Life Advocacy Briefing

Uncertain Schedule

THOUGH WE PLAN TO PUBLISH LIFE ADVOCACY BRIEFING throughout the Congressional recess, which ends just after Labor Day, we are conscious that some upcoming travel plans on the part of our editor might complicate such plans. Expect our weekly news bulletin to arrive on the normal schedule, but please forgive us and do not be surprised if one week we end up suspending publication briefly without notice. Should that occur, please do expect us to return the following week.

Beginning the Drumbeat?

NOW THAT THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY HAS OFFICIALLY EMBRACED its Presidential nominee’s call for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment in order to compel Americans to fund abortion with our tax dollars, the media are beginning to notice a bill filed July 8, 2015, by Rep. Barbara Lee, along with 119 co-sponsors. The left-wing Democratic lawmaker calls her bill the “Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance Act of 2015.”

The topic of an Associated Press (AP) story on Aug. 16, 2016 – written as though the legislation is fresh off the sketchbook of the Democratic Platform Committee – HR-2972 is highly unlikely to see action in a GOP-dominated House. But its introduction and now its hyping by the media could lay the groundwork for chipping away at the venerable Hyde Amendment, which has protected taxpayers and babies since the mid-’70s.

Though we do not – yet – counsel calls or visits to lawmakers, generally, over this could-be developing issue, we do consider it prudent for voters to take a look at the wording of the official Congressional Record summary description of the proposal and, certainly before voting, check the co-sponsor list.

Readers may find the bill’s co-sponsor list at the close of this Life Advocacy Briefing. And here is the description, transcribed from the Congress.gov website’s listing of HR-2972:

“This bill requires the federal government (1) to ensure coverage for abortion care in public health insurance programs including Medicaid, Medicare and the Children’s Health Insurance Program; (2) as an employer or health plan sponsor, to ensure coverage for abortion care for participants and beneficiaries; and (3) as  provider of health services, to ensure that abortion care is made available to individuals who are eligible to receive services in its own facilities or in facilities with which it contracts to provide medical care.

“The federal government may not prohibit, restrict or otherwise inhibit insurance coverage of abortion care by state or local governments or by private health plans. State and local governments may not prohibit, restrict or otherwise inhibit coverage of abortion care by private health plans.

“The bill expresses the sense of Congress that: (1) the federal government, acting in its capacity as an insurer, employer or healthcare provider, should serve as a model for the nation to ensure coverage of abortion care; and (2) restrictions on coverage of abortion care in the private insurance market must end.”

Far more than the repeal of “Hyde,” as extreme as even that would be.

University Workers Join Planned Parenthood in Suing David Daleiden

EMPLOYEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON SEEM WORRIED about David Daleiden, founder of the Center for Medical Progress and the citizen journalist whose CMP last year began releasing undercover videos implicating Planned Parenthood – and other baby-body-parts traffickers – in scandal.

It seems the young crusader filed a public records request in February with the University of Washington, seeking information about the research center’s use of aborted baby parts, which he uncovered in his probe. So, according to a news release from the Life Legal Defense Foundation, “employees of Planned Parenthood and other abortion facilities, who sold fetal tissue, and … employees of the University of Washington (UW) and other laboratories who purchased the parts of aborted babies” have filed a lawsuit against Mr. Daleiden and the University of Washington, seeking to block the release of public records to Mr. Daleiden and to prevent him from disclosing any such records he might uncover.

“Inexplicably, UW waited a full five months,” notes the law firm’s release, “to notify Planned Parenthood and the other parties that the records would be released this week. Planned Parenthood immediately filed the class action lawsuit,” according to the release, “to prevent [Mr.] Daleiden from receiving the information, citing, among other things, Planned Parenthood’s constitutionally protected ‘right to associate’ with buyers of fetal body parts.”

Though Mr. Daleiden has been cleared of all criminal charges brought against him by the district attorney in Houston, as we have previously reported, the Seattle lawsuit is the fourth civil action brought to attempt to shut down the shocking scandal which the young video journalist has uncovered.

Double Jeopardy

AFTER COMING UNDER THE SPOTLIGHT of the US House Select Panel on Infant Lives, the University of New Mexico (UNM) made the news last week when a 27-year-old abortion customer was hospitalized with, according to Operation Rescue’s (OR’s) Cheryl Sullenger, “a serious infection.”

The customer in trouble had undergone “an incomplete second-trimester abortion,” writes Ms. Sullenger, at the UNM’s Center for Reproductive Health, “an off-campus abortion facility operated by the publicly funded University of New Mexico” in Albuquerque.

