Life Advocacy Briefing

November 3, 2025

Question of the Week / The Vice President Answers the Question / One Further Question
Senate Confirms More Conservative Federal Judges / Reinstating Our Commitment to Life
Wisdom from the Great Communicator / Senate Voting Records

Question of the Week

WHERE DOES VICE PRESIDENT VANCE STAND on the right to life?

The Vice President Answers the Question

VICE PRESIDENT J.D. VANCE SHARED THE STAGE with Charlie Kirk’s widow Erika at a Turning Point rally drawing more than 10,000 students to an arena last Wednesday at the University of Mississippi, “Ole Miss.” Among questions asked by students was one posed by the president of the college pro-life group, who expressed concern that the Trump Administration’s current record on Life has been somewhat equivocal and asked V.P. Vance: “Do you think that someone else’s right to liberty trumps someone else’s right to life?”

We transcribed his lengthy answer and present it below:

No, I do not. I in fact do not believe that. Now you said – I’m going to take issue with something you said – just the premise of the question – which is that I’ve wavered on the pro-life issue. I really do believe that the President has been the most pro-life President in the history of the United States of America.

Now that said, there are two things that I think we have to keep in mind here. Now, one is the very, very hard question of – you know, when we talk about our abortion policy, there are some very difficult edge cases – there are cases where you’ve got, you know, an 11-year-old girl who was raped, who it would be unsafe for her to bring the baby to term. You’ve got situations where, you know, bringing a baby to term would cause serious bodily harm – maybe death – for the mother. That’s one of the reasons why we believe in the exceptions on these cases where you have – again – these are edge cases; they’re rare.

I think that the pro-abortion community would have you believe that’s 90% of abortions – that’s not true. But we’ve got to be honest about the fact that there are some edge cases.

The second thing I’d say about this is that we have to be prudential and practical in what can get accomplished. There may be disagreements about what exactly that is, but if you look at the pro-life victories that the President of the United States has been able to achieve, he’s been able to achieve them because he’s worked within the system that we have. If your attitude is you are going to pursue the most aggressive pro-life option even if it means you lose every election and every outcome, means that you are going to be in a situation where the Democrats have abortion-on-demand up to the moment of birth to the very end. You’ve got to work within the political constraints that we have.

Here, let me just say something about this. Somebody asked me earlier about my Christian values, and one of the points I made is that when the settlers came to the New World, they found a very widespread child sacrifice. I imagine there are some people who don’t agree with my view on the pro-life issue. Let me just make an observation.

If you go to historical archeological sites where there were brothels – and the two oldest businesses in the world are gambling and prostitution – so there were brothels even in very ancient civilizations. If you go back to ancient brothels and you dig up the bones of the women who were working in these places, you will very often find a lot of children who were buried with them. And the answer is that whenever a society decides to discard innocent babies, they don’t treat their women very well. And whenever a society mistreats its women, it is very often the babies who come right after that.

There is a reason why Christian civilization ended the practice of child sacrifice all over the world, and it’s one of the great accomplishments of Christian civilization.

I believe that we should try to protect every unborn life. There’s a question of exactly how we do it. But I would never say that anyone’s right to life should be sacrificed.

One Further Question

WE HAVE A QUESTION FOR THE VICE PRESIDENT, too. Why does the Administration’s commitment to the right to life not appear to affect policy at the Food & Drug Administration concerning its recent marketing approval for a generic version of mifepristone (a/k/a RU-486)?

Senate Confirms More Conservative Federal Judges

STEPHEN ‘CHAD’ MEREDITH WAS CONFIRMED last Thursday to a lifetime appointment as Judge for the Eastern District of Kentucky. We published the cloture vote last week on his nomination; today, we publish the confirmation roll call at the close of this Life Advocacy Briefing. As we reported last week, the left-wing National Women’s Law Center had raised an alarm about Judge Meredith, declaring, “… reproductive health, rights and justice organizations … oppose this harmful nominee.” Readers might recall this quote from the NWLC which we published last week: “As the Solicitor General of the Commonwealth of Kentucky and Chief Deputy General Counsel to the [then] Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin, [Mr.] Meredith demonstrated extreme hostility toward the rights of pregnant people [!] and abortion access. The legal arguments he advanced while defending Kentucky’s anti-abortion laws belittle the capacity of pregnant people [!] to make their own medical decisions, demonstrate an indifference to fair play, and evince a shocking disregard for the burden such laws impose on people [!] seeking abortion.” Welcome, Judge Meredith!

