Life Advocacy Briefing

Blessed Easter

WE WISH ALL OUR READERS a blessed Easter as we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Abetted Suicide Stirring in States

A ‘RIGHT’ FOR DOCTORS TO KILL THEIR PATIENTS in the guise of “assisted suicide” is the focus of bills now being considered in the Minnesota legislature and in the New York Assembly.

Minnesota’s deadly proposal is called “End of Life Option Act” and numbered SF-1352, according to David McLoone, writing for LifeSiteNews.com. It is sponsored by two Democratic state senators, Chris Eaton and John Marty, and, if approved, would make Minnesota the ninth US state to legalize doctor-abetted suicide.

Said Scott Fischbach, executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, quoted by Mr. McLoone, “‘Assisted suicide is a danger to all of us. This legislation has gone nowhere in past years, and state lawmakers must firmly reject it again.’ …

“The pro-life organization made the observation that, in the past, states which already have so-called ‘Death with Dignity’ legislation, like Oregon, have seen local health insurers ‘steer patients toward suicide rather than expensive life-extending treatment.’”

In New York, the “Medical Aid in Dying Act,” which has died in the Assembly twice since 2017, is expected to be reintroduced by Democratic Assemblyman Kevin Cahill.

Not only is the legislation a key priority for its sponsor, but according to Live Action’s Cassy Fiano-Chesser, Planned Parenthood Empire State Acts – a political action arm of the abortion behemoth in New York – has included its passage among its 2021 priorities, under the “‘bodily autonomy’ umbrella.”

Planned Parenthood, notes Mrs. Chesser, “is arguing for the right to kill human beings at any age, from womb to tomb.”

The Live Action alert quotes palliative care specialist Dr. Mary Ellen Edmiston, who, notes Mrs. Chesser, “asked lawmakers why they aren’t providing better options for sick and dying New Yorkers and instead simply focusing on death. ‘Hospice and palliative care as a medical specialty exists to help patients with life-limiting illness experience the best quality of life possible as they face the reality of their own impending death,’ she said,” in the Live Action report. “‘There are alternatives to unwilling suffering. We hope to provide more aid in living rather than more aid in dying.’” Amen.

Correction

IN OUR REPORT LAST WEEK on the confirmation of Health & Human Services Asst. Secretary Rachel Levine, we quoted the Wikipedia entry for the former Pennsylvania Health Director, and the quote we used included the pronoun “she.” (We also quoted a Family Research Council memo, which more appropriately used the pronoun “he.”) We regret any confusion this conflict might have engendered.

We do not desire to go deeply into the issues surrounding “transgenderism,” but we do not desire either to suggest that we believe a person whose cells bear male chromosomes is a female, regardless of how that person might wish to characterize himself or what name he may have adopted.

We do question – as we did last week – the action taken by the US Senate in confirming this notoriously failed healthcare bureaucrat to a position of such power in the largest bureaucratic department of the United States government.

Court Win

AN OHIO COUNTY COMMON PLEAS JUDGE refused in mid-March to issue a preliminary injunction against a new state law requiring abortion shops to cremate or bury remains of their victims. The suit had been filed by Planned Parenthood, the ACLU and several abortuaries to challenge the Unborn Child Dignity Act. Judge Alison Hatheway sided with the state’s claim the lawsuit was premature, at best. The law is set to take effect tomorrow, April 6.

Catching Up

WE HAVE BEEN PUBLISHING VOTING RECORDS from the US House and Senate as space permits. We publish this week two Senate procedural roll calls which occurred in March on the confirmation of Xavier Becerra as Secretary of Health & Human Services. We did publish the vote on the actual confirmation motion at the time it happened. Readers will find at the close of this week’s Life Advocacy Briefing the roll calls on the motion to discharge his nomination from committee – since the Senate Finance Committee refused to advance the nominee – and on the cloture motion to close debate on his appointment.

