Life Advocacy Briefing

May 17, 2021

Radical Nominee Up for Senate Vote / Another Unjust Confirmation
Notable Quotable / Stateside / Some Truths Are Eternal
Senate Voting Records

Radical Nominee Up for Senate Vote

A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO, we cautioned you about a Biden-Harris nominee whose nomination had not emerged from committee because of a hold placed by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX). We also told you this highly controversial nominee, Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, has reportedly worked as a political advisor to Planned Parenthood and the Biden campaign and is seeking appointment to head the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), a powerful post in the federal healthcare bureaucracy.

We asked our readers, then, to call home-state Senators [Capitol switchboard: 1-202/224-3121] and request a “no” vote on the Brooks-LaSure nomination; we hope you have taken that action, and that our readers will now focus on calling Maine Sen. Susan Collins (R), Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran (R), Arizona Senators Kyrsten Sinema & Mark Kelly (D), Montana Sen. Jon Tester (D) and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin (D).

On Wednesday last week, the Brooks-LaSure nomination was pulled from committee by adoption of a motion to discharge the Committee on Finance from further consideration of the appointment. We publish the voting record near the close of this Life Advocacy Briefing, and should there be further action toward confirming the nominee, we plan to publish also the voting record on that motion and, if it is adopted, on final action to put this radical abortion advocate into this sensitive position.

Another Unjust Confirmation

THE SENATE HAS CONFIRMED the nomination of Vanita Gupta as Associate Attorney General, a post from which, according to Live Action’s Bettina diFiore, she “will be in a position to promote abortion.” From the LA report, it appears she has an extensive record of doing just that.

“In 2020,” reports Ms. diFiore, “she argued against the Little Sisters of the Poor at the Supreme Court, saying they should not receive an exemption from paying for contraceptives, sterilizations and abortifacients on religious grounds.” The high court found in favor of religious liberty for the compassionate Catholic order of nuns. Ms. Gupta, however, notes Live Action, “claimed that women seeking contraceptives would be discriminated against in such a scenario and said, ‘Religious freedom does not create a license to discriminate.’

“Also in 2020, Gupta re-Tweeted Michelle Williams’s infamous, pro-abortion Golden Globes acceptance speech,” writes Ms. diFiore. “And again in June of the same year, Gupta applauded the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Louisiana’s Unsafe Abortion Protection Act in June Medical Services v. Russo, saying, ‘The Supreme Court reaffirmed today that every individual should have the right to make their own decisions about their health, their families, their lives and their futures. This is a victory for tireless abortion advocates from Louisiana and around the country … .’”

Her confirmation, whose vote we report near the close of this Life Advocacy Briefing, drew immediate praise from NARAL Pro-Choice America, reports Ms. diFiore, “calling her ‘an unparalleled champion for justice and civil rights who will fight tirelessly for our fundamental freedoms.’” And the Biden-Harris Regime and the Senate majority have put her into a perfect place to fight for NARAL and its constituent cartel. We are publishing also the roll call on the motion closing debate on her nomination.

Notable Quotable

From a letter by Mary Hallan FioRito, fellow at the Ethics & Public Policy Center, published in the Chicago Sun-Times and reprinted in LifeSiteNews.com on the Illinois Democratic Party’s drive to repeal the state’s Parental Notice of Abortion Act: “Brain science is clear that teenage brains work differently from adult brains. The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry notes that teenagers do not have a fully functioning frontal cortex, the area of the brain that controls decision-making and helps adults to contemplate consequences of risky behaviors. … Eliminating the Parental Notice Law strips away critical protections for young girls and enables predatory men. The law is not just common sense; it is necessary. To repeal it would be a tragic mistake, one leaving Illinois teenagers vulnerable to coercion, abuse, manipulation, physical trauma and a lack of emotional support at the very time they need it most.”

