Life Advocacy Briefing

Worth Pondering

AS 2024 OPENS, our readers – as Americans – are challenged on many fronts. We begin this year on a sober note with wisdom from Leo Tolstoy, quoted on Dec. 14 by Focus on the Family in its Daily Citizen e-mail publication.

Ponder this quote: “‘If, then, I were asked for the most important advice I could give, that which I considered to be the most useful to the men of our century, I should simply say: in the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.’”

And we add, pray as if it’s up to God; work as if it’s up to us. America must turn back to the Lord. Amen!

Start Calling Congress

NOW THAT A NEW YEAR – AN ELECTION YEAR – HAS DAWNED in America, citizen contacts to lawmakers are more critical than ever. Much of the news out of the Capitol is focused on other issues, but with the appropriations bills for the 2024 fiscal year still being hammered out – and with the Biden Regime so determined to tax the American people for the killing of innocent unborn children – our readers should not wait for an alert to contact home-district Representatives and home-state Senators and urge them: “No tax money for abortion.” Call now via the Capitol switchboard: 202/224-3121.

We know there are Members of the House and Senate for whom such protection is a priority, but we know, too, that there are other Members whose urgent passion is to use their power to enrich their abortion-lobby friends and backers. And there are some for which this issue is not a priority at all. Your own officials need to hear from their constituents.

Declaring Truth, Seeking Mercy & Justice

PRO-LIFE CITIZENS FROM ACROSS AMERICA will descend on Washington, DC, on Friday, Jan. 19, for the annual March for Life, rallying at noon on the National Mall and proceeding past the Capitol to the Supreme Court. A pre-rally concert will begin at 11 a.m. at the rally site.

Headquarters hotel for this year’s event is the Westin Downtown, 999 Ninth St. NW, where an Expo will begin at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 17, and the annual Rose Dinner will begin at 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 19. Further details are available via the March for Life’s website at https://marchforlife.org.

Associated events, which are sponsored by other pro-life groups and ministries, are listed in a LifeSiteNews report at https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/full-list-events-surrounding-the-2024-march-for-life.

RU on the Docket

THE SUPREME COURT HAS AGREED TO REVIEW A RULING by the 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals concerning the Food & Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) supervision of the administration of the baby-poisonous RU-486 abortion drug.

The underlying lawsuit was filed in federal court in Texas by the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, two other medical organizations and four doctors in November, 2022, challenging the FDA’s approval of the drug in December of 2000.

US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk issued a preliminary injunction, reports the Daily Citizen, “blocking the FDA’s approval of mifepristone entirely, but the US Court of Appeals for the 5^th Circuit narrowed that order in a 96-page ruling in August 2023.”

In its appellate ruling, the 5^th Circuit ruled against the challenge to the Clinton-era approval of the drug, based on expiration of the statute of limitations. But in so doing, the 5^th Circuit, reports the Daily Citizen, “agreed that the FDA must restore critical safeguards on the abortion pill, which it had begun rolling back in 2016.”

The Biden Regime appealed that limited 5^th Circuit’s ruling. It is that appeal which the high court has agreed to hear. Whether the Supreme Court will go so far as to take up the original petition and the Kacsmaryk ruling remains to be seen.

Appellate Court Slaps Down Biden Sneak Attack

THE 5^th CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS HAS HANDED THE BIDEN REGIME a setback in its drive to force taxpayers to underwrite abortions, reinforcing a ruling from a federal district judge.

The case has to do with the Regime’s bid to use a 1986 law, the Emergency Medical Treatment & Active Labor Act, “to force states with abortion restrictions to allow for the killing of preborn babies for ‘emergency’ reasons,” reports Matt Lamb for LifeSiteNews.

“EMTALA is intended,” writes Mr. Lamb, “to ensure hospitals do not force low-income or uninsured patients onto other facilities when they are in need of ‘stabilizing’ medical care … . It also ensures women in labor can have a baby at any hospital, regardless of her financial situation.”

But the Biden Regime – in its never-pausing obsession to force abortion down the throats of the American people – “sought to reinterpret EMTALA to include a right to abortions,” notes Mr. Lamb, “in the wake of the June 2022 reversal of Roe v. Wade.

