Life Advocacy Briefing

Feather in Their Cap

THE COMMUNIST GOVERNMENT OF RED CHINA is not happy with criticism of their anti-humanitarian persecution policies. Now that the Congress has passed and the President has signed the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020 (S-3744), which, as outlined on the White House website “condemns gross human rights violations of specified ethnic Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang region in China,” the Beijing regime has barred travel to the Communist-suppressed land by its Senate sponsor, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), who chairs the House Pro-Life Caucus, as well as former Senator Sam Brownback, who is serving the US as Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom.

All four have condemned the forced abortion pogrom of the tyrants in Beijing, as do certain provisions of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act.

The Uyghurs are an ethnic group within Red China, chiefly residing in the Xinjiang Province. The Beijing butchers are using forced abortion, among other tyrannical policies, in seeking to exterminate the ethnic minority.

Riding a Trojan Horse

IN ONE OF THE MOST DESTRUCTIVE – among many destructive – edicts using the Covid-19 viral epidemic as an excuse, Maryland-based US District Judge Theodore Chuang ruled last Monday that the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) cannot require abortion-seeking women to meet personally with a doctor when acquiring the abortion drug RU-486.

The lawsuit was brought by the ACLU on behalf, reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews, of “several groups including the pro-abortion American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists (ACOG)” and cited “the coronavirus public health emergency’s discouragement of non-essential outside travel.

“[Judge] Chang agreed that the requirement posed a ‘substantial obstacle’ during a pandemic,” writes Mr. Freiburger, quoting the Washington Post, “and ruled that, ‘particularly in light of the limited timeframe during which a medication abortion or any abortion must [sic] occur, such infringement on the right to an abortion would constitute irreparable harm.’”

So travel restrictions issued by certain governors as a supposed aid to public safety are used as an excuse to dispose of innocent human life. Does that make perfect sense? No more than most judicial rulings concerning abortion!

The Obama-appointed judge was apparently not asked to explain how jeopardizing the health of aborting mothers was a benefit to American women and their families. But his ruling does pave the way for mail-order purchase of dangerous drugs.

Said Students for Life of America president Kristan Hawkins, quoted by Mr. Freiburger, “‘Making it easier to sell chemical abortion pills does a lot for the abortion industry’s bottom line, but women’s lives and future children are put at risk. …Yet here we are again with a single judge deciding that it’s acceptable to endanger women’s health and lives as well as their present and future children as long as it wasn’t hard to make the sale.’”

Declared Created Equal president Mark Harrington, also quoted in the LifeSiteNews story, “‘Abortion advocates, including this federal judge, are using Covid-19 as a Trojan horse to eliminate FDA restrictions on pill abortion.’”

What the FDA ought to be doing – especially in light of abortion’s threat to America’s population – is withdrawing its Clinton-era authorization for RU-486 to be marketed in the United States.

Operation Rescue published a report by OR vice president Cheryl Sullenger last week about an emergency which occurred May 12 at Houston (TX) Women’s Clinic abortuary two weeks after an abortive mother had ingested the abortion pill at the facility. The “patient” returned to HWC, notes Mrs. Sullenger, citing a 911 call as source, “with ‘heavy, heavy bleeding.’ The woman had fainted multiple times, and her oxygen level had dropped to a dangerous 80%. … According to Healthfully.com,” Mrs. Sullenger writes, “‘When oxygen saturation drops below 80%, severe hypoxemia occurs. Hypoxemia is a low level of oxygen in the blood that disrupts body function and harms vital tissues. It can be life-threatening in severe cases.’”

Yet Judge Chang blithely hands the abortion industry carte blanche to market its baby-killing, mother-risking drug without a personal connection between the “patient” and a doctor or clinic.

Withdrawing Misplaced Honor

REP. RUSS FULCHER (R-ID) HAS PROPOSED REMOVAL OF A MEMORIAL to a prominent American from the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery.

The target of his opprobrium? Planned Parenthood’s founder, notorious eugenicist and racist Margaret Sanger, whose name continues to be honored by the goliath of the abortion cartel, which every year bestows its “Margaret Sanger Award” upon a noteworthy advocate of baby-killing.

“‘As our nation struggles to address racial injustice,’” declared the first-term Congressman, quoted by Calvin Freiburger in a LifeSiteNews report, “‘it is unconscionable that an avowed racist and eugenicist is featured so prominently. … Ms. Sanger is not the kind, inspirational figure you refer to when you talk about challenging our nation “to live up to its founding ideals.”’” His comments were quoted from a June 25 letter he sent to Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III.

