Life Advocacy Briefing

Question of the Week

IF OUR NATION’s CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS use the term “worst of the worst” to denote accused child molesters – and such offenders are! – what term comes to mind when they think – if they ever do – about white-coated killers of innocent children even during their birth?

Duking It Out in Court

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION & PLANNED PARENTHOOD ARE DUKING IT OUT in a federal appeals court on the question of whether provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill passed in July – which excluded Planned Parenthood from Medicaid funding – will survive judicial scrutiny.

The Boston-based 1^st Circuit Court of Appeals ruled, reports Safiyah Riddle for AP News, “that the law could go into effect in September while a lower court considered Planned Parenthood’s claims.” The case goes on, and Planned Parenthood released a report ahead of the November hearing claiming “the legislation cost $45 million in September alone as clinics across the country paid for treatment for Medicaid patients out of pocket,” writes Ms. Riddle – “a rate that the organization says is unsustainable.” Aww.

“Nearly half of Planned Parenthood’s patients rely on Medicaid for healthcare aside from abortions,” notes Ms. Riddle. “Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its member organizations in Massachusetts and Utah, as well as a major medical provider in Maine, filed lawsuits against Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in July. The Maine provider has been forced to stop its primary care services while its lawsuit works its way through the courts. In the meantime, seven states – California, Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York and Washington – have directed state funds to compensate for lost federal Medicaid reimbursement. That has covered roughly $200 million of the $700 million that the organization spends annually on Medicaid patients … .”

Where Does Your State Stand?

AMERICANS UNITED FOR LIFE – “a team advancing the human right to life in culture, law and policy,” as denoted on the mission page of their website – has issued its annual “Life List” ranking the states on life-affirming policies, listing Arkansas, Louisiana, Indiana, Oklahoma and Mississippi as the top five states and – from #50 up five – as the five worst states:  Oregon (#50), New Jersey, Vermont, Hawaii and Washington. The entire list can be viewed at https://aul.org/2025/10/27/auls-life-list-2026.

AUL is one of the lesser known national pro-life organizations, because it is not grassroots oriented. But those of us who have served in a state legislature – as our editor has – are aware of AUL and grateful for its dedicated service as an essential resource for state abortion policy reform.

“AUL’s annual ranking of all 50 states evaluates state-specific abortion regulations,” writes Nicole Hunt for Focus on the Family’s Daily Citizen, “protections for the preborn, end-of-life care, conscience protections for healthcare workers and efforts to promote a culture of life. The list,” she writes, “also offers a comprehensive look at each state’s life-affirming policies, including bioethics, assisted suicide, conscience protections for medical workers and abortion policy.”

After noting the top ten states on the list, Ms. Hunt adds, “Unfortunately, pro-life momentum from past years has waned as many states have contended with pro-abortion ballot measures attempting to enshrine abortion-on-demand in state constitutions.

“In the last year, seven states passed amendments to put so-called abortion rights in state constitutions, including Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and New York,” notes Ms. Hunt. “However, for the first time, three states (Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota) successfully defeated efforts to enshrine abortion in their constitution[s].”

Concludes the Daily Citizen: “AUL’s list is important because it serves as a scorecard for the pro-life community to identify which states are advancing the cause of life and to determine where more work needs to be done to promote life-affirming laws and policies.”

The venerable organization offers model legislation to state lawmakers, notes Ms. Hunt, “to protect and promote Life.”

Wrong Direction

AS TROUBLING AS THE ABORTION DEATH TOLL IS, Live Action is now reporting the number of deaths among test-tube babies is greater, annually, than the deaths of those aborted in the womb.

“According to the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology’s (SART’s) most recent annual report on the use of in vitro fertilization and similar technologies,” writes Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews, “2023 saw the number of babies born through IVF rise to 95,860 in the US (2.6% of all births) and the total number of IVF cycles performed rise to 432,641. SART and its sister entity American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) hail the news as a positive development for infertile couples,” notes Mr. Freiburger, “but Live Action ran the numbers based on the averages of ‘excess’ embryos created and discarded by the process and estimated that a staggering ‘1,946,884 embryos did not survive to be implanted and another 1,759,664 were either frozen, destroyed, donated to research or released for embryo adoption.’

“By contrast,” writes Mr. Freiburger, “the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute puts the number of abortions in 2023 at 1,037,880; the true number would be higher due to deficiencies in abortion data collection but not to an extent that would close the gap between it and IVF numbers.

“‘The mere fact that half of the IVF embryos won’t make it beyond the initial first steps after fertilization, including the health screening, should be enough to prove that IVF is not about creating life but about controlling it, determining which lives are accepted as valuable and worthy and which are automatically destroyed for being deemed “subpar,”’ Live Action’s Nancy Flanders opined,” quoted by LifeSiteNews.

Did You Think Late-term Abortion Was Stopped?

