Life Advocacy Briefing

Daleiden R.I.C.O. Case Goes to Jury

PRAYERS ARE SOLICITED for the SanFrancisco jury deliberating the fate of pro-life investigative journalists David Daleiden and his co-defendants in a whopping civil damages case brought by Planned Parenthood Federation of America. After six weeks of testimony, in the courtroom of known Planned Parenthood ally Judge William Orrick, the defense offered closing arguments last Wednesday. Jurors, notes LifeSiteNews.com reporter Lianne Laurence, “are down to nine men and one woman, with two of the original 12 excused, one for flu and another with a broken arm.”

Defense lawyers, who have shown unhappiness with Judge Orrick throughout the lengthy trial, expressed concern last week about the judge’s jury instructions. “‘Unfortunately,’” said the founder of the chief defense counsel firm Thomas More Society, Thomas Brejcha, quoted by Ms. Laurence, “‘we couldn’t get Judge Orrick to back off from his insistence that the jury be instructed that the First Amendment … does not state any kind of defense to the charges in this case. … Which, frankly,’” he added, “‘we think is a terrible misreading of our fundamental Constitutional laws about free speech.’”

Down Syndrome Protection Filed in D.C.

FEDERAL LEGISLATION HAS BEEN FILED in both the House and the Senate to bar abortions targeting babies who have been diagnosed with Down syndrome.

Rep. Ron Estes (R-WY) has filed HR-4903 along with 42 co-sponsors, and Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) has introduced S-2745 along with 15 co-sponsors; each bill has been assigned to the respective Judiciary Committee.

Citing a 2012 “meta-review of 24 studies conducted between 1995 and 2011,” Alexandra DeSanctis for National Review (NR) reports the “researchers narrowed [their conclusions] to a ‘weighted mean’ of 67%.” That is, researchers have concluded that some 67% of in utero babies thought to have Down syndrome are extinguished by abortion. The “obvious” targeting of Down syndrome babies, notes Ms. DeSanctis, “has long been a cause of concern for the pro-life movement.”

The Estes and Inhofe bills are reportedly “the first” such protective measures to be considered in the US Congress, according to NR, and each of those measures would “impose a fine and/or imprisonment of up to five years for violations,” also providing “privacy protections for pregnant mothers, forbid[ding] coercion used against them and bar[ring] them from prosecution,” as is typical in pro-life legislation, which is aimed not at vulnerable mothers but at the abortion racket.

“According to a recent Gallup survey,” reports Ms. DeSanctis, “only a plurality (49%) of Americans favors allowing first-trimester abortions when Down syndrome has been detected. More than two-thirds of Americans say this type of selective abortion should be illegal in the last trimester. Even more interesting,” writes Ms. DeSanctis, “women tend to be more pro-life than men on this question; only 44% of women support abortion in the first trimester after a Down-syndrome diagnosis, compared with 56% of men.”

Readers are urged to contact their home-district Members of Congress and home-state Senators to request their co-sponsorship of these compassionate measures. They may be reached via the Capitol switchboard at 1-202/224-2131. We publish a list of the co-sponsors as of Nov. 14 at the close of this Life Advocacy Briefing, so readers can thank those who are already stepping up for justice for these precious, vulnerable babies.

Truth Can Hurt but Must Be Told

IN AN INTERVIEW WITH PRO-LIFE PODCASTER Jonathan VanMaren, reported by LifeSiteNews.com, former abortionist Kathi Aultman (who is now with the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute) related an experience in appearing at a public hearing and describing what abortion team members observe during the act.

“‘We were in a hearing once, and I had given a fairly graphic description, very graphic, graphic but honest description,’ she recalled,” quoted by LifeSiteNews. “‘And one of the members got upset that “we had no decorum, and how could I be so graphic?” And the chairman of the committee said, “well, gosh, if we can’t even discuss it, should we be doing them?”’”

Good point. We at Life Advocacy counsel pro-life candidates that public discussion of their stands against abortion might at times call for informing the public about the reality, unpleasant as it can be to talk about; if the pro-life candidate simply adopts a nice-sounding label and moves on to other issues, rather than defining the abortion issue for an often uninformed audience, the abortion lobby can continue to get away with euphemisms that do not inform voters who need to discern.

Partial-birth abortion, for example, needs to be described for the average voter even to imagine that such an act would be perpetrated by those claiming medical professionalism. Likewise, dismemberment-and-evacuation abortion – the method used today in upwards of 95% of second-and-late-term abortions – needs to be described in order for voters to grasp the importance of advocating reform of our laws.

Such descriptions can sear the consciences of the hearers and can result in a revulsion against the communicator – as happened to Dr. Aultman in the incident she described to Mr. VanMaren. Consequently, Life Advocacy urges our communicators to approach the imparting of painful facts with apology and acknowledgment that the truth can be hard to hear, and then to suggest that that very reality underscores the urgent need for reform of the law.

