Life Advocacy Briefing

A Victory, for Now

THE SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE DEADLOCKED Dec. 1 on the nomination of Julie Rikelman to the 1^st Circuit Court of Appeals. The attorney for the abortion cartel’s principal litigation outfit, Center for Reproductive Rights, can still be confirmed, according to Matt Lamb, writing for Live Action, but the controversial nominee will need 51 votes among Senators just to be considered for confirmation.

We encourage our readers to contact home-state senators and ask for a “no” vote on Julie Rikelman if a motion is offered to discharge the committee of her nomination. And we encourage our readers to contact also Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), whose vote cannot be predicted, and GOP Senators Lisa Murkowski (AK), Susan Collins (ME) and Mitt Romney (UT). [Capitol switchboard: 1-202/224-3121]

The Biden Abortion Obsession

IN ITS ‘WHOLE-OF-GOVERNMENT’ DEMAND FOR ABORTION IN EVERY REALM, the Biden Regime in November issued a directive prioritizing abortion for unaccompanied minor children in federal custody as illegal immigrants, reports Live Action’s Bridget Sielicki.

The “field guidance” – promulgating official government policy – was issued via the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the Dept. of Health & Human Services (HHS).

Not only does the order guarantee abortion “access” for those who “want it,” notes Ms. Sielicki; it also provides for “‘transporting a minor to a state in which abortion is lawful and available if the minor is currently in a state in which abortion is not lawful or available.’” At taxpayer expense, of course.

In an outrageous twist, the HHS spokesman who announced the directive, “said that the policy change comes as a result of the Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade, noting,” reports Ms. Sielicki, “that the Biden Administration is ‘committed to supporting access to essential health care, including reproductive health care, for all the populations we serve.’” (Based on the Regime’s open-border policy, that means all the populations of the earth!)

It is no surprise to our readers, but it needs to be said whenever such obfuscatory language is used: Abortion is not health care. And for that matter, it is not reproductive either. It is a criminal act – whether so defined in man’s law or not – and it counters reproduction.

A lawyer at the National Center for Youth Law “told CBS News,” reports Ms. Sielicki, “that the policy is important so that pregnant children do not have to undergo the ‘additional trauma’ of giving birth.” But, notes the Live Action writer, “women who have survived rape and undergone abortions have said that the abortion was worse than the rape and added more trauma. Many women who undergo abortions – even for reasons like rape,” declares Ms. Sielicki, “later experience profound grief and regret.”

A Profile in Courage

THE PRESIDENT OF MALTA HAS DECLARED HE WILL RESIGN rather than sign a bill relaxing the Mediterranean nation’s law protecting unborn children from abortion. The bill opens unborn babies to destruction if the person committing the abortion claims the mother’s physical or mental health is in danger, a provision which, opponents to the bill note, has “opened the door to de facto abortion on demand” in places such as the UK and US, warning, reports Bettina DiFiore for Live Action, “this bill would have the same effect in Malta.”

Pres. George Vella, who is a physician, “has previously stated,” writes Ms. DiFiore, “that he opposes abortion without exceptions because there are ‘no half measures to murder.’ He continued, ‘You have either killed or not killed; there can be no half-death. I’m very clear, there are no ifs and buts.’”

The Malta constitution does not grant the President veto power, but it does require that the President must sign a bill before it can become law.

“National Party Member of Parliament Adrian Delia,” reports Ms. DiFiore, “has urged Pres. Vella not to sign the legislation but not to resign either. He argued,” she writes, “that the bill does not respect Malta’s constitution, of which the president is the custodian.”

Intolerance on Display

ALWAYS LOOKING FOR ATTENTION in the mainstream media, former US Senator and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D) took the occasion of an interview on the taxpayer-funded Public Broadcasting “Service” to slander, likening pro-life Americans to foreign brutes.

“‘There is a lot of pushback,’” she said in the interview, quoted by Ashley Sadler in LifeSiteNews, “‘and much of the progress [sic] that has been taken for granted by too many people is under attack – literally under attack in places like Iran or Afghanistan or Ukraine – where rape is a tactic of war – or under attack by political and cultural forces in a country like our own when it comes to women’s health care and bodily autonomy’” – code words for her own personal idol. 

“‘We have work to do to try to defend our rights, to stand up for them,’” she declared, quoted by Ms. Sadler. “‘And what we’ve seen, particularly since the Dobbs decision across our country, is that when voters – both men and women but led by women – have a chance to vote on these draconian abortion restrictions, they do not accept them.’”

The Catholic Bishop of Tyler, Texas, reacted to Mrs. Clinton’s diatribe by warning Americans, reports Andreas Wailzer for LifeSiteNews, “‘Please, please don’t listen to this evil woman. Her lies and immorality need to be silenced for the good of humanity,’ [Bishop] Strickland wrote in a Tweet. …

“[Bishop] Strickland has become well known,” reports LifeSiteNews, “for publicly calling out evil actions and also correcting his fellow Catholic prelates when necessary.”

