Life Advocacy Briefing

Question of the Week: to Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi & the President

WHY IS THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION abiding by the Biden Regime’s declared refusal to enforce the Comstock Act of 1873, which bars shipment of chemical abortifacients through the US mail?

Why Is This Being Ignored?

PRO-LIFE LEADER ABBY JOHNSON RECENTLY HIGHLIGHTED a personal incident in a letter to supporters of her “And Then There Were None” pro-life organization. It is a story which should alarm everyone who reads it – and also the officials responsible for law enforcement, most especially President Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi.

It is this story which has prompted our own “question of the week,” which we hope points toward a change in policy. (Readers may wish to add their own voices to urge that change. The published phone number for the White House is 202/456-1414; the published phone number for the Justice Dept. is 202/514-2000.)

Here is Mrs. Johnson’s story: “When I heard that chemical abortion pills – poison that literally turns every home bathroom into an abortion facility – were available with one quick phone call or a few clicks online, I had to see it for myself to believe it. So, I went online, gave my real name and address and said I was seven weeks pregnant.

“No ultrasound. No ID verification. No proof of how ‘far along’ I am.

“What I discovered three days later in my mailbox left me stunned – and furious. There it was: a discreetly wrapped package. Inside were two pills designed to kill ‘my baby.’ In fact, they even sent ‘extra’ pills. I felt like I was holding a murder weapon.”

To make matters worse, Mrs. Johnson writes, “I live in a state where abortion is illegal! …

“For me,” she writes, “this was a test of the system. For hundreds of thousands of girls and women, this is the harsh reality.”

And this is not something the states can take care of, as President Trump has urged in place of a federal law protecting unborn children. The “now-it-belongs-to-the-states” abortion policy of this “pro-life” Administration is not working, Mr. President and Madam Attorney General. It is time to step up and burnish your claim to a pro-life stand with action at the federal level, starting with enforcement of existing federal law; the Comstock Act has neither been repealed nor enjoined. Please enforce it, and get behind other federal interventions as well, such as the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act, pending in Congress year after year.

Could This Be an Answer?

THE LEGISLATURE & GOVERNOR OF TEXAS HAVE ADDED a new law to the state’s already effective ban on abortion. The new law, reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews, “crack[s] down on the distribution of abortion pills in the pro-life state by empowering civil suits against their manufacturers and distributors.

“The Woman & Child Protection Act makes it illegal to ‘manufacture or distribute an abortion-inducing drug in this state’ or ‘mail, transport, deliver, prescribe or provide an abortion-inducing drug in any manner to or from any person or location in this state,’” reports Mr. Freiburger. “It is to be enforced exclusively by private civil suits against those who manufacture, mail or otherwise help women obtain the pills, with the women themselves not liable.

“Those directly affected by chemical abortions,” notes Mr. Freiburger, “including the woman herself or immediate family members, would receive the full damages awarded from successful suits (potentially in excess of $100,000) while uninvolved private citizens would only receive up to $10,000 and the rest of the reward redirected to charity.”

Note: Even “uninvolved private citizens” would have standing to sue.

Life Advocacy Briefing’s editor’s note: The Texas approach – civil, not criminal – ingeniously makes abortion a very costly undertaking and jeopardizes the abortionist’s access to malpractice insurance. Extending it now to the delivery of abortion chemicals may also aid in suppressing the wild-west, illegal use of the mails to transport abortion drugs from states like New York into states like Texas, since the Trump Administration is refusing to enforce the Comstock Act to aid pro-life states in protecting their most vulnerable residents. We would like to see more states adopt the Texas civil enforcement approach, and at the same time to see the US Justice Dept. enforce the federal law already on the books, the Comstock Act of 1873.

Overcoming Frankenstein

THOUGH WE HAD HOPED – SEEMINGLY WITHOUT CAUSE – THAT CONGRESS would take action to protect taxpayers from further funding of Frankensteinian “research” on the bodies or body parts of butchered unborn babies, we are at last able to report that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has “confirmed that it will not renew 17 ‘human fetal tissue’ research projects recently uncovered,” writes Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews, “by a watchdog group.

“Breitbart News reported,” reports Mr. Freiburger, “that it received confirmation of the change after covering White Coat Waste Project’s discovery of the products, which received a combined total of $22 million in taxpayer dollars in the 2024 fiscal year, in public records.

“The Biden-era projects included the use of fetal tissue derived from abortions as well as experiments to graft fetal tissue such as organs into mice,” reports LifeSiteNews. We at Life Advocacy Briefing note, however, that President Biden was not the first whose NIH – under the 12-year reign of Obama appointee Francis Collins – has funded such ethically abhorrent experiments.

