Life Advocacy Briefing

What to Say

LIFE ADVOCACY, over the past 30-some years, has met with pro-life candidates seeking public office to give them suggestions about “handling the abortion issue,” something which seems to stymie most of America’s campaign strategic consultants – at least at the conservative end of the spectrum.

In every campaign, our candidates have an opportunity to aid fence-sitting voters in taking a pro-life point of view. In only a few contests do conservative-leaning candidates handle “the abortion issue” with skill, effectiveness or any level of persuasion. By leaving them ill-equipped, the “professionals” leave them exposed to the wiles of the abortion lobby, their candidates and their fellow travelers in the media.

Once in a long while, we find a couple of models of communication. While reviewing a stack of papers last week, we found one in an unexpected place, one we share at the conclusion of this Life Advocacy Briefing. It outlines the approach of Vivek Ramaswamy, a then-candidate for the GOP Presidential nomination. In reprinting the report of his story from The Washington Stand, we do not claim to back his candidacy any more than TWS’s publisher, Family Research Council, did. We offer it as a model for the benefit of our readers and pro-life candidates in their orbit.

The commentary goes on to share another example of an Argentinian politician who, while communicating a pro-life stand, both demonstrates character and opens minds of voters who have given precious little thought to the implications of legalizing abortion.

These are not bumper-sticker answers with a next-question-please attitude. These are not mealy-mouthed bids for compromise and appeals for exoneration. These are examples of mind-opening persuasion from the mouths, minds and experience of actual politicians.

Thank You for Speaking Up!

FOUR MEMBERS OF THE U.S. HOUSE HAVE SENT A LETTER to the Dept. of Veterans Affairs (VA) “objecting to its recently announced expansion of in vitro fertilization (IVF) services to unmarried service members,” reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews. The four are GOP Representatives Josh Brecheen (OK), Bob Good (VA), Mary Miller (IL) and Matt Rosendale (MT).

“‘IVF is morally dubious and should not be subsidized by the American taxpayer,’ they write,” quoted by Mr. Freiburger. “‘It is well known that IVF treatments result in a surplus of embryos after the best ones are tested and selected. These embryos are then frozen – at significant cost to the parents – abandoned or cruelly discarded. Parents’ uncertainty of what to do with the additional embryos and inclination to leave them frozen for many years rather than discarding them point to their inherent humanity.

“‘The new VA policy is shocking,’” they wrote, as reported by LifeSiteNews, “‘not only on a moral level but on a political and legal level as well.’

“The lawmakers are asking the department what its plans are for the surplus embryos, how many it has already destroyed or frozen and how many more it anticipates meeting the same fate,” writes Mr. Freiburger, “for details on their storage and its cost, what the new policy will cost, where it found the legislative authority for the expansion and why if it already had lawful authority did the announcement note that the VA has ‘for years’ been ‘submitting repeated legislative proposals to expand IVF services.’”

Another example of an out-of-control executive branch which jumps on every bandwagon and never asks for authority from the elected representatives of the people.

We at Life Advocacy are fully aware – and have indicated in previous editions – that IVF is an industry which enjoys much unwarranted (but understandable) public support. Indeed, we see this week a report that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who is generally thought to be a pro-life conservative, has heartily and unconditionally endorsed IVF.

That prompts us all the more to thank and applaud the four US Representatives who have stuck their necks out to call the VA down from the IVF bandwagon. We hope the pro-life citizens of their districts will be quick to thank them as well and to protect them from the opprobrium we expect them to face.

How’d We Do on the Spending Bill?

THOUGH MUCH HAS BEEN REPORTED about the massive spending bill passed by the US Senate and House in late March “to prevent a government shutdown,” as numerous media outlets have reported, we expect our readers will share our interest in how the cause of Life fared in the package.

So, we obtained from a Congressional aide a memo outlining many of the bill’s provisions, and we can report here several items of special concern.

The omnibus spending package, reports the aide, “retains longstanding pro-life protections that have been the subject of consensus for decades. This includes the Hyde Amendment, which prevents taxpayer funding from being used for elective abortions,” and which is a target of the abortion lobby. “Hyde” does have an exception for abortions committed on babies conceived in sex crimes or medically judged necessary to preserve the life of the mother. That provision deters abortion spending by the Dept. of Health & Human Services under such programs as Medicaid and has been enacted “in various forms,” reports the Congressional aide, “from FY1976-2023.”

