Life Advocacy Briefing
November 22, 2021
So Much to Be Thankful For / Bye-Bye! / Switch
Preparing for Supreme Court’s Dobbs Case / One Step Forward / What?!
Lost Focus / Even Logic Can Meet a Stone Wall When Confronting Self-uber-alles
Stand Firm
So Much to Be Thankful For
WE HOPE OUR READERS WILL JOIN US in taking a week’s break from Life Advocacy Briefing to focus on family and on the national holiday of Thanksgiving, when we all celebrate the countless blessings given us by our Lord and Savior. We anticipate Dec. 6 as the date of our next edition and that we’ll soon thereafter be publishing our annual Congressional Voting Record edition.
Bye-Bye!
TWO LONG-TIME ABORTION ADVOCATES – one in each house in Washington – announced last week they will not seek re-election in 2022. One is Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA), who will close out eight two-year terms a year from now. A SanFrancisco Chronicle news story reporting her retirement announcement, bylined Joe Garofoli, focused on her 2011 announcement to the US House that she had personally undergone abortion. It was headlined “By Talking About Her Abortion Jackie Speier Inspired a Generation of Lawmakers to Do the Same.” And she has been celebrated by the abortion cartel as one of its favorite politicians ever since.
The other is a Senator who has actually held power positions – chiefly as long-time and frequent chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee – from which he has consistently delivered for the developing-baby-killing industry. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D) has occupied the Senate seat from Vermont for eight six-year terms.
Other pro-abortion Democratic House Members who have previously announced they will not seek re-election include Representatives Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ – 6 terms), Karen Bass (CA – 6 terms), Charlie Crist & Val Demings (FL – each 3 terms), Cheri Bustos (IL – 5 terms), John Yarmuth (KY – 8 terms), Anthony Brown (MD – 3 terms), David Price (NC – 17 terms), Tim Ryan (OH – 10 terms), Mike Doyle & Conor Lamb (PA – 14 terms & 3 terms, respectively), Filemon Vela (TX – 5 terms) and Ron Kind (WI – 13 terms).
Though bowing out of the House, not all the “retiring” Members plan actually to retire from politics. In California, Rep. Bass has announced she will run for mayor of LosAngeles next year. Florida’s Charlie Crist is seeking to win back the governor’s office he held before winning his seat in Congress, and Val Demings is opposing Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R). Ohio’s Tim Ryan is planning to run for the open US Senate seat in his state. Anthony Brown is planning to run for Maryland Attorney General. Conor Lamb is seeking his party’s nomination for US Senator from Pennsylvania.
Switch
IT WAS NOT HIS PARTY’s FOUL-UP ON HIS STATE’s SOUTHERN BORDER that Texas State Rep. Ryan Guillen cited in his announcement last week that he was switching from the Democratic Party to the Republican side of the aisle.
“[Rep.] Guillen said his values no longer aligned with Democrats,” reports NBC/Dallas/Ft.Worth … .
“‘Throughout my entire career,’” said Mr. Guillen in the internet-printed edition of the NBC report, “‘creating a prosperous business climate, defending the 2nd amendment and protecting the lives of the unborn are the cornerstones of how I have represented my district. … After much consideration and prayer with my family,’” he said, “‘I feel that my fiscally conservative, pro-business and pro-life values are no longer in step with the Democratic Party of today, and I am proudly running as a Republican to represent House District 11.’”
Preparing for Supreme Court’s Dobbs Case
THE SUSAN B. ANTHONY LIST HAS LAUNCHED a $2.5 million television and digital ad campaign in the run-up to the Supreme Court’s oral arguments in the abortion cartel’s challenge to Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban, scheduled for Dec. 1.
“The ads highlight scientific advances,” reports LifeSiteNews.com (LSN), “that reveal the humanity of unborn children and the extremism of US policy that allows unlimited late-term abortion up to birth.” Readers can check out the ads via the Internet website modernizeourlaw.com.
“The flurry of ad spots will air on broadcast and cable stations in the Washington, DC, media market including CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox News, Newsmax, CNBC and CNN networks. In addition,” notes LSN, “the ads will circulate via targeted text and digital ads in nine battleground states during the weeks of Nov. 17 and Nov. 29.”
Stated the major pro-life group’s president Marjorie Dannenfelser, quoted by LSN, “‘It’s time to return this issue back to the people to decide through their elected representatives. … We hope the Court will soon allow all states to modernize our laws and protect women and children. …
“‘The US is one of seven nations – including [Red] China and North Korea – that allow late-term abortion on demand more than halfway through pregnancy, well after unborn babies feel pain,’” said Mrs. Dannenfelser in the LSN report. “‘Americans overwhelmingly reject such extreme policies, yet their elected lawmakers are shackled to Supreme Court precedents that in effect allow unlimited abortion up until birth. These are needlessly divisive and decades out of step with medicine and technology.’”
