Life Advocacy Briefing

New Strategy in the New Reality?

WE DO NOT MEAN TO POINT TO A PARTICULAR CANDIDATE, but we will make this observation in the Dobbs-ruling political environment: GOP Congressional candidates are shifting their response on the right to life from “I’m pro-life, next question”– which was never a good idea but was quite common – to something even worse: “That’s an issue for the states,” implying “so I’m not involved.” Have you heard that? (That’s pretty close to what we heard from a western Pennsylvania Congressional candidate in a Fox News interview last Wednesday. And it got us to thinking.)

Nice try, but it dodges a significant chunk of reality.

For starters, learning a candidate’s position on abortion and related issues is often a path toward assessing that candidate’s fundamental convictions, which stretch across a broad range of issues.

Further, the Supreme Court’s refusal to go so far (in overturning Roe) as to recognize the right to life in the US Constitution does not, as so many have stated, “send the abortion issue to the states,” as though federal officials no longer play a role in abortion policy. Certainly, the abortion lobby does not take that view – no matter what they claim – as they step up their demands that the Congress adopt a national law excusing the killing of unborn babies and that the executive branch stand on its head to find ways to fund Planned Parenthood.

Where is the commitment to the Hyde Amendment? If the GOP takes over Congress, will there be enough committed pro-life Members of the House and Senate to restore it to the annual appropriations process and, at the same time, to put on the President’s desk a bill to make it permanent?

What will a Republican-controlled House and Senate – should such a takeover happen – do to rein in the Biden Regime’s all-of-government implementation of their abortion obsession?

Will there be enough votes to pass the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act to protect against cross-border secret abortions on adolescent mothers? Will anything be done to shelter medical personnel – including pharmacists – from Bidenista conscience-trampling mandates? Will there be sufficient votes to stop the shocking misuse of the Veterans Administration Hospital system to commit abortions on our military personnel and vets – at taxpayer expense? Will the dormant probe into fetal tissue harvesting be renewed?

Will GOP first-termers who ducked the abortion question vote to exclude Planned Parenthood and its ilk from taxpayer largesse?

It appears the Dobbs-lets-us-duck-it theory of candidate communication strategy is leaving our voters in the dark about such questions, at least in some districts and states, as we prepare to go to the polls. And it may foreshadow the need for a renewed battle to secure pro-life planks in the Republican National Platform as America approaches the 2024 Presidential convention process.

The Biden Abortion Obsession

HANGING ON TO ABORTION PROMOTION as the supposed magic-bullet issue in the current Congressional and state campaigns, Pres. Joe Biden took the occasion of the 100^th day since Roe went onto the trash heap to declare, reports Dave Andrusko in National Right to Life News, “that Congress should pass a bill ‘codifying Roe’ and that the upcoming Nov. 8 midterms are crucial to making that wish a reality.” He was addressing the second meeting of the White House Task Force on Reproductive Healthcare Access.

“‘Right now we’re short a handful of votes,’ Mr. Biden said,” reports Mr. Andrusko. “‘The only way it’s going to happen is if the American people make it happen.’”

The blockbuster “Women’s Health Protection [sic] Act” passed the US House on July 15 by a vote of 219 to 210, with just one Democrat – Rep. Henry Cuellar (TX) – voting “no.” But the House-passed bill never moved out of the Senate Committee on Energy & Commerce. The same proposal – originating in the Senate – had earlier failed Senate passage in February and again in May.    

But the Biden abortion obsession did not end with the President’s remarks to his “task force.” Two pronouncements came out of the abortion-possessed regime the same day early this month, both reported by Mr. Andrusko as quotes from Joyce Frieden of MedPage Today: “‘First, the Dept. of Education issued guidance reminding universities that they cannot discriminate on the basis of pregnancy, including pregnancy termination. Second,’” she reports, quoted by Mr. Andrusko, “‘[the Dept. of Health & Human Services] will issue more than $6 million in new Title X [Ten] grants and other grants “to protect and expand access to reproductive health care and improve service delivery, promote the adoption of healthy behaviors and reduce existing health disparities.’” That report was attributed to the Biden task force.

Not to be outdone, Vice Pres. Kamala Harris told the Task Force, reports Mr. Andrusko, “‘We’re not going to sit by and let Republicans throughout the country enact extreme policies.’” So much for the Supreme Court’s recognition that the states have the power to determine abortion laws for America.

