Life Advocacy Briefing

June 14, 2021

Breaking / Bidding for Largesse for Planned Parenthood
Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Now Protected in Alabama / Safe Harbor
Warning / Is J.A.M.A. Bringing the Netherlands to America?
Defunding Abortionists: A Critical Priority / Where We Are

Breaking

THE EDITORIAL TEAM at Life Advocacy Briefing will be traveling till near the end of June. So don’t expect to see our publication for the next two weeks. We expect to be back in time to pull together a July 5 edition. We will appreciate your prayers for us “on the road.”

 

Bidding for Largesse for Planned Parenthood

NOW THAT ‘EARMARKS’ ARE BACK in the Congressional spending process – and the Biden Regime has made clear that the decades-old Hyde Amendment is a non-issue – Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) has submitted “community funding” requests to the House Appropriations Committee to dump taxpayer funding into Planned Parenthood Mar Monte (PPMM), one of the abortion cartel’s largest and most notorious outposts.

In her application for the outfit, Rep. Lofgren defined the abortion shop, reports Carole Novielli for Live Action, “as a ‘safety-net provider.’ It is actually,” notes Ms. Novielli, “the largest Planned Parenthood affiliate in the US, overseeing 35 facilities and committing tens of thousands of abortions.”

One of the Lofgren earmarks would award $1 million to PPMM for, reports Live Action, a “‘new, more expansive location on Tully Road in San Jose,’ [Ms.] Lofgren stated. ‘The Planned Parenthood Mar Monte Community Clinic has acquired a new location and will be moving to an improved 3,500 square-foot site,’ [Rep.] Lofgren wrote … . ‘The center requires tenant improvements and construction to make it a functional healthcare facility.’ …

“Funding for the second project – the ‘Planned Parenthood Mar Monte Blossom Hill Health Center Relocation & Renovation’ – is also set at $1 million,” notes Ms. Novielli, “and will ‘offer PPMM the ability to design and construct a training facility to train medical professionals and licensed staff to provide care throughout the region. Additionally,’” the earmark rationale reads, quoted by Ms. Novielli, “‘federal funding will help pay for laboratory and medical equipment such as exam tables, ultrasound machines, autoclaves and IT hardware’ to make it a ‘state-of-the-art facility.’”

Just what the American taxpayer needs – a Congress Member reaching her hand into our pockets to help a massive abortion shop grow even bigger.

Planned Parenthood Mar Monte’s name should be familiar to our readers, as it was, notes Live Action, “at the center of an undercover investigation into Planned Parenthood’s trafficking in aborted [baby] body parts.”

Recent statistical reports show the volume of abortions committed at PPMM’s shops at 19,146 baby killings, “an increase of 13%,” reports Ms. Novielli, “from the 16,943 abortions reported just a few years earlier in 2016, when it had 410,877 total visits to its facilities.”

 

Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Now Protected in Alabama

ALABAMA GOV. KAY IVEY (R) HAS SIGNED a Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, named in Alabama for Gianna Jessen, an abortion survivor who is a prominent pro-life speaker.

Similar legislation has been filed in each of the last several sessions of Congress and is the subject of a discharge petition in the US House, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-SanFrancisco) has been blocking its consideration.

“While opponents of the bill – or any born-alive bill introduced in recent years – claim such a law is unnecessary because infanticide is illegal,” notes Nancy Flanders in her Live Action report, “many babies who survive abortion are not actively killed but rather are left to die. As pointed out by National Review,” Ms. Flanders explains, “it is not illegal, under either federal law or Alabama law [until now] for an abortionist to neglect a baby who has survived his attempt to abort her [or him]. Under this law,” writes Ms. Flanders, “the abortionist would be required to provide medical care to the child.”

 

Safe Harbor

EL PASO, TEXAS, HAS BECOME ABORTION-FREE, according to a Live Action report by Cassy Fiano-Chesser.

Planned Parenthood’s shop in the city of 700,000 has stopped committing abortions, notes Mrs. Chesser, “due to Covid-19.” Plus, “the Hill Top Women’s Reproductive Clinic closed last year,” she writes, “and the building is now listed for sale.”

Hill Top was “previously owned and operated,” Live Action reports, “by abortionist Franz Theard, who also owns an abortion business right across the Texas border in New Mexico. Last year,” writes Mrs. Chesser, “Theard was accused of fleeing his abortion business after botching an abortion twice and refusing to give the woman her child’s remains. Theard’s abortion business had the woman and her husband arrested for disturbing the peace but lost the case in court. …

“Complaints filed against Theard in Texas include allegations that he was allowing Gloria Martinez, a nurse, to illegally commit abortions. Theard was also accused of traveling across state lines to circumvent Texas’s surgical restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic, moving his surgical abortion equipment to New Mexico. …

“For now, El Paso does not have any facility committing abortions,” declares Live Action, “though abortion advocates are already raising the alarm, ostensibly in hopes of getting another abortion business to open within city limits.”

Might be a good time for El Paso pro-life citizens to organize a Sanctuary City for the Unborn campaign to keep the good news going.

