Life Advocacy Briefing

The Choice: Absolutism or Obfuscation

THOUGH ABORTION ISSUES HAVE NOT TAKEN CENTER STAGE in the Presidential contests, Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier did take the trouble last week to pin both the Democratic Party contenders during a half-hour-long interview with each, putting them – more or less – on the record.

Asked whether there were “any limits to abortion that he could support,” writes Gary Bauer in his March 8 End-of-Day Memo for his Campaign for Working Families subscribers, Vermont Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders “answered, ‘I am very strongly pro-choice. That’s a decision to be made by the woman, her physician and her family. That’s my view.’ In other words,” writes Mr. Bauer, “Sen. Sanders supports unlimited abortions during all nine months of pregnancy.

“Hillary Clinton tried to dodge the question,” writes Mr. Bauer, “with a long-winded response. But she made it clear that she opposes the commonsense Texas laws regulating health and safety standards at abortion clinics, and she opposes legislation in Congress to ban late-term abortions.

“She finally suggested that she might support some restrictions,” Mr. Bauer notes, “‘so long as there are exceptions for the life and health of the mother.’”

That “health-of-the-mother” line is what is critical here, lest any American be fooled. In the Doe v. Bolton companion case to Roe v Wade, also handed down on Jan. 22, 1973, the Supreme Court opened the “health” loophole by subjecting the legality of abortion – case by case – to the “medical judgment” of the attending “physician” [read: abortionist himself]. In the most critical paragraph of the majority opinion, the Court declared: “We agree with the District Court … that the medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors – physical, emotional, psychological, familial and the woman’s age – relevant to the well-being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health. This allows the attending physician the room he needs to make his best medical judgment. And it is room that operates for the benefit, not the disadvantage, of the pregnant woman.”

It is the Doe case which rendered useless any attempt to prosecute any abortionist for any abortion where a politician or statute pretends to outlaw abortion “except to save the life or health of the woman.” As extreme as Roe was – and is, so long as it is allowed to stand – it is the two cases together which gave America abortion-on-demand through the first nine months of a baby’s life, and the “health-of-the-mother” line continues 43 years into this atrocity, to be used by many politicians to deceive voters into thinking they take a reasonable approach.

Does Anyone Smell Criminal Conspiracy?

A CALIFORNIA PLANNED PARENTHOOD ABORTIONIST DIVULGED, on a newly released undercover video produced by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), that PP’s Orange & San Bernardino Counties affiliate (PPOSBC) “alters the abortion procedure,” reports Ben Johnson for LifeSiteNews.com, “sometimes delivers children ‘intact’ and provides fetal organs to a company that charges $750 for babies’ brains.””

The procedure described by “Dr.” Jennifer Russo, PPOSBC medical director and an up-to-24-weeks abortionist, “may be the partial-birth abortion procedure,” writes Mr. Johnson, “a federal felony punishable by two years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

“When CMP Project Lead David Daleiden asks [Ms.] Russo about whether her Planned Parenthood affiliate performs a similar abortion procedure,” writes Mr. Johnson, “[Ms.] Russo affirms, ‘Yeah, we like to do that, too.’”

We must wonder, upon learning through the video interview that PPOSBC abortionists, reports Mr. Johnson, “are not injecting unborn children with Digoxin, a poison intended to ‘assure fetal demise’ before the child’s removal from the womb,” whether the well-developed babies being aborted there are born alive and then dissected for their parts.

Though Ms. Russo tells the CMP team “her abortionists are trained to try to avoid delivering a child intact,” reports LifeSiteNews, “‘It happens sometimes. It’s pretty rare,’ she adds.” It is also likely a violation of the federal Born-Alive Infant Protection Act, if the delivered-intact baby is sacrificed after birth rather than treated and saved.

“Once the aborted child has been removed – intact or not,” writes Mr. Johnson, the PPOSBC medical director “says the Planned Parenthood affiliate works with two local biologics companies, DaVinci Biosciences LLC and its sister company, DV Biologics LLC, located in Yorba Linda, California. ‘They take the whole specimen,’” says the medical director interviewed by CMP, reports LifeSiteNews.

