Life Advocacy Briefing

Kicking Off

IT IS LABOR DAY in an odd-numbered year, traditionally viewed by those in the political world as the launch date for the next campaign (though some have already been sowing the seeds for next year’s harvest). Pro-life citizens should consider whether they may have what it takes to offer themselves for office (and for what office). And it is time for pro-life citizens to begin attending more acutely to news about who may be surfacing as candidates in their own communities. If you are not currently involved in a politically aware local pro-life organization, now is the time to enlist and to offer your skills – whether as a prospective candidate or as a volunteer for the good guys. It is also the time to begin quizzing candidates on their own stands for (or against) the lives of unborn babies.

Putting Family First

PRO-LIFE CONGRESSMAN SEAN DUFFY (R) ANNOUNCED last week he will resign Sept. 23 from the US House in order to devote more time to his growing family. He has commuted to the capital from the 7^th district in northwest Wisconsin since 2011, where a special election will soon be called by Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D).

The father of nine – including an unborn baby girl, whose birth is due in October – took to Facebook to announce his decision. We report from the LifeSiteNews.com story by Claire Chretien, which quotes the Congressman’s posting.

“‘With much prayer,’” he said on Facebook, “‘I have decided that this is the right time for me to take a break from public service in order to be the support my wife, baby and family need right now. … It is not an easy decision – because I truly love being your Congressman – but it is the right decision for my family, which is my first love and responsibility. … Together,’” he noted, “‘we have engaged in the most important battles of our time: protecting freedom of speech and religious liberty, taking care of our veterans, defending the unborn and saving American jobs and American capitalism.’”

In his announcement, Rep. Duffy noted that his expected daughter “‘will need even more love, time and attention due to complications, including a heart condition.’”

We invite our readers to join us in adding the Duffy family to your prayer lists, and we cannot help noting that Rep. Duffy will indeed be missed.

Notes Ms. Chretien, Rep. Duffy “earned a 100% rating from the Family Research Council Action” in 2017 “for voting against taxpayer funding of abortion; to overturn an Obama-era rule that prevented states from redirecting Title X family planning funds away from abortion providers like Planned Parenthood; to repeal and replace ObamaCare; against forcing taxpayers to fund military transgender surgeries; for the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would ban many late-term abortions; to repeal Obamacare’s healthcare-rationing ‘Independent Payment Advisory Boards’; to allow unborn children to qualify for 529 education savings account; and to increase the Child Tax Credit.” (Makes us long to bring back the House of 2017!)

Daleiden Prosecution Heating Up

PRO-LIFE HERO DAVID DALEIDEN GOT SOME GOOD NEWS and some bad news in the SanFrancisco courtroom of US District Judge William Orrick last week. The Planned Parenthood-connected federal judge issued a summary judgment dismissing several of the more minor claims against the citizen journalist and his co-defendants but declared that the RICO case against them (under the federal Racketeering Influenced & Corrupt Organizations Act) would proceed. He ordered also that charges against Mr. Daleiden and co-defendant Sandra Merritt related to alleged trespassing at a Texas abortuary would be tried before a jury. The RICO trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 2.

A further ruling is expected tomorrow, Sept. 3, on a defense motion to quash the initial search warrant issued by then-Attorney General Kamala Harris (now a Democratic US Senator and Presidential candidate). It was that search warrant which not only violated Mr. Daleiden’s privacy rights but also led to the massive prosecution he is now enduring. The motion comes in a case before San Francisco Superior Court Judge Christopher Hite.

As a reminder to readers, David Daleiden is the investigator whose taped interviews with Planned Parenthood and other abortuary personnel and their abettors unveiled the abortion cartel’s trafficking in baby body parts which led to investigations in the US House and Senate and produced official Congressional requests to the US Justice Dept. to further investigate and bring charges against the unmasked traffickers; those requests have yet to be answered in any meaningful manner.

More Bad News Out of Illinois

FROM THE CHICAGO-BASED THOMAS MORE SOCIETY comes news that a deeper analysis of the radical Illinois abortion law enacted this year is “even worse than we thought. …

“The new Illinois Reproductive Health Act,” reports the pro-bono pro-life law firm in an electronic mail message, “stipulates that even 911 call records to [sic] abortion facilities will no longer be accessible to the public under the Freedom of Information Act – deliberately hiding information on the dangers of abortion from the public.”

What is more, the Thomas More e-mail states, “no state abortion data whatsoever will be made available to the public.”

Those data are critical to public policy, but the purveyors of abortion know that the abortion death toll can be used effectively by pro-life candidates and officials to call attention to the enormity of the crisis the Supreme Court brought to America via Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton.

