Life Advocacy Briefing

Daleiden to Keynote Conference

DAVID DALEIDEN WILL KEYNOTE the “inaugural California statewide conference,” according to his Center for Medical Progress (CMP) announcement, “of a very important and very good new organization, Pro-Life SanFrancisco.” The conference will be held Sept. 8 at the University of California at Berkeley. Registration is available via the Internet at prolifesf.com/events.

A Saturday evening film festival will also be available, free of charge, to conference attendees, presenting the soon-to-be-released film Gosnell: America’s Biggest Serial Killer, focused on the notorious West Philadelphia abortionist who was convicted of murder and is serving a lengthy sentence for the atrocities in his shop. 

Mr. Daleiden is the young investigative reporter who is being harassed in court by Planned Parenthood, the National Abortion Federation and California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra (D) for his video exposure of the abortion cartel’s involvement in the trafficking of aborted-baby body parts.

“Pro-Life SanFrancisco is bringing an innovative and pioneering pro-life message into the cultural heartbeat of California,” declares Mr. Daleiden in the CMP announcement, “and making this state – the capital of the abortion industry – listen and take notice.

“Every day that I am in court in SanFrancisco being persecuted by Planned Parenthood and their political cronies,” states Mr. Daleiden, “Planned Parenthood is lucky if they have just one supporter showing up outside – but because of Pro-Life SanFrancisco, there are always dozens of local pro-life supporters from all different backgrounds and walks of life to stand up for me and CMP.”

End the Deception, Please!

MORE THAN 100 MEMBERS OF CONGRESS SENT A LETTER on Aug. 6 to Health & Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, requesting that HHS issue a new ObamaCare regulation requiring insurers to disclose to buyers whether the policies being offered cover abortions.

According to National Right to Life News Today (NRL/NT), “Obama-era regulations have essentially permitted insurance companies to hide abortion coverage from consumers.”

The NRL/NT report quotes Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), chairman of the House Pro-Life Caucus, who spearheaded the letter signed by 102 Representatives: “‘ObamaCare’s abortion surcharge is practically invisible to consumers. Consumers have a right to know,’” he said. “‘Abortion is not health care; it dismembers and chemically poisons defenseless unborn children and hurts women.

“‘The Trump Administration now has the opportunity to take action,’” Rep. Smith said in the NRL/NT report, “‘and enforce the law to bring transparency to ObamaCare’s abortion coverage and the abortion surcharge. No person should have to pay for abortion coverage they don’t want.’”

Though a collection of pro-life then-Members of Congress who were Democrats held back their votes on ObamaCare until assured by the then-President that the prospect of abortion subsidy in his massive government healthcare package had been taken care of, under the final legislation and regulations implementing it, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) 2014 report, cited in the NRL/NT story, “elective abortion coverage is widespread in federally subsidized plans on the ObamaCare exchanges.” Yet neither customers nor taxpayers are warned about the coverage under current Obama-era regulations. “In the 27 states (plus DC) that did not have laws in effect to restrict abortion coverage,” NRL/NT notes, “over 1,000 exchange plans covered abortion, the report found. …

“Some defenders of the ObamaCare in 2010 insisted,” reports NRL/NT, “that this was not really ‘federal funding’ of abortion because a provision in Sec. 1303 of ObamaCare stated that a ‘separate payment’ would be required to cover the costs of the abortion coverage. National Right to Life and other pro-life groups dismissed this as a mere bookkeeping gimmick,” notes NRL/NT, “that sharply departed from the principles of the Hyde Amendment.”

What is more, “In the years since the enactment of ObamaCare …,” reports NRL/NT, “it became evident that the Obama Administration disregarded the inadequate measure of segregating funds and sharply departed from the principles of the Hyde Amendment. The Obama Administration issued Sec. 1303 regulations permitting insurance companies to ignore separate payment requirements which included failing to require insurers to disclose the abortion surcharge [to] consumers.”

Though the Members of Congress who are now seeking regulatory relief from HHS are also seeking the true fix of legislation via the House-passed No Taxpayer Funding of Abortion Act (HR-7), which has been reposing quietly in the US Senate Committee on Finance since Jan. 30, 2017, the signers of the latest Smith letter, reports NRL/NT, are seeking “steps the Trump Administration can take [around Congress] to mitigate [ObamaCare’s] massive expansion of abortion coverage.”

Planned Parenthood Loses in Federal Court

THE FEDERAL DISTRICT COURT JUDGE who has been Planned Parenthood’s go-to favorite in Little Rock, Kristine Baker, has at last taken to heart the reversals of her rulings by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals and has refused, reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews.com, “to grant the abortion giant’s latest request to restore funding.”

