Life Advocacy Briefing

We Need to Miss a Week

THE LAST WEEK IN JUNE is not an ideal time for a “break,” from the standpoint of news, but our editor is facing an interstate move during our writing and production days, so we ask our readers to excuse our break next week, hoping to be back to you during the Independence Day observance. We will appreciate your prayers as we undertake this move.

Holding Our Breath

IT COULD HAPPEN ANY DAY NOW. The US Supreme Court is expected imminently to hand down a ruling – of some sort – in the lawsuit challenging the major Texas legislation which has already dramatically reduced the reach of the abortion industry in the major southwestern state.

Since the law has been upheld at lower judicial levels, a 4-to-4 tie – entirely possible since the passing of the late Associate Justice Antonin Scalia – would be a victory for the Texas law, though such a deadlock would not establish a precedent for abortion legislation in other states.

While we await the Court’s ruling, we urge our readers to pray that Justice Anthony Kennedy is joining Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito as well as Chief Justice John Roberts, all three of whom are expected to uphold the Texas law. “The Court,” notes Reuters writer Lawrence Hurley, “has not issued a major abortion-related ruling since 2007.”

Major features of this law include a requirement that abortionists have hospital admitting privileges at a facility within 30 miles of the abortuary, a provision currently in effect which has been responsible for the shuttering of several chop-shops whose “doctors” could not achieve such professional affiliation.

A further provision, not yet enforceable until the Court acts, “requires clinics,” writes Mr. Hurley, “to have costly hospital-grade facilities including extensive standards for such attributes as corridor width, room size, floor tiles and the swinging motion of doors” – in other words, the law subjects abortuaries to health-and-safety standards required of other Texas healthcare facilities.

“If the Court leaves in place the lower-court ruling upholding the Texas law,” writes Mr. Hurley, “the number of abortion clinics in the state would drop from the current 19 to nine, abortion providers said. Texas had 41 abortion clinics when the law was passed,” demonstrating the substandard character of the average abortion business.

The Reuters writer quotes one of Texas’s abortionists, Bhavik Kumar, “who performs abortions at two Texas Whole Women’s Health clinics,” saying, “‘It’s overwhelming for me when I think what could happen if it’s not a favorable decision’” for the abortion industry. “‘I try not to think about it every minute of every day.’”

Good First Step

PRO-LIFE HERO DAVID DALEIDEN RECEIVED A MEASURE OF JUSTICE last week, when Judge Diane Bull dismissed one of the charges brought against him by a Houston grand jury.

Mr. Daleiden is the investigator who released undercover videos nearly a year ago documenting Planned Parenthood’s involvement in baby-body-parts trafficking. A politically motivated prosecutor talked a grand jury – convened to investigate Planned Parenthood – into turning its power instead against Mr. Daleiden and charging him with crimes in his undercover investigation methods.

The dismissed charge was a misdemeanor; Mr. Daleiden’s attorneys continue to seek dismissal of the felony indictment concocted against him as well. We publish at the close of this Life Advocacy Briefing the statement issued by Mr. Daleiden’s Center for Medical Progress in response to Judge Bull’s action last week.

Mrs. Clinton Pledges Allegiance to Planned Parenthood

JUST IN CASE ANY LIVING SOUL HAD SOMEHOW MISSED Democratic Presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s commitment to abortion and even to the scandal-ridden Planned Parenthood, the former New York Senator gave a speech last week in which, reports LifeSiteNews.com, she “said her historic Presidential campaign ‘belongs to’ Planned Parenthood ‘staff’ and abortionists.

“‘I’m grateful to the entire Planned Parenthood family. You made this campaign your own,’” she said during “a speech before the Planned Parenthood Action Fund in Washington, DC,” on June 10, quoted from the LifeSiteNews report. PPAF is the money and muscle arm of the abortion cartel’s political involvement and is a major source of campaign funding for candidates who advocate death by “choice.” And PPAF endorsed Mrs. Clinton in January, pledging, reports LifeSiteNews, “up to $30 million in campaign spending, double what the organization spent in 2012, itself a record-breaking year. …

“After specifically referencing the 1,000 volunteers who showed up for a Planned Parenthood training event in Pittsburgh last month,” she said her campaign “‘belongs to the staff, the donors and to the providers,’” specifically mentioning, reports LifeSiteNews, “Dr. Amna Dermish, an abortionist in Texas who was caught on video laughing as she said that removing a baby’s skull and brain intact is a goal she would ‘strive for.’”