Stateside

NEW YORK STATE LAWMAKERS are pressing for Assembly Bill A-4321 and Senate Bill S-6471 to legalize medical suicide of “terminally ill patients over age 18,” reports com writer Clare Marie Merkowsky. Both bills are pending in committee in their respective houses. “An illness is considered terminal, according to the bills,” reports LSN, “if the condition is irreversible and will likely result in death within six months. If the bills are passed, patients will be considered for access to lethal drugs,” writes Ms. Merkowsky, “after submitting two requests, one oral and one written. If a patient meets the criteria …, he or she will be permitted to self-administer a lethal injection without the presence or support of a physician or any other healthcare professional” – a step beyond the doctor-abetted suicide measures in place in a few other states. LifeSiteNews, notes the reporter, “has launched a Voter Voice campaign to send e-mails” to New York lawmakers, “petitioning them to oppose the legislation. Voter Voice is an online platform,” notes Ms. Merkowsky, “offering a pre-written e-mail form that can be modified, if desired, for citizens to petition lawmakers.” The petition being offered in opposition to these bills includes: “‘Medical practitioners have a responsibility to help and care for the suffering, not assist in their demise.’”
LOUISIANA’s LEGISLATURE HAS ADOPTED A RESOLUTION designating Jan. 22, 2022, as a “Day of Tears,” a day of “national mourning for the babies murdered by abortion,” reports Clare Marie Merkowsky for com. Adoption of such a resolution is being promoted by a national pro-life organization called “Day of Tears,” which, LSN notes, “encourage[s] Americans to lower their flags to half-staff in mourning” on the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s destructive Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton edicts barring criminalization of abortion. A similar resolution was introduced in Congress in January by Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN) as SRes-12 in the Senate and by Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA) as HRes-58 in the House; the Congressional resolutions are resting in committee.
INDIANA GOV. ERIC HOLCOMB (R) HAS SIGNED legislation “requiring doctors,” reports Clare Marie Merkowsky for com, “to tell women chemical abortions can be reversed and their babies can be saved even if they have taken the first dose of the abortion pill regimen. … The [new law] also requires an ultrasound be shown to pregnant women and requires other precautions to help women make informed decisions.” Planned Parenthood’s legal team is threatening legal action. LSN quotes the state’s attorney general, former Congressman Todd Rokita (R), responding to the threat: “‘Taking a stand for life means facing down opponents who, in the name of “choice” are relentless in their efforts to eviscerate the rights of the unborn. Our determination to prevail for the cause of truth must surpass the resolve of the abortion industry to perpetuate a culture of death.’” Amen!
ARKANSAS LAWMAKERS FOCUSED ON LIFE in their recently adjourned session, sending to their pro-life governor a plethora of bills – now laws – to strengthen protections for unborn boys and girls and their often-vulnerable mothers, according to Tim Yarbrough, reporting in National Right to Life News Today. They include: a law banning abortion with a life-of-the-mother exception; a law requiring the abortionist to provide his customer with an ultrasound display of her unborn child and a verbal description of fetal development; a law barring public schools “from entering into any type of agreement or arrangement with an abortion provider,” reports Mr. Yarbrough. Also, a law prohibiting “government entities in Arkansas from engaging in transactions with abortion providers” and their affiliates; barring abortions in hospitals except in medical emergencies and establishing abortion facility licensure; requiring “abortion facilities to have transfer agreements with hospitals,” writes Mr. Yarbrough, plus “tighten[ing] Arkansas law concerning abortion facility inspections” and reporting abortion data to be reported to the federal Centers for Disease Control. Further, Arkansas now by law imposes restrictions on abortion-inducing drugs and requires informed consent before undergoing a chemical abortion. Also enacted: The “Every Mom Matters Act,” which “ensur[es] that women are offered information, assistance and resources that could help them choose an option besides abortion” and a Medicaid abortion ban. And a state-and-national pro-life coalition of organizations succeeded in persuading lawmakers to defeat “two proposed bills that included elements,” writes Mr. Yarbrough, “that essentially usurped personal end-of-life healthcare decisions by placing those decisions with healthcare workers who are not physicians.”

Some Truths Are Eternal

April 1, 2021, Washington Update commentary by Family Research Council president Tony Perkins

The State Dept. launched its 45^th human rights report Tuesday – but after Secretary Anthony Blinken’s latest comments, no one is quite sure what “rights” we’re actually talking about. Under Biden, the Administration has been pretty clear that they aren’t interested in the Constitution’s definitions or even moral law. They want to go back to cloaking their social activism in “freedom.” And destroying the State Dept.’s Commission on Unalienable Rights was only step number one.

“There is no hierarchy that makes some rights more important than others,” Blinken argued. “Past unbalanced statements that suggest such a hierarchy, including those offered by a recently disbanded State Dept. advisory committee, do not represent a guiding document for this Administration. At my confirmation hearing, I promised the Biden-Harris Administration would repudiate those unbalanced views. We do so decisively today.”

