Life Advocacy Briefing

March 28, 2022

Nomination Touches Off Demonstrations / In Case You Were Unsure
Corporate Interference with Heartbeat Law Growing
Clash of Commitments / Catering to the Cartel / R.I.P.
The Tension Between Adoption & Abortion Advocacy
Why to Weigh In on Judge Jackson’s Nomination

Nomination Touches Off Demonstrations

PRES. BIDEN’s NOMINATION OF AN ABORTION ADVOCATE to the US Supreme Court has drawn competing demonstrations outside the Supreme Court building in Washington by activists favoring or denying the right to life of innocent human babies. The demonstrations began last Monday, on the first day of Senate hearings on confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to succeed Justice Stephen Breyer, who has announced he will step down at the end of the current term, likely early in July.

“The Washington Examiner reported,” notes Ashley Sadler for LifeSiteNews.com, “that ‘pro-abortion advocates carried signs that read “Confirm KBJ” and “Reproductive Freedom for All,”’ and pro-lifers held signs reading ‘Not Today KBJ’ and shouted, ‘Abortion harms women.’

“[Pres.] Biden’s Supreme Court pick,” Ms. Sadler observed, “a Harvard graduate and former Barack Obama-appointed US District Court judge for the District of Columbia, is expected to side with the Court’s liberals against future pro-life legislation if confirmed.”

At one point in her legal career, she clerked for Justice Breyer, who, notes Ms. Sadler, “has consistently voted with the Court’s liberals and repeatedly ruled against pro-life legislation. … [She] clerked for [Mr.] Breyer when he ruled against a pro-life Nebraska law that would have banned partial-birth abortions.” The high court, in a subsequent case, upheld the federal ban against the vicious attack on children mid-birth.

 

In Case You Were Unsure

PRES. BIDEN’s SUPREME COURT NOMINEE HAS A HISTORY of involvement in defending the unconscionable practice of aborting preborn babies, according to Terence P. Jeffrey, writing for CNSNews.com.

“Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson … co-authored an amicus [friend-of-the-court] brief for Massachusetts NARAL while working for a private law firm in 2001,” he notes.

It was in 2001, while she was in private practice. She co-authored, reports Mr. Jeffrey, “an amicus brief in McGuire v. Reilly. At issue in the case was a Massachusetts law that effectively prohibited pro-life activists from approaching within six feet of another person in a public space within 18 feet of an abortion clinic. The law exempted people who worked for the abortion clinic itself.”

Defining the organization on whose behalf the brief was filed, the brief stated, reports Mr. Jeffrey, “‘Mass. NARAL is a statewide organization that works to guarantee every woman the right to make personal decisions regarding the full range of reproductive choices.’”

The initials NARAL stand for National Abortion Rights Action League.

 

Corporate Interference with Heartbeat Law Growing

CITIGROUP HAS JOINED A GROWING LIST of corporations which are announcing pro-abortion personnel policies – specifically, pledging to cover the travel expenses of employees who are seeking abortion where it is outlawed.

The corporate policy appears to have been touched off by the Texas Heartbeat Law, which has effectively cut off abortion of babies developing in the wombs of Texas mothers once the baby’s heartbeat can be detected, as early as six weeks.

Citigroup joins Apple, Salesforce and a Texas-based online dating company called “Match Group, which owns Tinder, OkCupid and Hinge,” reports Ashley Sadler for LifeSiteNews.com, citing Wired as source.

“Ride-share companies Uber and Lyft, meanwhile, have promised to pay the legal fees,” writes Ms. Sadler, “for any of their drivers who are sued for taking a woman to an abortion facility in Texas.

“The Texas Heartbeat Law relies on a unique enforcement mechanism,” notes Ms. Sadler, “that enables private citizens to sue anyone who aids a woman in obtaining an abortion … .

“Meanwhile, the Democratic governors in both California and New York,” she writes, “have openly invited pregnant Texas women to come to their states to get abortions.”

The corporate community’s growing “virtue signaling” over the Texas Heartbeat Law is a harbinger of the resistance to come, should the US Supreme Court, as is expected by many, rule this June to uphold Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban. Such a ruling in the Dobbs case would effectively overturn the Roe v. Wade precedent and generate a flood of state legislation testing the high court and, in the process, providing long-needed legal protections for unborn boys and girls.