Also confirmed last week were Edmund G. LaCour Jr. as Judge for the Northern District of Alabama and Jordan Emery Pratt as Judge for the Middle District of Florida. We publish roll calls for confirmation on all three and for cloture – the procedural motion closing debate – on the LaCour and Pratt nominations. We choose these confirmations because of opposition to their nominations by left-wing, pro-abortion groups and in reading their screeds found some interesting details to cheer.

Here is what the left-wing Alliance for Justice said in trying to derail the nomination of Judge Pratt: “Pratt has spent his career attempting to curtail reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights, often under the pretense of religious liberty. His legal writings and advocacy reveal a troubling hostility to bodily autonomy, especially for young people. He has praised judicial decisions that deny vulnerable minors access to critical abortion care, even when those minors are seeking care through well-established legal safeguards like judicial bypass [of parental involvement]. He called one such decision a ‘win for pro-life advocates,’ dismissing the lived realities of teenagers who cannot safely involve abusive or neglectful guardians in deeply personal medical decisions.” [Arggh]

In the AfJ “fact sheet,” Judge Pratt was attacked as having “made clear through his writings and legal opinions that he believes access to abortion should be even further limited, particularly for minors. He authored an opinion striking down a law that allowed minors to obtain abortions without parental consent in certain circumstances … . In a 2011 article, Pratt praised a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that denied a minor’s request to bypass parental consent for an abortion, calling it a ‘win for pro-life advocates.’ He claimed that bypass laws had led to ‘secret teen abortions’ and supported what he described as a national shift away from the idea that teenage girls are not ‘categorically mature’ enough to access abortion care. … Pratt’s disdain for this [judicial bypass of parents] protection reveals a deep disregard for reproductive freedom and the difficult realities vulnerable minors face, ultimately putting their health and safety at risk.”

Judge Pratt has been involved in chapter leadership for the conservative Federalist Society and Christian Legal Society, has clerked for two judges and interned for a third and from 2021-2023 was senior counsel at First Liberty Institute. In 2023, he was appointed to the 5^th District Court of Appeals for the State of Florida.

As to the LaCour nomination, the Alliance for Justice said: “His work tells a consistent and harrowing story. … Reproductive freedom is illegitimate, not a cornerstone of personal autonomy.” And it goes on to whining about other traditional American values, calling Judge LaCour’s background “the record of a man who seeks every opportunity to advance an extremely far-right ideological crusade.” Among other complaints, “He backed an order [in Alabama] that would force patients to delay abortion procedures even when their health was at risk.”

Judge LaCour comes to the bench from a distinguished career as Alabama’s Solicitor General. In that post, complains Alliance for Justice, he “has been one of the nation’s most aggressive state officials in attacking reproductive freedom. He defended Alabama’s near-total abortion ban, which is one of the most draconian bans in the nation. In doing so, he called Roe v. Wade ‘unworkable’ and ‘illegitimate,’ and urged the Supreme Court to overturn decades of precedent.”

Reinstating Our Commitment to Life

THE FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GENEVA CONSENSUS DECLARATION – an international pro-life document – was commemorated by the White House on Oct. 22 with a letter saluting, notes Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews, the international signatories’ “work for the shared values of life, women’s health and preservation of the family.” The letter further declared the United States is “rejoining … the declaration after the Biden Administration withdrew from it.”

The document was originally signed – in 2020 – by 32 nations, including the USA. “It declares,” writes Mr. Freiburger, “ ‘the essential priority of protecting the right to life’ and promoting ‘strength of the family and of a successful and flourishing society;’ that ‘every human being has the inherent right to life;’ and that ‘in no case should abortion be promoted as a method of family planning’ and that ‘any measures or changes related to abortion within the health system can only be determined at the national or local level according to the national legislative process.’ …

“The Geneva Consensus coalition stands as a stark contrast to the abortion activism of many international institutions,” notes LifeSiteNews. “The United Nations has long been notorious for pushing a pro-abortion agenda from a pretext of ‘human rights,’ from criticizing nations that ban abortion to attempting to establish an international ‘right’ to abort, all while taking a selective approach to actual human rights violations from offending nations such as [Red] China, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.”

