Life Advocacy Briefing

Congress Returns

FASTEN YOUR SEATBELT. Congress returns to town this week to begin a month-long drive to complete its agenda before the 2015 fiscal year begins on Oct. 1 and Members escape all over again to campaign. Keep handy the phone number for the Capitol switchboard; some of the action will come swiftly and unexpectedly; we must be ready to weigh in. That number is 1-202/224-3121.

Behind the ‘Clinic’ Doors

IT IS SOMEWHAT RARE FOR US to publish links to stories or commentaries for our readers to track down. But only last week we read an interview in the February 14, 2014, Criterion Online publication of the Catholic Archdiocese of Indianapolis, and we found it so enlightening and encouraging that we hope our readers will themselves take in the entire, somewhat lengthy interview.

It is with a nurse who has left a Planned Parenthood abortion shop via Abby Johnson’s ministry, “And Then There Were None.”  Mrs. Johnson, who left the abortion industry after working as an administrator at a Planned Parenthood abortuary in Bryan, Texas, now works to give abortion industry workers a safe network with whom to counsel for departure from the cartel.

After nurse Marianne Anderson was fired just two days before she had planned to quit Indianapolis’s Georgetown Road abortuary, she took a job at a local hospital where she “‘work[s] with wonderful Christian people,’” she tells the Criterion interviewer. And she has gone on the speaking circuit about her experience with Planned Parenthood and her release through Mrs. Johnson’s ministry.

Enough said by us, we hope, to lead you to want more. Please read the entire interview at www.archindy.org/criterion/local/2014/02-14/nurse.html and be both informed and blessed.

Duking It Out in Iowa, Still

IOWA’s PLANNED PARENTHOOD BRANCH IS BACK IN COURT – in more ways than one.

On Aug. 28, the nine-abortuary network called Planned Parenthood of the Heartland filed an appeal in the state supreme court asking the judges, writes Lisa Bourne for LifeSiteNews.com, “to put a hold on Polk County District Judge Jeffrey Farrell’s Aug. 19 ruling upholding the Iowa Board of Medicine’s rule requiring a physician be present when an abortion is performed.”

Seems like a no-brainer ruling, but it’s quite a setback for the Planned Parenthood where remote-control abortions were first implemented. “‘If this Court does not grant a stay,’ the Planned Parenthood appeal said,” reports Ms. Bourne, “‘the [Board of Medicine’s] Rule will make it impossible for Petitioners to provide abortion services at seven out of nine clinics where they provided them until today,’” which, the motion stated, represents “over 70% of previously available sites.’” Aw.

The LifeSiteNews report quotes also Cheryl Sullenger, senior policy advisor for Operation Rescue, who, writes Ms. Bourne, “echoed the Iowa Board of Medicine’s concern for Iowa’s expectant [mothers]. ‘Without a hands-on personal exam by a physician, physical conditions that may contraindicate medication abortion could well go undetected,’ she said. ‘Ectopic pregnancies, which, untreated, can pose a life-threatening emergency for the mother, are more likely to go undetected.’”

She further pointed out, reports Ms. Bourne, “‘Women who get the abortion pill remotely have no access to follow-up or emergency care by the dispensing physician. This creates a lack of patient care continuity and increases the risk factors for such abortions.’”

But wait; we said Iowa’s abortuary network was back in court “in more ways than one.” Planned Parenthood of the Heartland also finds itself back in court as defendant in a lawsuit which was previously tossed out.

The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has reinstated a case brought in 2011 by former PP administrator Sue Thayer claiming that Planned Parenthood of the Heartland “submitted false claims for Medicaid reimbursement from 2002 to 2009,” reports Dustin Siggins for LifeSiteNews. The case had been tossed out in 2013 by a federal district court ruling that Ms. Thayer’s suit “lacked specifics,” reports Mr. Siggins.

But the appellate court in late August, Mr. Siggins reports, citing Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) as source, “overturned the lower court’s dismissal of the lawsuit,” concluding, to quote the ruling quoted by Mr. Siggins, “‘that [Ms.] Thayer has pled sufficiently particularized facts to support her allegations that Planned Parenthood violated the FCA [False Claims Act] by filing claims for (1) unnecessary quantities of birth control pills, (2) birth control pills dispensed without examinations or without or prior to a physician’s order, (3) abortion-related services and (4) the full amount of services that had already been paid, in whole or in part, by “donations” Planned Parenthood coerced from patients.’” Strong language for a court to employ.