Swan Song

TO PUT A CAP ON HER 30-YEAR ‘CAREER’ IN CONGRESS, US Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) has filed a bill, reports Cassy Fiano-Chesser for Live Action, to “mandate that the federal government create a fund devoted to spreading abortion awareness and access.”

Her bill “would require the Secretary of the Dept. of Health & Human Services to launch a public health campaign, telling Americans where they can undergo an abortion without violating the Hyde Amendment. …

“‘Every person in the United States, no matter their zip code,’” she declared, reports Live Action, “‘should be able to access accurate information on where and how to obtain abortion care.’” She called state level abortion prohibitions “‘draconian bans that are forcing women to travel long distances to seek abortion care and leading to the spread of abortion misinformation intended to deceive patients…. The Abortion Care Awareness Act will help ensure that every American can access accurate, comprehensive information to make decisions about the health and economic security of themselves and their families.’”

Ms. Maloney is unlikely to see passage of her pet project, since she lost her primary for re-election in August, and the Republican Party, which will take the majority in January, is opposed to such nonsense. As one can discern from her comments and her actions, she has long been a Congressional leader for the killing of innocent preborn children. Bye.

Texas Shining

THE STATE OF TEXAS HAS RELEASED THE STATE’s ABORTION STATISTICS, showing, writes Kim Schwartz for Texas Right to Life, “the first full month after Texas’s total protections for preborn children regained effect” following the Dobbs decision by the US Supreme Court. The abortion death toll for that month: 68 abortions. “The same time period a year prior,” notes Ms. Schwartz, “saw 4,879 abortions, an average of 150 per day.

“That means there were over twice as many lives taken each day of July 2021 than in the entire month of July 2022. From September 2021 to June 2022,” writes Ms. Schwartz, “the Texas Heartbeat Act decreased the number of abortions to 2,500 per month on average.”

The report, published in National Right to Life News, estimates that “many” of the elective abortions committed in July 2022 were rushed during a three-day period while a “liberal Harris County judge attempted to block enforcement of pre-Roe laws. “Tragically,” writes Ms. Schwartz, “most abortion facilities across Texas resumed operation during the three days the judge’s order was in effect. Many of them ran at a higher-than-usual capacity to make up for lost time. They reported calling clients back to get as many of them in the doors as possible.”

The report quotes Texas Right to Life’s chief lobbyist, Rebecca Parma: “‘Legal elective abortion is no more in the state of Texas, and lives are being saved at unprecedented levels. However, we must remain vigilant at all times. The abortion industry will seize every opportunity possible, legal or not, to continue waging war against preborn children.’”

In the Courts

• THE 7^th CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS on Nov. 28 “reinstated an Indiana law,” reports Bridget Sielicki for Live Action, “requiring the humane burial or cremation of aborted children. The law, which was adopted in 2016, was blocked in September by an Indiana judge who ruled that it violates the religious freedom and free speech of people who do not believe that a preborn child has the same rights as a born person.” The 7^th Circuit, reports Ms. Sielicki, “overruled the previous judge’s determination that the law violates freedom of religion. ‘Indiana does not require any woman who has obtained an abortion to violate any belief, religious or secular,’ the court’s opinion states. ‘The cremate-or-bury directive applies only to hospitals and clinics.’ The court went on to state that ‘a moral objection to one potential implication of the way medical providers handle fetal remains is some distance from a contention that the state compels any woman to violate her own religious tenets.’”

• A STATE DISTRICT JUDGE IN KANSAS, Judge Teresa Watson, issued an injunction on Nov. 23, reports National Right to Life News, “blocking the state’s law prohibiting doctors from prescribing dangerous abortion-inducing drugs without an in-person consultation.” The lawsuit was brought by an abortuary calling itself “Trust Women.” The report quotes Jeanne Gawdun, Kansans for Life director of government relations: “‘Sadly, pregnant women will be endangered by this ruling, the abortion industry will profit off the destruction of more innocent babies, and other abortion limits are just a few court filings away from also being removed.’ … Kansans need to be informed of the dangers of this removal of the in-person doctor requirement,” notes NRL News, “namely: Endangering the life of the mother from an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy; endangering the life of the mother from an unsupervised, failed chemical abortion, with no doctor on the premises to provide continuation of care for a woman experiencing rapidly deteriorating physical condition; increased risk of excruciating pain for a later-term unborn child, due to a lack of doctor’s confirmation of the baby’s gestational age.” Pro-life advocate Kris Kobach won the November election for Kansas Attorney General and will take office Jan. 9.

March for Life Planning Underway

IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING, a March for Life is being planned for Friday, Jan. 20, 2023, in the nation’s capital. The theme was announced in late October by March for Life president Jeanne Mancini: “Next Steps: Marching in a Post-Roe America.”

