Life Advocacy Briefing

Calls Needed Today

OUR FRIENDS AT LIFESITENEWS.com HAVE RAISED AN ALARM about Senate amendments by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) that would add abortion funding to the Senate’s appropriation measure for the State Dept. & Foreign Operations.

“Writing Tuesday [Oct. 8] at The Daily Wire, Conservative Partnership Institute senior policy director Rachel Bovard warned,” reports LifeSiteNews writer Calvin Freiburger, “that Senate Republicans have not moved to quash an amendment by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen that would provide almost $60 million to US-based organizations such as Pathfinder International, Population Council, Engender Health and PATH, all of which list abortion as part of their core mission.

“[Sen.] Shaheen boasted in a Sept. 30 press release,” notes Mr. Freiburger, “that she also added funding to the United Nations Population Fund, from which the Trump Administration withdrew in 2017 over its participation in [Red] China’s forced abortion regime.”

The Shaheen additions, reports Mr. Freiburger, “survived as the broader spending bill … was reported out of the Republican-controlled Senate Appropriations Committee via voice vote (meaning individual lawmakers’ positions aren’t recorded). ‘Senate Republicans are apparently also fine with language in the bill’s report prioritizing funding toward “family planning/reproductive health,”’ [Ms.] Bovard added,” quoted by LifeSiteNews, “‘phrases long deemed by the pro-life community to be synonymous with abortion.’” The Appropriations Committee is chaired by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL).

“[Ms.] Bovard explained that the Shaheen amendment violates the broader agreement both parties reached in August that spending bills negotiated in September would contain ‘no poison pills, additional new riders, additional CHIMPS [unexplained] or other changes in policy or conventions that allow for higher spending levels, or any non-appropriations measures unless agreed to on a bipartisan basis by the four Leaders with the approval of the President.’”

Mr. Freiburger warns, “If the Shaheen language is not removed before the bill clears the Senate, it is likely to become law. Despite taking multiple executive actions to protect Life, President Trump,” writes Mr. Freiburger, “has repeatedly demonstrated he is unwilling to veto spending bills that contain abortion dollars.”

The LifeSiteNews report goes on to list the following contact information for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY): 1-202/224-2541, and for Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-SD): 1-202/224-2321. Additionally, the directory we use, which is published annually by the National Legal & Policy Center, shows Sen. McConnell’s phone number as 1-202/224-3135 and Sen. Thune’s as 1-202/224-2708. We encourage our readers to make the calls as soon as possible. The message: Do not let the State Department appropriation to be advanced until the pro-abortion Shaheen amendments have been removed.

RU Kidding?

APPROVAL BY THE FOOD & DRUG ADMINISTRATION OF A GENERIC version of the abortion drug has prompted 53 US House Members to send a letter to Acting Commissioner Norman Sharpless MD, “warning,” reports Dave Andrusko for National Right to Life News (NRL News), “against acceding to Planned Parenthood’s request to remove restrictions on the use of the abortifacient mifepristone [RU-486], the first of two drugs that make up ‘medication [chemical] abortions’ technique.”

In the years since the FDA cleared RU-486, the French abortion drug, for marketing in the US (in the last days of the Clinton Regime), only its official marketer Danco has been able to distribute (and profit from) the baby poison. But now the FDA has approved a generic version marketed by an outfit called GenBioPro, reports Mr. Andrusko, who quoted the Congressional letter to Mr. Sharpless: “‘The use of mifepristone as a method to kill unborn babies has increased despite its proven health risks to women, and we are concerned that having this drug more readily available will have deeply troubling results.’”

The lawmakers, according to NRL News, “have asked for a meeting” with Mr. Sharpless to discuss the matter further. That, in our opinion, is the very least they can do.

Supreme Court Takes Louisiana Abortion Case

THE U.S. SUPREME COURT HAS ANNOUNCED it will consider the abortion industry’s appeal of a September ruling upholding Louisiana’s law requiring abortionists to secure admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the abortuary in order to maintain the facility’s license to operate.

Speculation is centering on the newest appointee to the high court, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, as he won the confirmation vote of Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) by, in the words of LifeSiteNews.com reporter Calvin Freiburger, “express[ing] significant respect for Roe’s status as precedent,” and because the new Justice last year, notes Mr. Freiburger, “joined the Court’s liberal wing in declining to hear Kansas’ and Louisiana’s appeals defending their efforts to cuts off Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood.” But Justice Kavanaugh, writes Mr. Freiburger, “noted (in a dissent to a ruling granting a stay [delay] of the law) that [Louisiana] Act 620 had a 45-day transition period during which ‘both the doctors and the relevant hospitals’ could have acted ‘expeditiously and in good faith to reach a definitive conclusion about whether those three doctors can obtain admitting privileges.’” Translation: the law appears to be reasonably enforceable.

