Life Advocacy Briefing

September 10, 2018

Rich DeVos, R.I.P. / Kavanaugh Rises Above
Welcome Back, Sen. Kyl / Back in Business?
Cartel Continues to Shrink / ‘Consumer Beware in Georgia’
Next Steps / Panic at Planned Parenthood

Rich DeVos, R.I.P.

AMERICAN ENTREPRENEUR RICH DeVOS PASSED AWAY last Thursday at age 92. The co-founder of Amway Corporation served in the Army Air Corps in World War II and became one of America’s leading philanthropists.

In 1987, he answered the call to public service as an appointee to President Ronald Reagan’s Presidential Commission on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV/AIDS) Epidemic and devoted himself to bringing mutual respect among commissioners whose points of view and life experiences varied widely.

He was father-in-law to US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and husband to the late Helen DeVos, an outstanding philanthropist in the healthcare field.

Mr. DeVos was owner of the Orlando Magic professional basketball team, a published author and a committed advocate for Life. Indeed, he was a founding donor for Life Advocacy Resource Project, publisher of Life Advocacy Briefing.

We will ever be grateful to our Lord Jesus Christ for the friendship and beneficent favor of Rich DeVos, and we will honor his memory always.

Kavanaugh Rises Above

THE KAVANAUGH CONFIRMATION HEARINGS last week in the Senate Judiciary Committee were a dramatic demonstration of the deep divide in our society. Hour after hour, Democratic Senators – clearly knowing the hearings were being watched by millions of Americans – sought to trap Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh into a stumble or fumble while trying to demonstrate to the radical base of their party and to the radical funders of their campaigns just how clever they could be in setting those traps. And some-say-paid disrupters burst out with their silly slogans from the audience at regular intervals.

The redeeming factor was the nominee himself, at times seemingly perplexed by all the fuss but never flapped by Senators who clearly fell far short of his intellect and his determined consistency.

The show was timed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) to place the Kavanaugh nomination into the full Senate for consideration well ahead of the Supreme Court’s next term, which is slated to begin Oct. 1.

Now is clearly the time for citizens to respond to the hearings and to the nominee’s quiet, unflapped performance and his insistence on explaining his answers in enough detail that even certain Presidential aspirants should have been able to grasp their consistency and logic. One positive thing we saw: This judge is not only thoughtful but is a strict adherent to the law and the Constitution.

Readers are urged to contact their home-state Senators – of either party – and request a “yes” vote on Judge Brett Kavanaugh to take the soon-two-months-vacant seat on the Supreme Court, even if you have already called. (Capitol switchboard: 1-202/224-3121)

Welcome Back, Sen. Kyl

FORMER SEN. JON KYL (R-AZ) WAS APPOINTED last week to succeed the late John McCain in the US Senate. Appointed by GOP Gov. Doug Ducey, Sen. Kyl can serve until after the 2020 Senatorial election, though at his swearing-in, the 76-year-old indicated he had pledged only to serve until the next Senate swearing-in on Jan. 3. Should he step down at that time, Gov. Ducey would have to appoint another replacement to complete the term. 

Sen. Kyl will in any case be voting on the Kavanaugh nomination and on the key appropriation measures which must come before the Senate by the end of this month. 

Sen. Kyl previously served three terms in the US Senate, retiring in 2013. He was in the Senate leadership as Minority Whip from 2007 until his retirement. A well-respected lawmaker, he amassed a perfect pro-life voting record during his previous Senate career, and at the time of his appointment, he was assisting the Administration in shepherding the Kavanaugh nomination.

Back in Business?

AFTER FIVE MONTHS IN LIMBO, a Planned Parenthood abortuary in Kansas City, Missouri, is in the process of resuming the marketing of baby-killing chemicals.

“Planned Parenthood stopped selling abortion pills on March 29,” reports Cheryl Sullenger for Operation Rescue (OR), “when their former abortionist quit. On Aug. 10, its abortion facility license expired. Although Planned Parenthood tried to renew its license, officials with the Dept. of Health & Senior Services (DHSS) refused to issue a new license, since it could not guarantee that Planned Parenthood met all requirements without a physician onsite, according to a local news report,” writes Mrs. Sullenger.

But on Aug. 29, reports OR, the DHSS officials “announced that it had accepted Planned Parenthood’s application plan that included the hiring of a new abortionist.” Next step after that: an inspection by health officials.