Wisdom from the Great Communicator

EXCERPT #27 from Abortion & the Conscience of the Nation, 1983 treatise by then-President Ronald Reagan, published in Human Life Review, then as a hardcover book from Thomas Nelson Publishers

Whether we are talking about pain suffered by unborn children, or about late-term abortions, or about infanticide, we inevitably focus on the humanity of the unborn child. Each of these babies is a potential rallying point for the sanctity of life ethic. Once we as a nation rally around any one of these issues to affirm the sanctity of life, we will see the importance of affirming this principle across the board.

Senate Voting Records

Confirmation of Stephen Chad Meredith as District Judge (Eastern Kentucky) – Passed – 48-45 – Oct. 23, 2025 (Democrats in italics; “Independents” marked “I”)

Voting “yes” / pro-Life: Britt & Tuberville/AL, Boozman & Cotton/AR, Moody & Scott/FL, Crapo & Risch/ID, Banks & Young/IN, Ernst & Grassley/IA, Marshall/KS, McConnell & Paul/KY, Cassidy & Kennedy/LA, Collins/ME, Hyde-Smith & Wicker/MS, Hawley & Schmitt/MO, Daines/MT, Fischer & Ricketts/NE, Budd & Tillis/NC, Cramer & Hoeven/ND, Husted & Moreno/OH, Lankford & Mullin/OK, McCormick/PA, Graham & Scott/SC, Rounds & Thune/SD, Hagerty/TN, Cornyn & Cruz/TX, Curtis & Lee/UT, Capito & Justice/WV, Johnson/WI, Barrasso & Lummis/WY.

Voting “no” / anti-Life: Gallego & Kelly/AZ, Padilla & Schiff/CA, Bennet & Hickenlooper/CO, Blumenthal & Murphy/CT, Blunt–Rochester & Coons/DE, Ossoff & Warnock/GA, Hirono & Schatz/HI, Duckworth & Durbin/IL, King(I)/ME, Alsobrooks & VanHollen/MD, Markey & Warren/MA, Peters & Slotkin/MI, Klobuchar & Smith/MN, Cortez–Masto & Rosen/NV, Hassan & Shaheen/NH, Booker & Kim/NJ, Heinrich & Lujan/NM, Gillibrand & Schumer/NY, Merkley & Wyden/OR, Fetterman/PA, Reed & Whitehouse/RI, Sanders(I) & Welch/VT, Cantwell & Murray/WA, Baldwin/WI.

Not voting: Murkowski & Sullivan/AK, Moran/KS, Sheehy/MT, Blackburn/TN, Kaine & Warner/VA.

Cloture on nomination of Jordan Emery Pratt as District Judge (Middle Florida) – Passed – 52-47 – Oct. 28, 2025 (Democrats in italics; “Independents” marked “I”)

Voting “yes” / pro-Life: Murkowski & Sullivan/AK, Britt & Tuberville/AL, Boozman & Cotton/AR, Moody & Scott/FL, Crapo & Risch/ID, Banks & Young/IN, Ernst & Grassley/IA, Marshall & Moran/KS, McConnell & Paul/KY, Cassidy & Kennedy/LA, Collins/ME, Hyde-Smith & Wicker/MS, Schmitt/MO, Daines & Sheehy/MT, Fischer & Ricketts/NE, Budd & Tillis/NC, Cramer & Hoeven/ND, Husted & Moreno/OH, Lankford & Mullin/OK, McCormick/PA, Graham & Scott/SC, Rounds & Thune/SD, Blackburn & Hagerty/TN, Cornyn & Cruz/TX, Curtis & Lee/UT, Capito & Justice/WV, Johnson/WI, Barrasso & Lummis/WY.

Not voting: Hawley/MO.