Though the customer in question “had a compromised immune system” as shown by an elevated white bloodcell count, according to Ms. Sullenger, citing the grassroots pro-life Protect ABQ as source, the personnel at the university-sponsored abortuary “proceeded with the second-trimester abortion procedure and dismembered the 19-week-old pre-born child.”

Protest ABQ’s Tara Shaver “wrote,” notes Ms. Sullenger, “that immediately after the dismemberment abortion, and seemingly without checking to make sure the abortion was complete, an IUD was inserted into the woman’s uterus before it had time to heal.

“UNM [had] conducted a study involving the placement of IUDs in immediately post-abortive or post-partum women,” writes Ms. Sullenger, “that indicates immediate placement will save the patient money. However,” she notes, “placing a foreign object into a womb that has yet to heal from a nearly 20-week dismemberment abortion poses serious risks, especially in the case of this patient, who had indications she already suffered from an infection when the abortion began.”

The next day, according to Ms. Shaver in the OR report, “after a restless night of sleep and increasing pain, Patient A sought medical attention at UNM Hospital, where physicians that attended her suspected post-abortion endometritis (an infection of the uterus) and an incomplete abortion. Patient A’s IUD was removed. She spent three days on antibiotics,” reports Ms. Sullenger, “but on the fourth day her temperature spiked again, and the UNM Family Planning Service division was consulted to provide a D&C to suction out any remaining fetal parts and/or tissue.” The patient was released the following day.

“Still unanswered,” notes Ms. Sullenger, “is the question of whether the extracted remains of Patient A’s baby, who was one day shy of reaching the 20-week threshold of gestation, were sent to UNM for experimentation, as has happened in the past, according,” Ms. Sullenger writes, “to the investigation conducted by the Select Panel on Infant Lives.”

The OR report quotes US Rep. Steve Pearce (R-NM) expressing concern “that the state officials were doing nothing to provide even minimal abortion safety standards in a state where abortion laws are essentially non-existent.

“‘I’m to the point,’” said Rep. Pearce in the OR report, “‘where I’m saying that you must be approving of what is happening or you would be responding. New Mexico has evolved,’” he said, “‘into the largest, the most abortion-friendly state in the country right under our eyes, and I for one do not think it’s appropriate.’”

Worth the Read

WE HAVE BEEN ENJOYING A BOOK written by one of the subscribers to Life Advocacy Briefing, Dr. Augustine Perrotta of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Available via Barnes & Noble or Amazon.com booksellers, A View from the Inside combines a medical career memoir with commentary on culture and a few insightful bio-sketches of some famed figures whose lesser known medical histories contributed to their achievements.

Definitely written from a pro-life perspective, this book, available in both paperback and hardcover, is offered by a man who is devoting a good deal of his “retirement” days to equipping pro-life activists for effective advocacy.

We thank Dr. Perrotta for his interest in and support of Life Advocacy and for stepping out into the publishing world with a book that reflects true American values and, in its common-sense presentation, calls America back to our highest convictions of faith-filled virtue.

Urgent Call to Action

August 17, 2016, BreakPoint commentary by John Stonestreet

One hundred and twenty years ago, H.G. Wells wrote a novel, The Island of Dr. Moreau, about what happens when a scientist, in a mad pursuit for knowledge, creates human-animal hybrids. In a word, what happens is chaos. Wells called the book “an exercise in youthful blasphemy.” He may have said the same about the National Institutes of Health [NIH] today.

The NIH, under the leadership of professing Christian Dr. Francis Collins, is proposing lifting a ban on taxpayer funding of experiments that splice human stem cells with animal embryos, creating human-animal chimeras.

Proponents, of course, downplay any ethical concerns related to creating new life forms using human genetic material – for either the humans or the animals involved. They’re committed to the practical benefits of this kind of research, hoping to create animal models of human diseases in order to prevent and treat illnesses. A more ambitious goal is the production of sheep, pigs and cows with human hearts, kidneys, livers and pancreases to use in transplants. Proponents assure us that additional restrictions and ethics panels will prevent hybrid horrors – or chimeras – with too-human brains or with the capacity to breed.

“It’s very, very welcome news that NIH will consider funding this type of research,” says Pablo Ross of the University of California/Davis. “We need funding to be able to answer some very important questions.”

However, if you think such research crosses a moral Rubicon, you wouldn’t be alone. Rod Dreher summarized what is happening in an article with the somewhat hyperbolic title, “Christian-Run Agency Embraces Pig-Man.” “It’s pretty clear,” Dreher wrote, “that this is just a prelude to something that’s a fait accompli. Besides, who is going to stand in the way of ScienceTM over a trivial matter like basic human dignity?”