Said OR’s Troy Newman, “We’ll see how long abortions stay in Kansas City, but I predict it will not be long. Planned Parenthood Great Plains, which operates the Kansas City abortion facility, has always struggled to keep abortionists employed,” he said, “and that probably won’t change in the future. … The reality is that women are wising up, as reflected in the steady decrease in the demand for abortions.”  Mr. Newman called the decline in the abortion rate “a huge indicator that business of abortion is a failing one. Planned Parenthood,” he said, “just hasn’t caught on to that fact yet.”

OR reports Planned Parenthood has had a difficult time implementing its plans “to expand abortions into four communities in Missouri. That expansion never fully materialized,” writes Mrs. Sullenger, “due to state regulations that clinics in Joplin and Springfield could not meet. Abortions returned part-time to the Columbia Planned Parenthood office in October 2017, but there have been sometimes lengthy gaps in its ability to supply abortions there. Meanwhile in Kansas City,” Mrs. Sullenger notes, “abortion numbers fell far below Planned Parenthood’s projections.”

The five-months-and-counting exclusion of abortion from the Kansas City shop “represented a financial setback for Planned Parenthood,” Mrs. Sullenger comments, “which is already facing the prospect of losing Title X [Ten] federal grant money when the Protect Life Rule takes effect later this year.”

Cartel Continues to Shrink

A 30-YEAR-OLD NASHVILLE ABORTUARY HAS CLOSED, reports Doug Mainwaring for LifeSiteNews.com, leaving Planned Parenthood as the sole abortuary operator in the Tennessee capital.

Death toll over those 30 years, notes Mr. Mainwaring: 73,000 dead babies, according to Tennessee Right to Life, “‘while an equal number of mothers and families have been irreparably affected forever.’”

The Women’s Center is “at least the third clinic [sic] to close in recent years,” writes Mr. Mainwaring, citing The Tennessean as source, “leaving just seven others” in Tennessee.

The property where the abortuary was sited has changed hands, reports Mr. Mainwaring, citing projectlife4tn.org as source, “‘purchased by a local non-profit, healthcare provider which offers ethical and life-affirming services for low income individuals. The organization does not perform or refer for abortions.’”

‘Consumer Beware in Georgia’

A PROMINENT NEWSPAPER IN GEORGIA has finally caught up with developments in the saga of a disgraced “gynecologist,” whose license reinstatement last October was reported at the end of August in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The Georgia Composite Medical Board reinstated the medical license of Tyrone C. Malloy after his release from prison, where he had been held after conviction on charges of “medical malpractice, Medicaid fraud and letting an abortion patient bleed uncontrollably and die of cardiac arrest,” writes Grace Carr for The Daily Caller, who quotes medical malpractice attorney Susan Witt declaring, “‘This composite board never fails to shock me. It’s consumer beware in Georgia, in terms of when you are out there looking for a doctor.’

“Georgia law allows the board to reinstate licenses as it sees fit,” notes Ms. Carr, “meaning that doctors with records of medical malpractice and other criminal activity can resume practicing with the board’s consent.”

Operation Rescue notes that Mr. Malloy lost his license through surrendering it, not by revocation, and asserts that had the Board revoked his license, it would have been much more difficult, if not impossible, for it to be reinstated.

Mr. Malloy was jailed for 21 months, reports Ms. Carr. At the time of his license removal, he was an abortionist at Old National Gynecology in College Park, a suburb of Atlanta. According to Ms. Carr, he “ripped off the state’s health insurance system, billing Georgia Medicaid over $386,000 for ultrasounds, office visits and abortions that he did not perform, according to the state Attorney General’s office.

“The board issued [Mr.] Malloy a public reprimand and $5,000 fine in September, 2004, for unprofessional conduct regarding the death of a newborn baby. It also issued a January, 2009, public reprimand,” writes Ms. Carr, “and $10,000 fine after one of [Mr.] Malloy’s abortion patients died of cardiac arrest.”

According to Operation Rescue, the reason it took nearly a year for the license reinstatement to become public knowledge is that the Georgia Composite Medical Board did not announce its Oct. 5, 2017, action until Aug. 14, 2018. It was not until then that the Atlanta media could warn the public of Mr. Malloy’s record. According to OR, citing the Georgia Medical License Profile as source, Mr. Malloy “is still described at the Medical Director at Old National Gynecology, an abortion facility that he owns and operates.” Our own check of the ONG website shows a lengthy biography of the shop’s so-called medical director but, oddly, no name furnished.

