Life Advocacy Briefing

Taking Truth to Power

PRES. DONALD TRUMP USED THE OCCASION of his address to the United Nations General Assembly last Tuesday to call out “‘global bureaucrats’ for trying to impose abortion-on-demand on nations that respect the right to life,” reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews.com, declaring “that Americans would ‘never tire of defending innocent life. …

“‘We are aware that many United Nations projects have attempted,’” he said, quoted by Mr. Freiburger, “‘to assert a global right to taxpayer-funded abortion on demand, right up until the moment of delivery,’” adding, “‘Global bureaucrats have absolutely no business attacking the sovereignty of nations that wish to protect innocent life. Like many nations here today,’” he said, “‘we in America believe that every child, born and unborn, is a sacred gift from God.’”

The President’s statement followed delivery on Monday of a joint statement on behalf of 19 countries, profferred by the US Secretary of Health & Human Services (HHS) Alex Azar, “declaring,” reports LifeSiteNews.com, “there is ‘no international right to an abortion,’ and condemning the use of ‘ambiguous terms and expressions, such as sexual and reproductive health and rights in UN documents, because they can undermine the critical role of the family and promote practices like abortion.’ …

“Affirm[ing] the family as the ‘foundational institution of society,’ and call[ing] on the international community to ‘join us in focusing on the important work of expanding health and opportunities for all people,’” the 19-nation Azar statement, reported by Mr. Freiburger, called on the UN “to concentrate ‘on topics that united rather than divide on the critical issues surrounding access to health care.’”

The LifeSiteNews report concludes with a comment by Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser: “‘The Trump Administration’s strong pro-life leadership on the world stage is no secret. … From day one, Pres. Trump has worked to restore respect for life as a foundational American value not only in our domestic policies but in our international relations as well. Secretaries Pompeo and Azar have played key roles in advancing the President’s pro-life agenda and deserve credit for their efforts.’”

Reagan domestic policy advisor Gary Bauer reported on the President’s UN speech and Secretary Azar’s initiative in his End-of-Day Memo, noting Pres. Trump “stunned the United Nations when he declared that there is no universal right to abortion. I don’t recall any American president doing that before,” averred Mr. Bauer.

Victory in Kansas

PRO-LIFE ACTIVISTS IN KANSAS CITY, KANSAS, HAVE BLOCKED the siting of a new surgical abortuary, reports Cheryl Sullenger for Operation Rescue (OR), “just yards from a local high school.” Planned Parenthood had been advertising for staff in the Kansas City vicinity but had resisted disclosing the planned location.

A group called “Planned Parenthood Exposed,” upon learning that Planned Parenthood had signed a lease, notes Mrs. Sullenger, “conducted a public information and prayer campaign on the street” at the targeted building in what Ms. Sullenger said is “a heavily residential neighborhood. Soon after,” she reports, the Exposed group heard from the owners of the building, who also own a funeral home across the street.

“The property owners informed [the PP Exposed board president] that they were canceling their lease with Planned Parenthood. They promised they ‘will not be leasing or selling the building to Planned Parenthood or anyone similar now or never.’ They also pledged,” writes Mrs. Sullenger, “that if they ever sell the property, they will place a restriction on the deed to ensure that no abortion business ever occupies the building.”

The pro-life group, according to OR, will persist in urging local officials to be vigilant and not to permit the siting of an abortuary in Kansas City. The four existing abortuaries in the state are in Overland Park and Wichita.

Candidate Watch

• THOUGH HE MIGHT BE EXPECTED TO BE EMBARRASSED by the horrifying discovery that now-deceased South Bend, Indiana, abortionist Ulrich Klopfer was storing thousands of fetal remains in his Illinois garage, the best South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg could muster, in the midst of his Democratic Presidential campaign, was to hope the news would not, as LifeSiteNews put it, “reflect on the legality of abortion.” As reported by Calvin Freiburger, Mayor Buttigieg “told WSBT, … ‘Like everyone, I find the news out of Illinois extremely disturbing, and I think it’s important that it be fully investigated. … I also hope it doesn’t get caught up in politics at a time when women need access to health care.’” Translation: Don’t look at me, just because I cannot bring myself to look abortion in the face any more now than I could while Mr. Klopfer was plying his trade in my city. Responded Priests for Life national director Fr. Frank Pavone in a Twitter comment, quoted by Mr. Freiburger, “‘Mayor Pete says … , “There’s no question that what happened is disturbing; it’s unacceptable.” Then he continues defending abortion. If it’s okay that these bodies were killed, why is it “disturbing” that they were found?’”

• THE ROLE OF DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE KAMALA HARRIS in instigating proceedings against pro-life investigative journalist David Daleiden, while she was California attorney general, is the focus of a lengthy report Sept. 20 in The Federalist. Readers who wish to look into the details of her involvement are invited to check out the report by Madeline Osburn at https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/20/hearings-expose-how-kamala-harris-used-prosecutorial-power-to-benefit-abortion-businesses-that-support-her-campaigns.