This ends-justify-the-means kind of commodification of human beings is nothing new. Chuck Colson warned way back in 2007, “The system is being rigged to promote more such experimentation, not less. Compared to promises of ‘miracle cures,’ national prestige and, of course, big money, human dignity counts for very little.”

Of course, promises of such cures may sound like a service to the cause of human dignity, but the “scientific progress at any cost” sort of vision drives our current forays in medicine. It’s what might be called the scientific illusion, the idea that because we can, we should. That all things, human nature included, are proper subjects of scientific mastery, the ultimate source of all of our knowledge.

Before Chuck, C.S. Lewis warned of such folly in his masterful book, The Abolition of Man. “If man chooses to treat himself as raw material,” Lewis wrote,” raw material he will be, not raw material to be manipulated, as he fondly imagined, by himself, but by mere appetite – that is, mere Nature – in the person of his dehumanized Conditioners.”

In other words, the conquering of human nature with our technology, in reality, will end up being the conquering of all of us by some of us.

So what do we do? First, we have to read up. At BreakPoint.org, we’ve compiled the information you need to get up to speed. Second, pray up; pray that our national leaders would acquire and apply Godly wisdom in all their difficult decisions regarding science and the general welfare. And pray that God will continue raising up Godly and courageous men and women who can powerfully articulate a compelling Christian vision of human dignity, including some who will enter the mission field of biotechnology.

And finally, we must speak up. The NIH is accepting public comments on this proposed “rule change” through Sept. 6. Come to our website [www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/breakpoint-commentaries-search/entry/13/29716] for the link. Let’s tell them that we don’t need a real-life island of hybrids and horrors.

Co-Sponsors of Lee Bill (HR-2972) to Guarantee Abortion Coverage

Joining Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA): Democratic Representatives Ruben Gallego & Raul Grijalva (AZ); Pete Aguilar, Karen Bass, Ami Bera, Julia Brownley, Lois Capps, Tony Cardenas, Judy Chu, Susan Davis, Mark DeSaulnier, Anna Eshoo, Sam Farr, Janice Hahn, Michael Honda, Jared Huffman, Ted Lieu, Zoe Lofgren, Alan Lowenthal, Doris Matsui, Grace Napolitano, Scott Peters, Linda Sanchez, Adam Schiff, Jackie Speier, Eric Swalwell, Mark Takano & Norma Torres (CA); Diana DeGette & Ed Perlmutter (CO); Rosa DeLauro & Elizabeth Esty (CT); Corrine Brown, Kathy Castor, Theodore Deutch, Lois Frankel, Alan Grayson, Alcee Hastings, Patrick Murphy, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz & Frederica Wilson (FL); Henry Johnson & John Lewis (GA); Mark Takai (HI); Danny Davis, Bill Foster, Luis Gutierrez, Robin Kelly, Mike Quigley & Janice Schakowsky (IL); Cedric Richmond (LA); Chellie Pingree (ME); Elijah Cummings, Donna Edwards & Chris VanHollen (MD);

Also, Democratic Representatives Michael Capuano, Katherine Clark, William Keating, Joseph Kennedy, James McGovern & Seth Moulton (MA); John Conyers, Daniel Kildee, Brenda Lawrence & Sander Levin (MI); Keith Ellison & Betty McCollum (MN); Diana Titus (NV); Ann Kuster (NH); Donald Norcross, Frank Pallone, Donald Payne & Bonnie Watson-Coleman (NJ); Michelle Lujan-Grisham (NM); Yvette Clarke, Eliot Engel, Hakeem Jeffries, Steve Israel, Nita Lowey, Carolyn Maloney, Sean Maloney, Grace Meng, Jerrold Nadler, Charles Rangel, Kathleen Rice, Jose Serrano, Louise Slaughter, Paul Tonko & Nydia Velazquez (NY); Alma Adams & David Price (NC); Joyce Beatty, Marcia Fudge & Tim Ryan (OH); Earl Blumenauer, Suzanne Bonamici & Peter DeFazio (OR); Robert Brady (PA); David Cicilline (RI); Steve Cohen (TN); Lloyd Doggett, Ruben Hinojosa, E.B. Johnson, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Beto O’Rourke & Marc Veasey (TX); Peter Welch (VT); Donald Beyer, Gerald Connolly & Robert Scott (VA); Suzan DelBene, Denny Heck, Derek Kilmer, Rick Larsen, Jim McDermott & Adam Smith (WA); Gwen Moore & Mark Pocan (WI).

And Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), who is not a Member of Congress but is authorized by House Rule to co-sponsor legislation.