Life Advocacy Briefing

Getting Wobbly?

PRO-LIFE MEMBERS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY MAY FACE A DILEMMA when the party adopts a platform at this summer’s national convention in Milwaukee.

The now-likely party nominee, former President Donald Trump, seems to be wobbling in his commitment to the right to Life, through which he won devotion among pro-life citizens in his first term.

Though the cause of Life benefited strongly through the 2017-2021 term of the 43^rd President – and benefits still from the outstanding, consequential Constitutionalist appointments President Trump made to judicial benches from the District level to the Supreme Court itself – media drumbeats about “the abortion issue” as the cause of less-than-stellar results in the mid-term 2022 elections may be undermining his approach to this “issue,” going forward.

Life Advocacy maintains the losses incurred resulted from partisan overconfidence, from a shortfall in the quality of some of the party’s nominees and from terrible strategic advice offered the party’s candidates in the handling of “the abortion issue.” [“Admit you’re pro-life and then get off the subject.”] But some in the pro-life movement have reacted to the Dobbs-induced prominence of the abortion issue as a call for compromise rather than persuasion. They are the ones who appear to have reached the ears of Pres. Trump.

In a LifeSiteNews report on Feb. 16, Patrick Delaney notes, “The New York Times reported earlier today that former President Donald Trump ‘likes the idea of a 16-week national abortion ban with three exceptions, in cases of rape or incest, or to save the life of the mother.’”

A Trump spokesman, Karoline Leavitt, was quoted by the New York Times, notes Mr. Delaney, “‘As President Trump has stated, he would sit down with both sides and negotiate a deal that everyone will be happy with,’ … adding that he ‘appointed strong Constitutionalist federal judges and Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade and sent the decision back to the states, which others have tried to do for over 50 years.’” For which we are grateful.

But we do not see the intentional and commercialized killing of innocent human lives as a fulcrum for deal-making. Nor do we see discrimination against certain unborn children because of the circumstances of their conception as a worthy position for any public official.

What is worse, the New York Times sources, reports Mr. Delaney, “described that the former President has stated that he likes the ‘16-week’ designation because ‘it’s a round number.’

“‘Know what I like about 16?’ [Pres.] Trump is described as asking. ‘It’s even. It’s four months.’”

Of further concern, Mr. Delaney reports the New York Times sources “state that when [Mr.] Trump is discussing possible Vice Presidential candidates, he often asks if they are ‘OK on abortion’ and dismisses proposed prospects ‘instantly’ when he hears they don’t support ‘the three exceptions,’ believing it is a losing position for Republicans.”

We tend to agree with the response of Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, whose social media post was quoted by Mr. Delaney: “‘There is literally zero upside for [Pres.] Trump to talk about gestational limits. No pro-abortion voters will be won. And saying you support a 16-week limit because it’s an “even number” – even though it allows 94% of abortions – turns away pro-lifers,’” who should not be taken for granted. (Just ask the GOP nominee who lost the New York special election for Congress earlier this month.) Pro-life voters can be turned away also by advocacy for dooming little ones whose conceptions result from sex crimes; those who benefit from such loopholes are the perpetrators of those crimes, whose DNA evidence is destroyed along with the children.

Defending the Most Vulnerable

SEN. CINDY HYDE-SMITH (R-MS) HAS FILED LEGISLATION to “protect the human remains of aborted babies from medical experimentation for research purposes,” reports Focus on the Family’s Daily Citizen. The bill is numbered S-3713 and is titled “Protecting Life & Integrity in Research Act.”

The proposal, reports the Daily Citizen, “would prohibit the federal government from funding, approving or in any way supporting research on aborted babies.” Further, the measure bars medical research organizations from “solicit[ing] or accept[ing] aborted fetal human remains as a research donation,” according to the Daily Citizen.

Co-sponsoring S-3713 with Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (MS) are GOP Senators Tom Cotton (AR), Marco Rubio (FL), James Risch (ID), Mike Braun (IN), John Kennedy (LA), Josh Hawley (MO), Steve Daines (MT), Deb Fischer (NE), Ted Budd (NC), Kevin Cramer (ND), James Lankford & Markwayne Mullin (OK), Mike Rounds & John Thune (SD), Mike Lee (UT) and John Barrasso (WY).

Readers are urged to contact their home-state US Senators to thank them for their public support of the bill, if listed, or to ask them to join as co-sponsors. (Capitol switchboard: 1-202/224-3121)

New Hampshire House Rejects Abortion Amendment

AT LAST, SOME GOOD NEWS on the state constitutional amendment front.