And the radical abortion advocate “singled out Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards,” reports LifeSiteNews, “making a muffled reference to the mounting difficulties she faces as Planned Parenthood has become the center of multiple state and federal investigations into possible fetal organ trafficking. ‘Cecile really is the definition of grace under pressure,’ [Mrs.] Clinton said,” reports LifeSiteNews, “adding that [Ms.] Richards had proved that ‘particularly over the last few years.’ She then pledged to march lockstep with the nation’s largest abortion provider.”

But Mrs. Clinton moved on to actual political issues involving abortion, “blast[ing] ‘cruel, medically unnecessary waiting periods,’” reports LifeSiteNews, and she “said that abortion-minded women must ‘walk past angry protesters to’ obtain an abortion. ‘It is worth saying again,’” she said, quoted by LifeSiteNews: “‘Defending women’s health means defending access to abortion, not just in theory but in reality.’” She went on, according to the pro-life news source, to propose “that laws protecting taxpayers from funding abortion-on-demand be repealed, especially since it makes abortion ‘nearly impossible’ for poor women, specifically ‘women of color.’”

She urged, “‘We need to defend Planned Parenthood against partisan attacks. … If right-wing politicians actually cared as much about protecting women’s health as they say they do,’” declared Mrs. Clinton, quoted by LifeSiteNews, “‘they’d join me in calling for more federal funding for Planned Parenthood.’” Then her campaign, later that afternoon, “doubled down on her call for taxpayer-funded abortion,” using that theme in a Twitter blast, according to LifeSiteNews.

Voices of Dissent & Reason

THOUGH HILLARY CLINTON & HER MEDIA ALLIES ARE EMPHASIZING her “historic achievement” in capturing likely-nominee status in a major political party’s Presidential sweepstakes, a collection of lady leaders has released a statement documenting their opposition – and that of the millions of American women in whose cause they lead – to a candidacy so mired in the pit of decriminalized abortion.

The statement, issued soon after Mrs. Clinton’s celebration of abortion at the Washington event hosted by Planned Parenthood Action Fund, reported above, was signed by Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America, Arina Grossu of Family Research Council, Marjorie Dannenfelser of Susan B. Anthony List, Jeanne Mancini of March for Life, Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America, Meg McDonnell & Helen Alvare of Women Speak for Themselves, Catherine Glenn Foster of Sound Legal, former Americans United for Life president Charmaine Yoest, Lila Rose of Live Action and Nancy Tanner of Silent No More.

Here is the text of the statement: “As female leaders of the pro-life movement who represent millions of women of all ages, we cannot celebrate this first nomination of a woman for the office of the US President by a major political party because of Hillary Clinton’s radical pro-abortion record and alliance with the abortion lobby. The unholy alliance between Clinton and Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion chain, is disgraceful.

“Planned Parenthood receives over $500 million in taxpayer money annually, then funnels tens of millions of dollars to candidates like Clinton to further its agenda and increase its bottom line. They both profit from the abortion industry in a self-serving cycle. Instead of empowering women, Clinton and Planned Parenthood lie to women, betray women and sell out women and children, all in the name of profit. Hillary Clinton and Planned Parenthood do not represent us.”

Closed-Minded Judge?

THE STATE OF INDIANA IS BRACING for a late-June ruling in a federal lawsuit challenging the new state law barring abortions “sought because of a fetus’s genetic abnormalities,” reports the Chicago Tribune. The lawsuit was brought in May by Planned Parenthood of Indiana & Kentucky, seeking to prevent the law from taking effect July 1. Remarks by the federal judge hearing the case suggest Planned Parenthood might win this one, at least at the district level where she rules.

Judge Tanya Walton Pratt “said during [last] Tuesday’s hearing on the injunction request that it appeared clear the new law would invade the privacy of some women,” reports the Tribune, “by preventing them from getting an abortion.” Judge Pratt is an Obama appointee, nominated by then-Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), and she is the same judge, according to an Associated Press report by Rick Callahan, “who in 2011 ruled against an Indiana law that would have prohibited entities that perform abortions from obtaining state funding.”

In addition to babies diagnosed in the womb with genetic “abnormalities, such as Down syndrome,” notes the Tribune, also protected by the law are babies targeted because of their “race, sex or ancestry.”

Judge Walton challenged the new law in questioning the state’s Solicitor General, Thomas Fisher: “‘How can it be described,’” she asked, quoted by the Tribune, “‘as anything but a prohibition on the right to an abortion?’” He replied that the new law “is a response to DNA testing advances that permit fetuses to be screened for genetic defects or to determine their sex,” reports the Tribune. “He said the state has an interest in ‘preventing discrimination’ against fetuses slated for abortion based on such test results,” a rather obvious point, one might think, to anyone not blinded by ideology. He characterized “the case before [Judge] Pratt ‘[as] about understanding the limits’ of the US Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision,” reports the Tribune, “and its 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey ruling which found states generally can regulate abortion unless doing so places an undue burden on women.”