In the Financial Services & General Government Appropriations section of the massive bill, the Dornan Amendment has been retained, barring federal and DC revenues for abortion in the District of Columbia. The Dornan Amendment history, notes the aide, includes enactment in Fiscal Years 1989-93, 1996-2009 and 2011-2023.

Also in that section is the Smith Amendment preventing abortion funding under the Federal Employee Health Benefits program, with exceptions for abortions of babies conceived in rape or incest or deemed necessary to preserve the life of the mother. The Smith Amendment’s history includes enactment in Fiscal Years 1984-1994 and 1996-2023.

A provision offering conscience protections for healthcare personnel was expanded in FY2000 and is included, as has been the case in annual appropriations bills since that time. A provision was also included which, notes the aide, “states the intent of Congress that any DC-imposed contraceptive mandate should include a conscience clause.” 

Then there is the Hyde-Weldon Amendment, enacted annually from FY2005-2023. It prevents Health & Human Services funding recipients, notes the aide, “from discriminating against healthcare entities because they refuse to provide, pay for or refer for abortions.”

The Dickey-Wicker Amendment, enacted in every appropriation since FY1996, is preserved in this bill, though we are uncertain that it is being enforced. It “prevents federal funding of harmful human embryo research,” reports the aide.

The bill includes a provision requiring Title X (Ten) grantees, notes the aide, “to comply with state reporting laws on child abuse, child molestation, sexual abuse, rape or incest.”

And also in the HHS appropriation package is a “Medicare Advantage Conscience Protection,” reports the aide, ensuring conscience protection “for healthcare entities to ensure that they will not be discriminated against in state and federal programs if they refuse to provide abortions” – a provision that has been enacted continually since FY1999.

On the foreign aid appropriations, the Kemp-Kasten Amendment is included, as it has been since FY1985. It “directs the President to discontinue funding to organizations,” notes the aide, “that support or participate in the management of a coercive abortion program.”

And there is a “Peace Corps Pro-Life Amendment,” included each year since FY1979, “preventing Peace Corps money from being used to pay for abortion,” reports the aide, “except in cases of rape or incest.”

The long-standing (since FY1981) Helms Amendment, which is nicknamed “International Hyde,” is included, barring the use of foreign aid funding for abortion. And the Siljander Amendment, in effect since FY1981, is included, preventing federal funding from being used to lobby foreign governments and organizations for or against abortion.

And there’s a foreign aid amendment which subjects spending on HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment to pro-life restrictions, adopted each year since FY2004.

David Daleiden Takes his Message to the Hill

PRO-LIFE HERO/JOURNALIST DAVID DALEIDEN TESTIFIED at a Capitol Hill hearing on March 19, reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews. Panelists included GOP Representatives Mary Miller (IL), Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA) and Chip Roy (TX).

“‘I’ve watched the handling of dismembered babies inside some of the biggest Planned Parenthood abortion centers in the country,’” stated Mr. Daleiden, founder and president of the Center for Medical Progress, famed for his undercover journalism, “‘while their “research” officials discussed how to disguise the sales. I’ve met with dozens of Planned Parenthood’s top abortion providers at their lavish commercial abortion trade shows – sponsored by companies buying baby parts,’ [Mr.] Daleiden said,” quoted by Mr. Freiburger. “‘Sometimes, I actually saw them start to tear up describing the tiny brains and hearts and feet of premature babies that they dismember and brutalize before selling them, only to then steel themselves and shake it off, as they tried to suppress the heresy of human feelings that the dogma of industrial-scale abortion cannot allow.’ …

“Additionally, Daleiden called out current Vice President Kamala Harris,” notes Mr. Freiburger, “who was Attorney General of California at the time the original baby-parts scandal broke, for complicity in a ‘cover-up’ of the abortion giant’s crimes. Instead of prosecuting abortion-industry figures for the crimes exposed in California, Harris raided Daleiden’s home to seize his undercover footage and prosecuted him. Emails were later uncovered,” Mr. Freiburger writes, “indicating that Harris’s office coordinated with Planned Parenthood on the situation. In the years since, Daleiden and CMP were hit with various lawsuits and felony charges on claims of trespassing, misidentifying themselves with fake driver’s licenses and recording people without their consent. …

“‘The abortion industry, led by Planned Parenthood, is a powerful special interest in our country,’ [Mr.] Daleiden said. ‘They fight to silence reporting on their black market of aborted baby organ harvesting, and the ongoing cover-up goes to the highest levels of our government. … Aborted babies are only valuable for Planned Parenthood to harvest and sell and for government-funded laboratories to buy precisely because they are human beings just like us. But the message that our civilization needs more than ever right now is that the value of every human being is infinite.’” Amen.