“A member of the American Eugenics Society, Sanger wrote,” notes Mr. Freiburger, “that ‘clear(ing) the way for birth control’ was necessary for the success of ‘eugenists and others who are laboring for racial betterment’ and declared the ‘campaign for birth control is (…) practically identical in ideal with the final aim of eugenics.’”

“‘The mass of ignorant Negroes still breed carelessly and disastrously,’” reads one article from Ms. Sanger’s publication, The Birth Control Review, notes Mr. Freiburger, “‘so that the increase among Negroes, even more than the increase among whites, is from that part of the population least intelligent and fit and least able to rear their children properly.’”

No wonder Margaret Sanger’s Planned Parenthood persists in siting abortuaries within or adjacent to black neighborhoods in America. No wonder audio recordings exposed by undercover pro-life investigators just a few years ago revealed, notes Mr. Freiburger, “Planned Parenthood officials in Idaho, New Mexico, Ohio and Oklahoma enthusiastically accepting donations earmarked to abort babies of specific races.”

The then-director of the National Portrait Gallery, Kim Sajet, “refused a similar request” in 2015, reports Mr. Freiburger, “from a group of black pastors to move Sanger’s bust on the ground that ‘there is no “moral test”’ for acceptance into the gallery, but rather it is simply for ‘those who have made a significant impact on American history and culture, and that includes both the accomplished and reprehensible.’”

Perhaps the Smithsonian ought to more fully identify the character of those it features. If the museum is so inclusive, perhaps a rogue’s gallery would be a suitable feature.

Abortion Lobby Hijacks New Tennessee Law

TENNESSEE GOV. BILL LEE (R) HAS SIGNED AN “OMNIBUS PRO-LIFE BILL into law” last Monday, reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews, banning abortion “once a fetal heartbeat is detected, alongside a range of other abortion restrictions and conditions.”

The ACLU and Planned Parenthood, together with the Center for Reproductive Rights had already filed suit against the new law even before it was signed. Nashville-based US District Judge William Campbell granted the order blocking enforcement within an hour of the governor’s signature.

Though adopting Heartbeat Abortion Ban legislation is a growing pro-life tactic to foster legal challenges which could provide a path for eventual overturning of Roe v. Wade, incorporating its easily challengeable provisions along with other restrictions jeopardizes a state’s opportunity to enforce less controversial regulations.

Also included in this now-blocked legislation, for example, is a requirement that abortionists perform an ultrasound of their target before the abortion can be committed. And, notes Mr. Freiburger, “it also bans abortions specifically sought due to a child’s race, sex or prenatal diagnosis of a disability such as Down Syndrome.”

Why Finance an Enemy?

July 10, 2020, LifeSiteNews commentary by Calvin Freiburger

            The Trump administration’s decision to withdraw the United States from the corrupt, ineffective, pro-China World Health Organization (WHO) has angered a lot of people at home and abroad … not because it will negatively impact global health but because it’ll negatively impact the agendas and bottom lines of various groups that have been exploiting the guise of “health services.”

            And nobody has worn that disguise more effectively than the abortion industry, whose allies go all the way to the top of the global health establishment. The WHO’s website declares as “essential” the “right” to “access to legal and safe abortion.” Over the past few months, it has pushed self-induced chemical abortions via webcam as a substitute for the various abortion facilities temporarily shut down due to Covid-19.

            So it’s only natural that Planned Parenthood’s former research arm, the Guttmacher Institute, would come out against withdrawal. Ironically, however, their report – which frames it as a “tantrum” to stop subsidizing an organization co-opted by a corrupt, murderous Communist dictatorship – inadvertently makes the pro-life case for withdrawal perfectly: “WHO is the leading source for technical and policy guidance on a wide range of topics related to sexual and reproductive health and rights. When countries, partners and even U.S. government agencies want to improve their policies and clinical guidelines, they first look to WHO for sound, scientific and robust information in multiple languages […] The Trump administration’s choice to withdraw the United States from the WHO is shortsighted and ill-informed. Not only will it hamper global and US responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, it will undermine the progress made on sexual and reproductive health over the past several decades. The loss of funding and technical partnership with the United States will mean that fewer people around the world will receive the care that they want and need.”

            That may sound like a bad thing, but only if one doesn’t know that “sexual and reproductive health” is code for legal, widespread and cheap/free abortions. For Guttmacher to openly acknowledge that WHO is an active player in the policy fight for abortion only reinforces the conclusion that the US should not be forcing taxpayers to fund something that champions policies opposed by more than half of those taxpayers.

            In between these two paragraphs, Guttmacher lists various examples of innocuous-sounding healthcare work (mixed in with more “reproductive health” references, plus LGBT “needs,” to boot). But the idea that the WHO has to be the middleman for American support of global health is preposterous.