“The case is likely,” opines Mr. Freiburger, “to at the very least impact the Hellerstedt precedent, which has been used to invalidate a broad range of modest abortion regulations as ‘undue burdens’ on women. It’s an open question whether a majority would take the opportunity to make a broader determination as to the underlying legitimacy of Roe v. Wade or Planned Parenthood v. Casey.” In our opinion at Life Advocacy, the answer to that “open question” is: not likely yet, but upholding the Louisiana law would be a good step in abortion litigation.

Dignity in the Atrocity

SENATORS MIKE BRAUN & TODD YOUNG (both R-IN) HAVE FILED S-2590, the Dignity for Aborted Children Act to “ensure,” reports National Right to Life News, “that women seeking an abortion would be given the option of keeping the remains or giving the abortion facility permission to dispose of the remains. Abortionists,” adds NRL News, “would be required to provide burial or cremation of the remains or face a fine and up to five years in prison.”

Introduction of the bill comes in response to the shocking discovery that now-deceased Indiana abortionist Ulrich Klopfer had been storing fetal remains in the garage of his Illinois home.

Co-sponsors of the proposal, which has been referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions, are Senators Rick Scott (FL), Joni Ernst (IA), Cindy Hyde-Smith & Roger Wicker (MS), Josh Hawley (MO), Steve Daines (MT), Thom Tillis (NC), James Inhofe (OK), Marsha Blackburn (TN) and John Cornyn & Ted Cruz (TX), all Republicans. The committee chairman is Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN).

Seeking Actual Facts

G.O.P. SENATORS JONI ERNST (IA) & TOM COTTON (AR) HAVE FILED S-2585, the Ensuring Accurate & Complete Abortion Data Reporting Act, to require states to report any occurrences of a child being delivered alive after an attempted abortion and to provide that the reported information will be publicly available. The bill has been referred to the Senate Finance Committee and is intended to answer abortion advocates’ false claims that babies cannot survive late-term abortions. Finance chairman is Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA).

Co-sponsoring the measure are Senators Mike Braun (IN), Josh Hawley (MN), Steve Daines (MT), Ben Sasse (NE), Kevin Cramer (ND), James Lankford (OK), Tim Scott (SC) and Marsha Blackburn (TN). All are Republicans.

Taking Back the Senate?

PLANNED PARENTHOOD’s POLITICAL OPERATION announced last week the abortion behemoth plans to spend $45 million next year – not on “health care” or “family planning” but on defeating the President and taking back the Senate for the Democratic Party, according to cable news channel Fox News.

The announcement included an unveiling of target states, according to Fox News, demonstrating which Republican Senators will be targeted by the outfit and which Democratic Senators will be defended by the massive political operation. The map shown on the news channel, however, includes two states where Senate seats are not scheduled for elections in 2020; our check of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund website does not show a map or disclose the Senate target list, but we publish here the list as shown by the Fox News map of Planned Parenthood targets.

The target list: Arizona, where GOP Sen. Martha McSally is seeking a full term; Colorado, where Sen. Cory Gardner (R) will seek a second term; Florida, where GOP Sen. Marco Rubio is seeking re-election to a third term; Michigan, where Democratic incumbent Sen. Gary Peters is challenged by pro-life Republican John James in his bid for a second term; Minnesota, where Sen. Tina Smith (D), elected in a 2018 special election, will seek election to a first full term and is being challenged by pro-life former GOP Congressman Jason Lewis; New Hampshire, where former Trump campaign manager Cory Lewandowski is expected to challenge two-term Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D); and North Carolina, where GOP Sen. Thom Tillis will seek to better his 49% vote share in seeking a second term. Other states shown on the Fox News map of Planned Parenthood targets are Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, but the Senate seats in those states are not subject to election in 2020, so their targets there must be primarily House seats.

We fully expect that Planned Parenthood’s political arm will be investing some of that $45 million in House races, certainly including contests in some states that were not marked on the Fox News target map. Surely, as well, the abortion goliath will invest in key state legislative races across America; it always has, at least since the Supreme Court’s 1989 Webster decision, which upheld a minor regulation of abortion in Missouri and sent the abortion lobby into political overdrive.

One thing is certain: Taking control of the US Senate will be a top goal of the abortion lobby and Planned Parenthood in particular. It is the Senate where confirmation of judges is such a critical issue, and under the Trump Presidency, the abortion lobby is losing its iron grip on the federal judiciary and even on the Supreme Court.

As pro-life champion and former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson said in a Fox News interview last Thursday, “This is who Planned Parenthood has become. They’re really not a healthcare provider. They have become a political force trying to elect candidates who also subscribe to their extreme views on abortion. … The only [Planned Parenthood] service that continues to increase year after year is abortion. So we see where their priorities lie, and it’s not with women’s health care.