The case was brought by the American Assn. of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists and the Christian Medical & Dental Associations, represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).

Because we see ADF’s news release, quoting its senior vice president of strategic initiatives, Ryan Bangert, as a model of pro-life communication, we include it here, even though we do not expect our readers need any persuasion on these points:

“Hospitals – especially emergency rooms – are tasked with preserving life. The 5^th Circuit correctly ruled that the federal government has no business transforming them into abortion clinics. … Doctors shouldn’t be forced to break the Hippocratic Oath, and they shouldn’t have to choose between violating their deeply held beliefs or facing stiff financial penalties and being barred from the Medicare program.

“Emergency room physicians can and do treat life-threatening conditions such as ectopic pregnancies,” said Mr. Bangert. “But elective abortion is not life-saving care – it ends the life of the unborn child – and the government has no authority to force doctors to perform these dangerous procedures. We are pleased that the courts are allowing emergency rooms to fulfill their primary function – saving lives.”

Because the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of misusing EMTALA in an Idaho case, the question will likely be resolved by the US Supreme Court later this year.

A Promising Start

THE DEATH TOLL from Indiana’s new law limiting abortion has now come in, offering encouragement about limiting abortion but also cautions about compromise.

The state health department’s quarterly “Terminated Pregnancy Report” spanning July 1 through Sept. 30, 2023, shows 764 abortions, reports Matt Lamb for LifeSiteNews. “This is about 25% of the amount normally reported for the same time period in past years.”

Indiana’s new law took effect in mid-August, notes Mr. Lamb, “but abortion facilities began complying on Aug. 1, ‘due to legal uncertainty,’ according to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute.”

Indiana has outlawed the killing of developing babies, but the new law “allows babies conceived in rape or incest to be aborted up to 10 weeks,” reports Mr. Lamb, and it allows “abortions for ‘substantial and irreversible physical impairment’ of the mother’s health.” Further, he notes, “Preborn babies can be killed if they might ‘[suffer] from an irremediable medical condition that is incompatible with sustained life outside the womb’ up to 20 weeks.

“The ‘health’ exception,” writes Mr. Lamb, “specifically excludes the broad ‘psychological or emotional’ carveout,” which the Supreme Court opened during the Roe years by a catch-all paragraph in the companion 1973 Doe v. Bolton edict. Mr. Lamb quotes the Indiana law’s limit on its “health” loophole: “‘A medical condition may not be determined to exist based on a claim or diagnosis that the woman will engage in conduct that she intends to result in her death or in physical harm.’”

A major plus: Indiana outlawed abortion shops, notes Mr. Lamb, “leaving only hospitals to kill unborn babies.”

The legislation was enacted “over reservations,” reports Mr. Lamb, “from Indiana Right to Life, due to the exceptions granted for rape, incest and alleged ‘lethal fatal anomaly.’” Such compromises undercut the principle underlying the enactment of abortion bans. Indiana’s inclusion of the loopholes will, it appears, offer a warning to those public officials who seek to protect innocent human life: An unborn child is a human being, regardless of the circumstances of conception or any prenatal diagnosis of a disability.

Abortion on the Ballot in Maryland

THE MARYLAND LEGISLATURE HAS POSTED AN ABORTION REFERENDUM on the November 2024 ballot.

The question would establish “abortion access” as “a constitutional right” in the state, reports Joe Bukuras for Catholic News Agency (CNA). Its voter ratification requires only a simple majority.

The referendum proposition “was passed by the state legislature,” writes Mr. Bukuras, “with the necessary three-fifths majority in both chambers in May.”

In reading the language of the proposed amendment, our readers are encouraged to note its gender-neutral wording, quoted by CNA: “‘Every person, as a central component of an individual’s rights to liberty and equality, has the fundamental right to reproductive freedom, including but not limited to the ability to make and effectuate decisions to prevent, continue or end one’s own pregnancy. … The state may not, directly or indirectly, deny, burden or abridge the right unless justified by a compelling state interest achieved by the least restrictive means.’” (The language of the abortion lobby has shifted in recent years from a “pro-woman” claim to contorted obfuscation of gender distinction.)

