Life Advocacy Briefing

Urgent Warning

WE HOPE OUR READERS COMB ALL THE WAY THROUGH Life Advocacy Briefing every week, but we understand that for some, a quick look is the limit. If you are one who chooses which items to read, we urge you to go now to the last item and read it carefully. It is a report from a close observer of United Nations deliberations, and, to us, it is a grave warning. Please read it now, pray, and then come back to read the rest.

They Really Meant It

THE U.S. SUPREME COURT on March 20 voted 8 to 1 to strike down “a lower court ruling,” reports Emily Mangiaracina for LifeSiteNews, “that upheld minors’ ability to obtain an abortion without parental notification.” The sole dissenter was Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The ruling directed the St. Louis-based 8^th Circuit Court of Appeals, notes Ms. Mangiaracina, “to dismiss as ‘moot’ its decision that minors can obtain an abortion without notifying their parents if they receive permission from a court. …

“The case at issue began,” explains the LifeSiteNews writer, “when a 17-year-old in Missouri asked a court permission for an abortion without her parents’ knowledge,” despite the state law which required parental notice. “When the court clerk insisted that her parents … be notified,” writes Ms. Mangiaracina, “she traveled to Illinois for the abortion and thereafter sued, claiming that the court [had] obstructed her ‘constitutional right.’”

The Missouri parental notice statute has been superseded by an outright abortion ban enacted following the Supreme Court’s overturn last June of the pernicious Roe v. Wade opinion. Missouri now allows abortions, notes Ms. Mangiaracina, only “when allegedly ‘necessary’ to prevent serious damage to a mother’s health or to save her life, with no exceptions” against babies who have been conceived in a sex crime.

In the Courts

• NORTH DAKOTA’s SUPREME COURT on March 16 “rejected Atty. Gen. Drew Rigley’s request to remove a preliminary injunction that prevented the state’s trigger law from taking effect,” reports Dave Andrusko for National Right to Life News. The trigger law was enacted in 2007 in anticipation of the Supreme Court’s eventual overturning of Roe v. Wade, but Fargo’s principal abortuary “sued [Mr.] Wrigley in July to prevent the protective law from taking effect. The lawsuit,” notes Mr. Andrusko, “asserts that the state’s constitution grants the right to abortion.” The state constitutional provision on which the abortion cartel is basing its challenge provides a “right to … obtain safety,” which, the high court’s chief justice wrote, according to Mr. Andrusko, “‘necessarily includes a pregnant woman has a fundamental right to obtain an abortion to preserve her life or her health.’” The ruling rejecting the state’s request to lift the temporary injunction ran 21 pages.

• THE OHIO SUPREME COURT HAS AGREED to consider an appeal from the state’s attorney general, Dave Yost (R), seeking to reinstate Ohio’s “heartbeat” abortion ban, which outlaws abortions when a baby’s heartbeat can be detected, often at six weeks’ gestation. A state judge issued a temporary injunction against the law, reports Jean Mondoro for LifeSiteNews, after the US Supreme Court handed down its Dobbs ruling last June. The attorney general filed an appeal with the state high court in January after an appeals court refused to take up his petition. The law in question took effect in July, 2019.

• OKLAHOMA’s SUPREME COURT MANAGED last Tuesday to raise more questions than it answered in ruling on the state’s abortion laws, rejecting calls, reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews, “to ‘enjoin enforcement of two laws which criminalize abortion’ but at the same time [finding] ‘there is a limited right to terminate a pregnancy that is protected by the Oklahoma  Constitution,’ when abortion is (supposedly) ‘necessary to preserve [a woman’s] life.’” The twisted ruling appears to have stirred turmoil in the state. Said GOP Gov. Kevin Stitt, quoted by Mr. Freiburger: “‘I wholeheartedly disagree with this activist majority’s opinion creating a right to an abortion in Oklahoma, … Alarmingly this activist majority acted out of hand by making a policy decision that belongs to the people. … Furthermore, in their 20-page opinion,’” declared Gov. Stitt in the LifeSiteNews report, “‘not once was there any mention of the unborn. From the moment life begins at conception, we have a responsibility to do everything we can to protect that baby’s life and the life of the mother.’” Said the CEO of Planned Parenthood of Great Plains, quoted by Mr. Freiburger, “‘The Oklahoma Supreme Court recognized one fundamental truth: patients must be permitted to access critical care to save their lives. … But the right recognized today is so limited that most people who need abortion will not be able to access it.’” Well, it wasn’t all bad!