“Invoices CMP produces show DaVinci charging $350 for a fetal liver,” writes Mr. Johnson, “500 for fetal thymus and $750 for an aborted baby’s brain.” Since the figures given by PP’s medical director Deborah Nucatola, in an earlier CMP interview, indicate “the average asking price at abortion facilities for aborted tissue and organ samples was $30 to $100,” writes Mr. Johnson, DaVinci appears to be netting “a hefty profit margin. “The sale or purchase of human fetal tissue for ‘valuable consideration’,” notes LifeSiteNews, “is a federal felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $500,000.”

The mutually beneficial partnership between PPOSBC and the DaVinci companies has been going on, reports Mr. Johnson, “since at least 2008. PPOSBC’s 2008-2009 annual report,” he notes, “lists DaVinci Biosciences as a major financial donor, having given the affiliate between $1,000 and $2,499 that year.”

CMP released the video last Tuesday, reports Mr. Johnson, “just hours before a Select Panel of the House of Representatives [was to] hold its first hearings on the issue of bioethics and human organ trafficking and the Supreme Court [would] hear oral arguments in its first major case dealing with abortion in more than a decade.

“‘As the Supreme Court prepares to hear a landmark abortion business regulation case,’” said CMP’s David Daleiden, quoted by LifeSiteNews, “‘Planned Parenthood’s baby parts scheme sends an urgent message about the critical need for states to have strong regulatory authority over the abortion industry.’” Not only to have enacted such authority but then, through an honest and earnest executive branch, to exercise it regularly.

“‘Although Planned Parenthood’s political and PR cronies work overtime to cover up the revelations of its illicit baby parts trade,’” Mr. Daleiden said, quoted by Mr. Johnson, “‘Planned Parenthood’s interstate criminal scheme to harvest and sell aborted baby parts continues without any transparency or accountability. The fact that a community like Orange County, California, is open for business for baby body parts makes clear the need for law enforcement and elected officials to hold Planned Parenthood accountable.’” Amen.

The undercover videos exposing Planned Parenthood’s baby-parts-trafficking scheme can be viewed on the Internet at www.centerformedicalprogress.org where donations can also be made to continue the investigators’ work.

New Front in the Fight

SOME 50 MEMBERS OF THE U.S. HOUSE have taken up the urgent need to combat the growing demand of the abortion cartel to use fear of the Zika virus as an excuse to boost the abortion industry.

Led by Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-TX), the lawmakers have sent a letter to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNCHR) “expressing concern,” reports the Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues (PNCI), “for the High Commissioner’s recent statement: ‘Upholding women’s human rights essential to Zika response.’” Discerning the underlying meaning in the phrase “women’s human rights,” the Congressmen smell a bid to pressure member-states of the United Nations to decriminalize abortion; most countries in the world have strict laws against the killing of developing human babies in the womb.

“The Members of Congress emphasized the need,” reports PNCI, “for governments to determine the best policies on how to stop the spread of the [Zika] virus and opposed the promotion of abortion generated by an unconfirmed link to microcephaly in unborn children.

“‘We believe the Zika virus should be a time for thoughtful deliberation,’” the letter reads, as quoted by PNCI, “‘as local and national governments determine the best policies to curb the spread of this disease. It should not be an occasion to exploit a genuine public health crisis to advance a political agenda to overturn laws of many nations protective of life at all stages of development. Yet advocates for abortion,’” writes Rep. Farenthold, joined by 49 colleagues, “‘have seized upon the fear surrounding this new disease to push a radical pro-abortion agenda, especially in parts of the world that have laws that affirm the basic human rights of unborn children.’”

The Zika virus appears to have originated in South America, where most nations enforce strict laws defining abortion as the criminal act which it surely is.

Launching the Probe

March 3, 2016, commentary by Family Research Council president Tony Perkins in his Washington Update

After Super Tuesday [March 1], it was defensive Wednesday for abortion groups like Planned Parenthood. On one side of the street, the Supreme Court was debating common-sense clinic regulations – and on the other, a panel of House Members was getting to the bottom of Planned Parenthood’s black market of baby body parts. Both events hold tremendous sway in the future of the abortion business, which has been under heavy scrutiny since last year when undercover videos caught the industry’s own joking about the dark world of baby organ harvesting. “There is something going on,” said Select Investigative Panel Chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), “something that deserves investigating and that demands our best moral and ethical thinking.”

