Life Advocacy Briefing

One More Week – and Then What?

CONGRESS HAS BEEN BACK IN SESSION JUST UNDER A WEEK, as this is written; as of our publication date (Sept. 15), Congress has one more week of session and then will break all over again. The 2015 fiscal year begins Oct. 1, but it appears the campaign-season recess will begin at the close of this week (around Sept. 19).

Reports coming from the House indicate the Speaker and his leadership team plan to push through, as quickly as possible, a Continuing Resolution to begin FY2015 on the same spending plan as FY2014, but the CR will be temporary. We can certainly live with that plan for the time being, but we join Family Research Council (FRC) president Tony Perkins in his concern that the CR could be too brief.

“Conservatives worry the bill to be debated [this] week will only extend into December,” writes Mr. Perkins in his Sept. 5 Washington Update, “kicking the can into a lame-duck session, where Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) and the Senate would have the opportunity to pile on liberal policies without the concern of facing voters again.” (Appropriations measures – including CRs – are often laden with language limiting or promoting the use of taxpayer funds for policy purposes.)

That is indeed dangerous, and we hope Congressional leaders will take to heart Mr. Perkins’s urging – that the CR be worded to end after the new Congress takes its seats. Let the voters have a say in what spending will be done in their name – and via their taxes – in the coming fiscal year.

Incidentally, for those readers who are exasperated that Congress is again going to appropriate funds via a CR rather than taking up annual appropriations bills in a respectable manner, please be advised: The House has passed seven appropriations bills; the Senate has taken up zero such measures.

Must He?

WITH NO APPROPRIATIONS BILLS EVEN CONSIDERED IN THE SENATE and alarming developments threatening America and her allies from Islamic jihadists, what is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid focusing on in this eye-blink of a session? Well, for one, a Constitutional amendment proposal seeking to put Congress in charge of policing political speech, uprooting our First Amendment freedoms.

But his silly agenda also includes, according to Tony Perkins in his Sept. 5 Washington Update, a “threat” to “reintroduce a flurry of other politically charged bills such as Sen. Patty Murray’s already failed Protect Women’s Health from Corporate Interference Act, a bill the Senate already rejected that would bypass the Hobby Lobby ruling.” His report pertains to S-2578, on which Sen. Reid filed a motion July 16 to reconsider the vote by which the Senate refused to invoke cloture and bring the bill to a vote.

Calls to home-state Senators are in order, requesting that they vote “no” on S-2578 or any similar bill. They may be reached via the Capitol switchboard at 1-202/224-3121.

Wait! It’s a Baby!

MISSOURI LAWMAKERS LAST WEDNESDAY OVERRODE THE VETO of a new law prescribing a 72-hour abortion waiting period. The protection will take effect 30 days after the override vote. Until then, the abortion waiting period is just 24 hours.

The override did not likely surprise Gov. Jay Nixon (D), who appears to be in a sustained battle with the GOP-led Missouri legislature. “After the House voted to override [Mr.] Nixon’s veto by a 117-44 vote,” reports the Associated Press (AP), “senators deployed a rarely used procedural move to shut off prolonged Democratic debate. They completed the veto override by a 23-7 vote, barely getting the required two-thirds majority.”

Yes; the pro-life lawmakers were able to muster a two-thirds vote to protect abortion-vulnerable mothers and their babies. A remarkable achievement in a hot political season. “Before lawmakers convened,” notes the AP report, “scores of abortion opponents gathered for a prayer vigil in the Capitol rotunda, asking that God grant courage and boldness to lawmakers voting to enact the waiting period.”

The AP report repeatedly mentioned that the law has “no exception for cases of rape or incest,” as though the perpetrator of a sex crime ought to have the right to secure an abortion on his victim before the crime becomes evident. Good for Missouri!

Thank You, Governor, for Standing for Life & Family

MAINE’s PRO-LIFE GOVERNOR, Paul LePage (R), is having a tough time securing re-election this November, but he is speaking out anyway on a family controversy threatening the life of a year-old baby. LifeSiteNews.com describes Gov. LePage as “one of the nation’s most outspoken governors.”

The current controversy involves little Aleah Peaslee, who suffered injuries last December, reports Dustin Siggins for LifeSiteNews, citing Fox News as source, when her own father “allegedly shook her.” The family, at the time, signed a Do-Not-Resuscitate order, which has reached near-standard practice status in the field of medical emergencies. When the little girl regained consciousness “shortly thereafter,” writes Mr. Siggins, “the family tried to rescind the order.”