ERA = AOD?

A NEVADA JUDGE HAS CONFIRMED the warning of many that the so-called “Equal Rights Amendment” would be used to enshrine abortion-on-demand into the Constitution.

District Court Judge Erika Ballou, in Clark County, ruled March 19, reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews, “that the state’s Medicaid program must subsidize abortions, accepting an argument that a state-level version of the ERA, [which] Nevada enacted in 2022, mandates it.

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by “the state chapter of the far-left American Civil Liberties Union,” writes Mr. Freiburger, “on behalf of the abortion group Silver State Hope Fund, challenging Nevada’s exclusion of abortion ‘services’ from its state Medicaid program.

“The suit claimed that such an exclusion violated the state ERA,” notes Mr. Freiburger. Though a “right to abortion” is not mentioned in the state ERA’s language, the ACLU made clear it understands that amendment as ensuring just such a right. Judge Ballou, reports Mr. Freiburger, “sided with the ACLU without elaboration, in the process validating longtime conservative fears about what the ERA would actually do.”

Just last fall, a different Nevada judge “tossed a proposed state constitutional amendment that would have established a state-level ‘right’ to abortion,” notes Mr. Freiburger, on the basis that the proposal “violated the legal requirement for potential amendments to only cover one subject at a time.”

But if Judge Ballou’s ruling is allowed to stand, voters in Nevada will not be facing even the prospect of a state constitutional amendment battle. Unless it is overturned on appeal, the abortion lobby has already won their so-called “right” without even having to bombard the voters.

Marching in the States

UPCOMING MARCHES FOR LIFE in various states include April 12 in Denver, Colorado; April 17 in Springfield, Illinois; and April 22 in Sacramento, California.

Details are available via the Internet at https://marchforlife.org/state-marches-near-you.

Reaching Voters When a Candidate Has Conviction

Nov. 21, 2023, The Washington Stand commentary by Mary Szoch & Katherine Beck Johnson

             At Friday’s Iowa roundtable, Vivek Ramaswamy shared the story of his first child. His wife, Apoorva, was in her fourth year of residency when the couple found out she was pregnant. The child was an unexpected blessing, [and] they were delighted. They shared the news with their families and began writing letters to their baby each night. Then one day, about three and a-half months into the pregnancy, Apoorva woke up bleeding. She miscarried their first child.

             Vivek shared the sorrow the loss of their first child brought to his entire family and the hope they have that their child is with his Creator. He went on to tell the traumatic story of their pregnancy with their second son. Again, his wife Apoorva started bleeding. This time, though, when she went in for the ultrasound, the doctors found a heartbeat. That heartbeat belonged to Vivek’s son, who quickly joined him on stage, as Ramaswamy explained, “That’s what gives us our commitment. … When you bring life into this world, you protect all life born and unborn. … I think that God taught us that through a different way than we had planned.” [… Well said.] …

             Just a few months [before his election as president of Argentina], [Javier] Milei sat down in an interview with Tucker Carlson. … When it came to abortion, Tucker simply asked, “You oppose abortion. Why?” The president did not respond with an appeal to human dignity. Instead, he ­­is a libertarian, explaining that [classical] liberalism is rooted in the principle of non-aggression and defense of life, liberty and property. He went on to state that one of the most fundamental points of being a libertarian is the defense of the right to life.

             Had he stopped there, the [Argentine] president’s explanation of why he is opposed to abortion would have been strong and – though very different from what a libertarian in America would say – would have been a fairly typical response for a pro-life American politician. But he continued.

             “It’s the fact that life begins at conception …,” he said. “While it’s true that women have the right to her own body … that child is not her body. That makes abortion a murder, enabled and aggravated by a power imbalance against a child that has no way to defend itself.”

             These powerful words boldly proclaimed from an elected country leader were refreshing, and this truth is something Americans are unaccustomed to hearing. But if we believe, as countless mothers and fathers know to be true, that miscarriage is the loss of a precious unborn child, then we must also believe that the intentional killing of that defenseless unborn child by an abortionist is murder.

             Our country can’t keep living in a state of cognitive dissonance, where we claim to support women who miscarry, acknowledging the tragic loss of their child’s life, while simultaneously dehumanizing the unborn and calling them merely “a clump of cells” when they are not wanted by their mothers. It is this dissonance that allows Americans to justify one of the greatest evils in world history – the killing of the most innocent and defenseless children. …