One Step Forward
THE SUPREME COURT NOV. 1 ORDERED the New York Supreme Court to reconsider a ruling it had propounded, reports Jessica Chasmar for FoxNews.com, “against a coalition of charities that challenged the state’s mandate that employers cover abortions in their employee health insurance plans.”
In so doing, the high court “declined,” notes Ms. Chasmar, “to take the case of the Diocese of Albany v. Emami in light of a major ruling it handed down earlier this year siding with a Catholic charity in Philadelphia that declined to screen same-sex couples as foster parents.” The Supreme Court had ruled in the Philadelphia case, reports Ms. Chasmar, “that the city’s refusal to contract with the charity due to the agency’s same-sex couple policy violated the free exercise clause of the First Amendment,” suggesting that New York’s abortion coverage mandate would be viewed through the same First Amendment lens.
“Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch said,” notes Ms. Chasmar, “they would have taken up the case for argument.”
But for now, the high court’s remanding of the case to New York State’s high court appears to satisfy the plaintiffs. “‘We are gratified and grateful,’” said Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger in the FoxNews story, “‘that the Supreme Court has recognized the serious constitutional concerns over New York State’s heavy-handed abortion mandate on religious employers.’”
And he adds, “‘We are confident that now that the Court has ordered the case remanded for reconsideration,’” citing the high court’s own ruling in Fulton v. Philadelphia last year, “‘the unconstitutional regulatory action taken by New York State will ultimately be completely overturned as incompatible with our country’s First Amendment guarantee of religious liberty.’”
Mother Miriam of the Sisterhood of Saint Mary said in a statement, reports Ms. Chasmar, “‘We’re grateful that the Supreme Court has taken action in our case and hopeful that, this time around, the New York Court of Appeals will preserve our ability to serve and encourage our neighbors.’”
What?!
THE CITY OF BOSTON IS NOW GRANTING EMPLOYEES PAID LEAVE – up to three months – in return for aborting their babies. The upside-down “parental leave” change has been pushed – even before her Nov. 16 inauguration as mayor – by newly-elected Boston Mayor Michelle Wu while she was a member of Boston’s city council. The policy was passed by the council in September and adds to the city’s parental leave eligibility those employees who “‘have experienced a loss of pregnancy,’” reports LifeSiteNews writer Matt Lamb.
“[Mayor] Wu first proposed including abortion under the ‘loss of pregnancy’ standard in March of this year,” writes Mr. Lamb. As the Boston Globe blithely reported in March, notes Mr. Lamb, “‘The councilors are seeking to amend the language of the law to state “loss of pregnancy,” thereby covering miscarriages, terminations, instances involving dilation and extraction and other situations under the policy.’” The Globe went on, last March, to quote Councilwoman Lydia Edwards, writes Mr. Lamb, “‘I think this makes us more equitable.’” Ah, another aspect of the politically charged term “equity!”
In endorsing Mayor Wu this year, notes Mr. Lamb, Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts wrote, “‘The mayor of Boston must be a vocal advocate for Planned Parenthood patients and reproductive health, rights and freedom in the city and beyond.’”
Lost Focus
Nov. 15, 2021, Washington Update commentary by Family Research Council president Tony Perkins
While Joe Biden’s climate “negotiator” was busy telling reporters that human rights wasn’t “in his lane,” another former Secretary of State was painting a very different picture of the job. John Kerry may not think a little thing like genocide ought to get in the way of this Administration’s deal on the environment, but one of his successors loudly disagrees.
Mike Pompeo, at last Thursday night’s Caring to Love Ministries* gala dinner in Baton Rouge, told a sold-out crowd that this President’s philosophy on life, human dignity and foreign relations couldn’t be more different from the Trump Administration. “Devaluing life,” he pointed out, “is the hallmark of totalitarian countries. Consider China. Just a few weeks ago, the Chinese Communist Party celebrated its 100th anniversary. One uncelebrated ‘achievement’ was that it is the CCP – not the Soviet Union or the Nazis – who can lay claim to the greatest mass murder in human history.”
And those horrors, he told the audience of pro-lifers, didn’t count the innocent children slaughtered under China’s One-Child Policy. “And despite global condemnation for its actions, the CCP’s vicious and cruel treatment of the Chinese people has not ceased. Today, thousands of Uyghur Muslims are being murdered and millions oppressed. I was proud of our efforts to classify what China is doing to the Uyghurs as genocide.”
Now, tragically, we have an Administration that’s willing to throw any of America’s core values overboard in pursuit of a ridiculous climate agenda that will do nothing to combat the real crisis: China’s brutal disregard for human rights. “Any nation that disregards the essential right to life,” Pompeo insisted, “cannot claim to be good in any other measure.”