 

Warning

AN OUTFIT CALLING ITSELF THE ‘WORLD MEDICAL ASSN.’ IS WEAKENING physician conscience protections in its “International Code of Medical Ethics,” according to Michael Cook, editor of BioEdge, a “weekly newsletter about cutting-edge bioethical issues.” (The description comes from the publication’s Internet website.)

The Code was reviewed, according to a World Medical Assn. (WMA) news release quoted by Mr. Cook, by “‘workgroup members and observers representing more than 15 countries.’ …

“The principal change,” he reports, “would be to make referral a duty for a doctor who has a conscientious objection.” This change, Mr. Cook warns, “would force doctors who object to legal abortion and legal euthanasia to refer patients to a more compliant doctor,” a change which Oxford University bioethics professor David Albert Jones calls “‘deeply problematic.’”

 

Is J.A.M.A. Bringing the Netherlands to America?

May 26, 2021, National Review column by Wesley J. Smith

             In 1993, my first-ever anti-euthanasia column warned in Newsweek that once euthanasia became accepted widely, it would be followed by organ harvesting “as a plum to society.”

             By now, you know how that story goes. I was accused of alarmism, slippery-slope advocacy, conspiracy theories, etc. etc. And, as these kinds of stories nearly always end, it came to be – in Canada, Netherlands and Belgium, with more likely to follow over time.

             Now, organ harvesting after euthanasia has become so normalized within the medical intelligentsia that an American Medical Assn. publication, JAMA Surgery, had a letter debate – not about the propriety of killing and harvesting but about whether the kill should begin at home or in a hospital.

             Two doctors say that “organ donation after euthanasia starting at home” (ODEH) is the way to go. The patient is only sedated at home, which marks the start of euthanasia in legal terms but is medically only intended to remove consciousness while vital functions are maintained and secured. Coma induction and the start of the agonal phase [killing] subsequently take place in the intensive care unit after farewells at home and transportation [to the hospital].

             Their debaters say, no, start the homicides in the hospital. A guideline for ODEH should be developed, including instructions for physicians on how to act if the condition of the patient deteriorates during transport. In the ODEH case presented by Mulder and Sonneveld, noradrena lin was given to maintain adequate blood pressure during transport to the hospital. This could be interpreted as violation of an important principle of organ donation after euthanasia, namely that the euthanasia and organ donation should be at all times handled as two separate entities.

             No one says – Don’t do it!

             But I will. Some of these patients (in Belgium and Netherlands) are not physically sick but mentally ill. Believing that their deaths are more valuable than their lives – because of the lives potentially saved by their organs – could easily become the tipping point for some of these anguished patients to decide to be killed. Note: These are people who would otherwise live for years.

             In other words, organ donation could be an inducement to euthanasia. That could also be true of disabled patients who are the other prime cadre of ODE targets because they have “good organs.”

             Moreover, in Ontario, Canada, the organ donation society is told in advance by doctors of a planned euthanasia, and representatives call the patient/family to ask for their organs! It’s almost out of a Monty Python skit: “Hello, can we have your liver?”

             No, of course suicide prevention is not offered! That might get in the way of suffering people agreeing to be transformed into so many natural resources.

 

Defunding Abortionists: A Critical Priority

June 7, 2021, Washington Update commentary by Family Research Council blog author Chantel Hoyt

             Pres. Biden’s budget request calls for repealing long-standing provisions preventing federal taxpayer funds from paying for abortion, but states have been working for years to protect taxpayers from having to subsidize the abortion industry. Despite the Biden-Harris pro-abortion agenda, the state momentum continues this year.

             Ever since Roe v. Wade, Congress and most states have taken bipartisan efforts to stop taxpayer funds from going to pay for abortions and later to flow to the abortion industry. These efforts greatly intensified in 2015 when the release of several undercover videos by the Center for Medical Progress showed Planned Parenthood officials laughing and joking about the transfer and sale of fetal tissue. These videos shocked the American people and shined a light on an unsavory profit center for the abortion industry, the gruesome harvesting of body parts of the aborted unborn (sometimes even, apparently, before fetal death).

             Most Americans support defunding Planned Parenthood. An annual Knights of Columbus/ Marist poll shows a majority of Americans oppose the use of taxpayer dollars to pay for abortion; in January it found that 60% of Americans, including 35% of Democrats, oppose public funding of abortions. A 2016 Harvard poll and a 2018 PRRI poll found that over half (58% and 51%, respectively) of Americans believe that Medicaid should not pay for abortions. Not surprisingly, 33 states have introduced legislation to restrict government funding of the abortion industry in recent years. These bills largely address the three main streams of abortion funding: Medicaid (a joint federal-state health coverage program), Title X (a federal family planning grant program) and state appropriations.

             Abortion funding restrictions have shifted from merely banning direct funding of abortion procedures to also cutting off abortion providers. This distinction is important because even if taxpayer funds are not used for performing an abortion, they still support abortion centers by helping them offset their other costs. This frees up their budget to pay for abortions and other abortion-related expenses. After watching the undercover videos, federal and state policymakers realized it is time to defund abortion providers.