The court battle began in 2015, when, notes Mr. Freiburger, “Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson canceled [Arkansas’s] Medicaid contract with Planned Parenthood,” which took his action to court. Judge Baker “originally sided with [the plaintiffs] but was reversed by an appeals court,” writes Mr. Freiburger, “and came down against the abortion giant this time around, saying that she would not issue a new ruling” once the appellate court had spoken.

Early this month, Judge Baker “ruled,” reports LifeSiteNews, “that the Planned Parenthood centers ‘have not met their burden of proof for a preliminary injunction on their constitutional claims,’ reasoning that the lack of a judicial consensus on similar questions nationwide shows that the abortionists’ likelihood of succeeding on the merits can’t be determined yet.” (And the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to succeed Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, we might add, further diminishes the likelihood of their succeeding on their spurious claim.)

Judge Baker’s rejection of the renewed Planned Parenthood suit, notes Mr. Freiburger, “is the second major setback Planned Parenthood has suffered in Arkansas recently. In May,” he writes, “the US Supreme Court declined to block a state law requiring physicians who dispense abortion-inducing drugs to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals … .”

Lack of state subsidy for Planned Parenthood is unlikely to adversely affect Arkansas women in seeking actual health care, as the abortion-focused outfit incessantly claims. As LifeSiteNews notes, “Federally qualified health centers and rural health clinics outnumber Planned Parenthood’s two Arkansas locations by a factor of 89.” It could well, however, adversely affect Planned Parenthood itself, as “Medicaid visits accounted for approximately 20% of all Planned Parenthood’s patients at its Little Rock and Fayetteville centers in 2017,” reports Mr. Freiburger, “suggesting that the abortion giant has a significant financial stake in the outcome.” Oh well.

Getting Ready

WHILE SOME STATES – LIKE MASSACHUSETTS & ILLINOIS – ARE HURRIEDLY repealing their long-unenforceable laws criminalizing at least some abortions in preparation for the possibility that Roe v. Wade will be overturned, a movement is beginning in some states to secure state constitutional protections for babies in the womb.

Voters in Alabama and West Virginia “will decide this fall on ballot measures,” reports Andrew O’Reilly for FoxNews.com, “asking whether to amend their constitutions to do away with any abortion protections.

“If passed, the measures would not immediately impact state policy,” notes Mr. O’Reilly, “but would ensure their constitutions can’t be used to allow abortions, if the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade were to be overturned. 

“That’s far from a sure thing,” he writes. “But the November ballot initiatives in these two socially conservative states are being closely watched as a bellwether for how other states might handle the abortion issue in that scenario.”

The proposed amendment in Alabama, notes Mr. O’Reilly, would “make it state policy to ‘recognize and support the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children, including the right to life’ and to state that no provisions of the constitution provide a right to an abortion or require funding of abortions.”

In West Virginia, voters will be asked to ratify an amendment adding “the following sentence,” writes Mr. O’Reilly, “to the state constitution: ‘Nothing in this constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of abortion.’” West Virginia has a dormant statute prohibiting abortion, left on the books when Roe v. Wade froze its applicability.

The two states where the proposition will appear this November are not the first, however, to anticipate the prospect of the high court disposing at last of Roe. A state constitutional amendment was approved by 53% of Tennessee voters in 2014 providing, “Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion.” Until that amendment was ratified by voters, Tennessee lawmakers had been stymied in their efforts even to regulate the enterprise but have been making up for lost time with the passage of several state laws limiting abortion.

The abortion lobby, of course, took the amendment’s ratification to federal court but has not been faring well and in a last-ditch effort filed an appeal in July with the US Supreme Court. The high court has yet to indicate whether it will take the appeal, which deals with such seemingly non-ideological matters as the manner in which the votes were counted.

Acknowledging the Humanity of an Unborn Child

A WISCONSIN MAN WAS CONVICTED on Aug. 1 of attempted first-degree intentional homicide of an unborn child, reports Dave Andrusko in National Right to Life News Today (NRL/NT), after apparently stirring an RU-486 abortifacient chemical into the ice cream smoothie of an expectant mother with whom he was intimate. Manishkumar Patel’s girlfriend “did not ingest the drink,” writes Mr. Andrusko, “but miscarried weeks later.”

The case has dragged on for some 11 years; the crime was committed in an ice cream store in November of 2007.

Though state legislators in most states are reluctant to enact laws criminalizing abortion, fearing criticism for subjecting taxpayers to legal fees in lawsuits which, under the current make-up of the Supreme Court, are unlikely to be won by the states, most states have enacted laws making clear that intentionally killing – or attempting to kill – an unborn child is a serious crime in non-abortion situations, demonstrating that a majority of state lawmakers in a majority of states do view unborn children as fellow human beings.

Mr. Patel faces sentencing on Oct. 9 and could face a sentence up to 60 years in prison.

It’s the Economy, Stupid! Or Is It?