Enter state child welfare officials, who “have temporary custody of [Aleah] because of the alleged abuse.” These fine bureaucrats told a judge, reports Mr. Siggins, “that neither parent is able to make the decisions necessary for the child’s welfare.” But her mother evidently is, and she has filed suit with the state supreme court seeking to have her rights as a parent upheld.

Gov. LePage – bless him – “has said that he will stand with [the mother] to get her daughter back.

“‘This case is disturbing and is not reflective of my administration’s position that a parent who is the legal guardian of their child should have final say in medical decisions about life-sustaining treatment,’ said [Gov.] LePage” in the LifeSiteNews report. “‘Unless a parent is deemed unfit and parental rights are severed, the state should not override a parent’s right to make medical decisions for their own child.’”

One for the Good Guys!

PRO-LIFE ACTIVISTS IN OHIO SCORED A MAJOR VICTORY early this month with the discovery that a father-son abortionist team have decided to stop committing surgical abortions at any of their Columbus sites.

The abortion practice of Drs. Mervyn and Milroy Samuel has “faced difficulties,” writes Dustin Siggins of LifeSiteNews.com, pursuant to a 2012 official investigation which “found rusted and dirty IV equipment, improperly sterilized surgical tools, expired medications and lax infection control standards at Complete Healthcare for Women. Likewise,” notes Mr. Siggins, “in 2010 and 2012, women given abortions at the clinic required hospital care, and Operation Rescue discovered OSHA violations had garnered thousands in fines for the location.”

But their troubles have not been limited to interactions with state inspectors. The executive director of a pro-life group called Created Equal told LifeSiteNews his group is “‘very gratified that after years of pleading with these men, they have chosen to cease killing babies. Last summer,’” said Mark Harrington, “‘we began post-carding the neighborhoods of their abortion mill and their homes as part of our Killers Among Us project. … Recently we pressured St. Ann’s and Mt. Carmel East Hospital to revoke their admitting privileges. Those efforts, combined with the inability of many Ohio abortion mills to meet state safety laws, [have] led to this decision.

“‘This is a victory for all the pro-life activists in Columbus,’” said Mr. Harrington in the LifeSiteNews report, “‘who remained vigilant over these many years.’”

Stop Glorifying the Baby Butchers!

AMERICAN LIFE LEAGUE (A.L.L.) IS PRESSING A CAMPAIGN to urge the Public Broadcasting “Service” not to continue showing the abortionist-glorifying “documentary” PBS calls After Tiller.

A.L.L. vice president Jim Sedlak told Charlie Butts of OneNewsNow.com that “many (PBS) outlets are being cautious about airing the film. ‘The indications show the program being aired in only about 48% of the 50 major markets around the country,’ [Mr.] Sedlak says,” reports Mr. Butts. “‘And in many areas where it was shown, it was shown late at night.’”

The hitch: “PBS is live-streaming the video on its Point of View segment” via the Internet, Mr. Butts reports, an action which Mr. Sedlak is seeking to stop. He “encourages people to contact the network again,” writes Mr. Butts, “to bring that to a halt.” Calls from Congressional offices would be particularly useful, since Members of the US House and Senate get to vote on PBS funding.

Readers will find below a commentary written by a woman who specializes in counseling parents who have subjected their own children to a late-term abortion which they now regret. She takes a dim view of both America’s late-term abortionists and of the PBS “documentary” which exalts them at our taxpayer expense.

Late-Term Abortionists: Deluded?

First-person commentary written by counselor Theresa Bonopartis & posted on the website www.aleteia.org.

“You have to lie to yourself and everyone else to be able to abort viable babies for a living.” – Theresa Bonopartis

I did not watch the PBS documentary After Tiller celebrating the late-term abortionist George Tiller that aired on September 1st. In my work with couples who aborted late-term pregnancies due to an adverse diagnosis, some of whom went to Tiller’s clinic, I’ve had a front row seat to the “After” of those who went to Tiller.

I will never forget the first time I saw one of the pictures he took of a baby he had just killed, all dressed up and placed in her mother’s arms so that pictures could be taken with her parents, mimicking the normalcy of post-birth family photos. He was also known to “baptize” these deceased children. It struck me as surreal that anyone could legally kill viable children (and some nearly full-term) for a living. Perhaps he really believed that he was doing good, but what a travesty it is to pretend that acts of barbarism, beyond the bounds of even permissive moral norms, is somehow “normal.”