Life Advocacy has long urged pro-life candidates and lawmakers to use official abortion reporting statistics when discussing the issue with voters and to compare those stats with population figures from a recognizable large town or city in the particular state. (For example, “There were X number of lives lost to abortion last year in ST; that is equivalent to wiping out [noted city of equal population]! And it happens year after year in our state!”)

So many Americans mistakenly think abortion is “rare” and that therefore they can go on with their lives without paying much attention to legalized abortion’s cost to society and without impairing their consciences. The death toll – which in every state is greater than the numbers of lives lost to cancer or heart disease every year – is an eye-opener, and the abortion lobby in Illinois knows it.

No more reporting, no more statistics. No more opportunity for the pro-life community and our candidates to highlight the death toll. No more pricking of conscience among voters over this indisputable – but now to be hidden in Illinois – fact.

Illinois is not the first; several jurisdictions are left out of the Centers for Diseases Control (CDC) abortion mortality statistics each year because they do not report to the CDC, whose requests for data are not mandatory. But the establishment of secrecy as a matter of statutory public policy must be nipped in the bud if Americans are to be responsibly informed of the stakes in the abortion controversy.

It would be helpful if Congress would force the issue by mandating reporting of abortion statistics to the CDC as a condition for receipt of federal funds by any state.  

We urge pro-life citizens and lawmakers to carefully examine any legislation proposed by the abortion lobby to uncover future such cover-ups and to insist that lawmakers resist the cover-up of abortion statistics. We wish the Thomas More lawyers well in their efforts to undo the Illinois legislative atrocity on many fronts. And we urge pro-life candidates in Illinois to raise the abortion lobby’s shutting down of public information in their messages to the voters. Something very nasty is afoot, and its perpetrators should be called out on it.

Candidate Watch

• EX-CONG. BETO O’ROURKE, now a Democratic candidate for the Presidency, was confronted last Monday by a Life advocate at a campaign appearance at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. The man asked him, during public q&a, according to Calvin Freiburger of LifeSiteNews.com, citing the Washington Free Beacon as source, “‘So my question is this: I was born September 8^th, 1989, and I want to know if you think on September 7^th, 1989, my life had no value?’”  Mr. O’Rourke replied, “‘Of course I don’t think that, and of course I’m glad that you’re here.’” But then he said, “‘This is a decision that neither you nor I, nor the United States government, should be making. That’s a decision for the woman to make. We want her to have the best possible access to care and to a medical provider, and I’ll tell you the consequence of this, this attack on a woman’s right to choose.’” The questioner ignored the robust reaction from the liberal crowd and persisted. “‘But what about my right to life?’” Retorted the Presidential candidate, “‘I listened to you, and I heard your question. I’m answering it,’ the candidate claimed. ‘And I want to tell you some of the consequences of this. In my home state of Texas, thanks to these “trap” laws that make it harder for providers to offer the full spectrum of reproductive care, more than a quarter of our family planning clinics have closed. … I don’t question the decisions that a woman makes,’ he concluded, without bothering to discuss the baby,” notes Mr. Freiburger. “‘Only she knows what she knows, and I want to trust her with that. So I appreciate the question.’” Right.

Rearranging Reality

Aug. 20, 2019, Commentary by Alexandra DeSanctis in National Review’s “The Corner”

            Planned Parenthood might as well stop wasting money on public relations officials and marketing campaigns, because media outlets are only too willing to do their dirty work for free.

            In the wake of Planned Parenthood’s choice to withdraw from the Title X [Ten] family planning program over a Trump Administration rule prohibiting providers from performing or referring for abortions, the New York Times editorial board rushed to the group’s defense.

            “It Just Got Harder to Get Birth Control in America,” declares the headline, and the subhead is hardly more accurate: “Title X made sure poor women could have access to health care. The Trump Administration has compromised that.”

            This is precisely the myth that Planned Parenthood and its activist allies have propagated in the wake of the Protect Life rule. As the Times editorial puts it, the Trump Administration “has quietly been working to gut the Title X family planning program.”

            In reality, the Trump Administration hasn’t reduced federal funding for the Title X program by a cent. Instead, the rule forces providers to choose between federal funding and the profits that come from performing abortions. Planned Parenthood has made its decision.

            The Trump Administration isn’t targeting the abortion provider, nor did it force the group to stop giving out contraception. In fact, there’s no evidence whatsoever that Planned Parenthood’s departure from Title X will affect the group’s ability to provide birth control at all. (According to its own records, Planned Parenthood clinics provided 80,000 fewer contraceptives last year than the year before, making the supposed consternation over this particular issue even less sincere.)

            Even if contraception access were to decline, it would be evidence not that the Trump Administration has gutted Title X but that Planned Parenthood has gutted its own ability to provide health care in order to keep performing abortions. If the group’s executives were serious about women’s health, they would have chosen to maintain federal funding, adapting to the rule and financially distinguishing abortion procedures from the rest of the group’s work.