Tragic Conclusion to Lengthy Battle

WE MUST ADMIT TO DEEP DISAPPOINTMENT in the news that partial-birth-abortion pioneer Martin Haskell has managed to collect enough cooperating “doctor” signatures to force the Ohio Dept. of Health to grant his Dayton-area abortion shop a renewed license after four years of litigation seeking to block his continued preying on mothers and their developing babies. The news comes within days of news that the state supreme court had rejected an appeal from the Haskell enterprise, seeming to close the legal episode and the odious chop shop. 

The state, reports Associated Press (AP), “has granted Women’s Med Center a surgical facility license,” allowing it to “remain open. … The center in Kettering had postponed surgical abortions as it pursued multiple avenues to stay open, including several state and federal court challenges and negotiations with local health systems and doctors.”

State law requires an abortuary to prove it has an emergency patient-transfer agreement, offering customers some assurance they will be cared for in the event of complications. The Haskell shop has yet to produce such an agreement, but his enterprise was able to win a “variance,” reports AP, by “secur[ing] enough doctor signatures.” Could be the law needs a tweak!

In the States

• THE OHIO SENATE passed two bills last week to regulate the abortion industry. SB-155 passed 23 to 10 and would require abortionists to inform customers undergoing chemical abortion that reversal of the process could be possible; SB-208, the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act, passed 24 to 9, to require abortionists to furnish life-preserving care in the event an abortion target survives. Both bills now go to the House for consideration.

• THE HEARTBEAT BILL has cleared committee in the South Carolina Senate, having already passed the House. Unfortunately, the committee added a provision discriminating against babies whose conception results from a sex crime before advancing it on a 9-to-6 roll call.

In the Courts

• THE OKLAHOMA SUPREME COURT issued a temporary injunction Nov. 4, blocking the state from enforcing its new Dismemberment Abortion Ban while the court deliberates on the abortion lobby’s constitutional challenge to the law. The court voted 6 to 2 to suspend the law after a lower-court judge, who had upheld the law, refused to suspend it pending appeal. The 2015 bill had passed the Oklahoma House 84 to 2 and the Senate 37 to 4. Oklahoma Attorney Gen. Mike Hunter celebrated District Judge Cindy Truong’s upholding of the measure last July, reports Dave Andrusko for National Right to Life News, declaring, “‘Dismemberment abortions are barbaric, brutal and subject unborn children to more cruelty than we allow for death-row inmates. … It is unconscionable to think that we would allow this practice to continue. Judge Truong is to be commended for declaring this legislation constitutional. Today [last July 12] is a major victory for basic human decency in Oklahoma.”

Key Reminder: The Gift of Children

Nov. 14, 2019, The Point commentary by John Stonestreet & G. Shane Morris

            If only I had a nickel for every time someone said to me, after hearing I have four kids: “Hey, don’t you know what causes that?”

            Behind that old joke today is an increasingly negative perception of children. From fears of climate change to our addiction to stuff, children are seen increasingly in our world as a burden to avoid or even to eliminate.

            That’s why I was pleased to sign the latest statement produced by Evangelicals and Catholics Together, called “The Gift of Children.”

            Children affirm that God’s creation is good, and they compel us “to serve a future we cannot control,” to trust that God isn’t yet finished with this world.

            “The Gift of Children” offers a radically counter-cultural understanding of children. And it challenges believers to welcome new life as a witness to the love of the God Who gave us life.

Life Advocacy Briefing editor’s note: The full statement and list of signers can be found on the Internet at https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/11/the-gift-of-children.

Ominous Trend

Nov. 7, 2019, commentary from The Federalist, by Life Issues Institute president Bradley Mattes

            The chemical abortion pill, marketed as Mifeprex and referred to as a medication abortion, is the future of the abortion industry. The number of chemical abortions in America has increased dramatically while the overall tally of abortions has declined.

            Those who advocate for and provide this abortion drug almost always downplay the excruciating process that awaits unsuspecting women, doing a grave disservice to them.

            Tammi Morris was no stranger to abortion. She had previously had seven of them, so when an abortion provider told her the chemical abortion process would be “safe, near painless and private,” she agreed to use it. Shortly after taking the second dose of pills, however, Tammi realized it wouldn’t be anything like what the abortion center staff had described. “They didn’t prepare me for this,” Tammi said. Instead, what she endured was an experience she described as “savage” and “horrific.” She found herself alone, “feeling like I was going to give birth to death.” Profuse bleeding forced Tammi to seek medical intervention.

