Life Advocacy Briefing

Distinct Divide

IT TOOK THREE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES to get around to a discussion of substantive issues, but the third and final debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump did exhibit a contrast between the candidates on one of the most fundamental issues in American politics: the right to Life.

Mrs. Clinton attempted to defend her repeated Senate votes in opposition to barring late-term partial-birth abortions, prompting Mr. Trump to focus on his opponent’s radicalism in backing abortion-till-birth. “‘If you go with what Hillary is saying,’” he said, quoted by Matt Hadro for the Catholic News Agency (CNA/ETWN), “‘in the ninth month, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother, just prior to the birth of the baby,’ he said. ‘Now you can say that that’s okay, and Hillary can say that that’s okay, but it’s not okay with me.’

“[Mrs.] Clinton disputed that description,” writes Mr. Hadro, “dismissing it as ‘scare rhetoric’ but did not provide her own description of the procedure. Instead, she insisted that, for pregnant mothers, the decision to abort is ‘one of the worst possible choices’ they could make, ‘and I do not believe the government should be making it.’” Interesting description of the “choice” to abort, coming from the radical ally of the abortion cartel.

Mr. Trump brought the prospect of Supreme Court appointments into his discussion of the abortion issue. “‘I am pro-life, and I will be appointing pro-life [Supreme Court] justices,’” said Mr. Trump as reported by Mr. Hadro. He indicated the result of his judicial appointments would be that abortion policy “‘will go back to the individual states.’”

Mrs. Clinton, on the other hand, complained, according to Mr. Hadro, “‘So many states are putting very stringent regulations on women that block them from exercising their choices to the extent that they are defunding Planned Parenthood, which of course provides all kinds of cancer screenings and other benefits for women in our country,’ she said. Planned Parenthood,” notes Mr. Hadro, “does not in fact provide cancer screenings, however; only referrals for screenings.”

Commented Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List and, notes Mr. Hadro, “leader of the Trump campaign’s pro-life coalition, … ‘Clinton’s position on abortion is wildly out of step with the majority of Americans who support a compassionate limit on abortion after five months and who do not want their tax dollars used to pay for abortion on demand.’”

Judge Knocks Out Mississippi’s Exclusion of Planned Parenthood

A FEDERAL JUDGE HAS BLOCKED MISSISSIPPI’s LAW disqualifying abortion outfits – like Planned Parenthood – from state-administered Medicaid funding.

The judge in the case was District Judge Daniel P. Jordan III, appointed by Pres. George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate in 2006.

Such rulings have become common in recent months, as state after state has sought to exclude Planned Parenthood from tax dollars, elevating the importance of the House investigation of the abortion industry’s supply of aborted baby parts to flesh traffickers and the critical need for prosecution of abortionists for violating the federal law against profiting from the baby-body-parts racket. As long as abortion itself is illegal, shutting abortionists out of participation in public funding for other purposes is likely to be struck down in court.

But Mississippi’s governor, Phil Bryant, maintained his backing of the law he signed last May. In a Facebook post, Mr. Bryant responded, reports Claire Chretien for LifeSiteNews.com: “‘I’m sorry to report that a federal judge has blocked a law that would have prevented your tax dollars from going to Planned Parenthood. … I believe the law was the right thing to do, and I will continue to stand with the legislature and people of Mississippi who do not want their hard-earned money going to the largest abortion provider in the nation.’”

Carhart in Trouble Again

NOTORIOUS LATE-TERM ABORTIONIST LeROY CARHART HAS NOTCHED another malpractice to his record, according to a lawsuit filed by 34-year-old Wendy Devine, who alleges, according to Operation Rescue’s (OR’s) Cheryl Sullenger, that he “so severely botched her late-term abortion earlier this year that she nearly died. She endured such extreme injuries,” reports Mrs. Sullenger, “that she continues to suffer permanent disability and will likely never bear another child.”

Mr. Carhart operates out of Germantown, Maryland – as well as Nebraska – and is prominent in the abortion racket, chiefly because he was plaintiff in a series of lawsuits against state and federal statutes criminalizing partial-birth abortions. He is known as a late-term “specialist.” The Devine lawsuit was filed in Montgomery County, Maryland. His shop in Germantown was the site of a late-term abortion customer death in 2013, for which he has not been punished because of the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton edicts decriminalizing abortion throughout pregnancy.

Ms. Devine “had no idea about [Mr.] Carhart’s penchant for injuring – and even killing – his abortion patients,” writes Mrs. Sullenger. Besides the Maryland customer who died in 2013, a young woman died at his hands in Nebraska in 2005. Both had undergone third-trimester abortions at Mr. Carhart’s hand.

