Life Advocacy Briefing

A New Day?

AFTER THE PROFOUND DISAPPOINTMENT the pro-life community experienced with the seeming foot-dragging of now-resigned Food & Drug Administration head Marty Makary, some pro-life leaders went public last week with greater expectations of his likely successor, Acting FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas.

According to the Daily Signal, as reported by Doug Mainwaring for LifeSiteNews, Mr. Diamantas made a promise to Students for Life president Kristan Hawkins that “he will be the ‘most pro-life FDA commissioner that the FDA has ever had.’ …

“Shortly after his appointment as acting FDA head, Diamantas reached out to pro-life leaders,” reports Mr. Mainwaring, “including Hawkins, Live Action president Lila Rose and March for Life president Jennie Lichter. Diamantas was responding to concerns about his past legal work on behalf of Planned Parenthood, insisting that he is pro-life and that he sought to be removed from the pro-abortion assignment.”

Live Action’s Lila Rose confirmed she had spoken with the new acting commissioner, and, she said, “‘He shared that he was assigned to the [Planned Parenthood of Greater Orlando v. MMB Properties] case by his law firm, performed work on it and ultimately regretted his involvement because of his moral opposition to abortion. He then asked his superiors to remove him from the case,’” said Ms. Rose, quoted by LifeSiteNews from the Daily Signal report. “‘He said that he is pro-life and cares deeply about the pro-life cause.’”

Ms. Rose used the occasion, of course, to raise concerns about continued FDA approval of the abortion drug. “‘Diamantes told me,’” she said, reported by the two news groups, “‘that reviewing the abortion pill is a top priority for him and the Administration.’ …

“While Diamantas’s recent comments are encouraging, [Ms.] Rose stressed,” reports Mr. Mainwaring, “‘now we need to see action. The FDA must urgently take action on mifepristone, confront the mounting evidence of harm to women and address the abortion pill regime that has killed millions of preborn children.

“‘We and millions of Americans across the nation who value the right to life,’” said Ms. Rose, “‘expect this Administration to advance strong pro-life protections for both mothers and their children.’” Amen!

 

Ohio Pro-Life Leaders Go to Court

A LAWSUIT HAS BEEN FILED AGAINST THE OHIO CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT which declared abortion a “right” and was adopted by 57% of those who voted on it in late 2023.

Janet Porter of Faith2Action is among the plaintiffs, along with State Rep. Levi Dean, State Rep. Jennifer Gross and a council member named Kristen Edgars. The legal challenge was filed by attorneys Tom Conditt and Andy Schlafly, notes Cassy Cooke for Live Action.

The basis for the suit was explained by Mrs. Porter in the Live Action report: “‘If you look at what the constitution says in the state of Ohio, you cannot amend multiple portions of it with a simple ballot vote,’ she said.

“What you have to do if you’re going to change multiple portions of the constitution,” writes Ms. Cooke, “you’ve got to have a constitutional convention. And they didn’t do that.”

Mrs. Porter noted in the Live Action story, “‘As explained by a landmark California Supreme Court decision concerning a ballot process nearly identical to Ohio’s, a voter-enacted ballot initiative is invalid whenever fundamental constitutional rights are implicated.’”

She further noted, writes Ms. Cooke, “that this lawsuit could have nationwide implications. ‘So, the good news is, we are putting this before the court,’ she continued. ‘It’ll go before the court of common pleas in Butler County, then to the appellate court and then ultimately to the Ohio Supreme Court. But this won’t just affect Ohio. When we win,’” said Mrs. Porter in the Live Action report, “‘it will set a precedent for every state hurt and threatened by the mob with the most money. This is the first step to breaking the curse over our state and our nation. We need to make sure the Ohio Constitution is enforced once again and not violated in multiple ways.’”

 

Louisiana Gets It Right – Again

AN EFFORT BY THE ABORTION LOBBY IN LOUISIANA gained about as much traction as reasonable observers would expect – none. A proposal to add a loophole to Louisiana’s abortion ban was rejected last week by the state House Administration of Criminal Justice Committee, reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews.

