Life Advocacy Briefing

June 4, 2018

Supreme Court Rejects Abortion Cartel Appeal
Support the Vitter Nomination, Please! / Trump Stumps for Rep. Blackburn
Abortionists Throwing Cash into Congressional Campaigns
Heat from Home / Louisiana Enacts 15-week Abortion Ban
Just Whom Are We Talking About? / Will We Face Reality?

Supreme Court Rejects Abortion Cartel Appeal

THE U.S. SUPREME COURT REJECTED AN APPEAL last week from Planned Parenthood seeking to challenge an Arkansas law requiring chemical abortionists to have hospital admitting privileges or have a formal contract with a physician who has admitting privileges at a nearby hospital and “who would agree,” notes Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier, “to handle all complications…

 “Critics of the challenged state law,” reports Mr. Baier, “say it could effectively end medication abortions in the state.” It applies to abortions committed via the deadly RU-486 abortion pill.

The high court refusal to take the appeal should put the law into effect, since it was upheld at the federal circuit court level and no further appeals are in order.

“Planned Parenthood fears that the law would force the closure of its Little Rock and Fayetteville facilities,” reports LifeSiteNews.com. Those shops offer only chemical abortions, and Planned Parenthood “say[s] obstetricians will not agree to the contract.” Makes sense, considering that chemical abortions are all about killing the very children obstetricians are trained to treat and deliver. Further, notes LifeSiteNews, “pro-lifers have warned that chemical abortions, which have grown nearly as common as surgical abortions in recent years, are dangerous to mothers as well.”

Support the Vitter Nomination, Please!

THE SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE HAS CLEARED for confirmation the nomination of Wendy Vitter, wife of former US Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), to a US District Judge post in New Orleans. The 11-to-10 vote signals the likelihood of a floor fight over the pro-life nominee, who is an attorney for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans.

Mrs. Vitter has “received high praise from prosecutors, colleagues and opposing attorneys for her legal capability and ethics,” writes Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews.com, “though Democrats and pro-abortion activists have taken aim at her history of pro-life advocacy.”

The LifeSiteNews report notes “that pro-abortion lobbying groups have made defeating [Mrs.] Vitter a priority, with Planned Parenthood launching an online advertising campaign and collecting more than 20,000 signatures, and NARAL declaring her ‘dangerous’ to legal abortion.”

Readers are asked to contact home-state Senators (Capitol switchboard: 1-202/224-3121) and request them to vote “yes on the Vitter District Judge nomination.”

Trump Stumps for Rep. Blackburn

PRES. DONALD TRUMP (R) TOOK HIS ACT on the road to Nashville last week to rally his backers for the US Senate candidacy of US Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R), who is seeking to succeed the retiring Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) in a tight contest with the state’s former Democratic governor. The seat has been targeted for “pick up” by Senate Democrats.

Rep. Blackburn’s election is of particular interest to pro-life leaders, not only because of her sponsorship of various pro-life measures and her solid pro-life voting record in the US House but also because of her forthrightness in chairing the House’s probe of Planned Parenthood’s complicity  in baby body parts trafficking, which resulted in criminal referrals to the Justice Department.

Abortionists Throwing Cash into Congressional Campaigns

THE NATIONAL ABORTION RIGHTS ACTION LEAGUE (N.A.R.A.L.) announced last week it plans to soak some $5 million into the campaigns of Democratic candidates challenging pro-life House incumbents in this fall’s election. The goal, reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews.com, citing the Washington Post as source, is “to return the US House of Representatives to Democratic hands.”

Targeted are districts in California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin. Cited as particular targets, reports Mr. Freiburger, are “Representatives Steve Knight of California, Mike Bishop of Michigan and Steve Chabot of Ohio, all of whom,” notes the LifeSiteNews reporter, “are co-sponsors of the Life at Conception Act,” HR-681, which was filed in 2017 by Rep. Alex Mooney (R-WV) and has not advanced from a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee; the bill has 148 co-sponsors.

The NARAL warchest adds to the political efforts of a Planned Parenthood political fundraising arm, Planned Parenthood Votes, which, LifeSiteNews reports, is “part of a George Soros-backed initiative hoping to spend $30 million to mobilize minority voters to flip Senate races in Florida, Michigan and Nevada. The Planned Parenthood Action Fund,” notes Mr. Freiburger, “also intends to spend an unprecedented $20 million on its own to elect pro-abortion candidates in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.”

Heat from Home

ALABAMA U.S. SEN. DOUG JONES (D-AL) HAS RECEIVED AN OFFICIAL SPANKING from the state senate in Montgomery for his January vote against the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, a ban on abortions after 20 weeks of gestation.