One of Tiller’s patients with whom I worked shared this observation with me: “One of the things that needed to be addressed once we returned home was the burial of our daughter. Our baby was cremated and her ashes given to us. Imagine, we saw and held our daughter whom we aborted, and then were given her ashes! In retrospect, I see how the clinic spent so much effort in making what happened appear normal, but as time goes by we saw more and more how it is anything but normal. The clinic accomplishes this, in part, by taking pictures of the babies and making arrangements for burial. It is as if these deaths were a natural occurrence and the parents need to grieve and we had no part in the death.”

Say what you want, George Tiller was no hero.

It is plain to see that late-term abortionist Dr. Susan Robinson thinks of herself as a hero as well. Speaking of her participation in the documentary, she says: “Every woman is the world’s expert on her own life – and what is right for her – and you can’t make ethical judgments for other people. I love this film because people walk out saying: ‘I always thought late-abortion was a terrible thing, but wow, it’s a lot more complicated than I thought.’”

If anyone gets that impression after seeing the film, it can only be because it is filled with lies.

Most couples given adverse diagnoses are never offered alternatives to abortion and report that they felt pressured into the decision by their OB or genetic specialist. In the traumatic situation of learning that their unborn child – whom they expected to be healthy and “perfect” in every way – [is likely disabled], parents are given little time to recover from the shock and explore other options.

They are never told of the resources that are available to them to help them deliver their children and love them as long as they live. Over 200 perinatal hospices (http://perinatalhospice.org) have been established in hospitals, hospices and clinics, in over 40 states in the United States, to offer palliative care to babies who are not likely to survive long after birth and offer support to their families.

When parents believe that their circumstances would prevent their being able to care for a child with nonfatal health problems, there are any number of adoption agencies specializing in the adoption of babies and children with special needs. …

More than once, couples have told me about the “guilt trips” the medical community and even family members tried to lay on them. They were told that they were selfish for even considering bringing their child to term, with comments like these: “If something happens to you ‘it’ will be put in a home and abused.” Or, “You do not want your child to suffer, do you?” The irony of course is that killing these unborn babies in utero absolutely causes them to suffer. Or this, “What about your other children? It is selfish to think of having this baby.”

We are made to believe that late-term abortions are needed because of concerns over the mother’s health. What most people don’t realize is that “mental health,” and not any physical reason, is nearly always given to justify the abortion.

What also perplexes me is that, although Susan Robinson surely uses mental health as a reason to abort, she emphatically denies the impact of the abortion itself on the mental health of women. She says, “The link between abortion and mental illness is non-existent – it’s all based on junk science. These are the same people who believe the earth is flat.”

Really? Where is her compassion for the countless couples who are suffering because of a late-term abortion? How is it that she thinks “mental anguish” justifies having a baby aborted, but that suffering because you participated in the death of your own child is “junk science”?

The mother of an unborn child whom Dr. Tiller killed in the last trimester confirmed the error of this thinking: “The catch phrase for an abortion this late in pregnancy is ‘health of the mother.’ What most people do not realize is that this includes mental health, so if a mom says she is depressed or stressed, she is free to abort. Thinking back, I never felt my health, mental or physical, was in jeopardy. Moreover, I would venture to say that my mental health was essentially threatened after the abortion. Talk about irony!”

Sadly, Susan Robinson does not care about the experiences of this woman or others who discovered only after a late-term abortion that they had been manipulated and lied to by the industry.

“Burying my daughter was a shameful experience. It is so hard to grieve for your child when you consciously chose to end her life. I felt dishonest. I perceived myself as a phony, a fake. There was a tape playing in my head that kept reminding me that I didn’t deserve the sympathy I was getting. I felt unworthy of such sentiments. I kept thinking, ‘Are these people crazy? I killed my baby!’ When I wasn’t chastising myself, I would try to allow all the good wishes and sentiments of others [to] legitimize what I had done. I could fool myself for a while, but not forever. I lived with that guilt and shame for a long time.”

Normalizing the abnormal works only for a while. Late-term abortion providers like Susan Robinson may convince themselves and others to stay in denial about their experience, but sooner or later the stark truth of what they have done surfaces, and all the documentaries in the world cannot change that.

The good news is there is healing, and while these couples will always grieve the loss of their child, they can also come to a place of peace once they understand the dynamics of what happened and place themselves in the presence of our merciful God.

Tiller and Robinson heroes? I think not. Late-term abortionists are just delusional people who convinced themselves that killing viable children is a worthy way to make a living. May they face the truth of what they’re doing and seek the Lord’s mercy.