Life Advocacy Briefing

August 1, 2022

The Biden Abortion Obsession / Bidenistas Threaten Pharmacists
Arizona Abortion Campaign Falls Short / In Texas, They Mean It
Applying a Religious Test / What the Justices Did / House Voting Record

The Biden Abortion Obsession

A RECENT REPORT by LifeSiteNews writer Michael Haynes calls attention to a July 5 report by Reuters titled “Abortion Worries Heightened for Unauthorized Immigrants in the US.”

The Reuters story, notes Mr. Haynes, cites “‘four US officials who requested anonymity’” telling Reuters, “‘Biden officials are exploring ways to provide abortion access for pregnant women and girls in US immigration custody in states with bans.’

“However, Reuters noted,” writes Mr. Haynes, “that a number of federal shelters for children taken into custody at the border are based in Texas, a state which no longer has the abortion provision which the Biden Administration desires. Reuters also,” he writes, “pointed to the Texas Heartbeat Act as another problem for law enforcement and federal authorities to contest with.

“In a revealing passage, Reuters wrote: ‘For the past nine months, US health officials have been flying or driving minors from Texas shelters to other states for abortions. Advocates say more guidance is needed now, and fast.’”

The LifeSiteNews report goes on to quote conservative journalist Todd Starnes, reacting to the Biden abortion crusade: “‘US taxpayers are literally paying for abortions, which is a violation of the Hyde amendment. Of all the things we could impeach Biden over, that should be number one right there.’”

 

Bidenistas Threaten Pharmacists

THE BIDEN REGIME HAS RELEASED “new federal guidelines,” reports Ashley Sadler for LifeSiteNews, “that threaten pharmacists with ‘anti-discrimination’ violations if they refuse to fill prescriptions for abortion-inducing drugs.

“The Dept. of Health & Human Services guidelines,” she explains, are “addressed to roughly 60,000 retail pharmacies across the country [and] direct pharmacists to fill prescriptions for all legally prescribed drugs, even if those medications could be used to cause an abortion.”

On the HHS website, the department’s secretary, Xavier Becerra is quoted, reports Ms. Sadler: “‘We are committed to ensuring that everyone can access health care, free of discrimination. … This includes access to prescription medications for reproductive health and other types of care.’”

(By the way, is not the killing of a developing human baby actually anti-reproductive?)

The directive “makes clear,” reports Ms. Sadler, “that pharmacists who receive federal funding are bound under civil rights laws to supply potentially abortion-inducing [drugs], even in states that have outlawed chemical abortions.”

The so-called guidance was laid on the nation’s pharmacists just days after the same bureaucracy “directed hospitals to perform abortions if a pregnant woman’s life is at risk,” reports Ms. Sadler, “even in states that outlaw abortion. Most states with pro-life laws,” she notes, “provide exceptions in cases of medical necessity, and many pro-life advocates argue that there is never a circumstance in which abortion is medically necessary.”

 

Arizona Abortion Campaign Falls Short

ARIZONA ABORTION CAMPAIGNERS LOST OUT in their drive to gather sufficient signatures to put a constitutional amendment on the November ballot declaring abortion as a right.

The petition drive was launched in May after the draft of Justice Alito’s opinion in the Dobbs case leaked from the Supreme Court. But the group collected only about half of the required signatures by deadline time in mid-July.

Arizona statutes have outlawed abortion in the state since 1864, according to Bridget Sielicki, reporting for Live Action. “Meanwhile,” she notes, “a newer law is soon to take effect that would prohibit abortion after 15 weeks.

“To avoid any murky legal issues,” she writes, “Planned Parenthood has stopped committing abortions altogether in the state for the time being.”

 

In Texas, They Mean It

TEXAS LAWMAKERS APPEAR TO BE SERIOUS about protecting the lives of unborn babies. A group of state legislators called the “‘Texas Freedom Caucus,’” reports Matt Lamb for LifeSiteNews, has sent a letter to the law firm Sidley Austin “inform[ing] it that it must preserve all records concerning its alleged aid to a woman who had a chemical abortion in Texas against state law.