“When asked why the March wouldn’t be moved to June 24 – the day Roe was struck down,” writes Edie Heipel for Catholic News Agency, Ms. “Mancini explained the decision to continue marching on [or around] Jan. 22, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade’s enactment [sic]. ‘There’s a hall of remembrance in the Holocaust Museum,’ [Ms.] Mancini told the audience” gathered for the announcement. “‘[It] reminds us how important it is to remember our history and to tell the story – to tell it to our children and our children’s children so that it doesn’t happen again.’ …

“According to a press release,” writes Ms. Heipel, “the March will end at the steps of the US Capitol instead of the Supreme Court, where it ended every year previously, symbolizing that ‘the power to protect the unborn’ has been returned to Americans in a ‘new front’ in the battle for life.”

And since much of that battleground will be in state legislatures, the March plans to be in 10 states next year, with the goal of 20 by the next. The report did not make clear what the timing of state-level marches will be. Readers may click on their home or nearby states via a map posted on the March for Life website at https://marchforlife.org/state-marches-near-you to check where and when the closest state-level march is planned.

Complicity in the Medical Establishment

Nov. 29, 2022, Live Action report by Cassy Fiano-Chesser

             Since the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org. overturned Roe v. Wade in June, the media has been steadily releasing horror stories of women allegedly harmed by pro-life laws enacted by states to protect preborn children from abortion. However, these stories of apparent denial actually appear to be instances of medical neglect on the part of pro-abortion doctors. Now, a leading medical association is showing support for this type of negligence.

             The American Medical Assn (AMA), a professional association for physicians and a lobbying group, maintains a Code of Medical Ethics that is widely seen as the standard to which American doctors should adhere. Its latest guidance, however, erroneously affirms that induced abortion (the intentional killing of a preborn human being) is health care and encourages doctors to break the law in pro-life states.

             At the group’s interim meeting in November, AMA President Jack Resneck said doctors should be willing to commit abortions illegally. “Caught between good medicine and bad law, physicians struggle to meet their ethical duties to patients’ health and well-being, while attempting to comply with reckless government interference in the practice of medicine that is dangerous to the health of our patients,” he said. “Under extraordinary circumstances, the ethical guidelines of the profession support physician conduct that sides with their patient’s safety and health, acknowledging that this may conflict with legal constraints that limit access to abortion or reproductive care.”

             But the intentional killing of a human being cannot logically be considered health care. While it is sometimes medically necessary to induce a premature delivery at a time when the preborn child is too young to survive outside the womb, this is not an abortion, as the intent of premature delivery is to save the life of the mother – not to ensure that her child dies.

             The American Assn. of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists (AAPLOG) explained: “There are times when separating the mother and her unborn child is necessary to save the life of the mother, even if the unborn child is too premature to live. In those tragic cases, if possible, the life of the baby will be attempted to be preserved, and if not possible, the body of the unborn child is treated with respect, recognizing the humanity of the life which is lost in the separation. In contrast, the purpose of an induced abortion is to produce a dead baby. The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention [CDC] defined legal induced abortion as an ‘intervention performed by a licensed clinician (e.g., a physician, nurse-midwife, nurse practitioner or physician assistant) that is intended to terminate a suspected or known ongoing intrauterine pregnancy and produce a non-viable fetus at any gestational age.”

             Most of the medical emergencies currently featured in the media have occurred during the second trimester when the most common abortion procedure committed is a D&E, or dilation & evacuation. This procedure may take several days to complete and involves dismembering the preborn child by tearing off her arms and legs before crushing her skull. If done as a same-day procedure, the risks to the woman increase due to accelerated dilation. An emergency C-section, in contrast, can be performed in about an hour.

             Resneck told NPR, “I never imagined colleagues would find themselves tracking down hospital attorneys before performing urgent abortions, when minutes count, [or] asking if a 30% chance of maternal death or impending renal failure meet the criteria for the state’s exemptions, or whether they must wait a while longer until their pregnant patient gets even sicker.”

             Yet, women in these circumstances need legitimate medical care, not induced abortion. According to the stories shared by the Associated Press and NPR, doctors are refusing to provide “needed medical care” to pregnant women in distress out of fear that they will violate state pro-life laws. This has been the excuse given for emergencies that made national news in Tennessee (possible pre-eclampsia), Texas (incompetent cervix), and Ohio (missed miscarriage) where pro-life laws are in effect.

             Each of these women could have been helped through use of completely legal medical procedures, not abortions. Instead, in Tennessee, a doctor sent a woman suspected of having pre-eclampsia on a six-hour ambulance ride to get an abortion rather than treating her with standard care, which, according to the Mayo Clinic, includes medications to lower blood pressure or an emergency delivery of the baby in extreme cases. And in both Texas and Ohio, women facing serious health concerns were sent home instead of being given proper, timely and legal medical care specific to their medical situations.

             There was nothing preventing doctors from intervening, and the heartbreaking stories are, therefore, an issue of medical neglect, not pro-life laws.