NIH is now under new direction, with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya in the director post. And it was Dr. Bhattacharya who, in his confirmation hearings last March, assured the Senate, as quoted by Mr. Freiburger, “‘In public health, we need to make sure the products of science are ethically acceptable to everybody. And so, having alternatives that are not ethically conflicted with fetal cell lines is not just an ethical issue, but it’s a public health issue.’ Secretary of Health & Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also pledged,” reports LifeSiteNews, “not to support the use of abortion-derived fetal tissue in research.” 

Some 13 or 14 proposals for research using tissue from aborted babies were rejected during President Trump’s first term, as LifeSiteNews reported in 2020. But no such principle was applied during the Biden Regime. Indeed, reports Mr. Freiburger, during those four years, “the University of Pittsburgh actually reached out to former NIH Director Francis Collins for help overcoming state efforts to restrict such practices, according to records obtained by Judicial Watch.” (When Dr. Collins left NIH, it was to become “science advisor” to Pres. Biden in the White House.)

“The sale of aborted fetal remains for research and experimentation first came to the political forefront in 2015,” notes Mr. Freiburger, “when the Center for Medical Progress began releasing undercover videos of meetings with Planned Parenthood and National Abortion Federation personnel detailing the practice, which set off a firestorm of controversy and a string of revelations about the abortion industry breaking multiple federal laws against profiting off human tissue, altering abortion procedures for the sake of procuring better tissue samples and potentially even committing partial-birth abortions or infanticide, as well as video examples of abortion workers displaying callousness toward the humanity of the children their work killed.”

Abortion Imperialism

THE WORLD ‘HEALTH’ ORGANIZATION (W.H.O.) HAS PUT THE ABORTION POISON onto its list of “essential medicines,” reports Clare Marie Merkowsky for LifeSiteNews, “just weeks after a Canadian teenager died following a chemical abortion.

WHO’s 24^th edition of its Model List of Essential Medicines was published on Sept. 5, the reporter notes, and “now includes a section on abortion drugs, including mifepristone and misoprostol, which are used [together] to chemically end the lives of babies in the womb.

“‘Essential medicines are those that satisfy the priority healthcare needs of a population,’ the WHO wrote in an introduction to the new list,” reports Ms. Merkowsky. “‘They are selected with due regard to disease prevalence and public health relevance, evidence of efficacy and safety and comparative cost-effectiveness.’”

WHO’s inclusion of baby poisons in its list of “essentials” speaks volumes about WHO and says nothing useful about the mifepristone/misoprostol poison pill regimen.

Something Big & Not So Beautiful for Congress to Get Right

Sept. 11, 2025, LifeSiteNews report by Calvin Freiburger

             Eighty-eight pro-life organizations signed a letter to Congress warning it not to inadvertently approve abortion funding in the course of extending healthcare subsidies under the federal Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. As explained by the Washington Examiner, certain health insurance tax credits that were extended under ACA during the Covid-19 pandemic are slated to expire at the end of the year. There are bipartisan calls to extend them but disagreement over the details, such as the duration of the extension and whether to pair it with other spending cuts.

             In a Sept. 3 letter to Congress led by Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, an array of pro-life voices emphasizes the importance of ensuring that any such extension is specifically written to exclude insurance plans that cover abortions, because the ordinary protections of the Hyde Amendment are insufficient.

             “Democrats wrote the ACA craftily to avoid the Hyde Amendment by self-appropriating its funds rather than subjecting it to the annual appropriations process to which Hyde applies,” the letter recalls. “Instead of stopping funding for health insurance plans that cover elective abortion in a consistent manner with Hyde, the ACA expressly permits subsidies for health insurance plans that cover elective abortion. Abortion coverage through these plans is funded using premium tax credits as well as cost-sharing reduction payments that reduce out-of-pocket costs for subsidized enrollees.

             “Democrats falsely claim that Section 13031 applies Hyde to the ACA. This is not the case,” it continues. “[That section] established separate payment and separate accounting requirements to justify taxpayer funding for plans that cover abortion. This ‘accounting gimmick,’ colloquially known as the ‘abortion surcharge,’ allows health insurance plans on the ACA exchanges to cover elective abortion and still receive taxpayer funds; so long as they collect the surcharge.” 

             The letter notes that the first Trump Administration issued a rule in 2019 to mandate clearly separate billing for abortion charges, but it was rescinded by the Biden Administration.