“Two separate attempts to amend the New Hampshire Constitution with ‘rights’ to abortion failed in the state legislature this month,” reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews, “ensuring neither will be put to a vote of the Granite State’s residents this fall.” One amendment proposal was rejected outright; the second-try proposal garnered a simple majority but fell short of the three-fifths margin required by the state constitution.

Both votes came in the 400-member House, where Republicans currently hold 201 seats and Democrats 193. Two Representatives are elected as “independents” in this session, and there are four vacancies, according to the legislature’s entry on Wikipedia.

“Fourteen states currently ban all or most abortions,” notes Mr. Freiburger, “with available data so far indicating that now-enforceable pro-life ST laws could effectively [prevent] an estimated 200,000 abortions a year.”

In the nearly two years since the US Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade atrocity, acknowledging that states have authority to restrict or outlaw the killing of innocent unborn children, notes Mr. Freiburger, “pro-aborts have deployed numerous tactics to keep the abortion industry going, including easy interstate distribution of abortion pills, legal protection and financial support of interstate abortion travel, constructing new abortion facilities near borders shared by pro-life and pro-abortion states and making liberal states sanctuaries for those who want to evade or violate the laws of more pro-life neighbors

“Among their most successful have been state constitutional amendments, which, if enacted,” writes Mr. Freiburger, “insulate abortion-on-demand from future state legislation and can only be overridden by a federal abortion ban.”

A federal lawsuit filed in the Western District of Michigan, however, seeks to clarify that the amendment adopted by Michigan voters in 2022 cannot completely block the state legislature’s authority and duty to protect the health and safety of the state’s residents, seeking to restore at least such business limits as requiring health-and-safety inspections of abortuaries, with further prodding expected when the legislature’s customary pro-life majority is regained in future elections.

And Abetted Suicide Goes Down in Virginia

AN OUTPOURING OF CITIZEN OPINION is being credited by LifeSiteNews writer Calvin Freiburger for the abandonment in the Virginia House of Delegates of a State Senate-passed proposal to legalize abetted suicide in the commonwealth.

“‘Assisted suicide is a deadly, discriminatory and exploitive practice,’ declares the Virginia Catholic Conference, which published a web page to help Virginians contact their legislators,” writes Mr. Freiburger. “‘No patient – whether disabled, mentally ill, elderly or otherwise – should ever be abandoned or discarded,’” declared the Catholic Conference, quoted by LifeSiteNews. “‘Every person potentially facing end of life should have access to quality medical and palliative care – instead of drugs to hasten their death.’”

The House bill had emerged from committee but, notes Mr. Freiburger, “it failed because the House decided not to bring it to a final vote by the Feb. 13 … deadline.”

Kudos to the Alabama Supreme Court!

THE ALABAMA SUPREME COURT HAS RULED that the state’s wrongful death statute applies to embryos outside the womb in a decision upholding the right to life for human embryos awaiting implantation.

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed in 2021 against the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Mobile Infirmary Medical Center, reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews, “for the accidental destruction of their embryos,” contending that the tragic, accidental death of their stored embryos is “covered under Alabama’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.”

A county circuit judge in Mobile “tossed the case in 2022,” notes Mr. Freiburger, “on grounds that the Act did not apply to embryos outside the womb, but now the state’s highest court has ruled otherwise, reversing” the circuit judge.

“The ‘sweeping and unqualified’ Wrongful Death of a Minor Act ‘applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location,’ determined Justice Jay Mitchell,” quoted by Mr. Freiburger. “‘It applies to all children, born and unborn, without limitation. It is not the role of this Court,’” he said, “‘to craft a new limitation based on our own view of what is or is not wise public policy. That is especially true where, as here, the People of this State have adopted a Constitutional amendment directly aimed at stopping courts from excluding “unborn life” from legal protection.’ …

“Abortion and IVF supporters expressed outrage at the ruling,” writes Mr. Freiburger, “which pro-lifers pointed to as a tacit admission that the IVF industry requires the destruction of human life to thrive. In vitro fertilization,” he opines, “is fraught with ethical peril, including because it entails the conscious creation of scores of ‘excess’ embryonic humans only to be killed and human lives being treated like commodities to be bartered over.”

In a follow-up report, Mr. Freiburger relates that “‘fertility clinics’ in [Alabama] are starting to announce that they are pausing their IVF operations to determine whether continuing would put them in legal jeopardy. …

“The Hill reports,” writes Mr. Freiburger, “on one of the first manifestations of this fallout, with a University of Alabama at Birmingham health system spokesperson announcing ‘we must evaluate the potential that our patients and our physicians could be prosecuted criminally or face punitive damages’ for adhering to what the health system called ‘the standard of care’ for IVF procedures.