Nov.10, 2025, commentary by Emily Washburn for Focus on the Family’s Daily Citizen

             The abortion industry describes third-trimester abortions as “later abortion care.” The deceptive euphemism normalizes the ghastly procedure which ends the lives of preborn babies between seven and nine months old, so abortion providers can profit from it.

             Americans’ support for abortion drops as preborn babies develop and begin to look less like “clumps of cells” and more like what they are – human children. But the closer preborn babies are to birth, the more money abortionists make from ending their lives.

             Third-trimester abortions cost up to $25,000. More clinics have started performing the brutal procedure for a chance to cash in. RISE Collective began performing third-trimester abortions up to 34 weeks last month in Boulder, Colorado. A similar clinic plans to open in New Jersey this spring.

             To make money, these clinics must convince pregnant women it is acceptable – even normal or humane – to end the life of a child with an 80-90% chance of surviving outside the womb. They do this, in part, by calling third-trimester abortions “later abortions” or “abortions later in pregnancy.”

             The Kaiser Family Foundation claims the “medical community” uses “abortion later in pregnancy” instead of “late-term abortion” because the latter implies an abortion took place at or past a baby’s due date. For all its concern about rhetorical implication, the pro-abortion medical community’s chosen term offers no information about the age of the child being aborted.

             Nor is “abortion later in pregnancy” used in a consistent context. The Kaiser Family Foundation uses it to describe abortions after 21 weeks, when a baby can survive outside the womb. Warren Hern, the infamous abortionist behind the defunct Boulder Abortion Clinic, used “later abortions” to describe abortions in the third trimester.

             Boulder Collective, the fundraising arm for RISE Collective, uses inscrutable terms like “later abortion care” to solicit donations without revealing what procedures RISE performs, or how it performs them. “When Colorado’s only later abortion care clinic closed in April 2025, it left an unsustainable gap for people needing specialized care,” Boulder Collective’s website reads. “Clinicians and administrators immediately responded by forming the RISE Collective to provide later abortion care.” [Barf!]

             RISE Collective’s website advertises a staff “trained in areas where only a handful of clinics in the country have experience” and offers to guide customers through their “healthcare journey.”

             Media outlets could choose to use more accurate terms, like “third-trimester abortions” or “abortions after fetal viability,” to describe procedures offered by clinics like RISE Collective. Instead, many choose to adopt the abortion industry’s euphemisms. “The RISE Collective plans to begin by offering later abortion care, where the greatest gap in service remains,” 9News wrote of the new clinic. “People seeking abortions later in pregnancy could soon get them in NJ,” the New Jersey Monitor wrote of the New Jersey clinic opening this spring. 

             The abortion industry uses “later term abortion care” and its variations to make people uncritically accept the morality of third-trimester abortions. Believers must reject this language in favor of describing reality. Third-trimester abortions intentionally end the life of a human child in the seventh, eighth or ninth month of its life and confer no legitimate health benefits on a mother.

             That is murder. It should never be described otherwise.

Life Advocacy Briefing editor’s note: We agree! Word choice is critical to communication. That is why we counsel pro-life speakers and writers not to use the verb “perform” when referring to an act of abortion. (See paragraphs 3 and 7 above in this addendum.) We believe the verb “commit” better denotes the character of such an action.

Good News!

Nov. 12, 2025, Washington Post report by Praveena Somasundaram

             Planned Parenthood has spent tens of millions of dollars providing health care to low-income patients and has closed 20 clinics in the months since the Trump Administration blocked the group from billing Medicaid – but weathering the funding cut on its own will soon become untenable, its leaders say. The Medicaid ban took effect in July. A provision tucked into Pres. Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill cut the funding for healthcare providers that offer abortions and receive more than $800,000 in Medicaid reimbursements each year for basic reproductive health services such as birth control, prenatal care and cervical cancer screenings.

             Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, pledged to continue providing the procedure. It also challenged the Medicaid ban in court, a fight that is ongoing. The group released a report Wednesday detailing the funding cut’s impacts to date – the same day a federal appeals court is hearing arguments in its lawsuit against the provision.

             The 20 clinics the group has closed since the Medicaid ban became law are in addition to more than two dozen Planned Parenthood clinics that shut down earlier this year because of other federal funding cuts. Those that remain open are “being pushed to the brink,” the report said.

             In September, a federal appeals court allowed the Medicaid ban to take effect while Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit against the Trump Administration plays out. That month alone the organization provided $45 million in healthcare services free of charge for Medicaid patients, according to its new report.

             Without Medicaid or a way to backfill the funding, more clinics could close, said Planned Parenthood President & CEO Alexis McGill Johnson – leaving many Medicaid patients without a place to get affordable care. Across the country, Planned Parenthood treats more than one million Medicaid patients. “The damage will only grow,” Johnson said in a news briefing Wednesday.

             Planned Parenthood and its allies have for months characterized the ban as a politically motivated effort to kneecap the organization because it provides abortions. Few other providers have been swept up in the Medicaid ban. Those that have are also trying to calculate how they can keep offering basic health care while providing abortions.