And then the President spoke to an Oct. 18 event sponsored by the Democratic National Committee in Washington, declaring, reports Ashley Sadler for LifeSiteNews, “‘Here’s the promise I make to you and the American people: The first bill I will send to the Congress will be to codify Roe v. Wade. … And when Congress passes it, I’ll sign it in January, 50 years after Roe was first decided [to be] the law of the land.’” No thank you.

Infesting Even the Military

THE PENTAGON ANNOUNCED Oct. 20 that taxpayers – via the Defense appropriation – “will pay for service members and their dependents to travel to abort their unborn babies,” reports the Daily Signal.

A memo obtained by the news outlet indicates the Pentagon plans to “‘as necessary amend any applicable travel regulations to facilitate official travel to access non-covered reproductive health care that is unavailable within the local area of a servicemember’s permanent duty station.’”

So, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) lost her battle to get the Pentagon to commit abortions at military installations in abortion-prohibitive states, but the Biden Pentagon has taken up her cause in a less direct way.

And there is another apple rotting away in the memo: the US military bureaucracy said in its memo, reports the Daily Signal, “that it will develop a program to reimburse fees for those Defense Dept. healthcare providers who ‘wish to become licensed in a different state than that in which they are currently licensed.’”

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin directed the policy changes be set in stone by the end of this year, before a new Congress could take office.

V.A. Crosses the Line

THE U.S. VETERANS ADMINISTRATION HAS BEGUN its new “service” – committing abortion in VA facilities.

“During testimony before the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee,” reports Laura Nicole for Live Action, “VA Secretary Dennis McDonough received a question from Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville [R] about how many abortions have taken place at VA facilities” under the recently announced Biden policy. “In reply,” she writes, “McDonough confirmed that, so far, the VA has committed one abortion.”

No legislation authorizes this misuse of VA healthcare facilities. The VA abortion policy has been ordered by interim rule. The VA identifies the commission of abortion at its facilities as a “federal function.”

Said Rep. Mike Bost (R-IL), ranking Member of the House VA Committee, reports Ms. Nicole, citing the Washington Post as source: “‘This propos[ed policy] is contrary to long-standing, settled law and a complete administrative overreach. … I oppose it and am already working to put a stop to it.’” Hurry, Mr. Bost. Lives depend on your intervention.

Can You Stand Another One?

THE FEDERALIST REPORTED Oct. 6 that the Biden Regime is handing $750,000 of your tax dollars to the Guttmacher Institute – long connected to Planned Parenthood as the principal “research arm” of the abortion cartel – “because it experienced disruptions during Covid. …

“To receive the full funds by the grant’s end in 2025,” writes Federalist reporter Jordan Boyd, “Guttmacher has pledged itself to ‘generating actionable data to ensure high-quality, equitable sexual and reproductive health care.’ In other words, the institute will be working overtime to supply the Biden Administration with whatever statistics it needs to advance its pro-abortion agenda.”

The Problem with Patchwork

TROLLING THE BORDERS OF ILLINOIS, Planned Parenthood is planning “to open its first mobile clinic to provide abortion services,” reports Ivana Saric for Axios, “launching a program in Illinois to expand its footprint near the state’s borders with Missouri and Kentucky. …

“The mobile clinic will be outfitted in an RV and will serve patients along the Illinois border,” writes Ms. Saric, “and provide the full slate of services usually provided by a brick-and-mortar Planned Parenthood. … The mobile clinic will have a waiting room, a lab and two exam rooms,” reports Axios, “and will provide medicated [poisonous chemical] abortions up to 11 weeks gestation. It has plans to offer procedural [surgical] abortions in the future.”

The Axios reporter, basing her story on a Planned Parenthood press release, further notes: “Planned Parenthood has other mobile clinics in the past that have offered family planning services; this is the first to provide abortion services.”

The Bottom Line

Oct. 26, 2022, commentary by Jason Whitlock, host of the Fearless podcast, transcribed by Life Advocacy Briefing from an appearance on “Jesse Watters Primetime,” Fox News Channel

             If you don’t care about life inside the womb, you’ll never convince me that you care about life outside the womb. It starts on the inside. You talk to any doctor, talk to any psychologist, the things you do for a child inside the womb matter. And so, the whole Democratic platform right now seems to be about abortion. They’re pro-abortion.

             Stacey Abrams goes to some event with Lizzo and Latto, and she gets up on stage and “My body, my choice,” and it’s all about abortion. The party is about abortion. It’s about killing babies in the womb.