            That they did not is proof of Planned Parenthood’s preeminent commitment to its abortion business – and its ability to continue operating that business smoothly without any federal money at all. It is shameful that our nation’s newspaper of record would promote abortion industry lies in order to obscure that reality.

Americans Need to Know

Aug. 21, 2019, Fox News commentary by Abby Johnson

            In an age where medical progress has enabled premature babies as tiny as 21 weeks and four days gestation to survive – and thrive – outside the womb, babies are being born alive following botched abortions in the United States and left to die.

            Many individuals, legislators and so-called women’s rights groups are turning a blind eye. Imagine just for a second seeing a baby who was supposed to be aborted struggling to breathe after delivery. What would you do?

            State Departments of Health in just three states reported that 40 babies have been born alive during botched abortions since 2016. But that’s only three states. The number is likely far more. The Susan B. Anthony List has over 270 documented cases of babies born alive after abortions. Why aren’t we hearing more about this?

            I was the director at Planned Parenthood in Bryant, Texas, working there for eight years and eventually leaving in 2009. Since my clinic didn’t abort babies up to viability, I never saw babies born alive; however, the largest abortion clinic in the nation was being built in Houston, Texas, during my tenure, which would perform abortions on babies up to 24 weeks. I started to seriously question my stance on abortion during that time.

            Former registered nurse and whistleblower Jill Stanek worked at Christ Hospital in Illinois and reported that between 1995 to 2000, anywhere between 11 to 26 babies were born alive and left to die. Administrators at the hospital told the Chicago Sun-Times in 2001 that 10-20% of babies with genetic defects were born alive following abortions.

            She told her story to a national news audience after she held a baby born at 21 weeks whom another nurse was bringing to a soiled utility room to let die by himself. Jill stepped in to hold the infant until [he] passed.

            It’s no exaggeration to say babies are aborted close to birth, and they are born alive. What happens to these babies who are born alive and left to die without medical intervention is horrific.

            Once the baby is born, he/she will struggle to breathe. The baby will instinctively try to cry as he/she is cold, shocked and struggling. As the baby tries to breathe, its small, underdeveloped lungs will be failing. Eventually, after minutes or up to hours, the baby’s lungs will begin to collapse on themselves, causing a slow death. While this is happening, the baby will either be thrown into a bucket until the crying stops or placed on a cold counter. Alone. Naked.

            This is not health care. Leaving a baby to die alone without medical intervention, because his or her fate was never meant to include life, is the opposite of health care. Yet, through laws passed in New York, Vermont … and elsewhere that allow abortions up to the moment of birth, this is the “choice” that so many legislators have voted to protect. The New York late-term abortion law in particular specifically revoked care to babies born alive after botched abortions because the scenarios are rightly gruesome and cruel – and late-term abortions are profitable, often costing thousands of dollars. The baby suffers, the mother suffers, the abortion workers who are forced to deal with a baby who should not be there suffer.

            While this may sound difficult to believe, it is true. The facts about babies born alive after induced terminations aren’t coming from a pro-life organization. The numbers are reported through state health departments or through the National Centers for Disease Control. [Life Advocacy Briefing editor’s note: See above, “More Bad News Out of Illinois.”] The CDC has released numbers that showed 143 infants born alive after induced terminations that died over the course of 14 years. But the CDC admits that the number is likely low, given [insufficient] reporting requirements.

            Reporting requirements are essential for overseeing the abortion industry. This is an industry that consistently fails state health inspections yet continues to stay in business. State health departments cite clinics for things like failing to sterilize instruments, rusty vacuum aspiration tools, tables and chairs stained with blood and bodily fluids, failing to report sex abuse of minors, untrained staff and expired medications.

            The abortion industry is failing to care for women in all aspects of their business – and abortion is a business, make no mistake.

            The numbers of babies born alive after abortions will only rise. With abortion limits being completely wiped away through laws recently passed in states like New York and Vermont, is it any wonder that we are learning that babies are born alive and left to die after abortions? As our nation pushes the limits of late-term abortion, we can expect to see more babies being born alive after botched abortions. Who will be the voices for these babies left alone to die?

            While legislators have an obligation to stand up for and protect those who cannot protect themselves, laws can only go so far. When New York legislated that abortion would be legal up until birth, the public paid attention. A Marist poll, one month after the New York law, showed a 15-point increase in the number of Americans who believed abortion should be limited to the first three months of pregnancy. Perhaps more dramatically, there was a shift of Democrats who self-identified as pro-life and pro-choice – that number swung 14 points in favor of the pro-life position and the same in a decrease for the pro-choice position.

            Babies being born alive after abortions is shocking, and it should be. But the public needs to know about this terrible outcome. The abortion industry doesn’t want you to know the statistics. The only conclusion I can make is that it is dead set against women and their families – the very people they claim to empower.