THOSE WHO VIEW ‘THE ECONOMY’ AS THE ISSUE OF THE DAY as the 2018 elections near might find of interest the latest abortion claim out of the Clinton family. Or not.

“Former First Daughter Chelsea Clinton offered an unconventional defense of Roe v. Wade” during an Aug. 11 Roe event in New York City, reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews.com, citing CNS News as source. 

Noting “‘that American women entering the labor force from 1973 to 2009 added $3.5 trillion to our economy,’” the young Clinton declared, reports LifeSiteNews, “‘The net new entrance of women – that is not disconnected from the fact that Roe became the law of the land in January of 1973. … So I think, whatever it is that people say they care about, I think that you can connect to this issue.’ …

“At the Washington Examiner, Becket Adams pounced on [Chelsea] Clinton’s comments,” writes Mr. Freiburger, “responding by noting two negative economic impacts of abortion, the ‘drain that the average cost of obtaining an abortion ($300-$800) has been on the US economy’ and the ‘cost of eliminating an estimated 60 million persons from the national workforce.’

“Almost half of all births are girls,” notes Mr. Freiburger, “indicating that Roe also kept nearly 30 million females from being born in the first place.” In fact, taking pro-male sex-selection abortion into account, the number of little girls aborted is probably higher than that of boys. Let the Clinton daughter and her associates ponder that!

Mr. Adams “found her focus ‘unsettling,’” writes Mr. Freiburger. “‘To endorse [decriminalized abortion] as a money-generator is one step away from endorsing termination-for-profit,’ [Mr. Adams] wrote. … ‘So much for safe, legal and rare.’”

Taking a Stand, Making a Difference

Aug. 13, 2018, BreakPoint commentary by John Stonestreet & David Carlson

            For years the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center has performed research using fetal body parts. And for years, they might have been violating federal law, which prohibits the exchange of fetal tissue “for any profit or benefit of valuable consideration.”

            That’s why it’s great news that the UNM has announced that, following its own internal investigation, all research using fetal body tissue has been suspended.

            The University maintains no laws were violated, but emails obtained by the New Mexico Alliance for Life suggest otherwise. Those emails reveal that the head of the fetal research program, Dr. Robin Ohls, discussed reimbursement for sending samples to an adjunct professor at Michigan State.

            And everyone thought it was just Planned Parenthood.

            Here’s some other good news: The House Select Panel on Infant Lives has now referred the case to the Dept. of Justice.

            While the New Mexico Alliance for Life’s Elisa Martinez is applauding the decision to shut down the research, she and the Alliance are also demanding that UNM officials “immediately turn their investigation over to federal authorities to ensure that these abuses will no longer harm women and commodify unborn children. If they won’t,” she promises, “we will.”

            But there’s even more to this story than potentially illegal fetal tissue research. It’s the University of New Mexico’s active promotion of abortion.

            Eric Pillmore, a long-time friend of Chuck Colson and a member of the Colson Center’s board of directors, is a graduate of the University of New Mexico. He and his family foundation helped establish the Pillmore Room for Ethics at the University’s Anderson School of Management.

            In 2017, the University asked Eric for another major donation. But Eric had something else in mind: Using the University’s request to him in order to obtain a meeting with the then-interim president of the University to discuss UNM’s abortion culture.

            Eric went into the meeting prepared, and his presentation was straightforward. He consulted with Elisa Martinez at the New Mexico Alliance for Life and with pro-life apologist extraordinaire Scott Klusendorf.

            The president had been assured that the University hospital performed abortions only when the mother’s life was at stake. But he was misled. The University’s hospital in fact performed late-term abortions, and its doctors performed abortions at Planned Parenthood. The University had referred students only to abortion provider Southwestern Women’s Options and had never referred them to the local pro-life care center. And, of course, Eric expressed his disgust with the University’s lack of cooperation with the Congressional investigation of its fetal research program.

            Eric then explained why he supports the culture of Life – and how the University could begin to do so as well. And, of course, he explained how it would be impossible for him and his family to make any additional contributions to the University unless the institution ended its support for abortion. He then offered specific recommendations for UNM to change course.

            All of this helped put into motion the closing of the fetal research program, something that was just announced by the new president. And Eric stands ready to talk with her about ending the University’s commitment to abortion as well.

            So what’s the take-away here? First: You have to find out what’s happening at your alma mater, and then, like Eric, do something about it. We have to stop supporting institutions that promote evil and evil ideologies with our donations, even if they are our alma maters. Second: Like Eric, we can all learn to make the case for Life. The resources are there. Use them. Third: Support those organizations in your area that champion Life.

                And finally, we’ve got to remain vigilant. More may turn up at UNM. But the New Mexico Alliance for Life will be watching. And so will Eric Pillmore.