Life Advocacy Briefing

May 6, 2019

Why Are They Resisting? / More Judges!
In the States / In the Courts / The Battle Is Joined, Again
Disinformation Source / Senate Voting Records

Why Are They Resisting?

THE PRO-LIFE SUSAN B. ANTHONY LIST political action committee has launched an advertising campaign designed to pressure newcomer Democratic House Members from Trump-friendly states into signing the discharge petition to bring the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act to a vote in the House. “‘We think this should be bipartisan,’” SBA List’s Mallory Quigley told the Catholic News Agency (CNA). “‘This is a very moderate proposal that we think they ought to support.’”

Targeted by the ad campaign are Representatives Lucy McBath of Georgia, Cindy Axne and Abby Finkenauer of Iowa, Elissa Slotkin and Haley Stevens of Michigan, Conor Lamb of Pennsylvania, Collin Allred and Lizzie Fletcher of Texas and Abigail Spanberger of Virginia.

“‘Many Democrats who represent Republican-leaning districts have not yet signed the discharge petition to hold a vote’” on the commonsense, compassionate proposal to establish in public policy that a baby who has survived an abortion attempt must be treated as would any other infant born with health challenges, noted SBA List president Marjorie Dannenfelser in the CNA story.

As of May 2, some 199 House Members had signed the discharge petition. A total of 218 signatures would trigger a House vote on HR-962, sponsored by Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO). Names of the signers can be viewed online at https://concernedwomen.org/has-your-representative-signed-the-discharge-petition.A link is available at that Internet page by which constituents can contact Members whose names do not appear in the list. Or readers can call their home-district Representative via the capitol switchboard at 1-202/224-3121. Nineteen more signers are needed to bypass the Democratic Leadership’s stranglehold on the fundamentally fair proposal.

More Judges!

THE SENATE LAST WEEK CONFIRMED TWO FEDERAL JUDGES whose appointments were opposed by the abortion lobby because of their defense of state pro-life laws.

Alabama Solicitor General Andrew Lynn Brasher is now US District Judge for the Middle District of Alabama. Among the “offenses” he “committed” in representing his state in federal court, then-Solicitor Brasher defended the state’s law requiring abortionists to maintain hospital admitting privileges. For that, he was vigorously opposed by the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), and Senate Democrats sought to block his nomination. He was confirmed May 1 by a 52-47 vote after an identical roll call on cloture to end debate and bring the nomination to a vote.

Texas Deputy Solicitor General J. Campbell Barker was confirmed May 1 to be District Judge for the Eastern District of Texas. NARAL likewise opposed the Barker nomination, declaring, “J. Campbell Barker defended Texas’s egregious Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers law in Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt before the Supreme Court. He also,” notes NARAL, “signed a brief on behalf of the State of Texas in Zubik v. Burwell, challenging the Affordable Care [ObamaCare] Act’s contraceptive-coverage policy.” The cloture motion and confirmation roll calls are published at the close of this Life Advocacy Briefing, along with the votes on Judge Brasher.