“CNN adds,” writes Mr. Freiburger, “that another Birmingham IVF provider, Alabama’s ‘fertility clinic’ in the area, also announced that it has ‘paused transfers of embryos for at least a day or two’ and that the Medical Assn. of the State of Alabama predicts others in the business will follow suit.”

Marching for Life in the States

PRO-LIFE CITIZENS IN ARIZONA & CONNECTICUT will march in their state capitals in March: Friday, March 1, Arizonans will march on Phoenix, and then on Wednesday, March 20, Connecticut pro-life marchers will petition their state government in Hartford.

More information about the Arizona March is available from Arizona Life Coalition at 602-730-5004 or via the website at https://www.chooselifeaz.org.

For information about the Connecticut March, we turned to the website marchforlife.org/Connecticut and found it is being co-hosted by the national organization and by the Connecticut Catholic Conference. Details are available at that site.

Making the Case for Life

Feb. 19, 2024, BreakPoint commentary by John Stonestreet & Jared Hayden

             Years from now, by God’s grace, the world may look back with horror on the abortion holocaust that engulfed our nation and much of the world. When they do, people will discuss the movement that helped make this injustice unthinkable for civilized people. Part of that conversation will be how the movement recruited champions, especially young people, and equipped them to defend the preborn. One of the sage champions for the unborn has been Scott Klusendorf, who is also the president of Life Training Institute.

             With tireless effort over decades now, Scott has continued to make the case for Life to thousands and thousands. He’s made the issue simple, focused and clear. His formulation has come to be one of the definitive articulations of what it means to be pro-life.

             Fifteen years ago, Scott wrote his instrumental pro-life book The Case for Life. At the time, Roe v. Wade legally subverted the conversation about restrictions on abortion. In 2022, the Dobbs decision brought a long-prayed-for end to Roe. However, in the time since that victory, we’ve gotten a much better idea of where the American public is on the question of abortion. Simply put, they might not like it themselves, but they’re squeamish about denying it to others. We must continue to make the case for Life.

             In response to the unfortunate revelations of the last few years, Scott has released a comprehensively revised and expanded edition of The Case for Life. This second edition features eight new chapters and a thorough revision of 10 others.

             In his expanded version, Klusendorf masterfully informs and equips us to respond to the latest pro-abortion arguments. Often, so-called “experts” get away with misinformation and false representations. But Klusendorf takes the strongest pro-abortion thinkers and pro-abortion arguments head-on. For instance, the young law lecturer at Oxford who claims that while the preborn are human, they are not persons. Klusendorf points out that these distinctions based on consciousness and sentience are arbitrary and open to abuse.

             He also clarifies five key objectives of every effective pro-life advocate, which make up the five sections of the book. First, we must clarify the debate by showing what the abortion debate is ultimately about. Second, we must highlight underlying worldview questions and assumptions that underpin the arguments for and against abortion. Third, anyone wanting to be effective must identify, understand and respond to leading pro-abortion voices and their views on conception, personhood and rights. Fourth, pro-lifers must persuasively answer objections to pro-life arguments, including women’s safety, religious tolerance and cases of rape. Finally, we must be committed to teaching, equipping and collaborating with other pro-lifers.

             Klusendorf’s new chapter on worldview is a must-read. There he explains the influence of Critical Theory on the abortion movement, especially the claim that the pro-life stance is oppressive. The ironic truth, of course, is that pro-abortion advocates are the ones oppressing vulnerable preborn babies who cannot speak for themselves. This chapter helps pro-lifers engage pro-abortion neighbors at the level of their worldview assumptions, challenging their misguided ideas and pointing them to the Christian worldview, which is the strongest foundation for universal human dignity.

             These arguments are not abstractions. Recently, Pres. Biden announced that promoting abortion “rights” would be the top priority of his re-election campaign. I am confident that this new edition of The Case for Life will help Christians engage the abortion debate with confidence for such a time as this.

             God has grace to help us live as Christians in this cultural moment. This updated, expanded and timely edition of The Case for Life is one such means of grace to help us courageously contend for Life in the place God has called us. … Be equipped as if lives depend on it. Because they do.

Life Advocacy Briefing editor’s note: The Colson Center, which regularly offers BreakPoint commentaries, is offering the Klusendorf book for a donation via colsoncenter.org/caseforlife. We call attention also to the rhetorical and tactical brilliance of Mark Crutcher, founder of Life Dynamics, who passed away last year and whose widow has been furthering his work; visit lifedynamics.com and explore the dedicated brilliance of one whose pro-life work lingers after his homegoing, thank the Lord.