“‘Planned Parenthood should play by the same rules as everyone else,’” commented ADF senior counsel Casey Mattox in the LifeSiteNews report. “‘We look forward to continuing our defense of the American taxpayer in this case.’”

Acknowledging their Precious Humanity

ROMAN CATHOLICS THROUGHOUT AMERICA next Saturday, Sept. 13, will offer prayers in solemn services commemorating unborn children; others are welcome to join in. The nationwide observance is called the National Day of Remembrance; contact information for the event is available via the Internet at http://abortionmemorials.com/contact.php.

“Mourners across the country will visit the gravesites of aborted children,” according to a news release issued by hosting organizations, Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, Priests for Life and Pro-Life Action League. The bodies of these little ones interred in these graves, notes the release, “were recovered from trash dumpsters and pathology labs and solemnly buried over the four decades of legal abortion in the United States.”

The three sponsoring groups will coordinate “simultaneous memorial services … at more than 40 such gravesites as well as at scores of other memorial markers set up in memory of the aborted unborn at churches and cemeteries.”

Priests for Life national director Fr. Frank Pavone commented in the release: “‘Having a memorial service where these babies are buried reminds us that abortion is not merely about beliefs but about bloodshed; not just about viewpoints but victims.”

The executive director of Pro-Life Action League, Eric Scheidler, stated in the release, “‘It’s sobering to realize that grave markers for the unborn victims of abortion list only a date of burial. They have no birthdays, because they were never allowed to be born.’” Nor can a date of death be listed, he noted, “ ‘because those who killed them discarded their bodies like garbage. But they are not garbage to us; they are our brothers and sisters.’”

The leader of the third sponsoring ministry, Citizens for a Pro-Life Society’s Dr. Monica Miglorino Miller, has particular cause to relate to the buried victims of abortion. It was Dr. Miller and her husband who led a team of volunteers to a loading dock in Chicago-suburban Northbrook, Illinois, where she had been told she would find the bodies of aborted babies. Between February and September, 1988, the team retrieved the bodies of some 4,000 aborted babies who had been shipped to Northbrook by about 12 abortuaries nationwide.

After photographing many of the victims in order to help Americans grasp the enormity of legalized abortion, Dr. Miller undertook a ministry of giving such children proper burials. She commented in the Day of Remembrance release: “‘Since 1973, 55 million innocent unborn children have been killed with the sanction of law. A fraction of these victims … have actually been buried. The graves of these victims are scattered across America.’” She referred to the burial sites as “‘graves of sorrow and graves of indictment on a nation that permitted the killing of the innocent.

“‘As we visit these graves on Sept. 13, we call upon our nation to remember these victims and bring an end to the injustice of abortion.’”

Celebrating the Wisdom & Courage of Mother Teresa, R.I.P.

BEFORE SEPTEMBER ADVANCES FURTHER, we ask our readers to pause a moment to give thanks for the life of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the precious world-renowned nun who passed away on Sept. 5, 1997, at the age of 87, after giving her life for the care of the helpless, in the name of our Lord Jesus.

Her example of selfless service continues to inspire many, and those who minister in the cause of Life will be forever grateful for her courageous witness at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC, on Feb. 3, 1994, when she declared, in the presence of Pres. & Mrs. Bill Clinton and Vice Pres. & Mrs. Al Gore:

“… I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?

“How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even His life to love us. So, the mother who is thinking of abortion should be helped to love, that is, to give until it hurts her plans or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts.

“By abortion, the mother does not learn to love but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion.

“Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.

“Many people are very, very concerned with the children of India, with the children of Africa, where quite a few die of hunger, and so on. Many people are also concerned about all the violence in this great country of the United States. These concerns are very good. But often these same people are not concerned with the millions who are being killed by the deliberate decision of their own mothers. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today – abortion, which brings people to such blindness.