In the States

  • INDIANA’s GOVERNOR ERIC HOLCOMB (R) SIGNED two pro-life laws last week, a ban on dismemberment abortions and an expansion of the state’s medical conscience protection to nurses, pharmacists and physician assistants. They will take effect July 1. The conscience protection law assures the right not to participate in abortions, including the right not to dispense abortifacient drugs. The state’s ACLU chapter has already filed a suit to block enforcement of the dismemberment ban.
  • THE SOUTH CAROLINA HOUSE LAST WEEK PASSED a Heartbeat bill, barring abortion once a baby’s heartbeat can be detected. Its fate in the State Senate is uncertain.
  • PRO-LIFE EFFORTS HAVE PREVAILED IN NEVADA, as the State Senate failed to take up its bill to legalize abetted suicide by the legislature’s deadline for consideration. According to Nevada Right to Life, reporting in National Right to Life News Today, “The odds were stacked against us. … At the beginning of the session, many of us feared the worst. But we took action, remained flexible, adapted, stayed positive and built a strong coalition. We took not a single vote for granted and talked to every senator at least once. And the votes changed. … Please continue to educate yourself and others about assisted suicide,” the group pleaded. “Let’s make it unthinkable.”
  • IOWA’s LEGISLATURE last week passed a Health & Human Services spending bill which “excludes any organization involved in abortions from receiving state sex education grants,” reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews.com, citing the DesMoines Register as source. “The change stands to deprive Planned Parenthood of the Heartland of just over $260,000,” he writes. The state’s GOP governor, Kim Reynolds, has yet to signal whether she will sign any of the legislation passed in the waning hours of the legislature’s session.
  • PRO-LIFE HEROINE Dr. MONICA MILLER RIVETED THE ATTENTION of Michigan lawmakers last week in committee testimony advocating passage of two bills adding dismemberment abortion to the method already outlawed by the state’s Partial-Birth Abortion Ban. The bills emerged from the House Committee on Families, Children & Seniors and are now before the Judiciary Committee; the Senate version has not yet come before committee. According to freelance reporter Stephen Kokx, published in LifeSiteNews.com, even “pro-abortion Democrats” on the committee “were speechless” after Dr. Miller’s testimony, in which she related having retrieved the remains of dismembered babies from an abortuary’s dumpster. “These children ‘died a most horrific, torture method of extermination,’ she said,” quoted by Mr. Kokx. “To ‘dismember the unborn means,’” she declared, “‘that we actually dismember them from the human family.’ … In prepared remarks, [Dr.] Miller referred to the procedures as a ‘barbaric action that we would not do even to an animal. … These unborn children were literally cut to pieces.’” After her testimony, Mr. Kokx notes, Dr. Miller delivered a copy of a photo of a dismembered aborted baby to each of the panel’s three Democratic members, who had sat silent during her testimony. A second pro-life witness, Dr Donna Harrison, “brought with her to the witness chair clamps and a plastic baby to demonstrate the barbarism of dismemberment abortion;” Dr. Harrison is a pro-life obstetrician and gynecologist. The proposal “would apply a two-year felony and a possible fine of $50,000,” reports Mikenzie Frost for Sinclair Broadcast Group, “to those performing the abortion, not the woman.”

In the Courts

  • KANSAS WILL NEED A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT, apparently – or a newly constituted State Supreme Court – in order to fulfill the legislature’s (and governor’s) determination to outlaw dismemberment abortions. The Kansas high court struck down the human vivisection ban April 26, declaring that the state’s constitution makes abortion a right. Justice Caleb Stegall was the lone dissenter, according to World’s Rachel Lynn Aldrich, declaring “the ruling ‘fundamentally alters the structure of our government’ to ‘arbitrarily grant a regulatory reprieve’ for abortion.”
  • DISTRICT JUDGE MICHAEL McSHANE WENT FURTHER than he had pledged just days ago. Rather than a simple injunction applying to plaintiffs, as he had said he would grant, the Oregon-based Obama appointee issued a nationwide injunction against the Trump Administration’s new regulation barring abortion outfits from grants and contracts under the Title X (Ten) “family planning” program. “The federal Dept. of Health & Human Services (HHS) rule would have prohibited any federally funded women’s health and contraception clinic,” writes Martin Barillas for LifeSiteNews.com “from referring patients to abortion providers. It also would have prohibited federally funded healthcare and contraceptive clinics from sharing office space with abortion providers. Supporters of the rule,” notes Mr. Barillas, “have pointed out that the new rule would adhere to the original intent of Title X [Ten] of the Public Health Service Act that ‘none of the funds appropriated under this title shall be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning.’” Planned Parenthood draws some $60 million each year from taxpayers under Title X.
  • A SECOND DISTRICT JUDGE, STANLEY BASTIAN, based in the Eastern District of Washington State, also issued a nationwide injunction against the Title X clean-up rule. Judge Bastian is another Obama appointee. Said Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser in a LifeSiteNews report by Calvin Freiburger, “‘Contrary to pro-abortion misinformation, the Protect Life Rule does not cut Title X funding by a single dime; it simply enforces the existing statute that draws a bright line of separation between abortion and family planning.’”
  • THE MONTANA SUPREME COURT on April 30 upheld a lower court ruling, reports Martin Barillas for LifeSiteNews.com, “that allows nurse practitioners and nurse midwives to provide abortions, despite state law. The decision was 4 to 3, and the majority opinion acknowledged the state law “‘bars’” such nurses from “‘perform[ing] … medication or aspiration abortion’” but ruled against enforcement of the law. Said one of the three dissenters, Justice Jim Rice, quoted by Mr. Barillas, “‘The court lacks both the authority and the proper medical training and knowledge to make such a determination.’” The LifeSiteNews report also quotes Dr. Annie Bukacek, “who practices medicine in the state and presides over the Montana Pro-Life Coalition … : ‘The purveyors of child murder are always looking for ways to expand their work.’”