In addition to the genetic discrimination lawsuit, Planned Parenthood has also filed a lawsuit challenging the new law’s requirement, reports the Tribune, “that aborted fetuses be disposed of through burial or cremation.” Planned Parenthood, according to its ACLU mouthpiece, “currently disposes of aborted fetuses by incineration,” reports the Tribune. The lawyer “said aborted fetuses are not considered human beings, and they should be destroyed in the same manner by which an amputated arm or other tissue removed through surgery is destroyed.”

The fetal remains disposal law is being challenged also by Indiana University, reports the Tribune, “which argues that it would prevent its scientists from acquiring fetal tissue for scientific research and sharing it with other institutions.” Well, yes. And?

Instilling Truth

OKLAHOMA GOV. MARY FALLIN (R) HAS SIGNED legislation requiring the state’s Health Dept. “to develop informational material,” reports KFOR-TV, “‘for the purpose of achieving an abortion-free society.’”

The Humanity of the Unborn Child Act “authorizes the health department to develop a public information campaign,” reports KFOR, “about the developmental stages of a fetus and alternatives to abortion. It also,” notes the television station’s website story, “authorizes an optional instructional program for students.”

The new law, scheduled to take effect Nov. 1, also “states that information should be available for prenatal health care,” reports KFOR, “but ‘no program or state employee may refer any student to a medical facility or any provider for the performance of abortion.’”

Adult Stem Cells Aid Stroke Victims

ANOTHER NOTEWORTHY ADVANCE IN STEMCELL THERAPY has been announced by researchers at Stanford University.

Scientists at Stanford’s School of Medicine, reports LifeSiteNews.com, “have successfully treated stroke victims with donated adult stem cells, restoring the use of legs and arms rendered useless by the loss of brain function.”

The test provided treatment to some 18 stroke patients whom lead researcher Gary Steinberg “described … as ‘people who had a hard time moving their arm or leg or walking. People for whom we have no real treatment.’ Each of the test subjects,” notes LifeSiteNews, “had experienced their stroke at least six months prior. Ordinarily, after six months there is no hope of recovery from stroke, so any improvements in the test subjects could be ascribed to the stemcell treatment rather than any natural recovery.

“‘But after the injections we saw improvement in all 18 patients as a group, within a month,’ [Mr.] Steinberg reported, according to the university release” quoted by LifeSiteNews. “‘Within days some were lifting their arms over their head. Lifting their legs off their bed. Walking, when they hadn’t in months or years. The results,’” he said, “‘were very exciting.’”

Results, on the other hand, from the much-vaunted “research” for therapies derived from stem cells harvested from embryonic boys and girls continue to be elusive – indeed, non-existent.

Notable Quote

A comment posted on Twitter by Planned Parenthood, quoted in a June 13 Internet blog column by Ryan Bomberger on motives behind the Orlando nightclub massacre, reprinted here: “Islam doesn’t foment the violence alleged gunman Omar Mateen enacted, toxic masculinity & a global culture of imperialist homophobia does.”

The Beginning of Justice

Statement of Center for Medical Progress in response to dismissal of misdemeanor charge against David Daleiden

Judge Diane Bull’s swift dismissal of the bogus charge against CMP founder David Daleiden of trafficking human organs is the latest confirmation that the indictments from a runaway grand jury in Houston were a politically motivated sham all along. In finding that the indictment was void on its face, Judge Bull’s ruling directly contradicts the District Attorney’s argument that the indictment was valid despite the DA’s collusion with Planned Parenthood.

The dismissal of the first indictment today sends a strong message to Planned Parenthood and their political cronies that colluding to suppress the First Amendment rights of citizen journalists will never work.

The Center for Medical Progress follows all applicable laws in the course of its investigative journalism work, and as more details about Planned Parenthood’s contracts for aborted baby parts come to light, it’s clear that Planned Parenthood and their business partners like StemExpress are the ones who are guilty of trafficking in human body parts.

Planned Parenthood got caught selling aborted baby parts for profit, and now they’re suing me to try to shut me up, bury the videos and pretend like this all never happened. No matter what, Planned Parenthood can never erase the video admissions of their senior level leadership, now captured forever on camera for all the world to see.