“It ‘appears that Sidley may have aided or abetted drug-induced abortions in violation of the Texas Heartbeat Act, by paying for abortions (or abortion-related travel) in which the patient ingested the second drug in Texas after receiving the drugs from an out-of-state provider,’ the letter stated. ‘Litigation is already underway to uncover the identity of those who aided or abetted these and other illegal abortions.’

“The letter reminded Sidley Austin,” reports Mr. Lamb, “that Texas’s pro-life laws ‘extend to drug-induced abortions if any part of the drug regimen is ingested in Texas, even if the drugs were dispensed by an out-of-state abortionist. … To the extent that Sidley is facilitating abortions performed in violation of [state law],’” the letter continued, “‘it is exposing itself and each of its partners to felony criminal prosecution and disbarment.’”

The letter went on to inform the company – and the public – that the Freedom Caucus is planning, reports Mr. Lamb, to file a proposal in the next legislative session “‘that will impose additional civil and criminal sanctions on law firms that pay for abortions or abortion travel.’ … The law ‘will prohibit any employer in Texas from paying for elective abortions or reimbursing abortion-related expense’ and ‘will allow private citizens to sue anyone who pays for an elective abortion performed on a Texas resident or who pays for or reimburses the costs associated with these abortions.’”

That next legislative proposal, notes Mr. Lamb, “will also ‘require the State Bar of Texas to disbar any lawyer’ who assists in breaking pro-life laws. [And] It will create a private right of action that allows citizens to sue the State Bar to enforce the provision.”

 

Applying a Religious Test

A STATE CIRCUIT JUDGE IN KENTUCKY, named Mitch Perry, has issued a temporary injunction against enforcement of the state’s Heartbeat Abortion Ban and, reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews, “a general abortion ban designed not to take effect until Roe was overturned, which together effectively prohibit nearly all abortions.” The excuse this time? The judge asserted, notes Mr. Freiburger, “that the laws’ premise of life beginning at conception is ‘a distinctly Christian and Catholic belief,’ enforcement of which constitutes an establishment of religion. …

The General Assembly is not permitted,’” he wrote, quoted by LifeSiteNews, “‘to single out and endorse the doctrine of a favored faith for preferred treatment.’  …

Kentucky’s 15-week abortion ban currently remains in effect,” reports Mr. Freiburger. LifeSiteNews writer Clare Marie Merkowsky reports an injunction blocking the 15-week ban has been lifted by US District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings, “citing the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade.”

 

What the Justices Did

 

July 11, 2022, BreakPoint commentary by John Stonestreet & Shane Morris

             A recent photo essay in The Atlantic documented dozens of pro-abortion demonstrations around the country following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling. Protesters, often dressed like handmaids from Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel, seem to believe the Court has taken something away from them. Even the article’s description blames the justices for “removing a federal right to an abortion.”

             In reality, the majority’s decision in the Dobbs case did not change a single abortion law. What they did was end the Supreme Court’s 49-year-old intervention that took the abortion question out of the hands of elected lawmakers and therefore out of the hands of the American people. Now, thanks to this ruling, voters can, for the first time in a generation, decide the issue democratically by going to the ballot box and making their voices heard.

             Of course, any law that allows for the killing of unborn children is unjust and morally unacceptable, even if it is the will of voters. So, the ultimate goal for Christians should be that abortion is not only illegal in all 50 states but unthinkable in the modern world, swept into the dustbin of history like other historic evils. Obviously, given the reaction to the Dobbs decision, this will involve changing a lot of hearts and minds.

             Still, the ruling in Dobbs is an incredible victory and important step in restoring the rule of law in this country and putting the question of abortion before the people. Roe was a legal disaster that was used for decades to swat down any state-level regulations on abortion and silence voters who wanted those regulations in place. As Ryan Anderson and Alexandra DeSanctis write in their new book, Tearing Us Apart: “[Roe] removed nearly every question about abortion policy from the hands of the American people and placed the issue into the hands of unelected judges, even though the Constitution contains nothing that could remotely support a right to abortion.”

             Former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, someone who was far from pro-life, described the judiciary’s attitude on this issue as “the abortion distortion.” According to Justice O’Connor, “no legal rule or doctrine is safe from ad hoc nullification by this Court when an occasion for its application arises in a case involving state regulation of abortion.” In other words, she saw that her fellow left-leaning justices were willing to use specious arguments to prop up abortion rights, even when they meant ignoring established norms and precedent. In fact, even the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a strong supporter of the so-called “right to choose,” admitted that, in legal terms, Roe was a “heavy-handed judicial intervention.”