The Battle Is Joined, Again

May 1, 2019, The Point commentary by John Stonestreet

            Last week the Supreme Court of Kansas ruled that the state’s constitution protects a woman’s “right” to an abortion. The Court cited the Kansas Bill of Rights, which guarantees “all men” the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” And that right, the Court said, “include[s] a woman’s right to make decisions about her body” but apparently does not include a right to life for the separate individual human being that grows in the womb.

            Barring a ballot initiative that would amend the state constitution, abortion will remain legal in the Jayhawk State even if the US Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. This is just the latest example of how the abortion battle has moved to the states and more evidence that even if the Supreme Court overturns Roe, it will not settle the issue any more than it did in 1973.

            So, if you believe that all human beings have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – including those not yet born – it’s time to get to work.

Disinformation Source

April 26, 2019, commentary by Gary Bauer

            If you’re meeting young people today with bizarre ideas on everything from America’s history to economics, faith and human sexuality, blame the educational establishment. Here’s a good example of the confusion that reigns on our college campuses: A slide from a “top-level biology course” at the University of California San Diego went viral this week. It purported to explain to students the “parallels between fetuses and cancers.”

            The fetus was described as “a legitimate parasite” that “rapidly grows” and “invades,” just like a cancer, which also “rapidly grows” and “invades.”

            I appreciate that there may be some “parallels.” But describing developing babies as “invading parasites” explains why Democrats continually insist that abortion is essential to women’s “health care.” They are treating pregnancy like a disease to be eradicated!

            It is ridiculous that so many young Americans are going into debt for this kind of absurd indoctrination.

Senate Voting Records

Cloture & Confirmation of Judge Andrew Lynn Brasher – May 1, 2019 – Confirmed – 52 to 47 (Democrats in italics; “Independent” marked “I”) (Two identical roll calls)

Voting “yes” / pro-Life: Shelby/AL, Murkowski & Sullivan/AK, McSally/AZ, Boozman & Cotton/AR, Gardner/CO, Rubio & Scott/FL, Isakson & Perdue/GA, Crapo & Risch/ID, Braun/IN, Ernst & Grassley/IA, Moran & Roberts/KS, McConnell & Paul/KY, Cassidy & Kennedy/LA, Collins/ME, Hyde-Smith & Wicker/MS, Blunt & Hawley/MO, Daines/MT, Fischer & Sasse/NE, Burr & Tillis/NC, Cramer & Hoeven/ND, Portman/OH, Inhofe & Lankford/OK, Toomey/PA, Graham & Scott/SC, Rounds & Thune/SD, Alexander & Blackburn/TN, Cornyn & Cruz/TX, Lee & Romney/UT, Capito/WV, Johnson/WI, Barrasso & Enzi/WY.

Voting “no” / anti-Life: Jones/AL, Sinema/AZ, Feinstein & Harris/CA, Bennet/CO, Blumenthal & Murphy/CT, Carper & Coons/DE, Hirono & Schatz/HI, Duckworth & Durbin/IL, King(I)/ME, Cardin & VanHollen/MD, Markey & Warren/MA, Peters & Stabenow/MI, Klobuchar & Smith/MN, Tester/MT, Cortez-Masto & Rosen/NV, Hassan & Shaheen/NH, Booker & Menendez/NJ, Heinrich & Udall/NM, Gillibrand & Schumer/NY, Brown/OH, Merkley & Wyden/OR, Casey/PA, Reed & Whitehouse/RI, Leahy & Sanders/VT, Kaine & Warner/VA, Cantwell & Murray/WA, Manchin/WV, Baldwin/WI.