In New York, Too

NEW YORK VOTERS WILL FACE A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT PROPOSAL that lumps abortion in with a panoply of other issues under the title “Equal Rights Amendment” this November. The proposal has twice passed both houses of the legislature, qualifying it for voter ratification.

The proposal, reports the Catholic News Agency (CNA), “would amend the constitution’s section on civil rights to make illegal ‘discrimination’ against any person for reasons of ‘pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes and reproductive health care and autonomy.’ The amendment would also prohibit discrimination on the basis of ‘ethnicity, national origin, age, disability or sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity [and] gender expression.’

“One pro-life leader in the state,” reports CNA, “said that the amendment could bar any future pro-life legislation from being passed in the legislature, such as mandatory waiting periods or required ultrasounds before chemical abortion.

“‘The amendment essentially allows for fully unrestricted abortion in New York,’ Michele Sterlace, executive director of Feminists Choosing Life of New York, told CNA. Sterlace said the amendment also undermines parental rights by giving children the ‘fundamental right’ to undergo transgender medical therapies and surgeries without parental notice or consent.’”

Life Advocacy Briefing invites our readers to read again the quote from Leo Tolstoy with which we opened this edition. Politicians in New York and so many other places underscore its timeliness.

Cross-Border Abortions

Dec. 21, 2023, Summary of Planned Parenthood Investigative Report by Project Veritas

             While abortion is prohibited by state law in Missouri, this has not stopped Planned Parenthood from providing every necessity for minor girls to be transported across state lines for an abortion in neighboring Kansas.

             In a conversation with an investigative journalist, a managing director for Planned Parenthood in Kansas City, Missouri, explains how frequently clinics arrange inter-state abortion transport for minors without parental consent. “Every day,” she laughs.

             Managing director “Lashauna” describes the elaborate lengths the abortion giant will go to facilitate, and help conceal, abortions for minors. She describes their process of setting up hotels, arranging interstate transport, providing doctor’s notes to the child’s school, and even paying for the abortion, as a common service they offer to minors without parental knowledge. She also references a “bypass” that is available to the minors – this bypass seems to also bypass parental knowledge.

             The video also reveals the shocking ease with which an adult can facilitate a young person’s abortion, despite not being related to the child. In this investigation, the journalist poses as the older uncle of a 13-year-old child seeking Planned Parenthood’s assistance to terminate his niece’s pregnancy, quickly and secretly. The clinic manager appears unfazed by this scenario and extremely helpful.

             She tells the journalist, “In Planned Parenthood, we consider you an adult; you can make the decision, then we’ve got you. … We never tell the parents anything.”

             The clinic’s casual admission of its willingness to perform secret abortions on minors and subvert parental consent raises concern for other ways Planned Parenthood’s “bypass” system could be utilized to exploit and conceal the sexual abuse of children.

             Additional questions remain unanswered.

• Are lawmakers aware that Planned Parenthood has successfully created a “bypass” for young minors to acquire an abortion in another state without parental consent?

• Are schools and teachers cognizant of the fact that Planned Parenthood could be taking students out of school under deceitful pretenses to facilitate abortions without their parents’ knowledge?

• If Planned Parenthood is doing this “every day” in one state, how many teenage girls across this nation have been transported between states for secret abortions?

[Life Advocacy Briefing editor’s note: While Congress, a variety of Presidential contenders, assorted other politicians and pro-life strategists wrestle with the what-now question in the wake of the Dobbs decision, we contend that the long-sought Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act, which fits right into the state-patchwork-fallout of the Supreme Court’s avoidance of the right to life in the US Constitution (amendments 5 and 14) and would be a legitimate aid to the states on the part of Congress, ought to be revived as a key priority of the House Majority. The above report from Project Veritas strengthens that claim, and we urge our Members of Congress to advance an updated version for the protection of vulnerable teen girls and of vulnerable babies, to confirm the sovereignty of the states and to thwart one of the many underhanded tactics of the abortion cartel.]