• TWO LI’L BITS ON PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFUL ELIZABETH WARREN (D): Daily Caller writer David Krayden reports she “wants the federal government to fund ‘reproductive rights,’ including abortion, for men as well as women. [Sen.] Warren recently made the pledge at a Tuesday [Sept. 17] Reproductive Freedom Voter event.” Then comes this delicious little bit from the campaign trail, reported by Chrissy Clark in The Federalist, citing the Washington Free Beacon as source: While campaigning at an Iowa lemonade stand, the Massachusetts Senator “paid 11-year-old Sienna Michels and Audrey Billings $7 for seven cups of lemonade and donated $3 to the girls.” While visiting the stand, she “urged Michels and Billings to tell their parents to vote for her.” But the parents of Sienna Michels “were quick to explain [Sen.] Warren’s stance on abortion and why it was against their family’s values. The parents and girls came to the conclusion that it was best to donate the money to the March for Life Education & Defense Fund.” Thanks, Liz!

In the States

• TWO OHIO PLANNED PARENTHOOD SHOPS WERE SET TO SHUT DOWN Sept. 20, according to a lamenting editorial in the New York Times, reported by Martin M. Barillas for LifeSiteNews.com. Closing of the Springdale Health Center and Western Hills Health Center, both in the greater Cincinnati area, was attributed to the Trump Administration’s Protect Life Rule, which bars Title X (Ten) “family planning” grants to abortion outfits and to defunding efforts by the Ohio legislature, which have lately been upheld by a federal court.

• NO DOUBT AUSTIN’s ACTION CAME IN RESPONSE TO THE NEW TEXAS LAW, which we reported recently, that bars state, county or city funding of any kind to the abortion industry. The city of Austin, Texas – thought by many to be the chief outpost of liberalism in the largely conservative state (and its capital) – has now allocated $150,000 in its 2020 budget, reports Kristin Lam for USA Today, “for abortion access services,” defined as “cover[ing] transportation, lodging and child care for women seeking abortions.” A former city council member filed suit the next day, notes Ms. Lam, citing the Austin American-Statesman as source, “arguing [the appropriation] violates a 1961 state law making it a crime to help someone get an abortion.” The state senator who sponsored the comprehensive taxpayer funding ban, which took effect Sept. 1, “is also considering challenging Austin’s support services funding,” reports Ms. Lam, “through the Texas Attorney General’s office.”

• CALIFORNIA’s LEGISLATURE HAS PASSED A PERNICIOUS BILL – now pending at the desk of Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) – to “force every public university in the state to offer abortion pills to students,” reports Daily Wire correspondent Hank Berrien, invoking the “‘right’” of “‘every pregnant person in the state … to choose.’” The chemicals are to be dispensed “‘onsite’” but can be administered by “‘providers associated with a contracted external agency,’” the bill says, as reported by Mr. Berrien. Readers will find easy the guess of what “external agency” the California Assembly has in mind. Coincidentally, the United Kingdom’s Society for the Protection of Unborn Children has just raised an alarm about the abortion pill’s risks to vulnerable mothers, citing a 2018 report from the US Food & Drug Administration “reveal[ing] that 22 American women died” from chemical abortions that year. “According to the FDA,” notes SPUC, “the 22 women died from a range of complications induced by the abortion drugs, including liver failure, sepsis, toxic shock syndrome and hemorrhaging.  The report stated,” reports SPUC, “that between 2000 and 2012, there were 2,740 cases of reported complications associated with the abortion drugs. The past five years witnessed an average of 289 complications annually which included 273 hospitalizations, 103 infections and 182 cases of blood loss resulting in urgent transfusions. Also,” notes SPUC, “despite the glowing reviews of medical abortion by providers and pro-abortion campaigners, women find medical abortion substantially more painful than surgical abortion due to uterine contractions.” What is more, the second drug in the two-drug cocktail prompts expulsion of the dead baby by the aborting mother herself, usually alone and nearly always without medical supervision.

• STATE SEN. PEGGY LEHNER (R) TOOK HER ‘ABORTION PILL REVERSAL’ bill before a Senate committee in mid-September. The lawmaker, who is the former president of Ohio Right to Life, is seeking, she said in a Pregnancy Help News story by Andrea Trudden, “‘to give another choice to women who are in desperate situations.’” She said she is “‘not forcing anyone to take the abortion pill reversal treatment – we simply want,’” she explained, “‘to give women more information on another option available to them.’… According to the Ohio Dept. of Health,” notes Ms. Trudden, “5,345 chemical abortions took place in the state of Ohio in 2017.” A treatment has been developed by two physicians, notes Ms. Trudden, which “works by giving women extra progesterone up to 72 hours after a woman takes the first chemical abortion pill. Last year, [one of the two doctors] released a study showing that 64-68% of women who used the protocol were able to give birth to a baby with no greater risk of birth defects than the general population.” An abortion pill reversal hotline has been set up by Heartbeat International at 877/558-0333, and, reports Ms. Trudden, “a robust provider network of more than 800 clinicians (33 in Ohio), known collectively as the Abortion Pill Rescue Network” has been established and has “saved more than 900 babies.”