The Democrat, who won an Alabama special election last December, had, notes Calvin Freiburger in LifeSiteNews.com, “presented himself as moderately pro-‘choice’ during the campaign, saying Nov. 2 that he supported restricting ‘late-term’ abortions ‘except in the case of medical necessity.’ But when the Senate voted” on the late-term ban, “[Sen.] Jones joined his fellow Democrats in opposing it,” even though, notes Mr. Freiburger, it “contained the exception he claimed to require.”

The State Senate has adopted SR-109, filed in March by GOP State Sen. Bill Hightower. The resolution, reports Mr. Freiburger, “declares that ‘the junior Senator from Alabama’s vote to block protection of countless thousands of lives from a terribly painful death is unacceptable and this body strongly disapproves his departure from the values of this state and his vote on this important issue.’”

Declares the resolution: “‘(A) vote to allow the brutal killing of an unborn child at this stage is unmistakably revulsive to the values of a so-called civilized and compassionate society, is obviously violent to children, many of whom can survive outside the womb, and devalues the value of every life in America.’”

Said Sen. Hightower, quoted by Mr. Freiburger, “‘Sen. Jones owes the people of Alabama an explanation for turning his back on a campaign promise he made just a few short months ago. … More importantly,’” the resolution sponsor said in the LifeSiteNews story, “‘Sen. Jones needs to explain why he would turn his back on the basic humanity of an individual’s right to life. At 20 weeks in the womb,’” he said, “‘it is not about a choice; it is about an innocent little baby’s right to live. What Sen. Jones voted against was the basic humanity each and every one has a right to,’ he continued. ‘Perhaps these are the values of Sen. Jones’s new liberal colleagues, but they are not the values of Alabama. We deserve better from our Senator in Washington,’” declared Sen. Hightower, quoted by Mr. Freiburger. “‘And innocent children deserve better from us all.’”

Louisiana Enacts 15-week Abortion Ban

SEEKING TO BREAK NEW GROUND in the nation’s abortion debate, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) signed legislation last Wednesday banning the abortion killing of developing babies aged 15 gestational weeks or older.

Conviction of an abortionist violating the new law would draw a prison sentence up to 10 years, reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews.com, and a fine varying from $10,000 to $100,000. The only exception, notes Mr. Freiburger, is for “abortions deemed necessary to save a [mother’s] life from physical danger.”

Already on the books in Louisiana is a 20-week abortion ban based on evidence showing that unborn babies experience excruciating pain at 20 weeks of development and later.

Only Iowa has enacted an earlier ban based on detection of the targeted baby’s heartbeat; that law is already under legal assault by the abortion cartel.

“‘For us to rank at the top nationally among states who protect the lives of the unborn,’” declared the Louisiana law’s chief sponsor Sen. John Milkovich (D), quoted by Mr. Freiburger, “‘I think that’s a harbinger of blessing for our state.’”

Just Whom Are We Talking About?

May 29, 2018, commentary by Peter Kwasniewski for LifeSiteNews.com

            It is hard to imagine a woman being ignorant about the meaning of pregnancy, namely, that she is now with child, as the rich old saying has it. How many births are spoken of every day? How many barren couples long for children to adopt? How many mothers do people know – beginning with their own?!

            Yet, a constant stream of propaganda has projected a pitch-black shadow of ignorance into millions of minds. If a calm and seemingly reasonable doctor tells a woman that abortion is a simple procedure to remove an unwanted blob of tissue in the same way a cosmetic surgeon removes a mole on the skin, who can say how vast a cloud of darkness this poor woman’s mind has fallen under? She has been led astray by the individual in whom primitive societies always place their unquestioning confidence: the medicine man, the shaman, the witch-doctor. In her state of emotional uncertainty and turmoil, she is an easy victim for reassuring lies. The doctor – or nurse or clinic advisor or guidance counselor – has taken advantage of her vulnerability.

            On a small British isle, there was a 1910 law defining abortion as homicide and stipulating life imprisonment as punishment. The law was rescinded late in the 20th century, and now abortion is legal there up to 24 weeks.

            This incident, typical of too many others, deserves to be savored by everyone with a capacity for logic. How can something which was once held to be an act of homicide punishable by life imprisonment suddenly be owed to people as their legal right? Can one and the same act be murder and a health decision? And would it not be foolish for someone to say, as if to explain the reason for the change: “Today, we know more about the fetus than was known in 1910”?

            Indeed, what we now know is how fully developed a child is at a very early stage, with all its limbs in place, sleeping, moving around, sucking its thumb, dreaming, possessed of sensation, capable of feeling pain, influenced by moods and music. We also know more about genetics and the development of the embryo from the zygote and the fetus from the embryo. That which defines human life at the material level is wholly present in the fertilized ovum setting; the full pattern of the human body coming to be is already there from the first moment. The remaining nine months are the unfolding of a pre-existent plan. Everything that takes place after conception is a gradual organic development or unfolding, with no obvious breaking point. Puberty is in some ways a more radical developmental change than the almost imperceptible stages of embryonic growth.