             To help Planned Parenthood, lawmakers in at least seven states have stepped in. They have helped stitch the large tear in Planned Parenthood’s funding with money from state budgets in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York and Washington – all states where the organization provides abortions because doing so remains legal. Still, a funding gap remains.

             In Wednesday’s briefing, Planned Parenthood leaders pleaded for state lawmakers to address what they described as a worsening crisis in accessible and affordable health care. Already, patients are anxious about whom they will turn to if their Planned Parenthood clinics go under, said Luu Ireland, the chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, a party in the case against the Medicaid ban. …

What Now After the Shutdown?

Nov. 11, 2025, NBC News report by Sahil Kapur

             Senate Republicans say they’re open to extending a pot of Affordable Care Act funds that will expire at the end of the year – but only if Democrats acquiesce to stricter abortion restrictions on insurance plans. The demand presents a significant hurdle to reaching a bipartisan deal to extend ACA funding designed to avoid major premium hikes next year for more than 20 million Americans, as Democrats are adamant that existing abortion guardrails under Obamacare are sufficient. If the funds are not extended by the end of the year, some people insured under Obamacare could see their bills rise by thousands of dollars per month, raising concerns that millions will choose to go uninsured.

             Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said there will be a negotiation about an extension after the government reopens. He said one condition will be stricter rules pertaining to the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funding from being used for abortion.

             To satisfy Democratic demands* to comply with the Hyde Amendment when Obamacare passed in 2010, the law does not allow federal funds to cover abortions. Some states allow people insured under Obamacare to access abortion coverage using state or other funding. Republicans want to change that. “That’s what we’re here to negotiate,” Thune told reporters before the Senate passed the bill to end the government shutdown. “A one-year extension along the lines of what [Democrats] are suggesting, and without Hyde protections – there’s just not even, doesn’t even get close.”

             Thune’s demands for more stringent abortion limits on Obamacare money is backed by colleagues, including Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD), an outspoken proponent of extending the ACA funds, as well as Senators Steve Daines (R-MT) and Mike Lee (R-UT). Rounds warned that “you won’t get any “Republican votes to extend the money without more stringent abortion limitations.

             “That’s the message that we shared with a lot of our Democratic colleagues, is, you can’t do it under your existing framework, and you’re never going to get any Republican votes. Because we believe strongly taxpayer dollars should not go to fund abortions,” he said. “They have a different point of view, but it’s pretty clear that Republicans are solid on that particular issue.”

             But Democrats say there’s no way they’ll agree to that. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) responded with a flat “no” when asked if there’s any way Democrats agree to stricter abortion limitations in order to extend the ACA funds. “It’s a nonstarter,” Shaheen told NBC News, pointing to existing guardrails on abortion funding built into the ACA.** “It’s not an issue. We already dealt with that issue.” Other Democrats share her opposition to changing those rules.

             Behind the push is a pressure campaign by Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America [SBA], an influential group fighting to ban abortion in the US, to condition Republican support for ACA funding on tougher abortion restrictions.

             “Since Democrat offers to pass a ‘clean’ extension of these ACA subsidies would extend funding of elective abortion coverage through Obamacare, SBA strongly opposes and will score against any such offers – even for one year,” SBA President Majorie Dannenfelser told senators in a letter dated Nov. 7 and shared with NBC News. “A vote for this extension is a vote for abortion coverage. Votes will be scored and doubled-weighted in each Member’s profile on SBA Pro-Life America’s National Pro-Life Scorecard.”

*Life Advocacy Briefing editor’s note: The vast majority of Democrats were only too happy to let Obamacare cover abortion. The demands came from a tiny group of heroic Democrats. (See next note)

**Life Advocacy Briefing editor’s note: Any abortion subsidy limitation in Obamacare rests on an executive order crafted by Pres. Barack Obama after the massive healthcare subsidy law was passed to his desk. It was not included in the “Affordable Care Act” itself, though passage of that law was significantly delayed by the refusal of then-Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) and a small collection of his Democratic colleagues to vote for their party’s takeover of the American healthcare system unless the bill was amended to bar abortion coverage. When then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) negotiated a pledge from Pres. Obama to end the impasse by executive order rather than amending their signature legislation, the Stupak group folded their opposition and joined their party in passing the landmark legislation. The leading pro-life House Democrat of his day soon announced he would not seek a further term in Congress after undergoing a massive assault of obscene phone calls and threats.

Wisdom from the Great Communicator

EXCERPT #29 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

It is possible that the Supreme Court itself may overturn its abortion rulings. We need only recall that in Brown v. Board of Education the Court reversed its own earlier “separate-but-equal” decision. I believe if the Supreme Court took another look at Roe v. Wade, and considered the real issue between the sanctity of life ethic and the quality of life ethic, it would change its mind once again.