“And if it was really about health care,” she noted, “they’d be taking this $45 million and putting it back into their clinics instead of using it for political action. … They’re saying, We’re struggling – our healthcare clinics are struggling, that’s why they’re closing. Then take that $45 million and actually put it into health care.”

Desperate for Attention?

AMID MEDIA FRENZY ON SEEKING TO UNSEAT THE PRESIDENT, three radical congresswomen are stepping up efforts to push passage of the abortion cartel’s campaign to repeal the Hyde Amendment in order to force taxpayers to build the abortion empire.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) joined Representatives Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) in a video released Sept. 30, reports Tyler Olson for FoxNews, to back Rep. Lee’s authoritarian measure, the so-called Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance Act (HR-1692), which is festering in subcommittee after its March introduction. 

Rep. Pressley, a freshman Representative, called the Hyde Amendment “‘an egregious policy rider,’” reports Mr. Olson, while Rep. Ocasio-Cortez declared, he writes, “‘Our access to reproductive justice and reproductive freedom should not be income-based. … Repealing Hyde means that low-income women, women who are incarcerated, nonbinary people who need access to an abortion can get it, not because they are wealthy but because they are an American.’” Nonbinary, according to the definition at dictionary.com, means “noting or relating to a person with a gender identity or sexual orientation that does not fit into the male/female or heterosexual/homosexual divisions” (in case you were wondering).

Celebrating True Service

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP USED THE OCCASION of a Hispanic Heritage Month reception at the White House to single out for honor the president of Heartbeat of Miami, a collection of five pregnancy centers associated with the respected Heartbeat International.

“Pres. Trump and Vice Pres. Mike Pence honored the lives of Hispanic Americans,” reports Andrea Trudden in Pregnancy Help News, “and the contributions they make to the country each day. In addition to the President, three Hispanic Americans had the opportunity to share about the work they do in front of a captive audience.”

Heartbeat of Miami president Martha Avila, writes Ms. Trudden, “just finished hosting [her centers’] annual gala less than two weeks ago when she received word that she was invited to speak as a special guest of the President of the United States. What started as a chance meeting with Vice Pres. Mike Pence at a pastors’ meeting in July evolved into an invitation to the reception, and ultimately the chance to speak about the effects of abortion on minorities in the US.

“With the world watching, Martha shared what the pregnancy help movement is doing to help women,” notes Ms. Trudden. “ ‘Over 3,000 pregnancy help clinics in the nation with very limited resources are doing this labor of love for those who don’t know what to do. They are confused; they don’t have a way out, and they think that abortion is the only solution.’ … Since it began serving women in 2007,” reports Pregnancy Help News, “Heartbeat of Miami has seen well over 35,000 women choose life for their babies in one of the most abortion-heavy cities in the US. …

“As the cameras were being packed up and the reception came to a close,” Ms. Trudden reports, “the President came over and thanked Martha for speaking. He gave her a hug and offered a word of encouragement, saying, ‘Please don’t give up.’”

Deserved Accolade & Support

Oct. 1, 2019, President Trump’s Message on Down Syndrome Awareness Month 2019 from WhiteHouse.gov

            During Down Syndrome Awareness Month, Melania and I join in celebrating the lives and achievements of Americans with Down syndrome. We thank individuals with Down syndrome for their incredible contributions to their families, their communities and our great nation, and we pledge to empower them to achieve their full potential.

            My Administration also renews its commitment to bring attention to and a deeper understanding of the challenges these remarkable Americans face, including their struggle against discrimination. Those thought to have Down syndrome also risk being subjected to the too-often terminations of their lives before birth.

            Each year, approximately 6,000 babies are born in the United States with Down syndrome. Though these newborns will experience many challenges, American innovation and research are helping these beautiful souls lead independent, full and happy lives. My Administration is dedicated to fostering opportunities for persons with Down syndrome, so they are better able to participate in our workforce and pursue their dreams.

            Every human life possesses immeasurable value, and my Administration will continue to embrace and defend the inherent truth that all of God’s children should be loved and cherished. This month is an important opportunity for Americans to reaffirm our commitment to creating a society that better appreciates and respects the dignity of life at all of its beautiful and miraculous stages. We must devote our efforts to ensure that the United States continues to exhibit reverence for human life – both born and unborn. Together, we can create an inclusive nation, one where Americans with Down syndrome are embraced in schools, workplaces and communities – one where discrimination can no longer cast a shadow of inequality.

            Our country is incredibly enriched by Americans with Down syndrome. As a nation, we are inspired by the spirit and exuberant joy with which these treasured Americans live each day.