Frontal Challenge to Roe

March 10, 2021, Washington Update commentary by Family Research Council media coordinator Joshua Arnold

            On Tuesday, Arkansas SB-6, the “Arkansas Unborn Child Protection Act,” was signed into law by Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R). The Act, which criminalizes abortion at all stages of pregnancy except when the life of the mother is at risk, paints a big, red target on Roe v. Wade. The bill passed the State Senate (27-7) with three-to-one support and the State House (76-19) with four-to-one support. State Sen. Jason Rapert and State Rep. Mary Bentley worked tirelessly alongside the Arkansas Family Council to ensure the bill’s passage.

            Instead of tiptoeing around the abortion industry’s sacred cow, SB-6 opened a direct frontal assault on the Supreme Court’s 1973 abortion decision. The bill compared Roe v. Wade (and Doe and Casey), which denies the personhood of the unborn, with the Dred Scott decision (and Plessy v. Ferguson), which denied the personhood of African Americans. This is important because abortion advocates’ best argument to defend Roe is that it should be upheld simply because it is precedent and for no other reason. Just as the Supreme Court overturned its unjust decision in Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson, so it should overturn its unjust decisions in Roe, Doe and Casey, argues the Arkansas [law].

            The Arkansas Unborn Child Protection Act faithfully reflects a pro-life philosophy. It legally recognizes the government’s responsibility to honor and protect all human life, even in the womb. That is, the intentional taking of any life, even an unborn life, is morally and legally wrong. Consistent with this truth, the bill omits the common exceptions for rape and incest, which absurdly permit unborn babies to be killed because of who their parents are.*

            Arkansas Rep. Julie Mayberry told her own story while discussing the bill on the State House floor. At 19 weeks gestation, her unborn daughter was diagnosed with spina bifida. Many children with spina bifida, Down syndrome and other disabilities are aborted based on the contorted reasoning that a life with a severe condition is worse than no life at all. Not only is that not true (as anyone who has cared for a disabled child will tell you), but in Mayberry’s case the diagnosis was incorrect, and her daughter was born without any disability. Had she thought, as she once did, that abortion was okay, she might have had her healthy unborn daughter killed because of a misdiagnosis.

            Christians have always held that no law is valid which flies in the face of God’s law found in Scripture. And so, the bill’s sponsors deserve credit, not only for crafting a bill that consistently values and protects human life, but also for explicitly condemning one of the bloodiest stains on America’s national record, Roe v. Wade.

            Arkansas isn’t alone in passing such a broad ban on abortion. Alabama passed a similar bill in 2019, and other states have considered them, too. This demonstrates the increasing momentum of the pro-life movement, energized by popular opinion (millennials dislike abortion more than previous generations) and what may be the most favorable Supreme Court environment in the 48 years since the Roe decision was first handed down. Increasing numbers of Americans are being persuaded of “The Legal, Historical and Cultural Reasons to Overturn” Roe v. Wade**. It’s time for Roe’s legacy of death to end.

*Life Advocacy Briefing editor’s note: Hearty congratulations and thanks to the Arkansas state legislators who did not cave in to media and political pressure to excuse the killing of an unborn child whose conception via a sex crime adds neither guilt nor disgrace to the child him- or herself.

**Mr. Arnold’s phrase here is a title for a Family Research Council in-depth commentary, which can be found at the remarkable Internet address: https://www.frc.org/issueanalysis/%3Cem%3Eroe%3Cem%3E-must-end-the-legal-historical-and-cultural-reasons-to-overturn-%3Cem%3Eroe-v-wade%3Cem%3E.

The Bottom Line

Feb. 11, 2021, Fox News commentary by Judge Andrew Napolitano

            Amid arguments in the Senate over whether the impeachment of former President Donald Trump is constitutional, and in the House over whether $1.9 trillion is enough money to borrow and distribute to select taxpayers and institutions, there have been rumblings among Democrats to make it more difficult for the Supreme Court to invalidate or permit states to gnaw away at Roe v. Wade.

            Roe v. Wade is the 1973 Supreme Court opinion that essentially establishes – within the privacy of the patient-physician relationship – the right to choose to abort a baby in the womb.