 

Clash of Commitments

THE NEIGHBORING STATES OF IDAHO & WASHINGTON are drawing a red line between them on the matter of abortion law.

On March 15, Idaho lawmakers sent to the desk of Gov. Brad Little (R) a bill to authorize “parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles of a ‘preborn child,’” reports Nicholas Iovino for Courthouse News Service (CN), “to sue an abortion provider.”

The Idaho action was cited two days later by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) in signing a bill that, writes Mr. Iovino, “affirms legal protections for those who seek or help provide abortions in the state. …

“The Washington law is largely symbolic, according to Seattle University law professor Sital Kalantry,” writes Mr. Iovino, “because lawsuits against abortion providers were never allowed in the state. No state law had authorized that kind of legal action, she said. ‘I think it’s more messaging and signaling to residents of the neighboring state of Idaho, where restrictive legislation is on its way to being passed,’ [Ms.] Kalantry said” in the CN report. “‘It’s just affirming that they continue to have no basis to sue.’” In other words, the process of passing the bill to wave a flag of fealty to the abortion cartel was just a waste of taxpayer money.

Such interstate political warfare over abortion can, we believe, be expected to break out in many regions if the Supreme Court, as expected, upholds Mississippi’s post-15-week abortion ban.

 

Catering to the Cartel

WE DON’t OFTEN – EVER? – REPORT ON STUCK LEGISLATION, but the latest out of Maryland is just too extreme not to deserve a mention.

“Maryland lawmakers have introduced a bill,” reports American Life League’s Judie Brown for LifeSiteNews.com, “that would offer protection to those who seek abortion and those who aid and abet in the act.

“Known as the Pregnant Person’s Freedom Act [note the use of the term person!], the proposal certainly does not protect the freedom to be born for the child who is growing inside his mother,” notes Mrs. Brown, “but rather, it sanctions his intended death by abortion. The proposal,” she writes, “is designed to remove all criminal penalties regarding abortion from not only the expectant mother but those who facilitate the killing. … The proposal,” she writes, “would legitimize killing the preborn child to the extent that nobody involved with the act could be held accountable under the law.”

Mrs. Brown goes on to note, the proposal defines abortion as “‘abortive care’ and would free the abortionist or another person acting as an abortionist from any possible punitive actions. … The language relegates the preborn child to the category of disease and the person killing the child to the role of healer – someone who is ‘curing’ the mother of her condition.”

The Maryland proposal, then, explicitly lays out the warped legal philosophy of the abortion cartel and of its political fellow-travelers. The sponsors of House Bill 626 are Maryland Delegates Williams, Acevero, Amprey, Atterbeary, Bartlett, Boyce, Carr, Charkoudian, Charles, Crutchfield, Cullison, Feldmark, W.Fisher, Foley, Forbes, Guyton, Hill, Ivey, Jalisi, D.Jones, R.Jones, Kelly, Korman, Lehman, J.Lewis, R.Lewis, Lierman, Lopez, Love, Luedtke, McIntosh, Moon, Palakovich Carr, Pena-Melnyk, Qi, Queen, Reznik, Ruth, Shetty, Smith, Solomon, Stein, Stewart, Terrasa, Washington, Wells, Wilkins and K.Young. All are Democrats.

The good news? This extreme violation of the right to life has not budged from the House Committee on Health & Government Operations, where it was scheduled for hearing on March 11.

 

R.I.P.

WE ARE SADDENED TO NOTE the passing last week of Rep. Don Young (R-AK), the longest-serving Member of the US House. He was preparing to seek his 26th two-year term, and at least during the near three decades we have published House voting records on the cause of Life, Rep. Young was a stalwart supporter of Life in America. Rest in peace.

 

The Tension Between Adoption & Abortion Advocacy

March 2022 commentary by Mark Crutcher reprinted from Pro-Life Voice, the newsletter of Life Dynamics

             In recent months, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of assaults against adoption by the abortion lobby and their media stooges.

             This campaign is clearly aimed at those members of the public who may not yet identify themselves as pro-life but are increasingly uncomfortable with abortion. This is a large and growing segment of the American population, and it probably represents the “swing vote” in this battle. The pro-choice mob recognizes this and their attacks on adoption are part of an effort to trick the public into believing that there are no legitimate alternatives to abortion.

             To support this argument, these people often claim that there are more abortions done than there are people on waiting lists to adopt and that, without abortion, the country would be swamped with unwanted babies. They are, of course, lying.