             Not only does Dobbs represent a moment when the Supreme Court is giving up power and returning it to the states, but it may place America much more in line with the rest of the developed world on the abortion issue. Believe it or not, American law on abortion, thanks in a big part to Roe, has been more in line with the laws of repressive, totalitarian regimes than other liberal democracies.

             As Anderson and DeSanctis note, only seven countries, including North Korea, “permit elective abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. US abortion policy is far more permissive even than the policies in most European countries. Thirty-nine of the 42 European countries that allow elective abortion permit it only in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.”

             To put that in perspective, we are told that the Mississippi law at the heart of the Dobbs case is comparable to Margaret Atwood’s fictional sexist dystopia. But the reality is that in prohibiting elective abortion after 15 weeks, the law made Mississippi comparable to such sexist dystopias as … well, France.

             Considering these facts, it’s difficult to understand the extreme reaction many in the pro-abortion camp have had to this ruling. The justices didn’t change a single law. What they did was return the issue to the states and thus, the voters. The process now unfolding in all 50 states is one the Supreme Court short-circuited almost 50 years ago by making the decision for us and inventing a constitutional right to an abortion.

             As Anderson and DeSanctis note, this “heavy-handed” intervention corrupted our political process, undermined the will of voters and fostered a mentality among progressives that whatever they couldn’t win support for in legislatures, they could demand from the Supreme Court. In Dobbs, six of the justices appear to be signaling that things will no longer work this way.

             Of course, progressive states will entrench abortion in law, meaning lives will continue to be snuffed out in this country by white-clad professionals practicing what they call “health care.” Until that changes, our work for justice must continue. But thanks to this ruling, laws designed to save young lives will no longer be snuffed out by black-robed lawyers practicing what they call “Constitutional law.”

 

 

House Voting Record

HR-8297 – Interfere with State Laws Pertaining to Cross-Border Abortions  – Final Passage – July 15, 2022 – Passed 223-205 (Democrats in italics)

Voting “no”/pro-Life: Aderholt, Brooks, Carl, Moore, Palmer, Rogers/AL; Biggs, Gosar, Lesko, Schweikert/AZ; Crawford, Hill, Westerman, Womack/AR; Calvert, Conway, Garcia, Issa, Kim, LaMalfa, McCarthy, McClintock, Obernolte, Steel, Valadao/CA; Boebert, Buck, Lamborn/CO; Bilirakis, Buchanan, Cammack, Diaz-Balart, Donalds, Dunn, Franklin, Gaetz, Gimenez, Mast, Posey, Rutherford, Salazar, Steube, Waltz, Webster/FL; Allen, Carter, Clyde, Ferguson, Greene, Hice, Loudermilk, Scott/GA; Fulcher, Simpson/ID; Bost, R.Davis, LaHood, Miller/IL; Baird, Banks, Bucshon, Hollingsworth, Pence, Spartz, Walorski/IN; Feenstra, Hinson, Miller-Meeks/IA; Estes, LaTurner, Mann/KS; Barr, Comer, Guthrie, Massie, Rogers/KY; Graves, Higgins, Johnson, Letlow, Scalise/LA; Harris/MD; Bergman, Huizenga, McClain, Meijer, Moolenaar, Walberg/MI; Emmer, Fischbach, Stauber/MN; Guest, Kelly, Palazzo/MS; Graves, Hartzler, Long, Luetkemeyer, Smith, Wagner/MO; Rosendale/MT; Bacon, Flood, Smith/NE; Amodei/NV; Smith, VanDrew/NJ; Herrell/NM; Garbarino, Jacobs, Katko, Malliotakis, Stefanik, Tenney, Zeldin/NY; Bishop, Budd, Cawthorn, Foxx, Hudson, McHenry, Murphy, Rouzer/NC; Armstrong/ND; Balderson, Carey, Chabot, Davidson, Gibbs, Johnson, Jordan, Joyce, Latta, Turner, Wenstrup/OH; Bice, Cole, Hern, Lucas, Mullin/OK; Bentz/OR; Joyce, Keller, Kelly, Meuser, Perry, Reschenthaler, Smucker, Thompson/PA; Duncan, Norman, Timmons, Wilson/SC; Johnson/SD; Burchett, DesJarlais, Fleischmann, Green, Harshbarger, Kustoff, Rose/TN; Arrington, Babin, Brady, Burgess, Carter, Cloud, Crenshaw, Ellzey, Fallon, Flores, Gohmert, Gonzales, Gooden, Granger, Jackson, McCaul, Nehls, Pfluger, Roy, Sessions, Taylor, VanDuyne, Weber, Williams/TX; Curtis, Moore, Owens, Stewart/UT; Cline, Good, Griffith, Wittman/VA; Herrera-Beutler, Newhouse, Rodgers/WA; McKinley, Miller, Mooney/WV; and Fitzgerald, Gallagher, Grothman, Steil, Tiffany/WI.