The plaintiff in the freshly filed lawsuit “reported to the Germantown Reproductive Health Services” last January, reports Mrs. Sullenger, “trusting that [Mr.] Carhart and his clinic staff were the experts in the field of abortion they said they were and competent to conduct her late-term abortion. That misplaced trust nearly proved fatal.”

The “procedure” took two days, and once it was done on the second day, reports Mrs. Sullenger, the aborted mother “immediately knew something was wrong.” She was lethargic and, according to the filed malpractice complaint, she “complained of severe abdominal pain. Because she was bleeding so heavily,” writes Mrs. Sullenger, “she also suffered from very low blood pressure, which caused her heart to race as it struggled to pump an insufficient amount of blood through her system.

“Throughout the day her condition deteriorated,” reports OR, “to the point that at 7:41 p.m. – long after closing [time] – a 911 call was finally placed by a [Carhart] employee. But to listen to the 911 call for help,” Mrs. Sullenger observes, “one would think the emergency transport was a simple precautionary act. On the heavily redacted 911 recording, obtained by OR, a cheery clinic worker is heard asking for transport for a patient for observation, downplaying the seriousness of the injuries, which become apparent later in the call.”

Mrs. Sullenger further notes that Mr. Carhart and his wife were observed, via security cameras, leaving the abortuary “immediately after the ambulance – but in the opposite direction.”

When his customer “finally arrived at the hospital at 8:35 p.m.,” reports Mrs. Sullenger, “she was bleeding heavily, was extremely weak and still suffering severe abdominal pain. Lab tests revealed,” writes Mrs. Sullenger, “that her hematocrit and hemoglobin numbers were at ‘panic levels.’”

The OR report continues the tale in great detail, not only defining her blood loss but also relating the tears and shreds of abdominal tissue, organs and arteries. And it relates her post-operative crisis which landed her in intensive care for seven days and extended her hospital stay to 11 days.

The lawsuit is not the only challenge currently confronting Mr. Carhart and his enterprise. He is also under investigation by the House Select Panel on Infant Lives, which is probing his “suspected involvement,” writes Mrs. Sullenger, “in the illegal trafficking of aborted baby remains and incidents of babies that may have been born alive during late-term abortions conducted by him.” May he soon meet retirement, preferably in housing financed by taxpayers and limiting his freedom.

Support Widening

Oct. 25, 2016, BreakPoint commentary by John Stonestreet

In the third Presidential debate on Wednesday night, Hillary Clinton said women should be able to end the lives of their preborn babies right up until the very moment of birth, long after a child is viable outside the womb.

In a recent Marist poll reported by the Wall Street Journal, 80% of Americans and some 60% of self-described pro-choicers oppose this extreme view. Instead, they support restricting abortion to the first trimester of pregnancy.

Just more evidence that the landscape is changing. Not only is Clinton’s extreme view on abortion unpopular – it’s outdated. A 2015 survey by the Public Religion Research Institute found that millennials are more likely than their parents to say that abortion ought to be legal only in certain stages and certain circumstances. According to another poll by Students for Life of America, just 17% of millennials agree with the Democratic Presidential nominee that abortion should be legal right up until birth.

All of this led Ruth Graham to conclude in Slate that the pro-life movement is in the midst of a transition. But it’s not just in the sense that it’s getting younger. It’s also attracting the non-religious.

Not that long ago, being pro-life meant you were almost certainly a Catholic or Evangelical. But now, the belief that killing unborn babies is wrong is transcending religious and even political boundaries.

Take Aimee Murphy, the 27-year-old founder of Pittsburgh’s Life Matters Journal. Aimee was raped by an ex-boyfriend who pressured her to get an abortion when she thought she was pregnant. That was when it clicked, Aimee says. “I could not use violence to get what I wanted in life. I realized that if I were to get an abortion, I would just be passing oppression on to a child.”

Her appeal, like that of a growing group of young pro-lifers who aren’t religious, is rooted in human rights – and the belief that our nation has committed an unspeakable atrocity in the name of convenience.

Kelsey Hazzard, founder of the group Secular Pro-Life, says the non-religious argument against abortion has the potential to bring people on board who would have never otherwise taken the message of Life seriously.

And Destiny Herndon-DeLaRosa, a Dallas resident who founded New Wave Feminists, sees protecting the unborn and ending abortion as a deeply feminist cause. She told Slate she doesn’t understand why so many fellow feminists treat fertility “like a disease,” as if abortion is the only way women can achieve their dreams. The culture of death tells women they must bear the consequences of pregnancy alone, and Herndon-DeLaRosa calls that “a grave form of injustice.”