That loophole was a proposed “rape/incest exception” – the most typical compromise in states where lawmakers have not learned to stand up for unborn children without discrimination over the circumstances of their conception. Thankfully, that infection has yet to reach Louisiana.

Louisiana law currently, notes Mr. Freiburger, “bans abortion throughout pregnancy except when deemed ‘necessary’ to prevent the death of the mother ‘due to a physical condition,’ to avoid ‘serious, permanent impairment of a life-sustaining organ of a pregnant woman,’ or if two doctors agree that an unborn baby would not survive after birth. In such cases,” writes Mr. Freiburger, “a physician must ‘make reasonable medical efforts under the circumstances to preserve both the life of the mother and the life of her unborn child in a manner consistent with reasonable medical practice,’ per its 2006 trigger law.

“As a result, the state reported fewer than 10 abortions in 2023 and 2024,” reports Mr. Freiburger. One would think that lawmakers could agree universally that such statistics ought to be a matter of pride for the state. “But for four years,” notes LifeSiteNews, “Democrat State Rep. Delisha Boyd has attempted legislation to weaken the law.”

We will quote here the statement of Rep. Boyd in her latest pitch, quoted by Mr. Freiburger with credit to The Gambit (a New Orleans internet-based news source): “‘I stand before you again today asking that we think about the life of the baby who got raped and what they have to endure.’” The “baby” who “got raped?”

Abortion advocates “have long invoked stories of rape and incest,” notes Mr. Freiburger, “to generate emotional discomfort at the prospect of banning abortion while pro-lifers continue to stress that circumstances of conception do not change the preborn baby’s innocence or humanity, and therefore society must do all it can to treat both the mother and child with compassion and note the physical and psychological consequences of abortion.” Abortion, indeed, is a crime of fatal violence which can never be justified; it is never a solution.

“Pro-lifers further note,” writes Mr. Freiburger, “that rapists also exploit abortion to destroy the living proof of their crimes and continue molesting child victims.” Yes!

And, aside from radicals like Rep. Boyd, Louisiana officials are in the forefront of protecting the lives of future citizens by “working to crack down,” notes Mr. Freiburger, “on the importation of abortion pills that undermine its pro-life protections. It has sued California and New York in hopes of extraditing complicit doctors and is currently challenging the federal government’s [unconscionable] permissive abortion pill rules at the US Supreme Court.”

 

Keep Your Poison Out of Oklahoma!

OKLAHOMA GOV. KEVIN STITT (R) HAS SIGNED a new law criminalizing abortion pill trafficking, reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews.

HB-1168 passed the State House on March 25 by a vote of 77 to 19, and it carried the State Senate 37 to 10 on April 30.

The new law “makes it a felony,” writes Mr. Freiburger, “to deliver or possess with intent to deliver an abortion-inducing drug for the purpose of causing an illegal abortion, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, up to a $100,000 fine or both.”

 

Colorado Takes Mifepristone to School

THE COLORADO LEGISLATURE HAS PASSED to the state’s governor a bill (HB26-1335) which, reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews, “would mandate that universities in the state offer abortion pills, regardless of whether they are public or private institutions.”

Under the legislation, every higher education institution which has a student health center or pharmacy is mandated “to distribute abortion ‘medication’ onsite,” writes Mr. Freiburger. And the measure “requires any [such institution] that does not to ‘either submit a prescription for abortion medication to a pharmacy located off campus or dispense abortion medication through the institution’s student health center if permitted by the student health center’s licensure.’

“The bill exempts schools with conflicting ‘bona fide religious beliefs or practices,’” writes Mr. Freiburger, “potentially leaving open the danger of the state deciding for itself what it does and does not consider religious enough to qualify.” But the measure “explicitly applies to private institutions as well as those operated or funded by the state, a significant expansion,” notes Mr. Freiburger, “of presumed government authority.”