Voting “yes”/anti-Life: Sewell/AL; Gallego, Grijalva, Kirkpatrick, O’Halleran, Stanton/AZ; Aguilar, Barragan, Bass, Bera, Brownley, Carbajal, Cardenas, Chu, Correa, Costa, DeSaulnier, Eshoo, Garamendi, Gomez, Harder, Huffman, Jacobs, Khanna, Lee, Levin, Lieu, Lofgren, Lowenthal, Matsui, McNerney, Napolitano, Panetta, Pelosi, Peters, Porter, Roybal-Allard, Ruiz, Sanchez, Schiff, Sherman, Speier, Swalwell, Takano, Thompson, Torres, Vargas, Waters/CA; Crow, DeGette, Neguse, Perlmutter/CO; Courtney, DeLauro, Hayes, Himes, Larson/CT; Blunt-Rochester/DE; Castor, Cherfilus-McCormick, Crist, Demings, Deutch, Frankel, Lawson, Murphy, Soto, Wasserman-Schultz, Wilson/FL; Bishop, Bourdeaux, Johnson, McBath, D.Scott, Williams/GA; Case, Kahele/HI; Bustos, Casten, D.Davis, Foster, Garcia, Kelly, Kinzinger, Krishnamoorthi, Newman, Quigley, Rush, Schakowsky, Schneider, Underwood/IL; Carson, Mrvan/IN; Axne/IA; Davids/KS; Yarmuth/KY; Carter/LA; Golden, Pingree/ME; Brown, Hoyer, Mfume, Raskin, Ruppersberger, Sarbanes, Trone/MD; Auchincloss, Clark, Keating, Lynch, McGovern, Moulton, Neal, Pressley, Trahan/MA; Dingell, Kildee, Lawrence, Levin, Slotkin, Stevens, Tlaib, Upton/MI; Craig, McCollum, Omar, Phillips/MN; Thompson/MS; Bush, Cleaver/MO; Horsford, Lee, Titus/NV; Kuster, Pappas/NH; Gottheimer, Kim, Malinowski, Norcross, Pallone, Pascrell, Payne, Sherrill, Sires, Watson-Coleman/NJ; Leger-Fernandez, Stansbury/NM; Bowman, Clarke, Espaillat, Higgins, Jeffries, Jones, C.Maloney, S.Maloney, Meeks, Meng, Morelle, Nadler, Ocasio-Cortez, Rice, Suozzi, Tonko, Torres, Velazquez/NY; Adams, Butterfield, Manning, Price, Ross/NC; Beatty, Brown, Kaptur, Ryan/OH; Blumenauer, Bonamici, DeFazio, Schrader/OR; Boyle, Cartwright, Dean, Doyle, Evans, Fitzpatrick, Houlahan, Lamb, Scanlon, Wild/PA; Cicilline, Langevin/RI; Clyburn/SC; Cohen, Cooper/TN; Allred, Castro, Cuellar, Doggett, Escobar, Fletcher, Garcia, Gonzalez, Green, Jackson-Lee, Johnson, Veasey/TX; Welch/VT; Beyer, Connolly, Luria, McEachin, Scott, Spanberger, Wexton/VA; DelBene, Jayapal, Kilmer, Larsen, Schrier, Smith, Strickland/WA; and Kind, Moore, Pocan/WI.

Not voting: Gonzalez/OH, Mace/SC, and Cheney/WY.