“We have to humanize the child,” she says. “This is a human being with their own bodily autonomy,” an argument that she says is “a completely feminist message,” but as we know has its roots in Christianity.

Of course, many of these secular pro-lifers hold views in other areas Christians would deeply disagree with. For example, Maria Oswalt, a senior at the University of Alabama who leads her school’s Students for Life club, says LGBT issues and sexual wholeness have little to do with protecting the unborn.

That’s wrong. If we teach anything here at the Colson Center, it’s that these issues are connected. One of the great lies of the sexual revolution is that the fulfillment of our desires is our greatest good. And abortion exists because babies – which come from sex – get in the way of those desires.

But at the same time, we should be thrilled and grateful to see the message of Life taking hold beyond the church and conservative politics. Why? Because it’s true! The humanity of the unborn is increasingly undeniable, and the extreme abortion views Hillary Clinton represents are, in many ways, the past. The future belongs to the defenders of Life, even if they don’t always share our faith or our politics.

High Stakes

Oct. 20, 2016, Commentary by Dave Andrusko in National Right to Life News Today

Surely it is understandable if a pro-lifer might come to the conclusion that, in effect, if you’ve seen one pro-abortion President, you’ve seen them all. They could be forgiven if they asked themselves, could Hillary Clinton possibly be any different – any worse – than her husband, former President Bill Clinton, or the current pro-abortion [White House] occupant, Barack Obama? After all, both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are pro-abortion to the core. …

Can Hillary Clinton be worse? Oh, yes. Let me count just some of the ways. …

Proud “feminist” that she is, Clinton is not shy about her unabashed, four-square support for abortion on demand, at home and abroad. Before itemizing just a portion of her many extremist positions, remember that Clinton is a founding mother of the Sisterhood of Death. PPFA loves her, EMILY’s List adores her, NARAL thinks she is a secular saint. Collectively, they are spending multiple tens of millions of dollars to elect “one of their own” to the White House.

In the administration of a President Hillary Clinton, Planned Parenthood Federation of America et al won’t just have access. You can bet a slew of its key leaders will not only advise on policy but also be in appointed positions where they can make policy. Half of her appointments (at least) will be women. Can you imagine any woman making the cut if she didn’t pass the pro-abortion litmus test?

As a US Senator, Clinton had a 100% voting record against the babies. While some others of her ilk balked at partial-birth abortions, not Clinton. Clinton voted repeatedly to keep partial-birth abortion legal. It gave her no pause that an abortionist could deliver a baby’s entire body, except for the head, jam scissors into the baby’s skull and open the scissors to enlarge the hole and suck the baby’s brains out.

What about more recently? Last year, the US House of Representatives voted to protect from abortion unborn children who are capable of feeling pain. Clinton issued a statement saying that she opposed the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.

In April, Chuck Todd, on Meet the Press, asked Clinton, “When – or if – does an unborn child have constitutional rights?” She answered, “Well, under our laws currently, that is not something that exists. The unborn person doesn’t have constitutional rights.” Paula Faris (of The View) asked a follow-up question two days later: “And Secretary, I want to ask you about some comments that you made over the weekend on Meet the Press regarding abortion. You said, quote, “The unborn person doesn’t have constitutional rights.” My question is, at what point does someone have constitutional rights, and are you saying that a child, on its due date, just hours before delivery, still has no constitutional rights?” Clinton responded, “Under our law, that is the case, Paula. I support Roe v. Wade.”

It gets worse. Clinton has never made any bones that “reproductive health includes access to abortion.” She reiterated that position just a few months ago.

To the international abortion industry, near the top of the wish list is securing an international “right” to abortion. With this as a battering ram, the already aggressive campaign against protective abortion laws would take on new urgency and a new deadliness against countries in South America, Africa and elsewhere. A major goal of a President Hillary Clinton would be to secure an international “right” to abortion.

At home, Hillary Clinton hates the Hyde Amendment, hates it with a passion. At least two million people are alive because of it. [But] a President Hillary Clinton would do her best to eliminate the Hyde Amendment, which is a limitation provision within an annual appropriations bill. If successful, once again our nation would fund massive numbers of abortions.

Finally, she is wired into the Abortion Establishment, both domestically and internationally. She is resolute that there can never, ever be a limitation on abortion, including your right not to pay for them and (if you are a medical professional) not to participate in abortion.

In a word, Hillary Clinton is a true believer’s True Believer.