            The opinion holds that during the first trimester of pregnancy, the states have no interest in regulating abortion beyond the health of the mother. During the second trimester, the states can regulate the procedures used, but they may not ban or interfere with abortions. During the third trimester, the states may ban or permit abortions.

            Roe’s medical cornerstone is viability – the ability of the baby to live outside the womb. In 1973, viability, generally, was at the beginning of the third trimester. Today, viability is closer to conception. Hence, state regulations protecting post-viable pre-third trimester babies.

            Roe’s legal cornerstone is the absence of personhood. The opinion offers that because philosophers, theologians, scientists and physicians cannot agree on when personhood attaches, then neither will the justices of the Supreme Court. Thus, Roe declares that the baby in the womb is not a person. Yet, legally, if the baby in the womb is a person, then a host of constitutional protections insulate the baby from being killed by her mother and her physician.

            The Fifth Amendment prevents the federal government – which gives millions a year to Planned Parenthood – from impairing life, liberty and property of people without due process. The 14^th Amendment prohibits the states from impairing life, liberty and property without due process, compels them to treat persons within their borders similarly – what is an unlawful killing for me is an unlawful killing for thee – and compels the states to guarantee privileges and immunities, foremost among which is the right to live.

            I offer this brief constitutional explanation of Roe as a background to discuss what is coming our way. Coming our way is a massive effort by pro-abortion forces at the state and federal levels to shore up Roe – to insulate it from interference by the Supreme Court – and thereby make abortions more available and, in some states, performed at taxpayer expense.

            Pres. Joseph R. Biden has stated that he wants Congress to enact a statute that will put into positive law the right of every woman to kill her unborn child at any time, irrespective of what various states have enacted to preserve the lives of unborn children.

            Is the baby in the womb a person? Biden does not want to answer that question. I don’t know how conversant he is in philosophy or constitutional law, or common sense, but he won’t go near this.

            Last week, the Senate defeated a measure that would have protected the lives of babies who survive abortions. Some abortions involve the slaughter of the baby in the womb and the methodical removal of her remains. Some involve the chemically induced expulsion of the baby from the womb, which usually kills the baby, but not always. The Senate vote was not only humanly repulsive – it permitted the states to permit the mother and the abortionist to let the surviving baby die – it violated the obligation of the government to uphold the Constitution.

            Is the baby in the womb a person? Many states are wanting here as well, as they will not answer this question. They know the constitutional obligations imposed upon them by the 14^th Amendment. Yet – like their federal counterparts – they are on the cusp of advancing the killing of more unborn children.

            In New Jersey, for example, where abortion is lawful up to the moment of birth – not because of legislation but by a rule established by the Board of Medical Examiners and upheld by the courts – and where it is taxpayer-funded, also mandated by the courts – proposals are making their way through the legislature to codify into law the right to take the life of an unborn child at any time at state expense, along with a prohibition on autopsies for the aborted baby – so it will be unknown if the mother and her physician starved the baby to death [after the abortion].

            Is the baby in the womb a person? Here we are in 2021 talking about killing babies by scalpels, chemicals and starvation. We are, and we will be for some time. Even if the Supreme Court invalidates Roe v. Wade and the states are free to go their own way – New Jersey, all killing all the time; Pennsylvania, no killing at any time – we still have a Constitution that imposes profound restraints upon the power of the states to permit killings and which gives Congress the power to enforce state compliance.

            Is the baby in the womb a person? Of course, she is. The baby has human parents, and her body contains all the genomic materials to grow into human childhood and adulthood. The denial of personhood to babies in the womb is akin to the judicial denial of personhood to Blacks before the Civil War. In the very essence of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote that our right to life is inalienable.

            The right to live is the highest right there is. Any society that can impair the right to live by declaring any groups to be nonpersons has rejected the self-evident concepts of right and wrong, and cannot long endure.

            Negating personhood is the most dangerous thing the government can do. It is a one-way slippery slope. Whose personhood will the government negate next?