Stateside

• ILLINOIS LAWMAKERS ARE NOT CONTENT, it seems, with having enacted some of the most radical abortion laws in the country. With the legislature back in session, the radicals’ sights are set this spring on attacking pro-life pregnancy centers. Reports Cassy Fiano-Chesser for Live Action, “House Bill 2463, or the Deceptive Practices of Limited Services Pregnancy Centers Act, asserts that these centers offering free services to women and families should be investigated if it even appears they were about to engage in any so-called and undefined ‘deceptive practice.’ Under this as well as its sister bill, SB-1909, PRCs could face a $50,000 fine,” warns Mrs. Chesser, “for spreading so-called ‘deceptive’ information or engaging in ‘deceptive’ practices or concealing, suppressing or omitting any kind of ‘material fact.’” Those practices are not defined in the bill, of course. “In addition,” notes Mrs. Chesser, “SB-1909 gives the Illinois Atty. General the ability to initiate an investigation against a PRC if the AG merely feels it is in the ‘public interest,’ even if no specific complaint has been filed. The AG would also be able,” writes Mrs. Chesser, “to ‘impound’ all records from the PRC, something that Illinois Right to Life said could potentially force PRCs to close altogether. The bill also allows the AG to take action before a PRC has even done anything illegal or deceptive – just on the suspicion that they will.” And, hat tip to the Illinois Trial Lawyers, “an ‘aggrieved party,’” notes Mrs. Chesser, “can also sue the PRCs, even without having been a client or patient at the PRC they are suing.”

• THE OHIO BALLOT BOARD has approved the language of a petition to place a state constitutional amendment on this November’s ballot “to ensure legal access to abortion across the state,” reports Jean Mondoro for LifeSiteNews. The action clears the way for the abortion cartel to gather required signatures and touches off a major political conflict over abortion in Ohio this year.

• UTAH HAS NOT BANNED ABORTION, but the state has made the baby-killing business untenable. Gov. Spencer Cox (R) signed legislation in mid-March, reports Ben Johnson for The Washington Stand, which “prevents new abortion facilities from obtaining a license as of May 2 and bans abortions inside stand-alone abortion facilities beginning the first day of 2024. The law,” writes Mr. Johnson, “mandates all abortions take place inside hospitals or stand-alone facilities that have the ‘quality to provide the same degree of safety as … a general hospital licensed by the [state health] department.’” The moderate GOP governor insisted, notes Mr. Johnson, “the legislation is ‘absolutely not’ a ban on all abortion statewide, but Planned Parenthood – which operates three of the state’s four abortion facilities – said trying to meet better healthcare guidelines would effectively make it impossible for them to operate. … The abortion industry,” writes Mr. Johnson, “states that hospital regulations raise costs, and medical personnel do not wish to participate in abortion-on-demand.” So telling! “The law also,” Mr. Johnson reports, “forbids out-of-state abortionists from dispensing abortion pills to citizens of Utah and protects children conceived in rape or incest after the 18^th week of pregnancy, well into the second trimester. The law clarifies,” he explains, “that violating these standards constitutes unprofessional conduct under state health guidelines and requires doctors to inform mothers of perinatal hospice in the case of extreme fetal anomalies.” Seems hard to argue against by a cabal that tells the public it seeks “safe abortion.”

Closed for Good

THE STATE OF FLORIDA HAS TAKEN STEPS to ensure that the closed American Family Planning abortuary in Pensacola will remain closed. The state’s Agency for Health Care Administration has issued a “final order,” reports Cassy Fiano-Chesser for Live Action, “revoking the license” of the facility, which is owned by Integrity Medical Care LLC, which, according to Mrs. Chesser “has ties to notoriously dangerous abortionist Steven Chase Brigham., whose medical license has been suspended, revoked or relinquished in multiple states,” primarily on the eastern seaboard.

Mr. Brigham, notes Mrs. Chesser, “is not licensed to practice medicine anywhere yet gets around this by using other abortionists as a front to make it seem like he is not involved.”

The final order follows much interaction between the abortuary and the state agency. “In May of 2022,” writes Mrs. Chesser, “the state ordered the facility to close after three women had to be hospitalized within nine months; none of the injuries were reported, as required by state law. The state determined that the facility posed an immediate threat to the health, safety or welfare of its patients,” not to mention the urgent risk to the little ones who were targeted for destruction.

Using the U.N.

March 10, 2023, Live Action report by Laura Nicole

             A new letter from pro-abortion human rights groups is urging the United Nations to intervene in the United States over alleged “inhumane” and “cruel” pro-life protections for babies enacted by states since the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

             Recently, over 200 pro-abortion “human rights” organizations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, sent a letter outlining the “devastating human rights implications of Dobbs” – the 2022 Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. The 50-page letter, which strikes an alarmist tone, states that the current state of affairs in the US attacks women’s bodily autonomy and “rejects the agency, dignity and equality of people who can become pregnant.” It cites a number of biased and non-scientific sources, including news articles claiming that instances of medical malpractice are actually due to a lack of abortion.

             Abortion activist groups associated with the UN sent a similar letter in 2021 after Texas’s pro-life law was upheld and shortly before the Dobbs decision.

             The most recent letter spews a broad range of debunked claims: that women will die without abortion, that women are currently subject to involuntary confinement, that there could be increased digital surveillance of period tracker apps, the lack of access to abortion is a violation of religious freedom, and that abortion has to be offered, otherwise there will be no cash flow at these facilities to support other forms of reproductive health care, lamenting that such facilities are “often financially unable to stay open when abortion services become illegal.”