• MAINE’s NEW ABORTION LAWS took effect in mid-September, reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews.com, “one expanding the ability to commit abortions from actual doctors to physician assistants and some types of nurses, and another requiring certain health insurance plans to pay for abortions.” Churches and religious schools are “allowed to seek exemptions” from the insurance coverage mandate,” which “also provides that abortions not covered by Medicaid ‘must be funded by state funds within existing resources,’” reports Mr. Freiburger. Both laws were signed in June by Gov. Janet Mills (D).

In the Courts

• U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE DANIEL HOVLAND ISSUED A TEMPORARY INJUNCTION earlier this month against North Dakota’s abortion-pill-reversal notification law, which requires chemical abortionists to notify their customers that reversal of a chemical abortion is possible within a limited time frame. Notes Bridget Sielicki for Live Action, the chemical abortion process entails ingesting of two drugs, with a prescribed delay between the two pills. “Because a woman must wait a period of time between taking the two drugs,” writes Ms. Sielicki, “there is a chance that she can change her mind before she takes the misoprostol. Doctors have stated,” she reports, “that giving high doses of progesterone as soon as possible may be able to counteract the mifepristone and save the baby,” as has been achieved in some cases. Judge Hovland appears to find the reversal method an unproven tactic, despite “significant evidence,” writes Ms. Sielicki, “that abortion pill reversal is possible and safe.”

Tragic Fallout

Sept. 23, 2019, Washington Update commentary by Family Research Council president Tony Perkins

            There were a lot more victims of Dr. Ulrich Klopfer’s abortions than the ones they found in his garage. Former patients are also starting to tell their stories of the baby body hoarder, each painting a more disturbing picture of the man with 2,246 bloody secrets on his property.

            Like a lot of women, Assetou doesn’t talk about her abortions. “That changed,” CBS/Chicago reports, when she found out the man she’d entrusted with her life was a madman who stashed tiny babies like hers in cardboard boxes on his property. “‘I thought to myself “O, my God, I did this awful thing and my children are possibly held in a box somewhere in a house,”’ Assetou said. ‘I cried.’”

            For this mom – and who knows how many others – the headlines of Klopfer’s twisted obsession have brought back a lot of terrible memories about the abortion and the man who performed it. She remembers how forcefully he pressured her to go through with it, telling her, “‘If you don’t do this, it will cost you … [about] $240,000 [a year] to take care of a kid. So would you rather deal with that or would you rather go home and just go back to your regular life?’” Assetou recalls him asking. “There was no emotion. There was no empathy.”

            Amazingly, she went back eight years later for another abortion – leaving with actual physical scars this time. “The one thing I can remember was he was extremely rough,” Assetou said. “His tone of voice, how direct, callous it was. Even the procedure … It was rough.” Considering the callous detachment Klopfer had for his victims, it makes sense that his insensitivity would carry over to patients. Regardless, Assetou warns, any abortion will change you. “If you choose to do that,” she says now, “just know it will live with you forever.”

            Out in Illinois, where industrial trash bins sit outside the unmarked mass grave, officials still work behind the yellow tape, trying to make sense of it all. Some 150 miles away in Indiana, Atty. Gen. Curtis Hill (R) isn’t just demanding a full-blown investigation – he’s fighting to give the tiny bodies a final resting place. “We are going to continue this matter to determine as best we can exactly what happened,” he said at a press conference. “But in the meantime, I can tell you that we are going to bring our babies home.” [Abortionist Klopfer practiced his trade in Indiana and lived in Illinois, where the remains of his victims were found stored on his property after his early September death.]

            After 20 years of [the remains] being buried in boxes, Hill wants to “make sure they are treated with the proper dignity and respect deserving of anyone.” Already, faith leaders like the Diocese of Gary, Indiana, are offering to provide a site. “We are working with officials to explore how to best facilitate that process,” a spokesman told reporters.

            Of course, the irony of this whole case is that Indiana is one of the first states to pass a fetal dignity law. Naturally, abortion groups, who despise any policy that hints at the personhood of these victims, fought the state all the way to the Supreme Court, which – coincidentally – Klopfer lived to see the Justices uphold. Much to the Left’s dismay, Texas, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Idaho, Arizona, Florida, Arkansas and Wyoming all followed suit. And after this horror story, Americans can certainly expect more.

            “The disturbing chain of events surrounding Dr. Klopfer’s actions demonstrates the need for state laws regulating the final disposition of fetal remains,” the Atty. General pointed out.

            Groups like Planned Parenthood disagree. They argue that it puts more work on the clinic’s shoulders – and adds to the cost of abortions. Don’t worry; they’ll pass it along. The liberal-leaning Guttmacher Institute was a little more honest, admitting that these burial and cremation laws, “further stigmatize abortion services and pregnancy loss.” The unfortunate reality is this: Abortionists don’t respect life before birth. Why would we expect them to respect it after?

            Klopfer’s garage of horrors is extreme, but this is – at its rawest core – pulling back the curtain on what the abortion industry is all about. An industry, incidentally, that your tax dollars are involuntarily funding by the hundreds of millions of dollars. It has to stop. Babies in the womb, a box or on a hospital table – they all deserve dignity and respect.