“And for this I appeal in India and I appeal everywhere: ‘Let us bring the child back.’ The child is God’s gift to the family. Each child is created in the special image and likeness of God for greater things – to love and to be loved. In this year of the family, we must bring the child back to the center of our care and concern. This is the only way that our world can survive, because our children are the only hope for the future. As older people are called to God, only their children can take their places.

“But what does God say to us? He says: ‘Even if a mother could forget her child, I will not forget you. I have carved you in the palm of My hand.” We are carved in the palm of His hand; that unborn child has been carved in the hand of God from conception and is called by God to love and to be loved, not only now in this life but forever. God can never forget us. … Please don’t kill the child. I want the child. Please give me the child. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child and be loved by the child. …

“If we remember that God loves us, and that we can love others as He loves us, then America can become a sign of peace for the world.

“From here, a sign of care for the weakest of the weak – the unborn child – must go out to the world. If you become a burning light of justice and peace in the world, then really you will be true to what the founders of this country stood for. God bless you!”

The full speech can be viewed and heard via the Internet at www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXn-wf5ylgo. May she rest in peace. And may America yet heed her words. Amen.

Respectable Barbarism?

Commentary by John Stonestreet published August 28, 2014, by Breakpoint.org

It’s pretty clear when a worldview is barbaric, because worldviews have feet. They reveal themselves in the real world. We saw it the other day when the Islamic State, or ISIS, terrorist group beheaded American journalist James Foley. ISIS then posted the video for a shocked world to see. Only the most depraved, fanatical person would label such behavior as morally correct.

But what about the respectable barbarism – you know, the kind that wears a suit, gives snappy interviews and carries an advanced degree?

I’m speaking of the famous British atheist Richard Dawkins, who caused quite a stir the other day when he said that it would be immoral not to abort a fetus with Down Syndrome. Yes, you heard that right. Responding on Twitter to a woman who tweeted that she would face “a real ethical dilemma” if she became pregnant with a Down Syndrome baby, Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist, replied: “Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice.”

Fully consistent in his atheistic, utilitarian worldview, Dawkins added, “Suffering should be avoided. [The abortion] cause[s] no suffering. Reduce suffering wherever you can.”

Aside from the fact that he’s wrong on facts – the unborn certainly can feel pain at 20 weeks – he’s also wrong on his assumption that giving birth to a baby with Down Syndrome relegates you –  and the child – to a life of suffering. According to LifeSiteNews, 99% of respondents with Down Syndrome say they are “happy.” Further, 99% of parents say they love their child with Down Syndrome. Only 4% of parents who responded say they regret having the child.

However, whatever we may say about Dawkins’s barbarism, a lot of people agree with him – in fact, over 90% of unborn children with this diagnosis get aborted.

Later, responding to a firestorm of criticism, Dawkins callously pointed out the obvious: “What I was saying simply follows logically from the ordinary pro-choice stance that most of us, I presume, espouse.”

And it goes to show what we say often on Breakpoint – worldview matters. Followed to its logical conclusion, the atheistic worldview says that human life has no inherent meaning or value and is therefore disposable. True to his utilitarian impulses, Dawkins makes a distinction between humans who can “contribute” to society and those who can’t. Those with Down Syndrome, Dawkins decrees, simply are “not enhanced,” and therefore expendable. In fact, he says it’s wrong to let them live.

I’m guessing that Dawkins never met Tim Harris, the owner of Tim’s Place, the amazing restaurant in New Mexico I told you about some months ago. Tim has Down Syndrome.

Dawkins, trapped in his atheistic worldview, doesn’t understand that all humans – including those like Tim – are made in the priceless image of God. And he’ll never see that those with disabilities “pull us away,” in the words of my colleague Stan Guthrie, “from our besetting narcissism.” Sometimes suffering, which Dawkins so abhors, actually makes us better people.

In Dancing with Max, Emily Colson’s great book about her autistic son, Chuck Colson wrote that through the huge trials of Max’s disability, the family came to a “new understanding of what love really is.”

And as we face the pressure to conform to the respectable barbarism of our times, we ought [to] remember what Jesus said about treating those considered “the least of these.” Perhaps He had in mind the infirm, the poor, the prisoner, and the baby with genetic disorders.