The proposal passed the House April 27 by a vote of 41 to 22, then the State Senate May 13, 23 to 12.

“‘Mandating abortion provision transforms student health centers beyond their traditional scope,’” said Dr. Tom Perille of American Assn. of Pro-Life OBGyns and Democrats for Life of Colorado, quoted by LifeSiteNews. “‘Student health centers are designed for primary care, preventative services and limited outpatient management of common diseases,’” he said. “‘They are not equipped to deal with complex reproductive health services [sic] that commonly require follow-up and surgical interventions.’”

 

Challenging a Twisted Ruling

KENTUCKY’s ATTORNEY GENERAL IS FIGHTING to overturn a ruling by a county circuit judge questioning the state’s 2019-enacted Human Life Protection Act, which, notes Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews, “criminalizes all abortion except when deemed ‘necessary to protect the life of a pregnant mother.’ (Direct abortion is never medically necessary,” notes Mr. Freiburger in an aside, “but most bans make the exception anyway to try to cut off pro-abortion fearmongering over the point.)

The law was “allowed to take effect in 2022,” writes Mr. Freiburger, and “the state reported just two abortions in the first four months after the law went into effect.

“Earlier this month,” reports LifeSiteNews, Judge Brian “Edwards issued a mixed ruling in a lawsuit against the law … . He agreed [with plaintiffs] that the law’s definitions of ‘human being’ including ‘any member of the species homo sapiens from fertilization until death,’ were ‘conflicting and intertwined’ and ‘must be deemed void for vagueness and unintelligibility as to their scope.’” Really? 

The seemingly conflicted judge then rejected the plaintiff’s claim, reports Mr. Freiburger, “that the law impaired her religious freedom and did not block the law from being enforced. But the attorney general has “filed a motion to reconsider,” out of concern that “striking down the language defining human beings could have future ramifications for pro-life laws.” Uh, yes. “He argues,” writes Mr. Freiburger, “the judge’s assessment of the language’s clarity constitutes a ‘manifest error of law’ and that the Human Life Protection Act’s prohibitions on abortion do not apply to [the lead plaintiff’s] fears of a ‘homicide prosecution’ relating to in vitro fertilization (IVF).”

Ah, so that’s what this suit is really about – concern that a law protecting human life could curtail a practice which sacrifices supposedly excess human embryos.

But public policy does not yet seem to have reached that threshold of respect for reality. As Mr. Freiburger explains, “While the IVF does indeed involve the destruction of many ‘excess’ embryonic human beings, as a matter of law, the Human Life Protection Act [in Kentucky] only prohibits the use of a ‘procedure,’ ‘medicine, drug or other substance with the specific intent of causing or abetting the termination of the life of an unborn human being;’ i.e. abortion.”

 

Worthy Nominee

May 2, 2026, commentary by S.A. McCarthy for Family Research Council’s The Washington Stand

             Pres. Donald Trump has seemingly settled on a nominee for the position of Surgeon General, after withdrawing the nomination of Casey Means for the role … . In a Truth Social post, the President announced that he will instead be nominating radiologist Nicole Saphier.

             … Saphier earned her Doctor of Medicine degree from the Ross University School of Medicine in Portsmouth, Dominica, and later served as a physician at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and a professor at the University of Cornell’s medical school. In 2020, Saphier authored the book Make America Healthy Again: How Bad Behavior and Big Government Caused a Trillion-Dollar Crisis and became an early proponent of the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement espoused by now-Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and adopted by Trump. 