             First off, this is based on the assumption that when abortion is unavailable, every woman with an unplanned pregnancy places her baby for adoption. This has never been true, and the people encouraging this assumption know it’s not true.

             They also know that if the number of adoptable babies increased, the cost of adoption would plummet and make it possible for people to adopt more than one child. A lower cost would also mean that the millions of low-income people who are currently excluded from the adoption process would be able to adopt.

             The abortion lobby will also argue that even newborns are hard to place unless they are white and healthy. Once more, they are lying. They are fully aware that there are waiting lists of people trying to adopt minority and mixed-race babies, and even babies with severe physical challenges.

             Another way these people attack adoption is by pointing out that there are thousands of children in foster care who aren’t getting adopted right now, and there is no denying that the American foster care system is severely broken. But its problems are being driven by older children who are sometimes not even legally adoptable. And since these children are already born, their plight has nothing to do with abortion.

             When the pro-choice mob is confronted with this reality, their inevitable response is that people would be more likely to adopt these older children if babies were not available. In other words, the pro-choice strategy for getting hard-to-place children adopted is to kill off the children who are easy to place.

             Now, if the abortion lobby is honestly convinced that, without abortion, American would be overrun with babies nobody wants, I have a suggestion.

             Congress should pass federal legislation that creates a national registry of people who want to adopt a baby. It would be open to any adult who can meet reasonable standards, and they could adopt one baby or as many as they can care for. Then, any pregnant woman could go to this registry and, if no one was willing to adopt her baby, she would be given a certificate that allows her to have an abortion. But if someone was available to adopt her baby, she would not be allowed to have an abortion.

             Of course, the pro-choice mob would never support this idea, and the reason why is simple. It would expose the fact that every single baby they’re paid to butcher is wanted by someone. Every single baby.

             The bottom line is, the abortion lobby’s perverted sales pitch has always been that any social problem can be solved if we will simply kill enough babies. Our job is to make sure that the American people aren’t fooled by this self-serving nonsense.

 

Why to Weigh In on Judge Jackson’s Nomination

March 22, 2022, End-of-Day commentary by Gary Bauer to supporters of his Campaign for Working Families

             Judge Jackson is a far-left activist. She will be a reliable vote for the continued killing of preborn babies. She is a threat to religious liberty, and she is soft on crime. She will be significantly further left than the liberal Justice she has been nominated to replace.

             Judge Jackson is an admirer of the 1619 Project, which preaches the poison of critical race theory. The 1619 Project and other CRT advocates claim that our founding fathers were racists and that our Constitution remains racist.

             How can Judge Jackson uphold our Constitution if she believes the big lie of the Left that America and our Constitution are racist?

             In fact, some critical race theory proponents who have gone so far as to call the Constitution “trash,” have spent millions supporting Jackson’s confirmation.

             As Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell noted yesterday: “Fringe groups that attack the Supreme Court’s legitimacy and want partisan court-packing spent a great deal of time and money promoting Judge Jackson for this nomination. And once nominated, prominent soft-on-crime activists and open-borders pressure groups quickly rallied to her side. The Senate needs to understand why.”

             But don’t take my word for it or Sen. McConnell’s. Joe Biden has said repeatedly that his judges will be far-left, pro-abortion radicals, and he delivered on that promise with Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

             Senate Republicans began to expose Jackson’s extremism yesterday, and they must continue to do so as aggressively as they can every day these Judiciary Committee hearings take place and every day the full Senate debates her nomination.

             This is a teachable moment for the American people, and a major opportunity for Senate Republicans to expose the extremism of today’s Democrat Party.

             The Senate is split 50/50, and the odds favor her confirmation. But if Republicans stand united, it will put immense pressure on Joe Manchin and other Democrats from center-right states.

             It’s a long shot, but her confirmation could be blocked. Or, she would join the Supreme Court under a cloud as the only Justice every confirmed on a tie-breaking vote, without a clear Senate majority.

             Either way, no Senate Republican should have any role in putting such an extreme left-wing activist on the Supreme Court.

[Life Advocacy Briefing editor’s note: It is time for our readers to begin calling home-state Senators and ask their “no” vote on confirming Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. (Capitol switchboard: 1-202/224-3121) In addition to home-state Senators, we ask our readers to call also Senators Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Mitt Romney, Lindsey Graham and Joe Manchin.]