            Even a brief search yields scores of other non-government organizations working in global health, which could be supported (pending review of their values and effectiveness, of course). And, obviously, the government can (and already does) send foreign aid directly to countries to assist with their health needs.

            What sets organizations like the WHO apart is smuggling in left-wing ideology and objectives alongside these services. Thankfully, that scam won’t fly any more with the current Administration.

The Biden/Sanders/Pelosi Agenda

July 10, 2020, FRC Action commentary by Family Research Council president Tony Perkins

            They don’t have a new President, but House Democrats are giving Americans a pretty good preview of what legislation will look like if they do. And if you care about taxpayer-funded abortion – and three-quarters of the country does – it’s not pretty.

            It was a dress rehearsal, but Thursday’s markup on a package of foreign aid ought to be just the ticket any complacent conservative needs. In a sign of things to come if liberals retake the White House or Senate, Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s crew was hard at work chipping away at routine pro-life protections. Republicans, including Ranking Member Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX), fought back hard, introducing amendment after amendment to stop US dollars from flowing to overseas abortions under the ruse of “family planning.” But in the end, it wasn’t enough.

            “I can’t agree,” Granger argued, “to reverse the important policies put forth by this Administration to protect Life.” She was referring to one of the White House’s first acts – reinstating the Mexico City Policy. And although 75% of the country (including 60% of “pro-choicers”) support his decision, Democrats insist on ignoring the vast majority of American taxpayers and funneling money to controversial groups like UNFPA, who are not only a global megaphone for abortion but forced abortion and sterilization too.

            “There should be no higher priority,” subcommittee chair [sic] Hal Rogers (R-KY) argued “than these commonsense measures that protect the unborn.”

            “We fundamentally just disagree on this issue,” Democrat Nita Lowey (NY) said. You bet we do, Cong. Andy Harris (R-MD) made clear. When liberals tried to turn the tables on Republicans, arguing that they didn’t care about women, Harris, a medical doctor, rose to speak, “This debate has been not about whether you support women. It’s not about whether you support children. It’s not about whether you support Life – although it is those children who are killed by abortion. It’s not about family planning. It’s not about contraception. It is about abortion. It’s just that simple.”

            Elections have consequences, and unfortunately they [can] especially hurt in policy debates like this one – where routine language on abortion is no longer common ground. And unfortunately, the country is only going to experience more of these moments if they elect a President who no longer thinks there’s room for consensus on Life.

            Reinstating global abortion funding, it turns out, is the mild part of the Democratic Party’s vision. If by some miracle there were still Americans under the assumption that Joe Biden is a moderate, this week’s Biden/Sanders platform reveal should have debunked that myth – once and for all. The Biden/Sanders “unity” document is so extreme it makes Barack Obama look like Franklin Roosevelt. And the unborn are only some of the victims.

            “The voters will have a clear choice,” Ken Blackwell told Sarah Perry on [Family Research Council’s podcast] Washington Watch. “On the one hand, you have those who want to preserve [religious liberty] and who fundamentally understand that our human rights are not grants from any government. They are gifts from God inherent in our human dignity. And on the other side, you have those folks who want to chase God and faith out of the public square.” The Marxist ideology, he warned, “now frames not only the platform of the DNC and their nominee, but it is in fact a part of the transformation of America today that they promise in all of their documents and mouthpieces.”

            Think about it, [Ms. Perry] said, a socialist now has his name on the roadmap of the Democratic Party. A man who recently, she pointed out, just went on MSNBC to say, “Listen, if these are adopted, he’ll be the most progressive Presidential candidate in all time.” A socialist calling Joe Biden progressive? Talk about left of Left.

            “This is 110 pages about combating the climate crisis and pursuing environmental justice, when there are parents like me,” [Ms. Perry] said, “who just want their kids to be educated. Who want to be able to practice their beliefs without government interference. Who want to be able to put food on the table.” And what do Biden and Sanders want to do? Deconstruct the family. Erase history. Eliminate faith.

            “It’s a very clear choice,” [Mr. Blackwell] said. “This is not going to be a referendum on Donald Trump. This is going to be a choice election.”

            If you don’t believe him, check out the Biden/Sanders plan [https://joebiden.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/UNITY-TASK-FORCE-RECOMMENDATIONS.pdf – esp. pg. 91] and compare it to the Trump accomplishments. [https://www.frcaction.org/accomplishments] There are a lot of people in this country desperate to make this an election about personality. It isn’t. It’s about policy. And the contrast between the two parties and their policies is truly the starkest yet.