Unbalanced? Is that what Joe Biden’s Administration thinks about hundreds of years of Biblical, moral and legal consensus? Former Secy. Mike Pompeo could only imagine. “It was sad to hear,” he said on [Family Research Council’s] Washington Watch, “that the work of the commission that I had put together [with people] from every major religion, people from across the political spectrum [had been abolished].” The whole point of the project, he said, was “understanding human rights. We are each made in the image of God, and there are [a] certain set of rights that come with that. And in the American tradition, our founders talked about that and thought an awful lot about that …, but it comes back to these fundamental rights that we each have – because, in fact, we are endowed by our Creator with them and not from some government. And now, to watch this Administration declare that the government can, in fact, create rights or destroy rights, and that these are political creations, not things that are inherent in the tradition of our country and in the nature of humanity … .”

After eight years of Barack Obama abusing the term “rights” and slapping that term on things like abortion or LGBT extremism, Pompeo’s desire was to get back down to the bedrock of human rights, the foundation. What are those universal human rights that can’t be taken away [by] government?

As discouraging (and expected) as this week’s news from Blinken was, Pompeo pointed out that regardless, “The State Department didn’t take away any of our rights yesterday. They simply repudiated the central understanding of the American tradition of human rights … .” Now, that’s a dangerous proposition, he said, “to suggest somehow that government can grant a set of rights for all of humanity, because we know different nations will come to different conclusions.” Even inside the United States people come to different conclusions. But no matter what the Biden Administration does, “they can shelve [our report], they can deep-six it, but the work has been done. It’s out there. We can use it as a guide point …,” even if this State Dept. does not.

Look, Pompeo reminded everyone, this was inevitable. “Even before [our commission] had written its first order, held its first meeting, it was attacked by the progressive radical Left as threatening to them. I don’t know what’s threatening about a historical review of the foundational underpinning of the human rights tradition in the United States of America. I would have thought that [this would have been taken] seriously. It would have been welcomed by the human rights establishment. But in fact, it was not.”

And why not? Because they have their favorite causes and priorities that they want to reward that are deeply disconnected from the central understandings of the United States of America. “You talk about reproductive rights. There was no Administration in history that supported women’s health the way that ours did. And there was no Administration in history that protected the rights of the unborn with the same seriousness.” This Administration is headed down a completely different path. “They’re clearing the deck so they can advance their priorities, which are not rooted in fundamental freedoms and fundamental rights.”

At the end of the day, it’s disheartening. But Mike’s message to Americans who care about these deeply held beliefs and freedoms is: Don’t be discouraged.

“I think Churchill had it right in the end. When we’ve exhausted all the other possibilities, the United States gets it right. And I am confident that faith leaders across the world – faith leaders all across America – will return our nation to the fundamental understandings that our founders had. And these ideas of protection of the unborn, these ideas about religious freedom, the central understanding of human beings being created in the image of God – and therefore having these inherent rights – [will be] central to the way we think about our country.

“We will prevail. We will be successful in the United States, will continue to be the most exceptional nation in the history of civilization.”

Senate Voting Records

Motion to Discharge Senate Committee on Finance from further consideration of Nomination of Chiquita Brooks-LaSure to head Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services – May 12, 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/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/SD, 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, Moran/KS, 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, 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: Heinrich/NM.

Confirmation of Vanita Gupta as Associate Atty. General – April 21, 2021 – Confirmed – 51-49 (Democrats in italics; “Independent” marked “I”)

Voting “no”/pro-Life: Shelby & Tuberville/AL, 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, Collins/ME, 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/SD, Blackburn & Hagerty/TN, Cornyn & Cruz/TX, Lee & Romney/UT, Capito/WV, Johnson/WI and Barrasso & Lummis/WY.

Voting “yes”/anti-Life: Murkowski/AK, Kelly & Sinema/AZ, Feinstein & Padilla/CA, Bennet & Hickenlooper/CO, Blumenthal & Murphy/CT, Carper & Coons/DE, Ossoff & Warnock/GA, Hirono & Schatz/HI, Duckworth & Durbin/IL, 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.

Cloture motion to take up Confirmation of Vanita Gupta as Associate Atty. General – April 21, 2021 – Adopted – 51-49 (Democrats in italics; “Independent” marked “I”)