             They don’t care about life inside the womb; you’ll never convince me they care about life outside the womb. That’s why they can look at all this decay in their cities and just kind of nod their heads, say, There’s nothing we can do about it. This is normal. They don’t care about life. If you don’t care at the beginning, you never catch up. That’s the Democrats’ problem. …

             It all starts there. People tell on themselves. When they’re pro-abortion, what they’re really saying is, they don’t care about life. That’s their worldview. And so go look at the cities that they run, the people that don’t care about life, that are so passionate about abortion, look at the rest of the society that they’re creating. It’s an abortion – the society that they’re creating.

             It starts with caring about life in the womb, or your policies will lead to this kind of death and destruction and chaos we have now in America.

When All You Have Left is Lying

Oct. 21, 2022, Commentary by Jonathon VanMaren at LifeSiteNews

             With the fall of Roe v. Wade, the abortion movement is openly panicking. The Democratic midterm campaign is based almost on enshrining Roe in statute, with Pres. Joe Biden urging Americans almost daily to turn out at the polls to vote – a vote for a Democrat is a vote for abortion!

             Failed gubernatorial candidate and election truth-er Stacy Abrams even tried to claim that abortion could help lower inflation, stating on TV that: “Having children is why you’re worried about your price for gas, it’s why you’re concerned about how much food costs. For women, this is not a reductive issue.”

             But after initially seeming shaky on how best to respond to the Dobbs decision, Republicans are finding their footing. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio torched his opponent Val Demings for her abortion extremism and literally voting against protections for babies born alive after failed abortions. An exclusive poll by National Review revealed that American voters “believe that the mainstream Democratic Party’s position on abortion is ‘more extreme’ than the mainstream Republican position by a nearly two-to-one margin, according to a new survey from Republican polling firm WPA Intelligence.”

             Indeed, the more Democratic candidates like John Fetterman openly admit that they support no restrictions on abortion whatsoever – not even in the third trimester – the more voters prefer the GOP position on abortion to that of Joe Biden and his feticide extremists. As Darel Paul pointed out: “If Dobbs is such a loser issue for Republicans this fall, why are candidates tied to the most restrictive abortion measures in the country sailing to easy victories?”

             As I noted at the time, the Dobbs decision rocked abortion activists around the world. The response has been predictable – a near-constant torrent of lies, from their standard “abortion is healthcare” routine to claiming that pro-life laws prevent women from getting life-saving treatment. I’ve seen the media lie about abortion with breathtaking brazenness for as long as I can remember – but a recent article in the Guardian engages in Soviet-level gaslighting.

             Quoting abortionist Dr. Joan Fleischmann of the My Abortion Network, the Guardian provides several photos of hard-to-discern “pregnancy tissue.” According to Fleischmann: “A lot of early pregnancy images are driven by people who are against abortion and feel that life begins at conception, or by prenatal enthusiasts who want women to be excited about their pregnancy. What about people who aren’t?” The article’s title? “What a pregnancy actually looks like before 10 weeks – in pictures.”

             The only problem? The embryos were actually removed before the photos were taken. As ethicist Charles Camosy put it: “So, Poppy Noor and the Guardian managed to do a story on what a pregnancy looks like (takeaway: ‘It doesn’t look like what you think’) and in the nine-week photo, for instance, they removed the baby from the photo. This is not a joke! Amniotic sac only. This story should be flagged for misinformation everywhere.”  Dr. Calum Miller had the same reaction: “The Guardian published an article on ‘what a pregnancy actually looks like at nine weeks’ and literally removed the embryo, and they think we are the ones promoting misinformation.”

             To sum up: A pro-abortion journalist, working with abortion activists, quite literally erased the human being that is the focal point of the abortion conversation and blatantly lied to make people more comfortable with killing pre-born children. This is insidious and disingenuous. [The columnist then inserts clickable images, to which he refers in the next sentence.] For the record, here [https://www.ehd.org/movies/29/Response-to-Touch] is embryoscopy footage showing what the child looks like at six weeks from the Endowment for Human Development; here [https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/pregnancy-week-by-week/in-depth/prenatal-care/art-20045302#dialogId12312866] if you prefer, is how the Mayo Clinic portrays the child. From National Geographic’s Inside the Womb to any embryology textbook you can lay your hands on, the evidence is overwhelming and insurmountable: the Guardian is lying.

             Worse: They are lying for the express purpose of dehumanizing human beings; to other them, so that killing them will not seem like such a big deal. As the abortionist Joan Fleischman told the Guardian: “‘Abortion is medical care. Every single person who makes this decision is complex. But this information, showing tissue in the first 10 weeks, is literally absent from our common understanding of what is going on, and people deserve accurate information.’”

             I suppose if you kill babies for a living, butchering the truth isn’t such a big deal.