            If one makes “viability” the criterion, one is openly admitting the relativity – and willfulness – of one’s position. Viability is largely a matter of what our technology can accomplish, and abortions are regularly performed long after the current threshold of viability. Thus babies are routinely killed in spite of the fact that they could have survived outside the mother and that the killing of a baby of the same age which had been prematurely born would be prosecuted as murder.

            Doesn’t everyone know that a pregnant woman is “a woman with child”? Where does that chubby little boy or girl come from? Is it carried in by a stork on the day of delivery? What about each one of us: After a certain age, are we not aware of our own origins? Does a person in the 21st century know more about the basic fact of pregnancy, viz, that a woman is carrying a child, than a person on an island in 1910 knew – or for that matter, someone living in the Middle Ages or the Roman Empire or the Egypt of the Pharaohs?

            Of course not. Everyone knows that when a woman becomes pregnant, she is carrying new life, a new human life, a child soon to be born. In the larger picture of things, nine months is not a very long time. If gestation lasted nine years, it might be harder to make the connection between sexual intercourse, conception and the birth of a child. In reality, everyone knows all about this, without the need for any books or experts. That so many have forgotten – or rather, choose to avert their gaze from – the truth that Nature and experience unerringly teach is a sign of the dangerous unworld of unreality into which souls have drifted.

            Lord, awaken Thy creatures before it is too late, lest they sleep through the one life You have given us in which to know and love Thee. And help us to awaken them and to remain vigilant ourselves, however difficult it may become.

[The principal point made by this commentator underlies Life Advocacy’s counsel to pro-life communicators to use the term “mother” (or “expectant mother” or “reluctant expectant mother”) to identify those who are with child, rather than the term “woman,” when discussing abortion. And to use the term “abortionist” rather than “doctor” when mentioning those who commit (never “perform”) this act.]

Will We Face Reality?

May 29, 2018, BreakPoint commentary by John Stonestreet & Roberto Rivera

            In mid-May, the Centers for Disease Control reported that “The birthrate fell for nearly every group of women of reproductive age in the US in 2017.” A drop that led to “the fewest newborns since 1987.” Even more, it was the single biggest one-year decline – 3% – since 2010, which was in the depths of the great recession, and in which lower birth rates were expected.

            The fertility rate is an estimate of how many babies a hypothetical group of 1,000 women would likely have over their lifetime. In 2017, America’s was just a paltry 1.76 births per woman.

            We’ve talked before on BreakPoint about the economic and cultural consequences of declining birthrates. As Jonathan Last, author of the book What to Expect When No One’s Expecting, has written, “There is no economy that has managed to knock out gangbuster growth with a declining population.”

            The truth has not been lost on, of all people, the People’s Republic of China. The same day the CDC announced its findings, a story in the UK’s Telegraph reported that the Communist Party “is considering scrapping the limits it places on how many children families can have.”

            As the Telegraph told its readers, the move is in reaction to the “consequences of four decades of strict family planning controls,” most notably, the infamous “one-child policy.” Consequences include “a dwindling workforce and a huge increase in elderly citizens.” In a dramatic turnaround, China is using its formidable propaganda machine to urge “prospective mothers to ‘seize the time and conceive.’” The irony in all of this is that China’s total fertility rate isn’t that much lower than ours: 1.57 births as compared to 1.76 births per woman here.

            While China’s leaders are scrambling to reverse demographic trends, our intelligentsia is, to the extent they notice the issue at all, in denial. One common form of denial we hear is that any shortfall in childbirths will be made up for by immigration. While this has been true in the past, it’s foolish to count on this being true in the future. For starters, in case you haven’t noticed, Americans aren’t wildly enthusiastic about those high levels of immigration. Anxiety about immigration is at least one of the factors behind the 2016 election outcome. What’s more, the traditional sources of those high levels of immigration – especially Mexico and Latin America – may be drying up. Since 2008, more Mexicans have left the United States than entered it. As for the rest of Latin America, only a handful have fertility rates above replacement levels themselves, and these aren’t big enough to supply the immigrants to take the place of the children American women aren’t having.

            Another form of denial is seeing in the new low demographic numbers some good news, like the decline in teenage pregnancies. While that is good news, it hardly compensates for the possibility of irreversible demographic decline. And yes, I used the word “irreversible.” Governments in Europe and Asia have tried all sorts of incentives to jump-start fertility, and few if any have made a lasting difference.

            Here’s why: This problem is a cultural one. As one liberal commentator put it, instead of taking the role of parents in our society seriously, many Americans – especially the affluent – treat having children as a discretionary activity, like collecting classic cars or visiting every parrot sanctuary in the world. This attitude is the stuff of which western demographic decline is made. Denying the inherent connection between sex, marriage and babies is like denying gravity. We may choose to step off the roof, but we can’t choose not to hit the ground. China seems to be learning this at last. Will we?