Senate Voting Record

Motion to Discharge nomination of Xavier Becerra as H.H.S. Secretary – March 11, 2021 – Adopted 51-48 (Democrats in italics; “Independent” marked “I”)

Voting “no” / pro-Life: Shelby & Tuberville/AL, Murkowski & Sullivan/AK, Boozman & Cotton/AR, Rubio & Scott/FL, Crapo & Risch/ID, Braun & Young/IN, Ernst & Grassley/IA, Marshall & Moran/KS, McConnell & Paul/KY, Cassidy & Kennedy/LA, Hyde-Smith & Wicker/MS, Blunt & Hawley/MO, Daines/MT, Fischer & Sasse/NE, Tillis/NC, Cramer & Hoeven/ND, Portman/OH, Inhofe & Lankford/OK, Toomey/PA, Graham & Scott/SC, Rounds & Thune/SC, Blackburn & Hagerty/TN, Cornyn & Cruz/TX, Lee & Romney/UT, Capito/WV, Johnson/WI and Barrasso & Lummis/WY.

Voting “yes” / anti-Life: Kelly & Sinema/AZ, Feinstein & Padilla/CA, Bennet & Hickenlooper/CO, Blumenthal & Murphy/CT, Carper & Coons/DE, Ossoff & Warnock/GA, Hirono & Schatz/HI, Duckworth & Durbin/IL, Collins & King(I)/ME, Cardin & VanHollen/MD, Markey & Warren/MA, Peters & Stabenow/MI, Klobuchar & Smith/MN, Tester/MT, Cortez-Masto & Rosen/NV, Hassan & Shaheen/NH, Booker & Menendez/NJ, Heinrich & Lujan/NM, Gillibrand & Schumer/NY, Brown/OH, Merkley & Wyden/OR, Casey/PA, Reed & Whitehouse/RI, Leahy & Sanders/VT, Kaine & Warner/VA, Cantwell & Murray/WA, Manchin/WV and Baldwin/WI.

Not voting: Burr/NC.

Motion to close debate on nomination of Xavier Becerra as H.H.S. Secretary – March 17, 2021 – Adopted 50-49 (Democrats in italics; “Independent” marked “I”)

Voting “no” / pro-Life: Shelby & Tuberville/AL, Murkowski & Sullivan/AK, Boozman & Cotton/AR, Rubio & Scott/FL, Crapo & Risch/ID, Braun & Young/IN, Ernst & Grassley/IA, Marshall & Moran/KS, McConnell & Paul/KY, Cassidy & Kennedy/LA, Hyde-Smith & Wicker/MS, Blunt & Hawley/MO, Daines/MT, Fischer & Sasse/NE, Burr & Tillis/NC, Cramer & Hoeven/ND, Portman/OH, Inhofe & Lankford/OK, Toomey/PA, Graham & Scott/SC, Rounds & Thune/SC, Blackburn & Hagerty/TN, Cornyn & Cruz/TX, Lee & Romney/UT, Capito/WV, Johnson/WI and Barrasso & Lummis/WY.

Voting “yes” / anti-Life: Kelly & Sinema/AZ, Feinstein & Padilla/CA, Bennet & Hickenlooper/CO, Blumenthal & Murphy/CT, Carper & Coons/DE, Ossoff & Warnock/GA, Schatz/HI, Duckworth & Durbin/IL, Collins & King(I)/ME, Cardin & VanHollen/MD, Markey & Warren/MA, Peters & Stabenow/MI, Klobuchar & Smith/MN, Tester/MT, Cortez-Masto & Rosen/NV, Hassan & Shaheen/NH, Booker & Menendez/NJ, Heinrich & Lujan/NM, Gillibrand & Schumer/NY, Brown/OH, Merkley & Wyden/OR, Casey/PA, Reed & Whitehouse/RI, Leahy & Sanders/VT, Kaine & Warner/VA, Cantwell & Murray/WA, Manchin/WV and Baldwin/WI.

Not voting: Hirono/HI.