Not voting: Young/IN.

Cloture Motion on Confirmation of Judge J. Campbell Barker – May 1, 2019 – Confirmed – 52 to 46 (Democrats in italics; “Independent” marked “I”)

Voting “yes” / pro-Life: Shelby/AL, Murkowski & Sullivan/AK, McSally/AZ, Boozman & Cotton/AR, Gardner/CO, Rubio & Scott/FL, Isakson & Perdue/GA, Crapo & Risch/ID, Braun & Young/IN, Ernst & Grassley/IA, Moran & Roberts/KS, McConnell & Paul/KY, Cassidy & Kennedy/LA, Collins/ME, Hyde-Smith & Wicker/MS, Blunt & Hawley/MO, Daines/MT, Fischer & Sasse/NE, Burr & Tillis/NC, Cramer & Hoeven/ND, Portman/OH, Inhofe & Lankford/OK, Toomey/PA, Graham & Scott/SC, Rounds & Thune/SD, Alexander & Blackburn/TN, Cornyn & Cruz/TX, Lee & Romney/UT, Johnson/WI, Barrasso & Enzi/WY.

Voting “no” / anti-Life: Jones/AL, Sinema/AZ, Feinstein/CA, Bennet/CO, Blumenthal & Murphy/CT, Carper & Coons/DE, Hirono & Schatz/HI, Duckworth & Durbin/IL, King(I)/ME, Cardin & VanHollen/MD, Markey & Warren/MA, Peters & Stabenow/MI, Klobuchar & Smith/MN, Tester/MT, Cortez-Masto & Rosen/NV, Hassan & Shaheen/NH, Booker & Menendez/NJ, Heinrich & Udall/NM, Gillibrand & Schumer/NY, Brown/OH, Merkley & Wyden/OR, Casey/PA, Reed & Whitehouse/RI, Leahy & Sanders/VT, Kaine & Warner/VA, Cantwell & Murray/WA, Manchin/WV, Baldwin/WI.

Not voting: Harris/CA & Capito/WV.

Confirmation of Judge J. Campbell Barker – May 1, 2019 – Confirmed – 51 to 47 (Democrats in italics; “Independent” marked “I”)

Voting “yes” / pro-Life: Shelby/AL, Murkowski & Sullivan/AK, McSally/AZ, Boozman & Cotton/AR, Gardner/CO, Rubio & Scott/FL, Isakson & Perdue/GA, Crapo & Risch/ID, Braun/IN, Ernst & Grassley/IA, Moran & Roberts/KS, McConnell & Paul/KY, Cassidy & Kennedy/LA, Collins/ME, Hyde-Smith & Wicker/MS, Blunt & Hawley/MO, Daines/MT, Fischer & Sasse/NE, Burr & Tillis/NC, Cramer & Hoeven/ND, Portman/OH, Lankford/OK, Toomey/PA, Graham & Scott/SC, Rounds & Thune/SD, Alexander & Blackburn/TN, Cornyn & Cruz/TX, Lee & Romney/UT, Capito/WV, Johnson/WI, Barrasso & Enzi/WY.

Voting “no” / anti-Life: Jones/AL, Sinema/AZ, Feinstein & Harris/CA, Bennet/CO, Blumenthal & Murphy/CT, Carper & Coons/DE, Hirono & Schatz/HI, Duckworth & Durbin/IL, King(I)/ME, Cardin & VanHollen/MD, Markey & Warren/MA, Peters & Stabenow/MI, Klobuchar & Smith/MN, Tester/MT, Cortez-Masto & Rosen/NV, Hassan & Shaheen/NH, Booker & Menendez/NJ, Heinrich & Udall/NM, Gillibrand & Schumer/NY, Brown/OH, Merkley & Wyden/OR, Casey/PA, Reed & Whitehouse/RI, Leahy & Sanders/VT, Kaine & Warner/VA, Cantwell & Murray/WA, Manchin/WV, Baldwin/WI.

Not voting: Young/IN &Inhofe/OK.