Confirmation of Jordan Emery Pratt as District Judge (Middle Florida) – Passed – 52-47 – Oct. 28, 2025 (Democrats in italics; “Independents” marked “I”)

Voting “yes” / pro-Life: Murkowski & Sullivan/AK, Britt & Tuberville/AL, Boozman & Cotton/AR, Moody & Scott/FL, Crapo & Risch/ID, Banks & Young/IN, Grassley/IA, Marshall & Moran/KS, McConnell & Paul/KY, Cassidy & Kennedy/LA, Collins/ME, Hyde-Smith & Wicker/MS, Hawley & Schmitt/MO, Daines & Sheehy/MT, Fischer & Ricketts/NE, Budd & Tillis/NC, Cramer & Hoeven/ND, Husted & Moreno/OH, Lankford & Mullin/OK, McCormick/PA, Graham & Scott/SC, Rounds & Thune/SD, Blackburn & Hagerty/TN, Cornyn & Cruz/TX, Curtis & Lee/UT, Capito & Justice/WV, Johnson/WI, Barrasso & Lummis/WY.

Not voting: Ernst/IA.

Cloture on nomination of Edmund D. LaCour Jr. as District Judge (Northern Alabama) – Passed – 53-46 – Oct. 28, 2025 (Democrats in italics; “Independents” marked “I”)

Voting “yes” / pro-Life: Murkowski & Sullivan/AK, Britt & Tuberville/AL, Boozman & Cotton/AR, Moody & Scott/FL, Crapo & Risch/ID, Banks & Young/IN, Ernst & Grassley/IA, Marshall & Moran/KS, McConnell & Paul/KY, Cassidy & Kennedy/LA, Collins/ME, Hyde-Smith & Wicker/MS, Hawley & Schmitt/MO, Daines & Sheehy/MT, Fischer & Ricketts/NE, Budd & Tillis/NC, Cramer & Hoeven/ND, Husted & Moreno/OH, Lankford & Mullin/OK, McCormick/PA, Graham & Scott/SC, Rounds & Thune/SD, Blackburn & Hagerty/TN, Cornyn & Cruz/TX, Curtis & Lee/UT, Capito & Justice/WV, Johnson/WI, Barrasso & Lummis/WY.

Voting “no” / anti-Life: Gallego & Kelly/AZ, Schiff/CA, Bennet & Hickenlooper/CO, Blumenthal & Murphy/CT, Blunt–Rochester & Coons/DE, Ossoff & Warnock/GA, Hirono & Schatz/HI, Duckworth & Durbin/IL, King(I)/ME, Alsobrooks & VanHollen/MD, Markey & Warren/MA, Peters & Slotkin/MI, Klobuchar & Smith/MN, Cortez–Masto & Rosen/NV, Hassan & Shaheen/NH, Booker & Kim/NJ, Heinrich & Lujan/NM, Gillibrand & Schumer/NY, Merkley & Wyden/OR, Fetterman/PA, Reed & Whitehouse/RI, Sanders(I) & Welch/VT, Kaine & Warner/VA, Cantwell & Murray/WA, Baldwin/WI.

Not voting: Padilla/CA.

Confirmation of Edmund D. LaCour Jr. as District Judge (Northern Alabama) – Passed – 51-47 – Oct. 29, 2025 (Democrats in italics; “Independents” marked “I”)

Voting “yes” / pro-Life: Murkowski & Sullivan/AK, Britt & Tuberville/AL, Boozman & Cotton/AR, Moody & Scott/FL, Crapo & Risch/ID, Banks & Young/IN, Ernst & Grassley/IA, Marshall & Moran/KS, McConnell & Paul/KY, Cassidy & Kennedy/LA, Collins/ME, Hyde-Smith & Wicker/MS, Hawley & Schmitt/MO, Daines & Sheehy/MT, Fischer & Ricketts/NE, Budd/NC, Cramer & Hoeven/ND, Husted & Moreno/OH, Lankford & Mullin/OK, McCormick/PA, Graham & Scott/SC, Rounds & Thune/SD, Blackburn & Hagerty/TN, Cornyn & Cruz/TX, Curtis & Lee/UT, Capito & Justice/WV, Johnson/WI, Barrasso/WY.

Not voting: Tillis/NC, Lummis/WY.