             “If Congress makes changes to the ACA or extends ACA coverage, the changes must include complete application of Hyde policy” the letter urges. “As pro-life leaders, we urge you to ensure that any extension of ACA subsidies is protected by the Hyde Amendment. The pro-life Congress must not be a party to the Obama policy of taxpayer funding for abortion.” …

A Model for Us All

Sept. 18, LifeSiteNews report by Emily Mangiaracina

             Pro-life activist Lila Rose won a debate on abortion at Yale University on Tuesday to the reported “shock” of the organizer. Rose, the founder and president of Live Action, gave a compelling and moving defense of the unborn’s right to life during a debate against Frances Kissling, former abortion clinic director and president of Catholics for Choice [sic]. Shortly after the debate, Rose announced on Twitter [X], “We won. The room voted for the pro-life side. Yale organizer was shocked.”

             The pro-life champion first called out the euphemisms used by pro-abortion advocates, including Kissling. She recalled a young mother’s disposal of her dead baby boy, whom she stuffed in a towel and trash bag, throwing him away “like trash, as if he had no worth at all.

             “Whether he died at birth or just after, he was not just a pregnancy, not just a fetus – he was a son,” Rose said. She pointed out that some referred to the death of this boy, who died at birth or soon after, as a “pregnancy loss,” and some “insisted that he not be referred to as a baby. Why?

             “To name him is to admit his shared humanity,” she continued. “A child was hidden in a closet, and his humanity was denied.”

             She went on to stress the gruesome reality, which is brutal at every stage of gestation. “Abortion procedures tear babies limb from limb in suction abortions,” Rose pointed out. The abortion pill “starves a child to death with drugs.” And later-term abortions “pierce a needle into the beating heart or brain of a living, developing child.”

             The crux of her argument was that it is “wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being,” no matter the age, size and stage of development. A six-week-old baby is “just as valuable” as a two-year-old toddler.

             Drawing a line at any other point than conception to determine when a human being deserves protection is “arbitrary” and “innately dehumanizing,” Rose noted. “Killing preborn children must be illegal for the same reasons that killing born children, a newborn, must be illegal.”

             The living humanity of the unborn, which is denied by some pro-aborts, is not debatable, since “Science affirms that human life begins at fertilization,” said Rose, who added that this is admitted by biology textbooks and even by Peter Singer, a former Princeton professor, who is pro-infanticide.

             She went on to address pro-aborts who acknowledge that the unborn are human beings but simply believe it is “sometimes okay to kill innocent human beings.”

             Rose invoked the 14^th Amendment, which declares “No state shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property, nor deny any person equal protection of the laws.” She emphasized this was meant for every human being, something stressed by Sen. Jacob Howard of Michigan, one of the authors of this amendment, who said “its purpose was to protect even ‘the lowest and most despised of the human race.’”

             The historical dehumanization of certain kinds of people throws the evil of abortion into relief, and so Rose hearkened back to America’s period of slavery for blacks and the Nazis’ dehumanization of Jews and the disabled. “The Nazis called the Jews subhuman,” Rose noted. “African Americans were treated as property, not people. The Supreme Court of our country, in Dred Scott v. Sandford of 1857, said that black men and women were ‘so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.’ That judicial lie about their humanity paved the way for brutal oppression,” Rose said.

             “The pattern has always been the same: strip away the personhood, redefine human beings as something that is less than, and then commit atrocities in the name of someone else’s progress,” she continued.

             After Rose’s speech, her opponent, Kissling, appeared to concede that the unborn have some value but maintained that the concerns of the mother can outweigh the unborn child’s right to protection from violence and death.

             Rose asked Kissling at what point she believes the child should have the right to life, and while she seemed to shift on this point during their discussion, she eventually suggested birth determines the baby’s right to life. This is because when the baby is no longer in the woman’s body, the woman “has no need for those protections,” said Kissling, as if the ability to kill one’s unborn child is a “protection” for the mother. The abortion supporter went on to praise the idea of the “greatest good for the greatest number of people,” a principle that ignores the rights of the individual and has been used to justify a number of grave evils.

             Rose argued not only that the unborn fundamentally deserve protection but that the welfare of the mother is not in opposition to that of the child.

             “Choose love, not violence,” she concluded.

Wisdom from the Great Communicator

EXCERPT #21 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

             As a nation today, we have not rejected the sanctity of human life. The American people have not had an opportunity to express their view on the sanctity of human life and the unborn. I am convinced that Americans do not want to play God with the value of human life. It is not for us to decide who is worthy to live and who is not. Even the Supreme Court’s opinion in Roe v. Wade did not explicitly reject the traditional American idea of intrinsic worth and value in all human life; it simply dodged this issue.

Life Advocacy Briefing editor’s note: Though sometimes, these days, it feels as though we have moved down the slippery slope from these hopeful comments expressed in 1983 – given the recent state constitutional amendment referendum losses experienced by the pro-life movement – it occurs to us that the American people have still not expressed a view on the sanctity of human life, as the abortion-promoting amendment questions have been written and presented in a twisted, entirely slanted manner designed to draw votes, not to determine a true reflection of voters’ convictions.