The building housing ONG is owned, reports OR, “by a family trust managed by Reed and Margie Tuckson. … Margie Tuckson,” notes OR, “is the sister-in-law of Dr. Sharon Malone Holder, wife of former US Atty. Gen. Eric Holder.”

Next Steps

Aug. 30, 2018 The Point commentary by John Stonestreet & David Carlson

            So what if Roe is overturned?

            As I’ve said on BreakPoint, even if Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed for the Supreme Court, there’s no guarantee Roe v. Wade will be overturned.

            And even if it is overturned, the battle over abortion will return to the states. Two states, it seems, are preparing for this. This November, citizens of Alabama and West Virginia will vote on pro-life amendments to their state constitutions.

            The Alabama amendment would affirm, “It is the public policy of this state to recognize and support the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children.” The West Virginia amendment reads, “Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of abortion.”

            So, what’s happening in your state? Why not get in touch with local pro-life leaders to find out. And send your state representatives copies of the Alabama and West Virginia amendments.

            It’s not too early to prepare for post-Roe, state by state.

Panic at Planned Parenthood

Aug. 27, 2018, Commentary by Cassy Fiano-Chesser, published by Live Action

            Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion corporation, is in panic mode. With the election of a President who has promised to uphold pro-life values, Planned Parenthood is now at very real risk of losing some of its taxpayer funding, if not eventually all of it.

            Sen. Rand Paul [R-KY] recently introduced an amendment that would have officially stripped Planned Parenthood of all its federal funding; that measure failed, but if a pro-life majority were to uphold its campaign promises, the gravy train would come to a stop.

            And that would be a huge loss for Planned Parenthood; it rakes in approximately half-a-billion dollars in taxpayer funding every year. So the abortion corporation’s representatives have frantically moved into damage control mode, trying to convince Americans that women need them and rely on them – not for abortion but for “health care.”

            The only problem? They’re lying.

            Alencia Johnson, director of public engagement for the Planned Parenthood Action Fund (PPAF), made the claim that poor women need Planned Parenthood for health care and complained that the Trump Administration has been attacking them “since day one.”

            “That’s what we hear from our patients’ stories all the time, is that they know that if they lost access to health care at Planned Parenthood, they will have nowhere else to go,” she said. “They [the Trump Administration] have been trying through the repeal of the Affordable Care Act to block Medicaid patients from going to the provider of their choice. How absurd [it] is that you’re telling low-income folks that they cannot choose their healthcare provider if their healthcare provider happens to be Planned Parenthood.”

            This has clearly become one of Planned Parenthood’s favorite lies, that poor women rely primarily on them for health care. The reality is that it’s utterly false. In recent years, the number of clients Planned Parenthood sees has plummeted. The organization has closed hundreds of its facilities, while continuing to receive increasing amounts of taxpayer funding.

            Far from an organization that women rely on, only a small percentage of women receive health care at Planned Parenthood, and the amount of health care provided there is truly minuscule. They perform less than 2% of all cancer screenings, less than 2% of all breast exams and less than 1% of all Pap exams in the United States.

            Prenatal care at the organization is, for all intents and purposes, non-existent. Less than 3% of women overall in the United States use Planned Parenthood for legitimate healthcare services. And it’s not difficult to see why; over the years, healthcare services there have dropped steadily, while abortions have increased – even as fewer and fewer women go to Planned Parenthood. Its priority is clearly abortion, not health care.

            In fact, it’s abortion – not health care – that former Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards called “vital” to their mission.

            As for the claim that low-income patients will have nowhere to go without Planned Parenthood? Well, that’s not quite true, either. … There are far more options for health care beyond Planned Parenthood, which is outnumbered greatly by comprehensive healthcare clinics like Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs). There are over 1,100 FQHCs operating at over 6,000 sites across the country, with an additional 9,000 community health centers; Planned Parenthood operates approximately 650 facilities. Planned Parenthood sees approximately 2.5 million women each year; FQHCs serve over 21 million.

            Low-income women reliant on Planned Parenthood for health care? Not hardly. But Planned Parenthood will do and say anything to keep the taxpayer dollars flowing in.