In the panel’s first hearing, six witnesses (two invited by Democrats and four by Republicans) talked about everything from futility of fetal tissue research to the exploitation of women. Casting doubt on the need for Planned Parenthood’s grisly side business, Kathleen Schmainda pointed out, “It needs to be made clear that no current medical treatments exist that have required using fetal tissues for their discovery or development … There has never been a scientific reason requiring fetal cell lines for vaccine development.”

One Democratic witness, Dr. Lawrence Goldstein, insisted he followed the law but admitted that there is a financial side to tissue donation. The Center for Medical Progress was especially interested in his testimony, since he was a frequent customer of Planned Parenthood’s. In a statement before the hearing, CMP urged the panel to “ask Dr. Goldstein the hard questions about how much money he gave Planned Parenthood in exchange for aborted babies’ brains and what Planned Parenthood may have done to their abortion process to accommodate his orders.”

The GOP brought up some of the more disturbing documents they found through their investigation, including an e-mail where a researcher specifies his/her need for a “first-trimester human embryo, preferably around eight weeks and up to 10 weeks gestation.”  Rep. Diane Black (R-TN) was disgusted by the chain. “This is not dignity. This is not respect for human life,” she said. “I want to ask the panelists: have we reached a society where there effectively is an Amazon.com for human parts, including entire babies?”

Hopefully, that’s a question the panel will be able to answer as it continues its work. In the meantime, we applaud the House for placing a priority on human dignity – not a price on it, as Planned Parenthood has done.

So Much at Stake

March 7, 2016, BreakPoint commentary by John Stonestreet

The battle over abortion has returned to the Supreme Court, and there’s one thing we should all be doing right now: Praying!

In 1973, Roe v. Wade paved the way for more than 50 million legal abortions. But do you know what happened in 1992? In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Supreme Court held that “the State may enact regulations to further the health or safety of a woman seeking an abortion, but may not impose unnecessary health regulations that present a substantial obstacle to a woman seeking an abortion.”

In the wake of Casey, many states have passed laws which restrict abortion and protect women’s health. The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute says that 15 years ago, only 13 states had four or five restrictions on the books, compared to today with 27 states. And many have been passed in just the last few years.

These legal restrictions – along with other factors, like the use of ultrasound – have saved babies’ lives. According to The Atlantic: “Since 1990, the rate of abortions has fallen by more than a third, and the raw number of abortions has fallen by more than half.”

And that doesn’t sit well with pro-abortion forces, especially those who profit from the gruesome practice. In 2013, a common-sense Texas law requiring abortion clinics to maintain hospital admitting privileges and to meet the same health and safety standards as other facilities performing outpatient surgery was challenged. This latest abortion case is called Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. Oral arguments were presented before the high court last week, with a decision expected in June. It’s the biggest abortion case in a quarter-century.

With the recent, untimely death of the conservative, pro-life Antonin Scalia, the court is split now between four liberal justices, three conservatives, and swing vote Anthony Kennedy.

The plaintiffs, who claim to be about protecting “women’s health,” and who insist abortion is an essential medical practice, are now in the awkward position of saying that abortion clinics shouldn’t be subject to the same oversight as other medical clinics. They claim the law adds rules that are “medically unnecessary” to abortion, but still medically necessary to all other medical practices.

Since the law went into effect, the number of Texas abortion mills has been cut in half, with another ten expected to close if the law is fully implemented.

Roger Severino, director of Heritage Foundation’s DeVos Center for Religion & Civil Society, says “this case is about the ability of Texas to increase the health and safety standards at abortion clinics. The abortion industry should not get a special exemption, and Texas is well within its rights to act.” We need only remember Kermit Gosnell’s grisly house of horrors in Philadelphia. No regulation or oversight there meant that for 30 years his clinic received less oversight than the local ice cream parlor. And mothers, not to mention unborn and born children, died because of it.

There are multiple scenarios that could play out with the Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt case. The U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, has already upheld the law, so the only way for similar laws in all 50 states to be struck down is for today’s eight-member court to vote 5-3 to overturn all or part of it. A 5-3 vote the other way, of course, would validate such laws across the nation. A 4-4 split would uphold the law, but only for Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Or the justices could send the case back to the Court of Appeals, seeking more evidence of a link between the law and clinic closures. Finally, they could hold the case until next term when a ninth justice is seated. There are lots of options!

So please right now, pray for the right decision in the case of Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. Because, as we know, Jesus loves allthe children, and the women, of the world.