            Elizabeth Gillette’s experience with the abortion drug was similarly traumatizing. In her case, the falsehoods exceeded the abortion staff’s mischaracterization of the drug’s effects. Elizabeth told them she was undecided about the abortion and wanted to view the ultrasound. At first, she was rebuffed, but Elizabeth persisted. A staff member finally showed her a still shot of the monitor, saying, “Do you see? There’s no heartbeat. There’s no movement. Your pregnancy’s not viable.” Elizabeth said the facility had lied to her in an attempt to tip the scale of her uncertainty about the abortion. “No one counseled me. No one told me what the options were.” As for the abortion process, Elizabeth says she was told, “You’ll experience some light cramping. It’ll be like a heavy period. Shouldn’t hurt.” Elizabeth confessed, “I had no idea what was coming. No idea.” The cramping was “deep and very painful. I’ve had three children since then, and it felt like labor.”

            The physical ordeals of these women were just the beginning of more horrors to come. Common to Tammi and Elizabeth’s experience during their chemical abortions, facilities send women home to abort alone, with no one to shield them from what they will see and feel.

            Numerous medical experts understand the added physical and emotional trauma inflicted by chemical abortion. Ob-gyn Donna Harrison likened the process, which is four times more likely to require medical intervention afterward than a surgical abortion, to “almost patient abandonment.” She sees the irony in feminists demanding safe, legal abortion while “pushing a chemical coat hanger on women.”

            During her chemical abortion – really an induced miscarriage – Tammi felt the urge to push and then looked down. What she saw left her devastated. “There was my baby, in a toilet. This wasn’t fetal tissue. This was a formed, recognizable, undeniable baby. My baby.” Through tears, Elizabeth also described coming face to face with her unborn son. “I held him. The doctor promised me that I would feel relieved.” But what Elizabeth described wasn’t relief. Instead she felt an “overwhelming guilt, a sickness inside that I couldn’t put away. Nightmares started shortly after. I stopped eating. I became anorexic. I was later diagnosed with acute post-traumatic stress disorder.”

            Tammi and Elizabeth then faced the struggle of daily emotional turmoil enveloping their lives as a result of what they had done and seen. How does a mother who killed her own child in the womb intentionally, how does she grieve outwardly?” Tammi questioned.

            Elizabeth felt a burning passion to warn other women. When facing a second unexpected pregnancy, she made a video that quickly became popular, encouraging other women to persevere. “Hiding in the silence is just your own personal death sentence. But when you stand up and say enough is enough – this hurt me, and it’s hurting women everywhere – it set me free. … Our society is breeding fear,” Elizabeth said. “We tell our women to go out and get a job and be everything you can be, except being a mom. And that’s a lie.” To her, abortion is “a regret you can’t reconcile. It’s forever.”

            Grassroots organizations and people who have seen or experienced these devastating effects are making an effort to give a voice to women who have been physically or emotionally harmed by chemical abortion. They’ve created a safe, confidential place women can go to tell their stories about their experience; sharing can often be therapeutic.

            The landscape of the abortion debate was altered during the 1980s when women who had experienced abortion and its aftermath came forward to tell their stories. By speaking out, the victims of chemical abortion can spare countless other women and their babies from enduring a similar tragedy.

Downs Baby Champs

SPONSORS OF BILLS PROTECTING DOWN SYNDROME BABIES from attacks by abortionists: In the House, HR-4903, chief sponsor Rep. Ron Estes (R-WY); co-sponsors: GOP Representatives Robert Aderholt (AL); Rick Crawford & Bruce Westerman (AR); Ken Buck & Doug Lamborn (CO); Matt Gaetz & Ross Spanos (FL); Rick Allen & Jody Hice (GA); John Shimkus (IL); Jim Banks (IN); Steve King (IA); Roger Marshall & Steve Watkins (KS); Ralph Abraham & Mike Johnson (LA); Andy Harris (MD); Pete Stauber (MN); Blaine Luetkemeyer & Ann Wagner (MO); Greg Gianforte (MT); Christopher Smith (NJ); Mark Meadows, George Murphy & Mark Walker (NC); Steve Chabot & Robert Latta (OH); Kevin Hern & Markwayne Mullin (OK); Mike Kelly (PA); Ralph Norman (SC); Chuck Fleischmann (TN); Brian Babin, Kevin Brady, Michael Conaway, Kenny Marchant, Chip Roy, Randy Weber, Roger Williams, Ron Wright (TX); Ben Cline (VA); and Alexander Mooney (WV).

In the Senate, S-2745, chief sponsor Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK); co-sponsors: GOP Senators Tom Cotton (AR), Rick Scott (FL), James Risch (ID), Mike Braun (IN), Joni Ernst (IA), Cindy Hyde-Smith (MS), Josh Hawley (MO), Steve Daines (MT), Kevin Cramer & John Hoeven (ND), James Lankford (OK), Tim Scott (SC), Mike Rounds & John Thune (SD) and Marsha Blackburn (TN).