             Since 2015, states have consistently introduced bills that have attempted to defund both abortions and abortion centers. At least 131 bills have been introduced in 33 states in the past six years. Of these, 26 bills sought to defund Planned Parenthood in Medicaid, 43 bills in Title X, and 90 bills in state appropriations. (About 12 of these 131 bills were specific in only prohibiting the funding of abortion procedures. Thirteen of these bills sought to simply expand or strengthen existing defund laws. Twenty-two of the 131 bills were temporary budget bills, in which states inserted a “rider” restricting abortion funding into their yearly appropriations bill going into effect for the upcoming fiscal year.) Twenty-nine of the total 131 bills have been enacted in 19 different states.

             In addition to addressing the three streams of funding mentioned above, some states have gotten creative. For example, Iowa’s HF-422 (2015), rather than prohibiting funds from going to entities that provide abortions, sought to prohibit abortions from being done by entities that receive public funds; this bill was not enacted. A few states have sought to limit health insurance coverage of abortions. Kentucky’s HB-484 (2020), for example, prohibited abortions from being covered under state-sponsored health insurance programs; this bill was enacted. In 2017, Wisconsin introduced a bill (SB-154) that would have prohibited publicly funded universities from utilizing state funds to perform, assist or train others to perform abortions.

             Texas currently has the strongest defunding laws in place, as the state successfully defunded abortion providers in Title X and state appropriations. First Gov. Greg Abbott issued a letter defunding Planned Parenthood from the state Medicaid program in 2015. While this action was enjoined, Texas was subsequently granted a Medicaid waiver allowing the state to redirect federal funds away from abortion providers. This was the first (and so far, only) waiver of its kind to be granted. Six other states – Arizona, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Florida and Indiana – have similarly enacted very strong legislation defunding the abortion industry, as they have attempted to defund abortion providers in Medicaid and successfully defunded abortion providers in Title X and state appropriations. However, none received a federal waiver for Medicaid; this is typically a multi-year process, which seems unlikely under the current Administration, so pro-life state policymakers should begin thinking now about the waiver requests they’ll want the next time we get a pro-life administration.

             It is clear the majority of states want to prevent taxpayer funds from going to the abortion industry. These efforts have become normative since the release of the undercover Planned Parenthood videos in 2015. This effort has not slowed, with 19 bills being introduced this year in 14 different states; four having been enacted to date.

 

Where We Are

June, 2021, excerpt from donor appeal by Mark Crutcher, president, Life Dynamics Inc.

             The “Abortion Triumvirate” of Joe Biden (White House), Nancy Pelosi (House of Representatives) and Chuck Schumer (Senate) has unleashed an unprecedented war on the unborn … and you and I are the last line of defense for the babies. … That line of defense begins and ends in America’s local communities, which is good news for you and for everyone fighting to end our nation’s abortion holocaust.

             I say that because there’s no denying that the pro-life movement took it on the chin in last year’s national elections. But at the local level, pro-life candidates and policies reigned supreme. In fact, following the 2020 elections, pro-life lawmakers took full control of 23 states, winning both the governor’s mansion and majorities in the state legislature. And in response to their citizens, they are passing laws that protect babies and mothers from the abortion cartel. That is a sure sign that the American people are sick and tired of the pro-abortion extremism of Joe Biden and the Democrats. In fact, a National Review report on a recent Marist Poll confirms that America’s position on abortion is trending our way. For example:

  • Over three-quarters of Americans support significant restrictions on abortion, including a majority of Americans who describe themselves as “pro-choice.”

  • Most Americans believe that abortion should be limited to the first three months of pregnancy, if it’s permitted at all.

  • Almost two-thirds said that if the Supreme Court reconsiders Roe v. Wade, then it should either make abortion illegal or allow major restrictions by the states.

  • Nearly six in ten Americans oppose spending taxpayer money to pay for abortions, including more than a third of “pro-choice” respondents and 31% of Democrats.

             That same National Review article pointed out that in a study of young voters between the ages of 18 and 34, they reject the radical “abortion-till-birth” agenda of Biden and the Democrats:

  • When informed that Roe allows abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy, 57% said they oppose Roe compared with 30% who support it.

  • More than 70% said they support placing limits on legal abortion.

  • About half of these younger voters believe that taxpayer money should not fund abortions, either here in the US or overseas.

  • Perhaps most remarkable, nearly half of respondents said abortions should not be allowed after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which can take place as early as six weeks’ gestation.

             From all this, it’s abundantly clear that our fellow Americans are growing sick and tired of abortion and are ready to take the necessary steps to join us in the fight to end abortion. … Our job is to make it “safe” for politicians in Washington, DC, to be pro-life – and even more important, to act pro-life. … The political reality facing us right now is that the battle to end abortion has to be fought at the local level, one community at a time. This is where we are either going to win or lose the fight.

             Fortunately, this is also where we have a decided advantage over the enemy. We are far better equipped to win these local battles than the other side is. That’s because we’ve got all the winning arguments. The other side keeps spouting “choice” because that’s all they’ve got.