to know about life:

What the Bible says about life: There are at least six texts that every child needs to hide in his heart to understand the status of children in the womb and the heart of God toward them.

• Genesis 1:26-27 declares that man is made in the image of God and therefore is worthy of respect. “Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.” Man bears the imprint of God, and therefore he has value.

• Exodus 20:13 makes murder a crime against God. “Thou shalt not kill” and [Genesis 9:6] “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed; for in the image of God He made man.”

• Psalm 139:13-16 makes it clear that God formed human beings in the womb. “You knit me together in my mother’s womb; You formed my inward parts … Your eyes saw my substance before I was unformed.”

• Jeremiah 1:5 affirms that God knew Jeremiah while he was in his mother’s womb: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; before you were born, I sanctified you.”

• Luke 1:41 reveals that John the Baptist was filled with the Spirit while in his mother’s womb, long before he was separated [from] his mother at birth: “And it happened when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary that the baby leaped in her womb” and [Luke 1:15] “He will be filled with the Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.”

• It is the testimony of Scripture that leads us to believe that there should be equal protection under the law for life in the womb and that people ought to cry out for the defenseless. It is a matter of preserving the love of God for mankind. Murder contradicts His love. Proverbs 24:11: “Deliver those who are drawn toward death.”

• Even though there are many places in Scripture that prove the wickedness of abortion, you only need one verse: Exodus 20:13: “Thou shalt not kill.”

Abortion is not new in our day, but what is new is how comprehensive and global it is.

Killing babies is not new or unique in our generation. This has always been a reflection of the devil’s work in the world and always sets off a conflict with the people of God. Pharaoh launched an all-out assault against baby boys, but God preserved Moses through the Hebrew midwives. Herod did the same in his quest to destroy the Messiah. Roman parents did the same and left their unwanted to fend for themselves, while the church took them in and raised them as their own.

My wife’s aunt was a missionary in the jungles of South America in the 1950s. She lived with a tribe where a child was not considered human until it was picked up by its father. If a child was born and the father did not pick it up, it was left to die. One day a baby was born in that village, and the father turned his back and walked away. Deborah’s aunt was horrified and risked her life by picking up that baby. What she did that day is no different than what we ought to be doing in 2014.

There are evil lies people tell to justify abortion: Our children need to be very clear on this matter – the father of lies is the father of abortion. Here are some of the lies he tells that his servants repeat over and over again:

• The fetus is not a human, just a mass of tissue. [Lie]

• A woman should have unrestricted control over her own body. [Lie]

• Abortion is safer than childbirth. [Lie]

• A wanted child alive is better than an unwanted one dead. [Lie, as “wanted” and “unwanted” are of equal value]

• The number of abortions is relatively small. [Lie]

• If abortion is outlawed, women will be forced to go to back-alley abortion clinics. [Lie]

• Aborting unwanted children reduces the number of abused children. [Lie]

• We are overpopulating the planet. [Lie]

• Planned Parenthood is a group that focuses on contraception. [Lie]

God is for fertility: The first command in the Bible is to “be fruitful and multiply.”

• Genesis 1:28: “Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

• Genesis 9:1 makes it clear that after the flood, God’s disposition had not changed: “So God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.’”

• Psalm 127:3-5 makes it clear that God views children as a blessing and so should we. “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them; they shall not be ashamed but shall speak with their enemies in the gate.”

• Malachi 2:15 declares the reason for marriage and having children: “He seeks godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit. And let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth.”

• Genesis 24:60 reveals the godly disposition of brothers: “And they blessed Rebekah and said to her, ‘Our sister, may you become the mother of thousands of ten thousands, and may your descendants possess the gates of those who hate them.’”

The church cannot be silent. Proverbs 24:11 says, “Deliver those who are drawn toward death.” [Amen]