             They make no mention of the thousands of pregnancy help centers and federally qualified health centers (vastly outnumbering abortion facilities) that provide far more in the way of actual health services to women – without killing preborn babies

             “The US must be castigated on the world stage for its treatment of women, girls and others who can become pregnant – the scale and intensity of human rights violations that the US is inflicting on its population are near unfathomable at this point,” said Christine Ryan, legal director of the Global Justice Center in a phone interview with The Guardian.

             She also decried the lack of action of the Biden Administration, despite a coordinated federal response to the Dobbs decision, for not doing more. “There has been an absolute calamity in terms of public health, human rights, and the response has been middling to poor,” Ryan said.

             The abortion activist groups tried to tie restrictions on abortion to almost every form of injustice that exists: gender discrimination, racism, classism and ageism. Citing the work of a Committee Against Torture (CAT), they go so far as to repeat an argument – completely unmoored from the violence of abortion – that making abortion illegal is inhumane, as “denial of abortion can result in ‘physical and mental suffering so severe in pain and intensity as to amount to torture.’” Officials at the UN also referred to denial of abortion as “torture” in 2019 as some US states began to enact greater protections for preborn children.

             The letter blasts life-of-the-mother exceptions to pro-life laws, arguing that they need to outline exactly what medical diagnoses are allowed or else they are too “vague” or “difficult to implement in practice.” But the reality is, there are no reasons to directly and intentionally kill a preborn baby to treat a mother’s health condition, and no law exists preventing medical treatment to save the life of a pregnant woman. Induced abortion is not medically necessary.

             The letter also decries the requirement for underage girls to notify parents prior to obtaining abortions. Yet as Live Action investigations have shown, unfettered access to abortion puts underage girls at increased risk of exploitation, as abortionists like Planned Parenthood have a track record of covering for dangerous sexual predators.

             The letter concludes by trying to frame the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the protection of pre-born babies enacted in many states, as an unacceptable break from the country’s track record for respecting and promoting human dignity.

             “By overturning the established constitutional protection for access to abortion and through the passage of state laws, the US is in violation of its obligations under international human rights law,” it reads, and ends by calling for the UN to take several actions: Conduct a visitation to assess the abortion plight in America; convene a virtual stakeholder meeting; call for the US “to comply with its obligations under international law;” and urge “private companies to take a number of actions to protect reproductive rights.”

             The letter to the UN comes after it adopted a resolution last fall declaring abortion to be a human right, and just months after the government of the Philippines rejected a United Nations Human Rights Council recommendation to legalize abortion.

Look What He’s Up to Now

March 3, 2023, Report by Stefano Gennarini JD for Center for Family & Human Rights (C-Fam)

             The Biden Administration has pushed for abortion in a controversial new global health treaty. The Biden negotiators also insisted that the negotiations remain secret away from the American people.

             US Ambassador Pamela K. Hamamoto called for the new World Health Organization [WHO] pandemic treaty to include an obligation to provide “sexual and reproductive health services” as essential healthcare services during pandemics, in the US opening statement of negotiations this week.

             “A commitment to equity must address inequities not just between countries but also within them, not just protecting people from pandemics but also from illness, death and disrupted access to essential healthcare services during pandemics including sexual and reproductive health services,” the US Ambassador said, adding that the US expects this commitment to equity to be integrated “across the draft” of the pandemic treaty.

             At the close of the negotiations today, Hamamoto agreed with China that negotiations and future versions of the draft treaty should not be open to the public. “I think at this stage I have some concerns about sharing the draft to all stakeholders, given where we are in the process,” she said.

Hamamoto explained that her real concern was keeping US proposals secret from Americans. “Certainly, if we are sharing it with all stakeholders, we would support removing the attribution of member states,” she said.

             The EU representative disagreed with the Biden position, telling delegates that the European Union would like more transparency to avoid “misunderstandings and potential misinformation,” and that it would share EU comments and positions publicly.

             The new pandemic treaty is controversial because of the far-reaching implications the treaty would have for national health policies, including abortion policy. Negotiations began this week amid confusion as to the exact process for the negotiations. The first draft of the treaty was discussed only in general terms this week.

             The draft includes proposals to concentrate new powers in the Director of the World Health Organization, including the authority to declare a global pandemic emergency that would trigger new binding obligations under the treaty. It would establish a new global bureaucracy to assist countries [to] develop national pandemic planning “pre-, post- and inter-pandemic.”

             On top of these new powers, it calls on governments to “tackle false, misleading misinformation or disinformation” and promote “confidence and uptake of vaccines.”

             The broad scope of the draft treaty could bring all national health policy and more under the purview of pandemic preparedness, including abortion policy. It calls on governments to address not just pandemic-related policies but all the “social, environmental and economic determinants of health,” including issues like “economic growth, the environment, employment, trade, transport, gender equality, education, social assistance, housing, food insecurity, nutrition and culture, and especially for persons in vulnerable situations.”