             Like many MAHA figures, Saphier was intensely critical of what she framed as the weaponization of science during the Covid-19 pandemic, accusing Democrats and mainstream media outlets of capitalizing on fear and a lack of information in order to advance political power and craft a narrative. …

             Saphier has also voiced her support for pro-life positions and policies, citing her own experience becoming pregnant at the age of 17 and her decision to carry her son. In a 2019 Fox News op-ed, Saphier blasted Alabama State Rep. John Rogers (D) for a speech opposing pro-life legislation. “Some kids are unwanted, so you kill them now or you kill them later. You bring them in the world unwanted, unloved, you send them to the electric chair. So, you kill them now or you kill them later,” Rogers said at the time. “Some parents can’t handle a child with problems. It could be retarded. It could have no arms and no legs.”

             “I can only say with certainty that although my pregnancy may have been unwanted, my ‘kid’ certainly was not,” Saphier responded. “He has brought unparalleled joy to my life and has grown up to be a fine young man who will enrich the world by his presence for many years to come,” she added. “When I was just 17 and learned I was pregnant, I was suddenly faced with a life-and-death decision: get an abortion or become a mom much sooner than I had ever expected. I chose motherhood and am thankful every day that I am now blessed with a wonderful 19-year-old son.

             “Speaking from my own experience, I know that despite Rogers’s claim, not all products of unintentional pregnancies are ‘unwanted’ and born ‘unloved.’ Yes, the pregnancy itself may have been unwanted, but that does not mean the end result is destined for the ‘electric chair,’ as Rogers put it,” Saphier wrote. “Despite the glaringly obvious inappropriateness of his use of the word ‘it’ to refer to a human being and ‘retarded,’ the tone of these comments is reminiscent of the now-discredited eugenics movement, which advocated selective breeding of humans to remove what were considered ‘inferior’ genetic traits and groups,” she continued, noting that many children may later develop “issues” such as serious illnesses and even cancer. “Does Rep. Rogers advocate ‘killing them now’ if a two-year-old loses her arm in a car accident or if a 10-month-old is diagnosed with a rare liver cancer? They will live with a form of disability. … Where is the line in the sand regarding killing the children now or later for Rogers?”

             In a 2023 Fox News appearance, Saphier called on the GOP to adopt a unified front against abortion, following months of mixed messaging from Trump. In January 2023, after the US Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Trump blamed Republicans’ 2022 midterm losses on “the abortion issue,” which he said “lost large numbers of voters” due to Republicans’ pro-life policies. In September of that same year, Trump again faulted Republicans for rushing to enact pro-life legislation after the Supreme Court’s monumental ruling, calling such laws “a terrible thing and a terrible mistake” and instead urging the GOP to reach a moderated “consensus” on the issue.

             In response, Saphier warned that Republicans have “a massive messaging problem” on abortion. “When you look at the major issues that people go to the polls for to vote, when it comes to abortion, the Democrats are unified and the Republicans are completely fractured,” she said. “Moving forward, they have to get their messaging together,” Saphier added, noting that Republicans risk facing significant losses at the ballot box without a coherent position on abortion.

             Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, expressed encouragement at the news of Saphier’s nomination. “It’s great news that Pres. Trump’s nominee for Surgeon General recognizes an unborn child in the womb is a person,” she told The Washington Stand. “Good health care begins with respect for Life. My hope is that Dr. Saphier’s experience and courage as a mom will guide her efforts to shape the Trump Administration.”

 

Analogy from Mr. Hyde

Join us in reading a paragraph-by-paragraph reprinting of the Sept. 19, 1996, speech by Rep. Henry J. Hyde to the House of Representatives, in which he called for the House to override Pres. Clinton’s veto of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, HR-1833. Rep. Hyde has long been seen as one of America’s all-time leading orators and a model communicator in the cause of Life. With regard to his topic of banning partial-birth abortion, please take into account: Though the Clinton veto override succeeded and the ban is on the books, we are unaware of a single prosecution brought by any federal prosecutor to stop this federal crime, yet we are aware, the practice continues.

             … We’ve had long and bitter debates in this House about assault weapons. Those scissors and that suction machine are “assault weapons” worse than any AK-47. You might miss with an AK-47; the doctor never misses with his “assault weapon,” I can assure you.