His comments couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time, as Joe Biden hurtles toward a slew of policies that drive America farther and farther away from its founding principles. While he makes late-term abortion on demand a hallmark of his Presidency, the states are working fast and furiously to make the womb a safer place. Already in 2021, states have passed a record number of pro-life laws – 106 – more than any other year since Roe v. Wade. Even now, the Supreme Court is on the verge of hearing the most direct challenge to the 1973 ruling in our generation.
As Mike said, “This has been a long fight, but every life is worth it. And I believe the day is approaching when the law may be restored to our side. We need all of you to step up for these next three and a-half years. I have no doubt that this Administration will fight to preserve abortion like no other.” But, he reminded people, “The answer to our nation’s problems isn’t politics. It’s effecting change in the hearts of people that only faith in Christ can. That takes adhering to principles and leaders of principle who won’t put their finger in the wind of politics to make decisions but will rather adhere to principle, even when it’s not popular. That is what you have been doing at Caring to Love in changing hearts and minds about life.”
It was an encouraging night to be on the right side of Life and hear from a true champion of the movement. As a member of the Caring to Love board, I know I speak for everyone when I say that we were grateful for the work of the Pompeo State Department and pray for a return to those principles soon.
[*Life Advocacy Briefing editor’s note: Caring to Love Ministries is a pregnancy care center which, like so many others in the US, offers caring counseling, pregnancy testing, abstinence relationship education, home visits and many more services to expectant mothers and new mothers in need of tender loving care, friendship and truthful counseling. Its director, Dorothy Wallis, is a heroine of the pro-life movement and an important leader in Louisiana’s caring service community. This ministry is among the Internet-available links from our own lifeadvocacy.com website at ctlm.org.]
Even Logic Can Meet a Stone Wall When Confronting Self-uber-alles
Nov. 16, 2021, The Point by Colson Center commentators John Stonestreet & Shane Morris
Young pro-choice writer Kathleen Walsh recently published a conversation about abortion she had with her mom. The exchange, which ran at “The Cut,” is both fascinating and frustrating.
Walsh’s mom gets right to the point – the fact that the unborn are babies. “Whether you want it or not,” she says, “doesn’t change what it is.” Walsh insists that “because it’s in my body, it’s still a part of me. … It’s not a person. It’s a theoretical person.”
Her mom points to her daughter’s own time in the womb: “Before I decided you existed,” she says, “you still existed.”
“But it wasn’t me,” says Walsh. “I exist because you chose for me to exist.” She doesn’t seem to appreciate that she’s only around to make this absurd argument because her mom rejected it.
It’s sad to hear someone so committed to abortion that she denies her own existence in the womb. But “theoretical persons” are the logical outcome of a worldview that says humans only have value if they’re wanted. May this mother-daughter conversation have the opposite effect its author intended.
Stand Firm
Nov. 16, 2021, Washington Update commentary by Family Research Council president Tony Perkins
“In this world, it is becoming more and more unpopular to be a Christian. Soon it may become dangerous.”
Those were the words of Melvin Laid, a former Congressman and Defense Secretary for Pres. Richard Nixon. He made that comment more than 50 years ago – and if he thought it was difficult to practice his faith back then, he wouldn’t believe the hostility of the culture today. The church is being pressed in from all sides, urged to abandon our faith or abandon the public square. We can do neither.
“Do not be afraid, but speak, and do not keep silent … .” That was the message the Lord had for Paul when he was facing the cancel culture of Corinth in Acts 18. It was the same message I had for the crowd gathered for the Pastors Conference at the Louisiana Baptist Convention Thursday night in Monroe, Louisiana.
Right now, our spiritual enemy is desperate to separate Christians from the source of our strength – to force us to take our faith in Christ underground. But the minute we surrender to that temptation, the minute we downplay the word of God so as “not to offend,” we lose the very distinctive that makes unbelievers notice. As I challenged the pastors: Why would people that are empty and dissatisfied with what the world has to offer turn to the church when the church looks and acts the same as the world? If the principles of God’s Word were found good enough to build a nation upon by our founders, they should be sufficient to lead our nation by today.
That doesn’t mean standing by those principles is easy. As the growing hostility toward religious freedom shows, we need to be prepared for conflict. Paul was. In his letter to the Ephesians, he made it very clear that we are to stand our ground, taking up the “whole armor of God.” Even this great man of God recognized that he needed help doing that in the face of opposition. “Pray for me that I will open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the Gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I would speak bold as I ought to speak.”
Silence is not an option – it wasn’t then, and it can’t be now. We must speak the truth when people want to hear it – and even when they don’t. But let’s not miss the second part of what the Lord has to say, “for I am with you (My presence is with you) … I have many people in this city.” That’s true today. God still has many people in this nation – but there must be a catalyst for them to converge for a common purpose. That’s where Paul came in – that’s where you come in. Courage breeds courage.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, an outspoken pastor, theologian, underground seminary professor and spy against the Third Reich, said, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
Be strong in the Lord. Be prepared for the conflict. Be bold and speak and do not keep silent.